You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
Psalm 139:13 (Message Bible translation)

These words from scripture describe the reality in which we live. We are fully known - inside and out - by the God who created us. God held our unformed substance in God’s hand and sculpted us from nothing into something. As God’s creation, we are loved forever and always. We cannot flee from God’s presence. God will always chase after us - arms extended - ready to carry us.

This is both our reality today and God’s promise for our future. Nothing will change God’s love for us. We are fully known and fully loved by God - always and forever.

Today we wrap up our sermon series “God Knows Us Inside Out.” For the past seven weeks, we have been exploring the emotions of joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and anxiety. God has woven these emotions into our being. Emotions are good and of God, so we can embrace them.

May you write Psalm 139:13 on your heart this week. Carry it with you. Know, trust and believe that God knows you and loves you.

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Last Sunday we began a seven-week sermon series titled “God Knows Us Inside and Out.” Together, we will explore what it means that God knows us inside and out as we look at the emotions that dwell inside of us and exude out of us – joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and anxiety. The movie Inside Out brought these emotions to life as characters operating a control board in our brains. Now, we will look at them through the lens of what means for these emotions to be created by God, known by God and part of the way we were woven together to be made in God’s image. Our emotions – all of them – are created by God for good.

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Sitting in worship a few Sundays ago, I received a text message from one of our college students. Tuned into worship on the livestream from her dorm room, she text me and Pastor Kelsey a picture of her computer screen. She was in worship that morning and messaged to let us know. My heart overflowed with joy!

It is moments like this that I realize what we are doing at Abiding Presence is working, which is to say we are making disciples of Jesus. We are passing on the faith to the next generation. We are sending people out into the world equipped to be the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus. We are being the church. Being the church matters!

Then there was the picture of the Bible from a different college student’s parent. It was texted to me and Pastor Keseley with the message that it was among the last minute items packed by our college student to take with them to college.

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Hopefully by now you’ve heard me talking the past few weeks about hypothermia shelter. Abiding Presence has signed up to host the Fairfax County hypothermia shelter the week of December 29, right after Christmas. Each week of hypothermia shelters, two churches sign up to provide shelter space for up to 50 individuals for a total of 100 hypothermia shelter spaces in the county.

As I preached last week, I’ve been clear and convicted in the decision that this what we need to do (even if might not be what we want to do). This past week, that clarity was reinforced in two big ways.

First, I drove into the church parking lot early one morning to find two unhoused individuals sleeping on picnic tables in the parking lot. They weren’t disturbing anything, just sleeping quietly with all their possessions around them. The goal of hypothermia shelter is simple - keep people from freezing to death. The need for this is far greater than most of us realize.

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