Our forefather in theology, John Calvin, once called the book of Psalms the hymn book of the human soul, the hymn book of the human soul. And then we find an echo of our own hearts, our own human experience in this sin-sick, often dark world. We find the light of God's grace leading us down winding roads. In our journey, we often cry out in grief and despair, but right there with the grief is reason to sing, reason for joy and hope and thanksgiving. Whatever stage we are on in our Christian journey, there is a song to go with it. there's a psalm to go with it. So as we begin our journey through the first 12 psalms, we begin at numero uno, with psalm number one. It begins and ends with this concept of a path, a journey. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, and stands not in the way of sinners. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. It's a fitting introduction to the book of Psalms as a whole and of our short study of it together. Ralph Jacobson, commentator, writes, beginnings of books are important. By means of a beginning, an author, or in this case an editor, introduces crucial themes that will impact the rest of the book. He continues, the Hebrew psalter opens with an instructional or wisdom psalm that maps the future as a choice between one of two different paths. The placement of this wisdom psalm at the front of the psalter is not an accident. Together with the second psalm, psalm one functions as a two-part introduction to the psalter. Because of this, its message of the two paths has significance beyond the mere boundaries of psalm one. The reader is invited to read the entire book of Psalms as a guide to life in God, a life that the Psalm describes as happy. So let's consider this happy path, this path of true blessedness, as we see it unfold before us in Psalm 1. So first, we'll look at the path. Along the way, we'll come to a tree. And finally, we'll arrive at a judgment. Path, tree, judgment. Psalm 1 begins, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners. That is to say, on the path 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. Psalm 1 begins by defining for us true blessedness. What does it really mean to be blessed, to be blessed? Well, the Hebrew word for blessed is the same as the word for happy. What does it mean to be truly happy? What does true happiness look like? Some commentators like the word fortunate. What would life look like if you were truly fortunate, if fortune smiled upon you? When you think about what it means to be blessed, what comes to mind? What would you have? What would your life look like for you to be truly happy and to consider yourself truly fortunate? Well, the psalmist says, well, let me begin by telling you what it's not. It's not walking in the counsel and advice of wicked people. It's not standing in the path that they take. It's not taking your seat among them and in the places they dwell so that you become like them. If you want to be blessed by God, then the path that you walk is vitally important. And it's vitally important that the path that you walk is separate from the path that the world takes. That the wicked, that the sinful, that the scoffer, the scornful, we might translate today in the common idiom, haters. scoffers or haters. It's vitally important that we not make our company with them. As Paul would write in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. Charles Spurgeon said, when men are living in sin, they go from bad to worse. At first, they merely walk in the counsel of the careless and ungodly who forget God. The evil is rather practical than habitual. But after that, they become habituated to evil. And they stand in the way of open sinners who willfully violate God's commandments. And if let alone, they go one step further and become themselves pestilent teachers and tempters of others. And thus they sit in the seat of the scornful. They have taken their degree in vice, and as true doctors of damnation they are installed." We see then in verse 1 this, there is a spiritual entropy to the path of destruction. There is an entropy, an inertia to the path of destruction, and that's the easy path. It's the go-with-the-flow path. And that entropy will keep you from walking and persevering on the path of God's blessing. And that path begins with the company that you keep. the advice you're listening to. And as the counsel and ways of those around you seep into your bones, you begin to slow down. You begin to grow comfortable. And before you know it, you're sitting on the curb with spiritual riffraff, with moral thugs, hostile to God's ways, shouting derogatory, hateful words at God's genuine people. This is the path, we might say, to deconstruction and deconversion. And it begins with the company you keep, and it ends with the rejection of the God you used to claim to worship. By contrast, but rather the blessed man finds his delight in the law of the Lord. Now, let me explain the word law here for you. The Hebrew word is Torah. Formally, the Torah refers to the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, Genesis through Deuteronomy. More specifically, Torah can refer to the Ten Commandments. But that's not the core meaning of Torah. The core meaning of Torah is instruction. God's Torah is His instruction. It's the instruction of Yahweh. Notice LORD is in all caps in your Bible, referring to the divine name. And so what the psalmist refers to here is all of God's Word, all of the instruction of God. Not law as we would think it, as things you must obey. That's not what the blessed man is delighting in. Rather, what the blessed man is delighting in is God's revelation of himself and of his ways. The blessed man, the happy man, is the one who seeks Yahweh's instruction rather than the counsel of the wicked. Instead of spending time with bad influences, he spends his time with the best influence there is, with God himself. Why? Because he loves it there. He loves walking under God's instruction. He loves what the scriptures reveal. He loves about what God reveals about himself in the scriptures. So he walks in God's advice, stays on God's path, sitting in God's presence. And thus he meditates on the Torah of Yahweh all the time, day and night. Now the word meditate here does not refer to a silent activity. It's the opposite of so much meditation that passes in our modern world in which we're trying to empty the mind of thought. No, that's meditation from Eastern mysticism. The psalmist is not emptying his mind, he is filling his mind with Scripture. In fact, the word meditate specifically means to vocalize, to mutter and to groan. It's used for the cooing of doves and the growling of lions. It's that vocal behavior that the natural world does automatically without having to think about it. The blessed man, the happy man is the one who is always mulling over God's word. He's chewing it like a cow chews the cud. He's trying to suck the marrow out of the bones. He's repeating it over and over and over again to get as much out of it as he possibly can to even commit it to memory. Now, you know, back in the days before smartphones, we had to like memorize phone numbers and physical addresses. And how would we do that? By repeating the details back time and time again. 504, 504. 774, 774. 4160. 504-774-4160. 504-774-4160. That was a number I had to memorize growing up. You know what it was? It was the number to my dad's office. I was able to recall it. 20, 30 years later because I had to memorize it and repeat it over and over and over again. And it never changed. Like I can't remember the childhood phone number growing up other than my mom's current phone number and Zachary because it changed a couple of times. But that one never did. It was the same in the same way with God's word. It never changes. It abides. And once you commit it to memory, it sticks with you. and it will be an encouragement to you, and it will feed you on your earthly journey. William Plumer writes, without meditation, without meditation, grace never thrives. Prayer is languid. Praise, dull, and religious duties, unprofitable. It is meditating on God's word, studying it, memorizing it, mulling over it. These are the things that fill the soul with grace and faith. These are the things that innervate and energize the spirit, and they lead to true blessedness, and that brings us to a tree. Because the man who delights in the instruction of Yahweh meditates on the Torah day and night, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither. Indeed, everything that he does succeeds. I'd like to be like that. Wouldn't you like to be like that? How do we get to be like that? By dwelling in and abiding in God's word. Just as Jesus himself said in John 15, beginning in verse four, abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full. Man, that sounds good. I could use some fullness of joy most days, couldn't you? How do we get it? By abiding in Christ, which means abiding in His Word. So here's what true blessedness looks like. The man who delights in God's Word is like a well-nourished fruitful, healthy tree. It's well-nourished because its roots are planted deep by streams of water, and that water is the Word of God. Because it is rooted in a good place and well-watered soil, it is fruitful. It has the internal resources it needs to produce good fruit and bring that fruit to maturity. And like clockwork, when the season is right, the fruit is ripe. All in God's timing. Finally, the tree is healthy, and its leaf doesn't wither. It's not blighted by disease or by the weather. Not ever, Now, there are seasons of life just as there are seasons of fruit bearing. The leaf may fall in autumn, but it will not wither in August. We see similar language in Jeremiah 17, verses seven through eight. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when the heat comes. For its leaves remain green, and it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. Friends, difficult seasons will come, And this passage is not promising that if you trust God and follow him and fill yourself with his word, that you'll never have difficulty. No, this passage says there will be droughts. There will be trials. And yet, if you are planted beside living waters, the man of God doesn't fear the trials. He will not wilt in the heat. because he is nourished by the Word of God. And all that is to say that everything he does succeeds. The Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Bible, says this, and everything, as much as ever he should do, prospers in his granted success. He cannot fail. Now, What does that mean? Does that mean, again, that if you read God's Word enough and trust God enough that you'll have success in literally everything you do? No. That's not the way wisdom literature works in the Bible. In this psalm, all of the psalms are considered wisdom literature. We've just seen that the whole point of the leaf not withering is that it doesn't wither in the face of a stressful drought. It means there are hard times in the life of the Christian. Rather, what wisdom literature tells us is that what is generally true, how the world generally works This isn't a promise that if you do X, then Y will always necessarily happen. It's saying rather that those who are deeply planted in God's word cannot fail. They cannot fall away. They will persevere through the difficult seasons. They will bear fruit that is pleasing to God because they are rooted and grounded in God himself. Life ultimately works for the good of God's children. Life ultimately works for the good of God's children. That's what this psalm is saying. But not so are the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind drives away. If the picture of the blessed man, the righteous man, is of a tree so deeply planted by streams of water that the strongest drought can't kill him, well, the picture of the wicked man, the foolish man, is that of chaff. He's like the husk around a grain of rice. He is the waste product of an annual grain. He's more transient than transient. He's vapor, breath. He is nothing and will amount to nothing. Now, this runs so counter to the way that we perceive the world works. The Psalm writer Asaph struggled with this in Psalm 73. He wrote, I was envious of the arrogant. When I saw the prosperity of the wicked four, they have no pangs until their death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They're not in trouble as others are. They don't have to struggle like the rest of mankind. Surely I in vain have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence until I went to the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end." Truly you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, like dreams fade when one awakes." That brings us to a judgment. Even so, the psalmist sings. the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. The abstract image of the chaff being blown by the wind from the threshing floor now gives way to concrete definition in the mention of the judgment and the assembly of the righteous. What judgment are we talking about? What does it mean to stand? What is the assembly of the righteous? Well, again, the Septuagint, again, helps us here. And it tells us what judgment is in view. Because the word the Septuagint chooses to use, for he will not stand in the assembly of the righteous, is the Greek word for resurrection. Anastasis, for you language nerds. It's resurrection. The psalmist is saying the wicked will not arise. Will not rise up. will not see the resurrection and stand in the resurrection, in the judgment. By contrast, the righteous man, the one who is blessed, who delights in the Torah, who is like a tree planted by streams of water, he will stand in the judgment. He will rise in the assembly of the righteous. He will have a place there. Though he may have seemed alone, all the days of his life surrounded by wicked people, by sinners, and by haters, he is alone no longer. Look at verse 1 again. The righteous man seems to be by himself, walking against the stream of humanity. The tree seems to be standing alone by its streams of water. But on the last day, the believer, the faithful man, will find himself surrounded by a grove of fruitful trees, by a multitude of righteous people among whom he belongs. On the last day, the righteous man will find his people at last. When all of God's children are gathered as one under Jesus Christ on the day of judgment, we will be resurrected to stand before our God in glory and honor. we will be counted among the righteous, among the redeemed. Not because we are righteous in ourselves, mind you, not in our own righteousness, but we are counted righteous in Christ because we have believed Him in this life. Because we have been accounted righteous in Him. And that faith, That perseverance, that rootedness will be evidenced by our lived righteousness, by our love in good works. Friends, when we appear before Jesus on Judgment Day, there will be no shame for those who are clothed in Him. There will be no embarrassment. And the love and good works and service for the cause of Christ that you commit yourself to in this world will be evidence of Christ's work in you. Your good works are not what earn you a righteous decree. They don't merit your final salvation. but they are evidence that God has been at work in you since the day you first believed. And so God from the bench will say, truly this man, this woman, this child knew me, because look at what I did through them. But where the righteous will receive praise and glory and honor on the last day, the wicked will experience final everlasting shame. They will not remain standing when Jesus Christ appears. They will be blown away by the fire of his wrath. And all their earthly glories and pleasures will disappear, and they will enter an eternal nightmare. Again, William Plumer writes, the death of the wicked is but the beginning of their overthrow. After death is the last account. The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. To stand is to maintain one's cause, to hold one's own, to be unhurt and unterrified. But in the last day, the wicked will have no confidence, no comfort, no support. They will not carry their cause. So at the end of the day, what makes the difference? What separates the righteous from the wicked? The main thing Psalm 1 wants us to see is that the path you walk is all important. It's where it begins and ends because verse 6 says, for Yahweh knows the path of the righteous, but the path of the wicked will perish. To say that God knows the path of the righteous means that he intimately cares for it and attends to it. This is the Hebrew word for know that is intimate and personal. It's not a mere cognitive knowledge. It's not detached or aloof. Verse six means that Yahweh, God himself, attentively cares for and tends and guides the path that his faithful people tread in this life. He steers it, he guides it, he keeps it well-maintained, and he makes sure that the path reaches its final destination in glory. Even though it goes through valleys of deep darkness, even the shadow of death itself, we need not fear because Yahweh is with us. However, the path of the wicked will perish. It will inevitably go astray and lead to destruction. Why? Because Yahweh does not know it. Now that doesn't mean he doesn't know what a destructive path is going to lead to. Again, we're not talking cognitive knowledge. We're talking personal, intimate knowledge. Yahweh does not tend the path that the wicked walk on. He does not preserve it. He lets it go its own way. He lets the wicked go their own way. One of the signs of God's judgment on an individual and on a society is for him to say, oh, that's what you want. All right, I'll let you take that path. Tell me how it goes. Right, God's judgment is revealed in this life more than anything else in giving sinners exactly what they want. If you get everything you want in life, look out. It's when God opposes your will, shakes you and says, no, you really don't want that. That's when you know Yahweh knows your path. That's when you know that God is caring for you. And thus the path of sinners will always go askew, and it will always devolve into ruin and devastation. So here we are at the end of Psalm 1, the end of our first sermon together in the Psalms, and the simple question is this, which path are you walking? How are you walking through life? Are you walking on the path with the counsel of the wicked? Or are you walking on the path under God's instruction? Are you walking beside streams of waters? Are you being blown like chaff in the wind? Understand, my friends, there are two and only two classes of people in this world, the righteous and the wicked. But here's the thing. The wicked are not only out there. And the righteous are not only in here. There is a clear us versus them at work in Psalm 1. but it's not Christians versus everyone else. Why not? Because there were many wicked among the Israelites and few righteous. Even so in the church, there are many wicked among Christians today. Jesus will say to many, at the judgment, to people who think they have a standing before him, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, because I never knew you." I never knew you. The us versus them is not between Christians and everybody else. People like us and people who aren't like us. Rather the us versus them is between those who are walking in righteousness under the word of God and those who are walking in wickedness according to the ways of the world. It's the difference between those who are walking by the world's wisdom versus those who are walking by the light of the word of God, in the light of God. And I'll say this, Psalm 1 speaks in moral absolutes, which is to say extremes, because the vast swath of humanity is not overtly wicked. Neither is the vast swath of humanity overtly righteous. And so it's not simple as asking, am I a good man or am I a bad man? Is that person a good man or is that person a bad man? It's again the question of which path are you walking? Are you walking a path defined by delight and meditation and planting in God's holy words? Question Psalm 1 leaves us with is, do you feel blessed? Do you feel fortunate? Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Thank you for listening to this sermon from River Community Church in Prairieville, Louisiana, where you will always find biblical preaching, meaningful worship, and the equipping of disciples. For more information on River Community Church and its ministries, please visit rivercommunity.org.