The Fork In The Road Series

Text: Psalm 1

DT: Living the righteous life brings life, but living the wicked life brings destruction

The average person makes 35,000 choices in a day. Which means that in a year we make around 12.7 million decisions. Some of them are small every day decisions that we can make in a snap and some are really important decisions that take time to decide. Are you going to get married? Do you believe there is a God? Where do you want your life to go? What kind of pie are you going to eat? Some of these choices that we make can determine how we live our life. It can determine the direction and the purpose of our lives.

One of those choices in my life was when I was in high school. In high school people ask you the big question. “What are you going to study after you graduate” and to be honest I thought I knew the answer to that question. Several times to be exact. For a while I thought I was going to be a physical therapist and I'm really not sure what made me think I wanted to do that but I thought that for a while. Then after that I thought I wanted to be in the military and be a soldier in the military. Well I looked at myself and my psyche and realized I wouldn't last a day. Then towards my Jr year I took a class in psychology and in that class I learned about PTSD and the dangers and the people who struggle with it and I found it fascinating. I wanted to know more. Through that I thought that what I wanted to do was go and study psychology and help people in the military with PTSD and that was what I was going to stick with. I had a college chosen. I was going to play sports and study and I even had my roommates and at the last minute I heard God's calling. I heard God calling me somewhere else. To ministry. I had a choice in that moment to listen to what God wanted for my life or what I wanted to do with my life.

I had a choice at that moment. I had a choice on how I was going to live my life. If I was going to live a life that was obedient to God and close to God or if I could choose a life that was away from God and a life that would eventually lead to my destruction. If I would have chosen to do what I wanted to do then to be honest I probably would have fallen away from God. My faith was not strong and I would have fallen to what people were saying and doing around me very easily. If I would have listened to myself and what I thought was better for my life then I would have destroyed my faith.

We all have decisions like that. We all have to make a decision on how we are going to live our lives. Are we going to choose a life that is righteous or are we going to choose a life of wickedness. A good and virtuous life or a sinful immoral life. A life in which we are sustained and given life or a life that will destroy us. The scriptures tells us about theses two different lives and why they lead to. It really contrasts the two choices and shows us what we should be choosing.

We find that in Psalm 1 if you want to turn there in your bibles. Here in Psalm one we are going to see the righteous life and the wicked life and how we end up in both. How we end up in those lives because of the choice that we make. Right here in the first verse it starts with the righteous life and the choice you have to make. It says the blessed man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, and sit in the seat of scoffers. We will get to that word blessed a little later but lets look at the rest of this verse. Many scholars say that what we see here with the walk, stand sit and counsel of wicked sinners and scoffers is not a progression of a life of sin. While some others say that it is. Saying that it starts with walking the counsel of the wicked where we listen to others around us telling us that what we are doing is worthless and there is a better life for us living away from God, then if you listen it hit that path of the sinners meaning that you are deciding that you are going to stay away from God. You are choosing sin over God. You are choosing a life of habitual sin over and over again. Which leads to the third progression where you sit in the seat of scoffers where you are against God. You speak out against him and you belittle others around you who are trying to live the righteous life. I agree with this progression because choosing the life of wickedness or sin or immorality doesn't happen overnight. It is something that happens over time that slowly eats away at our spiritual lives. If you want to choose the life of righteousness it is a constant fight. You have to get away from the life of listening to those toxic people in your life. Those people who tell you that following Jesus is a waste of time. Those people who every time you're with them you find yourself getting farther away from God. Those people who seem to have a better time dragging you down and away from God rather than helping you get closer to Him. If you want to choose the life of righteousness you can't listen and fall into sin. You can't decide that this life of sin is better and stand in that path of sin. You can't decide that living a life going against the commands of God is better for you. If you want to choose the life of righteousness then you can't let that life of sin drive you to turn against God. To start speaking against Him and telling others that their pursuits of righteousness are a waste of time. If you choose the righteous path you have to avoid all of that from the start. You cannot fall into the trap because a righteous person doesn't live that life. They choose to avoid that lifestyle and avoid those choices. They decide they are going to fill their lives with something better and that is the word of God. We read that here in verse 2. His delight is in the law of the Lord in which he meditates day and night. They don't fill their lives with toxic people who drive them away from God, they don't choose a life of sin over God, they don't choose to speak against God, they choose to fill their life with God's word and instruction because what that does is bring us delight. A lot of the time when we see the “law” mentioned in scripture we think that it is just the mosaic law or the first five books of the OT but here the word that is used in its general sense is “instruction” or “teachings.” And this idea of meditating here in the verse is like repeating something over and over again. Saying it yourself over and over again to remind yourself of what God says. The righteous person finds their delight in going over Gods instruction and Gods word over and over again all the time. They are constantly reminding themselves of what God has done, what God asks, and what God wants us to do. If you are filling your life with a constant reminder of what God asks and what he instructs and His word its hard to listen to that counsel. It's hard to fall into that life of sin. Its hard to speak against God because you are reminded of what He has done and what He says. It then tells us what our lives are like when we do that. When we meditate on Gods instruction on His words we are like a tree. Now one thing we miss here in this verse is some of the original Hebrew words. This idea of being firmly planted by streams of water is the idea of being transplanted by a canal. Being taken from one place and planted in another by a water source that will not run dry. A water source that wont run out and will constantly have water. Because a righteous person mediates on Gods words and instruction they are planted by a source that will never run dry. They are planted by a source that will sustain them because they are not trying to fill their lives with other things. Gods word and instruction is what sustains them. Which brings us back around to the description of a righteous person in verse one “blessed”. The word means happy or abundantly happy. When we avoid the ways of wicked and we meditate on Gods word we will become planted by a sustaining life force which is God which in turn will bring that happiness. When you are firmly planted in God and his word and instruction its hard not to find happiness in God. however the second choice isn't as nice as the first