The following message was recorded at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Ovedo, Florida. Covenant Church is seeking to build a community of faith, hope, and love committed to worship, nurture, and witness in the Northeast Orlando area. For more information, visit us on Sunday morning in Ovedo or any time online at cpconline.net. Today our focus will be on Psalm 1. We're going to look at the entirety of the Psalm as far as reading it, but we're going to focus in just on verses 1 and 2 this morning. Go ahead and over your Bible to Psalm 1. Psalm 1 verse Psalm of the Psalmster here, and it says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoppers, 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 the streams of water that yields his fruit in the season, and his leaf does not wither, and 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. Let's go before the Lord with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, it is indeed good to be here this morning and fellowship with your people to come and bring glory to you. This time is about your worship, your exaltation. And we come to celebrate that our Savior, our Lord, our masters. It's not dead, but he's risen. He's ascended, sitting at your right hand. O Lord, we pray that you would indeed now touch our minds, touch our hearts. We pray that where there is any callousness to what that you would indeed soften our hearts, that we would be receptive to the truth of your Word, and be receptive to the work of your Spirit in our lives. Indeed, teach us, Father, from your Holy Word today. And we pray now that you indeed cause the thoughts of our mind and the worst of my mouth to be acceptable in your sight. And it's in the wonderful mighty glory's name of Christ we pray and let all God's people say, amen. I am currently a seminary student in my last year and throughout seminary you take lots of tests, take lots of exams and whether you're doing an undergrad or you've found even after school, you still have tests you take. There's various tests in life. Whether you go to the doctor or you have tests there, whether you're taking a test to get your driver's license, to test your fitness to be on the road. And I know that you're thinking, well, some people got their license, but I think they probably need to get re-examined. But we won't go on that point this morning. The point is that you take a test to examine one's fitness and readiness to drive. There's also tests that we take in school, as I mentioned in elementary school, when you take standardized tests to examine your comprehension and where you stand. But regardless of the tests that we take, they all have something in common. They all have a unique and common goal. And the goal of tests is to give us information about ourselves. Whether that be, as I mentioned, the test that you're taking school has a goal in mind to tell you something about yourself. Because all about giving you information about yourself. Now, the information that you give from this test could tell you something you already know, or it could give you new information that you didn't know. Let's try this another way. It gives you confirmation or revelation. Confirmation or revelation, it confers something you already know, or it reveals something new. Psalm 1 is a test. The goal and aim of Psalm 1 is to test to see where is our delight. So test of where one's delight is. And reading through it, as you see, the Psalm is broken up in groups of two. There's two people. These two people have two particular delights. These two delights determine how they live their lives and thus determines where their eternity is. The aim of a Psalm 1 is to dealing with the issue of delight. Now, you may say, well, what's the big deal about delight? I mean, what's the big deal with delight? Why is delight so important? Well, because delight is so extremely crucial and important. Because what we delight in, it controls and it directs our lives. It shapes us on the inside and the outside. Not only that, the issue of delight is so crucial because it determines who or even what we worship. And delight is so crucial for the life of the Christian. Because Christianity can't be reduced to a matter of requirements and intentions and willpower. Christianity is all about a matter of what we love, what tastes good to us. That's what we delight in. And the point of Psalm 1 is to make sure that one's delight is in God. But we see here in Psalm 1 looking particularly in verse 1. We notice that it says, blesses the man and there's three things mentioned here. Now, these three things we see are what the righteous man doesn't do. And thus describes the life of the one who isn't following God. I would like to call these things the obstacles to righteousness because it's what's keeping the wicked, the unrighteous, the unbelieving from the past, the highway, the road to delight in God. Now, it's easy to read this song and to say, well, my faith is in Christ and Christ alone. And you know, I see the paths here and it's definitely clear that, you know, I'm the happy man, the blessed man. I have my faith in Christ and yeah, I'm not like the wicked there. But it's important that as believers, we realize that yes, putting our faith in God, putting our faith in the person in work of Jesus Christ indeed saves us from sins penalty. It indeed removes us from sins dominating power of our life, but until Christ comes, we're still susceptible to the temptations of the influence of sin and the world. So it's important that we realize what these obstacles are because if you're like me, when you've ever taken a road trip, sometimes you are on the road and you think you're headed the right way and you realize that you've either gone too far, you missed the turn or you took the wrong exit. And you realize, wait a minute, I need to recheck my directions to make sure I can get back on track and go the right way. What's the big deal with these obstacles? What are they? You know, why is it just, you know, three three three things mentioned here? And I think the aim of the Psalmist here is to show that the council of the wicked, the way of the standing the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of scholars is a progress. It shows a progression from bad to worse. It's showing the way in which sin manifests itself in the life of a person. And so here first, let's take some time to look at what it means to walk in the council of the wicked. I'd like to describe that as the realm of thinking. And the reason for that is because walking in the council of the wicked, is basically seeing tries to change the way a person thinks of the text around of thinking. Walk in the council wicked. It's the follow a certain way of thinking. And we see from Scripture that to think differently about God's command is an attack on the way in which we think about truth. In the example of this scene in the in Scripture in Genesis chapter 3, was Genesis 3. That's about the fall. Now prior to that at the end of Genesis 2, God tells Adam and Eve something uniquely special. He basically says, hey, you guys have liberty in this garden. You can eat a vanity tree. But there's one particular one that you stay away from that you're not to eat from. And that is the knowledge of good and evil. That is God's command to them. That is that is truth. That is God's command of goodness to them. Now one day Satan comes, cunning, creeping in the garden. And he basically has a conversation with Eve and then we know what happens. He's he's talking to her and he says something that's very, very clever. He says in Genesis 3, he asks. He asks. He says now in verse 1, he says the guy actually say you should not eat of any tree in the garden. And her response is well, no, that's not what guy said. He just said we weren't supposed to eat other one in the midst of the garden or we were surely dying. And then come the frightening words of error from Satan. He says you will not surely die. We see here, this is a direct attack on God's authority because God didn't say that they couldn't touch the fruit of that tree. But he did say that they were not to eat of it or the result would be sure death for them. This is an example of attacking the realm of thinking. This is an example of seeing how and why one's thinking about God's commands of his truth is so and so important and so crucial because it's the first step into a progression of decline. We see this now only in scripture in the life of Adam and Eve as Satan is striving to get them to think differently about God's truth, God's goodness, God's commands for them. But we can also see this in the midst of our culture. There is a challenge in our culture, a drive to get us to go in the wrong land to think differently about sexuality, about gender, about marriage, about life. There's a drive to get us to think differently about those things. But as we stand firm on the word of God, we can clearly know that to think differently about those things is the challenge, God's goodness and holiness. And yes, unfortunately the church has thought differently about those things, but also a challenge for us in regards to think differently in the churches that we have begun to thought differently about God's command to pursue unity through humility. It happens in the body of Christ and the church. It happens in our marriages. What do you mean by this? Well, what I mean by this is that we began to create walls and barriers of rivalry and conceit that prevents us from being unified. What do you mean by that? Robbery creeps up in the church because rivalry is self-centeredness, self-ambition. And these things will cause us to voice our dislike or problems with things throughout through the wrong avenues. Some of these avenues could be, and some of these avenues come in the form of our homes, our small groups, rivalry happens in marriages when instead of going once again, a man through the right avenues to voice once problems or complaints. It happens through spouses grumbling about each other, having disrespectful thoughts and words about each other, towards each other, and not going through the right avenues in order to resolve those conflicts. Not only rivalry, but as I mentioned, conceit is another barrier that we create that causes division and broken relationships because it starts with actually thinking differently about what does unity look like in the church. It starts by thinking differently about God's command for marriage. When a husband and wife lose sight of God's command for the husband to love his wife like Christ loves the church, a man for the wife to submit to the husband. Not only rivalry, but conceit is essentially to be egotistic, pride for arrogance. Conceit is when we are not willing to admit that we don't have all the answers, so the attitude of pride. Now I don't know about you, but you probably haven't done this. I'm sure you have run into people who have done this, but have you ever experienced, like I said, you probably haven't done this though, but let's just talk about the other people now. Have you ever been in a situation where they be a class that works, happens everywhere where you have someone who asks a question. Now it's two ways to ask a question. That's the humble way to ask a question when you really want to know something. You don't know, so you really want to know. But there's the other way that's the arrogant or egotistic way of asking a question where you want to set somebody up to look stupid. Now I say, I don't know about you, but that's something you probably haven't done. You've just experienced other people doing it to you or to somebody you know. But we see that this type of attitude, it may seem like not a big deal. It may seem small, but as we know by looking at the event in the garden, Satan seeing starts small. It starts by changing of thinking. As we see it move on to not just walking the council of wicked, the ram of thinking thinking differently, but the second point is the ram of belonging standing in the way of sinners. See it progresses from a thought to an action.
If we go back to the garden, take your mind back to Genesis 3, and we see that Adam and Eve were in a dilemma. They were putting a dilemma. They had to think about, okay, do I obey guys, command, do I challenge this goodness, do I reject him as king over me? Or am I going to stand firm on his truth knowing that what God is commanded for me is good for me and not reject him as king and not reject his goodness.
They were proposed with the temptation. They had a dilemma and as we read on, we see that as a result of their actions a very sad day came, they rejected guys goodness, they rejected him as king and thus they walked in Satan's council and thus they stood in his way of disobedience. You see, whatever shapes a person's thinking shapes their life. Once a person is convinced to just think differently about the truth of God is only a matter of time before they manifest this new way of thinking outwardly. We go back to those examples that I mentioned earlier that we see the shift and the change in thinking about gender and thinking about sexuality and thinking about marriage and our culture and what I mean by that is essentially the keeping of a covenant of fidelity and not committing adultery. Once we think differently about a purity and about the life whether when it begins these things lead to a life that reflects this type of thinking. In Matthew chapter 6, Jesus gives a clear command in Matthew 625 to 34. He says for us not to be anxious about the necessities of our life. God through this passage of scripture affirms our unique value in him. He gives examples about the birds and about the lilies of the field. God affirms our unique value in him and he says don't worry about the necessities of your life, I'm going to take care of you. The lilies of the field gives the example that here today they're gone tomorrow. I have taken such the unique interest in making sure they are just uniquely designed and they have this just wonderful care about them and their makeup. He's like basically if I'm going to take care of the birds and I'm going to take care of the lilies and we already know through the order of creation and God giving us a dominion and establishing Adam and Eve as to have dominion over the earth to show that they are more valuable than these things. God says do not be anxious about your life, don't worry, I'm going to take care of you. But even when we know that this is the truth, circumstances in life tempt us to think differently about God's command of taking care of us. Whether we have much worth or whether we have little worrying is something that can play our lives, it can rob us of joy, it can rob us of intimacy not only with God but with our spouses, with our families, with our friends. You see the importance of making sure that our thinking is firmly rooted in the Word of God, amen? Because once we think differently about not being anxious about our lives, it leads to a life of worrying and not trusting God, having a lack of faith in Him. Where we take the very things that we have, whether it's our wealth and we keep it and we hoard it because it becomes our security rather than God. Whether we have little, we then turn those necessities of life like food and clothing and make them into idols that consume our life and we begin to cover the things of our neighbor rather than relying on God. To provide for us even when we can't see the way God is willing to fulfill His promise and provide for the necessities of your life. This progression, from bad to worse, this progression and to see and manifest in itself in one's life where they get to a state of being far and unrepentant to God. We see here in Psalm 1, it says, first of all, we talk, look at the ram of thinking. Bless the man who walks night in the council of the wicked, in order to stand in the way of sinners getting to the ram of behaving. But the next step we see is no success in the seat of scoffers. Now some translations right there, instead of saying scoffers, it says mockers or mock. And I want to read to you, Proverbs 21, 24, that gives a good definition of what it means to sit in the seat of scoffers or just what a scoffer is. Because a scoffer is essentially to turn against God and mock everything about Him, but Proverbs 21, 24 says, the name of the arrogant hearty man who acts with arrogant pride. So this part is essentially about the formulation of a disposition and attitude towards God. One's change in thinking and behavior regarding God's commands creates an attitude of arrogance and results in autonomy from God or desire to be autonomous from God. We see in this plomatic realm of the realm of belonging, it displays a habitual life of willfully violating God's commands and that if left alone, we sadly result in one becoming a pestilent teacher and tempter of others.
A good example of seeing what this looks like in Scripture. It's well familiar with the Pharaoh of Egypt. Remember he enslaved the Israelites, God's people. He was one who sat in the seat of scoffers. Well, how did he and why? Because he had a bad attitude towards God and a bad attitude towards God's people. God called Moses to go to Pharaoh and have him release the God's people from the bondage they were in. But he didn't like God's command and he refused to release the God's people. And we see through the story that he had many chances to be obedient to God's command but he continued to refuse. It's because his arrogance is pride blinded him from God's goodness. His words and actions towards Moses and the people of God with some scoffing that God having an attitude of wanting to have nothing to do with him. See, he thought he knew what was best for himself for Egypt and God's people. In our culture, we see that thinking differently about God's commands regarding the things that we mentioned earlier that lead people to embracing these erroneous worldviews. Causing them to establish an attitude hostile to God and becoming advocates of these different ways. Causing them to move farther and farther and farther away from the path of righteousness. You see, when you have been convinced of your minds or think differently about God, it causes those thoughts to be embodied in one's life and naturally becomes. Causes you to become an advocate, position yourself in autonomy towards God. We see these different realms. We have seen this progression of going from just being tempted by the thought, introducing the thought. Causing you to live according to that and imposition yourself where it becomes who you are. It kind of reminds me of the progression of developing a catalyst. Now, my guitar players here know what it's like to play a guitar without a pick when you're first starting. Even if you're an amateur player. It comes correct when you're playing without a pick. It hurts initially as you're strumming the strings. The thing that happens is that as you continue to do that, you develop a catalyst and it's not as painful as it was before. In some cases, you don't even realize that the amount of friction that's going on and what happens is that catalyst continues to build and build and build. And this is the same thing. You're not careful as one who doesn't know God. You will continue on the way, the path that is apart from me. And as my child, if you are not careful to examine yourself, do a check to see where your delight is, then you will continue in your act. Thoughts your acts, your position of continual, habitual rejection in me and whatever area that may be. And you would be like a catalyst, this particular scene, this particular wall or barrier that you've created, it won't even seem like a big deal. And notice in verse 1, it says, blessed is the man. It's a measure of that word blessed there means happy. Why is this man happy? He's happy because, look with me, because he doesn't walk in the council of wicked. Nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scholars. Now pay attention here. He doesn't do those things, but what does it say in verse 2? But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. So we see here that though the man's delight is in God, the reason is because he has in place his delight in these other avenues, these obstacles, if you will. You see, the road to righteousness is a pleasant road. And I believe what the Psalmist is aiming to say here is that, yes, it's a pleasant road, but it's not a road that won't be without obstacles. As I mentioned, because sin's influence is still around, we still can be tempted. We still can give it to temptations and thus bearing and get off the right direction. That's important for us to make sure that our delight is in the law of the Lord. Now we see this blessed man here.
And the beauty of this is that although we read here, and Christ's name isn't here directly, this does point to him. How do we know that? Well, I got good news for you. You see, Christ is the blessed man. When we look at these realms here of thinking and behaving and belonging this progression away from God, we see that Christ has conquered every single one of these obstacles. In the temptation and the wilderness, Christ did not think differently about God's command and what was good for him. He said, what did he say? He said, man should not live on bread alone, but by and on the Word of God. So we can look to Christ and know that because of his person working, because of the power that we have through the work of the Spirit in our lives, that we can be like the blessed man here who does not walk in the council. We don't have to think differently about God's commands. Christ did not live. He did not stand in the way of sinners. We see that the work of Christ throughout his life was a life of ushering in his kingdom. He was healing the sick. He caused a mute to hear. He healed the lamb. He healed the paralytic. He removed leprosy from people. He raised the dead. He healed the demon possessed. Christ, tall guy, streaked and affirmed it. He lived a life of holiness. And we know from the testimony of Paul in Book of Philippians. Philippians, too, speaks about Christ, great, great humility. Christ did not sit in the seat of stoppers. He did not have an attitude of pride. He did not seek autonomy from God. In his Christ, who, what do he do? He was in the form of God. He did not seek equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. You too, because of Christ's work, because of his person, because of who he is, because of what he's done, because he's giving you the Holy Spirit, that you indeed can also not position yourself to progress to having that attitude of arrogance and privleness. Not just towards God, but towards the fellow brethren, to your children, to your wife, to your neighbor. The key here is that Christ is the way, the solution, the path for us to indeed delight ourselves in the Word of God. He has overcome these obstacles. And it's by looking at him, not trying to do this on our own, but it's through prayer. It's through causing ourselves to engross ourselves in the Word of God, and it's through the work of God's precious gift to us, through the Holy Spirit, that we will be enabled to avoid these obstacles on our path to holiness. And Psalm 1, this blessing, man, is not just described as one who delights and allows the Lord and meditates on it day and night, but the reason that he is blessed, that he is happy, yes, because it's the light, it's in the love of God, but also because he is like a tree planted by strings of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not weather in all that he does. This blessed man realizes that he is a transplant. He used to reside in the wilderness of sin, but because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, because of Christ's blood on the cross, he has been bloodbought and he has been taken from the wilderness of sin and planted by these streams of water, where he would never thirst anymore, where his sins are part and where he can live a life of holiness. So my encouragement to you, people of God this morning, is that we don't have to sit and feel like we just can't live according to this man who is happy. This is not attainable. It is not on our own merit, but only through trust in Christ, who will cause us to delight in his word, and his spirit will enable us to do these very things. May God describes this person because this person can be us and should be who we are. We should be happy. Our disposition, our life as a Christian, should reflect the happiness that we have because we are not walking in the counsel. If we are not standing in the way of sinners, we are not sitting in the seat of Stoppers, but our delight is indeed in the Word of God. When you are on a highway, you are expected to stay in one lane. The reason being is because if you are driving and you swear to the left or you swear to the right, you are accident waiting to happen. Now there is a time, appropriate time to turn, exit or switch lanes, but once focused, it is to stay and remain in the lane that you are on. God has given us a lane to be in. God has given us a lane to be in, and that lane is based on His Word, and that if we are to remain in our lane, then it will be affirmed through the work of the Holy Spirit, and if we remain in our lane and do what He tells us to do, then our life indeed will be as verse 3 says, and all that we do, we will prosper, we will be happy because our delight is fully and firmly in God's Word, and in Christ the law of the Spirit. Father in heaven, thank you, Lord God, for Christ Jesus, because He is our example, He is our righteousness, and our goal in our aim in this life is to be chips off the old luck, to be just like our Father. Help us to do that. Help us not to resort to real power and tensions, but help us to read your Word and to delight in it. Lord, if our thirst, our hunger, our taste buds, do not yearn for you and your Word, we have taken the wrong essence and guided the wrong lane, Lord. Oh, may the work of your Spirit create a new flame, a fire, a delight, a passion for you. Thank you, Father, for your Word, thank you for Christ, thank you for your Spirit. It's in the wonderful, magnificent, awesome, and glorious name of Christ we pray, and let the redeemed of the Lord say, amen.