Meditating on the Law of God

Meditating on the Law of God in Psalm 1

With me, please, to surprise, surprise the book of Psalms, Psalm 1. Psalm 1, safe, traditional. I mean, most of your Bibles automatically open to the Psalter on a Wednesday night. You know, it is Wednesday night, so we'll look at a few verses from Psalm 1.

It hasn't been that long since we were here. Of course, it's never that long since we've been here, since we go through the Psalter in a regular fashion on Wednesday evening. But I want to look at the concept laid out for us in just the first few verses.

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

The Blessed Man and His Separation from Wicked Counsel

Now, most of us probably have those verses memorized. You may have learned them when you were a young person. I think this was actually a set of memory verses that I either learned in my youth, or I think one summer, I think I taught kids, and Psalm 1 was one of the sections that we worked on that, and one of the two.

But be that as it may, it is a text very, very well known to us. And again, whenever you address a well-known text, there's danger. There's danger because, well, we know it so well that the mind can begin to wander.

And you probably know the content of the text, just a few comments before I make application. The blessedness of man, the fact that if you want the very thing in life that most people say they want. I mean, what is the great American way, but the pursuit of happiness?

Well, that term blessed refers to happiness, to joy. Normally we think of it coming from God, but how blessed, how joyful is the man who does what? And we know that there's a structure here. You can look at each of the verbs and then who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, does not stand in the path of sinners, does not sit in the seat of scoffers.

You've got walking, standing, sitting, and you have the context. You have those, the wicked, the counsel of the wicked, that which the wicked would counsel a person to believe or how a person should act.

The counsel of the wicked, the blessed man, he does not walk or he does not live in the context of hearing that counsel. Now he may hear it as he's walking by. He may hear it as we are surrounded, many of us, by so much today, maybe in your job, maybe just in the way that your life is, you know, you open up.

Well, many of us, you know, get our news electronically and then I think there are about four subscribers, the Arizona Republic left, and I'm sure that Pastor Fry is one of them, and they're waiting for you to give up so they can finally just close the doors.

Actually, it's just like, well, we've still got one out there. Let's keep trying, you know. However it is you engage with the world, you will hear the counsel of the wicked. And so how can you not walk in the counsel of the wicked?

How can you not be exposed to it? Well, obviously, it's talking about where you choose to be. You choose where you walk. You choose where you stand. You choose where you sit. These are where you place yourself.

And so the question is, do you place yourself in the counsel of the wicked? Who do you listen to? Who do you look to for counsel and for understanding? Do you choose to listen to the counsel of the wicked?

And there is a lot of wicked out there who are more than happy to speak loudly and to present their counsel, nor stand in the path of sinners. How many people there are who on Sunday will be exposed to the Word of God, but during the rest of their life, they choose to stand in the path of sinners.

There's another path they could go, and I'm not again talking about leaving the world. You're talking about being a monk. No, you can choose who you are with, who you spend your time with, not necessarily in the place of work or employment or as you're walking down the sidewalk at school or something like that.

But you know that you can look around and you can choose and you know who's going to lead you toward godliness and who's going to lead you away from godliness. And the blessed man is one who does not choose to walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers, those who scoff.

Scoffing, the Law of Yahweh, and Delighting in God's Character

You know, really, I would say that that's an excellent, excellent description of the attitude of our society. I was listening just today, I was watching, I was trying to get them downloaded and I was struggling with it because of the way they've been posted on the internet.

I finally got them, but it was taking a lot of... I was trying to find what I needed to get to get these videos. Douglas Wilson, who is known to many of you. I debated him back in 2004, but we debated as Christians.

We have some pretty important differences, but I believe Doug Wilson is a Christian and I've benefited from a number of things that he's done. He went to the University of Illinois to do a presentation on designed sex, designed sexuality, saying, in other words, that God defines and designs what sexuality is.

You know what that's like to go to a public university today and to speak out against homosexuality and various things like that? My goodness, listening to the young people, and I say young, okay, 28 and below or so, but listening to the young people and the questions they were asking, their behavior, of course, was horrific as you would expect.

But I would say the term scoffing, scoffing at the cross, scoffing at the gospel, scoffing at just theism as a whole, that is the description of the attitude of these individuals as they stood at the microphones or didn't bother with microphones and just yelled out their disagreement with Pastor Wilson.

So the blessed man, he doesn't do these things, but what allows him not to do these things? It's because his delight. His delight is in the law of Yahweh. Notice L-O-R-D in caps there. The covenant God of Israel, his delight is in the law of Yahweh, in the Torah.

The Torah of Yahweh is his delight, and in his law, he meditates day and night. And this is what I wanted to get to. First of all, what empowers the true believer to avoid the constant pressures to be walking, standing, and sitting in those places that will sap you of all spiritual strength and will turn you into the kind of Christian that the world doesn't fear.

I don't know what you want to be, but I don't want to be the kind of Christian the world doesn't fear. And they know who they are. They know who they are. They know the kind of Christianity that in no way, shape, or form brings conviction of sin in their lives.

They don't care about those types of folks. You can believe that all you want because they know it doesn't make a lick of difference as to how you live your life the rest of the week. If you want to be the type of Christian who is an alive Christian, who does not do these things, there has to be something positive.

It's not just, you know, the law does not contain within itself the power and ability for us to love it and to obey it. There has to be that spiritual aspect. The spirit of God has to be involved. And so there has to be something positive.

His delight is in the law of Yahweh. Now, there are not a lot of Christians in our world that would honestly say their delight is in the law of the Lord. There are not a lot. That's come up especially, you know, ever since the past couple months.

Let's face it. Front and center for conversations for all of us, if we're engaging the culture at all, is the issue of homosexuality, the nature of marriage. And how many Christians are there out there who, when faced with the slightest challenges based upon the nature of God's law, just go, I don't know.

I haven't read much Leviticus, you know. I tried once. I got through about 12 chapters. And isn't it true? I mean, that seems to be the perspective of many people. And so these facile, simplistic arguments that people throw out, well, you're not supposed to wear polyester either, you know.

And they're by people who don't know anything about the law. But since for most Christians their delight isn't in the law, all they know is that one verse in Romans, we're not in the law, we're under grace.

Which means we don't ever worry about the law because we're under grace. No, that's not what Paul was saying. There was a context to what Paul said. His delight is in the law of notice. And I emphasize, I didn't just use the word Lord.

Because Lord can sometimes be very impersonal. This is the Tetragrammaton, Yod-Heh-Wau-Heh, the very name of the covenant God of Israel. This is a specific law that is in mind here. It's the very same law that we're told in the hearts of the people of the new covenant.

And so they delight in it. Why? Because it represents his character and nature. And because they want to please him, then the law reveals to us what is pleasing to him. That's why it's not a burden. That's why it's not just some external code.

I mean, for most people in our society today, law has become just so arbitrary and so disconnected from the lawgiver that it really doesn't have any moral force anymore. If you can get around it, most people don't feel guilty about it at all because the law doesn't represent a lawgiver anymore.

If the lawgiver can change his mind tomorrow, if what was law 20 years ago today is the exact opposite, then where's the moral power of law anymore anyways? We'll be heading toward more and more lawlessness because the only true foundation of law is knowing the lawgiver.

So his delight, he has a positive delight in the law of Yahweh because he loves Yahweh and therefore he wants to know Yahweh's character and the law of Yahweh reveals that to him. And therefore in his law, he meditates day and night.

Meditating Day and Night as Constant Communion with God

Now here's the question. How do you do that? I mean, we read it. The words seem to indicate he meditates day and night. In the law of God. Now, unless you're a, maybe you're a priest who didn't have much to do in the temple precincts.

I don't want someone driving down the road with their Bible on their steering wheel as they're, as they're, you know, whipping along I -17, you know. I want their eyes on the road. I want them paying attention to what they're doing.

If they're my employee, I want them paying attention to what they're doing. How do you meditate on his law day and night? In 1 Thessalonians 5 .17, we're told to pray without ceasing. Unceasingly pray.

Don't stop praying. Now, does that just mean, well, don't stop praying as in, well, you pray a certain amount and just don't stop doing that? No, it's pray unceasing. All of us have in one way or another found a way.

I want to use the term found a way around this, but we've, we've interpreted these verses in, in some way that we don't feel like we're in constant rebellion against them, but how specifically have you done so?

I think there's a connectedness between the blessedness of this man in Psalm 1 .2 and the command we have in 1 Thessalonians 5 .17 to pray without ceasing. Or as, as, as Paul says elsewhere, you know, rejoicing always.

And, and there's this, there's an emphasis upon the fact that our Christian life is to be an every day, every hour, every moment experience. It's not something we turn on and turn off. It's not something that's just over there and we switch into that mode over there.

And then we've got the other mode over here. Like I was saying on Sunday, the idea of having the secular and the sacred. No, I think there's a way to put these together. How do you meditate on his law?

Does that require silence sitting with an open scripture, reading scripture and pondering scripture? And that's all you're doing. Because if that's what this is about, you can't do it day and night. It's not possible.

It's physically not a possible thing to do. Is that what this psalmist is describing? Well, I don't think that he is, but how then do we fulfill this command? I think that what is being said here, and when we put it together with what we have in 1 Thessalonians about praying without ceasing, we're talking about constant immersion in the recognition of who God is and that I am his creature.

I am under his sight. I am in his presence. And as believers, I am indwelt by his spirit. That the spirit of God is described as the down payment, the one who indwells us, the one who unites us, it gives us our supernatural union together.

Because all believers, if you're a believer, you're indwelt by the spirit of God. That's what binds the body together, is the presence of the spirit of God. And so I'm constantly in the presence of God.

Yes, there is a special sense in which we enter into the presence of God when we have baptism in the Lord's Supper, and the preaching of the word, and the gathering of saints, and the singing, and so on and so forth.

But we are never separated from God. We're always in his presence because we're indwelt by his spirit. And if we're indwelt by his spirit, then we should be sensible to his presence within us. And that means our speech is speech that we are not only uttering in the presence of others as a representative of Christ, but we are also uttering it in the presence of Christ himself.

The decisions that we make, and we're faced with a myriad of decisions of lesser and greater import every day. And sometimes we can see major decisions coming and we can invest efforts to really seek out godly wisdom and things like that.

And sometimes you're just hit with something like that and you've got to make a decision. Make that decision. Do you see yourself making that decision in light of the fact that you have made it a regular part of your life?

It defines you as a person to first and foremost think, what does God's word say? And I'm not talking about just wearing a bracelet in the middle of the world. What would Jesus do? There's nothing wrong with that.

Except that Jesus was unique and we're also told to imitate Paul and things like that. And Jesus wasn't in certain situations that maybe other people in scripture, they've been given to us as examples and things like that.

So we need to have a little bit broader view than just what would Jesus do. But the idea isn't all that bad. And that is, what would Jesus have me to do? And the only way for me to know that is to be constantly exposing myself to his word, because the world is constantly trying to siphon away out of my mind everything I've ever learned.

How many times do we as Christians admit that we get into a situation and we get through it and somebody helps us and we've gone through a time of trial. You get to that side and you go, I had already gone through that.

I had gone through that 10 years ago and I had already learned this and then forgot it. And you feel foolish and you realize, my goodness, how can I forget spiritual lessons I've learned in the past? The Lord has to keep teaching these things to me.

How patient and long-suffering he must be, given what I am and how unfaithful I frequently am. I think meditating upon his law means that we live our lives in light of the fact that God has spoken, we acknowledge God has spoken, and we always want to apply, in every aspect of our lives, the principles that his law has revealed to us, that his word has instilled within us.

Living Every Part of Life Under God's Word

As we've heard the word preached, as we study, as we personally study, as we study corporately, maybe as you teach, whatever else it might be, you do not leave any part of your life, day or night, walking, standing, or sitting, outside of the light of God's word.

So that even as you're reading the newspaper, electronically or on that paper stuff, whichever way you do it, you still like to get the little, you still get some of the news ink on your paper. I keep some of them around for the museum because they're going there pretty quick, but however you do it, however you expose yourself to the world, as you are reading, what is the filter?

What is the first thing across your mind? What does God say about that? What's God's view about that? That's what I think meditating day and night, yes, it involves the study of the word of God, yes, it involves memorization of scriptures, it involves all of those things, but to be able to do it day and night means that I walk constantly in light of what the word of God says.

And in the same way, to pray without ceasing means that I always see myself in communion with God. I always see myself being in the position of being able to pray, not putting myself in a position where I couldn't, of sensing the constant communion that is there through the Holy Spirit of God, so that I am constantly crying out, that I don't have to stop what I'm doing, I don't have to stop the machine I'm working on, or turn the computer off that I'm working on, and fold my hands, and okay, now I'm going to pray.

I wasn't before then, but now I am. Yes, there's a special time that we gather, that's what we call this prayer meeting. If we didn't think there was a special time of doing this, then we wouldn't have a special meeting time to do it.

But there's also the opportunity to pray with your eyes open, there's the opportunity to pray actually with your mouth open too. I mean, there's, let me tell you something, there are many times when I'm in a debate that I'm praying and I'm all the same time.

I mean, when I, you know, I don't think anybody here got to be there, but when I went to Toronto last year, I don't like going to Canada anymore, I figure someday I'm never going to get out, but I went to Toronto, it's true, and those mountains are scary looking things, that's all I can say, but I was debating one of the world's best known Islamic apologists in a mosque, and it's my turn to give my closing statement, and as I walk up to that podium, I have a job to do.

There have been people who've done work to set this up, and people who've donated money to make it possible for me to be there, and you know, all the rest of this, I've got a job to do, but that job has a spiritual component, and so yeah, I'm speaking, but I'm also praying.

I'm praying that God would use my words to reach those Muslims, to use my words to reach those Christians, to encourage them in reaching Muslims that I'm not going to be able to talk to. All these things are going on, and it's a receptivity to the Spirit of God, and to the things of God, and the truth of God, and the gospel.

It's a receptivity. It's an attitude of not trusting myself, but looking out from myself, and I think that's a part of praying without ceasing. I mean, Paul preached. Paul stood on Mars Hill. Was he not praying then?

Was he breaking his own command? Pray without ceasing. I get to break that because I have to preach. No, of course not. The unceasing nature of that is a constant recognition of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, communion with God, and a receptivity to what the Word of God would have us to do, and to say, and how to act, and so when we look at this opening, a beautiful opening to the Psalter, we talk about an appropriate, balanced way.

A lot of people noted that that first psalm just sets the theme for the rest, really hit this crescendo in Psalm 119. As we consider these words again, hopefully we will see that they call us to balance, but they call us to a balance that is utterly unknowable in the world.

The world cannot conceive what our lives should be like, and we are the ones that deprive ourselves when we choose to live like the world, rather than how we could live as servants of the King, on a completely different level.

A level of deep and abiding joy that has, well, eternal benefits to it. So ask yourself the question, what do I delight in? Is my delight in the law of the Lord? Do I delight to meditate day and night in His law?

Am I applying His truth to all of my life? That really is the question that we need to consider this evening.