Psalm 15 - Who Walks with God?

What I want to do is I want to invite you to Psalm chapter 15 is where we're going to be together today in Psalm chapter 15. If you brought a Bible, I can tell you the easiest way to find the book of Psalms is to open up to the middle of your Bible. And if you don't land on Psalms and you land very close to the book of Psalms, it's often right in the middle of Scripture. If you follow along digitally, if you got a digital Bible, it's easier for you to flip to the book of Psalms. But we're in the book of Psalms together today.

As we start a new series, we like to spend time in the summer in the book of Psalms, because of what Psalms represents for us. It's a beautiful book of worship and teaching us about a relationship with the Lord. One of the things that makes Psalms unique is that out of the 66 books of the Bible, 65 of them are more viewed as God communicating to us. In the book of Psalms is 150 of these Psalms, and it's teaching us how to respond in light of who God is. Very much a book of worship and teaching us to engage the Lord in every season of life. And as we kick off the series together, I want you to know I'm going to give a little bit longer of an introduction today. And part of the reason for that is because, well, this is the beginning of our series in Psalms. The other reason is if you look at Psalm 15, you'll recognize it's not a very long psalm. So I can lay out for us a longer introduction to what Psalms is about.

You know, when you think about the significance of what it means to be a Christian or a follower of Jesus, one of the things that makes Christianity remarkably different from any other belief system or religion in the world is that Christianity isn't founded upon a philosophy or just simply a moral teaching. Christianity is rooted in a historical event. The foundation of our faith is rooted in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, we have no foundation. It's one of the reasons that when you examine other religions in this world, if you take away maybe some of the historical teachings that they might claim, and you just observe it as a philosophy or a moral teaching. Take away any historical context, and that really isn't going to change the religion much, because the philosophy and the moral teachings still remain. But if you take away the foundation of the identity of God becoming flesh and giving his life for you and for me, the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, you uproot the foundation of Christianity and therefore destroy Christianity altogether. The core of our existence as God's people is very much rooted in a historical event that God would become flesh and give his life for you and for me.

It's interesting, even when you take the time to investigate the foundation of Christianity from a prophetic sense in the Old Testament, and seeing how throughout the Old Testament, there was the proclamation of a Messiah who would come as our deliverer and what that would do for you and for me. Throughout the Old Testament, prophecy is scattered from beginning to end in the identity of Messiah as Israel looked forward to what that Messiah would bring in deliverance for all of God's people. If you remember the promises of Abraham, it was through a seed, meaning one seed, Jesus, all people groups would be blessed. Through one people group there would come one who would bless all people groups. And so you see the prophetic statements of the Old Testament as you read throughout Scripture and everything Jesus would fulfill. Then you look at the New Testament, which is a proclamation of the fulfillment of everything Jesus accomplished for us. But more than that, it becomes really this eyewitness testimony in the first century of all that Jesus would fulfill for you and for me.

And it's incredible when you study the accounts of those eyewitnesses, when you discover that the early followers of Jesus at the death of Jesus ran away from Christ as cowards, but then something incredible happened to enrich their lives with such boldness that they were willing to give their life for him. And the question is, what would happen in order to cause Jesus followers to go from cowards to individuals of incredible boldness. For example, if you use the life of Peter, when you read about the accounts in the Gospels of Peter's life, Jesus warns him he's going to die. Peter says, over my dead body, you know I'll die before you, Jesus. And then when Jesus is finally arrested, it's Peter who runs away as a coward. Yet just a few days later, he responds with this incredible boldness to the point that he ends up giving his life by being crucified upside down. History even records that his wife is taken to a martyr's death just before Peter, and Peter remarks to his wife, stay faithful to Jesus, as she's being taken away.

You know what happened in the life of Peter to give him such boldness, as well as the other disciples? And it was that they saw the resurrection of Jesus, and it radically transformed them. And even when you look beyond the pages of Scripture, the Old Testament prophetic, the New Testament, the fulfillment of everything that Jesus accomplished for us. When you look to extra writings such as the early church Fathers, recording for us what Jesus accomplished, or even historians in the first century that weren't followers of Christ, people like Suetonius or Josephus or Tacitus and Thallus. They write for us the reality of Jesus's existence and the foundation of the Christian faith and belief in what this Jesus accomplished through his death, burial, and resurrection. The attestation to Christianity is rich in history and the foundation of our faith.

But all of us, at some point before coming to Jesus, would find ourselves in what I would qualify as skeptics. Whether at some point in your past you were a skeptic of who Jesus was, or even maybe this morning you might find yourself in that position. All of us, at some point before we come to a believing faith in Jesus, would have to qualify ourselves as a skeptic. Now, when we think in terms of skeptic, we might just think, well, that's someone who is reluctant to believe. That's what makes them skeptical. They're skeptical. But truth be told, the idea of skepticism means this: you examine the evidence from a distance. You're examining the evidence specifically as it relates to Christ from a distance. But if you're going to walk faithfully with Jesus, at some point you've got to close that gap. And so what does it look like for me, that rather than just examine him from a distance, to walk in an intimate relationship with the Lord, to close that gap from just an observer who maybe looks at Christ and says, well, at least he was a good moral teacher, but to truly understand who he is and being God made flesh. Pursuing you to give you an intimate relationship with him by paying for your sin's cost on the cross, that you can be forgiven and made free. That you could be reconciled to God and enjoy a relationship with him forever.

Now, at some point, there becomes the question of what will you do with Jesus? One of the most beautiful books in all of Scripture that teaches us what it looks like to walk in intimate relationship with the Lord is the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms is known as a book of Psalms. It's 150 songs contained for us within the passages of Scripture. It teaches us how to prayerfully come before the Lord. It teaches us how to engage God in worship. And much of God's people throughout the centuries have memorized passages, if not entire chapters. To learn what it means to truly worship, Jesus would have sung these Psalms. The disciples who wrote the New Testament quoted from this book more than any other book, and throughout the ages of church history, writers of songs that we even sing today look to the Psalms reflectively to inspire God's people in worship before the Lord.

This book was written over a span of a thousand years. The majority of the Psalms were written by King David. About half of them were written by David. A third of these Psalms, we're not even sure who the author is. And then the remainder of these Psalms come from a collection of different authors. Moses wrote one of the Psalms. Solomon wrote a Psalm. Asaph wrote some songs. The sons of Korah wrote some songs. There's even a Psalm written by a guy named Heman, which is incredibly relevant today because if you grew up in the 80s, you know there's a movie just waiting for you, right? I'm not trying to promote it. I don't even know what's in it. So I shouldn't say that. But it's funny when you realize He-Man wrote a Psalm and you actually read the Psalm that He-Man wrote, you're like, oh, this matches up. Because when you look at the cartoon figure of He-Man, I mean, he lived in a castle called Castle Grayskull, which is a really dark place. And that's supposed to be where the hero lives. And he fights some guy named Skeletor. And then when you read Psalm 88, you're like, this is a dark psalm. This is a guy really going through it. This matches up like what I know of He-Man. And those aren't the same figures, by the way, in case anyone's confused by that.

But you have Psalms written by multiple authors, and they teach us to engage God in every emotion we might experience in life, whether it be in seasons of loss or seasons of rejoicing, seasons of confusion or seasons of anger, seasons of grief, seasons of celebration or guilt or repentance. Every aspect, the whole gamut of the human experience. These Psalms teach us what it means to engage God in what we experience in this thing called life.

And then these Psalms are written to us in a form of poetry, not as prose as we're used to. We might think if that doesn't rhyme, it's not a poem. But in Hebrew literature, poetry was written different than we might express it today. As you read through the book of Psalms, you'll see within each verse of a Psalm you might find multiple lines, and each of those lines are really — it's called parallelism — that each one of those lines are intended to reinforce what you read in the first line. Meaning when you read verse one, you might find two or three lines in verse one of a Psalm, and the first line gives a thought. And the second line that follows will either reinforce what the first line says or become the antithesis to what the first line says. But in Hebrew poetry, that was the way their poetry was written.

There are several different types of Psalms. There are Psalms of lament. There are Psalms of thanksgiving. There are Psalms of wisdom. There are messianic Psalms. There are Psalms for holidays. There are imprecatory Psalms calling down God's justice on injustice in this world. Even Psalms that point to us the identity of who the Messiah would be. Psalms like Psalm 2, or Psalm 16, Psalm 22, Psalm 23, Psalm 40, Psalm 69, Psalm 110. Those are all Psalms that contain for us prophetic revealing as to who Christ would be.

I find it interesting that as a church — and maybe this might be a little bit planned — but every year we invite you to read through the Bible in the year. And if you didn't know that and you're interested, if you go to alpinebible.com and you look at our website, you'll find an invitation under resources to read the Bible in a year. And yesterday we kicked off that season where we're reading through the book of Psalms. Yesterday's reading was Psalm 1, 2, and 3. And so as you read through the Bible in a year, if you've joined us in that, as we're going through this Psalm series together, we're going to be reading the Psalms collectively as a church.

If you do our yearly Bible reading, the Psalms are a book that teaches us about worship. And worship, as we should know as God's people, is more than just singing. It's learning to connect to God no matter what we're going through, whether periods of life of victory or failure, periods of waiting or repentance, periods of suffering or celebration. These Psalms teach us what it means to engage the Lord in every season of life. And it's critical for us to understand what that means as God's people, rather than just simply stand at a distance skeptically, drawing near to God in worship.

In fact, the great G.K. Chesterton said it like this: when men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything. And what G.K. Chesterton is recognizing about you and me is that we're all created as worship beings. It is impossible not to worship. And the reason for that is because all of us as human beings are looking for purpose in life. We're looking for reasons that tell us we matter. And so therefore, we'll gravitate to anything in this world to try to give us worth and value and meaning. And the problem with it is we do it apart from the Lord. The things in which we put our life into to get that sense of worth will ultimately lead us bankrupt and only satisfy for just a moment. But it's God himself for which you were created. And G.K. Chesterton is recognizing that by saying that if you don't want to belong to the Lord, or that you don't want to worship God, you're not then just going to live your life with nothing. You will gravitate towards something and give honor to it. But the question is, will it really hold you up?

And this is what Psalm 15 is about. As David writes this Psalm for us, he's asking that question, what kind of person is it that walks with God? What does it look like for you and for me to have intimacy with the Lord? When we think about that kind of person, what does that life reflect?

In Psalm chapter 15, verse one, David writes this way: O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? Most scholars think in the context of this passage, if you remember in David's life, it's up to this point in Israel's history they still don't have a physical, permanent temple by which they gather for worship. At this particular point in Israel's history, they still gather to worship the Lord in the tabernacle, in the tent. And up into David's life, the tent was a mobile structure that moved around with God's people. But it's David who ultimately brings this tent to Jerusalem up on the hill, which is where the Temple Mount will ultimately be built. But while it's still the tabernacle, while it's still the tent, David has now brought this tent to the city of Jerusalem on this hill. And he ponders the question, now that the tent is there, God, what kind of person will have close intimacy with you? Who will, as he says, dwell on your holy hill? Who shall sojourn in this tent?

Israel knows that the tent is where the presence of God is made known. If you ask the Jews during the Old Testament, if I wanted to get near to God, where would I go? And they would say, of course, to the tabernacle, or of course, to the temple. That's where God's presence is. And as you read through the New Testament, what we begin to discover is what Jesus accomplished for you and for me. In fact, if you were to open up the New Testament with one of the Gospels, for example, the Gospel of John, the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John shares with us the great thesis of what the whole Gospel of John is about. And as you read those first 18 verses, it tells us in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, talking about Jesus. And the Word dwelt among us. And it tells us that "dwelt among us" is literally "tabernacled among us," that he is full of grace and truth. And so when it describes to us that God is dwelling among us, it's revealing to us that if you want to see the presence of God, it's no longer about the temple, but rather Jesus. The presence of God walks among his people. So if you want to see what God's like, look to Jesus.

And then he gives us that statement in John chapter 1, verses 12 to 14, that as many as received him become the children of God, saying not everyone is born a child of God. But as Jesus has drawn near to us, as we give our life to him, those are the ones who become the children of God. As many as receive him. And as you get to the end of Jesus's life, as he dies on the cross, he says it is finished, paid in full, and it tells us the temple veil was ripped in two from top to bottom, signifying to us that the presence of God no longer dwells in the building, but rather the presence of God dwells within his people. Which is why Paul says to us in 1 Corinthians 3:16 and again in 6:19, that you are the temple of God. The presence of God is in the people of God. And so we become that expression of the Lord, and we reflect him in the way that we live our lives, or at least we should.

But David then is posing the question different than what does it mean to be saved. He's asking the question, what does it mean to walk with the God who saves me? What does it mean to know God intimately? So this is more than just an ethical question. This is a relational question. The goal isn't moral achievement. The goal is communion with God.

I like to use it like this example. You know, when you read in Romans chapter 8, it describes to us, if you belong to the Lord, as being adopted into his family. So as a child of God, you were adopted or received into God's family. Now if you have a child, you know something in raising children that there are seasons of life in raising a child where you might feel closer to your child than other seasons. Or if I used maybe a marital relationship, marriage is considered in Scripture to be the most intimate of human relationships that we have, because it's a covenant relationship which is intended to reflect our relationship with the Lord. And if you're married and living with someone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, they've got some parts that you enjoy. And then there are other parts. And sometimes you're closer in that relationship than others. And David's posing the question not just what it means to belong or be saved by the Lord, but to walk with him. It's the same with the intimacy of relationships in life. Whether you have a child or you think in terms of marriage, how do you experience the intimacy for which those relationships were intended? And there's something specific that destroys the intimacy of relationship, and we refer to that as sin.

But it's important for us to recognize that the purpose for which we are created is to walk in the presence of God. God made you to belong to him. In fact, there are passages of the Bible that remind us of that again and again, that the purpose for which you exist is not about simply what you can accomplish in life. That's all a result of a relationship with the Lord, that as you walk with him, he aligns your heart with his glory, and therefore you will reflect him in the way that you live and the things that you produce will be honoring to him. But the primary purpose for which God has created you is not about what you can produce. The primary reason for which God has created you is for relationship.

In fact, in John 17:3, there's the statement, and this is eternal life. If we just stop there and I just ask you the question, what do you think eternal life, the idea of eternal life, is about? Most people would probably define it this way: eternal life is about being in heaven one day. Eternal life is about getting to a place that one day I'm going to be in heaven. But the way that Scripture defines it is different than that. It's not about being in a location. It's about being in a relationship with a person both now and forever. This is eternal life, it says, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. The idea of your existence, the idea of eternal life, is wrapped up in the intimacy of a relationship with the Lord.

In fact, sometimes I say it like this: heaven is not really about a destination. Heaven is about being with the person. What makes heaven, heaven, is the presence of Jesus. If you get to heaven and Jesus is not there, that's not heaven. Jesus is the King, and heaven is his kingdom, and you're called to belong to him in that way. Eternal life is about a relationship with the Lord.

In fact, the Apostle Paul discovered this radically. And if you ever read Philippians chapter 3, he describes his religious life, his life of moral living, his life of self achievement, which is all about boosting or boasting in himself. And in Philippians chapter 3, verse 8, he says this: indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of — look at this — knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. In both passages, to know you in John 17:3 and in Philippians chapter 3, knowing Christ Jesus. This is not just simply a word of intellectual assent. This is not just about a knowledge about God, though that's certainly a part of it. This is about an intimacy in relationship with the Lord. The idea of knowing Christ relationally. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ. Paul is saying my life was about many things, especially in a religious sense, but the beauty of Jesus is that he really solidified my life to be about one thing. And in that one thing, all those around me are blessed, because I discover the purpose for which I was created in the one who recreates me at the cross.

That's the simplicity of Christianity. You know, apart from the Lord, what you're given in life is many masters trying to please all of them in order to feel like you might be something in someone's eyes somewhere. But in Christianity, you really live your life for an audience of one. And in so doing, all those around you should be better off for it. That rather than make my life about everything or anything, I can make my life about one thing. And in so doing, the Lord is pleased in that, and those around me are blessed.

In fact, if I gave you one more verse before reading just a few more in the Psalms — I know you're probably wondering when are we going to get there? Because we don't have very much time left. Don't worry, there's only four more verses to read in it, so we'll do that fast. But Matthew chapter 3, verse 17: behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. You know, if you know anything about the context of this passage, this is when Jesus is being baptized. This is when the Father speaks over the Son. And that's what the Father says in regard to the Son. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Very rich in the words in which the Father speaks over the Son, because the Father is quoting from both the book of Psalms, Psalm chapter 2, and the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 42. And he's taking two ideas from those passages of the Bible and saying, this is the identity of who this Son is. One, in Psalm chapter 2, is a messianic Psalm, a ruling King Psalm. In Isaiah chapter 42 is the suffering servant Psalm. He's taken both of those and saying who Jesus really is, which would have been profound for Israel.

It's why the disciples of Jesus ran away at first when Christ was crucified, because they didn't fully understand what Jesus came to do. After all, Jesus, if you are the King of kings, you should just step onto that royal throne and just dominate the earth. And Jesus did, but he just didn't do it in the way that they had conceived. They thought they had been under the thumb of Rome for so long, and now finally Jesus was going to put the Roman people under his thumb and the Jews were going to rule with him. But in talking about the suffering servant Psalm, it's teaching us that Jesus is the real King who came to give his life as a sacrifice for you and for me. Israel missed that in the first century, and we can miss the significance of that even this morning.

But one of the things I really want to hone in on in this particular passage is exactly what the Father is saying about the Son. And the final phrase he says this of Jesus: in whom I am well pleased. That's a rather interesting phrase for the Father to say about the Son when you consider the context of the Son's ministry in this particular passage. Because when you study the life of Jesus up until this point, you realize in the book of Matthew, he hasn't done anything. Jesus's ministry hasn't even started yet. He hasn't healed the blind. He hasn't cured the leper. He hasn't fed the 5,000. He hasn't turned water into wine. And he certainly hasn't raised the dead. How in the world could the Father say this about Jesus when Jesus hasn't done a thing? But he's teaching you exactly what the Father is after, not only in the life of Christ, but also in your life and mine. God isn't looking to be impressed with your performance. What God is looking for is the surrendering of your heart to him. And in so doing, Jesus will change your life.

When the Father looks at the Son, what he's expressing about the Son, though the Son hasn't performed any of his public ministry yet — not even the Sermon on the Mount has been preached to this point — what he's saying is he's pleased in the Son because the Son has surrendered his life to the Father. There is the intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son. In fact, if you were to jump all the way to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 17, verse 24 — Jesus in praying his high priestly prayer says it like this, that we have been united in relationship before the foundation of the world. You have loved me. Intimacy in the surrender between the Father and the Son. And it's the same for you and for me.

So we need to jump into this text together. But let me ask the question, who is it that walks with God? Psalm 15 responds this way. We'll look at the verse. Let me give you the first blank. It starts with this: godly character. And I'm going to give you these concise statements, but I think it's more important than answering the question to read the phrase afterwards. Who is it that walks with God? It's a life wholly devoted to the Lord, not an impressive people, but a holy people. There's a famous quote by a Scottish pastor that says this: the greatest need for my people is for me to be a holy follower of the Lord. And can I tell you, it's the same for us as well as we think about living for the Lord in this world. Some people say it like this, that there are five gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then there's the gospel of you. Most people in life aren't going to get around to reading the four Gospels, which is why your life and Jesus truly matters, and the way you demonstrate the goodness of who God is.

And so in Psalm chapter 15, verse 2, it says this, who is it that walks with the Lord? It's he who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. What he's acknowledging in the idea of being blameless is certainly not following a path of sin which is contrary to the Lord. That's an aspect of it. But I want you to know if that's where you just simply leave it, all you're going to hear this morning is a message of morality, a message of religion. That's not the message of Christianity, right? You can live your entire life by choosing to stop doing bad things and never truly walk close with the Lord. The goal of Christianity is not to get you to stop doing bad things. The goal of Christianity is for you to walk in intimacy with Jesus, to enjoy the relationship which you were created in Christ.

Now there is a part of our lives where we recognize that there is a need to repent. There is a need to pursue holiness. There's a need to come to God and say, God, I messed up. Lord, I'm sorry. God forgive me. Because more than anything, I don't just simply want to avoid these things. I want to live my life for something greater, something more, something that can only be discovered in who you are. So God forgive me of my sins so I can walk in intimacy of relationship with you. I mean, it's the same thing that we experience in our earthly relationships. When we have challenges we face, when there's sin that arises, the way to move forward and closer intimacy is reconciliation of the brokenness that we experienced in the past through sin. And it's the same with God. Do I belong to God? Yes, forever. He's mine. But it doesn't mean I always walk in close proximity to him because I mess up. And so the idea of being blameless is simply more than just denying sin, but to pursue something altogether new.

In fact, I think one translation or one word that we can use here in terms of blamelessness — some translations even use this word — it's the word integrity. It's where you get the word integer, which means whole. It's saying, out of all the things your life could be lived for, you've refined your life down to this one thing, and your life is about Jesus. He defines who you are as you walk in terms of him.

So we think in light of godly character. The only way to live godly character is not really about stopping doing bad things. It's a heart given over to the Lord to see the world as he sees it, and to align my heart with his heart. Which is why it says you speak the truth in his heart. The idea of a person who walks close to the Lord speaks truth in his heart, meaning he's not just paying lip service, but rather out of the core of who he is, the substance of his life is the truth of who God is. And therefore, it's not just simply words he speaks, but the way he lives. Someone that walks with the Lord is one who's given over this way. And if I just said it a different way, you will not live a life in relationship with the Lord until your heart is given to him.

So number one, godly character. Number two is this: godly relationship. And I'll do this a little bit quicker to make sure we finish on time. But he says, who does not slander with his tongue and 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. And here's what he's acknowledging for us. If you want to know someone that walks closely with God, it's someone who recognizes that his relationships with others in this world is not disconnected from his relationship with God, but rather it's interconnected. What do we mean by that? Just as Jesus pursued you by giving his life for you, so he pursued all of us. And Jesus gives us an intrinsic worth by being made in his image. When those that framed our Declaration of Independence got it right in saying all men are created equal, meaning in Scripture it tells us we're all made in the image of God. And so regardless of what a human being does or doesn't do, the way I honor the one I walk with is seen in the way that I honor those around me.

Everyone has intrinsic worth in the Lord, and especially God's people. You think how sacred it is that not only are we made in God's image, but if you belong to Jesus, you've been recreated through the cross and you become the torchbearers of the light of the truth of Christ. And so how important it becomes to make sure, if anyone, we're going to encourage. It begins with God's people that we certainly should be that way in speaking truth for all people and in knowing the Lord. And so it says to us it is a sacred privilege.

Even as we gather here on Sunday, I think Sunday really becomes the anthem for the rest of our week and how we live for God's glory, that we don't take for granted the value of any soul that has walked into our building, to understand the importance of what Christ has done for you and for me, to cherish those relationships and spur one another on, and the gift that it is to know God.

Maybe I should use this silly illustration to move on. There was a time in college when I went to Marshall University where I had a job for a season where I ran security at an event center that had a lot of concerts. And in those concerts, there was a point that anyone that ran security had to work the stage. And out of all the places that you got to work, the stage was not the one that you wanted, but everyone had to do it. So there was this rotation. And one of the reasons you didn't want to do it was because there were certain concerts where if you worked the front of the stage, you were most likely to get sucker punched and hit in the head with a beer bottle at some point. It was just par for the course in working this kind of job. Well, then there were some other concerts where sometimes if you could get in early and you could sign up for that concert, you were better off, at least as far as safety goes. And so there was one particular concert that came to town where I was like, I got there first and I was able to sign up, which was wonderful, because the concert before that was one where you were probably going to get knocked out. And so I signed up for that concert, and it happened to be this band called 98 Degrees. If you remember that boy band 90s era — I know some of you are probably going to pop it on as soon as we leave today and just sing your little hearts out. But there were, you had like Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, and then you had like the off-brand 98 Degrees. And so I had this particular concert, I'm like, this is going to be great. And then we get there and I'm on the stage and I look out in the audience and I'm like, yes, this is going to be so easy. And I look out and all it is is like preteen early teen girls and their moms. That's who it is in this. I'm like, this is going to be so easy. I'm just going to kick back and relax.

And then they had the bands leading up to the main band. And then finally the main band comes out, and I saw something out of these moms of these preteens I never thought I'd see in my life. Like they went from what I thought were human beings to animals in like three seconds. Every mother in that audience abandoned every teenage girl they brought with them, and they all bumrushed the stage at the same time. It was horrific. Like, if I had worked some of those other concerts I could have felt okay just pushing people back. But now all these mothers are rushing this stage. And there is this particular moment of the concert where I'm just being overwhelmed. Like there are just things all over me. I'm just screaming like, get off me, you know. And I'm like, why is this getting so overwhelming? And then I happened to look up to try to figure out why there were so many people pressing against me. And as I look up, there is the lead singer of 98 Degrees, Nick Lachey. I don't know if you remember that — you shouldn't care, and nobody beyond this should care. But the lead singer was above me, and as I look up, he is dripping sweat, and I've got every body part coming at me. I look up and I'm just getting destroyed by the sweat dripping on me. It was terrible. That was my second to last concert. I did one more after that and then I was done.

But I say all that to say, we have this tendency in life to prioritize the wrong things. And what I mean by that is, if given the choice this morning between maybe perhaps taking your children to meet some famous celebrity that you like, someone that's probably terrible in moral character and has done horrific things, but at least they have some sort of talent that attracts people. Or you have the opportunity to introduce maybe your child to, let's say, an older lady in the faith who's walked faithfully with Jesus for 60 years, who's looking for an opportunity to pour her life into someone else. And what do we prioritize in our life in terms of relationship? Celebrity, someone that doesn't give a rip about who you are, or someone who has experienced what it means to walk with Jesus in every season of life?

Godly character. Godly relationship. And I need to give you this last one: godly surrender. Who swears to his own hurt and does not change? What it says in the latter half of verse 4 is someone who's willing to pay a sacrifice for someone else. Someone who's willing to take up that cost. Can I just tell you, out of all the churches in America and all the states in America, Utah is considered one of the weaker places for the American church. We're under-resourced and we're laying grassroots for, really, for many towns, the first biblical church built. I mean, this is the first church building for biblical Christianity in Lehi. And we have an issue of space, and we're getting ready to kick off our new building as soon as the school year starts. Being one of the concerns that we have is, how are we going to afford all this? But there is, I would say, within our church, a beautiful example that's being displayed over paying off the land, which we purchased for 1.7 million. We paid off in a year and a half of just saying, Lord, I know I get an opportunity to honor you. But we also have an opportunity to provide a gospel light for future generations. Someone's got to be willing to lay their lives down for the benefit of others. And what does it look like for us?

He goes on and says this: who does not put out his money at interest, nor does take a bribe against the innocent? Saying, look, rather than take advantage of people, I understand God's given me resources in all aspects of my life. And so how do I just surrender that for your glory, Lord? How do I lay that down, so that the joy of what it means to know you, the intimacy of who you are, is not something I just experience, but the world can see the blessing of what it is to walk in light of who you are.

And then it gives this line at the very end: he who does these things shall never be moved. I need to wrap this up, but it's saying to all of us, if you want to know the kind of life that will just walk with Jesus all of its days, it's this person in character and relationship and surrender that understands the gift of what God has given to you in him.

If you were to read Psalm 15 and be honest, we would ask this question: who is it that really lives out Psalm 15? I think honestly, all of us could say, maybe me sometimes, but never faithfully all the time. And I think one of the humbling things of Psalm 15 is really to recognize there has only been one person who has truly lived this Psalm out. And that's Jesus. In fact, I think there's a reason that Psalm 15 precedes Psalm 16, because Psalm 16 is a messianic Psalm pointing us to Jesus. And as we read Psalm 15 in its humility, we're going to recognize the need for Jesus in our life.

And that's the incredible thing about this story. We realize in reading this Psalm we're going to mess up, we're going to fail, we're not going to get it perfect. But there is this God who loves me. He pursued me with his life to forgive me, and he gave everything that I might be free in him, so that when I mess up, I have the opportunity to run back to him and just be honest with him and confess it to him and find myself renewed in the grace of relationship with him. That I can move forward in the beauty of what this Psalm is about, so that I can enjoy the presence of God all my days.