The Prosperity Gospel Without The Heresy

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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This morning is in the book of Proverbs chapter 3 verses 13 through 18 and your bulletins

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I think it says page 450 though some of your pre -bibles it might be in 528. I would ask you to please stand in honor of God's Word.

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Blessed is the one who finds wisdom and the one who gets understanding. For the gain from her is far better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold.

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She is more precious than jewels and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand and her left hand are riches and honor.

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Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are paths of peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her.

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Those who hold fast are called blessed. New Testament reading is

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Revelation 22 1 through 5. Then the angel showed me the river of life bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

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Also on either side of the river the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month.

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The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed but the throne of God and the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him.

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They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more.

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They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever.

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Please remain standing. Good morning.

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Open your Bibles to Psalm 1 please. Psalm chapter 1.

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Psalm chapter 1 I'll go ahead and begin in reading it we'll go to the Lord in prayer. 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

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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 and all that he does he prospers.

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The wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous for the

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Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish. Our good

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God in heaven we ask for your help today and this morning. We know

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Lord that of ourselves we are weak vessels, weak creatures but we know you make us strong in Christ and we know

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Lord that with you there is abundant hope and knowing who you are knowing your word and receiving forgiveness for our sins and so we as a people have came here

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Lord to open our ears and to hear your word so that we can further see Christ in his kingdom.

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God in heaven we know without you this is an impossible task and so we ask for your help. Lord we ask for that Tim you would bless

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Tim and all his endeavors as he's away from us. We thank you for the ministry you've given to him even outside of LaRue and I pray that you'd be a blessing to him as well.

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Thank you Lord for this day and may you bless it to us Lord and may we seek you continuously all our days in Jesus name.

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Amen. Well we have at the beginning of the

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Psalms here, Psalm 1 could begin any sort of different ways and we can see that it begins in a way of telling us what it means to be a blessed person.

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What is a blessed person? What does it mean to live a prosperous life? What does it mean to have prosperity?

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What does it mean to have the blessings of God? The word blessing or bless is kind of like a very general word it's kind of like the word glory.

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It's kind of hard to define and there's many different ways to do it but nevertheless we can see the

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Psalms open up here with describing what is the blessed man? What is the prosperous life?

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What does prosperity truly look like? And we can see and if we kind of ask ourselves does

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God want us to be happy? Should our desires as creatures be to be happy people?

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I remember as an early or a new Christian thinking the best thing I could do with watching TV would be to watch some kind of preaching on TV and that's actually a very dangerous thing to do sadly in our in our day and age.

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But I remember this man you might have heard of him his name's you know I don't like to mention names but his name's

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Joel Osteen and I remember he talked a lot about blessing and and being happy and prosperous and and but I remember

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I didn't know much but I remember he gave me the heebie -jeebies you know like there's something about him that gave me the heebie -jeebies.

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It has nothing to do with the way he looked or anything like that but just what he said and how he said it just really

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I couldn't explain it but it just seemed off and we if you don't know he's a quite the declaration of the prosperity gospel that God wants you to be happy and prosperous right and that's kind of his and here's another word

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I say schtick right that's what he does quite often and I just remember it just didn't it's made my heart not settled right but I think we can go too far the other way and we can almost say that God doesn't want me to be happy like I'm not my desire isn't to be prosperous

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I don't think that's biblical at all if we see in Psalm 1 again it can start any way and it starts with what does it mean to be the blessed or I would say happy person and what does it mean to be prosperous we are you know you want to be prosperous it's not okay to not be prosperous and so I call this sermon the prosperity gospel but without the heresy we cannot go too far on the other side of the ditch in which we say

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God does not want us to be happy not want us to be prosperous but we don't want to go on the other side of the ditch in which we fall into Osteen's error in which we define prosperity and blessing in a way that truly is not and so really

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I think this is the the heart and soul of Psalm 1 who is the blessed man what does it look like what does it mean who is this person and what does it mean to be prosperous that's kind of the questions that we're answering as we're looking at Psalm 1 and I think we should look at it as people who want to be blessed who people we want to be prosperous in our life we want those things we want to be happy and so as we look we begin with those first few words and I want to you know verse 1 and 2 is you know it's three different sections of Psalm 1 here

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I think verses 1 and 2 is the first section and what we're looking at is who is the blessed man or who is the blessed woman okay and which it starts by saying blessed is the man blessed is the man blessed is the man blessed you could define this in many different ways and people use this word unbelievers use this word believers use this word my boss who was a pagan for no doubt he would say

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I'm too blessed to be stressed right he loved to say that while he was stressing out right and and so we you we see this word a lot we see it everywhere what it doesn't mean to be blessed and one way to define it and I'm sure someone has a better way but it seems to mean like happy blessed means to be happy or another way perhaps is favored by God to be blessed means to be happy or favored by God now happy is quite the word because really sin makes many people happy but it's not a blessing right but it is a certain sense in which we receive the favor of God we are happy in that favored state and so a one way to describe bless is to be happy or favored by God God blesses us and then we bless

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God in return now the blessing we give to God is different from the blessing he gives to us he blesses us with favor and then we use that to then worship him right we take his blessings then we bless him with worship and so blessing is like a favor by God or being favored by God and it's like happiness now one thing we need to look at though is the opening here to the

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Psalms blessed is the man is very similar to another opening to a major thing that said to a sermon that we hear what sermon is that surround them out right we hear the sermon

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I'm out Jesus opens up pretty much his ministry with this teaching right blessed are right and so it kind of echoes

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Psalm 1 in which we see in Matthew 5 3 through 6 blessed are the poor and spirits for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied

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I think the difference between the blessed man in Psalm 1 and the blessed person of Matthew 5 that Jesus describes is really

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Psalm 1 the blessing is kind of has like a good vibe to it you know it's the prosperous tree good things are going on where the blessing that Jesus talks about think about it it is what blessed or happy are those who are poor those who are mourning those who are meek those who are hungry right it's almost like a different look at it what's going on here and I think the way we need to look at this the way we first we need to get our head on straight is that Jesus is describing the blessings of a person who is a sinner who needs

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Christ that state that you get in right during conversion in which you realize that I am empty and poor and weak and needy

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I need Christ Jesus is describing blessed or happy are you when you realize that you need me in my kingdom blessed are you when you're in that state of emptiness and brokenness and you thirst after righteousness and you see it in me

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I think the sermon on the mount is Jesus declaring I am bringing the kingdom and blessed are you when you're ready to receive it that's the blessing that Jesus was referring to I think the blessed state that we're going to see in Psalm 1 are those who are in the kingdom of Christ that makes sense when

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I'm saying there you got the blessing that Jesus describes blessed are you when you're ready to enter into my kingdom when you're broken and and and you realize you're a sinner and you need me

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Psalm 1 I think is all about the blessings of the person who finds himself in the kingdom of Christ so if you try to read

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Psalm 1 as an unbeliever there's unbelievers in this room if you try to read Psalm 1 is so okay this is what

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I want to do and you're not in the kingdom of Christ it's going to condemn you and frustrate you that's the purpose of it but if you find yourself in the kingdom of Christ beloved and you have looked upon Jesus Christ for salvation and you do it daily you're striving after him you're denying yourself picking up the cross following Christ Psalm 1 is a song of power of those who are in the kingdom of Christ it's what you should be trying to reflect and look like because you have been given the power by Christ but if you're not in the kingdom of Christ Psalm 1 it's only frustrating and very far from you but in Christ Psalm 1 it's the blessings of his kingdom the blessings of his kingdom blessed is the man what is as we look at this and we'll talk more about Jesus at the end of the psalm explicitly at least what is the blessed man not and that's kind of how the psalm starts off if you notice it talks about what the blessed man is not blessed is the man if you look in verse 1 of Psalm 1 who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor does this man stand in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers we see three things going on there right bless this man who does not we see walk stand or sit in the wickedness or in the way of sinners or scoffers saying the same thing three times pretty much if we take those things as a whole we can see the man is not blessed when he instead of submitting himself as we'll see to the law of God he submits himself to his own law okay a sinner is one who has disobeyed

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God and has followed his own devices his own standard his own law and so we can see right away that the blessed man is not the one who follows after his own sin who's a sinner who follows after his own sin who has established his own standard and has followed after that that man is not blessed one who does that we can get more into the details about the different aspects right the counsel of the wicked bless this man who does not who walks not in the counsel of the wicked we are by nature counsel think of like a king and a queen or a king always has his counselors right a president always has his counselors people advise them and he kind of makes decision based off of those councils and I would say you know by and large we are all people who naturally take counsel and we are also people who naturally give counsel have you ever noticed that people just naturally want to give them give their opinions it's just how it works and so naturally you are around people who want to give counsel and you are naturally someone who usually listens to counsel and applies it and the blessed man is one who does not who who does not he forcefully or he explicitly does not take the counsel of the wicked when he hears counsel that's contrary to the law of God he naturally hates it and he does not do it he does not walk in that way the blessed man can see differentiate can distinguish between the law of God and the sin of man and no

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I'm not going to walk in wickedness stands in the way of the sinners blessed is man who does not stand in the way of the sinners the way a way a person goes the walk of life right it blesses though who does not stand in that way to who does not do those things and we'll see that if you see blesses man who does not stand in the way of sinners look at psalm 1 verse 5 therefore the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment and see the sinner he may stand now in his sin but he will not stand in the day of judgment and blessed as those who are those who see that and they say

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I'm not going to go down that path we can see the third aspect to sits in the seat of scoffers scoffing at the scoffers to jeer to mock a lot of times it's it's it's focus on someone in authority right one of the things you know

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I think you know we have a two -party system not to get political but I'm going to we're in a two -party system

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I think sometimes one side likes it when the other side wins because then that side has all this ammunition to mock you know

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I think I think people are just we just love to mock it was just our heart our nature that we love to mock others right and one of the things

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I think is we see a different party take office and say finally I have more ammunition to scoff and to mock and to jeer we can see this even it's amazing to see how many

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I think Christians we are called to not be scoffers we are to do that we're not to mock we're not to jeer we're not to treat people that way but it's amazing to see how that goes out the window when our president when the person who's president is not our political party right and you hear these chantings and you hear these scoffing going on from the world and Christians can join in them but we are not to be scoffers

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I think it's here pointing at scoffing in general at the authority of God and in heaven but we aren't to be people with a heart that wants to scoff

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Proverbs 21 24 says scoffer is the name of the arrogant haughty man who acts with arrogant pride a scoffer is one who is high on his own mighty horse and he looks down upon others and how much is it how bad is it that we would scoff the

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God on high right and again going back to the general principle of these three this is not what a blessed man is a blessed man does not have his own law and follows his own counsel his own sin and we become scoffers whenever we have our own law opposed to the law that is

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God's this is not a blessed man but it turns to what the blessed man is if you look in verse 2 but his delight

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I want you to notice to notice how it's all a bunch of actions right this is all things that he's doing walking standing sitting but then when it goes to this is what the blessed man does notice it goes to the heart not so much action but his delight is in the law of the

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Lord and I on his law he meditates day and night so this is the blessed man the blessed man is not following his own law but rather his delight is found in something exterior from him that is

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God's law that is the blessed man one who follows the law of the Lord the one who meditates on the law of the

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Lord you meditate what your delight is it you do and we can kind of this erroneous understanding of meditation we can think it's like an

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Eastern thing where you're you're you're sitting down in your living room you know Indian what do you call it when you're

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Indian sitting Indian style right and you're going um right that's meditation where you're trying to empty your mind and all that Eastern pagan stuff that's not the meditation what scripture has here meditation in the scriptures is always you're not trying to empty your mind you're trying to fill your mind and you're trying to fill your mind with what's what blesses you that is the law of the

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Lord this only happens when you have a delight in the law of the Lord you won't meditate truly on scripture unless if you delight in it you can force yourself to read scripture because you're supposed to be a good

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Christian that's what good Christians do you read the scripture but you will not meditate on it if you're not delighting in it first right it's a heart thing you need to delight yourself in the law of Lord and then you'll meditate upon it but what does it mean to meditate day and night are we to be hermits right are we to never leave the house because nope

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I gotta sit here and meditate on God's word I don't think that's what it's saying I do think there's an aspect in which we study it and we're intent of doing it in our daily studies where we're not we're not just kind of going through it willy -nilly but we are meditating on it but then we take that truth of scripture and we carry it with us in the day all through the week right so if you're a husband and you see the law of the

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Lord is for you to love your wife and your children and to lead them faithfully you meditate upon that scripture by carrying that with you through the day am

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I doing this you come to the Lord's Day service and you hear the Word of God and you don't just go in one year out the other you forget about it but you meditate upon that scripture upon that teaching you carry it with you through the day through the week that meditation is only going to happen when you're delighting yourself in it first now how can we delight ourselves in the

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Lord and the law of the Lord this is why I talked about Christ's kingdom if you're not in Christ's kingdom you will not delight yourself in the

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Word of God you won't it's impossible we have a sinful nature that doesn't allow it and so that's why it's blessed whenever you're poor in spirit and you enter into the kingdom of Christ broken and when she takes hold of you and he changes your heart and he makes you what through his work through his accomplishment delight in the word so we're now it becomes your meditation well

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I can tell you if you're not delighting in the Lord you will not meditate but you will meditate on other things you will meditate on other things

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I thought about going into different things I always mentioned the same thing sports all that kind of I don't want to go over and over again but we do what what are you meditating on throughout the week yeah we all do it is it in the law of the

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Lord or not and if it's not what do we do God changed my heart through the power of the gospel in his kingdom to make my desires shift to the law of the

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Lord blessed is he who delights it's extreme satisfication or desire and your extreme satisfication or desire is not in your own standard but in God's standard and it's so wonderful to you that you meditate about every single area of your life right it falls through all the cracks all the areas in your life you meditate how do

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I apply the Word of God to this situation that situation to all these situations but many times we see we think of God as like a compartment he's just one little sliver of pie right here and that's all he is no beloved he is to wash over all of our life and if he is not it's because again your delight is in something else typically your own standard that you have set up so we can see the blessed man is one who delights in God's law not their own sin this selfless way of understanding happiness runs contrary to our natural inclinations you see what

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I mean ask people what what would make them perfectly happy in this world what would make you happy and most likely you're not going to hear the law of God right you're not going to hear that but beloved this is what makes someone blessed and happy is that the law of God has become their delight and it is their meditation all the day long this is true blessedness this is true happiness

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I remember seeing a man playing

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I think I've already mentioned this man before I only have like two stories so a man playing basketball at this ministry

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I was into this church and I figured was a good opportunity to go out there and play with them and of course given the gospel and so after I let him beat me in basketball that's the key to win their hearts

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I become all things all men and a loser in basketball was that day I'm asking him you know talking about the

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Lord and he just he flat out said I just don't think God has really given me enough things or I don't know exactly what word to use but bless me enough right

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I don't think God has blessed me enough for me to really pay attention to him and so this is a man who has set up his own standard what blessedness is

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I remember telling him I remember saying you know breathe in really really deep you know because we were just playing basketball out of breath he breathes in deep you know he's a nice guy and I said if you know that's enough blessing right there for you to worship your

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God but the thing is his standard was contrary to God's law he set up his own standard and so he found himself very bitter he was a scoffer he was against God and I told him it is not

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God's fault it is your fault because you have set up a contrary standard you must submit yourself to God and his word that's what needs to happen we cannot have our own standard we cannot have our own law the blessed man is one who sees the law of God it is his delight now and so he submits to it and it that is his meditation okay now the second part of this song three and four this is like a simile

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I believe simile is using like or as to compare to like things right I think I got it right and so it's going to describe what is a blessed a non -blessed man like and we see in three and four of Psalm 1 he is like a tree this man who's blessed whose law the

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Lord is his delight and he meditates this man is like a tree who's planted by streams of water that yields its fruit and it sees it and its leaf does not wither and all that he does he prospers but here's the non -blessed man but the wicked are not so but are like chaff that the wind drives away you know chaff is like the the stuff around the fruit right so corn you got the husk right it's a chaff am

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I right there mr. field and so you have that kind of chaff is not useful for anything it gets blown in the wind after harvest season we you see chaff all over the place in the country don't you because the farmers aren't chasing after oh my goodness my produce they don't care all their produce is in their semis as they go by over and over and over and over and over again over and over and over and over again to deliver it where it needs to go but chaff is useless it's only uses really to be burned it's it's not useful to the farmer the produce is and that's what's heavy that's what's weighty right and so we can see that the blessed man is useful useful to who useful to who self no to God to to him to the one whose law has became his delight the blessed man is useful to God where the not so blessed man that the one who's not blessed it is not useful to God now again you ask an unbeliever yes someone what does it mean to be blessed and their definition usually isn't to be useful to my creator although that is truly objectively the blessed man or woman to be useful to the one who has made them now that doesn't mean that God needs us but our desire is to be useful to the one who's made us this is the blessed man so we can see four qualities here of the productive fruit or tree and the first one if you see in verse 3 it is planted in a place where it will succeed it's planted by not a desert but streams of water who plants us who's the one that's in charge of where we are planted not self

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God remember the parable of the sower right what's the seed that actually was put was was good was the one that was planted in good soil and so who do we rely upon in this life to be productive to be helpful to be blessed it's it's our sovereign

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God so if we're in a situation where we are not producing for the Lord we're very weak very dead we're who do we cry out to our own abilities no to the one who is able to plant us where we need to be we cry out to our father who plants so notice the first quality is one who has been planted in an area that is going to produce that's going to provide growth the second quality is that produces as is expected you see that that yields this is the blessed man he's like a tree that yields its fruit in its season you have a certain expectation of a plant that's going to produce certain fruit and notice that the blessed man is produces as is expected it is not okay to be an unproductive

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Christian right you have been you have been planted by the father streams of water and you've been planted so that you would produce for him we live in a very immature age in which

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I want to say this very carefully I want to say it's very carefully we where highlights

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I'm afraid I won't be able to say this carefully where it highlights we live in an age you turn on k -fluff

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I mean k -love and then you turn on these things it highlights this it almost magnifies how

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I you know I'm just a wretched sinner and no good no good at all no but then God loves me anyways kind of thing yes right but move on right yes we're always outside of Christ we are wretched sinners and there is no good right unless if we are satisfying ourselves in him and his kingdom all that beautiful stuff but it's almost as if this immature kind of Christianity we live in is it does not produce a mature

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Christian and they excuse it by saying I'm just a sinner and I can't get anything right no it's because you are not maturing as a productive plant you come to Christ you want to produce for your

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Lord right I want to have fruit that I can give to him not because he needs it because it is my great desire to do so but it's like this immature

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Christianity which instead of wanting that instead of sort of that being our desire we just kind of say oh you know

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I'm just a sinner that's all I am which again you could see why I want to be careful because you are just a sinner right and we do have that but it should not excuse our immaturity if that makes sense

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I hope I'm saying that good it should not excuse our immaturity and I'm so tired of seeing

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Christians that should have been matured and had not and they use that as excuse myself included cannot use that as an excuse you remember what

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Tim was preaching on a couple weeks ago not last week Jim a couple weeks ago see if you're in Sunday school you would have gotten that that joke right there so come to Sunday school you get the inside jokes remember what

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Tim was preaching on though Hebrews 5 at the end of Hebrews 5 11 through 14 let me steal some of Tim's thunder here about this we have much to say and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing for though by this time you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God you need milk not solid food for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child but solid food is for the mature for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil chapter 6 verse 1 therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity again he's not saying let us leave the basics of Christianity let's forget about so he's saying he's like move on they'll get mature grow up as a productive plant let us leave let's move forward go on to maturity not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith or God and instruction about washings the laying on of hands resurrection of the dead and eternal judgments verse 3 and this we will do if God permits for is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have shared in the

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Holy Spirit that tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance since they are crucifying once again the

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Son of God to their own harm and hold them up to contempt for land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those whose sake it is cultivated ie

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God receives a blessing from God but if it bears thorns and thistles it's worthless and it's near to being cursed and its end is simply to be burned so we aren't immature

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Christians we are not satisfied with immaturity grow up do not be happy with being the same level of maturity you are you have a desire

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I am in the kingdom of Christ I'm in good soil I've been given everything so that I can produce fruit for my father so do not be okay with a chaotic mess in your household and in your life in which you sin and you sin you said reach forward to maturity by the power of Christ this is the blessed woman or man it yields its fruit in its season it produces for the father and what's the third characteristic and its leaf does not wither its leaf does not wither it perseveres it perseveres it looks strong a dead tree looks as if just one storm is going to take it down a lively tree looks like it can survive the storms a blessed man or woman is one who is prosperous who perseveres and can and can survive and does survive the storms of life such a prosperous tree is planted in God's law and I would say in his instruction in his in his in his presence we don't have time to do it but if you look at Psalm 92 remember it says in verse 12 the righteous the whole

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Psalm I mean but we'll just look at verse 12 and 13 the righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon they are planted in the house of the

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Lord they flourish in the courts of our God right the courts is like the the presence of God it's the temple itself and so if you want to be blessed you need to be planted in the presence of God and his kingdom and the kingdom of Christ and the law needs to be your delight in your meditation as you go on into maturity and that the blessed man is one who delights and meditates on God's law which produces a tree of prosperity and so this final part this final section of the psalm 5 through 6 it really gets to the heart of the matter the final part of the psalm is what helps us to keep from becoming prosperity gospel heretics while celebrating the blessing and prosperity from God so we don't want to see the prosperity gospel in which it highlights only physical blessings and then forget the fact that God truly does want us to be prosperous and have blessing but it needs to be on God's term according to his law instruction in which we see the heart of the matter here in 5 and 6 of chapter 1 in which the psalmist says therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous for the

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Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked will perish the blessed and prosperous man is the one who will stand at the day of judgment and not be thrown into the oven to be burnt again

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I've already pointed out but blessed is the man who does not stand in the way of sinners because they will not stand at the day of judgment but the righteous one will stand at the day of judgment that is a blessed one it says the

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Lord knows the way of the righteous and it doesn't mean to say doesn't know the way of the unrighteous as if God isn't omniscient he knows every way but God is intimate with the way of the righteous he knows it because it is his way it is his law so he knows their way intimately the way of the wicked will perish just like useless chaff it doesn't need to be a mystery am

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I gonna receive God's judgment or I'm gonna am I gonna be able to stand at God's judgment it really isn't meant to be much of a mystery because we live our lives today and what happens at the end when we die it's just a culmination of how you lived your life

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I'm not preaching workspace salvation but I am saying whenever you are saved God sets you in a position to where you can be productive and if you are productive for God today you will stand in the day of judgment but if you are just someone who is a

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Christian in name only with bad fruit nothing to show forth for it at all you will not say in the day judgment it's just gonna be the culmination of your labors in your life it's not much of a mystery so that's why whenever you see someone who's a

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Christian but it's very yeah you don't see quite the growth that you would like to see and you're just not so sure the greatest thing about that is it takes away their security of salvation right there how blessed is the man who has been changed by Christ his heart's been delivered from darkness and so now their delight is in the law of the

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Lord in which is their delight to grow and be more prosperous for the Lord and the culmination of that is when you enter into the kingdom and God says what well done my good and faithful servant but the one who has not been well done love it that's a scary place to be finally as we start the conclusion if you're going through a season of your life right now that your circumstances are terrible they're just especially bad they're not good you might be thinking how am

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I to be happy right now how am I to be blessed I'm going to be prosperous when there is this thing happening to me whatever it may be we can take a lot of peace and solace in the fact that notice

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Psalm 1 does not say blessed and prosperous are you when you have good circumstances doesn't quite say that does it whatever things are going right for you blessed are you and again that would be what the world thinks blessing is what prosperity is is things just go well for you you're making good money you have your your husband and your wife you're not single anymore right things are just going really well notice the

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Psalm isn't so much about those circumstances what does the Psalm say you are to delight yourself in the law of God and meditate on it day and night this leads to the prosperous and blessed life so no matter what your circumstances are that is what you are to do and so those bad circumstances that you are given that is actually fuel for that fire of blessedness in which

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I am going to utilize this in obedience to my God so whether you are a single person and you hate your singleness and you're lonely and you're full of sadness right use that as a way to grow in the

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Lord to be obedient to him to be prosperous because it's not about your circumstances it's about what you do with your circumstances you are as a

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Christian one in which you can say I can take these circumstances lean into the law of the Lord through the power of Christ and be a blessing prosperous because of these circumstances even if that means

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I found out I have terminal illness or my child is going to die the Christian can be prosperous and we're not a slave to our circumstances and so we need to remind ourselves of that daily as instead of complaining about our circumstances instead we say

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God this is the circumstances that you have given me so that I can lean into your law and use it to be a productive fruit so I find great joy in this because the world is enslaved to their circumstances beloved you are not because of Christ so do not be a slave to your circumstances but rather utilize your circumstances that God in a sovereign will has given to you to lean into his law that is your delight and give it back to him in worship so this is quite the man isn't it blessed is the man and that man is quite the man he is he truly is a one might say a perfect man

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I'm not that perfect man I am NOT the man you know what kind of the man I am you remember when

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David's confronted by Nathan after Bathsheba what does Nathan say to him he gives that parable if you want to call it that a story of you know to hide what he's doing

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Nathan's trying to show him his own story but he tells a different story so David's confused and then

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David here's the story of this unrighteous wretch who's reflected of him and he says that man that needs to die for what he's done and what does

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Nathan say to him you are the man right I'm that man

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I'm that sinner right and we're all falling in Adam for sure so what is this man who is this blessed as a man blessed is

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Christ Christ is the man of Psalm 1 it's his kingdom that we're talking about he is the one that has loved the

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Lord perfectly he's the one that which the law is his delight and he meditated upon it day and night and failed not at it

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Jesus is the man here not you beloved not you this is the story of Jesus pilot

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I think is so interesting to see pilot in the way he acted and he was really used as a tool by both the

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Romans and by God himself because he would say these things that were like a hundred and ten percent spot -on but yet not quite know that he's being used by God in such a way one of the ways

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I think he's used is what does he say about Jesus when he has been when he's about to endure the cross he's been whipped and everything what does he say he's bloodied up and he says what behold the man

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Jesus is the man who has taken upon our sins our punishments right he is the true man who was righteous in all his ways but yet was punished as if he wasn't righteous he is the man that we look to the second

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Adam the second man and we see that in his power in his ability we get ours

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Jesus is the man here in Psalm 1 that because of his wounds we can be that man too so we aren't to look at this outside of Christ's kingdom and say well

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I just got to get better but we are to look at this and say I do not even come close to that of myself but thanks be to Christ that he is the man and then his success becomes ours but Christ beloved did not save you for you to be a useless

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Christian and there's far too many of that and I fight that battle each day in my own life but Christ has saved you to produce fruit for his glory and honor do not waste your life but look upon Psalm 1 see

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Christ as the man but yet he has gathered you into his arms so that you would be that man and woman too this is the gospel so here we see the prosperous life but it's without the heresy instead it's full of gospel that Jesus Christ can make you prosperous in him he can change your heart to love his law and delight in doing it all the days of your life are you doing that and if not what a great opportunity for you to look at Jesus clearer now and to repent and rely upon his strength for you and all of us are falling short to some degree so it's our delight to take it to our dear

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Lord Jesus Christ who is the man let's pray God I thank you

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Lord for my weakness and I thank you for your strength and I thank you Lord that any any fruit

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I see in my own life I know is a gift from you I remember the days in which I was in the kingdom of darkness

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I only had corrupted fruit and Lord in your kindness you have taken me out of that domain of darkness and he brought me into the kingdom of light so that I would be produced

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I would produce fruit for you I know Lord I I desire to grow more fruit

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I desire to to bear fruit in proper seasons Lord and I pray Lord that you would cause me with that desire to look upon Jesus Christ for he produced perfect fruit always for you and so he is our example and he is our power so I pray for the people before me those who do not know

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Jesus that they would repent of their sins and look upon his kingdom and those who are

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Christians those who rely upon Jesus that they would have a new kind of umph and their and their desires to to look closer upon Jesus as we should each day thank you because that is our great worship and I praise you for giving us that worship