The Immovable Person

1:11Who is able to stand before the Lord? Not just temporarily, but permanently. Who is able to dwell in God's presence forever? That is the critical question. And at some point in your life, you have almost certainly asked that question or some version of that question. And you probably didn't just ask the question and kind of shrug your shoulders like, who can know? And then move on with your life. No, at some point, you probably asked that question, who can dwell in the presence of the Lord forever? And you answered it in some way.

1:57You might have said, everyone is able to stand in the presence of the Lord. Everybody's going to go to heaven. You might have said, well, heaven doesn't exist, so no one's going to stand in the presence of the Lord. You might have said, some people are going to stand in the presence of the Lord, and I am among those people. Or you might have said, some people are going to stand in the presence of the Lord, and I am not going to be one of them.

2:26But however, you answered that question, you arrived at your answer somehow. It might have just been what you thought. It might have just been your opinion. It might have been stuff you heard on TV or read on the internet. But you arrived at your answer, whatever your answer is, some way, somehow. And everything hinges on the answer to that question. Everything hinges on that answer. And that is why God's Word is such a gift to us.

3:00Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed and proved to be the Son of God through his sinless life and his death and his resurrection from the dead, he taught that God's word is truth. He said, God's word is truth. I'm so thankful that we do not live in a world where we can know answers to math questions and science questions and history questions, but we can have absolutely no idea when it comes to spiritual questions. That's the way that some people make it sound, don't they?

3:36Like we can know for sure about math and science and history, but we can just have no idea when it comes to spiritual questions. Well, friends, Jesus says otherwise. He says that God's word is truth, that every word in Scripture proceeds from the mouth of God, that it is entirely trustworthy, that we can and should stake our today and our eternity on what it says. And so today we come to Psalm 15, not seeking an interesting opinion or a different perspective or a different point of view, but seeking truth from God Himself.

4:22We come to Psalm 15, seeking truth. And so here's how we're going to walk through the passage this morning. The outline of the sermon. We're going to consider the critical question, the unsettling answer, the insurmountable problem, and the supernatural solution. So let's begin with that critical question in verse 1. Look there in your Bible. Verse 1 begins: A Psalm of David. O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? So we know from the superscription, that little line written above the psalm, that David wrote Psalm 15, but why did he write it? If you think back to last week, we looked at Psalm 4, which is a psalm of lament. David was in trouble. He was anxious. And so he requested relief. He remembered God's promises, and he rested in God's peace.

5:29But what's going on here? As we've already seen in verse 1, David is asking this all-important question about who's going to sojourn in God's tent, who's going to dwell on his holy hill. And when David refers to God's tent and his holy hill, he's referring to the focal point of Israelite worship, which was the tabernacle, the big tent, for a long time, and then was the hill on which the temple of Solomon was built. That was the focal point of Israelite worship. That is where God promised to meet with his people in a special way. Look on the screen at Exodus 29.

6:13God is talking about the tabernacle, the tent, and he says, There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. And so, when David refers to the tent of the Lord or the holy hill of the Lord, he's referring to the special place where God would meet with his people, his special dwelling place on earth, where we could go and dwell with him.

6:42And David's big question is: who shall sojourn or dwell in that place, that place where God promises to meet with his people? That Hebrew word translated sojourn means something like to stay for a period of time as a newcomer without original rights. You get to stay there, but you don't have the right to be there. You don't own the place. That's not your property. That's not yours. You are a visitor, but you get to stay there. That's what it means to sojourn. And that Hebrew word translated dwell means to settle down or to abide.

7:21And so that's what David is asking. Who has the right to move in with God? Who has the right to live in his house, not temporarily? But indefinitely. Friends, that is the critical question. It's the question that we all want to know the answer to, or at least we should want to know the answer to, because we don't want to be in a position where we cannot enter into God's presence, and we don't want to be in a position where we can't stay in God's presence forever.

7:54David expressed this in Psalm 27. Take a look on the screen. He says, One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Friends, that's what we want. We want to be able to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives, here on earth and in eternity. We want to dwell with God. And that's why David asks here in Psalm 15, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?

8:46Because that's the critical question. Now let's consider the unsettling answer. Verses 2 through 5 represent God's answer to David. Question, who is going to dwell with the Lord forever? And as we heard in the reading in verse 5, David states, he who does these things, the things in verses 2 through 5, shall never be moved. And so we could call the person who shall dwell with the Lord the immovable person. The immovable person. Well, what are the characteristics of the immovable person?

9:30There are five. The immovable person is blameless, truthful, virtuous, dependable, and just. So let's think about each one of those in turn. First, the immovable person is blameless. Look at verse 2: He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. Verse 2 functions as kind of the summary verse of this whole psalm. The word translated blameless means unscathed, without fault, free of blemish. And of course, if you're blameless, if you're without blemish, then you do what is right inside and out. Your heart is pure, so your actions are pure. There is no hypocrisy.

10:31At all in a blameless person. Second, the immovable person is truthful. Look at verse 3. Who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. So we already saw that the immovable person speaks the truth in their heart, but now we see here in verse 3 that they also don't slander with the tongue. They do no evil to the neighbor. They don't take up a reproach against their friend. They don't shame or taunt or disgrace any friend.

11:14Instead, the immovable person speaks the truth and does so in love. This person doesn't tell lies or spread gossip or speak in uncharitable ways about other people. Instead, they assume the best and they speak charitably to others and about others. Third, the immovable person is virtuous. Look at the first part of verse 4. In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord. So the immovable person despises a vile person, but honors those who fear the fear. Who fear the Lord. Now, that verse might make you a little bit uncomfortable because you might be thinking, despise a vile person.

12:10Aren't we supposed to love sinners? Haven't we always heard you hate the sin, but you love the sinner? Well, that's certainly true. We are commanded to love sinners. Jesus loves sinners. And Jesus commands us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. And so, verse 4 is saying that the immovable person, the virtuous person, does not idolize wicked people. We don't put them on a pedestal. They're not the kinds of people that we have on our posters and our lock screens, so to speak.

12:55The virtuous person despises the wicked, but honors the righteous. Our heroes are people like faithful parents and grandparents, faithful Christians that we know in our lives who are living for Jesus every day, faithful businessmen and women, faithful politicians, faithful athletes who put the Lord first in everything they do. That's the kind of person that the virtuous person honors. We put those people, so to speak, on A pedestal, not the wicked. Fourth, the immovable person is dependable. Look at the end of verse four, who swears to his own hurt and does not change.

13:50So the immovable person doesn't promise to do something and then not do it. The immovable person is dependable. So you know when they say they're going to do something, they do it. It doesn't matter if they get a better offer. It doesn't matter if it's no longer convenient. It doesn't matter if they would rather do something else. No, they're going to keep their word. You can count on them. So when they say they're going to do something, when they give you their word, it's going to happen.

14:24And then fifth and finally, the immovable person is just. Look at verse 5. Who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. Now, Scripture is clear that charging interest is not sinful in a lawful business transaction. In fact, the scriptures actually have guidelines for how to go about charging interest in a way that honors the Lord. One of Jesus' characters in a parable actually rebukes another character for not putting his money in the bank. Bank so that he could have earned interest.

15:03So the problem is not interest. The problem is charging exorbitant interest rates to take advantage of the poor and the needy. That's what's in mind here. These people often came to wealthy folks because they needed money to buy the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, seeds, tools for planting crops. And so the immovable person is just. They don't take advantage of the poor. And moreover, as it says here in verse 5, they don't take a bribe against the innocent. The immovable person is just in his financial dealings, just in the courtroom, just in the bank. He's upright in all of his dealings.

15:54And then you have the conclusion here at the end of verse 5: He who does these things shall never be moved. Hence, the immovable person. So, friends, in verse 1, we have the critical question: who will dwell in God's presence forever? But in verses 2 through 5, we have a very unsettling answer. The person who will dwell in God's presence forever is blameless, truthful, virtuous, dependable, and just. How are you feeling? It's possible that some of you are like the rich young ruler in Mark chapter 10, teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.

16:46But probably every one of us is looking at that list and feeling like we have not passed the test. It's not that we didn't get an A, we didn't pass. We are feeling quite unsettled. And that's because we are seeing the insurmountable problem. Friends, it should be abundantly clear to each one of us that we are not the immovable person of Psalm 15. We are far from being blameless, from being people who are unscathed, without fault, free of blemish.

17:25Just think about that list once more. The immovable person is truthful, but have we always been truthful with God, with ourselves, with others? Certainly not. The people in Isaiah's day declared this: We have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter. Paul said of people in his day and in our day, the people of the last days, he said, evil people. And impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. All of these things, all of the lying, stems from our idolatry, from making something other than God the center of our life. Look what Paul said in Romans 1: Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

18:33The immovable person is truthful, but friends, we've all lied. We've told big lies and small lies. We've told lies with huge consequences and ones that didn't seem to have any consequences at all. The immovable person is virtuous. Not only do they exemplify godly characteristics, but they honor those who do. But, friends, we have failed to display virtue. We have glorified vice in our own lives and certainly in the lives of others. We have promoted people, we have idolized people who are not virtuous, who have lived lives that are the exact opposite of virtuous.

19:28And in Romans 1, Paul says, Says, this is what happens when people make idols. Look at Romans 1 again. He says, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. Paul teaches that from birth, sinners not only sin, but we give approval to sin. We give approval to other sinners. We celebrate vice, not virtue. The immovable person is dependable.

20:08But friends, we know we haven't always been dependable. Other people have counted on us, and we've let them down. Our spouses, our parents, our children, our bosses and co-workers, even our fellow church members, we have given people our word that we will carry our weight, that we will do what we say, that we will support each other. And we have failed time and time again. Proverbs 20, verse 6 laments this. Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man, who can find?

20:51And the immovable person is just. The immovable person treats everybody, no matter their background, their culture. Their ethnicity, their skin culture, their income. The immovable person, the just person, treats all of those people with equity and fairness. But we've not done that. James laments this in chapter 5. He says, Speaking to Christians, Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you. And the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.

21:43Friends, the immovable person described in Psalm 15, who is blameless and truthful and virtuous and dependable and just, is the one who will dwell with the Lord forever. We are not that immovable person. We have not met God's perfect standard of righteousness. We have not kept his law. And I want you to look at what God says about those who fail to keep his law. Look on the screen at Deuteronomy 27. Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing this.

22:32Every person who fails to keep the law of the Lord perfectly is under a curse. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us in need of the supernatural solution. In the Gospel accounts, the eyewitnesses tell us that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified, he died, he was buried, and he rose again from the dead on the third day. But, friends, years before he was crucified, when he began his public ministry, Jesus taught the crowd of people that came to him: I have not come to abolish the law. I've come to fulfill it. Jesus came to do every single thing that the law required. And friends, this is absolutely essential. Because if Jesus did not fulfill every iota, every dot in the law, then he would not be able to offer himself as an acceptable sacrifice in our place and for our sins.

23:44But Jesus did fulfill the law completely. And because Jesus fulfilled the law completely, he was blameless. Jesus is the immovable person of Psalm 15. The one person in all of history who was fit to sojourn in God's tent, who was fit to dwell on God's holy hill, to live in God's presence forever. And according to Galatians 3, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. That is what he did in his life and death and resurrection.

24:32And friends, what Scripture teaches is that all people who trust in Jesus, in the immovable man of Psalm 15, all people who trust in him have been counted blameless, are becoming blameless, and one day will be made blameless. I want you to meditate on those wonderful truths with me for just a moment. The first truth is that we have been counted blameless through faith in Jesus Christ. Theologians call that justification. Look on the screen at Romans chapter 3.

25:18Paul says, But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus. Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

25:53Friends, through faith, you and I have been counted blameless. Second, we are becoming blameless through faith in Christ. Theologians call that sanctification. Look on the screen at 1 Thessalonians 5. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Through faith in Jesus, we are being sanctified. We are becoming blameless.

26:43And then, third and finally, through faith in Christ, we will be made blameless. Theologians call that glorification. Look once more at Romans chapter 8. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. Through faith, we will be made blameless. We will be glorified. Friends, faith in Jesus is the supernatural solution to our insurmountable problem.

27:38Only Jesus is fit to dwell in God's presence forever, but through faith in Him, we have been counted blameless. We are becoming blameless, and we will be made blameless one day. And so, if you have already put your faith in Jesus Christ, Psalm 15 is a wonderful gift to you. It promotes confession where we see that we have fallen short of God's ideal standard. It promotes thanksgiving when we direct our eyes to Jesus, the immovable person, the one who was blameless.

28:16And it promotes worship as we meditate on the gospel, the good news that the righteousness of Jesus is credited to us. His blamelessness is credited to us through faith. That's all I want to. Encourage you to celebrate, Christians. Rejoice in all that the immovable man has done and is doing and will do for you. Rejoice in who you are and who you are becoming and who you will be one day through faith in Jesus. If you haven't placed your faith in Christ, then my hope for you is that Psalm 15 will serve as a mirror and a window this morning.

29:05I hope that Psalm 15 will serve as a mirror for you to see yourself clearly and a window through which you can see Christ, the immovable man, clearly. It might be the case that you've seen yourself as a pretty good person. Not a perfect person, but a pretty good person. A person who is, at any rate, good enough to go to heaven. Oh, friends, I hope that today the mirror of Psalm 15 shows you the truth about who you are. You are not blameless. You haven't been perfectly truthful or virtuous or dependable or just. You do not meet God's standard for entrance into heaven. And because of that, you need a Savior.

30:00You must turn in faith to the immovable man, Jesus, or you will not be admitted to heaven. Because only those who trust in him, he is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. He is the only way to go to heaven, not by your own virtue, but by his. So put your faith in Jesus today. But it also might be the case that until today, you've seen yourself as a person that God could never accept.

30:36You are acutely aware of all of your shortcomings. You didn't really need the mirror of Psalm 15 this morning. You already see yourself clearly in your sin. But wrongly, you have concluded that there is no hope, that there is no way that you will ever be admitted to heaven. Well, friends, the good news for you is that Jesus loves you. Jesus came for you. He wasn't going to come for you once you had cleaned yourself up enough, once you had made yourself righteous enough. He already came. He came for you while you were yet a sinner. And he said before he died and rose again that he was going to prepare a place for you. Friend, Jesus loves you, he wants you to be where he is. He will. Not reject you, he will not turn you away, not because you're a good person, but because he came to live and die and rise again for sinners just like you.

31:41And so, if you're in that place where you are despairing this morning because of your sin, look to Jesus, the immovable person, who will never reject you, never turn you away, because of his grace and his mercy. Thank God, friends, we are not the immovable person, but Jesus is, and he welcomes us through faith. Let's pray, Father, we thank you for Jesus, the immovable person, the one who was tempted in every way, just as we are, and yet was without sin.

32:24We thank you that we have a perfect and faithful high priest who intercedes for us and whom we can go to, knowing that he understands what it is like to be tempted and who deals mercifully with us when we sin because he came to seek and to save sinners. God, I pray that every Christian here will be saved. Would rejoice, knowing that our acceptance is sure, based upon the blameless life of Jesus. And God, I pray for every person who has not yet trusted in Christ this morning. Oh Lord, would you reveal yourself to every man, woman, and child? I pray that Psalm 15 would serve as that mirror and that window that they need.

33:33We pray that you would grant them saving faith today and that many would be added to our number who trust in Jesus, the immovable person. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.