Psalm 139, Psalm 139 verses 23 and 24. For those who were here three weeks ago, we considered Psalm 139 together. I want to meditate more deeply on this conclusion to the psalm so that we can make this psalm ours and truly understand what God is causing us to sing as we present this before him. You might remember in Psalm 139, just to review very briefly, the psalmist meditates on, Lord, you have searched me and known me. We have the all-knowing God, the all-present God, the all-forming God, and the all-judging God. This is the God with whom we have to do. And in humility before him, the psalm closes with this prayer, verse 23. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. It could not be clearer in the scriptures that the Lord is the ultimate tester of hearts. Psalm 11, verses four and five, the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes see, his eyelids test the righteous, the children of man. The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. The Proverbs repeat this theme. Proverbs 5.21, for a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord and he ponders all his paths. Proverbs 5, 15, verse three, the eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. In Proverbs 17, three, the crucible is for silver and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts. So that brings me to my very first point this morning as we meditate on this prayer in this Psalm. First of all, God must test. When we come to a prayer like this, we must have the humility to recognize that God is the one who must test us, and that all other testing short of that are ultimately inadequate. They're not wrong, but they're not adequate. Even our own testing of ourselves is inadequate. Now I say that, and we should be clear here, self-examination is a good and a biblical truth, right? 1 Corinthians 11 says that those who come to the Lord's table should examine themselves. 2 Corinthians 13.5 says examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith. Galatians 6.4 says that every one of us should test our own works. So certainly self-examination is a biblical responsibility, a good thing for us to do before God. However, as good as it is, it's not sufficient. It's only one part of a bigger picture. 1 Corinthians 4, 4, the apostle Paul exemplified this attitude when he said, I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. He said, when people examine me, judge me, I'm not aware. My conscience, in a sense, is clear before God. I don't know anything against myself. So I'm good, right? No, he said, but I'm not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me, the apostle Paul said. We have to recognize, and this is one of the great truths of this prayer, is that God must test us. And when we submit our lives to that searching, we are in the right place. We need God's testing. Ultimately, we know, even from this very Psalm, God will test us all. There is nothing hidden from the eyes of him with whom we have to do, and he will test each and every one of you, ultimately, before his judgment seat. Anybody who runs from that testing is not willing to acknowledge God's right to test and his ultimate judgment. But anyone who, on the opposite, opens himself up to it, submits to that, comes to the Lord in that humility to say, Lord, you do have to test me. In fact, my own examination of myself is not even sufficient. I need you to do your good testing work. That person is in the right place. But if God must test then, that leads me to some questions I want to ask and answer both from this text and even drawing in a broader picture from scripture here about what is this testing involved in? If we say God has to test us, God has to try us, search us, first of all, what do we expect? when God tests us. If we're gonna pray for this to happen, what are we gonna expect to happen? Verse 23 says, try me, test me, and know my thoughts. This noun in verse 23 translated as thoughts here in the English Standard Version has to do with disturbing or disquieting, anxiety, cares. The New American Standard renders it with anxious thoughts, or the New King James with anxieties. And this tells us something important here. David's concern as he's praying this prayer, and ours too as we appropriate this psalm to ourselves, is not just overtly wicked thoughts. Like, Lord, test me and know if, say, I've been lusting after a woman, or if I've been coveting my neighbor's bank account. Lord, tell me if I'm doing that. No, that's not really the thrust. That would certainly be included in this, but it goes much beyond this. The concern is not overtly wicked thoughts per se. Rather, this prayer calls upon the Lord to test us so as to expose all those instabilities, those insecurities, those uncertainties, those disturbances and worries and troubles the desires and the concerns of our hearts. We might say the concern of this prayer really is asking God to discern in us, to see in us anything that does not arise from faith. Because without faith, it is impossible to please him, which does not arise from a true hope in God and a confidence and a love for him and for his word, anything about our hearts that is in that disturbed state. In other words, it's the deeply embedded desires we want God to test. Those inclinations or directions of our hearts that seem so much a part of us that we might not even recognize them in ourselves. We're not talking primarily here about superficial desires. Like, I want some chocolate. Okay, I'm really craving some chocolate right now. That's not what we're praying about. We are talking about, say, when a pandemic comes along, what fear of death will drive people to do? What will guilt drive you to do? What will pride drive you to do? What will a longing for love, a desire to be loved, what will that drive you to do? Ephesians 4.22 tells us, to put off the old man, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires. That's a similar kind of idea here. Those very desires that deceive us, that take us astray from the Lord. This psalm is dealing with our hearts, which are our control centers, so to speak. Out of our hearts arise the issues of life. So you might get at what we expect God to test here by simply asking this question. What do you care about? That's what you're asking God to test. What do you care about? All of you have many things in this life that you really don't care all that much about, right? I mean, they're there and you take them or leave them, but all of you do have things that you do care about, whether you've thought about it consciously or not. And that's what you react to. That's what you go after. You could ask it in a different way, to come at it from a different angle. Where is your hope? What do you hope for? That's what we're asking God to test here. Pardon me. We as human beings have worries. We have worries about ourselves. We have troubles about the world that we live in. We have anxieties about the future. And we're finding out here that even a desire that is good in itself can become a source of anxiety or instability in our hearts. So for example, is it good and right that you love other people? Yes, obviously so. But can that very relationship tempt you to disturbances, troubles, concerns, which do not arise from faith? Yes. This is the kind of thing we're getting at, that we're asking God to test us about. Doubts about God's, pardon me, doubts about God's goodness, fears over what will happen to you or to those you love, Discouragement over hopes deferred. Folly, respecting the real order of the world. Pride or self-sufficiency. All these things are the root kind of issues which will lead us down the wrong path. And this prayer recognizes that. This is what the psalm is praying about. So what do we expect God to test? These insecurities that do not arise from faith. These anxious thoughts. Now, what is the expected result of the test? We see it in verse 24. See if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. God must expose any grievous way in us. When we say, Lord, we want you to see if there's any grievous way in me and then lead me, obviously the whole point of this is that God would teach us this. The song began by confessing, you have searched me and known me. It's not saying God doesn't know these things. It's saying we want him to engage in this search so that we will be exposed, so that we will know ourselves rightly. God needs to expose any grievous way in us. Or as we mentioned last time we preached on this text, it's a way of pain. in contrast to the everlasting way in the second half of the verse. Now, many understand this way of pain to be painful, metaphorically speaking, to the Lord. Hence, sometimes it's even translated wicked way. Something that does not bring pleasure to God, and so it is a wicked way. And I believe it certainly includes that. But I think it's also broader than that. The way of pain is a way that is not the way of rest and peace, of shalom that the Lord gives. It's contrary to God's good purposes in life. And therefore, when you try to walk in any path but the everlasting way, it creates pain. It's going against the grain of God's good plan. It creates pain in you. It creates pain in other people. And it is certainly displeasing to God. We want God to know this because as the Psalm goes on to pray, God must lead us in the everlasting way. He needs to expose any grievous way in us and then lead us in the everlasting way. This is the way of true life, life with Him, everlasting life. And that's the result we want from this testing. That's what we're after here. I want true life, life with God. That old way that God has established in His plans from the beginning that leads to Him, that's what I want. I don't need any other way but that. And then we believe Him, that He will deliver us from all evil and bring us safely to His eternal kingdom. This is the expected result of the testing. But now we get to the heart of some of the lessons I want us to meditate on here today. How will God test and lead us? Here's where I think this Psalm invites meditation, invites learning and gaining in wisdom. We recognize God must test us. We expect God to test any anxieties within us so that he will ultimately bring us to himself. How is that going to happen? How is God actually going to accomplish that in your life? Here I want to draw on some other examples in scripture of God's testing to just open our minds to some of the ways that God brings this about. And the first one I want to talk about here is God's providence. God's providence, God's testing providence. And by God's providence, we mean all the ways that God upholds and directs this world in all of his perfect plan for his glory. Nothing in this world happens by chance. Nothing in this world is random. Everything is directed by God, and when God brings about situations, settings, we realize this is God directing, and he is testing. By the way, when we recognize this, I think this opens up a whole world of testing that many people never pay attention to. Too often we as Christians get stuck in our own heads, so to speak. We get to thinking about, you know, we might pray a prayer like this, search me, oh God, and know my heart, and then we try to scrape the inner psyche and our feelings and something, you know, what's going on? What is God really? And we get locked in inside our heads about what's going on. But we need to open our eyes to what God is doing in his entire work of providence in our lives. So let me show you some of this. Psalm 66 10 blesses the Lord for his testing through trials. For you, O God, have tested us. You have tried us as silver is tried. He's put us through the crucible. He's put us through the testing, the trying, the refining work. And that's a good thing. It blesses God for this. In other words, when God brings trials into life, those don't just happen. Those aren't just random. That is God exposing you to yourself. Do you realize that? If you have eyes to see and ears to hear, what God is doing, even as you pray this kind of a prayer, you're saying, okay, you want to know yourself. I'm gonna bring you through all these experiences of life. Not only are you gonna learn other things about the world around you, and certainly learn things about God, ultimately, but I'm gonna help you to see who you really are. Sometimes we come at this thinking we know ourselves. If anybody should know me, I know me, right? You don't know me, you haven't been through what I've been through, but I know me. And God has to say, actually, you really don't know yourself very well. Let me teach you. And let me bring you through things that are gonna expose who you really are and how you really respond to my dealings in your life. And that's going to show you a lot about yourself if you have eyes to see that, if you have faith in what I'm doing. 1 Peter 1, 6 and 7 says this, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, pardon me, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. This is what God is doing. He's testing your faith. He's helping you see where your faith really is. You think you believe me? You think you hope in me? You think you love me with all your heart? Good. Now let me teach you. Let me show you. Psalm 81.7 would be one more example of this. It reflects on the Lord's dealings with Israel and it says, the Lord says this, in distress you called and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. Pardon me. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. I tested you. I was bringing you through this because you needed to know who you were and you need to know what you were in relationship to me. One way that God tests us so that we can understand ourselves and our own thoughts and see if there's any grievous way in ourselves is by God bringing us through all these experiences in his providence. Now, as another aspect of God's providence, let me bring up another way that God tests, and that is other people. God is going to use other people to test you and to reveal yourself to you. God uses other people as his messengers to test us. For example, God told Jeremiah this in Jeremiah 6 27, I have made you a tester of metals among my people that you may know and test their ways. God sent Jeremiah out as his prophet. God gave Jeremiah his message. And the very proclamation of that message to his people was a test. Jeremiah was a revealer of the way God's people were, of where their hearts were really at. Now, of course, in Jeremiah's case, it revealed that they did not believe God. They did not know God, right? Jeremiah had the lamentable task of preaching to a people that would not respond. But why was that still important? Because God was exposing, not just to himself in a sense, but to themselves. where they really were spiritually. He's sending his messenger, he's sending his preacher, and you're not listening to what I have to say. Folks, if you want God to test you today, you should crave the preaching and the teaching of God's word. You want to hear what God has to say through other people. You want to hear what God has to say through the ministers and the messengers of the word. You want that because you know you need it. If you're gonna pray, Lord, search me, try me and know my thoughts, then you're gonna be eager to come to where God's word is preached and let God expose who you are and let God see your response to what his word says. Nobody who absence themselves from the proclamation of God's word can pray honestly, try me and know my thoughts. That person is getting locked in his own head again. He's saying, I'm sufficient to know. And God says, no, you're not. You need to hear what I have to say and you need to hear it through my messengers and my ministers. And so I would encourage you folks today, if you're gonna pray this prayer, try me and know my thoughts, see if there's any grievous way in me, you're going to embrace how God tests you through other people. And one way he does that is through his messengers proclaiming his word. But another way God does that through other people, he reveals us to ourselves is even through other believers' evaluations of our lives. Let me give you another example of this from Scripture. 1 Timothy 3.10, where the Bible talks about the qualifications for deacons, it says, and let them also be tested first. Then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. You mean other people can test my walk with God? Yes. Now, we're not putting other people in the place of God. Ultimately, God is God alone, right? But God does use other people to test and expose us, to reveal to ourselves even who we are. It's in relationship with other people that our true nature comes out. Pardon me. In fact, sometimes, if I could put it this way, sometimes when we see ourselves reflected back to ourselves in other people's reactions to us, We don't always like what we see. And before we're too quick to assume bad faith on the part of the other person, perhaps we should ask if God is exposing more of ourselves to us and other people's reactions. Let me give you just one example from my own life. Early in the early years of our marriage, I would have to confess that I did not provide well for my wife. I think God, like we read Proverbs 31 earlier today here, gave me an excellent wife of inestimable value. Very thankful for that. But as we walk through some of the earlier years of our marriage and various settings and ministry and seminary and other settings like that, I had to learn important lessons about what it meant to provide for my wife. Now, here's why I think this is a good example. I was not intentionally setting out to not provide well for my wife. I didn't hate her or have anything to say. In fact, I cared very much about her, and I felt like she's a wonderful woman. But there were times when she's weeping and wondering why I can't get this man to understand what's going on in my life right now, that I had to learn things beyond just, it wasn't good enough to say, you know, you just need to trust the Lord, honey. God's got this all in control, that's good. Well, that was true. I mean, and I think God did teach her to trust him more through all these experiences we went through. But that wasn't the problem that was being exposed there. It wasn't her lack of faith that was the problem. The problem wasn't even my bad intentions. Or it wasn't a lack of working hard. I was willing to work long hours, multiple jobs, whatever, that was fine. The problem was my inability to plan ahead well and to see what needed to be done and to be able to accomplish it. And I didn't do that. Hence, my wife suffered for that, right? Now, how did I learn that? I didn't learn it by just sitting in my closet studying the Bible. I needed to be studying the Bible, but I had to learn it in her life reflected back to me, which was saying, Here's what you're doing, actually. You're not accomplishing what you've been called to accomplish. That was good. God was testing me through my wife in that and exposing me to myself in ways that I never would have seen myself if I hadn't had that exposure. So God tests us through other people. And that leads right into another aspect of God's providence that tests us is seeing the actual results of what we have done. The results of our deeds is one way that God accomplishes an answer to this prayer. Try me, know my thoughts, see if there's any grievous way in me. God does that by showing us what the actual results of what we do are. Let's go back to Jeremiah here, Jeremiah 17, 10. We read this, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. I search and I test. And what do I do with that, the Lord says? I give to people according to the fruit of their deeds. They've done this, here's the result. And by doing that, I am testing. They do this, here's the results. Here's why this is so important for us. It's not good intentions which count for everything, but actual results. What do we actually produce? You see, folks, we have strong tendencies as humans to justify ourselves if we think we have good intentions. I meant well. I was trying to do something good. So what's so wrong about that, right? Didn't I do the best I could do? And by thinking that way, we often don't pay attention to the actual results of what we do, of what we've done. But we need to learn from what we've done because God will reveal its true nature. 1 Corinthians 3, 12-13 says, now if anyone builds on the foundation, talking about the foundation here of Jesus Christ, In the church with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test of what sort of work each one has done. Some people are certain that they love their neighbor, like Christ commands us to, but their whole life is a series of failed relationships. You know what this is? This is God's testing, demonstrating that though they think they love others, and they might even want to love others, they don't know how to do this very well, and they need to learn. This starts to hit home, doesn't it? Some people are convinced they're doing their best to train up their children in the way they should go, but their children don't follow the way of life and wisdom. And this is God's testing, revealing the true nature of our work. And this applies to churches too. We can be ever so sincere in our desire to make disciples, but if we consistently produce people who are conformed to this world, then God has tested us and found us wanting. It doesn't matter that we had sincere intentions, good intentions. I really wanted to do the right thing. Well, that's good actually, but that's not what God calls for. And that brings me to something that's important. We can never fall back on the self-justification of I did my best. You know why? That's not the gospel, folks. That's not the gospel. Your best is not good enough. You should know that from the gospel. You might have done the best you know how, but that doesn't justify you before God ever. You know what God is looking for? God is looking for what he calls faith working through love. Faith in Jesus Christ, working out love for God, so that we walk in the light with him. And when you are walking in faith, you will strive to do your best for the glory of God. You will strive for holiness. You will work hard for the glory of God. You will do your best. But you will never put your confidence in your own performance. You will never try to justify yourself by saying, well, I did my best. No, that's not good enough. We're starting to see, by the way, how humbling this prayer request is. Search me, oh God. Try me. Because it exposes our weakness. And every single one of us are gonna go through life and we're going to have to honestly reckon with the fact that we have failed multiple times in multiple ways. That's the reality of life. It's because we know that though, that we run to God. It's because that drives us to trust in him that we say, Lord, you have to search me. If I live my life without this work that you're doing in my life, exposing me to myself, then what is my life gonna amount to? It's gonna amount to the best I could do. And what did I know? How good was I? Did I know all that it took to be a great Christian? No, I didn't know. I still don't know. But that's okay because I go to God and I say, Lord, you do your good work. Teach me, change me. Folks, when you go to God in that way, in those times when it becomes evident that you have failed God's test, and remember, this is God's gracious work to expose to you that you failed. What would it be like if God never taught you that you failed? Just kept excusing you, saying, hey, you know, good job, you tried hard. I'm gonna give you a blue ribbon and a trophy for trying hard. And never tell you, well, you actually failed. What good would that do you? We need God. And when we approach it this way, and it becomes evident that we have failed, you're gonna be open to God's leading and teaching. Lead me in the way everlasting, rather than becoming defensive and trying to justify yourself. That's a sure way to go on in your ignorance and to go on in your painful way. God, teach me. God uses, pardon me, the results of our deeds, what we actually produce, not what we intend, but what we actually produce to teach us, to expose our weakness to ourselves, and to draw us to himself. And that leads me to a last point that I want to make here today. And that's the importance of God's testing. We've already begun touching on this a little bit here. Why is it so important that God test us? Why, pardon me, why would we cry this prayer to God over and over and over again? Search me, I need this. I would just like to suggest three answers. These are not exhaustive, but three important reasons why we need God to test us. I think God's testing and then his leading in the way everlasting overcomes three problems we all have. One, is willful ignorance. Willful ignorance. Sometimes we don't want to know because it seems too hard. It seems too much. It seems like it's too uncomfortable. About a month ago, I was listening to a research physician who's both a practicing doctor and a a research scientist, talking about all the stuff that went on with COVID over the last couple of years. And he made this comment. He said, it shocked me how many doctors did not want to know. They didn't want to know anything different. I just do what I'm told. This is the system. Why? It's too hard. I don't know what to do. If this isn't the right thing, then, so I just don't know. I do what I'm told to do. I do the protocol, and we're good. Now, folks, we can sometimes blame doctors for that kind of a thing, but the reality is we all do that kind of a thing. When situations seem too hard, when they seem too much, and we don't know what to do in a situation, click. It's too much. I can't take it anymore. I'm just going to turn off. I'll just do what I'm told to do. We sometimes have willful ignorance, because we recognize if I know I'm responsible, if I know that it might make life very difficult, at the very least, it might make me change things in my life that I like, or at least that I'm very comfortable with. I don't want to know anything else. And watch out for that temptation in your life. One of the reasons God gives you that prayer is to keep you from getting settled in that situation. I feel basically comfortable with what I know. I'm fine. I don't need anything else. And that can become very easily a culpable, willful ignorance. Thankfully, God's testing helps us to overcome that. God is a good father to his children, and he doesn't let them rest settled on what they think they know. What's good enough? No, good enough is not good enough. You need to know God. You need his holiness. So he's not gonna let you settle for willful ignorance. That's one of the blessings of God's testing. Another problem that God's testing and leading overcomes is what we today often call confirmation bias. What do we humans do? We hone in on the evidence or the experience, which seems to confirm what we already want. Here's what I want. And so I evaluate the situation around me, and I pick out all those things that confirm what I want. And oh, looky there. What do you know? I tried it, and I came out with what I wanted. This is pretty good. But now I have extra confidence, because I really did try. That's called confirmation bias. We see what we want to see and we ignore the rest. Now that's an extremely difficult problem for us humans. We all wrestle with this. But thankfully, again, we come back here and we're not left to our own devices. There is a God who sees and knows everything exhaustively. And he is the one we can appeal to, to test us and to lead us. And the blessing of this is when we are opened up to God and opened up to the world in faith and love, Then we can learn what we could never see before, what our eyes were not able to see because we were not operating in faith working through love. We entrust ourselves, pardon me, to God without fear, and that opens us up to actually learn new things, better things, good things of God. Then the third problem I want to mention here today is that God's leading and testing helps us to overcome is the world system in which we operate. We all know the command not to be conformed to this world, the beseeching that Romans 12, one gives us, not to be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds. Okay, what's the problem, the challenge of that though? Well, we humans, how do we learn things? We look around at other people. We see how they do things. We hear, we're taught things. We are born into, you might say, a system of how things are done. And we learn that. And it even can be confirmed to us, then, because other people are doing the same things. And so this seems perfectly reasonable. This is normal. This is the way humans live, the way my society lives. Think of this in all sorts of realms of life, political or economic or business or legal or medical. This is the way life is. This is just normal. This is what everybody around me does. So that's what I see, that's what I do. We never think beyond that. I think this kind of a prayer pushes us beyond that. Let us not be settled in just what the world hands us. This is the way you live life. This is the way life works. And our system trains us in that way. And by the way, folks, don't underestimate the power of that formation. whether it's through educational systems, entertainment systems, political systems, the world is pushing you into a mold. Think this way, act this way. You have to think this way. This is the way we all get along together. When we say, search me, oh God, and know my heart and try me and know my thoughts, see if there is any grievous way in me, we are asking God in effect to enable us to be more than just creatures of our time, creatures of our system, to actually know him. Now, all of us as humans will, of course, reflect the times in which we live. But we don't have to be slaves to that. We don't have to be slaves to this world system. We don't have to take the horizons of this world and the possibilities it gives us as the real horizons of our life. That's what I believe the Apostle Paul is talking about when he talks about the elementary principles of this world. He's like, no, we live according to the Spirit of God. We walk in the Spirit, not according to the flesh. And we don't have to let the world set the agenda for us. This is the good life. This is what life should achieve. We can say, search me, oh God. And so I would appeal to you as believers today at High Country Baptist Church, push beyond the system the world gives you right now. Don't just accept it as if, oh, this is the inevitable way things are. Be thankful for whatever God has given you. Don't forget that. but always be striving, always be looking, always be praying, search me, oh God, I need more, I want you, I want to live, I want to reflect your kingdom and your righteousness, and I want the church to be a community that truly has the savor of eternity about it. I want this place to be a place where God, excuse me, where even unbelievers can come in and say, God is in your midst. There is something transcendent going on here, not just according to what the flesh would think, That's what we need to be as a body. And that's what this prayer pushes us to. This is the importance of God's testing. And let me just remind you of something as we work toward a conclusion here today. This searching and this testing that God provides never stops. It's not as if you pray this prayer, God brings you through a trial, boom, okay, we got this now, right? We might wish sometimes it would be that way, but this never stops as long as we're in this life. I believe there are some people who start well, but do not finish because God's examination is never done. They want to be done with God's examination, done with God's testing. But folks, God's testing occurs throughout life and then culminates at the great day. And so in conclusion, let me ask you, Are you willing to submit to God's searching and testing, High Country Baptist Church? In fact, even when you come to church, you ever have that issue? Coming to church and I have anxious thoughts. I have disquietance, disturbances in my soul, even trying to be a part of the church. Yes, search me, oh God. Are you willing to submit to that searching? This is what we need. Do you want to know, husbands and wives, if there is any way of pain in you? Parents, are you eager to have God's searching eye upon your child rearing? In humility, opening yourself up to, Lord, you have to search me and know me. You know who I truly am. In your relationships with one another, as believers and in your relationships with unbelievers as well. Are you willing to have God's searching going on? Are you recognizing that he is testing you through those very relationships so that he can bring you to himself? He can reveal you to yourself to help you come to himself. Yes, this kind of searching and knowing is going to uproot you. It's going to turn you inside out. I said at the beginning, sometimes people mistake what this searching might feel like in our lives. It might feel like, oh, I just go to God, and I have this wonderful time of communion with him, and then I'm at peace. Sometimes, oftentimes, it can mean God is going to turn you inside out. He's going to shake up your simplistic certainties, your simpletons, and your follies. But it's going to be good when he does. It's going to destroy your confidence in yourself and in your knowledge, which is a good thing. And that is how you will come to a knowledge of the truth. Pardon me. In 1 Chronicles 29, 17, as David, the author of this very Psalm, prayed as the kingdom was to be handed over to Solomon. He said, I know my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. Why was he willing to open up, even on that occasion, his whole heart to God, just as I am, so to speak, and say, God, I know you test, because he wanted God's pleasure. Do you want that more than anything else? Are you willing to break out of the mold the world is putting you in in order to know the pleasure of God? You have pleasure and uprightness to know that relationship with God. Folks, that's the whole heart behind this prayer. I want you to lead me in the way everlasting. Pray that prayer. Make it your own. May it be ours together as a congregation today. If this is your prayer, would you confess your faith together? with the confession from scripture we've been using from 1 Timothy. You'll see it in the bulletin there if you need the words. Let's confess our faith together. He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. Jesus is Lord.