Where Do We Go From Here?

It’s hard to believe that we have already made it to our final morning here together and while I don’t have a long message this morning, I do have an important message and we are going to find this message in Psalm 1. The last 5 times that we were together, we were almost exclusively in the New Testament but now I thought it would be a great idea to go back into the Old. Where do we go from here? That’s the question that is before us today. I’ve been to enough camps to know that the week of camp is usually an awesome week of growing, of maturing, of knowing the Lord and there is all this enthusiasm at the end and then you go home. You go home and you are left sort of wondering, how do I get that back? What do I do with all of this stuff that I’ve been given this week? Let me encourage you first in this way: Don’t chase emotions and don’t chase feelings. For some of you, this week may have been a real emotional week and you feel closer to God than you have ever felt before. In some ways, that’s great! If even one of you is closer to Christ now than you were when you got here on Sunday, I will feel like I have done my job. But we don’t chase feelings. Feelings come and feelings go. We pursue Christ, we don’t chase feelings. Every day we pursue Christ. Every moment we are to pursue Christ. Where do you all go from here? In pursuit of Jesus Christ, always and forever, and you know that one day you will stand before Him and His arms will be open wide and He’ll say, “You made it! Well done, good and faithful servant!” As you pursue Christ, know that He has pursued you. He is yours and you are His and nothing in all creation will ever be able to change that. He that belongs to the Lord, belongs to Him forever. Christianity is so much more than just feeling. Christianity is about knowing. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:13 that the end goal for the Christian is: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Christianity is not about what you feel, it is about who knows you and who you know. Not just head knowledge, but to be loved and truly known by Jesus and to feel the same towards Him. My feelings change every day, probably every few hours, but I know that Jesus is the Christ, Son of the living God, and that by grace through faith, I am not who I once was, a lost sinner, but now through faith in Christ, I am a sinner saved by grace for good works that Christ has laid before me. That I know and I want you all to be able to leave here knowing that as well. Where do we go from here? Psalm 1 shows us 2 paths and this morning we all must decide which one we are going to walk. Let’s pray and then we will dive into Psalm 1.

Psalm 1 NASB95

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.

Tremper Longman writes, “Psalm 1 deliberately draws two portraits in our minds: the portrait of the wicked man and the portrait of the wise man. The question then is posed: Which are we? As we enter the sanctuary of the psalms to worship and petition the Lord, whose side are we on?” So which way are we going to walk? The way and path or the righteous or the way and path of the wicked?

The Way of the Righteous

The first 3 verses talk about the way of the righteous. You might even say that it is the blessedness of righteousness and that is exactly how verse 1 starts. The psalmist writes, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” Verse 1 is entirely negative in the sense that the writer is comparing how much better off righteousness is to wickedness. What we see in verse 1 is a contrast between the child of God and the child of the devil. Really there are only two types of people in this world: Those that belong to Christ and those that don’t. What we see in verse 1 is that if we want to live like Jesus, we can’t walk in wickedness, we can’t stand in wickedness, we can’t even sit in wickedness. What the Psalmist is saying is that if we give the devil an inch, he’ll take a mile. If we are walking in wickedness, a time will come when we will sit down and be engulfed by it. There are people in your life that you do need to avoid because they are a hinderance to your spiritual life. Now I wouldn’t say that you don’t engage these people with the Gospel. I would say that there are people in your life that are not building you up in Christ and you should not spend prolonged periods of time with them. I want to say this very carefully: We cannot afford to hang around people that parade wickedness and sin. To sort of edit a line from Charles Spurgeon, I have no desire to hang out with the person that murdered my best friend. It was sin that held Christ to the cross. Should we spend the majority of our time engaging with sin then? Absolutely not! What should we do then? Well in verse 2 we see the positive. In verse 2 we see what we should desire. As Christians, gone is the day where sin ruled and reigned in our lives. Now that we belong to Christ, the old desires have changed. Whereas we once hated the law of God and God Himself, now we love the Word of God, the Law of God, and God Himself! Psalm 1:2 “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.” Adrian Rogers says that in verse 1 we see that companions that we should shun and in verse 2 we see the communion that we should seek. The Law of the Lord in verse 2 stands in contrast to the counsel of the wicked in verse 1. What we saw last night is that everything that we need to know in order to know God is revealed in His Word. Everything that we need in order to give a defense for the hope that we have comes from what we know is true in the Word of God. Do you as a Christian allow the Word of God to shape and mold you? Derek Kidner writes in his commentary, “The law of the Lord stands opposed to the counsel of the wicked, to which it is ultimately the only answer. The psalm is content to develop this one theme, implying that whatever really shapes a man’s thinking shapes his life.” What are you allowing to shape your life? There is really only 2 things that will: God and His Word, or sin and the world. As we saw last night, the way of the world is a total contradiction! It does not work as a worldview but the counsel of the wicked rejects that. If you want to thrive in this world, the only way it can be done is through what is spoken in the Word of God. So do you know the word? Is the Word a delight to you? Do you meditate on it day and night? Now I don’t think this means that we walk around reading the Bible 24/7 but it does mean that what is written in God’s Word should always be in our minds and in our hearts. It means that as we see things happen around us, we meditate on how it relates to what God has revealed in His Word. It means that wherever we go, we go with the Word directing us because we know that is the only way to go. Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” What will direct where we go? The way of the World or the Word of the Lord? Charles Bridges once prayed, “Lord! as every action of the day is a step to heaven, or hell- oh! save me from ever turning my face away from the path, into which Your Word would guide me. Enable me to avail myself of its light, in the constant exercise of faith, prudence, and simplicity.” What happens to those that hold fast to the Word of God? What is it like for those that hold so tightly to God’s Word? Look at how that person is described in verse 3: “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.” God is the great gardener that plants the seed of faith in our lives and when we embrace that, as we grow in that, we are like a tree that is firmly planted by streams of water. This is a tree that has roots down deep to make it secure. It prospers. Salvation is entirely of the Lord and true, eternal prosperity can only come through devotion to God and His Word. You don’t want to prosper like the world. We should be very hesitant to assume that prosperity is what we should aim for. We should not buy into the idea that in order to be prosperous that we need to possess all the things that Satan tempted Christ with in the wilderness. Christ was tempted with physical goods, popularity, and the kingdoms of the world! Isn’t that what the world tells us we should want? Money, possessions, the world at our finger tips. But that life isn’t it. Only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last. Are you going to be firmly planted in the truths of God’s Word as you leave here today? What are you going to do to make sure that this Book is at the forefront of your life? Know for a fact that Satan is going to do all he can to trip you up. He is going to do all he can to get you out of this book. He’s going to do all he can to misinterpret this book for you. Find a faithful church, read good books, listen to great preaching, and ask that the Lord would continue lighting the path before you in His Word. So we see the positives, we see the way of the righteous, but quickly what about the other path? Where does that path lead?

The Way of the Wicked

Read again Psalm 1:4-6

Psalm 1:4–6 NASB95

The wicked are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.

The wicked do not truly prosper, they are not yielding fruit. In fact, the psalmist says that the wicked are life chaff which the wind drives away. Chaff is the part of the wheat plant that has no value. The part that has value is the grain and the chaff is the light, husk part of the plant that is pretty much useful for nothing. Humans can’t eat it and typically it would just be blown away or burned because you couldn’t use it for anything. The ways of wickedness is like this chaff: good for nothing. Absolutely nothing good can come from sin. In verse 5 we see that God will not approve what the wicked have done. The time will come where all sin and wickedness will be out of our presence. God will completely do away with it. The path of the wicked leads only to death and to a pain worse than death. It leads to judgement, it leads to wrath, it leads to hell. The Lord knows his people, He knows what we needs, He also knows that there is an end date for wickedness. There is an end date for sin. Judgment is coming and for some it may come sooner than for others. D.A. Carson said,

D. A. Carson Sermon Library Two Ways to Live (Psalm 1)

It’s not just that the wicked perish. It’s that their way, their patterns of life, all that they deem significant, all that establishes their identity … It all passes away.

You all are going to base your identity on something. There is going to be something in your life that will have preeminence, that will be the most important. Will you base your identity on something eternal or something that will pass away? That’s the path that is before you. That is the path that is before all of us. What’s it going to be? Who are you going to walk with? Walk with the world and you’ll end up exactly where the world is going. This world is heading towards judgment, the world is heading towards fire, this world is heading towards a grand meeting with its Creator. Are you ready for that day? Who will be able to stand when the Judge takes His place in the tribunal? Who will be able to stand before the Lord on that day when He judges the hearts and secrets of mankind through Jesus Christ? You are all going to leave here walking on a path but where are you walking and who are you walking with? There is only one option. Charles Spurgeon said, “Walk with God, and you cannot mistake the road; you have infallible wisdom to direct you, permanent love to comfort you, and eternal power to defend you.” Won’t you all this day walk with the Lord Jesus Christ? Won’t you all this day follow what God has clearly revealed in His Word? You have to go somewhere? You’re going to defend something? Won’t you let it be with Jesus Christ and His Word? Where are you going from here? My prayer is that wherever it is, it is the path of God and the truth of His Word. Let’s pray.