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3 am Statement: The Way of the Righteous
3 am Statement: The Way of the Righteous
Psalm
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.
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.
Outline:
The way of the righteous
The way of the Rightous v. 1-3
a. The way they are not
b. the way they are
2. The way of the wicked v. 4-5
3. A comparison of the 2 ways
Intro:
i wanna thank you all for coming this has been such a blessing to me to see you all coming here to learn more about scripture. It has been such a blessing to learn more about you all. I am sad to say this will our last week here. But it has been great working through the book of Psalm together. Even though we couldn’t work through all 150 of them, it has been really fun to work through 5 we did and 1 tonight. We have gotten a chance to see God differently. And see the hearts of the different Psalmists. I pray that we are these people. The people crying out to God and seeing him as our shepherd and protector and savior. And as we close our study we are going to finish with the first Psalm. . Go a head a open your Bibles up to . The book of Psalms is interesting. It is a book full of 150 chapter, divided into 5 books of songs, poems and prayers. The main theme of thee book of Psalms is praise, even though some of the do not feel that way.
The Psalms span over a large historical time frame. And we are studying today . was not written written first but it fits very well to open the amazing book up. And now lets read .
English Standard Version Psalm 1
1 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;
2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 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.
4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
When you look at this it is broken down into 3 sections. Verses 1-3 are the way of the righteous, 4 and 5 are the way of the wicked and 6 is a compassion of the two ways.
Here in verse 1 we see that the way the righteous are not.
Verse 1
1 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;
The righteous man or the man who walks in the way of the first three verses is blessed. That word blessed is a sense of being characterized by happiness and being highly favored by God.
He is blessed if He does not do the things in verse 1.
He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He does not heed or follow the counsel of the wicked, he is careful who he chooses to listen to.
Nor does he stand in the way of sinners. This is a weird translation, because when we think of standing in the way of something we think of trying to prevent something. Like Gandalf saying you shall not pass. He was standing in the way the Balrog, and he did not let the beast pass. That is kinda the image we think of when we think of standing in the way of 1 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;someone of something. But here is you standing alongside or even walking in the same shoes as someone. Now that is saying the blessed man does not walk in the same path of sinners.
He also doesn’t sit in the seat of scoffers. Scoffers or some translations say mockers, give a sense of someone sitting up high in there chair looking down at those pretentious, prissy, and pushy people who call themselves “Christians.” This is kind of what it is talking about.
The righteous person is not this way but they are instead presented differently in verse 2
Verse 2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
The righteous man delights and loves and cares for and takes pleasure in the law of the Lord, in the Word of God. This man doesn’t just love the Word but he lets that loves drive him to dwell on it. Here it says that the righteous man meditates on his law day and night. What is meditating? Well I already said part of it. It is dwelling, reflecting, ponder, mull over, to chew on. Think of meditating like a cow. It eats, regurgitates, and eats again. The cow is pulling all of the nutrients it possibly can out of what it is eating. That is the image we should have with the word of God. The righteous man meditates on it, they chew on it and think on it. Think about your time in the word. Do you love the word? Do you think on it day and night? Are you sucking every bit out of the Word? Where do your thoughts go? Do you think on the Word or the things of this world?
***Pause****
The author here now goes into an analogy of what the blessed man is like.
Verse 3 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.
The righteous man is like a tree that is planted. Planted by streams of water. He is a man who is consistently fed. Fed by the word. He is getting good nutrients. He is also a tree that yields fruit. The righteous man must produce fruit. This must is also strong and does not wither. Think of when you drive through Corona after a nice big rain storm, you see how beautiful it is. The flowers everywhere and it is amazing a beautiful. But what happens the moment it gets hot again. ***Pause***
They die. They wither and die. A true righteous person, a true Christian is not this way. Do you want to be like this? Someone who looks good for a season, but when the heat comes and the wind blows they wither away and die. We all have see people like this. You do not want to be this way. You want to be the type of person who is stroong when trials come our way.
The text here also says that they will prosper. Now this is not a license to bring in complete prosperity gospel. This not saying that if you are “righteous” you will health and wealth. But it is still in the metaphor of a tree. That even when there is heat and hard time it still is green and producing fruit.
Now in verse 4 the text shift to describing the wicked.
Here it says the wicked are not at all like the tree planted by streams of water are instead like chaff that the wind blows away. Chaff is the husk like material that surrounds the seed of the plant. Chaff is useless, lifeless, seedless, worthless and pointless. This is how the wicked person is described.
The wicked in verse 5 will not stand in judgement, nor in the congregation of righteous. They will be driven out from the righteous. They will not be aloud to stand and stay in the presence of God. Christians will be able to stand with God forever but the wicked will not.
***Pause***
We see in verses 1-3 the way of the righteous and in 4 and 5 the way of the wicked. And that brings us to verse 6.
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
6 for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
The first part of this verse shows us an intimacy between God and His people, the righteous. We see that the life course of the righteous has God as its goal, and God knows this and has a care for them and attends to and provides for them. And God will not them perish.
But, ***pause*** the way of the wicked will perish.
All of their plans will end in destruction, disappointment, and ultimately in damnation.
Now this message can be a bit discouraging. You may start thinking about your life and go I am wicked. Since all have sinned and fallen short I must be part of the wicked. Yeah, that’s true. But there is hope, Christ came and died for us. He knew we couldn’t do it, we could not be righteous on our own account. Because of God’s love for us, he sent his Son down, to come and live the perfect life on our behalf. He then died on the cross to cover our sins. How incredible is that. God, himself, loved us so much that he came and died for us. He took our punishment on the cross. How amazing, how wonderful. He did the work so that if we believe in him, we may be the man who is blessed. We may walk in the way of the righteous and not in the way off the wicked.
So what do we do? How should we respond to this text?
I have 3 questions to think about and find application in.
Look at your life, is the pattern of your life in line with the way of the wicked or the righteous?
If you were to honestly evaluate and you were to say that it is the path of the wicked, please take time to sit down and plead to God. Admit that you a sinner and you need him. You need him more than anything else.
**Pause**
And if your seeing the pattern if your life as that of the righteous or a believers then lets go to the next question.
Who are you listening to? Who are you listening to?
Are you one who is consistently seeking counsel of the those who are godly or of those who are wicked? And lets be clear, I am not saying that if your unbelieving boss gives you advice on how to do job better that you ignore them. We are talking about those who are seeking out to live there life and how to act from the wicked. Another way to word this question is who are you seeking to be like? Is it the unbelieving CEO, the so called wise aunt who is living a pattern of life that is on a path of destruction? Or is it the friend who is spurring you on for godliness or the mature and godly man or woman at church? Who are you listening to?
Lastly, what does your time in the Word look like? Honestly, evaluate this. Do you delight in the Word like this text says? Do you truly love the word? And how often do you spend time to spend time mulling over and sucking all the juices out of any given text?
Lastly, what does your time in the Word look like? Honestly, evaluate this. Do like the text says delight in the Word? Do you truly love the word? And how often do you spend time to spend time mulling over and sucking all the juices out of any given text?
Where do you fall in these questions, what do you need to work? Please see that the way of the righteous is supremely better. Pursue it. Pursue those godly people to keep you accountable and pursue the word. Love God and see the blessings that come from it.
Lets Pray.