So we're in Psalm 101 today. And just for context, from last week, if you remember, we were in Psalm 67. And I remember this summer we're going through Psalms like a spiritual medicine cabinet, right? They're Psalms that you should have quick access to for whatever situation you have. So last week was about God's heart for the nations. If you were here, you remember that. and that he desires, he's passionate that all the nations would be glad, right? You remember that? And so if you imagine a sailboat, hopefully that was like wind in your sails, right? That it drives us on and moves us to action to realize, oh, God really cares about this. Okay, that was last week. This week is different. This is like that sailboat dragging weights behind it, okay? And so our goal is to cut some of those ropes. Okay, so two things. Last week was putting wind in your sails. This week, and specifically, what we're talking about is temptation. We all face it. Okay, so let's look at Psalm 101 and see how it can help. This is God's perfect word, Psalm 101. A Psalm of David. I will sing of steadfast love and justice. To you, oh Lord, I will make music. I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh, when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not cling to me. I perceive a perverse heart shall be far from me. I will know nothing of evil. Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly, I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart, I will not endure. I will look with favor on the faithful in the land that they may dwell with me. He who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me. No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house. No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes. Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land, cutting off all the evildoers from the city of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Amen, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you that it is so useful. I pray that when we are done, that they too would understand how useful this psalm can be to them. Lord, help me in that task. Carry me along by your very powerful spirit that is in me. I believe that by faith. Lord, I pray for them as well. Lord, we pray in the name of Christ, amen. Amen. Well, I wanna begin, I just wanna ask you a few questions. Do you have bad habits you wish you could be rid of? I'm not talking about like biting your nails, like pretty bad habits that are not healthy. Do you have temptations that basically every time you come in contact with them, you fail? Just a pattern of failure. Well, in case things didn't come to mind, let me help you. Here are some things. Do you wish you could stop eating too much, drinking too much, binging on media, on TV, social media, video games? Or maybe it's not the quantity, that's a quantity problem, it's the quality. Maybe some of the stuff that you watch, you put before your eyes, is just not good, it's bad. And that's the problem. And you know it is, and you wish you could stop. Maybe you're addicted to something, whether it's vaping or pornography or a drug, whether it's a narcotic or a prescription drug that you really wish you could be free from. And the types of sexual sin are endless that people are tempted to, whether it's inappropriate looks, flirting at work, inappropriate behavior with a girlfriend or boyfriend. The list just goes on and on, right? And of course, included in that is pornography. Maybe you have a battle with anxiety, cursing, fear, passivity, lying, unforgiveness, bitterness, envy, covetousness. I mean, the list could go on forever. I mean, probably one, two, three of those. As you heard that list, you said, yep. I struggle with that. It's been a struggle for a long time and I really wish I could be free of it. And so I want to bring you encouragement. This Psalm can help you. And so my task is to show you that. Show you how Psalm 101 can help you have victory over temptations. Because I think that many of you genuinely desire to be free from some of those temptations that often plague you. Okay, so here's the curveball. that outline. I discovered this morning at 7 a.m. as I was going through this that it was hopeless to do all this in one sermon. And so I really have two sermons for you. The good news is the other half will be next week. So this morning the whole sermon is 0.1, and so I want to give you three sub points for 0.1 that you can replace 0.2 and 0.3 with. Okay, so three sub points under pursue personal integrity. And kids, you might need help from your parents on spelling. The expulsive power of a new affection. The expulsive power of a new affection. Secondly, where do you chair fly? And I'll explain what that means. Where do you chair fly? And then third, what your eyes see matters. I'll say this again, the expulsive power of a new affection. Secondly, where do you chair fly? And third, what your eyes see matters. Now look with me again at verse one. So it's interesting how David starts this Psalm He says, I will sing of steadfast love and justice. Clearly, he's talking about God's steadfast love and justice. To you, oh Lord, I will make music. So in a psalm that's particularly helpful about temptation, it might seem odd to start with worship. And so I pose that question to you. What is the relationship between worship and temptation? What do you think? What's the relationship between this two? This is the relationship I think it is. When you're worshiping, you're less likely to give into temptation. And when you're giving in temptation, you're much less likely to worship. Isn't that fair? The two are pulling in opposite directions. If you're moving one way, you're not naturally to move in the other, and vice versa. Is that fair? And so I think this is actually very helpful as we think about temptation, is to think about worship. Now the two characteristics there, A whole sermon could be preached on those, but I won't. The steadfast love and justice, two attributes of God, and they go together. We talked about this in Sunday school, and Todd did a great job, but for everyone who was in Sunday school, let me help you. So God's steadfast love, when you hear that term, it's common in scripture, think covenant love. God has bound himself to you in an unbreakable covenant of love that will never break. But then on the other hand, God is just. And so praise God that though he's just, he's also because of his love, he has mercy, right? And those connect obviously in Christ. As the psalmist thinks of this, it leads him to worship. God, thank you so much that your judgments are correct. They're not haphazard or abstract, but you are just God. They're very consistent, but you're also loving. And it leads him to worship. I don't know if any of you have heard of Thomas Chalmers. I mean, he lived 200 years ago. He wrote a short work, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. That wasn't my idea. It was his, the expulsive. So kids, expulsive. Have you ever heard of a kid being expelled from school? Same word, right? So expelled from school means they're kicked out of school, right? And so expulsive means to kick out or it pushes something out. And so it's the expulsive power of what? A new affection. It's that same idea. These things pull in opposite directions. And so when you have a new affection this way, it will expel, so it will push out the other. John Piper uses an illustration. I'm gonna pose it to you. So kids, you can get on this too. Imagine you're in a chemistry lab. You might not have been there, but you could guess what it's like. And the teacher asks you, what is the fastest way, you have a beaker, a glass beaker, what's the fastest way to get all of the air out of this beaker? And so you're looking around and you're thinking, well, maybe we could put it in that thing and suck a vacuum and suck all the air out. And the teacher takes a pitcher of water and dumps it in there and says, voila. That was pretty fast, wasn't it? And for anyone who really knows science, please don't get too scientific on me, but in general, all of the air is out of it, okay? And so you can see the parallel, can't you? That our hearts don't do well in a vacuum. And so rather than just say, well, just stop, just stop all the bad stuff, and then you'll be happy, right? But rather to say, as you have a new affection, as you sing and rejoice about God's good character, you will naturally sin less. Isn't that interesting? It can be very, very helpful. And let me use another illustration. I'm in my neighborhood. Trash Day is Tuesday. I don't know what it is in your neighborhood. And when I roll that trash can out, I usually hold my breath. Does your trash can smell horrid? Mine smells horrid, like a little bit of raw meat, maybe some cooked meat that sat in there and baked in the sun for a week. It smells horrible. Do you realize that when you sin, it is equivalent to eating out of the trash can? You might have heard people say that certain foods are an acquired taste. Garbage is indeed an acquired taste. But my flesh and your flesh, you have one too, you have a sinful nature. Ever since Adam and Eve, we just naturally do that which is sinful. And so we naturally have a taste for garbage food. Very odd but true. Don't you naturally desire? I mean, if you have young children, you know this. They naturally desire to be selfish and scream and think only of themselves, right? They just naturally desire that which is sinful. And so, you might remember a few weeks ago, we preached on, it was five or six, on Isaiah 55. In it, verse two said this, let me read it to you. It said, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good. This is God offering good. And he says, delight yourself in rich food. He says, why do you spend your money for that which is not food, and I offer you rich food? Do you see that same parallel? Right, that we naturally desire garbage, and God is saying, no, just come eat. Fill your appetite with something good. I'm offering you a steak, stay out of the trash can. That can be a powerful, just thinking about that next time you're tempted. Realizing and telling yourself, this is garbage. This is garbage. Why do I, why am I not repulsed by this? Why do I have this desire? God, change my heart. That's a powerful thing to face temptation with. And so the psalm begins, he's worshiping God. If you look at verse, um, Well, I gotta find it. Verse three. He says, I will not set before my eyes anything that is, what? Worthless. Anything that is worthless. It sounds like garbage to me. It doesn't remind me I said it before my eyes. Look at verse two. He says, I will ponder the way that is blameless. What does that mean to ponder something? ponders just to think about or to meditate on, to dwell on. What do you ponder? What do you think about? He's saying, I will ponder the way that is blameless. You see, it's very powerful what we think about. Matthew 12, 34 says, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. You might have used this with your children, right? So your yelling didn't just come from nowhere. It came out of your heart, right? It's the overflow out of our heart that comes out of our mouth. And so the issue is in our hearts. We have these wrong desires. And so what we ponder is also, it's inside of us. And so here you get to understand what chair flying is. I got this from Russell Foxworth, who's a pilot, and he was describing just how oftentimes a pilot, before he'll fly, will sit in a chair and chair fly. And so he's mentally going through it. So he sent me a great YouTube video of Blue Angels doing their chair flying. That was pretty intense. As they're theoretically experiencing all these G-forces all sitting around a conference table. It was quite interesting. So chair flying is mentally experiencing. The question is, where do you chair fly? What's your destination? See, people are surprised. They will chair fly to the same destination 1,000 times, and then they're shocked when they do something unexpected, and everyone else is. Well, if you've been in your mind already doing it 1,000 times, you should not be surprised when you actually do it. You've been practicing and rehearsing it. Whether it's anger, violence, doing something immoral with someone else, all kind of stuff. People do things in their head and they aren't really even paying attention to it. You should be aware of what's going on in your head. Do you see how he says that here? I will ponder the way that is blameless. And then he says, look at the next line, oh that you being God, oh that you would come to me. He desires God's presence. A verse I memorized, one of the earlier verses I memorized was Jeremiah 2.13. I think I probably quoted it definitely in person, but also probably in a sermon. It's very helpful. It says, my people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug broken cisterns that cannot hold any water. So in that, God's saying, look, I'm a spring. And you know, a spring, it just gushes water, kids, right, all the time. And you're digging a hole in the ground, you line it with clay and it's cracked, and you're gonna let rainwater fall in, it's gonna get kinda dirty, and then you're gonna drink out of that, and I'm offering you fresh water. Oftentimes in Scripture, we have this, the dichotomy of these two different things. Oh, that you would come to me. He desires the spring of living water rather than dirty water out of a broken cistern. The expulsive power of a new affection. But aren't there sometimes you would rather God not be with you? He says, here God, when will you come to me? There's probably sometimes you'd be quite ashamed if God was sitting beside you. Or if you realized he was hearing how you're talking, how you're acting, what you're thinking. And he even sees your thoughts. That also can be helpful to think about. God, I want, and the reality is he's there anyway, right? We just, whether we're aware of it or not, he's always there. Okay, what's a, let me be very, very practical. He says, I will ponder the way that's blameless. How can you do this? I say this often, because it's really important. You can read your Bible. Every day, I encourage you to start your day reading the Bible. Ephesians six, armor of God. What's the main offensive weapon? The sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, right? And so, don't go into battle without a sword. Don't go into your day, you will be tempted every day, we all are. Don't go into it without pondering the way that is blameless. Spend some time in the word of God. It will definitely help you. This is very practical. Okay, look at the last part of verse two. I will walk with integrity of heart within my house. I will walk with integrity of heart. Okay, kids, I have a mission for you. You might have to borrow your parent's bulletin if you don't have one. Look there, on page seven is the passage if you hadn't figured that out by now. Kids, I want you to find this phrase. Count how many times you find it. I will, I will. Count how many times you find it. And kids, while you look at that, you can tell us in a moment. Adults, do you know about Jonathan Edwards? Ever heard of him? Great, great American preacher, 1700s. When he was 19 years old, 19 years old, he started writing resolutions. In the end, it became 70 resolutions. Let me read a few of them to you. Number six, resolved to live with all my might while I do live. Number seven, resolved never to do anything which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. It's an interesting thought. He would ask himself at any moment, would I be willing to be doing this if this was the last hour of my life? Is this worthwhile enough that I'm going to spend my last hour doing it? 55, resolve to endeavor to my utmost to act as I think I should do if I already had seen the happiness of heaven or hell's torments. Resolved to endeavor, my utmost to act. So he's saying, I want to act in a way, if I had already seen how great heaven was, how awful hell was, that I would act like I'd actually seen that. Isn't that interesting? Psalm 101 is full of resolutions. Hey kids, with your hands, can you show me how many you found? Yes, you should run out of fingers. There were 10. That's right, 10 times in this one, that's not even 10 verses. He says, I will. These are resolutions. Do you see that? He's resolving, he's saying, I will do this, I will do this, I will do this. There's value to that. There's value to saying, I'm gonna do this. Have you ever been in the ocean? Am I finding this every time I go in the ocean? I'm playing and then I turn around and all of a sudden, it's like a freak of nature. My family has moved down the beach. I've just, I've stayed in the water and somehow they, and everyone else moved down the beach too. It's crazy. No, of course not. It's just the current, right? Unbeknownst to me, I'm slowly moving. If I were to do that all day long, imagine how far I would have traveled. You are in a current. You are in a current. The reason you need Psalms like this, the reason you need to resolve, the reason you need to commit to say, I will fix my eyes on a point, a non-moving point, because I know that I will move. And if you get hit by a wave, you just get back up and you fix yourself on that point again. Life is like that. We must resolve, and so he has resolved here. of what that he will, and look again, end of verse two. I will walk with integrity of heart where? Within my house. Richard Phillips, a pastor, says this. Most tend to permit sin more easily in private than in public. Yet true godliness requires a correspondence between piety in the home and in the workplace. Is that true of you? It's true of all of us, right? It's much easier to act good out there than it is at home. I think it is true that our private self is our real self. That's really the real you, how you act when no one else is watching or when you're at home with your spouse or your kids. That is who we really are. It's sobering, and so we should desire to walk with integrity, not just out there, but also at home. This is really important when choosing officers for a church. So much so that scripture actually says that. A man to qualify must be a man at home, must lead his family well. It's not only in matters out there, but also when you're alone with your wife and your kids, or how you act when late at night on your phone and no one else is around. What you look at. I will walk with integrity of heart in my home. Then look at verse three. So this is what your eyes see matter. Verse three, I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I mean, I think all of you are careful what you put in your mouth. Isn't that true? I mean, young kids are, and that's why you have parents, right? Parents are always saying, don't put that in your mouth. You don't just put anything in your mouth. Do you know what the reality is? I know this is gross, but they can pump a stomach, but there is no way to wash your eyes. You can't unsee something. Once you've seen something, it's in there. That's where our eyes work. Oh, that we'd be as careful with our eyes as we are with our mouths, what we put in our mouth. But God, good news is, God has given you this fantastic, very small, powerful invention. It is called an eyelid. Do you know that your eyelids can shut in less than a tenth of a second? It's like between 50 and 100 milliseconds. So when an object is flying at your eye, your eye can respond so quickly to shut before that thing hits you. That's pretty cool. But did you know that same little mechanism can be used in other situations? It also can be used with evil. In a tenth of a second, before the image has barely gotten to your brain, you can actually shut your eyelid and close it off. You do this with your mouth, if something was flying at you, you'd close your mouth so it doesn't go in your mouth. I use this, I learned this early in life, how powerful your eyelids are. I know it sounds silly, but it's not. that you can shut your eyelids and then just open them looking somewhere else, right? I mean, don't you have times you're, you are not looking for trouble on your phone, on your computer and something found and you're like, what in the world is that? And in less than a 10th of a second, your eyelid can be closed. And you can just, you don't need your eyes to scroll away from it. Right? You're driving along now. I would not use your eyelid trick when you're driving. There's another trick I'd recommend. I'm just look at the jogger over on this side. Just look over here. You do it when bright headlights at nighttime. It also works with joggers. You just look over here, right? So God has given us the ability, whether it's eyelids or just looking another way to guard what goes into our eyes. Most people are not very careful with what goes into their eyes. It's true. a vow or a resolution that I like and I've used many times. I think in college someone introduced me to it, it was Job 31.1. It says this, I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. I've made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. So next time you arrive at Isle of Palms, I encourage you men, make that covenant. You arrive at your swimming pool, Make that covenant. Vow to yourself and say, I have made a decision. I've put a stake in the ground to say I will not do that. It's very important. There is a current. There is a current. So look on in verse three. I will not set before my eyes anything that's worthless. This should also, Americans in general, and this will come up especially next week in the second half of the sermon, but about media, but it applies here too, right? In general, the American church is very sloppy about what we put before our eyes. And we have put all kinds of things before our eyes that if I were to put up here, if we were just to do a feed of everything you looked at and put it up here on a TV, many of you would be very, very ashamed of the things that we allow ourselves to see. And we just don't really think anything of it. We are, we're used to it. And so we, and so I do encourage you to be, we should be more careful. Hebrews 12.1, kind of back to my introduction of the sailboat dragging weights behind it, it's a different analogy. 12.1 says, this is a runner's analogy. So a runner does not carry big backpacks of weight, right? They take off these weights. It is true, many of you are far less effective in your Christian lives because you fail in areas of temptation over and over again. The Lord wants you to be free, I know you want to be free, and I want to help you be free. And so here's some practical things you can do. A verse that's helped me greatly is 1 Corinthians 10, 13. Some of you might know it, it says, a no temptation is seized you except what's common to man. You aren't unique in the temptations you face. No temptation is to you except what's common to man. But God is faithful. When you are tempted, he will provide a way out or a way of escape that you may be able to stand up under it. Because I imagine you sometimes feel like there's no way out. Like I'm just gonna, I've failed for so long, it's hopeless. You need hope. You need hope that you can, by the power of God, win at temptation. That can be very encouraging to know. That once you become a Christian, now this is not true if you're not a Christian. But when you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of you, and then now you have the power to stop. It might not happen overnight. With most sin patterns, it's a slow process, but victory is possible. You have to know it's possible. Satan will lie to you and say, you are helplessly bound to this. That's true if you're not a Christian, but once you become a Christian, the shackles have been broken. It's very, very encouraging. Okay, look at verse four. And this is as far as we're going today. A perverse heart shall be far from me. I will know nothing, how much will he know of evil? I will know nothing of evil. Can you say that? This week. If I ask you that next Sunday, maybe I should. I will know nothing of evil. Just the media you consume between Sundays. That you have not, I will know nothing of evil. That's quite a resolution. Perverse heart shall be far from me. I will know nothing of evil. Well, you're going to have to wait until next week for the rest of it. So those first four verses is basically the battle within. That's mostly what we talked about today. There's a battle inside of you. You have a sinful flesh that desires garbage food, right? And so you need to understand it, you need to do battle with it. And then next week we look outside. The second half of this psalm is really going to look outside. So it's a pretty good breaking point. And so as we wrap up, One of the dangers of a sermon like this is a terrible word called moralism. Do you know that word, moralism? Well, in the last few moments, I intend to protect you from that risk of moralism. Moralism is trying to earn God's favor by good behavior. Right, you could have listened to all this and said, ah, I will earn God's favor by getting my act together. Right, I do, I want to stop some bad habits. Or you might pat yourself on the back and say, boy, I stopped those bad habits I had when I was younger. No, moralism will not save you. Do you remember back at the beginning of the service, we talked about justification. Todd helped us, we read confessions about justification. So justification is, you've got a debt you can never pay. Okay, let me use this helpful analogy. You can use this when you're sharing the gospel. I often use it. It's the three sins a day. I've probably used it before, but it's worth hearing twice. So imagine you're better than average, and you only sin morning, afternoon, and evening. That's great, you're better than average. Well, three sins a day multiplied by 365 in a year, that's about 1,000. We're doing rough math. Okay, so 1,000 sins a year, and then multiply by how old you are. I'm 45, so I have 45,000 sins. Do you think I'm gonna make some resolutions that's gonna somehow clean up 45,000 transgressions? 45,000 tickets for speeding or whatever it is, right? No, it's just, it's ridiculous, right? So you should not listen to a sermon like this and say I'm gonna like earn my way to God, no. No, remember the justification was a great exchange. You're hopelessly on death row, Jesus came and took your place, he died for you, and then he gave you all his righteousness, so you're positionally already righteous, so not only are you not gonna save yourself, you're not even gonna earn his favor as now a Christian. I hope you know that too. You have his favor, he delights in you, because you now have all of Christ's righteousness. So then why in the world even listen to this whole sermon or this passage? Or why even care if Jesus paid it all? Well, Todd didn't stop there, did he? We had justification, but also, there you go. That's a big word, sanctification. Kids, sanctification is just the process. It's the process, well, it's like when you take a shower, you slowly are washing, right? You slowly wash your whole body. Sanctification is God, you're positionally already righteous, and then God's slowly washing you. He's getting the dirt away. It's a team effort, like a little kid, you know, when they get parents to help them bathe, God, the Holy Spirit's helping us. and us to be clean. So let me give you real quick three reasons that sanctification is worth it. It's a lot of work. Did all this sound like a lot of work? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes. Here's why. The first is out of gratitude. Gratitude. Jesus died. So if I'm that freed prisoner, I would have motivation to live a better life. Boy, that guy gave his life for me. He gave me his whole inheritance. Man, I want to stop being a thief. This is very natural. Gratitude. That's a great reason to want to actually live with integrity. There's a second reason. Remember I talked about the Holy Spirit. So when you became a Christian, the Holy Spirit came and moved inside of you and he cares about this stuff. And so you will naturally want to start obeying him because his spirit lives in you. You still have your old sinful flesh. I've got mine. It's a little bit more dead than it was 40 years ago or 30 years ago. And when I really started walking with the Lord, but it's still there, but you have the Holy Spirit. That's the second reason. If you're a Christian, you have the Spirit, you're gonna have a new desire to please Him. The third reason is garbage food smells bad. Doesn't it? Why would you want to keep eating garbage, right? Now, it's not because you're trying to save yourself. This isn't moralism. It's because garbage is lousy. I mean, if you have the option of a steak dinner, wouldn't you want it? That's the third good motivation, is that we continue, now as Christians, we're saved, we're positionally righteous, but we just want to get out of the trash can. I don't want to keep making that my steady diet. There you go, three practical reasons. So I do, I encourage you, add Psalm 101 to your spiritual medicine cabinet. and we've only just got half of it, but this first half can be helpful. You need to make resolutions. Yes, you're gonna fail, but climb back on the horse. Say, Jesus, I'm glad you forgave that too, but I want to continue to pursue righteousness. I want to live. I want to live as you intend. And yes, it's a slow process, but this really puts some good ammunition in your gun to help you overcome temptation. I know you, remember that list I gave at the beginning? I know you wanna be free from some of those things. And so this can be helpful. Use what God has given you. Do not feel captive to just keep in the same patterns you have. God wants to set you free. Use what he's given you to do so. Amen, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you. Thank you for Psalm 101. Thank you for even just the first four verses. Your word is so powerful. Just a few verses can accomplish so much. Lord, I pray that we be people that are resolute, that commit to ourselves that we will not do certain things and we will do other things. And though we fail, that we cling to the cross, not our good lives. And that we would re-resolve to do different tomorrow. Lord, I pray that you'd help my brothers and sisters, as some of them likely feel in bondage to sin, and there are likely, with this crowd, some that are still in bondage, that actually haven't been saved. Lord, I pray that they would first turn to you, that they would make that great exchange, that they would really let you go on death row, let you pay for their sins, they would receive your righteousness. Lord, even this moment, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would convict. I don't know who they are, but you do. Spirit, convict those who need to hear this. And for those who are Christians, that they also need to hear this, that they would know that they are broken free, and that you would give them victory just a little bit more than they had last week. Lord, we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, not to save ourselves, but Jesus, because you did save us. We pray in his name, amen.