Psalms for Life, A Blameless Walk Psalm 15

- In Psalm 15, David tells us that one whose walk is blameless and who does what is right, that one's worship is acceptable to God.

- I don't know about you, but when I think about the kind of person that David describes, I don't measure up. How can I? How can you?

- I'm also quite sure there's only one who does measure up.

- When I read this Psalm the first person I think about is Jesus.

- The life described by the psalmist is the kind of life, Jesus lived and he invites us to live in his strength.

- For an unshakable life, live right before God.

- Let's note the qualities of a person who may be in God's presence, whose worship is acceptable to God.

- ² Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, (1)
    speaking the truth from sincere hearts (2).
³ Those who refuse to gossip (3)
    or harm their neighbors (4)
    or speak evil of their friends (5).
⁴ Those who despise flagrant sinners,(6)
    and honor the faithful followers of the Lord,(7)
    and keep their promises even when it hurts.(8)
⁵ Those who lend money without charging interest,(9)
    and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.(10)

- Do you find it interesting that there are 10 qualities listed by David in the Psalm? Does that remind you of anything? The 10 Commandments, maybe?!

- So David is noting for us that the qualities of a person who is acceptable to be in the presence of God and whose worship is accepted in God's sight, their qualities are of an ethical nature rather than ritual or traditional.

- For us and our worship to be acceptable to God, what we think and say we believe has to match what's in our hearts and in our lives.

- One of the things that we need to take from this right-away is that worship is not about how or what, but about who and why.

- Worship is about right relationship. It's about God.

- God cares very little about the style of our worship or the rituals or traditions we follow.

- What God cares about is the character of those who worship him.
- Another thing we need to take from this right-away is that God cares about who we are and how we live, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

- While Sunday morning is important, worship is more important than just Sunday morning.

- Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?
    Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?
 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right...

- An acceptable life is about living right before almighty God. For an unshakeable life, live right before God.

- As we continue looking at this Psalm, we begin to recognize the values that David is talking about are the values of the kingdom of the heavens, where God reigns and where his will is done.

- A person who has given over his or her life in submission to Jesus as his student is a person whose life will grow more and more to reflect the qualities David describes in Psalm 15.

- Generally speaking, citizens of the kingdom of heaven (1) lead blameless lives and do what is right.

- They will look like those who not only do not do what is bad, but also do what is good.

- And (2) citizens of God's kingdom will also speak the truth from sincere hearts.

- They develop the habit of thinking good thoughts, which leads to doing good deeds.

- Specifically, (3)they refuse to gossip, the citizen of the kingdom of the heavens will not be a gossip.

- We use the excuse, "we don't gossip, we share in love," but let's be honest most of what we call "sharing in love" is really gossip and therefore a sin against God and against one another.

- Gossip is not a value that members of God's household should wish to cultivate.

- Gossip wreaks havoc on the witness and walk of one whose life is supposed to be blameless.

- (4) The citizens of God's kingdom also seek to do no harm to their neighbors.

- The New Testament instructs us that as far as it depends upon each one of us, we are to live in peace with everyone, if at all possible and if not possible, we need to be on our knees before the Lord forgiving our those who harm us rather than seeking to harm them.

- The instruction of the law regarding how we are to treat our neighbors is plain: you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

-We also need to examine our own lives and evaluate whether or not we have wronged or harmed our neighbors.

- (5)Citizens of the heavenly kingdom will not speak evil of their friends.

- Proverbs tells us, faithful are the wounds of a friend, and also, a friend loves at all times.

- Friendship requires words that build up rather than words that tear down.

- A person who treats or speaks to others with scorn, reproach, or contempt is not a friend or acting out of friendship.

- (6) Citizens of God's kingdom despise flagrant sinners. 

- The way of Jesus is different. While Jesus spent his time with tax collectors and sinners because it is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick, he also called attention to the hypocrisy of the religious right and left.

- While we do remember that David is a man after God's own heart and that many of his Psalms foreshadow the coming of Christ, we must also remember that it is God who is the judge of the unrepentant sinners who continuously flaunt their sins and revel in them.

- For many years, many have said, love the sinner, hate the sin, but the church has been doing a far more thorough job in hating the sin, and a far less enthusiastic job of loving the sinner.

- (7) Heaven's citizens honor the faithful followers of the Lord. It would be a far better thing for us in the church and for those outside the church if we would honor those that fear the Lord, who have been faithful examples and whose lives demonstrate a faith in Jesus Christ that works.

- Honoring one another above ourselves and encouraging one another and building each other up honors God and Christ's body, the church.

- We are called to hold one another in high regard for the sake of Jesus Christ and his Church, anything less reduces the visibility of the image of God in one another, dampens our zeal, limits our love, and chokes our witness

- (8) Citizens of God's kingdom keep their promises even when it hurts.

- The image used here by David is of one who keeps a business arrangement, even when it is no longer advantageous, but results in sacrifice just to keep one's word.

- Are we prepared to keep our agreements even when it looks like they are no longer to our advantage?

- The crucifixion certainly did not look like it was anything to Jesus advantage, yet his sacrifice resulted in purchasing our freedom from sin and death.
- (9) Lend money without charging interest - Jesus takes this suggestion further.  In Luke 6, he instructed his disciples to love their enemies, do good to them, and loan them money all while expecting nothing in return.

- Common sense tells us that when we love those who hate us and do good to them and even loan them money we ought not to expect anything in return, let alone interest.

- Freely you have received, freely give. This value is a quality represented in one whose heart is in full submission to the kingdom of heaven.
- (10) Cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.  The image here is one of the court of law in which neither the judge nor any witness yield to the temptation to sabotage justice by accepting a bribe against an innocent person.

- Most of us will probably never have to worry about giving or receiving monetary bribes that subvert justice, but we do need to consider how this plays out in daily life.

- For example, as I look around my house, I see a lot of stuff, stuff I feel I really need; stuff I feel I've got to have, but really, how much stuff do I really need?

- Am I not really lying to myself? Don't we all accept bribes and lie to ourselves about how much stuff we really need?

- How many of us are bribed by sales flyers and commercials and sales tags to buy things we don't really need when that money could be going to ministry to the poor, the needy, the innocent?

- In Psalm 15, David invites his readers to accept the challenge of a blameless walk so that our life and our worship is acceptable to God.

- If we are walking with God, allowing him to work in&on us about all these things and more, then David has this to say: Such people will stand firm forever.

^{- This Psalm is one of those passages that we can use to examine our lives in cooperation with the Spirit of God.}

^{- At the end of the day or week we can prayerfully meditate upon this Psalm evaluating our day(s).}

^{- God can use it to teach us to stand firm forever if we let him.}

- For an unshakeable life, live right before God.

Psalms for Life: Lamenting Injustice Psalm 10

After reading Psalm 10, I got to thinking about that old saying, when life gives you lemons make lemonade, and I know that many people are well-meaning when they say that, but isn't that somewhat trite?

- Do you know what I mean?

- It's commonplace, old, and worn-out.

- Aside from that, it's not very empathetic.

- When we are down in the dumps because life has given us lemons of suffering, evil and injustice, we don't need worn-out advice.

- What we need is some sympathy, some empathy, some reassurance that God cares and that he is a God of justice.

- In the opening verse of Psalm 10, the psalmist is asking the classic question that everyone asks when bad stuff happens: Why God? Why me?

- ¹ O Lord, why do you stand so far away? Why do you hide when I am in trouble?

- Is God ever far away? Does God ever hide when we are in trouble?

- The short answer is, no.  God is never far away, never hiding when we are in trouble.

- But if we are being honest, then when trouble comes our way, we feel like God is far away and we feel like God is hiding.

- Life giving you lemons? Lament!

- The psalmist shows us the need for us to be honest with God about how we feel about the injustices of life.

- A healthy prayer life begins with honesty.

- The psalmist was not afraid to tell God the truth about his feelings.

- The psalmist also wasn't afraid to let it all hang out, pointing out all the injustices he sees, describing for God the wicked like God can't see them.

- ² The wicked arrogantly hunt down the poor.
    Let them be caught in the evil they plan for others.
³ For they brag about their evil desires;
    they praise the greedy and curse the Lord.

⁴ The wicked are too proud to seek God.
    They seem to think that God is dead.
⁵ Yet they succeed in everything they do.
    They do not see your punishment awaiting them.
    They sneer at all their enemies.
⁶ They think, “Nothing bad will ever happen to us!
    We will be free of trouble forever!”

⁷ Their mouths are full of cursing, lies, and threats.
    Trouble and evil are on the tips of their tongues.
⁸ They lurk in ambush in the villages,
    waiting to murder innocent people.
    They are always searching for helpless victims.
⁹ Like lions crouched in hiding,
    they wait to pounce on the helpless.
Like hunters they capture the helpless
    and drag them away in nets.
¹⁰ Their helpless victims are crushed;
    they fall beneath the strength of the wicked.
¹¹ The wicked think, “God isn’t watching us!
    He has closed his eyes and won’t even see what we do!”

- In the next part of the Psalm, the psalmist calls on God to rise up, arguing for God not to ignore the helpless, but to call the wicked to account because God truly sees the actions of the wicked and since he sees and is just he will act.

¹² Arise, O Lord!
    Punish the wicked, O God!
    Do not ignore the helpless!
¹³ Why do the wicked get away with despising God?
    They think, “God will never call us to account.”
¹⁴ But you see the trouble and grief they cause.
    You take note of it and punish them.
The helpless put their trust in you.
    You defend the orphans.

¹⁵ Break the arms of these wicked, evil people!
    Go after them until the last one is destroyed.
¹⁶ The Lord is king forever and ever!
    The godless nations will vanish from the land.
¹⁷ Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.
    Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
¹⁸ You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
    so mere people can no longer terrify them.

- The psalmist is so angry about evil and injustice in the world that he calls on God to break their arms and destroy them all.

- Life giving you lemons? Lament!

- From a human point of view, the question of the problem of why God doesn't get rid of evil, once and for all, has been a huge source of doubt and anguish for many people.

- Many people are driven to outright atheism because of their anger with God over his apparent unwillingness to deal with the problem of evil.

- The psalmist does not hesitate to remind God of the evils and injustices in this world, but the psalmist also remembers that God is a just God and he will not allow evil to go unpunished forever.

- Friends, I think the church has some serious repenting to do over the trite answers we give regarding the problem of evil.

- Suffering is real. When people suffer, they need their suffering to be affirmed and acknowledged.

- Let's flash forward to Jesus and the prayer he taught his disciples.

- As much as the words of the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, are a prayer for the reality of God's reign to be present, they are also a lament offered up to God because we know that the reality of his reign and his justice is so desperately needed on earth today.

- Many people, even in the church, have not understood that God has dealt a crushing blow to evil.

- Evil is such an outrageous affront to God that he sent & allowed his only Son to be whipped with a Roman cat of nine tales within an inch of his life & then suffer upon a cross, the most painful, excruciating, & torturous means of death ever devised by humankind.

- Paul tells his readers: Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets. (Colossians 2:13-15, MSG)

- Does God care about suffering and evil in the world? Oh yes, he cares more than we can imagine.

- Jesus was like the psalmist, he was honest with God.

- Jesus lamented life's lemons. Isaiah foreshadowed that the suffering servant would be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with bitterest grief."

- Jesus lamented Jerusalem's unwillingness to repent. He wept over the death of Lazarus. He lamented in Gethsemane the night he was betrayed. He cried out from the cross, "My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?"

- And the Father heard Jesus prayers, giving him resurrection power and eternal life.

- When we are at the place where we feel overwhelmed by the evils and injustices of life, then we must not be afraid to be honest with God.

- When we feel like things stink, then we need to tell God.

- When we are angry about evil, then we need to tell God.

- God hears us. He will not allow evil to go unpunished forever.

- Life giving you lemons? Lament! The King hears; his justice will reign.

Psalms for Life: The Blessed Life Psalm 1

- Before we begin looking at this short series on Psalms for life in which will be looking at three Psalms, there is a key thing we need to remember:

*- The Psalms are poetry written by people who are experiencing all of the same kind of experiences that we have and through their experiences, they are responding to God in creative, poetic prayer.

*- The Psalms are poetry and as poetry, therefore, the Psalms are not prescriptive, i.e., they are not a how-to manual for life, rather they are descriptive, they are poetic descriptions of what life is like.

- For us to understand the Psalms, we need to enter into them as much as we can to experience them as the psalmist's experienced life and their relationship with God and the world around them.

- The Psalms were written so that God's people would use them to enrich and inform their experience of prayer.

- In other words, we need to incorporate the Psalms into our prayer life and live with them with our hearts open to the emotions and the experiences of the psalmist's and our ears attuned to not only what they are saying but also to what God is saying through them.

- As we read Psalm one, one of the first things we notice is that the psalmist is comparing and contrasting the righteous and the wicked.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The psalmist is saying that experiencing the blessed life does not come from delighting in the things that bring wicked people delight.

- Remember this is poetry and the psalmist isn't giving rules to obey, but describing the inner life of a righteous person, and how that inner life impacts the outward life.

¹ Oh, the joys of those who do not
    follow the advice of the wicked,
    or stand around with sinners,
    or join in with mockers.

- In other words, the righteous person has the strength of will or character that keeps them from doing evil things.

- Where is that character come from? That character or inner strength of will comes from where the righteous person takes delight.

- ² But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.

- Listen to what David thought about God's Law.

⁷ The instructions of the Lord are perfect,
    reviving the soul.
The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
⁸ The commandments of the Lord are right,
    bringing joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are clear,
    giving insight for living.
⁹ Reverence for the Lord is pure,
    lasting forever.
The laws of the Lord are true;
    each one is fair.
¹⁰ They are more desirable than gold,
    even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
    even honey dripping from the comb.
¹¹ They are a warning to your servant,
    a great reward for those who obey them. (Psalm 19, NLT)

- David makes clear what the writer of Psalm one assumes, that finding delight in and meditating upon God's law leads us to knowing the God who gave the law.

- If we flash forward to the time of Jesus, Luke 10 describes a time when a teacher of the law came to Jesus, asking him how to inherit eternal life.

- Jesus answered him with a question, What is written in the law? How do you read it?

- The legal expert answered him, saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

- Right, said Jesus, do this and you will live.

- But wanting to justify his actions, he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

- Through meditating upon God's law, God's desire is that we find him who is our soul's delight & learn love.

- God gave the law that we would come to an understanding of the depth of our sin and our need for him; NOT so that we would become self-righteous, legalistic keepers of the law thereby rejecting our need of God.

- To that goal, the psalmist paints an odd picture of the righteous person meditating upon the Scripture.

- The word translated as meditates used by the Psalmist means to groan or utter.

- So, the image is of a person reading the Scriptures half out loud to one's self or inwardly groaning in deep thought allowing the Scriptures to penetrate beyond the surface, down to the level where they can begin their transformative work in cooperation with the Spirit of God.

*- To meditate upon the Scriptures is not to fathom the depths of the Scriptures, but to allow the living Word to fathom our depths.

- Following up this thought, the psalmist gives us another image of those who allow the Scriptures to examine their depths, their most inward thoughts, their inner hidden lives.

³ They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do.

- The Psalmist sees the righteous as replanted trees that are well irrigated and well tended by the Gardener.

- Trees that have the proper sun and water and the care of a skilled gardener will not fail to produce an abundant crop at the right time.

- Jesus used similar language when he described himself as the vine and his disciples as branches in John 15.

- “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. ³ You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me."

- If we desire to bear fruit for the Lord Jesus and his kingdom, then we must take delight in the Scriptures, the living Word of God and meditate upon them, as the psalmist suggests, day and night.

- As Paul counseled the church of Colossae, "let the word of Christ, in all its richness, dwell within you."

- Without meditating upon the Scriptures, allowing the word of Christ to dwell within us richly, it will be impossible to bear fruit that will last.

- Jesus said, "apart from me, you can do nothing."

*- Friends, we open the door to the grace of God when we prayerfully meditate upon his words to us.

- When we believe that every time we meditate upon the Scriptures, ruminating as a cow chews the cud that God has a personal word for us to go to work on our character, then the possibilities for how God can use us for his kingdom are limitless.

- And the primary reason God wants us to let our hearts and minds dwell on the Scriptures is so that we will learn to be with him & thereby become like him as he works within us.

- Why do gardeners plant trees? They plant trees because they love trees, they love caring for trees, and they love the fruit trees bare.

- The psalmist describes a righteous person like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing its fruit in its season because our gardener loves us and he longs for us to be attentive to his presence.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The psalmist had strong words to say about wicked people.  The righteous are like trees planted by streams of water...

- ⁴ But not the wicked!
    They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
⁵ They will be condemned at the time of judgment.
    Sinners will have no place among the godly.
⁶ For the Lord watches over the path of the godly,
    but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

- For the psalmist, a life that does not draw its delights and blessings from a relationship with the living God, meditating upon the Scriptures as a means to deepening that relationship, then that life has no meaning, no higher purpose.

- A life that is not continually steeped in the Bible is a life without God, a godless life. 

- The psalmist reminds us that God will judge the ungodly. They will not stand in the judgment because they cannot stand. Both their inner life and their outward life lead only to condemnation.

- The new living translation really paraphrases verse six where it says that the Lord watches over the path of the godly.

- A more literal rendering of the Hebrew is "the Lord knows the way or path of the righteous."

- We need to remember that in Hebrew knowing is a deep knowing.

- It is an intimate knowing not simply superficial knowledge, but like the way a husband and wife know one another, and in that knowledge take great pleasure and produce offspring.

- Because they meditate upon the Scriptures, so open up their whole lives to God, the righteous have allowed God to know them intimately and they know him.

- Psalmist says, "The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish.

- At the end of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, the five who were foolish tried to enter the feast. Knocking on the door, they cried, Sir, Sir, open the door for us! But he called back to them through the locked door, saying, Believe me, I don't know you.

- Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said, ²² On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ ²³ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ (Mat. 7:22-23, NLT)

- The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked he knows not.

- Does the Lord know your path?

- I want to take a moment to give you one practical idea that all of us can use to allow the Lord to know our paths.

*- Scripture & silence 5X5

1.   1 cue card & hand written memory verse, keep this on you throughout the day

2.   10 minutes/day, whenever you can – lunch, break, getting up, going to bed, remember whenever you can, not when you can’t, but make time for God in this. He will use it.

a.  Five minutes of Scripture meditation and memorization, read the verse over several times stressing a different phrase or word each time allowing them to sink into you.

b.  Five minutes of silent listening, allow yourself to rest in the Scripture remembering the presence of God, listening for his voice. As you gain experience in this simple practice you may find yourself wanting to spend more time in silence in God’s presence. You are free to do that.

- This exercise is all about letting the Lord know your path and you being with him, so you will be better enabled to be his humble servant and become a friend of God.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.