Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Psalm 139), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [1-6] David outlines God’s omniscience (“all-knowing-ness”) in interpersonal ways. Persons search and know; David has been personally known by Yahweh, utterly, in all his ways, words, and even thoughts; and now David is praying, speaking with God, personally. If you pray, how interpersonal (relational) is your vision of prayer? Your vision of God? Is God’s personal omniscience a comfort to you, or a little uncomfortable?

• [7-12] David says of God’s omnipresence (“being-everywhere-ness”) that it is impossible to get away from God’s Spirit. A few hundred years later, Jonah tested this by attempting to flee God’s presence and escape God’s sovereign plan in an illustration of the futile insanity of sin. Why does David pray here in such negative terms (the impossibility of getting away from God)? Do you recognize in yourself this tendency to try to flee from God? (We sing, “Prone to wander…”) Why is it merciful for God not to let you get away from him? Does that mean it’s always a pleasant experience?

• [13-18] (Read Romans 8:29.) God’s intimate, loving foreknowledge of us before we live or act is the first, requisite, initiating step of our creation and re-creation, our being born and “born again” as children of God. Our salvation hinges more on his knowing us than on our knowing him (Matthew 7:21-23). First he knows us, then he enables our knowing of him (1 Corinthians 13:12). What does this say about your security and identity as a child of God? Why is it difficult to believe this constantly? How might your life change if you believed this more constantly?

• [19-24] It’s pretty risky, aligning oneself with God against God’s enemies, asking God to slay the wicked, and yet calling God to search out any faults that reside in one’s own heart. How is Jesus able to pray this prayer uniquely? How are you invited to pray this prayer in him? Will your sin—as enmity against God—ultimately survive the process of God’s searching knowledge of you? Will you survive? Do you want this?