Psalm 1

Psalm 1

¹ Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.
² But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
³ He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

⁴ Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

⁶ For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

In college, I had a friend named Scott. Scott was the only kid on our floor who wore a tie. Maybe he was the only one who owned a tie. Scott was extremely conservative; not only did he vote conservatively, but he also dressed conservatively. When all of the freshman guys would go to the fraternities, Scott didn’t go.  Until his roommate joined one, that is. Then Scott started going with his roommate to the fraternity. Not that everyone in a fraternity is like John Belushi in Animal House, but Scott was around a whole different set of influencers. The last time I saw Scott, he was a long-haired, pot-smoking hippie, a very different persona from the one he’d come to collage with.

I don’t say that to be the guy who picks on colleges and fraternities – easy targets, by the way. I say that to say that it’s important to examine who is influencing you and how they are influencing you.

In Psalm 1, the psalmist tells us what it takes to be blessed. He says that blessing comes from the company we keep. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. (Psalm 1:1)

Before I get to the “what not to do” part of this scripture, I want to look at blessing for a moment. I’ve noticed that in the south, the term “bless” has been appropriated by those who use it as filler. “Well bless my heart” is one of those phrases. The blessedness here has often been described as “happiness” but it is more than that, because the emotion of happiness can be contingent on so many external things. For example, I have electricity, so I am happy. Or, on the other hand, I do not have electricity, so I am not happy.

We often ignore the fact that we can actually choose our emotions. When I was a teenager, our church youth group would always go to the Indiana Christian Youth Convention. One year the musical entertainment was a little “loud” for some of the organizers (though the kids loved it), so the next year they got a 1980s church friendly adult contemporary group. It was awful. We were sitting on the back row – I think I fell asleep. But then my friend Devin and I had an idea. We were stuck there, but we could make the most of it. So we got up out of our seats, made our way down the bleachers to the large area in front of the stage, and we started to dance. For the record, my sister was mortified. After a while, we looked around and saw that a whole bunch of kids had joined us down in front and many in the crowd were imitating the silly dances we were doing. After the concert, the lead singer personally thanked me and Devin, because we livened up the concert. Here’s the thing; neither Devin nor I liked that type of music, and that concert was blah at best. But we chose to have a good time.

We can choose our emotions, and what we continuously choose will wear pathways in our brains so that we naturally go that way. It’s kind of like in the woods, you’ll find the paths that animals take through the undergrowth; they are eventually worn away to dirt trails. It’s the same way with our neurons. So if you’re continually negative, it will be much harder to be positive, but the fact is, with God, all things are possible.

All this is to say that being “blessed” is more than just being happy. It carries the weight of being level, secure, and right… and being happy and satisfied.

So how does this happen? Well, the psalmist starts out by telling us how it doesn’t happen. Now I didn’t notice this at first until a friend pointed this out to me, but there is a progression here. Most of us don’t set out to be influenced by the wrong people, but one day we look around and everything around us is a bad influence.

It all starts with walking in the counsel of the wicked. You’re not planning on being influenced – you’re just walking by, checking it out. You flip by it as you’re channel-surfing. You listen for a while. It’s not like you’re going to stay there. Nevertheless, as you walk by, you’re definitely looking. You might find yourself saying, “I would never read that smut, but I just want to be informed.” Or “I don’t watch that stuff, but I wanted to know what it is that people are watching these days.” Just as an aside, if you’re considering reading Fifty Shades of Gray, don’t. If you’ve never heard of it, just keep on never hearing of it.

Someone who walks in the counsel of the wicked isn’t meaning anything bad; they probably don’t mean to be influenced badly or don’t even know that they are, but they find themselves walking in the wrong places. There are places that Christians should simply not wander through. Yes, there is a time and a place to minister in terrible environments, but it’s just not wise to wander through them on your own.

The fact is that most of us are slow to admit that we’re influenced by the culture around us, but every one of us is. It seems like every generation says, “I just listen to the music; I don’t even pay any attention to the lyrics.” But then we have a generation of three year olds singing “I’m sexy and I know it.”

Why? Because we haven’t just walked by the wicked, but we’ve also stopped to stand in the way of sinners. Do you see the progression? Wisdom says, “don’t even walk in certain places” but we not only walk in them, but we stop and hang out.

This isn’t to say that you can’t befriend a non-Christian; hopefully every one of us has non-Christians in our lives who we are praying for by name, that they will turn to Jesus for salvation. But please remember as you are going about evangelism and ministering to those who don’t know Jesus, it’s key to be grounded firmly in prayer and scripture. Otherwise worldly wisdom will seem right and good. We probably all know someone who used to walk with the Lord and at some point, they stopped, and some of the things that they say make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and if you had asked them twenty years ago if they would ever be doing this or that, they’d have been shocked, but now, here they are…

Because not only did they walk in the places of the wicked and stop and stand in the way of sinners, but they stopped to sit in the seats of mockers. Not only has this person strayed from the straight and narrow, but now they find themselves among the mockers. I had a good friend in college who I used to study the Bible with, but as the years went on, it became pretty clear that we were going in different directions. His life and witness had become a mockery of Christ, and he was no longer welcome in my inner circle. You see, every one of us has various circles of friendship, where the outer circle is acquaintances all the way to the inner circle, where only our closest friends are. If we sit in the seat of mockers, we have allowed them to take “inner circle” status, and they are the ones who are influencing us most.

And the Bible is clear – when we do this, we are missing out on God’s blessing. Instead, we see that the blessed one delights in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:2)

In general, if you want to make a Christian feel guilty, just ask about their prayer and Bible study time. Most of us would rather have better habits when it comes to spiritual disciplines and would probably admit that we don’t spend nearly enough time in the Bible. I was heartbroken when I was talking to an older gentleman about his wife’s funeral, and I asked if they had any favorite scriptures, and he told me, “I don’t know the Bible like so-and-so.” So, no, he didn’t have any favorite scriptures of his own. As long as someone else knew the Bible well enough, he didn’t feel a need to. As a pastor, I’ve seen this frequently where people expect the pastor to be the only dispenser of biblical truth and nobody holds themselves personally responsible to know the Word. I remember preaching a sermon and mentioning a bunch of Bible heroes (like Abraham, Noah, David, and Elijah) and after service this guy who was active in the church came up and admitted that he didn’t know who any of these people were.

Biblical illiteracy is at a terrible high these days. People just don’t know the Bible, let alone delight in it. If you aren’t reading the Bible, it’s time to start. If you’ve got a smart phone, you can download Bible reading plan apps and start up your reading. If Bible reading has gotten stale for you, try a paraphrase like the Message to give new feeling or use an audio Bible. Or instead of trying to power through your whole reading plan, read a verse and sit and meditate on it. Or share what you’re reading with a trusted Christian friend. Think about what it means to you, just how much God loves you.

Delight in God’s Word! When you do, listen to how the psalmist describes you:  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

I love the imagery; last week we talked about how suffering produces perseverance, character, and hope, but sometimes suffering just produces depression and misery. In times like these, it’s important to be rooted in God’s character and His Word. When we delight in God’s Word, we find that He is all we need. The Holy Spirit becomes for us that stream of Living Water, and because of Him, we persevere, develop Godly character, and gain the hope that is only in Christ.

Now, someone is bound to say, “I’ve been in the Word for years and I haven’t prospered. I am still poor and I don’t see any way out.” Remember that prosperity is not necessarily financial, but that in Christ you have everything you need, and that in itself is prosperity. Psalms 4:7 says You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In other words, the joy of the Lord is greater than anything.

Now comes the contrast. The psalmist compares the righteous here to the wicked, saying Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. (Psalm 1:4-6).

Did you notice what is contrasted? We just saw what life is like for those who delight in God’s Word, that they will be like a tree planted by the water and whatever he does prospers. The contrast is the wicked. It can be tempting to think of “the wicked” as the “worst of the worst” but God redefines wickedness here to mean not delighting in His Word.

We as Christians sometimes leave the “delighting in God’s Word” to pastors, Sunday School teachers, or that one person who just seems to know the scriptures and can quote them at the drop of the hat, but the Bible says that when we do that, we fall into the category of the wicked.

What’s more, the Bible tells us that the way of the wicked will perish, that they have no standing on judgment day. Why is this so? Because when we fail to delight in God’s Word, it’s generally because we are failing to put God in His rightful place, that something else has taken priority over hearing from Him. And when that happens, whatever that may be, we have made an idol of it.

We don’t set out to worship idols. We don’t have Baals and Asherahs or fat little Buddhas or Ganeshas because that would be idol worship, but anything we place before God is an idol. So our task for today is to put God first. Ask the Holy Spirit what is taking first place in your life. Make a commitment today to put God first.