Please turn in your Bibles to the first Psalm, Psalm 1. We appreciate, on our speak on behalf of everyone, the ensembles, Rosbece rendition, that might be the right word, adaptation of Psalm 1 already. We begin this evening a series on Sunday evenings in what has been called the prayer book of Jesus Himself. The word Psalm means song. And that's what the Psalms are. The Psalms are a song book. It's God's song book. He's God's hymnal. Criticize a hymnal. Criticize a hymn if you like. But don't criticize God's hymnal. This is God's words. These are God's words. This is God's, these are God's songs. And there will be a number of reasons why a series in the Psalms would be so beneficial to us. So let me tell you what I would plan on us doing. It's not that we're going to do a series in the Psalms and pick and choose our favorite Psalms necessarily. But that we would simply begin at Psalm 1 and work our way through the first book of the Psalms, which is made up of the first 41 chapters of the Psalms. And as I was alluding to the number of reasons why that would be so good for us. One reason is because the Psalms lift us up out of shallow spirituality, which is so rampant in our society today. The Psalms are not shallow, very deep, sometimes hard to understand and yet so simple. The message is always profound. The Psalms encourage us. The Psalms lift up the faint hearted among us. The Psalms give us encouragement when we're down. They lift us up out of the pit. The Psalms give us wisdom. They give us promises to live the Christian life. They give us hope when we're facing tragedy. One of the things that the Psalms will do for us is they teach us how to pray. And not simply pray, but how do they teach us, by example, how to pray, honestly. They will give us a very profound picture, profound view, a breathtaking view of who God is. And the Psalms always, always draw our attention and our focus to our Savior, the Lord Jesus. So I'd ask you to make that your commitment. I'd love to see you commit to Sunday evenings. This year, take about a year with special services and whatnot to make it through the first 41 chapters of the Psalms. Pray that God will do what I've just listed for you through the Psalms. Make the Psalms your own. Be a discipline that you might commit yourself to. One of the things that I would, by God's grace, hope to do is teach you something about how to make a Psalm your own. How to make a Psalm your own prayer. One of the best ways to begin to do that is just to jump right into it. You might say that you would take the Psalm that we do on a given Sunday night and then that week write that Psalm out in your own words. And again, make it your own prayer. If you want to flourish in the Christian life, then God has got to become your greatest priority. He has to become. He has to be your chief desire and a good place to start is the Psalms. So beginning in verse one of the first Psalm, blessed is the man who does not walk in the council of the ungodly. Nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season whose leaf also shall not wither. Whatever he does, shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Psalm 1 is really a very, very simple Psalm. It has a very simple outline provided for you in the bulletin, by the way. It has a very simple message. A five-year-old could understand the message. The message is simply that there are two and only two ways. There's the way of the righteous, and there's the way of the wicked, and not only so, but there are only two destinations. There is the destination of the righteous, and then there is the destination of the wicked. It has politically incorrect as it may seem, or sound, the Psalmist very simply, and yet with great force, I think, appeals to each one of us to choose the way of the righteous, to choose the way of life. What we'll consider is the way of the righteous versus one to three, and then the way of the wicked versus four, and five, and then finally, in verse six, the parting of the ways. But I want you to notice first that the way of righteousness is the way of blessing. Notice what he says in verse one, the way it begins. Blessed is the man. Blessed is the man, meaning happy is the man. You've probably heard that. That's the definition of blessed is the man. It means happy is the man, but it's more than that. The word means joy is the man. Full of hope is the man, full of contentment, spiritually energized, spiritually intense, intensified is the man who does what? Look at the text. Who does not do. In other words, negatively framed. The man does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. He doesn't stand in the path of sinners, and he doesn't sit in the state of the scornful. Now, what I want to suggest to you when he says the counsel of the ungodly, that denotes thinking, thinking cognates of here. He doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly. When he says the path of sinners, that would denote a certain behavior, certain activity the way the man runs his life, and then the seat of the scornful would denote a place of belonging. So, the psalmist is saying that the man who is really blessed, the man who is really happy and biblically happy, a man who is joyous and content, he doesn't think like the ungodly thing. He certainly doesn't behave like people who don't love God, and he certainly would never feel at home around those who oppose God. The main issue would be the question I think that the psalmist would be bringing out is, where is your allegiance? Are you at home feel comfortable? Are you at home with God and at home with his people, at home with his law, at home with his word? Or would you say, you know, honestly, I actually feel more comfortable around the wicked, or the wicked, that sounds sort of strong language, and it is strong language, but you may say, well, you know, I don't really find myself around wicked people a lot. The people I work with are so kind, they're so neither easy to work with, I enjoy going to work, and the people that I live around in a retirement home or somewhere, he's in my neighbors, I'm just not around wicked people, but it doesn't necessarily mean overtly evil. The wicked people would be people who are just, they just don't care one way or the other about God. Their attitude might be, you know, I do just fine. I'm more concerned about simply being a moral person and a good person, and as long as I'm popular, as long as people like me than God, and what he says, and his word, you know, that's just not really very important to me, it's just not my top priority. So what the psalmist wants to know is, with home then, are you more comfortable? What kind of people do you like to be around? What kind of people do you long to be with? With home or you at home? Where are you at rest? Again, is it walking with the young godly? Is it standing with the sinners? Is it sitting with the scoppers? It's really a very soul searching question. Where is your home? You know, the youngest person in here can identify with that, maybe fifth or sixth grade, or junior high or high school, age college. That question can hit home with you. Where is your home? Where do you feel most comfortable? Because your home tells us a great deal about whether you're really a blessed man or not, about whether you are really happy and content and joyous. How do you know? The psalmist gets more specific, particularly when he talks about the word of the law in verse 2, he says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. Now, the law of the Lord, certainly we say to the original audience, the audience to whom the writer was writing would be the ten commandments. We're talking about the moral law, but the application can be much fuller than that, much more broad in saying that when he says the law of the Lord, he's talking about Scripture, he's talking about the word of God, the Bible, and the psalmist is saying that the man who's really blessed is really happy. He delights in that law. In other words, the man who's really blessed has a certain affection for God's word. He has a certain love for it. He has a certain respect for it, so when the blessed man sits down with God's word in his lap and he's reading it, or when he sits under the word, under the preaching of God's word, the word warms his heart because he loves it. And because the word warms his heart, what does he do? He meditates on it. He likes to spend time with it. He enjoys keeping it on his mind day and night. Practically speaking, it means that, for example, a person would sit down in their morning devotional time and have the word of God open in front of them and read a devotional, and then they take that Scripture and they meditate on it. And they say, and they try to discern, well, what has God teaching me in the passage? What is implied here for my life? In what way should I change my life? How can I apply this to the day ahead? The person who loves the law of God doesn't then close it and put it on the stand beside the chair and walk away from it, but that person takes it with them. And throughout the day, they bring that passage back up. Maybe during the day, maybe during their lunch hour, when there's an idle moment, and they think, well, maybe I'm wasting my thoughts here, what can I do? What do they think about that word? They think about God's law. And then they come to the end of the day and they want their last thoughts to be on God's word. So perhaps if they're having trouble falling asleep or just their last thoughts, they begin to say, well, what was I reading this morning? Doesn't take long to fall asleep when you do that, by the way. Just keep it in your mind and you fall asleep, you wake up and you're excited about a new passage. Another example of an alarm the same lines would be that perhaps during lunch or maybe right after lunch, you discipline yourself to carve out just three or four minutes to sit down and open the Bible, let your desk at work or at home, your favorite chair, and just read a song. That's what it means to meditate on God's law, day and night. Maybe you drive a lot. Maybe you're in your business, you travel, and you could take the scripture that you've read that morning and have a stack of cards there and every morning, write out what verse meant the most to you, and then take it with you on the road. Maybe instead of listening to the radio, read that verse, maybe try to memorize it. Perhaps you're a wife and your husband travels a lot. You could be your ministry to him. Give him a verse every time he leaves the home of the road, telling when you have idle thoughts, think about this scripture. The question posed is, is that your delight? Is that the kind of thing you'd like to do? And if not, if you say, well, that's not really my normal practice, then does my mentioning some practical things like, is that sort of stir your heart? And think, well, I need to do more of that. I need to keep the scriptures in front of me. Because your delight in God's law tells us whether you're a blessed person, tells us whether you're a happy man or a happy woman, whether you're really blessed. People say, we have our own definitions of what it means to be, but I'm so blessed. People say I have three great children. We've raised them and they're just good people. Our house is paid for, our cars are paid for. Business is good. God has really blessed me. Has he? By whose definition? Your definition? Of course, those are great blessings, but does that mean that God has blessed you or by the Bible's definition? This is God's definition of what it is to be a blessed man or blessed woman. And then notice really what we've been saying all along is that the way of righteousness results in blessing, righteousness and happiness are interrelated. You cannot separate the two. Look at verse three, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit and its season whose leaf also shall not wither. And I love this, whatever he does shall prosper. That's really probably my favorite phrase in the in the Psalm and we're not really going to spend a lot of time with it. It's a great prayer request. It's a great thing to pray for yourself. God, just today, whatever I do, I pray it'll prosper. See, I don't know how to pray for my missionaries. I don't know how to pray for my spouse. I don't know how to pray for my children. This is a great prayer. It's a simple prayer that God, whatever they do today, I pray that they would prosper. And this is the way that God answers that prayer. It's as if he's saying, I'm going to make you like a tree that is planted by rivers of water and you will yield fruit in season and your leaf will not wither. implied as if God is saying, I'm not saying that I'm not going to send drought. It's just that in the drought, your leaf will not wither. It's not the way that God has always dealt with his children. Abraham waited all those years for the promise. God finally gave him a son and then God tells him to go to Mount Mariah and sacrifice Isaac to him. And yet Abraham was called the friend of God. David called out of being a shepherd boy to be the king of Israel and then he finds himself being hunted like a wild animal by the Philistines and not only the Philistines, but his own people. And yet David was called a man after God's own heart. John the Baptist was called the messenger of God, preparing the way of the Messiah and his life ended literally with his head on a platter.
When we talk about the blessedness and Psalm 1, we're not talking about the blessedness of easy streets. We're not talking about no problems, no obstacles, no difficulties. We're talking about a blessedness that transcends circumstances. We're talking about a sense of blessedness even in the most horrific of trials. In fact, in a very strange way, we're talking about feeling actually closer to God when I'm in the midst of a trial. I love the example. I'm sure there are many examples. I just just happens that I've gotten to know the Reagan's somewhat working with Bill and then just really fill up, I think his example and even going out the door today after the diagnosis of the cancer and having been through what he's been through in the last month and then to say today, you know, the whole thing has really been a blessing. That's what we're talking about. That's the blessed man. I think it's typified in a minister friend of mine who said, I'd rather weep with the righteous than laugh with the wicked. Are you there? Could you say that? Are you at that point in your spiritual journey? You'd rather weep with the righteous than laugh with the sinners, the wicked. My friend went on to say, I'd rather be with the righteous in their tears than standing with the mockers and sitting with the scorners in some trivial, frivolous fellowship. Ligon Duncan said that. He's the minister at first, Presbyterian in Jackson. You know, so many people want the blessedness, they want the happiness, but they want it first. And so they pursue happiness and joy and contentment and they pursue it with a vengeance. Martin Luther, this is 400 years ago, so applicable today, said it is due to the perversity of men's souls that they seek peace first. And only then, righteousness, consequently, they find no peace. You do not pursue righteousness and blessedness apart from God. The reason being, God is the blessedness. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. You know what's the most amazing thing about blessedness? This is an amazing irony. You'll never find it until you find the grace to stop seeking for it. You'll never find blessedness in your life until you find the grace to stop seeking for it. Cast yourself on God. An irony of irony is you'll find that you are blessed because you have found the blessing who has God himself. And then notice in points two and three are much quicker, but once you notice, see their end, their reward, the result of their behavior in verse four, it says the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Seldom or people who are entrapped in their sin, seldom do they give up that sin until God brings them to the end, to their end, the misery of their sin. Often, it's only when we hit rock bottom that we see the wickedness of our sin. Bet you and I both have addictions in our family. She has a brother and I have a sister. And to deal with that, one of the prayers that is so hard to pray, but to pray that someone you love so much would hit the bottom because you know it's only when they hit the bottom that they're actually going to see the sin for what it is and turn away from it. A woman comes to a pastor's office and she tells him that she's having an affair and he talks to her and he gives her the biblical advice. He tells her what she needs to do and she says, but pastor, you don't understand. The marriage is miserable. He doesn't love me. He doesn't listen to me. He doesn't talk to me. He doesn't care one flip about me and the man with whom I'm having an affair. He's so gentle. He's kind. He listens. He talks to me. In fact, and how many times have I heard this? I believe that God has sent him to me. He's a blessing in my life. Two weeks later, the true story, the woman comes back to the pastor's office and she says my husband walked in on us and I never knew how shameful my life was. You see, what seemed so right, maybe the word would be what seemed so justifiable now because of a lack of anonymity, so ugly, so petty, just so small, but very often it's not until God shows us the misery of our sin that he actually shakes us away from that sin and we return to him. The psalmist is showing us the end of wickedness. One of the reasons why we need to hear the end is because Satan whispers day and day out in our ear, do what you want to do. That righteousness is so hard. It's so cold. It's so legalistic. You'd be so religious. Do the easy thing. Do what you want to do. Then you'll have fulfillment. And God in this song is saying, I know what's right. I know what you need. I know what's best for you. And it's the way of righteousness. Look at the end in verse five. He says, therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. In other words, their worship is not accepted. They may come and they may look good and they may dress right and have all the right things to say and they may even lift their voices to God in heaven. But God is not mocked and he does not accept their worship. And then he shows us the parting of the ways in verse six for the Lord knows the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly shall perish. And this is really an elaboration on what we talked about this morning that when he says he knows the way of the righteous. It's more than general knowledge. It's more than just saying he knows about the plans of the righteous. He's saying, I know them in the sense that I have foreknown them. I know them in the sense that I have loved them since before the foundation of the world. I set my heart on them in all eternity. So now when he says the Lord knows the way of the righteous, you see in the midst of trials, he knows me. When I'm afraid, he knows me. When I feel inept, he knows me. When I'm going through struggles that nobody else knows about, but God himself, he knows. When I'm going through trials and people aren't, they don't seem to care about the things that I care about. God cares. And he knows and he understands and he loves me. He's loved me since before the foundation of the world and he spared me the weight of his wrath. He has accepted me in the beloved. He's had compassion on me. When no one else would, he's had compassion of me. Not so the wicked. Not so the wicked. Not so the one who walks with the ungodly or stands with the sinners or sits with the scorners. The person who doesn't delight in God's word, they perish. The person who feels more comfortable around unbelievers than they do believers. They perish. So rather than they, there's only two ways. There's only two options. There's only, and they know, he knows that it's politically incorrect. But there's only two kinds of people. It's those who have chosen God by his grace, those who have not chosen God, those who desire a love relationship, who want to walk with God. And there are those who do not. And so I have to teach you to choose the way of righteousness. Do it tonight. Do it for the weak in your place of business. Choose the way of righteousness and choose life. You will choose life as we pray together. Our father in heaven, what a contrast between the chaff that the wind drives away and that well-rooted tree. And we pray that we would be the well-rooted tree. We pray that we would bear fruits. We pray that our leaf would not wither. That we would love your word. That you would prosper it in our lives on this day. And we pray it for Jesus sake. Amen.