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The River ChurchSermons

His Steadfast Love Endures Forever

Gary Wright · Sunday, 26 July 2026 · 35:55 · 4,301 words

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Psalm 139 is examined through three attributes of God: He knows everything, He is present everywhere, and He is all‑powerful. The message highlights that God knit each person together in the womb, cares for life from conception, and offers mercy and grace to all who turn to Him. Listeners are urged to surrender their hearts, stand for the value of every human life, and respond to the gospel by confessing Jesus as Lord and believing in His resurrection. Trust in Christ alone brings salvation and eternal life.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

david 29 snow 8 god 106 abortion 6 everywhere 9 womb 7 rob 6 form 8 injury 3 made 16 conception 4 kim's 3

Topics

Grace 2 Faith 2 The Gospel 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Sin 1

Scripture referenced 15

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Psalms 139 0:05 Psalms 142 0:22 Psalms 139 1:09 Genesis 16:13 6:01 Matthew 25 6:49 Psalms 139 9:58 Psalms 139:7-12 10:01 Psalms 139 15:21 Jeremiah 1:4-5 21:37 Exodus 21:22-25 24:23 1 John 4:1 32:45 1 John 4:19 32:49 1 John 4:23-24 33:03 Romans 5:8 34:36 Romans 10:9 35:16

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

If you have your Bibles this morning,

we're going to be continuing our study

through the book of Psalms.

And we will be in chapter 139.

139, if you want to,

I encourage you to open up your Bibles.

The scripture will also be on the screen,

but I encourage you to open it up.

There's something special about

looking at the word of God.

Next week, we will be in Psalm 142.

But let me pray,

and then we will jump into this.

Father, we thank you.

We thank you for who you are.

We thank you for salvation.

We thank you that you loved us so much

that you sent your son

to take our place on the cross.

Lord, we can't praise you enough.

We thank you.

Be with your word today as it goes out.

I ask that your word penetrates hearts,

your spirit penetrates hearts

through the word, Lord.

Just help us all to look at our lives

and take the next step,

That may be in serving you

and following you.

We love you in Jesus' name.

So the writer of Psalm 139 is David.

And David knew and he loved God.

And that's what he's going to be

writing about here.

And David refers to God by name

six times in these verses.

And he refers to God

in a personal pronoun

30 more times.

He loves the Lord.

Okay?

This psalm is about God.

This psalm is about God.

This psalm is about God.

This psalm is about God.

This psalm is about God.

This psalm is personal.

It's not only personal to David,

but if we really look at this,

it's personal to us

if we know Jesus as Savior.

But David refers to himself

50 times in this passage.

I thought that was kind of wild.

I didn't really realize that

when I was first studying it.

But this psalm reveals

who God is

and who we are

in relation to God.

This is a psalm

and it teaches

about how intimate God is

in our lives.

Let's look at the first six verses

to start off.

It says,

you have searched me

and known me.

You know me when I sit down

and when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path

and my lying down

and are acquainted

with all my ways.

Even before I know you,

before a word is on my tongue.

Behold, O Lord,

you know it all together.

You hem me in

behind and before

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high

and I cannot attain it.

Growing up as a teenager,

I was a rebellious teenager at times, right?

And my mom was a follower of Jesus

and she did her best

to raise me and my siblings up

with knowing who Jesus is.

Actually, I love to say this.

My mom is probably the reason,

one of the main reasons

other than Jesus

that I'm standing up here right now.

I tried to get away

with a lot of things as a teenager.

And I'm going to tell you,

my mom busted me almost every time.

She caught me every time.

I believe God had something to do with that.

But even though my friends,

and even my girlfriend at the time,

got away with it,

a lot of times,

I seemed to always get caught.

I felt like my mom could see right through me.

She could read me.

our God is the same way.

That's what David's writing about.

Our God knows everything.

And he can see right through us.

And that's why David writes,

Oh Lord, you have searched me

and known me.

through.

God can see right through us.

We can't hide nothing from God.

He knows everything.

He's all-knowing.

And there's these,

I struggle with these words,

remembering what they mean.

So I like to say what they actually mean

instead of using the words.

But knowing God,

knowing everything is omniscience.

Okay?

Okay?

It means he knows everything.

He's all-knowing.

And David said God knows everything.

About who?

Me.

He's very personal.

God knows everything about me.

And it's Hagar in Genesis

was the same way.

she had a child with Abram

when he was married to Sarai.

So God had promised a child to Sarai

and they couldn't wait.

They were kind of like us,

And so they made a plan

and Abram slept with Sarai.

And Abram slept with the maid

and became pregnant with a son.

She didn't know the son's name here yet,

but she realized

that God knows everything about her.

In Genesis 16, 13, it says,

so she called the name of the Lord

who spoke to her.

You are a God of seeing, she says.

Truly here, I have seen him

who looks after me.

look, your son is going to be,

It says a donkey of a man,

but he's going to father a great nation.

And she saw that God cared about her

and he sees everything.

He's all knowing.

And that's what David is talking about here.

or God knew David's thoughts.

Jesus gives an example

of how God knows our thoughts

in Matthew 25 or 12, 25.

to the Pharisees.

And he says,

it starts off this passage.

It says,

knowing their thoughts.

Jesus knew exactly

what the Pharisees was thinking

before he said a word to them.

God knew everything David did.

He even knows,

it says that he knows

when he left in the morning

and he knows when he's sleeping at night.

He knew what David would say

before the words were on his tongue.

Listen, God knows the same thing

about us.

He knows the number of hairs

on our head.

God, he says,

you go before me

and you are behind me.

What that means is

God protected David.

He put a hedge of protection around him.

Nothing was coming to David

unless God allowed it to come to David.

God is sovereign and in control.

We're going to talk about this in a minute.

He's sovereign and he's in control.

And look,

if we're believers,

believers in Jesus,

he's the same way with us.

Puts this he's before us and behind us.

Nothing's coming to us

unless he allows it to happen.

David says God lays his hand upon him.

That means that God loves him

and that he has grace

that he is the same with us.

I don't know if all of you know Christ this morning,

but I want to share this.

And he has enough grace for you.

David talks about this knowledge.

It's so great he couldn't understand it.

And look,

God knowing everything.

I don't know about you.

Sometimes that can be a scary thing.

God knows everything he does.

And I know some of the things that I did

in my earlier life.

And it's scary that God knows those things.

David here,

he's not worried.

He's praising God.

That God is a God that knows.

And a God who is there to protect him

and to show him mercy and grace.

And that he serves a God

that knows him better than himself.

David goes on in our passage

and he shares another.

So I'm going to talk about three attributes of God.

So the first one was God knows everything.

In this next passage,

David's going to write about another.

So if we look at the next six verses

in our passage in Psalm 139,

this would be verses 7 through 12.

Where shall I go from your spirit?

Or where shall I free from your presence?

If I ascended to heaven,

you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol,

you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me.

Your right hand shall hold me.

If I say,

surely the darkness shall cover me

and the light about me at night,

even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night is bright as the day,

for darkness is as light with you.

a friend of mine in Kim's that we grew up with,

they, her and her husband moved to Florida.

They had a couple of kids.

Her husband ended up getting killed

in a car accident, unfortunately.

But our friend,

she raised her kids.

She never remarried.

She's still married, not married.

But she raised her two children on her own

and she did a great job.

she called me and said,

my son Brock is interested in hunting

and I have no idea what to do.

Well, that's right up my alley, right?

I said, we'll send him up here.

I'll take him on the youth hunt.

So in September,

Brock flies up here.

It's, you know, fall,

but it's still pretty warm still.

So,

here's the thing about Brock.

He'd never seen a winter.

He's never seen snow before.

So what's Brock talking to me about?

Is he talking about a giant buck we're gonna get?

No, he's talking to me about snow.

Every day, asking me questions about snow.

One day we're sitting in the blind

and he says, Mr. Gary, I'm like, yeah.

He said, when it snows, does it snow in the woods?

I said, I'm like, that is the craziest question

I've ever heard, right?

But you have to remember Brock had

never seen snow.

I said, Brock, when it snows,

it snows everywhere.

It's a mess, right?

But look, our God, what David is saying here

is God is everywhere.

He is everywhere.

And the word, the fancy word we use for this one

is omnipresent.

Look, that one's easy to remember, right?

'Cause it has the word present right in it, right?

So he's omnipresent.

He's present wherever we are.

He's present everywhere.

And David, I love how he describes it.

He says, if I go to heaven or I go to Sheol or to the grave,

no matter how high I go or how low I go, guess what?

You're there, God, you are there.

And he talks about the dawn in the east and in the sea.

And he's talking about the east and the west.

So he's saying, no matter how high you are

or how low you are, you're there.

Whether you're to the east or to the west.

I think I did it wrong.

To the east or to the west, you're there.

Whether it's light or it's dark, you are there.

Listen, believers, anybody who's in here, God is present.

We cannot escape him, right?

Adam and Eve tried.

They tried to hide from him.

No luck.

Jonah tried to run from him.

No luck because God is,

the God of heaven, he's present everywhere.

C.S. Lewis says this.

C.S. Lewis is an atheist who became a Christian

and wrote some incredible books.

But he wrote this.

We may ignore, but we cannot evade the presence of God.

The world is crowded with him.

He walks everywhere incognito.

I love that.

I love C.S. Lewis, by the way, but.

But as believers, as, could you believe that?

It could seem terrifying, again, that God is everywhere.

But David is praising him.

And David's not trying to get away from his presence.

He's praising that God is with him and present with him.

Look, if we're believers, he's present with you.

We, he is with us.

He will, the scripture says, not only is he present,

but he will never leave us.

And I praise God.

I praise God for that.

'Cause I know one thing, I need him every day.

David writes about a third attribute of God.

As we go on, six more verses, 13 through 18 in Psalm 139.

He says, "For you formed me, formed my inward parts.

"You knitted me together in my mother's womb."

Listen, I love this passage of scripture, just so you know.

I've read it a dozen, dozens of times this week.

But he goes on and says, "I praise God."

"I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

He's talking in the, when he talks about the earth there,

he's talking about in the womb of his mother, okay?

That's like poetry.

But he says, "Every one of them,

"the days that were formed for me,

"when as yet there was none of them."

Oh, I skipped something here, I'm sorry.

Verse 16, let's look at 16 again.

"Your eyes saw my unformed substance.

"In your book were written every one of them,

"the days that were formed for me,

"when there was none of them.

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God,

"how vast is the sum of them.

"If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

"I awake and I am still with you."

Excuse me for one second.

My voice hasn't been the same since middle school camp.

I don't know why.

Kim and I have a cousin.

He's actually, 'cause I inherited him.

He's actually Kim's cousin.

His name's Rob.

Look, Rob's a handyman and can do anything.

He really can.

One time, Kim and I wanted to build a paycheck.

I wanted to build a pantry in our kitchen,

and we were going to do a bump out into the garage

and make a pantry there.

Rob says, "I'll help you."

He comes over.

We cut a hole in our kitchen wall going out to the garage.

It's wintertime.

We put a header in, put plastic on the wall.

Rob says, "Tomorrow I'll come back

"and we'll build the pantry."

I'm like, "Okay."

He leaves and Kim's like,

"Aren't you scared to cut a hole in the wall?"

I'm like, "Absolutely not, I got Rob," right?

With Rob, I wasn't scared to do

anything because he could do anything.

Listen, our God can do anything.

He can do anything.

He's all powerful.

He can do anything.

Rob was handy and he could fix anything,

but our God is all powerful and can do anything.

And the word for that is omnipotent.

Okay, omnipotent.

I struggle with those words.

He can do anything is what that means.

And God knows everything.

Right?

We talked about that.

He is everywhere, why?

Because he made everything, including us.

David says, "He made me.

"He made me.

"He made my inner parts, my heart, my liver.

"He made that.

"He knit me together in my mother's womb."

Before our mothers even knew they were pregnant,

God was at work putting us together.

Look, my wife, she's been making quilts.

She made a quilt.

She made a quilt for my granddaughter.

She made a quilt for a lady who's getting ready to retire she works with.

And look, she had all these little square pieces of cloth.

I'm like, this is a disaster, right?

Like, she wants me to help lay out the design, which I did.

But when she finished, they were beautiful.

These quilts are beautiful.

Like, I'm like, that's what I think of when I think of God knitting us together.

He took us.

And made us.

He is the one who brings life.

He's the one who puts us together.

Look, we can say what causes pregnancy, and I'm not going to say that in this room.

But God is the one who brings the life.

Look, we don't get pregnant every time, right?

He is sovereign.

He's in control.

He made us.

He made us.

He knew us.

Before we were born.

He had a plan for us before we were born.

Can you believe it?

I mean, it's so amazing.

And David praises God.

He says, God, thank you for making me wonderfully complex.

Look, and I want to pause right here for one minute.

A lot of times we want to look down on ourselves.

Sometimes we may even look down on how we look or the flaws we have.

But we need to remember this, that our God made us the way we are, and we can praise

him and rejoice in that.

We don't have to look down on ourselves because our God made us.

Jeremiah talks about the same thing.

Jeremiah 1:4-5, Jeremiah writes, "Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'This

is God speaking to him.

Before I formed you in the womb.

I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you.

I appointed you a prophet of the nations.'"

David and Jeremiah are saying the same thing, that God formed them and he formed us.

He knew us and knows us before we're born.

And he has a plan for each and every one of us before we are born.

When I read these passages about God making us.

I cannot get away from what our country struggles with.

One of the biggest issues in our culture is the issue of abortion.

When I read these passages, I can't help but think about that.

Most adults in our country believe that abortion is okay.

Sixty percent say any abortion is okay.

Our culture says one thing, but when we look at the scripture, when we look at God's word,

the truth.

We learn something else.

As believers, we can't let our culture determine what we believe.

Our God is a God of truth and his word is truth, Jesus says.

And what does God's word teach us?

David just told us that life begins in the womb.

God knows us.

He forms us.

One pastor says this, this is Alistair Begg said this, "We're not here by accident.

We are the intended result of the mind of God."

We're not here by accident.

He has a plan for us when we're born.

And look, even in God's law in the Old Testament, there is a provision for taking care of unborn

This is Exodus 21:22-25, and this is in the NLT because I felt like it was easier to understand.

It says, "Now suppose two men are fighting and in the process they accidentally strike

a pregnant woman, so she gives birth prematurely.

If no further injury results, then a man who struck the woman must pay the amount of the

compensation the woman's husband demands and the judges approve."

Okay, so if this fight accidentally causes a premature birth of a woman and there's no

other injuries, there's a fine.

But it goes on, and it says in verse 23, "But if there is further injury, the punishment

must match the injury."

Look at the first one, "A life for a life, if it causes death, there is a penalty of

And it goes on, it says, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a

burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise."

This passage of scripture that God cares and values every human life, whether born or unborn.

God knows the children and he cares for the children, even in the womb.

That means God is concerned about life at conception.

Love this phrase that I read this week.

It says, "God cares about us from the womb to the tomb."

He cares about us from conception to death.

He cares about life.

That's what the scripture says.

This is what I want to share with you.

There's some other thoughts here.

I want to acknowledge that there are sometimes heartbreaking situations where a mother's

life can be in danger.

Those are incredibly difficult, and they require wisdom, compassion, and carefulness.

We should never speak lightly about these conversations or these situations.

Look, I would love to stand up here and tell you I'm a doctor.

Look, I did stay at Holiday Inn Express earlier this week when my power was off, but I'm not

And we need medical help sometimes in these situations.

We don't understand them.

Okay?

So we have to take that into consideration.

I also want to share this with you.

These exceptions are not the rule.

They're not the rule.

Matter of fact, they rarely happen.

Most abortions are because of unintended and unwanted pregnancy, not because the mother's

at risk or some other reason.

Look, there are other alternatives besides abortion.

There's other alternatives.

Now, as a follower of Jesus, we have to let God's word.

Shape our conviction.

We can't let our culture do it, but at the same time, you say it this way, we stand on

life at conception.

As a believer, that's what I believe.

Life at conception, and life is valuable, but at the same time, Christians called love.

We have to stand on the truth, but we have to do it in love.

And if we're not pushing people away, there are, Christians should be the first to come

alongside moms and families.

They should be the first to help in these difficult circumstances.

Called to love.

What does the scripture say?

People will know us by our love.

We love because he first loved us.

And what is love?

Love is sacrificing and taking care of folks.

Look, I had a friend that I went to church with, not at the river, it was years ago.

And my friend...

Kim and I's friend, she had an abortion as a teenager.

And later in life, she became a believer, and she was overwhelmed with guilt, overwhelmed.

She was convicted by it.

But this is what she learned, I love our God.

Because she found out that our God is a God of mercy and grace.

He's a God of mercy and grace.

There is no sin too big for our God.

She learned of his grace.

Look, last week I read this.

This passage, but I want to read it again.

This is God describing himself to Moses.

He says, "The Lord, the Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in

steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and

transgression and sin."

That is our God.

He can forgive any sin.

And look, I've done some horrible things in my life that I've held on to.

How can God possibly forgive me?

He has.

And I can let go of it.

This is what else my friend found out.

She found out that her believing, loving church cared about her.

And they came alongside of her and helped her through this situation and pointed her to the love of Jesus.

That's the kind of church, those are the type of

believers that we need to be.

People make mistakes, but our God is a God of forgiveness.

Believers should be the first to show compassion and offer grace.

Why?

Because that's exactly what God did for us.

Again, we love because he first loved us.

I think that's John, I think that's 1 John 4:1, I believe.

It's in 1 John 4:19.

Thank you.

You're a rock star.

And I don't have enough time to read the next six verses.

I'm just going to skip down to verses 23 and 24.

David shares, he shares these two incredible verses.

He says this, "Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Try me and know my thoughts and see if there's any grievous way in me and lead me in the

way everlasting."

I believe all of us believers should be praying that prayer every day.

"O God, what is in my heart that I need to surrender to you?

What is the grievous way I need to give up?

Show me how to become more like you."

And as unbelievers, like I want you to know our God is all knowing.

He's everywhere.

I want to repeat this.

He cares about us personally, even though he's all powerful, cares about you.

And when we, I think about Jesus at the end of this verse, when he says, "Lead me in the

way of everlasting," God loved us so much that even though we were sinners and separated

from him, rebellious against God, God loved us so much that Romans 5:8 says that God shows

his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Look, our sin separates us from God.

We need a savior.

His name is Jesus.

And he died on the cross.

He died on the cross to pay the price for your sins and mine.

And what do we need to do?

What is our response?

That's the gospel of Jesus.

What is our response to the gospel?

How do we become followers of Jesus?

Romans 10:9 tells us, "Because if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe

in our hearts that God raised him from the dead," promise right here, "you will be saved."

You will be.

We are saved through faith, faith in Jesus Christ, in Christ alone.

That's how we're forgiven.

That's how we're reconciled to the Lord on this earth.

And that's how we spend eternity with God.

There is no other way.

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