Psalm 15 - Asking the Right Question
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
I just got back from a trip. It took some time this week to go to visit some of my wife's family up in Washington State. It was a great time. I met some family that I hadn't spent a lot of time with on her side, which was really fun. Part of this trip was getting to her cousin, who works at Disney Studios in Vancouver, Canada. So, we got to take a little trip. She has one set of family that lives on the American border, and then the one set right on the other side and so we spent most of our time in Washington but then we took a day trip over to Canada and he gave us this private tour of the Disney animation studio there's only two there's one in LA and there's one in Vancouver and it was really cool I was overwhelmed with how much we had a sign something that says I won't share about what I saw so I can't do that but I will say I mean it was just so cool to walk around and I was just overwhelmed as everyone in their cubicles working on you just saw characters you're like oh "Oh my goodness, that's that character and you're working on that movie and you're working on that movie. This is so cool!" And it was a really quick tour, but all of it just made me... I just had so many questions at the end and we had to kind of go through and there was a couple moments to ask some questions and I didn't even know where to begin. I was talking with my father-in-law along the way and there's just so much. There's so much that I want to ask. There's so much things like, "How does this process work? How long does it take the animators to do one scene where the person throws their hands up in the air?" You know, that could take weeks. We also obviously wanted to ask, what are the new movies coming out? What are the new shows? And can you give us a sneak peek on any of that information? But that part of the trip really reminded me of how important it is to ask good questions, and how a good question can unlock a big answer or a deep answer. And depending on who you are and how you're wired, sometimes asking questions may be easy for you, and sometimes asking questions can be really hard. My daughter at this point finds it easy to ask a lot of questions. She's five years old, and on the hour-long drive from Washington to Vancouver, it was just one question, I'm sure you can guess it, it was, "Are we there yet?" Over and over again. I think on this trip, her two most frequent questions were, "Are we there yet?" and "I'm hungry, do you have a snack?" Which I think those are just her most frequent questions, regardless of being on vacation.
But asking questions is so important, and I think it's probably a learned skill that we develop in life to ask good, important questions, to be able to discern the context and the information that is known and unknown, and then asking a question to make a person think. In conversation, you probably know this, a good question makes someone pause, makes a person reflect for a while, and go deeper than just a surface-level answer. Maybe you've been asked a good question, You know that experience of like, "Oh my goodness, that's great. I don't know. Let me think about that for a second." Or maybe you've been on the receiving side and you've heard that, and you're like, "Oh yes, that was a good question. They had to think about it for a second." For me, someone who constantly asks good questions is my counselor, my pastoral counselor. Whenever I have coffee with him, I get frustrated because he asks questions and I say, "I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Let me think for a second. I got to process." And oftentimes it means thinking about an experience in a whole new way or discovering some emotions I didn't know I felt about something. And so he just asked really good questions. But we need people in our lives that ask good questions to us, and we also want to be people that ask good questions to others. And not just with the people in our lives, but also in all of our relationships, including the most important relationship, which is with God. If we think about our relationship with God and our conversations with him, our prayers, I want us to do a little bit of a prayer inventory right now. So just in your own heads, you don't have to say anything that's out loud, but I want us to break down what our prayers look like. And so, if you were to give a percentage, maybe you have your pie chart, if you're a visual person, you have a pie chart in your mind, how much of your prayer time is praise to God? Come up with your percentage. Maybe it's 10%. Maybe it is 100, maybe all you do is praise, whatever that percentage is. All right, so you have praise. How much of it is confession and repentance? How much of that pie chart are you asking God for forgiveness? Coming before him and saying, "Hey, I did this wrong. I need... Please forgive me." And then how much of it, of your prayer time, is questions to God? I know for me, that is the largest portion of the pie chart there. And if we were to go further about those questions, How many of them are requests to God? Asking God for things, asking God to do something in my life, asking God whatever it is. How much of those questions that we have to God are more self-interested? And God, I need something. Can you do something for me? What are the quality of the questions that we ask Him? Are they the right questions? Are they self-serving? Do they bring us closer to Him? Or, like I just said, do these questions come from a heart that is more self-serving, self-interested, self-absorbed?
The questions that we ask God are important, and they reveal a lot about what is inside our hearts. You know, there can be this thought that asking questions is a sign of weakness or ignorance with this negative connotation, but I fully disagree with that. I think someone who asks a lot of questions is someone who wants to learn, who understands and has humility that they don't understand at all, and so they are seeking to understand more. We might feel that pressure as Christians to know as much as possible, or to come across as people who know everything about God and everything about the Bible. And while there is good and we should strive to know more, we don't always have to put up that front that we know everything. We often think of the Bible as a book that has a lot of answers, which is true, but do we also think of the Bible that asks a lot of questions? The Hebrew authors wanted readers and listeners to wrestle with the text, to ask more questions about who Yahweh is and what He does. Because they understood that wrestling with the text and asking questions was that invitation to a deeper understanding of God. It's just like in a relationship or a friendship, when you're getting to know someone, you ask a lot of questions. You find out who they are. You find out how they operate and what they do in this situation and how they feel about this. And even though the Bible tells us all those things, we also want to be asking God about who He is.
Many of the questions in the Bible are found in the book of Psalms. And as a reminder for our Psalm series, the first half of the book of Psalms skews more towards lament Psalms over praise Psalms. And today, our Psalm may be somewhere in between lament and praise. I think of it as a reflection Psalm. This psalm informs us of who God wants us to be, but it also holds up a mirror to our hearts to see if we are being the men and women of God that He wants us to be. So we're going to be in Psalm 15, and I'd love to read it for us today. You guys can turn in your Bibles, or you can follow along on the screen. This is a psalm of David, and he writes, "Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain? The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart, whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others, who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps an oath even when it hurts and does not change their mind, who lends money to the poor without interest, who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken." So there it is, right at the beginning.
David begins this psalm with a pair of questions, and really one question. "Who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?" And as we'll unpack this, we'll just see that this is such a good question. David was king, and so the temple is not around yet. We think of Israel and we think of the temple, but his son Solomon built the temple. And so for David, he's got the tabernacle. And this tent was with Israel for so long. It was from post-slavery in Egypt when God delivered them, and they brought them out into the wilderness, and God instructed them to have this tent, this dwelling place for him. They call it the tabernacle. And so this is the tent in verse 1. "Lord made, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?" And that now that they are in the Promised Land, that holy tent was on a mountain. And so he's really asking, the root of these two questions is, who can live in the presence of God? Or who can dwell with God in his presence? This is David asking the right question. And Christianity has a unique answer to this question. Other religions may have this similar question of who is worthy to be in the presence of their deity or their God. And oftentimes for other religions, it is all about what the person has done. What acts they have done, what are their actions, are they worthy to be in the presence of that deity? But God goes a step further and he looks at the heart, because he understands that someone could do technically the right thing, but be absolutely rotten inside. And so the Christian faith, God puts the utmost priority on the heart. And the answer to this question speaks to a person's heart and what's inside. Now a little bit more about this tent, this sacred tent. We know that God's presence is very powerful. No one has been in the full presence of God and lived. We know that from Moses on the mountain, and Moses was desperate to be in God's presence. He said, "God, I've been following you, we've got a good relationship, we've got a good thing going on. Can you please reveal yourself to me?" And God said, "You can handle it. If I show myself to you, if I reveal my full self to you, you will die." And so even in the temple, in this tabernacle, sorry, in the tabernacle, there was a section called the Holy of Holies, which is where the presence of God was. And only specific people who had done specific things to get ready could go into that Holy of Holies, and if they didn't, they would die. And this person, this priest, there was only one allowed at a certain time, the Bible tells all about these details, but even they would walk in with a rope around their leg, because if they died, they could pull the body out.
So again, the presence of God is powerful and it is mysterious. And this question that David is asking is a heavy question. Who can withstand, who could live, who could be in the presence of God? It's a loaded question and it's a great question because it's not a self-serving question. "God, can you do this for me? God, can you please give me this? Could you provide?" Whatever it is, those are not always bad prayers. I don't want to say that there's a time and place for that, but we got to be careful in how we approach God. We don't want to treat him like a genie or a vending machine. Just always asking God, I need this, God I need this, and I'm expecting this. David's question of who can dwell in the presence of God is such a great question because it addresses the accounts at the very beginning of our Bibles, the rebellion in the garden, and the rebellious heart of sin in all of humanity. And that rebellious thought is the thought that life can be lived for humanity apart from God. That humans could live a life that they know how to live a better life than what God had intended. It's the sin that Adam and Eve thought. They saw that fruit and they knew that God said don't do it, but they thought, "You know what? I think I know better than God. I'm going to take that fruit. I'm going to eat it. And so through that garden experience though, through the fall, we know clearly who is not worthy to be in the presence of God. And it's those who are marred by sin. Example, Adam and Eve. As soon as that happened, God kicked them out of the garden. So you can't be here anymore. So the question, who can dwell in the presence of God, who can be as close as possible with God, It's huge. And David mentions these two places, the holy tent and the mountain, to bring up certain things in the Israelites' minds. Now, we can't go back to life in Eden before the fall, before sin entered the world, but there are places where we are closer to God, and for Israel, physically closer to God. That's that tent, that holy mountain is exactly where God was. And those two places bring up a couple points. One, those are places where heaven meets earth. God, who is God of the heavens, is there on earth. And so that place is where his presence, where God is perfectly recognized as king, and where his reign is existing as it was meant to. And then secondly, that place is a place that stands in stark contrast to the world around it. You think of the tent and the tabernacle, and you think of that mountain, and you clearly see God's presence there. And then if you visualize with me old Israel, you just look around, and I think you would clearly see the effects of sin in the world, and the corruption and the injustice and the sin that would just run rampant. And so the temple or the tent and this mountain provide such a clear picture of life that God intended and the life that reality of sin around it. And so David, in this moment of clarity, asks a very important question, "Who's worthy to be in the perfect presence of God dwelling with Him?" And thankfully, we get the answer, which is the rest of the Psalm. What is God looking for in a person?
Well, verses 2 through 5 give us that. And we know through the teachings of Jesus and the mistake of the Pharisees that we need Jesus to be the person that He lists in 2 through 5. We can't do it on our own effort and our own strength. And so, with that foundation, let's look at what David informs us, what David tells us about who this person is. And so, first, it's a person, a woman, or a man of integrity. Verse 2 says, "Whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous." This is a phrase that is often used in the Old Testament to describe a person who followed God, and often in contrast to the people around them who didn't. So we think of someone like Noah, who at that time the whole world was evil, following sin, "Except for Noah who walked with God and did what is righteous." There's that phrase where we think of Abraham, and as God chose Abraham, it gives the example of the rest of the world who was living in sin, except for Abraham who is blameless, walking with God, doing what is righteous. And so this brings about this phrase here. This is the person whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, someone who is living out their faith in God. And then David writes, "Who speaks the truth from the heart." I love this. This is someone who speaks with conviction, someone who doesn't just say the right thing, but truly believes it. Truly believes it. And I think, I know that this happens within a person who is in the Word of God regularly. When you are reading God's Word, there is power, transforming power in His Word, and it changes us. It changes our hearts. And it has this effect on what we say. There's a prayer by George Herbert, and it's a beautiful prayer that I think we should all pray, and it says this, "Oh, make your word a swift word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip in conversation, that as the rain returns not empty, so neither may your word, but accomplish that which for what it was given." I love that prayer. In that prayer there's expectation and anticipation that God's word is going to change us. It's going to have an effect on our lives. We are transformed by his truth. Now through the work of the Spirit and through the reading of his word, a new heart is formed within us. And then And from that, we'll have a tongue that utters no slander, who speaks the truth from the heart. So, so far we have this person who is described as someone who's living a life of integrity. And then David writes, "It's a person who does no wrong to a neighbor and casts no slur on others." We might recognize this as part of the greatest commandment, to love God and to love others, to love our neighbor. It's a reminder that how we treat those around us is a reflection of what's inside of our hearts.
Another way of saying this might be a person who doesn't condescend to other people. Because someone who is constantly condescending others thinks of themselves as better. They speak from a place of higher status thinking, and they're literally, the word kind of, you're looking down on everyone around you. "I know better, I am better, let me tell you how you're wrong, how you could be doing it right." That's not the way that God intended us to speak to other people. It's not a way of speaking out of love. That would be evidence of a sinful heart, evidence of pride and of selfishness. David continues describing this person, "As someone who despises a vile person, but honors those who fear the Lord." Now, this isn't telling us to hate people or to judge other people, but to be forthright with our loyalty for God and his people. It's a declaration of where our loyalty and allegiance lie. And again, this is written to Israel, who had this habit, this bad habit, of being enamored and falling in love with the surrounding cultures and their deities and their gods and their ungodly practices. And Israel would just find a way to start incorporating those practices, even though God had given them strict rules. And so David is saying, "Israel, if you keep doing that, don't expect to be dwelling in the house of God. Don't expect to be in His presence." He continues again and he says, "Who keeps an oath even when it hurts." I love this one, because this is so hard. This is a very God-like attribute, to be keeping your word even when it is hurting you. I don't know if you've ever had to do that, but it's hard. It's really hard. And think of God who honors his covenant to Israel, even when they rebel against him, even when they break his heart over and over again. You think of the covenant that God made with Abraham. He said, "I'm going to give you lots of descendants. I'm going to make them into a great nation. I'm going to give you a land." And God, in that time, making that happen, endures all these rebellious acts. And Israel, again, commits time and time again just sin against God. Yet God remains faithful, just like He promised He would. And so David is saying that God honors a person who makes sacrifices in order to love other people. Someone who is faithful and steadfast, just like God is, that's a person who's going to dwell in the presence of God. And then he writes, "Someone who does not change their mind." So another way of saying this is sticking with the hard things. Not just taking the easy road, but sticking with it even when it gets hard, Even when it's painful, it hurts.
I think a great example of this was the youth last week, on Monday, went and did a high ropes course in Lake Tahoe. And I don't know if you've ever been 60, 70 feet high up in a tree, but it is terrifying. Some of the kids, some of the students were just like... I'm getting glared at right now by one of the students who was up there in the tree. Some of the students loved it, and they were just like... looked like they had been born in a tree, and they're just hopping around. They were in full harnesses, by the way, so don't... I don't take the students up and just they were in full harnesses. They were roped up it was all very safe and some of them were flying around just like you're going on skinny planks or things that Are just like on a wire going from tree to tree And again, some of them was amazing and then others including myself but others had a very hard time and they're facing fears of heights and balance and everything and They could have there was an option to get out of that tree if they really wanted to But I'm so proud to say, Lauren and I were so proud of them, that they all pushed through. They stuck with doing the hard thing. They faced their fears. They persevered. And they did it. And it was incredible to see them in that moment not change their mind. Take some time to take some deep breaths. And they just, one step at a time. They did a hard thing. And I think God, that's an example of the Christian life, right? There are some times where we can choose an easy way just to back out, to not be involved, but there God would desire that we not change our mind, that we stick with it, that we remain faithful to Him through difficult circumstances.
God wants that for His people. He doesn't want us to quit living the faithful life of integrity, to change our minds, and to start serving ourselves, start living for ourselves. The last couple are a little bit specific. He says, "Who lends money to the poor without interest?" This is like, "Okay, David, that's very specific, but what is that about?" Well, David is saying, "It speaks to a person who cares more about others and their prosperity than one's own gain." When someone who is in need, it's not saying, "How can I make a buck off of this? I can help them, and I can also help myself in this. God's saying, do we have a care for people purely for the sense of loving them, and giving them what they need in that moment, and not being selfish at all, and just saying, yes, let me be able to attend to your needs, and trust that God will take care of you, and He'll take care of me. It's evidence of a faithful heart, and one who is living in God's will. And then in that same verse, in verse 5, it says, "Who does not accept a bribe against the innocent?" And this is describing corruption that happens on all levels of life. We think of corruption and maybe we think of bigger corporations and businesses and politicians, but we can also, we can also live a life of corruption, of injustice. And God cares deeply about justice. If you were part of our community group this past spring, we went through a book of the Old Testament that spoke to how much God cares about justice and how upset he was with Israel, as Israel had let these practices creep into their everyday life that were unjust. God said, "You're going to face the consequences for that." And if God's own people are lying and cheating and being deceitful, What kind of reflection is that on God's character, on who He is? So this is not a character trait that God wants for His people who will be in His house. The person who dwells in the presence of God is someone who cares about justice, just as God does. So, there we have it. Easy enough, right? If you want to be in the presence of God, verses 2 through 5, go for it. As we said, we can't do this on our own. We do not have the capacity, the ability, without Jesus to live a life like this. As we take a step back and look at this list, we see a person who embodies the heart of God, someone who encapsulates a heart that cares for what God cares about and lives in a way that is pleasing and honoring to God. the way that God meant for humanity to live, and the way that Jesus did live years after this was written. I love that David asks a great question and we get the answer. In 15, the last part of this verse, David writes, "Whoever does these things will never be shaken." The Bible loves to use this analogy to describe someone who is protected by God, in whatever circumstances they go through. So in the New Testament you might think of Jesus' teachings in the parable of building the house upon the rock. Or Paul's teachings in Ephesians, where he's talking about a person who is not thrown around by the waves. Again, it's not saying that you won't go through difficult, challenging, painful experiences, because you will. But when you do, God will protect you, He will hold you fast, and keep you secure. And you will go through whatever it is in the presence of God. It also speaks to a consistency. You will not be shaken, but you will remain with God through it all. I think that's part of the Christian life, that we often start younger in our faith, and we have moments where we feel really close to God, and we have moments where we feel really far away. And hopefully the prayer is over life, that up and down becomes a little bit less and just consistent, and we just have a constant strong relationship with him. Whoever does these things will never be shaken.
David, the author, again, to his credit, was very self-aware of his heart, of his own shortcomings, and he had some pretty big shortcomings. And he prayed often to dwell in the house of God. And I think he realized it's because of the sin that he committed and those moments where he felt so far away from God, it stirred in him that hunger to be, "I want to be as close to God as possible. I want to be in the house of God, in the Holy of Holies. I don't want to be far away. I want to be as close to Him. I want to dwell with Him." We should have a similar heart. I said at the beginning that this psalm informs us of who can dwell in the presence of God, but it also holds up a mirror to our own hearts. And so now it's time to hold up that mirror. I want to ask a few questions of us, just some things that you can think about today and this week. First is, what kind of questions are you asking God? Are they questions that expect God to do something according to your will? Or are they questions that will bring you closer to His will? Just as David did, it might be a good exercise to ask those burning questions of faith that we have about who God is and what He does. We all have questions about that. And maybe it's a good exercise to write that down and try to answer them, and then go to the Bible and try to find those answers. Whatever those questions may be, "God, why am I going through this situation in life? God, why did you do this? God, why do you tend to..." Whatever it is, I don't know, why is there suffering? God, who's going to be with you in heaven? You can ask the biggest of questions, you can ask the smallest of questions, but ask them. Take time to figure out those answers, and I think that process, I know that process can bring you closer to Him. It will make you wrestle with hard truths and tensions in the faith, but it'll be so good. There's a lot that we're meant to wrestle with.
As I said in the beginning, God, the authors wanted us to be...there's just tension in the faith. There just is. My Hebrew professor told me that there are rabbis who study one psalm for their entire life. And so they'll have 50 years of study on one psalm, and they just continually learn. They never think that they have arrived, and they think that they know it all. They are saying, "Oh, in year 48, here's the new thing I learned from this same passage. And so we should have a similar heart. God, there is more to know about you. I need to ask these good questions to find out these answers." And then secondly, lastly, our last question, do we desire to live in God's presence? Are we taking moments in life to ask God, "How can I be in your presence right now?" And I would say, let's be specific. It may mean praying, "God, in my place of work, how do I work in your presence? God, in my family life, how do I be a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a friend, son, daughter, whatever it is in your presence?" Are we trying to be with God, or are we trying to have God just be with us in what we're doing? And there's a difference. It's important to find out how we're living our lives. We may not have thought about it that way before, but we can, by default, just start to bring God along with us. "God, I'm going this way, please follow, come with me." When really, we need to be asking, "God, where do you want me to go? Where are you leading? Let me follow you." Are you trying to be with God? Are you trying to be this person who can dwell in the house of God, in the presence of God? Is this list of characteristics present in your life? In what areas of your life do you feel the Spirit calling your attention to, to submit and to undergo further transformation by the power of God and his Word? David, like us, didn't always get it right. But in this moment, I'm so thankful that he asked the right question. And so I want to encourage us to be like him and make a habit of asking the right questions to God.
Would you guys pray with me right now? God, we come before you thankful for your word, and the power of your truth to transform our hearts to be made more like you. And that is our desire, that is our prayer, that you would be purifying us, transforming us, taking the sinful habits away, and instantly putting in us godly desires, godly character. So I pray that this week through your Spirit you would help, you would speak to us about areas of our life that need to change, where we are being selfish and self-absorbed. And I pray that you would help us in our prayer life as we converse with you regularly. That I pray that we would take time to pause and think about what we're asking. And while we still may have requests for you, I pray that our hearts would also start to see how we can ask, "God, how can I be in your presence? How can I live a life where I am with you in everything that I do?" Go with us this week. Guide us this week. We trust you and we love you. We pray this in your name. Amen.