Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

All right.  Well, let’s taking our Bibles and turn to the Psalm 1, Psalm 1.  And we’re continuing our study of the book of Psalms.  I’d like to read verses 1-6 to begin with.  Psalm 1 beginning in verse 1 says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly , not stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.  The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”  Well, today I want to talk about the life God blesses.  If we had a choice between a life that was happy and fulfilled and blessed by God, or the alternative, an unhappy life which is unfulfilled and that is not blessed and cursed, I think I know which life you would choose.  I know which life I would choose.  I would choose the blessed life.  And Psalm 1 is all about the blessed life.  I love that in the arrangement of the Psalms- and there are 150 of them- that Psalm 1 was chosen to be the first Psalm.  It’s appropriate that it is.  Some scholars believe it sort of sets up a commentary for the rest of the Psalms, that the rest of Psalms are actually expanded commentary on the first one.  But the first one is the first one and appropriately so.  And the first word of the first Psalm in the book of Psalms is the word “blessed”.  It really sets the tone for what this Psalm is about.  “Blessed is the man” or blessed is the one, blessed is the person.  This is all about what it means to live the blessed life, and how do we get in step and in stride with that, how do we get in the flow of God's blessing for our lives.

0:02:42.0

Now, one scholar says that the Psalm 1 introduces us to the doctrine of the two ways.  And I like that.  It’s kind of summarized in verse 6 here where it says, “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”  This is about two ways that our life can go, the way of the righteous or the way of the wicked.  Two roads that we can travel.  Which way is your life going?  Which road are you traveling on?  It kind of reminds me of what Jesus taught, this doctrine of the two ways, all the way in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7.  Jesus kind of said it this way.  He says, “Enter by the narrow gate.  For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”  Even Jesus taught the doctrine of the two ways.  He talked about two gates.  He talked about two roads.  He talked about two destinies.  And I love the way both Jesus and the psalmist just kind of simplify life that way.  He says there are basically two people in this life.  There are those who are blessed and those who are not.  There are two roads in this life.  There are two ways in this life, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked.  And we’re gonna compare and contrast those ways.  And he talks here about what it means to live a life that God blesses.  It kind of reminds me of an old poem by Robert Frost.  Do you remember this verse?  “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I chose the road less traveled by.  And that has made all the difference.”  Two roads, two ways, two choices, two ways that your life can go.  That’s sort of what this Psalm is all about.

0:04:26.2

So let's talk about the life that God blesses.  And there are really three characteristics of it.  Real simple things here, but I think important for us to talk about.  First of all, the life that God blesses is separated from the world.  The psalmist first goes in a negative direction, and then he turns it positive.  But he immediately says in verse 1, “Blessed is the man,” and then he casts this in a negative light.  He says he doesn't do three things.  “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”  He says blessed, or supremely happy or fulfilled, is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, who stands not in the way of sinners, who doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers.  And I want you to circle in your Bible the word “walks”, the word “stands”, and the word “sits”.  There is a very intentional and obvious progression in the psalmist’s thought here.  First a guy walks, then he stands, and then he sits.  When Charles Haddon Spurgeon read this, he said “When men are living in sin, they go from bad to worse.”  That's the negative progression here.  Now the Christian life is often described as a walk.  In fact, the apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians, in his letter to the Ephesians, he talks in chapters 4 and 5, uses the word “walk” or compares the Christian life to walk several times.  In chapter 4 and verse 1 he says, “Walk worthy of your calling.”  In that same chapter in verse 17 he says, “No longer walk as the Gentiles.” Chapter 5, “Walk in love.” Chapter 5 and verse eight, “Walk as children of light.”  And so the Christian life is often compared to a walk.  And the psalmist compares it to a walk here.  He says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.”  And it begs the question, where do you go to get your advice?  Where do you go to get your counsel?  You know, I’ve been a pastor long enough to meet people from time to time who kind of toss into their conversation, “Oh, yeah, I have an appointment with my therapist this week.”  And as the conversation goes on, I learn that this therapist is not a follower of Jesus.  And whatever advice the therapist may be giving is so far removed from anything in this book we call the Bible.  But they're going to the therapist to get counsel, to get advice.  Who are your closest advisers?  Who is your therapist?  Who are your closest associates?  Who is speaking into your life in an intimate kind of way?  Who are your counselors?  Psalmist says, “Blessed is the man,” or the woman or the person, “who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.  I would rather have an unlearned person, and uneducated person who knows this Bible well giving me advice and counsel than a learned person with all kinds of letters behind his or her name, reflecting years and years of education.  I’d rather have the unlearned person who knows this book and who knows the author of this book.  So the first thing he says is this man is blessed who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.  He separates himself.  There’s a safe distance from the worldly counsel that comes from worldly sources. 

0:08:02.2

But you know, friends, if we walk long enough in the counsel of the ungodly, it won't be long before we stand in the way of sinners.  What kind of stand are you taking today on, I don’t know, just different issues out there.  You say, “Well, I don’t like to stand on anything.”  Well, as the old saying goes, “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.” We need to be taking a stand where the Scripture takes a stand.  But if you walk in the counsel of the ungodly, if you saturate your mind and your heart with ungodly counsel, ungodly friends, ungodly advice, it won’t be long before you're taking a stand with the sinners.  You’re taking a stand on abortion like the sinners do.  You’re taking a stand on gay marriage like the sinners do.  Rather than standing where God's Word clearly stands and standing up for Jesus, you're standing in the way of sinners.  Why would God bless a life like that?  Why would God bless a life that walks in the counsel of the ungodly or stands in the way of sinners or, before long after that, is so cozy with those who scoff at God and mock at God?  Did you see the progression there?  He stands in the way of sinners.  He walks not…walks in the counsel of the ungodly, stands in the way of sinner, or sits in the seat of the scoffers.  He goes from walking to standing to becoming so comfortable with the ungodly and the wicked and the sinners and the whole world system that perpetuates that, that they just kind of cozy up with and sit down and surround themselves with those kinds of people.  

0:09:44.9

We’re talking about the blessed life here.  We all want to be on the receiving end of a life that God blesses.  But the psalmist here says don't walk in the counsel of the ungodly.  Don’t stand in the way of sinners.  Don’t sit among those who scoff and mock at the things of God.  I think really what he’s talking about here is trying to, as a follower of Jesus Christ, to live in the world but not of the world.  That’s why the first thing a person who lives a blessed life does…he separates himself, as it were, from the world and the world system.  Well, how do we do that when we’re living in the world?  How are we in the world but not of the world?  And where did such a phrase come from?  Well, hold your place here in Psalms 1 and go with me to John 17.  John 17 is in the midst of a section of Scripture we know as the Upper Room Discourse.  And toward the end of that time that Jesus spent with His disciples on the night before He was crucified, the time He spent in the upper room, He prayed.  He prayed what we call the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus.  And He prayed up a marvelous prayer here.  And one of the things He said I just want to highlight in verses 14-16.  John 17 beginning in verse 14 Jesus says, “I have given them Your Word.”  He's praying to the Father.  “And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world just as I am not of the world.”  And then He says, “Sanctify them in your truth.  Your word is truth.”  Jesus even prayed to the Father, that the Father, who is not going to take us out of the world, would keep us in the world but not of the world.  How do we do something like that?  How do we live in this world, but not walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful?

0:11:48.1

Well, picture in your mind a seagoing vessel, a ship at sea.  That ship is in the ocean, right?  And it can be a wonderful voyage, a wonderful trip.  But as soon as the ocean gets inside of the ship, it’s not long before that ship sinks.  And I think that’s a good analogy for all of us to think about as followers of Jesus Christ.  We are in this world.  We can't help but be in the world.  But if too much of the world and the world's counsel and the world system and the world's way of looking at things gets into us, if we walk in the counsel of the ungodly, we stand where sinners stand, and we sit where scoffers sit, before long our ship will sink.  And we’re talking about the blessed life.  We’re talking about being on the receiving end of God's blessing.  I want to be there.  You want to be there.  First thing we’ve got to do though is we’ve got to separate ourselves from the world, as it were.  We have to live in this world, but we are not of this world.  This world is not our home, friends.  And as a follower of Jesus Christ, if you're not becoming increasingly sort of disenchanted with this life and this world while you are increasingly longing for your heavenly home and that redemption that draws nigh…Romans 8 talks about, you know, how we groan in our bodies for this redemption.  How all of creation groans and how we as believers groan because this is not our home.  So let’s not let too much of this world get into our ship, as it were. Otherwise, we find ourselves walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, and eventually just cozying up with those who use their mouths to mock God and His ways.  Why would God bless a person like that?  Turn it around the other way.  God wants to bless the person who doesn't walk in this way or stand over here or sit with these over here.

0:13:55.6

Now, the psalmist goes on to give us another characteristic of the life God blesses.  And he goes from a negative, now, to a positive.  Look how he does this in verse 2.  He says, “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”  I love the way he goes from the negative to the positive here.  He says the person that God blesses doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, doesn’t stand in the way of sinners, doesn’t sit in the seat of the scorners, but- and that contrastive word there turns it in the positive direction- but this is the kind of person who delights in God's word.  Delights in it so much that he meditates on it day and night.  You know, David the psalmist absolutely loved God's Word.  And the law of God that he refers to here, all that he had were the first five books of the Bible, the Torah- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  He loved Genesis.  He loved Exodus.  He even loved Leviticus, of all things, and Numbers and Deuteronomy.  He just loved the Word of God.  He not only separated himself from the world, but he saturated and soaked his heart and his mind with the Word of God.  Now, when you read through the Psalms, and especially the Psalms of David, you really get a sense of just how much he delighted in and loved the Word of God.  Let me give you a few examples here.  Psalm 112:1, “Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.”  Psalm 119:35, “Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.”  Psalm 119:48, “I will lift up my hands toward your commandments which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.”  Psalm 119:92, “If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”  Psalm 119:97- oh, can you say this- “Oh, how I love your law.  It is my meditation all the day.”  He loved God's word.  He couldn't get enough of God's word.  He delighted in God's word.  He saturated his heart and he soaked his mind in the Word of God.  That’s the kind of person God wants to bless.  He was a Bible person.  He loved the Word of God.  Do you love God's word?  If you do, you’ll spend time in it.  I mean, I don’t want to heap too much guilt or conviction on you, but how much time did you spend reading God's word this week?  Do you have a daily Bible reading plan and a daily study plan? Now, I know you love your spouse.  You love him or her with all your heart, soul, and mind; so much so that you want to spend some time with her or him every day, right?  That’s just what we do.  You spend time with somebody you love.  You can kind of measure your love for God by how much you really love His Word, because, in one sense, this is not only a success book for life, but it's also a love letter from Him.  And when you begin to see God's word that way, you just can't get enough of this.  You just love the Word of God.  You delight in it.

0:17:41.8

My wife Cathryn has led ladies’ Bible studies for years.  And we’ve noticed a pattern.  It’s not just a pattern in churches that we served, but, as we talk to other people, it’s a very similar kind of pattern.  We’ll put out a ladies Bible study.  And it might be six weeks, eight weeks, ten weeks, and twelve weeks, whatever.  And there’s a big group of people that start in week one.  And by about half way through, you know, the attendance has gone to about half.  Usually it’s a study that involves a little bit of homework.  It’s meant to not only give you something to chew on that day, but, you know, to kind of get into the Word during the week.  And one time a lady came up to her who kind of bailed out halfway through and said to her, “You know, it’s just too much work.  It just too hard.  I don’t have all the time to do all the homework, and I got behind,” and so on and so forth.  And sometimes- and I don't mean this to be cruel or anything- but sometimes I think, really, come on now.  I mean, if you really delight in the Word of God, it's not a chore to study the Word of God.  It’s not a burden.  It’s not a burden for you to spend time with the people that you love.  David loved the Word.  He just couldn't get enough of this (0:19:00.1) stuff.  And when you really fall in love with Jesus, this book will just come alive for you.  And you’ll get up in the morning, and you’ll run to a place where you can spend time with Him.

0:19:12.0

David says, “I delight in the law of the Lord, and on his law,” he says, “I meditate day and night.”  Circle that word “meditate” there.  It may conjure up images in your mind of, maybe, some Eastern religions like Buddhism or Hinduism.  You know, they talk a lot about meditation.  And  you get some guy who is, you know,  seated on the floor with his legs crossed and his arms crossed and his eyes closed, and he’s meditating and going “Ohm, ohm.”  Meditation in the Eastern religions is all about emptying the mind.  Biblical meditation is exactly the opposite.  When the Bible says meditate day and night on the Word of God, it's about filling the mind and filling the heart with the truth of God's Word.  And here's (0:20:00.1) David who says blessed is the man who saturates himself with the word of God, who delights in the law of Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  Meditation is simply reading God's word and thinking about it deeply.  And then reading it again and thinking about it some more, and then reading it again and thinking about it some more.  And maybe jotting down some thoughts in a journal, some things that God is teaching you.  Coming back to it midday; thinking about it at 4 o'clock in the afternoon; coming back to it at night.  He meditates on His law day and night.  That’s the kind of person God wants to bless.  That’s the kind of person God wants to bless, a Bible person.  Somebody who loves this book.  By the way, I was thinking this morning.  Thought I had my message all written, but this thought came to my mind.  We sing “God bless America” in this nation, but we sing it in vain until we become a Bible nation again.  This country was founded by people who loved this book.  And many of the founders of this nation started Bible societies and were leaders of Bible organizations.  And they took the technology of the day, the Gutenberg press, and they were printing Bibles and distributing Bibles.  Even Congress distributed Bibles to people.  I mean, can you imagine that today?  We were a Bible nation from the beginning.  And we sing “God bless America”.  Really?  When we become a Bible nation again that loves His word, that delights in His commands, that honors His Word again in this nation, then maybe, just maybe, God will see fit to bless America again.

0:21:45.4

 What’s this notion of meditation?  Well, think of it in terms of Joshua 1:8.  I love this.  Joshua is taking the leadership helm from Moses, who has just died.  They’re on this side of the Promised Land, on this side of the Jordan River.  And Joshua is going to lead the people of Israel across the Jordan River.  And the Lord gives Joshua, who is kind of shaking in his boots a little bit, a little unsure of himself.  He’s been second in command for all these years, but now, you know, “Moses, my servant, is dead.  Joshua you're the guy.”  The Lord says this to Joshua.  Boy, commit this verse to memory.  I did when I was a kid.  “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.  For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”  Isn’t that a great verse?  Joshua was a military leader, and he wanted to have a successful, prosperous life as a military leader, as much as anybody else.  The Lord said, “Joshua, here's how you’re gonna do it.  See this book of the law?”  And, again, he only had Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  He said, “Love my word.  Meditate on it day and night.  And don’t just meditate on it, but decide to do what's in this.  And then you'll make your way prosperous, and then you’ll have good success.”  The word “success” doesn’t appear very often in the Bible, so when it does, you know, I perk up a little bit.  Everybody wants to be successful.  Your success and my success, success God's way, has everything to do with saturating our hearts with the Word of God.  Delighting ourselves in Him.  Delighting ourselves so much with His word that we choose to put it into practice.  And then God, who scans the whole earth with His eyes, says, “There's a person I can bless.  There’s a person that I can make prosperous.  There’s a person whose life I can get behind.”

0:23:48.4

So the life God blesses is one that is separated from the world.  Remember that ship.  In the world but not of the world.  It’s saturated and soaked by the Word of God.  Thirdly, it’s superior to anything else.  This is the life you really want to live.  And now the psalmist gives us an analogy.  He says this person is “like a tree,” look at this, “planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  And in all that he does he prospers.”  I have a few trees in my yard as you do.  This is northern Virginia.  It’s a much wooded place.  And when we first moved to our house I had some trees that weren’t doing very well.  But now, boy, they're great.  They’re prospering.  You know, to have a tree that really prospers and the leaf, you know, blooms in its season and all that, the first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to plant that tree in good soil.  And you’ve got to irrigate that tree.  We understand that.  But sometimes you’ve got to prune the tree as well.  And last year I called the tree trimmer guys, you know, that scale up and down the trees.  And they trimmed back some of those branches, thinned them out, cleaned them out.  So you go from planting to pruning.  And then sometimes it takes some patience to see that tree go through, well, the fall season where it loses all of its leaves, the winter season where it’s dormant.  It doesn’t look very prosperous, does it?  But now, you know, the next spring, wow!  The pruning, the patience as it goes through the dormant season; now the blossoms come out.  It just looks like a healthy, prosperous tree.  I walk through that analogy because I don’t want you think that the phrase “in all that he does, he prospers” means you’ll never go through hard times or difficult times.  But the person who separates himself from worldly counsel, who saturates himself with the Word of God, is like that tree that is planted by streams of living water.  You're planting your heart in streams of living water, in a good place, an irrigated place.  And you’re giving yourself the opportunity to develop deep, deep roots.  But every once in a while God has to prune us.  And that’s just part of it.  And it’s painful.  It’s difficult.  It’s not always easy.  And it takes some patience to go through the seasons of life, doesn't it?  You may be in a season right now where all of your leaves seem to have fallen off.  And you look around and, you know, you feel like you're in the dormant season of winter.  Okay.  Just have some patience there, because prosperity and success is coming.  God is doing a work in your life.  And He gives us the seasons of life and He gives us an analogy like this tree to help us understand.  His great goal is to bless us and to prosper our ways.  He wants that to happen.  But first we have to plant ourselves by those streams of living water.  And the person who saturates himself and irrigates his heart and his mind with the Word of God is like that tree, well-planted.  But you might go through season of pruning.  It’s gonna take a little bit of patience, but you're on your way to prosperity.  You got the idea there?  This kind of life that we’re talking about, I say it’s superior to anything else because it's the life that God blesses and it's a life that every one of us wants.

0:27:28.7

Now, the psalmist turns the corner.  Remember, we’re talking about two ways- the way of the righteous, which the Lord knows, and the way of the wicked that will perish.  We’re talking about two roads.  We’re talking about two roads that diverge in a wood.  “And I,” the poet says, “I chose the one less traveled by.  And that's made all the difference.” Well, there is a road, there's a way that a whole lot of people choose.  It’s the way of the wicked.  I think I know the names of the two roads in Frost’s poem.  One of them is Wisdom Way.  The other is Foolish Freeway.  Wisdom Way is a small, kind of, quiet country road.  Not many people traveling that road, but it will get you to where you want to go.  And Foolish Freeway is a 10-lane superhighway with HOV lanes and constantly filled with rush hour traffic.  Everybody’s on Foolish Freeway.  That’s what Jesus was saying.  He says, “The gate is narrow and the way is narrow that leads to life, but the gate is wide and the road is wide that leads to destruction.”  So let's jump on Foolish Freeway for a moment.  Verse 4 says, “The wicked are not so.”  They're not like the tree, mixing our metaphors here.  They’re not like the tree that is planted by rivers of water, but they “are like the chaff that the wind drives away.”  You know what chaff is?  Grain has a little husk around it.  And to get to the grain you kind of break the husk, and what's on the outside there is chaff.  It’s trash.  And it's real light and airy and easily blown away by the wind.  You don’t want the chaff.  You want the grain.  And he says the wicked are like the chaff that the wind drives away.  “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”  I want us to go to one other passage of Scripture, and it's a parallel passage in Jeremiah 17.  It says kind of the same thing, but in a slightly different way.  Jeremiah 17.  And here's how Jeremiah says a very similar thing, beginning in verse 5.  “Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.  He is like a shrub in the desert and shall not see any good come.  He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness in an uninhabited salt land.”  Verse 7, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.  He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its root system by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”  Again, I love the contrast there, the simple, simple contrast.  The psalmist tells us that the wicked are not like that tree planted by streams of waters, but are like the chaff, just trashy little things that get blown away in the wind.  They’re weak.  They’re not strong.  A tree that is planted by waters that will irrigate it, that tree grows deep, deep roots, a deep root system.  So that when the winds come and the storms comes…oh, it may sway in the wind a little bit, but it doesn't topple over.  The chaff is so weak that a little breeze blows it away.  You want to be the kind of person that, when the storms come and the strong winds blow against your face, that you stand strong.  Separate yourself from the world's counsel and those who are mockers of God.  Saturate and soak your heart in the word of God, and you’ll stand strong.

0:31:27.6

So the wicked are not only weak, but they have reason to worry.  They have a lot of reason to worry.  Look at what the psalmist says.  “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment.”  Is there a future judgment coming?  You better believe there is.  And the only way to be prepared for it is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for your sins.  He paid the penalty for your sins and mine and for his righteousness to be applied to your life and mine.  But the wicked aren’t prepared for that.  They’re taking a stand for godless things over here, but they won't have a leg to stand on at the judgment before a righteous and holy God.  That’s what the psalmist is saying here.  “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” 

0:32:17.7

Two ways.  Not to oversimplify life, but let's do it.  Two ways.  Two roads, the way of the righteous that the Lord knows, the way of the wicked that will perish.  And from Jeremiah chapter 17…let me just come at it a slightly different way and leave you with a question.  This is a question for you today, and only you can answer it.  Are you a tree, a tree that is planted by living water that irrigates the heart and the soul?  Or are you a tumbleweed?  Are you the shrub that Jeremiah talked about, that West Texas tumbleweed that, whenever the winds blow, you just kind of blow with it?  Wherever the culture blows, you just kind of blow with it.  Are you rooted?  Are you solid?  Are you safe and secure in the arms of God?  Are you saturated and soaked with the truth of God's word, or are you just blowing with the wind?  That’s the question we have to ask ourselves.  We all want the blessed life.  “Lord, bless me.  Lord, bless me today.”  And He’s saying, “Okay.  Are you walking in the counsel of the ungodly?  Are you standing in the way of sinners?  Are you seated with the scoffers and the mockers?  Have you saturated and soaked your heart and your mind with My Word?  That's the life I want to bless.”  And when we get in step and in stride with that, friends, it is a life that is superior to any other, because God will take us through the seasons of life and the challenges of life and the difficulties of life.  And He will deepen our roots, and we’ll stand strong through that in the strength of the Lord.

0:34:23.9