Psalm 101B - Uprightness (Part 2)
As we saw David committing himself to fourteen areas of uprightness in leading the nation of Israel, so now we apply the same fourteen areas to ourselves.
Our commitments in these areas.
We will probably never lead a nation. We may never be in a position of political, social, or judicial leadership. Yet each of us, before God, should desire to walk with Him, and in this, we share the same commitments which David made.
1) I will give heed to the blameless way. (v. 2)
To whom or what will we commit our way? As disciples of Jesus, our first commitment is to Him - to decide to walk with Him all of our days.
The book Ephesians in the New Testament divides into two parts. Chapters 1-3 describe the things God has done for us. Chapters 4-6 describe how we should respond. In the second half of the book, the word “walk-around” (peripatew) appears five times to explain how we walk with the Lord. It is a commitment that we make when we become a Christian. We will repent, that is, make a 180 degree turn and start walking the opposite way.
2) I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. (v. 2)
When we walk with the Lord, we must have our house in order. Our relationships with our family need to be as good as we can make them. We need to commit to how we will behave in our own home, as those filled with the Spirit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5: 22-26, NAB)
3) I will set no worthless thing before my eyes (v. 3)
Within our homes, one of the issues we may need to address is our entertainments. We have become so reliant on technology to provide that entertainment, and we now have many, many choices in the kind of show we view. Our choices impact both our walk with God and the walk of our family. So we should be careful about what entertainment we allow ourselves because of its impact.
4) I will hate the work of those who fall away, it shall not fasten its grip on me. (v. 3)
As with entertainment, there are other temptations counter to God’s expectations for our lives. There are temptations in business practices, in communication, such as gossiping in social media, and temptations in the use of money.
We might also find temptation in our attitudes. When others are critical and bitter toward authority, we might want to join in. When others are expressing hate and bigotry, we might feel the urge to jump in.
5) A perverse heart shall depart from me (v. 4)
Some purposely choose evil. Those people should not feel comfortable when they are around us. If they are comfortable, perhaps we are not standing for righteousness as we should. When we are in the light, the light dispels darkness, and those in the dark will not want their deeds exposed by light.
6) I will know no evil (v. 4)
We should not be comfortable being around evil. If we are comfortable, we may compromise our stands and allow evil to exist where it shouldn’t exist.
7) Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy (v. 5)
Slander, gossip, rumor - none of these should be part of our speech. Derogatory statements, condemning, and judgmental rhetoric are not how the Lord wants us to communicate. Even in our anger, we need to keep control of what we say. Our anger does not give us an excuse to say whatever we feel like saying.
Gossip is often the result of wanting to appear to have knowledge that others do not have. We want to seem relevant to others. When we can share something that others do not know, it can make us feel more important.
When we talk about the failures of others - their mistakes and their sins - we are similarly attempting to elevate our reputation as being superior to those people.
But our areas of temptation are not the same. What may be a horrible temptation to someone may not be particularly tempting to another. We can deceive ourselves into thinking that we are a better person because we don't do what someone else does. But we are all sinners before the Lord.
8) No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure (v. 5)
When we think more highly of ourselves than we should, we are in great danger. We need to think rightly of ourselves and to have as our example Jesus who humbled himself.
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2: 3-8, NASB)
Therefore those who lack the humility of Jesus may not be good people "to hang with." We may have to work with them, but they don’t have to be our close friends. We can make choices.
9) My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me (v. 6)
So rather than have arrogant friends, we can choose to have faithful and humble friends. One of the church's beauties is that we are a community of people who want to walk with Jesus. Therefore, we will be more likely to be the kind of people that God wants us to be as friends.
We need to be those kinds of friends to others - those who walk humbly with their God and can encourage others to also walk with Him.
10) He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me (v. 6)
We choose our friends, and sometimes we must make hard choices. Those friends who will help us to build our walk with God are the ones we want to have around. Those who pull us away from God are not.
11) He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house (v. 7)
Someone not honest and truthful is not someone we want to have around us. They will pull us down rather than build us up in the faith.
12) He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me. (v. 7)
Someone who lies to us is not someone we can trust. We want to surround ourselves with people we can trust.
13) Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land, (v. 8)
God is not calling us to commit atrocities. He calls us to make choices - good choices - including the selections of those with whom we spend our time.
14) So as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity (v. 8)
We may not have authority over the city, but we have power over our own houses and lives. Sometimes we must make hard decisions about who we will and will not befriend. We must protect ourselves from evil people, and we must try to surround ourselves with good people.
Summary:
As we read this list of fourteen characteristics, it is impossible for us not to feel our own hypocrisy. Our walk with God is always a struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Our old nature does not disappear when we come to faith, but we are no longer powerless against its influence. However, as we allow the flesh to influence us, it becomes more powerful and needs to be crucified once again. The process of maturity in Christ is just that - it is a process of growth. It is never a straight line, but is a line like the stock market over time - many ups and downs with a general tendency to rise over time.
Older Americans may remember when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) first crossed 1000 in 1972, then 10,000 in 1999 and 20,000 in 2017. It nearly reached 30,000 (29,551) in the early part of 2020. Along the way, there were many downturns, bubble bursts, and even a great recession. Yet the general progression of the DJIA over 100 years has been firmly upward. In 1920 the high point for the average was 108.85.
Consider David - a man after God’s own heart. Paul preached a message of evangelism to the Jews of Pisidian Antioch in Acts 13 and, in so doing, was reviewing the history of Israel.
Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, A man after My heart, who will do all My will.’ (Acts 13:22)
Did David live a perfect life? Far from it. Do we live perfect lives? Perhaps farther from it. And yet, even though we recognize our propensity to make wrong choices, to sin, we should also remember our desire to walk with God.
There are times when we need to reaffirm our commitment to walk with God. We need to acknowledge our struggles and our areas of weakness. There are times when God will need to discipline us for our good. Those times are never pleasant. They are painful, embarrassing, and perhaps even humiliating.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12: 4-11, NASB)
The great blessing of the gospel is that forgiveness is always available to us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:9-10)
And so we walk with God. We reach up to Him, and He reaches down to us, like a parent walking with their small child. It is a process in which we must continually reaffirm our commitment to uprightness. Perhaps today is a good day for doing just that.