ARE YOU AN OAK TREE OR GRASS CLIPPINGS?
PSALM 1
READ PS 1
I. DO YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE LIKE A STRONG, VIBRANT OAK TREE OR LIKE GRASS CLIPPINGS BLOWN AWAY BY THE BLOWER?
When all is said and done—your body is in the grave
1. Do you want your life to have been like a strong, healthy oak tree that lives for hundreds of years or like GRASS clippings that are blown away with the blower?
2. Do you want your life to count for something or for it to be just a waste?
3. We have around 80 or so years on this earth—do you want your life to count—to mean something?
B. Our text today will tell you want you need to do for your life to be like a strong oak tree and what you need to do for it to be like GRASS clippings.
1. The choice is yours!
2. Right here, right now, today—
3. You decide—oak tree or GRASS clippings?
C. Today we are starting a study of the songs of Psalms
1. We will spend around 7 weeks looking at the various types of psalms and the gamut of emotions we find in these songs.
2. Psalms was Israel’s prayer book and worship hymnal
3. I discovered Psalms around 20 years ago and they have been a vital part of my daily devotional times EVER SINCE
*for the first 20 years of my Christian life, I did not spend much time in Psalms
*I wanted to read the New Testament
*after all I was a New Testament Christian!
4. Then around 20 years ago I found out Psalms was Israel’s worship book—their prayer book
*so I began to read these prayers during my daily devotions
*I began to pray these prayers back to God
5. I was amazed at how often the psalm I was reading that particular day expressed the exact feelings of my heart or the struggle I was going through at that time
*there were psalms that expressed
—joy—sadness—disappointment—praise—heartache—bewilderment—trust—peace—anger—desire for revenge—grief—
6. These psalms were mine—about me
D. If you have not discovered the psalms for yourself, I want to challenge you to start spending time with God in the psalms
1. I hope this series will show you the immense value of the psalms
2. I hope it will whet your spiritual appetite for this delicacy on God’s menu.
E. Today we are looking at Psalm 1, a wisdom psalm.[1]
1. We normally think of the wisdom literature of the Bible as Proverbs or Ecclesiastes but there are wisdom psalms as well.
2. The wisdom writings of the Bible tell one how to live his life in a way that pleases God and at the same time benefits him.
3. A common theme is the contrast of the righteous with the wicked, which we see in our psalm today.
F. By this psalm being placed 1st in the Book of Psalms, the writer is calling us to wise living which means obeying God’s will and trusting in His providential rule.[2]
1. It is a signpost, standing at the entrance to the Psalms to give clear guidance on how we should live our lives[3]
2. I you will live your life by this psalm, your life will be like a strong, healthy oak tree that will stand against all the winds of adversity that come into your life.
II. THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS YOU MUST DO IF YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE LIKE THE OAK TREE—TO BE BLESSED BY GOD (1-3)
*Warren Wiersbe has captured the meaning of this first section in his exposition of the Old Testament
A. First, you must live a life that is separated from the world.[4](1)
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!
1. We are shown what we are not to do.
*we have a progression into wickedness
*each phrase if more intense than the previous one[5]
2. We are not to walk in the counsel of the wicked
*”walk “ is often used in the Bible to speak of the way we live
—Paul told the church at Ephesus
Eph 5:8
for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light
*we are not to live by the advice of the ungodly
Illus. You are struggling in your marriage and you are sharing it with some of your friends at work
—your husband is not attentive to you
—he works all the time
—he is selfish
—you are miserable in the marriage
—the passion has left the marriage
*This person advises you to get a divorce!
—there has been no sexual unfaithfulness
—no Biblical grounds for divorce
*if you want your life to be like that strong oak tree you do not follow that ungodly advice
*you will not walk in the counsel of the wicked
*we do not live like the world says we should but like the Word says we should live
3. Next, we are not stand in the path of sinners. [6]
*you do not conform to the their example
*you do not follow their moral path
Illus. People you know at school are having sex but you do not follow in their path and do the same.
—People are getting drunk but you do not follow in their path and get drunk
*If you want your life to be like an oak tree then you do not do like they do
*you stand against the crowd!
4. Then the finally progression—sit in the seat of scoffers
*these are those who mock at the things that are sacred—the Bible, church, Jesus, moral absolutes[7]
*the righteous person is not to take up company with these—sit down with them
*we are not to make them our close friends
5. The progression has gone from listening to their advice, to following their advice, to finally taking a seat with them and becoming a part of them!
6. If you want your life to count for something you must first be separated from the world.
*Be in the world but not of the world
B. Next, you must be saturated with the Word.[8] (2)
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
1. This means you delight in God’s word.
*the law of the Lord refers to God’s teachings about life, principles to live by.[9]
*but for us it would include the whole counsel of God—the Bible
*you find joy in obeying God’s word
*like we saw last week—obey God out of love
*our obedience to His teachings is an expression of our love for Him
2. Next, you spend time studying and reading carefully God’s Word.
*look at the word meditate (2)
*The Hebrew verb is defined as "read in an undertone" (see Jos 1:8), meaning intensive, careful reading and study.[10]
*this means you must spend time daily reading carefully and thinking about God’s Word
*There is no substitute for spending time daily with God in His Word!
—you can never live a consistent Christian life without it!
3. If you want your life to be like a strong oak tree you must live separated from the world and be saturated with the Word.
C. Third, you must be situated by the waters.[11](3)
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.
1. The picture is of a fruit tree planted in a garden with irrigation ditches
*The practice in Ancient Israel was to water one’s garden by means of irrigation ditches
*the water from the spring or well would be directed by means of irrigation ditches[12]
2. A tree planted by an irrigation ditch would grow and prosper in contrast to a tree planted in a field which would dry up and die!
3. The man who separates himself from the world and saturates himself with the Word of God living obediently to God has situated himself by the spiritual water and he will grow, remain healthy, vibrant, and fruitful!
4. All of these descriptions are poetic ways of speaking of a person whose life is like an oak tree!
*firmly planted = deep abiding spiritual life, rooted in Christ
*yields fruit = used of God, productive for God’s kingdom
*leaf does not wither = stays healthy and vibrant, spiritually strong
*in whatever he does he prospers = succeeds in whatever is God’s will for his life
—do not confuse this with financial prosperity
—he will prosper in that God will accomplish His will in this man’s endeavors
—Because God is God, it is impossible that anything can fail which this man does in obedience to God’s will.[13]
*Remember success in God’s eyes equals faithfulness
*If we are faithful we will always accomplish what God wants us to accomplish therefore we will be successful in God’s eyes even if not man’s eyes.
Illus. Jeremiah was faithful to God’s call on his life therefore, he was successful even though the people rejected his preaching.
D. That’s how you can be like a strong oak tree.
IV. BUT IF YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE LIKE GRASS CLIPPING THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO (4)
The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
The wicked are not like the righteous.
1. In other words, the wicked do just the opposite
2. If you want your life to amount to chaff that’s driven away by the wind, this is what you must do.
B. You must embrace the world’s ways.
1. First, you must follow the advice of the ungodly.
*surround yourself with friends who are immoral and drunkards
*get your life’s advice from the television, popular music, and the movies
* live like Hollywood instead Heaven
2. Next, you must follow the example of the ungodly.
*not only do as they say but do as they do
*when you are picking someone to model your life by, chose a movie star, or some popular but ungodly person at school
*have the attitude “if they are doing it on television and in the movies then its ok for me”
3. Third, this is very important, choose for your friends those who live immoral, hypocritical lives.
*choose close friends who mock at God and the Bible by their sinful living
*who come to church but live like the devil
*surround yourself with friends who reject the Bible as the standard of right and wrong.
C. Next, you must stay away from serious Bible study.
1. You can casually read the Bible while you are thinking about other things
2. You can hurriedly read the Bible so you can say you have read it
3. You can even bring it to church
4. But you must not read it carefully or seriously study the Bible.
5. You definitely must not have a daily time of prayer and thinking about the Bible
D. Third, you must cut yourself off from the waters.
1. If you are going to be dry grass clipping you must stay away from anything and everything that would give you spiritual strength and nourishment.
2. You must persist in disobedience to God’s will for your life
3. You must not confess and forsake your sins.
4. In doing this you will ensure your spiritual death and drought.
E. You will make your life like the chaff that is driven away by the wind
*in the Old Testament times when the farmer had harvested the gain say wheat he had to separate the husk from the grain
*he would go to a high place in the city where the wind would blow strongly
*he would place the wheat on the ground and the oxen would pull a heaven log over it crushing the grain and separating the husk (chaff) from the grain
*then he would take a winnowing fork and throw the mixture up in the air and the wind would blow the worthless chaff away and the grain would fall back to the ground[14]
3. Since we are not familiar with this practice, I have chosen something more familiar to us—grass clippings
Illus. You have finished cutting your grass and the clippings are on the sidewalk and the driveway.
*they are worthless, unsightly, and messy (they get on your shoes and you bring them into the house)
*you start up your blower and blow them away
*gone forever
4. The psalmist is making a stark contrast between the righteous person and the wicked person
*it’s the comparison between a strong oak tree and grass clippings
*one is stable, healthy and around for hundreds of years
*the other is dead, dry, and blown away
*the choice is yours
V. MAKE NO MISTAKE, YOU ARE CHOOSING YOUR ETERNAL DESTINY (5-6)
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.
The psalmist shows us the eternal destiny of each of these
Will you spend eternity in hell?
1. The wicked will not stand in the judgment
*means they will be condemned in the judgment
*the wicked will not be included with the righteous who will be with God
*their end will be eternal destruction in the fires of hell
*they will perish
2. They will perish because they have
*rejected God,
*rejected God’s way of salvation
*rejected God’s word
3. Will this be your destiny?
C. OR will you spend eternity in heaven?
1. The Lord knows the way of the righteous!
2. The idea in the Hebrew is God knows him personally and takes a loving interest in his future destiny.[15]
3. Notice, the man is not righteousness because he is obedient to God, rather he obeys God and loves His Word because he is righteous —it’s an expression of his faith/love
4. It’s what we saw last week: we obey God’s Word because we are saved not in order to be saved
5. This man is righteous because of his personal relationship to God
*established through faith and love
6. God knows him
*”knows” carries the idea of a personal relationship
*because God knows him, he will spend eternity with God in heaven
VI. WHICH ARE YOU? OAK TREE OR GRASS CLIPPINGS?
A. Notice, the Lord Jesus is the perfect embodiment of the righteous person in this psalm.
1. He faithfully lived in righteousness and obedience to His Father
2. He is our righteousness
B. There is no way you can live this psalm in your own power apart from Jesus
1. We are not able because we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory
2. It is only through a personal relationship with Jesus through faith that you will have His power in you to live this righteous life.
3. Apart from Jesus, we will all spend eternity in Hell.
*He alone can save us from our sins
*He alone lived the perfect life
*Through Him alone can we receive that right standing with God that comes through faith in what Jesus has accomplished for us
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[1]Arthur Weiser, “The Psalms,” The Old Testament Library (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1962), 89.
[2]Ibid., 102.
[3]Ibid.
[4]Warren Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament © 1993 by Victor Books/SP Publications. All rights reserved.)
[5] Bible Knowledge Commentary/Old Testament Copyright © 1983, 2000 Cook Communications Ministries,790.
[6]Wiersbe, Psalm 1.
[7]Weiser, “The Psalms,” 102.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid., 108.
[10]UBS Old Testament Handbook Series. Copyright © 1978-2004 by United Bible Societies. All rights reserved.) Ps 1:2.
[11]Wiersbe, Psalm 1
[12]James M. Freeman and Harold J. Chadwick, Manners & Customs of the Bible. "Rewritten and updated by Harold J. Chadwick" Includes index, rev. ed. (North Brunswick, NJ: Bridge-Logos Publishers, 1998), 311.
[13]Weiser, “The Psalm,”106.
[14]Ibid.
[15]Ibid., 107.
