Sunday, June 7, 2026

Scripture: Psalm 139:1-18

Sermon Title: “God Knows Everything”

Growing up I can remember many nights watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with my family after dinner. I wasn’t that into Wheel of Fortune. It was kind of the warmup for the main event: Jeopardy. As a kid, I couldn’t answer many of the questions correctly. But I would sit in amazement at my Nana who could get every answer right. At least in my childhood memories it seemed she knew everything. As I got older and older, I would impress myself with how I could get more and more questions correct myself. I don’t watch Jeopardy as much as I did growingup, but I do still love trivia.

I can remember in seminary many of us would go once a week to a restaurant in town that had trivia nights on Tuesday nights. Show of hands, who here likes trivia? Sidenote: We need to have a church trivia night sometime.

One time Jesse and I saw a shirt that said, “Who needs google, my wife knows everything.” And that has become a joke between us that he needs that shirt. He does not need that shirt. Please do not buy Jesse that shirt.

I can be a know it all sometimes.

But the truth is, even the smartest people we know, they don’t know everything. They probably have categories of things that they know a lot about, but then other subjects that they know verylittle about. People who are great at geography but know nothing about computer science.  Or people who know everything about music, but nothing about history.

No one knows everything. Even the best jeopardy contestant. Even my Nana. But God knows everything. God knows so much more than our finite human brains can even comprehend.

Vacation Bible School is kicking off tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun. Again, a big thank you to all of you who are volunteering this week, and all of you who have been flexible with changing your schedules around VBS. I know it has been a lot.

Inspired by VBS, we’re in a sermon series called “VBS for grownups.” Each week we’re looking at the different lessons the kids will be learning at VBS and digging in a little deeper and looking at these scriptures and lessons through a grown up lens.

Last week we looked at “God is our Creator.” This will be the theme of the first day of VBS tomorrow. We looked at the creation story and also talked about what it means to be good stewards of creation. I also gave you all the “homework” to spend some time out in creation this week. I hope you all got a chance to do that.

Today we’re talking about how “God knows everything.”

This will be the kids lesson on Tuesday.

Our scripture today is from Psalm 139. Remember the psalms were the hymn book of the Jewish People. These would have been sung. The psalms express all sorts of emotions and feelings as well. And this psalm is believed to have been written by David.

David the shepherd boy. The one who would kill the giant Goliath with a slingshot. The David who would grow up to be Israel’s greatest King. And yes, that same David who would even have an affair with a woman named Bathsheba and have her husband Uriah killed.

This is the David we’re talking about.

There are many famous verses in this psalm that might stick out to you.

It’s a psalm about being completely known by God.

I dug out one of my seminary textbooks this week to do some review. There are three big words that begin with “omni” to describe characteristics of God.

Omnipotent, which means that God is all powerful. The song I think of when I hear this word is “The Hallelujah Chorus.” The lyrics are “For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” It’s probably the only time I ever use the word “omnipotent” in a sentence.

We’re not really talking about omnipotence today.

But the psalm does focus on these other two “omni” words.

Omnipresent means that God is all present. We see this clearly in verses 7 and 8 of today’s psalm. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” (Psalm 139:7-8, NIV)

There is no place we can go that God is not already there. Wherever we go, God is already there.This is good news. No matter how badly you have sinned or messed up, you can not get away from God’s presence.

Have you ever been physically lost before? Like maybe you were driving on a road trip, and you had no phone signal to figure out where to go? Or maybe you were lost and can remember a time before cell phones and GPS. Maybe you were even on a hike and got lost. Being lost can be scary.

I’m going to tell you a story about when I was 10 years old. And it kind of makes my parents look bad, so please don’t judge them. Remember this was a very different time about 25 years ago. My parents aren’t bad parents. It was truly a misunderstanding between adults. I got lost. Really more realistically, I got left.

We had had a sporting event, and my parents thought my grandparents were picking me up, and my grandparents thought my parents were picking me up. Everyone left the sporting event but me, and I just waited at the school. First thing that would be different today, no one would leave a kid before making sure I had been picked up by my parents.

I didn’t have a cell phone back then. And so, I waited and waited. But then I’d get a little braver and try to find my way home and walk a few blocks. But then I’d get scared that I was going the wrong way or my parents would show up while I was trying to find my way home and we’d miss each other. So, I’d get braver and go a little farther each time, then come back to the school, then wait a little while, and venture out further again.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and in my 10-year-old mind, I was beginning to picture that I would be there until Monday morning when school started back up. Finally, a few hours later, my parents picked me up. And I know this sounds awful, they felt awful. My mom truly thought I was with my grandma and that she must have taken me shopping or to dinner. So, when she finally called my grandma to ask when she’d be bringing me home, she was shocked to hear that I was not with her. She was in a panic.

But in those hours of feeling lost and abandoned, I know I was not without God. God was there and God was with me. I don’t know if I truly knew that then. But I know that now.

Maybe some you aren’t physically lost, but you’re feeling spiritually lost. You’re going through a difficult season. Perhaps sickness of you or a loved one. Maybe you’re going through a season of grief. Maybe there are family difficulties, estrangements, or work issues going on. Maybe you or a family member are struggling with addiction. And you truly feel lost and all alone. Maybe like me when I was lost, you feel like you take a few steps forward, only to then take a few steps backward.

I want you to know that you are not alone. The God of the universe is all present and with you. The God of the universe goes ahead of you, beside you, and behind you. You are not lost from God. You are not alone.

So we have omnipotent – which is all powerful. And we have omnipresent which means all present. And then we have omniscient. This is the characteristic of God we’re really focused on today. This means “all knowing.” Or as our VBS lesson states, “God knows everything.”

Even when my family had no clue where I was, God knew. Even when I had no clue how to get home, God knew. God knows everything.

The first seven verses of Psalm 139 really describe this all-knowing power of God. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.” (Psalm 139:1-7, NIV)

You see we serve a God who isn’t such all knowing when it comes to Jeopardy and Trivia. We serve a God who knows everything about us. The best things and the worst things and still lovesus all the same. We serve a God who knew what David did with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah and still loved David. The same is true for us as well.

This week I was at Annual Conference. This is the yearly gathering of all United Methodist pastors and laity in the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. It is a wonderful time to learn about what’s going on in our Conference. It’s a wonderful time of worship, and it’s a wonderful time of connecting with friends old and new across the conference.

But I have to admit, when I started going to Annual Conference about ten years ago, since I was new to the conference, I felt like an outsider. I grew up in Ohio. So I knew no one here in Florida. And it often felt like a bubble that I couldn’t figure out how to pop my way into. While I still have a way to go when it comes to knowing everyone in the Florida Conference, I’m amazed at the relationships built over the last ten years, and the more and more people I know.

But even when I felt unknown by many, I was always known by God. Perhaps you feel like an outsider, perhaps you feel like no one truly knows you. Perhaps you feel isolated and all alone. But the God of the universe knows you intimately.

David writes this about God, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13, NIV)

God our creator that we talked about you last week, knows your innermost being. The God of the universe knows you better than even your spouse or best friend know you. The God of the universe knows you even better than you know yourself.

My study Bible had this to say about God knowing us, “But God already knows everything about us, even the number of hairs on our heads and still he accepts us and loves us. His total awareness of us, therefore, should comfort us because he stays with us through every situation and in every trial, protecting, loving, and guiding us, and knowing and loving us completely.”

Now this idea of God knowing us can be scary at first. We might think, oh that’s horrible. God knows all my worst sins and secrets.

But the beautiful thing about this is that God knows all our worst sins and secrets and still loves us more than anyone else. That’s grace. Grace is this idea we throw around a lot in the church. And in its simplest definition that I learned in my 7th grade confirmation class, it means, “the undeserved love of God.”

Nothing we could do could make God love us less. And nothing we could do could make us love God more. That’s the undeserved love of God. That’s grace.

God is all present, all present, and all knowing. What difference does this make in our lives?

It means that wherever we are, we are never out of the bounds of God’s love and grace. It means God knows everything about us, the worst and the best, and still loves us.

We can never be all knowing like God. We can not know all there is to know about God, nor can we know all there is to know about others.

However, as followers of Jesus, made in the image of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, we should seek to look, think, and act more and more like God. And while we can’t be all present, we can be present in other people’s lives.

And while we can’t know everything there is to know about someone, we can’t read someone’s thoughts, we can seek to deeply know others in Christian Community and allow others to deeply know us. And these ideas of being present with others and knowing others deeply go hand in hand.

If you currently attend worship on Sunday mornings, but don’t feel like you really know others yet, I encourage you to get to know one another. I know a lot of activities are taking a break for the summer but maybe begin praying about how you can get more involved in the life of our church, so that you can be genuinely known and genuinely know others.

Maybe this means joining a Disciple Bible Study class when it starts back up in the Fall. Maybe it means joining a short-term Bible Study or Sunday School. Maybe it means singing in the choir or playing bells. Maybe it means joining our United Women in Faith, or United Methodist Men’s Group. Maybe it means getting involved with one of our various missions.

Because the thing is, when you are more involved, you will know and be known by others. And when you are deeply known and loved by others in the good times of life, it will help you in the hard times of life. When you lose a spouse, or a child, or parent. When you are fighting a sickness or a family member is fighting a sickness. When a spouse leaves you, or you lose your job, or whatever happens in your life, you will not be alone.

You will have a community to come alongside you. A community who is present and knows you, and they will be God’s presence to you, and you will be God’s presence to them.

My hope for us is that here at Tomoka UMC we will not just be a group of people who gather once a week for an hour to an hour and a half. My hope for us is that we will be a people who are present with one another and know and love one another. Just as the Lord of the universe is present with us and knows and loves each of us.

Now I know we will not all know one another equally. We will have people we are closer with than others. But my hope is that we will all have a few people in this congregation that when we are going through a crisis we can call up and say, “will you pray for me?” or “can I talk with you.” Or “can you help me?”

And likewise, that we can be that person for someone else in our congregation. Someone who will pray with someone else, or sit with someone else, or talk with someone else. I hope we will be a community where we are deeply present with one another and know one another.

One of my favorite names for God is “Emmanuel.” We talk about this name the most at Christmas Time. It means “God with us.” During Advent and Christmas, we recognize that God came to live and dwell among us. God is with us. And that is true not just at Christmas, but all the days of our lives. God is with us.

And as followers of Jesus Christ, we are to be God’s presence to others as well. We are to be there for one another. We are to carry one another’s burdens. We are to rejoice with one another.

Last week I gave you all the homework of being out in creation. This week’s homework is a little harder and will most likely take you longer than a week. I want you to introduce yourself to someone in the congregation you currently don’t know that well. This might sound blasphemous but maybe sit in a different pew next week. I know, that’s crazy talk. Maybe sit at a different table with different people at Dinner Church. Talk to someone you don’t normally talk to. Find out how long they’ve been attending Tomoka, what brought them here, and why they continue to worship at Tomoka.

We’ve had a lot of new members join this past year. If you don’t know them, take some time to get to know them.

And for people we already know and are in relationship with, let’s deepen our relationships with one another. Let’s be present in one another’s lives. Let’s pray for one another, comfort one another, and uplift one another. Let’s be the Body of Christ to one another.

God is all powerful, all present, and all knowing. May we seek to be present with others and know others as God does.

Amen