An Overture| Ps. Lindsey Brenner

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Good morning.

Hello, everybody.

How's everybody doing on this hot summer day?

You enjoying the Florida heat?

I saw an article this week that we were like listed number one for the most, I forget how they worded it, like the sweatiest city or something like that, because we're landlocked like right in the middle, we don't get like the breeze on the side.

Um, and I am entering into my third trimester.

It's been a little while since I've been up here.

Um, baby girl, guys.

So if you were part of the voting, baby girl, we have two little boys, so really excited to kind of change um up the atmosphere with a little bit of girl team.

So I'm excited about becoming a girl mom, but uh yes, we are so thankful for that you're joining us today.

If you're online or here in person, we are so honored that you would join us in worship with us today.

I'm Lindsay, and we are um just three weeks away from Pastors Keith and Megan returning from their sabbatical, and they're going to be rest up and recharged, and I'm really excited to see everything that God has spoken to them over this time.

I want you guys to mark your calendars for August 7th.

That's the day that we they will be back, and that's also Vision Sunday.

I'm pumped to see what all God has downloaded to them during this time, what um words He has for us as a church at large, but us uniquely as the local church, and so can't wait to um for that Sunday and um let's make it our goal to give them a nice warm big welcome when they return, okay?

Okay, so we've been in this series called Songs of Summer.

It's our summer series, Upbeat and Colorful, and this has been a look through the book of Psalms.

Um, it's been fun because we've gotten to hear from a variety of different voices, life experiences, ages, um, all kinds of different perspectives.

And interestingly enough, this week I was thinking about the book of Psalms and how the Psalms itself is built of a collection of different authors, voices, life experiences, time periods.

And I don't think we uh purposely intended for that to happen, but I just thought what a unique little parallel that we've gotten to hear from so many different unique voices and perspectives to unpack this book in the Bible that has so many unique voices and perspectives.

Um, and we have not stopped, we have three more weeks of it.

Like I said, the next two weeks we're gonna hear from um some family from our celebration church in Jacksonville.

Over the next two weeks, I know these people.

Um, I was in Jacksonville, um part of that team for 10 years before I came here.

So I know these people, I know their families, I know their walks of lives.

You guys are in for a great treat, so make sure you show up.

Um, we're excited to wrap.

There's still so much more in this series that we uh can't wait to unpack together.

So um we're gonna jump in.

Are you guys ready?

Okay, let's waste no time.

Um, when I was in high school, my sister was a senior, and she during her senior year decided she wanted to audition for this school play.

I don't really know why, but she did.

So um, me being the younger sister who was dependent on her for a ride because I had no license, uh, when she landed apart, I quickly had to figure out what I was going to do after school until my ride was ready to take me home.

So I joined the costume props team.

Um, I loved it, and quickly I got hooked to the productions, to the process, everything about it.

I loved it.

I had no idea that this would be become something I was passionate about, but quickly I fell in love.

So the next year, after my sister had graduated and I was able to make my own decisions, I decided to audition for the fall musical, which was Footloose.

Any Footloose plant fans in here?

So um I got the part of Rusty.

If you're not aware, she sings the song uh Let's Hear It for the Boys.

And that was actually my first real like public singing um experience.

I was young in high school, and um yeah, it was really fun, but I learned a lot about projection there, like how because we didn't have microphones like this, we had to project to get all the way in the back of the auditorium.

But I was hooked, I loved it, and I stayed part of this um this world until I graduated.

I was troop 2329.

If anybody knows, if you've been part of drama clubs, you know your troop number.

Um, but yeah, um, so musicals were such a fun part of uh my high school years, and what something I learned um, because it wasn't just the musicals we were performing, I got immersed into this world of musicals and learning the scores and the compositions and seeing them and reading about them and listening to their soundtracks, and something I learned during this time was a term called an overture.

And in the history of operas, operettas, then leads to musicals.

There is this piece of composition that typically stands alone.

It's an individual piece of composition called an overture that specifically prepares the audience for the plot to come.

It sets the emotional tone of what's ahead, and oftentimes it merges kind of seamlessly into the opening act, the first song.

Um, more commonly in musicals, overtures feature kind of like a potpourri of all the songs that you're gonna hear throughout the musical.

And so you can hear little snippets of it in the overture, composed and woven together, kind of like a prelude to kind of capture the audience's attention.

And so I don't know, but something I love to do after I learned about this idea of an overture and you heard it in context, after I would hear a full musical, I always loved going back and re-listening to the overture and hearing how complex and creatively they would weave in little tunes and melodies from the coming songs.

Um so overtures were really cool to me, very creative, very interesting to summarize and allude to everything that was ahead.

Now, regarding the book of Psalms, um one of our formative theologians of the church actually said that Psalms 1 is the preface and the prelude for the entire Psalter, the entire book of Psalms.

It introduces, it summarizes all the other 49, 149 Psalms, and it encapsulates the very essence of what those Psalms teach.

So the book, this book that we've had a privilege to look into together, or maybe over your life you've been able to read.

There's songs, it's a collection of songs and poetry, it's beautiful, it gives us one of the most vast array of emotions and life experience than any other book in the Bible.

Beautifully complex, guides us, instructs us, and gives us so many things that will shape our hearts and minds.

This book, the key to it, the door that opens it and helps you walk through is Psalm 1.

And then once you get on the other side, it gives you kind of the way in which to walk through the remaining 149 Psalms.

Sounds important, right?

So we're gonna look at Psalm 1 together this morning.

If you have your phones, your Bibles, anything, I would encourage you.

Yes, we will have it on the screen, but I think um today the way I want to kind of unpack, reference it at any point.

So please pull it out, Psalm 1.

I will be reading out of the ESV translation.

Um, but the the Bible is incredible, and and so if you have a way to look at it and read with me, I would I would say to you that.

Um my three-year-old, he is um obviously learning so many things, and right now, um, this week while I was preparing, um, in future stuff, I've said to him, Oh, mommy has to preach this Sunday, and he always knows it's a little bit more stressful in the household when mommy has to preach because it's not my normal bend, but um I've told him because he's like, What is he's so inquisitive, what is preaching?

And I said, It's it's learning more about God and studying his word, studying his Bible.

So yesterday when I was telling him I needed a little bit of a quiet time, I have a lot to prepare for church.

He said to me, He said, Are you gonna be uh teaching the Bible or are you gonna sing on stage?

And so I thought that was pretty cool.

Uh, that already he knows that the Bible and learning about what God has to say is so important.

So we're gonna jump in to Psalm 1 this morning and read it together.

It says, 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 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 the sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

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

Let's pray, God.

Thank you so much for this day.

God, for this church, Lord, for the opportunity to open up your word, the life-giving, life-breathing word of your mouth, God, that you would instruct us and guide us this morning, Lord.

Lord, through the example of even Jesus Himself, He loved the Psalms, God.

He He studied them, He quoted them, He referenced them.

And God, I pray that this morning, as we unpack both Psalm 1 and the entire key into the Psalms, God, I pray that you would deepen our understanding, deepen our love of it, God.

We ask that you would open our eyes, open our ears, open our hearts, God, that you would teach us, guide us, correct us, encourage us this morning by the power of your word.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay, so we titled or I titled this message an overture.

Um, we're gonna read Psalm 1 again and approach it.

Psalm 1 is the overture, as you would, for the whole book of Psalms.

So we're gonna approach this Psalm, we're gonna look at it again, and we're gonna break it down verse by verse.

Um, this is called like an expository approach.

So I would love to look at this both verse by verse, but also I'm very visual.

And so um, as a visual person, as I'm breaking stuff down, a lot of times mind maps can happen inside.

And so I actually put something visual, a visual diagram at some point that throughout this next pass through Psalm 1 together, we're gonna reference together.

Hopefully it helps you.

Who else is visual in here?

Hopefully, visual is good.

Okay, good.

Um, I may be doing a lot of like this, but we'll see.

We'll we'll get through it together.

Hopefully, it helps you deepen your understanding of Psalm 1.

But in Psalm 1, um, some translations of your Bible will have different titles that the authors of those translations put as kind of like a summary or capping up what they believe this chapter is about.

And one, a few of the versions I looked at actually titled Psalm 1 as the two paths or the two ways.

Um, and what we see when we read through Psalm 1 is a very clear separation between these two paths.

Um, the paths being the righteous and godly versus the wicked and ungodly.

So in the diagram, I'm gonna let the production team kind of toggle back and forth.

That's why I said if you have your phone or a Bible to be able to reference, it will help you because I'm gonna jump around a lot.

Um, but we're gonna look at these two paths.

There's no option three presented here, and that is because there is no option three, okay?

And so um as we look at these two paths, the diagram hopefully will help you kind of categorize the two and we'll reference them side by side.

We're gonna reread Psalm 1, verse by verse.

We're starting in verse 1, and then we will show you the diagram.

Okay, so Psalm 11 says blessed.

And we'll stop right here.

Blessed.

This word means deeply content, permanently happy, full of joy, not temporal, not futile, like the way the world experiences happiness, but a deep, never-ending, a permanent type of happiness.

So blessed is the man.

This word man here, the Hebrew word breaks down as godly man.

Okay, so blessed, fully happy, permanently content, deeply full of joy is the godly man, who.

This word who, if you have a physical Bible, I would say circle, underline, highlight, or something.

Um, because this little word is quick to read and you sometimes want to pass by it, but I really think it reveals to us the support that is to come, the the the thing that will help, the argument, if you would, of the of what's to come, of what makes a person blessed.

Okay.

And so this little word, uh, you can look at it kind of like because if it will help you visually or uh logically to understand this.

So let's go ahead and head to our diagram.

You guys can see inside of my mind here in a second.

Here we go.

Um, so this diagram is is the entire Psalm one, chapter of Psalm 1, put in a diagram, like I said, godly and ungodly.

And I want to kind of walk through um verse by verse with you guys.

Okay, so we already read this part.

Blessed, deeply, permanently happy, full of joy is the man, the godly man, which this is all regarding the godly man over here, who or because, and then what follows underneath is the foundation.

I would call this the support beam, the structure that holds up why this man is blessed.

The foundation here is this man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand with sinners, or sit in the seat with scoffers.

Instead, he delights in God's instructions, word, law, and he meditates it, meditates on it day and night.

So this is the foundation that upholds the why he's blessed.

And then off to the side, I have this kind of support beam, uh, this not support, supplemental support, okay?

Because I read this and I kind of saw it more as a cause, both a cause and an effect, and I'll explain.

So because this foundation is there, that he's delighting in the law and the of the Lord, he's not standing with these people, he's meditating on his word day and night.

Because of that, he is like a tree who um is planted beside waters, fruitful in its season, does not wither, prospers in everything.

Okay, um, but also it being fruitful in this kind of uh effect that's coming from this foundation is also supporting this blessed man full of joy, full of happiness, real and permanent kind.

Um so do you see this little pathway?

It's it's my my brain.

So follow with me.

Okay, so this is verses one through three in a visual representation.

Then there comes a big pivot at verse four.

Okay, and so let's reference verse four.

This is option option number two, path number two, verse four.

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

The wicked are not so.

Five small words, but packs in a lot of things.

The wicked, which also is interpreted as ungodly.

We can go back to the diagram, is option or path number two.

Wicked, ungodly.

Okay.

The wicked are not so two words, not so, and it really packs in a lot, okay?

So down here is the same structure as the pathway over here.

Um, but what we see in the not so category is the foundation of why this person is living this pathway.

And when it says not so, it literally means not so any of this.

The complete antithesis, the opposite, the contrast.

So he instead is walking with the counsel of the wicked, he's standing with sinners, sitting with scoffers, does not delight in God's word, it does not delight in God's instruction, and does not meditate on it day and night.

So two small words, not so, means the contrast of this.

You guys are following me?

Okay, so what's cool about this is it kind of does like a reverse pathway, um, but it's the same sections, it's the same foundational components.

So the not so is also the support being that's holding up this other result, this other outcome of life.

And you see that in verse five, the word that kind of um mirrors your your who and because is the word therefore.

Because he is not so, therefore, his life leads to being cursed, destruction, perishing.

Kind of a heavy reality, right?

But this is option one, option two, no option three.

So, what Psalms is showing us, Psalms one, uh, the key or the pathway into the rest of the Psalms, is we have we have two different options here, and there's one or a couple of things that you can see as the marker or the differentiation of the two paths.

Over here, the differentiation of this type of life is delighting in God's word, meditating on it day and night, and not being in this company, okay?

And the opposite is over here.

Okay, so there's two paths, and the differentiation here is the not-so component.

Instead, is with this company who doesn't delight on God's word and doesn't meditate on it day and night, okay?

Option one, option two, no option three.

So we can then read the rest of the 149 Psalms with this in mind, with this being our understanding of this is the key that opens the door.

What is to come then?

What we learn, the guidance, the instruction, the things that are to come, we need to choose the direction of the righteous, not the direction of the not so.

Okay?

And we need to delight in everything that it's going to hold for us, not in the not so.

Got it?

So it sounds great, right?

We can pack up, I can go home, we're good.

Someone, you guys got it?

Um while I was looking at this, you know, it's so I think it's really evident, it's very clear these two pathways.

There's no point three, pathway three.

Um, but I think for a lot of people, especially if you've grown up in church or you're attending church, it's very easy to be like, oh, there's no way.

I'm I'm not path number two.

Um, especially when you hear the word wicked.

It feels so overt, right?

Like, oh, I'm not wicked.

Um, but I loved using that sub, that other definition, ungodly, because there are subtleties that we see in this path number two that could lead us to this place.

And they're and they're small, they're incremental, they're daily, small things that I would love to help us see together so that you don't immediately just say, Oh, this I'm definitely over here.

Okay, we're good, let's head out.

Okay, so we're gonna break this down.

I have two points for you.

It's just gonna help us together look at this a little bit practically, take it one step further.

Ready?

I like like talking back.

It helps me feel like I'm not alone.

Okay, so the first point is actually gonna be a question.

Point number one is what is influencing you when we read Psalm one, we actually see um a very interesting specific theme of influence.

I I found it um very um interesting that Psalm 11 doesn't say don't be wicked, don't be a sinner, don't be a scoffer.

Instead, it says don't walk with sinners, or don't walk with wicked, don't stand with sinners, don't sit with scoffers.

He's talking it's talking about influence and the power of influence, not just don't do these things.

And I so I want us this week to think about personally what is actually influencing us.

We need to, we need to be taking inventory daily because.

There are some things in our life that are obviously overtly bad that we should not um be engaging in.

But then there's other stuff that can be subtle or it can be very it's not necessarily bad, but it can lead us slowly step by step, day by day.

So this progression um that we see in in verse one is very interesting because what we see here is a progression of a changing posture and a progression of deepening influence.

Okay, so I what I want to show you here is the power of influence through this progression we see in verse number one.

So if you can go to verse number one, I'm gonna show you what I'm talking about.

So bless is the man who doesn't do this.

So let's talk about the antithesis of that.

Let's talk about the man who does do this, okay?

The man who walks in the council of the wicked, stands in the way of sinners, and sits in the seat of scoffers.

This progression of posture and the deepening of influence is very interesting to me, okay?

So I'm walking, chilling, walking, I see something.

It's trying to distract me, it's trying to influence sing me.

But I'm I'm in this posture of I'm moving.

It's it's not very stationary, it's not very engaged, I can maybe see it, but I can move past it, okay?

So it's it's more detached.

Then the second posture we see is standing with sinners, okay?

That's a deepening level number two, okay?

I'm I'm not walking anymore.

I've chosen, oh, this is kind of interesting.

I'm gonna stand here, okay?

So a deepening level of influence.

And then the third is the most um engaged posture of all three of them.

It is I've chosen to sit down, engage, partake in, participate with this influence.

And I think if we're being really honest with ourselves, um this progression and this power of influence can affect all of us.

Because if we're being honest at some point, at every at any point in our life, and at any moment, we are being influenced by something, a positive or negative.

And so when I say we need to take inventory, this is the thing I'm talking about because you don't you may have been walking by something, and then you dabble in it in it, and then you engage, and then before you know it, you're so comfortable in its presence that you've sat down and not even realized that it's your company.

And so the other thing I wanted to show us is um this progressioning of the type of company.

It goes from wicked, which means ungodly, then it goes into sinner, someone overtly choosing sin, and then the third, someone who's scoffing, mocking God.

So even that gets worse.

And so the power of influence is strong, right?

And so when I say we take inventory, that is a daily thing.

It's a daily thing that we have to make sure we're acknowledging what is influencing me and how are they influencing me.

It takes intentionality also when it comes to influence.

Intentional, um, and I'll use the same kind of physical um examples here.

Intentional, so we'll use the the size just because we got really good at this is wicked and ungodly, and this is godly, okay.

Sorry guys.

Um so intentional being like, okay, this way is godly, and this is the good influence.

It takes intentional daily decisions to say, I'm moving toward this thing, I'm moving in this direction.

It also takes an intentionality.

If this is where I'm over here, I dabble, it takes me intentionally saying I'm going to walk away from these things.

So think through that progression of posture and the deepening level as we get comfortable and how intentional daily decisions need to be in order to position you in the proper direction, in the right direction, right?

Okay, so this week I was actually processing this concept the power of influence with a friend of mine.

And when we were talking about um our own personal life and examples, something that um I wanted to bring up to you guys is so obviously we have the Bible, black and white, yes and no, do this, don't do this.

There are also gray areas.

And um, for people who are black and white, that is very frustrating.

You're kind of like, well, tell me what I'm supposed to do.

But there, I believe there's some parts that is left for your personal relationship with God, for you to be so um listening and sensitive to his Holy Spirit that he can lead and guide you from something that's influencing you.

Um, and so one of the examples that I thought about in my own life is my husband and I, when we got married, we made kind of a decision in our household that we weren't gonna consume a certain level or rating, if you would, of TV shows and movies.

And um, for some, maybe that seems maybe being a little bit of a stickler or whatever, but that was just a decision we made together.

And um, we even go as far as there's like a kid's website called Common Sense Media.

We search it up and it's for kids, but we look at it and it'll give ratings of like how much profanity and how much this and now and so you can look at it and kind of decide together um, is this something we're gonna watch?

And so it was a decision that we made at the beginning of our marriage, um, something to kind of protect us, to not allow that sort of influence in our life and in our marriage, and a decision we made personally, okay?

And I want to clarify that that was our personal decision, but based on what we felt God was asking us to walk away from intentionally.

Um and then he gave an example about how growing up, um, he experienced a lot of negative outcomes in the world of um people overusing alcohol.

And so, because of this experience that he grew up in, he decided that I'm not going to drink alcohol.

Not necessarily, you know, he knows it's not bad.

Um, Jesus himself, you know, consumed it's not the alcohol that is bad, but he felt, based on his his relationship with God and his own personal convictions, that that was an area in life that he did not want to have influence in him.

And so I give these examples to you so that practically you can understand what I mean.

There are things that only you can know.

You got an inventory, you need a process with God where some things have a bigger hold on you than others, and you need to know what kind of influence it has on your heart, your mind, your emotions, and it is what is that doing to you?

What is that voice doing?

Is it louder than the voice of God?

Because he's gonna ask you to shift that.

The second point is choose delight over distraction.

Delight over distraction.

We choose delight by meditating on his word, not by choosing to be distracted by the world.

Um, I love that the antidote to walking in the way of the ungodly is not inverse to a bunch of what to do and what not to do.

It's not duty, it's not obedience, it says delight and meditate.

This beautiful thing we see is this engagement in the word of God and his in the pleasures of his word.

And just like the pleasures of the world, um, the more we're exposed to them, the more we're around them for long periods of time, like I said in that previous example, your influence of them becomes deeper and deeper and deeper.

Just like that, the pleasures of the word can be deepened, the delight in it can be strengthened by putting yourself in the position to hear, to read, to process the word of God over a long period of time, and it says meditate on them day and night.

That word meditate breaks down to mean talk, speak, mutter.

Um, and so it's just saying meditate, speak to yourself the word of God day and night.

It's not practical to carry our Bibles around day and night.

Um, and that's why I think it is so important in our Christian living, our Christian walk to not only read the word of God, but know the word of God.

And I understand like God gave us an incredible mind that can memorize them.

We're always being inundated.

But if you have a hard time memorizing, there's simple ways.

Like you can write out on sticky notes, put them around your house, put reminders that the word of God will be louder than any other voice that's happening in your life.

And this is how we can meditate on it day and night.

This is how we can let it reverberate in our heart and mind and build up this internal infrastructure that we can become deeply dependent upon.

This past week, um, from Wednesday to Friday, I was without a phone and contact to the outside world.

Um, it was tragic, guys.

But um it was a very good example to me during those three days of trying to figure out what to do of the dependence I had on this object.

And it wasn't even bad dependence.

It wasn't like I was like really hankering to get on social media.

It was like I did not know how to function at some points, like without the GPS or without, wait a second, I'm down on the bottom floor.

I don't have the gate code to get into our offices, but I can't call anybody, and I'm very pregnant.

So I had to walk up three flights of stairs to get it.

So this is what I mean.

I was functionally did not know how to move forward without my phone for three days.

Um I won't get into all the details, but the Apple Geniuses, and I use it lightly, told me that um it was unfixable.

Day um number three without three, three without the phone, um, I ended up going to a my sister's friend who fixes phones out in the boondocks of Deberry, um, and he was able to fix it.

But that GPS, that that, that journey to random Deberry, I am not gifted with this the gift of navigation.

So I was like old school map questing it, like writing down, you guys know what I'm talking about.

Um, and I'm like, okay, and there were many times in that journey where I was for sure that I was lost.

Um, thankfully I made it.

Thankfully, I'm back in the world of communication and technology, this has no like this had nothing to do with technology.

I love technology.

There's so many advances that help us function.

But what it convicted me of during these three days without this phone when I felt like I couldn't function in this dependence, I wondered to myself, if I was without the word of God for three days, would I have this same experience?

Would I be in a place where I literally did not know what how to move forward in my next step without referencing, without going to the word of God?

Am I that dependent on it?

And it convicted me deeply.

You know, I think God is has a sense of humor sometimes.

Like while I'm preparing this week to talk about dependence on the word of God, and he's like, Yeah, let me show you something.

Let me show you how dependent you are on something else.

And I think this is what he's talking about in Psalm one, that we need to be so deeply dependent on his word, delighting in it day and night, that we need it to function, that we need it to move forward, to give us instruction, to help us walk forward, and so not to look at it as a birdie burden to carry or a duty to walk out, but a delight to be enjoyed all the days of our lives.

Amen.

So this morning I want to do something a little bit different to end.

I want to sing this song.

While I was preparing, um, I kept thinking of the lyrics of this song because it talks about and perfectly encapsulates this beautiful relationship of this heart, this posture toward God and his word and instructions, desiring it, realizing our our flesh and our human limitations that makes it hard sometimes, but this commitment of asking God to help us walk through this life, leaning on the word of God.

So I want to sing it together as a church.

Um, but before we do that, I just want you to listen to the words.

Listen to the lyrics, let them seep in, let them shape and mold your heart and mind.

I would love, um, then I'll I'll give you guys more instruction, but let's just sing it together.

Let's listen to the lyrics together.

Lifting up my hands.

Oh Jesus, turn your eyes upon his mercy.

Status my age is I will have a face.

Oh God, you are the face I can see.

Those next 149 Psalms, Psalm 150 closes the entire book in a very powerful way.

A response to years and a lifetime of delighting in the law of the Lord, receiving his commandments, following his instructions, and that is to respond and praise, respond with our words, respond with our adoration.

And in Psalm 150, 13 times it says, praise the Lord.

The final verse in all of the book of Psalms says, let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

So this morning, if you feel comfortable, let's stand up.

Let's make this our response this morning.

Open up our mouth, praise the name of the Lord.

Whatever.

And I will learn to walk in your way, and step by step you leave me, and I will follow you all in my day.

Thanks again for listening.

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