Psalms for Life: The Blessed Life Psalm 1

- Before we begin looking at this short series on Psalms for life in which will be looking at three Psalms, there is a key thing we need to remember:

*- The Psalms are poetry written by people who are experiencing all of the same kind of experiences that we have and through their experiences, they are responding to God in creative, poetic prayer.

*- The Psalms are poetry and as poetry, therefore, the Psalms are not prescriptive, i.e., they are not a how-to manual for life, rather they are descriptive, they are poetic descriptions of what life is like.

- For us to understand the Psalms, we need to enter into them as much as we can to experience them as the psalmist's experienced life and their relationship with God and the world around them.

- The Psalms were written so that God's people would use them to enrich and inform their experience of prayer.

- In other words, we need to incorporate the Psalms into our prayer life and live with them with our hearts open to the emotions and the experiences of the psalmist's and our ears attuned to not only what they are saying but also to what God is saying through them.

- As we read Psalm one, one of the first things we notice is that the psalmist is comparing and contrasting the righteous and the wicked.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The psalmist is saying that experiencing the blessed life does not come from delighting in the things that bring wicked people delight.

- Remember this is poetry and the psalmist isn't giving rules to obey, but describing the inner life of a righteous person, and how that inner life impacts the outward life.

¹ Oh, the joys of those who do not
    follow the advice of the wicked,
    or stand around with sinners,
    or join in with mockers.

- In other words, the righteous person has the strength of will or character that keeps them from doing evil things.

- Where is that character come from? That character or inner strength of will comes from where the righteous person takes delight.

- ² But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.

- Listen to what David thought about God's Law.

⁷ The instructions of the Lord are perfect,
    reviving the soul.
The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
⁸ The commandments of the Lord are right,
    bringing joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are clear,
    giving insight for living.
⁹ Reverence for the Lord is pure,
    lasting forever.
The laws of the Lord are true;
    each one is fair.
¹⁰ They are more desirable than gold,
    even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey,
    even honey dripping from the comb.
¹¹ They are a warning to your servant,
    a great reward for those who obey them. (Psalm 19, NLT)

- David makes clear what the writer of Psalm one assumes, that finding delight in and meditating upon God's law leads us to knowing the God who gave the law.

- If we flash forward to the time of Jesus, Luke 10 describes a time when a teacher of the law came to Jesus, asking him how to inherit eternal life.

- Jesus answered him with a question, What is written in the law? How do you read it?

- The legal expert answered him, saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

- Right, said Jesus, do this and you will live.

- But wanting to justify his actions, he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

- Through meditating upon God's law, God's desire is that we find him who is our soul's delight & learn love.

- God gave the law that we would come to an understanding of the depth of our sin and our need for him; NOT so that we would become self-righteous, legalistic keepers of the law thereby rejecting our need of God.

- To that goal, the psalmist paints an odd picture of the righteous person meditating upon the Scripture.

- The word translated as meditates used by the Psalmist means to groan or utter.

- So, the image is of a person reading the Scriptures half out loud to one's self or inwardly groaning in deep thought allowing the Scriptures to penetrate beyond the surface, down to the level where they can begin their transformative work in cooperation with the Spirit of God.

*- To meditate upon the Scriptures is not to fathom the depths of the Scriptures, but to allow the living Word to fathom our depths.

- Following up this thought, the psalmist gives us another image of those who allow the Scriptures to examine their depths, their most inward thoughts, their inner hidden lives.

³ They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do.

- The Psalmist sees the righteous as replanted trees that are well irrigated and well tended by the Gardener.

- Trees that have the proper sun and water and the care of a skilled gardener will not fail to produce an abundant crop at the right time.

- Jesus used similar language when he described himself as the vine and his disciples as branches in John 15.

- “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. ³ You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me."

- If we desire to bear fruit for the Lord Jesus and his kingdom, then we must take delight in the Scriptures, the living Word of God and meditate upon them, as the psalmist suggests, day and night.

- As Paul counseled the church of Colossae, "let the word of Christ, in all its richness, dwell within you."

- Without meditating upon the Scriptures, allowing the word of Christ to dwell within us richly, it will be impossible to bear fruit that will last.

- Jesus said, "apart from me, you can do nothing."

*- Friends, we open the door to the grace of God when we prayerfully meditate upon his words to us.

- When we believe that every time we meditate upon the Scriptures, ruminating as a cow chews the cud that God has a personal word for us to go to work on our character, then the possibilities for how God can use us for his kingdom are limitless.

- And the primary reason God wants us to let our hearts and minds dwell on the Scriptures is so that we will learn to be with him & thereby become like him as he works within us.

- Why do gardeners plant trees? They plant trees because they love trees, they love caring for trees, and they love the fruit trees bare.

- The psalmist describes a righteous person like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing its fruit in its season because our gardener loves us and he longs for us to be attentive to his presence.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The psalmist had strong words to say about wicked people.  The righteous are like trees planted by streams of water...

- ⁴ But not the wicked!
    They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.
⁵ They will be condemned at the time of judgment.
    Sinners will have no place among the godly.
⁶ For the Lord watches over the path of the godly,
    but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

- For the psalmist, a life that does not draw its delights and blessings from a relationship with the living God, meditating upon the Scriptures as a means to deepening that relationship, then that life has no meaning, no higher purpose.

- A life that is not continually steeped in the Bible is a life without God, a godless life. 

- The psalmist reminds us that God will judge the ungodly. They will not stand in the judgment because they cannot stand. Both their inner life and their outward life lead only to condemnation.

- The new living translation really paraphrases verse six where it says that the Lord watches over the path of the godly.

- A more literal rendering of the Hebrew is "the Lord knows the way or path of the righteous."

- We need to remember that in Hebrew knowing is a deep knowing.

- It is an intimate knowing not simply superficial knowledge, but like the way a husband and wife know one another, and in that knowledge take great pleasure and produce offspring.

- Because they meditate upon the Scriptures, so open up their whole lives to God, the righteous have allowed God to know them intimately and they know him.

- Psalmist says, "The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.

- The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish.

- At the end of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, the five who were foolish tried to enter the feast. Knocking on the door, they cried, Sir, Sir, open the door for us! But he called back to them through the locked door, saying, Believe me, I don't know you.

- Earlier in Matthew, Jesus said, ²² On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ ²³ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ (Mat. 7:22-23, NLT)

- The Lord knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked he knows not.

- Does the Lord know your path?

- I want to take a moment to give you one practical idea that all of us can use to allow the Lord to know our paths.

*- Scripture & silence 5X5

1.   1 cue card & hand written memory verse, keep this on you throughout the day

2.   10 minutes/day, whenever you can – lunch, break, getting up, going to bed, remember whenever you can, not when you can’t, but make time for God in this. He will use it.

a.  Five minutes of Scripture meditation and memorization, read the verse over several times stressing a different phrase or word each time allowing them to sink into you.

b.  Five minutes of silent listening, allow yourself to rest in the Scripture remembering the presence of God, listening for his voice. As you gain experience in this simple practice you may find yourself wanting to spend more time in silence in God’s presence. You are free to do that.

- This exercise is all about letting the Lord know your path and you being with him, so you will be better enabled to be his humble servant and become a friend of God.

- Knowing the Bible's God leads to a fruitful, blessed life with him; all other ways are cursed.