Sermon Tone Analysis

*"Spiritual Nourishment"*

*Psalm 1*

Please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 1.

This morning we begin a new series in the Psalms.

We will call it “A Summer in the Psalms.”

If you joined us last Sunday in the adult Journey class, we talked about our focus and vision as a church.

We noted that primarily we want to be a church that is grounded in God's Word.

So, in an attempt to recover this emphasis, we've simplified some of the things that we were involved in so that we might focus our attention to the basics.

We reiterated that our ministry vision of making disciples must include our knowledge of God in His Word.

In this class, we collectively discussed how our children's ministries, our Growth Groups, our relational discipleship ministry all reflect this priority.

And yet, the primary way that we reflect this is in corporate worship.

We are intentional that we read the Bible in our services, sing the Bible, pray the Bible and preach the Bible.

These necessities are all God's expectations for his churches.

The Bible speaks of ensuring that we preach "the whole counsel of God."

And you should know that we attempt to make this a reality.

If you've been here for any length of time, you realize that we repeatedly go through an entire book of the Bible, and then move on to another.

We go through Old Testament books and New Testament books.

And if you're really paying attention, you also note that we deal with many different "kinds" of books.

We've recently worked through Gospels, Pauline epistles, Minor Prophets, Old Testament narrative, etc.

I track our studies on an excel document.

And I noted recently that one genre of God's Word that we haven’t sufficiently addressed is biblical poetry.

So, here is an opportunity to explore yet another aspect of God’s Word.

The Book of Psalms is familiar to most of us.

We often encounter them in our devotional reading times.

We sing them as songs.

They often reflect great human emotion that other books do not.

In fact, consider these words from John Calvin.

"I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror."So

as we begin our "Summer in the Psalms," consider the human experience and how we respond to the character of God.

Though we will not cover the book in its entirety, we will see a sampling of Psalms beginning in chapter 1.

The first chapter has been considered as a snapshot of the entire book because it draws a very clear distinction between the righteous and the wicked.

This in turn will be explained further throughout the book.

Jesus preached a sermon in Matthew 7 where he presents choices between the wide gate and the narrow gate, the wide road and the narrow road, two trees and types of fruit, two houses and two foundations.

In similar fashion, the psalmist presents us with the contrast of the wicked and the righteous.

And we are presented with the question, "Which are we?

As we enter the sanctuary of the psalms to worship and petition the Lord, whose side are we on?"Thomas Watson has stated that "this psalm carries a blessedness in the frontispiece; it begins where we all hope to end; it may well be called a Christian's Guide, for it discovers the quicksands where the wicked sink down in perdition, and the firm ground on which the saints tread to glory."

Let's read the text together as we get under way.

READ.

The psalm begins with the words "blessed is the man."

"Blessed" can mean 'under God's blessing, happy or fulfilled, or intrinsically right.'

It is likely that the psalmist here has all of these things in mind in his opening.

We note at the outset the confirmation that the psalms (as all of Scripture) is given to us by God for our good.

It is God's desire that his people are blessed.

So when a book of the Bible begins with the words, "blessed is this person," we should likely perk our ears and listen up.

Who among us does not desire to be under God's blessing and happy and fulfilled in life?

Isn't this our ultimate aim in life?

Interestingly enough, the psalmist begins by saying what the "blessed" person is not.

He begins with the negative and will proceed to the positive in verse 2. Let's look at our first point, *Cease and Desist.

*

"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;" Realize that when the psalmist refers to the wicked, he is not speaking to those who are as evil as possible.

When we think "wicked" we think of demons, or the serial killers or rapists or whatever.

In this context, he speaks of the "wicked" as ungodly - those that refuse to bow the knee to the God of the universe, the One we have come to worship this morning.

These would be those that live in our neighborhood, those we work with, go to school with, perhaps even in our homes.

Throughout God's Word, there is a constant distinction made between those that repent and trust in Jesus, and those who do not.

This would refer to the latter.

The "wicked" are those who continue to worship themselves and not the God who made them.

As we look at this verse, we see three lines that describe what the blessed man does not do.

And it would seem as though we could summarize these thoughts into three concepts.

First, the blessed man does not /think /like the world.

The psalmist says that he does not walk in the /counsel /of the wicked.

When a person comes to Christ, he or she repents of their former sinful lifestyle and commits to a new one.

We have died to self and now live unto Jesus Christ.

The Bible is clear that these are two very different paths.

One sets out to serve self and the other, Jesus.

To serve Jesus requires that we forsake the former things and live a life that reflects him - to be more like him.

We no longer think like the world.

Whereas we may have previously considered advice from the world, we no longer do so.

The goal of the world is to serve self.

And so any advice from the wicked would be self-serving and not God-glorifying.

The counsel of the wicked will set us up against the wisdom of God.

Therefore, we no longer consider this an option.

Why?

Because we want to be happy and fulfilled and in line with God's plan for us.

The advice of the godless permeates our society.

You already know it.

You perceive it.

It comes up on personal conversations, all over our media (television, movies, internet).

They all cry out to 'live like this, you're missing out, it's a lot of fun..." But in the end, they do not leave you happy and fulfilled.

Notice also that there seems to be a bit of progression in these phrases.

It would appear to be a downward spiral.

Here we see that when we begin to consider the ways of the world, we set a course away from God.

Next, the blessed man does not /live /like the world.

We don't think like the world and we don't live like the world.

To get to this point of warning, we have begun to listen to the advice of the wicked and now stand in the same path.

Remember... two different courses here.

We have now turned from the path unto godliness unto the way of sinners.

First, we have merely turned our ear to listen.

Now we have shifted our feet.

We linger alongside those on this path.

We must be clear that this does not refer to /proximity.

/As Christians, we are called to engage the world for the sake of the gospel.

Therefore, we do not remove ourself from all contact with the ungodly.

That would be unbiblical.

To 'stand in the way of sinners' refers to /conformity.

/In the same way that Jesus was intentional to associate with the 'sinners and tax collectors', so are we to be intentionally involved in the lives of unbelievers.

However, it is also important to note that Jesus did not imitate the lifestyle of those he engaged.

It is always the temptation on the part of the Christian to better identify with the unbeliever, but this never involves our character.

Jesus called the sinners to repentance so that they would imitate him, not the other way around.

Next, the blessed man of God does not 'sit in the seat of scoffers.'

It would appear that this stage would involve conformity and even familiarity and comfortability with this lifestyle.

The ungodly ridicules those that belong to the Lord.