Belonging | Psalm 15:1-15 (June 26) Jason Lock

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Let's turn our hearts to God in prayer together.

Father, we thank you that as Christ died and rise again, so those of us who have faith in him, we are united with his death, with his resurrection, and even as Christ Himself said, though we die, yet will we live.

Thank you, Lord, for a hope that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and kept in heaven, guarded for salvation, ready to be revealed for us.

Lord God, we admit though we can be so nearsighted and forget this secure hope that you've promised in Christ, things will be better.

Forgive us, Lord God, for turning into faithless despair.

Help us now to turn to your word, to see Christ as he is, to have a renewed hope and to live, Lord God, with eyes that see into eternity and can live faithfully here and now for your glory and for the good of others.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Can you remember a time or a place recently where you had a real palpable sense, like you could taste it, like you could feel it, or you just knew I don't really fit in here right now.

Maybe you've had to return to the office in the past couple months, and there aren't a lot of people there, and you can't even remember who's gone or who's left, but it just clearly felt like I don't feel like I belong here.

Maybe you was at a family gathering with extended in-laws or cousins and second cousins and people like you're supposed to know and have good conversations with, but it just feels uncomfortable, like I don't really belong here.

Maybe it's just you felt that at school regularly, like all the time.

Do I really belong here with these people?

Belonging, belonging with others is a natural desire that all of us as souls created in the image of God.

It's something that all of us want.

It's something that all of us desire.

It's embedded into the DNA of our humanity.

But I believe that that desire to belong with others is really just an echo of our soul's longing to belong with the God who created us.

So, even more critically than knowing how we can belong with extended family or in our work environment or in school, even more critical than this is understanding this question.

Who can know that they belong with God?

How would you answer that question today?

Who can know that they know that they belong with God?

Psalm 15 answers this question for us.

Today, through this passage, I want to be able to show you three aspects of the sense of belonging that all of us have as souls created in the image of God.

First, I want to show you the desire and convince you of the desire that we have for belonging.

Then, through Psalm 15, I want to show you the conditions, what's actually required for us to be able to know that we belong with God.

And then for us who by faith are true to those conditions, I want to show you the promise.

The desire, the conditions, and the promise, who can know they belong with God?

So let's look at this passage together.

Psalm chapter 15, verse 1 to verse 5.

Psalms 15:1

Hear what Holy Scripture says.

A Psalm of David.

O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

He who walks blamelessly and does what is right, and speaks truth in his heart, who does not slander with his tongue, who does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, 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, 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.

Who can know they belong with God?

We all have this desire for belonging.

Psalm 15 was written by King David, and now he lived in Jerusalem.

That's where his palace as the king was, and that's also where the tabernacle, where the people of God came to worship God, in his presence was.

Now, because he lived in Jerusalem, and the tabernacle was in Jerusalem, David regularly was able to access the presence of God in the place where he promised for worship.

And he loved being there.

He said in Psalm 27, one thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in your presence all the days of my life.

He wanted it.

But he knew that not everybody was able to have the privilege of going to the tabernacle to worship God in his presence with as much frequency as he did.

The rest of the nation that lived outside of Jerusalem, they were required to make a pilgrimage to the capital city a few times a year for certain festivals.

They didn't have as much frequency as David did.

So David likely wrote this psalm with these pilgrim worshippers in mind.

He knew what the conditions, what was required to be able to belong with God and be in his presence for worship.

But for these other people who only came a couple times a year, he wanted them to be thinking about this in advance of their journey to the temple so that they could know who can truly belong with God.

So he starts in verse one O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?

That's the tabernacle.

Who shall dwell in your holy hill?

That's Mount Zion, where the tabernacle is.

So the pilgrim worshippers who are only going a few times a year for this critical opportunity to be able to dwell with the presence of God, they are wondering, what is this like?

And truly it was absolutely significant for them to be with the presence of God.

The presence of God in the place where God promised he would meet with his people, that was the thing that distinguished what it meant for the people of God to be the people of God.

Without God's presence, they would not truly be his people.

Moses conveyed really how significant this was in the book of Exodus.

In Exodus 33, verse 15 to 16, Moses says this.

Exodus 33:15–16

And I wonder, do you, Christian, consider abiding with God in his presence as critical as Moses did?

Listen carefully, Exodus 33, 15 to 16.

Moses says to the Lord, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.

For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight?

I and your people.

Is it not your going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?

The presence of God with the people of God was the thing that distinguished who they truly were.

If you play for one professional sports team, like the Leafs, you're not going to wear another professional sports team's jersey, like the Canadians.

That jersey designates what team you're on and who you're playing for.

The presence of God is the thing that distinguishes God's people as God's people.

It is critical, Christian.

If you are not abiding with God in His presence, if you have no desire for that, how can you truly know that you are one of God's people?

It's as if you say that you might be married to someone and that you have a functioning relationship with them while you live in another country and never stay in contact with them.

But we have this privilege of his presence, something that was lost in God's initial creation in the garden where they walked amongst the Lord in the cool of the day.

Something that he promised he would have to the people, something that will be the thing we are looking forward to when Christ returns.

And it says, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

Something that you've been securely promised through the Holy Spirit abiding in you now.

It's what God made us for, it's what was lost, it's what was promised we will have for all of eternity, it's what we can enjoy now.

Do you desire to belong with God?

See, when the people had this, it didn't just distinguish that the people of God were the people of God, but it satisfied their soul in the way that they wanted.

When God's presence was with his people, the nation was at peace.

They were whole.

When God's presence was with his people, they had dignity.

Because they knew that they were loved by their Redeemer.

When God's presence was with their people, they had joy.

Because they knew that there was nothing greater that they could seek after, and nothing of greater significance that they could rejoice over than the Lord.

Or are you looking for your peace, for your dignity, for your joy, and something of your own making?

Maybe you're looking for these things that is the peace and the dignity and the joy to validate yourself.

Maybe you're looking at that through your academics or through your career.

Maybe you're looking for that through your parenting.

That you can raise these kids in the right boundaries, and really their behavior is an indication of how great you are.

Maybe you're looking at it for it in your body image or your reputation and how other people perceive you.

It's the presence of God with the people of God that not only makes the people of God who they are, but it also validates their humanity.

Do you desire that?

But when we don't have that, sometimes we might not know how to fix it, but we know what it feels like when it's missing.

It's like uh a heavy backpack that feels sewn onto our spine and a burden that can't be relieved.

It's like a sour flavor that no amount of sweet treat could ever get rid of.

When we lack this validation of our identity and we don't belong, it's like a rotten stench that no amount of Febreze could ever cover up.

Our world desperately understands this.

I recently came across a TED talk by a journalist, her name was Carolyn Clark, and she helpfully explained how, from a secular perspective, the sense of belonging that validates our identity is something that everybody desires.

Humanity's natural desire is for belonging and validation.

This journalist in this TED talk, her career is to be able to work to advocate for diversity and inclusion for women of color in the workplace.

But in an honest moment, she described the limits of what diversity and inclusion can actually do.

She described that inclusion may create policies that get people to the door, and diversity might be able to promote people to go through the door.

But once you're in the room, belonging can't be forced upon other people.

You can't force people to accept others, you can't force people to welcome others.

You can create policies, you can create promotion, but belonging is a deeper and more profoundly critical issue.

She says belonging isn't something you can seize or demand or earn.

It can't be decreed by law.

Belonging isn't like a party you can crash without an invitation you'll never get in.

She goes on to say that when you have it, you can also, you might not know how you got it, but you also can recognize the feeling.

The absence of it might be a burden or it might be sour or it might be a stench, but to have it is to be in a space where you're known for who you are, and for those around you, you just simply say, I see you.

It's good to have this.

It's good to have this in our families with our parents.

It's good to have this in our school, with our friends, where we are seen and dignified.

It's good to have this with our teens, our peers, it's good to have this from our team leader, our supervisor, but this desire to be seen and known and validated in a place that we belong with others is an echo of our soul that longs for that from God.

Writer C.S.

Lewis talks about this in a book, uh, in an essay he wrote called The Weight of Glory.

And he describes this sense of validation and belonging as a weight of glory, something that is great and significant.

And this is what he says about it: to be validated and stand before God, not just man.

He says, It is written that we shall stand before him, God.

We shall appear, we shall be inspected.

How does it make you feel that one day you will stand before God?

And he will take a roll of all of your behavior and all of your thoughts for all of life.

For some that might be fearful, but for those in Christ, it can be a weighty thing of great joy.

He goes on to say, the promise of glory is the promise almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, any of us who He really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God, to please God, that we can be a real ingredient of divine happiness, to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or in a father in his son.

It seems impossible.

A weight or burden of glory which our hearts and thoughts can hardly sustain, but so it is.

This is the desire of belonging, that we would be seen not merely before a team leader or a spouse or a parent or a friend, that we would be seen and accepted and validated.

This greater heart is to have that and know that from the one who made you, the one who knows you in ways that no one else does.

The ways, the one who sees your blemishes that you know how really well to hide before others, but you cannot hide before God.

To be before that person, but to be accepted, that will give you an abiding sense of joy and peace and dignity that nothing else can give.

Who can know that they belong with God?

Who shall sojourn in your tent?

Who shall dwell in your holy hill?

This is the desire for belonging.

And David knows that this is a critical question.

So then, from verse 2 to the beginning of verse 5, David lists the conditions.

Who can know that they belong with God?

Verse 2 to verse 5 lists the conditions for belonging.

And this psalm here, while we read it kind of just maybe like a poem, is actually a song.

It's a song that, and we kind of miss this in the English language, but in King David's original language that he wrote it in, it's written with rhythm and with rhyme.

Because remember, he's writing this for the pilgrim worshippers who are coming to Jerusalem, and he wants to give them a simple, memorable instruction so that they can know the conditions to who can belong with God.

Rhyme and rhythm are really helpful to be able to learn and understand things.

For instance, um, my son and daughter both uh regularly forget which meal is the name of the meal that they're eating at the day.

So we'll sit down for breakfast and say, Is it time for dinner?

It's like, no, Timmy, it's not time for dinner.

We'll sit down for lunch and say, Thanks for making breakfast.

No, Timmy, it's not breakfast.

So we need to teach, we want to teach him.

So we give them this simple rhyme, this simple rhythmic song.

So he says it wrong.

He's like, Timmy, okay, sing your song, and he goes, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And and okay, is this which meal of the day is this?

It's like number two.

So which meals is called lunch.

And the simple song, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the rhythmic rhyme helps him remember.

Also, we have this like little wooden set where you can screw together like a model plane or a model boat.

And my daughter is learning to be able to use screws and a little toy screwdriver, and she needs to learn the proper way to be able to screw it in.

So there's a little rhyme for that.

Do you know what that is?

Lefty loosey, righty tidy, right?

Little rhyme helps her remember.

So when we're reading verse two to verse five here, what we're actually reading is a very simple rhythmic rhyme that David created in his original language with the intent of helping them remember the conditions for who can know that they can belong with God.

So briefly, I want to explain to you what we're looking at here, okay?

So, it from verse 2 to verse 5, if you took some time to really look at it in detail later, you'll notice that there are ten separate lines and ten separate conditions.

What you'd also notice at that these conditions are segmented.

Into four parts.

And you can see the rotation of the parts based on first part positive group of statement, second negative group of statement, then again positive, then again negative.

And then also the segments have alternating numbers.

There's three, then there's two, there's three, then there's two.

So that's the pattern that he's working at here.

But what he wants is to them to have simple instructions to know the conditions for who can belong with God.

Now, for our sake, I think we can see, so I can teach these conditions to you.

I think there are three kind of themes of the conditions that we see here.

All of these conditions that are given to know who can belong with God are like moral behaviors for how we should treat one another.

And I think David gives them in three categories here.

The first category of conditions is integrity, the second is equity, and the third is charity.

Who can know they belong with God?

Well, someone who has integrity.

That you're blameless before the law.

You do what is right, you speak truth from the heart, you honor those who God honors.

Integrity is the person who is the same when you're at home and when you're at work.

You speak the same way when you're on your keyboard or typing in social media or when you're having a private conversation with your friend, because wherever I am and whomever I'm speaking with, I know that I'm always before the eyes of God.

Integrity.

The second, I think, category of conditions that David gives is equity.

Equity is how I treat others.

I don't treat others for personal advantage.

Uh I don't give my word if I don't intend to keep my word.

Um, it's the type of person who won't act out of partiality, doesn't have a double standard, doesn't treat people prejudging them because I know I'm not using people to get things out of people, but to serve and love other people.

Integrity, equity, charity.

Charity is a heart of goodwill towards others.

They're not slandering, not doing evil, not shaming with reproach, sharing openly what I have.

Charity is the type of person who desires the good of others because they see the good that has been given to them from God.

Integrity, equity, charity.

These are the conditions David gives so we can know who belongs with God.

It's pretty simple to understand, isn't it?

But there's something really odd about this that needs to be highlighted.

What's odd about this isn't what's here.

What's here is pretty simple.

What's odd about this is what is absent.

If we're trying to understand who can know that they belong with God, why is David giving instructions for how we should treat one another?

Seems rather backwards, doesn't it?

If we're going to the tabernacle to dwell with God, shouldn't I be given instructions about how I should treat and follow God Himself?

Well, I think David understands something about what it means to be created in the image of God.

This is important.

Generally speaking, for better or for worse, the way you treat other beings created in the image of God is the barometer of how you treat the one in whose image they are made.

How you treat your kids when no one is watching.

How you speak to your spouse in a way that you think is okay.

The way you speak behind or about politicians online, the gossip that you continually tell about that other mom in the playgroup.

The way we treat other humans is one of the best barometers to actually know the relationship that we have with God.

We see this reflected in the teaching of Jesus.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus is talking about going to worship and bringing an offering to God.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Something that if you're going to be able to know how to do that right, you should know, I guess, the conditions before God.

But he actually talks about being right before others before you take your offering to God, Matthew 5.

So if you were offering a gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus knows the way you treat other people and your relationship with others reflects your relationship with God.

Matthew chapter 6, 14 and 15.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses.

The way you treat others in relationship reflects what your relationship is like with God.

We cannot stand before God rightly if we do not stand before others rightly.

But I think a lot of us are pretty blind to this.

Because the human heart is really prone to be able to boast in what it can quantify.

We can take pride in the things that I do.

We're self-righteous.

And it is an inevitable byproduct of our self-righteousness, my own self-righteousness.

When we're consumed with ourself in either the duty I need to perform, or when we're consumed in ourselves with the insecurity about what other people think about me, either way, the self-righteousness or the insecurity both swallows up our ability to be able to focus on any other people at all.

Because we're just focusing on here's the good things I can do, or fearful that other people don't accept me.

And when we're so consumed with self, we think what we have is integrity, but it's actually swallowed up by hypocrisy.

What we think we have is equity towards others, but it's actually swallowed up by partiality.

And we think we are really acting with charity, but really we're living with animosity.

And we become more like Pharisees than we become like Christ.

I wonder what is the way that you are prone to neglect showing love to others?

Is it because of insecurity?

Because you are fearful about what other people think of you?

Is it is it self-righteousness that you are so proud of the way you think or the way you live that you look down at other people?

This expresses itself in a lot of different ways.

In the church that I attend, people could be really prone to boast in their theological knowledge.

And they're so they know old dead theologians so well, but they have no idea the name of their neighbor who lives next door to them.

And the pride of what they know blinds them to the people they should be loving.

Maybe for you that's politics.

Because you see genuinely there's a lot of concerning things happening in the world.

And you want to be certain that your political views that you think are genuinely going to be the best for society are the right political views.

But often what happens is that we could get consumed in tribalism, and because you want to be certain that your views are right, often you then just villainize those who look different than you, those who act differently than you, those who vote differently than you.

And rather than loving your neighbor as yourself, they become a hashtag that you just simply criticize and see as a villain and an enemy rather than someone made in the image of God.

All of us can be prone to this.

By the pride of our self-righteousness or by the fear of our insecurity, same result.

We can't focus on others.

And our relationship with God is the best barometer of what it's like, or excuse me, our relationship with others may be the best barometer of what it's like to have a relationship with God.

So then, who can know that they belong with God?

Who can know that they are validated and seen as they are before God?

In stark contrast to the Pharisees, Jesus shows us a true and better way.

See, Jesus shared meals with prostitutes.

Jesus befriended wicked tax collectors, Jesus touched those who were sick by lepers.

Prostitutes, tax collectors, leopards, these are people that the Pharisees would deliberately avoid from because they had themselves convinced that if they were near to them or they conversed with them, they would be unclean and not able to enter the presence of God.

They wouldn't be able to go to the temple where God's presence dwelt.

The Pharisees, by their self-righteousness, wanted to purify themselves in order to belong with God, but they didn't realize that there was something greater and better in Jesus.

They wanted to purify themselves for the presence of God.

What they didn't realize is that Jesus himself is the presence of God.

That Jesus himself is the living temple.

See, Jesus, the Son of God, incarnate here on earth, was the pure and holy presence of God.

So the temple through the law required that people needed to cleanse themselves in order to get to God, but Jesus, as the living temple, himself could purify the unclean.

So rather than having to clean yourself up to come to the temple, Jesus himself would go to those who were unclean, and with a word of his grace, he would cleanse them.

Or with the touch of his hand, he would heal them.

He would welcome them, he would validate them.

Jesus' merciful touch would heal anyone of the physical pain of disease, but even better than that, the merciful death on the cross and your faith in it can heal anyone of the defiling pain of sin.

Who can know they belong with God?

Those who know the cleansing mercy of Jesus Christ.

The cleansing mercy of Christ is enough to heal and to welcome and to validate anyone who has the faith to believe that what he's done is enough for me.

My self-righteousness isn't enough to cleanse me before God.

My insecurities don't make me dirty enough that I can be irredeemably turned away from God.

The cleansing mercy of Christ is enough.

So who can know that they belong with God?

It's the merciful.

Those who have been cleansed by the mercy of God and don't lean on their self-righteousness and aren't borne down by their insecurities.

They know they're accepted and dignified and welcomed by the mercy of Jesus.

That person then is no longer nearsighted to focus on my own concerns, but then can look out and can see there are other people who have burdens and hurts and pains like I do.

And I can show the same love that Christ has shown to me.

I can show the same mercy that I myself has received.

Because I have received mercy, I then can look out and live with integrity, act with equity and show charity.

When in faith you've been purified by the mercy of Christ shown to us at the cross, you will be relieved of the burden of religious performance.

You will be validated in Christ with a true sense of peace that you can't get from your own achievements, dignity that you can't get from the approval of others, joy that you can't get from getting all of your hopes and dreams.

And you can gain these things because of who you are in Christ.

And when you know who you are in Christ, the mercy of God can enlighten your eyes to see the needs of others and show mercy to them.

The merciful can know that they belong with God.

Do you have you received Christ's mercy so that you were able to look at other people and see their need of mercy?

This desire is universal.

The good news is that in Christ the conditions have been fulfilled, but now for those who have received the mercy and strive to live with mercy, there's a great promise.

One final line at verse 5 says, He who does these things will never be moved.

That is a strange, but if true, really astounding promise to make.

Because when we don't feel like we belong, we often feel alone.

Loneliness was a sense that I think many of us came to feel maybe for the first time or even in a deeper and more burdensome way over the past two years.

When we don't feel when we find ourselves feeling alone, you actually find yourself not in an uncommon place.

You find yourself in the place in good company where many faithful worshippers of God have found themselves before.

You find yourself with King David too.

King David regularly sought to live with integrity, charity, and equity.

He wanted to show mercy to others, but often he was met with merciless people who abused him and manipulated him and tormented him so that he had to be on the run in hiding all of the time.

But even still, he believed that no matter how poorly other people treated him, no matter how much he lacked a sense of belonging with others, he knew that in God's mercy, his secure belonging with the Lord would never be taken away.

This is your hope.

This is your promise.

That nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.

That even if you are mistreated by the worst of people and isolated from all of those people who said they were your friends, still we have the security that we can never be moved from the presence of God.

This is the promise he has given.

I will never leave you or forsake you.

If you find yourself alone or mistreated, you find yourself with the Lord Jesus, who himself was despised and rejected by men, who sees your sorrow and is with you in your pain.

And like Jesus, you can learn not to revile when you are reviled, not to return evil to evil, but overcome evil with good.

Who can know that they belong with God, the merciful, those who have received the cleansing mercy of God, and who strive to live to show that mercy to others?

That person can never be moved from the joy-saturated, dignity-fulfilling, and peace-satisfying presence of God.

And Christian, that is what you can have in Christ today.

Would you pray together with me now?

Father in heaven, thank you for your Son Jesus Christ.

Thank you that in Christ we can be fulfilled, we can be validated, we can be dignified.

Father, forgive us for the self-righteousness in our hearts that tries to validate ourselves.

Forgive us for the insecurity in our hearts that is so consumed with what other people think of us that we do not have the faith to believe what you have said is true of us.

Forgive us for neglecting to show mercy to others, for avoiding people that we should be serving, for villainizing people that you that should we should be loving as neighbors.

Thank you, Lord, that in Christ we are secured in your presence and we truly belong with you.

Father, protect us from being Pharisees.

Help us to be merciful people who have received your cleansing love and who seek to show it to others as well.

In the name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.