Psalm 1:1-3
INTRODUCTION
Do you remember the
“Beatitudes” of Jesus?
“Blessed are the poor in
spirit…”
“Blessed are those who
mourn…”
“Blessed are the meek…”
“Blessed are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness…”
In those sayings, Jesus was
describing the truly happy person, the person who is blessed by God, the person
who has a good life.
There are other “beatitudes”
in the Bible.
The book of Psalms begins
with a beatitude.
“Blessed is the one
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.”
I. This psalm tells us about
what kind of person is blessed by God.
The man or woman who is
blessed by God forsakes the ways of the world.
We don’t take our values
from the world around us.
We don’t shape our lives by
what the world around thinks is important but by what we know is important.
That’s what it means not to
walk in the counsel of the ungodly.
Of course, we live with all
kinds of people, and we seek to be a witness for Jesus to everyone.
But we don’t take part in
behavior that we know dishonors God.
That’s what it means not to
stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scoffers.
II. The one who is blessed
by God delights in God’s law and meditates on it day and night.
A. First of all I want to
tell you what the psalmist means by “God’s law.”
The word translated “law” in
my Bible is the Hebrew word Torah.
It means much more than the
“Ten Commandments.”
But the “Law” or “Torah” of
God is more than a series of “do’s” and “don’ts.”
The word really means
“instruction.”
The blessed person considers
all of God’s revelation of his will.
It is everything in the
Bible—the instructions, the warnings, the blessings, the promises, and the
stories.
The writer of this psalm
didn’t know about Jesus.
He didn’t know that Jesus
would be the true “Word of God” and “Wisdom of God.”
B. So as Christian believers
when we “meditate” on the “Law of God” we may think especially of Jesus.
We think about what he
loves, and we try to love the same things he loves.
We think about how he wants
us to respond to the problems we face.
We think about our
opportunities. How can I serve the people around me—encouraging them in their
problems, rather than thinking all the time about myself—my problems and my
needs.
It’s very important to have
precious parts of the Bible in memory.
Find some especially
meaningful verse, memorize it and let it run through your mind over and over.
It could be Psalm 23, or The
Lord’s Prayer, or a verse you learned in Sunday school.
“Cast all your care upon
him, for he careth for you.” (1 Peter)
“You are not your own, you
were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body…” (1 Corinthians)
“Whatever you do, whether
you eat or drink, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God
the Father through him” (Colossians 3;17).
“Let no evil talk come out
of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, so that you may impart
grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).
“Do all things without grumbling or arguing that you may be
blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a
crooked and perverse generation, among which you shine like stars in the world”
(Philippians 2:14-15).
Remember the sayings of
Jesus, and as you say them to yourself, try to picture Jesus in front of you
telling you those words.
When you lie down to rest
during the day, or when you lie down at night to sleep, let thoughts of Jesus
and precious Bible verses go through your mind.
Confess your sins. Think
about what you can do better.
The Bible says, “Pray
without ceasing.” To pray without ceasing is not to be always asking for
things.
To pray without ceasing is
to be in constant communion with God. It is to have him in mind so constantly
that it is only natural to talk to him…to share with Jesus everything that is
on our mind. This is another kind of “meditating.”
C. Our pastor said something
a couple of weeks ago that I think is really important.
He said, “If you think about something often enough,
eventually it takes center stage in your life.”
Some people think so much
about food, food is about all they can think about.
Some people think so much
about money, that eventually their thoughts are dominated by money.
Some people’s minds are so
full of TV that TV dominates their mind.
Some people dwell so much on
the disappointments of the past that all thoughts of God are crowded out.
But if our minds are
centered on Jesus, God, the Bible, and the needs of other people, God takes
center stage in our life.
Jesus fills our thoughts and
we are blessed.
III. This truly happy
person, the psalmist says, is like a tree planted near a stream.
A. Charlotte and I are from
Kansas.
Most of Kansas is flat and
dry.
Western Kansas is so dry
that the farmers plant their wheat only every other year.
The years when they don’t
grow a crop, they disk the fields to keep the weeds from growing up and
consuming the moisture.
The next year there is
enough moisture in the ground to grow a crop.
As you drive through western
Kansas you seldom see a tree.
But sometimes you will see a
line of trees on the horizon.
When you see that line of
trees, you know that there is a creek or stream there, because trees only grow
in such a dry country if they are near a stream of water.
The lands of the Bible are
like that. In the dry parts trees grow along rivers and streams or around
oases.
B. The person who lives
close to God is like a tree by the stream bank that has its roots deep in the
fertile, moist soil.
No matter whether it rains
or not, the tree flourishes and grows and sends out its leaves and bears fruit.
The psalmist is thinking of
the date palm, the most common tree of the oases in the desert.
The date palm is the most
useful tree in the world.
It is also one of the most
beautiful.
The lover in the Song of
Songs in our Bible says that his sweetheart is “stately as a palm tree.”
The fruit is good to eat. I
read about an oasis in Egypt where the people live on dates. They even feed
them to their donkeys.
They make a drink from the
sap of the palm trees.
They use the wood of the
trunks for building material and for fuel.
They roof their houses with
the palm fronds.
From the fiber of the tree,
the women make mats and baskets so closely woven that they can hold water.
The fibers are also used to
make rope.
The hollowed out trunks of
the palm trees are used as pipes to carry water to the canals.
If a tree could be “blessed”
it would surely be the date palm.
C. What a good picture of
the secure, fruitful Christian believer!
Our lives are rooted in God.
We are beautiful for
God—whatever we look like on the outside.
We are useful—“fruitful” is
the Bible word for those who spread happiness and contentment wherever they go.
D. “In all that he does, he prospers.”
This prosperity isn’t what
the world calls “prosperity.”
We experience plenty of
disappointments, plenty of unfulfilled wishes…
We take this spiritually—the
eternal goodness is ours, even in our troubles—it is well with our soul.
CONCLUSION
I will read you a story from
a sermon by a noted preacher named Fred Craddock. It is obviously a made-up
story, but it has a good point to end my little message with.
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Wrong. If you
believe in God, you can teach an old dog new tricks. I’ve never been to the
greyhound races, but I’ve seen them on TV. They have these beautiful, big old
dogs—I say beautiful, they’re really ugly—big old dogs and they run that
mechanical rabbit around the ring, and these dogs just run, exhausting
themselves chasing it. When those dogs get to where they can’t race, the owners
put a little ad in the paper, and if anybody wants one for a pet, they can have
it; otherwise they’re going to be destroyed. I have a niece in Arizona who
can’t stand that ad. She goes and gets them. Big old dogs in the house; she
loves them.
I was in a home not long ago where they’d adopted a
dog that had been a racer. It was a big old greyhound, spotted hound lying
there in the den. One of the kids in the family, just a toddler, was pulling on
its tail and a little older kid was had his head over on that old dog’s
stomach, used it for a pillow. That dog just seemed so happy, and I said to the
dog, “Uh, are you still racing any?”
“No, no, no, I don’t race anymore.”
I said, “Do you miss the glitter and excitement of the
track?”
He said, “No, no.”
I said, “Well, what’s the matter? You got too old?”
“No, no, I still had some race in me.”
“Well, did you not win?”
He said, “I won over a million dollars for my owner.”
“Then what was it, bad treatment?”
“Oh, no, they treated us royally when we were racing.”
I said, “Then what? Did you get crippled?”
He said, “No, no, no.”
I said, “Then what?”
And he said, “I quit.”
“You quit?”
Yeah, that ‘s what he said. “I quit.”
I said, “Why did you quit?”
And he said, “I discovered that what I was chasing was
not really rabbit. And I quit.” He looked at me and said, “All that running,
running, running, running, and what I was chasing, not even real.”
That’s what God does for us
when we belong to him. He gives us something really real to live for—something
that is good, not only for this life but for the world to come that lasts
forever.
And he’s given us our time
on earth to prepare for that life that lasts forever, which is all joy and no
sorrow.
As the Bible says, when we
enter into the joy of the Lord.
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