The Presence Of God Is Your Only Refuge

Please stand in honor of God's word. The Old Testament reading begins in Genesis chapter three, starting in verse 24.

He drove out the man and at the east of the garden of the Eden, he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

And over to Ezekiel chapter 10, starting in verse 18.

Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim.

And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out with the wheels beside them.

And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord and the glory of the

God of Israel was over them. New Testament reading is

John one, one through 18. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was

God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shines in darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, his name was John. He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.

He was not the light but came to bear witness about the light. The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.

He was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him who believes in his name he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the son from the father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness about him and cried out, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks before me because he was before me.

And from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God, only God who is at the father's side he has made him known.

Please remain standing. Good morning.

If you'd be so kind and open up your Bibles to Psalm five, Psalm five,

Psalm five. We'll read it. I'll go to the Lord in prayer. To the choir master for the flutes, a

Psalm of David. 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. O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.

In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and then I watch. For you are not a

God who delights 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. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.

I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. Lead me,

O Lord, in your righteousness. Because of my enemies make my way straight before me.

For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction.

Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue. Make them bear their 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.

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exult in you.

For you bless the righteous, O Lord. You cover him with favor as with a shield.

Oh God, what an honor and what an awesome thing it is for us to gather here on this

Lord's Day morning and to worship the holy, holy, holy one.

God in heaven, how could it be that we, sinners, defiled by our sin, could even come before you?

How can we come to your gathering with the saints? How can that even be?

How can that be a reality? Lord, let us be amazed that although you are perfectly righteous and pure and perfect in all your ways, and although that we have rebelled and sinned against you, you have made a great way of salvation, a way back to you.

Your presence is once more with us through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's him we proclaim.

We glorify him. It's the salvation that you provide for us in your steadfast love.

It's the righteousness that you lead us unto. It's Jesus Christ. Let him be honored today because you have done it.

You have done a wonderful thing for us. Lord, be with my lips and be with their ears. And let your righteousness dwell with us here.

Let your presence be felt. And let us honor you and be thankful for that reality in Jesus.

In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I thought about skipping

Psalm 5. I'm not gonna go through every psalm because that would take 20 ,000 years. But I skipped

Psalm 3 and I thought about skipping 5 because if you look, if you are attentive to it, you can see that Psalm 4, which we just went over, and Psalm 5 has a lot of similarities.

The beginning and the end is very similar, actually. It's kind of interesting how similar they are. And let me just point that out to you real quick.

Notice in Psalm 4, verse 1, answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness.

You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

So remember, it's all about being distressed, right? And we're feeling distressed and we cry out to our

God. And remember, it ends, Psalm 4 ends with what? A assurance, a conviction that when we do this,

God becomes our refuge. He hears us and he protects us. Remember in Psalm 4, verse 8, in peace

I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell. And safety. And we see a common theme going on in Psalm 5, too, don't we?

Look at Psalm 5, verse 1 through 3. It's the same kind of idea. Give ear to my words,

O Lord, consider my groaning, my distress. Give attention to the sound of my cry, my king and my

God, for to you do I pray. So we kind of get the same sense, don't we?

It's the same kind of idea where this psalmist, this individual is distressed and he's crying out to his

God. In fact, it's the same idea, too. You remember Psalm 4, he's distressed, why? Why is this psalmist, why is this individual distressed?

Because he's the one who has kissed the sun, remember, in Psalm 2. And because he has kissed the sun, he is made righteous and so the turmoil, the distress between the sun and the world becomes our distress or the individual's distress, remember?

The individual's distress over sinners who are sinning against them. And so he's crying out to the Lord and the

Lord proves to be a refuge for us who engages in the same conflict that's in Jesus Christ and the world.

And so we see this again in Psalm 5 in which there's a listen to me, let me cry out to you and then he's talking about wickedness again.

And then he concludes in Psalm 5 the same way, if you notice, in Psalm 5, verse 11 and 12, but let all who take refuge, have you noticed refuge is all over the place?

Let all who take refuge in you rejoice. Let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them that those who love your name may exalt in you for you bless the righteous,

O Lord, and you cover them, you cover him with favor as with a shield.

So notice again how it ends the same way in four that God proves to be a refuge to us in our distress.

These things are being repeated. I wanna point though and let me repeat myself again before we get on to the nuance of this

Psalm. And if you look at Psalm 5, verse 3, it is something that bears repeating over and over again that we need to meditate on over and over again.

Is that if you notice in Psalm 5, 1 and 2, he's distressed. He's crying out to the

Lord in his distress and notice what he does with that distress. In verse 3, it says,

O Lord, O Yahweh, in the morning you hear my voice. So he wakes up and he's distressed and he says, in the morning you hear my prayer.

And he says, in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and then I watch. What's he saying there?

What's he saying there? Well, if you have the NIV or another translation, it'll say in the morning

I look up to you, I believe. I look up and I watch. And the idea is that it's very much a language of sacrifice and he's gonna talk about being in the temple of the

Lord. So that's in the back of his mind, we know. And he's alluding to the temple sacrifices.

And the idea is that there's always a morning sacrifice and evening sacrifice. And so the idea is he's connecting himself individually with that and he's saying, in my distress,

I'm coming to you in worship and I'm watching as if I'm sacrificing to you to see what you do with it.

Sacrifice, it's the same language. Whether or not you say look up and wait or sacrifice, it's the same kind of language.

The idea is the same. And I think what he's saying there is that in my distress, I'm using that distress in a particular way.

And we talked about this last week. How do we use our distress in the Lord? What do we do with that? Well, it better be to worship

God, right? That is why God is giving you that distress so you can use it to worship him. And I think that's what

David is saying here. I'm distressed and in the morning, in light of that distress, I'm preparing a sacrifice to you by prayer and waiting for to see how you respond in this situation.

He's anticipating the glorious way that God will use this distress for his good and for the name of God.

That's the way we need to handle our distress, every single one of them. God is sovereign over every ounce of your life.

And if you are in the beloved, right? If your sins are forgiven, God has only good for you.

And again, we already said that's not a Joel Osteen statement, that's not a Joel Osteen statement, but that is a legitimate truth in scripture that God has only good for his elect, for his saints.

Now that might hurt us, it might not be fun, but nevertheless, we get to see God work in our lives in an amazing way.

And so when we have that distress, we use it as fodder to worship our God. We use our distress, our hard times, our tears, our crying, and we say,

I get to give this to my God and watch him do amazing things with it. That might not mean your circumstances get any better, but it does mean that if you obey him in this, you will see

Jesus more clearly in this. And beloved, let me tell you, I just spit, woof. Let me tell you right now that any distress that makes you see

Jesus more clearly is worth it every time. And if you do not have that conviction, I implore you, repent and see that Jesus is much better than a comfortable life that you so desire.

This is what's going on here. In the psalm, we have, again, a distressful psalmist.

We have a distressful David, and he's saying, and he's confident that God will take this and he will do something magnificent with it.

And of course, the ending of that psalm is, he will be a refuge for all those who are in the Lord. That's the conviction here.

And you see, going into the nuance of this psalm, how it is striking a different chord here within this framework.

As he says in verse four, for you are not a God who delights in wickedness.

That for there means he's connecting it with the prior verses. And he's saying that I'm in distress because of the wicked, and I rely that you will listen to me and do something magnificent with this because you don't like wickedness.

Because David was in righteousness because of God, he's saying, I'm in distress because of the wicked, because of my righteousness, just like we talked about in psalm four.

And he's saying, I know that you will do good things with this because you hate wickedness and you love righteousness.

David was secured in his relationship with God. He was confident in that because of what

God has done for him. And so he knew that God was going to work this for his good and God's glory because he was in righteousness and God hates wickedness.

And this is going to lead us into, I think, this nuance that we have going on here in this psalm, in which if you notice in verse four through six, he says, for you are not a

God who delights 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 of horrors, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. See, there's that foundational statement there.

There's that foundational statement there that God's presence will not be with the wicked.

And this proves to be, I think, the main theme of this psalm is that God's presence will not be with the wicked, but God's presence will be with the righteous.

That's the foundational statement there. And we can see in verse seven how he says individually how we can be in his presence, right?

Look at verse seven. But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, notice he doesn't say because I'm so awesome.

Through the abundance of your steadfast love, God, will enter your house.

I will enter your dwelling place. I will enter your presence through your steadfast love.

We see in verse 10, he says the opposite. He says the wicked as a whole will not.

Make them, in verse 10 of chapter five, bear their guilt, O God. Let them fall by their own lies, their own counsels, because of the abundance of their transgressions.

What does he say? Cast them out of your house, of your presence. For they have rebelled against you.

There's that common theme too, right? Psalm two is all about the rebellion of the world against the sun, right? And those who take refuge in the sun, quits their rebellion and submits to him.

They're the one that gets to gain the awesome presence of our God. But those who abstain rebellion against God, against his sun, will be cast out ultimately from God's good presence.

And then so the finishing again, again in verse 11, but let all who take refuge in you, let all those who are in holy presence with you, let us rejoice, right?

So you see that contrast going on here. You got God's presence not being afforded to the wicked, but you have it being afforded to the righteous.

And it's really important. Well, and let's see, refuge there is another word, again, for being in the presence of God.

Refuge, we see in verse 11, has been a common theme these first few chapters, if you remember.

Refuge in Psalm two enables us to avoid the wrath of the sun, remember?

Refuge in Psalm two enables us to avoid the wrath of the sun.

Psalm two, verse 11, no, verse 12. The last line of the

Psalm, blessed are all who take refuge in the sun. Refuge is a common theme.

In chapter four, in Psalm four, refuge enables us to endure the rage of the nations.

Refuge in Psalm two enables us not to endure the wrath of the sun. Instead, we have his good presence, we have his love.

Refuge in Psalm four enables us, finding refuge in God enables us to endure the wrath of the wicked, of the nations, of those who are in rebellion against God.

We should not be surprised that the world would hate Jesus and so hate his followers, as Jesus told us.

So finding refuge in the sun enables us to endure their hatred. And in here, in Psalm five, we see that refuge enables us to have the prized possession of God's presence.

It's a great thing to have, to be able to be in the presence of God. There is no greater reality that you can have, beloved, than to be in the presence of God.

If you believe that your sin is better, that living in sin, doing the things that you know are not right is better for you than being in the presence of God, it's because it's deception.

You are lying to yourself and you're believing a lie. And the moment you reject that and you obey the sun, you'll see that it is much better to be in the house of the

Lord than to be outside with the wickedness. It is a prized possession that taking refuge in our

God enables us to have his wondrous presence. Our greatest good is to be near God.

That is our greatest good. And if you see, again, chapter five, verses four through six, we see, for you are not a

God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. So sin stops us from having that prized possession.

And this is essentially the reason why, as a church, we hate sin. We hate sin.

We don't like sin. We don't want sin to be here. We don't wanna be around sin. There's nothing wrong with saying that.

The world calls us judgmental and all sorts of little words that were supposed to make us feel bad about it, but we hate sin.

Why do we hate sin? Why do we not like it? Because we know that is exactly the opposite of the presence of God.

And we are a people who have been awakened to the presence of God, and we know that sin stops that, and so we wanna do everything we can do to get rid of it.

And it starts within ourselves, and it kinda spills over into those around us.

And it's important to understand because the church in the past, I think, in a lot of ways, can lose sight of this, right? We want people to act a certain way because there's a certain tradition involved here in the church, right?

Societal norms that we need to respect, right? In the past, it used to be, Tim, the big one was no beards, right?

You came here, the first thing you asked is can I have a beard? If not, he was gone. That was it. But a lot of Baptist churches, the idea that in order to fit in around here, you gotta not have a beard, right?

When Jesus, his hair's pulled out, he just magically grew it for that moment, right?

That's what happened. We have all sorts of laws and rules and regulations that the church can fall into that has nothing to do with having the presence of God.

It has everything to do with something else, and foolish things, right? Only demons wear jeans, you know?

Dancing is only fit for those in hell, you know? That's kind of like, where does this come from, right?

Where does it say not to dance and where does it say not to wear jeans, right? But that's just the way we do things around here.

And so there's this legalism that kind of went throughout the church a lot of ways. And then there was a rightful reaction to that.

Be like, wait, wait, where do we get in scripture that this has anything to do with our desire to be with God? What does that have anything to do with it?

There's a rightful reaction to that, and so what does the church like to do then? What is so easy to do? Let's go too far the other side, right?

We fell on that ditch over there, let's go on this ditch over here. Well, we say anyone can do anything they want, okay? That's what that is.

And so whenever someone sins, we don't wanna judge them, we don't wanna talk about their sin, we don't wanna approach it, we don't love them enough to do that, let's just ignore it and just let everyone be the way that they are.

You know, because that's what the world's telling us to do, and the world, I guess, thinks they can do Bible study better than we can. It's the strangest thing how they think that way.

But we fall into the other side of the ditch and say let everyone do, but beloved, whenever we are sure in our foundation, what are we doing here?

We are here to experience the presence of God. And sin stops that.

And if that drives us, it'll keep us from both sides of the ditch and we'll stay sober -minded on the task at hand.

That God has made his presence here. And it's wonderful. And we hate sin because it stops that.

So anything that's going to stop this beautiful goal, foundational principle, that is what we go to war with.

This presence of God, and the lack of it because of sin, and yet God being faithful and kind to give it to us anyways through Jesus, this is the theme of scripture.

It really is. And I want to take a few moments just to look at that because I just think it's wonderful to see. It is the theme of scripture.

The presence of God is the theme of scripture. This prized possession of God's presence is a theme.

You know in the garden, God walked with Adam. We see that in the Genesis account. God walked with Adam in the garden.

In fact it says in the cool of the day, God walked with Adam. The idea is it's probably morning and evening, right?

He walked with Adam. There was a special presence going on there that Adam got to enjoy with God, right?

But then when Adam sins and he's kicked out of the garden, we know that it's a picture of him being kicked out of the presence of God.

But before that happens, we know that a promise is given, right? That someone's going to come that will defeat the works of Satan that caused this great calamity of you about to be kicked out, right?

And so that's the hope of all scripture is that although the presence of God has been intimately kicked out, it's gone, it's done, the promise is that one day it'll come back.

Who is this? What's gonna happen? What is this gonna look like? And that's the whole anticipation as we read through scriptures, right?

And so we get that. You ever notice at the end of Exodus, there's this great climax of the story.

And what is that climax of the story at the end of Exodus? Well look at Exodus 40. Look at Exodus 40.

The end of Exodus. The climax of it is the building of what? It's the building of the tabernacle.

What was such a big deal about the tabernacle? It represented the presence of God, right? Adam got kicked out of the garden, presence of God is gone, but here now the tabernacle is built and this represents the presence of God.

It is a climactic part of the story in which God is working this presence back on earth despite sin.

And that's what makes this Exodus 40 so wonderful. If you look at verse 34 through 38, the very end of the book, then the cloud covered the tent of meeting and the glory of the

Lord filled the tabernacle. In Exodus 40 verse 35, and Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it and the glory of the

Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out.

But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out to the day that it was taken up. They went wherever the glory of God was, in other words.

For the cloud of the Lord was on the tabernacle by day and fire was in it by night in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.

See, look at this beautiful thing, right? The presence of God is back on earth. It's in the tabernacle of Israel. What's the issue though?

Does this presence stay there? No, it doesn't. Why? Because man sins,

Israel sins. It's the story of Adam all over again. I think I just rhymed. I think

I just rhymed. I think that was a good rhyme right there. Ezekiel, go to Ezekiel 10 and we'll see this at play. Look at Ezekiel 10.

We got the temple of the Lord, the presence of God and this is a tragedy here in Ezekiel 10.

Why? Because of the glory of God departs from the temple.

Ezekiel 10, verse 18 and 19. I want you to notice the words in here. Ezekiel 10, 18 and 19, we have the glory of the

Lord leaving the temple. Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stood over the cherubim, angel.

And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out with the wheels beside them and they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the

Lord. And the glory of God of Israel was over them. So it's like these cherubim. The glory of God leaves the temple and it's almost like as if it's stationary at the east gate.

What's the point? What's the? There's something that's being said here and our mind should be reminded of the last time that the glory of God departed away from man.

What is that? Well, notice, you can listen. I know our fingers get tired sometimes of changing pages but if you look in Genesis, in Genesis 3, 24, we hear the same kind of language as Adam is kicked out of the temple.

In Genesis 3, 24, he drove out the man and notice the direction.

And at the east of the garden of Eden, he placed a cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

It's the same kind of idea, right? It's that the glory of God departs and he guards it from man to come back in.

Because of our sin, because of our sin, we are not able to be in the holy, perfect, beautiful, intimate presence with God and so now the cherubim is protecting that from happening, that sin would dwell with God.

And we have it happening at the east, the east gate, east side of the garden, right? The scriptures are telling you right here that as it happened to Adam, so now it's happened to Israel.

As Adam failed in the garden and is now the glory of the Lord is away from him, he's kicked out, so the same thing is happening to Israel.

Israel has failed, Israel has sinned and now the glory of God has departed once more.

So the question we gotta ask ourselves as we're going through scripture is will not the presence of God be with us and stay with us?

Will it consistently depart from us because of the conditions of man's sin because we do not prove to be faithful so he leaves?

Will it ever be permanent? Will he ever be here with us permanently?

Or are we destined for this constant failure of not meeting the demands of God, the conditions of God and so therefore he leaves us?

Will this always happen? And beloved, this question needs to create angst in our heart.

We need to cry over this because we know that the greatest good of our existence, the greatest thing we could have is the glory and the presence of God.

But we know that because of sin, all fall short of this glory. And so we should ask ourselves, will anyone save us from this situation?

And that's what makes the beautiful gospels so glorious. Go with me to John one.

Go with me to John one. I think John is referring back to this. We won't read all those verses that we read earlier today but notice the same theme plays itself out in verse 14 of John chapter one.

And the word, the son of God, the eternal word, God himself became flesh.

And what among us? He dwelt among us. We were not able to keep the presence of God for him to dwell here on earth of our own efforts and so God takes on flesh and dwells with us.

And we have seen, John says, his glory. Glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth.

Look at verse 16. For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses and we all fail it. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.

There's this idea, this understanding that we fail over and over again and God leaves us because of our failures, because of our sin.

He hates wickedness. He cannot be with it. So he takes on flesh and he comes to us and he tabernacles amongst us and he dwells with us and he does a very important work that enables us to have the presence of God forever.

And what is that great work that Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, has done? Look at John.

Continue on in John. In chapter 19. What is

Jesus saying, John 19? Verses 28 through 30.

This God -man, on display, glorifying God, he comes and he dwells among us, sinners, rebellion.

After this, Jesus, in verse 28, chapter 19, knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill the scripture,

I thirst. So a jar full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.

When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head and gave up his spear. What is finished? The promise of old, that although you have failed and although the presence of God has gone, the

Messiah would come and finish and end the work of Satan. And we can see now, what would this be?

Who is this Messiah? What would he do? Here he is, he is Jesus Christ, our risen, our dead

Savior, who has taken sins upon him, the failures of all mankind upon him.

He says, it is finished, I have done the work. I have completed the promise of God. And he gives up his spirit.

So we can see that this problem of God's presence constantly eluding us because of our sin is satisfied in Jesus Christ, that we would have the perfect presence of God because forgiveness of sins is found in his death and resurrection.

God hates wickedness and he shows just how much he hates wickedness because he places wrath upon his son so that he can say, it is finished and we can be found righteous in him so that we can have the presence of God because of our sins being forgiven.

I don't think it's a, may I use the word coincidence, that later on in this chapter, look at verse 41 of chapter 19.

I don't think it is a coincidence or strange providence in verse 41 of chapter 19.

Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a what? I think that's an interesting tidbit.

There was a garden. And in the garden, there was a tomb. And that's where Jesus was laid.

I don't know, I don't wanna grab for straws. I don't wanna get crazy here. But I think what's going on there, John is highlighting the fact that man failed, the presence of God gone because of our sin in the garden.

And the God man comes and dies in the garden and brings the presence back. And he's laid in the tomb in the garden to bring the presence back.

Everything is coming full circle. Presence of God left in the garden and it comes back in the garden because Jesus Christ has done the work.

Now I could go even crazier. If you look in chapter 20, what is Jesus confused as?

What does she think he is, Mary? Remember? I don't wanna get too crazy.

I'll just leave it there, I'll let you look. I'm not even gonna say it. But then let's finish with this kind of systematic look at this of all scriptures.

What does then Jesus tell his disciples, his people to do? If you look at Matthew 28, and then we'll get back to the text.

Matthew 28, what does Jesus commission? What does he tell us to do? What does he tell the disciples to do in which we have that same mission ourselves?

Matthew 28, verse 18. He's done the work. He's finished it, he's completed it.

Before he goes back to the Father, he says this. All authority, in verse 18 of Matthew 28.

And heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, and lo,

I am with you. I'm with you, always, to the end of the age. God is with us, hosanna, is with us.

And so the work of Jesus was come and to make the presence of God permanent, no longer conditioned on our obedience or lack of, but on his obedience.

And he gives us the power through the Spirit so that presence is always with us, that prized possession is ours because of Jesus Christ, our risen

Lord. And we are to now commission to go and give this presence to all the nations because the nations are in rebellion.

They hate God. And so we tell them the gospel because through the gospel, they can kiss the Son and have and enjoy this glorious presence of our awesome

God. We, the temple of God, tell the wicked world to repent and believe upon Jesus to join the temple and to facilitate

God's presence. To facilitate God's presence, we strive against sin together, don't we?

We don't point out other people's sin in order to hate on them and to judge them and to make ourselves feel better.

And how the world misconstrues the way we deal with sin as a temple of the Lord. Why do we deal with sin?

Because we want to facilitate the presence of God here. We know that sin will hinder that goal.

And so we hate sin because we love the presence of God and we're enabled by the work of Jesus Christ to do so.

So we tell the nations of the gospel so they can join us. And then we work against sin together.

It is the most loving thing to do because any kind of sin takes away from this great thing that we have because of what

Jesus Christ has done. That is a beautiful relationship and presence with our God. Okay, so now we'll work just a few minutes through the whole psalm.

We can see this playing out before our very eyes. In Psalm 5, verses four through six.

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness. Evil may not dwell with you. That's not just a threat.

Time and time again, God has proven this, that I do not dwell with wickedness. I hate it,

I don't want anything to do with it, I don't delight in it. You know how we know what a good life is versus a bad life?

God defines it for us. And since God delights in good things, what he defines to be good, that is good for his creatures too.

It is good for us to be obedient to the Lord by his power. He defines what it is.

Not us, not our experiences, we were talking about in Sunday school. And so since God delights in good, we are to delight in good.

Since God hates wickedness, we hate wickedness. And that's what forces us, that's what drives us to work against it in our own lives and we love each other enough to work against it in each other's lives.

Because God hates wickedness, we hate wickedness. Because God delights in wickedness, delights in righteousness, we delight in righteousness.

It's founded, grounded in him, not in our own goofball fancies that we can fall prey to if we're not careful.

If we look, moving on, he then talks about the individual. How can I be in the presence of God?

Because don't be one of those people where you're so high and mighty, so proud of yourself that you think, yeah,

I am a pretty good person. I can be in the presence of God. The whole point is whenever you see that, whenever you see wickedness can't be with God, God can't be with sin, don't then go and become a defense attorney.

Well, my wickedness isn't that wicked. My sin isn't that sinful. No, it's a blanket statement. God hates your sin, period.

That's it. You cannot be in the presence of God with your sins. So the question needs to be asked, how is there any hope for me?

We see this in verses seven and eight. But I, David says, through the abundance of your steadfast love.

Why must his love be steadfast? Because of our sin, because we rebel against God, because we are naturally inclined to evil.

And so if God's love was not steadfast, immovable, steady, if it wasn't, there'd be no hope for us.

But because God's love is so overwhelming, even despite our rebellion and turning away from him, he makes a way for us.

But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, O Lord, will enter your presence, your house, your dwelling place.

I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you. It's ultimately found in Jesus Christ, who is the temple of God.

And when he works his work of salvation in us, we become the temple of God. Ultimately, the fulfillment is the church,

Jesus Christ himself, the cornerstone. Lead me, he says. O Lord, in your righteousness, we need to be led, don't we?

You need to be led. Even in being in the presence of God, having Christ, sin still grabs hold of us, wanting to bring us down.

Even in churches, we see it all the time, that sin encroaches and brings about great turmoil.

In the church. So what, we need to be led constantly. We never get, as I say, we never are bored

Christians. Because where there's always sin that we have to deal with in our life, God never sanctifies us to a point to where he's like, guess what, you arrived, that's it.

You can relax now, you're good. There's a moment that we get to that point to where it's like, oh, I got through that sin.

Guess what God then so faithfully and lovingly does to us? He says, guess what, there's more here. Now you can see more sin.

So we constantly need to wake up and ask God, lead me in your righteousness. Show me my sin.

Show me where I don't even see the sin that I'm doing. Show me, my Lord, because I want your presence. I don't want my sin.

Notice it's always God is the author, perfecter, and mover of our salvation from beginning to end into eternity.

Lead me, oh Lord, in your righteousness. Not in sin, but in your righteousness. Because that's where God's presence is.

Because my enemies make your way straight before me. Let's quickly go through the next section, verses nine through 10.

For there is no truth in their mouth. Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave.

They flatter with their tongue. Now if you, you can hear Paul saying that, can't you? Paul says that in Romans.

And Paul uses that text to talk about that this sin problem is not just a isolated incident.

All men, all women fall short to the glory of God, right? And this is the text, part of the text that he uses to make that point is that we all fall short of the glory of God.

We all fall short of the presence of God. We all have this issue. This is all a problem for all mankind.

Verse 10, make them bear that guilt, oh God. Let them fall by their own counsels because of the abundance of their transgressions.

Cast them out like Adam was cast out, like Israel was cast out. All who are sin deserve to be cast out for they have rebelled against you.

This is this great transition into those, the society of God's people who enjoy the presence of God.

But let all who take refuge in you rejoice. I'm gonna be careful how

I say this. I think there's a shift between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the

Old Testament, it's more defensive, right? God says, go into the promised land, stay there and be my people, right?

And it's more like hunker down here, right? And so there's an idea that you see the wicked and you don't like what they do.

In fact, you hate what they do and you don't want anything to do with that. And that's kind of the principle that's being said here, right?

Kick them out, God. Don't even let them be here. I think there is a change of pace in the

New Covenant. Why, because the nature of the New Covenant is different. The presence of God isn't just for one piece of land in which you just hunker down, is it?

Remember what Jesus says, and it's very important to understand what Jesus says in Matthew 16, in Matthew 16.

I think it details the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant with the way that the presence of God in his people acted.

If you look at Matthew 16, verse 16, we get this confession of Peter.

Simon Peter replied in Matthew 16, verse 16, you are the Christ, the son of the living

God. And then Jesus responds in verse 18 by saying, and I tell you, in verse 18, you are

Peter. And on this rock, on this confession, on this true statement of me being

Messiah, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

I will build my church based off of this true statement of who I am as Messiah. And he says the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Now, typically, a gate, a wall, right, a gate keeps people out. And what

Jesus is saying is this message, this gospel, this message of the church, of the presence of God, is offensive.

And I don't mean it offends me. I'm saying that it goes on the attack and it takes down the gates of hell so that it brings the presence of God, not just from Jerusalem, not just from the

Promised Land of Canaan, but we're going to the world with this great gospel truth.

And so here we can see, and going back to Psalm 5, there's an idea in which we should have this desire in our hearts where it's like we hate evil too because God hates evil.

We don't want wickedness here too because God hates wickedness. We want righteousness. There's a fact that's obviously true.

There's also a sense in which we know the way the kingdom works, don't we? We know the way the church, the kingdom of God, Jesus Christ and his church operates, don't we?

Is that it is meant to be taken to the world. It's meant to be taken to the wicked. So we hate their wickedness, we hate their rebellion, but we go to them in love and say, this is your way out.

There is one who has came who you can be forgiven of your sins if you believe upon him. No longer a rebel anymore, but now you can be in the presence of God if you believe upon him.

See, we hate the wickedness of the world. We want them to be cast out in a certain sense, but we also bring this truth of the gospel that you can be brought in through Jesus Christ.

I think there is certainly a tension there within our hearts.

In Revelation, we see the saints cry out, Jesus, come and let your judgment come upon these sinners and wicked ones.

But there's also a certain urgency where we say we wanna give them the gospel so that they can turn from their rebellion, turn from their wickedness and be brought forth into the presence of the righteousness of God.

And these are the ones in verse 11 and 12. The ones who turn from their wickedness, the ones who take refuge in the son, who kiss the son, says, but let all who take refuge in you rejoice.

Or let them be joyful, let them be happy, let them ever sing for joy and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exalt or be happy or joyful in you.

For you bless the righteous, O Lord, you cover him with favor as with a shield.

See, whenever we are people who claim to have the presence of God, what does the presence of God offer us?

What does it do for us? I see in those two verses, what do we see over and over and over again?

We are a joyful people, we rejoice, we sing for joy, right? We exalt or we have joy in the

Lord, right? The presence of God enables us to have a joy deep -rooted within our hearts that once more, what we've already said from the last psalm is that no distress, nothing that man can do to us can take that away.

In fact, God uses that distress to further illuminate the glories and riches and beauties of Jesus Christ.

So even that distress causes us to see Jesus clearer. And so that creates more joy.

It's a cycle of more and more joy and happiness in the Lord. But what happens?

You ever wake up and you just don't seem to have joy, right? Get up and I just don't seem to be too happy in the

Lord today. And the whole idea of the presence of God is for me to be joyful in God. And I'm not allowed to say, well,

I'm distressed, so therefore I don't have joy in the Lord. No, God uses that distress so I can have joy in the Lord. You ever wake up and it just doesn't quite happen to you, doesn't happen to me, what do we do?

What is the beginning of Psalm 4 and Psalm 5? What does the psalmist do? He cries out to the

Lord, right? With our lack of experience of the presence of God that he has given to us, when we wake up and we don't have that, do we just say, eh, let me just move on with our day.

Ah, well, not gonna happen today. What do we do? We say, good, this is actually, I'm gonna use this here as fodder to worship my

God and say, I don't know, I don't feel you, you're not here. I'm distressed here, right?

But I know you're there and I know that you use this for my good and your glory. So I'm preparing this sacrifice of praise, of prayer, of concern, and I'm gonna watch you do your thing in this.

I'm gonna watch you produce in me a certain joy, a confidence in the work of Jesus Christ in this.

We cannot be a Christian in which we wake up with no love for the Lord, no joy, no worship, and just say, eh, just gonna go on with my day.

No, we cry out to the Lord in genuine prayer and genuine thirst.

Oh God, help me, I know you can and will because you promise it in your covenant to me. And I guarantee you that God will answer you.

Now, you might still not feel too good. You might still be in the dumps. But God will utilize that, manifest that.

He will show his richness even in that. He will reveal himself to you and you'll see that it was good for me to feel that way.

Now, you might not say that in the moment, but overall, obedient to the Lord and you go through it, you will say, I'm glad the

Lord did that for me because he came and he comforted me and he made himself real to me there.

He will cause rejoicing in your heart. This is an aspect of the great presence, the great beauty we have to be able to be close to our

God. That, again, like we said last week, we're not a slave to our circumstances, are we?

Circumstances go wrong, we don't just turn into a world in which we say all is lost and we have no hope. But rather, we rely upon the

God of the Bible who has made himself known through Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us of our sins so we can be together with him, so that in our distress, we cry out to him and we know he answers and he uses it for us to be closer to him.

This is the God that we serve. Let us pray. Lord, I'm thankful for your presence.

I'm thankful, Lord. Really, I just think back of my own

Christian walk, at least, and I think of the times in which I'm most distressed.

I think of the times, Lord, in which you seem most distant. And I think about the times in those moments that I just,

I cry out to you. And what you do in that situation is so awesome.

Is that, yes, my pain is still there. Whatever the distress is, it's still there. But you are underlining it all.

You are over it all. And so even in the pain of whatever is causing that distress, because I am near to you because of what

Jesus Christ has done, there is a great rejoicing despite the circumstances. That even in our worst of times,

God, you are faithful to reveal yourself intimately to us. Lord, we know this is only because of Jesus Christ.

It's only because of him, because without him, we are still in our sins and dead in our sins. We are in rebellion against you, and you hate wickedness.

It's only because of what Jesus Christ has done at Calvary, that we can be forgiven of our sins, that we can be taken care of, that we can be standing before you as righteous, confident to approach the throne of Christ, because that's what

Jesus offers his saints. I'm so thankful that through Jesus, your presence is permanently with us.

No longer will it flee or go away because of our sin, but because Jesus Christ has made an end to sin, it is here forever.

We get to enjoy you forever. What a joy that is in our hearts. Lord, for those who have not experienced you, perhaps they're stuck in a sin right now, and they're not experiencing this joy that we can have in righteousness.

I pray that you would work that for their good and for your glory by showing them their sin and have them turn from it and see

Jesus more clearly. Those who have never turned to Jesus at all, I pray that they would see that their wickedness, that their sin, it doesn't do anything good for them.

It's a lie. And that they would see that there's all good in Christ, that they would be awakened by the

Spirit to respond to the message of the gospel, to turn away from their sin and come into the kingdom of Christ by believing upon him.

And I'm thankful, lastly, for the table. The table reminds us of your presence. Now, although we struggle with sin, through forgiveness of sin, we can be brought and we are close to you because you have died for sinners.

So let us be reminded of your presence in the table, even in this moment. We praise you for being so kind to us in these things.