Psalm 1 - Strong Roots in the Lord
Introduction
1. Psalm 1 sets the tone for the entire Psalter. “It stands as a magnificent gateway to this
extraordinary ancient collection of Hebrew religious verse…It is a text of which the remaining
psalms are essentially exposition.” (James Boice, via Smith)
2. Mays: It introduces an agenda of themes that recur frequently in the book and plays a
fundamental role in its theology.
3. Swindoll “The Hebrews’ ancient hymnal begins with a song that addresses one of life’s most
common grinds: compromising with wrong…squeezing the joys and rewards of obedience from
our lives. It happens so silently, so subtly, we hardly realize its’ taking place.”
4. It presents a series of contrasts between what is righteous and good and what is sinful and weak.
Josh Smith’s commentary labels Psalm 1: What Do You Do When You Come to a Fork in the
Road? What did Yogi Berra suggest? Take it!
5. It is a wisdom / Torah Psalm that has to do with following God’s laws/ways.
6. Mays: The psalm is designed to emphasize one thing as fundamental to the righteous -
engagement with the law of the Lord. … This first beatitude prompts the reader to think of the
entire book as instruction for life and commends a kind of conduct that uses the Psalter in that
way.
7. Adam Faughn gives six headings to the six verses of this psalm.
1. The Seduction of Sin (1 NIV Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or
stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers…)
A. “Blessed”
1. How would you define a life that is “blessed”?
2. Briscoe: enriched, contented, fulfilled. “One reason why so many people are unhappy is
that, though they are busy pursuing happiness, they aren’t all that sure what happiness
is.”
3. Smith: a rewarding and fulfilling life.
B. The psalmist makes it clear that we will not find happiness in certain places.
1. Walking with the wicked
a. AMP [following their advice, their plans and purposes]
b. Briscoe: Happiness can never be found in a lifestyle that leaves God out of the picture.
c. Smith: It is difficult to avoid imitating and becoming like those we walk with daily.
2. Standing in the way that sinners take
a. AMP [submissive and inactive]
b. Smith: The idea of staying a while, taking a look around, listen, hanging out with.
3. Sitting in the company of mockers
a. AMP [to relax and rest]
b. Smith: Mockers / Scoffers describes the self-sufficient who pridefully believe they do
not need God.
4. Wiersbe: If you follow the wrong counsel, then you will stand with the wrong companions
and finally sit with the wrong crowd.
C. The seduction of sin is the idea that we are drawn in unsuspectingly little by little.
2. The Satisfaction of Scripture (2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates
on his law day and night.)
A. Delight in the Torah - the law / instruction of God. Not simply rules to keep and follow, but the
One who knows us and created us is aware of what will make the best life for us.
1. Keller: Christians have their attitude toward God changed from one of duty to free, loving,
self-giving because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. So to know how to meditate on
and delight in the Bible is the secret to a relationship with God and to life itself.
2. Mays: The Lord reaches, touches, and shapes the human soul through it. For this psalm,
torah is a means of grace.
B. Meditate on his law - a theme for Psalms.
1. Hebrew word hagah has an added nuance of muttering or even growling.
2. The term implies that a person is so saturated with God’s law that it is constantly on his
lips, whether he is talking to someone else or himself. God’s instruction becomes a
fundamental part of that person, because it constantly fills his mind.
3. Mays: Constant reflective meditation on the “law” (torah) of the Lord that grows out
of delight in it and concern for it. The basic meaning of the term torah is instruction, not
legal rules and stipulations … is used in a comprehensive sense to refer to the whole
body of tradition through which instruction in the way and the will of the Lord is given to
Israel.”
C. How can you continue to renew and increase your affection for God’s Word when it feels like a
burden or duty?
D. God knows what will bring happiness and joy into our lives. The torah or Divine Law is His gift
to us… we should allow it to fill our thoughts and words, body and soul.
1. Wiersbe points out that Psalm 119 suggests we should prefer God’s Word to
food (119:103), sleep (119:55), wealth (119:14), and friends (119:23).
2. He goes on to say that “The way we treat the Bible is the way we treat Jesus Christ, for the
Bible is His word to us.”
E. Swindoll: God doesn’t demand perfection from believers; all of us fail from time to time.
Fortunately, grace abounds. Nevertheless, at least one indication that our faith is genuine is a
sincere desire to obey. If you do not “delight” in pleasing God by obeying His Word, perhaps
now is a good time for some soul searching.
3. The Strength of the Student (3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.)
A. What do you think of when you read that the blessed person is like a tree planted by streams
of water?
1. God’s word is our nourishment just as the tree drinks from the soil, so we drink from God’s
glory.
2. This nourishment impacts every aspect of our lives, and the greatest prosperity will come
only through the wisdom and instruction of the Lord.
3. The tree weathers the storms of life and still prospers.
4. The blessed person bears fruit
AMP everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].
B. Wiersbe: “Like a tree, the godly person is alive, beautiful, fruitful, useful, and enduring. The
most important part of a tree is the hidden root system that draws up water and nourishment,
and the most important part of the believer’s life is the ‘spiritual root system’ that draws on
the hidden resources we have in Christ (Ephs. 3:17; Col. 2:7). This is known as ‘abiding in
Christ’ (John 15:1-9). … we can’t nourish and support ourselves; we need to be rooted in
Christ and drawing upon His spiritual power.
D. “Religion lacks depth and volume because it is not fed by hidden springs.”
- Alexander Maclaren (via Wiersbe)
E. How would you describe the fruit of the godly life?
1. Briscoe: Fruit is the external evidence of your internal life…. People rooted in the Spirit
of God work in the power of the Spirit, and the fruit shows in their world and in
their attitudes. Love, joy, and peace begin to sprout all over the place. It’s the happy life.
2. Wierbe: Winning people to Christ, godly character, money given to the Lord’s work, service
and good works, praise to the Lord.
4. The Separation of the Sinner (4 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows
away.)
A. AMP Not so the wicked [those disobedient and living without God are not so]. But they are
like the chaff [worthless, dead, without substance] which the wind drives away.
B. Instead of being strongly rooted, they are carried away by the wind.
1. In Ancient times, harvested grain - especially wheat - was manually removed from the
husk. It was taken to a great covered space where a large rake-like implement was used
to throw the grains into the air. The useable seeds would drop back to the floor, while the
evening breeze would carry away what was called the “chaff”. What blew away was the
refuse; those unusable elements that humans do not eat.
2. When the stormy winds of life blow, the righteous can stand firm - the wicked, however,
cannot expect to be able to stand.
C. Wiersbe: The chaff is in contrast to the righteous, who are like trees. John the Baptist
used these same images of the tree, fruit, and chaff to warn sinners to repent (Matthew
3:7-12).
5. The Submission of the Scoffer (5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the assembly of the righteous.)
A. Though the wicked may seem to have it all together in their lives, when the time of judgment
comes, God will have seen their true ways.
B. What do you think is the assembly of the righteous?
1. Wilcock: The true notion of what the church is: the Lord’s people belonging, relating,
and actually meeting together in the Lord’s presence, listening and responding to him…
2. Wilcock: Even the most individualistic of the psalmists would recognize that
God’s concern for him personally is bound up with God’s promises to that great assembly,
‘the blessed company of all fruitful people.’ All their poetry is to be read in light of this.
6. The Seeing of the Sovereign (6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way
of the wicked leads to destruction.)
A. God doesn’t miss anything - he knows all.
B. The way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Jeremiah 10:23, 17:7-8; Proverbs 14:12)
C. When we start down the path toward sin and fail to seek the strength and encouragement of
God’s Word, we face spiritual death.
D. Wilcock: Throughout Psalm 1 righteous and wicked are plurals; both our present experience
and our future destiny (vs 6) depend on which of the two companies each of us belongs to,
not in name only but (as the way implies) in practice.
E. In regard to wicked/righteous, Mays observes “...he wicked play three principal roles.”
1. They warn against living that conflicts with the will of the Lord.
2. They provide a background of contrast that sets the identity of the righteous in profile.
3. They afflict the lowly, accuse the innocent, and undermine the trust of the faithful and so
constitute the distress from which the psalmists cry for deliverance.
F. This psalm begins with “blessed” and ends with “perish” (Wiersbe.)
7. Keller’s Three reflective questions for devotional meditation
A. Adore - What did you learn about God for which you could praise or thank him?
B. Admit - What did you learn about yourself for which you could repent?
C. Aspire - What did you learn about life that you could aspire to, ask for, and act on?
Conclusion
1. We cannot avoid all the negative experiences in life, but our strong roots in the Lord will allow us
to weather them…in his protection.
2. Mays: “Within all the individuality that particular lives express, there are ultimately only two ways
for the journey to take, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. … the doctrine
endures and is heard again in the New Testament from another teacher who uses beatitudes and
warns that the outcome of life depends on one’s guidance by his torah (Matthew 5-7). ‘Blessed
are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:28).’”
3. “God, let me be the one who is blessed. Help me to make the right choice and choose the right
path. Empower me to love Your Word so much that it is an easy choice to choose not to walk on
the path listening to the schemes of the guilty and following their bad advice. Oh Lord, let my
chief delight be in Your Word and help me to meditate on Your Word day and night—all the time. I
will talk about it, I will study Your Word—this is my constant conversation with You. Because of
this, I shall be like a tree planted beside streams of water that brings forth its fruit in its season,
whose leaf does not wither, and whatever I do shall prosper or spring forth in success. I am that
tree. I am walking in and using these keys of David. Lord, I will stay on the narrow road, stay on
the path of life, delighting in Your Word, meditating day and night. I will feed my soul on Your
Word having continual conversation with You, God.” — 30 Days of Praying the Psalms: King
David’s Keys for Victory by Julie Meyer
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Resources
Altar, Robert. The Hebrew Bible, Volume 3, The Writings. Norton & Co., 2019.
Briscoe, Stuart. What Works When Life Doesn’t. Howard, 2004.
Faughn, Adam. Hymns of the Heart. Start2Finish, 2015.
Holloway, Gary. Psalms, Hymns of God’s People. Leafwood, 2022.
Keller, Timothy and Kathy Keller. The Songs of Jesus. Viking, 2017.
Mays, James L. Interpretation Commentary: Psalms. John Knox Press, 1994.
Meyer, Julie. 30 Days of Praying the Psalms: King David’s Keys For Victory. Destiny Image, 2021.
Smith, J. Josh and Daniel L. Akin. Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus in Psalm 1-50. B&H, 2022.
Swindoll, Charles R. Living the Psalms. Worthy, 2012.
Wiersbe, Warren W. Be Worshipful. David C. Cook, 2004.
Wilcock, Michael. The Bible Speaks Today: The message of Psalms 1-72. InterVarsity Press, 2001.
