The Way Of The Godly (Thriving In Turbulent Times)
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Introduction- Holy Spirituality of The Psalms
Introduction- Holy Spirituality of The Psalms
The psalms encourage a dialogical relationship between God and his children.
The values of the psalms to the individual & to the Christian community are many:
Prayer is a person’s communion with God
Praise is a person’s longing for God & for others to to be moved with the same desire for Go
The psalms have a distinct place in Christian liturgy- the church’s manual of prayer & praise in public worship
The psalms inspire the believer with the hope of the kingdom of God- new state of justice, righteousness, & bliss
The psalms reflect the faith experience of the “community” of God’s people before the coming of Christ
God addresses both the individual & the community
The value of the psalms lies in their connection between the OT & the NT
When the creation is celebrated, it is acknowledged to be a well-ordered world. That order depends solely on God’s power, faithfulness, and graciousness. That is why, in the face of the creation, Israel can only yield in praise. But there is more to it. The good order of creation is concretely experienced in Israel as the torah. The torah is understood not simply as Israelite moral values, but as God’s will and purpose, ordained in the very structure of life. While the creation is sustained by God’s faithfulness, it is also coherent and peaceable because of Israel’s obedient attention to the way God has ordered life. Thus creation and torah are understood together, the torah articulating God’s intention for Israel in the creation. See Psalms 1, 15, 19, 24, and 119.
Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 23, chapter 2: Psalms Of Orientation, Section: Songs Of Torah
The most obvious and best-known torah psalm is Psalm 1. It surely is placed at the beginning intentionally as a prolog to set the tone for the entire hymnic collection. It announces that the primary agenda for Israel’s worship life is obedience, to order and conduct all of life in accordance with God’s purpose and ordering of the creation. The fundamental contrast of this psalm and all of Israel’s faith is a moral distinction between righteous and wicked, innocent and guilty, those who conform to God’s purpose and those who ignore those purposes and disrupt the order. Human life is not mocked or trivialized. How it is lived is decisive.
Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1984), 38–39.
Transition To Body- A Warning & An Invitation
Transition To Body- A Warning & An Invitation
Psalm 1 begins by painting a picture of two different ways of life — two paths every one of us stands between.
The psalmist opens with a warning and an invitation:
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;
In the Contemporary English Version, it reads:
“God blesses those who refuse to take the advice of the wicked or to follow the way of sinners or join those who laugh at God” (Psalm 1:1, CEV).
blessedness, happiness, good fortune, i.e., a state of joyful mind
One path leads to life deeply rooted, nourished, and steady; the other to a life scattered, unanchored, and easily overwhelmed. And the psalmist does not describe these paths in a world that is calm or predictable. Scripture speaks to those who carry heavy responsibilities, navigate changes they didn’t ask for, and hold burdens that others may not fully see.
Many of us here carry private burdens — about people we love, about choices we must make, about the uncertainty of tomorrow.
There are pressures that sit silently beneath our conversations. Even those who look steady on the outside may feel winds of stress and instability on the inside.
Psalm 1 does not begin with telling us how to fix our circumstances.
It begins by showing us where to root our hearts.
The psalm invites us to a life grounded — not in control, not in certainty, not in strength — but in delighting in the presence and Word of God.
This is not a psalm about escaping difficulty.
It is a psalm about becoming a tree that can stand in the middle of it.
Body- Godly People Are
Body- Godly People Are
Drawn to God’s Word
Drawn to God’s Word
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord…
Delight (Desire)
i.e., take pleasure or enjoyment in something
Delighting in God’s Word is not about forcing ourselves to read Scripture out of guilt or obligation. The psalmist describes a joy — an attraction — a love.
This delight comes from knowing that God’s Word is not just instruction.
It is God’s voice.
The voice of the One who knows you, sees you, and loves you.
Illustration: But Because Of The Voice…
Think of a child who cherishes hearing a familiar story, not because the words are new, but because the voice reading it is loved and trusted.
The delight is not in the book alone — the delight is in the relationship.
Application
Application
Before reading Scripture, simply pray:
“Lord, help me to hear Your love in Your Word today.”
Come as you are — tired, unsure, hopeful, longing.
Let the Word be a place of presence, not performance.
{
{
Drawn to God’s Word
Drawn to God’s Word
}
}
Shaped by Scripture
Shaped by Scripture
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
meditate, ponder, give serious thought and consideration to selected information, with a possible implication of speaking in low tones reviewing the material
Meditation is not only about comfort or emotional closeness to God — though it includes that.
Biblical meditation is about formation.
It is learning to live in the way of God, revealed across Scripture.
Jesus said in the Great Commission that discipleship means:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Knowing His teaching
Loving His teaching
Living His teaching
Meditation is how what we learn becomes how we live.
Meditation Leads to Formation — Learning to Live the Way of Christ Through the Whole Bible
Meditation Leads to Formation — Learning to Live the Way of Christ Through the Whole Bible
To meditate is to allow the Scriptures — across all their genres — to shape our thinking, our choices, our relationships, and our posture toward others.
How Scripture Forms Us to Love God and Neighbor:
How Scripture Forms Us to Love God and Neighbor:
1. Narratives show us how God works with real, imperfect people.
1. Narratives show us how God works with real, imperfect people.
They teach patience, hope, trust, and God’s faithfulness generation after generation.
When we see God stay with Abraham, Ruth, David, Mary, and the disciples — we learn how God stays with us.
And we also learn to stay with others.
Formation: We become more patient with people’s process.
2. Psalms teach us to bring our full emotional life to God.
2. Psalms teach us to bring our full emotional life to God.
Joy, grief, fear, anger, confusion — all prayed honestly.
Formation:
When we learn to be honest with God,
we learn to be compassionate with others.
3. Wisdom literature teaches us how to live well in daily decisions.
3. Wisdom literature teaches us how to live well in daily decisions.
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and James shape how we speak, work, listen, and choose.
Formation:
We learn to love our neighbors in ordinary, daily actions —
not just sentiment, but practice.
4. The Prophets teach justice, mercy, and truth.
4. The Prophets teach justice, mercy, and truth.
They remind us that love of God includes how we treat people, especially the vulnerable.
Formation:
We learn to see others with dignity and to resist participating in systems that harm.
5. The Gospels show us Jesus — the fullness of love.
5. The Gospels show us Jesus — the fullness of love.
How He touched, healed, listened, corrected, fed, forgave, and laid His life down.
Formation:
The more clearly we see Jesus, the more we begin to look like Him.
6. The Letters teach us how to love in community.
6. The Letters teach us how to love in community.
Forgiveness, patience, humility, encouragement, and shared burdens.
Formation:
The Word forms us into people who stay, who care, who show up for one another.
Meditation, Then, Is Formation Into Christlikeness
Meditation, Then, Is Formation Into Christlikeness
So when we meditate on the Bible:
We are not just learning truths.
We are being formed into people of love.
People who:
Love God sincerely.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Love neighbor generously.
18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Love even when love is costly.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.
2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
15 I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
Meditation is the path from belief to obedience,
from knowing to becoming,
from hearing Jesus’ words to living them.
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.
24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.
25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
Simple Practices to Help Scripture Form Our Lives
Simple Practices to Help Scripture Form Our Lives
Ask daily: “How does this passage guide how I love today?”
Name one person to whom you will show patience, mercy, or encouragement because of what you read.
End your reading with obedience: “Lord, show me one way to practice this today.”
Roots deepen when the Word becomes love in action.
Transition to Point 3 (Firmly Rooted)
Transition to Point 3 (Firmly Rooted)
Psalm 1 tells us the person who delights in and meditates on God’s Word
becomes a tree planted by streams of water.
Which means:
obedience does not drain us,
compassion does not exhaust us,
love does not empty us.
Because the source of all our love is God Himself.
{
{
Drawn to God’s Word
Drawn to God’s Word
Shaped by Scripture
Shaped by Scripture
}
}
Firmly Rooted
Firmly Rooted
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.
The difference between the rooted person and the scattered person in Psalm 1 is not the absence of hardship.
19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
21 Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The Lord redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
It is where their roots are placed.
Trees do not survive storms because storms are gentle.
They survive because their roots reach a source of life that does not run dry.
In the same way, our stability is not drawn from:
circumstances going well,
plans unfolding smoothly,
or life being predictable.
Our stability comes from being connected to the steady, nourishing love and truth of God.
prosper,
Application
Application
Do not measure your spiritual life by how strong you feel.
Measure it by where your roots go when life shakes.
Let God’s Word be your stream — daily, small, steady drink.
Even slow growth is real growth.
{
{
Drawn to God’s Word (Psalm 1:2a)
Drawn to God’s Word (Psalm 1:2a)
Shaped by Scripture (Psalm 1:2b)
Shaped by Scripture (Psalm 1:2b)
Firmly Rooted (Psalm 1:3)
Firmly Rooted (Psalm 1:3)
}
}
Transition To Close- Thank God For Trees!
Transition To Close- Thank God For Trees!
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.
There is a book titled, “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate,” written by Peter Wohlleben that has a chapter named — THE FOREST AS —WATER PUMP
In this chapter, Peter Wohlleben says
“thank goodness for trees. “
Of all the plants, trees have the largest surface area covered in leaves. For every square yard of forest, 27 square yards of leaves and needles blanket the crowns.43 Part of every rainfall is intercepted in the canopy and immediately evaporates again. In addition, each summer, trees use up to 8,500 cubic yards of water per square mile, which they release into the air through transpiration. This water vapor creates new clouds that travel farther inland to release their rain. As the cycle continues, water reaches even the most remote areas.
There are a few requirements for the pump to work: from the ocean to the farthest corner, there must be forest. And, most importantly, the coastal forests are the foundations for this system. If they do not exist, the system falls apart.
Scientists have studied different forests around the world and everywhere the results were the same. It didn’t matter if they were studying a rain forest or the Siberian taiga, it was always the trees that were transferring life-giving moisture into land-locked interiors.
But….
The importance of trees for streams continues even after death. When a dead beech falls across a streambed, it lies there for decades. It acts like a small dam and creates tiny pockets of calm water where species that can’t tolerate strong currents can hang out.
Close- The Tree of The Cross
Close- The Tree of The Cross
At the cross, at the cross where
I first saw the light,
And the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight,
And now I am happy all the day!
Spring of Water Welling Up To Eternal Life
Spring of Water Welling Up To Eternal Life
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Hearts With Outward Flowing Rivers Of Living Water
Hearts With Outward Flowing Rivers Of Living Water
38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
The Lamb’s River Of The Water Of Life
The Lamb’s River Of The Water Of Life
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
William Cowper (Cooper) would later write:
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
2The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away:
Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.
3Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its power,
Till all the ransomed ones of God
Be saved, to sin no more:
Be saved, to sin no more,
Be saved, to sin no more;
Till all the ransomed ones of God,
Be saved to sin no more.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Psalm 1 reminds us:
The blessed life is not a trouble-free life.
It is a rooted life.
A life nourished by love, strengthened by presence, steadied by truth.
Wherever you find yourself today —
unsure, hopeful, tired, or quietly carrying more than others may know —
God invites you to be planted near His living water.
Delight. Meditate. Be Rooted.
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
“Lord, plant us deeply in Your Word.
Let Your love be our delight and Your truth our steady strength.
Teach us to carry Your Word into our days,
so that we may become trees planted by streams of living water —
firm, nourished, and fruitful in You.
Amen.”
