Let me invite you this morning to turn with me in your copy of God's Word to our text for this morning. It's a psalm. It's actually the first psalm, Psalm number one. If you're using a Black Pew Bible, you can find that on page 393. Now, before we dive into Psalm one this morning, I want to sort of chart the course for our upcoming time together on Sunday mornings in terms of our preaching. So next week, Pastor Kevin is going to bring for now to close this sermon series that we have been in together as we've been savoring Christ in the Old Testament. He'll be preaching from Psalm 22. And then, starting in June, through the four weeks of June, we're going to have a brief series looking together at the scriptures and what God tells us about the leadership of our church, namely elders and deacons. And this is important for us as a church because we are committed to one another under our leadership to walk together and to be a healthy church. And so it's always good for us to think about these important things that God tells us about who we are as a church, but also because we're very excited that over recent weeks and months, we have begun some conversations, Pastor Kevin and I have begun a process with Isaac Barton toward what we hope will be his future place in our church as our third elder. And so you'll be hearing more about that as we discuss this together as a church in the coming weeks. So for the weeks of June, we're going to be studying in Scripture what eldership is all about in a church like ours. And then, after that, we're going to begin a new series which will take us on probably a year from now as we look verse by verse together through the book of Acts, which will be a great opportunity for us to see the way that God worked in Christ by his Holy Spirit throughout that time in the church, and to glean for our own church encouragement and hope and motivation to make much of Christ as we have been working to do together since the very beginning. So that's where we're going over the coming weeks, and I'm looking forward to that time together, and I have been looking forward to this morning as we look here at Psalm chapter 1, continuing to savor Christ in the Old Testament. So if you haven't turned there, go ahead and turn there now. Psalm chapter 1, You know, I think it's clear to every person, it should be clear, that we are hardwired for admiration. God has wired or built into us this ongoing recognition that certain things are to be admired. We're hardwired for pleasure. Isn't that what everyone in the world seems to be looking for in different places? We all, out of God's design, we are all looking for happiness. Well, of course, also because, as the Bible tells us, we have remaining sin, our hearts are not perfect yet, that sin continues to to wield its influence, and often we overlook what is most admirable or most pleasing. But here's the good news. God is so serious about our happiness that He has given us page after page after page to tell us what happiness is all about, what being blessed by Him is all about, what is admirable, and that's where we come this morning to one of these key passages in Scripture where we find out what is so good. and what is so admirable. We as Christians, because of Christ, he's opened our eyes, he has changed our hearts, we have, compared to the world, we have a new outlook on what is admirable and what is pleasing, and Psalm 1 shows us who or what God says we should admire. So let's join together there in Psalm 1, starting in verse 1, and we're gonna notice three things that happen to this blessed or happy person. Number one, I want you to see that the person in God's kingdom who is truly happy is the person who resists sin or resists man's sin. We read in verse one, the psalm begins, how blessed is the man. Now stop right there. What in the world does that mean to be blessed or blessed? But literally, the word that's used here is the word happy. It can be translated, happy is the man. I think this would be surprising to many people in our world who would think about Christianity. Perhaps we, in some of our darker moments, have given them the wrong impression of what Christianity and following Christ is all about. Many people, I think, look upon his gospel and his word, and they think about their own lives and the things that they enjoy doing. having not yet come to Christ, and they find the Bible to be all about preventing happiness. To many people, God seems to be a killjoy who's always trying to keep us from doing what we want. He has these particular rules we have to follow, and he doesn't really want us to be happy. Well, I'm happy to say here that right here in many other places in Scripture, we find God telling us just how serious he is about happiness. So this psalm at the very beginning of this collection of psalms begins with those words, how happy is the man. How spiritually happy, how right and healthy is the man? And now we have a description of what real admiration is all about. What should we admire? What are those qualities? What is it that makes a person in God's kingdom, in Christ, truly happy? What he gives us here, the psalmist tells us three descriptors. Very interesting because he begins with starting with the negative. What does this happy person not do? Listen to these. First, he says, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Now there's an important word because it comes up over and over again in this psalm and in many other places in the Bible is that word walk. God is clearly concerned on nearly every page of scripture with how his people walk, how they live, And so he says here that the happy person does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. And he does not go to those who do not know Christ, who do not have eyes to see his glory and the sufficiency and beauty and surpassing value of his word for wisdom and advice. He goes not to the wicked to learn these things. This comes up over and over again in scripture, even 368 verses in the Bible talking one way or another about the importance of walking in a certain way. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, number two, nor stand in the path of sinners. When we first read that, our first thought is that it would be a good thing to stand in the path of sinners. Isn't that what we're always doing as Christians out in our community, our workplace? We're trying to stand in their way. We want to inject ourselves into their lives and show them the truth. Well, that's not what this psalmist means here when he says he does not stand in the path of sinners. He means he does not take his stand with them. He's not counted among those who are continually, habitually rebelling against the God of creation, rebelling against Christ in his Word. He does not take his stand with them. And then number three, he does not sit in the seat of scoffers or mockers. He doesn't sit with those who would idly sit by while the church goes about her business, mocking her, mocking God, making fun of the things of God, or tearing down people who are seeking Christ, wanting to live for him and to be happy and satisfied in him. This happy man does none of these three things. You can see right here in the words of the psalmist Jesus that there are only two ways to live. He's talking about a fork in the road for every single person. We know from God's Word that every person is born doing the very things that the happy man does not do. Every person, because of sin, is born walking in the counsel of the wicked. In fact, before coming to Christ, I would say we didn't have any ears to hear anything but the counsel of the wicked. All of us in sin naturally stand in the path of sinners. We take our stand with them. We count ourselves among them. We sit scoffing and mocking at these things. But there is a path, there's a fork in the road for every person. who comes to know Christ moves from one path to another, the path of wickedness to the path of happiness. And as we move further down in the psalm, we see that God tells us more about these paths and warns us about the importance of being on the path of happiness, which is the path of honoring and trusting, taking our stand with Christ, loving him and worshiping him. Listen to what he says in verse four. He contrasts those who are happy or blessed in the Lord with those who are wicked. The wicked are not so. but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." So you see, there are only two ways to live. And that brings every person in the world to a fork in the road in choosing which way he or she will go. Well, by God's grace, I'm happy to know that we are able, by his leading and by his care, to change paths and to take that right path, which is the path of true blessedness, true happiness, true satisfaction and safety. What this means is that for every person who intends to be this kind of man or this kind of woman, it means that we will have to adopt a kind of hatred. The blessed man is a hateful man. The happy woman is a hateful woman. But what is it that they hate? They hate the evil way that sin has brought into God's good world. You remember what Paul says in Romans chapter 12. He instructs us to hate what is evil and to cling to what is good. Why is it that the blessed person does not walk in the counsel of the wicked? It's because he's grown to hate the counsel of the wicked. He doesn't listen to those messages or those ways of the world that are constantly bombarding us. They come at us from every direction, all the time. The world is full of it. He's come to hate the path of sinners. He doesn't want to take his stand there. He has a different way of living. He has been radically changed. and he doesn't sit in the seat of scoffers and mockers. In fact, every time that he hears someone mocking the truth of God, mocking God himself, or mocking his good news and his people, a kind of holy, happy hatred wells up within his heart, and it drives him away from living in this natural, fallen kind of way. Well, next, as we see in our passage moving forward here, To verse 2, we find that he not only resists sin, he not only hates it, but he delights in God's law. This is on the positive side of what the blessed or happy man does. It's like a coin with two sides. It's not just one side. It's not just a happy hatred. There's also a happy and blessed delighting, which is essential to the Christian life if we are to be this happy, blessed kind of person. Notice what he says next in verse 2. He says, but, but instead he delights in the law of the Lord. He is pleased by knowing and walking in God's Word and ways. And he delights, in particular, in the law of God. Now, when we read that in Scripture, we want to know what is the law. Of course, in the Old Testament, we know that it is the Old Testament law that was delivered to God's people. One of the things that set apart God's chosen people Israel from the rest of the nations of the world is that all of their false gods had failed to give them any kind of word or law by which their lives could be governed, by which they could find blessing in his kingdom. They didn't have any of that. He gave them the law. In fact, this is an opportune time to be preaching from this verse because just around here we have many Jewish neighbors and friends, and today they are celebrating Shabbat, which is a feast recognizing the giving of the law, that God gave the law to his people. Well, this blessed and happy person delights in his law, finds it as his happiness, knowing and walking in God's word and God's ways. And notice what he says next. How is it that he delights? What does it mean to delight? Are you delighting in God's law? How do you know you're delighting in God's law? Well, he tells us next. In his law, he meditates day and night. If you want to write in your notes a key word to cling to and take with you, it's that word meditate. It is central to what it means to walk with Christ and to be a blessed, happy person in his kingdom, to walk in his ways. The word meditate is an interesting one. It literally means to moan or to groan. This is what the man of God or the woman of God does with God's Word. His heart grows over it, meditates upon it, feeds on it all the time. I think there are some keys that we see in Scripture and in the natural common grace wisdom of what it means to meditate on something. You know, every person meditates on something. Every person sets his or her mind by God's design on something or someone. So how can we be people who are faithful to meditating on God's word? I want to give you three keys that you can take with you in this week. If you're not already in the habit of meditating on God's word, you can begin putting this into practice. I just want to point out three very simple, basic common wisdom qualities of what it means to meditate on God's word. Number one, meditating on God's word requires intentionality. It doesn't always require an intensity, but it always requires an intentionality. No one meditates on accident. We don't just one day realize that we've been meditating on Scripture all day long and we didn't notice it, because it is an intentional kind of work. It's something that can happen in those intense moments where we're really focused on God's Word, reading and feeding upon it, and And it can also happen, as we see throughout Scripture, those who walk with Christ are people who are known for having their minds continually being fed by God's Word. Even in the idle moments, the Puritans would often call this redeeming the time. I've heard stories about women who would have cards of scripture set out before them, even while they were doing different tasks around the house or caring for children, there was always a way for them to be meditating. And there's an intentionality to it. If you and I are going to be meditators on God's word, it must be something that we choose to do. Number two, it's going to take time. There will always be For this person that we read about in Psalm 1, for anyone like him, there will always be a sacrifice of time. There will be an intentionality of carving out certain time that's going to be given to meditating on the law of God. So one question that you and I could even answer now, just in the silence of our own hearts before the Lord, is to take an account of how much time do you and I tend to give to our reading and feeding, our meditating on God's word? Is it just a few moments a day, maybe at the beginning of the day? Is it just a few moments at night? Is there a way that we can increase the time that we give to God's word so that we might be meditating all the while? As he says here, meditating day and night. I don't think that he means that this person then gives all of his time exclusively to meditating on God's word. How else would we do the other things that God has called us to do? How could we fulfill our responsibilities? But it certainly is something that is intentionally, with our time, being done in the course of life, even all throughout the day. Learning to think about work, think about family, think about life through the lens of God's scripture so that we are then meditating all the time And then finally, number three, if we're gonna meditate, it means that we're going to have to have a particular focal point. Meditation is not a haphazard random thing that just happens, it's a very intentional thing, and it is a focused act. And we are focusing here, just as this blessed man, focusing, meditating on the revealed truth of God in his word. We want to know what he says. We want to know what he says is right and true. We want to know who he is, what he's like, what he's done to us. As I said earlier, everyone meditates on something or someone. If we want to be like this wonderful person presented to us in Psalm chapter one, it means that we are going to be meditating on Christ and his word. It's very much like the picture I have of someone steeping a bag of tea in a mug. That's what meditating is like. It's not a quick process. It's not an in and out and we're done. It's something that goes on. It's something that is worked at over and over again. Can you see that? Perhaps you've done that this past week, dunking over and over again that tea bag into the water until that water becomes saturated with all of the delicious tea flavors that are inside the bag. That's what meditating is like. When you meditate on scripture, you are taking your heart into scripture and letting it steep there. You are savoring it. I have many friends who love coffee. I drink some coffee, usually some decaf coffee. I know most people aren't going to understand why anyone would do such a thing like that. But I've also found, as I've talked about coffee with my friends, that I have friends who are coffee addicts, most of us are, but then there are a certain selection of those addicts who are different than the rest. And those are the coffee snobs. Right? You know coffee snobs. Everyone in here knows at least one coffee snob. That's the person who knows everything about the coffee and has particular flavors and notes within the taste of the flavor palette of their coffee, and they love to have just this on this day, and they know what times of day or what events in life a certain kind of coffee will accompany. Well, as silly as that may sound and be when it comes to something like coffee, it's not silly at all when it comes to the Christian life, because that is exactly what this blessed man does. He savors Christ. He savors God's Word. He comes to learn over time by intentional meditation all of the little notes of the flavors of Christ and his truth. He knows what passages are particularly appropriate for this moment in time, for this time of day, for this event in life. because he has given himself to God's Word, and he is meditating, and he is savoring, and he is steeping his heart in it. Listen to what Thomas Watson, an old Puritan pastor, who wrote a book called The Godly Man's Picture, he says in here about meditating, these incredible words. Listen carefully to them. Read them on the screen. A pious soul, that's the blast band, a pious soul meditates on the truth and holiness of the Word of God. He not only has a few transient thoughts, but leaves his mind steeping in the scriptures. By meditation, he sucks honey from the sweet flower and ruminates on holy truths in his mind, this is the person who is blessed by meditating on the Word of God, feeding on the Word of God. Now this cannot happen unless there's a radical change in the heart of every person who does it. This is not something that comes naturally to us because as we said earlier, naturally our hearts do not lean into scripture. They don't look to God for wisdom. We look away from God because our hearts are fallen. But when Christ comes and he changes us, he changes our outlook on everything and he changes what we find admirable, what we find pleasing. I never found the Word of God pleasing. It was such a burden to have to read God's Word, and it was just a law that maybe I would try to keep, maybe not, if I felt like I could gain some advantage from it. But when I came to Christ, my eyes were opened. My heart of stone was softened. And over time, He continued to do that softening work so that I came to love God's word more and more and more. And I pray that however long God allows me to continue on in life, that that'll continue to grow for me. I pray the same thing for you. So that we will come more and more to see the truth of what God's word really is. God's word is powerful. It is sufficient. It is given to us as the central sustenance of our lives. We don't live by bread alone, but we live by every single word that God has given to us. Listen again to the passage that we read for our public reading of Scripture this morning, and listen again to those words of the way that here, in Psalm 19, the psalmist tells us how we should view the Word of God. This will help you understand why it is so helpful and important to meditate on Scripture as you see the incredible value of Scripture. You'll notice in this passage, Psalm 19, 7 through 11, that the psalmist uses a number of synonyms for the Word of God. He's putting on display just how comprehensive is the sufficiency of God's Word. He uses the word law, the word testimony, precepts, commandment, judgments. All of those words are intended to give us, again, like the coffee snob, a different note, a different flavor, a different angle on the Word of God, to look at it from every side and to see what it is. Not only to know what it is, but also then to know what it does. Listen to what he says, the law of the Lord is perfect and it restores your soul. Your soul. There's nothing more important about you than your soul. We're all two parts, body and soul. And by far, the soul is the most important part. Our bodies will fail us. Our bodies will waste away. God has not promised to keep our bodies healthy all the days that we live. That's not the sign of a blessed man, because his body is healthy and he has many good things in this life. What's the sign of the blessed man? His soul is healthy. He has been restored by the Word of God. The Word of God, the law of the Old Testament, as well as now we know the New Testament and all that God tells us about Christ and His good news. The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure. It makes wise the simple. It gives us truth and wisdom for life. In fact, the Bible tells us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are contained in Christ and revealed to us in his word. Do you want to know the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? Do you want to be wise and knowing? As wonderful as a college education can be at all of its levels of intensity and benefit, it cannot compare to the Word of God. The Word of God alone, read and meditated by people who trust in Christ, can give us wisdom and knowledge. It is all here. He goes on, the precepts of the Lord, they are right. They rejoice the heart. Here it is again. We're debunking that myth that's out there in the world that following Christ is this boring, unhappy life. Because the word of God rejoices our hearts. It gives us joy and truth because it's telling us about God. It's telling us about his glory and his grace and his wonderful sovereignty and his goodness. It goes on, the commandments of the Lord are pure. They enlighten the eyes. The word of God is to be for every believer like a pair of glasses. And they enlighten our eyes. My glasses right now are kind of enlightening my eyes. Well, that's what scripture, the word of God, is to do for us. Those who see its value put on those lenses and they see everything according to what God says is true. It changes your outlook on everything. The fear of the Lord is clean. It is purifying. There's something else that we hear often. Some people will say, well, you fear God. somehow should drive you away from Him, but this kind of fear doesn't. This kind of fear purifies us, it changes us. The fear of the Lord, knowing His Word, is cleansing, it's purifying, it changes our hearts. It endures forever. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous altogether. Now for the person who has eyes to see the word of God this way, listen to what he sees next. He agrees here with the psalmist in verse 10. They are more desirable than gold. Yes, than much fine gold. If you could get your hands on some gold today, what would you do? How much time and effort would you give? Would you take off work to go find that gold and bring it home? Would you cancel other appointments and give up other responsibilities or even other enjoyments to go get it? Well, God tells us here that the Word of God is more desirable than gold. We will be, when we see its truth and beauty, we will be willing to give up more time. We will be willing to give up more secondary, ordinary pleasures of this life so that we can give ourselves to the Word of God. because it is more desirable than gold, not just a little gold, yes, than much fine gold. It is sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. It is delightful, and that is why the blessed man delights in the law of the Lord. He says, moreover, by them your servant is warned. This is not just a walk in the park. Meditating on the Word of God in this life is not just about picking flowers and smelling them and everything being easy and good. And that's why the Word of God warns us. It warns us of what this life is really about. It warns us of the pitfalls of sin. It warns us about our own hearts, that we're to be the kind of people who are always guarding our own hearts, distrusting our own hearts, because our own hearts cannot be trusted. By them your servant is warned, but listen to this, in keeping them, in walking by them, in meditating upon them, there is great infinite reward. This is where God has placed his rewards. Do you want to know him? Do you want to be satisfied in this life by him? Do you want to be happy in the happiest of all ways? Then give yourself to the word of God. every day, all day, day and night. Do whatever you can that perhaps, if possible, you would even go to sleep and you would dream about the Word of God. That is how serious, that's how beautiful, that is how incredible, that is how sufficient is His Word. And because this blessed man by grace, resists these pitfalls of others who mock and stand and sit opposed to God in his word, because he also delights in God's law. I want you to see this last. He flourishes fruitfully. His life is a miracle kind of life. In verse three, he goes on and he says, he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water." This is such a helpful metaphor to use, that this person would be like a tree planted by a stream of water. This tree, this man who is blessed, He extends His roots, as we read in Jeremiah 17, He extends His roots out into a stream. And this stream has incredible nourishment to it. There's no doubt that the stream, the water, is the life-giving Word of God in the context here. Where are His roots going? They're not going into the ways of the world or the wisdom of the world. They're extending everywhere that they can to find more of God's truth. He knows exactly where to find it. The blessed person, the happy person, is extending her roots into the Word of God, down into the ground. I like to go fishing when it's fishing season. It's about that time again. And we go out just to one of these reservoirs around here, and you'll notice that over time, based upon the weather and rainfall, or if you're in a place like a reservoir with a dam where they let some of the water out, you'll see the water level drop down. And it's one of the most amazing times to be out on the water, is when the water level is a little lower. Because the water level, when it comes down, it reveals all of these things that you couldn't see when the water level was higher. And one of the most amazing things to me, sometimes I just get stuck forgetting to fish because I'm looking at the bank, is to see how deep the root systems of the trees on the bank have actually gone. or if one of those trees eventually dies and it falls over and the entire root ball comes up, you see this incredible inner working of roots that have been down in the ground, down into the water, reaching into the stream. Well, that's a picture that I have in my mind when I read this. This is what the man of God or the woman of God is like. If you could see beneath the surface, you would see an incredible network of roots going out. These trees, some in the world, can reach out hundreds of feet. If we could look around our houses, around here, there are lots of big trees. If we could pull them up, you would see that they're going for hundreds of feet across the ground. Also, these roots tend to go down in the ground. There's a taproot in most trees, and it will go down. Actually, a taproot is the same, that's what a carrot is. If you think about that, but at the bottom of a tree, enormous, going down. The record, I think, is 400 feet. One of these tap roots reaches 40 stories underground, reaching down. Now can you hold in your heart and mind that picture and lay that over your life? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be that kind of Christian? Who beneath the surface, your roots are extending so far down into the ground that you are picking up all of this nourishment. This is all going somewhere. Listen to what he says. He'll be like a tree firmly planted. firmly planted, it's not moving, it's not going to fall over, it has its root system down in the truth of God, and it is unmovable. Planted by the streams of water, and listen to what this tree does. Yields its fruit in its season, in its season, regularly, reliably. This tree, which is a metaphor for this person, is the kind of person who bears fruit in his life. Now it's not just any kind of fruit because we know that there are trees that bear bad fruit. Jesus made that clear. But this person, this kind of tree, is continually bearing good fruit. The roots and the fruits are healthy and growing and strong. Now all of us know that we are, in this life, at this time, a hybrid of those two trees. We're all a hybrid of a bad fruit tree and a good fruit tree. because we have remaining sin. We keep bearing some bad fruit from time to time, we bear some good fruit from time to time, and the whole process of spiritual growth that God has us on is to move us to be people who bear less bad fruit and more good fruit, all for his kingdom and for his glory. What we're hearing here, specific instructions on how we can move in that direction with God's help, that we can be people who are more like good fruit trees than bad fruit trees. We can change, we can grow. There's nothing more beautiful than this. This tree, this person, yields fruit reliably in its season. Notice what he says next. Its leaf does not wither. He's nourished and growing and healthy. Even in a time of drought, this tree has access to the supernatural spring of God's gracious resources and his word. And even then, his leaves continue to be strong. green and then he says last and in whatever he does he prospers. Whatever he does he succeeds. Now, that certainly does not mean that he prospers in the ways of the world, that you'll know this person. There are some churches and pastors who will have you believe that you can know a blessed or happy man, someone who's really pleasing God, who's really walking in his ways, because he has rings on his fingers, and nice clothes, and he has a castle to live in, and all of the pleasures of this world. Well, if that's the case, what does that say about Jesus? That's not the life Jesus lived. That's not the way that he will prosper. What will this person succeed at doing? He'll succeed at doing everything the Word of God has told him to do. He will be the person who is glorifying God moment by moment. He is a person who loves the church. He's a person who will commit himself to the body of believers and know them and love them and walk with them. feeding together on God's Word so that we together as a team, as a local church, can continue making much of Him in our homes and in our communities. He will be here with us together. He prospers. He succeeds at all of these incredible things that God has given for us to do in His world to make Him known and to know Him. Well, we see these three important qualities. I hope these are qualities that belong to all of us, that we would be as a church, people who are resisting hatred, resisting sin, delighting, feeding, meditating, groaning over God's word and reaping the rewards of fruitful flourishing in our Christian lives and in our church. But there's still one question left. Why would I bring this text into a sermon series about savoring Christ and seeing him in the Old Testament? It is certainly true that this blessed man is an ideal person for you and I to emulate. We should be looking to this picture of the person, of the godly man or woman, and admiring and being pleased by these qualities. But the only reason that we are able to do this is because this blessed man actually exists. This blessed man is Jesus Christ himself. Do you know anyone who never walks in the counsel of the wicked? Never? Never stands with sinners? Never sits in the seat of mockery? Always, every day and every night, meditating on the Word of God? who is always flourishing, is always healthy, is always bearing fruit, always prospering, I only know one. And this is Christ. This is Him. So when you read this, you're not just reading a picture of just some person that you would try to be like, the poster child for being blessed. You're looking at Christ. gives us all the more reason that we would take this seriously, to emulate this, admire this person, be pleased by this person, because this is the person who lived and died and rose again for us. And that is why we are so serious about seeing people come to Christ by faith alone, by grace alone. Because you cannot turn to Psalm 1 as an unbeliever and emulate these qualities. You cannot do it. These are not business principles for how to run a better business or to have a better life. This is not self-help. These are instructions on how to be like Christ. And the only way you can do that is by faith in Him. And so as we do every Sunday, we call out for anyone who needs to make that decision. You need to repent of your sin, just as we see this blessed man doing at the beginning of the Psalm. You need to place your trust in Christ. Not just a little, not extending one tiny little root down into his ground so that you can get a little taste of his power, but that you would extend all of your roots. You would be all in. on Jesus Christ, that's what we're calling you to do. If that's what you need to do, I want you to do that today, perhaps even as we sing, that you would cry out to him and ask him to save you, ask him to give you everything that you need so that you may believe in him. And we wanna walk with you, we wanna help you, and we're praying that God is gonna do this supernatural work in you to pull your roots down into him, help you change paths on that fork in the road, to walk His path with us because it is the path of happiness. Once we know Christ, we have our work cut out for us. It's all set before us, what the Course is. As we come to a close here, I just want to sort of summarize what we've seen today in Psalm 1 with just three applications. What can we be doing? How can we apply ourselves to what we see here? And they're very simple to understand and I hope you'll begin practicing in this week if you're not already in the habit. Number one, as we've said, is for us to make scripture our meditation. Begin this week, begin this afternoon meditating on the Word of God. Open God's Word somewhere and begin feeding, savoring, steeping your heart in it. Notice all of the notes and flavors. Pull it up through your roots, into your heart, so you can know the truth more and more. Let's do that together. Number two, we can't do this without God's help. Again, we can't just come to God's word and just practice these things. We need him. So let's do it with him. So I hope that as you're meditating on scripture, you would also be praying scripture. Make what you're reading and meditating on the content of your prayers to him. Ask him specifically for help in things that you're seeing, ways that he is dealing with your heart, ways that he's showing you you need to change or you need to hear some comforting word from him. Pray about these things. And then of course, finally, we have to take action. In life, we could sit in our prayer closet and pray about scripture. We can sit at the study and meditate upon it, but it needs to come out in our lives. That's the natural result. If you water the tree, it grows and it bears fruit. That's what we want to see. We want to be bearing fruit in our lives. And that means that we're going to act on God's word. We're going to apply God's word. We're going to be serious and committed to it. And that's what we're doing, doing together. Well, I want to pray for us this morning so that we would take these simple truths to heart very seriously. take them into our lives and make them a part of us and focus, focus this week by giving an intentional, time-sacrificing meditation of Scripture as we look to Christ, who is here with us, right here in Psalm 1, seeing exactly who He is. Let me pray for us before we sing again. Our Father, Your Word is true. You have given us your word and you have revealed it to us. There's no way that we could have known the truth had you not shown it to us. And even having delivered it, you have done the great work of changing our hearts and breathing new life into us so that we can love and admire and be pleased with you and your word. So this morning, I do pray before we sing again that you would help us in every way meditate on the truth you have given us in Scripture. We meditate on the words of the next song, that we would take those words seriously and chew on them and