Psalm 15
Date: April 28th, 2024
Speaker: Samuel Crites
Scripture: Psalm 15
Exegetical Outline
MIT: The man of perfect character and action is stable and able to stand in the presence of God.
15:1 – Who is worthy to dwell in the presence of the Lord?
15:2-3 – The one who has perfect character.
Blameless – does not slander (does not step on his tongue).
Does what is right – does no evil to his neighbor.
Speaks the truth in his heart – does not mistreat a friend.
15:4-5a – The one who acts perfectly toward others.
Despises evil.
Honors those that fear God.
He keeps an oath, even to his detriment.
Does not lend money at interest.
Does not take a bribe.
15:5b – He is a man that is stable.
Homiletical Outline
MIS: Jesus Christ is the perfect man, the one worthy to stand in the presence of God.
Jesus Christ is a man of perfect character.
Blameless (Matthew 10:24-33, 12:22-32)
Righteous (Matthew 27:19; Luke 23:47)
True (John 1:14, 17, 8:31-35, 14:6)
Jesus Christ acts perfectly toward others.
He loves God. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
He loves his neighbor as himself. (Leviticus 19:9-18)
3. Jesus Christ makes us worthy to stand in the presence of God. (Daniel 8:17-18, 10:9-10; Romans 14:4; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Revelation 1:17)
Introduction:
This Sunday, we enter our fourth and final section of Book 1 of the Psalms before we take a break. We have seen the intro to the Psalms in Psalms 1-2 as they introduced us to the main character of the Psalter: the blessed man from Psalm 1 and the only-begotten Son from Psalm 2. The second section of Book 1 was Psalms 3-9, all the Psalms that David wrote during his flight from Absalom. God’s grace was put on full display as he saved David in spite of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Two weeks ago, we finished the third section of Book 1, Psalms 10-14, where David explored the depravity of man’s fall from grace and God’s plan to rescue the righteous from the wicked.
This is the last section that we will study before we take a break from the Psalms. It will carry us through June, into July, and explores Israel hope in the future king of promise. In light of all the brokenness that sin has caused in Psalms 10-14, these psalms consider what man could possibly be righteous enough to fulfill the law of the Lord and be the Messiah. This section will go from Psalm 15 through Psalm 24 with Psalm 19 sitting at the poetic center of section.
The question David poses at the beginning of this section is who is worthy to abide in God’s tent or dwell on his holy hill? This question sets the context for the entire section. In light of man’s utter failure to live up to the glory of God, what man could possibly deserve to stand in God’s presence. The answer is given in Psalm 15 and in Psalm 24 and they both give completely different and seemingly contradictory answers. Let’s read Psalm 15 and see how David answers his own question.
Psalm 15
15 A Psalm of David.
1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
3 who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
4 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;
5 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.
David poses some questions at the beginning of this psalm that we could not possibly understand without reading Psalms 10-14 immediately preceding Psalm 15. It would be a mistake to think that David is writing this Psalm contemplating what would be required of someone earn the right to stand in the presence of God. He is not making an argument that we should strive to be like the man he is describing. The questions he poses at the beginning of Psalm 15 should be read in light of the despair that we should feel coming out of Psalm 14. No one seeks after God; no one does good not even one. So David is crying out to God, “Who could possibly sojourn in your tent? Given our unholiness, who could possibly dwell in your holy presence on your holy hill?”
David’s answer is absolute; only one that has perfect character and acts perfectly towards his neighbor could possibly be holy enough to stand in the presence of a holy God. Put simply, Psalm 15 is not about human depravity, but human perfection, and there has only ever been one such man. The main idea of our sermon today is this; Jesus Christ is the perfect man, the one worthy to stand in the presence of God.
The first thing we must see in Psalm 15 is that Jesus is a man of perfect character. He walks blamelessly because he controls his tongue, he is righteous because he does no evil to his neighbor, and he only speaks the truth because he has his neighbor’s best interest at heart. David asserts these things about the character of the Messiah in Psalm 15, but we will see them in action as Christ demonstrates each one in the Gospels.
The second thing we will see in Psalm 15 is not only that Jesus is a man of perfect character, but that character plays out in his life because he acts perfectly towards his neighbor. Christ fulfills the law because he perfectly fulfills the double love command: love God and love neighbor. He loves God because he despises the evil person which God hates and loves what God loves, namely his people that fear him. But he doesn’t stop there. He loves God and that love overflows into a love for his neighbor. He keeps his oaths and he treats everyone with generosity and fairness. Again, we will see this not only in Psalm 15, but also played out in the life of Christ through the Gospels. My goal in both of these points is to not only see what David told us the Messiah would be like, but to see that that is exactly who Jesus of Nazareth showed himself to be in the Gospels.
Finally, because Christ has perfect character and acts perfectly towards his neighbors, he is the only one worthy to stand in the presence of God. He will never be moved, and the good news of the Gospel is that he imputes that righteousness to us. He stands in the presence of God constantly interceding for his people before the Father. Through the worthiness of the one man, Christ Jesus, many are made righteous. He is such a solid foundation, he gives us the confidence to approach the throne of grace.
Psalm 15 is about human perfection. Humanity fell because of the imperfection of the first Adam, but it is being restored through the perfection of the second. David’s first answer to the question: who is worthy to stand on God’s holy hill in his holy presence is the same answer we got in Psalm 2:6-7:
Psalm 2:6-7
6 “As for me, I have set my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”
7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Jesus Christ is the perfect man, the only begotten Son, the only one worthy to stand in the presence of God.
Jesus Christ is a man of perfect character.
In answering his own question about who is worthy to reside in the presence of God, David gives a two-part answer. It must be a man that is internally perfect, meaning he has perfect moral character, and it must be a man that is externally perfect, meaning he acts perfectly towards others. In our first point, we are going to see that Jesus is a man of perfect moral character. Let’s reread verses 1 through 3 together.
Psalm 15:1-3
A Psalm of David.
1 O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?
Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right
and speaks truth in his heart;
3 who does not slander with his tongue
and does no evil to his neighbor,
nor takes up a reproach against his friend;
David gives us three character traits for a man that has perfect character; he is blameless, righteous, and true. I want to show you what David means by each of these points in Psalm 15, then I want to present you with evidence from the Gospels that Jesus was just such a man as David is describing.
First, a man of perfect character is blameless. Now observe the relationship between verse 2 and verse 3. Verse 2 gives us three character traits and then verse 3 gives us 3 explanations or examples for what that character trait means. This first one is easier to see in Hebrew. Verse 2 says the perfect man walks blamelessly and the verse 3, in the Hebrew, very literally translates, he does not step upon his tongue, meaning he doesn’t put his foot in his mouth or never gets caught slandering someone or saying something that is false. No one can bring a charge against the perfect man because he never lets his tongue get away from him. He does not flatter. He does not slander. He is not double-tongued. He is the exact opposite of every other man in history as described in Psalm 10:7. This is what David said of every other man in Psalm 10:7:
Psalm 10:7
7 His mouth is filled with cursing and deceit and oppression;
under his tongue are mischief and iniquity.
The perfect man is not like this. He never steps upon his tongue or uses it to do evil. He is blameless.
Jesus of Nazareth was a blameless man. When he stood trial before the Sanhedrin, and before Herod, and before Pontius Pilate, they had to bring false witnesses to accuse him and the charges could not stick. The false witnesses could not get their lies straight and Pilate says in John 18:38 that he found no guilt in him. Jesus Christ of Nazareth was a blameless man. They could find no falsehood in his words and they couldn’t make any false charges stick to him. Even the centurion that put him to death says in Luke 23:47 that he was surely an innocent man.
The second trait that David says a man of perfect character possesses is righteousness. David says that everything he does is right; he never does anything evil to anyone. Now this point is similar to what we will see in the second half of the psalm, but notice that is focused on who he is not on what he does. He is righteous, therefore, he never does evil to anyone. We will get to the things that he does in verses 4 and 5, but this is a comment about who he is. He is a man of righteous character.
Jesus of Nazareth was a man of righteous character. He was a man that ate with tax collectors and prostitutes but was never tempted by their sinful ways. He had the moral fortitude necessary to meet those people where they are and draw them out of their sin instead of being drawn in by their sin. The perfect example of this to me is Jesus interaction with the woman at the well. He purposefully went through the land of Samaria, a land that no self-respecting Jew would be caught dead in, and providentially met a woman that for all intents and purposes was harlot. She had had five husbands and the man she was currently with was not her husband. This was a broken and weak woman that was easily led astray into sin. Anyone that is so caught up in sin is dangerous to those of weak moral fortitude.
But Jesus is not such a man. He is unique. In fact, when the woman asks Jesus why he, a Jew, is asking a woman from Samaria for a drink, it is his uniqueness that he appeals to. In Luke 4:10, Jesus says:
Luke 4:10
“If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus meets this woman where she is in her sin and brokenness and has the righteous moral character to draw her out of her sin and depravity and offer her eternal life. He is a man of righteousness.
The final trait that David asserts that a perfect man possesses is that a perfect man is true, meaning, he does not tell himself lies. We tell ourselves lies all the time. We tell ourselves we are not as sinful as we actually are. We tell ourselves that other people are worse than us. We tell ourselves our children are perfect angels. We tell ourselves things that are sin are not actually sin. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9)
The heart of the perfect man is not this way. He does not tell himself lies. His heart is true. It sees true and as verse 3 says, he does not take up a reproach against a friend, meaning, he also knows the truth about others and does not engage with falsehood. In the clarity of his own self-knowledge, he sees other people truly and knows how to treat them.
Jesus Christ is a man of truth. John 1:14 says that we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus said, of himself, in John 14:6, that he is, “the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If Jesus knows this truth about himself, how could he not offer it to his neighbor? If the perfect man knows himself perfectly, than it would be a lie for Jesus Christ not to offer himself to the world because he actually is the only way to the Father. Every other solution to man’s sinfulness will fail. There is only salvation in Jesus Christ alone. For Christ or his Church to allow any other Gospel to be preached is a lie.
The world today will tell you that it is oppressive and Tyrranical to attempt to tell people about something you believe to be true. They believe truth can only be established by the individual’s own experience and self-actualization. This is not true. Truth is an absolute reality. It stands outside of anyone’s experience or perception, and the truth presented in the Gospels is that Jesus Christ is the exclusive means of salvation and the only one that can grant access to the Father. This is not an oppressive truth. It is a truth that Jesus says in John 8 sets people free.
The man of perfect character walks blamelessly, is perfectly righteous, and truly knows himself and others. This perfect man is Jesus of Nazareth, the only begotten Son from the Father, and our only hope in life and death.
Jesus Christ acts perfectly toward others.
But David does not merely say that the perfect man has perfect character. He also says that the perfect man acts perfectly towards other people. What is true of him internally is demonstrated in how he acts externally. The second point of our sermon is that Jesus Christ acts perfectly towards others. He first acts perfectly toward God because he hates what God hates and loves what God loves, and then we will see that he acts perfectly towards his neighbor because he fulfills the law by loving his neighbor as himself. Let’s reread Psalm 15:4-5a:
Psalm 15:4-5a
4 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;
5 who does not put out his money at interest
and does not take a bribe against the innocent.
In verses 4 and 5, David gives us a shorthand form of the double love command: love God and love neighbor. These two great commands Jesus says in Matthew 22:34-40 summarize the entire law, but they are not commands that Jesus made up on the spot. They are actually commands that can be found in the law.
The first command is found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Moses told Israel:
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
This command was supposed to be the most important command that Moses gave to God’s people in the law. They were supposed to be diligent to remember it by binding it to their wrists and their foreheads. They were to right it on their door posts. They were to teach it to their children.
At the end of his life, as a new generation of Israelites was ready to enter into the promised land after their parents had wandered in the wilderness for forty years and after they have received a second giving of the law from Moses, he reminded them of this one command in Deuteronomy 30:15-17. The command to love God is not only the highest command, but it is also the secret to keeping all of the law. Listen to what Moses said in Deuteronomy 30:15-17.
Deuteronomy 30:15-17
15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.
Keeping the law was always about loving God. If they kept his commandments by loving him and walking in his ways, they received life and blessing. If they turned their hearts towards other gods, they would surely perish. The law was always about loving God and keeping his commands as a means to continue to train their affections towards him. It was never a list of do’s and don’ts.
So when David says that the perfect man despises an evil person but honors those that fear the Lord, it is shorthand for keeping this greatest commandment. The perfect man loves God, because he loves what God loves and he hates what God hates. His heart is perfectly aligned in love to the Father’s heart. We have already seen in Psalm 11:5 that:
Psalm 11:5
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
And we have seen in verse 7 of that same psalm that:
Psalm 11:7
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.
David is just saying that the perfect man perfectly matches God’s affections. He despises sin and wickedness and he loves those that fear the Lord.
Jesus Christ’s heart is perfectly aligned with the Father. In Luke 22:39-46, Jesus is praying on the Mount of Olives just before he is arrested, falsely tried, and crucified by evil men. As he is praying, he begs the Father for another way. If there is any other way, he asks the Father to let this cup pass from him. This is an extremely important Christological moment. We see the Son, the second person of the Trinity, in all of his humanity, demonstrating that he is like us in every way. He has a will. He has a mind. He understands what is about to take place and his desire is for there to be some escape from the pain and suffering that he knows is about to take place.
And yet, he is without sin, because he does not resist the Father’s will, which is also his own will as God. In his humanity, his submits his human will to the divine will of the Godhead represented hear by the Father. He says, “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” The man, Jesus of Nazareth, was the perfect man because he perfectly aligned himself to the will of the Father. He sacrificed himself so that the entire world would know how much God loves his people.
The first way that the perfect man perfectly treats others is by loving God who loves his people, he loves what God loves and hates what God hates. The second way that the perfect man perfectly treats others is by loving his neighbor as himself. This second command comes from Leviticus 19:9-18.
This passage has many laws about how to treat your neighbor and the stranger that sojourns among you. But it is summarized in verse 17 and 18:
Leviticus 19:17-18
17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Again we see that keeping the law is a heart issue, not merely an obedience issue. It is possible to obey the law externally, but transgress the law in your heart. This is Jesus’s constant critique of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He calls them whitewashed tombs because they are beautifully manicured on the outside, but full of death in their hearts.
The essence of treating your neighbor correctly is to love your neighbor as you love yourself, to put their needs before your own. David gives 3 examples of this in Psalm 15. At the end of verse 4, he says that a perfect man keeps his oath even when that oath is to his own disadvantage. In verse 5, he says he does not put his money out at interest to his neighbor and he does not take a bribe against the innocent. Augustine’s perspective was that these were no great achievements, which I agree with. Many of us would look at these examples and say, these are like the bare minimum of human decency: to keep your word, not take advantage of the destitute, and not be bribable. But these are important examples because they are all emblematic of how the law teaches God’s people to treat their neighbor. Each one of these three examples is referenced or alluded to in Leviticus 19. What David is saying is that the perfect man follows the law in how he acts toward his neighbor. He shows his love for his neighbor in that he treats them as he would like to be treated.
Jesus Christ not only demonstrated this with his life and his death on the cross, but he taught it to his followers. In Matthew 7:12-14, Jesus taught this to his followers:
Matthew 7:12-14
12 “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Jesus calls his followers to do what is against their nature. The natural man is self-centered, not neighbor-centered. But following Christ is difficult. He says that it is the hard path that is narrow and not easily found. This is the path that leads to life.
Jesus is the truly perfect man because he loved his neighbor and taught his followers to do the same. By so doing, he has opened the way of salvation to all that will follow him.
Jesus Christ is worthy, and makes us worthy to stand in the presence of God.
Which brings us to our third and final point, Jesus Christ is worthy and makes us worthy to stand in the presence of God. Let’s read the last part of verse 5.
Psalm 15:5b
He who does these things shall never be moved.
Moved from where? Moved from the presence of God. Moved from God’s holy hill. Moved from the tabernacle of God’s habitation. The man that is of perfect character and acts perfectly towards others is worthy. Worthy in a way that no man except Adam before the fall was worthy to stand in the presence of God.
What we have seen is that Jesus Christ, as a man, is worthy in a way that no other man is worthy. Psalm 14 spoke to the ubiquity of human depravity and Psalm 15 demonstrates the uniqueness of Jesus Christ’s worthiness. He is the only man that is perfect and the only man worthy to stand in the presence of God, and from God’s presence he shall never be moved. That is good news for you and for me, because he is the guarantor of a better covenant. Listen to Hebrews 7:23-28:
Hebrews 7:23-28
23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
Brothers and sisters, he is not only worthy to enter into the throne room of God himself, but as our great high priest he allows us to enter as well. He is perpetually making intercession on behalf of his people, saving all who put their faith in him, ministering in a more perfect way, based on better promises, and being, in himself, the perfect man that is able to be the bridge between God and man. He is our new and better Adam, and he is the hope that David was looking forward to in Psalm 15. Jesus Christ is the perfect man that acts perfectly and is worthy and is able to make us worthy to stand in the presence of God.
Conclusion
As we conclude, I told you that David poses the question of who is worthy at the beginning of Psalm 15, but that it sets up the entire section that we are about to study. David gives us two answers to the question and I think this might be the coolest thing about studying the Psalms in the order in which they were meant to be studied. You would never see the connection between Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 if you were not reading broadly across the Psalter.
In Psalm 15, David answers the question of who is worthy to stand in the presence of God by saying “only a perfect man.” As we close, I want to read Psalm 24, which we opened our service with and see the second answer that David gives.
Psalm 24
24 A Psalm of David.
1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
2 for he has founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
3 Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to what is false
and does not swear deceitfully.
5 He will receive blessing from the Lord
and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah
7 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
8 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle!
9 Lift up your heads, O gates!
And lift them up, O ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
10 Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah
Who is worthy to ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in the holy place? The Lord, the king of glory, the lord of hosts, the capital LORD. YHWH alone is worthy to stand in his own presence. Praise God that we do not just worship a perfect man, but the creator of the universe himself. Jesus Christ is both the perfect man and YHWH, the king of glory.
Let’s pray.