I invite you to turn with me to Psalm 15. I want to take a moment and thank Pastor Steve and the elders for giving me this, what I consider one of the greatest privileges, to proclaim the Word of God. I want to ask all of you if you would do me this tremendous favor and please stand in honor of the reading of God's Word. I would greatly appreciate that. Psalm 15, a Psalm of David. O Lord, who may abide in your tent, Who may dwell in your holy hill? He who walks with integrity and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord. He swears to his own hurt, and does not change. He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken. May God bless the reading of His Word this evening. You may be seated. Many years ago, a woman by the name of Alice Frazier, at that time was 67 years old, worked in the Washington D.C. area, and she worked with children. And it just so happened that at that time, Queen Elizabeth II visited America, and she was in D.C. and she wanted to visit someone that was involved in that kind of work and so she went to visit Alice Frazier. And of course when the Queen went to visit Alice, she was accompanied by her royal entourage, security, media, all kinds of people. Now when Alice met the Queen, she didn't curtsy. She didn't properly address the Queen as Her Majesty. Instead she went up to the Queen, put both of her arms around the Queen and gave her a big old American hug. The royal entourage was appalled. The media was shocked. The secret service, they were stunned. What do we do? They couldn't respond. This common woman had no idea how to approach her royal majesty. There was no reverence, no awe, no humility. And the media stated that this was the hug scene around the world. It just shocked everybody. that this common woman would walk up to the queen and just give her a big old bear hug. See the people were shocked because there's an expectation of how one enters into the presence of royalty. And she did not meet those expectations. Sadly this is often true in the church. We just sung about the king of kings, the one who's lord of lords. We just sung about this one who we call King. There's no greater royalty than Him. Yet the majority of those who claim to follow Him do not know how to approach Him who is eternal King of the universe. This is the one before whom every knee will one day bow. Both unbeliever and believer will fall on their faces before this one and declare Him King. Joel read about Isaiah. He just caught a tiny glimpse of that glory. And what did he do? It's on his face. What about the apostle John in the book of Revelation? He saw the glory of Christ. He passed out. He needed an angel to pick him up. And the angel could only pick him up on all fours. That's it. That's the king that we claim to worship. And so how should we approach this king? Does it matter to God how we approach him? What does the Lord require of us to enter into His presence and remain in His presence in fellowship? See, so many today have taken grace for granted that we have become, I believe, far too casual with this one we claim as King of Kings. We call Him my buddy, my friend. And sure he is. I do not deny that he's a friend, but he's more than that. He's the creator of the universe. He's the king of kings. He's the one before whom every person will give an answer. He is the one before whom when the angels are in his presence have to shield their eyes because of his majestic glory. He's the one that we approach And I think what happens is just like Alice Frazier. She saw the Queen as just a common woman. In an interview she said, I just want to show her American love. She's just like another woman. And I think too often we take Jesus Christ for granted and He's common. And God hates when we treat Him as common. I've been reading through the prophets and I've been reading through Ezekiel. And again and again God announces judgment against Israel. And one of the reasons why, it's not just for idolatry, but because they treat God as common. And God hates to be treated as common. And it's not that we have some protocol to follow, because I know that our relationship with God is personal. We all have that personal relationship, those of us who are followers. But I do believe that at times we forget that there are things required of us from Scripture. See, I understand that salvation is free. I believe that with all of my heart. But does this mean that we can approach God any way we want? There's a right and proper way to approach God and to dwell with God. Not just to approach Him, but to remain there and to live there every day on an ongoing basis. To remain there in intimate fellowship. And I believe that Psalm 15 gives us much insight into this. And so this evening, I want us to take a brief look at Psalm 15. We're not going to cover every detail. We just don't have the time for that. But there's enough here to see what the requirements are for us. And we're going to see what it means to live life in ongoing presence of God. And one thing I want to make clear about this psalm is that in this psalm, David is not answering the question of justification. He's not answering the question, how does a person get saved? No, he's asking, how can followers of Jesus Christ enjoy ongoing fullness of fellowship with Him? Not just on Sunday morning, but every day. So when we wake up tomorrow morning, and we got to get up and go to work, You've got to take care of kids, they go to school, and everything else that you have to do. We could still have that sweet, intimate fellowship with God all the way through the week. So that each day just gets better, not worse. That's what Psalm 15 answers. It teaches the condition of the person who draws near to God and lives in His presence in that sweet fellowship. and David gives the basic essentials and I would say that if any of these basic essentials are missing then fellowship is interrupted and for some it may mean that there's never been fellowship so I believe that these characteristics are important and I want to mention also Psalms is Hebrew poetry, and one of the characteristics of Hebrew poetry is that it's written in parallelisms. In other words, it's written in couplets, lines, where the first line makes a statement and then the second line will make a statement that is connected to that in some way or another. And that's very important to understand this psalm. And so as we look at this psalm, we're going to see these couplets or these parallelisms, make a statement. Now as we open up, we come to verse 1, we see that David begins to ask two very searching questions that are very relevant to us today. And I believe these are questions we need to ask of ourselves. And as we look at this, we will see that we need to search your heart to determine if you are prepared to enjoy the fullness of fellowship with the King. That's what he tells us in verse 1. Note, O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell in your holy hill? Now, two questions basically asking the same thing. We call this a synonymous parallelism. And basically what he's asking, Lord, who is welcome? Who's a welcome guest at your table? Who's a welcome guest in your presence? Who is welcomed by Jesus Christ himself to have fellowship with him and stay there? And what David is saying is that the spiritual conditions of our lives matters to God, how we approach them and how we remain there. God doesn't want us to just come to him on a Sunday morning and then leave and do our own thing. God desires that we stay in his presence continually, day after day, moment by moment. And so these are searching questions about who is eligible to live in his presence this way. And I believe that the intention here is for each of us this evening is to think about these questions and go to God in prayer and ask Him these questions and search our hearts. Do we meet these qualifications? Now what I find interesting about these questions is that if you're a Hebrew in the Old Testament reading this, you're shocked. Because notice what he says. Oh Lord, who may abide in your tent? Tabernacle. If you know the Old Testament, the tabernacle is where the Ark of the Covenant dwells, right? And that was the presence of God. Well, it was a representation of the presence of God. But what makes this question so significant is that the law made it very clear who could enter the tent. Who could enter the tent? Not any old lay person. You couldn't get up one morning and say, you know what, I think I'm going to go visit the Levites and visit a priest, go in the tabernacle and say hi to God behind the tent. The law made it very clear. Only Levitical priesthood. lay people were not allowed in that tent. And yet what does David ask? Oh Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Notice what David says here. It's not just who may enter, but look at the word dwell. It means to settle down. He's talking about coming into God's presence and then living there, staying there, not going in and coming out. So these are stunning questions and they were intended to shock and get people's attention. Who may actually enter and remain in His presence? And so for us the question today I believe would be who can come into God's presence and enjoy uninterrupted fullness of fellowship with Him? This is a startling quest because it presupposes something. It presupposes that people can actually enter into the very presence of the Most High God the king himself, and then remained there permanently to enjoy the sweetness of that fellowship. And so these heart-searching questions express genuine questions for anyone who desires this intimacy with God, to experience what that's like. It calls for meditation upon our spiritual condition. And so the purpose of this psalm is to guide us into a life of holiness, that we may live in this presence continually not just on Sunday morning or Sunday evening. How must we live to enjoy this fullness? Well, David answers those questions in verse 2 to verse 5. We're going to see what's required. And he talks about personal holiness, but he also talks about it being in the heart. Because you see, the so-called holiness that's just external is hypocrisy. God hates hypocrisy. Remember what Jesus told the Pharisees? He quoted Isaiah, Their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me. So they're going through the motions and on the outside they look good. But on the inside it's all vanity, it's all empty, it's all vain. This psalm addresses that. It's going to talk about personal holiness on the inside that flows on the outside. So I want us to look at these verses and what we find here is that personal holiness, personal holiness is a prerequisite for intimate communion with the King. If we are going to live in the presence of Jesus Christ, this is what it's going to take. And what we find here is that there are six parallelisms and each one is a characteristic. We're not going to have time to develop every one deeply. In fact, I would say that each one of these deserves a whole sermon. We don't have time for that. But what I would pray and ask is that you take these and make it a topic of prayer for yourself. that God through the power of his spirit by his grace would work each one in our hearts so that we may not only live this but we would begin to experience the joy of intimate fellowship with the King that's what God desires and please understand the scriptures everywhere and we see it especially in Hebrews that tells us that without sanctification without holiness we will not see God And what's also interesting about these parallelisms, these couplets, is that they move from positive to negative, to positive to negative. And this is important, because the person who would enter God's presence and remain there, will have a life that's characterized not only by active goodness, but also by the absence of evil. Those things that are sinful, we remove from our lives. It's both and. And what I find interesting also, as I was reading this psalm again, is that there's nothing mentioned here of ritualistic sacrifices or ceremonial routines. Because the emphasis here is not on external religious activity. It's on the heart. It's on the inside. It's on internal personal holiness. So let's look at these characteristics. And the first one is found in the first line of verse 2. He who walks with integrity and works righteousness. And the first characteristic is simply this, your conduct must be holy. If we are going to live in fellowship with the King, our conduct must be holy. Notice, he who walks with integrity. The word walk here is a reference to your daily pattern of life, your lifestyle. This person is blameless. He lives in obedience to God. He is the same Monday through Saturday as he is on Sunday morning. This person not only has an upright character, he or she is actively doing right things, looking to do those things. They pursue to be obedient to God, what is right in His sight. And that's what's important, that we do what is right in His sight, not what the world thinks is right. It's striving to do those things that please our God. Remember, righteousness, the right things, is always measured by God's perspective, not this world. This world may look and laugh, this world may criticize because it's different for them, but that's irrelevant. What does God determine right? That's what we pursue. See, such people are not merely hearers of the Word, they're the ones who do the Word. Remember James chapter 2. Verse 14-17, He says, What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, be warmed, and be filled, and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so, faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. So our conduct must be holy. Second characteristic deals with the tongue. And that's in the last line of verse 2 and the first line of verse 3. And speaks truth in his heart, he does not slander with his tongue. Your speech must be holy. Your speech must be holy. So it's not just what we do, but what we say. And this is what we call a contrasting parallelism. First line tells us what he does, second line says what he doesn't. So we are to be people who speak truth in our hearts. Whenever you talk with such a person, you know that he or she is telling it like it is. It's commitment to the truth, no hypocrisy. The truth is in the heart and it flows out. This person is not just telling you what you want to hear. This person is not trying to stroke your ego to try to gain something from you. It's truth from the heart. And truth here refers not only to that which is real and genuine, but it also includes that which is trustworthy, dependable at all times. One who speaks truth is a trustworthy person. And so for us this means that we speak truth without any intention of deceiving another person. Truth is to be our heartbeat. It is to flow out of us. If we're going to have that fellowship with God. We mean what we say. We don't speak with double-tongued intention. This type of person is a person who is saturated with truth. The triune God is a God of truth. And if we dwell with Him, then we must be saturated with truth. The truth must be dwelling and living in us. God hates hypocrisy. And note also what this person does not do. He does not slander others. So communion with God means that you will avoid all misuse of the tongue. It doesn't attack another person's reputation with malicious intent. The word devil, you may have heard this, but the word devil means slander. And a person is never more like the evil one, nor more used by the prince of darkness, than when he or she verbally attacks another person. The enemy loves to use that. Sadly, it is one of the most prevalent sins in the church today. More damage has been done to the church and its work by gossip, by criticism and slander than any other single sin. I have seen it firsthand. It is ugly and it is evil. It's destructive. If you speak truth from the heart, then you will not slander another person. No mouth can bless God and worship and then turn around and slander immediately. See, the one who slanders cannot have fellowship with God. That's impossible. So how you use your tongue must be holy. That's the second characteristic. Look at the third characteristic found in the second and third line of verse 3. Nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. This refers to relationships. Your relationships must be holy. Note how both lines begin with the word nor. It starts with a negative. This is meant for emphasis. Now this is very similar to what he just said, but the idea moves beyond mere words to actions. Holy relationships mean you will not do what is evil toward others. One who fellowships with God will maintain right relationships with other people, not harming or hurting them. And note the word neighbor. Neighbor is all the people you come in contact with, all the people that you have, that you deal with basically on a regular basis every day, whether it be at work, at home, wherever it may be. So if you're going to be God's guest at his table, you must not do what is evil towards others with whom you deal. Your boss, your co-worker, your friends, your sister, your brother, your spouse, whoever it may be. And that also includes not listening to gossip. When people gather to talk, you either squelch it or you walk away, but you do not participate in it. Because that is destructive. And the parallel to that is that you will not reproach another person. to reproach is to impute blame or guilt to someone for the purpose of harming that person. You intentionally want to hurt that person. And so the question is, do you treat other people with respect, especially those who have a less important position in life than you do? Or do you snub them? Do you talk down to them? Bottom line, are you mean to them? These things displease God, and they are a barrier to fellowship. The fourth characteristic is found in the first two lines of verse four. In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord. And this deals with values. Your values must be holy. Here we see attitudes, positive and negative, towards people. It can be expressed by asking, who are your models? Who do you look up to? Whose actions and character do you find offensive? It is amazing as I talk to different people, especially when I was teaching at the college, what people, the people that these Christians would hold up as models. Absolutely stunning. What I find amazing is that Christians know more, the ones I've talked to, know more about movie stars on television or athletes on television than they knew about God Himself and His Word. Where's your value system? One who fellowships with the Lord says no to the wicked and yes to the godly. You reject the ones that God rejects and you accept those whom He accepts. A reprobate is a person who despises the Lord. A person who is worthless, a person who does not fear the Lord. Such people God rejects according to Hosea 4, 6. And so we have to be careful. We need to despise that lifestyle that does not fear God. Now, this does not mean that there's no attempt to share the gospel with these people. It does not mean that we pull away and never share the gospel, never befriend them for the sake of the gospel. But what it does mean is that we do not fellowship with them. We do not make them very close and intimate with us so that they influence us. Remember 1 Corinthians 15.33, bad company corrupts good morals. Again 1 Corinthians 5.6, do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Psalm 1, we learn that we are not to walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. We don't allow them to be our role models. Those who dwell with the Lord, they honor those who fear God. They are the models. They are the ones we want to fellowship with. So your values must be holy. We are going to fellowship with God. Fifth character is found in the third line of verse four. Your integrity must be holy. He says, he swears his own hurt and does not change. This is what we call an incomplete parallelism, meaning that there's some additional parts that can be added that's assumed. And if we were to read this fuller and make it more sensible, we could say, he who keeps his oath at all times and is faithful even when it hurts. And the emphasis here is on the words, his own hurt. How you respond to your promises and commitments is very telling of your character. See, no one has trouble, no one has a problem keeping his or her word when to do so is to your advantage. If you made an agreement and you keep that agreement, it's to your advantage, that's great. Who has a problem with that? Unbelievers don't have a problem with that. But how about when the conditions have changed, and the promise or the agreement is no longer to your advantage. Do you honor your promise then? Do you fulfill the contract? Or do you try to find a way to get out of it? Do you try to talk yourself out? Because it is painful. For those who claim fellowship in the presence of God, breaking an oath or commitment is not an option, because the name of the Lord is at stake. And if you're to break that commitment, It dishonors the very God you claim to fellowship with. See, living with God means living like God, always keeping your promise. And so we have to resist the urge to buckle under pressure. As Jesus said, let your yes be yes and let your no be no. And keep your commitment. And then the final characteristic that's found in verse 5 deals with money. He says, he does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. So your use of money must be holy. The influence of money on a person is very telling. One author said, one's attachment to his or her money is a window to their soul. And it's true. How a person holds on to their finances does reflect a certain character. Paul told Timothy, very familiar passage, we all know this, 1 Timothy 6.10 For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some, by longing for it, have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." See, notice, money is not the issue. What's the issue? The love of it. They long for it. And as a result, there are many griefs. So notice what he says in verse 5. First, we are not to loan out money for the purpose of gain. It's not that all charging of interest is evil, rather it is the unjust way of making bargains in which a person takes advantage of another person. Charging interest is sinful when it hurts that other brother or sister in Christ. We don't have time to look at it, but jot down Nehemiah chapter 5 and sometime later this evening read that chapter and you will see the destructive force of unjust interest. See, rather than charging interest, we should do what Philippians 2 tells us and look out for the interest of others. And use our finances that way to help others who need the help. And of course the Old Testament has a lot to say about charging interest. But those who fellowship with the Lord will not take advantage of others for the sake of their own profit. They look out for the concerns of others. They use their finances To help others they hold their finances with open hands when they see a need they meet that need and they don't look for payback They don't look for recognition how many people I've met that have helped others and boy They let you know they have helped others if it wasn't for me that person wouldn't made it out of that problem Don't you remember when I gave that person $100 and boy they want to be known It's not proper use of money And notice that David says also here that this person will not allow himself to be paid off against those who are innocent. In other words, a person who dwells with God cannot be bought by this world's system. Even if it's for a promotion, they do not cave in. They do not let the potential for personal gain influence matters of principle. Thus, our use of money is to be holy. And it is extremely difficult in our world, isn't it? Because everywhere we turn, it is thrown in our faces. Gain more. Have more. Gain more. Have more. It's better. Gain more. Scripture tells us differently. Not that the gaining of money is wrong, but the use of it. The use of it makes it right or wrong. So we see then that our conduct, our speech, our relationships, our values, our integrity, and the use of money are to be holy if we are going to fellowship with God and remain there, dwell, live with Him day by day, moment by moment. And I wish we had time to look at how all of these are interconnected, but that's for another time. But when all of this is functioning, look at the promise for those who have fellowship with God. Very last line of the psalm in verse 5, He who does these things will never be shaken. The point here is that in the presence of the King, we have an unshaken position that transcends the troubles of life. That's our rock. When we live in the fullness of fellowship with Jesus, He promises that we will never be shaken. God is our refuge. He is our rock. And note the word does. He who does these things. What things? What we just talked about in verses 2-5. He who does these things will never be shaken. See these words are very similar to the words of Jesus Christ when he ended the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7. He said in chapter 7 verse 24-25, Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them. You see that word acts, circle and highlight that. And acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew. Remember Dorian? Here's Dorian. And the rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and slammed against that house. And yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. In other words, the person who does this will not be shaken, will not fall. Now, I want to make something clear here. When he says that you will not be shaken, it doesn't mean you will not face trouble. David faced many troubles. Read his story. We will face troubles, but the roots of righteousness and holiness cause a person to stand secure and not slip and not be shaken because they are solidly on that rock. So when the Dorians of life hit, we stand strong. Because we are in that presence, in the fellowship of the Most High God. We will not be shaken from residence in the presence of God. This is a stunning promise, especially in light of this world, because in this world we don't have any stability. Look around. There is no stability. It's all instability. That's why people are afraid. But we can have an absolute stability when we have this fellowship with Him. And again, this promise is for those who do these things. So my prayer is that you would consider this, search your heart, and pray, God, make this real in my life. I read of a mother who was visiting her son at college. And upon entering his dorm room, her eyes swept across the walls, which were covered with more than a dozen of suggestive pictures. Her heart was grieved, but she didn't say anything to her son. Several days later, the mailman delivered a package to this young man. It was a gift from his mother. And it was a beautifully framed print illustrating the truth of Psalm 15. The boy hung this scripture on the wall above his desk. And the more he looked at the verses, the more he began to feel convicted of his other pictures. That night as he went to bed, he removed the pin-up picture which hung closest to the framed verses. Then the next day another picture was consigned to the wastebasket. And day after day, one picture after another came down, until there was only one frame remaining, the one that contained Psalm 15. So help and pray that we search our hearts. And maybe it's that we need to hang Psalm 15 on the wall of our hearts and pray, Oh God, I'm a helpless man. I'm a helpless woman. I need you to do this in my life. I desire to know what it is to enjoy that sweet, intimate fellowship with you. See, the knowledge of the Scriptures, when united with faith, tends to drive out the practice of sin. That's what happened to this young man. And we need to cry out for God to do this, because remember Philippians 2, 12-13, we are to strive and work hard at living for Christ, but it is God who's at work in us both to will and to do. So we work hard at this, we have that responsibility to do these things, but at the same time we cry out knowing our God is the one who's at work in us to accomplish these things. So we're not alone in this. We cry out to God. And what happens is when this begins to happen, you begin to enjoy more and more of that sweet, intimate fellowship. I would dare say, I've come across Christians that they have never known what that's like. They've never known what it means to truly delight and enjoy the sweetness of fellowship, so they don't know any better. But that is what God desires of us. How many times in Scripture are we commanded to delight in the Lord, to rejoice in Him? And this is how we do it. We delight in Him, we rejoice in Him by doing these things by His grace. And when we do, we will not be shaken. Now this is true for those who are followers of Christ. If you're here this evening, you don't know Jesus Christ. Everything I've said, it's not true of you. The only thing you have left is instability and fear, and rightly so. But you could change that. You could change that. But coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting in Him, confessing your sin to Him, He desires, the Bible says God desires to forgive if you trust in Him. So if you're here this evening and you've never done that, before you leave I want to encourage you to find somebody in this church to talk to. I'll be here, I'd love to talk to you about it. Because nothing greater can be true of your life than to be forgiven by God and to enjoy sweetness of fellowship. And for the rest of you who do know the Lord Jesus Christ, I truly pray, and I have prayed all week, that God would make this a reality in my life and in your life. Not just on Sunday morning, but every day. Allow me to pray, and I'll dismiss. Our God and our Father, Your Word is powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. And we are asking You, as Your children, That through the power of your spirit, you would do this work in us. That we would learn and experience more and more what it means to have this deep, intimate fellowship with you, moment by moment, day by day, not just once or twice a week, not just every few days, but that we would live in that permanent dwelling with you. And Lord, if there's anyone here who does not know you, oh God, may this day be the day of salvation for them. May they come to that knowledge of Christ today. Fathers, we leave this place and if you look toward another week, oh may our fellowship with you only increase. So as we gather again in the following week, our hearts would be overwhelmed even more as we praise and worship you together as a family. To you be all the glory in this, in Jesus' name, Amen.