Title: Choose Your Own Adventure
Text: Psalm 1
Thesis: Good and godly people are rooted in the Word of God.
Introduction
“Choose Your Own Adventure” is a series of children’s gamebooks where each story is written from a second-person point of view in which the reader assumes the role of the protagonist, i.e., the main character. The reader then makes choices that determine the main character’s actions and the plot’s outcome.
In the story the reader becomes a private investigator, mountain-climber, doctor, spy or whomever. After a couple of pages the reader/protagonist faces two or three options, each of which leads to more options and consequently to one of many possible endings.
So the child learns that the choices he or she makes in the course of their adventure determines the outcome of their adventure. Simply put, our decisions in life have consequences. Good decisions result in favorable outcomes and bad decisions result in unfavorable outcomes.
In Psalm 1 we are given the adventure of life with two options and two outcomes. When we have completed our life adventure we will arrive at the end of the path we chose…
In the first few verses we see that in our adventure there is a fork in the road and we may either choose the ways of God or the ways of the wicked.
I. (Do you) Delight in the Lord or follow the advice of the wicked? Psalm 1:1-2
The text begins on a negative foot. Oh the joys of those who do not…
A. A Godly Person Doesn’t (Negative), Psalm 1:1 (If we think of do’s and don’ts… these are don’ts)
Oh the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked… Psalm 1:1
In this text wickedness is not defined in terms of heinous acts or deviant behavior. Of course those kinds of things may characterize the life of a wicked person but our text distinguishes between two kinds of people: Those who follow God and those who do not. One commentator said the difference between these two kinds of people is that one is God-centered in life and the other is self-centered in life or one kind of person is God-instructed and the other kind of person is self-instructed. One kind of person choses God’s-rule while the other kind of person choses Self-rule. Those distinctions become clear at the onset.
Godly people do not:
1. Follow or walk in the advice/counsel or path of the wicked.
The inference is that when a person sincerely wants to walk through life with God, that person does not adapt the thinking and the lifestyle of those who are not walking with God.
2. Stand around with sinners.
The inference here is that the person who sincerely wants to walk with God does not get comfortable with the ways of the wicked. The person who sincerely wants to walk with God does not hang with wicked people.
3. Sit in the seat of or join in with mockers.
The inference here is that the person who sincerely wants to walk with God does not become fully at home with the lifestyle of those who live with no awareness of God.
The text goes on to outline what the Godly person does in fact do.
There is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch titled “Ship of Fools” hanging in the Louvre in Paris. It is a marvelous work filled with symbolism. The painting shows ten people aboard a small vessel and two people overboard swimming around it. There is no captain. Everyone is busy drinking, feasting, flirting and singing. They are oblivious to what is happening in waves around them. They are all fools because they are enjoying all the pleasures of the world without knowing where it all leads.
On top of the mast hangs a bunch of dangling carrots and a man is climbing the mast to reach them. Above the carrots is a human skull representing the thirteenth person on the ship who is unlucky in every imaginable way. The idea is that the twelve think everything is perfect when in fact they are sailing to their demise. The only figure leading the way is death. So it is with the way of the wicked. They are sailing through life oblivious to God and it does not end well.
Now the text turns to the positive…
B. A Godly Person Does (Positive), Psalm 1:2 (Think do’s)
But they delight in the law of the Lord… Psalm 1:2
1. Delights in the law of the Lord.
To delight in something is to find joy and fulfillment in that something.
Our daughter Lorri posts a photo she has taken from nature along with an insightful thought or a devotional thought or comment on Instagram every day. She calls her daily posts “adored creation.” A recent post was of a beautiful yellow wild flower… up close the flower is crisp and clear but in the background is blurry and indistinct. In the same photo was clarity and distortion. Her comment was, “Perspective changes our view. Things that were once blurry start to become clear.”
Lorri obviously delights in capturing beautiful photographs from the natural world and creating a meaningful reflection on her work. It does not matter that she has five children and a husband. It does not matter that her life is hectic. She enjoys finding and photographing and commenting on her adoredcreations.
When a godly person understands how God’s Word is the key understanding and living out a good and godly life… when a godly person gets the fact that the Word of God provides insights and guidance into how to live life in the home, the workplace, the classroom, dealing with personal and cultural issues and living out Christlikeness, that person enjoys getting into the Word of God.
In getting into the Word of God I do not mean opening the bible and selecting a verse at random as your verse for the day… delighting in the Word of God leads to meditating on the Word of God.
2. Meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.
J.I. Packer defined meditation as…
Meditation is the activity of the mind, thinking over, dwelling on, and applying to oneself the various things one knows about the works and ways and purposes and promises of God.
To meditate is to mull it over, think about it, dig into what it means and how it applies to your life. Years ago I read a fitting formula on how we might meditate on a passage of Scripture by taking time to ask and answer a few questions.
What does God’s Word say? What does God’s Word mean to me? What does God’s Word urge me to do in response to this reading? Or you might ask a series of questions like, what does this passage say about God? What does it say about Jesus? What does it say about me? What does it say about how I might live?
National Geographic has a reality TV program called Diggers. The series follows a couple of hobbyist metal detectorists named, “King George” Wyant and his buddy, “The Ringmaster” Saylor around the United States looking for historical artifacts. They are generally invited by a landowner or history buff or archeologist to explore an area to see if there are any undiscovered artifacts.
They are a little over-the-top in their enthusiasm but when their metal detectors sound off you would think they had discovered a pot of gold. They enthusiastically dig up old rifle shell casings or belt buckles or cannon balls or leg irons or whatever…
But the rule of thumb in metal detecting is to after your initial discovery, always scan the hole again before you fill it in and move one. If you found one coin there may be another and another…
So we never just do a quick cursory read of Scripture and assume we have all there is… we keep digging.
So we might ask ourselves…
1. Who or What is the greatest influence in your life? Who or what is influencing the way you think and live? What do you think about? What do you mull over? What is it you delight in? And why does it matter?
There is a story about a farmer who lived in the middle of Kansas who had two sons. The two boys grew up and both eventually joined the Navy and they both loved it. On an occasion when the Farmer’s brother, a psychologist, was visiting the farm the farmer asked his brother, “How is it that a farmer living the middle of Kansas can raise two sons who go off and join the Navy and love it?” It was a good question and the psychologist brother said so and told the farmer brother he would think about it.
The next morning the brother came downstairs after having spent the night sleeping in the boys’ old room. He said to the farmer brother, “I’d like for you to come upstairs with me. I want to show you something.” They went up to the boys’ old room. The first thing they saw when they entered the room was a beautiful, eye-catching picture. It was a picture of the sea and in the middle of the sea was a ship.
Then he said to his farmer brother, I want you to lay down on the bed and tell me what you see.” He saw the picture. He asked, “How long have the boys had that picture?” He answered, “Since they were about three years old.”
If we think about Scripture long enough, if we delight in it and meditate on it long enough, we might just become godly people.
What I find fascinating about this text is that it takes the long view. No one decides to become a Navy man after seeing a picture once and no one becomes godly after reading the bible once.
The Word of God likens the person who chooses to follow God’s way is like a tree.
II. (Are you like) A tree or like chaff? Psalm 1:3-4
In her book Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus Lois Tverberg told the story of Rabbi Akiva. Rabbit Akiva was shepherding his flocks one day when he noticed a tiny stream trickling down a hillside and dripping over a ledge on its way to the river below. He noticed that beneath the ledge was a boulder with a deep impression which had been hollowed out by the drip, dripping of droplets that fell from the ledge.
The hollowed out impression was not made by a flood of water… it was made by the drip, dripping of water over a long period of time.
If we think tree, we are not thinking seedling. We are thinking a mature and fruit bearing tree. Trees don’t grow up overnight. Godliness presumes the long view.
Godly people are like a tree…
A. A Tree, Psalm 1:3
They are like trees… Psalm 1:3
They are like trees:
1. Rooted. Planted along the riverbank. They are rooted in and nourished the Word of God.
2. Fruitful. Bearing fruit each season. Their lives are characterized by the Fruit of the Spirit.
3. Flourishing. Their leaves never wither. The joy of the Lord is their strength.
On the other hand, the wicked are likened to chaff.
B. Chaff, Psalm 1:4
They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. Psalm 1:4
The chaff is described as worthless and scattered. Apart from God our good works are all like wood, hay and stubble, ultimately:
1. Worthless
2. Scattered
Starting in July in western Kansas and eastern Colorado harvesters cut the wheat crop. Combines move in sync around a wheat field. The reel bends the wheat into the header where the cutter bar cuts the wheat stems. The stems holding the ripe heads of wheat are moved the combine where they cross series of shakers or in some cases rotors which separate the grain from the head and the stems. The grain falls through a screen onto an elevator that moves the grain up into the storage bin. And a conveyor carries the chaff out the back of the combine where a spreader scatters the debris in the wind. Worthless and windblown is the lot of chaff.
By way of application we might ask ourselves, what is my preferred outcome?
Is it my desire to live a good and godly productive life that is pleasing to God and a blessing to others? Or would I prefer to live without spiritual intent?
It is the end of the adventure that reveals the outcome of our choices.
III. (Will you be) Condemned or watched over? Psalm 1:5-6
God watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. Palm 1:5-6
There are two paths and two ends or destinations.
In the end we have the parting of the ways. The parting of the ways is the ultimate and defining difference in outcomes
This is not a foreign concept. In the Gospels Jesus spoke of good trees and bad trees. Jesus spoke the separation of the sheep and the goats. Jesus taught there is a narrow way that leads to eternal life and a broad way that leads to hell.
A. The Path of the Godly, Psalm 1:6
B. The Path of the Wicked, Psalm 1:5-6
Which path will you walk?
1. If you’ve never consciously chosen a path… get on the godly path.
2. If you are on the godly path stay on it.
Conclusion
There is a phenomenon that may be called a collective consciousness. Have you ever see how a flock of birds rises in what looks to be perfect synchrony? Flitting and darting and diving as if controlled by one brain. They say termites swarm in the same way and ants colonize in the same way. Bonnie and I saw an IMAX film on the Ocean. It was an amazing visual experience in which sharks leapt from the screen into the audience… but I thought the most beautiful visual was the way the fish schooled. In numbers much larger than in a flock of birds what looked to be thousands of fish moved through the ocean as one.
Scientists say humans have a similar way of making our way through life… they call it peer pressure. We typically go with whomever or whatever has captured out attention. It is such a phenomenon that humans, like a flock of birds, subconsciously follow a minority of individuals. It takes a mere 5% of informed individuals to influence the direction of the other 95%. Research indicates we instinctively look to the behaviors of others to inform the decision we make.
So it is we find ourselves back where we began with two options, the fork in the road, so to speak. It doesn’t matter what anyone or everyone else is doing. This is your adventure and it is my adventure and we individually decide to be followers of Jesus Christ and live into the Word of God or we don’t.
Choose Your Own Adventure! This is your adventure, choose the adventure of the godly.
