Sunday Service - August 2, 2026 - How to be Close to God

It looks amazing in here. I think we should do props every week. What do you guys think? Yep, okay. I think we should preach Psalm 42, as the deer pants for God, so my soul pants for you, right, with the streams of water. This is beautiful. It's great. Well, thank you all who decorated yesterday and have been working so hard on VBS. Looking forward to VBS this week, and it's gonna be a great time together, yeah.

Well, if you guys would open up to Psalm 5. We're continuing our series through the summer. in the Psalms. And I'm just going to pick up right where Pastor Greg left off last week from Psalm 4. And I'm looking forward to hearing from Pastor Greg in a few weeks on Psalm 8 as well. And so we're just kicking off the summer with the summer in the Psalms. Again, we're going to be in the Psalms for a while, 15 years, if we keep going 10 at a time every summer.

But this is going to be such a good blessing for us, such a good rhythm. And we're going to see this theme that we're going to see in Psalm 5 throughout many other psalms as well, is that David is longing to be close with God. If you want to summarize this psalm, that's what's happening here.

David is longing to be near, dare I even use the word intimate, close with God. And I would wager that many of you, probably all of you at one point or another, have felt this deep desire, Christian or non-Christian, to be close with God. A longing to know your creator, the God who made you. I even had one atheist friend say, I don't know what happened, but I prayed today. I said, well, there's a God that you're praying to, and you were made to know that God and be close to that God. See, we all have this internal longing to be intimate, close, near to God.

And this is David's prayer here, is that he would be close to God. And what we're gonna see here is that if we're looking closely and if we're diligent readers and good listeners, we're gonna see that David actually gives us a pathway to be close with God. And here's the outline in three points. The way, point one, to be close to God, point two, is not through performance, Point three, but grace alone. It's a simple path to be close to God. To be close to God, it's not performance, but it's grace alone.

So diving in here in chapter five, the superscription to the choir master for the flutes, a Psalm of David. This is one of David's Psalms that he actually sung in leading the choir to sing to God. And he begins in verse one with two requests to be close to God. He begins, give ear to my words, O Lord, Consider my groaning. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray."

Right from the beginning here, I think the context is going to help us to understand what David is going through. So, we're trying to see the interconnectivity of the Psalms and how they're not disjointed. Pastor Greg last week said that his psalm was an evening psalm to Psalm 3. Well, Psalm 5, if you look at it, is actually taking place in the morning. So if you're following the progression, we see a historical superscription. If you're looking in Psalm 3, it says, Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom, his son.

And then he says, I slept and I woke this morning. Psalm 4 is, I go to sleep at night. Look at 4.8. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep. For, O Lord, you make me dwell in safety. So there's morning and evening. Chapter 5, verse 1 and 2. He says, give ear, verse three, in the morning. In the morning you hear my voice.

So we see here that there's an interconnection in the context that this Psalm is not disjointed from Psalm 4 and Psalm 3, but actually it's probably describing a similar or the same historical event. And if you remember the importance of this context, and one thing is gonna be key here in this passage, is that David is on the run from his son Absalom. And why is this happening in the first place? 1 Samuel 12 10, Nathan the prophet comes to David and he says, the reason that this is happening is because of your sin with Bathsheba. We'll get into this later if you don't know that story well.

And he says, the sword shall not depart from your house. So this is a sin that David has committed, and now there's division in his household, and he's crying out to God because he feels distant from God. He cries out to God, he says, my king, my king. Think about this, King David crying out to another king.

Oftentimes, we can think of it this way, oftentimes if we're a big strong man or a big strong woman with lots of importance and lots of power and lots of influence in the world, oftentimes we don't want to appear to be dependent upon anyone else. We want to appear to be independent, right? We want to appear to be loners or the type of people that can do anything on our own or the type of people that can just blaze a path or blaze the trail on our own. But here, King David again blazes a path for us that's very different from leadership in the 21st century. Very different from our intuition to say, I'm a lone ranger. I'm an isolated individual. I'm independent. I don't need anyone. I'm fine.

And David pushes against that, and he says, no, as the king of Israel, I am desperately in need of God, my king. And again, there's a reference here in this next slide, there's a reference here to my king, to the first use of king in Psalm 2, 6, the Lord God, the father of all, actually says in 2, 6, as for me, I've set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

And so many commentators and many pastors have said, who is David speaking to here? My King and my God. You see, it's really interesting here because it's hard to tell where God the Father begins and God the Son ends. that God the Son is established as the King in Psalm 2, and here in Psalm 5, David is crying out to that King, the Anointed One, who we are to kiss, bow down and kiss and submit to and take refuge in, and David is saying, I pray to you, my King. You see, as he's praying to his King, he's praying not only to God the Father, but also to God the Son, Jesus Christ. Right here, he's finding dependence upon Jesus Christ, and he says, I don't care who knows it. In fact, he wants everyone to know that he's desperate for God, desperate for Jesus, just like a newborn baby is desperate for her mother.

And this is where I wanna lean in here for one second. I wanna make a case to you that longing for God, closeness with God, is so much more important than closeness with any other individual in your entire life. Think of it this way. From the newborn baby to the hardened criminal, we intuitively understand that human beings long for connection and closeness. And many of you probably have wounds from your upbringing, whether it's a grandparent or a parent or an aunt and an uncle, whatever it might be, and you have found that that relationship, that distance and dissonance in that relationship still sits with you today. And so if our closeness or lack of closeness with our parents, interrupts and changes the course of our entire lives with family dysfunction from the past. If that will reset our entire future and our entire way of seeing the world, how much more does our relationship with our Heavenly Father matter for dictating the course of our entire lives?

And the reason that I say this is because if we want to long to be close to God, like David, we need to see the importance of being close to God. that he is the most important relationship to all of us, hands down. Not mother, not father, not children, but God. And David is desperate for God.

And here he says, I request that you give ear, that you give attention to me, just like a young boy crying for attention from his father to watch him. But then what does the son's face do when the father's face turns toward the boy? The boy's face lights up with a smile because his father's face is looking at him and giving him the attention that he desires and longs for. And here, too, David does that. He moves from a request to confidence. Here, verse three, he says, oh, Lord, in the morning, you hear my voice. You hear me. He has confidence that he hears him. And why? This is important. In the morning, I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

See, sacrificial system is not familiar to us in the 21st century. If we think about killing an animal for the sake of removing guilt, we think that's really strange. And it is, it's bizarre to us, isn't it? But that's what David is talking about. In the morning, praying to God, asking God that God would give him attention, that God would be close and near to him. And David says, and I know you hear me because I offer a sacrifice to you and watch.

Now, the sacrificial system needs some direction for us. This sacrificial system actually is all throughout the Old Testament, and God gave it to his people as a way for them to deal with their guilt. It's important for us to understand this. He gave the law, and within the law, which condemned the people for their sinfulness. He, in tandem or adjacently, gave a sacrificial system which would allow them to deal with the guilt of their sin. And even in Hebrews chapter nine, we see this clearly portrayed. It says, indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. There needs to be a shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sin.

But all of the Old Testament sacrifices were merely pictures, which goes to this next point. The Old Testament sacrificial system was merely a picture, just like I carry a picture in my wallet of my family. That's not my family. And when my family comes, we might look at pictures together, but when my family comes, I embrace them, and I hold them dear, and I kiss them, and I tell them that I love them. It's the same between Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament, we see pictures of Jesus in the sacrificial system, ultimately pointing to the reality of Jesus, who we're supposed to cling to, which is why we no longer have an Old Testament sacrificial system.

And we see this laid out again in Hebrews just a chapter after the author says, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Chapter 10 verse 4, he says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. You see, bulls, goats, the sacrifice that even David makes here has no effect upon David for removing his sin that he committed with Bathsheba in killing Uriah. No effect.

But what it is doing is it's pointing as a picture, David looking through the sacrifice into Jesus Christ. Which is why, just a few verses later, the author in verse 22, chapter 10 says, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Dear saints, baked into the fabric of the Old Testament, Woven into Psalms and Psalm 5 is Jesus Christ and David longing to be with his King, who is Jesus, and his sacrifice, who is Jesus, to the point where his only identity and closeness with God comes through the sacrificial King, Jesus.

It's not through performance. It's not through how great David is. It's not through how wonderful of a king he is. He's actually not a good king by earthly standards in many ways, which we'll get into here in a minute. It's only through the sacrificial King Jesus that he has closeness with God. And he goes into this further point too. It's not through performance. that can't be through performance because, look here with me in verse four, for you, he goes into God's character. For you are a God who does not delight in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes. You hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

So right here we see that David is functioning in a way that he has closeness with God only through the sacrificial King Jesus because God's character requires perfection. And so if you're trying to earn favor with God, And you're trying to live in a Northeast New England type of a way to where you're just grinding and you're working hard and you're trying to appear to be a good person and give your 10% and go to church on Sunday and have a good family and be a godly person and be moral. God's character requires perfection.

That's what David is saying here. I remember years ago, I was preaching at a youth conference and a youth pastor friend came to me afterward. I was preaching on the sacrificial system. And he came to me and he said, man, I think I understand it, but does God really need a sacrifice? Why can't God just overlook our sin? This is a good brother, had been a youth pastor for 20 years. Why can't God just overlook our sin? Why does he have to have a sacrifice? And we were talking and I said, because he's perfect and he's a good judge. Think about it this way, dear saints. This is what I explained to my friend too. Imagine a judge who had a plaintiff sitting before them, a person who was being convicted sitting before them.

And they were convicted of treason, and they had done anything they possibly could to overthrow the government. They had murdered, they had lied, they had aided and abetted, they had stolen, they had done everything that you could possibly imagine in order to overthrow the government. And the judge slammed the gavel and said, you can go free.

I imagine, even as sinful, corrupt people, even in 21st century America, we would say, that's wrong. And that judge should lose his office and his position as a judge because he is meant to uphold the law, and he's meant to be a good, just judge. Well, dear friends and saints at RBC, what would you say to an eternally good and just judge, God, who sits on his throne and looks at us Those who through our murderous thoughts and lustful thoughts and actions and intentions and our lying and our conception of who we are and who we appear to be, what kind of a just God would slam the gavel to those who have committed cosmic treason in trying to dethrone God and say, free and clear? You see, in a 21st century evangelicalism that has no justice, we lose the very essence and character of who God is.

He is just. He is good. He is right. And we as Christians have no place, and we as human beings have no place to question God. And David says, God, You're just, you're righteous, and so what? What does David do? He turns the corner in verse seven. But I, but I. He changes direction here, and we see that where God's character requires perfection, our character, because of our sinfulness, even if you've sinned once, in one way, you still don't meet the holy standard of a holy, perfect God. Because of our character, We must plead for mercy. Look at what David says. It's beautiful.

He says, but I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, that's God's covenant faithfulness, often referred to in Hebrew as the chesed, his covenant faithfulness and his love to his people. Through your abundant love and faithfulness, I will enter your house. Again, language of closeness, nearness, entering into the house of God. When you enter into someone's house, you're entering into their abode, into their dwelling. and you're close to them. And he says, I will enter in and bow down toward your holy temple in fear. The temple is the place that God dwells, which ultimately points to Jesus, which in John chapter one says that he is the true temple that comes to tabernacle with his people. So David, again, is saying, I'm going to enter in through Jesus, closeness with God, through his steadfast love.

But this next phrase, I think, is so telling. He says, lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness. See, David is not trusting in his own righteousness, or his own morality, or his own goodness. He's trusting in the righteousness of another, which goes back to what Pastor Greg preached last week. Psalm 4, verse 1, look at it. Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness." All throughout the Psalter, what we're going to see here is that whenever the psalmist pleads righteousness, he's not pleading his own righteousness, he's pleading the righteousness of another. And so, dear saints, it's not David's performance before God that can ever lead to closeness.

And this is the point that we're trying to drive out here. David's performance before God is not good enough. And he continues here. It's not good enough. Verse 9, it seems as though he might be shifting and talking about other people, but I'm going to make the case in a moment that he's actually lumping himself in here.

He says, for there is no truth in their mouth. Their innermost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. They make them bear their own guilt, O God. Let them fall by their own counsels because of the abundance of their transgressions. Cast them out, for they have rebelled against you.

See, David's performance can never, our performance, your performance, can never earn you a right standing with God or closeness with God, Christian or non-Christian alike. It's not based on a feeling of performance or a sense of what others say. It has nothing to do with your performance.

And here's the dilemma that David faces. David wants to be so intimately close with God, but his sin requires that God should execute his righteous judgment upon him. Let me put it this way. If you're looking here at verse nine, it says, for there's no truth in their mouth. Think about David and what he had just done, again, in the historical context, based on Psalm 3, when he fled his son Absalom. 1 Samuel, or 2 Samuel 11. What we see taking place here is David, when the time of the kings that they go off to war, David is in his palace, and he's looking, and he sees a woman bathing on a roof, Bathsheba.

Calls to have her brought. It's the wife of Uriah. She's already married. David doesn't care, he's only pursuing his own desires, and he takes her and they sleep together that night. But Sheba gets pregnant. And after she gets pregnant, David calls her husband Uriah back from war, where David should be, and says, come and drink, come and eat, and come and lay with your wife and spend time and be comforted by your wife for the night. Uriah comes and he comes into the house of David, and then he goes out and David expects to cover up his sin because Bathsheba's pregnant, cover up his sin with this lie, but Uriah goes and he sleeps with the servants. And how could he sleep in his own bed when his men are on the battlefield? He's an honorable man. He's a good man.

The next day, David sends Uriah back with a letter that says, put Uriah on the front walls that he might be killed in battle. Uriah carries the letter, doesn't look at it as an honorable man of integrity and he gives it to Joab, the commander of the army and the commander of the army sends Uriah to the front lines and he's murdered because of David's order.

For there is no truth in their mouth. Their innermost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongues. Make them bear their guilt, oh God. David deserves just condemnation that comes from God. That's David's dilemma here. And before we would say, saints, before we would look at David and say, I would never, How dare David? Who would do such a thing? Before we stick our noses up with an indignant, self-righteous attitude, saints, we need to recognize this point now and for the rest of our lives, that it's easy to talk about sin out there and others, but what we must start with is by talking about sin that's in here. in our hearts.

This is what the Apostle Paul does in Romans 3. He actually uses Psalm 5 verbatim to make his point that we're all sinners. Here's what he says. Romans 3.10. None is righteous. And just in case you were going to try to say one, he says, no, not one.

A few verses down, he quotes exactly from Psalm 5. He says, "...their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive." What I'm making the case for is that Paul gives us the interpretive key of what Psalm 5 is trying to communicate. Paul is not an eisegete. He's not reading his meaning into the text. He's telling us what Psalm 5 means.

And so when he says, no one is good, no, not one, not even David, not even Paul, he's saying that this text in Psalm 5 is trying to make this point, Romans 3.20. No human being will be justified. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin, we are transgressors along with David." That's what the Apostle Paul is trying to use Psalm 5 to say, that we have no righteousness and no standing before God based on performance, based on how good you think you are, by looking down your nose at another person for their sin, or even looking at David's sin and saying, how dare you, David? but it's by recognizing, along with David, that we have nothing good in us, that we have nothing to offer God, that we have no performance, and the only way that we're close to God is not through performance, dear saints, but it's through grace, point three, through grace. The very end of the song, David transitions, he says, but let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Again, the interconnectivity of the psalm. Psalm 2 verse 12.

Kiss the son lest he be angry with you and you perish in the way for his wrath will be quickly kindled. Blessed are those who take refuge in him. Referring to the King that God the Father has set above all rule and authority, King Jesus. David is saying the same thing here in Psalm 5. But let all who take refuge in King Jesus, the sacrificial King, says rejoice. Let them sing with joy and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exalt in you, for you bless the righteous."

Again, it's not David's righteousness, but it's a righteousness of another. You bless the righteous, O Lord, you cover him with favor as with a shield. We see here taking place in the Psalms that David recognizes in his singing that the only difference between him and his enemies is taking refuge in Jesus. That's the only difference between David and his enemies, is that he takes refuge in God, in the sacrificial system, in the King Jesus, in the Savior, the Messiah who is to come. That's the only difference between them. Many of his enemies, David's enemies, that is, they said, you're a man of blood.

You're a liar. You're a cheat. You're a thief. You stole a man's wife and then had him murdered. God's cursing you. And in a sense, in a worldly sense, we could probably say, OK, that makes sense. But it matters what David does with that. He doesn't cover it up. He doesn't hide it. He sings about it. And he says before God in the morning, every morning, My only hope is your sacrificial King Jesus.

And I, the only way that I enter into your throne is not through my righteousness, but through your steadfast love and your faithfulness that time close to God and Paul's argument. actually highlights this in Romans 3.23, the same context, again, where Paul makes the case in 3.10, no one is righteous, no, not even one. All of us will be condemned under the law.

And then Romans 3.23, he makes this point. And this is the same point that David is making here.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith. Dear Saints, is it possible that week after week, year after year, you've just been talking about God's grace or listening about God's grace, but you haven't really experienced God's grace deeply in your life because you haven't recognized the depravity and seriousness of your sin and offense against a holy God? If you covered up sin by saying, oh, it's just a mistake, it was an accident, it's not that bad, I'm better than other people. Listen, as a pastor, I have your good in mind, and by identifying that you have deep sin, the goal is to point you to Jesus and find grace, which ultimately leads you to find joy in Christ.

I'll put it this way. This last week, and really the last month as I've been meditating on the Psalms, I've hesitated to share what I'm about to say here in a minute. So over the past month or so, as I've been praying through the Psalms and thinking about what the Lord has for our church for now and for the future, honestly, this story came to mind, and I've been chatting about it with my wife and been praying about it, and I'm hesitant to share. And the reason I'm hesitant to share is because some of you may judge me for what I'm about to say. But week after week, day after day, I've been praying and thinking, and I just feel an overwhelming sense of, I need to share. I need to tell, I need you to know, and I think that this is how God is preparing us at RBC for what comes to the future. That if we want to be a church that grows, if we want to be a church that welcomes sinners, that we want to be a church that loves for the community and shares the gospel of grace, it means that we also need to know what the radical transformative power of the gospel looks like in our own hearts.

And so if you're one of those people who will judge me for what I'm about to say, I pray you would give me grace, please. Because just this week, what pushed me over the ledge is I was reading this article from a pastor, and he had this quote in here that I thought was really poignant and key. He says, here in this quote, he says, Jesus was very patient with sexual sinners, and would I add, like David. Like David. but he was very hard on hypocrites. You can't follow Jesus while pretending that you don't really need him. Let that sink. You can't follow Jesus while pretending that you don't need him.

We all know the stereotype. We all know the Fairfield County stereotypical person. We have everything put together. And now I can call myself a Fairfield County person, right? Because I live in Fairfield County. So I have my life put together, right? We know the stigma. I'm okay. I'm independent. I have life figured out. I have life by the horns.

Dear church, in May 2016, My wife and I were getting ready for bed, and she asked me a piercing question. She said, have you been looking at pornography? And I said, no. I lied. And what came next was about a 60-second pause. And in that pause, I was having all kinds of thoughts go through my mind. I thought, no, I haven't recently, as in the last three months.

See, I was introduced to illicit images as a young man, as many of our young men in this church have, and some of the young women too, which started a pursuit of those images, which became easier and easier the older I got. And it became hiding it from my family, hiding it from my mom and dad. But then when I came to know Jesus Christ, That's when I realized it was wrong and sinful, and I didn't want to do that anymore. 17 years old, no more. I don't want to do it anymore. That's when my battle began.

Go a few months, fall back into my sin. A few more months, fall back into my sin. Always hoping, always anticipating that when I was married, the problem would go away. This is a common misconception. After being married to my wife, I told her my past. I told her my battle, my fight. I had other men who were holding me accountable. And after we got married, I had enough willpower and self-control to find victory over it for a season. But after about six months, fell back into it. A few more months, fell back into it.

And I always had the thought in my mind, I'm just going to fight this on my own. I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm not going to talk to anyone. It's just one time. I'm just going to fight it on my own. All of these thoughts going through my mind as my wife asked me this question, and I say, no. Not recently, not lately. I'm dealing with it. 60 seconds passes, and I say, yes. And the floodgates open in her eyes.

And I've never seen anyone more broken or betrayed in my entire life. But what I learned through that process is that it wasn't just about betraying my wife. but it's about how I treated a holy God and what I deserved for my sin and for thinking that I could be independent and deal with it on my own and just grit my teeth and work harder or perform somehow. But all that did was lead me into a downward spiral of more guilt and more shame.

And dear saints, I would love to talk to you more about this, but what I'll say here is that that moment of bringing me to one of the lowest points in my entire life, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and even sharing it with you now, 10 years later, embarrassment, worried about what others will think about me, what I learned through that moment is that in our weakness, in our humiliation, like David's humiliation here, is where God meets us and begins to grow us and mend us back together by His grace. And what I can say to you, by God's grace, 10 years later, is that God has given me victory for the last 10 years over that sin. And I give all the glory to God for it. And so here's the point, dear saints. When I see another sinner who walks in the counseling room or walks in the church, who am I to say, how dare you? Who's David to say, how dare you sinner? I would never do that. You know what we're to say as a group of Christians?

Me too. If not for the grace of God, that would be me. But dear sinner, dear sufferer, let's wrap our arms around each other and let's sing to the glory and praise of God now and forever. RBC, that's the kind of church that God wants us to be. And I had a hard time sharing that story, but I know that if that's where God's going to lead us, I need to lead us there. And I pray that you would give me grace if you're tempted to judge me. And I pray that by God's grace, He would work in you in such a way that you might take that first step to be able to say, I am a sinner in desperate need of God's grace and mercy. I need help. I'm not okay. I'm not independent. I can't do it on my own. Pastor, help me. Friend, help me.

Pastors, elders, sister, let's wrap our arms around each other and sing what David sings here as sinners saved by grace through the sacrificial lamb, the sacrificial king. Let all who take refuge in him rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy. And oh, Lord God, would you spread your protection upon RBC. And would you let us love you that we might exult in your name. And Lord God, would you bless us with your righteousness and would you cover us with favor as with a shield.

And dear saints, we will never get there until we realize every morning that Christianity and closeness to God is not about performance, but it's about grace. Beginning our mornings by reminding ourselves and reminding each other We're close to God, not because of our performance, but because of grace.

And by God's grace, may that be the message that you hear from this pulpit. And by God's grace, may that be the message that we instill within this church. Let's pray that God would make it so. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We pray that this moment wouldn't just be passed up as just another day, another sermon.

If everyone forgets what I say tomorrow, great. But may they never forget your loving kindness and grace for them in Christ. That you came to save sinners. You came to save the weak and the sick and the downcast. And that the church is a refuge for people like this. A hospital for the sick. Lord God, help us to love and care for Fairfield County and beyond. And would you motivate us now by your spirit as we move to the table, in Jesus' precious name we pray, amen.