PSALM 1
WHICH WAY? CHOOSE WISELY!
Are you ready to get into Psalm 1? Are you excited? I am going to begin this morning by doing something a little different. I am going to ask you a question and you are going to give me an answer to it. The question is really simple: Why do we read and study the Bible? Why do YOU read and study the Bible?
[Class responses included increasing our knowledge of the word; to learn about Jesus and His life; to find the way to eternal life (salvation); to verify, to reinforce what we believe and the reasons why; for guidance through life; to focus on God; to find His will; basic instructions for living.]
If the Apostle Paul was sitting here in our class with us, he might give an answer to that question that goes something like this: “All Scripture is inspired by God and it is useful for teaching truth, for convicting us of sin (we have all sinned, right?), for correction (we all need that from time to time), and for training us to live God’s way, that the man and woman of God (that would be us, believers in Jesus Christ – we want to be men and women of God, don’t we?) may be complete, and equipped to carry out God’s will in their lives” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Every human being is on a journey called life. It began at the station of Birth and will end at the last station of Death. Along the way there will be many times we need to stop and make a decision as to which way to go next. And that brings us to Psalm 1 which is classified as a “wisdom psalm.” Just like we see in the book of Proverbs, there is a contrast between the righteous and the wicked, the godly and the ungodly; basically, the two different ways of living. Each way leads to different place. The first three verses of Psalm 1 focus on the godly man or woman. I define that as those who choose to do things God’s way. They choose a pathway of blessing. The last three verses focus on the ungodly, which I define as those who choose to do things the world’s way, which most often, almost always, runs counter to God’s way.
The picture I have up here shows a man who has come to a crossroads in his life. We have all been here at one time or another. The man can go the wrong way or he can go the right way. The choice is his. Which way will he go? Let me ask you, from your observation and experience, which path do most people choose to go down (in general)? We all want to go our own way. Unfortunately, most people choose to go down a pathway contrary to God’s will.
We know this is the case from the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says this: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction [that would be the wrong way], and there are many who go in by it [by the wide gate]. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life [that would be the right way], and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
So then, according to Jesus, going the right way requires finding and then entering through a “narrow gate.” This way leads to life and is obviously the better choice. It seems like a no-brainer. What is interesting, however, and you see it illustrated up here, is that few people go that way. Most people choose to go the way that leads to destruction. And why is this? Because they have a wrong perception. Most people choose to go down what they think is the easier path. They think in their minds it is a better way. But they have a vision problem. They are nearsighted. They are focused on the path immediately in front of them and what it looks like to them (it is popular, it is attractive, everybody is going that way), rather than focusing on where that path is heading.
Most people go this way because they think it is the easier path. The truth is that while they may perceive the narrow path to be more difficult and avoid going that way, the truth is that it really is NOT more difficult. No matter which pathway we choose to go down, the journey will be difficult. Life is hard and at times is very challenging.
I have set up Psalm 1 for you. I wanted to get you in a certain framework of thinking about life in general and decisions we make. Let us talk about what the Bible says. The psalmist in Psalm 1 is making a contrast – a contrast NOT between the two journeys themselves because both are difficult. But rather the two moral compasses that people use to guide them along their journey. That is what he is contrasting. There are the two possible guidance systems that people can choose to navigate through life with – the Word (the word of God) or the World. That gets us into Psalm 1. Let’s read what God’s word says…
READ Psalm 1:1-2
A godly person, the righteous man or woman does NOT follow the world’s way of thinking, what the psalmist calls “the counsel of the wicked,” v 1. Instead, they follow God’s word, what he calls the “law of the Lord.” The moral compass that they have chosen is the word of God. Hopefully this is the moral compass we have chosen for OUR lives. The psalmist says that this person is “blessed.” This does not mean that they will have a pain-free and easy life. No matter which pathway you choose to go down it is going to be hard. What being blessed means is that this person – hear me now – has a deep-seated joy and contentment in God. There is a relationship with God that one has along the way.
The psalmist takes us through the subtle progression of sin in a person’s life (whether a believer or unbeliever). We live in a sinful world filled with sinful people and sinful activity. Just look around you. It all starts out as a mere “walk in the counsel of the wicked.” We listen to what the voices of evil around us are saying. My mother told me when I was a kid, she said, “Chris, be careful who your friends are. If you listen to the wrong people, they will lead you down the wrong path.” Good advice.
But the voices I was hearing as a kid and the images I was seeing back then did not just come from my friends. When I was growing up those voices and images of evil, of the world, were on television, on the radio, and in movies. Later came the internet and cell phones and social media and YouTube. The voices and images of evil gradually invaded my home and my private spaces. It became so easy, even for me as a Christian, to become distracted by these subtly enticing messages and the false promises and the easy solutions that they offered. And I know that you can probably attest to the same thing in your life.
Well, from there, the psalmist says that walking progresses to “standing in the way of sinners.” We transition from merely listening to or observing, to now actively participating in what evil does. I remember when I was in high school, it was like, “Do you want to smoke a cigarette?” And I had that in the Air Force too. They knew I didn’t drink but, “Hey, have a beer! Have a beer!” I was like, “No, thanks.” Eventually, over time, it leads to “sitting in the seat.” In other words, becoming fully comfortable with sin, embracing it and living the way that evil lives. So, there is this subtle progression and we call this “compromise.” It is subtle and dangerous. Can this happen to believers? Yes, it can and it does. Maybe it has happened to you.
So then, given all of this, what should godly men or women do instead? They don’t do THAT. So, what do they do instead? They set their hearts and minds on the things of God. That involves reading and studying and practicing God’s word. This is a personal discipline that we all need to incorporate into our everyday lives. Hopefully you have already done that.
The righteous man or woman is not afraid to take the road less-traveled because we know that that road leads to blessing, happiness, and eternal life. The sign said so, from the word of God. If you go this way it is destruction and if you go this way it is life. So, we know where that path takes us. It is not an easy path, but we know where it takes us. How do we know that? We know that from God’s word. The road signs are in there.
The end of v 2 says, “on His law, [we meditate] day and night. The idea of meditation is not just that we sit in silence with a blank mind. It is actually spending time reading God’s word, then putting it down, and then contemplating what it says. It helps to have a good Study Bible.
[Someone in class brought to our attention Joshua 1:8: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”]
Reading God’s word demands a response. How am I going to apply what I read to my life? What decisions I have to make that are coming up, relationships that maybe I should terminate or that I should try to nurture; we have a whole bunch of decisions in our lives to make. How does what I read apply to my situation. Which path am I going to go down?
READ Psalm 1:3
So, what we have here is a promise for the godly person. The promise is a life of spiritual prosperity and stability. I did not say financial prosperity. I said spiritual prosperity. And stability, like that tree. The truth described here metaphorically by the tree can also be found in Jesus’s teaching. In John Chapter 15 (this is just one example) Jesus said – you all know this passage – “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me [connected to Jesus] and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). As long as we live within God’s boundaries, deeply rooted in His word, and remain in proximity to the living water source, which is Jesus, we will likely be productive Christians and spiritually prosperous. I did not say you would have an easy life. That is never promised in the Bible at all. We will be blessed.
Now, beginning in v 4, we have the BIG contrast…
READ Psalm 1:4
“The wicked are NOT SO.” Everything that is true of the righteous, the godly man or woman, what we just talked about in those first three verses – stable as a tree, continual life, nourishment, fruitful, alive, prosperous – is not so with the wicked.
The picture I have up here shows what chaff is. It is the outer husk of the seed that gets separated and removed during the harvest (like the man in the picture is doing). That fork the farmer is using there is called a winnowing fork. The wheat or barley (whatever grain you are dealing with) falls to the ground because it is heavier and it has substance; while the chaff, which is worthless to the farmer, gets carried off by the wind.
The ungodly think that they are in control. They believe that they are the masters of their own ship. However, the reality (based on what the Bible says) is that they are NOT. The invisible forces of evil that exist in the world, just like the invisible wind, carry them to places they do not want to go. The contrast between the righteous and the wicked is like the contrast between the deeply rooted and stable tree we saw in v 3 and the chaff, unstable and lacking substance, that we see blowing in the wind here in v 4.
READ Psalm 1:5-6
Judgment Day is coming. It is a reality. How do we know that? The Bible tells us. “The wicked will not stand in judgment.” John Phillips in his commentary says this: “The sinner has no standing in the day of judgment. He will be summoned to the great white throne there to find that the heaven and the earth have fled away. Everything familiar will be gone. Everything he has sought to build, everything into which he has invested his time and his talents – gone! He has nowhere to stand. He has built his house upon the sand and the judgment has swept it all away.” I thought that was pretty good.
[Brief class discussion about the great white throne judgment and why we Christians do not need to be worried about that.]
Now we will wrap things up. V 6 reminds us of something very important that we sometimes wonder about in our minds. God sees all and He knows all. Two verses in Proverbs will serve as applications for Psalm 1…
Proverbs 15:9 tells us, “The way of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, but He loves him who pursues [actively going down the path toward] righteousness.”
Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
So, there are your applications for this psalm. Now, what we learn from Psalm 1 is that there are two very different ways to navigate through life. One takes us the right way and one takes us the wrong way ultimately. One to blessing and life. One to death and destruction. We need to be able to choose wisely and for that we need to possess the right guidance system. We need to follow the moral compass of God’s truth that is found in His word; not the conventional thinking of the world. That is only going to get you lost.
I want to close with an analogy from my own experience while I was in the Air Force. It has stuck with me my entire life and it applies to what we just talked about. Trust your compass! As part of our training, we did compass courses. We had a map and a compass. We started off at a certain point (which we identified on the map) and we had an objective in mind that was several miles away. And in between where we were and where we were heading was a lot of fairly rugged and heavily forested terrain (we were in North Carolina where there are a lot of woods). The idea was to select a heading from the map that would take us toward the desired objective; and then follow the compass on that heading. That sounds simple enough, right? And it was. Everything looks fairly straightforward on a map. And there we go. We are trudging along and all of a sudden, we come to a pond. We couldn’t just stay on the same heading through the pond. It was a rather large pond. We had to stop and reconnoiter. We had to figure out a way to go around the pond and then get back on a heading back to our objective. So, what I am trying to say is that there were some adjustments that needed to be made along the way and our map and compass allowed us do that. Maybe several adjustments to get us back on track toward our objective. After making the adjustments we could then continue on our way to our objective. I’m telling you, every tree and clearing that we came to looked the same. You would swear that you were walking in circles! The easy thing for us to have done would have been to ignore the compass and try to figure things out on our own. How would that have worked for us? We would have just become lost and gone further and further into the woods. We would never have reached our objective or it would have taken years. We needed to trust our compass. Christians, trust your compass.
Then, when we reach the end of our journey and we arrive at our objective, we will be able to say, along with the Apostle Paul, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all [of us] who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8). Paul is saying that to a young Christian who is on his journey and this is his advice.
I hope that you are looking forward to seeing Jesus and reaching your objective. Here is the way to find it right here – God’s word. Trust your compass. Finish the race. Stay the course. Keep the faith.
[I was asked by someone in class how our compass course ended up. How long did it take us? My answer: We did it the right way. It took us a couple of hours. There were times when we thought, “This compass is broken. What is wrong with this thing?” Because it seemed that we just passed that same tree a half mile before. But, of course, it was not the same tree. It just looked the same. Your mind plays tricks on you. So, we just had to trust the compass and eventually, “There it is!” We finally reached it. But it took a while. It was not easy.]