Way of the Godly vs Ungodly

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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July 7, 2024

00:00: I decided, I know Mike's in Daniel and stuff, he told me I could continue there, but I feel that's his package, so I'm gonna let him keep that.
00:09: But I like the book of Psalms. They've always brought a lot of comfort to me.
00:15: In fact, the Psalms touch all the notes of the keyboard in human emotions. From middle
00:22: C all the way up and all the way back down, we see the Psalms touch all the notes in our human experience, really, in who we are, what we are, why we're
00:32: Christian, why we're not Christian. And in fact, that's what
00:37: Psalm one's pretty well all about today. It's about the godly and the ungodly. Now, what
00:43: I do normally when we start the first school year, normally I'm kind of, I don't wanna really phrase it as stuck with chapel, but I kinda get chapel, if you know what
00:52: I mean. And I always start out with this Psalm to teach them that there are only two ways we're gonna go this year.
00:59: We're gonna go the godly way or we're gonna go the ungodly way. There's no in between anywhere.
01:05: There's godly or there's ungodly. There's right. Now, what is godly and ungodly do?
01:12: One, it determines right from wrong. That's what kind of year we're gonna have here at the school.
01:19: And usually I also preface it with the idea that, well, I want this to be practical.
01:25: I want this to be personal and unfortunately, there may be some preaching sneaking in between.
01:33: And one of my C -minus students, y 'all looking at it with C -minus, that's not too good, is it?
01:40: No, not really, but at least you're getting by. And one of my C -minus students has been with us a few years.
01:46: He says, you can forget the personal, you can forget the practical. He's gonna start preaching. And so anyway,
01:54: I hope that we can stay more personal and more practical this morning. So let's read the first Psalm.
02:01: And then we will kind of, what we're gonna do is kind of a synthetic Bible study. Someone says, oh my goodness,
02:07: I got synthetic all over me. I'm wearing it. I'm around it. Well, synthetic is basically this.
02:12: We may call it outline. There's not a lot of that done anymore.
02:18: Most of it is expositional and things. And I was kind of raised in the synthetic method that you actually diagrammed the scripture that you were going to preach on or you were going to teach on.
02:31: And that's kind of how I learned. So I haven't really departed much from that. And as I get older,
02:39: I find out if I depart too much from anything, I've forgotten it. So I better not do that either.
02:45: But let's go ahead and read it. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.
02:53: Nor stands in the path of sinners. Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
03:00: But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night.
03:06: He shall be like a tree planted. He should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaves also shall not wither.
03:18: And whatsoever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so. We're like the chaff which the wind drives away.
03:28: Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
03:35: Now, a lot of people believe Psalm 1 is an introductory psalm. And I have to agree with them because the whole book of Psalm basically bases itself on two things, the way of the godly and the way of the ungodly.
03:48: And I don't know if we're going to get over there within time today or not. I hope we can get over there.
03:54: But that is really what David's experiences, other people's experiences, Moses' experiences, they're all sitting there in the book of Psalms.
04:03: And it's really the godly or the wicked and the good, the right and the wrong. It's all through the book of Psalms.
04:11: And our human experiences is that normally what we deal with in life are matters of right and wrong.
04:20: All matters of right and wrong is normally what we deal with. And as we become a Christian, or as we become a
04:28: Christian, we get to this point where we realize that we really have to struggle with right and wrong.
04:37: It's a struggle. Did not Paul say, hey, I know to do good.
04:44: But you know something, I don't do very, I'm not very good at it. I know what good is, but I'm not very good at it.
04:53: And so we see that the Psalms are just that same way. I mean, who has not been, I mean,
04:59: I tell you, I did a funeral for a lady in Georgia, and she loved the 23rd
05:08: Psalm. And she wanted the 23rd Psalm read at her funeral.
05:14: I said, I'll be glad to do that. And so I did, but I also was able to use the 23rd
05:22: Psalm to really tell people about the experience of her life. And she was 90 years old, and she had had some experiences at 90 years old.
05:36: So we see then that the Psalms, they touch the godly and the ungodly, but more so they touch human emotions.
05:43: So this introductory Psalm begins telling us certain things. It begins telling us exactly what a godly person is and an ungodly person is.
05:57: Now, back in the Old Testament, earlier in Moses' time, there was two mounts.
06:02: And I have forgotten the two mounts that they were, but the one mount was called blessing, one mount was called cursing.
06:08: And it said, if you want to do good and live in the land, this is the thing of blessing.
06:14: And he would read the thing of blessing, the law. Then over on the other side, one would read, okay, if you don't keep this, this is what's going to happen.
06:25: So it's kind of that way throughout the book of Psalms and throughout the Bible. Now, what about the way of the godly?
06:34: Well, first of all, the way of the godly, if you look at verse one, blessed is a man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, stands in the paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
06:45: I'm reading from the New King James Version, by the way. And sorry, Mike. But anyway, it's some close, right?
06:54: Okay, all right. So anyway, first of all, the way of the godly is in verses one through three.
07:00: Now, what is the way of the godly? Well, let's start with verse one. And notice, first of all, that the godly is satisfied in God.
07:34: In the 1960s, when I had hair, there was a song, and it's still popular,
07:42: I tell you, anywhere the Rolling Stones go, that song is going to be sung. And it says,
07:47: I can't get no satisfaction. And guess what?
07:54: Outside of God, you're not. You're never going to be satisfied.
08:01: I think, and we start out with the word blessed. Blessed is the man. Now, what other passage can you think of that starts out with the words blessed?
08:13: How about Matthew chapter five, and the Sermon on the Mount? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall be comforted.
08:24: And we go on and on, right? Blessed, blessed. So, blessed is a word that I was, the other day,
08:32: I don't have a lot of friends. When I get ready to tell you this story, you'll probably know why.
08:40: But this lady, she says, where I work at, and she's a little different faith than I am.
08:49: Quite a bit of different faith than I am. Much different faith than I am. And she has this saying, that you say good morning to her, she says,
09:00: I say, good morning, how you doing? And she says, blessed and highly favored. I go, okay.
09:09: It kept going on, it kept going on. And I kept trying to ask myself, I said, what does that mean, blessed?
09:14: And I know Mary was highly favored because she was carrying the, I understand all that. You know,
09:20: I know what blessed means, that you know, you're satisfied, and I understand all that, but I wonder what she means.
09:28: So one day we had a day off, it was supposed to be Teacher Planning Day, but it's a day off. And so anyway, we were sitting around talking or something, and someone said something to her, how you doing this morning?
09:41: She says, blessed and highly favored. And I said, what does that mean? I said it politely and nicely,
09:48: I said, what does that mean? And she says, well, I'm blessed and highly favored.
09:54: I'm sitting there, gee whiz, I got a classroom full of high school that can tell me that, you know, but anyway, in the back of my mind, you know, as a
10:01: Christian, you gotta be nice. So I was nice. I looked at her and I said, well, what does that mean?
10:07: She says, well, it means I'm blessed. I said, I know, but what's this highly favored thing?
10:13: She says, well, I'm highly favored because I'm blessed. I said, okay, but what is the highly favored?
10:19: She said, it means I'm prosperous. I have all things, I have this, I am blessed. I said, well, okay, all right,
10:27: I guess so. And then I asked, I said, well, what if you didn't have those things?
10:34: Would you still be blessed? Yeah, that's not quite a guy.
10:46: And she says, well, she says,
10:54: I don't know. I said, well, let's talk about it. And we had a Bible study right there, hmm, you know, during that time.
11:03: Now, and that Bible study basically rested upon this. You cannot be satisfied in the
11:09: Lord until you are contented in him. Uh -oh.
11:15: You are contented in him. Now, satisfaction is something that outside of God, we never get, and believe me, the advertising agencies make sure you never forget.
11:30: Had a student come up and said, Dr. J. And I go, yay.
11:37: And trying to teach him a little English, yay. And he says, look at my new $1 ,200 iPhone.
11:47: Says, what do you think? You're an Apple guy, but you don't have an iPhone. I said, no,
11:52: I don't have an iPhone. And he says, well, I got the latest one, brand new one.
11:58: I said, no, you don't have it. Your mom and dad got it for you. I said, I can guarantee you this, son, whenever you have to buy one on your own, you're not gonna have an iPhone.
12:10: He said, well, you know, I know, but I know you, I know, I've heard all this and all that.
12:15: You know, he said, I just wanted to show it to you. I said, well, that's cute. You know, that's really nice.
12:21: And he says, well, he says, I said, what are you gonna do when the iPhone 13 comes out?
12:28: He says, I don't know, I guess I'll get one of those.
12:34: Well, I tell you, and we got to talking about that a little bit, but I can tell you this, content, satisfaction, we are never really satisfied.
12:45: And we have it bombarded day after day that, hey, if you have an iPhone 10, you really are out of kilter and you need to catch up here with the iPhone 12.
12:58: Myself, personally, I would skip the 13, go on to 14 because of 13 and its connotation and stuff, you know, but that's okay.
13:04: If you have an iPhone 13, good luck to you. All right, so anyway, blessed then, it's not prosperity, but blessed, being blessed, and know what it is being blessed by God is that we find contentment only, satisfaction in him.
13:22: And the only way we're gonna find that satisfaction, God has given us this thing called contentment, and Paul says, you have to learn that.
13:32: In the Philippian passage in chapter four, I don't know the exact verse of it, and you're gonna get old one day and you'll forget some verses too.
13:40: But I know in chapter four, Paul says, I have learned, this I have learned, that whatsoever state
13:50: I am in, to be content. He says he's learned what? How to be content when
13:56: I have it all, and how to be content when I don't have a thing at all.
14:02: I've learned how to be content. That is satisfaction. That is how you're satisfied in the
14:08: Lord. And yes, one of the blessings of the Lord, and one of the blessings that we have as Christians is that we are blessed and no longer cursed.
14:23: Yes, we are actually cursed, and we're gonna get down to that a little later on.
14:29: But notice he is satisfied in the Lord, and two things follow that satisfaction in the
14:34: Lord. He is favored by the Lord. He is favored by the
14:42: Lord. And I just walked away from it, gotta look at it again, that's pretty sad.
14:48: And fulfilled in the
14:54: Lord. So two things there, you're favored and you are, yes, you are favored.
15:01: For by grace are you saved. Grace is unmerited favor. You didn't earn it.
15:12: When you do a favor, most of the time you're doing a favor that someone probably has not earned, but you do it.
15:22: You do a favor. So we see these two things in verse one there in the first part of it. Now, let's look at a couple of other things here.
15:30: Let's look at the next passage. Blessed is the man. We've got that down pretty good.
15:35: And by the way, when you talk about being tied to this world and why we struggle so much in satisfaction, and I've asked the
15:45: Lord throughout my Christian life, Lord, I'd just like to be satisfied in you.
15:51: One of the biggest struggles and one of the hardest struggles I have is trying to find the time to let him work through contentment so I could be satisfied in him.
16:07: And I am gonna just about grant it. Everyone sitting in here that's a Christian is dealing with the same thing.
16:16: Every hour, every minute of the day. But C .S. Lewis is a man that, whether you agree with his theology or anything like that,
16:24: I don't agree with everything, I've always knew that Christianity was a great book. But he said this, if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy,
16:39: I believe the most probable explanation of that is that is because we are made for another world.
16:51: Now, let's just face it. Didn't Paul say, if what we have in this world is all there is, we are of all men what?
17:03: Most miserable. Miserable. Now, miserable is kind of a word that we realize we're not really feeling bad, we're not really feeling good, we're just miserable, and we'd rather just feel bad or feel good, right?
17:24: One or the other. I mean, instead of being miserable, why can't I just feel bad? So we see then the struggle living here is that we actually belong somewhere else.
17:38: And then we will find that satisfaction.
17:45: How much of it do we get here? Think about it, quite a bit. Quite a bit.
17:54: We were watching a program last night where my wife and I are kind of fans of Blue Bloods, I think it's because Tom Selleck's on there.
18:03: But anyway, but you know, and so anyway, that's my own personal opinion. But anyway, and last night,
18:12: I remember they said something about the grandfather had had a heart attack.
18:19: And I remember him praying and he says, bless that, bless the one, bless the doctor who had the knowledge to be able to put a stent in and take care of me.
18:34: Satisfaction, we're never, I mean, satisfaction comes from just those types of things. We're blessed in the sense that, and there's some of us sitting in here,
18:42: I am sure glad there's someone that knows how to put a stent in because I don't want to do it. I don't particularly care for the entry point.
18:55: Okay, so we see then that the way of the godly, he's favored by God, he is fulfilled by God.
19:01: Now notice also, let's see, who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
19:10: So we see we're not always satisfied by God, but the next, the second thing that we need to look at is,
19:19: I want to make sure I get this right, that he is separated from the world. Separation.
19:41: Now to me, notice it says, who walks not? We are gonna start getting negatives poured at us left and right here.
19:53: Who walks not? Now, in this one verse,
20:01: God starts stressing the negative. Now we don't like to stress the negative, but God does.
20:06: Notice he says, who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, stands in the way of sinners, paths of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
20:14: So he has three basic negatives there. A godly individual then, if we read these verses correctly, a godly individual then is marked by things they do not do, the places they do not go, the books they do not read, the movies they do not watch, and the theology they refuse to accept.
20:40: And there's a lot of theology out there I refuse to accept. One of them is this prosperity movement.
20:51: What if you're not prosperous? What if something's happening? You don't have a whole lot.
20:56: You don't have anything. Are you still unblessed? No, no. In fact, you find some of those people more blessed than anyone because they're depending on the resources of God instead of the resources of anything else.
21:14: So we see that he is separated from the world. Notice, first of all, he refuses secular beliefs.
21:21: Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly? Refuses secular beliefs.
21:28: Now, this is the law of our intellectual education, and that is we learn what's right and what's wrong, but sometimes we don't learn it enough to know how to refuse what's right and what's wrong.
21:52: Oh, we know it's fair, but do we have enough of this in us and enough of him in us to refuse it?
22:01: So he refuses secular beliefs. Now, I teach in a
22:06: Christian school, thank the Lord. I sure wouldn't wanna, I feel for those who have to teach in those prison houses.
22:16: And oh my goodness, we're streaming, aren't we? You know, and so my apologies. But anyway, you gotta have all these things set up to make sure you don't have this on you before you even come to school.
22:33: But at this Christian school, I am able, and one of the biggest struggles I face every day is fighting the secular beliefs that these kids are sucked up into through Facebook, through TikTok.
22:46: I call it tic -tac, they get a kick out of it. But anyway, and I'll just throw a toe into it and somebody would know what it is.
22:52: But anyway, I would sit there and tell them that, and one guy come up one day and says, well,
22:59: I have put up a thing of Queen Elizabeth. And one of our individuals speaks out and says this, ooh, that's terrible, she was terrible.
23:11: And I'm sitting there in my own great PhD way, you know, and said, well, ooh, how do you know?
23:20: Well, she did this and she did that, and I won't get into what he was talking about what it was, but it had to do with Civil War and what we had to do with it.
23:29: And so he was sitting there, so I say, well, and I said, well, how do you know that? And he told me, he says, well,
23:36: I was told that by this individual and that individual, and I'm sitting there, well, how did they know that?
23:44: Well, I don't know. I said, then go back and find out. And I really didn't think he would do something like that, but he did.
23:52: He come back and he apologized, first of all, to me. He says, he says,
23:58: Dr. D, I'm sorry. He says, I guess I took a few things out of, as you call it, out of context.
24:04: I said, I believe so, I believe so. She inherited a lot of stuff she did not wanna deal with, but eventually she handled a lot of that stuff that she needed to deal with.
24:14: All right, so we see that we gotta refuse secular beliefs. Then notice the next thing is refusing, the next thing is refusing, well, we haven't put that up here yet, have we?
24:27: Well, let's put the second thing. Second thing is that he refuses to basically walk to walk with sinners.
24:40: In fact, the very first proverb talks about, my son, stay away from this, and he starts listing what he should stay away from.
24:52: So notice, refuses sensual behavior, refuses to walk with sinners. Now, this is a law of our moral conduct.
25:01: It's not enough to have, be smart intellectually. You need to also have a moral code about you that is above the world's standards.
25:16: And this book right here, is above every world standard we got. I've got at home in my library,
25:24: I have that five foot shelf of books that's supposed to teach me everything I need to know, and that set of books called the
25:32: Harvard Classics. Well, I'm doing pretty good, I'm going, well, that makes pretty good, that makes pretty good, and then
25:38: I get to this volume called The Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin, and I said, uh -oh. I said, evidently,
25:46: I haven't learned what I need to learn. And by the way, younger people and others, if you can accept evolution, please come and talk to me, because I need to address your brain cells.
25:59: I mean, there is just no way, I mean, when you look at the intricacy of the eye and stuff like that, and it's supposed to take so many millions of years for this to develop and for that develop, we're in the trillions and trillions of years by the time we get to a complete body.
26:17: We'll deal with that, we can deal with that some other time. But refusing sensual behavior, that is, our moral conduct must stand right.
26:25: And then also, the last thing is, notice he refuses, he refuses shameful belongings.
26:44: You know, I'm starting to get, really, I'm starting to get the feeling we're not gonna get to the ungodly. But anyway, so, what does that mean?
26:51: Refusing shameful belongings. Notice he says, "'Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.'"
26:58: So he doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he doesn't stand in the paths of sinners, and neither does he sit in the seat of the scornful.
27:08: Now, these are those who scorn the Christian faith in any form and in any way.
27:15: And really, this is the law of Christian growth. I took a class one time in college.
27:28: Well, ain't that brilliant, don't you take classes in college? Yeah, well, I took a class in college, and it was called geology.
27:37: And the reason I took it was, when you would sit around some of the other students and things, they would ask, hey man,
27:43: I've got an elective coming up, what do I need to, which is the easiest one there is? And most of them says, well, if you get this guy in geology, he just tells you to read this, sign, do this, and basically that.
27:56: I said, okay. I said, that's fine. I said, that sounds pretty good. So anyway,
28:03: I went. And the first class, he walks in, and he has this rock.
28:13: And first thought was, I sure hope he's not mad at me. Second thing was,
28:19: I sit there, and everybody's staring at the rock. And of course he, and so he starts the class. He says,
28:24: I guess y 'all wanna know why I'm carrying this rock. And there was a few of them says, well, yeah, we wanna know why you're carrying this rock.
28:32: I wasn't ready to admit yet, and I really wanted to ask him that, but I wasn't ready to admit yet.
28:38: He says, this rock is 70 million years old. I was just sitting back there saying, well, that rock's looking pretty good for 70 million years old.
28:51: You know what I mean? That's pretty healthy rock. You know, I said, what's, he says, and the reason we know this is because of geology, and geology has placed this earth at possibly at least close to a trillion years old.
29:08: And I'm sitting there, gee whiz, okay. He says, now, I'm gonna tell you first of all, that I don't believe anything in the
29:15: Christian faith. And I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't believe in creation. I mean, he was just right up front, and I'm sitting there, now wait a minute,
29:23: I'm getting ready to pay for this course? You know, I'm getting ready to do this, but everybody told me it was easy.
29:29: And so anyway, I was a young Christian then. I wasn't quite as bold as I've become, and I decided not to say nothing.
29:41: Well, there was somebody there that was bold enough to say something. And he raised his hand, he says, well,
29:47: I am a Christian, number one, I'm a little offended by that you're attacking me and stuff like that.
29:54: I said, oh my gosh, there's a D or an F right there. You know, I said, and so he started talking to this guy.
30:00: He took this guy down. Right there in front of the, and guess what?
30:05: We never heard a word about Christian or non -Christian or anything the rest of that course. You've got to stay away.
30:14: You cannot sit in the seat of the scornful. If they don't believe this book, my advice to you is to run as fast as you can away from it, if you can.
30:25: If you can't, just pray to God, you can get through it without saying something. All right, so we see the noise.
30:33: So now let's look at chapter verses two and three. And we see again, what is, and it looks like I'm gonna have to do a little erasing here.
30:41: So we saw the first one, we saw the second one. Now let's look at the third thing.
30:47: And that is, I guess I can just do it right here and make it three, okay? He is saturated with the word.
31:15: Now, he is saturated with the word. Have you ever had a backyard that a thunderstorm, your yard gets saturated?
31:26: Yeah, you know what? Or Florida, you know what I mean when I say saturated? It's not just wet.
31:33: It's saturated. I mean, the gators leave. It's so saturated.
31:39: And you know what? So this is what he's saying. He is saturated, taken in with all he can handle with the word of God.
31:48: And notice what he said. How does he do that? How are you saturated with the word of God? Well, first of all, but his delight is in the law of the
31:57: Lord. Delighting in the word. That word delight means you're captured.
32:04: Captured. And that's what the word means. Captured. We think of it as something wonderful and that is, but the root word comes from,
32:13: I'm captured. In other words, this individual is captured. His full affection, all that he delights in rests in this word.
32:29: I mean, it's a pretty good passage when you read the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. So if the
32:36: Lord is my shepherd, I'm not gonna have to worry about want. Now my needs is another thing.
32:42: In fact, your needs become sometimes many of your blessings that you really don't deserve at all. Your needs are blessings that many times you don't even deserve at all.
32:56: And I look around me and I live in a country where you have a two car garage and there isn't a car in the garage.
33:05: Why? Too much stuff. Yeah, stuff. You got stuff. I kind of like that passage in the
33:10: Old Testament where David said, you guys stay here by the stuff. I kind of knew what they were talking about. You know, stuff.
33:16: Yeah, I bet they were. But notice his delight is in the law of the Lord. That is the word of God has captured his full affection, has captured his full delight and he just loves being in it, around it and about it.
33:38: I tell you, I love this book. Now I've got a lot of things I've got to adjust to this book, even at 73 years old and being a
33:46: Christian for over 50 years. I still got a lot of saturating to do, by the way.
33:55: The Bible can, you know, the Bible can exhaust you, but you can't exhaust it.
34:02: It'll exhaust you. It'll exhaust you quite often. Now notice, he's first of all, he delights in the word and then he dwells upon the word.
34:11: Notice, and in his law, he meditates day and night.
34:17: Now this word meditation is not something we get from going to some class where you sit there and about the only word you know is, this is not what the
34:32: Bible is talking about meditation. Meditation in the Bible means this, you engage your mind with the truth of God's word and that's what captivates your mind.
34:43: You open your mind up to anything else, it could be a disaster. I was watching a documentary the other day because I have 5 ,652 channels and I couldn't find anything to watch.
35:03: So I was watching this documentary on the Titanic. You know, every movie
35:09: I've ever seen, that thing sinks. You would think somebody by now would have figured it out.
35:14: How can we stop this thing from sinking? But anyway, and I remember that they talked about, one of the things they talked about was at the maiden voyage, the last thing that was said was there goes a ship that God can't even sink.
35:31: Well, now you've stepped up to an arena you're not gonna fare very well in.
35:39: You have now stepped into the sovereign God. Now, please let me explain myself carefully.
35:46: I am not saying that he did it. Bad rivets and bad screws and an iceberg is what did it.
35:54: But to be able to say something like that is not meditating or delighting very much in the things of God.
35:59: So the meditation is, it actually has to do with that you know so much, that the scriptures in you so much that you talk to yourself in scripture.
36:11: I remember going on a mission trip to Honduras with some individuals. And I'm not gonna name the individual because there's probably at least two people in here
36:24: I know that, but know who it is. So we went on this trip and as we got on the plane,
36:33: I got the blessed privilege of him sitting next to me. And he sit down, he says, hi,
36:41: I said, hi, I'm, you know, all the pleasantries and things, you know. And so we get ready, we take off, we get into the air.
36:51: As we get into the air, he starts just talking, you know, but his delight is in the law of the
36:57: Lord. May God bless everything, you know, and his delight in the law of the Lord. You know, in the beginning,
37:02: God created the heaven and the earth. In the beginning was the word, you know, sitting there, you know, I'm looking at him, you know. I'm saying, okay, and I'm, you know.
37:11: So anyway, yeah, it's my luck. I get the guy next to me that likes to talk to himself. Well, he kept talking, he kept talking.
37:18: And finally, I said, excuse me, if you don't mind, what are you doing? What are you doing?
37:27: He says, I'm meditating. I said, you are? He said, yeah. I said, okay.
37:35: It was a three -seater, so somebody on the other side of him as well. And he kept going.
37:44: And then finally, I said, now you call that meditation? He says, yes, the word of God says to meditate, to talk to yourself, to talk to yourself.
37:54: And the guy next to my other seat said, that's right, talk to yourself. I don't want to hear you. And so anyway, we see then that this meditation has to do with that.
38:05: Now, notice he don't only delight in the word, he doesn't only, he dwells upon the word, but notice also, he digs into the word.
38:15: And in his law, he meditates both day and night. Meditation also carries with it a sense of study, a sense of, and so we dig into the word.
38:28: I tell you, I don't want to, the only way I know how to phrase it is, you can sure have a good time digging into God's word.
38:36: You can have a good time. You can have an exhausting time and a tiring time, but at the end, it's good.
38:42: It's good. Okay, so then the next thing is, notice he draws from the word.
38:49: Notice, he shall be like a tree, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper.
39:03: Now, that is spiritual prosperity. That is not material prosperity.
39:09: That is not to say one cannot lead into the other. I will not, I mean, Israel went to a land flowing with milk and honey, and they had everything that they need.
39:18: I understand that. They had all that if they obeyed the law. Notice drawing from the word.
39:27: First of all, notice that as you draw from the word, you find stability. Stability.
39:35: You're planted. Notice, he shall be like a tree planted, not just existing there, by the rivers of water.
39:47: I tell you, have you ever had to dig up a tree that was planted? It's a job, isn't it?
39:57: When a tree is planted, its root system's secure. All of it is secure.
40:03: And so we see we get stability. That is, we're planted. And then the next thing, notice that there is productivity that brings forth its fruit in its season.
40:13: Brings forth fruit. That's productivity. We have productivity. I have a very difficult time with somebody telling me that they can be a
40:23: Christian and not be involved in the things of God at all. I learned a long time ago, as I was pastor in a church, and I don't know if some of y 'all probably remember these days when
40:44: I was pastor, that it came time to reelect officers Sunday school teachers and all that stuff.
40:52: Now, let's face it. Now, let's face it. You already had a bunch of people doing what they really didn't want to do anyway because nobody else was doing it.
41:03: Well, we was finding it. He says, well, pastor, you know, it's time. The deacons and all came to me. They said, it's time.
41:09: Now, we need to fill this position. We need to fill that position. We need to do this. And we need to get busy talking to these people.
41:19: I said, why don't we do this this year? What? Let's don't talk to them. Let's pray about it.
41:29: Yeah, got that quiet again. Well, pastor, we gotta fill these positions, do you?
41:39: Well, we about, do you? All right, we'll go pray about it.
41:46: They did. And they came back and said, well, pastor, you know, and I had sessions with them.
41:53: And they said, pastor, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna post it up on the board, the needs we have, the needs we can fulfill.
41:59: That's what we'll have because at least we'll have people that want to do it. I said, great.
42:06: And in fact, sometimes, you know, when I think about a Christian who says they can be a
42:13: Christian, but not be involved in the things of the church, you're telling me you can't be involved in the things of Christ because it's his church.
42:24: All right, we've got just a couple of minutes. Let me hit just two more. Notice also not only productivity, but constancy.
42:30: His leaves shall not wither. I got one solid thing I can count on each day, and that's the
42:37: Lord Jesus Christ. I can count on him solid as anything, no matter what my day bring forth.
42:44: And then the last thing is, is the prosperity, but that's within the proper place. Proportion and context.
42:50: Notice Paul felt himself prosperous even when he didn't have anything. Even when he didn't have anything, he considered himself prosperous.
43:01: He considered him blessed. Okay, well, we're not able to get to the ungodly.
43:07: If you want anything from that, I can always get it to you. But hopefully, we were edified this morning by the passages that we were able to cover.
43:20: So let's pray. Father, thank you for the door. Thank you, as has already been said for the
43:27: Lord's Day, that we can come to church today. We don't have to. We get to. We get to come to church today, and we get to come and worship.
43:36: We get to come to be with those who you've saved, with the fellowship of believers, and the taking of the
43:45: Lord's Supper. Thank you for that day. Bless now, and only you know how to do it.
43:53: Bless the lives of each and every one of them that are here. It's only you know how to do it. In Jesus' name, amen.