There was a year of my life that I devoted to reading Martin Luther. I read biographies of him, treatises he had written, sermons he had preached, and letters he had penned. Few things I’ve done in life have proved more profitable than my reading that year. When I needed encouragement, I often found it in Luther’s letters. When I needed rebuke, it often came from Luther’s writings. To this day, outside of the Scripture, Luther’s works are the ones I find that minister to me most – whether I am depressed, anxious, frightened, happy, excited, or discouraged.
Among my reading of Luther, one of the quotes that I was most encouraged by came from the edict after the Diet of Worms. The emperor read this as an indictment in which you’ll see that the emperor is not too high on Luther, but I found it very encouraging, and I think you’ll see why. It reads of Luther:
“He has sullied marriage, disparaged confession, and denied the blood and body of our Lord. He makes the sacraments depend on the faith of the recipient. He is pagan in his denial of free will. This devil in the habit of a monk has brought together ancient errors into one stinking puddle and has invented new ones. He denies the power of the keys and encourages the laity to wash their hands in the blood of the clergy. His teaching makes for rebellion, division, war, murder, robbery, arson, and the collapse of Christendom. He lives the life of a beast. He has burned the decretals. He despises alike the ban and the sword. . . . We have labored with him, but he only recognizes the authority of Scripture.”
Now, my first thought when I read that was how exceptional it was. Here was a man willing to stand before the emperor and refuse to bow to any authority that contradicted the Word of God. I thought, “O what would we give for one to be able to say this of us: ‘We have labored with him, but he only recognizes the authority of Scripture.1
But as I continued to think about it, I realized just how normal this should be. If indeed we believe that the Bible is God’s very Word, that to say “Scripture says” is the equivalent of saying, “God says,” then shouldn’t it be the case that we would refuse to compromise our commitment to obey God’s Word? Shouldn’t the world be able to say of all who have bowed the knee to Christ, “Labor with them all you want, they’ll refuse to back down from acknowledging the authority of God’s Word”?
That range of thought, moving from thinking of something as exceptional to realizing that it should be the norm for Christian living is also the range of thought I found in looking at Psalm 26. At first, the psalm catches us by surprise, doesn’t it? We might even be tempted to say, “How dare David declare such things.” After all, David says to the Lord, “Vindicate (or judge) me, O LORD, for I have walked in integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering” (v. 1). He then says to the Lord, “Test my heart and mind,” but it isn’t like Psalm 139 where David is asking the Lord to reveal any wicked way in him. It seems to read more like, “Go ahead. Look at my heart and mind. You’ll see that what I’ve said is true.”
So, what’s going on here? Is this some kind of exceptional moment in David’s life before he’d done anything like committed adultery or murdered (which we know he did in his life)? Is this some exceptional claim that we should read in this psalm and say, “Well, good for David, but I could never say anything like that”? No. Rather, I think instead of being exceptional, the claims of Psalm 26 should be the norm for any believer. I know that will take some explaining, and I want to do that this morning. But this morning, I want us to look at this psalm together – which puts the spotlight on David’s life – and see together what ordinary Christian living looks like. I want us to look at Psalm 26 together as claims that any believer should be able to make. Let this psalm therefore instruct us in what should be true of our lives.
And the first thing I want to note is that, as believers in Christ, . . .
I say this because I think this is what David is claiming in verses 1-2. It’s not exactly clear what the setting of this psalm is. And usually when the psalm begins with a plea for vindication, it’s because the psalmist is threatened by his enemies. However, there are two notes that lead away from this and more toward the thought that David is examining himself before entering the temple. First, though this psalm does begin with David saying, “Vindicate me,” it is probably better understood in terms of, “Judge me.” That is, David is asking for God to examine him, judge him, see where he stands. Second, David pictures himself walking around in the temple, according to verses 6-7, which would take place as he sought to enter the temple gates. Therefore, Psalm 26 is probably something along the lines of David coming to the temple and asking God to judge him and see that he is upright.
But again, this brings us back to David’s claim, doesn’t it? If David is asking God to judge him, then how does he dare claim, “For I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering”? How does he dare continue, “Prove me, O LORD, and try me; test my heart and my mind”?
Again, we might be tempted to say, “Well, perhaps this was before his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah.” However, at the end of 2 Samuel, after David had done these things, he says, “I have kept the ways of the LORD and have not wickedly departed from my God. . . . I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt” (2 Samuel 22:22-24). What’s going on here?
Well, I think instead of saying that David’s memory has gone bad in his old age, it is better to say that this claim in 2 Samuel 22 and the claim of Psalm 26:1-2 is not some claim of sinlessness. David knows better than that. This is not David examining the details of his life to see if at any point he has disobeyed. It is rather a declaration about his whole life, acknowledging that he has not turned to pursue the worship of other gods or even divided the affections of his heart between God and another. Rather, he has sincerely sought to love God and wholeheartedly devoted himself to the Lord. His life has demonstrated a pattern of faithfulness.
As Aaron noted last week in looking at Psalm 139, it is not true that believers never sin. It is true, however, that believers should always repent. What must be true of us is that we have hearts that are turned to the Lord, want to obey him, and seek to love him more and more. The most fundamental command that we have from our God is that we love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Again, don’t confuse the thought of loving God with some pop-evangelicalism; it is the most foundational command in the Old and New Testaments.
So, we should be able to pray as David prays here, “God, judge me, and see that my heart is toward you. I want to please you, honor you, obey you, and love you.” Can we say that to the Lord right now? Have we allowed our affections for God to wane or diminish? Let this be an opportunity for us to demonstrate that God has redeemed us by repenting and turning our whole hearts toward him.
Second, in addition to having hearts that are turned toward the Lord . . .
David gives a reason for why he’s been able to walk through life with his whole heart turned to the Lord. He says in verse 3, “For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.” Do you see how verse 3 connects to verses 1-2? It is providing the reason David’s been able to do this. I have walked in integrity, David is saying, because your steadfast love and faithfulness is always before my eyes.
What strengthens us to continue to walk in obedience is remembering and never forgetting God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. The Bible again and again reminds us that God loves his people and remains faithful to his commitment to love them. And this is something we must not forget. John Owen, who wrote a challenging book about fighting sin in our lives, wrote, “Yea, as your great trouble is about the Father’s love, so you can no way more trouble or burden him, than by your unkindness in not believing of it.2
You see, God’s faithful commitment to love us and fulfill all his covenant promises is what drives us and enables us to walk in wholeheartedness toward the Lord in difficult times. This is why David’s claim is not bragging – it is simply the reasonable response of one who is in covenant with a God who faithfully and steadfastly loves him.
Adrian Rodgers once told the story at a pastors’ conference about being out of town with some friends when they asked what his wife was doing as he was away for the weekend. And after he told them that she was at home and that he trusted her, they said, “Wow, you’re a good man to trust your wife like that” to which he responded, “No, I just have a great wife.”
You see, our walking in trust before our God is rooted in knowing how great he is, how faithful he is, how good he is, and how much he loves us. So, we must keep his steadfast love before our eyes and always remember his faithfulness as we think, act, and live.
This, I think, is simply the flipside of David saying that he walked in integrity and trust. He claims in verses 4-5, “I do not sit with men of falsehood, nor do I consort with hypocrites. I hate the assembly of evildoers, and I will not sit with the wicked.”
Do you see, David did not pursue the things of wicked men. Even as Jesus reminds us that we cannot serve God and money, so David says to the Lord that not only is his heart toward the Lord, but he did not take his direction from the wicked and pursue their ways.
The language of sitting or consorting with the wicked, is the idea that you are identified with them to the point that you become indistinguishable from them. Perhaps we might say, “This is someone who claims to believe in Christ and yet whose life is indistinguishable from those who hate him.” David says that he is not like them. He hates their assembling together to devise wickedness.
In contrast, David notes in verse 8, “O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.” That is, the wicked may love sin but David loves the Lord and his house, the temple. Why does he note this? He does so in order to show that he is different from the wicked. That’s clear from his plea in verses 9-10, “Do not sweep my soul away with sinners, nor my life with bloodthirsty men, in whose hands are evil devices, and whose right hands are full of bribes.”
This again is an opportunity for us to recognize that we must not be indistinguishable from the wicked. Are we pursuing in our affections and actions the same thing pagans pursue? If so, let us repent this morning, for these things are not compatible. Are we allowing sin to become acceptable in our lives or fighting it because we know it is not compatible with our claim to follow Christ?
And let me warn all of us again thinking of someone else right now. I think this is a tactic of the enemy to keep our focus merely on others instead of seeing wickedness in our hearts. I don’t mean that to say that we do not confront our brothers and sisters when they walk in sin. Of course we do. But, it is right to first examine ourselves, and in this text David is not dealing with anyone but himself, and so it is good to look at our own lives and see if are growing comfortable with sin to the point that we are not turning from it.
As David argues, because he is different from the wicked, so should his judgment be different. Similarly, then, we should be reminded that if we allow ourselves to grow comfortable with our sin and not repent of it so that we are like the wicked, we should not be surprised when our judgment is like theirs in the end. We must keep ourselves from being indistinguishable from the wicked.
Fourth, . . .
Note that David is not content to keep his own focus on God’s faithfulness and steadfast love. Rather, he is intent on bringing this word to others. He says in verses 6-7, “I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O LORD, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.”
Holiness requires a focus on others. We cannot pursue holiness on our own, for one of the fundamental – if not the most fundamental – requirement for holiness is that we love our neighbor. Jesus says it is only second to loving God. And, if we do not love the one whom we do see, we cannot claim to love the one we cannot see, can we? So the pursuit of holiness is necessarily a corporate pursuit.
When I was in eighth grade I had a coach who made my life pretty miserable. I don’t particularly enjoy running, and he made us run much. And, he made us run for the faults of one another. There would be times that he would say, “I want you to run this drill, and I want the whole team to finish it in thirty seconds. If even one guy finishes slower than that, then we’ll all do it again.” My first thought was to pick our someone on the team who was slow and think, “I really don’t like that he made the team.” But what ultimately happened is that instead of finishing the drill and standing there, we finished the drill and encouraged our teammates who had not yet finished. We’d run alongside someone just to encourage them.
Now, why would coach do this? The reason is that he wanted us to know that unless we got the best out of all of the team, we would lose. We had one really, really good player. But in a game, the opponent could put three men on him if they wanted, and in those moments, the rest of the team had to be able to step up and make plays. A team made up of players merely thinking of themselves will lose. Therefore, our coach wouldn’t let us run without making us keep an eye on how those around us were doing.
And the same reality is true in the Christian life. The second we joined this church, we said, “I want to make sure all of these people around me run well.” That’s why David proclaimed the wondrous deeds of the Lord before God’s people. And it’s why we remind each other of the Lord’s steadfast love and faithfulness. We want others to be strengthened to walk with the Lord.
The pursuit of holiness must be a corporate pursuit; we must draw others toward godliness. And finally . . .
Notice how David ends this psalm not by saying, “So, because I’ve been so good, I don’t need God’s grace” but rather, “But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me” (v. 11).
David knows that he has not been good enough to stand before God on the basis of his own works. He needs God to redeem him and be gracious to him, and because he knows God has and will, he declares that he stands on level ground and determines that he will bless the Lord in verse 12.
In the same way, I think Psalm 26 allows us an opportunity to imitate David, to see how David walked and walk accordingly. But it would be a mistake to think that if we simply live as David lived, then we will be okay for our God. The reality is, we could live a holier life than David and in the end be cast into hell. The reason is because God doesn’t demand uprightness and integrity of heart alone. He demands perfection. He demands one to be able to say, “It’s not just the affection of my heart, but every single detail of my life has been pleasing to you.”
Now, we rightly see that we cannot say that. However, there is one – and only one – who could. God sent his Son into the world, taking on flesh, so that he might live a perfectly righteous life for any who would believe in him. And Jesus perfectly obeyed the Father in every detail of his life. And the good news is that he did this so that if we believe in him, trusting in him alone for our righteousness before the Father, then his perfect righteousness is credited to us. And he died to pay for our sins and was raised on the third day so that we might rise from the dead, stand before our judge, and not have to pay for our sins.
We live holy not so that God might then accept us. We live holy lives because he has already redeemed us and already shown us grace. Because he has done for us what we could not do for ourselves – providing us perfect righteousness and atoning for our sins – we should live lives that honor him. We should live with our hearts turned toward him, with his faithfulness and steadfast love before our eyes, with lives that are distinguishable from the wicked, with love for our brothers and sisters (pursuing their holiness as we do our own), and always remembering that we are hopeless without the gospel and have certain hope because of the gospel. Let us then remember and proclaim this good news as our only hope as we come to the table. Amen.