Psalms 119:115 Breaking Fellowship

Hidden Treasures of the 119th Psalm.

So two in a row, I finally get to do another hidden treasure this morning. This time on verse 115, we're still in the Psalmic section, and as we follow along in our template that I've certainly just marveled at how this Psalm fits the template of Isaiah 11 anointings of the wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear the Lord, and delight in the fear of the Lord of Christ, that of course since every letter has an anointing, because every letter is Christ, then you get this. And so here we see phenomenal, phenomenal counsel when it comes to the Psalmic. And the whole idea, if we talked about the Psalmic of community, of the church, you know, in the idea of the number 60, which is the number of the letter Psalmic, which has to do with nullification.

We talked about all these things that have to do with the strength in numbers. And then we come to this today, which gets back to this idea of the very first verse, which you might remember vain thoughts I hate, was these broken off branches, these people that are in derision. And so verse 115 in English reads, depart from me, you evil doers, for I will keep the commandments of my God. And this verse Jesus certainly quoted in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 7 23, right, when he, you know, was going into, wow, many will say that, you know, they did this and that, but when they get there, he's going to say, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. It's a very scary verse in Matthew. But it points to this idea that the broken off branches, the people that are not truly abiding, the people that are not truly abiding, the people that are really not in Christ are workers of iniquity. They are doing things for their own benefit rather than for the kingdom and they're broken off.

They're not attached. And so, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing that part of the wisdom here, well, it's the wisdom of the Psalmic is obviously that he hates broken off branches. But the council here, because we're always, council is trying to get you on the path.

Why don't you get on the path? Well, the best news you can think when it comes to the Psalmic is in order to stay in the path, you can't have a bunch of people that are broken off branches, giving you counsel. And so here, the Psalmist tells you, you know, you need to tell them to part.

And so that's an interesting thing. And I really think that when you study Matthew 18, where Jesus goes into what you do, it starts in Matthew 18, 15, where somebody trespasses against you. And this is really when you think about the idea of the Psalmic and the idea of the church, it gives you an example of how you do this, how you get people to depart from you in a biblical way. So you might remember when your brother trespasses against you or sins against you, you're supposed to go to them. You know, they're obviously have broken off their branch for at least for that act of some kind. And you're supposed to go to them and have a discussion with them in private, right? Just you and them. And if they repent, then life's good. I mean, they're back in the, you know, you know, abiding position and away you go.

But it says if they don't, what do you do? Well, then you go to the elders, right? And, and, and we're, here's the idea of the Psalmic. Once again, strengthen numbers coming back into agreement.

Is this what's really going on? You're getting good counsel and you're, you're right in here in Matthew 18. And the elders saying, Oh yeah, this is what's going on. So they meet with this person and this person still won't repent. Then what?

Then you go to the whole 60. I mean, you go to the whole church, right? And, and, and think of the wisdom that's involved in that. I can't tell you, you know, how many times, um, I've seen people violate this where the whole group of people comes to somebody before ever anybody ever went to them as an individual or, you know, I see this all the time at work where, um, you know, when I used to be a manager and people would come to me with a problem that they had with a coworker and you'd ask him, have you ever talked to him about it?

Well, no, they come to you. Well, you know, fortunately Jesus gave us this idea of knowing that since you're in this community, in the church, you have this backing, right? And you can say, depart from me, you evil doers, and know that as you, you know, put the process in place, eventually the idea of Matthew 18 is to restore the person into abiding, right? You know, that's the idea of all of it, right? Is, is, is God is all about redeeming all of us, right?

And he doesn't hope that any will perish. So it's not a matter of, uh, of, of trying to get people broken off forever. It's an idea of when they realize the consequence of what they've done is that they're going to break fellowship. Then it, it, it, they start to begin to want to repent. And that's the idea is that as they come back into abiding away, you go. So, you know, I think it's phenomenal counsel, just phenomenal counsel there in Matthew 18.

And especially when it comes to this whole idea of community and, and the Samak. And so, you know, a story would be for me, I I've told you about my office manager that stole this money and, um, you know, it was a tragic, tragic situation. And it has always been my heart that she would be restored completely. Um, but I did go to her personally, you know, and ask what's going on. And she unfortunately lied to me.

Right. And so then we had the whole, we had her come in front of the whole board of the, of the dealership at the time. In other words, we went to the elders and, and, and once again, she, she wouldn't comment or whatever.

And, and so eventually, you know, the entire organization had to depart from us, evil doer. And, and she went to court and, and all that stuff happened according to the process, all in hopes. And it's still my hope that, that Frankie and my relationship, um, would be renewed because she was a dear friend. She was my office manager.

She was a stockholder in the company. I, you know, we worked together for a number of years and it really is my hope that, that we both ended up abiding in the vine, right. That, that she has that love because I don't want anybody to spend eternity, um, away from the love of Christ.

I mean, who wants that? And so is this is our opportunity to follow this wisdom of the Psalmic, that there comes a point where people need to know there's a consequence to what they do. And a broken fellowship is really a powerful, powerful means of repentance because nobody wants to be left out.

Nobody, nobody doesn't want to be part of, of what's going on. And I have seen it time and again, and I hope you have to this council, right? You go to them first, just on your own, hoping that they'll repent. Then you get more Psalmic with you, right? You get more of the church with you to go.

And, and then eventually, unfortunately you got to go all the way. And of course, Jesus doesn't want that day where he's standing there and saying, depart from me. He wants you to abide. He wants you to come to know him. He wants you to accept what he did on the cross. And he wants you to, to live in him and abide in him. I mean, that's the whole idea because that verse in Matthew seven, you know, nobody wants to, nobody wants to hear that. No love, no joy, no peace, no patience forever.

It's unbelievable. So what wisdom is there in this Psalmic anointing of counsel that we're given here in the third verse of the Psalmic section, and depart from me, you evil doers, that I may do the commandments of my God.