“A ’Blessed’ New Year!” – FBC Morning Light (1/1/2025)

Well, a Happy New Year to you. I thought about not posting this live stream until later this morning, but then I thought, you know what, if you stayed up late last night and couldn't get up until well after this aired live, well, you could always catch it on YouTube or Facebook or even the church website.

Well, today we're starting a new Bible reading plan, Reading Through the Bible this year, and following a more sequential approach, if you will, reading a couple chapters in the Old Testament, and then Monday through Friday, reading a chapter in the New Testament, as well as one of the Psalms, and then later in the year, the Proverbs.

And so today, on this first day of 2025, we're reading the first two chapters of Genesis, Matthew 1, and then Psalm 1. I want to focus on Psalm 1, because as we begin a new year, this psalm is a wonderful psalm for some personal reflection.

We say, Happy New Year, right? We say, Happy New Year, and hopefully, as believers, what we mean by that is, may you have a blessed new year. May you be blessed in this coming year. Well, how can I be sure that I will truly be blessed?

Psalm 1 gives us an answer. Blessed is the man, or blessed is the person, and then he goes on in this particular psalm. A blessed man's life, a some negative rejection. If you're going to be blessed in 2025, there's some things you need to reject.

Verse 1 goes on to say, Blessed is the man who rejects. He does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. These are things that, if I want to be blessed, I need to reject.

But the blessed man also isn't just all negative. He's not just all down on everything. There's also some positive reflection that he engages in. He focuses on these things in verse 2. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night.

That yields the blessedness that may not be expressed in financial prosperity, or career success, or things like that, that the world would look at as meriting the expression of happiness or blessedness.

But what is the blessedness that comes to the person who engages in this negative rejection of verse 1 and positive reflection in verse 2? Verse 3. This is the blessedness. It is the evidence of stability and fruitfulness.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season. A blessed person, someone who is blessed by God, is one who is truly, fruitfully productive. As you begin a new year, you often think about goals that are going to be set in this year, and you hope for a productive life, productive in your work, productive at home, and so forth.

As believers, what we want, more than mere productivity, is fruitfulness. If we're fruitful, we'll be productive. You can be productive and not truly be fruitful. Remember, the fruit of the Spirit. Remember the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.

This is what we want. We want a productivity that is marked by the fruit of the Spirit, bringing forth that fruit in its season. The leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does will prosper. Whatever the blessing is one of evidence, stability, and fruitfulness.

By quite the contrast, though, this psalm ends warning us of the lack of blessing, if you will, of the ungodly. The ungodly are not so, they're not stable, they're not fruitful, but instead they're like the chaff, which the wind drives away.

The chaff, the husk, the hull of the grain that is discarded. When the grain is trampled out and then thrown up in the air, the kernel of that grain falls to the ground. It's got some weightiness to it, some gravitas, if you will.

But the chaff is blown away. The ungodly are like that. No stability, no real fruitfulness, and a very unfortunate destiny. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

But you who truly long to be godly and blessed people this year, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. The way of the ungodly will perish, but the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Let's have as our yearning for 2025 to be people who know true blessing from the Lord.

People who don't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the way of sinners, sit in the seat of the scornful, but instead delight ourselves in the law of the Lord and meditate on it day and night.

Our Father and our God, as this new year dawns upon us, I pray that we would long to be a people who can be truly blessed with stability and fruitfulness in the coming year. We pray in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen. All right. Well, listen, I hope you have a wonderful New Year's Day and enjoy the time off and get this year off to a good start. God bless.