Psalm 24
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It has been said that this Psalm is asking the question:
What does God expect of us?
The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas And established it upon the rivers.
These verses establish for us that God owns all things, because he created all things.
He states here that the earth is the Lord’s- So this is referring the to the physical realm.
The plants- The mountains- The oceans- The seas. The dirt. Anything within the physical realm God created and he owns it.
We may have land and our name may be on the deed, but it is ultimately God who owns all properties. Its all created and made from things God has provided us with. Its all borrowed.
None of it is truly ours.
God owns all places and all things.
But he goes further- It not merely the physical spaces of the world that God owns. He also own the things contained in those spaces.
“All it contains”
“The world, and those who dwell in it.”
So God owns us.
We are His creation.
He is the potter. We are the clay.
So this means a couple things.
First, this means that we are accountable to Him and that He has rights over us.
He has the ability to make claims of us. He has the ability to require we use what we have been given according to His plan.
Because He owns all things.
Too many people today have forgotten this simple fact. As a result, many people believe or at least practically live out their lives as if God has no longer has a right to their lives.
They seek to live unhinged from their Creator and His design.
We see this in the erosion of marriage. The majority of marriages fall apart over selfishness and
We see this in people having no regard for human life. My body- my choice. No regard for who actually owns them.
We see this in the Sexual revolution- which is actually a sexual rebellion. No regard for God’s design.
We see this in the Trangenderism movement- (We have completely disregard what and how God has created us to be)
God as creator own all things owns all things. And he has rights over all things.
He also cares for all things in his ownership.
The fact that He allows people who rebel against Him to live in rebellion is testament to the fact that he is mericful and gracious to His creation.
And all this comes back to the fact that he is Creator.
For He has founded it upon the seas And established it upon the rivers.
This is God’s world. We are property of God- like it or not. That is the clear teaching of this passage. He created us.
And he gave us specific instructions to live by and according to.
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
When we lose this Creator/ creation distinction- we are on our way to trouble. We are on our way to living our way as opposed to God’s way. Rebellion.
So As we answer this question- What does God expect of us?
I believe this Psalm answers it first by saying-
We must acknowledge that God has created us.
We must to submit the Creator’s design.
We ought to desire to have a relationship with our Creator.
We ought to desire to be in close fellowship with him.
He answers this next.
Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place?
WHo can come before God?
Who has been allowed into God’s presence?
Remember God is Holy.
In fact he warns against sin.
“So watch yourselves, that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a graven image in the form of anything against which the Lord your God has commanded you. “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Adam and Eve (Forced to leave because of Sin, and because of God’s Holiness)
They were forced to leave out of their own protection, with the promise that God would restore and cover them.
The Psalms, Volume 1—Rejoice, the Lord Is King (Psalms 1 to 41) Coming before a Holy God
What does this mean? If you have a cookout after church and spill barbecue sauce on the middle of your white shirt, it will stain. Your shirt is no longer clean. God’s holiness, on the other hand, is active, like fire. What happens when that same barbecue sauce drops off a piece of meat onto the coals? Do the coals get dirty? No; the fire burns up the barbecue sauce.
In the same way, when sin and impurity comes into God’s presence, does God get dirty, like your shirt? No; his holiness consumes sin like fire. Those who come into God’s presence must be holy for their own protection. We must be clean and pure to come before him, or his holiness will consume us in our sin.
So he list four qualifications of those who God will allow into His presence.
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully.
Clean Hands- right actions- what you do. What you actually do with your hands. The sin you commit. The righteous acts you do.
Pure Heart- Your thoughts, intentions, motives.
Not only are your actions important. Your motives are equally concerning to a holy God.
Even in this first two, I know I am disqualified. (Explain)
When I read verse 4, even in the first two qualifications, I know I profoundly disqualified and I stand guilty before God.
Then you read the rest.
He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood And has not sworn deceitfully.
Lifting up soul- means trusting in lies.
We’ve all done this- We have all at some point in our lives trusted in a lie, thinking that it would somehow put us ahead.
(Daddy telling me- Demerit forms- Forging- lying will always get you in more trouble, not less- Demerits are kept on file at CCS)
Our hearts tend toward this- rather in trusting in the truth. We tend to trust in lies.
We often speak lies as well “Sworn decietfully”
This moves from our heart to our words.
“But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.
When we think about these things, we all are left disqualified.
That is what I believe this is meant to do. This passage and other passages tell us that in and of ourselves we are all disqualified. This should make us even more thankful for God’s grace in Christ.
Because when we look at verse 4, we have to understand that none of us meets that requirement. It leaves us wanting someone who can.
Jesus is that someone.
Cleans Hands-
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Pure Heart-
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Did He trust in God or in lies?
and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously;
Did he ever lie?
who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth;
Jesus Christ ALONE meets these requirements.
So he alone deserves to receive the the blessings promised in verse 5-6
He shall receive a blessing from the Lord And righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of those who seek Him, Who seek Your face—even Jacob. Selah.
But the good news is this-
Jesus did not just meet those requirements for Himself- He came to meet those requirements for us.
He has satisfied the holy and just requirement for us.
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
So we can approach God in Christ- because we have been made into what we were not so that we can go where we do not deserve.
What should be our response?
JC Ryle says this.
“Above all, let us pray for a deeper sense of our own sinfulness, guilt and undeserving. This, after all, is the true secret of a thankful spirit. It is the man who daily feels his debt to grace, and daily remembers [that] in reality he deserves nothing but hell—this is the man who will be daily blessing and praising God. Thankfulness [is] a flower which will never bloom well excepting upon a root of deep humility.”
What does God expect?
Trust in the provision he has made.
Christ.
