CHOOSING THE WAY OF GOD’S WORD

CHOOSING THE WAY OF GOD’S WORD

Psalm 1

INTRODUCTION:

You are only as strong as your foundation. Building anything on a weak foundation is a recipe for disaster.

Yogi Berra is known oftentimes for having made very witty statements. One of them was this: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

And what I’ve come to discover — is that all of life is basically a fork in the road. Every day we are making choices. Some choices are important. Others are of lesser importance, and therefore, they may not have permanent significance.

The choice that I’m going to speak about today has eternal importance and significance. It is the choice to choose the right path.

MESSAGE:

Open your Bibles and turn to Psalm 1. It is a Psalm in which we see a powerful contrast. It has to do with a choice.

Psalm 1 is more than just the first psalm. It is an introduction to the Psalms. It is the preface of the Psalter. It is the psalm of Psalms.

In medieval copies of the Psalms, this first psalm was written in red ink with no numerical reference. Again, it was viewed as the introduction to the rest of the book of Psalms. And, so it is.

Psalm 1 invites on a journey — one that begins with a decision. It asks us to consider the path we take and the final destination it will reach. Moreover, it challenges us to take the right path.

Simply put, this psalm shows us the way to go in life.

“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; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 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.

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Two men, two paths – two very different destinations! There is the path of the righteous. There is the blessed path. There is also the path of the wicked, and it is a path that leads to destruction. We come to a fork in the road and we had better take the right path.

There are two different paths.

One is the way of the righteous, our psalm also refers to it as the way of the blessed. This is God’s way.
Another is the way of the wicked or sinner. Most people choose this well-worn path of life without God’s presence, a life without his counsel or leadership.
- “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.” (Matthew 7:13)
And our psalm today sets both paths before us — the way of the blessed and the way of the wicked.

Now what I want to do today is to show you how you and I can be transformed by God’s Word, specifically how we can take the right path, so to speak, and what is involved by that, and therefore, this message could have permanent eternal implications.

Way #1 — The Way Of The Blessed (1:1-3)

The happy, blessed person’s mind and heart is being shaped by God’s word (v. 1-2)

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;

Blessed

It really is an astounding word. It refers to happiness—deep happiness that comes from moving forward in life. It speaks of a life that is:

Deeply rewarding and Supremely fulfilled

The psalmist is encouraging you to choose this path and experience God’s best. But you’ll only take this path if you listen to the right voice.

So…What’s influencing you?

Is your mind and heart, your thinking and emotional life being shaped by the truth of God’s word or by something else? Social media, your favorite Christian author/speaker, pop music, romance novels, 24/7 news cycle, Hollywood, your own private intuitions. You are being shaped by something.

Notice, David does not say, “don’t be wicked, don’t act like sinners, and don’t scoff at God’s truth.” But rather he focuses on the kinds of things that shape our thinking, feeling, which eventually leads to words and actions.

Notice the downward progression. The Psalmist wants us to understand the progression. There is a progression.

First of all, there’s association. You walk along their path.

Then there’s identification. You stand in alliance with them.

Then there’s participation. You sit down and settle where they sit.

So, if you walk in the counsel of the wicked, guess what? You will begin to think like the wicked and eventually delight in what is wicked. If you stand in the way of sinners, you will begin to delight in what is sinful. If you sit in the seat of scoffers, eventually you will find yourself a scoffer. It is stunning how often this happens. We are massively shaped by the sources of input we receive!

The Word Of God

The antidote to that downward path — and the attraction of wrong way living, is to embrace instead, the ways and the Word of God.

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord…

Verse 2 says, “BUT”. This is a big and important BUT – stark contrast! David says, the happy and blessed man (and woman) delights in the law of the Lord.

Scripture drives out the “ideas and images” that run rampant in these minds and hearts of ours. The community Christ creates by his blood is meant to come under the authority of his word. As we delight in it, meditating on it daily, we are transformed.
It is the word we need. God’s thoughts must become ours.
- “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…” (Colossians 3:16)

Delight

When we embrace the Bible, we also embrace God’s rules for life. And, God’s law — his restrictions and commandments — are exceedingly good, and good for us. they act as guardrails along the paths of this journey we call life. And rather than restricting us — God’s Word empowers us to love — really live.

And that’s why it’s not enough to just reject the ways of the world. It’s not enough to simply turn from those things which are dangerous and perverse in life. In flour turning — we must turn to the goodness and the wonder of that which Gif has for us.

As the psalmist puts it, we must delight ourselves in the the Word and ways of God.

His word is so, so good, worthy of our delight.
You can’t just reject the way of the world.
- Instead, you must delight in God’s word, allowing it to replace all the ideas and images which came before.

What we fix our minds upon, begins to shape the affections of our hearts. It’s the serious thought-shaping activity of meditation that leads to the glorious, heart-shaping joy of delight. “Set your mind on things above”, Paul says! Listen to what the prophet Jeremiah says:

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.” Jeremiah 15:16.

Do you hear this? Jeremiah searched and found the words of the LORD. When he found them, he ate them. He devoured them. He chewed them up and swallowed. He didn’t rush past them. And the progression is that after he ate them, they became a joy and delight.

Meditate On The Scripture

2 …and on his law he meditates day and night.

In the Bible, to meditate is not to empty the mind, but to fill the mind with God and his word.

The Hebrew word for “meditate” literally means to mutter—to utter deep and emotionally sounds.
This pictures your mind so engaged with God’s Word that it just sort of spills out to your mouth.
It includes the idea of chewing on something. Letting it linger inside.
It also gives the sense or commitment of memorization, study, and thoughtful consideration. It’s a kind of constant reconsidering of the word, preaching its themes and truths to yourself throughout the day.

John Piper has written, “the only hope against the pleasures of the WORLD are the pleasures of the WORD. And just like the pleasures of the world are awakened by looking at them long enough, so the pleasures of the word are awakened in the regenerate soul by looking at them long enough – day & night.”

You’ll never be able to meditate upon that which you have not first given your attention to. A casual glance is not enough!

All-day long, process the Scripture. Let it be a constant part of your thought life. Through reading, memorization, books, teachings, and conversations with others, meditate on the word.

The blessed person, the happy man is having his heart and mind shaped by the words of God. He delights and meditates on the law of God.

And this is the fuel that propels the blessed, happy person through life and into eternity. Look – he is strong, steady, and bears fruit and he has hope as he looks forward.

The happy, blessed person is strong, fruitful, and renewed (v. 3-4)

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.

An Excellent Image

The meaning of all this is apparent.

The person who delights in God and his word is located in the best place for human flourishing. They prosper, and good results flow from their lives. In all they do — and everything they do is allegiant to God and subservient to his word — they prosper. This is freedom: whatever he does prospers (HCSB).
Stable, deeply rooted, settled.

An Attractive Life

What we’re witnessing here is a human whose life works. They are fruitful. They are alive. People who see someone like this want to be this type of person.
Even in a world where dryness, depression, and unhappiness abound, the righteous person can thrive.
An alive and fulfilled Christianity is one of the most beautiful things to witness. This life is not repelling like dead orthodoxy, worldly Christianity, or cultural Christianity. This life is alive. It is real and fruitful.
Evergreen!

Results, Not Rewards

This i bud s the way the system is supposed to work. The word of God, along with his presence within it, goes in. And out comes life and fruitfulness. The fruit is not a divine reward, but the mere results of living the way we were meant to live.

Fruitful and productive… all the time. In every season.

Way #2 — The Way Of The Wicked (1:4-5)

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;

The Wicked Are Not So

The wicked, the song goes, are not so (4). This means they do walk in all that counsel humanity is meant to reject. Resultantly, they aren’t fruitful like the tree, but are like chaff that the wind drives away (4). A lifelessness and void belongs to those who refuse to build a life with God and his word at the center.

CHOOSE THE WAY THAT LASTS.

• Immorality may gratify you for a while, but it won’t last.

• The nightlife may excite you for a while, but it won’t last.

• Strong drink may stimulate you for a while, but it won’t last.

Ungodly companions may please you for a while, but it won’t last.
Foolishness may interest you for a while, but it won’t last.

• Filthy greediness may thrill you for a while, but it won’t last.

• Worldliness may satisfy you for a while, but it won’t last.

Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man but the end therefore is death.” Mark it down. God’s way is the only way that lasts.

notice that the path of the wicked leads to ruin. Verse 4: “The wicked are not so. They are like the chaff that the wind drives away.”

It doesn’t mean that they are annihilated by any means. What it means is that they don’t leave anything behind of eternal value. They may leave money. They may leave their fame. They may leave certain admiration of men. They may leave all that behind, but there’s nothing permanent that is a spiritual legacy.

The imagery, of course, is of wheat being thrashed, and the wheat falls down and the chaff is blown away. That’s the end of it! There’s no eternal contribution to their children, to their family, to their church or their lives. It’s just simply gone.

In the end, no matter how famous they may be, the fact is that they lived lives without permanent significance. Now that’s the path of the wicked.

Two Forms Of Judgment

Judgment is the result (5). Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, meaning they won’t make it through the judgment unscathed (5). Sinners cannot be in the everlasting congregation of the righteous (5).
Again, this is the way our human system works. Garbage in, garbage out. Or garbage in, judgment out.
We would be right when thinking of judgment, to think of its eternal nature, something which is most fully realized after the death of our bodies. Life without God today leads to a life without God in forever’s tomorrow.
But this also speaks of judgment today, the results of life without God.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

The blessed, happy person looks ahead to the future with optimism

Of course, David contrasts again the blessed, happy man with the wicked or ungodly. Verses 5-6 say,

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

The future of the wicked is bleak. The future for those who hate God is not bright. It is one of judgment and perishing. The word perishing doesn’t just mean to die physically. It means to be destroyed; And the scriptures are clear that ultimately to perish apart from Christ, is to be destroyed eternally, which I think is in view here.

John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

But, the person whose life is shaped by the word of God, delighting in and meditating on it, and whose life is bearing the fruit of the gospel, will have a bright outlook when they gaze upon the future. Look again at what the first part of verse 6 says, “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous (blessed)…”

The word “know”, Hebrews (Yada) means to know intimately or personally. It doesn’t mean that God simply takes in information in a passive way. Like he looks and sees what we are doing. It means that God is intimately involved. He intimately knows the righteous – those who trust him. And he knows the path, the way, the road they are on. And he knows because he is there leading and guiding them on the way, and it leads to his glorious presence forever. Which is why:

“The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day.”— Proverbs 4:18

All of this is traced back to: the blessed person, the happy person who delights in and meditates on the word of God. Right? His mind is being shaped by it through meditation. And his heart is enlarged and shaped by it through delight. It’s the word of God that leads to Christ and brings life, refreshing, renewing, bears fruit, and ultimately gives eternal life.

Choose Your Way (1:6)

6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

CONCLUSION

This call from God beckons us even today. Which way will you choose? Which path will you go down?
- “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”
  “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24–27)

And so if we would be the blessed men and women. If we would be blessed in our families. If we would be blessed, fruitful, and prosper in all our ways, we must be men, women, families, a church that is built upon the word of God. Meditating on it, delighting in it, strengthened by it because it will cause us to bear fruit and lead us to the eternal enjoyment of God through our Lord Jesus Christ forever.

Let’s pray.