Psalm 1 - Trees and Chaff

Turn to Psalm 1

A word about the Psalms and their impact

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They teach us about the importance of justice and ultimately that God is the one true and righteous judge and he will establish his Kingdom of Righteousness

So the Psalms are always timely, and throughout the rhythm of the preaching year I want us to spend time each year diving into this storehouse of treasure we call the Psalms.

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Throughout these summers I’ll be endeavoring to preach each psalm in its context, but also to preach Christ from the Psalms.

Allow me to give a quick word about the legitimacy of preaching Christ from the psalms. First let me turn you to the words of Jesus in Luke 24

Luke 24:44 ESV

44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

So 1) Jesus himself understood that the Psalms spoke about him.

2) Psalm 1 & 2 signal for us to look for coming Messianic King who will be the only truly righteous man of Psalm 1.

Faithful Doorkeeper

Sydney Greidanus: “Psalm 1 and 2 together as introduction to the Psalter introduce two major themes of the Old Testament: ‘law and kingship, conditional covenant and unconditional promise, Sinai and Zion.”

3) Although we must interpret the psalms in their original context, we must also see them in the light of the larger unfolding context of all of Scripture, and the New Testament authors help us to see and interpret many of the psalms Christologically.

For example, turn to Hebrews 1 in your Bibles

Hebrews 1:5 ESV

5 For to which of the angels did God ever say, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”?

Hebrews 1:8 ESV

8 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

Hebrews 1:13 ESV

13 And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?

So for those three reasons, we’ll make our summer in the Psalms a summer to cherish Christ in all of Scripture as well.

One other important word of introduction to our series. Translation. I prefer the way the Psalms read from the English Standard Version.

At LBC, we kind of have two recommended translations. We love the CSB and use it frequently. We also love the ESV and will use it also.

Nonetheless, I’ll be reading from the ESV this morning, and I invite you to stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s Word.

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

The title of today’s message is Trees and Chaff. I chose that title because I wanted to emphasize the imagery that we see in Psalm 1. The psalms, as you know, are Hebrew poetry. And this psalm in particular uses figurative language to depict the two kinds of people that are in view.

You see, I could have titled this psalm: the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. Or I could have chosen a title like “A Meaningful Life vs a Meaningless Life.” But I want us to leave today thinking heavily about the imagery the psalmist gives us.

Our Lord Jesus was a masterful teacher like this. He also used imagery that everyone understood and interacted with on a daily basis to teach in parables and to create impactful messages that stuck with people in their day-to-day life. Now, I know that we don’t all deal with chaff on a regular basis, but we do have the privilege of seeing trees on the regular. And so, when you see a tree I pray you’ll think about what it means to live the righteous life of Psalm 1 and then, maybe when you’re driving out on one of our beautiful country roads and you see some grain, you’ll think about the frivolous and weightless life of the wicked.

So my goal today is to persuade you to live like a healthy tree - by delighting in God’s word and spurning all sinful influences. That is the way of wisdom portrayed in this psalm.

When I was sharing the Psalms with you, I would quite often refer to the Treasury of David

(story of how I received them)

In the end of every chapter he gives “hints to preachers.” I’m no dummy - I’m gonna take the hint and run with it. Here’s our outline today for the image of the tree... thank you Charles.

For the fruitful tree of verse 3, we’re going to look at

Where it grows;

How it came there;

What it yields; and

How to be like it

Then we’ll look at the chaff of verse 5 (and this part of the outline is original to yours truly). We’ll see

How it blows;

Where it grows;

What it knows; and

Where it goes

So let’s look first at

The Fruitful Tree

The psalmist says that a righteous person

Psalm 1:3 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.

SO let’s look first at where this tree grows

Where it grows - by streams of living water

We see clearly in verse three that the picture is that the tree is by streams of living water.

What a beautiful picture for our minds to contemplate. This tree has everything it needs for nourishment - living water means the water is moving, and constantly refreshing this righteous tree of a person.

So it is with the Christian life - we know that to grow, we must be nourished. So I ask you - if you are a believer, are you being nourished by streams of living water? The comparison is being drawn in verse 3 on the basis of what was just said in verse 2:

Psalm 1:2 ESV

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

It’s no small leap to see that the nourishment a Christian needs to become like this tree is the nourishment of the law of the Lord - the Word of God!

But then we come to see this detail in the text - the tree is not native to this living water location. Look secondly at

How it came there - it was planted

It is a tree that has been planted. The Hebrew here gives the sense of a transplanted tree. One that has been uprooted and placed into a nourishing environment. You see it’s one thing to have all the qualities of a person who shuns the wicked people in verse 1 on the one hand, but on the other to not DELIGHT in the word of God! There are PLENTY of so-called “GOOD” people who don’t do wicked and bad stuff, but they have not been transplanted out of the kingdom of darkness (as Colossians put it) and into the kingdom of light.

There’s another aspect of this metaphor that draws our attention to an outside actor - this tree IS PLANTED. That passive verb is sometimes called the “divine” passive when you study the Bible, because the obvious question is “WHO planted it?!” and the obvious answer is “ GOD did it!” In the book of Jonah the Scripture says Salvation belongs to the Lord! When you start to get all proud of your nice long branches and the fruit on your limbs, don’t ever forget that you had a divine gardener who transplanted you and nourished your soul. God’s grace shines through when we consider how this tree came to be by these streams of water.

But then, thirdly, we see what this tree yields...

What it yields - its fruit in season

The rest of verse three says - whatever it does prospers! The prosperity mentioned is not like the prosperity gospel - like just become a righteous tree-like individual and everything you touch will turn to gold.

No, the easiest way to think about this is to think about what it means for a TREE to be prosperous! Well, that means it yields FRUIT! Fruit of righteousness - like the fruit of the Spirit! - ABSOLUTELY. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control! These things will show up in a righteous person’s life. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we’ll also see the fruit of our transformed lives in the spread of the gospel to others! That is a PROSPEROUS tree! Fruitful!

There’s another aspect of this fruit-bearing worth looking at. It yields its fruit in season. It’s timely, and it doesn’t wither even in dry times. We know that it won’t because of its constant connection to the nourishing source of God’s Word.

Rock solid Christians in your life. They’re the ones that don’t get rattled by too much. I dare say during these times we’ve gotten to see peoples’ true nature even more - when the stress is on, when there’s a drought all around - Rock solid Christians that are like this fruitful tree keep on keeping on. They aren’t shaken by much at all.

So it yields fruit - in season - and it doesn’t wither during hard times. Which begs the question: how can I be like that tree!?! I want to be steady in my life of faith. So we ask fourthly, how can we be like that tree?

How to be like it - see verses 1 & 2

You can see now why I went to the tree and the chaff, because really they draw the picture of what the rest of the psalm is about. When verse three begins “he is LIKE a tree....” it’s drawing comparison to what has been defined about the righteous person in verse 1-2.

So let’s re-read these verses:

Psalm 1:1–2 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.

This just goes to show us how important definitions are. Biblical faith and life are NOT THAT but THIS, the psalmist says. That contrast draws for us in relief what the life of the righteous person looks like.

The first word of verse 1 could also be translated “happy.” It’s actually in the plural in Hebrew, so it denotes an intensity of happiness or blessedness. O the blessednesses of the person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

If you want to be like the fruitful, righteous tree - DON’T DO THAT - spurn those sinful influences. So we negatively spurn sinful influences, but positively, and we referred to this earlier - we must delight in the law of God and meditate on it all day.

It’s like a computer running operations in the background - we are to be constantly chewing on God’s word and ruminating on it. In the most literal sense that word “meditate” means to murmur or to recite it aloud. Is God’s Word constantly on your lips? One way to do this is to memorize God’s Word - and have it constantly with you at every turn.

So that is a full look at the way of the righteous pictured by the fruitful tree, but as you know this psalm is not only about the righteous man, it contrasts the way of the righteous with the way of the wicked.

Jesus himself picked up on this two-fold contrast from Psalm 1. In fact, during Jesus’ sermon on the mount, he used that same first word of Psalm 1 to begin his instruction -

Matthew 5:3 ESV

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And on Christ went from those beatitudes...listing as series of contrasts between two gates, two roads, two types of tree with their two types of fruit. He preached about two houses with two foundations. In this way, Christ’s sermon on the mount is a full exposition of the contrast we’re studying today in Psalm 1 between the tree and the chaff.

Trees are weighty - Chaff is weightless

Trees are long-lasting - Chaff is temporary

Trees bear fruit - Chaff is worthless

Trees withstand storms - Chaff is tossed around with a slight breeze

So we turn now to look at the chaff of verse 4

The Weightless Chaff

And we see first

How it blows - with the slightest bit of wind

Verse 4 says:

Psalm 1:4 ESV

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

We don’t need to look very hard in our day to see this parable play out. All too often it seems as though secular society is simply checking to see which way the wind is blowing to decide morality these days. Instead of being rooted in the nourishment of God’s word, the wicked chaff is weightless and lacks any sense of moral grounding. You may have heard the saying about relativism - it’s when you have your feet planted firmly in mid-air. This is how the chaff blows - with the winds of social morality instead of the unchanging law of God.

But then we need to consider something that isn’t abundantly obvious in our text today, but is true in the broader context of Scripture - and that is where the chaff grows.

Where it grows - amongst the wheat

Jesus teaches in the gospels that the wheat and the tares are allowed to grow together until the day of judgment. Chaff will always grow right along with the wheat. Now in the case the contrast in Psalm 1 is between a tree and the chaff, but to make the point, consider Psalm 37:35

Psalm 37:35 ESV

35 I have seen a wicked, ruthless man, spreading himself like a green laurel tree.

In Psalm 37, the impression you get is that sometimes the wicked person looks just like a tree! Do you see the point - there are times when we may be deceived into thinking that a person is a person of righteousness, when in fact their heart is sinful and wicked. The chaff always grows amongst the wheat.

Charles Spurgeon commented: “All our congregations upon earth are mixed. Every Church has one devil in it. The tares grow in the same furrows as the wheat. There is no floor which is as yet thoroughly purged from chaff.” - Spurgeon

So the chaff grows amongst the wheat. But we can learn more about the chaff from the beginning of Psalm 1. We see in verse 1 what the chaff knows - it knows sin.

What it knows - sin

Look at verse 1 again

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 chaff knows the pathways of sin. It is the familiar way for them. They dwell in it, sit in it and give advice on how to participate in it. That’s what counsel is. You don’t counsel someone on something you don’t know about. To counsel is to give someone advice. The wicked person knows the way of sin enough to give advice on how to participate in it.

Now we know from Scripture that this comes naturally to all people. We don’t need instructions on how to want our own way and not God’s way. Ask any parent of a two year old! The psalms also teach us that we are conceived in sin - we are sinful by nature of our union with the Adam. So we are not surprised that the wicked person knows sin, but we must be reminded that sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world that he created - not BEING or DOING what he requires in his law. So the chaff are sinners by nature of their disobedience to the law and their rejection of God.

And this brings us to our last point about the weightless chaff - that is…WHERE IT GOES

Where it goes - away from the congregation of the righteous

Verse 5 says

Psalm 1:5 ESV

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

The reality is that one day the wheat and the chaff will be separated. When God judges the hearts and intentions of mankind, he will gather the righteous into his assembly and the wicked will be cast out.

Spurgeon said: “in the general assembly and church of the firstborn above, there shall by no means be admitted a single unrenewed soul. Sinners cannot live in heaven. They would be out of their element. Sooner could a fish live upon a tree than the wicked in Paradise. Heaven would be an intolerable hell to an impenitent man, even if he could be allowed to enter; but such a privilege shall never be granted to the man who perseveres in his iniquities.”

If you are here today and you are a chaff growing amongst the wheat, you may be fooling your friends, you may be fooling your family, you may be fooling your pastors, but friend, let me remind you will not fool God, and at the day of judgment Matthew 3:12 will ring ominously true for you:

Matthew 3:12 ESV

12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Psalm 1 ends:

Psalm 1:6 ESV

6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The knowledge of God [spoken of in verse 6] involves not only an objective knowledge about the righteous but also a subjective relationship with them, assuring them that he cares for his own, protects them, and will reward them.

Friend, let me ask: does God know you this way? You may wonder “how can it be that the God of the universe would enter into a relationship with a sinful person like me?! If you’re asking that question, I have GOOD news for you today. The answer is Jesus Christ. God’s love and knowledge of sinners like you and me is not based on your righteousness or my righteousness. It is based on the righteousness of Jesus Christ and his substitutionary atoning death on the cross. If you put your faith in Jesus you receive his righteousness and he pays for all your sin - past present and future.

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

You see, when you step back and consider Psalm 1, no human being that has ever lived except one fits the description of the blessed man.

Augustine, the great North African theologian of the fourth century, says boldly about verse 1, “This is to be understood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” No other man has lived up to Psalm 1:1.

Harry Ironside, the Bible teacher, told of a visit to Palestine years ago by a man named Joseph Flacks. He had an opportunity to address a gathering of Jews and Arabs and took for the subject of his address the first psalm. He read it and then asked the question: “Who is this blessed man of whom the psalmist speaks? This man never walked in the counsel of the wicked or stood in the way of sinners or sat in the seat of mockers. He was an absolutely sinless man.”

Nobody spoke. So Flacks said: “Was he our great father Abraham?”

One old man said, “No, it cannot be Abraham. He denied his wife and told a lie about her.”

“Well, how about the lawgiver Moses?”

“No,” someone said. “It cannot be Moses. He killed a man, and he lost his temper by the waters of Meribah.”

Flacks suggested David. It was not David.

There was silence for a long while. Then an elderly Jew arose and said, “My brothers, I have a little book here; it is called the New Testament. I have been reading it; and if I could believe this book, if I could be sure that it is true, I would say that the man of the first Psalm was Jesus of Nazareth.”

Jesus is that man, of course. He is the only perfect man who ever lived, and he is the sinner’s Savior. It is he who stands at the portal of this book to show us the way to live a truly righteous life: one that delights in God’s Word and spurns sinful influences. Put your trust in Christ today, and be transplanted by streams of living water. It will be our joy to watch you grow and mature and see the fruit you will bear in due season. And most importantly, when the day of judgment comes, you will stand - dressed in the robes of Christ’s righteousness - known and loved forever by the God of the universe.