Psalm 15, Part 2

The first characteristic, holy living, is in verse 2: he who walks blamelessly and does what is right. In the Bible, a person’s walk is idiomatic for the normal pattern of one’s life. We see other examples of this all throughout the Psalms. In Psalm 1, it says “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,” and in Psalm 119:1, “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the way of the LORD.” So a person’s walk is what characterizes him. One who has a blameless walk is one who has a life of integrity. In the original we see that blamelessness isn’t conveying perfection, it’s conveying the idea of wholeness or completeness. This man doesn’t compartmentalize. He has nothing to hide from anyone. He doesn’t act any different on Sunday than he does during the rest of the week. He doesn’t have two sets of vocabulary: one to use with his Christian friends and one to use with his other friends. He wouldn’t be ashamed if his pastor unexpectedly showed up at his door. And because he is whole and complete in every area of his life, he does what is right. He obeys the Word of God. Obedience is a delight to him and is not burdensome. Obedience is reflexive to this man. I must ask you as I’ve asked myself, are you this man of integrity? Are you this man who is righteous in all his deeds? Or do you find that you try to compartmentalize life? Do you try to push sins that others don’t seem to see to the side in your pursuit of holiness figuring, killing them can wait. Holiness doesn’t work that way. One area of life that has undealt with sin will affect all of life. Sin is deadly! No one hangs around deadly viruses thinking, "oh its ok if I just get a few of these germs." No, they flee from it!

What undergirds this holy life - this life of integrity and righteous living? Or to say it another way, what things have to be in place for a man to live this way? For one, the man who wants to live a holy life must have a proper view of the Word of God. We can see this in Psalm 19. In verses 7-10, David gives a beautiful description of the Word of God, calling it perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, more to be desired than gold and sweeter than honey. And then look what he says in verse 13, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.” What was the means to this blameless life? Not sinning. And how would he know what not sinning means if he didn’t have this magnificent view of God’s Word in mind? It would do him no good to ask the Lord to keep him from sin if he didn’t love the Word and know the Word so that he could recognize sin before he committed it! So a proper view of the Word of God is absolutely necessary in order to live a holy life. In conjunction with that, a Fear of God is indispensable to living a holy life. We can see a connection between fearing God and a life of integrity in Job 4:6 where they are looked at as being virtually synonymous: “Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?” To live a life fearing God is to have a life of integrity. Having a proper view of the Word and fearing God will inevitably lead to living a holy life.