Sunday Evening Service

Alright, good evening. I hope you had a wonderful afternoon. It was so nice to feel that soup kind of give way this afternoon and the breeze come through and dry out the air a little bit, cool things down a tad.

And I hope it was refreshing for you as well. I enjoyed the afternoon. I want to begin tonight, I'll tell you what, let's begin with a word of prayer.

And then I'm going to read Psalm 1, so let's pray together. Thank you,

Father, for our time and opportunity to gather back together tonight to open your word, to be challenged by it, and pray that you would use your word in our hearts, and particularly as we think about the source of our happiness and how we define it, that we would be informed by your word tonight.

So this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So if you would, turn to Psalm 1 and let's read the psalm together.

Well, you follow along. As I read, you can probably quote it, which would be fine too, but the first psalm, and then we'll sing it.

And did you pick up one of these song sheets on your way in?

Okay. All right, does anybody need one? Okay, Michael, would you mind, on the table back there, grabbing a couple of those and bring them in.

So the first psalm. The psalmist writes, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. All right, may the

Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. So let's see, Jan needed one.

Anybody else need this? So this is Psalm 1 set to a tune that you're familiar with.

It's the tune, I Sing the Mighty Power of God. Yeah, you know that tune. So it should be easy to follow the tune anyway, and get these lyrics with it.

So let's try this song together, shall we? Together.

That man is blest, who does not walk as wicked men advise, nor stand where sinners meet, nor sit where scorners pose as wise.

Instead he is the one who makes the Lord's law his delight.

And in that law he meditates by day and in the night.

He's like a deeply planted tree beside a water stream, which in its season bears its fruit, whose leaves stay fresh and green.

In all he does he will succeed the wicked, not so.

But they are like the scattered chaff swept by the winds that blow.

The wicked therefore will not stand when time of judgment comes, nor will the sinners stand among assembled righteous ones.

Because the Lord the righteous loves the path they walk, he knows the wicked walk a different path that to destruction goes.

All right, very good. That's some of the psalms that are set to music.

It kind of works. You force it, it'll work, but that one works pretty well.

Appreciate that. Just a reminder to the finance committee that we meet after the service tonight.

And if you can make it Wednesday night, go with us to Ireland and Scotland. Not only are there some interesting things discovered in those two countries, but beautiful, beautiful scenery there as well.

And I think if I recall from the preview, and it's been a few months since I previewed this,

I think this is where, you know, one of Tim Challey's hobbies is landscape photography.

So he's got his really nice camera set up and everything. And he gets this nice picture, blah, blah, blah.

And he then went to turn away, I guess, from where he had taken a picture and fell and ended up at a hospital in Ireland.

And he was commenting on how good the system was. So that's just a little interesting tidbit.

Well, what does it take to make you truly happy, to make a person truly happy?

In the Wednesday night time during the lockdown, when I was doing some live stream

Wednesday night things, we looked a little bit at the Beatitudes, the blessed are statements that Jesus made in the

Sermon on the Mount. And if we could kind of summarize and get to the nutshell of what

Jesus said, those who are genuinely happy are going to be ones who have repented of their sin and put their faith in Christ alone for salvation.

And that would be the starting point of happiness. There won't be any true lasting happiness apart from that starting point.

Maybe a lot of things that can make a temporarily have feelings of happiness, but as far as a longstanding underlying undercurrent of happiness in life, that has to be the starting point.

But Psalm 1 takes us from there. And so I want to look at this Psalm tonight and notice in the first verse what our blessedness or our happiness is dependent upon as the

Psalmist writes it here. Now, again, we're already assuming the underlying assumption here is that the person who wants to be truly happy already has come to faith in Christ.

He said, okay, where do I go from here? All right. Your happiness as a believer is dependent upon, first of all, the advice that you listen to, the advice you listen to.

He says, blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.

So the counsel of the ungodly, the advice of the ungodly. So questions here would come up like, to whom do you listen?

To whom do you listen? Where do you go for advice? Where do you go for counsel?

I get really discouraged sometimes when I hear of Christians or talk to Christians who are, you know, really struggling with something in their lives.

And the more you talk to them, the more you realize they're getting their advice from co -workers, you know, unbelieving co -workers.

They get into a conversation at work, and they're telling their friend or co -worker about this thing or the other, this problem they're having or whatever.

And the co -workers say, well, you ought to do thus and so. And they follow that advice. And that's really distressing when that advice, particularly when that advice, is contrary to the scripture.

Or there are biblical principles along that line that would definitely apply, and those are not being, those are not being followed.

So this, this question of whom you listen to, that impacts how you think, how you think about things.

And you can broaden this, and we need to broaden this. So I mentioned this morning about how, you know, the tactics of the wicked one and how he uses all kinds of things in this world to affect our thinking.

So there, there are messages, there are, there are pieces of advice, quote unquote, that come at you through the things you read, through the things, you know, on social media and so forth, through the, you know, television programs, movies, and media, all of that kind of stuff.

All those things have a message, and those, there, there are messages that are coming to you.

And we need to learn to listen with discernment, to read with discernment, to understand what's really being advised here.

So who do you listen to? The advice you listen to will have an impact on your level of happiness.

And he goes on to say, happy or blessed is the man not only that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, he doesn't stand in the way of sinners.

So secondly, your happiness is dependent upon the path of life that you choose, the path of life you choose, the way of sinners.

This path affects how you behave, how you live your everyday life.

So we might ask some questions here, on what path am I walking? Am I, am I on a pathway that will lead to hurt, lead to hurt?

Not necessarily physical harm. You, you have lived long enough, everyone in this room has lived long enough to know that that harm comes in more ways than to your body physically.

Will this path lead to hurt to yourself? Will it be just self -harming?

Will it lead to hurt to your family? You continue walking down this road, behaving in this particular way, will this hurt your family?

Will it hurt your spouse or your parents? Will it hurt your church family?

You know, there, again, you talk about, you know, the distressing behavior of professing believers when they take a course of action, they, they, they go down a path that they know is going to be harmful to those who love them the most.

And yet in a, a fit of selfishness, selfish desire, selfish ambition, they're willing to go down that path that will harm.

Well, this is the path of sinners, the way of sinners. Is this a path that is destined for trouble?

Keep walking down that path, is it going to get you into some kind of trouble? Is this a path that will ultimately be destructive?

You see, this is the way of sinners. So whom, to whom do you listen?

Second question, general question here about the way of sinners would be, like whom are you living?

Because you notice how the psalmist is tying each of these things to a group or a category of people.

You, you, uh, listen to the counsel of the ungodly, you walk in the way of sinners.

Like whom are you living? Well, then the third area of, uh, dependence, our, our happiness is dependent thirdly upon the company you keep, the company you keep.

It says at the end of verse one, blessed is the man that does not sit in the seat of the scornful, doesn't sit in the seat of the scornful, the company you keep.

Um, this will impact, this will impact to whom you belong, to what you belong, to what you identify, to whom you identify with.

Who do you identify with? You see, who is your crowd? Who are your people?

Um, this, that's, this is what this is talking about. Do you sit with the scornful?

I mentioned this morning in the service, um, you know, as a, as a teenager, mid teenage years,

I, I, I didn't want to be labeled in my public school as one of those, you know,

Jesus freak kids, you know, that's different from everybody else. You know, there were very, very few of us in my, my public school.

And so I was willing to, um, identify with those who were the ungodly just because I didn't want to be thought of as being weird.

I, I mentioned one time, let's see, when was that? Maybe one of those daily devotionals, I think, that I was doing,

I've been doing online, um, that in my high school, we had a different, a few categories of, of groups of people.

You know, we had the, we had the greasers. This is back in 1970s, mid, early 70s, mid, early 70s.

The greasers, um, the greasers were those who were still living in the 1950s.

They were teenagers, but they, they tried to look, have the James Dean look, you know, the, the black leather jacket, the slick greased back hair, you know, and the, in the springtime, they'd have their pack of cigarettes rolled up.

Yeah. In high school, they'd have their pack of cigarettes rolled up in their short sleeve and they were, they were hard guys, you know, greasers.

And then there were the freaks. And the freaks were, you know, again, early 70s, these were, these were hippies.

These were, um, you know, they'd go out at lunchtime and our, our house was right next door to the school, literally right next door to the school.

And there was a little gate with a sidewalk that went right by our house.

And kids during lunch would, would come out at lunchtime and they'd go through the gate just to get, so they're off school property.

And they'd sit in our backyard in big circles and smoke pot and pass around their pipes and their joints and stuff like that.

And these were, these were the freaks. So we had the greasers, the freaks, and then there were the rah -rahs.

These were the, these were the kids that were like the cheerleaders, the football players, you know, they were all gung -ho for the sports and, and so forth.

Then you had the nerds or the geeks. And those were the, those were the kids who were really smart and they were all about academics and, and school.

And then there were the outliers. And the outliers, they were a pretty good contingency of people.

They didn't really fit into any one of those pigeonholes. They could kind of float in and out of the geeks and the rah -rahs sometimes, but they were just kind of the outliers.

And I, I, I gravitated to the outlier myself. And, and, and then there was the one half of one percenters, which were the, the

Christian kids. And, and they, they went to the Bible studies and things like that.

It wasn't until my senior year of high school that I finally got things right with the

Lord and decided, you know, actually took the challenge that somebody brought to our youth group one time.

I don't know if it was an evangelist. I can't remember, missionary, whatever. He said, I dare you.

There were no Christian schools back, well, there was, there was one Christian school in the whole Chicago suburban area. And, and he, so we're all, all, every kid in our youth group was public school.

And there was, there was no such thing as homeschooling at that time. So, you know, all public school kids.

He said, I dare you to take your Bible to school. Not a little pocket testament that you hide away in your pocket.

I dare you to take your Bible to school and put it with your stack of books. I just dare you to do it.

I said, okay, well, I, I'll, I'll take that challenge. And I, and I did. And it was more than one occasion when one of the kids, another kid says, what's that you got there?

You know, and I'd open up a door of opportunity to, to, to talk. And most of the time

I found out you're ignored. You're ignored. But this is the, this is the issue here.

This is the question. To whom do you identify? With whom do you identify?

You, the company you keep sitting in the seat of the scornful. So your happiness depends upon the advice you listen to, the path of life you choose, and the company you keep.

Now, secondly, notice what in verse two, that your hap, what your happiness is related to. It's related to your attitude toward your appreciation of and your action upon God's word.

So the first half of verse two is talking about your attitude. He says, but his delight is in the law of the

Lord. The second half of the verse talks about your action. And in his law, doth he meditate day and night.

So you want to be happy, right? Well, your happiness is going to be related to your attitude toward and your appreciation of God's word.

Is this something you delight in? Notice the paradox here. He delights in the law of the

Lord, delighting in law, delighting in law.

It's not a very typical attitude toward law, is it? I mean, most of the time our attitude toward the law is one of, you know, relative indifference until there's lawlessness, right?

Then maturity really appreciates law and order.

And we're seeing a lot of this in these days. I didn't realize how much junk was going on in Portland.

I mean, I haven't been paying attention to that. I've just tried to stay away from it. But just recently I saw it's been like, what, 50 nights in a row or something like that.

A tremendous number of nights in a row where anarchists, rioters are just doing all kinds of unlawful stuff in the city of Portland.

And was it yesterday or Friday, a bunch of, you know, rioters downtown

Chicago at this Columbus statue in Grant Park, you know, again, violating the law, throwing stuff at police officers.

I read a report of PVC piping sharpened to be like spears and throwing these things at police officers and a total disdain for the law.

They have a disdain for the law. Mature, responsible individuals appreciate the law and understand the value of the law and the importance of the law.

All right. Now this is God's law that he's talking about here. You delight yourself in the law of the

Lord. And so the mature believer in Christ, the follower of Christ, is not going to look at God's word as something that hems him in, as something that is restrictive.

It's going to be something that is helpful, helping him to thrive and helping to be all that God would have him to be and really benefit his life and be a key to a happy life.

So with maturity, you appreciate the importance and the value of God's law.

And then what that does when you appreciate God's law as you should, that leads to some action.

And the last part of verse two talks about the action that is taken here. In his law, he meditates day and night.

And this is talking about a conscious, regular engagement with God's word, where you, the way

I think about this is not that you, you know, sit around like in a trans -like state and, you know, you're going over and over Bible verses again and again and again.

Now that's certainly valuable to meditate on God's word like that for a brief period of time, a relatively brief period of time.

You can't do that continuously day and night. But what you can do is you can run everything, and this is,

I think, the emphasis here. You actively run everything through the grid of God's word, through the grid of the law of the

Lord. You know, how does this, how does God's word apply to this decision?

How does God's word apply to my relationship with my employer, my spouse, my kids, my parents, and so forth?

And here I am watching this. Is this something that I really ought to be watching? Here I am looking at this.

What is this message that I'm hearing? How does that jive with God's word, you see? And so God's word is something that you consciously, actively engage with over and over again through the course of your day.

You're mulling over the meaning and the application of the scripture, and you're mulling over your life in relationship to God's law, to God's truth, to God's word.

Your happiness is related to this, to how you interact with the word of God.

But then in verse three, the psalmist goes on to say that your happiness is reflected in several different things.

It's first of all reflected in your being favored by the Lord. You're being favored by the

Lord. He says, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. And the word planted, and maybe you've had this pointed out to you before in any studies on Psalm 1, the word planted there doesn't mean like, you know, you find a seed and you go out and put it in a spot by the river.

It's more like you have a sapling, a sapling that is taken from one place where it would be vulnerable, and it's taken to the river's edge.

It's taken where there's a nearby close source of water where it can be nourished continuously.

It's transplanted. And this is speaking of the gracious favor of God, whereby he takes you and deliberately, thoughtfully places you in a place of his favor, of his care.

A second way your happiness is reflected here in verse three is that you enjoy fruitful living in the

Lord, like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season.

This is an interesting description here. Brings forth his fruit in his season. There is in many ways, when you think about the fruit of the

Christian life, you know, Galatians 5 23 talks about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, gentleness, and so on.

You think about the fruit of the spirit, and other areas of scripture where it talks about the fruit being born in the

Christian life. There is a sense in which fruit comes forth seasonably.

And what I mean by that, well, let me illustrate it this way. Many, many years ago, when

I was serving as a assistant for a pastor in South Bend, and this pastor was, this pastor was an old guy then.

I think he was my age now. At least that's the way I looked at him then.

You know, I'm 28 years old sitting under this guy's ministry, and here he is a 60, 61, 62 year old seasoned pastor who's been in the ministry all these years.

And he told the story. Now, you know, I thought this is a godly guy. He's spiritually mature, and all the rest of the stuff.

And he says, he used to know, he said, I was, I was reading the other day about what some believers are going through in countries where they're persecuted for their faith.

And he said, as I read that, and I read, I read how they were able to endure that terrible persecution, my first response was,

I don't think I could do that. I really don't think I could do that. I mean, you think about it.

You wives. I just read the other day of a wife, mother of three,

I think, children, husbands, a pastor in Uganda, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, one of those countries in Africa.

And some pagan villagers came to their home, tied up their, her husband, and led him away.

And she tried, what, what's, what's, what's going on? What, what's he, what did he do? Be quiet, stay away.

You know, and they let him out of the house. And a few minutes later, she heard a gunshot.

And she went screaming out of the house, trying to find him, look for him, and found him, you know, lying in a pool of blood, dead.

Because he was a Christian pastor. Now, wives,

Christian wives, how would you handle that? Could, could you, could you graciously give an interview after the fact and talk about how much you love

Christ, and how you are not going to allow this kind of intimidation to scare you away from your faith in Christ?

This was some, this is a summary of essentially her, her testimony following that tragedy.

So this pastor was talking about that kind of a thing. And he said, he said, I read of this, and I'm thinking,

I couldn't do that. I, I would not have the grace to do that.

But then he said, and here's coming back, here's, we're circling back here to our text.

Then he said, I realized that God gives the fruit in its season.

And right now, and this was in south side of South Bend, white collar, comfortable church, and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

He says, right now where I am in my place in the ministry, in my time and context,

I don't need that fruit to be able to, to be able to do what that woman did.

But if I were in that position, then God would give me that fruit. God would bring forth that fruit in its season.

Why? Because I delight myself in the law of the Lord and in His law,

I meditate day and night, and I don't walk in the way of the ungodly, and I don't sit in the seat of the, of the scornful, and I don't listen to their counsel.

So God will by His grace bring forth that fruit in His season. So in a time of affliction, a time of affliction,

God will bring forth the fruit of patience. In a time of great prosperity and blessing,

God will bring forth the fruit of gratitude. In a time of opportunity, God given opportunity,

He will bring forth the fruit of zeal. In a time of adversity, God will bring forth the fruit of long suffering.

This is a reflection of the person who's truly happy, brings forth his fruit in his season.

Another reflection of that happiness here in verse 3 is a certainty, a future certainty that comes from the

Lord. His leaf also shall not wither. The way Spurgeon described this was, he said, all of the

Lord's trees are evergreens. All of the Lord's trees are evergreens.

That's pretty good. Spurgeon had a way of picturing things like that. His leaf shall not wither.

And then a fourth reflection of your happiness is to enjoy this final verdict by the

Lord that says whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

And right now you may be thinking, well, wait a minute, you know, there's an awful lot of stuff in my life that isn't prospering quite like the way

I'd like to see it prosper. It certainly wouldn't be defined as prosperity, at least as the world would define it.

Understandable. That prosperity may be hidden. It may be unrecognizable by most people right now, but it'll be admitted by everyone when the well done, now good and faithful servant is heard.

Oh, there's the prosperity, right? There's the prosperity. This is like the, like the seed that is sown in good soil that brings forth a fruit that remains or like the talent employed by the faithful servant who brings forth clear returns when he gives an account to his

Lord. The final verdict by the Lord is whatsoever he does will prosper.

Now, lastly, let's notice in these last four verses, verses four through six, what your happiness will be accompanied by.

And we'll get this by looking at, as the psalmist does, the contrast to the righteous, to the one who is happy.

In the last half of the psalm, he says the ungodly are not so. Well, what is the life of the ungodly like?

Verse four, the ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. So we can take from that that the happiness of the believer in Christ who's, who's not listening to the wrong kind of counsel.

He's not walking in the way of sinners or sitting in the seat of the scornful. He's delighting in the law of the

Lord and meditating in it day and night. That happiness will be accompanied by a meaningful life, a meaningful life.

Isn't this just the contrast of verse four? Chaff, which the wind drives away.

The life of the truly happy one is one that is a life of substance, not like chaff.

Chaff, rootless, weightless, worthless, blown away.

Your life has substance if you're like the believer in the first three verses.

And it's a life that endures, like the chaff which the wind drives away.

A life that endures, a meaningful life. And, and verse five shows another area of contrast with the godly.

Says the ungodly shall not stand in judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

So whereas the ungodly are, you know, not going to stand and in any place of great stability, the one who's truly happy is one who will have a stable life.

A stable life. Why? Because you have a defense. Look at the verse again.

The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. Let me ask you something, follower of Jesus, will you stand in the judgment?

Why will you stand in the judgment? Remember what John said?

We have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ, the righteous.

We have an advocate with the Father. We have a defense. See, the ungodly has no defense and therefore shall not stand in the judgment.

You also have a place that the ungodly does not have. He will not stand in the judgment nor sinners will they stand in the congregation of the righteous.

You have a place and your place is that congregation, that assembly of the righteous.

A stable life. And then lastly, verse six, your happiness will be accompanied by a secure life.

A secure life. The Lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

A final contrast. You have a secure life because the

Lord knows who you are. What's the contrast here in verse six?

It's a contrast between the righteous and the ungodly. Who determines who's who?

Who knows who is who? The Lord. So if you are

Christ, He knows you as one who is righteous. You are righteous in Christ Jesus.

You have the righteousness of Christ in you. You are righteous in Christ Jesus. And so you have a secure life because the

Lord knows who you are. This is what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 3.

Let me share this with you. 1 Peter 3 verses 12 and 13.

Peter writes and says, the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open unto their prayers.

How does he know who they are? Because he knows his son and he knows who those who are in his son.

But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you if you be followers of that which is good?

A secure life because the Lord knows who you are. A secure life also because the

Lord knows your way. He knows your way. The way of the ungodly shall perish.

What is it that you as one of the righteous have to look forward to? You turn back a few pages in your

Bible to Job 23, this very familiar verse in the 23rd chapter of Job.

You remember Job in the midst of all of his misery? He knew in his heart of hearts that he was righteous.

I didn't say perfect. He knew he was righteous. He knew that the affliction that he was suffering from was not because of sin, because of unrighteousness on his part.

He wasn't going through this because he was ungodly. So he knew he was righteous.

So he knew that he was on a way that would eventually prove to be secure.

And how did he reflect that? How did he express that certainty of a secure life?

In verse 10, Job 23 and verse 10.

He knoweth the way that I take. He knows the path that I'm on.

He knows the way that I take. When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

God, this is the expression of a man who has a sense of security about where he is, about the path that he's on.

The Lord knows the way that I'm taking. And when he's tried me, when he's brought me through this path, even though right now it's a path of adversity and affliction,

I shall come forth as gold. And the righteous have that to look forward to.

So I don't, I don't know what you're going through right now and what kind of affliction and burdens that you're carrying and all the rest of that.

And it may feel like, it may feel like anything but gold.

It may feel like there's nothing ahead for you but dross. But are you listening to the counsel of Christ?

Are you walking in the path of Christ? Are you sitting at the feet of Christ?

Is your delight in the law of God? Is that your meditation day and night?

As one who's been transplanted by the rivers of the water of life,

I will bring forth fruit in its season. And there is an end in for, there is an end for the righteous that is gold.

This is what you have to look forward to. But in contrast, what does the ungodly have to look forward to? The way of the ungodly shall perish.

Again, Peter writes of this most graphically, 2nd Peter 3 verse 10, says the day of the

Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. The elements shall melt with a fervent heat.

The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. What do the ungodly have to look forward to?

Everything that they have given their lives to, burned up.

And they themselves shall perish. They themselves shall perish.

Maybe right now you're not feeling very happy, but are you Christ? If you're following Christ, you're walking with Christ, endeavoring to at least.

You are shunning the, the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners, the seed of the scornful.

You're delighting yourself in God's word, find yourself going back to it over and over again through the course of your day, the course of your life.

One who's a tree transplanted by the rivers of water. The Lord will bring forth fruit in its season.

You may not feel that sense of happiness, but you are blessed.

You are truly blessed. I trust that God will graciously give you the eyes to see that and that that may even affect how you feel in the end.

So our Father and our God bless these thoughts to our hearts tonight. We pray. I pray that you would encourage us to be a people of your word, that love your law, delight in your law, meditate in your word day and night.

Father, help us to be sensitive to the direction that our life is taking.

Help us to be alert to the messages that we're listening to and imbibing in and taking upon ourselves as accepting as true.

Lord help us to be a blessed, happy people. We pray this in Jesus name and for his sake.

Amen. All right, well I trust the Lord will give you a good week this week and meditate on his word, enjoy serving him wherever he's placed you, wherever he's placed you.

Find how that place and God's word connect through the course of this week.