We’re beginning a new sermon series this week called Psalms that can change your life. Music can make such an impact in our lives, as we’ll see from this collection of worship songs found in the book of Psalms. It only seemed appropriate to begin at the very beginning with Psalm 1. Please turn there with me now and let’s read that Psalm. (Pray)
When I was in grade school, just a few years ago, I really enjoyed a series of books called Choose Your Own Adventure. I found a picture of this one called Journey Under the Sea. In these books, the reader is the hero. You read the story until you get to a point of decision. You choose between the presented options and turn to the appropriate page. In this one, you’re a part of a research team that has discovered Atlantis. You operate the sub, interact with the people of Atlantis, and possibly end up in outer space. Your choices could go poorly and result in sickness, injury, or even death, or they could go well and result in fame and fortune. In this particular book, there are 42 possible ways for the story to go. Me being me, I had to keep track of the choices I made until I had read all 42 possibilities.
In a manner of speaking, Psalm 1 is a choose your own adventure book. We are presented with a choice- to be righteous or not to be righteous, that is the question. Now, we aren’t told who wrote this Psalm, but I would not be surprised to one day learn that this was also a psalm written by David to pass on the lesson he learned from his fall from grace with Bathsheba.
His failing started out innocently enough- we’re told it was the spring of the year, the time when kings went off to war, and David chose to stay home. As he’s walking along the wall of his palace, he finds himself caught up in temptation as he spies a woman bathing at her home. He succumbs to the temptation and has Bathsheba brought to him. Afterwards, he learns that they’re going to have a baby and he tries to cover up his sin, ultimately having a man murdered. But when David was confronted by the prophet Nathan, he repented of his sin and God restored him. Today, we know David to be a man after God’s own heart.
He begins by describing who is blessed. To be blessed, simply means to be happy or content. This is not a psalm promoting the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel is often in opposition to what the Bible is teaching. For example, there’s a meme that’s been floating around Facebook recently, contrasting the prosperity gospel teachings of Joel Osteen and the writings of Apostle Paul. It quotes Joel Osteen telling people to “Stop looking at your weakness and start declaring the power of I am. Say I am strong, I am healthy, I am blessed, I am beautiful, I am prosperous.” It’s a nice tickle to the ear, isn’t it? The meme then goes on to share these words from Paul, “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
Jesus’ description of those who are blessed is in contrast with the prosperity gospel as well. Read Matthew 5:3-11. You see, it is our status in Christ, not circumstances here on earth that determine whether we are blessed. So how does one get blessed? They choose the correct path and avoid the slippery slope of sin as described in verse 1 (read). Let’s look at this progression to see the things we should avoid.
It begins with not walking in the counsel of the wicked. For example, in 1 Kings 22, King Ahab convinces King Jehoshaphat to war together against Syria and regain some of their territory. Before they head out, Jehoshaphat suggests they first inquire for a word from the Lord. Ahab gathers about 400 prophets who all assure them victory. Jehoshaphat isn’t convinced and asks if there isn’t another prophet to consult. Ahab doesn’t want to because this prophet always speaks against him but finally gives in.
The messenger finds Micaiah to bring him and informs him that all the other prophets have told the kings that they will have victory and it would be wise for Micaiah to do the same. Micaiah has to make a choice- is he going to be righteous before God or listen to the instructions and go along with the 400 prophets who are telling the king what he wants to hear rather than what he needs to hear.
Micaiah warns the king that the battle will not go well, but Ahab chooses to walk in the counsel of the wicked and goes off to war. It was in this battle, that Ahab dies.
There are a lot of voices offering counsel today and many of them are not godly. I pray for our young people especially, because they not only have to deal with peer pressure, but they also have school policies that leave out God, movies, TV, and social media barraging them with ungodly choices. They’re constantly hearing that the Bible is obsolete, science has disproven faith, and they should follow their feelings to be satisfied in life.
Here’s a question we should be asking ourselves- am I patterning my life after the world’s standards, does the world dictate the standards I set for my life? If the answer is yes, we need to face the reality that we are walking in the counsel of the ungodly.
Once we begin walking down that slippery slope, it becomes easier to find ourselves in the next phase- standing in the way of the sinners. Paul addresses this in Galatians 2 when he tells about the time he had to confront Peter. Peter and his company had been doing just fine among the Gentile believers in Antioch until Jewish believers were sent by James to join him. When they arrived, Peter withdrew from the Gentiles and separated from them out of fear of the circumcision party (Judaizers). These were people who taught that if a Gentile wanted to become a Christian, they must first become a Jew and be circumcised.
When Paul saw Peter’s behavior, he confronted his hypocrisy and reminded him that if he could live like a Gentile when the Jews weren’t around, why should he expect the Gentiles to live like Jews when they are around? Peter was going along to get along, standing in the way of sinners.
We must be careful to not do the same. I recently spoke with a man from New York and I saw the same thing while we lived in St. Louis. This man proclaimed to love Jesus but he didn’t want to go to church because he’d seen the hypocrisy. He’d seen too many ministers out at the club behaving in a worldly fashion on Friday and Saturday nights, then stand up in the pulpit on Sunday morning and chastise the congregation for the very behavior he’d been a part of. People are watching, they need to see us be consistent and stand up for what’s right even when it puts us in the minority.
The next question we should be asking ourselves is this, “Do I fit in with sinners and feel at home with their company, is what they do and what they say, what I do and what I say?” If we find our words and actions reflect the world more than they do our Lord, we may be finding ourselves standing in the way of sinners.
The slippery slope then leads us to sit in the seat of scoffers. Paul also writes about this as he encourages Timothy to stay true to his calling in the Lord. Paul tells Timothy that men like Hymenaeus and Alexander have shipwrecked their faith because they didn’t remain true to the calling on their lives. Paul’s solution? Hand them over to Satan so they learn.
Over the past decade, I’ve heard and seen more and more rising church leaders go through a process they call the deconstruction of their faith. I believe their intent was well-meaning because they wanted to remove cultural tradition and man-made influence from their belief. In fact, in a way, it was this type of introspection that led to the Restoration Movement. Leaders recognized that over the centuries many traditions had infiltrated the church that weren’t necessarily grounded in scripture and they wanted to return to a faith where the Bible is the authority.
However, many of the younger leaders going through deconstruction today, didn’t stick to the Bible as the authority for the changes they were making in their belief system. They turned to scientific discovery and what feels right to determine what the Bible should teach rather than the Bible determining how to interpret scientific discovery and feelings. The result is a growing population of people who claim to follow Christ while rejecting and even judging believers who hold to Scripture as authoritative.
To help us avoid reaching this stage, we should ask ourselves, “Am I in a state of apathy in my walk with the Lord, am I critical of everything that God is doing, am I critical of spiritual leaders and the church in general? I recognize that there is an accountability that must be maintained for leaders and the church, but if I’m the one creating the standard, I may very well be sitting in the seat of mockers.
If we’re not careful, we may find ourselves walking in the counsel of the wicked, which leads to standing in the way of sinners, which then leads to sitting in the seat of scoffers. We don’t want to find ourselves there. So how do we avoid this slippery slope of sin? Let’s look again at Psalm 1:2. (read)
Delight in the law of the Lord. My first thought, why would someone delight in the law of the Lord? Usually, when someone hears the word law, they think of the police, courts, jail- getting in trouble. There’s nothing delightful about that. Others thoughts may turn to the thou shalt not this, thou shalt not that, what’s so delightful about that?
We can delight in God’s law because He created it to protect and provide for His people. In contrast, many man-made laws are created to control people. When God made His laws, for example, food restrictions, He wasn’t trying to take away the pleasure of a good piece of bacon, He was protecting His people from the trichinella that could be passed along in under-cooked pork.
We can delight in God’s law because it reveals who God is. By His law, we see that He is the God of justice, love, and kindness. He is the God who cares for the needy law well as for those who can’t care for themselves.
We can delight in God’s law because it reveals our sin. At first, that sounds scary, but ultimately by revealing our sin, God’s law points to our need for a savior- Jesus.
We can delight in God’s law because it provides direction for how to respond to Him. Not only does it reveal our sins, it also tells us how Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for those sins. It tells us to respond by repenting, declaring Jesus to be Lord (master) of our lives, and being baptized in the water, to rise and live for Him. As such, we can think of God’s law as an outlet for worship instead of chains that weigh down.
These are only some of the good reasons to delight in God’s law. Feel free to add to the list as you meditate on the law of the Lord day and night. Why meditate? Like David wrote in Psalm 119, the goal is to not sin against God. How do we do that? Read Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
We need to spend time every day reading God’s Word. We need to teach God’s Word, formally in Sunday school, worship services, and Bible studies. Informally while we’re sitting at home or as we’re walking (or now driving) to our destination. From the moment we wake up to the time we lay down, God’s Word should be on our minds. We need to surround ourselves with reminders of God’s Word. The text refers to strapping scripture to your hands and foreheads as well as writing it on the doorposts of your home. Hobby Lobby has plenty of options for displaying scripture in our homes. When we lived in St. Louis, Terri would write various scriptures on post-it notes and stick them throughout the house as a reminder of what God’s Word had to say about whatever may have been happening at that time.
How will delighting in the law of God and meditating on it day and night affect the choices we make? We live in a very visual society. It’s very easy to forget about what we don’t see. Out of sight, out of mind. So if we’re meditating on God’s word day and night, if we’re praying without ceasing as instructed by Paul, if we’re remembering that God is always with us, how much easier it could be to resist the temptations we face. It becomes easier to not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of mockers. We avoid the slippery slope of sin because we are focused on the law of God.
Read Psalm 1:3. This verse presents a word picture of a tree that has been planted in a good place- near streams of water. Because it’s well cared for, this tree produces fruit at the right time and it has leaves that don’t wither from neglect. In short, the end result is good for the blessed.
Read Psalm 1:4. In contrast, the Psalmist draws a picture of the results for the wicked- they are blown away like chaff in the wind. It reminds me of the Parable of the Sower with the four kinds of soil. First, there was the path, where birds swooped in and ate the seeds. Then there was rocky soil, where the young plants were scorched by the sun because they had no roots. Then there was thorny soil, where eventually all the good plants were choked out by the weeds that grew among them. Finally, there was good soil, where the seeds grew into plants that produced a crop of up to one hundredfold.
Read verses 5-6. These verses present the conclusion of the matter. The time of judgment will come. God knows who is righteous and who is wicked. The wicked will not stand. Rather, they will perish. How does God know the righteous from the wicked? If you’ve ever heard Jeff preach a funeral, and I know most of us have recently, you’ve heard him talk about how it’s not our deeds, our fruit, that gets us into heaven. Instead, it’s the root, our decision to be clothed in Christ through baptism.
The recent events between the Hamas and Israel have the day of judgment on people’s mind. It seems like everywhere I’ve gone this week, people who know me have asked my thoughts on whether these are the events we see in Revelation. To be honest, I don’t have a very profound answer. We’re told that we don’t know the day or hour that Christ will return. These events could be what we read about in Revelation, then again, they may not be.
Either way, I believe they are a reminder that we need to be ready for when Jesus returns.
We must choose the path we’ll follow. Here’s how Jesus describes the choice. Read Matthew 7:13-14. Many will choose the wide path which will lead to destruction. Today, we’re giving you the opportunity to choose the narrow path that leads to life. Invitation.
