The Blessed Man | Sermon 10/31/2021

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This is our last sermon on Sola Scriptura for now. We started, of course, looking at some deep theology on the

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Word of God in Genesis 2, 1 and 2 and 3, 2 Timothy and even 2

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Peter. Last week, if you were here, we switched gears and instead of looking at the theology of Sola Scriptura, we were focusing more on the application of Sola Scriptura.

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We looked at Romans 15 and went up and down from front to back through the

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Old Testament to the New, looking at examples of the hope and encouragement, the instruction and perseverance that the

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Scriptures have shown, the things that were written, it says, in earlier times. Today we will be in Psalm 1.

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Please turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 1. And this will be, again, a sermon of application for Scripture alone.

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This will serve, in a way, as an exhortation for us as Christians to be in the

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Word of God, to meditate on that Word day and night, just like the blessed man.

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And the title of this sermon is called, The Blessed Man. So hear now the words of the living and gracious God, Psalm 1.

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How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the

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Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night, and he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does he prospers.

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The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff, which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the

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Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Thus ending the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray briefly.

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Father, please consecrate my speech. Please dwell with us now,

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O Lord. Enlighten and illumine the scriptures to your people now.

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Father, help them to understand. Help me to speak clearly and with truth,

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Lord. God, please use me as a vessel and an instrument to get and deliver your word to your people.

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God, be glorified in the proclamation of the word now. Pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So the

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Psalms are not simply just songs to be sung. They are often titled in the

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Hebrew, which means praise. The Psalms are praises to the

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Lord our God. As we read them, we join the riders in the hills and valleys of life, in the path of following the

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Almighty. They allow us in our moments of triumph to shout joyfully with the psalmist as well as sympathize with the psalmist in our times of great sorrow.

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The Psalms contain a variety of genres within them. Some being, as I said, hymns of praise, hymns about Zion or the

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Lord's enthronement. There are psalms of great lament or supplications in the time of need.

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We see moments of deep contrition and penitence as well as imprecatory psalms requesting that God would destroy

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His enemies. I'm certain many of us are familiar with the prophetic aspect of the

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Psalms. You have things like Psalm 2, which is God's Messiah has promised the nations as His inheritance.

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Psalm 22, which is the crucifixion of Jesus. Psalm 23 is

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His earthly ministry, His anointing and His walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

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Psalm 24, Christ's kingship and His glory and following His great triumph over evil.

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And of course, Psalm 110, the present and continual reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our psalm today though,

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Psalm 1, that we are covering, introduces all other psalms after it.

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It is a gateway to the psalms that is important for us to pass through and understand before we can learn and appreciate all the others.

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And although we are not starting a series on the psalms today, we will likely throughout the years periodically do them,

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I would say. I think that's important for us to go between the New Testament books, the

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Old Testament, and cover psalms and things like that. I think it's good to have a balance. So we're going to be looking at psalms periodically, okay?

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But again, Psalm 1 is like a gateway so that in a sense, before we go through the highs and lows, the victories and the desperation, the emotions exhibited by the psalmist and the promises of the

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Lord our God, before we do any of that, we must know so deeply who the blessed man is, how he lives, and what is the source of the blessed man's delight.

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So let's begin that. V. 1 How blessed is the man? How blessed is the man?

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Someone who goes beyond the state of normal happiness. It is heightened happiness accompanied with the benevolence of God.

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We see in the text that he is blessed because of the things he doesn't do. The things he doesn't do.

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The way he walks, stands, the way he sits in ways that are not contrary to God's law.

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He does them in accordance with God's precepts. We also see he is blessed in the things he does do, like meditating on God's law day and night.

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It seems there are many ways the Bible and especially the psalms demonstrate how a person is blessed.

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Let's look at a few of those together quickly. Psalm 40 v. 4

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How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust? When we place our trust in the

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Lord, we will be blessed. Not always in the ways that we expect to, but we will be blessed when we trust the

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Lord. Psalm 84. 4 How blessed are those who dwell in your house,

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O God, they are ever praising you. I think we can apply that to our context even now.

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This is the house of God. The Bible says God's people are a temple of God.

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How blessed are those who dwell in your house. How blessed are the saints when they assemble on the

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Lord's day to worship the Almighty. We bless the Lord with our lips. We bless

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Him in our prayer, our singing, our reciting the Word and church ordinances. And He in turn blesses us through it.

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Psalm 94 v. 12 Blessed is the man whom you chasten.

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Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law. When the

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Lord God chastens us or reproves us as a father to a son or daughter, it says we are blessed.

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That's a blessing. It would be contrary to God's character if He didn't correct us and left us to go down a path of sin.

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Chastening is loving. Do you ever consider that maybe when you're disciplining your own children?

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Maybe remind them that. When you're giving them a little swat, be like, don't you know I'm blessing you right now? Just tell them that.

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They probably won't think it's funny. No, I'm just kidding. And now for the ultimate blessedness.

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Psalm 32 v. 1 -2 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered by God.

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How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

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This type of blessing goes beyond comprehension that the eternal God would blot out and forgive transgressions that actually merit eternal consequences.

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This, I'm sure, directs our thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ, who doesn't impute iniquity to us, but takes our iniquity and imputes to us

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His righteousness, whose righteous robe covers our sinful selves in the view of our holy and just God.

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So there are many ways a man or a woman is blessed in the Bible. If you did a concordance or word study, you would see that there's tons of examples of that.

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Let's take a closer look at how the blessed man is in our passage.

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How he is blessed. It says, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

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He doesn't live out the advice of the guilty, the unrighteous, those who violate the law.

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It says in Luke 23 that Joseph of Arimathea was part of the council who was wickedly bringing false witnesses and charges against Jesus.

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Joseph of Arimathea was a part of that. But it says this, Joseph had not consented to their plans and actions.

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He did not walk in the counsel of the wicked. It says don't carry out the advice of people you know to be untrustworthy.

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Don't do things the unethical boss told you to do to hide the mistakes that he made.

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Don't heed the advice of your divorcee co -worker friend who says that leaving your husband is going to bless you from God when you lack biblical grounds for such a thing.

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If you're a young person, don't listen to those who lead you away from God by asking you to do something against what you've been taught by your parents and by your pastor.

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Three things stick out in this phrase. Walk, counsel, wicked. Remember that.

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Walk, counsel, wicked. Don't walk the path by the adulteress's house. Don't have feet that are swift to shed blood.

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Don't walk where there is evil because the dead are there. The Bible says the dead are there where there is evil.

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Like Psalm 119 says, Make me walk in the path of your commandments for I delight in them.

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Make me walk in your commandments, O God. How are we to walk then instead of walking in the counsel of the wicked?

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Okay, here's some things. Walk in the light of the world by following Christ and you will not walk in the darkness.

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We are to walk by the Spirit so as to not carry out the deeds of the flesh.

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And we as believers can do that now because we have died with Christ, been buried with Christ, and raised with Christ.

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And Romans 6 says, we are now able to walk in the newness of life.

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We are to walk in the good works that God prepared beforehand. In Ephesians 5,

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Paul tells them, Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.

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Walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Walk in love, the

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Bible says. Walk in good works. Walk in humility. Walk in the light. Walk as wise men.

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Walk by the Spirit. Walk in Christ. Brothers and sisters, do not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

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The blessed man does not stand in the way of sinners, it says. He does not stand in the path of sinners.

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He does not stand in the conduct or way of life of sinful men, of men who make a practice of lawlessness.

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Have you ever found yourself standing in the way of sinners? And it reminds me of like my teenage years.

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There were times where I was standing in the path of sinners.

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And I would ask myself, what am I even doing here? What am I doing here? I would think that to myself.

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I don't like this. I don't want this. Do I fear man so much that I'm willing to stand in the path of sinners and to do what they do?

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I find myself thinking that in these situations. Why am

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I standing by as this evil thing happens? As they're destroying a house or a car or doing something like that?

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Terrible friends. It's like I'm standing by caring. I thought if I would just not participate, but just be the lookout, you know,

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I'm not culpable. I'd be like Saul holding the coats while they stoned Stephen to death.

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I'm just holding the coats. But no, later Paul says that he was there and he had participated in killing, in murder.

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So, do not walk that way. Do not stand that way.

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Don't stand in the path of sinners. Parents warn their children, don't go down that path. It's going to be hard to find your way out.

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It's true. Let us be able to say like the psalmist, as for the deeds of men, by the word of your lips,

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I have kept from the paths of the violent. The three words that stick out here are walk, counsel, wicked.

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I'm sorry, that was our previous. It was walk, counsel, wicked. Now it's stand, way, and sinners.

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How are we to stand then instead of in the path of sinners? It's not just about our conduct.

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Psalm 33 8 says, Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

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And that's a glorious place to stand. That's a glorious place to stand in awe of the

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Lord our God. When you marvel at Him, you will not be so focused on yourself.

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To focus on ourself rather than God is going to make us get into all forms of idolatries when we focus on ourselves than on God.

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When we focus on God, our thoughts and praise will transcend even our sufferings or our shortcomings.

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Standing in awe of Him will help us to stand firm. Stand in awe of Him will help you to stand firm.

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1 Corinthians 15 says, We not only receive the Gospel of Christ, but it is by which we stand.

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Not only did we receive the Gospel of Christ, but it is by which we stand. We stand today because of the

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Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's how you're able to stand. You aren't crippled under the weight of your sin and condemnation.

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You are able to stand today because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything else is sinking sand and would provide no stability to stand.

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We need the solid rock. We need Jesus Christ to keep us from stumbling. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy.

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That's Jude 24. And that's the point, right? Verse 5 of our psalm says, The wicked will not be able to stand in the judgment.

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They will not be able to stand in the judgment. They will be crushed by the weight of their own iniquity and transgressions.

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But Christ will make us stand. Christ will make us stand. And I mean, can you imagine being anything other than fully prostrate before a holy

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God? Being on your face before God? I can't imagine anything else. That's why even when they'd see an angel, they were like dead men.

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You know, anything like that. You know, just any sort of holiness from God.

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That's why I don't believe these stories of people saying, when I was shaving my beard the other day,

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I was just having a conversation with Jesus right next to me. I just don't believe that. I think if you saw

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Jesus, like when we talked about Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration, and you would be like Peter just like, oh my goodness, can

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I make an offering to you? A sacrifice to you? Oh my goodness, you are so holy. So again,

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I think we would probably be prostrate before God. So I know stand here in the presence of His glory is probably more symbolic of our justification.

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But in a way, we can be so confident in what Christ has done, the image is that we can stand in His presence.

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Praise the Lord for that. The blessed man does not sit in the seat of scoffers.

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He does not sit in the seat of scoffers. Many scoff at religion. They jest at sin.

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It's not enough to be just like the sinner in our previous section. The scoffer even then takes it a step further and he ridicules the godly and he ridicules the

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Lord and His precepts. Scoffers are mockers of the good way. They find the prescribed way of God to be too hard, too arduous, too treacherous.

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They think they see the self -righteous there. They see who they think are those who don't deserve

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God's grace. Well, that's true. We don't deserve God's grace. They mock at that. They want the easy way.

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But little do they know that the easy and broad way leads to destruction, it says. And so the three words that stick out here are sit, seat, and scoffer.

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I'm sure you're starting to see the pattern now. When I consider sitting in the seat of scoffers,

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I think about a group of scheming men who are sitting on these grand chairs, probably around a table, plotting to overtake a throne or something.

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That's what I think when I hear that. Because their seat is just a seat of scoffers. They want the king's seat.

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It's like Psalm 2. Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing?

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The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the

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Lord and against His Messiah saying, let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their courts from us.

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The vain thing that they are planning is the attempt to take a stand against the

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Lord and against His anointed, it says. What a futile endeavor. What a vain thing.

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They take seats. They devise. They plot. They scoff at the Lord in the process.

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But what does the Almighty do? What does it say right after that in Psalm 2? It says this,

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He who sits in the heavens laughs and the Lord scoffs at them.

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He laughs at them. He's the only One who can righteously heap scorn upon a person and He does it here.

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He does it here. What kind of sitting do we see in God's Word?

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Many examples of sitting in the Bible involve God sitting on His throne. God sitting on the judgment seat.

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Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father. Kings and princes sitting on their earthly thrones.

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Elders who are sitting at the gates making judgments we see in ancient Israel. Those in service, those in reverence bow or kneel.

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They bow before the One greater than them who sits before them ruling. But as we have seen, there are many accounts of sitting and sinning.

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Sitting and sinning. Sitting and talking against others. Sitting with the wicked.

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It says many sit and speak against their brother. Many sit and speak against their brother together.

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You could almost say, when we sit in the throne of our own making, a false throne, a throne to elevate ourselves, we then sin.

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We sin and it makes it easier to sin when you make a throne for yourself, okay? But God sits on the only throne that means anything significant.

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What a false throne to make up for yourself. We need to cast those thrones down. And the best moment of sitting in the

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Bible, the best moment of sitting probably in all of history was this. Hebrews 10 -12

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But He, having offered one sacrifice for sin for all time, sat down at the right hand of the

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Father on high. That is the best sitting in the history of the world. Christ sat down after His once -for -all sacrifice.

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The King of glory takes His rightful place upon the throne. Because of this, we don't sit in the seat of scoffers.

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We don't assume the throne believing our judgments are better than God's. We don't find ourselves sitting where we ought not to be.

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So, the walking, standing, and sitting encompasses the whole of your life and how you act.

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John Calvin accurately puts it, the sum of the whole is that the servants of God must endeavor utterly to abhor the life of ungodly men and their ways.

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Really talking about their ways, their ungodly ways. So does the psalm describe then what the blessed man, what the righteous man does do?

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What does the blessed man do? And so did the psalmist, if you look, did the psalmist simply change the walking, the sitting, the standing?

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Did he just switch it and say, this is now how you stand, this is now how you walk, this is now how you sit? He actually doesn't do that.

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For the blessed man, the blessed man, his delight is in the law of the

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Lord. It says, and in his law, he meditates day and night. I think we would be actually misinterpreting this passage if we thought because the blessed man doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers, because of the evil things he doesn't do,

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I think if we were to say that, then he finds his delight in the law of the Lord. I don't think that's it.

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I don't think it's that he doesn't do wicked things and then he finds his delight in the law of the

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Lord. I think it's the other way around. I think the correct understanding would be that the righteous man first finds his delight in the law of the

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Lord and in God Himself, and then he is able to walk, stand, and sit rightly.

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That internal delight manifests itself into external deeds.

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Delight goes beyond mere duty. It is that which makes our soul full of great joy to do those things that are righteous.

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So I think it is important for us to retain a better understanding of what the psalmist means by law, because law can have, of course, certain connotations for us.

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Especially in the Pauline epistles, it is clear the context contrasts law and Gospel often.

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No doubt that is true there. By the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified in His sight. But law here in Psalm 1, or specifically

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Torah in our psalm, is used, from my understanding, more generally.

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More generally. In fact, in John 10 and John 15, Jesus makes statements like, in the law, in your law, when

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He talks to the Pharisees or to the apostles, He says, in the law. But then

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He quotes the psalms. He quotes the psalms when He says that. In Romans 3,

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Paul quotes the psalms as well when it says, how none are righteous, not even one. That comes from Psalm 14,

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I believe, and also another psalm in the 50s, if I can remember correctly. He refers, and in Romans 3, when he quotes the psalms,

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Paul refers to that whole section as the law. He calls that the law.

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So, it's obvious then that even though more specifically the law or Torah is referring to the

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Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the law can more generally refer to the whole of God's Word.

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It's just God's Word in many contexts when the law is mentioned. Psalm 19, v.

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7 -10, actually, we read this at our first service and I even brought it up again in our second

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Timothy sermon. But this is a comprehensive assessment on how we are to view the law.

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It says in Psalm 19, The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the

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Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

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The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

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The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

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So His law is highly desirable to us. It is sweet to us. It endures forever.

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It is clean. It is pure. It restores the soul. And with love and concern, brethren,

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I don't know how a Christian could gain biblical wisdom, find comfort through suffering, make sense of what is happening in the world, combat sin and the flesh, grow in the grace and communion of the

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Lord and so much more apart from God's Word. I don't know how you could do any of that apart from God's Word.

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It is a concern that I have for especially American evangelicals. If His Word is not your delight, then you need to change what you delight in.

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Where do you find your delight? If His Word is not our delight, is He really our delight?

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There's so much more one could say about this. I truly think it is fair to say you can never expect to find any real victory over sin or growth in sanctification if you aren't in the

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Word of God. I don't expect how you could get any of those things, to see any of those things happen.

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Of course, the providence and grace of God, but truly, this Word is so important.

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This Word is so crucial. People say, well, I just deepen my relationship with Jesus.

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It's me and Jesus. But Jesus is the logos. He is the Word made flesh.

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To deepen your relationship with Jesus, you read or listen to His Word and He reveals

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Himself to you. And I know it can be hard to cultivate this practice, but do whatever you have to do to gain it.

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Do whatever you have to do. Make a schedule. Put a system in place.

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Get a brother or sister to hold you accountable. Have your spouse hold you accountable. Make it a family thing. Do whatever.

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Start small. Start small even. Build up to it. Read God's Word.

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Be in God's Word. It'll be a game changer. When I was being raised up at Apology in Arizona, I got the opportunity to sit in on a lot of counseling sessions with the body, and almost all the times that people were going through great hardship and being defeated in sin, almost all the time they said they were not in God's Word.

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They were just not in God's Word. So, please consider that. So, if it feels first more like duty than desire, just keep going.

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Just keep going. Little by little, you will find you are absolutely dependent on that special time in the

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Scriptures, and cry out to God. Do it tonight. Cry out to God that God would make

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His Word your delight. God, make Your Word my delight. Make it what I go to.

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That if I skip it that day, I just can't. It's like food. I can't even think. I can't operate without God's Word.

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Think about it that way, brothers and sisters, okay? And on His law, the blessed man meditates day and night.

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Day and night. The Hebrew word for meditate here has a few meanings. Here's what it doesn't mean.

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Here's what meditate doesn't mean. It doesn't mean like the meditation you see when you think of New Age practices or Buddhism or Hinduism or something like that.

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It is not a time to check out and to empty the mind or some nonsense like that.

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It is not a time of mental inactivity, but it is a time of actually intense intellectual involvement.

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Being engaged. Being engaged. That's meditating. It is typically an audible practice according to the

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Hebrew lexical meaning. It is a word used for a constant low growl of a lion.

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Meditate. Like a constant low growl of a lion, but it can come out like a roar. That constancy,

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I think, shows us a way to apply this is by Scripture memorization too to store

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His Word in our hearts. Ephesians 6 and Revelation 19 refer to Christ's Word as a sword.

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As a weapon. Memorizing Scripture will help us in the daily battle of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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To keep our swords not only handy, but sharp. Sharp. Ready for offense and defense.

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Meditate is like the roar of a lion according to the Hebrew. Like the roar of a lion. A lion roars to establish and showcase his courage as well as strike fear in other predators around him.

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I'm not talking about Word of Faith stuff here from that false Gospel. I'm talking about proclaiming the

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Word of God. Saying it over your children. Saying it over your wife. Just grabbing it and just reading it aloud sometimes.

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Just read it aloud. That is like a lion's roar. That is powerful. That is powerful.

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How did Jesus fight against Satan in the temptation of Matthew 4? With the Word of God. With the

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Word of God. How often is this meditation? It says it ought to be day and night. It's supposed to be encompassing our day.

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Considering the Word. Thinking of the Word. Reading the Word. Matthew Henry states regarding this passage, no time is amiss for meditating on the

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Word of God nor is any time unseasonable for those visits. We must not only set ourselves to meditate on God's Word morning and evening at the entrance of the day and of the night, but these thoughts should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day and with the repose and slumbers of every night.

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When I awake, I am still with Thee. He says, Amen. Amen. And so,

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I don't mean to come down hard on anyone. This is an encouragement that if you're struggling right now, it's time to get in God's Word.

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And if you haven't been, which I think you're lying, we still need to be in God's Word.

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It's only going to bolster the faith and courage that is in us. Be in God's Word. Now, verse 3 gives us the perfect image of what this delight in the

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Lord and in His law does for the blessed man, besides just the resolve to turn away from ungodly pursuits and wicked people.

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It says, He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.

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And whatever He does, He prospers. Trees can be huge.

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Trees can be huge. I remember I went on a North Pacific road trip with my older brother. We started in Southern California at my parents' house and took the

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Pacific Coast Highway all the way up. We went through Oregon and we went to Washington, but we went through the coast of California too, even in the northern part.

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And we went through the Redwood Forest. I don't know if you've ever seen the Redwood Forest.

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It's just incredible. It's just amazing. They have some of the tallest trees in the world, according to the research

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I've done. Some close to 400 feet tall. It's unreal. And the bases of these trees are so wide.

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They actually have some that have tunnels hollowed out through the Redwood tree that you could drive your car through.

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It's so cool. I've done that before. And I get that these aren't the trees of the Middle East, you know.

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I don't even know what the cedars of Lebanon are. You see that a lot. I wonder what a cedar of Lebanon looks like.

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We should look it up after this at the Koinonia. A cedar of Lebanon. I'm sure it was strong.

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A tree can be impressive. It can be strong. It can be resilient to storms like the standing firm that I mentioned before.

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And where I come from from this brown and tan desert called Phoenix.

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We had trees. We did have some. And oftentimes these trees were palo verdes and mesquites.

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They were just planted all over the valley in the middle of medians and stuff like that. And, you know, my fellow

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Arizonans back there, if you visited, we get monsoon season which is just a blessing from God.

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We get summer rains in typically July and August. And it'll just come torrential.

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Pretty cool. And you'll see these dust storms roll in. It looks amazing. But after these storms, you would just know you'd go and you'd drive to work.

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You'd drive around and you would just see all these mesquites and all these palo verdes on the ground.

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And I could just tell, you know, that they weren't, they were typically rushed in their planting.

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You know, for those of you who know me well, I love gardening. I had about 20 different fruit trees at my old house.

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Yeah, in the desert I did. I used a lot of water, a lot of irrigation for that. But I love growing fruit trees.

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And I know that in that highly alkaline and rocky and clay hard soil, if you don't dig deep enough or wide enough and you don't amend the soil to aerate it, then those roots are going to hit those clay walls like brick.

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They are not going to go anywhere. And it's like, it's like a tree that's in a pot, but underground.

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It's just, it's not expanding. And so what happens when these storms roll in in Phoenix and these winds come and all the rain, the torrential rain comes, you just come out the next day and all these trees are down.

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They're just not planted deep enough. They're not planted strong enough. We used to see that all the time.

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They'd have these little quarter inch tubes that would drip water like every half hour. It's like, that's not enough.

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So these trees were not strong. They can't take the winds of the storm. And no tree grows on its own accord, its own will.

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Every tree we see on this earth grows by the sustaining power of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to Hebrews 1.

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And the same goes for us. We need His sustaining power. We need

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His nourishment. The blessed man who is like a tree is planted by streams of water.

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And again, being a gardener, I feel like I could have tree illustrations all day but the fact is, during Phoenix, a lot of us would want to get away from our 120 degree homes during the summer and we would travel straight north.

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And there's pine country up there and it drops about 30 degrees in the summer.

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So a lot of us would head out in the summer to get away from the Phoenix heat. And a lot of us would go to a town called

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Payson. We take the 87 highway. And as you are driving to Payson, to this haven, this

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Eden for us, this green area of pine trees and all that and cooler weather, as you're driving there, you're at first in all this brown and tan desert.

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But before you get to the top of the mountain and you see Payson, you hit the

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Verde River. You're still in the brown and tan desert, but you hit the Verde River and it's just this lush, green, thick concentration.

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You pass over this bridge and it's so weird. It's out of nowhere. It's like an oasis. You're driving in this brown desert and then you see this line that runs from east to west.

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All these trees, cottonwoods, Arizona sycamores, all these things. And you hit this strip of green by the

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Verde River and then you pass through and it's more brown. So you get to Payson. So if you've ever been there, if you ever go there, think of that when you see it.

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And so you see these things. And why is it so green? Why is it so lush?

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Because they are planted by streams of water. They're planted by streams of water. The Hebrew meaning here could be also irrigation or canals when it says streams of water.

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You see, the thing is, you weren't always watered and nourished by God, but He saved you and directed the living water of Christ to you.

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And He's not done. He will continue to water you with His Word, His law. So the full image of the tree is that the blessed man's roots are in the

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Lord. They're strong. An act of God. Unmovable, enduring, because it's

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His promise to His children that He will lose none of them. Right? The streams of water for the believer are now

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His Word. The streams of water are the Word. It feeds us because man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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And the fruit of the tree that yields every season is the walking, standing, and sitting in righteousness. Now, it may sometimes be a bumper crop.

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I've never been there myself, but sometimes it's a bumper crop. Sometimes there's only one bushel and sometimes there's like two hanging fruits and that's all there is.

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And it's been a bad season for us. Sometimes that happens. Does that mean you're not a tree of God?

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No, that doesn't mean you're not a tree of God, because we're going to see what that looks like. You know, if we lack fruit and our leaves are dry a bit, maybe you're not feeding or feasting on His law.

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Maybe that's what we need to learn. Keep the steady flow of the Word coming to sustain you.

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The fruit will come. The latter part of verse 3 says, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers.

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Prosper here can mean to succeed or complete something that you started. Some read this and think of prosperity and material blessings or success in your life endeavors.

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But the prosper here... Let me ask this.

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Does prosper here mean that we won't suffer? I don't think so.

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I don't think that would go with the rest of Scripture. Prosper here would be...

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I'm sorry. Prosper here is different.

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It is different in that from the world's prosperity. Okay, that's what

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I'm trying to get at. Excuse me. I've said it before, but here the Christian life is often marked by suffering.

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Christ told us we could expect this. He said if I suffered, you will suffer too.

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The good news is, as I said in my prayer, we have an inheritance undefiled that can't decay reserved for us in heaven.

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The reality is that suffering can bring us closer to Christ and mold us into His image.

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The Christian worldview, in it, suffering is not purposeless.

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In the Christian worldview, suffering is not purposeless. It is not futile. It is not vain.

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It has meaning. Atheists can't account for suffering in this way. They can't.

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When an atheist experiences tragedy or calamity, it is just the indifference of this evolutionary experience.

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Right? This evolutionary existence. Except they don't live that way, do they? They don't live that way.

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They want to believe, even them, atheists want to believe that it means something. That the tragedy of the experience means something.

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They aren't consistent with their worldview. But no doubt this verse can apply to temporal prosperity, but again,

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I think it's mostly on a spiritual basis. So prosperity or success or completeness is being perfected unto the day of Christ Jesus.

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That is our prosperity. Being perfected unto the day of Christ Jesus. It is being able to say like the

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Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course.

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I have kept the faith. That is prosperity. Prosperity is knowing I will see my

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Redeemer face to face one day. The blessed man, the blessed woman in this way, their leaf does not wither, my friends.

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Now consider Jesus' affirmation of abiding in Him, but also a warning in John 15 as we move on through the psalm.

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It says, Jesus says this, Abide in Me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine.

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So neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine. You are the branches.

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He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit. But apart from Me, you can do nothing.

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You can do nothing. Listen to this. This is still from John 15. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up and they gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

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So go to verse 4. Excuse me. It says, The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away.

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Very similar to the warning that we see from Jesus. In other parts of the Gospels, He makes mention of chaff that is to be burned up.

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Chaff that is to be burned up. We see the dichotomy here between the righteous man and the wicked.

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The wicked does not bear fruit. Their tree, their produce offers nothing of value.

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It is good for nothing. Chaff is like dead stuff. It is likened to dead things.

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Chaff is worthless. It is just refuse or discard. Even in Job, it says of the wicked that they are as straw in the wind or chaff in the storm.

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They won't remain. They're just blown away. They won't be steadfast. They won't be unmovable like the tree.

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Like the tree that is firmly planted by streams of water. Like the blessed man. They're like chaff.

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Now, the psalmist takes us out of the analogies and brings us back to one of his main points.

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Verse 5, it says, Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

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The fact is the Bible makes it abundantly clear that the Lord has a throne and from His throne

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He will judge the nations. Jesus Christ will judge the world in righteousness and that day is coming.

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He will judge the world in righteousness, it says. There is not a universalist salvation.

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There's not three levels of heaven where everyone gets away and gets out of it or something like that.

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Those who are not found in Christ will not be saved, brethren and sisters. That's the hard reality of the

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Bible. That's the truth of God's Word. Salvation is given to God's elect, the one for whom

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Christ has died and those dead in their sin who have not repented unto life will not join the assembly of the righteous.

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Right? God doesn't send people to hell for whom

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Christ died. Christ didn't die for someone and then they're sent to hell. That is impossible.

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That is impossible. If Christ has died a substitutionary atonement for someone, and He's taken our sin upon Him and He's absorbed the wrath that we deserve, then hell and condemnation is no longer on our account.

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That is the reality of the Bible. What the Word says. He doesn't send those for whom He died to hell.

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The righteous again being the blood brought by Christ. Psalm 76 7 says,

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God, even you are to be feared and who may stand in your presence when once you are angry.

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How can they stand? Like I said previously, Christ gives us the assurance of standing on that day, but for the wicked they will not stand.

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Let this reality draw the unbeliever to repentance and faith. Truly, that's my prayer.

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And let this truth draw the believer to prayer and gospel proclamation for the sinner knowing we don't deserve the gracious gift we've been given.

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So give it freely. Give it freely. Finally, we're wrapping up here, okay?

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I know those crockpots have been going real nice like. So we're going to get to them.

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We're going to crack those crockpots open to the glory of God, okay? Verse 6 becomes the conclusion of Psalm 1.

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It says, For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

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The Lord knows the way of the righteous. I think it goes beyond Him just knowing our way or our conduct.

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The Hebrew word of know here can even mean consecrated. The Lord has consecrated the way of the righteous.

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From the Latin, consecrated is made sacred. Made sacred.

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The Lord made sacred or holy the way of the righteous. He did it. He did it.

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He made the way sacred for us. He made it righteous for us. Holy for us. If He didn't do it, we wouldn't be like the unshakable tree.

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We need God to plant us. We need God to do it. We need God to sustain us. To give us the living waters.

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We need God to give us His Word. We need Him to do it. We wouldn't be able to restrain from walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing in the path of sinners, or sitting in the seat of scoffers.

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If He didn't consecrate our way, and we were still bound by sin and the power thereof, we couldn't avoid evil things at all.

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Like the blessed man. He knows our way because He knows us. Jesus says so.

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He says, I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My own, and My own know Me. And it's not simply enough to know of Jesus, but we are to know

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Jesus the way He knows us. Even in the book of James, it says that even the demons believe

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God is one, and yet they tremble. They're not saved. They tremble. They know God is one. It's not enough to know of Jesus.

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You must know Jesus the way He intends. He intimately knows you. It's intimate.

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It's close. And I know this isn't a messianic psalm, but in the end, I think the perfect blessed man, the perfect blessed man is

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Jesus Christ. The perfect blessed man is Jesus Christ. He perfectly walks.

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He perfectly stands. And He perfectly sits. He does it for us. He lives that perfectly.

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Don't look at this and go, wow, I really have to be perfect now. In all that I do, Christ was perfect.

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Christ was perfect. So out of your love and desire for Christ, commit to these things.

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But you can't earn it. He's the perfect blessed man. He's the perfect blessed man. To be the blessed man or woman for us now is to follow the example of Jesus.

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Follow the example of Jesus. The only truly righteous man to walk this earth. Totally God and totally man.

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Our main vine, apart from whom we can do nothing, it says. And so we end on the warning that the way of the wicked will perish.

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This is hard stuff. This is definitely hard stuff. I don't treat it flippantly.

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This is hard stuff. Some may say, well, it's just their way that will perish. It's not them. It's just their way.

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Their way perishes. Not them. No, we already saw that they will not be able to stand in the judgment.

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They will not be able to stand in the judgment. The root word for perish is destruction, from which we get

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Abaddon, the place of destruction. Revelation 9 describes the star that fell from heaven into the bottomless pit.

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It says the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in the Greek, his name is

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Apollyon. We went over much on the blessed man, but no doubt, those who go to this place are cursed.

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Those who go to this place are cursed. I think it will suffice to finish this verse by reading

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Psalm 50 16 -23. It is the warning to the wicked. But to the wicked

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God says, What right have you to tell me of My statutes and to take My commandment in your mouth?

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For you hate discipline and you cast My words behind you. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him and you associate with adulterers.

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You let your mouth loose in evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother.

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You slander your own mother's son. These things you have done and I have kept silent. You thought that I was just like you.

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You thought that I was like you. I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget

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God, or I will tear you into pieces and there will be none to deliver. Remember this. He who offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors

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Me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. We follow the perfect blessed man.

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We follow Christ who made His way right. Who orders His way aright. Who offers the perfect sacrifice for the salvation of God.

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So, let us rejoice then in so wonderful a salvation that we have in Christ.

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Let us, brothers and sisters, often look on the precipice of hell as we have done today and remember the grace that we have received.

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That of the two destinies of men, we have one secured in Christ. Earned by the blood shed on the cross at Calvary and in the precious bosom of our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And because you have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, remember to have your delight in the law of the

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Lord. Meditate on it day and night and you can be fed by its cooling and refreshing streams of water.

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Drink from no other ultimate source than Scripture alone. Mix any other drink or water with it and you'll lose its purity.

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Scripture alone. Bear fruit for the Lord and the good works He allows you to do by His Spirit.

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And don't ever measure your prosperity by the standards of the world for the Savior suffered and died, but is the most prosperous in all the world.

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And that is sola scriptura applied to the life so. Next time will be solus

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Christus. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you.

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We thank you, God. Please bless the message that went out Lord. Let it be a blessing to your people.

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Let it be a reminder, Lord, even of the hard things of hell, God, that we have a hope in Christ.

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And that gospel is free to all in this whole creation. Lord, let us give it freely.

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God, let us hear the admonishment to be in your word day and night. And when we are struggling or even when we are in times of great prosperity, let us always turn to your word.

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Remembering the source of our prosperity is in Christ. So, Lord, thank you for this evening and our time together.