Psalm 15

Introduction

More states have their state fairs in October than any other month.

When that time of year comes around highlights of food from the fairs always shows up.

The highlight is always new extremes of deep fried food on a stick.

I have seen deep fried snickers bars, oreo’s, things like that.

Last year i lost all faith in humanity when I saw a vendor who takes a cheeseburger, bun and all, dips in in batter, impales it with a stick and fries it.

Leave it to us to take food to an unhealthy extreme...

Food on a stick is nothing new it is an ancient street food fare for travelers low on money, and needing portable sustenance

When you think of Psalms you probably think of songs or pick and choose helps in time of need.

The composition of this poetry is much more.

The Psalms were portable theology. They were the whole biblical narrative on a stick

God’s people were exiles. They needed the word in a portable way that could handle the reality of brutal life experiences and the totality of human emotion.

The Psalms are theology on a stick for God’s people to give us hope, orient us to the truth, and ultimately point us to our Savior

We are going to be in one of these portable anchors for pilgrims on their way to and from the temple…longing for things to be made right in a world marred with sin and pain doubt and days when it looks like the bad guys are winning.

This morning we are in Psalm 15 and we are going to see 3 things

The Question We Are All Asking

The Crushing Answer We All Know

The Radical Hope We All Can Have

Lets Read Psalm 15 and then dive in

15 A Psalm of David.

1  O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

2  He who walks blamelessly and does what is right

and speaks truth in his heart;

3  who does not slander with his tongue

and does no evil to his neighbor,

nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

4  in whose eyes a vile person is despised,

but who honors those who fear the Lord;

who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

5  who does not put out his money at interest

and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved.

1: The Question We Are Always Asking (V1)

1  O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

You may be asking yourself, how is this a question i am asking?

i dont use words like “Sojourn” and i try to make sure my kids don’t talk that way

The language here is painting a picture.

Words are used in the Psalms to captivate and to the original hearers and readers this would hit home

Pilgrims traveling to the temple for a holiday and the day of atonement....longing for God in the midst of the horrors of Babylonian, or Greek, or Roman occupation

Priests at the entrance orienting the people dispersed through the conquering of Israel to the reality of God.

This is the question of “Who can dare stand before God”

This was common as a worshipper would ask the conditions of entry…with the expected answer surely a list of external rites

Shockingly the Lord’s response pierces our heart fo the answer

“Who can approach the dwelling place of God with Man”

“How can life be made what it was created to be in a world of shattered life, funerals, addiction, pride, and pain”

The question is one we all ask because we all know, believers or not that things are not the way they are supposed to be.

“Paul Trip calls this the question of all questions because you were made for relationship with God. You were given breathe so you could enjoy communion with Him, it doesn’t matter if you acknowledge it or not you were made for God, connected to Him by the very nature of being given life and breathe…bottom line this is what your life is about.”

It is THE question as Trip just said and all of our lives, what we are living toward shows we are all trying to answer it

What is unique about the one true god is exactly how we come into his presence.

This is what the Psalmist longs for us to see

The other cults surrounding gods people in David’s day had entrance liturgies too. All focused on the external appearance.

Perform, follow the rules and you can put god in your debt.

This is no different today.

Who knows the exhaustion of legalism?

Who knows the burden of religious performance to keep God on your good side

We have other temples to enter today too.

The temple of self has its own entrance liturgy.

Only those who Become who they want to be inside can find flourishing.

Only those who throw off the shackles of oppressive design by God and become the all sovereign self in the most radical terms can become free and know peace and joy.

The contrast here cannot and should not be missed for the unimaginable way to life it offers.

Unlike any other way to what we know deep down we are missing the God who made us says you need a new heart….

and he alone can give it and what is more radical he longs to give itSin has made us all exiles longing for return

In a world of exile, never feeling like we have arrived, we long for the answer to our hearts ache and wholeness.

So here sojourners, exiles in a hostile world, seek both the homecoming to end the wandering, and the return to right relationship with God and Man.

Who can know the true homecoming we long for in your tent, and who can live again in the flourishing we were made for?

We have this inner dialogue all the time, usually not even aware of how it is the navigational engine of all our life

The Lord goes at the heart in this piercing question and the answer in verse 2

stated in three overarching positive traits of the righteous ones heart

Verse 2 says these 30,000 foot view 3 positive attributes.

2  He who walks blamelessly and does what is right

and speaks truth in his heart;

In the first answer to the question I am immediately crushed.

One who walks blamelessly....walk is a summary in the Old Testament for the ways of ones life

To walk blamelessly is to live in every area of life according to the design of God, money, time, your home, your work, your parenting all of life.

To Do what is right is to literally do righteousness.

It means that in your all encompassing integrity all you DO is what God would Do and is doing

In Isaiah 1:21 and 11:5 that same term is used....

God tells Israel this is how they are to live....and that their is one coming who can rescue us from our failure to do it

One who does what is right not only in what they do but in what they refrain from doing, what they are building too, how they treat others, down to how they tip at a restaurant

The last is the most provocative to me because it lays bare the condition of us all

One who Speaks truth in HIs Heart

The bible refers to the heart as THE source of all our words, actions, thoughts, and motives

Our heart is everything, it is our identity

If you want to know where you think your aching exile is ended, how you think joy is found, where your true allegiances lie, what you truly worship, where you truly have placed your lifes bet…you have to see your heart

It is a constant and brutal conversation because it shows how far of the standard set in this Psalm that I fall short....

Here is how this worked in my life this week.

I have interpreted our current life situation and God’s silence a number of ways but my emotions give a clear window to my allegiances and where my hope lies

In the midst of the week i felt overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, deep clinical depression in dark hopelessness, envy, anger, disappointment, longing for control....

Because in my heart i doubted the truth of God’s character,

i trusted in man more than God,

i wanted to be God and thought i could run my world better,

i was narcissistic in my self absorption....

bottom line i worshiped me not God.

How i answered the question from verse one was that i could find my flourishing in my own ways if God would be what i wanted him to be for my own program to work.

Brothers and sisters that is sin.

And i was joyfully made aware of it and i was overjoyed that i could repent of it

But our hearts show the truth

Your heart is always interpreting your world and has a viewpoint of all of life

Always full of content and a righteous man’s heart is full of truth about the story of reality the character of God and so on.

The righteous man has a very different inner conversation than i had on Wednesday

“Your heart is the causal core of your personhood Paul Trip says”

What rules your heart rules it all because we do what we do because of how our heart interprets all of life around us

Righteousness always begins in the heart

Is there truth in your heart? Who or what owns your heart?

I was crushed this week in the face of this

The reality is that I don’t always like the way God is doing things, i don’t want what he wants, I don’t want to kneel in submission to him i want to rule and reign and that heart cannot find rest in the presence of my creator

That is a heart that will continue to wander in exile on the outside of the very presence i was created to be in

The question is who has the right to live with God as we were created…

Who has the right to do what he was created to do....and the answer is crushing.

Tripp again says here “The heart of your difficulty and mine…is the heart”

Anyone still left standing here at this point?

Anyone feel like “yea i am still good”…i would say we need to talk but i would say get a helmet because it gets much worse before it gets better

Verses 3-5 go into more detail of the One who can know what man was created for

This is our second point

2: The Crushing Answer We All Know (3-5)

English Standard Version Psalm 15

3  who does not slander with his tongue

and does no evil to his neighbor,

nor takes up a reproach against his friend;

4  in whose eyes a vile person is despised,

but who honors those who fear the LORD;

who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

5  who does not put out his money at interest

and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

He who does these things shall never be moved.

I had an ethics course at Seminary.

We worked through the Ten Commandments and as we unpacked each one i never knew the depth of each one

How far the implications ran.

With each exposition you just sink in your seat seeing how off the mark we are

This is the same way because this list of 10 has far reaching implications for our hearts than we see on the srface

Here is a great example that one commentator makes plain right off the start

None of the pilgrims and sojourners then and none of us living as Exiles away from heaven are called to live on the mountain top all day

Our salvation is meant to be lived as a light to the broken world around us

God never divorces a right horizontal relationship with him from the demand of right horizontal relationships

I am not even loving my family perfectly let alone those i am called to have missional encounters with in my everyday rhythms of life.

The qualification of verse 3 is a perfect example

Our english translations of slander and reproach in verse 3 do not convey the weight of damage we can do to others

Rolf Jacobson says: “Our culture does not have a word that can adequately convey the power of ḥerpâ, which is often translated as “taunt” or “reproach.” The Hebrew term is far weightier than that communicated by the English “taunt” or “reproach.” It carries a sense of social shame and rejection that is highly odious. To utter a ḥerpâ against the neighbor is to compromise a person’s participation in society and thus to rob one of access to the basic structures of communal life.”

Envy is nasty. It doesn’t say I want what you have it says I hate you for having what I want and I will destroy you so that none of us know joy.

This has an even simpler application.

When somone comes to complain have you encouraged them go talk to the person.

Pastors and staff get it wrong sometimes

The easy thing is to call whoever and negative bond

The godly thing is to go to pastors in love assuming the best and talking

He goes on to draw out even more relational and even societal heart issues required for answering our deepest question

Verse 4:

4  in whose eyes a vile person is despised,

but who honors those who fear the Lord;

who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

If we are all living toward a certain answer to lifes deepest question then who we do life with matters

What the Psalmist is saying is who are you running your race with?

Those who want and encourage you to throw off the shackles of submission to Christ , the despised here,

Or are you seeking life with the family of God, as imperfect as it is?

Are you living life with those set on doing intentional Gospel good in your life, or do you avoid them…never let anyone from God’s family know you, know your story, listen to you as you repent and confess of sin?

Relationships matter in how we answer life’s deepest questions

The idea is not that the way to life is one where you compare yourself with others

This is who we look up too. What have we seen we admire and want to run our race like

These are the heroes you and I have...

These types of relationships take work to cultivate

That is what the charge of verse 4c means

4c who swears to his own hurt and does not change;

This communicates a watch on your life to make good on doing whatever it takes to see the Gospel flourish in others lives.

It is a tenacity to pursue godly right and sacrificing relationships not on Sunday morning but Monday -Saturday

You can see the sphere moving out here

He has gone from the answer needing to reflect the inner person, to relationships, and now he moves to the flourishing of the entire society the people of God make up....

Verse 5:

5 who does not put out his money at interest

and does not take a bribe against the innocent.

This was actually an incredibly important issue to Ancient Israel

Old Testament Law did not allow loans on interest to fellow Hebrews.

The reason was that a fellow Hebrew who was in need of a loan was almost certainly in distress;

This law was to protect the most vulnerable of society. To see to it that all were looking out and providing for the least of these.

Protecting them from predators looking to exploit the vulnerable for their own gain

Here is what this boils down too...

If a society ignores, tolerates, or actively embraces violent and oppressive behaviors, that society is in effect sanctioning oppression. The society that turns a deaf ear to battered women, for instance, is a society that in effect licenses the abuse of women. Because life in God’s community is about the welfare of the neighbor, one cannot simply look to one’s own person and house. One bears a constant and all-encompassing duty to the neighbor

The question of how can things be made right has been asked since Eden

In Mark 12:29 a scribe asks Jesus this question from verse 1 another way

28 One of the scribes approached. When he heard them debating and saw that Jesus answered them well, he asked him, “Which command is the most important of all?”

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.,, 31 The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself., There is no other command greater than these.”

So here we are like the sojourner at the temple....

How are we doing on this

Its_______o’clock today have we done Psalm 15, or Mark 12 perfectly?

The shocking thing about this psalm is this. This Psalm is a Psalm of comfort and an anchor of sureness and hope.

“One Commentator says at this point: “What transforms the psalm from a barrier to a gateway is the realization that the preparation for worship illuminates also the necessity for worship.”

We are not denied at the gate

We are oriented to our true need ....

The prodigal mercy of God that triggers in true followers uncontainable worship for the Lamb Who Was Slain to Bear Our Sin and Shame

This is the Priests answer to the sojourner.

Now the true High Priest the True Dwelling Place of God with Man comes and puts on display the scandalous nature of our hope

This is our third and final point today

3: The Radical Hope We All Can Have (5b)

5b He who does these things shall never be moved.

This is the hope we can have in a world where things are not how they are supposed to be

If we are honest we can answer at the gate of God’s presence we cannot find these requirements in ourselves

But here is the unmatched beauty of our God

What he does not find in us he makes new in us through Jesus

The promise is not an escapist hope

The promise is Immanuel..God with US

With us in the suffering and pain of this life

The hope in this promise is not in a life free form pain grief suffering and loss.

Read the rest of the Psalms the Psalmist was very much shaken, troubled, afraid, lonely, and all at times to the joy of the writers enemies…who looked like they were winning

So what is this Promise of hope?

The promise is a sure hope that come what may He will never lose one he came to save... it is a foundational stability, indicated in the opening verse:

“Who may reside in your tent?” (v 1).

Answer: the righteous person (vv 2–5b), and come what may, he would not be shaken from that residence

What assurance do we have?

The author of Hebrews makes it clear in Hebrews 10:19-23

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

2000 years ago God took on flesh....was nailed to a tree…rose 3 days later putting our ultimate enemy death to shame…and ascended to the right hand of God the father and will come again to judge the living and the dead

The temple was the intersection of heaven and earth collided to the Psalmist

The True temple came to seek and save those of us aware of how much we fall short of the requiuremens of this psalm

Only in him is the last Hebrew word of the psalm completed: ‘he shall not be moved, EVER!!!!

Stable in this life oriented to our God....

Oriented to the story of reality that only in him are we assured an anchor in this life and of pleasures forever more in the next

Tremper Longman says here:

Once Christ had come, there was no longer any need for a holy place where God made his special presence known. Jesus is the very presence of God, the fulfilment of the sanctuary. Every place is holy. The Christian is a temple, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as the sanctuary was filled with the presence of God.

This Psalm is most likely what Christ was teaching when he gave his sermon on the mount

The parallels are striking

One segment is especially beautiful for us here if you blessed to feel the crushing of our answers to the first question.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:3-6

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

4 Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

5 Blessed are the humble,

for they will inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be filled.

In His mercy we are awakened to our bankrupt Spirit, cry out to him in our place and in Him are heirs to the Kingdom

In his loving kindness we are aware of the pain of our sin and rebellion.

We mourn not only over what we have done but we mourn over a world where things are not how they are supposed to be.

In our realization and grief over sin only are we truly comforted in the presence of our God

In His kindness we are aware we contribute nothing to our salvation but the problem.

We are as D.T. NIles says one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

humbled to kneel in submission to King Jesus we will inherit the New Heavens and the New Earth that will never pass away

In His life, death, resurrection, and ascension we are made new too long for what he made us for.

We have new hearts, new affections, to want to more and more be the kind of people who mirror our savior and His character.

Those he promised to fill with the homecoming every exile longs for.

Later in His sermon in Matthew 5 Jesus makes clear that he alone is our entry point to the flourishing we long for

17 “Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

We can boldly enter the holy of holies now.

We can have a new heart to long rightly

We can have hope in the dark night of the soul that to live is christ and to die is gain because our eternal dwelling is secure

We can be restored to the mission and purpose we were created for.

The hill and the mountain of the lord as His dwellign place with man is referenced all throughout the old testament.

Especially in Daniel.

We are not just restored to the life we were made for in Eden we are tasked once again with the commision of Eden.

To exapnd the Kingdom to make all of Earth and all peoples the place where God rules reigns and dwells with his people.

That is why Jesus left us with the recommissioning of those made new through his high priestly work.

Go there fore. Do what you were made to do in relationship as you were made to be because you cannot be shaken if you are in Christ.

SIn has no hold on you.

Shame has no grip on you.

Death doesnt have the last word with you....

Because as Psalm 15:5 says “The one who does these things will never be moved.”

Conclusion

If you are in Christ today there is so much reason to worship here today.

What love the father has for us. How vast beyond all measure.

That he would give his only son to make a wretch his treasure.

Why should i gain from his reward I cannot give an answer.

But this I know with all my heart his wounds have paid my ransom.

We fail to meet the requirement.

His blood has made a way.

This Psalm was theology on a stick remember?

For God’s people it means it was the preparation to worship… but it went home with them.

It leaves with you.

It is the blessing and benediction of hope you walk out of here with because His dwelling place is with you.

All day every day this promise is yours…on the day you stand before God and eternity...

English Standard Version Psalm 15

He who does these things shall never be moved.

If you are here today and you are new to Christian things or know you are far away from him.

There is good news only if there is bad

The bad news is that we cannot measure up and I hope this has shown you how all of our hearts miss what we were made for

You know the wandering feeling.

Today you can come home to who and what you were made for

Come to this Jesus who bore your failings and guilt and shame.

Make Him lord of your life and enter in to the Kingdom you were made for.

Lets Pray