Psalm 1

3/20/22

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Sermon Transcript

Good afternoon. Thank you, Brock. You sang two of my favorite songs, “More About Jesus” and “Give Me the Bible.” Love those songs. Please open your Bibles to the first Psalm.

I want us to look tonight at the book of Psalms. If you’re like me, you love reading and studying the book of Psalms. Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “It is worthwhile to have a storm of abuse once in a while for one reason, to read the Psalms.” Another said, "The book of Psalms contains the whole music of the heart of man swept like a harp by the hand of his maker. One could preach a lifetime of sermons about the love of God, the judgment of God, the mercy of God, the beauty of his word, the reign of Christ without ever leaving the pages of the Psalms. And my goal tonight is for us to look at the entire book of Psalms.

Now before you start checking your watches and looking for the exit, let me tell you it’s just going to look at an introduction to the Psalms. But you know, that task is harder than it sounds. How can I provide an introduction to a book like the Psalms? How can I find the themes that run throughout a hundred and fifty Psalms? How can I tie them all together into a single sermon?

Well, the solution, as usual, of course, is to let the Bible answer that question. And the Bible does answer that question with the very first Psalm, Psalm number one. For an introduction to the wonderful book of the Psalms, we could choose no better Psalm than the very first one. And I don’t think it’s an accident at all that it’s the very first one.

It has long been noted that the first Psalm serves as an introduction to all the Psalms that follow. I think a case can be made that the first Psalm is foundational to understanding the whole book of Psalms. In musical terms, Psalm 1 is the aria followed by a hundred and forty-nine variations. The themes in this first Psalm carry on throughout the remainder of the book.

One commentator described it this way, "The very first Psalm stands at the beginning of this book like a signpost giving clear guidance regarding the way in which all God-fearing people should conduct their lives. So let’s look at this first psalm while keeping in mind that although it’s just six verses long, the themes that we’ll look at tonight run all throughout the book of Psalms.

Verse 1, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” The very first verse in the book of Psalms tells us three things a righteous man avoids. And as does the Sermon on the Mount, the entire book of Psalms begins with a beatitude. The Hebrew word here for “blessed,” it’s sometimes translated “happy,” as it is in Psalm 144:15, and a, you know, certainly a blessed person is generally a happy person, but the blessedness of God’s people is much deeper than just superficial happiness. We know that happiness can be fleeting, but blessedness is not, not fleeting for a Christian.

You know, we know there are many things in this life that make us unhappy. We’re not alone in that. Isaiah tells us that Jesus was a a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, Isaiah 53:3. But while a Christian, like their master, may at times be unhappy, a Christian is always blessed, blessed. The blessedness that God provides looks beyond the temporal. It can be understood or enjoyed by someone with just an earthly perspective.

It can’t be enjoyed apart from God. In Psalm 126:5, the psalmist wrote, “They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” And likewise, we must view the blessedness in Psalm 1 from that eternal perspective. That’s how we understand it. We learn from verse 1 that to be blessed there are certain things a man does not do, ways in which he does not walk, paths in which he does not stand, and seats in which he does not sit.

It’s a beautiful example of Hebrew poetry. It uses three series of threes to tell us what we must avoid. We must not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. We must not stand in the way of sinners. We must not sit in the seat of scoffers. There are three degrees of conduct there. Walk, stand, sit. are three degrees of involvement, counsel, way, seat, and there are three degrees of evil, ungodly, sinners, scoffers.

In each of those there’s a regression, a regression further and further away from God and a progression more and more into sin and Satan’s camp. It reminds us of what Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:13 about evil men who wax worse and worse. No one reaches the height of sin in a single step. Instead, they wax worse and worse on their path away from God.

So let’s look at each step in this progression that we see here in verse 1. First, a man who is blessed does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. The Hebrew word translated ungodly or wicked means to be loose or unstable. The godly man does not allow himself to be guided by evil men. He does not follow bad advice from bad people. Like the psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:115, we must be able to say, "Depart from me, you evildoers, for I will keep the commandments of God.

We must reject bad advice from bad people, but to reject the counsel of the ungodly, we must first be able to discern the counsel of the ungodly. We must know it when we hear it. How can we reject bad advice if we don’t even know it’s bad advice? We might think it’s good advice. How do we know when advice is bad advice? Well, we must compare it to the Word of God. That’s how we know. The psalmist is going to talk about that in just a moment.

You know, the Bible opens with someone who lacked this ability. Eve was not able to discern bad advice, ungodly counsel, when it came from Satan himself and contradicted something that God had personally said to her just shortly before. She still wasn’t able to discern it. And today it seems we’re surrounded on all sides by bad advice from bad people. We’re constantly bombarded with the counsel of the ungodly, aren’t we? We hear it every day. The internet, TV, books, friends, magazines.

Is there a unifying theme in the counsel of the ungodly? Yes, I think there is. And I think it’s the opposite theme we see in the Psalms. A central theme in the Psalms is that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. That’s a theme that runs all throughout the book of Psalms.

Well, what’s the unifying theme of the counsel of the ungodly? It is that the rejection of God is the beginning of wisdom. That’s what they’ll tell you. That the first step, if you really want to be smart and wise, is to reject God, to say there is no God. That’s the theme in the Council of the Ungodly. Instead, they say what you see around you is all there is. There’s nothing more. Paul summed it up well in 1 Corinthians 15:32. That ungodly worldview says, “Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.”

This is it. There’s ungodly advice is this advice, to live it up but never look up, just go for the gusto. That philosophy, in a nutshell, is the counsel of the ungodly, and the blessed man does not walk that way.

Second, a man who is blessed does not stand in the way of sinners. The Hebrew word translated as sinners there’s an archery term. It means to fall short of the mark. The Hebrew word translated to stand means to stop, to be firm. So to stand with someone is to adopt that person’s way of life. When you stand with someone, you’re telling the world, "I’m on that person’s side. I’m standing with them. Does the world know where we stand? Do our friends know where we stand? Do our co-workers know where we stand? Do we know where we stand? There must be no confusion on where we stand, and it must not be in the way of sinners. We have many opportunities in today’s world to let people know where we stand on issues, and there should be no doubt on where we stand.

Third, a man who is blessed does not sit in the seat of the scornful. The Hebrew word translated there as “sit” means to dwell, to remain, to abide. It state or condition. You’ve not just sat down, you sat down and you’re in a settled state. You sat down to stay. According to the Hebrew idiom, when you sit in someone’s seat, you act like them, you become like what they are. You know, when a wicked man comes to the depth and the worst of his sin, he first despises. He despises others, he despises himself, he despises God, despises life, but then what does he do?

He mocks, doesn’t he? He mocks God and the things of God, the people of God. When someone mocks God, that person places himself above God. It’s the ultimate separation from God. Some have even suggested that mockers are the furthest away from repentance. We think about those who mocked Christ on the cross.

And has there ever been a time, has there ever been a time when there is as much mockery as there is today? I think we’re seeing an ever-increasing level of mockery and ridicule directed at Christ and the Word of Christ, God and the people of God. We see it all around us. We hear it all the time. And that shouldn’t surprise us.

Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 1:18 that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, and they mock it. The scoffers mock God, they mock God’s Son, they mock God’s people, they mock God’s book, they mock God’s way, and how should we respond to that mockery? If we keep our seat while others scoff and mock at God and His Word, then we’re sitting in the seat of the scoffers. That’s our opportunity to stand up and let them know where we stand, isn’t it?

I love what Spurgeon said about this. He said, “Be out and out for Jesus. Unfurl your colors, never hide them, but nail them to the mast. And say to all who ridicule the saints, ‘If you have any ill words for the followers of Christ, pour them out upon me. But know this, you shall hear it whether you like it or not. I love Christ.’”

And we need to remember something else, too, and those mockers need to remember this. God will have the last laugh, and that’s something the very next Psalm tells us in Psalm 2:4. “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision.” And there’s something else from Spurgeon. “The seat of the scoffer may be very lofty,” Boy, it’s pretty lofty today, isn’t it? But it is very near the gate of hell.

What then do we learn from verse 1? The godly do not model their conduct on the advice of bad people. The godly do not linger in the company of evildoers. The godly do not take their seat among the cynical who openly scoff at God, the people of God, and the Word of God. Verse 1 describes the godly in terms of their thinking, their behaving, and their belonging. Note the progression.

Walk, stands, sits. That’s the nature of involvement with sin, isn’t it? One begins by listening to evil counsel, then they engage in an occasional indulgence in the presence of bad company, even if it might, you know, violate their conscience a little bit, but you know, just this once. Then before they realize that their life is cast in a new mold and the change has been so complete that they become one of that circle who takes delight in scoffing at God and ridiculing the people of God.

There’s a subtle, almost invisible quality about sin that draws people in deeper and deeper into that involvement with sin. Once a person allows sin to start doing that to them, it’s like being caught in toe just drags them out. First he walks by it, then he stands with it, and then he sits down with it. James described it that way, didn’t he? James 1:14-15, "But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bring it forth death.

That’s that process. We’ve seen in verse 1 what a godly man does not do. Well, what does a godly man do? Verse 2. Verse 2. “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” Verse 2 tells us the key to the blessedness in verse 1. Verse 1 tells us what we should not do, verse 2 tells us what we should do. Of all the qualities, of all the qualities that could have been mentioned here to characterize the life of a man who is blessed, the psalmist tells us that the key quality of the blessed man is his relationship to the Word of God.

And for the blessed man, that relationship is one of delight, delight. I love what C.S. Lewis said about the Psalms. He said, “The most valuable thing the Psalms do for me is to express that same delight in God that made David dance.” The Hebrew word translated here as delight comes from a verb that means to be mindful of or attentive to.

And so, it eventually came to mean to keep something, to protect something. When something delights us, we’re preoccupied with it. We protect it. We guard it. If we delight in the Word of God, we read it. We study it. And we love to do those things. When we delight in the Word of God, we read books about the Word of God.

We listen to sermons about the Bible. We listen to the Bible in our car. We talk to other people about it. We it. In short, if we delight in the Word of God, then you know, at the very least, we’re interested in the Word of God. It’s a threshold. We find it interesting. We want to know as much as we can about it.

So, I mean, the other side of that coin is pretty obvious, right? If we’re bored by the Bible, then obviously we’re not delighting in it. And if that’s our situation, we shouldn’t expect the blessedness promised in this psalm. But this verse mentions the law specifically, “delighting in the law of the Lord.” What does that mean?

You know, if we ask people today what they delight in, then I think very few, including and I might even say especially lawyers, would say they delight in the law. Either the law of man or the law of God. I think most people see the law the way the H.L. Minkin saw the law. He said, “Say what you like about the Ten Commandments. You must always come back to the pleasant truth that there are only ten of them.”

I don’t think he much liked the law. I like much better what C.S. Lewis had to say about the law. “The law’s beauty, sweetness, or preciousness arose from the contrast of the surrounding paganism, and we may soon find occasion to recover it because Christians are increasingly living on a spiritual island,” C.S. Lewis wrote.

And it’s true, like the Israelites of old, we’re surrounded by paganism. And the contrast between God’s way and those pagan ways, that alone should make us want to delight in the law of God, the law of the Lord. When we look at what the world does in contrast to the law of God. Delighting in the law of God, it’s essential to being godly. Psalm 119:92, “Unless thy law had been my delight, I should have perished in my affliction.”

Our delight in God’s law is an indicator of our love for God. After all, what is love without delight? Love sweetens our obedience. Love makes the law not a burden but a delight. You know, I fear today that for many religion has become an agony rather than a delight. It’s become a religion that haunts rather than a religion that helps, and that’s very far from what God intends for His people.

God wants His people to delight in the law. At the end of verse 2, what does it mean to meditate on the law? You we hear a lot about meditation today and all the Eastern mystics and sometimes meditation gets a bad name, but it shouldn’t. It’s a command. There’s a huge difference between Eastern meditation and the meditation that God commands.

With Eastern meditation, your goal is to empty your mind. With God’s, the meditation on God’s Word, our goal is to fill our mind with the Word of God. It’s the exact opposite of Eastern meditation. Meditation is to reading what digestion is to eating. Meditation is what happens after we read. You know, as every student knows, when you’re reading, sometimes the words just pass through your head like water in a pipe and you realize, "Well, I just read a whole page. I don’t know what it said. That’s not meditation.

To read and meditate on the Bible, we must read to understand, and then we must change our lives to fit what we’ve read. Psalm 119:18, “Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” And we’re to meditate on the law day and night. “Day and night” is an idiom, just means consistently, means regularly. You know, a practical observation is that I think it’s impossible to follow this command without memorizing at least some portion of God’s Word. And the Psalms also talk about that. Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in mine heart that I might not sin against thee.”

You know, it’s easy sometimes to leave a sermon saying, “Well, that sounds good, but what can I do.” And for this lesson, the answer is simple. Memorize a verse from God’s Word and think about it all throughout the day. And then do the same thing the next day, and the next day, and the next day. After a few months on that diet, you’re going to find yourself growing spiritually in a way that you have not grown before.

Failing to store up God’s Word in our heart means we’re in danger of becoming like the person described in James 1:24, who looks at himself in a mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks like. It’s just like reading a page in the Bible and then walking away and kind of forgetting all about it, not thinking about it anymore. The message of verse two is that the word of God must be in our hearts and in our minds at all times, night and day, in every situation, in every area of life. What does that mean? It means we delight in it. That’s what it means.

Verse three, “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit and his season. His leaf also shall not wither; whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” Verse three tells us what the righteous are like. And who knew the righteous man is like a tree? Like a tree. Well, what can we learn from that simile?

Well, first, a tree has deep roots and is very sturdy. You know, it’s rightly been said that a Bible that is worn and falling apart is probably owned by someone who isn’t. The blessed man has in his life the stability and the strength of a tree. Let the winds blow, let the rains come, let the drought burn, the tree stands.

Second, a tree grows slowly and consistently over time. The blessed man experiences growth like that all throughout his life. He never quits growing. He always continues to grow in knowledge and grace as he takes nourishment from the Word of God. And third, a tree bears fruit in its season. Not only is there permanence in a tree, there is productiveness.

The blessed man is useful to God, he is useful to others. You know, we’re gonna see in a moment that the chief characteristic of the wicked is their uselessness, but not so with God’s people. This blessed man is useful, and the fruit comes in its season. The branch of the palm tree, it can be used to weigh victory, it can be also used as a shade for grief. God’s people bear fruit appropriate to the season and to the need.

In short, the righteous man of Psalm 1 has much in common with a tree. Its strength, stability, fruitfulness, beauty, usefulness. But there’s something else important in verse 3. The verb translated “planted” there, it really means to transplant. This tree has been taken from one environment and placed in another environment that’s more conducive to its production, its growth, its stability.

It’s been moved somewhere. I think Paul tells us about that in Colossians 1:13, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Transplanted us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Also verse 3 tells us, "The leaves on this tree shall wither. God’s trees are evergreens. There’s never a time when they’re not growing and thriving.

Finally, verse 3 tells us that whatever the blessed man does will prosper. What does that mean? Well, you know, the wicked will also prosper in his way. That’s what Psalms 37:7 tells us, that the wicked prosper in his way. That is his own way. The wicked prosper. They excel at their wickedness and they get the temporary gains that come from that wickedness.

But the blessed man prospers in God’s way. The blessed man reaps the permanent gains that only God can provide. The tree prospers by fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. And that’s how the righteous man prospers. True prosperity is spiritual prosperity. All other prosperity is fleeting. It’ll all be burned up. Our treasures must be laid up in heaven. That’s how we prosper. and like this beautiful transplanted planted tree our spiritual prosperity will increase year by year.

Our roots will reach deeper and deeper into the Word of God. We will become more and more useful in the kingdom of God. That’s the beautiful picture in verse 3. What about the ungodly? Verse 4, “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”

Verse 4 begins with a very strong contrast. “The ungodly are not so.” Grammatically, it’s an emphatic denial. “The way of the wicked is nothing like what I just described,” is what the psalmist is saying. The wicked have completely different lives, they have completely different purposes, they have completely different motivations, They have completely different characters.

They get completely different results. Everything is different both in this world and in the next Unlike the righteous the wicked are rootless they’re fruitless. They don’t have their roots in the Word of God We saw in the first three verses what the wicked are not like Verse four tells us what the wicked are like and in a word they’re like chaff Chaff is the seed covering that’s separated as debris when the grain is threshed.

During threshing, the chaff is thrown off as debris. It has no body, it has no substance. It’s blown about by the wind. It’s unstable. The wind can’t harm the tree, but it destroys the chaff. Chaff yields to the slightest breathes, just the way the wicked yield to the slightest temptation. And Isaiah describes the wicked in very similar terms, Isaiah 57:20-21. “The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, with waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith God to the wicked.”

Chap is worthless, it has no use. And likewise, the wicked man has nothing to offer but his wickedness, he has no fruit. The beautiful tree of verse 3 stands in stark contrast to the chaff of verse 4. They are nothing alike. While the tree is living, fruitful, and permanent, the chaff is dead, useless, temporary.

That’s the contrast between the blessed and the wicked. Verse 5, “Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.” Verse 5 is telling us what the wicked cannot do. But wait, mankind thinks it can do anything, right?

It can conquer the world, can conquer the universe. If you’ve been reading headlines lately, they even had plans to conquer death. But verse 5 tells us there are some things that mankind can never do apart from God. There are some places they cannot stand. And yeah, that would come as quite a surprise to them.

I think they think they can stand anywhere. But they cannot. They cannot. For starters, the wicked cannot stand in judgment. Like the grain is separated from the chaff, like the wheat is separated from the tares, like the sheep is separated from the goats, so will the righteous be separated from the wicked on the day of judgment.

Matthew 3:12 tells us that Jesus will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. They will not stand in judgment. And second, the wicked cannot stand in the congregation of the righteous. God will not let them. Today, the congregation of the righteous is the church, and we are added to the church when we are cleansed and saved by the blood of Christ, our obedience to his gospel.

And so, no wicked can ever stand in that congregation because God will not let them in. He will not add them when they are in that wicked condition. Jeremiah described the church prophetically in the same terms in Jeremiah 31:33-34. “I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts. Will be their God, they shall be my people, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them.”

That’s describing the church. And there the wicked cannot stand in the congregation of the righteous, unless they first repent of that wickedness and obey the gospel. But having failed to do so, they will not stand in the congregation of the righteous, and they cannot stand on that final day of judgment.

On that day, the wicked will understand that they’re nothing but chaff. And they will see in a new light those who appeared to them today as the chaff of this world, but who are in reality beautiful trees planted by God. And on that final day there will be no more mockery.

The sneering will be will be gone, will come to an end, and it will be replaced by bended knees. They will not stand on that day. Verse 1 told us the righteous not to stand in the way of sinners, and verse 5 tells us why. Because while the wicked may seem to be standing today, they will not stand forever.

And those who stand in sinners are standing on a very shaky foundation. What Jesus said in Luke 6:49, “He that heareth and doeth not is like a man that without a foundation built a house upon the sand.” In 1 Corinthians 3:11, there is no other foundation that can be laid but Jesus Christ.

Verse 6, "For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Verse 6 tells us what the wicked must face. What does it mean that the Lord knows the way of the righteous? I think it means the Lord knows those who are on his side. 2 Timothy 2:19, “The Lord knoweth them that are his.” You know, in an ordinary kingdom, a kingdom of this earth, all the people in the kingdom know the king, but the king doesn’t know all the people in his kingdom. You can’t keep track of everybody, but in the kingdom of God, all the people know the king and the king knows every single person in the kingdom.

In God’s kingdom, the king knows us all, knows everything about us. God knows his people, God knows the way of his people. Why? Because their way is his way. The righteous live according to God’s way. Jesus said, “I am the way.” John 14:6. God’s way is the way of peace, Luke 1:79. God’s way is the way of salvation, Acts 16:17. God’s way is the way of truth, 2 Peter 2:2.

What about the way of the wicked? That way shall perish. Well, what is the way of the ungodly. We’ve talked about it. The chief characteristic of the way of the wicked is that it is focused on this life only and nothing else. They’re going for the gusto, getting all they can out of this life because they don’t think there’s anything beyond this life.

That’s their way. Let us eat, drink, for tomorrow we die. That’s their way. But this is not all there is, and those who believe it is will have an eternity to regret that mistake. They will one day hear what the worldly man heard in Luke 12:20, “Thou fool!”

Psalm 1 began in verse 1 by telling us about the way of sinners. And here in verse 6 we see what will happen to that way. The way of the wicked will perish. Reminds us of Proverbs 14:12, “There’s a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof, the ways of death.” That’s the way of the wicked.

And everyone today is walking on a way. Everyone is going on one way or another. Either the way that leads to death or the way that leads to life. You know, it’s sobering to think that when God looks down on this world, he doesn’t see our race, he doesn’t see our education, he doesn’t see our gender, doesn’t see our nationality, doesn’t see our bank account.

Yes, he knows all of those things, but God is no respecter of persons. Those things are not barriers to entering the kingdom of God. Instead, when God looks at this world, he sees only two types of people. He sees those who are beautiful trees planted in his well-watered garden, and he sees those who are chaff blown about by the winds of wickedness and despair.

In short, he sees those in Christ and he sees those out of Christ. That’s how we need to see people as well. Psalm 1 tells us there are only two ways. Way of righteousness, way of the ungodly. There not a third way.

Everyone here today is on one of those two roads. Jesus said the same thing in Matthew 7:13-14. “Enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction. Many there be which go in thereat, because straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leads unto life, and few there be that find it.”

There are only two roads, one broad, one narrow. The narrow, less traveled road leads to life. What about that other road? What about the popular road? What about the broad road? What about the easy road? You know, as we noted earlier, Psalm 1 begins with the word “blessed.” Look at the end. Psalm 1 ends with the word “perish.” Eternal destruction is what awaits those on that wide, heavily traveled road.

Psalm 1 ends with a parting of the ways. It reminds us that a separation is coming. It reminds us that Jesus holds a winnowing fork, Matthew 3:12. Psalm 1 has been called the doorkeeper to the Psalms. It presents all who would enter with a choice. We all We all have that same choice today.

Am I God’s person or am I not? Am I on the narrow way or am I on the broad way? Am I on the way leading to life or am I on the way leading to death? If you’re God’s person here today, then you need to continue, continue following the command of Paul, Colossians 2:6-7.

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. For those of us who are already God’s people, we need to keep walking that way.

If you were once God’s person, but you’re no longer walking in Christ, then now would be the perfect time to repent and return make your life right with God. If you’re not God’s person because you’ve never been God’s person, you’ve never obeyed the gospel, then you need to follow the command of Peter, Acts 2:38.

Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. You need to obey the gospel of Christ. That’s the only way to get off that broad road and onto that narrow road. The only way. The choice God gave the ancient Israelites is the same choice he gives us today. It’s the same choice he’s presented all throughout history. Deuteronomy 30:19, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life.”

If we can help you in any way this morning, please come while we stand and while we sing.