Psalm 1

Intro

Imagine for a moment that you are on a journey to a wonderful place. It’s a lovely place, it’s the best place that you could ever imagine.

Now, you are on that journey, but how are you going to get there?

You have two paths that lie before you one that is wide open and relatively flat, and there are lots of people going that way.

The other is a narrow track that goes up a hill disappearing into overgrown scrub, and you’re not quite sure if anybody uses it any more.

How do you choose between the two options? How do you decide if you’ll take the broad open road, or the narrow track?

It depends on the destination! Where does each road lead? You need to choose the path that will get you where you’re going!

If I want to go to Melbourne it’s no use getting on the highway and heading for Bairnesdale, it’s the wrong way!

The Psalm that we’re looking at today is like God’s road-map for life. It lays out two different paths, that lead to two different destinations.

One is the way of Life, the other the way of Death.

One of Blessing, one of cursing.

2 ways to live.

For children and adults alike, this Psalm invites us to chose the path of Life through delighting in Lord and worshiping Him with our whole life!

If you’re sketching a picture this morning, perhaps you can draw the way that this Psalm describes the two different options. If you’re taking notes, see how many different descriptions there are for the two different options.

Psalms Intro

We’re starting our series in the Psalms, and we’re starting at the start!

We won’t be going through every psalm,only a selection of Psalms. But Psalm 1-2 are the Introduction to the rest of the psalms - they set the stage for the rest of the book.

This is a collection of Songs & prayers - it was collected over time from various authors like King David, Asaph and the Sons of Korah. It became the hymn book of Israel. For those of you who’ve never experienced the sensation of having to look up song lyrics in a book, consider it a song book for worship.

As you go through the Psalms and you consider that these were used to praise God, it won’t be long before you’ll find things we wouldn’t normally say. So we will have some serious questions to answer: Should I pray this psalm? Are these relevant anymore?

We’ll answer these questions in more detail as we return to them week by week, but the short answer is yes, we should pray and sing them, and yes they are relevant.

You will see that the Psalms are, like the rest of the Bible, pointing to Jesus. The whole book of Psalms is Messianic! It finds it’s fulfillment in Jesus!

We find the Psalms to be even richer than the ancient Jewish people because we know the reality of these Psalms in Jesus Christ!

So Jesus acts as our worship leader as we come to the Psalms, we can use them to the fullest to praise God and remember his works. There will be ups and downs: triumph and lament, praise and pleading, judgment and mercy.

We’re staring in this simple Psalm 1. Along with Psalm 2 they set the stage for the Psalms as a whole.

The Blessed

As I’ve already alluded, this Psalm basically lays out two ways of life. Two types of people. And depending on which you are, will determine the outcome for you. The two types are called The Blessed on one hand, and the wicked on the other.

So we’ll look at them in turn.

Starting in verse 1, what does it say about the Blessed?

Psalm 1:1–2 NIV

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

So here we have a description of the Blessed man. It describes the pattern of life.

Now this literally says “blessed is the man.” The NIV thinks they’re being helpful by messing with the translation. But in our world that has gone crazy on gender stuff, we’re much better equipped if we face the plain meaning of the text and understand it, rather than cover it over.

Hebrew, like English, uses the “male” terms at times to refer to a general person. Before the tide of gender neutral language nonsense it was widely understood that “man” was a term for our race, like mankind or humanity. And in general use when gender wasn’t important, the word “man” just referred to a generic person. Same Goes here, gender is not the issue, this is just referring to a generic person.

You should feel sorry for the men, because they have to share their gendered words!

So yes, this is “gendered” language, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of. So I may be talking about this generic person as a “he” or “the man” but in this case it’s not exclusionary, it just a generic person, man or woman.

So, this “man” is described but what they don’t do. It is put in the negative.

There are three things he doesn’t do:

Walk

stand, or

sit, with the wicked.

These three things are a kind of progression, first you walk with someone, then you hang about with them, then you recline with them. But the Blessed person doesn’t progress down this line.

You will not find them sitting in the company of those who proudly and arrogantly proclaim speaking down to others, because you will also not find them standing with sinners, or even walking with them.

The idea of walking in step with the wicked carries with it the idea of taking their advice, consulting them on their thoughts. And that’s were it starts folks!

If you would be blessed, start by not heeding the advice of the wicked! Don’t listen to the counsel of those who are opposed to God!

If you would be blessed, Fear God! That is the beginning of Wisdom! Turn to Him and listen to what he has to say! And that’s what happens in this Psalm!

Blessed is the one who delights in the law of God, and who mediates on that Day and night! They’re not heeding the advice of sinners, they are listening to God and dwelling on His word!

Now don’t let the word Law here scare you off. It is the word “Torah” which is often used to refer to the first 5 books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Now if you read those books you will find lots of laws. “Thou shalt...” “Do this, not that” but you will also find lots of stories about how God had rescued His people, entered into a covenant and promised to bless them.

So to delight in God’s Torah meant delighting in the promises, the covenant and commands that God had given. And no wonder he found delight! This was the story of redemption. This was the place where God gave them commands that lead to good worship and good living. It was a road-map to holiness, civil order and prosperity under God’s blessing. Who wouldn’t want to delight in that?!

The blessed man meditates on these things, all the time, day and night!

Would you be blessed?

Reject the counsel of the wicked, disentangle yourself from the company of sinners and mockers.

Get into God’s word. Delight in it! All of it, not just the easy to read bits in the NT, and a few feel good passages from the OT Stories. Meditate on all of it, and make a practice of it. How will you do it? You have great resources at your fingertips!

You have a myriad of translations and cheap access to the written word read it!

You have countless Bible software apps, the church has even supplied you with access to apps with reading plans and whatnot.

Listen to an audio-book of the bible.

Read the Bible out loud to others.

Fathers, how will you help your children to delight in God’s Torah? You need to teach them, you need to show them how to do it!

Fathers, how will you help your illiterate children meditate on God’s word before then can read? Read it to them, Sing it to them! With the Ba-ba-doo-ba-baas left in!

This is the road to blessing from God for you and your children!

What is the outworking from God in the blessed man’s life? What is the results? Look in v3:

Psalm 1:3 NIV

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.

The results are clear - the blessed person is steadfast and fruitful. They are like a tree that is continually supplied with water so that it is healthy and growing. We know all to well in Australia about the effects of trees that go without water, they wither and die, but not this one!

It produces good fruit at the right time. When it is needed and expected. A fruitless fruit tree is useless, but not this man, he fulfills his purpose of fruitfulness.

The blessed man prospers in everything - this means that he brings benefit. It doesn’t mean that he has the best job or the biggest house, but it means that he thrives and it brings positive benefit to him and those around him.

The factory settings. We try an improve things with our self help books and our seminars and our professional counselors and our schools and our godless laws and our covid tyranny. There are a great many people who are trying very hard to bring about a life of blessing, but here we get it straight - go back to the factory settings.

How did God design us to live?

Reject wickedness - Listen to Him - and live. This is the path to prosperity. This is the path to fruitfulness! This is the path to blessing!

Do you believe this?

I’m serious. You may have been a christian for many years, but I suspect your Christian faith may be getting crowded out by all the things the world has to tell you about how to be blessed.

One of the easiest lies to believe is to think the path to blessing is by becoming a consumer.

But here we see being the Blessed one means being fruitful, it means thriving off the back of knowing God via his word.

Get back to basics - God will show you how you can be blessed. Live in accordance with his design!

The Wicked

Lets turn and see the opposite side of the coin. If that’s what the Blessed are like, what’s the opposite?

Psalm 1:4–6 NIV

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Unlike the sturdy fruitful tree, the wicked are chaff.

Chaff is the useless waste left after grain is threshed. It is of no good to anyone, and is so lightweight that the wind just picks it up and disperses it. It’s gone.

This is what the wicked are like - lightweight, useless and gone before you realize it.

To drive home the point they can’t stand in judgment. Not that they literally can’t stand but rather, like the euphemism, “they don’t have a leg to stand on” they can’t stand their ground when they face judgment.

This seems to be an allusion to the Great Judgment at the end of time, but the same principle could apply to other earthly judgments like the Nuremberg trials. When the wicked, that is cosmic criminals, those who have transgressed God’s laws are face to face with the allegations against them - they will fall.

They will not be joining the righteous throng - the Church.

This is the results, the outcome of their way of life, it naturally leads to destruction. They will die a true death. They will perish.

However - the LORD is watching over the righteous. They will not be destroyed!

The Man of God’s Own Choosing

When we do the sums, we see that we’re all wicked. All of us have sinned, and made a practice of sinning.

So how can we ever hope to be in the category of righteous and blessed?

God picks his own people up and makes them righteous. They can’t manage it themselves, he has to act.

He sent Jesus to live the life we should have lived. He was without sin.

He paid for our sin with his perfect life.

Now he will clothe in righteousness anyone who asks for it! He will Justify his people.

Singing this Psalm

(conclusion)

Jesus as the One who leads us in Worship

Sing the truth, even as we seek to embody righteousness and reject wickedness

Only way to embody righteousness full in through Jesus

Put him “on” - walk in faith.

Pray the Psalm