Skip to content

The River ChurchSermons

Sermon · 26 Jul 2026

· Sunday, 26 July 2026 · 32:40 · 4,962 words

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Psalm 139 is examined, highlighting God’s deep knowledge of each person and His constant presence. The speaker emphasizes that God created life in the womb and calls us to stand in awe of His character. The message also invites those who have not yet trusted Christ to confess Him as Lord and Savior and begins the process of sanctification. Using Munger’s home analogy, the talk urges believers to give Jesus the key to hidden, foul‑smelling areas of their lives and let Him cleanse them.

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 38 step 22 smell 11 awe 9 boldly 9 simply 15 take 31 closet 6 declare 11 heavenly 10 garage 5 class 7

Topics

Israel 3 Sanctification 1 The Gospel 1 The Holy Spirit 1 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 Prayer 1 Faith 1

Scripture referenced 22

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

Psalms 139 2:06 Psalms 139 2:14 Psalms 139 2:58 Romans 10:9 7:20 Psalms 139 7:37 John 14 11:23 Psalms 136 14:32 Psalms 136 14:37 Psalms 136 15:14 Psalms 139 15:14 1 Samuel 17 17:40 Psalms 139:19-22 17:47 1 Samuel 17 18:21 1 Samuel 17:24-26 18:40 Psalms 136 20:09 Psalms 139 20:43 Psalms 139:23-24 22:46 Romans 10:9 25:25 John 14 25:25 John 14 25:36 2 Corinthians 5 26:16 Psalms 139 29:57

Transcript

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

Pre-service announcement — 7 lines, 0:36. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Lorena, and thanks for checking out one of our sermons today.

We're so glad that you're here, and we want to connect with you and your family.

And the easiest way to do that is to text RIVERCHURCH to 97000.

There you can ask questions, submit a prayer request, and even support the River Church financially.

And at the end of the day, we just want to connect with you and be a blessing to you in any way that we can.

You can also visit our website, theriverchurch.cc, to learn more about us and what we have going on as a church.

Thanks again for joining us, and we hope that you are blessed by today's message.

I'm a little exhausted, but I want to encourage you to go up to him and ask him about how camp was.

Hear some stories of what the Lord has done.

I love hearing the announcements.

I don't know about you, but I was kind of ignoring Pastor Ryan, and I was just watching the baptisms in the back.

Because that's what it's about. Lives being changed.

Our students coming forward and saying, hey, I have taken that next step of obedience.

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

And that is what they are doing in just going under the water, coming back out.

That doesn't save them.

That is them showing publicly, hey, this is who I am, my new life in Christ.

And so that's so exciting for us as a church to see that.

And I want to thank you for your faithfulness, for those of you who went to the auction

and helped raise money for the auction so that we could send kids to camp.

Those of you who have been praying for our students at camp, and I want to encourage you and challenge you.

Continue to pray for each and every one of those students who went up to camp.

Pray that as they come back to the real world, that this world and Satan and his schemes,

that they would not drag them away from what the Lord has done.

That they would continue to push forward and remain faithful in God's word.

Because we all know that this world wants to do nothing more than deceive them

and take away everything the Lord did at camp.

But it's our prayer that they would continue to walk faithfully in his steps.

So this morning, if you have your Bibles, we will be in Psalm 139.

Psalm 139.

And I don't know about you, you may hate me for saying it,

but it's weird that we're kind of coming to an end of summer

as we will be wrapping up our summer series in the book of Psalms here in the next couple of weeks.

It has been such an encouragement and also a challenge for me personally,

just really taking time to reflect,

seeing these psalms that David has penned,

these songs, these poems that he is proclaiming to the Lord,

and really taking a step back for myself in my personal life

to truly praise the Lord for what he has done, for who he is.

And this morning, as we get into Psalm 139,

David is really going to talk about some of the Lord's characteristics

of who he is and what he has done in David's life and what he does in our lives.

So I want to go ahead and pray, and then we'll dive in this morning.

So God, we come before you.

Father, you are so good.

Just thank you for the privilege it is to just come here and just worship your name freely,

to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus as a family.

God, we just thank you for that.

Father, this morning, as we just open up your word, Lord,

would your spirit move in our hearts?

Will we just set the things of this world aside?

Will we just focus on your word this morning, Lord,

and as we just continue to be in awe of who you are, God, and what you have done?

And Father, we do lift up our students.

Thank you for protecting them, bringing them back safely.

I ask that as you moved in their lives, Lord, through conversations up at camp, Lord,

would those conversations, would that heart change in their lives continue as they come back?

Lord, would those conversations, would that heart change in their lives continue as they come back?

Lord, would those conversations, would that heart change in their lives continue as they come back?

This one specifically was penned by David himself,

and he begins in verse 1 through verse 6, and he writes,

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path, my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it all together.

You hem me in behind.

And before, and you lay your hand upon me, such knowledge is too wonderful for me.

It is high.

I cannot attain it.

And so as David begins this psalm, he cries out, he says,

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

And as he continues through these six verses, he points to a character of God, his omniscience.

The reality that we serve a heavenly Father, we serve a creator, that is all-knowing.

That is what omniscience means.

It means that God is all-knowing.

But as David is praising the Lord as he is writing this psalm,

he is not just simply pointing to God's all-knowing.

He is not just simply pointing to his character of his omniscience.

Because, you see, we don't serve a God who is simply sitting in heaven and looking down on us.

He is not just simply sitting on his throne, looking down at his creation,

and just observing.

What we do from day to day, watching and seeing and knowing what goes on.

Now, what does David cry out?

He says,

You know when I sit down.

You know when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts, my paths, my lying down.

Before word is on my tongue, behold, Lord, you know it all together.

You see, church, we have a heavenly Father who deeply,

and personally knows us.

He knows each and every one of us.

For someone here this morning or joining us online,

maybe you have been struggling,

and you don't fully believe in a heavenly Father and a loving Savior

who laid down his life on the cross,

who took your sin and punishment to the cross as the final sacrifice,

and on the third day he rose again.

Maybe you are struggling with that.

Maybe you haven't taken that first step,

of obedience, and as Paul writes in Romans 10, 9,

confessed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

I want you to know that you are loved.

That we are not talking about a God who is far from us,

who does not know us,

who doesn't care about us.

No, as David is proclaiming here in the beginning of Psalm 139,

we serve a heavenly Father,

and we have a Savior who knows our deepest thoughts,

who knows the words on our mouths before us,

before we even utter them.

He knows when we rise up and when we lie down.

And so I want to take an important pause and say,

if you have not proclaimed Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior,

you can do that right where you are right now.

Because talking about God, his character, who he is,

what he has done, without the foundation of the cross,

without the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

it's not going to mean much.

Because as his children, we have a heavenly Father

who knows us.

He knows us personally, who cares about us deeply.

And this is what David is declaring.

And he takes an important moment at the end in verse 6.

He says,

He is simply in awe of God.

He is simply in awe of God's character

and how he knows him so deeply and personally.

He says,

Lord, you know my thoughts.

You know me.

You know when I get up, when I lie down.

God, I just can't even comprehend

all this.

All that you know.

He can't fully comprehend who God is.

He is just simply in awe.

For me, I was just, as David began this psalm,

I was just taken aback because how often

do I just take a moment to pause and say,

God, I am in awe of you.

We have a heavenly Father who knows our thoughts.

He's not just reigning far away.

He is right here.

And he knows and he cares and he loves.

He continues on in verses 7 through 12.

And David declares, he says,

Where shall I go from your spirit?

Where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend 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

and your right hand shall hold me.

If I say, surely the darkness shall come over me

and the light about me be night,

even the darkness is not dark to you.

The night.

As bright as the day for darkness is as light with you.

And here David takes another step

and he shows us another one of God's characteristics

that he is omnipresent, that he is ever present,

that he is ever near in our lives.

Again, not only does the Lord know our thoughts,

not only does he know what we are thinking,

what we are going to say, not only where we are,

but he is ever present with us every step of our lives.

David declares that he says,

if I go to heaven, you are there.

If I go in the deepest parts, you are there.

There is nowhere that we can go

that the Lord is not present by our side.

And this is true for those of us

who have declared Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

He is by your side every single moment of every single day.

You are never alone because he is ever present.

Yes, he is an omniscient God.

He is an omnipresent God,

but he is a personal heavenly Father

who loves and cares

and does not just spend his time away from us.

He is here in this very moment, in this very room.

And as Jesus says in John chapter 14,

for those of us who have declared Jesus Christ

as our Lord and Savior,

he dwells within us as his spirit is within us

at this very moment as he is ever present and ever near.

And so we have an omniscient heavenly Father.

We have an omnipresent heavenly Father.

And David continues in verses 13 through 16,

and he says,

for you formed my inward parts.

You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works.

My soul knows it very well.

My frame was hidden from you

when I was being made in secret.

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

You're intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance.

In your book were written every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

And so I love this passage

because it points to first and foremost,

the sanctity of life.

And we here as the River Church,

we believe in the sanctity of life.

We believe that life begins at conception.

And David takes it even a step further, right?

He began in verses one through six

talking about the Lord knowing David deeply.

He knows us deeply.

Personally, he knows our thoughts before you even say them.

He takes it a step further and says, guess what?

The Lord created you in your mother's womb

before you even had a day.

The Lord formed and knew it.

The Lord has known us since the moment of conception

before even a thought in your father or mother's minds.

The Lord has known us since the moment of conception.

The Lord has known us since the moment of conception.

One step in obedience with him

because he loves you so much

that he created and prepared you

before you even existed

because that is who he is

and that is how much he loves you.

And then what does David do?

He takes another moment to simply take a step back

and he says in verses 17 and 18,

he says, how precious to me are your thoughts, oh 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.

He takes a moment to just take a step back

and he is just in awe of God,

simply in awe of all the Lord has done.

Last week, we spoke about Psalm 136

and I love the repetition in Psalm 136

because David intentionally takes the time

inside of talking about creation,

talking about the Israelites' history

of their exodus from Egypt

and talking about their entrance into the promised land.

He could have just read that off

as the people knew the history.

He could have just shared it

as the Israelites knew their history

but each and every time,

26 times, what does David declare?

He declares, your steadfast love endures forever.

And for me, I've been so challenged

as I'm reading through the Psalms

in Psalm 136 and Psalm 139,

taking the intentional time that David takes,

to simply take a step back to be in awe of God

and simply praise him for who he is

and what he has done.

Our life is just so go, go, go.

My wife and I, we have two children.

We have a crazy five-year-old, almost five-year-old.

If you ever meet him,

he will tell you every single planet

in the Star Wars universe.

He will tell you every character in the Star Wars universe

but we have successfully started on the 12 Minor Prophets.

And so he can list off all the 12 Minor Prophets.

So that's a big win.

And then we have our little 10-month-old Penny.

And she's the complete opposite.

She takes a hit on the head

and she's like, that's all you got?

And my son would be crying.

And so she's just a tough one.

But life gets so busy with two children.

Life gets so busy with work.

It gets busy with vacations,

with having to go to the next event,

the next sporting event,

with school, with college.

You feel,

you feel in the blank of the busyness of this life.

But do we truly take the intentional time

as David is taking,

as we are called in Scripture,

to simply take a step back

and say, God, thank you.

God, you're amazing.

To just sit in awe of him

and to see all that he has done in our lives

and to just praise him,

to just be silent and say,

God, you are so steadfast in your love.

Even when I forget,

even when I am just so busy to neglect,

Father, you are ever-presenting,

you are ever-present.

You know my thoughts.

Lord, you are ruler of this entire universe,

yet you look to me.

You call me your child.

You care about me.

You see everything I do,

everything I say, every step.

There's nowhere I can go that you are not with me.

God, just thank you for that.

David continues in verses 19 through 22.

He takes a little bit of a turn here

in this song, in this psalm.

And I like it because he gets a little bit

a little feisty and he gets a little zealous.

And it's that zealousness and feistiness

that we see in the classic story

in 1 Samuel 17 of David and Goliath.

And so David declares in Psalm 139, 19 through 22,

he says,

Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God.

O men of blood, depart from me.

They speak against you with malicious intent.

Your enemies take your name in vain.

Do I not hate those who hate me?

Do I not hate you, O Lord?

Do I not loathe those who rise up against you?

I hate them with complete hatred.

I count them my enemies.

And we see one of the most famous stories of all time.

In 1 Samuel 17, there's been books and movies

and TV shows written about this story.

Our world knows about David and Goliath.

But what the world doesn't fully understand

is David's response.

David's response to Goliath here in 1 Samuel 17, 24 through 26.

We read, it says,

All the men of Israel, when they saw the man Goliath,

fled from him and were much afraid.

And the men of Israel said,

Have you seen this man who has come up?

Surely he has come up to defy Israel,

and the king will enrich the man who kills him

with great riches and will give him his daughter

and make his father's house free in Israel.

And David said,

David said to the men who stood by him,

What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine

and takes away the reproach from Israel?

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine

that he should defy the armies of the living God?

Church, David boldly stepped forward

when all the other men of Israel were afraid.

They ran away.

And David did not say,

Look how strong I am.

He did not say,

Look how skilled I am with my slingshot.

Look at the training that I have done.

No, David said,

Look what my God will do.

David said,

Who is this man, this giant,

who is defying the God of Israel,

who is defying, as David said in Psalm 136,

the God of God, the Lord of lords?

Who is this giant that he dares think that he is bigger,

than our God?

And David boldly stepped forward and said,

The Lord will do this.

The Lord will have this victory.

David did not waver because of his own strength.

He did not waver because he trusted in the Lord,

because he knew the power of our Heavenly Father.

And that is what David is pointing to here in Psalm 139.

Again, the same power in the Lord.

Not power.

Not power in himself.

Not power in his ability.

No, he is zealous because of who the Lord is.

Of the Lord of lords that he serves.

The Lord who knows each and every one of us personally.

Who created and knitted us together before we were even a thought.

The creator of the whole world.

He is stronger to conquer any enemy.

And David says,

Hey, as a follower of Jesus Christ,

as a child of God,

we are called to boldly step forward.

Not in our own knowledge.

Not in our own understanding.

We are called to boldly step forward upon the gospel of Jesus Christ

against those who would share a false gospel.

About those who would wage war against the gospel

and the truth of Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Because we know that our God is bigger.

We know the truth.

And for those of us who have called upon the name of Jesus,

we have the truth.

We have experienced the life change and the truth

through the gospel.

And so David is boldly stepping forward

as we have been called to boldly step forward.

Not in ourselves.

Not in our own strength or ability.

But upon the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Believing and trusting our God.

The same God who empowered David

and conquered Goliath.

Is the same God who is calling us

to stand forward boldly.

That he will overcome

any of those obstacles and giants in our life

and will empower and use us

for his gospel.

For his glory.

Against those who would hate the gospel.

We are called to boldly share his love

and stand firm.

And finally, David ends here

in Psalm 139, verses 23 through 24.

And he ends the same way he begins.

And so it was an incredible experience.

I'm so thankful

that the Lord gave me the opportunity

to graduate there from Moody.

And being a typical college student,

I'll admit,

as I was going through my classes,

it was about my junior year.

I was like, man, you've gone through college.

You know some of these classes are heavy.

We start getting to our junior year.

It's like these things got a lot of credits to them.

And they're really like,

there's a lot of books you got to read and stuff.

And so one of the classes,

it was simply a Bible study disciple-making class.

And I looked at the rubric,

and it said that the only textbook requirement

was the Bible.

And I said, oh yeah, I'm choosing that class.

I just got to have a Bible.

I don't got to buy any other books.

This is going to be a great class.

I'm at Bible college.

We're just going to read the Bible.

This will be great.

And so I take the class,

and there's like six, seven of us.

And we show up twice a week,

and we go through.

We have to memorize passages of Scripture.

And we do some different Bible studies,

asking questions to one another.

And then about halfway through the year,

heading into our midterms,

the professor said,

hey, I need you to go buy this book.

And I was like, oh, here's the bait and switch.

I knew it.

It couldn't be this good.

And so he says, hey, I want you to go buy this book.

And he whips out this book.

And it's this little devotional book.

It's about 30 pages because it's small.

It's 30 pages.

So really, and it's large print.

So really, it's not 30 pages.

But it's called My Heart, Christ's Home.

And it's written by Robert Munger.

And so the professor shares this book for us.

And what Munger writes about

is he talks about what our life looks like

once we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

So as followers of Jesus Christ,

when we simply confess that Jesus is our Lord and Savior,

Romans 10, 9, John 14,

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one gets to the Father except through me.

That is the way.

That is where we must begin in our walk with the Lord.

And what happens after that, Jesus continues in John 14.

He says, once you declare me your Lord and Savior,

the Holy Spirit, the helper, will come

and he enters into your life.

And so for those of us who have declared Jesus Christ

as our Lord and Savior, it was at that moment

that the Holy Spirit has entered into your life.

And he dwells within us each and every day.

And we begin what this thing is called

the sanctification process.

And what that big word simply means

is that the Holy Spirit begins to do a work in our hearts.

He begins to do a work in our lives.

And we are no longer alive to the ways that we used to live.

We are reminded, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5,

that the old has passed away.

Behold, the new has come.

And that's exactly what baptism shows

as we go under the water,

that we come out in the new life in Christ.

And so as he begins the sanctification process,

the sanctification work in our lives

is that we begin to look more and more like Jesus.

We no longer look like the brokenness

that we are here and broken in the world and sin.

No, we are free in Jesus Christ

and we are living for him.

And so Munger uses this analogy of a home.

And as Jesus enters into our home,

he begins to do a work in the kitchen,

cleaning up the kitchen of your life,

going through the cupboard,

getting rid of the junk,

the things that are no longer,

no longer holy and pleasing to the Lord.

And then he makes his way into the rec room

and he makes his way into the bedroom.

And then it says,

one day Jesus meets you at the entrance of your home.

And there is this foul smell.

It's not just, oh, maybe some food has spoiled.

Earlier this week, Haley gave me a call.

She said, hey, I just parked in the garage.

Did you take the trash out?

And I was like, of course I took the trash.

It's Wednesday, it's garbage day.

I took the trash out.

She says, it smells so bad in here.

I don't know what's going on.

I said, all right.

You know, so I'm like, all right,

let's back the car out of the garage

and like open the garage.

Let's air it out, see what's going on.

So she backs it out.

She says, the garage smells better.

I said, all right, process of elimination.

Maybe it's something in the car.

I was like, because the trash is empty,

nothing in the garage.

So sure enough, I come home, I look under the car

and it's just got some roadkill under there.

And so you know that smell.

It's something is dead.

It is a foul smell.

So I went and took that bad boy

to the super duper triple plus at the car wash.

Smells way better.

We got that bad boy cleaned up,

but it's that foul smell of death.

And that's the smell that Jesus is approaching

as we open the door and he's standing there.

He says, hey, something smells bad.

And so it says that as soon as he said this,

he said something was foul smelling.

I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Indeed, there was a small crowd

in a small closet up there on the hall landing,

just a few square feet.

And in that closet behind a lock and key,

I had one or two little personal things.

I did not want anybody to know about.

Certainly I did not want Jesus to see them.

They were dead and rotting things

left over from the old life.

They were not wicked, but they were not right.

And they were not good to have in a Christian life.

Yet I loved them.

I wanted them so much for myself.

I was really afraid to admit that I was wrong.

I wanted them to admit that they were there.

Reluctantly, I went up the stairs with him.

And as we mounted, the odor became stronger and stronger.

He pointed to the door and he said, it's in there.

Something is dead.

It made me angry.

That's the only way I can put it.

I had given him access to the study,

the dining room, the living room, the workroom,

the rec room, the bedroom.

And now he's asking me about this little two by four closet.

I said to myself, this is too much.

I'm not going to give you the key.

Well, Jesus responded, reading my thoughts, right?

As we talked about earlier in Psalm 139, he knows our thoughts.

Jesus replies, if you think I'm going to stay here

on the second floor with this smell, you are mistaken.

I will take my bed out on the back porch or somewhere else.

I'm certainly not going to stay around.

And I saw him start down the stairs.

It says, when you have come to know and love Jesus Christ,

one of the worst things that can happen is,

is to sense him withdrawing his face and fellowship from you.

I had to give in.

I will give you the key.

I said, sadly, but you'll have to open the closet and clean it out.

I haven't the strength to do it.

And Jesus responds lovingly looking at us.

He says, I know, I know you haven't just give me the key.

Give me the permission to handle that closet.

And I will church this morning.

If you're sitting here for many of us, we've filled this room.

Week after week, year after year, going to growth communities,

serving, going to the fair, you fill in the blank.

But my question is, what are you holding on to?

What is that one thing in the hallway closet of your life

that you have not given over to the Lord

because it is too hard to give over?

Because it is something that you don't want to let go of.

Maybe you are too ashamed of because you've carried it

for so long in your life.

It has been hidden from your love.

It has been hidden from your loved ones,

hidden from your pastor,

hidden from your growth community.

The Lord knows it.

He sees it.

He does not desire to take it and shame you in it.

He does not desire to point a finger and say,

look at how bad you are.

Look at how long you've kept this hiding.

No, he just desires to look at you and say,

I know you cannot do it yourself.

Just allow me to clean that out.

Allow me to take this off of your shoulders.

Allow me to take this out of your life

so that we can be happy.

So that we can walk step in step together.

And I can show you the plans.

I can show you the life that I have planned for you.

The purpose I have created you for.

And so this morning...