Psalm 1
Notes
Transcript
Psalms of Summer Series
Psalm 1
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.
1. Introduction – Over the course of the next few Sundays, we are going to be putting 2 Corinthians on hold…if you’re watching this on the day the video goes live, I’m actually on holidays!
a. So for the next few weeks, I will actually be preaching old sermons. A few years ago we went through the Psalms during the summer.
i. So for many of you, these might be a repeat…but hopefully you can glean something new out it.
1. But for some of you theses will be brand new.
b. Some of my favourite verses are contained in this book. Some of your favourite verses are here.
i. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
1. The Lord is my refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.
a. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever.
b. I could go on and on.
c. The Psalms was the hymnal of Ancient Israel and the Early Church. It is still used as a hymnal in many Reformed Traditions.
i. The psalms are some of the most loved verses in the Bible, and I believe it’s because the Psalms are filled with all kinds of different emotions.
1. Thanksgiving, praise, lament, despair, and words of wisdom.
d. There is a psalm for every different kind of mood you can have. If you’re thankful, there’s a psalm for that.
i. If you’re in distress, there’s a psalm for that. If you’re joyful, there’s a psalm for that. If you need guidance as to how to live, there’s a psalm for that too.
1. The beauty of the Psalms is that you can never have an experience in which you can’t meet yourself and God in the Psalms.
2. Messy Life – When we read the Psalms, we realize that we can come to God in any condition. The Psalmists didn’t have their lives cleaned up when they came to God.
a. In fact, they came to God right in the midst of their despair. And we can to. We don’t have to have it all figured out, but we can come to God in our pain, our suffering, our despair or depression, and we can meet with God – right in the messiness of life.
i. Psalms is a unique book of the Bible. It is poetry, and as such it uses lots of imagery, metaphors and similes. It speaks to our minds through our hearts.
1. It is classified as a book of Wisdom. It offers guidance to its readers on how to live a godly life.
a. And unlike other books of the Bible, there is no narrative or story in the Psalms. It contains words of people speaking to, crying out to and encountering God.
ii. Psalms is a book of great tension. Tension is not something we are comfortable with; but the book of Psalms is.
1. It’s a place where pain and joy, self-knowledge and self-doubt, love and hatred, and trust and suspicion break in upon one another.
3. Six Categories – Over the next 3 weeks we are going to be looking at two different types of Psalms.
a. There are actually 6 different types of Psalms found throughout this amazing book. The 6 categories of Psalms are as follows.
i. Praise, Nature, Lament, Wisdom, Messianic, Imprecatory.
1. I say we are going to look at 2 different categories of Psalms because Psalm 1 stands all on its own. Psalm 1 is a psalm in its own right, and along with Psalm 2 serves as an introduction to the whole Psalter.
a. Next week we’ll be looking at Psalm 13 which is a Psalm of Lament, and in two weeks we’ll be looking at Psalm 137 which is an imprecatory Psalm…more on that in the coming weeks.
4. Psalm 1 – And so this morning, we are going to examine this Psalm, we’ll study what it says, what it teaches us about living godly lives, and we’ll see how the points of this psalm intersect an apply to our lives today.
a. Structure – This Psalm is actually fairly easy to break down. It is a series of comparisons between the way of the godly and the way of the wicked.
i. According to one commentary I read, we can break down Psalm 1 like this…
1. A Comparison of Association – vv.1-2
a. A Comparison of Identifying Fruit – vv.3-4
i. A Comparison of Ultimate Consequences – vv.5-6
5. Associations – Look at verses 1 and 2. Note that the Psalms, the hymnal of the Bible, doesn’t begin with a song or a prayer – it begins with a Beatitude, a blessing.
a. Blessed are those…maybe an easier way to say would be, “Oh the joys of those…
i. But the Psalms does something unusually, he describes the blessing in a negative way, by using a series of 3s.
1. Is there a progression here? Does this describing a deepening commitment to ungodly living?
a. Maybe it starts with going to the wicked for counsel – for advice. It starts by walking into their presence.
ii. And maybe it deepens, to standing around with them,
a. And finally to sitting around and joining them in their mocking.
i. The Psalmist tells us that that kind of life is not blessed by God. In fact, we’ll see later that the wicked, the sinners and the scoffers will be judged by God.
1. Walking, standing and sitting with the ungodly doesn’t bring about the blessing that the Psalmist started with.
b. But verse 2 stands in stark contrast to verse 1. Verse 1 tells us what the godly do not do, while verse 2 tells us what they do do.
i. So how does one experience the blessings of God? The Psalmist says there are 2 ways.
1. Blessed are those, oh the joys of those who delight in the law of the Lord.
a. The blessed one finds delight in God’s law.
i. Now this word Law could mean the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the OT.
1. This word ‘law’ could mean a specific command or set of commands – like the 10 Commandments.
ii. But most likely the psalmist is referring to the whole written tradition of God. For Ancient Israel that would be the OT, and for us today the entirety of the Bible.
c. Let’s think about this for a bit.
i. Let’s think about what it means and what it looks like to delight in God’s Word.
1. Blessed are those who don’t find it burdensome, blessed are those who don’t read it out of religious obligation, but blessed are those who find joy and delight in reading God’s Word.
d. It is no secret that I hold a very high view of Scripture. I believe it contains everything we need for life and godliness.
i. I believe we can study it for a lifetime and only begin to scratch the surface of what it actually means for us. Most of you hold this view as well.
1. But do we delight in God’s Word? Do we find joy in reading it? Or is it a chore that we need to check off our to-do lists?
a. Do we find ourselves struck by the beauty of God when we read? Do we find ourselves in awe of God’s love for us? Do we find ourselves utterly captivated by Jesus – who he is and what he has done for us?
i. Do we take to heart and put into practice the things we read?
1. This Psalm says that the way to live a life of blessing is to delight ourselves in the written word of God.
a. What’s the alternative to walking, standing and sitting with the wicked? Complete immersion in the Word of God.
e. But along with delighting in the Word of God, the psalmist also writes that a blessed person meditates on God’s word frequently. He uses the phrase ‘day and night.’
i. John Calvin spent 11 years preaching through the Psalms. I did it as a test, and I got the response I expected. There weren’t audible moans and groans, but I could feel the reservation you had. “We can’t spend that long studying something.”
ii. We want our Bible reading and our sermons to be like our Twitter feeds – 140 characters and we move on to the next subject.
1. “Sure Michael, you can start with the Bible, but you better move on to something relevant for my life.” Sometimes our biblical attention span is like the size of a peanut.
iii. But is that meditating, mulling over and pondering God’s Word? Nope.
1. It’s like warp-speed Bible reading.
a. I think it would be great if we could spend that kind of time discussing and studying God’s and applying all its different facets to our lives today. I think we would indeed experience the blessing that the psalmist is talking about here.
iv. The Psalmist says we are blessed when we slow down, when we ponder and think over the words we have just read.
1. I believe that it’s an honour and privilege to read and study God’s Word, and so we need to take time, to think about, and really think about the things we read.
a. Oh the joys of those who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on in day and night.
6. Identifying Fruits – In verse 3 the psalmist moves on to compare the identifying fruits – or lack thereof – of the godly and the wicked.
a. Verse 3 shows us what blessed life will yield. The image is that of a tree planted by a stream, along a channel or a canal where it receives regular watering.
i. This is not the image of a tree in a forest that receives sporadic watering from rain.
1. The person who walks in the way of the godly produces fruit.
a. In its season…and that’s an important phrase and concept for us to understand.
ii. It would be easy for me to stand up here and say “If you’re blessed, reading and studying your Bible, you’ll continually produce fruit.”
1. But the reality is that’s just not true. The verse doesn’t say, “You’ll continually produce fruit in season and out of season.”
a. The says, “Produces fruit, in its season.” The truth of it is that some seasons will be more fruitful than others.
b. This blessing states a promise – that if we delight in and meditate on God’s Word fruit will be produced, it’s not up to us, but it will happen.
i. It won’t happen every day of the year, but God will produce the fruit after a necessary growing period.
1. And as he did before, the psalmist compares the fruit of the godly to the fruit of the wicked. Although the psalmist shows that the fruit of the wicked is really just chaff.
a. Unlike the well-rooted, well-watered tree of the godly, the image of chaff illustrates the absence of blessing; it illustrates the absence of life and substance.
ii. Chaff is rootless, weightless and ultimately useless.
1. The image of a tree compared to the image of chaff stand in stark contrast to one another.
7. Ultimate Consequences – And after comparing associations and comparing identifying fruits – the Psalmist ends this introductory psalm by comparing the ultimate consequences of the godly and the wicked.
a. Verse 5 states that those who choose the way of the wicked will be condemned.
i. This is something we can easily forget. We see wicked and evil people prosper all the time. The success of an immoral and corrupt business man makes it hard for us to sometimes believe this verse.
1. But the truth of this verse still stands. Sure, the wicked may prosper for a time, but we can rest assured that they will face judgment – either in this life or in the next.
2. The Psalmist warns – those who travel along the way of the wicked, are going to places that lead to separation from God and ultimately to destruction.
b. But compare that consequence to that of the godly. The Lord knows the way.
i. In our culture, knowing something is strictly a mental and intellectual exercise. Knowing facts.
1. But in Hebrew thinking, knowing is so much more. “Knowing” is a word of experience. God knows the way – because he’s been there before. He’s carved out the path. He knows every twist and every turn.
a. But knowing is also a word of intimacy – like the intimacy between a husband and wife.
i. God knows the way of the godly because he is right there, walking right beside us.
ii. The old Sunday School song is true, “My Lord knows the way through the wilderness…”
8. Application – So what does this mean for us today? How does Psalm 1 intersect with our lives today?
a. Well we could end by returning to the subject of meditation. Not the empty your mind kind, but the filling our minds kind, with the content we read from the Bible.
i. Meditation is a thoroughly biblical concept, we just have to pondering the right stuff.
1. We could return to the image of the tree and ask about how you are growing and if you see a pattern to how fruit grows in your life.
a. What season are you in? An intense growing season or a season of reaping fruit?
b. But this morning, I want to ask a very simple question. Which way are you walking on? Which path are you following?
i. We’ve explore two paths that are polar opposites. They way of the wicked and the way of the godly.
1. Are you walking, standing and sitting with the wicked, the sinners and the scoffers?
a. Are you seeking their counsel, following their lifestyle and sitting in their seats, mocking the godly?
i. Or are you walking in the way of the righteous? Do you delight in God’s word? Do you meditate on it frequently?
1. Are you bearing fruit in its season? Are you trusting that God knows the way through the mess of this life?
c. Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns his hears, in similar words to Psalm 1, that entering the kingdom of heaven is like choosing between a broad, well-traveled super highway and a barely distinguishable footpath.
i. Jesus said the incentive for choosing the narrow path is that it leads to life.
1. Yes, it is hard and difficult, the psalmists would agree with that, but as Jesus states, as the psalmist states in Psalm 1, in order to experience the blessings of God in this life and the next, we must travel the path that God himself has laid out for us.
9. Conclusion – I hope you can see that the Psalms are so much more than songs or prayer or old archaic sayings for times gone by or simply at funerals to bring us comfort.
a. These words give us advice for living, guidance on how to live godly and fruitful lives, and they challenge us to come to God, no matter how we are feeling or what we are going through.
i. Blessed, happy, oh the joys of those who walk not the counsel of the wicked, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord.
