A psalm of David. 1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? 2 Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. 3 Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. 4 Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. 5 Those who lend money without charging interest and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever. (Psalm 15, NLT)

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What kind of person experiences the living God? Do the ultra-religious experience him through ceremony and tradition? Do the ultra-righteous experience him through strict rule-keeping and withdrawal from enjoyable elements of life? Or do the ultra-spiritual experience him through things like meditation, contemplation, or prayer? What kind of person experiences the living God?

This is the question this psalm attempts to answer. It starts by asking its own set of questions:

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? (Psalm 15:1, NLT)

The sanctuary in the time of the Psalms was Israel's temple on God's holy hill of Jerusalem (1). It got its start as a portable tabernacle during their wilderness wanderings. And it was the place God had prescribed he would fellowship with his people. So when David asked these questions of God—who may worship in your sanctuary and enter your presence?—he wanted to know what kind of people experience the living God.

And his prayer proceeded to then answer his question by rattling off a list of ten attributes of the person who has fellowship with God (2-5). Here is a sampling of his answer: they live blameless lives, have sincere hearts, refuse to gossip or speak evil, admire the right people, keep their promises, and are routinely generous. And that's just a sampling. In other words, the person who experiences the living God is a pretty amazing person.

Because this listing can be daunting, we must ask if this psalm is meant as a barrier or gateway into fellowship with God. It would not be hard to read it as a list of holy deeds that barricade God off from those who don't practice them. And after considering all ten practices mentioned here, it would be easy to conclude that we don't measure up and, therefore, have no real fellowship with God.

But we can dispense with the view that this is a barrier to God because of the purpose of the Psalms and their historical usage in Israel. The Psalms are not meant to push us away from God but to draw us into him.

Israel likely used this particular psalm as part of their entrance liturgy—visiting worshippers would sing this song and pray this prayer in preparation for engaging in friendship with God at the temple. Their personal holiness could not gain them an audience with God—no matter how pious they were, each worshipper was there to offer a sacrifice for sins.

But they would use this song as a way to take inventory and recommit themselves to God. This self-inventory is similar to the way Christians are to examine themselves before partaking of the bread and wine of the Lord's table, these Israelites examined themselves before offering various sacrifices in God's house (1 Cor. 11:27-28).

The savvy Jesus-follower knows that only Jesus perfectly lived the ten attributes this psalm mentions. Only Jesus was worthy of entering the Father's house on his merit alone. He needed no sacrifice. He needed no self-inspection. Instead, Jesus became the sacrifice so that all who believe in him could come boldly into God's presence (Heb. 4:16). No amount of self-examination could ever gain us true friendship with God. Righteousness cannot be earned, it must be received. And Jesus stands in our place to give it to us if we will receive it.

But...it is this consciousness of Jesus' finished work for us that could easily endanger our understanding of this psalm. Because of the totality of the gospel, we might dismiss the self-examination of this song as a vestigial portion of God's word—as valuable and practical to you as your appendix. We might wrongly conclude that Israel's self-examination was necessary because they lived on the wrong side of the cross, while we no longer benefit from this self-examination because Jesus rendered it unnecessary.

This highlights one of the two extremes Christians often enter into. On the one hand, we might over-emphasize our open access to God so much that we never take the time to consider our progress. But the New Testament tell us to:

• Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. (Eph. 4:1)
• Be imitators of God. (Eph. 5:1)
• Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Phil. 2:12)
• Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. (Jas. 1:22)
• Be holy, for God is holy. (1 Pet. 1:15)

As Peter said, "For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins" (2 Pet. 1:5–9).

Passages like these help us avoid the error of a flippant or casual relationship with God. God is holy, and—though the righteousness of Christ is imputed into our account by faith—God is looking for us to progress and grow. And this growth benefits us and our world in a myriad of ways, so we are wise to respect God and consider our progress.

On the other hand, we might over-emphasize God's holiness to the point that we feel fellowship and friendship with him is impossible. Paralyzed by an unholy terror of him, we might become like the man in Jesus' parable who did not invest his master's money but hid it in a handkerchief in the ground because he felt his master was severe and ruthless (Luke 19:21).

So we should neither use this passage dismissively by simply attributing it all to Christ nor should we become paralyzed by it and assume we could never partake of God because we can't live up to this standard. Instead, we should rejoice that Jesus fulfilled the law for us but allow his grace and holiness to springboard us into a life responding to him. As Paul wrote to Titus, "The grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age—people who are zealous for good works."[^1]

Part of this growth process is to take a grace-oriented look in the mirror. We don't have to be decimated by our faults—Jesus loved us and died for them!—but we don't have to ignore them either. In fact, for the believer (Christian, child of God, Jesus-follower), ignoring our progress is not even possible.

In the Star Wars show, The Mandalorian, bounty hunter Din Djarin said, "I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in cold." He meant that his bounty could either struggle or submit. Same for us. We can struggle and fight against examination or submit ourselves to it. We can see either hunger and thirst for righteousness and find ourselves satisfied—as Jesus said—or we can self-examine once we are thrown into the belly of the whale—as Jonah did. Our choice (Mat. 5:6, Jonah 2).

So this psalm gives us a good launching pad into a bit of gospel-saturated, holy, self-examination. With this concept firmly in mind, let's spend the rest of our time looking at the four categories for self-examination the psalm suggests. In each of the four quadrants, I will offer some questions that might help us as we consider our progress in Christ.

1. Our Actions (2)

The first category for self-examination is our actions. People who worship in God's sanctuary and go into God's presence are:

Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. (Psalm 15:2, NLT)

People like this are upright in their actions towards others, God, and themselves.

• The fact they lead blameless lives indicates that others watch them and find them a convincing illustration of God's holiness.
• The fact they do what is right means they have a standard outside themselves by which they abide—and that standard did not come from anyone but God.
• And the fact they speak the truth from sincere hearts is a way of saying that they do not self-deceive—they allow God's truth to train them.

This person is walking in the light. John said, "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth" (1 John 1:5–6). This person is not perfect in any way, but they strive to treat others well, abide by God's dictates, and be honest with themselves about it all.

For holy self-examination, here are some questions we might ask to help us inspect our actions:

• Does my calendar look like it belongs to a person devoted to Jesus?
• What is the next area of my character the Holy Spirit wants to address?
• Are there any areas of my life that would stumble others?
• Is there something in my life I continually justify to myself that I shouldn't?

2. Our Words (3)

The second category for self-examination is our words. People who worship in God's sanctuary and go into God's presence are:

Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. (Psalm 15:3, NLT)

James straightforwardly said, "If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless" (Jas. 1:26). And the person this psalm describes has—at least to a great degree—tamed their tongue.

They are careful not to gossip or harm anyone with their words. Remember, Jesus defined "neighbor" much more broadly than we do. He defined quintessential neighbor care with a parable about a good Samaritan taking care of a random stranger on a wilderness pass (Luke 10:25-37). So neighbor harm or gossip isn't only about the person with whom you share a lot line. Jesus thought of neighbor care much more broadly than that. And the righteous person, this psalm says, will not speak harmfully of or harm his neighbor.

Nor will they speak evil of their friends (3). This might not sound like it would be much of an issue, but many people tear down the people they know best. The human heart is often prideful, jealous, and selfish—this can lead to all kinds of evil talk about people you might otherwise love.

This person is continually working to keep their words in check. They adhere to Paul's admonition to "let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear" (Eph. 4:29).

For holy self-examination, here are some questions we might ask to help us inspect our words:

• When I am with close friends or family, do I become comfortable saying negative things about others?
• When I learn privileged information, do I share it with others?
• How do I feel when I watch someone experience a win I would like to experience but haven't?
• Do I correct self-talk that is not full of faith, hope, and love but is instead full of fear, doom, and hatred?

3. Our Attitudes (4)

The third category for self-examination is our attitudes. People who worship in God's sanctuary and go into God's presence are:

Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. (Psalm 15:4, NLT)

Each turn of phrase deals with the attitude of our hearts towards wickedness, godliness, and ourselves:

• When it comes to flagrant sinners, this man despises their life of compromise. Why did he think of them as compromised? Remember, this man lived in Israelite culture, so when he saw persistent unrighteousness it was usually done by people who claimed to live in the kingdom of God but in actuality did not follow him. This man despises that kind of spiritual compromise.
• When it comes to faithful followers of the Lord, this man honors them for their devotion.
• And when it comes to himself, he keeps his promises even when it hurts him to do so.

This person does not idolize or appreciate the wrong things. Instead, they agree with James, who said that "friendship with the world is enmity with God" (Jas. 4:1-5).

For holy self-examination, here are some questions we might ask to help us inspect our attitudes:

• Who do I admire most? Am I intensely interested in anyone for the wrong reasons?
• Are the voices I am building my life upon from faithful Jesus-followers?
• Do I make good commitments? If so, do I keep them no matter what?

4. Our Concerns (5)

The fourth category for self-examination is our concerns. People who worship in God's sanctuary and go into God's presence are:

Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. (Psalm 15:5, NLT)

What they do with their money indicates where their deepest concerns lie. When it says the righteous lend money without charging interest, we must be sure we read it with Old Testament society glasses on. It is not that lending as an investment strategy was wrong in principle, but it normally involved the exploitation of Israel's poor. To be in need of a loan in that Hebrew culture was likely an indication you were in poverty, and the interest would only make it worse. So the type of person that lends money without charging interest in return is the type of person who is concerned for the economically vulnerable.

But they also cannot be bribed about the innocent, meaning they would not use their position to pervert justice. This type of person is concerned for all those in need of justice, especially those who are not well-positioned to gain it for themselves.

This person does not let materialism blind them to the hardships and injustices others experience. They agreed with James when he said that "religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (Jas. 1:27).

For holy self-examination, here are some questions we might ask to help us inspect our concerns:

• Do my finances and schedule reflect care for people living in poverty?
• What are my internal feelings about people living in poverty? Or living in abundance?
• Do I have relationships with people outside my socio-economic sphere?

Conclusion

The person who lives under the general analysis of this psalm will never be moved (5). They will become a pillar in their church and community. Their lives become solid and flourishing.

Years ago, Christina and I had a small tree in our front yard that just wouldn't grow like all the other trees in our neighborhood. It was planted there by the home builder when it was just a sapling. But after a few years, it wasn't much bigger than when it was planted. I couldn't figure it out. All the other trees in other front yards were growing. Why wasn't mine?

One day, I grabbed the ear of a professional gardener. I explained the situation to him. I was sure he could provide me with a keen insight into how to get my tree to grow. Finally, once I was done depicting the unique situation I was in, he asked me, "Well, do you water it?" Come to think of it, no, I actually hadn't thought of that.

We all want flourishing lives. From the Christian perspective, human flourishing is directly connected to God. But if our actions toward others, God, and ourselves are awash in sin, how can we expect the water of the Spirit to have its desired effect? If our words are filled with slander and jealousy, how can we expect our friendship with God to produce abundance? If our attitudes are misplaced, and we idolize the wrong people while demonizing the righteous, how will peace ever dominate our lives? And if our concern is never for the vulnerable and innocent, isn't it clear evidence we have not walked with God but only with ourselves?

So what kind of person experiences the living God? The answer of this psalm and the Scripture around it tell us that the kind of person who experiences God is first made righteous, clean, perfect, or holy before God by receiving the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He died and rose in our place so that our old lives would die and we could have newness in him.

But after receiving that positional righteousness before God, the person who experiences God continues to allow Spirit-led, grace-fueled examination into their lives. And as their actions, words, attitudes, and concerns are brought into further submission to God—all by the power and aid of the Spirit—they flourish. They will never be moved. They have experienced the living God.

[^1]: Paraphrase of portions of Titus 2:11-14.