worship coming before God's presence. Just think of that thought, coming before the presence of the Lord. If President Bush and Vice President Cheney invited you to come to the White House and then to be ushered in right into the presence of the Oval Office, Do you think that you would make some preparation for that encounter? Certainly you would. Oh, you'd get up probably the night before. You wouldn't be able to sleep. You would begin going over in your mind, what exactly is it that I'm going to say? And how in the world can I say it and try to remember it? Oh, maybe I should take notes. No, that would look awkward if I was fumbling around with papers. Maybe I ought to memorize it. What should I do, and what can I say? And then the primping, and you'd get a special suit or another outfit, and you'd get your hair all fixed up, and make sure your nails were all fixed up, and the right kind of shoes, and preparation for entrance into the Chief Executive of the United States of America. And yet, in contrast, just think of the preparation for worship that the average Christian puts in before he comes to meet with his Lord to gather together with other believers in worship. Consider Sunday morning at Rallo's house. First of all, all day Saturday, the day before, Rallo's been involved in a scurry of activities school social activities and car washes supporting the sophomore class. Then Saturday evening, the family stays up late to watch Creature Features until 1.15 in the morning. Then in the morning, after coaxing from parents and threats of hostile action, the parents, who themselves overslept, finally get Rollo up Rallo can't find his favorite shirt. It's dirty with ring around the collar. He can't find his shoes. His sister is still drying her hair when it's time to leave for church. They're all arguing and screaming. Hurried cups of coffee thrown into the sink. Amidst confusion and unrest, they all hop into the car and leave for church. By the time they reach the church parking lot, unkind words, bitterness, followed by a chilling quietness as they exit their vehicle entering into the church. All of the preceding, of course, totally prevents their concentration on the Sunday school lesson. They don't listen to a word that the teacher has to say. And besides, it sounds so incredibly boring and unrelating to what they've gone through that day. The music in the morning service and the message had little, if any, impact on their hearts. And they return home from church empty, exhausted, and cynical, wondering why they hadn't gotten anything out of the morning service. They decided over lunch hour that they're going to have to start looking around for another church. Obviously there's something wrong with that church. Worship indeed does require preparation. Worship requires time in preparation and heart preparation in approaching the presence of God. In Psalm chapter 15, we have a psalm that I would call, How to Approach God's Presence. Psalm 15, if you'll just look at it for just a few moments with me in the short time we have, this will more than likely be a two-part message. as we at the seven thirty our would like to go right uh... into prayer requests and prayer and then right up to the eight o'clock hour so we have about twenty minutes to look at apart one of how to approach god's prayer and his presence but we're going to be what noticing that inverse one that the farm begins with two questions and then in verses too through five there's an eleven part answer given to those two questions the answer in verses two through five we're going to note is given positively and then the answer in verse three is given negatively let's take a look at question number one shall we in psalm chapter fifteen Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? Two questions. You know, this is a logical question, verse 1, isn't it? It's a logical question, since we profess to be here tonight to worship the Lord and have fellowship with Him. These two questions, by the way, are an example of Hebrew parallelism. The concept of abiding is equated with dwelling, and the tabernacle concept is equated with the holy hill. So therefore, the second phrase interprets and gives a proper understanding to the first portion of verse one. Now, I want you to notice, before we answer by eleven parts, the question of verse one, how we ought to approach the presence of the Lord. I just want you to notice the similarity between Psalm 15 and Psalm 24. Let's take a look at Psalm 24, shall we? It begins differently. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof. the world and they that dwell therein." This is a messianic psalm, Psalm 24. Now, notice, "...for he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods." But notice now, how similar to chapter 15 and 24 are. "...Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?" He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart, and hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob, Selah. Now notice how this is a kingdom passage in Psalm 24. It continues and says, Lift up, lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of Glory, Selah. Now the reason why I'm bringing in Psalm 24, I want you to notice how Psalm 24 gives the emphasis of entering into the presence of the Lord and abiding in His dwelling as the kingdom concept. And how the Jesus Christ is going to be worshipped in His kingdom. And we know that one will not enter into that kingdom unless one is saved. So in effect, What Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 are teaching us is this, that if we are saved, And if we are members of His kingdom, these qualities ought to be present in our life. That's the first reason why I've brought you to Psalm 24. Because if we are citizens of His kingdom, and we are worshipping Him, then those qualities that we're going to study ought to be present in our lives. Woefully and sadfully, often not so. Now, what is the second reason why I have brought up Psalm 24? Jesus Christ is mentioned in Psalm 24 as the One who fulfilled in detail, impeccably, without any sin at all. He truly is the One. who can stand up and say, I have fulfilled Psalm 15 to a T. There has never been a time, Jesus would say, that I have not walked uprightly before my Father. There has never been a time when I have not spoken the truth in my heart. There's never been a time when I've backbited. There's never been a time when I've taken up a reproach against my neighbor. I've never had the wrong type of hero worship. See, Jesus Christ was the one that truly was able to ascend the hill of the Lord flawlessly and perfectly, and He is our righteousness. So therefore, we come to Psalm 15 and we say, thank You, Jesus, for being the One who was able to be sinless so that I might be dressed in Your righteousness. So here, I want us this evening to just praise the Lord and say, thank You, Lord, I recognize and I want to worship you in your holiness, in the beauty of your holiness, because Lord, as miserably as I have failed in fulfilling the precepts of Psalm 15, I thank you that your precious Son, who died in my place, He was the sinless Lamb of God who fulfilled Psalm 15 and is praised in Psalm 24 in light of that. But then we're faced with the secondary challenge. If we are His children, and if we have received a new nature, In Christ Jesus, we are to walk after the Spirit and not the flesh. And therefore, let's look at these attributes and look at them and examine our lives and ask ourselves, what does this passage have to say to me? Now, the answer to the questions of verse 1 are given in verses 2-5. I want you to notice that the answer of who shall abide in thy tabernacle, who shall dwell in thy holy hill? The answer is all things that are observable, things that are externalities that reveal a right relationship with Christ. I think that it's the Old Testament counterpart of James chapter 2, and verse 18. Let's quickly go to the New Testament and let's take a look at James chapter 2 and verse 18. James 2, 18. This right practical book, the book of James, exhorts us. Yea, a man say thou hast faith and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, I will show thee my faith by my works. Now, Psalm 15 is looking at proper faith through its evidences that reveal inner, indwelling faith. and that's basically what we're looking at in psalm fifteen now if someone were to look at your life or at my life would they be able to say uh... huh they truly do know the lord they are making that preparation for worship now let's take a look at the answer then shall we for uh... a few minutes that we have to do so let's look first of all at the positive answer that is given The positive answer is found in verse 2. Notice, He that walketh uprightly. Now, uprightly does not mean on two legs, as opposed to four. Uprightly means in a right relationship with God and with man. Walking uprightly has to do with walking in integrity. Two days ago, in the Orlando Sentinel, there was an article. Many of you read it. I do not know if this person was a Christian or a non-believer, but you recall reading about the social worker in South Florida. This social worker Her responsibility, and she was a pregnant woman, pregnant eight months, she had 50 families under her jurisdiction that were all in one way or another involved in dysfunctional families. And it was her job to make monthly reports by visiting in each one of the homes. Well, she was eight months pregnant, probably with all of the attending difficulties of swollen legs and lightheadedness and easily winded and all of those excuses that you can imagine. If you lived in South Florida, you know it's the air. You can just about cut it in blocks and carry it inside the house. It's so human. Well, this lady found her time running short. She was hard-pressed for time, so she falsified a report. Just one report. It was a five-year-old girl. This child had been the object of abuse by her parents. At any rate, she falsified the report, and on the report she put just one sentence, hand-scribbled very quickly, on the report. The child seemed to be smiling and happy, period. Little did she know, because she had never visited that home, that that very hour in which she wrote that one sentence, that child had been taken out of the home, sexually molested, beaten and killed. And then all of a sudden the report comes across the desk the time of the visit, it had all been falsified, all of the investigation demonstrates the fact that she had never been there. Now, she lost her job, she's facing a serious felony situation, but the point that I'm trying to bring is that, you know, America is facing an integrity crisis. America is facing an integrity crisis. Most of you that had supper this evening and maybe kicked up your feet after a big meal for a couple of minutes before coming to church this evening, you may have listened about the corporate scandals that are wracking America today, and how that so many people are intimidated towards future investment because of what they perceive as lack of integrity. Can we believe what we see? And you know, all of this is symptomatic. And yet, as believers today and in churches today, there's also a corresponding lack of integrity. And so often, it's visible in leadership, It's visible in the membership, it's visible in homes, in faithfulness to one's marriage partner or a life of deceit. Young people are lying to their parents as to their whereabouts and where they're going and what they're doing. Husbands are going out with the boys, running here, running there, living lives of deceitfulness. All of this is what we are looking at in this particular psalm here. You know, the word integrity comes from the Latin word to be untouched, unimpaired by impurity. You think of a hypodermic needle. My mother-in-law, Amelia Shaffer, for quite some time was placed in a situation where she had to give herself injections for the very first time. She's not diabetic, but it was Coumadin. And Melody was administering them. And then after a while, they told her, well, you know, you might try to do it yourself. But you know, every time a needle was used, oh, how we were careful that it was tightly packaged. and it had never been opened, and it was sterile and clean, and that the medicine was properly administered, and that there were no air bubbles at all in the syringe or any way possible whereby it might be the vehicle through which a contaminant or an embolism or anything might enter into the body that would cause harm. And yet, the concept of integrity means that, you know, our witness and our service for God is nullified or magnified by either the lack of integrity or the presence of integrity in our lives. There's an integrity crisis, not only in America, but among many that claim to know Jesus Christ as personal Savior. tax season, every time it comes around. It sometimes proves Americans to be liars. Well, the Word of God says, Who shall ascend? Who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly. I think we have just enough time to look at another positive statement. It says, not only he who walketh uprightly, but notice, and worketh righteousness. He works righteousness. In other words, I like that word work. In other words, he just doesn't talk about it. He lives it and works it in the trenches of life's warfare. where everyone else is able to observe it. He works righteousness. He demonstrates a right relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then it goes on, "...who speaketh the truth to his neighbor." Is that what it says? No. It doesn't say, who speaks the truth with his mouth either, does it? What does it say? Who speaks the truth in his heart. Well, what's the difference between speaking the truth with your mouth and speaking the truth in your heart? Well, the difference is this. Your heart does not condemn you. when you're speaking the truth in your heart. When you have a clear conscience in what you are saying, when your message and your heart relationship agree and you have a clear conscience, you are speaking the truth in your heart. In closing, in just this part one message, I want us to take a look at 1 John. chapter 3 and verse 18. Having a clear conscience, demonstrated in 1 John 3.18, my little children, John the writer begins, speaking to believers, let us not love in word Neither in tongue. You see that? Matt speaks the truth with his mouth. Uh uh. Speaks the truth in his heart. And John explains what that means. Listen. Let's not love in word, nor in tongue, in other words, just saying it, but in deed and in truth. Hereby, We know that we are of the truth if we attend a fundamental Bible-believing church. Is that what it says? We carry a King James Version, Old Schofield Bible, that we subscribe to the fundamentalist publications and have breakfast with the right people that are approved by certain circles?" No. It says, "...hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows all things." And you know, whenever We are not living what we are saying. There's a little light that goes on in our hearts that warns us, that says, there's something wrong. And listen, if our heart condemns us, and we know that's true, how much more a righteous Lord will recognize that? It says here, if our heart, verse 20, condemns us. God is greater than our hearts. He knows all things. He knows the secret life. He knows what's going on. And it says, Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then we have confidence towards God. And isn't it interesting that that's connected with answered prayer in verse 22. What are we here for? We're certainly not here out of habit. We're here because we have petitions that are committed unto us and others that are coming as a sacred entrustment to bring before the presence of our Lord. Whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him because, again, what do we do? We have all types of superficial conditions, don't we? Belonging to the right church, believing the right stuff, looking a certain way, not having hair over the ears in the case of the guy, you know, and we have all of our superficial. But the Lord says this, no, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And we're going to notice those 11 things Just today, we've looked at the positive, just verse 2. Verses 3 through 5 next week, we're going to look at the negatives, things that shouldn't be in our lives. The Lord tells us, as we've looked here, there are things that ought to be in our lives, positively. He begins with the positive. Walking uprightly, working righteousness, speaking the truth in our hearts, where the inner agrees with the outer, those are positive. The next week, in verses 3-5, we're going to see the negatives, things that need to be booted out of our lives, as children of the Kingdom of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for Your Word, and Lord, I pray that as we would continue in Psalm 15 that Lord we would first of all bow our knees and confess our sinfulness in our sinful nature and Lord the tendency that we have of Lord being double-minded in so many ways so many areas Lord the things that we have made and constructed as the earmarks of a Christian are so often so superficial. Lord, sometimes a well-educated Pharisee could simulate what we would consider to be evidence of being a Christian. But Father, when we look at Psalm 15, it wakes us up towards the fact that You look upon our hearts. May we speak the truth, not with our lips, but with our hearts. And Father, we know that You look upon our hearts. May our hearts not condemn us, but Father, may we seek to develop that relationship with You of transparency where, Lord, we desire to walk in the Spirit, in spirit and in truth. So, Lord, we pray that as we go to prayer now and share requests, Father, that as we would ascend and abide in Your presence, as it says in verse 1, that we would, Father, seek to walk as children of your kingdom. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.