Charting Your Course for the New Year

Introduction:

If you could write down what a successful new year would look like for you and have anything you wrote down come to pass, what would you put down as your most "blessed" year every?

Something that God has been showing me lately is the amount of time that is wasted in my life on things that don’t matter so much in the end. You may be familiar with this scenario, but you wake up and you grab a cup of coffee and you try to get fully awake while drinking that cup of coffee. You have your coffee in one hand and you have your phone in the other hand and you begin to doom scroll.

Maybe later in the day you are waiting in line for something or you are even gathered with your family or friends and you pull out your phone again and you begin to doom scroll.

Some of you may be too sophisticated to doom scroll, so you just turn on the TV or watch the news all the time.

In the end the same result happens. We waste our time with things and information that don’t really change our lives.

But, what if we replaced that time with reading God’s Word and good Christian books?What would happen if we pursued God with all of our heart? How might our lives be different and our fruitfulness increase!

So God has been laying on my heart to write things down and chart a course for my life in the new year. I’ve begun a practice of journaling the previous days experiences and my thoughts and feelings and what God has shown me. I want to be able to look back on my life and relearn the lessons God has taught me.

This morning, we are going to talk about the ideal, blessed man that the Bible presents to us throughout the psalms and proverbs and he reappears in the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus talks about the "blessed” who live by the kingdom values Jesus presents in the sermon.

Let's see if the description the Bible gives for the blessed person is the same as what you would have written down this morning.

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.

Pray

1. The Disciplines of the Blessed (vv.1-2)

Two types of person are set up as supreme examples for us: the blessed man and the fool

The word for blessing is the same word Jesus uses in the Sermon on the Mount - the beattitudes (comes from Latin)

The blessed man is one who is happy in the Lord

This is not the man that has everything go his way, but his delight is in the Lord

To be blessed is to be in a favorable state of fellowship with God and to have God’s grace upon his life

Psalm 1:1 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;

The text starts with a tease. There is a presentation of the blessed man but a delay in describing him while the traits of his antithesis, the fool or wicked man, is presented

The Bible begins with telling us what the blessed man does not do

Notice the progression here of influence upon the fool’s life

He takes counsel from the wicked (or the world)

He walks in the path of the wicked (following the course of this world)

He joins in the counsel of the scoffers

You will notice that the scoffer sits in the counsel of the wicked, but at the end of the psalm, he will not stand in the assembly of the righteous at the Lord’s judgment. He might sit in the judgment of the wicked he associates with, but they are not the ones to whom he must give an account - it is the Lord Almighty who winnows with His eyes.

There are several words to describe the fool here: man, wicked, sinner. All of these should be understood as synonyms for the same person.

The contrast of the blessed man

Psalm 1:2 ESV

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He delights in the Law of God

Do you delight in reading the Bible or do you find it a chore?

I don’t necessarily delight in reading someone else’s mail or letters, but I do get interested when someone has written me a letter. The Bible is God’s letter written to you. It is concerns you. It is also your way of communicated with God. If you delight in God, you will delight in reading His Word and it won’t be a chore to get done.

He meditates day and night upon the Word

Joshua 1:8 ESV

8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

The Hebrew word here means a low sound like the cooing of a dove. It could have involved a low reading of the text and a sort of muttering

The idea is to have God’s word before you always

Deuteronomy 6:6 ESV

6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

We are to always evaluate every decision on the basis of what God’s Word has to say about something. We don’t listen to the world’s advice, but God’s Word.

This means a few things

We have to mine the Word of God for the principles to apply to every situation of our lives. God’s Word does not tell us the answer to every question we may have. It does give us principles to apply to those questions to get to the answers.

We have to store up God’s Word so that we will know the right thing to do.

Psalm 119:11 ESV

11 I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.

We will also have God’s Word ready to recall when we need it. This means we also should fill some of that time we have to doomscroll or veg out with memorizing Scripture.

The memory is a muscle. We think we can’t remember things well, but there are tons of things that you commit to memory through repetition and regular use that you can remember. Scripture memory doesn’t have to be fast and rapid. It can be learning a verse over the course of a week or even several weeks. The main thing is to keep storing them up and keep reviewing them so you don’t forget them.

2. The Fruit of the Blessed (vv.3-4)

Compare the fruitfulness of the two people.

Psalm 1:3–4 ESV

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.

When your life is over, what will you have to show for it?

Maybe you pride yourself on how successful you were in your career

Maybe you pride yourself on how much money you earned or how much stuff you were able to buy

Will your kids and grandkids after you care any about those things or will they say, “Well my dad or mom may have seemed great to everybody else, but I never spend time with them or got to know that side of them. They were always too busy.”

What fruit do you produce in your life

The righteous man is like a tree planted by streams of water

The streams here are probably a reference to irrigation ditches, but the same principle applies to a tree by streams of water

The climate was very dry and without the streams of water, the tree would not live, much less bear fruit

Notice there are seasons of fruitfulness. There is a growing season that leads to the fruitfulness and a lot happens in that growing season that might not be noticed.

What is God doing in your life to grow fruit in you right now?

Notice also that a tree bears fruit for another not itself. Think about the purpose of a fruit for the tree itself. God mad the tree to bear fruit to give you sustenance, but for the tree it is all about reproducing itself. It makes its seed wrapped in a fruit casing and that fruit is eaten by an animal and the seed is dispersed to make another tree.

Are you reproducing your faith in others? Is your fruit satisfying the needs of others

All that he does prospers. This isn’t mysticism or prosperity gospel. This means that all that the blessed man does that the Lord would have last prospers. It doesn’t mean that believers won’t have problems in this world. It’s actually a promise from Jesus that we will have troubles, but that we can take heart because He has overcome the world.

Psalm 1:4 ESV

4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

The description of the wicked is simple. There isn’t much to show or talk about.

They are like chaff - the outer husk of wheat that is beaten out and carried off by the wind. It provides absolutely no sustenance to anyone. It is useful for nothing.

3.The Future for the Blessed (vv.4-6)

Psalm 1:4–6 ESV

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.

Chaff is used to describe the wicked at the judgment of God

They sat in the seat of the scoffer but they will not stand before God in His final judgement.

They will not be with God’s people in the congregation of the righteous.

Notice the future aspect of this blessing for the righteous man. His reward is not necessarily in this earthly life. It is in the one to come. The future life is the one that will have eternal value.

This life is short-lived and fleeting. It will not last nearly as long as we might think or hope.

The Bible says God knows the way of the righteous. This seems obvious. Of course God knows the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. This means something more.

God looks over and sees with approval the way of the righteous. He is watching over him and his ways.

Conclusion

Life is short and we all wish we had more time. I want to leave you with a short poem to reflect on the time we have.

The Final Sunset

Golden hues paint the western sky, As day prepares its last goodbye. Shadows lengthen, stretch and yawn, Bidding farewell to life’s long dawn.

We stand in awe of beauty’s grace, As sun and earth complete their race. Memories flood like tidal waves, Of all the sunsets, all the days.

A lifetime captured in this light, Before we slip into the night. No fear we feel, no sad regret, For in this moment, all is met.

The cycle ends, yet will renew, For others’ eyes, a morning’s dew. In this final, fading glow, We find peace in time’s ebb and flow.

As we close, let me ask you if your day were to slip into night this morning, would you stand in the congregation of the righteous? Would you be named among God’s people?

There is only one way to answer this question with a yes and that is to know the ideal man that Psalm 1 points to. You must know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. You must know that He came to live the only life that is fully pleasing to the Lord and to give that life as a ransom for your soul.

Today, give your life and your allegiance to Him. Trust in His work on the cross on your behalf and be saved. That is the way to a bright future. That is the way to chart your course for the new year.

Don’t wander aimlessly if you are a Christian. Look to the map of God’s Word and find your directions there in it’s pages.