Let's turn in our Bibles tonight to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and find your way about midway through the chapter to verse number 33. Tonight we're continuing our study about the subject of influence and we've talked about how important influence is and how influence plays out in our lives, how it has an effect on us. Tonight I'd like to speak to you for just the next few moments about how we ought to choose our influences in our lives. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 is written about the subject of the resurrection. I think many of you are familiar with that and the specific theme that is in view in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 concerning the resurrection is because there were some false teachers that were in the church at Corinth who were affecting the beliefs of some of the church members and were influencing them and teaching that there was no such thing as a resurrection. And one of the reasons that Paul wrote this letter was to correct that false doctrine and to encourage the people there in Corinth about the importance of the doctrine of the resurrection and you remember he says there in chapter 15 that if Christ is not risen from the dead we are of all men most miserable because nothing that we have believed could be true if Christ has not actually raised from the dead. And so it's a wonderful chapter talking about that. But right in the middle of the chapter, there's a very important scriptural principle which is found, which pertains to our study here in the subject of influence. And if you'll look at verse number 33, the scripture says very plainly there, be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Be not deceived. There's a warning here in this verse about the possibility of being deceived. In this case, the warning about deception is specifically in regards to these false teachers who are rejecting the doctrine of the resurrection. And there's a possibility that these brethren, that these members of the church could be deceived. The word deceived means to be led astray, to be seduced, to be taken out of the right way. In other words, to have been going in the right direction, following the right path and somehow to be deceived by someone and to be led off of that path into the wrong way. In verse 33, the Apostle Paul warns us that we ought not to be deceived, and then he says this, evil communications corrupt good manners. He's talking there about influence. It's possible that you can be influenced towards error. But tonight, I wonder how many of us are living with an awareness of the danger that exists that we could be influenced off of the right path, that we could be influenced into error or into deceitfulness, into lies. How many of us are walking through our life today thinking, I want to be careful about what I'm allowing to influence me or to affect my thinking, my conclusions that I'm coming to because I'm aware of the fact that I could be deceived, that I could be led in the wrong way. You know what I find is that most Christians are not thinking much about the influences that they're allowing in their life. Most Christians are just living their life this way. I'm just doing the things that I enjoy. I'm just living the life that I enjoy. I'm just trying to get through life. I'm trying to earn a living. I'm trying to have a little fun along the way. I'm trying to just enjoy life. I mean, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is that there are a lot of influences, and those influences, which are vying for your attention, are also trying to get you to go in a particular direction. Now as we think about the importance tonight of choosing the influences in our life, I have three thoughts that I want you to think about with me this evening. I want you to meditate on these from the scriptures and hopefully it'll be a challenge tonight about the influences that we allow in our own lives. First of all, you and I need to recognize the reality of influence, that there are voices present in the world that are trying to influence the way that we think. especially trying to influence the way that we act and the choices that we make in our life. Most of the time, you and I are being influenced in ways that are mostly imperceptible to us. We don't even pick up on the fact that influence is being exerted. In fact, the most effective influence is the most imperceptible influence because if we get the idea that someone is trying to influence us or trying to make us do something, we usually put up our defenses and we say, oh, hold on, what are you doing? What are you trying to get me to do? But if someone is subtle and if they're careful, then they can influence us without us even knowing what is going on. Now, I want you to recognize the reality of this kind of influence and the fact that it's all around us. And one illustration of this is the fact that in the United States alone, annually, $400 billion is spent to try to influence the behavior and the choices of consumers through advertising. $400 billion, that's a lot of money. And what are they trying to do? Well, they're trying to subtly, imperceptibly affect your perceptions, trying to grab your attention and thereby be able to influence you. They're trying to get you to, just for a moment, give them your attention and think about the message that they're trying to communicate. But the truth is that many times, you and I are not even aware they're communicating a message. Sometimes, you know, when we talk about entertainment, about movies, and we say, okay, here's this movie, here's what happened. So here's the question, what is the message? What is being communicated? What is actually the theme? You say, oh, there's no message, there's no theme. They gotcha. They got you. Because right there, you just checked your mind out and said, well, there's no message. This is just fun. This is just entertainment. And right there, they got you because they were definitely communicating a message. And chances are, they influenced you greatly, and you didn't even know it. Think about the reality of influence all around us. Now, most people tonight, in fact, some of you are sitting here this evening in the auditorium and in your mind, you wouldn't say it out loud and you wouldn't try to stand up and say, oh, pastor, you're wrong. But some of you are sitting in your seat thinking, that's not true of me. I'm not influenced by anybody. I'm an independent thinker. I'm smart. I know how to evaluate my sources. I don't let anybody or anything influence me. So you're actually the perfect example of someone who's being influenced and doesn't know it. Because you've convinced yourself that there's no influences in your life when actually there's nothing but influences in your life. Even though we're all thinking about ourselves, I'm smarter than the average bear. I think I'm pretty good at evaluating the voices. Oh, I would never be influenced negatively. But the truth is that there is a vicious warfare that is going on right now for your attention and for your heart to influence you in a particular direction. Now hold your place in 1 Corinthians 15. We'll come back to it after a while. And turn with me to Romans chapter 12. It's a very familiar passage. One that many of you could quote. But in Romans chapter 12, we'll look in just a moment at verse number 2. And as we look at that verse, I want you to be thinking about this truth tonight. that the world is trying to conform you. And when we talk about the world, we're talking about a system or a pattern of thinking, a philosophy, a worldview. There is a system of philosophy and thinking that is prevalent, and that system of philosophy and thinking is energized by our spiritual enemy. Which is why the Bible says, "...love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof." So we're warned in 1 John chapter 2 about the world and this system of thinking. But now notice here in Romans chapter 12 and verse number 2, the Bible says, "...and be not conformed to this world." Now the word conformed is very interesting. It means to make according to a pattern. It's the idea of trying to shape something to look like something else. Some time ago I made some chairs. And as I was making the chairs, I had bought some plans with a pattern. And I took that pattern, which was made of paper, and I spread it out on some scrap wood. And then I traced that pattern, and I cut it out. And then I laid that wooden pattern on the wood that I wanted to use to make the chairs. And I traced that out, and then I cut that very carefully. You see, I was taking the wood, which was a certain shape, And I was shaping it in a very particular way because I had a goal. I had something in my mind that I wanted to make. And when the process was done and the patterns were all cut and everything was put together, I had a chair that was made out of wood, but it looked very different than those original blocks of wood. Now understand this tonight, the world wants you to be conformed to their pattern. The world wants you to fall in line with their way of thinking and their way of doing things. This word conformed means to make someone or something resemble someone or something else. It's like You know, as an example of influence, it's like if I wear a certain thing or do a certain thing, it's not unusual for me to look over my shoulder and see some little boys wearing or doing the same thing. And why are they doing that? Well, because of my influence in their life. Because they're still of that age that they want to be like their dad. That they want to act like dad. They want to do the things that dad does. Boy, that's, by the way, an alarming thing as a parent sometimes. Not all the things that I see my sons emulate me in are flattering. And that's concerning for me, all right? But now notice, the world is trying to get you to conform. The world is trying to get you to be according to a certain pattern. I was thinking about this the other day. Just think about clothing fashion. Do you ever think much about that? Like, what is cool? What is, do we say cool anymore? I'm being influenced by the culture. I don't know what the modern generation says now. What is hip? What is acceptable? And when you look at pictures, and some of you young people in here, you look at pictures from years ago when your parents were your age, and you're like, what in the world were you wearing? That's so stupid. I can't believe you were wearing that. Be careful. Because one day, if God gives you kids, they're going to look at your pictures from when you were this age, and they're going to be like, what in the world were you wearing? That's so stupid. See? Now, who says what's cool? And who says what's not? The other day, I was out and about, and I saw a girl wearing a pair of blue jeans, and they were ripped all the way down from here to here. And I thought, I have a thought that she must have paid good money for that pair of jeans. She must have actually paid money at a shop for jeans that had holes all in them. Now, I guess that's cool now, but I'll tell you, there was a time when if you wore that, people would have said, Is everything okay? Do I need to buy you some clothes? I can't believe you're wearing something that's all torn up. Are you with me with this? I'm trying to be lighthearted about it, but really think about it. Who is the one who says this is cool and this isn't cool? And then all of a sudden the rules change and that's not cool anymore. I remember things that were in style when I was a teenager and let's just say they're not in style anymore. You don't wear your clothes that way anymore. It's not in. Well, who is it that's determining what looks good and what doesn't, what's old and what's hip? The truth is it's all about influence. Influence. And by the way, most of the influence in the clothing industry is not geared towards modesty and godliness. I'm just going to tell you that the people who are designing these clothes are not God-fearing people who love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind. That's not what their goal is. And yet, most Christians are following right along with what everybody else is doing. Well, I mean, I don't want to stick out, I don't want to be strange, I don't want to be unusual. What's happening is you're being influenced. Influenced. You still love me? All right? Do you know a lot of professing Christians will aggressively struggle against some other believer or church putting some kind of constraint upon them in their behavior while they willingly yield to the influence of the world. Does this seem right? Or does this seem backwards of what a Christian should do? You come to your own conclusion. Tonight, I'm simply pointing out to you that there is a reality that you and I are being influenced. Do you understand when the Bible says, be not conformed to this world? It means this world has laid down a pattern and said, you better be like this, you better think like this, you better act like this. And if you don't, we're going to look at you and say, you're a little weird. You're strange. Why do you act that way? Why don't you do the things that we do? In one of the epistles, Paul said, they think it's strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot. All the things that they're doing and all the ways that they're living, what's wrong with you? You're so strange that you're not doing those things. And you know what? You start to feel strange. I don't know. Maybe I am a weirdo. Maybe I am really, I don't know, maybe I'm half-baked. I mean, I live such a strange life compared to a lot of people in the world. And that's influence. See, the world is trying to say, get with the program. Now, this system of the world is deceitful, and it obscures truth to influence you and I towards error. The goal of our deceitful enemy, according to what Jesus said, is that he wants to use his influence to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But Jesus came that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly. Now, tonight, I'm just saying to you, we ought to live with this awareness. I mean, if someone is trying to get you into a pattern of self-destructive behavior and self-destructive choices, and they're out there, wouldn't you want to know that they're trying to influence you towards something that would bring about the fruit of death in your life? Now, I do want to point out that this is true, this is going on in the world, but there is another system which is at work. There's another force which is at work, and that is the force of God's truth. And we ought to be actively wanting to be influenced by God's truth. Can you keep that in your mind? Because I want to come back to that in just a few minutes. But please, tonight, realize the reality Realize the reality. I'm trying to stress this because I've come to the conclusion in many conversations, especially with Christian young people, that we often are really clueless about the fact that there's a battle for our attention and a battle for our mind. And the reason there's a battle for it is because there is an all-out effort to affect our choices and our behavior. Someone is trying to influence you. And you ought to know it. The second thing I want you to consider tonight is that you and I not only should recognize the reality, but we also should identify the influences that are present. Remember, in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, where we started tonight, he said, Be not deceived. Evil communications corrupt good manners. Evil communications, that is, the evil forces. There are influences that are evil that come into our life, and if we allow them, in this case, false teachers, to have face time with us, to have influence in our life, It has the possibility of corrupting good manners, of causing us to be deceived and get off of the right path. What you and I ought to do in our Christian lives is we ought to really take the time to identify the influences that we allow in our life. So let me ask it this way. Who do you allow to speak into your life? Who do you allow to affect your behavior? Who do you allow to have an impact on the choices that you make for your life? Now, I could give you some suggestions. This is a good starting place, but I would suggest tonight that you jot these down and then try to think deeply in your own life, what is it that is affecting, what is it that is driving the choices that I'm making? So some of the voices that we have in our lives are our friends. Whoever you're friends with is going to have an effect on your perspective. It's going to influence the things that you like and that you don't like. There's a lot of biblical examples of this. This isn't hard to understand that when you're friends with someone, you want them to continue liking you and you want them to know that you like them. you tend to do the same things. In fact, you might be prone to, when you're with this friend, you might act one way, and then another friend has a different preference in that area, so when you're with them, then maybe you're influenced by them, and sometimes this plays out in this way, where you have some friends who are godly and who love the Lord, and when you're around them, you love to pray and read your Bible, talk about the things of the Lord and go and hand out tracts and be excited about the things of God and then you've got another group of friends over here that are really ungodly and they're involved in a lot of ungodly and unspiritual things and when you're with them you wouldn't dare talk about what you read in your Bible, you wouldn't dare ask about prayer, you wouldn't dare want to evangelize because you know that's not what they're about and so what's happening is you're being influenced by whoever you're with. Friends. It's something to pay attention to. I think we would be remiss if we didn't say media and entertainment. Many people have this erroneous thought that entertainment, movies and all this, I mean this is a big umbrella, that it's just fun. It's just about fun. It's just about having fun. It's just about enjoying life. It's about more than that. Because all media and all entertainment is communicating a message. It's trying to influence your thinking, trying to influence your behavior in a certain direction. And whatever media and entertainment that you are allowing to input into your life, even if you don't want it to have an effect on you, it is having an effect on you. And the amazing thing is that oftentimes you think it's not having an effect. It doesn't bother me. I can watch that and it doesn't bother me. Yes, it does. It does affect you. And it's usually subtle. And it's influencing you. The sad truth is the average Christian in our generation is much more up on their favorite sitcom than they are on their favorite book of the Bible. Media and entertainment has a massive, massive influence. And, of course, now we have media and entertainment which is offered up to us 24-7 in short snippets on platforms like TikTok and YouTube and all these shorts that just, you know, generate all these dopamine hits and you keep coming back for more, oh, I got to see it, got to see it, got to see it, got to see it, even if it's the same thing over and over again. Media and entertainment. How about if you're identifying the influence as the culture? And what I mean by that is just the broad culture. It's subtle, but it's prevailing. I mean, there's a certain way you're expected to act. There's certain things you're supposed to do, certain ways you're supposed to behave, certain ways that you're supposed to dress and just carry yourself and respond in different situations. It's all part of our culture. And it affects us, it's an influence in our life. Many of us are influenced by our education. Incidentally, the whole point of the education system is to influence. That's why parents, and I'm not primarily dealing with influence and parenting, I'll deal with that in a later message, but parents really should Be careful about the influences that they allow and the choices that they make for the education of their children. Because it's going to affect the direction of their life. But those of us who are adults here, we are affected by the education that we received, by the things that we learned in school. Maybe some of you in high school, in college, in your postgraduate studies, you learned some things and it has affected the way that you view the world, the way that you live your life, the choices that you make. Education has a dramatic effect on our lives. the activities that we involve ourselves in, and thereby the people that we're exposed to in the midst of those activities. This has an influence on us. Our own basic presuppositions that we carry into life, and these basic presuppositions come from our upbringing, from our education, and we're heavily influenced by those things. That's the way that we've always done it. That's how I've always lived. That's what I've always thought. But are we thinking about where did that come from? Is that true? Is that rooted in God's truth? Or is that coming from a different source? So, you understand we've got to catalog these influences. We've got to figure out where they're coming from. And as we identify the influences in our life, it should be no surprise to you as a child of God that you ought to be prioritizing God's Word, God's Spirit, and God's people. I'm gonna say that again. you ought to be prioritizing God's word, God's spirit, and God's people in your life. This is where we're gonna receive the right kinds of influence. If we will maximize those opportunities and prioritize those aspects of our life, then we're going to realize, okay, there's some other influences that are present For instance, can you cut yourself off completely from the culture? Is that possible? Not really. I mean, unless you're gonna go find a mountain somewhere out in the middle of nowhere where you'll never see anybody or anything and just live all by yourself up there on the mountain away from everybody and everything, not likely that you're gonna cut yourself off from the culture. But can you minimize the effect that the culture has on you? Absolutely. The way that you minimize the effect the culture has on you is by prioritizing God's culture. Prioritizing God's truth. Can you completely cut yourself off in the world in which we live from media and what we would call the entertainment world? No, not likely, because it's all around you. Even if you said, well, I personally won't turn it on. Everywhere you go, it's taking place. It drives us crazy. If we go out to eat somewhere and we're at a restaurant and they have a TV that's on in the restaurant, We might as well not even try to talk to our kids. And you say, wow, your kids, you know, maybe it's because they're deprived because they just don't see it. Oh, no, look around the restaurant. All the other people who came there to eat together, what are they doing? It's got your attention. It's drawn you in. You see, you can't cut yourself off from it completely, but you sure can minimize the effect of it by prioritizing God's truth and God's spirit and God's people in your life. You can minimize the influence of those things. You can undo the effects of the wrong education. And obviously, no matter where you were educated, there were parts of your education that were right and parts that were wrong. And there's maybe some undoing that has to take place in your life, but how are you going to do that? You're going to do that by prioritizing God's truth and God's spirit and God's people. Evaluate the influences that you're allowing in your life. Now listen carefully to me and then we'll move on. Many Christians struggle to understand why is it so hard for me to live the Christian life? And the simple answer is because your life is characterized by influences that are pushing you towards ungodliness in the world. And that's almost all the influences in your life. You're spending all your time with those kind of influences No wonder you're struggling so much. No wonder you're having such a difficulty. Start inputting some influences that are going to steer you towards righteousness, towards serving the Lord, towards doing his will. You might be surprised at the result. All right, so we said we need to recognize the reality. This is a reality. It's a battle that we're involved in. We need to be choosing our influence. I need to identify the influences that I'm allowing in my life. What are the things that are speaking into my life? What are the choices that I'm making and why am I making those choices? Why am I doing the things that I'm doing? Who am I trying to identify with? That's gonna tell you a lot about the influences in your life. Third of all tonight, embrace the excellent. Now remember, he said, be not deceived, evil communications corrupt good manners. Good manners is something that we ought to have. And this isn't talking about, you know, at the table being polite. This is a good way of life. This is a good way of living. Good in that it's pleasing to God, it's honoring to the Lord. It's something that one day when you stand before God, The Lord will say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. You had good manners. You lived your life in the right way. You eschewed the evil. You didn't allow those things to influence you away from righteousness. Now turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Hopefully this will be a help to you tonight. 1 Thessalonians 5, 21. Notice what the scripture says here. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. All right. So let's think about what these verses are saying. And we're talking about the importance of embracing the excellence. We want to find the influences that are going to steer us towards that which is good, that which is excellent, that which is godly, that which is pleasing to the Lord. We want to prove all things. Prove. What does that mean? It means test it. Examine it. Approve it. Scrutinize it. Look at it carefully. I'm saying, when you sit down to watch that movie, put it to the test. What are they saying to me? What is the message? What is being communicated? What is my expected behavior outcome after watching this? You say, oh, come on. Movies don't have that. They absolutely do. If you start paying attention, you're gonna see it. You'll realize that there's an agenda, there's a message. So put it to the test. If I do what this movie is suggesting, is this going to yield excellence? Is this going to yield a life that is pleasing to God? Is this going to yield the kind of behavior that would honor God with my life? Prove it. Put it to the test. Now, I'm gonna tell you that if you do that with most movies, you're gonna start to thin out the movies that you're watching, to be honest with you. You say, well, I got the language screener. There's more in the movie than the language. There's a lot more that's there. You ought to be discerning. Oh boy, I'm stepping on some toes tonight and I'm sorry. Sorry, not sorry. Prove it. That's what God says. Put it to the test. I mean, do you want to be influenced by righteousness or do you want to be influenced by unrighteousness? What do you want? Which direction do you want to go? Maybe that's why we're so double-minded. Because we're taking stuff that we're not putting to the test. We're saying, oh, I think it'll be okay. I think it'll be all right. Listen, last night, last evening, I was working on my car. I was taking a part off, and I was trying to get this hose off, and when I popped the hose off, it had antifreeze in the hose, and it splashed up in my face, got some in my mouth. Now, antifreeze is a little sweet, just so you know, all right? But I didn't go, oh, wow, that's kind of yummy. No, I ran in the house and I washed my mouth out and I didn't swallow it. I spit it out. I cleaned my mouth out. I washed my face off because I had it dripping off my beard. I'm like, no, I proved it. I don't want this. This is not good. Cup of coffee, I'll take that. Not antifreeze. See, prove it. Put it to the test. Not everything should or will pass the test. That's what it means when he says, prove all things. There are some things that as a Christian, I want to say, I'm not going to allow that in my life. I'm not going there. I'm not going to allow that influence because that's going to steer me the wrong way. So follow what he says, prove how many things. All things. Every single thing that you allow in your life, put it to the test. What's the test? God's standard. God's standard of truth, God's standard of righteousness, God's standard of goodness. That's a pretty high standard, right? Prove all things. Then he says, hold fast to that which is good. So as we're proving, we're saying, there's a lot of stuff in here not okay. My wife bought some blueberries the other day. And they were in the house for a couple of days. And then we realized that we still had some blueberries. So I'll have some blueberries. So I popped the cover and I started proving. because some of those blueberries were starting to turn. I mean, you might like mushy blueberries, but not me. So I was being discerning. And then when I found a good one, I would hold fast to that which is good. That went in the mouth. The others, those can go to the chickens. Those can go in the garbage. I don't want those. I'll take this good one. I don't really, you know, I'm not going to take a handful of blueberries when some of them are turning and just down the hatch with them, because that's going to have mixed results. I want to find the good ones and eat those. So prove all things, then hold fast. When you find the things that pass the test of goodness by God's standard, hold fast to that thing. And then he says, abstain from all appearance of evil. Abstain, that means refrain, hold yourself away from it, don't go there. That's not something that you need. And a lot of Christians, when they hear verse 22, abstain from all appearance of evil, they think, God's just trying to make sure I never have any fun because everything that is fun has an appearance of evil. He's just trying to make sure there's never any fun in my life. No, he's not. He's trying to help you find the things that are good. He's trying to help you invest your life in the things that are excellent. He's trying to give you the very best life that you could have, and you're over here clawing through the garbage can, hoping to find a good scrap of somebody's hoagie when he's got a steak dinner for you. You understand what I'm saying? Abstain. Get away from it. Put it out of your life. The appearance of evil can influence you in many ways that you don't even perceive. Being involved in questionable activities, and a lot of people say, oh, I'm not gonna do anything wrong, but being involved in that questionable activity starts to break down the barriers between you and that wrong activity, and it won't be long till you are doing something that is wrong. Abstain. Get away from it. And the goal, according to verse 23, and the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. What's God's goal? He wants you to be preserved all the way through. Body, soul, and spirit, He wants you to be preserved blameless so that when you stand before Christ, you would not have a reason to be ashamed. That's what He wants. He wants your eternal good. He wants eternal rewards for you. And as Christians, we must make choices in our lives to say, the influences that I'm allowing in my life, are they bringing about total sanctification? Are the things that I'm choosing bringing about the sanctification of my body, soul and spirit? Is it making my mind in line with God's truth? Is it making sure that my body is doing things that are pure and clean and godly and glorifying to the Lord? Is it that which is going to cleanse my spirit? Is it going to promote fellowship with God? You see, many of the influences that we're allowing in our life are pushing us in the exact opposite direction of where God wants us to go. And if you're a Christian, where you want to go. You're fighting against yourself by allowing the wrong influences in your life. That's what I'm saying. So realize this reality, identify the influences in your life and then find the good influences and embrace those things. I want more of this in my life. For every person in this room, every believer, myself included, there are influences in our life that we really should push to the sideline and we should embrace something that is better. We should say there's a better voice, there's a better influence that I should allow in my life. This is not a good influence, I need something better in my life. Every single one of us could say that. And our Christian life is the continual process of evaluating and choosing what influences we will allow in our lives because ultimately those influences are going to direct our feet in a way, in a path. They're going to steer us in a direction It's gonna have an effect on your life. All right, with all that in mind, turn to Psalm 1, because this is a great example of embracing that which is excellent. Is everybody still with me tonight? I'm just about finished, all right? Appreciate your patience tonight, and I hope I've given you a few things to think about. Psalm 1, this is a great example of influence, right? And both kinds of influence are seen here. The good influence towards the things of God, the evil influence towards the things of this world. Notice the contrast that is placed for us here in Psalm 1 between the blessed man and the cursed man. But I really want to focus on the blessed man in the first three verses. Notice what it says there in Psalm 1 verse 1. 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." Now, right away, you're going to notice the very first thing that this blessed man is identified by is what he does not do. And we live in a culture which is always like, Christians are so negative, you got to stop being negative. Well, you know, negative is the opposite of positive. So if we're gonna understand what the positive is, we also need to understand what the negative is, what we're trying to avoid. God says here, there's some things to avoid. There's some influences to eschew. There's some things to push away from you. There's some things not to choose so that you can choose that which is better. All right? That which is better is denoted by the contrasting conjunction at the beginning of verse two. And what is that word? But. His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. Okay, what does he not delight in? He does not delight in the way of the ungodly. He does not delight in the way of the scornful. He's not interested in these ungodly things, but he does delight in the law of the Lord. And that word delight is a rich word. It's a powerful word. It's a deep word. It has so much meaning. It means he actually enjoys it. It's what gives him sustenance. He lives to be in the law of the Lord, to spend time with God and his word. And it's proven in verse 2, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. To meditate means he molds it over in his mind. He thinks about it over and over and over again. He chews on it. He thinks about the words. He's so delighted with the law of the Lord. He wants more and more of the influence of God's law in his life. And what's the result? Verse 3, And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. Now, you may not know much about trees and fruit trees, but it's a good thing for a tree to be planted by the rivers of water. That means there's plenty of available... moisture for that tree. And a tree will put its roots right out there by the water so it can bring that water up because it's depending on that water for its health and its vibrancy. And he's like this tree that just brings forth fruit. And he even talks in verse three about how his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. He may face some hard times, some challenging circumstances in his life, but his roots are deep. He's bringing up that water and He's bringing forth fruit. Every season He's bringing forth His fruit. This is a sign of God's blessing. And why is this happening? Because He chose His influence. He said, I'm not going to allow that to influence me. I'm going to allow that to influence me. And His choice resulted in a fruit. The choice of your influence results in a fruit. And the fruit that you bear demonstrates the influence that you have allowed in your life. If the fruit that you're bringing forth are the works of the flesh, ungodliness, worldliness, questionable behavior, It's an indication to you and to those who love you that you've allowed influences in your life that are steering you in the wrong way. But if you choose the law of the Lord and the truth of God, then the result is fruit in your life that brings forth abundantly to the glory of God and to your satisfaction. So choose carefully. Choose carefully because the influences that you allow in your life are going to have an effect. Now tonight, I've told you, we need to realize the reality of this. We really need to get it in our head. There is a battle for my mind. There's a battle for my attention. There's a struggle that's going on to influence me. I need to really pay attention to the influences that I'm allowing in my life. I need to look and see what are the things that I'm allowing that space or that place of influence and then I need to prove all things hold fast to that which is good I need to identify those things that are good influences and say I want more of that because that's gonna take me where I want to go but if you're just living your life just be bopping along I just do whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it have fun you know that's all that life is about you're an easy mark for the devil And He's just gonna push you and steer you in the path that He wants you to go because you're living thoughtlessly. Christians don't live thoughtlessly. Christians live thoughtfully, proactively allowing God's truth to influence them in the right way. Tonight, what influence are you choosing? And what influence should you be choosing? Father, we thank you for this time together. We thank you for your word. I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to apply these truths in our life. I pray that you'd be glorified as we do so. Please lift up yourself in our lives as we seek to be obedient to you. Help us to choose the right influences, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much.