Psalm 1
Notes
Transcript
Starting 2023 with a blessing and taking a moment to reevaluate if we are going in the way of the righteous or the wicked. If we will stand firm and strong like a tree or be moved around like chaff
Prayer
Blessings
Blessings
Blessed is the one who
do not walk, stand or sit
in the counsel, way, seat
of the wicked/sinner/mocker
and instead spends their time
Delighting in the law of the lord meditating day and night
Image of the tree planted by the stream, refreshed, productive, resilient and prosperous
What from the law of the Lord do we delight?
This law is not just the first 5 books - Torah, including the 10 commandments, it is all of God’s revelation as the guide of life, something to be applied and learnt.
as an introduction to psalms, this is also Teaching - these psalms will teach you about how to relate and pray to God
In fact, psalm 1 statements are taken from other psalms, Job, Torah and prophets.
On the flip side, the Hebrew understanding of wickedness is different to our modern view - The basic understanding of the Hebrew word for wicked. is restlessness represented in Isaiah 57:20-21
But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
which cannot rest,
whose waves cast up mire and mud.
“There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”
Like the chaff image we have read, we can see this restlessness, and we can all succumb to it. Hence the encouragement of this passage is to not get pulled to walk, stand and sit in this restlessness but find delight in God’s teaching.
Some teaching I have been reminded of that brings delight and want to meditate more on and highlights the restlessness of our modern times is:
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to stay emotionally healthy and spiritually alive in the chaos of the modern world.
John Mark Comer
The Problem - Hurry: the great enemy of spiritual life
The solution - Hint: the solution is not more time
- The secret of the easy yoke - a rule to life
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
The secret to the easy yoke is to live Jesus' lifestyle today -
Which is the easy and hard part. This time of year we are considering the lifestyles or part of our lifestyles that we want to improve. start this year with new goals and rhythms
As a church - open door - hospitality, discipleship, intergenerational
As we follow the lord, now is a great time to recalibrate to what our heart truly desires.
See Jesus is the blessed righteous person that delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night.
Now in the book John Mark Comer, gives 4 practices but this list is not comprehensive.
Four practices for unhurrying your life
Silence and solitude
Sabbath
Simplicity
Slowing
The first three chapters have really struck a chord with me:
How do you go with silence and solitude? .....
I love silence and solitude (very hard to get when you are a parent of little ones) but I also find my mind and habits trying to silence the silence.
I now consciously have to fight my mind to not pick up my phone in line waiting for something.
The new norm of hurry with digital distractions is robbing us of our ability to be present:
Present with God
Present with others
Present with all that is good and beautiful in the world around us.
To meditate on God’s word we see Jesus' lifestyle involved getting up with the sun and going to a quiet place.
It is also important for us to
Henri Nouwen the dutch priest and writer said bluntly,
‘Without solitude, it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life...
We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him.’
It’s as black and white as this psalm, you are either doing it or you are not, no excuses or exceptions.
Do you need to spend more time in silence and solitude? I suspect for some of us this is not a problem. what a blessing because it is no longer the norm. can I encourage you this year to find someone that is caught in this culture of hurry and restlessness, pray for them in your times of silence and solitude and lead them to be planted beside the steam?
Sabbath
How do you go with taking a Sabbath? A day to the lord?
Ask for a response.
I feel I have something to learn here,
All my life I have had things competing with the sabbath day.
In this sense, the culture around us creates restlessness, infinite desire, frustrated sense of incompletion.
Just like the chaff - we want to move from a state of Restlessness to Restfullness like the image of the tree.
Well, the bible already teaches us that to do that we have 6 days of work and 1 day to the lord to rest with him.
See this isn’t a day off to get the house chores done, this is a purposeful day for you and your family to rest.
Command one - Sabbath to rest and worship
Remember the sabbath day by keeping it Holy
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Life is busy but remember to rest with God, like in Eden.
Command two - Sabbath as resistance
Observe the sabbath day by keeping it Holy
Deut. 5:12-15
“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
In Egypt you were a slave, all you did is work and survive. But you need to now plan to not be like that. To rest and break the cycle of consuming and have a day to bring life.
Jesus had a lot to say about the Sabbath, there are some great stories of him healing on the Sabbath and the religious leaders had so many rules around the Sabbath that they had lost focus on what it was meant for, to bring life not a burden.
Jesus reminds them of this
Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
Not man for the sabbath is what they needed to be reminded of when they had made all these rules for it. I wonder if today we need the first part - the Sabbath was made for man. It is still relevant today.
Paul builds on this in Romans 14 as he calls us to not judege others but to focus on living our lives for Christ:
One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
There is blessing in meditating day and night, living and dying for Christ.
Simplicity
Another term that has become more popular is minimalism.
Jesus' lifestyle was one of minimalism and he lived like this because he took only what he needed.
I remember, in school looking at sustainability and looking at how many earths would be needed if we all lived as we do.
If you earn between 10-100 thousand you are in the top 30% of the world, top 8% if over. That means that 70% of the world lives on less than $10,000 a year.
Yet, in the restlessness of our culture, we get drawn into buying things that just get stored. Or our purchases keep people in poverty.
Baptist world aid does a good job of highlighting this and may 2023 is the time to live more simply, wisely and generously.
Other Examples of God’s abundance, His desire to be with us, and his involvement in our lives. A guide in our days
John Stott in Favourite psalms - growing closer to God said.
‘This, then, is the characteristic of the righteous. For guidance regarding daily conduct, they look not to public opinion, the unreliable fashions of the godless world, but to the revealed Word of God, in which they delight and meditate.”
In closing
Psalm 1 has two key themes which recur in many other psalms:
the distinction between the righteous and the wicked. The bibe as a whole, especially the wisdom literature, divides humankind into these two categories and does not recognise a third.
Present fortunes and the ultimate destinies of human beings
you can walk in the way of the wicked, stand with sinners or sit with mockers.
Jesus would sum this up in his own teaching
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
This time the image is of chaff that scatters in the wind, with no stability, no resilience to what comes, and no productivity, prosperity or value given them.
I also thought this was an interesting statement from John Stott:
‘When God begins to sift them in his present activity of judgement, and especially when the final day of judgement comes, they will not stand. Not even now can they stand in the assembly of the righteous, for they do not belong to the godly remnant of his people.’
Their ways will become undone in the judgement of the Lord
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.
wicked - restless
In 2023 my hope and prayer are that this will be a blessed year for you full of delight and that you are a strong tree beside the stream, refreshed, productive, resilient and prosperous. I as well as the people around you are here to help you live that blessed life and move away from activities that bring restlessness.
