The Way of the Righteous

Introduction

This morning I want to look at one of my favorite Psalms. That is Psalm 1. This passage of scripture holds deep relevance for our lives and I think it is always a helpful reminder to turn to passages like this and reflect on our own lives. This Psalm has the heading in my Bible the way of the righteous and the wicked so we see through it what we should do and what we should not do in our Christian lives. Here is a quote from my study Bible about this Psalm and it gives us a foundational understanding of it.

The ESV Study Bible (Chapter 1)

The first psalm serves as the gateway into the entire book of Psalms, stressing that those who would worship God genuinely must embrace his Law (or Torah), i.e., his covenant instruction. This psalm takes topics found in wisdom literature such as Proverbs and makes them the subject of song; the purpose is that those who sing the psalm will own its values—namely, they will want more and more to be people who love the Torah, who believe it, who see themselves as the heirs and stewards of its story of redemption and hope, and who seek to carry out its moral requirements. They can delight in the idea of being among the “righteous,” feeling that nothing can compare with such blessedness. By its sustained contrast, the psalm reminds readers that in the end there are really only two ways to live.

So now that we see that this is the gateway to the Psalms and that we as Christians are to own it’s values, let’s now read the opening song to the great playlist of the Old Testament.

Read Psalm 1

Here in this Psalm we see a contrast between the righteous and the wicked, the blessed and the cursed. This Psalm has strong ties to Psalm 2 and I would encourage you to read them both together sometime and note those connections. Through all of the Psalms we see about the Christian walk, from how to praise to how to mourn. This Psalm tells us how to go about our life. So in our brief time this morning I want to look at two things, what not to do then what to do. Let’s start with prayer then we will look at what not to do.

pray

what not to do

V1

Verse 1 gives us three things to not do in life; don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, don’t stand in the way of sinners, and don’t sit in the seat of scoffers. The groups that the passage labels as the wicked, the sinners, and the scoffers can be grouped together as the unrighteous, those that are not in right standing with God, the people of the world.

I think a helpful way to think about this is to think about how you interact with people here at school. You probably don’t realize the steps that you go through to become part of a friend group but there are a few that are typical. You probably start with talking with someone as you head to class, maybe you do this a few times and you eventually get to talk some more with them as you stand around waiting for something, next thing you know you are sitting at the lunch table with your new found friends. On the surface there is nothing wrong with this, it all depends on who it is with.

I am not saying to never talk to people who are not Christians, I am talking about who your friends are. The closest group of people around you. There is a saying that goes show me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are, this holds so much truth. The people that we are around have such a great influence on us. If our inner circle of friends are not followers of Jesus then we will struggle to follow Jesus. In the same way if our inner circle of friends are all on fire for Jesus that too will rub off on us.

This all gets back to the topic of Christian fellowship. Throughout the Bible we see that we sharpen each other and build each other up as Christians, these are all good things! They just require one thing, strong Christian relationships.

In my life as I was in High School I did not live out my faith like I should have and I deeply regret that. As I look back though there was no Christian relationships in my life. It was in college that I started to develop relationships with strong Christians and it rubbed off on me and we were all on fire for Jesus. God used those relationships in my life and that is the reason that I am even here before you today.

This section is about what we are not to do but I want to flip it to a positive statement. We are to have our closest relationships be with fellow Christians that are living for him. No friends is better than bad friends.

what to do

V2

While we are not to have our inner circle of friends be non-Christians we are to delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it at all times. The law of the Lord can be more broadly described as his word, the Bible. We are to joyously read it often and to meditate on it at all times.

For those of you that know me you know that my thing is to get you in your Bibles reading for yourself. I truly believe in my heart that almost all of the problems that churches face could be solved if Christians would just read their Bibles. When you read the Bible daily it becomes a delight and it will become something that you look forward to each day. There are so many resources to help keep you accountable and reading plans. I always push for the Bible in a year but maybe this year you want to focus on the New Testament, there are plans for that too.

The passage goes even a bit deeper than just reading though, it also says to meditate on God’s word day and night. This word meditate is one that confuses us in our culture, what do we typically think of when it comes to meditation? We think of monks in Asian countries that are martial arts masters sitting cross legged trying to clear their minds of everything. This is not what Christian meditation is, Christian meditation is filling our mind with a portion of scripture, this is typically a small portion such as one verse. Through this we think about it, we probably repeat it, we can emphasize different parts of it, we may memorize it, we can pray through it, we can think of all of the ways that it impacts our lives.

We can think about scripture meditation in this way. Imagine we are a cow and scripture is the grass. We eat the grass then we sit there and chew and chew on it, we digest it thoroughly like a cow puts it through several stomachs. This in essence is scripture meditation, we chew and chew on the text through whatever method you like so that it can be properly digested into our souls.

We are not to neglect God’s word but rather it should be our joy and delight and we should meditate on it at all times further ingraining it into our very souls.

Conclusion

V3-6

In the end we see that those who surround themselves with good company and are in Gods word often meditating on it at all times are like a tree. Not just any tree but a tree that is in a good piece of land and one that bears fruit. A tree that is deeply rooted that when the wind comes it does not get blown away but rather stands firm. This is how we should desire to be. We should put ourselves in places where we can grow in our faith, we should be rooted deeply in Gods word, through this we can own the values of this Psalm.

Those who are not in Christ and are part of the unrighteous are like chaff, that is basically the lightweight pieces of the crop that you do not want. They are easy blown away and moved. Their way will perish.

Walk in the way of the righteous, surround yourself with like minded Christians, turn to God’s word as your delight daily, meditate on God’s word always, be like the tree in Psalm 1. For through that you will be blessed.