Two Ways

Introduction

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The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Today we are going to begin our next series of messages which I'm calling Summer in the Psalms. I called it this because we are going to spend the summer months going through some of the… Psalms. You got it. See what I did there? During the next three months we will also have the opportunity to hear from some guest preachers to give me a little time to rest and recharge before the fall season hits. This will begin in the 11th of June with Tim Bivins being here with you. It's been quite a while since Tim has filled in for me and I'm sure you'll love seeing him again. Later in the summer we're planning on having Dustin Haile from Gateway Church in Mt. Vernon, Greg McGhee from Northroad Church in the St. Louis area, and our own A.J. Katzberg share the Word of God with us. Please be praying for them and for me as I rest in the Lord for the next season of ministry.

Now, my goal in this series is to show you the consistency of God's message throughout the Bible and show you connections through the book of Psalms that ultimately point to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. I'm pretty excited to see how it all goes. So please be praying with us through the next few weeks. I am sure that many of you have spent time reading the Psalms and some of these chapters will be familiar with you. Today we are beginning at the very beginning of the book.

In this first Psalm, the author does something that is quite common in the Psalms. He makes use of the themes of pointing the way to blessing and also warning about God's divine judgement. The words used in this chapter, in fact, should remind us of earlier words in the Old Testament.

This is what can be considered a wisdom Psalm and it spotlights God's Word, His blessings on those who are focused on and obedient of it, and His judgment upon those who rebel against Him.

Please follow along as I read from the Word of the Lord:

Psalm 1 ESV

1 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 scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 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. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

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This is the Word of the Lord. Let's pray and ask God to help us be both hearers and doers of the Word today.

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‌The first thing we can readily notice in this passage is that there is a division of two ways. There's the way of the blessed man and then on the other hand, you have the way of the wicked. If you've been with us for a few weeks now, this should sound familiar to you and maybe cause you to lean in a little bit. This sounds eerily similar to what we read in Jesus's Sermon on the Mount that we have just finished covering. And here we see a connecting thread through all of scripture. It's why we study the whole thing. It's why we want to hear preached to us the whole counsel of God.

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Transition statement: We are at once confronted with the clear earthly distinction between the way of the blessed man and the way of the wicked man. First let's break down the way of the blessed.

I. The way of the blessed

Both the psalmist and Jesus taught that blessed people are those who are God's people. If we were to make a list of the mercies of God showered upon God's people we would have quite a long list.

So the blessed person is someone who is God's. That is they belong to God, they follow God. This is the starting point for blessedness. It's the starting point for righteousness, is belonging to the family of God. That is the true distinction that we see here. You see the blessed person who follows God and the wicked or ungodly person who doesn't follow God.

So what is the way of the blessed person?

The psalmist uses a negative statement to tell us about the blessed person. He starts by telling us what he doesn't do.

A. What the blessed man doesn't do

1. Walks not in the counsel of the wicked.

- a person's walk is the course of their life.

- What is the tenor of someone's life? What direction is it heading based on how they live?

- If your ways are like the wicked, then you're wicked.

- The council of the wicked is not merely advice from them but:

- Their aims, their maxims, their principles, and their practices. The blessed man, the righteous man doesn't walk out his life based on the practices or principles of the world.

- Jesus changes our desires , dreams, direction...

- That is to say, the blessed man avoids thinking like the wicked. Knowing Jesus transforms the way we think as well as the way we act. Those who walk with the Lord should not be seeking advice from the wicked because their entire base of their life is different. Instead of being directed in our thoughts by the wicked, we are to be directed by the Word of God.

2. Nor stands in the way of sinners.

- he isn't seeking them as his close companions

- they aren't the ones he spends the most time around and lets get deeply into his life in influence

- They are a grief to him.

- ‌The righteous ones, the blessed ones, avoid behaving like the wicked. The righteous man is directed by the Word of God in both thought and deed. He is submitted to the will of God as revealed in the scriptures for how he will live his life.

3. Nor sits in the seat of scoffers.

- they have indifference and hatred toward divine things

- Sin's natural course leads those who follow it to despise all good things.

- they mock the good

- They avoid dealing with the wicked. What does that mean? Who are scoffers? If you have a different translation it might have been translated as "mockers." The term used describes an arrogant fool who refuses both discipline and correction. There are those who refuse to be corrected. They shun discipline because they are so arrogant to think that there is no possibility that they have done anything wrong.

These are what the blessed man doesn't do. This is how the righteous man doesn't live his life but what are the things that he does. How does he live his life in the positive. The psalmist gives insight into this.

B. What he does.

First, he delights in the law of the Lord.

1. He delights in the law of the Lord.

One of my old dead theologians said of this passage, "...God is rightly worshipped only if His Word is obeyed. Therefore men are not free to model a religion, each after his own idea. The standard for religion must be taken from God's Word."

"But the first thing required of the faithful is delight in the law of the Lord. These The words show us that compulsory or slavish worship is not at all acceptable to God. Only those who come happily to the study of the law, who enjoy its teaching, who think nothing more worth-while or pleasanter than to make progress in it, are qualified students of the law."" - Calvin

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‌Why the way we deal with the Bible is important.

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Warren Wiersbe wrote that, "The way we treat the Bible is the way we treat Jesus Christ, for the Bible is His Word to us."

John 1:1-5

John 1:1–5 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

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John 1:14 ESV

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Your disposition toward the Bible will give us a hint as to your disposition towards Jesus. If you think the Bible is boring, then what does that say about what you think about Jesus?

This is not to make you feel guilty but to help us in our understanding about how we need to be thinking about and acting toward the Word of God.

Bible engagement is the number one indicator of spiritual growth in a person.

How do you delight in the Word of the Lord?

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Personal

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Corporate

Groups

Continual growing_

The second thing the blessed man does is mediate on the the law of the Lord day and night.

2. Meditating on the law of the Lord day and night.

The verbiage used here indicates that it is speaking of a constant practice. Someone who keeps on meditating on the law of the Lord day and night. It's continual. It's not a one time thing but something that is a regular practice.

Mediating is not clearing the mind of everything. It's actually putting the Word of God there and focusing on it.

The Hebrew word used her means "to murmur" or "read aloud". The connotation is of pondering over something. So, that might look like when you read something in the scripture in the morning and maybe you have journaled it or prayed through the passage. Then later in the day you call it back to mind and think on what it means and how it applies to your day and your life and you keep it on the front of your mind.

John Calvin wrote that "only those inspired by this love can devote themselves to its constant study. Only those who have met Jesus, who have believed the gospel that Jesus is God and that He came to earth as a man. And though 100 percent God and 100 percent man, gave His perfect and sinless life on the cross in the place of sinners like me and like you, becoming our substitutionary sacrifice. Bearing the wrath of God that was due me because of my sin. And by putting your whole faith, hope, and trust in Him alone for salvation by faith can we have forgiveness of sin and eternal life... and He was dead in the grave for three days and then rose from the grave, back to life by the power of God! This shows He is God. It proves the sacrifice worked and death is defeated. And what the theologian was saying is that only when you have been captivated by this message, this kind of love can you and will you devote yourself to its constant study.

He is both directed by the Word of God and delights in the Word of the Lord.

Friends, meditating on the law should result in obedience. When we dwell on the Word of the Lord and allow it to direct us, the result is a life of obedience to the Word of the Lord.

The psalmist gives us the outcome or the outgrowth of these things in the life of the blessed man.

What is he like?

C. Outcome for the blessed man

1. He is like a tree planted by the water

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He compares the blessed man, the blessed person to a tree that's stable, it's well nourished, it's fruitful, and it's prosperous.

a. He yields fruit.

b. He does not wither.

c. He prospers.

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This person is a blessing to those around him or her. They positively affect those around them. You can know a tree by its fruit. This blessed man, a tree planted with plenty of nourishment will produce good fruit. The most important part of a tree is the root system. Those roots grow down deep and draw in nourishment and provide stability and anchoring. It helps to hold the tree up as well as help the tree to continue to grow up and produce fruit.

Alexander Maclaren said, "Religion lacks depth and volume because it is not fed by hidden springs."

In contrast to all of this wonderful, happy, encouraging comments about the blessed man, you have the wicked also spoken about. We aren't going to spend as much time on this person but we need to

II. The way of the wicked

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In verse four, they are described like chaff blown away in the wind. Chaff is the husks and stalks of wheat left after the grain is winnowed. It simply blows away and is gone. In contrast to the stability of the flourishing tree of the righteous, the wicked are described in a way that is fragile and temporary.

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Isaiah 29:5-6

Isaiah 29:5–6 ESV

5 But the multitude of your foreign foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of the ruthless like passing chaff. And in an instant, suddenly, 6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts with thunder and with earthquake and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.

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Hosea 13:3 ESV

3 Therefore they shall be like the morning mist or like the dew that goes early away, like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor or like smoke from a window.

There is a coming judgment on the wicked. Our lives will go one way or the other. And here is the clincher:

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Apart from Christ, we are all the wicked man and can not stand.

Only in Christ can we be the blessed man.

The difference is Jesus. We must recognize the need.

Psalm 1 begins with "blessed" and it ends with "perish". Those who are true believers, followers of Jesus are blessed in Christ.

Ephesians 1:3 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

They have received the blessing of God and should be a blessing to others. And we should be a blessing even to the chaff that will oneway be thrown into the fire. Let's seek to win as many of them as we can and see them cross the line from wicked to blessed, just as by the grace of God we were called to.

Response

You need to respond to this message in some way.

1. Be the blessed person. - follow Jesus

2. Delight in the Word - Study, meditate

3. Delight in the Lord - Worship, obey, do the things a follower does out of a changed heart, baptism, membership?

4. Effect others for Christ - serve

5. Seek to serve and evangelize the wicked person. - Gospel conversations

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