Flourishing in 2023

Believe it or not, it is 2023!

Odds are, your Christmas decorations are put away, your lawn is dark, and the traces of wrapping paper and Christmas treats are in the trash.

As we begin this brave new year, I want to spend one more Sunday looking at the idea we talked about before Christmas.

Over the last month, we talked about “peace at Christmas” and have been expanding our idea of what “peace” really means.

In our world, we usually think of peace as inner tranquility or the absence of conflict.

Those are wonderful components of peace, but they aren’t the complete picture of what the Bible means by peace.

We have argued that biblically, peace is better thought of as everything involved in human flourishing.

In other words, the peace we find in God includes positive things like joy and purpose and not just tranquility.

In fact, we have made the case over the last few weeks that because this is how God describes peace in the Bible, we can experience his peace even when we are in conflict or experiencing turmoil.

He is the Prince of Peace, the one who came to set in motion a kingdom that would bring about the complete peace—flourishing now and eventually experiencing his peace in all its fullness when he returns and sets everything right forever.

In fact, that’s what I want for you this year.

As we sit here on the first day of 2023, I want this to be a year where you don’t just survive, you thrive.

I want you to flourish as you find vibrant life serving our king.

Now, that sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

Here’s the problem—we all have different ideas of what a flourishing year would look like.

For some, it is to finally graduate and land a job in this crazy market.

Maybe for others, you are looking for a house and hoping this is the year.

Maybe you think flourishing this year means you are going to get to a certain financial goal or relationship goal or see your kids succeed or welcome your first grandchild.

In 365 days, what would have to take place or who would you have to become to look back and say, “I have flourished this year?”

Do you have a picture in your mind?

Don’t tell me what it is. Can I take a few moments and challenge it, though?

While you and I may have hopes and dreams of what we think flourishing will look like, the Bible likely gives us a different picture.

To see that this morning, I want you to go with me to a passage we looked at a couple years ago in a similar setting. However, it is so foundational, I think it is worth looking at again this year.

Open up to Psalm 1.

Here, we are going to see what the Bible describes as the flourishing life.

Would you be willing to surrender your ideas of what would be a thriving life this year and ask God to give you his idea?

Don’t give up on those other dreams entirely—many of those may be good, God-honoring desires and hopes.

However, let’s see what God says is more important than any of that.

Let’s read verses 1-3 together to get a sense of the passage.

The passage starts off with an attention-grabbing statement.

“How happy is the one...”

You may have a translation that says, “Blessed is the man who...”

Let’s talk about that for a minute.

If we misinterpret that statement, we can make this verse into a cause and effect kind of thing— “If I do this, God will bless me with what I want.”

Jonathan Pennington, the author I have quoted several times in the last few weeks, makes it clear that this isn’t what the psalmist is saying.

The idea isn’t that this is how we get God to bless us. Rather, living this kind of life is the blessed life.

This is the kind of life that is a flourishing life according to God and his Word.

Now, did you see anything in those verses about relationships or money or health?

No—those things not God’s picture of what it means to thrive, although in his goodness he often blesses us with good things.

If those were what God meant by flourishing, then a quick look at Jesus’s life would lead you to say that he wasn’t blessed! His family thought he was crazy, people thought he was demon-possessed, his closest friends abandoned him at the moment he needed them the most…That sure doesn’t sound like thriving.

In light of that, here’s what I would like to submit as our main idea for this morning: a thriving life is a God-directed life.

There is certainly more to say about the specifics of what that looks like, but my hope today is that when we leave, you will be ready to commit to two things:

One, that you will commit to figuring out what it looks like to have God direct your life.

Two, that you will redefine thriving to look like God says it does.

To do that, let’s look more closely at what God has to say to us through this passage.

The first aspect of living a God-directed life is to...

1) Reject godless advice.

Go back to verse 1.

For us to live a flourishing, thriving life, we first need to recognize that there are a lot of ideas out there about how to live, and we need to reject most of them.

That runs against what our culture is training us to believe.

We are in a world where we are encouraged to embrace our truth and let everyone believe and do what they want to do.

We are being told that the way to flourish is to express who you are as an individual and live out who you think you really are.

That’s not the picture God gives us of what really leads to flourishing, is it?

In fact, elsewhere God tells us:

Proverbs 14:12 CSB

There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.

We may have all kinds of ideas about what is going to make 2023 a better year than last year, but if those ideas aren’t grounded in what God says, they aren’t going to lead us to flourish.

That means living a flourishing life means rejecting certain kinds of thinking.

Let’s go back to the text to get an idea of what kinds of thinking we are going to reject.

Notice that the psalmist gives us a progression in verse 1:

"walk in the advice of the wicked" - This is the idea of conducting life the same way that people who don't know Jesus do. However, notice that you are walking, which implies that you aren't fully involved. You can take someone’s advice without staying with them.

"stand in the pathway of sinners" - Here, you've slowed down a notch. You aren't just walking by, but you've stopped to listen. You are standing there, which means you are starting to identify with those who don't know Jesus.

"sit in the company of mockers" - Here, you are fully invested, sitting down and joining those who don't know Jesus and even go so far as to openly mock him.

These are metaphorical descriptions of our heart attitude toward ungodly advice.

Here’s how that plays out. Let’s say we find someone online who gives self-help advice, and it sounds really good, but they aren’t basing what they say off what God says in his word.

We may think they have good ideas at first, so we start trying to live like they tell us to—we are walking in the advice of the wicked.

Next, we take the bait and start giving more weight to what they teach, standing around with them.

Finally, we sit down and join in, and potentially without fully realizing what we are doing, we have aligned ourselves with people who mock God.

Did you notice that the description of those who don't know Jesus gets stronger every time? By the time we buy into it "hook, line, and sinker", we are sitting down and agreeing with those who actively mock God and His Word.

No many how many subscribers they have on their YouTube channel or how many people watch their show or follow them on TikTok, godless advice won’t lead to flourishing.

If you and I are going to thrive, we have to reject that.

Here’s where it gets tricky: because God has given common grace, there are some things that those who don’t know Jesus might get right.

There are people out there who may give you advice that sounds really good or is *this* close to being correct.

How can we tell what to receive and what to reject?

By cultivating the second aspect of what makes a thriving life:

2) Embrace God’s instruction.

Look back at verse 2...

Instead of joining in with those who reject and mock God, we need to devote ourselves to what God says.

If you notice, there are two different phrases in this verse.

Each one gives us a little different picture.

First, you see that a thriving life is going to be marked by a love for what God says.

In one sense, this is about learning to love the Bible.

In an even more specific sense, it is about learning to find joy and satisfaction in God telling you what is best.

At first, that may sound odd to us. We don’t typically enjoy people telling us what to do.

However, have you ever had a good instructor for something you really wanted to learn to do?

I am not talking about the cranky piano teacher you didn’t like…let me give you an example.

When I first started going to the gym seven years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. My weight-lifting experience was limited to high school gym class and one random session with a friend in seminary.

I had the privilege of getting individual personal training from some great trainers.

They set up the weights, told me what my routine would be, taught me how to do the movements, and then gave me progressive corrections to help me dial in my form.

I didn’t always welcome the feedback, but overall, I was so glad to have someone show me the ropes and help me learn how to get stronger without hurting myself.

You may have had a similar experience with a coach or a teacher of some kind. You want to hear what they have to say because you know they want to get you better and you want to improve.

I think that’s the mindset the psalmist says is a part of the flourishing life.

Instead of trusting in the advice of people who have no idea what they are doing really, we have the privilege of looking to the Bible and seeing in it what the God who made us says we should and shouldn’t do.

Beyond that, those of us who are saved have the Holy Spirit living inside us to convict us and make the truth of the Bible come alive to us so we can apply it and have the strength to obey.

That reality should cause us to delight in God’s instructions on how to live even when what he says is difficult or runs contrary to what others think is best.

So, now we are still faced with the question of what do we actually do, right?

Go back to the second part of verse 2...

The only way to know what God says is to read and study the Bible.

We come back to this truth often because it is so vital.

Reading the Bible regularly with the intention to learn and live out what it teaches is the greatest tool available to those who want to thrive in life.

That’s the idea of “meditate on it day and night”—This isn’t talking about the kind of Eastern meditation where we chant a phrase or sound over and over. It isn’t the kind of mindfulness meditation where we take inventory of what we are feeling or the things around us.

Meditating on God’s word is dwelling on it; thinking about what we have read over and over; asking questions and seeking answers; praying for God to help us apply it; thanking him for what he teaches us through his Word.

As we meditate on God’s Word, keep in mind that our goal is not just to acquire knowledge or figure out the secret to life; our goal is to know the God who has made himself known in these pages.

If you make only one resolution this year or set only one goal, make your goal to spend time every day in God’s Word.

The more you know what God says, the more you can spot the small lies that are really the advice of the wicked and the more you can discern what you should and shouldn’t do.

How happy is the one who rejects ungodly advice and embraces God’s instruction!

That’s the key to the good life that God created us to live.

In all of this, we are going to need to...

3) Trust God’s guidance.

Let’s read verses 3-6...

When we trust what God says, we lead a flourishing life.

Again, though, we need to make sure we let God define that.

Many of us get tripped up by that last phrase in verse 3—”whatever he does prospers.”

That can sound like if we delight in God’s Law, he will give us the Midas touch and everything we do will turn to gold.

Our relationships will be perfect, our health flawless, our investments and work will grow through the roof, and life will be an unending series of successes.

Remember, though, that God’s definition of flourishing and thriving doesn’t always look like ours.

I have told you before about how my family saw this growing up.

We owned a business in Blacksburg that sold pets, comic books, games, and other hobby items.

Dad became convicted that there were two major issues that needed to be addressed:

The content of some of the comics and games was not God-honoring, and Dad no longer felt comfortable selling them.

The store was open on Sundays, and Dad felt led that we needed to close the store so people could make corporate worship a priority.

You know what happened to the store after that? It never financially recovered. Years later, my brother would sell the store shortly before it closed forever.

That doesn’t exactly sound like prospering, does it?

Here’s the thing, though: my brother and I both got to see what it looked like when a godly man leads his family to do difficult things to obey what God calls them to do.

Today, my brother and I have the privilege of serving the Lord full-time in ministry positions, and it is in large part due to the way we watched our parents obey.

In the grand scheme of eternity, what is more important? A financially stable mom-and-pop pet store or a family who is following Christ for generations?

My parents and my family are far from perfect, but we can testify to the truth of this passage.

How do we hold on when it is difficult?

Look again at verse 6...

God knows and sees and is watching over our way.

As we delight and dwell on his instructions, we get to know him better. We reject advice that would pull us away from him and instead walk in his way.

As we do, we find a different kind of prosperity, a different kind of thriving and flourishing than what the world offers.

A lot of this has focused on us and what we do.

Remember, though, that none of this is possible apart from Christ.

The text says God watches over the way of the righteous.

Do you remember who Jesus said he is?

John 14:6 CSB

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

He doesn’t just watch over our way; he himself is our way.

The way to the good life for us took Jesus to the cross so he could provide a way for us to come to the Father.

He endured the scorn of the mockers and hung on the cross for the sinners, all so you and I could thrive in his kingdom.

So, what are your dreams for 2023?

I hope you thrive this year like never before as you seek to learn and live and grow in a God-directed life.