We Glorify God…

That leads to “R” which stands for Repent. So confess your sin to God. Acknowledge your need for Jesus. As you come before God, ask Him, “What in my life is not honoring to You right now?” If you ask Him, He will show you. Begin to examine your heart and confess thoughts, desires, actions or words that are not entirely pleasing to Him. Often I’ll write this out as well. “God, I see this or that in my life. Help me in this way or that way.”

You might be tempted to think, “Well, it’s kind of depressing dwelling on my sin and writing out specific ways I’ve sinned against God.” But this is not depressing when you have a Father God Who delights in forgiving your sins. This is beautiful!

For those of you who may be new to Christianity or even exploring Christianity—maybe you’re visiting with a friend or family member today—the heart of the Bible teaches that all of us have sinned against God, the One Who has created us, and we’ve all turned aside from His ways to our own ways. We’ve all disobeyed Him and said our ways are better than His ways. The Bible tells us that God is just and holy, and because of His justice and holiness we deserve judgment before Him for our sin. But the good news of the Bible is that God loves us and has made a way for us to be forgiven of all our sin. He has come to us in the person of Jesus Who lived the life we could not life—a life with no sin. Then even though He had no sin to die for, He chose to die on a cross to pay the price for our sin. After this He rose from the dead in victory over sin and the grave, so that anyone who repents—who turns from their sin and trusts in Jesus to forgive them of their sin—will be forgiven all their sin and be restored to a relationship with God. That’s the reality that can happen in your life today. You can put on one of these shirts that says, “Death to Life,” and you can say, “Yes, I believe that.”

However, once you have been restored to a relationship with God, you might still choose your own way over His way. You might still sometimes disobey Him—just like every once in a while my kids disobey me. That doesn’t mean they’re not my children. It does mean that when they do that, and they come to me and say, “Dad, I’m sorry,” that’s really good for our relationship with one another and the closeness we have. One way to grow in our relationship with God is to continual confession and repentance, experiencing His grace over and over and over again.

That then leads to “A” which stands for Ask. You can intercede for specific needs in your life and in others’ lives. Just think of all the things you can ask God for in other people’s lives—your family, work, friends, neighbors, even the world. There is so much time we could spend on this.

In your own life, what do you need? That’s the point of coming before God in prayer. It’s saying, “God, we need this. We need Your help in this way. Guide us in this way. Give us direction in that way.” Prayer is the laying down of your pride and saying, “God, I can’t do this on my own. Others can’t do this on their own. We need You.”

Asking these questions in application then leads to “P” which stands for Pray. In other words, do what we just said: Pray, Repent, Ask and Yield according to God’s Word. So we pray according to what we read. We praise God according to what we read. When we read and learn about God in the Word, it just leads us to praise Him. When we see things in the Word that we are falling short in, that leads us to repent of sin in our hearts for not obeying God’s Word. It leads us to ask for things, but what’s key here is now we’re asking for what God wants, not what we want.

God promises in John 15:7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” If we ask this way, we’re asking according to what He knows is best for us. If we pray according to God’s Word and ask according to God’s Word, then obviously we also yield according to God’s Word. “God, help me live this out.”

This finally leads to “S” which is Share. Write down your reflections, then talk about them with others. I use a running journal on my iPad, just a Word file. It’s really simple—it just has reflections on the Word each day. Different people do different things, because obviously there’s not a Bible verse I can take you to that says, “You need to write out this or that.” I find this really, really helpful, both in my prayer time to keep my mind from wandering everywhere, and then as I’m reading the Word to spend time writing out what I’m learning in it.

I write these things out, not just for my own sake, but because I want to share what I’ve learned with other people around me. This is what we say to each other every week when we leave worship: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20). So as He speaks to us, then we are supposed to pass that on to others. Listen to these verses from Deuteronomy 6:6-9:

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Did you hear that? God says, “Talk about My Word when you’re sitting in your house, when you’re walking by the way, when you’re lying down and when you’re rising.” That pretty much covers all the time. Is God’s Word like that in your life? Is it all over your conversations at home, all over your conversations with other followers of Jesus? Maybe it’s in person, via text or online in some way. Then are you also looking for opportunities to share God’s Word with other people who don’t know Jesus?

Here’s what I want to call us to do practically here. Last year we read through the Story of Scripture together and I heard so much feedback from those of you who did that and grew in Christ through that series. We want to continue this year with the Bible Reading Plan, as a church, for anybody who wants to do it. If you have something else you’re doing, that’s fine. That’s not sin. Just read the Bible—that’s what matters. But if you want to walk alongside us as a church, this is going to be a little different than last year. During these first 40 days, we’re simply reading a Psalm a day. Then at the end of these 40 days, starting February 9, we’re going to add something else to it, but I won’t get into that now. I’m just going to keep it simple. So I want to encourage you during these first 40 days to read one Psalm a day.

Now as a side note, we mentioned this at the end of last year, but some of you may have been traveling and it’s really going to stress you out that we’re already at January 5th, which means we’re already on Psalm 5. But I promise you, if you are just starting, it is okay. You can catch up if you want or you can start today with Psalm 5. God will still be pleased. Or start tomorrow with Psalm 6. The point is I want to encourage you to take a Psalm a day and do MAPS with it—Meditate and Memorize, Apply, Pray and Share it.

What I want to do in the last part of our time together this morning is model MAPS for you, doing this together. It’s written in your notes, but I want you to make your own notes, circle or underline different things, as we think about what meditation, application, praying and sharing look like in a simple Psalm. You might look at this and think, “This is so short—six verses, five sentences. It would take, like, 30 seconds to read.” Some of you hard-core church members are thinking, “One chapter—is that all? Really? One chapter?” Well, yes, our goal in Bible reading is not speed reading. What we do with the Bible is read it, meditate on it and ponder it. We think about what it’s saying, what it means, why it matters, doing all this in communion with God. So let’s do this together.

Let’s pray.

God, we praise You for Your Word. We praise Your for Your Holy Spirit Whom You have given us to enlighten and illuminate our eyes and hearts, so that we can engage in a truly supernatural activity right now. We praise you that Your Spirit is speaking to our hearts, helping us see what we could not see on our own. Help us know You and in the process enjoy You more, being drawn into a closer relationship with You.

God, I pray especially in this setting that You would draw some people in the next few minutes into relationship with You altogether. I pray that You would draw us all into a depth of understanding in Your Word that glorifies You and is good for us in ways that only Your Holy Spirit can bring about. Speak to us now through Your Word, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All right, let’s read Psalm 1 together. We’re not speed reading here; we’ll read it kind of slowly so we can soak it in:

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Okay, let’s ponder and reflect on what this means. “Blessed is the man…” Blessed seems like a pretty key word from the very beginning. It’s somewhat of an unfortunate translation. If you’re not a Christian, you may think, “What does blessed mean? That sounds like a really Christian word, but I’m not sure what it means.” What it really means is happy.

Now, at this point you’ll hear Christians say, “Actually, the world has happiness, but we have joy.” That sounds like happiness is some flighty, fleeting emotion and joy is some deep reality devoid of feeling. The problem is that just doesn’t square with the Bible. The Bible actually uses both joy and happiness, oftentimes interchangeably. Both are emotional; both are deep and wide-ranging.

So this Psalm is a description of a happy person. Part of the way we know that is because when it gives the description of this person in verse two, it uses the word “delight.” So there’s a delight here. There’s a happiness here. So next to “blessed,” in the margin of your Bible or in your notes, write out “full, lasting happiness.” That’s what this Psalm is talking about—full and lasting happiness. That’s why I said at the very beginning of our time together that I want to show you how you can experience deep, true, full, lasting happiness in your life. My assumption is that every person here desires that kind of happiness.

There are all kinds of ways the world says we can get that. If you think about the sentence, “Blessed is the man, the woman, who…,” the world would finish that sentence in all kinds of different ways. Let’s think about some of the ways the world would finish that sentence. “Blessed is the one who is looking forward to college.” I know seniors are trying to think through where you’re going to school. So to get in a certain college would make you happy.

For others, maybe it’s being in a certain relationship. “If I have this girlfriend or this boyfriend, this husband or this wife, that would make me happy.” Maybe it’s marriage. You think you’ll be happy in marriage. Or maybe you’ll be happy if you have kids. Maybe you’ll be happy if you have a certain job. Or maybe you’ll be happy if you have a certain amount of money or if you are comfortable in this life. Maybe it’s retirement. We could keep going on and on. The world might say, “Blessed is the one who has this.” Oftentimes we even would say around the church, “Yes, all those things are what blessing is about.” But is that where God says happiness is found?

Because God made us and knows us better than we know ourselves, and He’s saying, “Blessed is the one who…,” I think we want to listen to what He says. As this sentence unfolds, we see first something the happy person does not do. It doesn’t start positive; it actually starts negative. It states what the happy person does not do. It’s not until we get to verse two that we see the word “but” to draw a contrast. So we’re about to see two different types of people. In fact, if you look, there are two other times that word “but” is used to draw a contrast—one down in verse four and then at the end in verse six. So clearly this Psalm is giving us two pictures and we’re going to come back to this at various points.

We’ve got two pictures here of someone who is happy and someone who is not; someone who has full, lasting happiness and someone who doesn’t. The whole Psalm starts with the person who doesn’t. “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”

Look at the three verbs there: walks, stands, sits. When you think about those verbs and ponder them, they seem like a progression, don’t they? Okay, you’re walking in a certain direction and listening to the counsel of the wicked as you walk, the counsel of a world set against God’s Word. Then you stop and stand in the company of sinners— those who are disobeying God’s Word. Then finally you sit in the seat of those who are scoffing at those who obey God’s Word. So you’re not only participating in godlessness, now you’re sneering at those who obey God. Do you see the progression here? It’s like a trap. It’s like the loss of happiness begins subtly with walking in and listening to the counsel of the wicked, then standing in the company of sinners and finally sitting, which is the point at which you are now scoffing at those who obey God.

Don’t miss where it all starts. It all starts with the counsel of the wicked. It’s the counsel you turn your ear toward. In other words, what you turn your ear toward, the messages you surround yourself with, will affect the direction of your life. It will either lead to happiness, or it won’t. Think about it. Why didn’t the psalmist just say, “Don’t be wicked, don’t sin and don’t scoff”? Why did he draw our attention to the wicked, the other sinners, and those who scoff? The picture is of the presence of influence. The unhappy man listens to the counsel of the wicked, then flowing from that he’s led to stop and have a seat among them. He listens to the counsel of the wicked, he is shaped by the counsel of the wicked, he’s affected by and surrounds himself with the counsel of the wicked.

The key here is who you listen to and what messages you surround yourself with. That will be critical to happiness in your life. Let me say that again. Who you listen to and the messages you surround yourself with will be critical to happiness in your life. If you want happiness, it’s not found in listening to the counsel of the wicked. How do we know this is the point? Look at the next verse.

We might expect the second verse to parallel the first one, saying something like, “Blessed is the one who walks in the counsel of the righteous, or stands in the way of the obedient, or sits in the seat of the worshipful.” But instead we only have one description: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

So why is there just one thing? Out of all the things verse two could have said about the happy, blessed life, why is this the description? Think about what we just saw. What you listen to and what messages you surround yourself with is critical to the direction of your life, how your life is led and where your life leads to. The key, according to God, to blessing and full, lasting happiness in your life is listening to and surrounding yourself with meditating on God’s Word—the law of the Lord—and finding delight in it. That is the key.

So to keep that contrast going, you’ve got the counsel of the wicked that might affect you or you have the law of the Lord that might affect you. That’s the contrast. One of those influences will lead one way; the other influence will lead another way. If you think about it, it’s like two competing sources of pleasure. Either you will find your delight in the counsel of the wicked (the world) or you will find your delight in the counsel of the law of God. The one who is happy will find his or her pleasure and delight in the law of the Lord, such that you will find yourself meditating on it day and night, all the time, in a way that leads you away from the counsel of the wicked and toward the law of God.

When that is a reality in your life, verse three says you will be “like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” We see three pictures of happiness here. The first one is that he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields fruit. Happiness is being fruitful. Think about it this way. You’ve got two trees. You’ve got a barren tree that is dead and a tree that is alive and bearing fruit. If those are your two options, which one do you want to be? Which one do you want to depict your life?

The whole picture here is God saying, “I want you to be full of life, not just for yourself, but in a way that is nourishing to others around you.” Don’t you want a life that’s refreshing, nourishing and encouraging to the people around you? Don’t you want to be fruitful as opposed to being dried up and dead? So the first picture is one of being fruitful.

The next picture is that the tree’s leaf does not wither. Let’s call that durable. It stays green. This is why we know this happiness is not just a flighty and fleeting emotion. This is a deep, enduring, full and lasting reality amidst changing winds, blowing storms and falling temperature. You say, “How is it possible for a leaf not to wither? How is it possible to have enduring happiness in a changing world with all kinds of changing circumstances?” The answer is that your source of happiness is in what lasts forever. Look at Isaiah 40:8: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” If you meditate on the Word of God, you will find a source of enduring happiness.

A happy man or woman is fruitful, durable, and then, “In all that he does, he prospers.” In other words, he’s successful. Fruitful, durable and successful. Here’s another word that the world and God define in different ways. When we hear the word “prosperity,” many of us think the way the world thinks, in all the ways we mentioned earlier. Getting into the right school, having the right spouse, perfect kids, job, money, comfort, retirement—prosperity.

But is that how God defines success? That’s what leads us to the last part of this Psalm, where the contrast comes up again. “The wicked are not so…” (verse four). So here we’ve got the contrast. We’re about to read the opposite of fruitful, the opposite of durable and the opposite of successful. The wicked are not those things. What are the wicked like? “The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.” Chaff is a like a light straw that the farmer tosses up and blows away. The good stuff, which is heavier falls to the ground. The wicked are not durable. Those who reject God’s Word, who don’t delight in His Word but listen to and live according to the world, don’t have a lasting happiness. Their happiness is fleeting. It comes and goes; just like chaff, it’s blown away.

This then leads to verse five where things go to a whole other level. “Therefore…” Whenever we see the word “therefore,” we know what’s about to come is based on everything that’s just been said. So now we know we’re coming to the conclusion of this Psalm, seeing where it’s all headed—the climax. We know everything we’re about to read is based on everything we’ve just seen. “Therefore,” in light of what we’ve just seen, “the wicked will not stand in the judgment…”

Here’s the picture. Not only are they like chaff that the wind drives away, the wicked will not stand in the judgment. So ultimately all the things those in the world have sought for and looked to for their happiness—all these things we talked about at the top—will ultimately prove in the end to be futile and empty. They won’t help them stand in the judgment. “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.”

Now we’re talking about a day of judgment that’s coming. On that day, we see two groups of people. One group is the wicked and sinners. “The wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous…” So here’s the group. “…For the Lord knows the way of the righteous.” We have the wicked sinners, those who have listened to and gone after things of this world, and here we have the righteous, those who have looked to God and meditated on His Word.

Now we have these two groups and here’s how they are distinguished. “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous.” As soon as we read “knows,” we realize he also knows about the way of the wicked. It’s not like the Lord is ignorant about the way of the wicked; He just made it clear that He knows how wickedness works. So the picture here is more than just knowing about the righteous; this is knowing with approval and commendation. The Lord recognizes the righteous who have delighted in His law, who have meditated on His law day and night.

Another way to put this is that the Lord knows those who know Him, know His Word and have delighted in His law. They will stand, “but the way of the wicked will…” —here’s how the whole Psalm ends—“…perish.” They will end in destruction. Maybe to keep the contrast going from the first word to the last word, let’s call this “everlasting hopelessness.” Not happiness, not full and lasting happiness, but everlasting hopelessness.