Psalm 15 - Rest in peace

Turn to Psalm 15. I'm going to read it and then I'm going to hand over to Seth. A Psalm of David.

Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?

The one whose way of life 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

the bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken. Thank you for reading

that, Steve. Psalm 15. So I want to start us off with a little bit of an English lesson. I know some

of us just got really nervous, right, going all the way back to English class, but I want to start us

off with not necessarily English but more literature, thinking about one of the greatest poets of all

time, not William Shakespeare, but Homer. And see, Homer wrote this great epic called The Odyssey, right?

And The Odyssey was about this guy named Odysseus. He's the guy up there in the left-hand corner.

And Odysseus had fought this 10-year war in Greece, no, against the Trojans, and he was fighting this

war. It took on 10 years, and then Odysseus decided, I'm going to come up with one of the greatest scams

in the history of the world. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called the Trojan horse. And he rolls this

horse in. The Trojans think, oh, okay, the war is over. Great, they gave us a sacrifice. And then these guys

come pouring out in the middle of the night, and the Greeks end up winning the war.

Odysseus then, after this war, what does he want to do? He's been away for 10 years. So he wants to go

back home and experience rest, right? And so a journey that should have taken him about two months,

so he was up here at one, this is his home, should have taken him about two months to get home,

takes him 10 years to get home. And so this journey takes him on all kinds of adventures.

He ends up talking to some mermaids. His crew gets turned into pigs on some aisle. He even goes all the

way down to the underworld. But through all of this, the desire of him is to get back home. He wants

to dwell with his wife. He wants to get back home to rest. And so finally, after 10 years, he's been

gone for 20 years now. He finally gets back home. And instead of going, hey, I'm home. Welcome in. I

want to see my wife. He decides to do something a little bit different. He puts on a disguise. And then

they host this competition, right? Where they get this huge bow. That's it there. And Odysseus

is the only one that can string this bow. And then not only does he string it, he shoots it through 12

axe heads. I don't know how that works. I'm not an archer, but he shoots it through 12 axe heads.

And then everybody knows, oh yes, this is Odysseus. And so his wife had all of these bachelors

that were wooing her, trying to get her to go over and marry them because Odysseus had a lot of land and

a lot of wealth. And then all of a sudden, Odysseus shows back up and starts to scatter them all.

And what is really a pretty gruesome and bloody battle where he starts just killing everyone.

But the desire of Odysseus throughout all of these travels, throughout 10 years of war,

and then 10 years of travel, was that he wanted to get home.

He wanted to experience rest. I know some of the introverts in the room are like saying, me too, I get that.

Today, in our passage, in Psalm 15, we're going to look at a similar traveler on a journey for rest.

But this traveler doesn't want to just see his wife like Odysseus did. He wants to dwell with the Lord.

So in Psalm 15, we're going to see that the psalmist, or we'll call him the traveler today,

is going to have three things. He's going to ask a question. He's going to find the answer to that

question. And then he's going to consider the result. So three things that we're going to break

this passage down into. The first one is he asks a question. And it's important to remember the

context here as we move through the passage. As the reader, we've been reading and going through the

Psalms. And if you were doing that, you would see Psalm 10, Psalm 12, Psalm 13, all have to do with

laments. Basically, the psalmist has been in this pit of despair. And then Psalm 14, if you were with us

last month, Nick did a great job of unpacking that. The traveler that's in despair looks up and considers

the fool all around them. And then he moves from considering the fool now into Psalm 15. And he's

asking the question, who can dwell on the tent of the Lord? Who can live in the holy mountain of God?

See, this is the main desire of our traveler, of the person in Psalm 15.

This is the inciting incident, if you will. This is the main task that the psalmist or the traveler

here wants to accomplish. Just like any good story, there has to be a task to be accomplished, right?

Indiana Jones wouldn't be a story unless he was trying to get the Ark of the Covenant.

If there's any Disney fans in the room, Moana wouldn't, there wouldn't be a story there unless

she was trying to save her island from dying. Odysseus, there wouldn't be a story there unless

he wanted to get home. If he was just some freeloader floating through the ocean, he would

have stayed at the island with the mermaids. But he had a desire to get somewhere. The psalmist,

the traveler here, has a desire to get somewhere. And that desire is that they want to rest. They

want to dwell with the Lord. Look at verse 1. It says, Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent?

Who may live on your holy mountain? And you may be thinking to yourself, okay, Seth, that's great.

That's not much of a thriller of a story. A traveler wants rest. Not breaking any new ground there.

And I would say, yes, that's exactly right. This is not a new concept. In fact, this actually

relates a lot to us today, right? How often do we go to work and put aside money?

We sweat and we toil and we don't use that money at the instant right now, but instead we put that

aside for later for what? For a retirement so that we can experience rest at a later date. We are

pursuing something now so that we can have rest later.

Same thing can be said for, if you think just a little bit closer, what do you want when you go

through the craziest season of the year? Whether that for you may be at work, when it's if you're an

accountant during tax season, maybe it's if you're a pastor during Easter, whatever it is, what do you

want after you go through your craziest season? You want a holiday. And then to make this just really

personal, what are you going to want when your alarm blares at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning, waking you up,

trying to go to work. Well, you're going to want to roll over and hit that snooze button and get just

a few more moments of rest before you go on. See, we all want rest. Our bodies crave it. The NHS spent 72

million pounds last year on insomnia medication alone. Our society wants to rest.

And so when the opportunity presents itself to the traveler to have permanent rest,

he is more than keen. He wants in. He wants to understand, how can I get this rest?

But the cost is going to be larger than he can fathom.

So let's move on to the second point. See, Odysseus, going back to our main story, the cost of his rest

was a 10-year journey. He had to go through a bunch of trials in order to get home. For the traveler,

in our psalm here, the cost is going to be a perfect life. Are we familiar with the game Hangman?

Okay, good. I'm glad that this illustration is not going to fall flat, then, because that's kind of what

the rest of the sermon is built on. We're going to use that illustration a bit to kind of go through

and help see what the psalmist is talking about as we move through this psalm.

So at first, the psalmist asked the question, who can dwell on the holy mountain?

And now, he's going to find the answer. Look at verse 2. Verse 2 says,

So the first qualifications for those that are trying to enter the rest that only the Lord can

provide is to be blameless. You have to live a blameless life.

Blameless, a simple definition, just means that you are innocent of wrongdoing.

It means that you've never messed up, you've never lied, you've never stolen, you've never cheated.

And if you look at the text, it gives a definition right behind it. It says, right after blameless,

it says, the person that does what is right. And if we think about it, well, this is an obvious one,

we really don't hit this standard. And this would be our first strike, or the head of the hangman.

So we move on now to the second point that says he speaks truth from their heart. Going back to point

one, we understand that there is not a person that is blameless in the entire world, right?

This point even furthers that a little bit more by saying there's actually not even anyone that has a

pure heart. The prophet Jeremiah would say the heart is deceitful beyond cure. Basically, what he's

saying there is there is nothing pure that can come from the heart, because the heart itself is not pure.

And so there's no truth that can come from that. And once again, we fail this qualification for

entering rest. So we'll give our hangman a body. You continue in verse three, it says, whose tongue

utters no slander. This speaks of a truthful person. The pastor from New York, Tim Keller, he had a good

point on this. He said, the Bible basically defines lying as a misrepresentation of truth. In other words,

what this means is that there are no layers to truth.

Jesus, when he was talking on the Sermon on the Mount, kind of redefined truth for us a little bit.

He said, do not swear by heaven. Do not swear by earth. Do not swear by the city of Jerusalem.

Do not swear by your own head. Let your yes be yes. Let your no be no. He was saying you do not have to

take an oath for these things. What does he mean by that? Does he mean when you go to court that

as a Christian, you shouldn't take an oath to say the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I think if Christians take that interpretation, I think they're missing the point.

When Jesus is saying this, he actually does mean that when we're talking,

we should let our yes be yes and our no be no, meaning we should say the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but not just because we're under oath.

Let me give you an example. Mr. A, Mr. B, and Mr. C all see Mr. X rob a bank.

When asked about it later, Mr. A says, I didn't see him rob a bank. I don't think he did.

Mr. B says, uh, him may have been there. And Mr. C says, yeah, I think that's his bank.

Who lied? Well, they all did. They say, well, no, hang on now. One of them outright lied. Sure,

but the other two, they were just not giving the whole truth. But is this not lying? Is this not a

misrepresentation of the truth? Matthew 12 says that we will be held responsible for every idle word we say.

So it doesn't matter if we're under oath or not. Jesus is saying as Christians,

we live every hour, every minute, every moment as under oath.

And so we have to let our yes be yes and our no be no.

And so we have to ask ourselves, do we hit this qualification? And again, the answer is no.

So our hangman gets a leg now.

All right, moving on to the next one. Does no wrong to a neighbor. You might be saying,

I got this one. This one's okay. I don't know my neighbors. I'm fine on this one.

I'm saying, hang on, not so fast. Jesus again,

he comes back on the Sermon on the Mount and redefines who our neighbors are.

I'm not sorry. I'm not on the Sermon on the Mount. The very famous parable of the Good Samaritan.

Sorry. Sermon on the Mount was earlier.

But in the Good Samaritan, what is so shocking about that story

is the fact that it was an Israelite

that was hurt, but it was the Samaritan sworn enemies of each other

that came and helped him.

And so Jesus in that story redefines who our neighbors are.

He says, everyone is your neighbor.

And so if you have wronged someone before, you have broken this command.

You have done wrong to a neighbor.

I mean, again, this can kind of go back all the way to point one

of no one has lived a blameless life.

Have you ever lied? Have you ever gossiped?

Have you ever disobeyed a boss, a parent?

All right. You are guilty of this one.

I'm guilty of this one.

So now it's starting to look a little grim for our hangman.

He gets another leg.

It continues on, though, and in the passage,

the traveler says he casts no slur on others,

meaning that the person that is trying to attain rest

does not destroy the name of another person.

Obviously, this can mean physical.

Don't get into a fight with anybody else, obviously.

But I don't think many of us are prone to fistfights

in the congregation.

If you are, Steve's right there.

You can talk to him.

But what the psalmist could be talking about here

and is talking about

is verbally.

How many times have you torn somebody else down

with your words?

How many have you cast a slur against somebody else

by your words?

Again, this goes back to the gossiping.

And this one is hard in our society

because it can be so easy

to gain social standing with somebody

by gossiping about somebody else, right?

Having fun at somebody else's expense.

Tearing down someone else.

And this can be hard,

but we have to come to the grips

and realize that this is a sin.

And so our hangman, once again,

we realize that we do not meet the qualifications

for this rest.

And our hangman has now got an arm.

The psalmist and the traveler continues in verse 4.

He says,

Who despises a vile person

but honors those who fear the Lord.

This one seems easy, right?

Condemn the bad, honor the good.

But is this often true?

Do we often look at the moral filth of the world

and turn away?

Or are we sucked in?

I can say it from my own life

when I look at the television,

half the time,

whenever something morally filthy comes up,

I almost feel this pull to go further in

rather than farther away.

It's a sinful nature inside of me

that sucks me in.

But I can even say,

would the opposite of this be true?

We all like to say,

hey, we can fight against this bad thing.

But how about,

do we honor the righteousness of others?

Do we honor those who fear the Lord?

For me, again,

my sinful heart looks at this

and almost thinks of those people

as being too pompous,

too righteous.

I can manipulate it in my heart

to where the people that should have honor

and should be honored,

I get jealous of them for having that honor.

And so once again,

if we were honest with ourselves,

we would fail this expectation.

Our hangman is not looking so good now, is he?

The problem is,

is there's more to go.

The traveler says,

keeps an oath and does not change.

We're going to look at these together

because they're more or less the same problem

and because I think we're getting tired

of realizing that we can't amount up, right?

G.K. Chesterton says,

the man who makes a vow

makes an appointment with himself

at some distant time or place.

In other words,

what he's saying here

is that the man that makes a promise

says,

regardless of what happens in the future,

I will be there.

A promise frees you.

Now, if you're thinking about that,

you might think,

Seth, I think you just misspoke.

The opposite would be true, right?

But if we think about it,

a promise frees us

from the whims

of whatever may happen

in the future.

Only by promising

can we prevent

from being carried away

by an unpredictable future.

The very obvious example

of this is marriage, right?

When you get married,

when you say,

I do,

to your spouse,

you are promising

to love them today,

tomorrow,

and 10 years in the future.

You are saying

it doesn't matter

what happens in the future,

I will love you.

It doesn't matter

if you start losing your hair.

It doesn't matter

if we change houses.

It doesn't matter

if we have kids,

you change jobs.

It doesn't matter.

I promise

that no matter what,

I will love you.

That's the oath

that you're taking.

That's what it means

in sickness and in health

for richer or for poorer.

No matter what happens

in the future,

I am promising

to love you.

But have we ever

gone back

on a promise?

Remember,

we're going to be judged

for every idle word

that we say.

So if anybody

ever invited you over

and you've said,

oh yeah,

I'll be there,

and you had no intention

of showing up.

Or one of my favorite ones,

when somebody texts you

and says,

hey, are you far away?

And you're like,

yeah, I'm five minutes,

I'll be there soon.

And you haven't even

gotten on the tube yet.

I'm definitely guilty

of that one.

That's breaking an oath,

right?

That's lying.

If we're going to be

held accountable

for every idle word,

that is changing.

That's us breaking

this qualification for rest.

And so if we start to look,

our hangman starts

to get a little bit

ridiculous at this point.

And so we're going

to give them eyes.

This is when you're

playing Hamming,

this depends on how generous

the person is with you,

right?

Some people could have

ended the game by now,

but we're going to say that,

hey, we're going to be

a little more generous,

we'll give them eyes.

We have just a few more.

Who lends money

to the poor without interest

is the next qualification

as the psalmist goes on.

And this one seems easy

to understand, right?

Lend money to the less fortunate,

and if you lend money

to the less fortunate,

don't charge them interest on it.

But can you,

I think that this one

even goes a little bit further.

It says,

don't lend with the expectation

to profit in return.

Basically,

when your neighbor comes

and asks you for some flour

for his cake,

another reason to get

to know your neighbors,

you might get cake.

But you should give

your flour to that neighbor

without the expectation

of getting a piece of that cake.

Without the expectation

that he'll come back

and pay you for the flour

that he's used.

Instead,

we should have a generous heart.

See,

the 2 Corinthians says

that God loves

the cheerful giver.

So have you ever been guilty

of lending

and expecting something

in return?

All right?

Once again,

we cannot meet

this qualification of rest,

and our hangman

gets a nose this time.

I started to run out of space

on this.

Lastly,

who does not accept

a bribe

against the innocent.

A bribe is a favor

or a gift

with an obligation

to listen to what

the briber is saying

in return.

Basically,

if you accept a bribe,

you are compromised.

Your judgment

can no longer be trusted.

Again,

we think of this

as the politician,

right?

The one that takes

a bribe

so that they can push

through whatever legislation

that person wants

to be pushed through,

and you can no longer

trust their judgment.

But what about us?

Have we ever given

with the expectation

to receive?

Have we ever given

to church

of our time

and volunteered there

so that we might

be recognized

by the leaders

or our peers at church?

Have we ever volunteered,

maybe not at church,

but with another organization

so that we can have

a good feeling

about the other parts

of our lives

that maybe are not so good?

Have we ever given money,

maybe to the church,

maybe to another organization,

to ease our conscience?

In essence,

what we are trying

to do there

is we are trying

to bribe God

to receive,

just even for a moment,

the rest

that the traveler

is promising here

in Psalm 15.

But it will not work.

That rest

that we're trying

to experience

is more fleeting

than the morning dew.

So we'll finish

off our hangman here

with a frowny face.

And see,

the traveler here

has laid out

a very extensive list,

right?

Like,

you can feel

the weight of this

just hit your shoulders.

Do this,

obey that,

be better.

And we can't

do it.

We feel like

the psalmist

from the previous psalms,

right?

We are in the pit.

We are lamenting.

And every time

that we struggle,

every time we look

up to this mountain

and want to get

to that rest,

we actually

just tighten

the noose

a little bit tighter

around our necks

and end up

like our hangman

friend here.

And that makes

the realization

of the third point

even harder

to hear.

So we started

with the question

who can dwell

with the Lord.

We got the answer

that it has to be

the righteous person,

right?

We went through

a long list.

And then we get

the result.

Look at the end

of verse 5.

Whoever does

these things

will never

be shaken.

You think,

okay,

this is the part,

Seth,

this is the part

where you give me hope.

I've been waiting

for this,

let's get into it.

And you think,

oh yes,

this is the part.

This will be lovely.

If we just obey

the laws,

we will be able

to get up

into that holy mountain

and never be moved.

Our rest

can be secured.

That's where

we're going.

But even then,

our joy turns

to dismay

because we remember

we don't hit

these qualifications.

We don't pass

this test.

We are like

the hangman

done in

by our failures.

We are like

and if we

ended the story

here,

we would be

preaching a gospel

that says,

do this,

be better,

try harder.

But that is not

where this story ends.

There's a twist

and if you're just

reading

through the psalm,

you might miss it.

Look back

at verse 1

for me.

Verse 1 says,

Lord,

who may dwell

in your sacred tent?

Who may live

on your holy mountain?

Where does the traveler

want to dwell?

He wants to dwell

in God's sacred tent

on top of the mountain.

He wants to dwell

in a tent.

This is no small detail.

See,

when God delivered

his people from Egypt,

they were travelers,

right?

Where were they

travelers to?

A promised land.

A land that had been

promised them

years before.

And on their journey,

God had commissioned

a spot

for his presence

to dwell

with the people.

What did he have

commissioned?

A tabernacle,

a.k.a.

a tent.

He didn't have

a palace built

for them

to take along with.

He didn't have

a sanctuary

where his presence

could dwell,

but a tent.

He wanted a tent

at the time

where his people

were dwelling

in tents.

God chose his dwelling

as a tent

because it was

a foreshadowing

of what would happen

thousands of years later.

this time,

though,

when he would

send his son,

it would be

as a man

and his son

would come in bodily

form,

not as a tent,

but he would come

as a baby.

And that man

would grow up,

that baby

would grow up,

into a man

that would hit

every single

qualification

that we have

just talked about.

He would live

the perfect life.

He would do

what was right.

He would speak

the truth.

He would fear

the Lord.

He would keep

his word.

And he would

climb that mountain

to the holy rest

that God had promised.

But instead

of taking the reward

that was due him,

he said no

and took on

our sin,

the shame,

the things

that we couldn't do

so that we

could enter

that rest.

So now

when we get

to the end

of our lives

and we get

up to that

mountain

to want to

dwell with

the tent

of the Lord,

we get up

there,

the Lord

doesn't look

at us and say,

oh, you failed

this, you missed

that.

Instead, he says,

the righteousness

of my son

is imputed,

is given

to you

because he

died for you.

And we can

hear the words,

well done,

good and faithful

servant.

So if you're

a Christian

in the room,

rejoice.

This is the

good news.

This is what

we celebrate

at Easter,

right?

This is the

gospel.

Let this

teaching

warm your

heart.

Let it

encourage you

to go out

and share

with your

friends,

with your

co-workers,

with your

neighbors,

that this

is what

we have

been saved

for.

This is

the reason

that Easter

exists.

And if

you're a

non-Christian

in the room,

let that

truth

sink in.

Think in

a little

bit.

And ask

yourself,

are my

works

enough

to enter

rest?

See,

all Odysseus

wanted to

do

was to

go home

and enter

rest with

his wife.

But see,

Odysseus,

in order to

enter that

rest,

had to go

through a

ten-year

journey

where the

gods were

trying to

teach him

some vague

lesson.

I don't

know,

I remember

it from

English

class.

And he

had to

go through

trial after

trial after

trial to

finally get

there.

But for

the Christian,

true rest

doesn't come

after you've

cleaned yourself

up.

It doesn't

come after

you have

done

something.

It comes

when you

accept that

the riches

of Christ

are yours,

not because

you have

done anything,

but because

he gave

them when

he died

and was

buried,

and was

resurrected

three days

later.

And now

all it

takes is

us to

call him

savior and

to want to

have a

relationship

with him.

And we

can climb

that mountain,

enter the

tent,

and have

rest.

Let's pray.

Father in

heaven,

thank you

for today.

Just thank

you for

your word.

Lord, I'm

struck by

how often

I fail,

struck by

how much

I fail.

But Lord,

I'm

thankful

that a

gospel of

grace means

that it is

not up

to me.

Father, we

pray that

this truth

would be

proclaimed

throughout

our great

city,

on Sunday,

on Friday,

throughout

this week,

as we

lead up to

Easter,

and that

people would

see that

they need

you.

And they

would realize

that their

works are

not good

enough,

but yours

are.

Lord, we

pray these

things in

your name.

Amen.

Let's