Psalm 1 “What is True Happiness?” Sam Romine

All right.

Well, good morning.

Like Pastor Rick said, my name is Sam Romine, and I currently serve as the youth and college pastor over at Life Point Church across the way in Mount Vernon.

It's really good to be here with you today.

It's really truly a joy and an honor to come here and open up God's Word with you.

I love proclamation, love Rick and Jimmy and just what the Lord is doing here and pray for you guys often.

So well, we all want to be happy, right?

We want our lives to bring joy.

We want what we do, what we work toward to have meaning and purpose.

And deep down, truly, every person across every culture throughout all generations has the innate desire to pursue their own happiness.

You have it, I have it, it's a natural thing.

And heading into a new year, we're a few weeks in, but one thing that I have observed in my own life and in the lives of those around me is that this is a great time to really kind of take inventory of one's life.

Right?

We reflect on the past, we remember the good, forget the bad, and we seek to make, you know, a few changes heading into the brand new year.

And this is a good desire.

I think it's healthy for us to think about at least once in a while the state of one's life and seek to make improvements.

I've also noticed that these changes, when you really uh boil them down, are geared around personal happiness.

Sure, they might be like, you know, things like increased productivity at work or losing weight, gaining muscle, making more money, paying off debt, asking somebody out on a date, making the team, you know, fill in your blank.

But but all of these things, when you when you, while they may be different in appearance, are really all designed to make you happy.

These things deep down are aimed at things like satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning, purpose, joy.

And the point that I'm trying to make here is that all of us, no matter who we are, have an instinctive drive to secure and improve our own happiness.

Now, as Christians, this might make a few of us squirm in our seats like, is that a good desire?

Am I allowed to pursue my own happiness?

Is that selfish, sinful?

How should I think about that?

Well, on the one hand, the way that most of us pursue our own happiness is selfish and sinful.

But on the other hand, you may be surprised that the Bible has a lot to say about human happiness.

Now, as we'll see, this is quite different from what uh most people in the world view as happiness.

The Bible does not talk about a fleeting, superficial, self-centered happiness, but rather a deep-seated and lasting joy.

But as Christians, we should be in the business of seeking our own happiness, but many of us need to drastically alter how and why we go about this.

If you can, go ahead and open up your Bibles to Psalm chapter one.

We'll be in Psalm chapter one today.

And as you're turning there, before we read our passage, you may be interested to learn that the Psalms are actually not a random assortment of poems and songs.

While they do speak to every season of life, the Psalms are actually purposefully arranged to build on and interpret one another.

The Psalms can stand on their own, yes, but more than that, taken together, they actually tell a wider story.

And in fact, as you read the book of Psalms, what you really have is you're presented with a comprehensive view of God and life.

You want to know what God is like, you want to know what life is all about, go read the Psalms.

And we also see in the Psalms that there are really only two categories of people.

Two categories of people.

We have the righteous who are wise, who are blessed, who will inherit life, and we have the wicked, who are fools.

And while they may seem prosperous now, the psalms tell us that their destruction is coming.

The psalms also set forth themes such as really the beauty and the value of God's word, the often forgotten about concept of fearing God, the role of emotions in the Christian life.

But today, as we mentioned, we'll be spending our time in Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

Now, most scholars believe that Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 really serve to um introduce the book of Psalms together and should be taken together and read together.

Many of the overarching themes that we have in Psalms can be found in Psalms 1 and 2.

But with that said, let's go ahead and read Psalm chapter 1, our text today.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

So Psalm 1, starting in verse 1, reads, 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.

Verse 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor are sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Like we mentioned a moment ago, this the Psalms often draw our attention to the distinction between wicked people and righteous people.

And right off the bat, Psalm 1 is no exception there.

The author who remains unidentified, we don't know who wrote Psalm 1, not only explicitly states these two types of people, but he illustrates them, he describes their way of life, and then reveals to us their ultimate outcome of their lifestyles.

In fact, we can really break this Psalm down into three sections.

Section one, which is verses one and two, introduce the righteous man and the wicked man and reveal to us just their vastly different lifestyles.

Section two, which is verses three and four, uh illustrates to us the results of these lifestyles.

And then section three, which is verses five and six, reveal to us as the reader, the ultimate destiny of each type of person.

So let's go ahead and walk through uh section one, which is verses one and two.

So in verse one, you can see in your text, the opening word is the word blessed, the word blessed or blessed.

This word uh has a lot of modern-day connotations.

Um we we use that in a in a variety of ways today, but biblically speaking, in the Old Testament, uh, this word blessed carries with it the idea of being supremely happy, uh fulfilled, and really having flourishing in one's life that is ultimately uh grounded in and caused by the Lord Himself.

And so, in other words, this is not describing a superficial, temporary, emotionally driven happiness, but again, a deep-seated satisfaction that is found only in the Lord.

And so, like we mentioned in the introduction, God truly wants his people to be happy.

However, true happiness, true blessedness is not what many of us think it is.

And most of the time, we look for it in all the wrong places.

Now, we should also notice that this psalm describes the blessed man or the happy man first in terms of what he is not.

Right?

The text does not immediately say, this is what the blessed man of God does do, but what he does not do.

And so let's spend some time just walking through the rest of verse one.

This person we see is blessed for three reasons.

Three things he does not do.

Number one, he does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

Number two, he does not stand in the way of sinners, and then number three, he does not sit in the seat of scoffers.

Now, while while the author, again, he's talking about what the righteous person does not do, we also get the bonus of really seeing what wicked people do.

And what we have here seems to be a progression of one going deeper and deeper into a life of sin.

Right?

Sin leads to more sin.

How true do many of us know that to be?

Right?

Sin is a slippery slope.

It's insatiable, right?

It's like eating a potato chip or an MM.

You can't just eat one of them.

Right?

Eating one makes you crave another, and another, and another.

And sin is just like that.

One more word of gossip, one more look at that screen, one more drink, that's it, then I'm done.

It's not that easy.

Right?

Sin leads to more sin.

And what we see here in this passage is that sin does not just lead to more of the same sin, it often leads to worse and worse sin.

It's describing a pattern of someone who is settling deeper and deeper into a life of sin.

Look at the text.

First, we have the idea of walking in the counsel of the wicked.

And so this just means being associated with sinners.

So that this person is not yet headlong into a life of sin.

But guess what?

They're starting to listen to sinners.

And as you as you listen to sinners, what happens?

You start to want to be like them, right?

You start thinking like they are thinking.

And so, just a quick application here for us, as we're reading this, we should be asking ourselves, well, who am I listening to?

Who or what is influencing you?

And in our world today, that's not just people, right?

Certainly it can be people, a coworker, teammate, friend at school, unbelieving boyfriend, girlfriend, but it's also our our music, the the things we read, the movies and shows that we watch, the accounts we follow on social media.

Beware of the influences in your life.

If they're not leading you toward Christ, they're leading you toward sin, and you need to get rid of them.

Now, the second part of this progression is the idea of standing in the way of sinners.

And so we've moved from uh thinking like sinners, being around them casually, to standing with them.

All right, and so this is describing someone who now they're spending a lot of time with sinners, not just in passing here or there.

And as they start spending time with sinners, their attitudes, their behaviors, their habits start to rub off.

The way they talk, how they view others, what they value, how they spend their money, what they give their time to.

What we now have is a life that is deeper entrenched in sin.

It's part two.

And then the final part of this progression is the phrase sitting in the seat of scoffers.

So we've gone from walking to standing to sitting, and from wicked to sinners to scoffers.

And so sitting in the seat of scoffers describes one who is not just living a life of sin, that would be one thing, which is also not good, but they are promoting their sin and mocking those who are seek to live who are seeking to live righteous lives.

It's actually really similar to what Paul says at the end of Romans 1.

So if you read Romans 1 in the second half, Paul is doing something really very similar to what we have here in Psalm 1.

He's describing a progression or this spiraling into more sin.

Paul states that as people walk in sin, the Lord actually gives them over to more and more sin.

And then finally, Romans 1.32, at the end of that section, Paul says this.

This is what's true of those people.

He says, though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but they give approval to those who practice them.

Charles Spurgeon said that when men live in sin, they go from bad to worse.

Sin leads to more sin.

And just quickly, but before we move on from that point, if you're here and you are wrestling with your sin, keep wrestling with it.

Right?

Keep struggling, keep confessing it, keep turning to Christ, keep looking to his sacrifice, keep relying on his blood.

Don't settle into your sin.

Thankfully, the passage doesn't end there.

It's not just verse one, and that's it.

The blessed man is described not just by what he does not do, but also by what he does.

And so, again, there are three things he does not do, and then one thing, one key thing that he does.

Verse 2 says, finishing this thought, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

And so immediately what we have here is a contrast.

Right?

The blessed man is not like this, but he's actually like this.

This is what he does, and this is what we as the reader are called to emulate.

And what we see is that the blessed man, the happy man, the joyful man, the satisfied man, is a man of the book.

Right?

He delights in and he loves the law of God.

Now the text is not fully clear on what the word law means.

It could be a strict reference to the commands given at Mount Sinai and the expositions that follow in Deuteronomy.

It could be the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament.

It could also just be more generally referring to whatever inspired writing was available at that time.

But regardless, the blessed man, he loves the law.

He loves the word of God.

And one comment to make here is that this is really a statement of love for God Himself.

Right?

One cannot delight in God's word unless they first delight in God Himself.

Right?

Those who love God's word love his word because it is through the word that God reveals himself to us.

And we also see that this delighting in the word of God actually leads to something.

It leads to a meditation on the word of God.

Now, I think it's also fair to say that as people, um, as they love God's word, they're gonna meditate on it.

As you meditate on it, you're gonna love it more.

But here, the author illustrates the fact that a love for God's word will demonstrate itself, reveal itself in a meditation on God's word.

Now, now the word meditate is interesting.

Uh, to most of us here, you know, in the 21st century, we associate the idea of meditation with, you know, like far eastern religions like Buddhism, where really its followers are called to meditate so that they can, you know, reach this state of higher consciousness or bliss.

Right?

For most people today, meditation is actually emptying one's head of all thoughts and feelings to reach that state.

But however, that's not at all the way the Bible describes meditation.

Right?

In Psalm 1, meditation is not emptying one's head, it's actually the opposite.

It's filling one's head.

To meditate literally means to mutter or or to muse on something.

It actually gives us the mental picture.

You guys all know people who walk around kind of looking at the ground, talking to themselves all day.

That's kind of what it means to meditate.

You're constantly thinking, talking to yourself.

And this idea actually harkens back to Deuteronomy chapter 6, that famous chapter where Moses writes, speaking for God.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

He says, in these words, speaking to Israel, I shall command you today, they shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise.

In other words, God's law, God's word, should always, always be at the front of his people's minds.

There is never a time when God's word should not be thought about or talked about.

God's word should consume his people.

And that's exactly what we see here in Psalm 1.

The blessed man is pictured as one who takes a passage of scripture, puts it in his pocket, and just carries with carries it with him all day long.

And if that sounds like weird or foreign or strange to you guys, most of us do this every single day, except with our phones and not with our Bibles.

Right?

Think about it.

Most of us, we carry our phones with us everywhere we go.

Got our phones in our pockets, we take them into the bathrooms, we we pull them out to scroll when we're bored, we take pictures of our food at restaurants, check our posts, we sleep with them literally inches from our heads, maybe even under our pillows.

We use them at work.

Our phones never leave our sides, and that's what it should be like with God's word.

Scripture should go with us everywhere that we go, right?

It should always be our go-to topic of conversation.

It should be what we think about when we wake up, when we go to sleep.

The verb tense here actually implies an ongoing action.

An ongoing action.

We should never stop meditating on the word of God.

It should be a constant thing.

And just to like zoom out, think about what the author is saying here.

He's saying, in effect, if you want to be happy, if you want to be joyful, to have deep satisfaction, fulfillment, then be people of God's word.

Right?

That's that's where true happiness comes from.

Meditating and dwelling on the word of God for the sake of enjoying God Himself.

The one who meditates on and memorizes God's word, that's the one that's gonna be happy.

And so you want to increase your happiness in 2024, here's an idea for you.

Right?

Develop a habit of reading and studying and meditating on the word of God.

Not just once a week, not here or there, but all the time.

And I hear many people say, Yeah, you know, I I tried to read the Bible, it just didn't do it for me.

And I usually ask them, well, how much did you read?

You know, how long did you read for it?

And most, most, every time it's well, you know, I read for a few days and then stopped, or I read a few random chapters and then I quit.

Listen, it takes time to develop habits.

It takes time to develop a growing hunger and love for something.

So this this may be helpful to some of you, but this is an acronym that I came across from Pastor John Piper that has helped me in my Bible reading.

Um, this is not a plan or anything like that, although I would recommend having, you know, some a disciplined and organized plan as you read through the Bible.

But here are four things that that John Piper says that we should pray before we go to God's word.

And so it's actually an acronym, so you can write it down, memorize it very easily.

So it's I, O, U, S.

All right, I, O, U, S.

And each letter is actually based off a verse from the book of Psalms.

And so I, first, stands for incline.

All right, incline.

Psalm 119, 36 says, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain.

And so as we go to God's word, we should plead with God that through his spirit he would reorient our hearts to love him.

The truth is, our fleshly tendency is to love and find pleasure in the things of the world, material things.

And so, as we begin our time in God's word, we should ask him to help us treasure his word above all things in our lives.

That's I.

O stands for open.

Open.

Psalm 119, verse 18 says, Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

Psalms 119:18

Also, as we go to God's word, we should also pray that God would open up our eyes to see what's truly there.

Right?

There is a supernatural element to reading the Bible.

And so we should ask Him that God would help us behold His glory, his grace, His love, truth, holiness.

We need the Spirit of God to open up the eyes of our hearts so that we can truly grasp the realities of the Bible.

The U stands for unite.

All right, unite.

Psalm 1, or Psalm, not 119, although you could find a lot in there, but Psalm 86, 11 says, Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth.

And then I love this phrase.

Unite my heart to fear your name.

And so not only should we pray that God would help us see the truth of God's word, but that we would actually walk in it, that we would obey it, right?

We don't only want to know it, but we want to we want to do what it says.

And so we need God to unite our hearts to fear his name.

We need God to instill in our hearts and minds a healthy, holy fear of God.

We need his spirit to motivate us to obedience as we read the Bible.

And then finally, the last letter is S.

S, which stands for satisfy.

Satisfy.

Psalm 90 verse 14 says Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.

Psalms 90:14

We may rejoice and be glad all our days.

And so ultimately, we want God through his word, by his spirit, to bring us to a place of satisfaction, of blessedness, of happiness.

And for this to be real, not fake, it has to be rooted in God, not the things of the world.

Right?

And so as we pray, we and as we meditate on God's love for us in Christ, we want to come to a place of contentment, of satisfaction, of joy.

And really, this is our ultimate goal in reading the Bible.

We come hungry, we come thirsty, and we leave filled and satisfied with God.

George Mueller, he has a great quote.

He's dead a long time ago, very dead, but uh he had orphanages, was a pastor, really cool life story, but he has a great quote.

I have it in the front of my Bible.

My sister wrote it out in cool calligraphy because my handwriting is horrible.

But here's what he says.

Here's what he says.

The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.

We don't talk like that anymore, so I'll read it again.

But he says, the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.

In other words, when George Mueller wakes up every day, which now it's in heaven, his most important job was to run to God and be satisfied in him.

And so, brothers and sisters, I pray that this would be true of us this new year.

All right, let's wake up each morning, run to God, be filled up, satisfied with his love.

Don't wake up and check your email, don't wake up, watch the news, don't wake up, check sports scores, check Instagram, wake up and run eagerly and quickly, even before breakfast, to the Word of God.

Because He will satisfy you like nothing else.

And so, back to the text, verses one and two, we saw the lifestyles of the righteous man and the wicked man.

And then now in verses three and four, we see the results of their lifestyles.

The results of their lifestyles.

And so, continuing on, speaking of the blessed man, he's not, he's gonna stick with that, the author describes him using an analogy of a tree.

We all know what trees are, so this is good.

The blessed man, the one who meditates, delights in the law of God.

He's like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.

And so this imagery is meant to bring to mind the fruitfulness and the blessing of a life that is connected to God and his word.

God's law does not lead to destruction, frustration, death, but to fruitfulness, life, enjoyment, flourishing.

Just as the streams of water nourish a nearby tree, so also the word of God functions as a spiritual stream that nourishes those who meditate on it.

Right?

Trees, plants, they soak up water, they draw it up into their structure, and it gives life.

And in the same way, God's word, as it soaks into our lives, our hearts, it nourishes us, gives us life.

And then just as a nourished tree will bear fruit at the right time, not all the time, at the right time, God's people also, as they're nourished by his word, will bear fruit.

And so again, this imagery is meant to picture life.

But one word of caution here.

One word of caution.

God often gives us these things, and just read the rest of Psalms and you'll find this to be true.

God often gives us these things through pain and suffering.

Right?

It's not always easy.

As Christians, we should not expect freedom from suffering, pain, discouragement, trials in this life.

In fact, we should actually anticipate them and remember that God intentionally uses those things for our ultimate good, to strengthen our faith, to increase our dependence upon Him, to equip us to be able to sympathize and help comfort those who go through things that are similar.

This is the consistent pattern throughout all of Scripture, which is seen chiefly in the life of Christ, but suffering is before glory.

If you look back to your Bibles now, verse 4 switches back and gives us a picture of the results from the lifestyle of the wicked person.

And so, keeping with the plant analogy, the wicked are not at all like a tree, but they're like, um, which are, you know, planted by the water bearing fruit, but they're like chaff.

They're like chaff.

Now, I'm not a farmer, so you can ask a farmer if they they can explain chaff, I'm sure, much better to you than I.

But for my understanding, chaff are the seed coverings and the debris from a plant that is separated on the threshing floor during harvest.

In other words, chaff is useless.

Right?

It's purposeless, and that's that's what the wicked are like.

This is this is not a good picture for them.

They're described as useless, as purposeless, worthless, weightless, and they'll be blown away.

But their end will be destruction.

And that's what we see in the final section.

Not only do they produce no fruit, their ultimate destiny is apart from the presence of God.

They will not be able to stand in God's judgment.

And whether this is referring to God's punishment in this life or the or the ultimate end time judgment, either way, they will not be able to stand against it.

They have no excuse, no way to defend themselves.

And so, ultimately, they will have no place in the congregation of the righteous.

On earth right now, good, evil exist together, believers, unbelievers exist together, but there's coming a day when Christ will judge the world.

In fact, the New Testament uses a very similar analogy of judgment and the threshing floor.

This is how the gospels often refer to judgment.

The wheat, that which is good, will be kept, and the chaff will be burned and destroyed.

And so in the new creation, sinners will have no place.

In fact, not only will sinners themselves be destroyed, but also their way.

Sin and evil will be eradicated altogether.

Verse 6 says that the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

If you're like me, sometimes it can be easy to look around the world and think, you know, maybe psalms like this are wrong.

Right?

You ever feel that?

Sometimes, maybe often, it feels like, it seems like the wicked and the sinners, they're the ones prospering, and the righteous are the ones struggling the most.

You ever felt like that?

Again, another theme in the Psalms is that sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, there is a temporary flourishing of sin and evil while the righteous suffer.

And if you want to this afternoon, go read Psalm 73, right?

David, he literally asks himself the same question.

He says, Why do the wicked prosper?

I'm sure we've all thought that.

Why do the wicked prosper?

And just in case you don't want to read that later today, which you should, long story short, they don't.

They don't.

In the end, they will have destruction, right?

It may be tempting to think that they do, and sometimes they have their their time, their fun in the sun, but in the end, their way will lead to destruction.

And so for us as believers, the application here is to keep going.

Right?

Don't be discouraged.

Keep seeking after the Lord and his word.

There are two paths: one that leads to life, one that leads to death.

The path that leads to death is wide and easy, and those who take it, the Bible says, are many.

And the path that leads to life is narrow, and those who take it are few.

And so don't be tempted by the lifestyle of the wicked.

As we close, to me, as I read this psalm, there's a sense of joy, uh, of encouragement, but also sorrow.

So, on the one hand, I'm inspired by the life, the outcome of the blessed man.

I strive to be like him, but in the back of my mind, in my gut, I fall short.

I sin.

Ask my wife.

I don't always delight in God's word.

I don't meditate on it like I should.

And so again, while the Psalm should certainly encourage us and spur us on to follow in the footsteps of the righteous, more importantly, it should cause us to look to Christ.

Right?

He is the blessed man.

He never walked in the counsel of the wicked, he never stood in the way of sinners, he didn't sit in the seat of scoffers.

His delight was truly in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditated day and night.

Christ succeeded where we failed.

Right?

Adam and Eve were in the garden, they disobeyed God, they ate the fruit.

When Israel was tempted in the wilderness, they grumbled, complained, they sinned, they failed.

We too, we sin, we fail.

But Matthew 4, for example, Christ tempted in the wilderness by the devil, he doesn't fail.

Right?

He responds to every temptation with the word of God.

In fact, his entire life, perfect, sinless, completely in accord with the will of God.

And so he proved himself to be the true blessed man of Psalm chapter 1.

Psalms 1 · chapter mention

And so, in light of that, we should give him praise.

We should love him, we should worship him, we should trust him.

And the Bible says when we place our faith in him, we are united to him, and his obedience, his righteousness are imputed to us, and so since we are in him, his blessings are also ours.

And so you and I, we don't receive the blessings of the righteous man primarily because we are righteous, but because by faith, you and I are in the righteous man.

And so now, being in Christ, we have the power, the strength, by faith, by grace, by the Spirit to say no to sin.

We can pray to God, ask him to incline our hearts to his testimonies, not to selfish gain.

We can pray and ask God to open up our eyes to behold wondrous things from his law.

We can pray and ask him to unite our hearts to fear his name and satisfy us with his love.

And so as we as we continue in to 2024, let's be people who love God's word because we love the God of the Word and are satisfied by that love that He has shown to us through saving us by His Son Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.