Are You Truly a Psalm 1 Man? — Tim Conway

Brethren, please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 1. My brother Craig said he felt inclined to preach from this psalm last week, but he didn't because the week before that, brother Nathan Rages brought us a message on stability.

And Craig felt that he didn't just use this psalm as a launching point, but kind of stayed here for quite a while. So Craig thought to move on. I think it's interesting that three preachers in a row have been impressed, as I have as well.

Even before Nathan brought that, I've been thinking much about the first psalm. And I am inclined to take us there again, even after Craig was done preaching last week, I told Craig I believe I am going to deal with Psalm 1 and God helping us.

The Two Men of Psalm 1

Let's look at it. Let's read it in its entirety. Blessed is the man... and I'll tell you if we know Scripture, there are one in a thousand such men. 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. In fact, in the Septuagint, this reads, it's a double negative. Not so the ungodly, 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.

Churches here are mixed. But as we heard in the first hour, every church has at least one devil in it. They're mixed here. They won't be then. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

This is a psalm. It's the first one. In it, you saw it, there's two men. There's one called, verse 1, blessed is the man. And then when you look down in v. 6, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. There's one man, the blessed man, the righteous man.

And then there's another man. And you see him here. V. 4, the wicked are not so. V. 5, the wicked will not stand. V. 6, the wicked will perish. We're all here. All mankind encapsulated in this one psalm.

Humanity's Resistance to the Word's Verdict

But see, I see a problem right off. As I read this and I think about preaching it, I recognize you as you process this, that man has a built-in disposition to deny and reject that he is wicked. Nobody takes that term upon themselves.

Oh, I know, you've got certain crazy people out there that delight in such things. But I'll tell you, when really pushed to it as far as their eternal welfare, as far as their standing before God, men sarcastically will talk about being wicked or in their pride, they will try to outdo one another in evil deeds.

But when they're pressed to it, men say, well, you know, in the depths of my heart, really at the deepest level, I'm a good person. You see, I recognize there's a disposition. Why? Because the word just sounds too horrible.

Wicked. Wicked. It's too heinous. It's just too bad to describe me. And here's what happens. So, men think to themselves, okay, I'm about to hear the righteous compared with the wicked. Well, I know I'm not wicked.

So somehow or another, what's said of the righteous, it has to describe me. Maybe not perfectly, but I'm in there somewhere. Because I'm not wicked. I know I'm not that. And so somehow I've got to fit in over here.

What's said of the wicked man can't possibly be true of me. You see, men. Men. Presuppositions. Their ideas about themselves. In fact, what's interesting is how often the Bible has to tell us who we are.

It's amazing. It has to tell wicked people who they are and it has to tell the righteous who they are. Why? Because we have a real hard time getting that straight ourselves. Even as Christians. Think about how often the New Testament is simply telling Christians who they are.

We don't get it right. As Christians, we tend to think less of ourselves than we ought to. And as lost people, we tend to think far more of ourselves than we ought to. We have a real hard time getting this straight.

And so God comes along and over and over and over again, He is telling us who we are. What we are. This is why the Bible goes to all these lengths to define us over and over. And you know what? There's nothing that tells us who we are like this book tells us who we are.

Nothing describes us like this book. So, here's the thing. Verse 4, the wicked are not so. You know what? If we could just tear that out. Well, we don't want to do that. But if we did, if we just replaced it with the man of the world, intelligent, intellectual, wise, independent, fun-loving, free-spirited, free-thinking, witty, you know what?

We might get more people to be honest. Because the problem is, as soon as the word wicked comes up, oh, that's not me. But you know, if we redefined it a little bit and put it in more acceptable terms, people would let their guard down.

But that word wicked, what about that? It makes us think of wicked witches. The wicked, like the devil. But notice the simplicity of it all. Look at verse 4. The wicked are not so. Just think about that.

Think about the simplicity of that. The wicked are not so. There's no horns. There's no pointed hat and black cats here. They don't torture people in their basement. What is it? What's true of the righteous?

Not so. That's the wicked. They're not pedophiles. Well, pedophiles are wicked. But you get my drift here. This is just, show me what the righteous man is. The wicked man is just not like that. He doesn't have to run around being an ax murderer.

He's just not like the righteous. You see, there's only two categories here, folks. And if you're not in the righteous, the blessed man category, you're in the other. You just, you're not like the righteous.

That's it. That's the wicked. We need to see this for what it is. The wicked are not so. Brethren, this is God's teaching. That's what Psalm 1 is. What we come to right here, yeah, it was spoken by David in the beginning, but this is no invention of man.

This is inspired language. This is God defining humanity. There are only two alternatives here. You see it. Men are so disposed to think in degrees, right? It's not just black or white. We like to think in degrees.

We like to think somewhere in the middle. That there's other alternatives. But we're not given that. There's no middle ground somewhere here. You see, we tend to think, well, come on, are you righteous?

Are you righteous all the time? Well, you know, I'm a sinner, but I'm not that bad. I'm not wicked. I'm not wicked. So I'm somewhere in the middle. Scripture doesn't allow that. We tend to think that way, but Scripture doesn't allow this thinking in degrees.

It's pretty radical. Boy, how often does Scripture do this? It's everywhere. In the Old Testament and in the New. Everywhere that Scripture comes along and says, bang, bang, two camps. You're in one or the other.

Radical. No in-betweens. That is such the language of Scripture. Over and over, over and over. Only two men in this psalm. No middle ground. Either one or the other. We're looking at two men. Just two.

You're like one or you're not so. So, let's consider this. Let's consider the first four words. Blessed is the man. I've got five Ps that I want to use to describe just this. Blessed is the man. The first is this.

The Plurality and Desire of Blessedness

The first P, plurality. There's a plurality of blessednesses. Martin Luther points out, and I needed somebody else to tell me this, because I can make my way through Greek, but Hebrew is out there. Luther says, in the Hebrew, the word blessed is plural.

It's literally blessednesses. All blessednesses are the portion of this blessed man. All things are well with a man like this. Spurgeon calls it the multiplicity of blessings. You want to be this guy.

This means everything is good. Everything is blessed. Blessednesses. The second P is the propensity towards blessedness. What do I mean by that? Propensity. The desire. We desire this. All men desire this.

Brethren, as was mentioned by Craig last week, happy, blessed. Blessed is the man. There are places such as Deuteronomy 33 .29. Happy are you, O Israel. Who is like you? A people saved by the Lord. Yes, this word can be translated directly, happy.

The happinesses, it's plural. O the happinesses of the man that's described here. And here's the thing, you think with me here, of all that God could have done in starting out the book of Psalms, the very first one, the very first line, then He hits us with the thing that all men have a propensity for.

That all men long after. Happiness. We are all anxious to be blessed. When we hear Esau, remember how he was with his father Isaac? Bless me! Even me also, O my father! After Jacob, his brother. Bless me!

That's how we all are. We want it! We want it! See, he was faced with the fact that he was losing it. And he was desperate. Bless me! We all want that blessing. And you know what gives man even the ability to make it from one day to the next?

His hope that ultimately he will receive that. Hell is such hopelessness because it's all gone. The blessedness is all gone. But this is the longing of the soul of man right here at the beginning of the very first Psalm.

The third P. The positivity of blessedness. What do I mean by that? Blessed is the man. Is! I put stress on is. It's not just that he will be. He is! The first Psalm is God telling us that blessedness is not just for the future.

You can be sitting here right in this room in this world at this time and be a man or a woman of all blessednesses. I mean, you can sit here and be the absolute envy if the truth were to be known. The absolute envy of all mankind.

You have that which all men want. There's a positivity here. It's attainable. In this world, it's attainable. No matter if it's 106 degrees out, it's attainable. No matter if you're going through trials, it's attainable.

That's the thing. Go with David sometime and visit the nursing home. Or come with John Seitzman when he goes over to Nepal and you look at one of these Hindi people in their 70's or 80's. You look at the old people.

They're in the nursing home. Their faces empty, hollow, and they're just sad. Why? They've lived their lives so many promises of happiness. You want to know what? When we talk about blessed is the man, they're one in a thousand.

You know what the other 999 are doing all the time? The pleasures of sin for a season. And those little pleasures in sin, they're saying, try me, you'll be happy. Try me, you'll be happy. And you're grasping at the wind.

You're grasping at mist. Because there's pleasure for a season and then it's gone. And you spend a whole life doing that and all these promises of happiness, and you get to the end and their religions haven't done it.

Their false gods have not done it. And in all their old age, you look at them, they're miserable. They're out of their minds. They just cuss and they swear and they're mean. You go there. Isn't that how they are?

Just nasty old people. Why? Just hopeless. They're getting to the end and everything has proven empty. It's just emptiness. Only fear looms before them. Happiness is one of the most elusive things in this world.

You have a world out there chasing it and few there be that find it. Few actually lay hold on it. But, the promise here is that there is a blessed man. It's attainable. That's the thing. And oh brethren, don't we hear it in the very blood of Christ?

If anything whispers blessedness, it's that blood. The next P, the fourth, the place of blessedness. By place, I mean, where is it to be found? Notice this. His delight. Look at v. 2. His delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law, He meditates day and night.

Now brethren, hear me carefully. There is not a text, and you won't find it, never found it in my Bible, not any of the Bibles I've ever owned. You will never find a beatitude that says blessed is the man who hungers and thirsts for blessedness.

Won't find it. It's not there. Where is blessedness to be found? Happiness is not to be found in just seeking to be happy. Think with me here. What does this man desire? The law of the Lord. He meditates on it day and night.

Why? Because in that he finds his God. In that he finds life. He finds his Christ, his Messiah. He's seeking. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be satisfied. Brethren, think of this.

Think of this truth. If you grab for happiness, you miss it. It just turns to mist. It slips away. It's only the man or the woman who actually seek for something else that find happiness. Do you notice that?

Or listen to Psalm 119 .2. Don't turn there, but listen. Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart. You see, we seek Him, we find blessing. We seek His Word, we find blessing.

We seek His righteousness, we find blessing. We seek first the kingdom, we find all things. Is that not how Scripture is? Oh, brethren, that's a principle you don't want to lose. Because men desire blessing.

They desire happiness. And most miss it because they look for it in the wrong place. Fifthly, the person of this blessedness. Blessings and happiness are not tied to the man's circumstances. You need to see that.

Blessedness Depends on a Person's Relationship with God

See, the world tends to think blessed is the man that gets a beautiful wife. Blessed is the man that comes into money. Blessed is the man that can afford to get that car, buy that house. Blessed is the man that fill-in-the-blank.

Gets the promotion at work. But do you notice nothing in this psalm has to do with circumstances. It's the person. It's who He is. Not the circumstances in His life. That's critical. That's crucial. Blessings and happiness are tied to who you are.

Not what's happening in your life. To who you are. To what your relationship is with God. What your relationship is with the Word. That's the issue. Now, okay, there's those five Ps that have to do with blessed.

Now, let's just broaden out and think about the whole psalm. Brethren, hear me carefully. This psalm is an entire indicative. There's no command here. Now, I recognize Hebrew doesn't necessarily have indicative verbs, but in the Greek, in the Septuagint, that's exactly what it is.

What am I getting at? You don't want to know all about Greek and Hebrew. But what am I getting at? My point is this. This psalm doesn't command you to do anything. Look, should you go to this psalm and say, hey, I ought to be more disciplined in the Word?

You know, when you get indicatives, they do imply, they suggest imperatives. When you're told a fact, they do sometimes imply a responsibility on our part. Well, that's true. I don't deny that. There's many other places where you find this to be a reality.

But hear me carefully. I am not going to preach commandments to you here because this psalm does not do that. This psalm basically lays down facts. This psalm is not notice. Nothing in this psalm is telling you or seeking to encourage you directly to not walk in the counsel of the wicked or to stand in a certain place or to sit in a certain place.

It's not commanding you. It's not encouraging you to be in the Word. It's not encouraging you to be a tree. It's not encouraging you to be fruitful. Not directly. You hear what I'm saying? It basically is a statement of fact.

You say, where are you going? I'll tell you where I'm going. You know the problem too often when you preach a text like this? Is people go away, especially the wicked. They go away thinking, oh, I need to do better at that.

That's not what this is. This is a statement of fact. It's a description. It is God coming along and He's saying, you want to know what a righteous man looks like? Here's what he looks like. You want to know what a wicked man is?

He's not that. That's basically what's happening. Make sure you see that. You say, why? Because this isn't a pep rally to do better. This is a searching. This is a spotlight shining on all of us. This is not an encouragement to go out and strive or to go out and run better.

This is a spotlight shining on you that proves who you are. Make sure you see that. The issue is not so much that you need to strive harder, as much as it is the living God telling us what is true of all of us.

So, notice this. Verse 1, is blessed is the man who walks not. The negative. Before you get the positive in 2, his delight is in the law of the Lord, you get negative. The negative is first. Isn't that similar to, I think of Isaiah 55 oftentimes.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord. So you get the negative first. Forsake your way. The positive. Return to the Lord. Or when Jesus came in the New Testament, what did He say?

Repent! Repent is a change of mind. It is that change of mind about sin, about Christ. There's this turning from sin. There's a reversal in life. There's a forsaking and then believing. Calling upon the Lord in faith.

We often get this negative before the positive. Why? Because man, you know what the danger is? You come along with just the positive and people think, oh, I need to tack that on my life. Nope, that's not it.

That's never how it is. There's first a turning. There's a forsaking. There's things we step back from. There's things that the blessed man no longer involves himself in before we get to the positive.

That's the way God often does it in Scripture. Man in this world, evil. He's wrong. He's vile. And God's way is essentially different. And it's not just you staying on your own way and your old way and then tacking on God's way.

There is a forsaking of your way and a coming to God's way. That's the issue. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners. Not. Brethren, this is desire being described here.

God's not giving a commandment. There's a desire. And I know, someone says, exactly. Negative. Of course, that's how it starts out. That's what Christianity is in a lot of people's minds. Of course, that's exactly how Christianity is.

You can't do this. You can't do that. But, brethren, listen to me. This is not a psalm of thou shalt nots. This is a man who desires the Word of God, the law of the Lord. This is a man who has a heart that hungers after this.

He delights in it. And because he delights in that, he disdains what's against it. The ways of the world. The ways of the devil. The ways that are wrong. The ways of the scornful. The ways of the sinner.

They're repulsive to him because he delights in the law of God. That's the idea. Christianity, brethren, we have to get this in our heads. Christianity is not just this set of external laws that tells us, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.

Christianity is a transformation of heart where our delights are now towards the Word. And we don't want that. There's a distaste. We don't love what we used to love. Christianity is God changing us so that we don't desire the counsel of the godly.

We delight in the Word of Christ. And brethren, we find his yoke easy. That's the reality. Notice the progressiveness of this first verse. It doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked. And then it's stand.

You've got a man walking, and it's like the man stops walking. And he stands. And then the man sits. It's progressive what? It's like this progressive... it is a digression. It's like there's motion, and then he stops, and then he sits.

It's like this increasing grip of sin. This increasing... Lloyd-Jones called it paralysis of sin. The blessed man avoids it. And what is this? What does he avoid? You say, well, the wicked, the sinner, the scoffer.

Brethren, where are they? Think about your life. There's voices. We have these voices. Things are coming in the eyes and coming in the ears all the time. We see things. We hear things. Where are these voices in this world?

We have means of communication today like they've never had in any other time. Think of the channels through which these things come. Brethren, you know what they are. Friends. How often does Scripture speak about companionship?

You want to be a fool? Hang out with the fools. Plain and simple. Social media. You can hang out with people. You spend your time there. Brethren, what kind of voices are these? The wicked, the sinner, the scoffer.

They're voices that take you off of running this race like you should. They're voices that turn us away from God and godliness. They scoff. They mock at the ways of the righteous. They scoff and they mock at the ways of Scripture.

It's all that's adverse to and against and radically essentially the opposite of what's in v. 2. Loving the law of the Lord. It's everything that's opposed to that. It's everything that shuns that. It's everything that smirks at that.

It's everything that slights the ways of God. That's what we're talking about. What we're talking about here is the blessed man. It's the man who looks at the friends in his life and says, you know what?

I am not going to spend time with those people anymore. Because you know what? I want to spend time in the Word. And there's something in their lives, there's something in their words that oppose this.

And I'm not walking there. And I'm not standing there. I'm not going to stop. And I'm not going to sit. You see, it's like this progressive stagnation in sin. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go there.

I'm going to evaluate social media. If that movie is going to take me somehow away from what pleases God, why am I going to go do that? Why? Entertainment? Oh, you're going to entertain yourself by going and standing in the way of the sinner.

Is that it? You see, the righteous man doesn't do that. Now brethren, hear me again. I'm not saying, okay, you better size up what you're doing on Facebook and you better size up what you're doing with the TV and with movies and with all the technology.

No commandments here. Listen, brethren, what you need to recognize is God is telling you what we are. See, if you're the guy that perpetually has to look at your life and say, well, I'm massively failing there.

Brethren, hear it. It's not God telling you you need to get your acts straight. It's God telling you who you are. Do you recognize that's what's happening in this psalm? He's saying look at your life.

If you walk in the way of the ungodly, if you stand in this place of sinners, you sit there among those who slight the things that are godly. He's telling you what you are. Because if you say, no, my delight is in the Word.

Hey, this is all opposed to that. See, if you say, no, I'm the blessed man because I delight in the Word. Okay, there's going to be proof. And the proof on the negative side is what you no longer do. You see, there's evidence.

That's the point. This is indicative. This is indicating what is true. I'm not here today to tell you to clean up your act. There are definitely texts that talk about purging that out of your life which ought not to be there and cutting off and gouging out.

No question about that. But brethren, what this is saying to us is not so much that that's what you need to do. It's saying to us if you're the blessed man, that's what you already do. That's already true in your life.

That's already a reality. Brethren, this is not commandment. This is fact. God is not admonishing us specifically to be holier. He's telling us the truth about what holiness looks like. And that holy man is that blessed man.

He's telling us that if you're the blessed man, you're not going to run with the same crowd you ran with. And you're not going to do the same things on the Internet you used to do. And you're not going to do the same things at the movie theater you used to do.

And you're not going to do the same things in front of the television because these are all the avenues by which those voices come. You're not going to do the same thing with family. You're not going to do the same thing with friends.

You're not going to do the same thing with radio. You're not going to do the same thing with songs and with music. Why? Because, look, you got to bring this home. The counsel of the wicked. The way of the sinner.

The seat of the scoffer. This is real. You have to put familiar faces on this. This is not just this ambiguous thing out there. This is your life. This is my life. And I'll tell you this, what he's saying is the blessed man is a man who suddenly is not doing all sorts of things that he used to do.

And one of the primary rationales, one of the primary motivations, one of the primary movers in all of this is not external laws. It's what he delights in. He now delights in the Word of God. And so, naturally, if you delight in something, you don't delight in that which is opposed to the something that you delight in.

That's the reality here, brethren. And notice this last one. Because, oh, I think this is key. "...Nor sits in the seat of scoffers...". Do you know what a scoffer is? Or a scorner? There's somebody who mocks.

The Seat of the Scoffer and the Charge of Legalism

And even in the church, we get those who scorn and they scoff and they mock and they make light of anyone they see who seems more radical. You know what you get in the church? You get these people who they want to keep a clear conscience.

And they come to Scripture and they see something there. And they look at modesty and they think what that means is I need to wear a dress that's down to the floor. And you know what? They're not being legalistic.

They're not coming along and they're not pressing that on you and me. They look at Scripture and they say, don't set anything that's vain or useless before my eyes. And they say, you know what? I think TV altogether is vain and useless.

And so they're seeking to do it. And if you're the guy that's always out there saying legalism, legalism, legalism, you're likely in the seat of that scoffer. When you look at people who are trying to keep a clear conscience and they're eradicating things and they say, my eye offends, and so I'm getting rid of that and I'm tearing it out and I'm casting it from me.

And they're people of conscience and they're walking through their life and they're constantly going to the Word and they delight in the Word and they're looking in the Word and they're saying, my conscience says, oh, look what I find here.

Now look, you may look at them and say, you know what? Their conscience has not been most accurately informed. Because if you think about other places in Scripture, and you know what, that may be true, but don't mock and don't slight at such people who are trying to keep clear consciences before God.

And they're meticulous and they're diligent. And they're doing things. I remember one time when I was down in Stockdale and a woman came and she had been wearing a head covering before that and then she wasn't wearing the head covering.

I said, where's your head covering? I said, did you study Scripture and you came to another conclusion? And she said, no, just because the people here don't wear it. I said, you better get that thing on your head.

Why? Because she thought that's what the Lord wants her to do. And if that's what you think the Lord wants you to do, and whether it comes down to how you raise your children, or how you love your wife, or how you drive your car, or what you do at work, brethren, we need to live, Spurgeon said it one time, better to live according to this Word, how you interpret it and be wrong, than to not do that.

You understand what he's saying? He's not saying bad doctrine's good. He's saying you need to live up to the light of the lamp that is shining at your feet from this book. And how you look at it, it's not what everybody else is doing.

You do what you believe that God wants you to do from that book. And you seek to live with a clear conscience. And you know who the scoffer is? They're the people always shouting legalism in the church.

Oh, that's legalistic. That's legal. They're just legalists. They're legal. You be careful. You just be careful. Because I'll tell you what, if you're that person who's always looking and you're looking down your nose at other people who are really trying to walk before the Lord and they're trying to walk with a clear conscience and they're trying to please Him and they're trying to be meticulous to God's words, you look at them and call legalists.

You have been sitting in the seat of the scoffer. And let me tell you, I'm not telling you don't do that. Repent of that. Of course there's a place for that. What I'm telling you is this, what God is doing is showing you who you are.

Not what you ought to be. He's showing you who you are. So notice his delight. His delight is in the law of the Lord. And on His law, He meditates day and night. Again, brethren, this is not a commandment for the Word of Christ to dwell in you richly.

There is a commandment like that. There's instruction like that in Scripture. I'm not saying that there isn't. I'm just saying this psalm is basically, the gist of it is that God is telling us the truth about ourselves.

Oh, brethren, the blessed man is that man who has come to this entirely new relationship with the Word of God. Look it, again, I'm telling you, brethren, I am not here to tell you if you're not bent in the Word, you need to get in the Word.

What I'm telling you is, if you're not in the Word, it's because you don't delight in the Word and Scripture is telling you who and what you are. That's the issue. That's what's happening here. The blessed man, he's the man that it's just not theory for him to say that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth forth from the mouth of God.

He knows that. He believes that. His life reflects that. The exact same truth you heard from our brother in the first hour from John 8. Listen, Jesus says it. Again, it's not a commandment. It's a fact.

He says, if you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples. He's not saying abide in My Word. Yes, there's places where you can find such statements, but there are these factual statements made all through Scripture that if you are His disciple, His Word abides in you.

Not just that it should. And if it doesn't, it shows who you are. That's what He was saying to these people. Listen, brethren, be honest. This is the truth about the blessed man. On the whole, if you were to drag this man into court and accuse him of being a Bible lover, guess what?

There's evidence to convict him. Where are you? Oh, isn't it amazing? First Psalm. Blessings, which everybody wants. And it's got to do with where the Word of God is in your life. The first verse is the negative that.

It's the contrary. You avoid all those voices that are not like this. But you delight in the Word. You say, I've never killed anybody. The wicked? They're not so. In other words, if you take them into the courtroom and you say, prove that you're a lover of the Word, the wicked are not so.

And so if there isn't evidence, the wicked is not so. You say, I own a Bible. In fact, I have three. That's not what's being said here. Do you delight in it? You say, yeah, yeah, I delight in it. Are you meditating on it day and night?

Can you go three days, four days, five days, seven days, and you're not in it? You see, again, brethren, this is not telling you what you ought to be doing. This is telling you what you are. This is the delight of the man.

Look, what you don't want to do is walk away from this message and say, well, you know what? My delight is really in video games. Hanging out with my friends. Listening to the new music. You know, what really I find delight in is sex and money and fun.