This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to week three, day five of our look through the book of
Psalms. We're looking together at Psalm 15 today. I love a lot of these early
Psalms because we can read the whole thing together.

As we get to some of the later Psalms like 119, it would take us about an hour
and a half just to read the Psalm. But Psalm 15 only has verses one to five. So
I want to read that Psalm to you to begin with.

Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose
walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his
heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts
no slur on his fellow man, who despises the vile man but honors those who fear
the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without
usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent, he who does these things
will never be shaken.

Well, I want that, the end of the Psalm. He who does these things will never be
shaken. I also want the beginning of the Psalm.

Who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy mountain? What's he
talking about here?

It's a picture of being close to God. He's saying, who gets to be close to God?
Who is the one who senses God's presence?

Who may dwell in your sanctuary? The Hebrew word for dwell is shakan. It's a
word from which we get another word that you might have heard, shekinah.

Shekinah is a word that refers to the glory of God. Shekinah glory, you may have
heard that. The glory of God's presence.

Who may dwell in the glory of God's presence? To dwell in God's sanctuary is a
picture of living with a sense of God's glorious presence throughout your day.
And David, who is a man after God's own heart, the Bible tells us.

In these verses tells us what it means to be a man or a woman after God's own
heart, who dwells, who lives in that place of God's glorious presence. And
here's the answer. The answer he gives throughout this Psalm is, the one who
walks with integrity.

The way he says it is, whose walk is blameless. Who does what is righteous. Now
we know from the New Testament that God is the one who makes us blameless and
righteous in Christ.

So you live in faith that he has given you what you could never achieve. He's
given you that integrity, that blamelessness, that sense of righteousness. But
to sense how close God is, this Psalm is telling us that then you have to walk
in that integrity.

You have to live it out each day. When you don't live it, even when you struggle
sometimes, you can still live it by immediately asking for forgiveness and
beginning to walk in integrity again. So this isn't about being perfect.

This is about keeping short accounts with God, living with a sense of
forgiveness before him, and living each day out walking in integrity. The truth
is that once you come to know Jesus Christ and begin a relationship with him,
God is always close to you. He's in you, you're a temple of the Holy Spirit.

God is always close to you. That's the gift that he gives you in Christ. But you
will only sense how close he is to you as you live the life that he's given you.

Otherwise, because of your feelings of guilt, because you've turned away from
him, he hasn't turned away from you, you feel like he's not close to you. You
feel like he's not dwelling with you even though he is through his Holy Spirit.
So in Psalm 15, David's telling us how to feel, how to sense God's presence,
glorious presence, in your everyday life.

He gives us five characteristics of a person who has integrity, of a man who has
integrity, a woman who has integrity. And these five characteristics have to do
with your words, your relationships, your commitments, and your money. First,
your words.

And he has two of them. You'd expect that 'cause we struggle so much with our
words. Two of them have to do with our words.

You want to walk with integrity. You want to sense God's closeness throughout your
days. One, he says, you gotta speak the truth from your heart.

You don't lie when you have integrity. You don't lie because you are walking in
his way and you don't have to lie. That's the beautiful thing about it.

When you're walking in wickedness, you have to lie all the time. You got a lot
of things to cover. But when you're walking integrity, you don't have to lie.

But there's something more here. Speaks the truth from his heart. More than
that, you speak the truth to others.

It's not that you just don't lie. There's a positive side to this. You speak the
truth to others out of a heart of love.

And as you do that, you sense God's presence in your life. Speaking the truth to
others out of a heart of love causes you to sense God's presence. Second thing
about words he says here is, he has no slander on his tongue.

He does his neighbor no wrong. He casts no slur. Anytime you put someone else
down, you've just lost integrity.

Anytime you slander somebody for their politics or their religion or their
lifestyle or any other difference, anytime you slander anyone, you've just lost
your integrity. And the word for slander here has the idea of going around to
spread lies. Well, that's gossip.

That's what we're talking about. This means you don't gossip and you don't
listen to gossip. Instead of tearing people down with your words, you build
people up with your words.

And when you do that, you sense God's presence in your life. When you choose to
not gossip, it's one of the ways you sense God's presence. And choosing to
gossip actually causes you to stop sensing his presence.

That's powerful. That's how important our words are, the words that come out of
our mouths. Just read the book of James.

He tells us again and again how important those words are. So walking with
integrity has to do with your words. It also has to do with your relationships.

He says the person that walks with integrity despises a vile man, but honors
those who fear the Lord. You remember back in Psalm 1, we talked about this.
Integrity is a matter of who you make your closest friends.

Intentionally honoring those who have integrity strengthens your integrity. And
it strengthens your sense of God's presence in your life. And intentionally
despising the evil that we do to each other each day, that strengthens your
integrity and strengthens the sense of God's presence in your life.

Make the right people your friends. That's how you sense God's presence in your
life, one of the keys. It's about your words, it's about your relationships,
it's also about your commitments.

David says, here's what it means to have integrity. You keep an oath even when
it hurts. If you make a promise, you keep that promise.

Even when you later figure out that it's going to hurt you to keep that promise.
How many of us have had that happen? Now, it's one thing to do that with a
company that might stop doing business with you if you don't keep that promise.

It's a whole other level of integrity if you do that for one of your children.
Because they can't really hurt you for not keeping that promise. They can't take
any business away from you.

They can't make your life miserable. But you made a promise to them. And you
have to give up on the ball game that you were going to watch.

Or you have to give up on the thing that you had planned to do, the night out
that you planned with some friends. And instead you said, I'm going to do that with
you, son. I'm going to do that with you, daughter.

And you keep that promise. When you do that, these verses are telling us, that's
one of the things that when you do that, you sense God's presence in your life.
You're giving up something you wanted to do, but you're gaining something far
greater.

So you do what you promised. And then the final way that you have integrity is
with your money. It's with your words, it's with your relationships, it's with
your promises, with your commitments, and it's also with your money.

He says, the person with integrity lends money without usury and will not accept
a bribe. Now lending without usury means that you don't take advantage of other
people. You're not using the money that you have to take advantage of somebody
else in some way.

Now that's true with lending, but there's a lot of other ways that we can use
whatever amount of money we have to try to exercise power over somebody else,
take advantage of someone else. And does not accept a bribe, he says, that hurts
the innocent. Will not accept a bribe.

That means you don't take more than you deserve. You don't take things just
because you can get them. When you look at your money in a totally different
way, you begin to see that even with your money, the way that you use it, you
can begin to sense God's presence in your life.

When you're generous with your money, when you use your money to honor what God
is doing in somebody's life, when you use your money, the New Testament tells
us, Jesus tells us in a parable, bring people into the kingdom of God, that
helps you to see and to accept the power of God's presence in your life. So even
something as worldly sounding like money can be used in a way that helps you to
experience and to glory in God's presence. And whoever does these things, when
you make these choices in your life, you'll never be shaken.

Why? Because you sense God's presence. And when you know that God is on your
side, when you know that the glory and power of who God is is in you, is right
there with you, nothing can shake you.

Let's pray together. That's the life we want to live, Lord, a never be shaken
life. And we know you've put your spirit into us so that that would be true of
us.

But we want to sense that and feel that and live that through our day to day. So
help us to make these choices. These choices to have integrity.

And in those times when we make a different choice, help us to come to you
immediately, ask for forgiveness, and begin making these choices again. Lord,
with our words, let us be loving. And in our relationships, let us be wise,
build the right kind of relationships.

And with our commitments, help us to keep our promises even when it hurts. And
with our money, help us to see it as an opportunity to serve you and to love
others. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.