My name is Nathan White. I am a student at Westminster, California, and Westminster Seminary, California, and IRBS. We traveled up from Escondido today to join you. We're very thankful for the privilege. My wife here, Courtney, and my two children, Hannah, who is almost seven, and Riley, who's almost five. Again, it is a joy to be with you here this morning and to open up God's Word with you. If you have a Bible, please do turn with me to the book of Psalms, and the first Psalm, Psalm chapter 1, a very famous Psalm, well-known Psalm. We will be reading the entire chapter. Psalm chapter 1, let's hear the Word of God, and we will ask God in prayer to bless it. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." Let's ask God to bless the preaching of His Word. Our Father, we are thankful this morning for your grace and for your mercy that you have showed us in Christ. We are thankful, Lord, for this day of rest where you have called us to gather as your people and to adore you in song and in prayer and in preaching and in worship. Father, we pray, Lord, that you would open up the words of your scriptures to us this morning. Lord, that your Spirit would come and have free reign here. Lord, that you would reveal our Savior to us, that you would reveal the truth of God and the great salvation that we have in Him, and the two ways to live, the way of truth and the way of error. Father, we pray that you would be glorified in our midst even now. It's in Christ's name that we pray. Amen. Well, brethren, again before us is one of the most famous psalms in the Psalter, perhaps one of the most famous passages in the Old Testament. Chances are you've probably heard this psalm preached before, or you've, like me, heard it in Sunday school. I actually memorized this psalm as a child. It was one of the premier scriptures in my household growing up. Perhaps you've read about this psalm in a devotion. It's very popular in regards to spiritual disciplines and the very basic message of Christianity. In a sense, it does provide a basic message. It provides a summary of the entire message of Scripture, that there is a way of truth, of blessedness, and that there is a way of error, a way of wickedness, and a way of death. But perhaps this psalm has enjoyed such prominence because in a way it describes for us the path to the blessed life. Or to break it down simpler, how to be happy, one possible translation of the word blessed. The psalm describes for us, at least on the surface, how we can be happy. It gives us this blessed man, this is a man who delights in God's law, it is a man who is fruitful, he bears fruit, he's steadfast, and it contrasts the way of the wicked and how the wicked are cut off, and how the wicked are chaffed and purposeless and wasteful, just using up the ground. And so, really, if you look at this blessed man, to use today's terminology, this is a man who, in many respects, is living the dream. He is living the ideal Christian life. And so, this psalm seems to teach us, seems to be describing how we, too, can experience this blessedness. Here, the key to a secret, the secret key to a happy life. But friends, I think we run into a few problems when we approach this text in this manner. And perhaps, maybe even now, you're feeling a bit uncomfortable. We come to this psalm, and here's a man who has everything together. He's happy, he's fruitful, and all that he does, he prospers, and perhaps we kind of take a look at our own lives. We think, where is this prosperity? that is spoken of here. We don't always experience this type of prosperity. Sure, we have peace in Christ, we have the assurance and the hope that is found in Him and in the truth of God, but oftentimes we fail. Oftentimes we are too distracted by everything in life to delight in God's Word and to bear fruit as spoken of here It's easy to come to this psalm and feel a little bit of despair, of desirous, of a life that we want to have but we know that in many ways we fall woefully short of. Furthermore, this psalm can easily sound like it does nothing but give us a list of religious rules. meditating on God's law day and night, avoiding the path of the wicked, the evil influences. I mean, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, perhaps you're thinking, that does not sound like a very attractive lifestyle to me. This sounds more like a Pharisee, one who's pulled themselves out of society, one who looks down at their nose in contempt of others who don't meet their standard. It sounds like someone that has earned this blessedness and is just more faithful and more holy and righteous than the rest of us. Brethren, reading and approaching the psalm in this way is approaching it all the wrong way. There is something much more profound here. And it's easy just to glance over this and completely miss the heart of the message of what's really going on here. Just to be frank, the psalm is not giving us a list of rules to obey in order to earn a blessing. And it's not teaching us that only certain super dedicated Christians obtain this kind of lifestyle. Rather, what we will see today as we dive into the passage is that the blessedness described here only comes as a gift from God by grace. And far from showing us how we can earn this blessing, this is a psalm that really exposes who we are, how we're really not this blessed man, and thus how impossible it is for us to obtain this blessing on our own. It's pointing us forward. It's pointing us to something and someone else, ultimately, even as instructive as it is in teaching us the very basics of life, the Christian life, and truth versus error. So I want to break down this passage looking at it from this perspective that it is a revealing of God's grace. It is a revealing of the truth of God and who we really are in contrast to the righteousness and holiness of God. and how it points us forward to something and someone else. So to do this, I've broken it down loosely under three headings. We're going to look and consider the inward disposition of blessedness. Secondly, the joy and satisfaction of prosperity. And thirdly, the eternality of righteousness. So first of all, let's consider looking at verse 1 and 2 here, the inward disposition of blessedness. Look with me at verses one and two. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Blessed is the man it opens with. This of course is similar to the Sermon on the Mount. The term blessed, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit. And blessed here, it means Happy, it means satisfied, highly favored, steadfast. It means lacking nothing, peaceful, fulfilled, envied by others. The psalmist here, in using this term, he's not just referring to the outwardness, as if this man has everything in life that he needs material-wise, but this is pointing to an inward disposition. It's not a disposition that's based just on the current circumstances of life. Things seem to be going well. He's blessed. But this is, and to define it more specifically, blessedness is a perpetual inward state of well-being and contentment stemming from a joyful relationship with God. a perpetual inward state of well-being and contentment stemming from a joyful relationship with God. This is an inward disposition of blessedness. And how does the psalmist go on to describe this blessedness? How does he open it up to us? Well, he begins right away by talking about what this man does not do. It doesn't tell us what he has, what he's done, what he's earned, what his life is like. It begins immediately by saying, in the seat of scoffers. And these three negatives here are used to describe this man before anything positive is mentioned at all. So we get the negative right up front, and then later he comes back and describes to us the positive aspect of this man. So we might ask ourselves, why does he do this? Why does he begin with the negative first? What can be learned from this? I believe there's something specific the psalmist has in mind here. And the point I believe he's making is this man, the psalmist clears this man of ever walking down the path of the wicked. He begins with a negative to ensure that the message is communicated that this man never dabbles in wickedness. There is never an occasion where he has walked off in ungodliness. This isn't just a man who avoids the wicked some of the time or even most of the time. Putting it in the negative, it clears the man every time without exception. There is no hint of ungodliness in this man. This is further illustrated when we consider what type of description is painted here of the ungodly, this three-fold description of wicked, sinner, and scoffer. I believe, most specifically, this is referring to the same person, that this is a description of the same person But it's a description that captures the progression that men in their natural state fall from worse and worse, or I should say, their progression of wicked men from going bad to worse. From being just a little wicked to now they're sitting and now they're scoffing at the things of God. So this is highlighting for us what this man, the contrast of this righteous man, who he is not, and how in every respect he is righteous. Wicked here can refer, really, it's just a general term for an unbeliever. It can refer to a sinner willfully obeying. It most generally refers to a sinner, not one who willfully and, I guess, high-handedly opposes the things of God, but just a sinner in general. The term sinner, the second phrase used here, the one who stands in the way of sinners, sinners is more specific. This is referring to somebody who willfully obeys, and of course the scoffer is the one who not only willfully obeys, but he scoffs at those who do not join him in his wickedness. So I want to paint this picture for you. There is a wicked man portrayed here, and this downward plight, how men go from bad to worse. And this is the natural state of humanity. We do not come out of the womb blaspheming God from the very beginning. You see, at first we just forget God. We walk in a way that seems fitting to us. We walk according to our own wisdom or the prevailing opinions around us. So this isn't open and habitual evil here. This is someone who's quietly taking this evil into heart. And it's forming them in ways they don't even realize until the next progression is they are found as a sinner. Now they are willfully and openly obeying the things of God. They are resting in their own opinions instead of the revelation of God. And of course they become so comfortable with this that they sit down. The seat of scoffers. They're no longer pursuing this path. They're no longer kind of standing in the way. They are sitting in the path. They are comfortable. They are settled. They are fixed. Their sin is now a source of great pleasure to them. They're no longer bothered by the pangs of conscience. And they have no shame in mocking the things of God. So the point the psalmist is trying to make, he's painting a picture of the progression of the natural and the wicked man. And how this blessed man does not even enter that path. He never even begins down that road. And so he can be described as not even a hint of ungodliness or wickedness or scoffing. This blessed man, in contrast, does not trust in himself. It says here in verse 2 that he delights and he seeks in God's law. More specifically, God's revelation, God's instruction. He's living by the light of God's law. He is not living by the light of his own heart. Of course, in Proverbs 14, 2, it says, there is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, its way is death. So this righteous man is living by the light of God's law, and it says here, he delights in the law of God, but also that he meditates on this law day and night. The word meditate here really, literally means to chatter. perhaps like a cow chewing the cud, or to think about something over and over again, to mule it over, to repeat it to yourself. This instruction of God's law is the daily bread of this blessed man. And friends, again, going back to the heading that I gave here, this is all stemming from an inward disposition. a perpetual and inward disposition of this man who delights in the law of God. And let me also just say, He doesn't just sit around and meditate God's law. Of course, we know the scribes and the Pharisees memorized large sections of Scripture. In fact, my New Testament professor at school speculates that the Apostle Paul had memorized almost the entire Old Testament. His use of it is so interwoven in everything that he writes. There was a great emphasis on the Pharisees to memorize Scripture here. But think about this idea of delighting in God's law. This is not just something intellectual. For this man, it is something that's deeply emotional as well. It's penetrated to the depths of his being. He delights. It brings him joy. It brings him satisfaction. It brings him comfort. It gives him pleasure. It fills him with peace. It satisfies his longings. This is not a man who's fixated on the passing circumstances of life. This is not a blessedness and a joy that goes up and down as things get better and things go worse. He is fixated on God. He is infatuated with God. And his delight is found in Him and His law. Of course, at this point it's easy to point out that This is where we are exposed in the sinfulness of man? You know, sin is not just a matter of things that we do. It's not just things that we do and things that we don't do. The Bible pinpoints the heart of sin is the heart of man. In the sense that the root of sin is our sinful desires. We don't delight in God's law. The Bible says in James 4-2 that you desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. The foundation of our wickedness, of our sinfulness, is often in these unspoken lusts of our heart, things that oftentimes don't ever come to the surface. The source of everything that is wrong with us is our desires. And so this man, this blessed man, has pure desires and delights in God's Word. So brethren, I don't want you to miss at this point that far from laying down an instructional manual for how we may earn this blessing, how we may obtain it, right away we have got to be confronted, right up front, that the wicked man here, in many respects, is not just a description of all those people out there. But in some respect, it refers to us as well. I think if we miss or overlook this point, we're going to miss the entire purpose of this psalm. And its message is going to fly right by us without us even noticing. So in summary of point one here, this man is described as blessed because he's fixated upon God. He's fixated upon his unchanging character. He's fixated upon his love. He's fixated upon God's revelation and he delights in it. and he lives by it. His desires are rooted in the things of God." But there's another term here used to describe this man, and I think it perhaps opens up this idea of blessedness even more, even better. We see here, secondly, the joy and satisfaction of prosperity. And again, I'm trying to highlight things of delight, things of the heart. that are true of this man, the joy and satisfaction of prosperity. Look with me at verses three and four. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. So we see here this summary, in all that he does, he prospers. He's a blessed man, he is a prosperous man, he is a successful man. And perhaps we're wondering, what exactly does this mean? Prosperous? Does godliness ensure prosperity? You know, in light of all of the false gospels of our day, the prosperity gospels, the health and wealth gospels, that come to you or appear on the television and say, follow these steps, give this money, pray these special prayers, and you will be blessed with riches. In light of all of this, how do we approach this? In all that He does, He prospers. You know, even if we don't go to the extreme and say, well, this means that we're all going to be rich, there is a tendency, at least in some respect, to think, well, this must mean that perhaps it's referring to people who are talented, people who are popular, or maybe it refers to Christians who have everything together. Their spiritual disciplines and their children are well-behaved. This is what it means to be prosperous. Truth be known, though, the Hebrew word here, the idea for prosperous, doesn't exactly mean what we might think it means at first. It's not exactly referring to financial prosperity. It should be fairly obvious. But this word for prosperity is used in other places in Scripture. It's used in reference to a weapon of war, whether the weapon is a prosperous weapon. It's used in reference to a vine, whether the vine uses up the ground or would be better useful for kindling a fire. It's used in reference to a fire as well, whether the fire would prosper, whether it would spread. So we can't define this word prospers. This means this man financially prospers. Rather, I think the text that opens this up for us is found in Isaiah 55 10. You don't have to turn there, I'm going to read it quickly. But in Isaiah 55 10, listen. God is speaking and he says, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed, there's the word prosper, in the thing for which I sent it. So, in other words, what does prosperity mean according to scripture? It means to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. A vine that is prosperous bears fruit. A weapon that is prosperous kills. It is effective in fighting. And the Word of God is prosperous, as it always accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it out. We may think, well, if the Word of God is preached, it's prosperous when people come to faith and repentance. Well, absolutely it is. But you know, the Word of God is also prosperous in judging the wicked as well. The Word of God accomplishes its purpose. It has that two-fold purpose. As Paul says, it is a ministry of life and it is a ministry of death as well. It always does what God intends it to do. So we can't just say, well, prosper means that something is successful according to our own opinions. in our own ideas of being prosperous. So this righteous man, he's likened to a tree. A tree that bears fruit. So he's likened to something, someone, a man that is fulfilling the purpose for which it was created. Brethren, a prosperous life is not found in the fulfillment of our dreams. or our perception of how we're doing in life. We are God's creation. Furthermore, as Christians, we are His recreation. We have been bought with a price. We are not our own. And so life will never make sense to you unless you understand that you were created for God and that you were created for His purposes, and that true prosperity lies in His purposes for our lives found in this Word, and not in our perception and opinions of what prosperity is. So no matter if you're a CEO who's changing the world with technology or you're a mom who does nothing but change diapers all day, true prosperity is being faithful in the calling in which God has placed you. It is found in being faithful to his word. So looking back to this passage again, how does this idea of prosperity fit into the overall picture of what this psalmist is describing in this man? I want you to notice that this man is likened to a tree that has this constant source of nourishing water. And here again, we've got to be careful in understanding our terms here. In fact, I listened to another sermon on Psalm 1 recently by a man I respect, and he said, this psalm is baffling because our English translations do such a poor job at really getting across what the Hebrew is saying. It's not like we can't trust the Word of God, but there's so much more here. What I'm referring to specifically is this idea here that it says, he is like a tree planted by streams of water. The word here for planted is actually best translated as transplanted. That was a lot to say, translated transplanted, but you get the idea. The word refers to a tree. that has been purposefully planted in a different location from which it was originally sprouted. And this is underscored by the fact that the term planted is a passive participle. The tree is the passive recipient. Somebody else is doing the action of planting on the tree. So in other words, again, this is not a tree that just happened to sprout up by streams of water. Boy, look at this fortunate person. They are blessed by God. They just fell into all this money. This tree was removed from a specific location and planted in a specific location for a purpose, in a location that was carefully chosen by a master. There was much care taken to place this tree where it would bear fruit by streams of water. Of course, there's lots of imagery that we could run off to right now. We think of the Garden of Eden at the head of illustrious garden at the head of three rivers and how God placed Adam and Eve there with every need that they could ever want or imagine. Or we can think of the sovereign election of God. Think of how He chose us from the foundation of the world. He pulled us out of the world. We were transplanted from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have forgiveness and redemption of sins. Think of how He's planted us in the church and He's given us everything necessary for life and godliness. He's given us the Spirit. He's given us the congregation, the people of God. He's given us the men of God equipped to pastor and shepherd our souls. He's given us the sacraments that nourish us. The bread and the wine and the prayers of the saints and the people of God. He's given us everything we need to bear fruit. And He's done so, so that we may bear fruit. just as this psalm is portraying for us here. So think about this, this man is prosperous not because of something that he has done. And this is not something that you can do either, or me. God Himself must uproot you. God Himself must plant you in the streams of the blessed life. And of course, the result of this, as I briefly mentioned, He bears fruit. He yields fruit in every season. Whether it's the season of storms, the season of drought, the season of despair, every providence and circumstance of life, He bears fruit according to that situation in life. And thus He is fulfilling the purposes of His Master who planted Him there to bear fruit. In fact, to open it up even more, He's so inwardly healthy that He's bearing fruit and thus He becomes not just a good and healthy tree, but He becomes a blessing to the community around Him as well. He's bearing fruit so that somebody else can enjoy that fruit. And this is what He was created for. This is what we were created for. This is what we were redeemed for. Not just so that we can seclude ourselves from the world. Not so that we could just buy our time here until God comes again to redeem our mortal bodies. But we've been saved to be a blessing to others. To share the gifts and graces of God with others. And so this man cultivated for that purpose, planted for that purpose, experiences the joy and satisfaction of knowing he is where God has planted him, and he's bearing fruit to the glory of God as he was intended to do so. This inward disposition of blessedness, this prosperity, This is not found in anything this man can do. And in addition to that, it's placed in stark contrast to what is described in the ungodly. Look with me at verse 4 here. The wicked are not so. Emphatic language. In every way, not so. Not so. The wicked are completely the opposite of this. Instead of being rooted and nourished and fruitful, they are chaff. They're purposeless. They use up the ground. Chaff is that wasteful material, that worthless, dead substance of the grain that is useless and would have to be removed before the grain can be consumed. And so it's light, it's easily carried on the threshing floor. They would throw the grain up in the air and the wind would blow the chaff. The grain would fall, but the wind would blow the chaff. Of course, our Lord Jesus uses this imagery as well, this imagery of chaff. This chaff is easily blown around by the wind. It's purposeless. It's not rooted. It's not fixed. It's not steadfast. And this is describing for us the ungodly and how the one who lives for themselves, the one who lives for the approval of others, for those who live for what they can gain out of life. This is a sobering picture of how they're purposeless and wasteful. In fact, even more so, it's even sobering when we think about how they are driven by the wind. You know, we tend to think that people make their own decisions, and they do. People decide what direction they will take their lives. But you know what? Outside of Christ, men don't drive themselves. They are driven. They are driven by their own lusts. They are driven by the opinions of man. They are driven, worst of all, by Satan as well. They are not in control. They are not steadfast and rooted and fixed. Brethren, we must understand that true freedom is not found in pursuing the whims of our own hearts. True freedom is found in a source, in a being, in another, someone who is outside of you and who is far greater and far more magnificent than you could ever imagine. True freedom is found in His joy, His care and love for you and not your opinions of how your life should be going and what it is that you think you should be doing. The path that you're on, the direction you're taking, where God has placed you. True freedom is resting in God. Let us rest in God. Moving quickly though, we've seen how this blessedness is tied to the inward delight. We've seen how his prosperity and his disposition is set in contrast to the wicked. Let's close here by considering thirdly the eternality of righteousness. And this is the end of it all. This is the conclusion of this wicked and blessed man. Look with me at verses five and six. It says here, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. This is carefully watching over him. This is a loving master, a caring master, one who's ever present. He knows the way of the righteous. And in contrast to this, what happens to the wicked? They will not stand in the judgment. And it says here as well that they will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. That is, they are cut off. They're cut off from the congregation of the godly. They're left to their own destruction. And ultimately their entire way, their entire Way of living will perish not just themselves But their way as well And so I want to in drawing to a close. I want to draw your attention To what's Broadly speaking going on in this passage as I've been trying to communicate We have this righteous man It's called here The Lord knows the way of the righteous. And I believe this righteousness is a term that refers to the man's legal standing before God. He is blameless, he is just, he is holy, he is perfect. And of course, we know that we are not the epitome of this righteous man, that we are not righteous by nature. and that there is a lot of us that can be found in the wicked man, even if there is a little that can be found in the righteous man, a little of ourselves that can be found there because of the grace of God. But we know we haven't delighted in God as described here, no matter how good we think we might be doing. You know, we know we don't always bear fruit in its season when times of affliction come. We shrivel up sometimes. Difficulty comes, we're barren. We're driven many times by shameless expressions of selfishness. And we know as well from the broader teaching of Scripture that we are not righteous. In fact, just a few Psalms later in Psalm 14, quoted by the Apostle Paul in Romans 3, we read that no one is righteous. There are none who are righteous, not even one. So we have this psalm that tells us, blessed is this righteous man, but if you keep reading, you start to realize, wait a second, this isn't referring to me. Not something that I can do in my own power. And so, brother, we've got to realize that these last two verses here and the judgment that is coming on the wicked is really an execution of justice and it is something that, if we're smart, It's the last thing in the world that we would want. Standing in our own power. It's frightening. It's frightening because there's no grace found in this passage. There's no grace. There's no mercy. At least on the surface. There's no promise for forgiveness if the wicked man turns. The wicked gets what is coming to him, which is a full execution of justice. And so what we do in our natural state is we come up with a third option. Well, you know, I'm not as bad as this wicked man. Yeah, and some of the time I'm a pretty good person. So isn't there a third option? Isn't there a third middle path here? A way where we can, we're pretty good people. We want to do right. We're not always successful, but we want to do right. But this psalm doesn't give us a third option, and the Bible never gives us a third option. And so, we've got to first come and admit that we are not the righteous men here, and we are in fact the wicked men found here, and that we stand by nature in a dangerous place before God. We're not people who are pretty good that just need a little bit of help. Outside of Christ, we are slaves to our own sin, and we are helpless to change. And we need God to rescue us and plant us in the blessedness described here. So as we think about this, as we think about the broader picture of scripture, what's going on here? Let me say this. Blessed is the man. It's a very specific reference. Not mankind in general. Not the man who follows these principles. But this is referring to an actual man. an actual man who meets these requirements. Think of our Lord Jesus Christ in Luke 24. After His resurrection, He tells the disciples, or excuse me, we read as He's with the disciples, and it says in Luke 24 that He opened up their minds to see that everything written in the law, the prophets and the Psalms, speak of Him. If everything written in the Psalms speaks of Him, perhaps this blessed man is the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about Matthew 4, 3. Jesus was confronted with the counsel of the wicked, the counsel of Satan. You cannot get any more wicked than that. How did He respond? Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He would not be counseled by the wicked. He held on to the word of God, even when facing starvation and uncertainty. Or perhaps in John 4, 34, Jesus was again faced with hunger. His disciples urged him, they said, slow down, take a break from ministry, get something to eat. And he says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. He was dead set on fulfilling the purpose of his father to the fullest extent, even to the point of death. This is prospering and succeeding for which the purpose for which He came to earth. And think about just this planting and bearing fruit in the fact that Jesus died so that we might have life. This is a fruit that we enjoy. He placed our needs above His own as a human. So in every way, imaginable Jesus Christ is this man of Psalm 1. He was completely without sin. He is fully righteous in and of himself. He has merited the full favor of God. But there's one more problem. There's one more problem. The Psalm contrasts the righteous man with the wicked man. A righteous man stands in the judgment, but what happens again to the ungodly? He's cut off. He's cut off from the congregation of the righteous. If we say that Jesus Christ was the righteous man, then we're faced with the reality that this righteous man received the penalty of the wicked man. Though Jesus fulfilled to the letter The law of God in the letter of this blessedness described here. He was crucified on a cross. He became a curse for us. Hebrews speaks that he was cut off and cast outside the camp. Don't you see the gospel? Christ became the wicked man so that we might experience the blessedness of the righteous man. Christ took the punishment that we deserve to transplant us from slavery to sin. to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of blessedness. The only way you will ever escape the judgment described here, the judgment that you deserve, is if Christ himself takes on your punishment and is a sense cut off in your place. So brethren, in closing, these things described here are not things that we can earn and work with our own hands. If this isn't evident enough at this point already. The things that are described here can only be found in Christ. They can only be found in what He freely earned for us. And the only way for you to begin to prosper to the glory of your Creator and to fulfill the purposes of your life for which you were created to bear fruit for God, is that you are united with Christ in His death and in His resurrection. United with Him, you receive the benefits that He earned. and you are planted in that stream of mercy and grace that provides an ever-present nourishment to your soul. Friend, are you in Christ today? Are you in Christ today? Have you heard the demands of justice that call for your punishment? Have you come to the end of yourself and for what you can do with your own hands? Friends, we need a better hope than ourselves. We need one who could do something that we could not and cannot do. If you're outside of Christ, Look to this passage, know what is coming, that there is no escape, and flee to Him in repentance and faith. He will not turn you away. And to the Christian, if you're here today and you're just looking at this passage and you're battled by sin and despair, just backsliding, wondering, what does this mean for me? Know that this passage teaches you of the righteousness that you have in Him. The righteousness that God has credited to your account. You see, the strength of your sanctification, it's the strength to give you the power to obey more and to know and walk in delight in God's Word. The strength, the power of this is found in your union with Christ. Christ calls us, He calls you to lay your burdens upon Him. What are your burdens? Your sin? Your shame? Your guilt? Your fears? He delights in bearing our burdens. Just like in a marriage. In a marriage, when two people get married, they share all things in common. The possessions of the husband become the wives, and the wives become the husbands, and become one household. So in your marriage with Christ, all that is His becomes yours. This blessedness, it is yours. And what does He get? Well, He gets the only thing that we can bring, our sin, our shame. He delights to bear our burdens. So today, know that He calls you to walk in obedience to His word. He calls you to live up to the standards that are revealed in this passage, but His burden is easy and His yoke is light. In everything needed for us to do what this psalm calls us to do, He freely provides for us in the gospel. The message of this psalm does not end right here, just one psalm over in Psalm 2. It ends with this, speaking of the Son, blessed are all who take refuge in Him. The psalm is pointing us to Him. Let's discern our way, brethren. Let's be enamored by the gospel and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's prosper in fulfilling the purpose for which He created us and the purpose for which He redeemed us. Bring glory to our Redeemer, bearing fruit and adorning the gospel for His name. Amen. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we thank you for the clarity in which your word speaks to us. Lord, how it exposes us for who we really are. In a sense, releasing us from this prison that we think is a palace. But not leaving us there, but pointing us to a hope that's so much greater than our own. The hope of the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray, Father, that your word would have its full effect in our hearts. for the glory of your name, for the sanctification, for our obedience, for our worship, for our delight, Lord, for our perspective of where we are in life and our callings. Father, I pray as well that you would show your mercy upon those in our midst who are outside of Christ and who are now standing in that path of wickedness and are facing that day of judgment. Lord, have mercy for your own namesake. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.