Sermon Tone Analysis

I love that I get to study and preach and teach the Bible for a living.

There’s nothing like it.

This, in its 66 books, is a matchless blessing.

I love the book of Psalms in particular.

It comforts me and convicts me.

It teaches me to pray and instructs my praise.

It informs my thoughts and corrects my thinking.

It confronts my sin and steadies my hope in the LORD.

Psalm 26 is a different kind of psalm, and yet it’s helpful and instructive in its own right.

Let me tell you, it’s really worked on me as I’ve been studying it.

I’ve learned from these short twelve verses, and I trust that you will, too.

The LORD has a way of using His Word to teach us and conform us to the image of His Son.

That’s why we preach this book and no other.

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to Psalm 26.

If you’re able and willing, stand with me for the reading of God’s Word:

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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In Psalm 26, David is asking the LORD Yahweh to judge him based on his own integrity and the LORD’s faithfulness, David’s hatred of evil and his love of worship.

Right out the gate, in the first stanza of the song, the first sentence of his prayer, David is asking the LORD to judge him, to set him in the clear, to show that he stands under the LORD Yahweh’s approval.

David’s enemies (and even some of his “friends”) may criticize, berate, and condemn David.

But that’s not David’s primary concern.

If you’ve ever been spoken of in an unkind manner, if you sense that people are talking about you behind your back, if you’ve ever been the topic of conversation at the cafe or the subject of a group text, you’re in good company.

David doesn’t worry so much about his reputation with his enemies or his so-called friends.

David is appealing to the LORD Yahweh, the covenant God, his God for a true verdict.

David’s enemies won’t give him a fair hearing; they’ve already made up their mind about David.

So now, David cries out: “Yahweh, be my judge!”

In the early church, the apostle Paul faced a similar situation.

At Corinth, some there were evaluating Paul and his ministry in terms of externals.

“He’s not that impressive, really.

He’s not very charismatic.” 2 Cor 10:10 “For some say, “His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.”

Paul does what David did many years before.

Paul places himself in the judgement of the LORD.

He says,

I Cor 4.3-4 “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.

My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.

It is the Lord who judges me.”

David appeals to the LORD as His judge; the LORD is the One who would vindicate him.

In Psalm 26, David is asking the LORD Yahweh to judge him based on his own integrity and the LORD’s faithfulness, David’s hatred of evil and his love of worship.

Live with wholehearted integrity

What sticks out immediately as I read the NIV translation of Psalm 26 is the word “blameless”.

You see it in verse 1 and again in verse 11.

The psalms don’t necessarily build on each other in the way other books do.

Each psalm stands by itself without context—what comes before or after—having much, if any, bearing.

The psalms are a little different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t glean some understanding and insight into David’s line of thinking from other psalms.

Just last week, in Psalm 25, David referred to his sins and iniquities, his rebellion.

David refers to himself as a sinner.

We know that David doesn’t believe himself to be blameless in the sense of sinless.

So it caught me off-guard when I read Psalm 26:1 and Psalm 26:11.

David writes, “I have led a blameless life.”

Really?

And again, David writes, “I lead a blameless life.”

Come on, David.

Are you for real?

When I thought by blameless David meant “sinless”, he lost me.

But that’s not what David means here.

In fact, Psalm 25 translates the same word as integrity.

There are several versions of the Bible that take the word “blameless” in Psalm 26:1, 11 and translate it as integrity:

Vindicate me, O Lord, For I have walked in my integrity OR because I have lived with integrity.

David is simply saying he has an undivided heart; David’s heart is really the Lord’s, however badly he sometimes lets Him down.

In Psalm 25, David can admit his sin (he’s not blameless) and at the same time plead integrity.

The word is tom in Hebrew.

The sense is “to be whole, complete.”

David is tom, that is, he’s “all there.”

David’s not touting some level of perfection, but an overall consistency.

He doesn’t claim a sinless record, but a godly disposition.

David’s integrity is possible because he has trusted in the LORD and has not faltered.

David has been loyal to God, with a lifestyle of personal integrity.

His faith and trust in God was unshaken.

His trust in the LORD has not slipped away.

The foundation of his integrity is his trust in the LORD.

What a strong basis for scrutiny!

“Judge me, LORD; I’ve put my trust in You and haven’t faltered.”

Based on his trust in the LORD—his lifestyle of integrity and faith in Yahweh—David says, Psalm 26:2 “Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind;”

This is what “sits below the visibility line.”

This is something only the LORD can test.

This is what is internal, as opposed to external actions that others are able to see.

David’s heart and mind are known by the LORD.

For David, that’s enough.

That’s what matters.

We may never convince anyone else of the condition of our heart and mind, but the One who formed us and made us sees us.

He knows.

To me it seems a little like one of those confusing conversations you have from time to time.

“I know that you know that I know you know, you know.”

When the LORD tests David’s heart and mind, examining him, David knows the LORD knows what David knows.

David’s trusting the LORD who knows him.

There’s certain comfort there, don’t you think?

In what seems to me like the key verse of the psalm, David confesses:

This is monumentally important.

For David, it’s not his integrity or his blamelessness.

It’s the fact that he has put his trust in the LORD and that he’s mindful of the LORD’s unfailing love and faithfulness.

Trust wholeheartedly in The LORD’s Faithfulness

The LORD’s covenant love—unfailing love—is what directs David’s living.

The LORD’s faithfulness is what he trusts.

The LORD’s faithfulness is where he hangs his hat.

Like a goldfish who never knows anything outside the bowl it swims in, the LORD’s faithfulness is the water in which David swims.

David has lived/walked in integrity within the realm and sphere of the LORD’s faithfulness.

Note, David does not say here that he himself has been faithful.

David is not depending upon his own faithfulness.

David says he has walked in the LORD’s faithfulness.

“I have been enjoying your faithfulness to me all along the way.”

David is claiming that he has remained consistent, but only because God’s faithfulness to him has kept him so.