Are You Living the Good Life? | Psalm 1 | Guest Speaker Brayden Schlabach

You have your Bibles this evening.

We'll find our text in Psalm 1 in the first Psalm for the majority of our time together this evening.

It's been a joy to worship with you today.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Thank you for studying so well and being thoughtful about spiritual things.

And we're always encouraged by worshiping with you all.

The Book of Psalms is a collection of poetry, as we're aware, but it really contains the vastness and the diversity of uh the human emotion.

We think about the human condition and the various different things that we experience and we go through in this life.

And for almost every moment of our life, we could find a psalm that connects almost directly to what we're going through in some way, shape, or form.

As I think back over the course of my life, Psalm 1 is one of the first passages I remember my parents saying, you really need to memorize this.

And as we got older, there would be nights where we sat down to read the Bible together, and we wouldn't have necessarily a reading plan that we were going through.

And I almost never felt that if that happened to be the case, we would end up back in Psalm 1.

It's really a description of the binary choice we have in this life.

If we think about what the psalmist says here, I want us to hear his words.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seed 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, and 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.

As we reflect on the words of this psalm, I can't help but think about the question: what kind of life will actually endure?

There's two choices we have in this life, and only one of them will find lasting blessing with the Lord.

The life that endures, we see in this psalm, is one that is rooted in the revealed word of God, and it's sustained by his presence.

As we think through the psalm, it begins with this phrase: blessed is the man.

Blessed is a word that directly translated means happy.

But we know it's not talking about the simple emotion that we experience from time to time that we call happiness.

It's much more than that.

The roots of this word mean to be straight or to go forward.

Historically, it paints the picture of walking a straight path toward a destination on the shortest and most fulfilling route.

It's in contrast to a meandering or a crooked path ultimately that we see leads to peril.

When we think of this word blessed, as it's translated happy, this is not shallow happiness or a temporary good feeling that always depends on life going well.

I want to suggest that this is referring to the deep and settled condition that's conveyed by deep flourishing and contentment.

There's scholars who note that this word describes a life that others can look at and say, That person is truly living the good life.

As we think about this blessed man in Psalm 1, that's what I want us to think about.

The person truly living the good life.

What does that person look like?

The psalm's gonna begin with the things that he is not, that he does not do.

This is a man who walks not.

And he's gonna identify this walking as somebody who walks in the counsel of the wicked.

The idea of counsel has to do with advice, perspective, worldview, assumptions, influence.

The good life, the man who lives the good life is a man who is conscious of what he's being influenced by.

He's intentionally avoiding the influence of those described as wicked.

I think this idea of wickedness here are those who are unconcerned with God's authority.

Maybe they're indifferent towards God.

Often wicked counsel will simply teach one to think about life and find comfort in life without God altogether.

They'll suggest things like your desires define truth, your feelings define what is right and what is wrong.

Your success defines your worth, your happiness is the highest possible good.

They encourage us to pursue a life with these things in mind.

But the blessed man, the one who's living the good life, avoids this type of counsel.

He walks not in this counsel.

As we think about walking, this is a constant motion.

I think there's certainly the aspect where we are incidentally influenced by our environment.

But when we think about walking, we're choosing a path that avoids as much as that as we can.

We know that we have to live in the world, we can't avoid it altogether.

But as we think about those voices closest to home, the voices that we listen to that shape our thinking, the man who's living the good life is aware of those voices.

And he chooses not to have the voices of the wicked shaping their mind.

As the psalmist continues, this is a man who stands not.

He stands not in the way of sinners.

The movement slowing down.

We go from walking to standing.

This is not about casual or or even incidental exposure.

This is about somebody who's now lingering to participate.

He stands not in the way of sinners.

The idea of the way it describes a path, a direction, a pattern.

Ultimately, this is a manner of life.

There's a manner of life that is identifiable with the sinner.

The man who's living the good life does not stand in this way.

This idea of a sinner here is not simply those who may just have a disregard for God, but those who are actively participating in sin.

Oftentimes those are one and the same.

But the man who is blessed recognizes that that his counsel that he receives will shape his mind, and the way that his mind has been shaped will influence his conduct.

And he sees the danger.

Because what we begin to tolerate in our minds will eventually be normalized in our life.

If we walk with the wicked within their counsel, we'll find ourselves standing in the path of the sinner.

It's something that we need to be aware of.

Because when this happens, sin feels less serious to us.

Our convictions they start to weaken.

What once may have troubled our conscience and given us some discomfort, barely even registers.

The man who is living the good life does not allow himself to stand in the way of the sinner.

He sits not in the seat of the scoffer.

The movements now stopped altogether.

Walking became standing, and standing is now sitting.

This idea of sitting or or seat describes belonging.

It's about comfort and identity or a settled fellowship.

What the psalmist is doing here is he's describing a parallel progression.

We're talking about a wicked influence that leads to a sinful way of life that ultimately lands with the scoffers.

Scoffers are those who treat reverence as foolishness, they laugh at holiness.

These are those who mock righteousness and sneer at correction.

They have no desire for anything godly.

This is where the progression of wickedness leads.

But the parallel on the other side is our participation in those things.

Walking, standing, sitting.

The psalmist is intentional with this language.

As I was reflecting upon this, I thought, well, if I was writing this psalm, I'd probably say this in exactly the opposite order.

I'd say, well, certainly we don't want to be scoffers.

We don't want to participate in sin.

We don't even want to be influenced by evil.

It seems to be a very logical way to say it, but the psalmist, in a more poetic and better way, inspired by the Holy Spirit, shows it us in this order.

Because what happens when we allow these things into our lives, we're going to follow this progression and find ourselves separated from God.

Many of you have probably heard this uh quote sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to say, stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.

I think that's attributed to the famous author uh Anonymous.

But it represents a truth that's described in scripture.

It's this truth.

We can't pick and choose.

I'm okay with this evil influence here, but not that one there.

I'm okay with a little bit of sin over here, so long as I avoid these over here.

They all ultimately will lead us to the seed of the scoffer, and that's a place that we don't want to find ourselves.

Ultimately, as we think about the opposite side of this equation, we know that God's law, that his will for us, is not simply a thou shalt not stand there.

Certainly, we don't want to engage in any of these things, but the psalmist is going to show us what we should be doing.

What should we be doing?

How do we avoid this?

He's gonna turn us to the law of the Lord.

The law of the Lord becomes the focal point of the blessed man's life, the man who's living this good life, his life is centered, focalized around the law of the Lord.

Now, law means Torah, or it's the word Torah.

In this context, the psalmist would be talking about the law of Moses.

He's talking about God's instruction and his guidance and his will for his people.

But we know that application extends even to us.

The law of the Lord is his revealed word, his desire, his insight into our life, his will over our lives.

And we know that's contained in these pages of scripture.

The man who is living the good life is described as delighting in this law.

When we think about this idea of delighting in something, we recognize that it's not something that we do out of obligation or occasional interest or simply when it fits our life.

Delighting is this idea of truly desiring and treasuring what God has said.

When we delight in the law of the Lord, we recognize that God's instructions are good, that they are trustworthy, that they're life-giving, that it's a beautiful and satisfying way of life.

The psalmist is going to describe it in Psalm 19 as being sweeter than honey.

In Psalm 119, oh, how I love your law.

Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 15 says, Your words were found, and I ate them.

Jeremiah 15 · chapter mention

In John chapter 6 and verse 63, Jesus in his ministry is teaching his disciples, and they look at him and say, You have the words of eternal life.

John 6 · chapter mention

We have the words of eternal life.

Do we delight in them?

Do we treasure them?

You see, we we already saw how wickedness can influence the outcome of our life.

But the same's true on the other side of the equation.

When we desire the counsel of the Lord, when we want and treasure his word, our life will begin to bend in that direction.

The man who's living the good life delights in the law of the Lord.

It's on this law that he meditates.

Biblical meditation is often misunderstood.

I don't know how many here have tried to meditate, uh, according to maybe some YouTube video or something like that.

I have.

That's why I say that.

And when we think about meditation from a worldly perspective, we're often thinking about emptying the mind.

We're clearing our thoughts of clutter.

We we're we're desiring that empty space, that inner calm and peace that you find with that emptiness.

That is not what he's talking about here.

On his law, he meditates, he fills himself with the law.

Now, this is not uh in any type of way an instruction to say you need to read your Bible X number of minutes a day, or you need to read this many chapters, or you better read cover to cover in a single year, or any of those things.

All of those things could be good and are helpful.

What the psalmist is articulating here is it's the law that is on our hearts.

The the Hebrew idea of meditation often involved this idea of even murmuring under our breath, of these things actually being in our mouth, on our tongues.

We're reading and meditating and dwelling on the Lord and what he said.

We're thinking about scripture.

As I was studying for this sermon, you know, I throughout the week, I'm coming back to Psalm 1 and Psalm 1 and Psalm 1, and I'm thinking about what do these words mean?

What do they say?

How would I tell this to somebody else?

How does this impact my life?

Psalm 1 is six verses.

It took us all of about 20 seconds to read.

We don't have to be in lengthy passages of scripture to meditate on the law of the Lord.

The point is is what we do have, we meditate, we keep it on our hearts.

We don't read to check a box to close our Bibles and forget about what we've read.

We read to have our lives changed by what God has revealed.

This is something that we do day and night.

Obviously, we understand that that this is not uh again the the our mechanism of measurement here.

I think the idea that he's getting at is the word of God is not compartmentalized in our life, it affects everything, it becomes the framework through which we view reality.

No part of our life is left untouched or uninfluenced by the law of the Lord.

It's such a beautiful reality because we we see this progression on the positive now.

Because when we delight in something, we'll meditate on that thing, and the more we meditate on that thing, the more we delight in it.

You think about your hobbies, the things that you're interested in.

It doesn't take you a lot of effort to spend time dwelling on those things.

Make the word of God one of those things.

That is a man who's living the good life.

The psalmist describes him as a tree.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.

And all that he does, he prospers.

Trees throughout scripture symbolize life, they symbolize endurance and prosperity.

This is a symbol of a man who is living a good life.

He is like a tree planted.

When you think about that language, I can't escape in my mind the imagery that uh Paul gives in Romans 11.

He's talking about this olive tree to which both Jews and Gentiles have been grafted in.

God plants the man living the good life.

He is like a tree that has been planted.

There's stability in that picture.

God has planted us in the tree that he calls his own.

We belong to God.

He's planted by streams of water, he's given the nourishment that he needs.

If you've ever walked through a maybe forest trail uh by a river, you may see some type of tree where his root system is exposed, where you can actually see the complexity of the roots that are underground because the water's eroded to dirt around the base of the tree.

And it's a it's a pretty remarkable thing to see because you're actually seeing the mechanism by which that tree supports its life, and that root system is is rather large, it's complex, it supports the weight of the tree, it holds it in place as the wind blows, it sucks the water up from the stream, it provides nourishment and fuel for that tree to continue to grow.

The imagery here is that the man who is living the good life, the man who is blessed, he has been planted in the nourishment that God provides.

He's there, his root system is dug in to that source of life that only God can give.

But there's another side of this image that's not explicitly said, but it's important for us to consider.

I believe the scientific term is phototropism, and I may have said that wrong, so somebody can tell me later.

But the idea is that uh there's science experiments.

I remember this maybe even in grade school, right?

Where you put a plant uh uh next to a window or a source of light, and over time that that plant will actually start to grow towards that source of light.

And if you turn that plant around over time, it'll start to grow back the other way towards that source of light.

As we take up that nourishment that God has provided for us, we are directionally growing closer to Him, like this tree that stretches itself out towards the sky, towards its source of light.

That is the image that describes the blessed man.

It's a man who is fruitful.

This tree is productive, it's fulfilling its role as a tree, it's producing fruit.

But there's even there's even an assurance given here.

It yields its fruit in its season.

Not every season of life looks exactly the same.

We're not measuring ourselves against an unrealistic expectation that there's fruit always hanging on our branches.

There are seasons in agriculture where pruning and preparation is important and necessary.

There are going to be seasons and times where there's no visible fruit on that tree.

But that doesn't mean the process of fruitfulness has stopped.

This tree is fruitful in its season, its leaf does not wither.

Speaks to its vitality.

The leaves will fall off and ebb and flow in the seasons, much like the fruit.

But the tree is still planted.

The leaves will come back.

And all that he does, he prospers.

This is a widely misunderstood idea.

Oh, this man's living the good life.

He must be happy and healthy and wealthy and avoid suffering, and he's successful by all the right standards.

Or should we say the wrong standards?

That's not what he's talking about, right?

Scripture rejects this idea.

The righteous man prospers because their lives fulfill God's intended purpose.

That's what prospering is.

They endure, they remain rooted, they bear fruit, they stand firm, they continue walking with God.

To prosper, I believe, means that nothing can destroy the life that we have that's given to us by God.

I'm reminded of Romans chapter 8, verses 38 and 39.

Romans 8:38

What has the power to separate us from the love of God?

Nothing.

Nothing.

The man living the good life prospers in this way.

Everything about the righteous man under consideration, everything that's true about him is in complete opposite in contrast to the man who was wicked.

As we think about what this means, the wicked are not so, but they are like the chaff, which the wind drives away.

As you think about this tree imagery versus this chaff imagery, chaff, it's it's the it's the outer coating of the grain.

So if you if you think about the process of widowing in scripture, they would go and they would toss the grain in the air, and this outer coating would fall off and be blown away by the wind because there's no weight and there's no substance to it.

The grain, the valuable part of that produce will fall to the ground and be able to be collected and sold.

That's the productive part of the plant.

The chaff is blown away by the wind.

That describes the wicked.

Everything that the tree is, the chaff is not.

The tree is rooted.

The righteous are able to withstand the wind.

But this this chaff, the wicked, he is rootless, he's controlled by the wind, he has no permanence.

This tree, the righteous man, he is nourished by the nourishment that God provides.

And while that chaff may have had the opportunity to be nourished, he's left empty and without substance.

The righteous man delights in God and in his law.

The wicked man is influenced by evil.

The tree, the righteous man is fruitful, the chaff is lifeless.

Chaff once had a connection to life, but it has now become dry and detached and lifeless.

The tree is stable, the chaff is driven.

I think that's an interesting thing for us to think about for a moment.

The wicked are not directing themselves, they are being driven by the wind.

Go outside, right?

Told Nate that this is my least favorite part about Lubbock.

We experience it right now.

The wind doesn't always blow in the same direction at the same place, at the same rate, right?

Changes direction, it carries stuff in all sorts of different directions.

That chaff just goes wherever the wind blows it.

There's no stability in that type of life.

Without roots, the wicked are continually carried by culture, by desires, by pride, by fear, by impulse, by public opinion and passion.

There's no stability.

The tree is enduring, the chaff is blown away.

Sometimes we are tempted to look at a life that's disconnected from God and be impressed by what it has.

Because externally, for a season, it may look fruitful.

But the reality is that pressure will reveal what truly has substance.

Well, we can go to a number of places in Scripture and see how this is true.

I want to consider one story that even the kids are familiar with, and Matthew chapter 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

The wise man built his house on the foolish man built his house on the.

What happens to the foolish man's house?

It goes splat.

We get this, right?

It's Chandler's favorite part of the song.

Splat.

She's got that down.

We understand this principle.

There's no endurance to the wicked.

Therefore, in verse 5, the wicked will not stand in judgment.

When we think about the wind, we need to ask ourselves what remains when the wind blows?

It's not the wind that creates instability, it's the wind that reveals the instability.

Therefore, shows us that the wind has already exposed the nature of the chaff, and judgment is simply its final destination.

Therefore, the wicked will not stand in judgment.

The implication then is that it's the righteous who will stand in judgment.

We saw that the righteous don't stand in the way of sinners.

Now it's those very people that will not be left standing in judgment.

They will have no standing in the congregation of the righteous.

The idea here is that there's a wicked assembly, and there's a righteous assembly, and it's the righteous assembly that will endure.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous.

We talked about this this morning in the adult Bible class in Galatians.

What a blessing it is to be known by the Lord.

He knows.

This describes a relationship.

In Scripture, this is about a covenantal love, it's intimate recognition.

We are seen by God, we are loved by God.

He has claimed us, he watches over us.

He's our source of perseverance.

We are known by Him.

That's the greatest blessing of this entire psalm.

Not that we'll prosper in any physical way necessarily, but that the Lord knows us.

I want to suggest that this is not about isolated actions either.

In Romans 3, verse 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 3:23

Ultimately, we understand that has its context, but there's a principle there.

We will find ourselves in isolated moments, and we pray there are isolated moments where we have been influenced by the thinking of the wicked, where we've chosen to participate in the way of the sinner.

Hopefully, we haven't found ourselves making the seed of the scoffer of any comfort to us, but it could even find ourselves there.

We're not talking about isolated moments in time, we're talking about the direction of our life.

The Lord knows the way of the righteous, the direction, the way that he's growing, not the fact that the windstorm came and a branch was knocked off.

Okay, that happens.

But we continue on in the way of righteousness.

Those who are wicked are rejected by the Lord.

And it's not just the wicked themselves, it's their entire way, it's their direction, their path.

This is a final and absolute judgment.

Everything detached from God will ultimately be destroyed.

As we reflect upon these images here, it's this righteous man described as a tree who is blessed.

It's this wicked man who's described as chaff that's perishing.

Where do we belong?

As we think about this psalm, this psalm shows us that the life that endures is one that refuses to be shaped by evil.

The life that endures is the one that's rooted in God's word.

The life that endures is the one that is ultimately known by God and has heaven to look forward to.

Are you living the good life?

The psalm forces us to ask the question: what's shaping my life?

What am I being influenced by?

What's my direction?

To be known by God is the greatest blessing we could ever hope for.

And he's promised it to us.

But I'm also mindful of the warning in Matthew 7: not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom.

But he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

I want to be known by God.

I want to be in heaven, and I want you to be there too.

It's something that you have to want for yourself.

And it's something that you have the opportunity to decide right now.

If you want to be known by God and you're not right now, and we can help you do that, let us know while together we stand and while we sing.