Kaikorai Presbyterian Church

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It is the start of Advent and we’ve turned our eyes towards the event of Christmas – the story of which we know well. This year – rather than following the traditional readings we are going to take a detour through Colossians where we will experience Jesus as Our Good News, Our King, our God and our Peace. Read the rest of this entry »

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Let’s set the Scene

• “Lord”, refers to the Lord God Almighty or ‘Yahweh’.
• Today we might use the term “God the Father” or perhaps “our Heavenly Father”.

“Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
Who may live on your holy hill?”

•  ‘Sanctuary’ is translated ‘tent’ in many translations.
• At the time of David, the temple had not yet been built and the ‘house’ of God was still the “Tent of Meeting”, basically an unchanged situation since the Children of Israel wandered through the wilderness and came into the Promised Land.
• ‘Holy hill’ reminds us of Jerusalem.
• Both words ‘tent’ and ‘Jerusalem’ speak to us of the presence of Almighty God.
• My concordance suggests the word ‘Dwell’ refers to “a foreigner” or “stranger”, while the word ‘Live’ refers to a more permanent resident.
• So the question the Psalmist is asking is “who, either foreigner or native, stranger or citizen, Jew or gentile, is able, to reside with our Heavenly Father?

“Lord, who may dwell in your tent?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is right ….”

• Who is this person?
• David wrote this Psalm. Was David thinking of himself?
• I don’t think so. You can read about David’s exploits in the book of 2 Sam.
• Nathan the prophet was sent to David to remind him of his wrong doing and you can read David’s song of repentance in Ps 51.
• Is this person me?
• I can assure you that I am not this person. I am far from blameless. My hands are not clean and my heart is not pure. I am a sinner.
• How about you? Are you this person?
• While preparing this sermon my eyes were sidetracked up the page to Ps 14:2.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, and who seek God. All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

“Lord, who may dwell in your tent?
Who may live on your holy hill?
He whose walk is blameless
and who does what is right ….”

• Who is this person?
• I want to tell you today that this person is Jesus.
• Jesus has the right to live with God Almighty.

Hebrews 4:14 says

Therefore since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin.

• While Jesus was on earth he was blameless, beyond reproach. He is without sin.
• “And who does what is right”. Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 that he came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.
• Jesus is not only without fault, but he does what is righteous according to Gods standard.
• Jesus is this person who has the right to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father.
• The rest of this Psalm goes on to give us a beautiful description of Jesus – a picture of the Messiah, the Christ.

Let us move on to the second half of verse 2 and verse 3: -

• I do not want to dwell on this section for too long, because I want to focus on versus 4 & 5, so we will look only at the first line.
• “Who speaks the truth from his heart”.
• Speaking the truth from the heart is not easy.
• Speaking the truth from the mind is easy – One can afford to be dogmatic, argumentative, even insulting.
•  But to speak the truth from the heart, one has to have another person’s best interests at heart. To find a way of conveying the truth to a person without causing offense. A way that builds up rather than pulls down, A way that brings healing and freedom rather than resentment and umbrage.
• Look at the way Jesus interacted with the people in the Gospels. I’m thinking of Nicodemus. The woman at the well. The woman caught in adultery. The disciples. Zacheus. And many more.
• Jesus spoke the truth from his heart to individuals so that they could see themselves as they are – to bring them to repentance, to bring them to a place where they could receive forgiveness.
• Prophesying of Jesus, Isaiah 42: 3 says “A bruised reed he will not break and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.”
• Jesus spoke the truth from his heart, to bring life not to condemn.
• Just as it is easy to speak the truth from the mind rather than from the heart, so it is easy to speak from the heart, but to gloss over the truth. We could call this “tolerance” or even “flattery”. But glossing over the truth doesn’t set people free. It doesn’t restore relationships.
• Jesus was gentle and kind and patient when he interacted with people, but he gave them the truth.

Verse 4

“Who despises a vile man, but honors those who fear the Lord”

• The word ‘man’ is not actually in the Hebrew text. And the word “vile” has the meaning of ‘rubbish’ or ‘trash’ – that which is worthless.
• I’m going to paraphrase this verse as follows (and remember we are talking about Jesus) “Who despises what is worthless, but appreciates, respects and honors, the fear of the Lord”
• Ps 111:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: all who practice it have a good understanding.”
• Isn’t this how Jesus lived his life? Jesus did not follow after vanity, after what is worthless, but he devoted himself to his Father’s business.

“Lord, Who may dwell in your tent?
Who may live on your holy hill?”

• The answer is Jesus.

“Who keeps his oath even when it hurts”

• The RSV version says “Who stands by his oath even to his hurt”
• I love this verse.
• An ‘oath’ is a ‘solemn promise’ or a ‘vow’.
• The Oxford Dictionary defines a ‘vow’ as a solemn promise or a set of solemn promises committing one to a prescribed role, calling, or course of action, typically marriage or a monastic career.
• Note the reference to marriage – We will come back to this.
• The word for ‘hurt’ in Hebrew includes meanings like “suffer harm” and “mistreat”.
• We know that Jesus went to the cross. That he suffered. That he was mistreated. Suffered punishment which he did not deserve.
• We know also that he went to the cross because of his commitment to the people of the earth – because of his commitment to you and me.
• I want to suggest: that Jesus made a commitment to us, a vow if you like, at his baptism.
• From the moment of his baptism, he was on an unavoidable path to the cross. There was no turning back – because “he stands by his oath even to his hurt”.

Let me explain:
In Galatians 3:27 it says “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

• When Jesus was baptized he was not baptized into himself! He has not clothed himself with himself! This makes no sense.
• When Jesus was baptized he was baptized into us (the Church Universal).
• In Romans 6, Paul talks about baptism and goes on to say “If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.”
• If we are united with Christ through baptism, then so also Christ is united to us through baptism.
• Jesus’ baptism was a commitment to us – an oath, or  a vow – to be united with us forever.
• The most common use of an oath or a vow today is during the sacrament of marriage. And marriage is an excellent illustration of what we are talking about here.
• I have a story – from 20/20 one Sunday evening about 15 to 20 years ago.
  • There were two young Turkish brothers working their passage around the world on a merchant ship. When they reached NZ they wanted to spend more time here so they asked the captain if he would release them from the vessel.
  • In NZ they met two Kiwi sisters.
  • One of the young men fell in love with one of the sisters and they were married – no problem.
  • Then the other young man and the other sister also fell in love and they got married.
  • This is where the problems started. NZ immigration thought that this was rather convenient – a marriage of convenience. They regarded the marriage as a sham and arranged a deportation order for the young Turk.
  • But the marriage was not a sham. They wanted to be together, and so both the young man and his kiwi bride went back to Turkey and they lived in his parents’ village in the hill country.
  • The Kiwi girl began to suffer ill-health (tuberculosis I think).
  • Meanwhile, back in NZ, the family was appealing to NZ Immigration to allow her to come back home, which is why their plight was on 20/20.
  • Eventually NZ Immigration allowed the Kiwi girl to come back home to NZ – with her husband.
• The Turkish lad and the Kiwi girl were united through marriage.
  • The judgment on the young Turk was effectively a judgment on the both of them because of their marriage.
  • The Kiwi girl took the judgment that was on her husband upon herself. And she suffered as a consequence. One could say she “stood by her oath, even to her hurt”.
  • But there was another judgment – NZ immigration allowed the Kiwi girl home.
  • And Her husband had a share in this judgment.

So it is for us & Jesus: -

• There is a judgment on us – a judgment of death – of separation between us and our Creator – a judgment of deportation out of the Kingdom of God– away from Gods presence.
• Through our union with Jesus, Jesus took that judgment upon himself, so that he could be with us.
• But there is another judgment – a judgment on Jesus. Eph 1:20 says “God the Father raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand”. And in Eph 2: 6 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…”

To summarise:  “Who stands by his oath even to his hurt”.

• This is our Jesus – he made an oath, in baptism to be united to us. And he stood by this vow. Even though it led him to suffer and be mistreated at Calvary.

“Who lends money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent”

• Let us look at the key words in this verse.
• The Hebrew word for ‘lends’ in this verse is translated elsewhere in the Old Testament as “give” or gives”. For instance in Gen 24:17 when Abraham’s servant meets Rebekah at the well he says to her “Please give me a little water from your jar”. Ps 15 is the only place in the OT where this Hebrew word is translated as “lends”.
• Usury has taken on a different meaning in the last few hundred years, Before Henry the 8^th money was lent without interest. To charge interest was viewed as usury.
• “Bribe”: The Hebrew word for ‘bribe’ can also be translated as ‘gift’, but it has the definite connotation of being a gift with a condition, a gift that comes with an obligation. [2 Kings 16: 7 “Ahaz, king ofJudea, sent messengers to say to the King of Assyria “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king ofAramand of the king ofIsrael, who are attacking me”. And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king ofAssyria. The king of Assyria complied by attackingDamascusand capturing it.” ]
• So a bribe can be described as a gift which carries an obligation. Lending money, with or without interest, is also a gift that carries an obligation – a gift with conditions.
• My paraphrase for this verse is (and remember again this is a description of Jesus) “Who gives without condition, and will receive a gift if it doesn’t involve an obligation.”
• This is our Jesus: his gift comes without strings. And his gift is himself. All we need to do is to receive him.
• He will also accept a gift if it is given unconditionally. And the gift you can give him is yourself – your life.

Who may reside with God Almighty? Jesus!

Jesus has the right to abide in the presence of our heavenly Father. And those who are with Jesus go along with him – those who are with Jesus go along with him.

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Philippians is a powerful letter, some of you will have completed the Nicky Gumbel video series on Philippians named “A Life worth living”. This particular chapter he titles “The call for a new attitude” and this particular passage is, in my opinion, one of the most important in Scripture.

These few verses, 1 -11, are like a deep pool – the longer we linger and gaze the more we see, and mirror like it can reveal more than we like to acknowledge.

Have you read it recently?

These are words to be savoured, digested slowly, allowing them to soak deep into your soul, to challenge and change you.

Reading slowly through it myself it was verse 5 that got to me. I read a number of versions – here’s a few Read the rest of this entry »