"Track 1: Blessed (Psalm 1)" | 4/28/24
Psalm 1 | 4/28/24 | Will DuVal
One of my favorite “Get to Know You” questions is: “If they were making a MOVIE of your life, and you could only include THREE DIFFERENT ARTISTS on the SOUNDTRACK, who would you pick?”
Well did you know that GOD actually comes pretty CLOSE to answering that question in the Bible - maybe not THREE; but 7 or 8 - and God’s answer is the BOOK OF PSALMS. The BIBLE is essentially God’s STORY. And WITHIN that story, God has devoted one whole book - the Psalms - to serve as His SOUNDTRACK. Each of these 150 psalms that we will eventually study in the coming years (we’re just gonna cover the first 20 or so together this spring and summer) but they were ALL actually SONGS, put to MUSIC, to be SUNG by God’s people - Israel - as they retold God’s STORY. Imagine with me, watching the entire story of Scripture condensed down into a 3-hr long feature film with the Psalms serving as the musical score:
*During the OPENING scene - “CREATION” - Psalm 8 would be resounding in the background, set to an epic, full-orchestral arrangement (“O Lord… how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.”)
*As Adam & Eve walked intimately with God in the Garden, we can imagine Psalm 73 being played in a beautiful, hope-filled melody (“I am continually with you; you hold my right hand… Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”)
*But then as they turn their BACKS on God, and eat the forbidden fruit, we hear Psalm 36 being sung to an ominous & heart-breaking tune (“Transgressionspeaks to the wicked deep in his heart / there is no fear of God before his eyes. / For he flatters himself in his own eyes / that his iniquity cannot be found out”)
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And that’s just the first 5 minutes of the movie! Time fails us to walk through EVERY major scene of the Bible and imagine its appropriate accompaniment: Psalm 29 during the FLOOD; Psalm 105 during the Patriarchs; Psalm 114 during the Exodus; Psalm 137 during Israel’s Exile; Psalm 98 at Christ’s BIRTH; Psalm 22 at his DEATH; Psalm 16 at his RESURRECTION; and Psalm 2 at his SECOND COMING - it’s all here! In the Psalms!
But perhaps an even more ACCURATE way of thinking about the Psalms, is not just as GOD’S soundtrack for HIS story, but as OUR soundtrack - all those who BELONG to God - throughout our life of FAITH. There are songs of JOYFUL PRAISE - Psalm 100 - that God invites us to sing through life’s PEAKS, as well as songs of sorrowful LAMENT - Psalm 88 - that God welcomes us to sing through life’s VALLEYS. And EVERYTHING in between; the full range of human emotion and experience is touched on, right here, in the Psalms. As the early church father Athanasius remarked: “Most Scripture speaks TO us, but the Psalms speak FOR us” (in Donald Williams, Psalms, 11-12). And if I could be so bold as to AMEND that, I’d point out: they actually do BOTH. The Psalms speak both to AND for us. As commentator Willem Vangemeren puts it (Psalms, 24): “The book of Psalms is first and foremost God’s word to his people. We hear the voice of God in each psalm… This book is nevertheless unique. In it, God not only speaks to his people but also encourages us to use the language of the psalms in our… prayers and praise. [Thus,] the psalms encourage a dialogical relationship between God and his children.”
In summary, Psalms really IS the SOUNDTRACK of FAITH.
Let me give you a quick OVERVIEW of some of the important background information and context that we need to keep in mind over the next 17 weeks:
*TITLE: My MacArthur Study Bible explains: “Entitled “Praises” in the Hebrew text… the Septuagint, or Greek translation of the OT, labeled it “Psalms” (so Lk 20:42; Ac 1:20). The Greek verb from which the noun “psalms” comes basically denotes the ‘plucking or twanging of strings,’ so that an association with musical accompaniment is implied… The Psalms constituted Israel’s ancient, God-breathed “hymnbook”, which defined the proper spirit and content of worship” (John MacArthur, Study Bible, 733)
*AUTHOR?- Here’s MacArthur again: “From the divine perspective, the Psalter points to GOD as its author… [F]rom the human side, one can identify a collection of more than seven composers. King David wrote at least 73 of the 150 psalms (so nearly HALF); the sons of Korah accounted for 11 (42-49; 84-85; 87), and Asaph contributed 12 (50; 73-83). Other penmen included Solomon (72; 127), Moses (90) Heman (88), and Ethan (89). The remaining 50 psalms remain anonymous… although Ezra is thought to be the author of some.” (MacArthur, 733)
*DATE? - “The time range of the Psalms extends from Moses, c.1410 BC (Ps 90), to the… early fifth century BC postexilic period (Ps 126), which spans [almost a MILLENNIUM] of Jewish history” (MacArthur, 733).
*Literary GENRE?: POETRY. And there are a lot of interesting, distinctive features of Hebrew poetry - various parallelisms employed, acrostics, alliterations, chiasms, etc. - but all I want to point out for NOW is that the different genres of Scripture have different purposes, and thus, need to be READ and INTERPRETED differently. And we’ll discuss that more as we work our way THROUGH the Psalms…
*THEMES? - Warren Wiersbe notes (OT Commentary, 870-1): “Primarily, the psalms are about God and His relationship to His creation, to the nations of the world, to Israel, and to His believing people. He is seen as a powerful God as well as a tenderhearted Father, a God who keeps His promises and lovingly cares for His people. The psalms also reveal the hearts of those who follow Him, their faith and doubts, their victories and failures, and their hopes for the glorious future God has promised… The psalms teach us to seek God with a whole heart, to tell Him the truth and tell Him everything, and to worship Him because of who He is, not just because of what He gives. They show us how to accept trials and turn them into triumphs, and when we’ve failed, they show us how to repent and receive God’s gracious forgiveness. The God described in the book of Psalms is both transcendent and immanent, far above us and yet personally with us… He is “God Most High” and “Emmanuel” - God with us”.
Wiersbe kind of touches on there, the different…
CATEGORIES of Psalms – there’s not really a scholarly consensus on exactly how many different TYPES of psalms there are (some say as few as 5; others as many as 12) but let me offer you EIGHT categories of psalms. Throughout our study, we’ll find psalms of… (https://bibleinsights.com/types-of-psalms/; adapted) :
1) Praise (that worship God for His perfections)
2) Lament (that cry out to God for His help)
3) Thanksgiving (that thank God for His provision)
4) Penitence (that confess to God for forgiveness)
5) Royal psalms (encourage us to submit to God’s rule)
6) Wisdom psalms (encourage us to follow God’s instructions)
7) Imprecatory psalms (invoke God’s vengeance)
And 8) Messianic psalms (prophesy of God’s salvation)
(By the way, I know I’m going too fast for you to write all this down in your study journals; you can go back later and re-listen or re-READ the sermon transcript online, if it BOTHERS you to have gaps in your notes… which it SHOULD! 🙂)
*Outline?: NONE is POSSIBLE! Psalms is one of the few books of the Bible where there really is no discernable narrative flow or structure, no traceable line of argumentation or thought that we can follow. There are 5 “books” within the Psalms, perhaps patterned after the 5 books of the Law, the Torah - Genesis thru Deuteronomy. But even then, it’s hard to find distinguishing marks of each of those 5 BOOKS, much less the individual psalms within them. The Psalms seem to be *“organized”* in an almost intentionally DIS-organized fashion.
But I think that is TELLING. Taylor Swift probably gave a lot of thought to the order of the tracks on her new album. Maybe she wanted us to listen to them sequentially and they tell a story, or maybe they’re organized chronologically (by which bad breakup came FIRST) or perhaps thematically (with all the breakup songs FIRST, and THEN come all the “get even” songs - where she sticks it to the high school bully, and then STICKS it to Kim & Kanye, and STICKS it to her former music producer. (Those are pretty much the only 2 themes you’re GETTING with Taylor: break-up songs and “get even” songs).
But not only are the Psalms SO much more diverse than a Tay Tay album - like I said, they touch on EVERY facet of the human experience and the life of faith - but they are ALSO organized about as much as our faith and our emotional lives tend to be, which is to say: NOT AT ALL! One day you’re on top of the world, praising God for every last breath, and the next day you don’t even want to BE here (“How Long, O Lord?!”). This is real life, for real people, here in the real world. With real joy, AND real sorrow.
*IMPORTANCE? We’ve already touched on… but I’ll just add, as Donald Williams puts it: “Preaching and teaching through the Psalms is to rediscover the prayer book of the Lord Jesus Christ… The early church used the Psalms as the first Christian hymnbook.” (11-12) This book is SO rich, and SO important.
INTERPRETATION? While there are a few unique interpretative principles that apply only to books of POETRY in particular, at a HIGH level, like ANY book of the Bible, there are really 3 lenses through which we ought to consider EVERY psalm we will study:
1) “What did it mean TO THEM?” (original context, for the author and his audience 3,000 years ago);
2) What does it mean FOR US?” (how can WE apply this text to our OWN life of faith, today); and MOST important of all…
3) “What does it mean IN CHRIST?” (Jesus declared that ALL Scripture is meant to point us to him (Jn 5:39). So with each psalm, just like EVERY passage of Scripture we EVER study, we need consider… HOW? How does THIS psalm point us to JESUS?).
Commentaries? If any of you want to go DEEPER in your own PERSONAL study of the Psalms, at the beginning of every series, I like to give you a list of the resources I’LL be consulting and pulling from (see picture). In addition to the sermons I listen to of MY favorite preachers, and the FREE resources online - The Gospel Coalition commentary, the Enduring Word commentary.
Quick “Psalms” Fun Facts / Bible Trivia:
*Is Psalms the longest book of the Bible? Well, it does contain the most chapters of any book, but NOT the most words… [Jeremiah!]
*Longest chapter IN the Bible? = Psalm 119
*Shortest chapter in the Bible? = Psalm 117
*MIDDLE chapter of the Bible (1,189 chapters total… so #595)? Also Psalm 117!
*Most significantly: Psalms is quoted more in the NT than any other OT book - over 400 quotations or allusions! (Wiersbe, 870) Vangemeren notes (26): “The apostles established Jesus’ suffering (Pss 22; 35; 41; 55; 69; 109), his messianic claims (2; 72; 89; 110; 132), his priestly ministry (95), his identity as the Son of Man (8; 16; 40), and his coming judgment and redemption (18; 50; 68; 96-98; 102) ALL by appealing to the Psalms.”
All that to say, AGAIN: this is a REALLY important book!
So let’s DIVE IN together now! That was all your introduction to the book as a WHOLE; so now let me offer you the quickest introduction EVER to the FIRST Psalm in particular. Ready?
*Raise your hand if you want to be… HAPPY.*
EVERY hand should be raised. Studies show that 100% of people polled WANT to be HAPPY. That is actually the ONLY question you can ask, and get a universal, affirmative response.
Problem IS: most folks AREN’T happy. At least not here. According to a February Gallup poll, only 47% of Americans are “very satisfied” with their lives. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/610133/less-half-americans-satisfied-own-lives.aspx )
We all WANT happiness; less than HALF of us GOT it.
But this MORNING, we’re gonna discover where to FIND it. GOD’S gonna show us, the “Who”, “Why” and “WHERE” of happiness:
WHO is truly happy…
Why should we PURSUE happiness…
And WHERE will it ultimately LEAD us?
I invite you to STAND with me… And we’re actually gonna try something a little DIFFERENT this morning; I’m gonna invite you to read the psalm WITH me, together out loud. It’s only 6 verses….
Psalm 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.”
[This is the word of the Lord… Seated…]
The first word of the Psalms - esher, “blessed” - MEANS “HAPPY”. “HAPPY is the man…”; equally good translation.
You wanna be HAPPY? Here’s how…
#1) The PATH to Happiness, to Blessing, begins with…
*Avoiding SIN. (1)
Sin is the THIEF of JOY. Oh, it may bring fleeting PLEASURE; even the BIBLE concedes as much (Heb 11:25). But sin ALWAYS leaves you feeling empty… guilty… UN-happy the morning AFTER.
And the real DANGEROUS thing about sin is how ADDICTIVE it is; God warned Cain that “sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to MASTER you”; sin wants to OWN us; Romans 6 says before Jesus set us FREE, we were all SLAVES of sin (6:17). And the very first VERSE of Psalm 1 vividly DEPICTS for us how that HAPPENS:
It all starts with following the wrong ADVICE: The HAPPY man, the BLESSED man does NOT “walk in the counsel of the wicked”, the “ungodly”. I used the word “PATH” in your outline for good reason; that is the image the psalmist INVOKES here: he wants us to imagine we are walking through the woods, when we come to a FORK in the path, with two arrows: one pointing LEFT, labeled “PLEASURE”, and the other pointing RIGHT, labeled “BLESSEDNESS”. And you pause, and gaze down the path to the left; it’s a WIDE path, and you can hear the party music thumping, drunken squeals of delight in the distance (“Whoo Hoo!”), and you see fellow travelers just POURING past you, encouraging you to JOIN them (“Come on, it’ll be FUN!”, “Lighten UP, man; life’s too short not to LIVE IT UP!”).
And then you glance to your RIGHT. Just a SLOW trickle down that path, NARROW path. No music; you actually notice some thorns and briers along the way…
And YET: “Temporary PLEASURE… or ETERNAL HAPPINESS”. That’s the choice.
GOD says: choose WISELY. Choose carefully who you LISTEN to; all advice is not EQUAL because all ADVISERS are not equal. Don’t follow bad advice, the “counsel of the WICKED”.
Because before you KNOW it, you’ll be “STANDING in the WAY of sinners”. The person who follows the ADVICE of sinners soon finds himself standing AMONG them. Maybe you decided, “Well, it won’t hurt to at least check it OUT…” so you took a LEFT. “If it leaves me feeling empty, UN-happy, I can always change paths; I’m sure they’ll meet back up eventually, up ahead; I’ll just keep on WALKING…”
But once you see what the path of pleasure has to OFFER, you start to slow your gait. “I mean, as long as I’m HERE, I might as well check out some of the STOPS along the way…” - now you’re STANDING.
And before you KNOW it, you’re SITTING; “sit[ting] in the seat of scoffers”. Not just checking OUT the wide path, but MOCKING those on the NARROW path: “Having a good TIME over there? Those THORNS pretty FUN? You don’t even know that that path ultimately LEADS to eternal happiness! How do YOU know that GOD was the one who labeled the signs? And why would you TRUST him anyway?! If he purposely directed the path to blessedness through a bunch of THORNbushes along the way? Doesn’t seem like a very loving, TRUST-worthy God to ME!” So you sit down. You put down ROOTS, amongst the sinners and the scoffers.
God says, “That decision will cost you your LIFE! And your JOY, your HAPPINESS!” If you want to be TRULY happy, and blessed, don’t even take the first STEP down that path, to begin with!
And if you mess up and DO, then turn around and just keep on WALKING, don’t even slow DOWN!
And if you mess up and DO, and FIND yourself standing around, hanging out with the wrong crowd, then for GOD’S sake - DON’T SIT DOWN! RUN! Get OUT!
2 Timothy 2 warns us to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness” (22)
Titus 2:12 - “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions”
John Owen warned “Be killing sin, or it will be killing YOU!”
The WISE person, the BLESSED person, will steer CLEAR of sin.
INSTEAD, he… she… will cherish GOD’S WORD. (2)
The ANTIDOTE for SIN, is a sincere and HEARTFELT LOVE for God’s word.
V2 says of the BLESSED man “his delight is in the law of the Lord”.
What do you DELIGHT in? It’s very difficult to STAY AWAY from that which you DELIGHT in.
I DELIGHT in my KIDS. They bring me SUCH JOY; I want to be with them… pretty much all the TIME! I really do.
Polly and I are currently DELIGHTING in the show “This is Us”; it is HARD for me NOT to click “Play Next Episode”, after each one, cuz I just want MORE!
I DELIGHT in Chick-fil-A’s Oreo MILKSHAKES. I can’t even really conceive of the idea of reaching a point at which I’d say, “You know, that’s ENOUGH milkshake for me. I could probably slurp up just a little bit more out of here, but NAH, I’ve had ENOUGH.” Doesn’t happen; can’t GET enough. The day Chick-fil-A stopped selling the LARGE milkshake - the 20-ounce - and went to ONLY offering the little 14-ounce one may have been the worst day of my LIFE. Bottom 3, easily.
The point IS: no one has to twist your ARM into INDULGING more in the stuff you LOVE. The reason the happy person meditates on God’s word “day and night” - around the clock; CONSTANTLY - is because he DELIGHTS in it.
Psalm 1 is anonymous, but it was PROBABLY written by King DAVID. Just listen to how David describes his DELIGHT in God’s law elsewhere, in Psalm 119:
“In… your testimonies [O Lord] I delight
as much as in all riches.
I will meditate on your precepts…
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word…
My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules[d] at all times.” (14-16, 20)
And he goes ON - 176 VERSES!; the longest chapter in the BIBLE - and the WHOLE thing is just one long LOVE poem that David wrote about God’s LAW, LEVITICUS! - the book we just got done STUDYING last week, and all its 251 RULES - David says, “I LOVE ‘em! Can’t get ENOUGH of ‘em!”
WHY?! 2 reasons: First of all, cuz it’s GOD’S law. David is just BLOWN AWAY, that the Almighty, Eternal, Sovereign, Omnipotent, Transcendent, Creator & Sustainer of the UNIVERSE would deign to REVEAL himself and his DESIRES to little PEONS like us - “What is MAN, that you are MINDFUL of us, God?” Don’t you have BETTER things to worry about, like keeping the PLANETS in motion?! Keeping the SOLAR SYSTEM from collapsing in on itself? And yet here you are, taking the time to come down from heaven just to help me know what’s good for me to EAT? What to do if I get a SKIN RASH? How AMAZING! God - I LOVE you for that! For how much you CARE about every little DETAIL of my life…”
We love God’s word simply because it’s from HIM! A lot of Christians don’t “DELIGHT” in God’s word because they don’t really delight in GOD. If my wife wrote a book, an autobiography, you better believe I would READ that book. I’d be EXCITED to read it, hanging on every page! Because I DELIGHT in my wife; I want to KNOW her, as much as humanly possible. My wife is WONDERFUL. But friends: my wife is NOT GOD. Not even CLOSE! So how much MORE should we desire to know GOD, to hear from HIM, what’s on HIS heart, to internalize HIS story, HIS desires for our lives.
Because SECONDLY, God’s word brings us LIFE. David says, “I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life.” (119:93)
Jesus said, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” (Jn 6:63)
God brought forth ALL life through his WORD; he said, “Let there be… and there WAS” (Gen 1)
The Bible says God “upholds [he SUSTAINS] the entire universe by the word of his power.” (Heb 1:3)
It says God REGENERATES us - he brings us from spiritual DEATH to LIFE, we “have been born again… through the living and abiding word of God”
And God now sustains US, spiritually, with… WHAT? Wanna GUESS? ““‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by… every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”,” Jesus said. (Matt 4:4)
Brothers and sisters: God’s word is our LIFE!
May we DELIGHT in it. May we MEDITATE on it, FIXATE on it.
I wanna give a quick SHOUT OUT, to Jill Fletcher, who reached out to me last week to ask if she could get a list of which psalms we’ll be studying on which Sundays over the next 4 months, because she’s working on MEMORIZING them as we go along (Jill: whole psalm? Or just sections?). And I just encouraged her: what a WONDERFUL idea, and before I could even suggest it, she said, “And I’m gonna post in the WHMoms group to see if anyone else wants to join me.” What a WORTHY endeavor, what a GLORIOUS investment of just a small fraction of the time God has graciously given us, here in this life: to cherish His word SO much that we would commit it to our MINDS and our HEARTS. So we can keep on MEDITATING on it, long after we’ve closed our Bibles… cuz it’s [*head*] IN HERE… and [*heart*] IN HERE.
Let me commend one OTHER spiritual discipline to you as we work our way through the Psalms: try putting them in your own words. I’m not saying any of us can IMPROVE on the way GOD put it, but the reality is: ALL of our English translations are already cheapening the original Hebrew that God REVEALED it in anyway. So go to “BibleHub.com”, and pull up the interlinear Hebrew-English text, side by side, and try reworking the psalms as POEMS; that’s what they ARE, in the Hebrew. If you wanna get REALLY creative, put ‘em to MUSIC! They’re supposed to be SONGS.
I haven’t come up with the MELODY yet, or the CHORD chart, but here’s what I’ve got for Psalm 1:
Oh, to be happy, truly happy; who will be?
Those who don’t walk by the talk of the guilty.
Who won’t stand for sin, or sit with those who do,
For they love God’s instructions, with God’s law they’re consumed.
Like a well-watered tree, they bloom and they blossom.
In every endeavor whatsoever they prosper.
No so with the wicked, who like chaff blow away;
They debauch through the night, but they’re gone with the day.
And when their time’s up, and God calls their name,
Then those who are evil, knees feeble, will fall shamed.
As God grants them their wish: eternity without Him.
But the righteous God knows, and He welcomes to Heaven.
Two roads in the wood diverged; and I chose
The narrow path less traveled, life eternal bestowed.
That took me a good WHILE to work out, this week. It forced me to think really DEEPLY not just about what the text SAYS but what it MEANS, to MEDITATE, RUMINATE on it. You could do that with every psalm of this series, and I can PROMISE you would be the better for it.
Okay, #2- Now that God has shown us the PATH TO blessing, in v3 he offers us a PICTURE OF Blessing. And he kinda sticks with the woodland imagery, and depicts the BLESSED man as a STURDY & FLOURISHING TREE. (3)
V3: “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.”
Two defining characteristics there, of those who are BLESSED:
First, They are STURDY; they are “PLANTED” (the NASB translates “FIRMLY planted”). In just a moment, the psalmist is gonna contrast them with the wicked who are “like chaff that [even the tiniest gust of] wind will just blow right away”. But not the blessed; they are STURDY.
Why? Cuz they’re built ON THE ROCK. Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine [once again: it’s ALL about God’s WORD, friends. THAT is the path to life… THAT is our firm foundation. Jesus said, “But you can’t just HEAR them; everyone who…”] does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock… The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it was founded on the rock.” On ME, JESUS. On Christ the solid ROCK I stand / All other ground is sinking sand.
But SECONDLY, let’s go back to the TREE again now: the blessed man is FRUITFUL - he “yields fruit… he prospers”, FLOURISHES.
Jesus talked a LOT about FRUIT in the NT. He said, ““I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (Jn 15:5). What does he MEAN? What IS fruit?
Well, BOTANICALLY speaking, fruit is really TWO things: first, it’s the natural OUTGROWTH, the BY-product of a healthy tree. As Jesus put it: ““Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.” (Matt 12:33)
Good fruits are the RESULT of good ROOTS. Roots are your BELIEFS; fruits are your BEHAVIORS. Roots refer to where your HEART is “planted” - by “streams of living water”? Are you abiding in the true vine, who is CHRIST? - then your FRUIT, what comes OUT of your heart… and your mouth… and your HANDS, what you PRODUCE, will be good.
Colossians 1:10 calls us to “live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work”.
Galatians 5: “the fruit of the Spirit [if God’s Holy Spirit is a SEED, and it takes ROOT in the soil of your HEART, then the natural result, or SUPERnatural, as it were, the SPIRITUAL by-product] is love, joy, peace, patience…” and the rest.
But that’s not ALL fruit is. Think back to high school BIO now: What is fruit’s PURPOSE? Fruit is a tree’s means of REPRODUCTION, its MECHANISM for producing MORE trees.
God’s first commandment to us in CREATION was what? “Be fruitful and… MULTIPLY.” (Gen 1:29)
And how did God describe the explosion of the gospel that we witness in the early church, in the book of Acts? The Bible says “the word of God GREW and it multiplied.” (12:24)
Why? Because Jesus’ earliest FOLLOWERS were FRUITFUL. They were FAITHFUL to take the SEED of the word of God, the GOSPEL, that Jesus had planted in THEIR hearts, and in TURN, sow it into the lives of OTHERS. To pay it forward and make more disciples. As Paul exhorted HIS disciples: “[the GOSPEL] you have heard from me… entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2). Disciples who make disciples who make disciples who… you get the PICTURE.
This is why we’re still HERE, brothers and sisters, why God didn’t just RAPTURE us up into heaven the hour we first believed and were SAVED: because there are lots of OTHER folks in our lives - in our families, in our neighborhoods, our workplaces… in our CHURCH, at least our Sunday morning gatherings here - who aren’t YET saved! And who therefore desperately NEED that gospel seed to be PLANTED in their hearts. So WE are called to be FRUITFUL.
But it ALL starts with where you’re PLANTED. Are your ROOTS in the streams of living water… In JESUS? Only THEN will we be STURDY and FRUITFUL.
Otherwise, v4, we will be like the WICKED, who are EPHEMERAL & USELESS. (4)
The OPPOSITE of sturdy & fruitful is ephemeral (“short-lived, very brief”) and fruit-LESS. They’re USE-less, really. That sounds harsh, but that’s how JESUS put it; he said “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire,” (Matt 7:19) cuz it failed to do what I CREATED it, what I PUT it here to do; it’s USELESS.
“If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away… the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ” (Jn 15:6) What’s a NON-fruit-bearing branch good for? Firewood. That’s its only PURPOSE.
So John the Baptist warned HIS listeners to “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. [For] now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (Matt 3:8-10)
“like chaff that the wind drives away” - If fruit is that delicious and nutritious outer layer that helps protect and disseminate a tree’s seeds, CHAFF, by contrast, is the disgusting (try EATING it! It is the IN-edible) and nutritionally WORTHLESS outer husk around a kernel of corn or wheat that’s good for nothing but keeping us from actually GETTING to the GOOD stuff!
The psalmist says: Don’t be LIKE THAT!
Don’t you want your life to MATTER? To COUNT for something? ALL our lives, really, in THIS life anyway, are ephemeral, aren’t they? James 4:14 asks “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” - in the grand scheme of eternity, our lives here aren’t even a BLIP on the RADAR! So how do you make it COUNT?
By ROOTING your life in something ETERNAL. “The grass withers, the flower fades, [EVERYTHING in this life will pass away] but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isa 40:8). Plant yourself, DELIGHT yourself, in the enduring, abiding word of GOD.
Lastly, and quickly: we saw 2 very different PATHS, leading to 2 very different PICTURES of what your life will AMOUNT to, depending on which path you TAKE… and NOW, God reveals where each of those paths TERMINATES; how does it END?
Well the short answer is: “NOT GOOD”, for the wicked. If their lives here were fleeting and useless, it doesn’t get any BETTER for them in the AFTER-life, the life TO COME:
V5: They won’t even be able to STAND UP in God’s courtroom, on THEIR day of Judgment.
Nor will they be NUMBERED amongst the “congregation of the righteous”, because their names were not written in the Lamb’s Book of LIFE.
So ULTIMATELY, v6: “the wicked will perish”, and get not just what they DESERVE, but what they themselves DEMANDED: “God, just leave us ALONE! We don’t want anything to DO with you!” Ultimately, God will grant them their wish. And remove every single BLESSING, every common grace GIFT - all goodness and hope and love and joy… all laughter and sunshine, every Chick-fil-A MILKSHAKE of which GOD is the ultimate source - He’ll take it ALL away, and give the wicked their WISH: life without him. With nothing left, but God’s WRATH, forever.
BUT, the RIGHTEOUS, the BLESSED, will receive the PROMISE of their Blessing: We will receive God’s WELCOME. (6)
“For the Lord knows the way of the righteous”. Wiersbe explains (872): “The verb knows (yada) in v6 doesn’t mean that God is aware of them intellectually… Rather, it means that God has chosen them and providentially watched over them and brought them finally to His glory. [It] means ‘to choose, to enter into covenant relationship with, to be intimately acquainted with.”
It’s the OPPOSITE of how JESUS responds to the folks in Matthew 7:23 who show up at the gates of heaven flashing their AWANA ribbons and trophies… their baptism and church membership certificates… and they say, “Look what I got, Jesus! You can let me IN now…”, and Jesus said, “then will I declare to them, ‘depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you’”
Let me close by asking you a very simple question: “Do you KNOW Jesus?”
I know ABOUT John Piper - big fan - but I don’t KNOW him.
I studied at Vanderbilt Divinity School with one of the world’s leading scholars on the historical-critical study of the Gospels; she knows more ABOUT Jesus than any of us in this room… and she’s an avowed atheist who doesn’t actually KNOW Jesus at ALL.
And my greatest fear in life is that we might have folks - perhaps some of you here this morning - who could sit in these pews for the next 30, 40, 50 years, DIE, stand face to face before Jesus, and have to hear him say, “Depart; I never KNEW you.” YOU never truly knew ME.
I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet, but this psalm, that’s presumably all about BLESSING, is really nothing but a CURSE to us, at face value.
Anyone here never follow ungodly advice? Never take a stand for SIN?
Anyone here love God’s word SO much, that it stays on your mind and heart CONSTANTLY?
Anyone here evidence the fruit of the Spirit at ALL times? Yield fruit, make disciples, in EVERY season?
Is anyone here RIGHTEOUS?! Cuz THAT’s who the Lord KNOWS - “the RIGHTEOUS”.
Don’t you see: NONE of us is the Psalm 1 man. We are the WICKED, who deserve to PERISH. “But God so LOVED the world, that He gave his only SON, [the ONLY Psalm 1 man who has ever lived] JESUS, that whosoever BELIEVES in Him [and plants his ROOTS in JESUS] shall NOT perish, but have everlasting LIFE,” eternal happiness, BLESSING.