Well, it is always good to be home. Always. If only I could express in words how much I love you. I want to do something this morning, and if I'm not quite as animated, I hope you'll understand. I don't want to wear myself out before I get through. In other words, I don't want to get through before I get through. And it's the hardest thing in the world for me not to do. My preaching may not ever excite anybody else, but it does me. I told my son, Scott, when he started preaching, I said, listen, I said, if you're preaching don't do anything for you, I said, it's certainly not gonna do anything for anybody else. And so, I love to preach, I do. And I may not ever, I may not ever, Marty Few has said this many times, I may not convince anybody else to believe anything that I believe, but I hope to convince them to believe that I believe what I believe. And so, I do love to preach the Word of God. I want to say this about our pastor. Our pastor, I've known him longer than I've known you. He and I have been friends, and his family, we have been friends longer than you and I have been friends. One thing that has impressed me about him, and I think the thing that drew me to him, is the fact that he is a man of the Word of God. Not that he is just a man of God. I know many men of God. But he is not only a man of God, but he is a man of the Word of God. And I love him for that. He has been our pastor, and I've been your pastor a lot longer than he's been my pastor. But he has been our pastor, and he has been faithful to teach and to preach, not his ideas and his thoughts and his... philosophies, but he's been faithful to preach what thus saith the Word of God. And that's remarkable in the day in which we live. And I hope you understand and know that about him. And I think you do, I think you do. And I think that's why he's been here as long as he has been. And why I think that he'll be here until either the Lord returns or until the Lord calls him home. And I'm grateful, and that's why I, united with this church, When I did, Mary, what was it, ten and a half years ago now? I was thinking about that when he was talking about Brother Jeff, because I think that was the last time he was here. I may be wrong. And I love that about him. Now, I don't want to be overly long-winded this morning, but I hope to be able to say some things that'll help us, help you, help me this morning. I want us to have the best year that we can have in 1900, yeah. Talk about this long-term and short-term memory. But in 2023, Laina. Hey, if I have to stop and get on these children, y'all bear with me, okay? They don't have a mom and a daddy sitting with them this morning. But in 2023, to have the best year that we can have. In 2022, we had problems. We all had problems, we had troubles. Troubles that affected your family, troubles that affected my family, but we had good times as well. And the Lord has been good to us. I've thought about my life, I've reflected upon my life, and God has been good to me. And I have no right nor reason to complain and grumble. Now, that doesn't mean I don't ever do it. And it doesn't mean that you don't ever do it, but we don't have any right to. Sure, we've had troubles, we've had problems, and we will have in 2023. I am facing the imminent death of a brother. I mean, he's going to die. There's just absolutely no probability that he won't. I mean, you say, well, don't you believe the Lord could heal him? Well, sure I do. But I also realize that what the preacher said a number of years ago, that one thing's for sure, you ain't getting out of this world alive. We're all gonna die. My sister that's nearly 82 years old, they had to take her home last night, sick, running a fever. We're all gonna die, every one of us. My brothers and my sister, we have all faced death and been eyeball to eyeball with it many times. And this year may see many of us go to be with the Lord. Some of us in this congregation may go to be with the Lord in 2023, it could happen. We could have problems and troubles in 2023. They may come, but I believe too that we'll have a good year. I do, I do. I believe the Lord is gonna be good to his people. God is always good to his people. And if he were to take us home, that would be a good thing. We face this thing, we look at this thing wrong. Too many times we look at it wrong. It would be a good thing if He were to take us to be with Him. So I want you to open your Bibles this morning to Psalm 1. And Brother Dan, we're gonna dip our toes in the water. and see where the ripples go, all right? Psalm 1, and we're gonna talk about that sufficient grace somewhat this morning, and we're gonna consider what Brother Ron was talking about from Proverbs 29 somewhat this morning. You can't get away from it. I mean, it's all interconnected, just like a box of Legos. You can't get it to pull apart. It's all connected. So in Psalm 1, a very short Psalm, we're going to read, blessed is the man, that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Father, bless now the reading of your word. I pray that you would bless it in our midst today. I pray that you would exalt it highly and do that that only you can do and we'll give you the glory in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. What I want to talk to you about is what I've already said, and that's how to have a good year. And I think it's an easy thing. And if you've been a Christian for any length of time, I suspect this psalm is familiar to you. As a matter of fact, when I went to Bible college, and I did, I went to school for a while, and when I went, we were required to memorize certain portions of scriptures. As a matter of fact, they gave us little index cards in our Bible introduction class, and we had certain passages that we had to memorize, and this psalm was one of the very first passages of scripture that we were required to commit to memory. And so I'm very familiar with this passage in the scriptures, this Psalm. As a matter of fact, it was a part of my daily Bible reading just the day before yesterday. And so, this is a very familiar passage, at least to me, and I'm sure it is to you. And in Psalm 1, we find the core principles of why it's important to be people of the Word of God. But in contrast, we learned the problems with rejecting the Word of God. And I'm gonna give you an outline of where we're going in case we don't get through. All right, in Psalm 1, only six verses. In verse number one, we consider the Word of God rejected. In verses two and three, we will consider the Word of God received. In verses four and five, we will look at the Word of God required. And in verse number six, we'll see the Word of God relied upon. And again, it is, it's already been said here this morning, we've talked about it Friday night. It's hard to believe that another year's come and gone, especially for some of us. I remember when I was 25 years old, they didn't think I'd live to be 40. I was having health problems then and some of them were very severe. I was in the hospital and I was facing surgery and they assured me that by the time I was 40 I would have cancer and that I would not survive. They didn't think I would live, but here I am. Here I am 72 years old and I've never had cancer. Well, except for a little skin cancer here that they took off. And they don't know what God's up to. God does what he will in the affairs of men. And so I'm still here. And we don't know. But it's hard to believe another year's come and gone. We're starting another year. And we have opportunity to reflect upon the past and to consider what's coming ahead. Many people make New Year's resolutions They'll keep throughout the year. Other people make New Year's resolutions and they'll keep them for a little while and then they'll fizzle out. And I just don't make them anymore. I just, I don't make New Year's resolutions. They just don't, they don't work out. But we think about this year and a lot of things are going to happen to us unless the Lord chooses to come back soon. First of all, as individuals and as a church, as I've already said, I think we're gonna have some pretty good days. Good days do lie ahead, but unless the Lord acts in a way that's different than he has in the past, we're also gonna have some hard days. We will struggle with the result of sin, both in our own lives and in the lives of others in 2023. Now, what do we do about that, and how do we live our lives considering that? Well, I think, first of all, we ought to be committed to reading the Word of God. Now, I've never been one to say that everybody ought to have, have to have a plan to where you read this many verses every day, and this many chapters every day. I've never been one to do that. But I believe you ought to read the Word of God every day. You may not have to read it the way I read it. You may not have to read it the way Brother Ron reads it. But I believe you ought to read the Word of God every day. The Word of God ought to be a committed part of your life every day. And I believe that God's people that love God will love God's Word. And I've already said that one thing that I believe that drew me to Brother Ron and the reason that we became friends is because we had that commonality of the Word of God. I knew he was a man of the Word of God. And I loved that about him. And we became friends. We became friends, I think, day one. I don't think it didn't take any length of time for that to happen. The Word of God is so important. I love being a part of a church where the Word of God is premier, where it is the principal thing, where the Word of God is preached regularly, where the men that he has to come in to preach are men who come in They don't dilly-dally around, they preach the Word of God. Brother Tom Hayes, Brother Don Sable, Brother Rice that he used to have, Brother Carter, I mean, Don Carter. I got him and Brother Don Carter, Don Rice mixed up. But these preachers that he's had come in to preach, these are men of the Word of God who have preached. Brother Terry Oswalt. These men that preach, brother, hey, hey, if you don't get anything out of Brother Brandon White's preaching, you just haven't, you've missed somewhere, you've missed the Bible somewhere. These are men of the Word of God. I'm talking about the Bible. Listen to what, thus saith the Word of God, and here, We need to be people of the Word of God, reading the Word of God. If you want to have a good year, in 2023, we must be people who are committed to reading our Bibles, for only in God's Word will we learn how to be able to handle the successes and failures the new year's going to bring us. Again, I'm not talking about Bible plans. I'm just talking about planning to read your Bible. When you get into those Bible plans, you're going to come to the place where you say, well, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't keep up. I get behind. And then you try to catch up. And then you're not paying attention to what you're reading. And you get messed up. And you give up. Now, all this being said, how will we best be suited for a successful and prosperous 2023? Well, let's go to our text. The text before us in Psalm 1, we see two distinct types of people. We see the blessed and joyful person, and then we see the wicked and sorrowful person. The difference between being blessed and joyful and fruitful and being wicked and sorrowful and fruitless is the way that you approach the Word of God itself. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight His delight is in the love of the Lord. And in his law doth he meditate day and night. So here's the difference. Here's the difference. Thinking of all of this, going into this new year, I'd like to fancy ourselves as being blessed people. Blessed people. Sometimes I'll ask, okay, how are you doing? And they'll say, blessed. But sometimes I really wonder if they are. They say they're blessed, but by that I think they just simply mean they've got a good job. Or they mean maybe their family's healthy. Or they mean they're not hungry. But are they really blessed? Are they really blessed? But blessed, the psalmist means more than someone who's just happy. It's someone who is actually enjoying God's special favor and special grace. If you take that right now, if I said that you could be the blessed person that we read about in Psalm 1, and I've asked you, do you want to be that person, or would you rather be that wicked person? I know you wouldn't say, well, I want to be that wicked person. You wouldn't say that. I don't want to be that. Nobody wants to be that way. But what you'd say, but we're Baptists. But what does that mean? First of all, we see the word rejected. Back to our text, the blessed man is compared and contrasted by what he doesn't do and what he does. Most notably, we see the word of God being rejected here. Note with me the three points of how the blessed man is contrasted with the righteous. First, the unrighteous walks in the counsel of the ungodly. Second, the unrighteous stands in the way of sinners. And then the unrighteous sits in the seat of the scoffers, or the scornful. The blessed person doesn't do these things. So what is the psalmist saying about the unrighteous? First, he walks in the counsel of the ungodly. In other words, he listens to what the ungodly say that he ought to do, rather than obeying what the word of God says. He listens to how the government says y'all ought to live or how society says that y'all ought to live. Or, you know, society will say, well, you know, it's alright to do such and such. I mean, that's not so bad. That's the counsel of the ungodly. We heard that in Sunday school this morning. It was very plain and religious to tell you, it's all right not to talk about the Lord. It's all right to live your life as though church was not important. It's all right as though sports, to live your life as though sports is more important than the house of God. It's all right to live your, this is what society teaches. This is what the ungodly, the counsel of the ungodly. Do you know there are people today that are not in the house of God because they went out last night because society says it's all right to stay out all night on New Year's Eve and get drunk with your friends even though you say you're a Christian because it's New Year's Eve. Did you know that? Baptist people are not in the house of God this morning because they got a little tipsy last night. And they're not in the house of God this morning because they listened or they walked in the counsel of the ungodly last night. And it's not just on New Year's Eve, but they'll do it all through the year. but the ungodly do that. And when you walk in the council of the ungodly, there's something that just follows that, it follows it, they'll stand in the way of sinners. Now, there's two things that can be said about that that I want to say, and there's two things that happen there, standing in the way of sinners. You'll stand in the way of sinners in the regard that you will stand as a sinner, in that you will look like a sinner, you'll stand in the way of a sinner, or you'll stand as though you were a sinner. Even though you may, you see, Lot did that. Lot did that. You see, Lot, the Bible says that Lot was just. But you look at Lot, and you don't see anything about him that looked like he was a just man. Even though God said he was a just man, he says just Lot. That don't mean just him alone. He was just Lot. But you look at him, you say, Lot was just? What was he doing? He was standing in the way of sinners. But in another regard, you're standing in the way of sinners in that you're standing between them and God. You're obstructing, that's a good word, you're obstructing their view of what righteousness is. They can't see holiness because they're seeing your misbehavior in your walking in the way of the ungodly. And because of that, then the third thing happens. He goes on and says, you're sitting in the seat of the scornful. Then you become like the rest of the world. and then you begin to criticize and to make fun and ridicule the things of God. Now, I've been a preacher, now I've been preaching, Brother Ron mentioned it, over 50 years, 54 years plus, and I have had church members to scoff at the word of God. People that probably were saved. but they have scoffed at the preaching of the word of God. Scoffed at it, why? Because it went against the way that they were living. And this is what the psalmist is talking about here. Now the wicked do this all the time. This is the way that the wicked live. They live this way, but heaven help us when it comes to our house. We're not to live that way. So we say the word rejected the word rejected We need to understand that sin destroys. I want to pause here just a minute and say that if you're struggling with a specific sin, and you think it's pulling you further and further down the spiral, and by the way, it will, you need to take heed. I don't know what your specific sin might be. Now, I realize most of us are old, and most of us, You say, well, I'm so old, I can't do anything. I heard a preacher say one time, some folks think they don't have anything to repent of, they might ought to go out and cut some trees just so they'll have something to repent of. Well, I don't think that way, I don't believe that way. I happen to be an old person now. And as an old person, I realize and I know that we all still have plenty of stuff we need to repent of. The preacher said that he was still just a young whippersnapper. He had no idea. He didn't have a clue. When he gets there, if he lives that long, we still are in the flesh. We're still in the flesh and we still have the battles with our flesh. And long as we're in the flesh, we're gonna have battles with the flesh. We need to understand that. And if you have a specific sin you're dealing with, then you need to get a hold of that now. Now, before, because if you don't get ahold of it, it'll get ahold of you. And that's what I wanted to say about that. Sin will destroy you. Remember, sin is not your friend. It's not actually trying to bring you the happiness it's promising to bring you. Then notice the word received. Our second point, the Word of God received. What does it look like for us when we receive the Word of God properly? I'm amazed Brother Dan was talking about the river this morning. I'm amazed at the vitality of trees that grow near the river. Trees that grow near the river, their trunks seem stronger and their roots seem to grow deeper and their leaves seem to be greener. Trees that grow, they're the healthy ones, they're the strong ones. They seem to be stronger than the ones that you encounter deeper into the woods. The tree by the river is healthy and always growing. So why is the person who delights in the word of God more fruitful and less prone to wither and more prosperous? Why is this person described as blessed? Why is this person more joyful? What is it about being a person who spends time in the Word of God that makes him a more well-rounded, better person than the one who doesn't? It's the Word of God. Let me give you a few reasons. One, if you read your Bible, you'll learn better what to do and what not to do. Therefore, you'll have a better life. Doing things God's way is better than doing things our way. But preacher, we've always done it this way. Boy, how many times have I heard that? Yeah, and you've always done it wrong. But people don't like to hear that. They don't like to hear that. And then if you have a regular time in your Bible, you'll be able to see when the enemy's trying to lure you into sin. You'll be able to say no to sin and yes to righteous living. Being people of the book will help you to be on the lookout for Satan's schemes. You know, if Eve had been doing what the Lord told her to do, she wouldn't have been over by that tree. He talked about that in Sunday school. See, if you miss Sunday school, you miss a whole lot that the visiting preacher's saying when he's preaching. But Athan shouldn't have even been over there by that tree. If she'd have been out doing what she'd been assigned to do, she would have been where she shouldn't have been. And that's our problem so many times. The reason we get in trouble, we're not where we're supposed to be. we get in trouble. And then you get Jesus. Now these three reasons for reading your Bible are good and they're solid reasons, but the best reason for reading your Bible is you draw closer to Christ. You grow close to him. You meditate upon the word of God. When you're planted in the word of God like a tree that's planted by a river of water, you get more of him the more you read. The entirety of scripture is the story of God redeeming his people. Our sin leaves us alienated from God. Sin leaves us in a place of guilt and shame. But Jesus has come to repair our relationship with God. He came to seek and to save that which was lost and then to teach us how to live for God. And so he's come to fix us where we're broken. He's come to heal us where we're hurting. He's come to actually bring us from death to life. And only Jesus can do that. And then he's given us a book to show us over and over and over how that God will indeed redeem his people from their sins. He does that because he loves us. Every single page of our Bible, either explicitly or implicitly, we can hear God shouting, I love my people, and I'll do whatever it takes to redeem them from their sins. It's our owner's manual. It's a tool, a helpful tool, whether you agree with it or don't agree with it. I know lots of times I've seen people go to work on a car and they get in trouble and can't get it fixed and they have to go back to the manual to figure out what they did wrong. Well, if you just go to the owner's manual to start with, you'll be in a lot better shape. The owner's manual for your life is the Bible. Then the Word of God required, as good as the news is in verse number three, for God's people, verses four and five are bad news for those who don't know the Lord. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind draveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. The word of God has required us. The verses take an ominous turn from that good feeling of the tree by the river and force us to take a good look at our own hearts I'm not one much to read after some of these poets, but Robert Frost wrote in The Road Not Taken that there are only two ways. You can take the right path, you can take the wrong path. Which path are you taking? And I realize and I understand that God is sovereign in all this. I understand that, and I'm not taking anything or trying to take anything from that. But you have a responsibility to come to Christ. I remember years ago, we were in, you were talking about all these conferences that we used to go to and camp meetings when we were young. We were in Unity Baptist Church in Amory, Mississippi. And preacher after preacher had gotten up and preached on the sovereignty of God, which I believe in wholeheartedly. Got my turn to preach. And I stood and I made this statement before I preached. I said, I believe in the sovereignty of God as much as any man here, but if you don't repent of your sins, you'll die and go to hell. And that's still true, and I still believe that. You must. And the Bible talks about the broad way and the narrow way. It talks about that broad way and how that many will enter in, enter in there at, and it talks about that narrow way and how that few be that find it. And we must understand that this is the only path that leads to eternal joy and peace, but that other path leads to the very judgment of God Himself. God judging a man on man's own merit leads God to condemn that person to an eternity in hell where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. It's forever separation from the grace and mercy of God. Now I don't know about you, I think and I understand that as far as I know everybody here has trusted Christ, almost everybody here has trusted Christ. But there's an urgency that we must recognize that people around us need Christ. Now that puts on us an urgency to glorify God in Marquee, Arkansas, that people might know Him. The Word of God relied upon, so where do we find encouragement? Where can we find certainty? Well, look at our final verse. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. the Word of God relied upon. Again, leaving no doubt that the way of the wicked is an awful way to go, but the encouragement for us is found in the first part of the verse. The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous. And I started looking through this psalm and thinking about preaching on it, and I was kind of scratching my head, something on verse number six, trying to make sure I had a good realization of exactly what it means. I mean, if it said, the righteous know the way of the Lord, I would have said, yeah, I get that. I understand that the righteous knows the way of the Lord, but then again, I'm not even sure that I would have understood that. But as we go in grace, we get to know the way of the Lord better. But this says the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Now see, this is better than the righteous knowing God's way. For the Lord has known His people for all time. He has from eternity past loved his people. He loved us in our rebellion. He died for us when we were his enemies. His love for us was so strong and so complete that it's a never ending love for us. The way he treats his people is completely opposite of the wicked. So again, If you're loved this much and you're cared for this much, how can we help but want to share this news with others? We can trust his word to be true because we know his love for us. The question then is, in 2023, will we be people of his word? And will we be bold for Christ in declaring his gospel truth to others? Will you join me in 2023 in being a person who's blessed by meditating on the word of God? For in the word of God alone will we find all we need to be assured of a joyful and fulfilling 2023. Brother Ron made a comment when he read the verse from the Proverbs. If we're to have the fullness of God's joy and his blessings in 2023, we must be people of the word. And we must be faithful testimonies of His grace in this community, that others might see Christ in Grace Baptist Church. Father, I pray that you might touch hearts, do that that only you can do, and we'll give you the praise and the glory for it. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Pastor, you go.