We will be looking at Psalm 101 this evening. This is a psalm I preached probably close to two years ago when I was in seminary. I wanted to have opportunities to preach. So there was a local ministry, similar to what we have here, Lighthouse Ministries, they called theirs Wreath Center Ministries, where people, kind of a rehab, people who are on the streets or struggling with addiction could go there. And every night they had a sermon, so I would once a month preach there. And this was one of the sermons I preached there. So we’re going to be looking at Psalm 101 this evening. I’m going to go ahead and read the passage, so please follow along as I read. Psalm 101, a Psalm of David, as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. To you, O Lord, I will sing praises. I will give heed to the blameless way. When will you come to me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart.

I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. A perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.

My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me. He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me. Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land so as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity.”

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you again that we can be here this evening and I thank you that we have a time where we can learn from your word. For the preaching of your word, I pray that the Holy Spirit speaks through me this evening and that I rely on the spirit, I rely on your word. And that you will open up all our hearts this evening as we look at this psalm and see what you have to say to us. And bless the preaching in Jesus’ name, amen. Throughout literary history, there have been numerous examples of individuals who have been characters of strong moral fiber. The good guys, essentially.

And we can all think of books we’ve read that we’ve really enjoyed where we’ve had the good guy and the bad guy. And one of my favorite books, a book I’ve read twice, I just recently reread it, was To Kill a Mockingbird. A great novel, I think, written in 1960 by Harper Lee. A very culturally relevant book when it came out, dealing with themes of racism and the antebellum South.

But one of the main characters is Atticus Finch. who is the father of two of the children in the book. He’s the father of Jim and Scout. And he’s in the whole book, and he’s truly, he’s a great character. I really love his character. And one of the things I think that’s interesting about his character is that one of the main plot points of the book is that there’s an African American man who has been accused of a crime. And he’s been accused of this crime because he’s an African-American man, and the town is seeded with racism.

And Atticus Finch is the town lawyer and decides to defend this man. And despite what the whole town says, despite the opposition he faces, despite what people say to him, what they say behind his back, that what he’s doing is wrong and that he shouldn’t do it, he still does it. He defends this African-American man because he knows it’s the right thing to do. This man deserves a fair defense. He didn’t do this crime, so he wants to defend him.

And we see that theme all throughout the book. We see that he’s a man of principles who fights racism and he stands up for what is right no matter how difficult it is. He’s a man of strong moral fiber. He’s the good guy. And as we read that book, we see that Atticus Finch is a man who has integrity, a man of principles, a man who no matter how hard it gets, he stands up for what is right, even when no one’s looking. We see throughout the book that even in the confines of his own home and the conversations he has with his children, he tells them, this is the right thing to do. Who he is at home is who he is everywhere else. He’s a man of integrity.

And when we come to Psalm 101, we see that Christians are to be people of integrity. Now integrity, whether you’re a Christian or not, is a term many people hear all throughout their life. And kind of a basic definition of it is that, which I think also is a very good definition of it, is that integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. Moral uprightness.

And I like that. Someone who has integrity is someone who is morally upright. It’s one who is blameless or upright. Doing the right thing. I think that’s another way to think about it. A person who has integrity does the right thing. They’re known for doing the right thing. A famous quote about integrity is, who you are when no one else is looking. Which I think is a good quote. Are you doing the right thing when no one else is looking?

Integrity deals with our character. Are we known as a morally upright person? Are we known as doing the right thing? And this definition of integrity, being morally upright, being blameless, as Christians we also need to understand that Being a person of integrity means we’re being godly. When I say we’re doing the right thing, that means we’re pursuing righteousness. We’re doing what God tells us to do.

So if you’re somewhat of integrity, it just doesn’t mean you’re a nice or friendly person. If you’re a Christian and you’re striving to be somewhat of integrity, you’re striving to behave godly, be a godly individual. This moral uprightness is following God’s commands. So Christians are to be people of integrity And we will look at four characteristics of the one who walks in integrity that are found in this psalm. And the first characteristic is those with integrity seek to model God. Those with integrity seek to model God, and this can be found in verses 1 and 2. I’ll read them again real quick.

David says, So right off the bat, David begins, as most Psalms do, with praise. He starts with God. He’s praising God. He’s honoring God, the creator of all. And we see that David’s focus in life is centered around praising and honoring God. I think it’s significant. I think it’s significant to note, hey, he begins with God. I will sing of loving kindness and justice to you, O Lord. I will sing praises. He starts with God. And in fact, as we read all of David’s songs, we see that he’s always talking to God. He’s always trusting in God. He’s always focused on God. He’s focusing on God.

And David is committing to praising God for his loving kindness and justice. But even more than that, when we look at this verse, especially verse one, we see that David is seeking to model God’s loving kindness and justice. He’s saying, God, you are a loving God, you have loving kindness, you’re a just God, and I want to emulate those attributes. I want to practice those attributes. And this loving kindness that he describes is from the Hebrew word hesed. And this was the word used in the Old Testament for God’s covenantal love for his people. So this is a significant word.

It’s God’s covenantal love for his people. It’s his faithful love. His love that’ll never leave them, that’ll never abandon them. His love that never fades or goes away. Nehemiah 9, verse 17 says this. It gives a little bit of a picture of this loving kindness of God.

They refused to listen, and talking about Israel here, they refused to listen and did not remember your wondrous deeds which you performed among them. So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate. slow to anger and abounding in mercy and you did not abandon them. It says you slow to anger and abounding in mercy.

This is kind of some of that idea of loving kindness. God is slow to anger, abounding in mercy. I like the way that Nehemiah describes it, he’s abounding in mercy. He just doesn’t have a little mercy, not even a lot of mercy, he’s abounding it, he’s overflowing with mercy. And that’s who God is, he overflows with mercy and grace towards his people.

And we see that all throughout the Old Testament in his interactions with Israel. So David wants to emulate this loving kindness, and we see that God’s love is extended even when it is not deserved. And we see that, I mean, in Genesis, even in the garden, all the way to the end of the Bible, God’s love is extended even when it is not deserved. I mean, in reality, we need to state that we don’t do anything to deserve God’s love, and he extends it anyways.

It’s kind of the loving kindness, that love that David is talking about here. And we also see that he’s committed to being a just king. He talks about the justice of God. That’s an important attribute, especially in our modern era. The justice of God is kind of set aside, or really what’s happened. You see, David says, I will sing of loving kindness and justice. He talks about them together. But what we’ve done in sort of our modern era is we sort of separated the two in a way.

We focus on the love of God, and God is love, that’s important. But we often don’t talk about the justice of God, the rightness of God. I was talking about integrity has to do with moral uprightness, pursuing the right thing, doing what’s right. That comes from the justice of God, what’s right. God determines what’s just. God determines what is right.

And David is recognizing the importance of these attributes. And we see that he’s committed to practicing these himself. He’s saying, your loving kindness and justice are important. David will walk in integrity by showing loving kindness and executing justice.

One scholar notes that the theological point of these two verses is to show that David will reflect Yahweh’s rule in his own human and political kingship. So David’s like, I am king. I am king of Israel. I am king of this vast empire. I need to be a good king. You are a loving kind and God, a just God. I need to emulate these attributes. If I’m to be a godly king, I need to practice these attributes in my rule and reign.

David recognizes the weight that’s been placed upon his shoulders. He recognizes it’s a big deal to be king. He recognizes the responsibility of it. And he realizes what he needs to do. He is committed to seeking to be more like his heavenly father. And that’s what’s happening here. He’s saying, God, you are like this. This is your character, God. And I want to practice these attributes. He wants to model who he is off of who God is.

One of the things I have learned over the years in observing many different people, but especially my father, is one of the things he’s always been very good at, even with me and with many people, is he’s a good listener. He listens well. And growing up, I would notice a lot of times he would listen well, and then I would look at myself and how instead of listening, I would tend to just speak up very quickly, oftentimes saying the wrong thing. But that was always something I’ve admired and something I’ve wanted to emulate, is that idea of listening to someone, letting them, hear them out, and just sit quietly and listen to people. That’s a good skill for us all to know and learn.

But I’ve learned, you know, you cannot be your father, but there’s some things we can learn from our fathers, or our mothers, or anybody. There’s things we can model, and that’s something I want to model. And in a somewhat similar way, we cannot be God. I say somewhat similar, but we can’t be God and we’ll never be God.

But we can and should seek to emulate his attributes. We should look at the character of God, and specifically these two things David’s talking about, loving kindness and justice. And we should do what David’s doing here, saying these are important. I want to practice these in my own life. David recognizes that walking integrity means he needs to model his character off God’s character. I think this is important David doesn’t look in the mirror and he says I’m pretty good I’m gonna do it all on my own.

I Don’t need God. He says he looks at God. He starts with God and he says I need God. This is who God is. I Want to be more like God? I want to emulate, I want to practice these attributes. And we see that He’s committed to doing this. As we read these eight verses, we see this is something He’s committed to doing. He doesn’t seem wishy-washy. And that’s an aspect of the Christian life. Are we committed to the Christian life? Are we committed to being more conformed to the image of Christ? To following Him? Because we need to be.

David wants to be a loving and just king, and he models this off the character of God. He recognizes that to be a faithful king, he needs to look to God, the ultimate king. And in the second part of verse two, he says this. Verse two he says, I will give heed to the blameless way. When will you come to me? So he starts off, I will give heed to the blameless way. So he’s already saying, I will follow the blameless way. I will seek the pure life. I will seek to walk in integrity. And he says, when will you come to me?

And really what we see here is him being dependent upon God. He’s asking God for help with his rule. And this is significant. Like the good ruler he is, he recognizes he needs divine help. I mean, you have, and look at the humility here. We have David, king of Israel, a great king, ruler, like I said, of a vast empire, but he says, I need you, God.

When will you come to me? Where is your aid? I need your aid. And we see that all throughout the Psalms, really. We see David going to God for help. We see his dependency upon God. And that right there is just one of the most important parts of the Christian life. I need you, God. Dependency upon God. We need God. And we see David saying that here. He needs God for help in life and his kingship.

And we also see in this passage his first explicit statement to being committed to walking in integrity. The second part of verse two, I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. He will avoid sin and be an upright man. Like I said, being a person of integrity means he’s a godly person, that’s what he’s seeking to do. And he says, I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart.

Just not when I’m on the battlefield, not when I’m with my advisors, not when I’m issuing my royal decrees, when he’s within his home. And this is the way integrity’s supposed to be. Like I said, it’s who you are when no one else is looking. Who you are wherever you are.

So we see his commitment here, his commitment to modeling his character of God, to walking in a way of integrity, that no matter where he is, he will pursue this blameless life. When we think about this within our own life, we must remember that we must be committed to modeling God. Remember what I say, we cannot be God and we never will be God. Even in the new heavens and new earth, when we receive our glorified bodies, we won’t be divine, we’ll be perfect, but we won’t be God. But we are to be committed to modeling God. We must be committed to modeling our character off his character.

Practice love, goodness, and justice. We talk about those words a lot, love, goodness, and justice. Where do they come from? They come from God. Our understanding of all those attributes come from God. We must be committed to leading a godly life, being committed to reading the Bible and praying.

You know, Fellowship Baptist Church, we really emphasize the Word of God. I’ve talked about this with the youth, but we emphasize this so much because it’s important. We need to be in it daily. It’s not just at church we come and hear it, it’s every day we need to be in it. Whether you’re reading it, listening to it, we need to be growing in the Word of God.

David was in a position of leadership, a great position of leadership. He was king, and for those in positions of leadership, Let us echo David’s words in our spheres of influence. Are we loving and just leaders? You don’t have to be a king or a president or a governor to be a loving and just leader. Wherever you are in life, many of us have positions of leadership in some form or another. Are we loving and just?

Are we also practicing the other attributes of God? Those who seek to model God will abstain from evil. That brings us to our second point that those with integrity abstain from evil and the wicked. Those with integrity abstain from evil and the wicked. This covers verses 3 through 5 and 7 and 8. And we see really this theme is present all throughout the psalm. Even going to verse three, I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me.

I talked about how David in this psalm is committed to walking in integrity. He’s committed to being godly. He’s not wishy-washy, and we see that here, his commitment to abstaining from what is evil and wicked. The language he uses towards it shows us, and he says he hates evil. He wants no part with it. He’s saying he will not look upon evil. He’s using this sort of graphic, intense language to show the seriousness of sin and the seriousness of abstaining from it. He will abstain from what is worthless and vile. He will not allow himself to be tempted. And when we think of this, he’s even not allowing himself to be tempted.

I’m reminded of the young man in Proverbs 7. Proverbs 7 details or tells of the young man who’s walking to the way of the prostitute’s house. And one of the things you notice when you read that, especially in the first few verses of Proverbs 7, is how the man just continues to wander that way.

He continues to go towards the prostitute’s house. He allows himself to continue to be tempted. He continually walks down the path of evil. He’s not fighting evil, but continually walking towards it. And David is painting a different picture here. He’s saying we are to fight against evil.

Don’t walk towards it. Don’t have any part with it. He wants no part with evil. Paul in Colossians 3, verses 8-9 says this, in this idea of wanting no part with evil. Paul says, but now you also rid yourselves of all of them. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices. Paul says, rid yourselves of all of them. Anger, wrath, malice, get rid of it. Let it be gone. It’s not part of your life anymore. It shouldn’t be part of your life.

David says in verse three, I hate the work of those who fall away. It shall not fasten its grip on me. And we need to look at something here. We look at David’s attitude towards sin. He uses the word hate. I hate the work of those who fall away. I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. Do we have this same attitude towards sin? Do we realize the seriousness of sin, the gravity of it, the danger of it, the destruction of it? Because we need to. We need to see how serious David treats sin and we should treat it the same way.

David says he will avoid those who are unfaithful and avoid their ways. Verse four, a perverse heart shall depart from me. I will know no evil. Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy. No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure. He will not be brought down by the wicked. He will not be influenced by them.

In verse 4, what I just read, David declares that he will not have part in evil. He hates it. He doesn’t want anything to do with it. And I keep coming back to this, but it’s significant. He wants nothing to do with evil. And he wants nothing to do with evil because his focus is on God. His focus is on obeying and growing closer to God. Verses 5 and 7 show how seriously he despises the wicked. I already read verse 5, but verse 7 says this.

He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house. He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me. So he’s personal here. He’s talking about individuals. He’s talking about the evil and the wicked. He says, I will have no part with these evil people. I will not be influenced by them.

Destroy, he uses the word destroy in there, which is probably also understanding that it’s silence. This could refer to death or just removing the person. The point is, these wicked people, I will destroy them. He will destroy them, he will kill them, but he will remove them.

They won’t have any part in his presence. He doesn’t want to be surrounded by them. He doesn’t want to be surrounded by wicked people. David will not tolerate ungodliness and will see that it has no place in his reign. He will not tolerate ungodliness.

And we have to think too, do we have the same attitude? Will we not tolerate ungodliness? When we look at other people around us, those who influence us, are we tolerating ungodliness? Are we tolerating sin? And even making it a little more personal, do we tolerate sin in our own life? Do we make excuses or exceptions? Because we see here, David leaves no room for excuses or exceptions. No toleration is what we see here for sin and the wicked.

He wants his rule to remain pure and godly. pure and godly. And in verse eight, when we get to it, we see a slight shift. In verse eight, he says, every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land, so as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity. So we see that David is no longer just abstaining from evil, but he’s fighting against it. And we saw this a little bit in verse five, but we understand this verse that David is the ruler and protector of Israel as its king.

He’s been appointed by God. God said, you will be my king. And because of that, he’s the ruler and protector. He’s the guardian of the city. And he is responsible for dispensing out justice. So he is responsible as king of Israel to subdue their enemies, to kill the wicked, to stand for loving kindness and justice. Now it’s important to say, he is responsible for dispensing out justice, for carrying out justice, but that’s different from vengeance. David as king is not this vengeful figure, he’s a just figure.

And we can even contrast this with what happens in 2 Samuel chapter 4. I was reading that this morning in my own devotions. But in 2 Samuel 4, we see that Saul is dead, David now has been recognized as king, and Saul’s old military commander, Abner, has sort of negotiated this peace deal between David and some of the other people in the land.

But David’s commander of his army, Joab, wants vengeance against Abner. because Abner killed one of Joab’s brothers. So we see that Joab in a fit of revenge and vengeful, really malice and hate, kills Abner. And we see in the way the Bible explains that it’s not justice what Joab does, it’s vengeance. And David recognizes it as such and pronounces a curse upon them. So that helps us give us a picture of what vengeance looks like, but that’s not what David is talking about here.

When he says, every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land so as to cut off from the city of the Lord all those who do iniquity, he’s in a position of power where he has to dispense justice and carry out justice and make sure that Jerusalem, the city he’s in, the city he’s talking about, is peaceful and protected in the whole land, not just Jerusalem. Monarchs in the ancient world would also be the highest court. They would settle disputes. And we see that here too. He’s responsible for peace in the land. And we see this here, David seeking to emulate God’s righteous justice, God’s justice. I will destroy all the wicked of the land. He’s declaring, I will have a just reign. I will be just like you are just. He wanted no evil in Jerusalem and would seek to protect Jerusalem.

As we look at this in our own lives, if we as Christians, if you have given your life to Christ or to be a person of integrity, we must abstain from the evil and wicked. We must do like David, do what he says. Must avoid temptation. It’s one thing sometimes we don’t always think about as Christians. We say we need to avoid sin, we need to avoid wickedness, but how often do we think about avoiding temptation? Do we avoid putting ourselves in positions where we might be tempted to sin? because we need to do that as well.

This includes situations, like I said, where we may allow ourselves to be tempted. Think of even alcoholics, recovering alcoholics, spending time or going to parties, or even a recovering alcoholic who’s hanging out with someone going to a bar, they shouldn’t do that. Gambling addicts with betting, with the way online sports betting has gone these days, it’s very easy to bet and to get into that. Even websites that can lead to sexually explicit images, There may be websites that we go onto that aren’t bad, but we know there’s always pop-ups that literally pop up that can cause us to stumble. Christians, we have to be on guard.

And this may even mean not hanging out with certain people who are bad influences. And we’re gonna talk about this a little later as we go on in this psalm, but one of the things David, I think, is really hitting on here and we need to think about is who are we being influenced by? He talks about abstaining from the evil, abstaining from the wicked. Well, part of that is, what he’s talking about is who’s influencing us? And Christians must not be influenced by wicked people. And simply put, we shouldn’t be friends with the world.

If you’re best friends, and the people you hang out with most are all very worldly people who have no relationship with Christ, no desire to go to church, no desire to know God, then that should cause us to pause and think, is this right? How are they influencing me? Who am I surrounding myself with? Who do we spend most of our time with?

Now, I’m not saying we can’t be friends with unsaved people. That’s not what I’m saying. But whoever we’re with influences us, and we should wanna be influenced by godly people. I really enjoy being here at Fellowship Baptist, working with Pastor Ryan and Eileen and Pastor Pyatt and even the other elders. I’m being constantly influenced by godly people. And it’s great, I love it. Now granted, I work in a church where everyone should be Christians.

And there’s an aspect of this where I say we should not be influenced by wicked people, we should abstain from being the wicked. I do recognize we all work in various capacities. Some of us work in secular environments. Many of us work in secular environments. I worked in a hospital for close to six years. So I’m not saying that you gotta go into work tomorrow and say, ah, Pastor Steven said I gotta quit, so I’m leaving. That’s not what I’m saying. That’s not what David’s saying.

Like I said, it’s talking about are you being influenced by these individuals? You can have conversations with your co-workers who are unsaved. You should have conversations with your co-workers who are unsaved about the gospel. It’s great opportunities. But when your co-workers after work are going out, and they’re going out just even for the week and get drunk, because that happens. People work all five days, so when they get to the weekend, go out and party and get drunk.

What is your response to that? How do we handle that when they say, do you want to come? Because we shouldn’t go along, because that’s going along with evil and wickedness. We should fight sin. We cannot be vengeful, but we can stand against sin. And even in our own day, I think of things that are prominent in our world that are clear sins.

We think of abortion. and how we should stand against it. That’s one of the reasons we support a woman’s choice, because they take a stand against abortion, but they also take a stand against it while helping the mother and the child, and even if there’s a partner involved.

We should stand against abortion. We should stand against same-sex marriage. We should stand against transgender rights. We should stand against two people living together before they’re married, even if they’re not of the same sex. We should stand against sin.

And that can be in conversations we have with people. I’ll never forget One time when I was working at the hospital, I was with the nurse and we were in a patient’s room. And we were talking about marriage and the importance of sexual purity before marriage. And I told her, I said, you know, I think that we should be sexually pure before marriage. You shouldn’t sleep together before you’re married. And the nurse, the nurse was very nice and she responded to me with, that’s an antiquated view. To basically say the old thing of, that’s how people used to think, but we’re modern, we’re cool, we think differently now.

But conversations like that are a way we can stand against sin and say, well, actually, no, it is wrong. Vote. This isn’t like a political ad or anything, but over the past 15 to even 20 years, there’s been a lot more laws that we’ve been able to vote on. that have gone into place where we can advocate for fighting against sin. So there’s times where we can vote, but we can fight sin. And also, we gotta remember, we talk about these big sins, we talk about abortion and transgender rights and same-sex marriage, but we have to remember the sins in our own life, our personal sins. Are we fighting against those? Are we putting to death the flesh? Are we denying ourselves and lifting up the name of Christ?

Because that’s what walking of integrity looks like. Those who seek to walk in integrity should have the same mindset as David, no toleration of wickedness. And this goes into our homes and how we live our lives. We cannot say no to evil in the world outside of our home but then say yes to it inside our home. Are we the same people at home with our wives and our children and our families that we are here or at work or everywhere else? Because if we’re not, we’re hypocrites.

But if we’re people of integrity and we’re committed to walking the path of integrity, to being godly people, then we’re the same everywhere. We’re godly everywhere. Those with integrity are to flee the wicked and run to the godly. Which brings us to our third point. Those with integrity surround themselves with godly people. Those with integrity surround themselves with godly people. And this looks at verse six. Verse six says, My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me.

He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me. As King David is responsible for the nation, for those under his authority. We’ve talked about the responsibility he has. And he recognizes that in this position of responsibility, he has to be surrounded with godly people. He needs godly advisors. He needs godly counsel. He needs it. He just doesn’t want it. It’s just not a preference. He needs it.

And David knew what it was like to have godly advisors and ungodly advisors. He had the great godly advisor of even Nathan the prophet we could see as a godly advisor who confronted him on his sin with Bathsheba. And he had ungodly advisors. We see that even one of his advisors ended up betraying him and siding with his son Absalom in 2 Samuel 7, 16. So David understood the importance of having good godly advisors. He recognized the need for them. He knew that to rule Israel well, he needed godly people speaking into his life.

It’s important to note that we see a contrast here with the other verses. In the other verses, he is seeking to rid himself of wicked and those that would do him harm. Here, he’s seeking the godly. So he says, put off the wicked, rid yourselves of the wicked. We don’t want the wicked, we want the godly. I want the godly. And that should be our cry, too. We should want the godly. He wants the ones who will counsel him and minister to him. Look how he ends verse six.

He wants those who walk in a blameless way. David, the man who’s walking integrity, wants to surround himself with people who are walking in integrity. He wants other godly people around him. He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me, minister to me, speak into his life. This is what God is saying here. These are the kind of people he wants speaking to. He needs these people.

And we, as Christians, to walk in integrity, we must be surrounded by godly people. We talked about in the last passage the importance of abstaining from evil, abstaining from the wicked. We need godly Christian friends. We need that. Now make no mistake, we should not ignore sinners. And that’s not what I’m trying to say here. David is not saying we should just avoid sinners.

We see when Jesus came to earth, he interacted with the sinners. We should interact with sinners. But once again, it goes back to Who are we being influenced by? Who has the greatest impact on our lives? Being surrounded by godly people starts with church. Starts with the local church. It starts with what we’re doing here.

Hebrews 10.25 emphasizes the importance of not forsaking the gathering. We must come together, worship God together. We need to be here regularly. And remember, And Pastor Ryan’s been doing a great job of this with our Sunday evening sermon series on worship. What is worship? But one of the things we need to remember is worship is not primarily about us. Church is not primarily about us. It’s about God.

But you see, when we come together as Christians and focus on God, we’re growing together. We’re ministering to one another. We’re building one another up. We’re walking through life together. This is the way God wants us to live our lives. I’m not saying we all have to live together in the same home, but we walk through life together. Church is a great place to meet people. That’s where I met my wife. I really like my wife. I’m thankful for Fellowship Baptist Church.

We need godly counsel and advice, accountability partners. Oftentimes even those who are Younger going to those who are older saying, hey, I need help with this. Can you pray for me on this? Can you hold me accountable to this? I’m going through a really difficult time.

I want to encourage the youth of our church to go to those, the older ones in our church and seek advice and counsel on different matters from school to taking tests to sports to whatever it is. I’ve received amazing godly counsel advice from so many people in this church. Go to people for accountability and guidance.

Mentors studying the Bible together. Just even when we get together one-on-one with someone, even outside of church. Studying the Bible together, that’s great. Studying the Word of God together. We should be seeking out godly friends. When we move to a new workplace, a new school, even a new state or new city, we should pray, Lord, bring godly people into my life. Because it is such a blessing.

I remember when I started high school, my freshman year, I went to a big high school on the north side of town and I didn’t really know anybody. And within probably the first month, I met who would become my best friend. In fact, he and I were talking today on the phone. And I’ll never forget, our first two conversations just set the tone for our entire friendship.

Our first conversation was about the Apostle Paul. We were talking about Romans. I remember we were walking out to the track, talking about Romans. I mean, come on. If that’s not the beginning of a beautiful friendship, I don’t know what is. And then our second conversation was about Batman. And I mean, it’s just, you know it’s gonna be great.

But I say that, the importance of godly friends, and that buddy of mine has been such a source of encouragement over the years, at times even rebuked me and said, hey, you should probably do this better. And it is a friendship that I have cherished and loved all these years.

So we should pray for godly friends. We should pray for our family members, that they come to know Christ. We see from the New Testament the importance of Christians ministering to one another. And like David, Christians need godly people in their lives.

And as we look at this, what it means to walk in integrity, to walk in the way of the integrity, we can look to the New Testament at the one who possessed all of these qualities we just discussed. The one who could be the picture of integrity. That’s Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the perfect man and the perfect example of what integrity looks like.

He perfectly did what his father asked him to do. Now he did not necessarily need to model himself after God because he was, after all, God. But we see that he obeyed God and had the same character as God. He never did anything different than what his father wanted him to do. He never behaved different than how his father behaved. He was God. He perfectly obeyed his father’s will.

He perfectly announced the message of believe in me. As Pastor Ryan’s been going through John, he’s been emphasizing how Jesus is saying believe in me. That’s what Jesus emphasized in his ministry. He did his father’s will, he obeyed his father. He literally led a perfect godly life, perfect obedience. He modeled his father perfectly.

He perfectly abstained from evil and the wicked. He did not give in to temptation when the devil tempted him three times. He did not strike back or curse at his persecutors. He did not take personal vengeance. He not only abstained from sin, but he killed it on the cross and defeated it with his subsequent resurrection.

Jesus paid the ultimate price so that we could have a personal relationship with God and be free from death. 1 Peter 2 24 says this, talking about Jesus, and he himself brought our sins in his body up on the cross so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness. By his wounds, you were healed. By his wounds, you were healed. By his wounds, we are healed. He did that for us. He defeated sin for us, canceled our debt.

And if we repent of our sins and ask him to save us, we can have life with him. Starting this path of integrity, being a person of integrity, doesn’t start with just being nice, doesn’t start with shaking hands in church and looking at each other in the eyes, it starts with giving our life to Christ, to repenting of our sins. If we’re gonna be godly, if we’re gonna abstain from wickedness, if we’re gonna be surrounded by godly people, we need to know the importance of fighting sin, of saying, I need forgiveness, Lord. Forgive me of what I’ve done, the sins I’ve done. Save me and make me whole.

And we see with Jesus that he surrounded himself with godly people in a way at least. We need to recognize that Jesus is God so he doesn’t need people like we do. He chose to be with us. He chose to interact with humans. He did have apostles. But we also see that while he was on earth, he was continually in communication with his father. which is God, the godly person, if we want to put it like that.

John 17, which is considered the high priestly prayer, it’s this prayer where he’s just praying to his father about the disciples, about those whom would be his. And we see from Jesus the importance of going to God in prayer. We see from Jesus the importance of living a godly life and being surrounded by godliness.

I talked in the beginning about how Atticus Finch was a man of integrity. And make no mistake, there are things we can learn from this fictional character. However, when we look at Psalm 101, we see exactly what integrity looks like. Atticus Finch is a great character, but he’s a fictional character. He’s not real. The Bible is real. Jesus is real.

Christians must be those who walk in integrity, must be honest and morally upright, Not just because it is a good thing to do, but because God demands it. This psalm we just looked at, this is God demanding this of us. We need to recognize that. God doesn’t just give us recommendations and say, well, you can do what you want, it’s your preference. He demands this of us. He demands us to give our life to him. He demands us to be morally upright. Being a person of integrity is not about being nice or friendly.

It is about being godly. And we need to remember that. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I pray as we close our service and we leave here this evening, we reflect upon this psalm, these eight verses, and the importance of walking integrity. And we don’t just understand it as the world does, but we understand it biblically, what it looks like to model ourselves off of you, to abstain from wickedness, and to be surrounded by the godly. Bless the rest of our service. In Jesus’ name, amen.