The Promise of a Successful Life
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We begin our journey through the Psalms with Psalm 1, this is because this is where God intended us to begin. The Psalms were written over a 1000-year period and God gave the task of arranging the Psalms to a group of unknown Jewish editors who had recently returned from exile in Babylon. Any of the 150 Psalms could have been Psalm 1, but God led these men by the Holy Spirit to place this Psalm at the very beginning to act as an introduction to all the other Psalms.
If there is a key to understanding the book of Psalms, this is it!
With such a lofty introduction, I am excited to read Psalm 1, aren’t you?
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;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
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 wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Psalm 1 begins with a promise, “Blessed is the man...” and it ends in a warning, “the way of the wicked will perish.” The Hebrew word for blessing begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and the Hebrew word of perish begins with the last letter. With the repeated use of the word “way” the Hebrew author is telling us that there are two ways you can live your life and they could not be more opposite—they are as far apart as A from Z!
So the first thing we want to look at this morning is...
The Two Ways
The Two Ways
If you heard Psalm 1 being read without any knowledge of what part of the Bible it was from, you probably would think it was from the book of Proverbs. This is because of its contrast between the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. This is why Psalm 1 and others Psalms like it are called Wisdom Psalms.
Jesus as a devout Jew and as the author of Scripture, He was well versed in the wisdom literature of the Old Testament and used it extensively in His teaching. We heard an example of this this morning when I read from Matthew 7:12-14 where Jesus speaks of the two gates and the two ways: One being narrow, leading to life and the other being wide, leading to destruction.
Psalm 1 speaks of these two ways as leading to blessing and success on one hand and perishing and failure on the other.
It is not without significance that both Psalm 1 and the book of Psalms as a whole begin with the word “Blessed.” This signals to us that Psalm 1 and the book of Psalms as a whole are given to us to teach us how to enjoy God’s blessing. Blessing is not a word we use too much in common English. People would think you were some type of religious fanatic if you asked them, “Are you feeling blessed today?” In some English translations you will find that both the Hebrew and the Greek words we commonly find in our Bibles translated “blessed” is translated “happy.” Happy doesn’t sound as “religious” but it is actually a very good translation of this word. This is seen when we look at what the word it is contrasted with “perish” means.
Let me read verse 6 to you again:
for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
If I were to ask the average person what is meant by “the way of the wicked will perish.” Nine times out of ten the answer would be something like this: “It means the wicked will eventually die and go to hell.” However, that tenth person would point out that the text is not talking about the wicked, but the “way of the wicked!” A person’s way doesn’t go to hell, but it does perish or fail. Psalm 112 is another Wisdom Psalm and it begins as Psalm 1 does with the word “Blessed” and ends as Psalm 1 does with “perish.” Here is what Psalm 112:10 says will be the response of the wicked when they see the blessing of the righteous:
The wicked man sees it and is angry;
he gnashes his teeth and melts away;
the desire of the wicked will perish!
In other words, in the end the desires of the wicked will come to nothing. Thus, the blessed life is a life that will successfully meet these goals. Consequently, it is the happy life! It is the life each and every one of us wants!
So how can we have this type of life? Psalm 1 tells us how.
The Way of a Successful Life
The Way of a Successful Life
Let me read Psalm 1:1-2 once again:
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;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
As I read this a second time, I am sure that you noticed the clear comparison and contrast between two ways of living.
The blessed man “delights in the law of the LORD” and he “meditates on that law day and night.” As we learned last week, the Hebrew word for law is torah and its root meaning is “teaching” or “instruction.” The first thing a Jew thinks of when they hear the word Torah is the Five Books of Moses, but the second thing he would have thought of was the Five Books of the Psalms. Interestingly enough, the New Testament begins with five books of torah, the Five Books of the Gospels! You see, Acts is the second volume to the Gospel of Luke. The book of Acts begins this way:
In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,
Thus, there are three special places we are to turn to for instruction: The Five Books of Moses, The Five Books of the Psalms and The Five Books of the Gospels. All of Scripture as Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16 is “profitable for teaching,” but these three collections of five books are the “meat and potatoes” of our faith.
When a person delights in and meditates upon the Lord’s instruction, he or she is blessed with a successful life.
What does t mean to delight in God’s instruction? The author tells us by contrasting it with the way of the wicked. The author of Psalm 1 uses three words for the wicked. He called them: wicked … sinners … scoffers. Each of these words describes a person who disdains and rebels against God’s word. The person who delights in God’s law does the very opposite: They love God’s law and strive to obey it. They also meditate upon it.
If I asked you what it means to meditate upon God’s instruction, you would probably say something like this: To mediate means to silently contemplate upon God’s instruction. Now there is nothing wrong about silently contemplating upon God’s instruction, but that is not what meditation means here. Hebrew mediation was not silent, but verbal: It is the singing or reciting of God’s word out loud. The Hebrew word for meditation literally means “a low murmuring.” It is the word used in Hebrew for the cooing of a dove.
I think this is why Paul writes what he does in Colossians 3:16:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Or Moses in Deuteronomy 6:7:
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Psalm 1:1 confirms this, what are people doing when they “walk in the counsel of the wicked,” when they “stand in the way of sinners,” or when they “sit in the seat of scoffers”? They are talking! Think about how many ungodly conversations go on around us at work, at school, on social media or on T.V. Are you a part of those conversations? If you are, they are only going to bring you down and lead you to follow the wrong path.
Remember what Jesus said about the two ways? The way of destruction is broad, and many are on it. A good rule of thumb is this: If something is popular and everybody is talking about it—it is probably contrary to God’s Word! The majority of people hate God and hate His Word. This is the way it always has been and always will be. The broad way with many people on it is the way of destruction.
If you want to be blessed by God, you need to take the narrow way with few people on it. Gather together with other Christians and talk about God’s word, especially the Five Books of Moses, Psalms and Gospels!
Of course, we fail to do this consistently! All too often rather than delighting in God’s Word we disdain it, rather than seeking the company of the righteous we seek the company of the ungodly and rather than making God’s Word the topic of our conversation, we talk of worldly things. But don’t despair, the Psalms are designed to point to the Anointed One: Jesus Christ!
Christ Fulfilled the Requirements of the Way, In Order to Become “The Way”
Christ Fulfilled the Requirements of the Way, In Order to Become “The Way”
The way the Psalms point us to Christ will become clearer next week when we look at Psalm 2, but for now just notice how the Psalm 1 creates a tension of unfulfilled promises. We have a wonderful promise of blessing, but we are unable to fulfill the requirements of receiving those blessing because we are sinful. It is the tension Paul speaks of in Romans 7:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
The answer to Paul’s question is Jesus! Jesus lived the perfect life. He perfectly delighted in and obeyed God’s torah. When He died on the cross, He took our sin and He gave us His righteousness. This is what justification means. When the Bible says we are justified by faith it means that God, on the basis of what Jesus did on the cross declares us righteous—as if we had perfectly fulfilled the requirements of the law.
The ultimate standard by which to judge a “blessed life” is found in verse 5 of our text:
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
On the final Day of Judgement, the wicked will not be able to stand before God’s judgement, nor will they be able to take their place among the saints. It is on that day they will be cast out unto the place of eternal darkness and fire—to place prepared for the Devil and his angels!
It is important that we have this long-range perspective on what it means to be blessed with success. At this present time, we live in a fallen world-as a general rule we will enjoy God blessings if we trust in Jesus Christ and by His power delight and meditate upon God’s Word. However, in this world there will always be exceptions. In this life, as we will learn in the Psalms, the wicked often prosper and the righteous do not. This does not mean that we should not expect God’s blessing of success in this life, but we need to be prepared for exceptions to the rule. The Best Life will never be Now. The Best Life will be in the Future!
The important thing to remember is this: The only way to guarantee the Best Life Then, is by Trusting in Jesus Now!
Let us pray.
