Psalm 1

Intro

Psalm 1—straightforward—a contrast of the righteous and the wicked

Some value to instruct us in righteous living

A reminder of the hope of the righteous/doom of the wicked

Edifying enough, but a bit of a short-circuit…

What kind of Psalm is This?

Contrast of righteous and wicked

How they are shaped and what they love

The outcome of their hearts/behaviors

Their eternal destiny

Intro to Book of Psalms; Themes:

Wisdom

Righteous Living

Law/Scripture

Final judgement

Messiah?

About the promised Christ

Whole-Bible context:

Jesus fulfills all righteousness

Psalm about the ideal, righteous man must have ultimate fulfillment in him

Linked with Psalm 2:

Blessed is the man… blessed are all who take refuge in him (Anointed One/Messiah).

on his law he meditates (1:2)… the peoples plot in vain (2:1)

The counsel of the wicked (1:1)… pictured in the nations raging (Ps. 2:1-2 )

The blessed one does not “stand in the way of sinners” (1:1) …the kings of the earth must kiss the Son lest they “perish in the way”

Read together, they feel like one Psalm! (read...)

Implication:

The “blessed man” of Psalm 1 can be any human being… but is also the Anointed One/Christ of Psalm 2:

***Christ is The Blessed One and The Righteous One in whose refuge all other blessed and righteous ones find their blessedness.

***Main point: the Blessed life can only be found through delighting in God’s Law in Christ.***

The Blessed Christ

The Temptations: A Battle Over What it Means to be Blessed

Temptations in the Wilderness

We heard… blessed man delights in the Word rather than the counsel of the wicked...

40 days fasting in the wilderness...

First temptation:

Matthew 4:2–3 ESV

2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

If you are the Son of God… Implied: shouldn’t the Son of God be blessed, not hungry? Comfortable, not suffering?

Satan’s lie to Jesus and to us about what the good life is!

Jesus’ reply:

Matthew 4:4 ESV

4 But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

In Psalm 1 terms: blessed life is life lived delighting in the law of God

***Law = law codes, but much wider sense...

This is Messiah delighting in God’s Law

Leads to perfect obedience toward his Father

Second temptation: reveals and defeat’s Satan’s twisting of God’s Word… does this according to his delight in the Word

Third temptation:

Matthew 4:8–10 ESV

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”

Maintains his devotion to the Father,

Sets his face toward gaining the kingdoms of the world through a bloody cross,

Through delighting in the Word of God rather than the counsel of the Wicked One

Comparing Jesus’ life/Psalm 1… didn’t he associate w/ sinners?

Yes...

Psalm 1 doesn’t say that the blessed man doesn’t associate w/ sinners, but Doesn’t stand “in the way of sinners”

Word for “way” here means path or road, used to refer to the path of someone’s life—the way that they live

Jesus associated w/ sinners not to walk in their path, but to call them to his path

Can be seen in his interactions w/ Peter

When Peter declared that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus said:

Matthew 16:17 ESV

17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

But when Peter rebuked him for telling his disciples that he must soon suffer and die, Jesus responded:

Matthew 16:23 ESV

23 But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Peter was prescribing for Jesus the easy path to glory—the path of sinners.

Jesus instead set his mind on the things of God

On The Cross: Blessedness?

In the hour of his greatest darkness, quotes Psalm 22:1

Matthew 27:46 ESV

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Even in the darkest pit of the curse, under the Father’s judgement for our evil, Jesus lived as the Blessed One, meditating on the law in the midst of his anguish

Note: maybe this says something to us about our picture of delight and meditation in God’s Word.

We picture coffee/reclaimed wood table/pinterest worthy decor/goatskin-bound Bible...

That’s very good! Good way to build yourself up in the Word...

Sampling from Jesus: during extreme hunger/in confrontation with close friend/bloodied, dying, and in deep mental darkness

Memorizing Scripture really isn’t optional...

Young mother, new child, in over your head, (despairing) no time to slow down and meditate in quiet… [By day the Lord commands his steadfast love… ]

Driving home from very hard day, work or school… [Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob… ]

Note: sense of guilt? More explanation to come…

The Fruitful Messiah Tree

The result for Jesus: he prospers—total mission success

Because he delighted in the Word (as true human) he is a fruitful tree

His fruit came in its season

Not a formula for success

Not right away

When all accomplished

His fruit:

Victory over death

Kingdom established

Each new citizen, coming to new life, like fruit...

Our works, done in the Spirit, are his fruit

He is like a tree which cannot be killed by drought… will someday est. kingdom over all things/reign forever

***[Point # 1] Christ is The Blessed One and The Righteous One in whose refuge all other blessed and righteous ones find their blessedness.

The Blessed Believer

Not looking to merely apply the principles of this Psalm...

Looking to obey by imitating Christ as he fulfilled it

What is Blessedness?

Best seen in Christ—the glory he received in the presence of the Father through obedient suffering.

Allen Ross:

“The joyful spiritual condition of those who are right with God and the pleasure and satisfaction that is derived from that.” - Allen Ross

Or might say: [Point #2] Blessed life is one of living out our covenant relationship with God in imitation of Christ’s example… which heavily involves communing with God through his Word.

The World

But world has different ideas!

Satan’s temptation: blessed life = life free from difficult obedience/suffering

The Western ideal:

Blessed life = life of self-expression/total freedom from restraint

Blessed life = life of material comfort/financial abundance

Blessed life = life of status, fame, acceptance, approval

Our sinful flesh feeds right into these ideas

Stupid!

These escalate:

Not static people/always being formed

Counsel of the wicked = listening

Way of sinners = behaving

Seat of scoffers = identifying with

Where is counsel of the wicked found?

False teachers: saying what we want to hear… (Osteen/Richard Rohr)

Neighbors/coworkers

Social media

Not a neutral technology!

Constructed to cause you to meditate on something… programmed to cause you to stay on/will feed you what it thinks you want to hear/more likely to make you keep scrolling, click, read, watch

Why? They make more money if you stay on and see more advertisements.

Not sinful in/of itself!!!

It will tend to intensify the degree of importance which you heart places on [whatever]… (usually not the gospel) …whatever it is that you continually feed yourself through social media.

Not my purpose to go in depth here… but social media often has a powerful distorting effect on discipleship

Intensified/overinflated fears

Self-righteousness arrogance toward others

Divisiveness that comes when the gospel etc. become second-tier issues compared with whatever my social media feed has been preaching to me

Need to ask: how has it shaped me? What has it caused me to meditate on? Is it a louder voice that God’s Word?

Have I become so passionate about an issue that, while I know that the gospel is technically more important, emotionally I’m far more invested in something else?

How has it pushed me to view people of the opposite gender as objects rather than those who bear God’s image?

How has it caused me expect satisfaction in material things?

Marketing

The goal is to get you to meditate on the product:

“If only I had an Audi R8 Spyder” Every ride is a joy ride…

In Psalm 1 terms: blessed is the man who owns an Audi sports car…

Movies/shows

How has it caused me to resent the hardships which God has placed in my life, rather than walk in humble reliance w/ eyes on Him?

How has it twisted my understanding of romance and marriage:

The goal of marriage is a perpetual honeymoon, and if you don’t have that, you’ve failed

The goal of marriage is to portray Christ and his Bride + humble love and service

Illustration: my grandfather…

The results:

Idolatry/begin to believe you can be satisfied by…

False doctrine/a man-centered way of seeing things…

Fear/ “Yes I know that God is sovereign but…”

Pride/ “I’m better than those people…”

Selfishness/blessed life is about me

But how do we escape/combat meditating on the counsel of the wicked???

Surrounded by these things…

Not supposed to retreat…

What is the antidote?

The Law (vs. 2)

What does “Law” mean?

Law = instruction

The Lord’s Law most centrally = covenant document = first five books of Scripture = Torah

By implication, everything else built on the Torah’s foundation = prophets+writings (rest of OT), eventually NT

Bottom line: all of Scripture, with a focus on how it instructs us as God’s covenant people…

Remember: all Scripture summed up in Christ

No middle ground:

Either walking toward the seat of scoffers

Or delighting in the Law

Delight?

Experiencing God’s Word as a life-giving stream of water

First begins when you’re first saved…

As a source of grace and soul-reviving instruction

As a way of communing with God—“The Lord knows the way of the righteous” (vs. 6)

Meditation?

Lit. to mumble/speak in a low voice

Idea: pouring over/concentrating on/turning over in the mind/repeating/thinking deeply

Seeking to know what it means, how it confronts or comforts, to be changed

Meditation implies memorization

Day and night (vs. 2) = having the word right there in your mind, ready to be called on

Note on memorization:

Feelings of guilt?

Consider memorizing whole passages

Psalms especially meant for memory

Swap out 2-3 times a week for memory work

Read a verse 10 times, then say it 10 times

Or set aside a larger chunk once per week

Have a plan for regular recitation + prayer

Meditation naturally leads to prayer—delight in law -> speaking to the Lord of it

Meditation failures:

We naturally meditate…

Allowing other sources to have a louder/more frequent/more consistent voice than God’s Word

Dwelling on what is fearful

Dwelling on material things until…

Dwelling on bitter thoughts…

What kind of counsel comes from the Word? [What does the seat of the righteous look like?] Blessed life is:

Life of humility, love, service, suffering = in imitation of Christ

Life of worship toward God and faith in his promises

Blessed life = [Point # 2] living out our covenant relationship with God in imitation of Christ… which heavily involves communing with God through his Word

The Result of Walking in the Path of Blessing

What is result of this kind of living?

Like a tree by streams of water (vs. 3)

water = the vital source of life for a tree

law of God = vital source of strength for believer

w/o water, leaves of a tree begin to wither

w/o the Word, spiritual vitality of a believer begins to wither

with the Word, a believer is like a tree permanently planted by a stream, which drinks up the water of that stream and so flourishes and produces fruit to God’s glory

Yielding fruit

What fruit?

Growth in conformity to God’s Law

Growth in communing w/ God

Growth in Christlikeness

When?

In season = not automatically

Not a formula!

As Christ/so us

Fruitful tree picture = “In all that he does, he prospers.”

Prospering in holiness

Prospering in seeking God’s kingdom and righteousness

The opposite picture: Chaff—worthless leftovers of the wheat harvest, which the wind would blow away.

The Psalms as Christian Worship: A Historical Commentary 2. Windblown Chaff v. 4

Chaff, in contrast to a fruitful tree, has no eternal life, no worth, no stability, no place, and no roots, and cannot endure God’s sifting wind of judgment when it blows.

***Ultimately, the righteous are those who have been given new hearts by God, who teaches them by his Spirit to delight in his law. Therefore, they bear fruit of righteousness up until eternal life. The wicked, who remain God’s enemies, instead end in God’s judgement***

***Yet, there is also a sense in which, as a believer, you live out your identity to a greater or lesser extent. And the degree to which you delight in God’s Word is the degree to which you experience life as a tree planted by streams of water; the degree to which you ignore God’s Word is the degree to which your life can begin to feel like chaff.***

***To put it another way:

In one sense, this Psalm speaks to us about the realities of two kinds of people: the saved, who delight in God’s word and are like trees by water, and the lost, who spurn God’s Word and are like chaff

In another sense, the Psalm urges believers to lean hard onto the Word of God, so that they can live as fruitful trees to God’s glory and for their own flourishing as his people.

The Final Destiny of the Blessed and the Wicked

Last two verses = very definitely about that first sense: two kinds of people—the saved and the lost

Speak in terms of eternal destiny (mostly)

[read vs. 5-6] The wicked will not stand!

The eternal congregation of the righteous will stand forever—b/c they are known by the Lord

The wicked will not be able stand in it—they will be removed by the justice of God

This thought placed at the intro of the book of psalms

You’re going to get to other psalms [42] with no definite sense that the wicked come to ultimate justice

You’re going to go through points in your life…

There will come a day of judgement—the wicked will not be able to stand…

The Way of the wicked will perish, and they will perish with it

Conclusion

A word of relief to us: God will one day make all wrongs right: God will one day make the world again into a place of worship, holiness, and joy, untarnished by the sin of his enemies.

But then, if you are here and have not yet trusted in Christ the vital question is this: how can I be found among the blessed and not the wicked? How can I be among those known by the Lord, and not among those who perish forever? You need Christ, who fulfilled this Psalm.

And if you are a believer already, please remember: you cannot afford to short-circuit this psalm when you try to live it out. You need Christ, who fulfilled this psalm.

How?

When none had hope of truly fulfilling this psalm, due to the darkness of our hearts… Jesus fulfilled it for us.

Jesus is the Blessed One—the one truly righteous man, who fully delighted in the law of God, obtained this blessing for us his people.

Then, taking on himself the darkness of the guilt of our sin, he has given his own record of righteous—a free gift of grace--to all who trust in him.

The result: God counts us who are in Jesus by faith as if we had lived Jesus’ own righteous life.

Jesus, having defeated death and ascended to the right hand of the Father, poured out the Spirit on us, uniting us to himself and teaching us to delight in God’s Word, which shapes us to live like Jesus in righteousness.

So (fellow believers):

FIRST, we take comfort in what Jesus has done for us, fulfilling the righteousness of this psalm and thus redeeming us and giving us an inheritance of eternal life which we cannot lose.

THEN, in gratefulness, by the Spirit’s power, we seek to delight in the law of God in imitation of Christ, to the glory of God.

How do you cross over from being among the wicked to being among the blessed, in Christ?

Repent of your sin.

Reading through the Psalms you come to psalm 32 [blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven… ]--blessed life not so much about a perfect record of righteousness, but about a lifestyle of confessing and turning away from sin

This lifestyle begins with turning from sin

Turn to God in faith

Ps. 14 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob…

***You need his help, his mercy to grant you forgiveness in Christ

Trust in what God has done in Christ to reconcile sinners to himself...

***[Main point]: the Blessed life can only be found in delighting in God’s Law in Christ.***