Let us pray. Our Father, will you bless now the preaching of your Holy Word with the powerful work of the Holy Spirit, that our consciences may be pricked, that our blindfolds may be removed, and that we might see in your Word of truth the way of the righteous and the way of the ungodly. Bless the Word as it goes forth, and be near us in this hour. We pray this in the name of our Sovereign Lord and King, Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated. Well, this evening I would ask you to take out your Bibles and turn to Psalm 1. This is the first psalm among the 150 psalms that we have in the Bible. And for the children, if you hear me mentioning the Psalter during the sermon, I'm not referring specifically to the blue book that you have in front of you, but rather to the Old Testament psalms, all 150 of them. And so we're going to be reading tonight and considering the Word of God from Psalm 1. And hear now the reading of God's holy and inspired Word. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. 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 which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked. They are like the chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Praise God for the word which he has given to us through his servants, the prophets, and the apostles. In just 128 words, the psalmist opens up this beloved collection of 150 psalms here in the first psalm. 128 words that communicate a powerful message, a mighty introduction to the rest of the psalms, but also a mighty journey into the heart of our quest to find purpose and meaning in life. Our quest to know how we ought to live and what path we ought to follow. 128 words that have been treasured by believers through the centuries ever since they were first written. For we know that Psalm 1 is a psalm for pilgrims, a psalm for wanderers, A psalm for all who are seeking to find their way through life. Meditating on what it means to live a life that is a life well lived. A psalm then for you and for me. And how do we read this psalm? Do we marvel at its beautiful symmetry that it uses to balance a description of the ungodly and of the righteous? Do we think about the powerful word imagery that it uses in its highly descriptive language? Are we tuned into the way theology that's being used here? The use of paths and ways to illustrate two diverging roots, two divergent outcomes, two types of people. Or are we a little uncomfortable at times with the stark contrast being employed here? A little shocked by the deep divide that is evident between the ungodly chaff and the righteous tree? Troubled by our own acts of unbelief, our own attitudes of the heart? For as verse 6 says, So the question is, have we sat in the seat of scoffers? Have we stood in the path of sinners? Beloved, do we acknowledge that we of ourselves cannot stand in the judgment of God? Brothers and sisters, the psalmist opens up the Psalter with a message of a distinction between good and evil that must drive us to see our own unrighteousness and cause us to say, Lord, have mercy. 128 words that drive us to Christ as our only Savior and Lord. And so with Christ as our focus and a right understanding of the psalm as our objective, let us consider what the psalmist powerfully shows us about the blessed man, the way of the ungodly, and then the way of the righteous who bear the mark of Christ. That is, the blessed man, the way of the ungodly, and then the way of the righteous. Now, by way of introduction, the familiar story of Jesus' interaction with the rich young ruler in Mark 10 is a story which has a powerful effect because it exposes hearts, both it did at the time when Jesus first was encountering him, but even today. For as we read of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus claiming that he had kept the law of God completely from his youth, we see that in his pride and his own misunderstanding this man was mistakenly thinking that he had accomplished all that was set out in the law for him to do. And he was quite confident that there really wasn't much more that he had to do to inherit eternal life. And in sorrow, as you read the text, you see the sorrow that comes through as he leaves Jesus, crushed by the law, exposed in his sin, for there was still much in the law that he was incapable and unwilling to keep. The rich young ruler's chief mistake, His central error, his fatal flaw was his inability to know himself as he really was. A sinner in need of grace, repenting of his sins and pleading for forgiveness to the one who could save him. Not one who is continuing to resort to law-keeping as an attempt to bridge the divide between a righteous God and sinful, fallen man. Why do I bring this up? Why do I refer to a New Testament event as a backdrop for this psalm? Well, at its core, this psalm is a psalm of identification. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you resemble more? What is your identity? Are you the blessed man? The rich young ruler, the Pharisees, the law keepers, they all saw themselves in their full glory and splendor in the opening words of this psalm. They applied these words to themselves and with grave consequences. Or as Jesus told the parable in Luke 18, two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. We have to wonder, was he seeing himself as the blessed man of Psalm 1? I can't help but wonder, how many have read the opening words of Psalm 1 and simply turned it into a mental checklist? If they can satisfy themselves that they've avoided evil and delighted in the law, well, then they must be the blessed and righteous man of Psalm 1. Could it be that they haven't really read Psalm 1 very closely? Who is this blessed man? This man who never walked in the counsel of the wicked or stood in the way of sinners or sat in the seat of mockers, who delighted in the law of the Lord and meditated on the day and night, who alone was righteous and perfect? Well, we know the answer, and it doesn't have to come at the end. That man is Christ, the only man who was blameless and spotless, who alone brought forth abundant fruit and gave hope to the children of the covenant. So here we see that the psalmist is opening this psalter, this collection of 150 psalms, with a prophecy of the Christ to come who alone could fulfill every requirement of the law and attain the perfect righteousness that God required. Now, some may object that this is not a messianic prophecy. But I ask, on what grounds? That something lesser is in the view of the psalmist? That he couldn't have anticipated the incarnate Christ dwelling on earth in the flesh as a man to take away the sins of his people through his death and resurrection? But the objection, in my mind, cannot be sustained for there are countless messianic prophecies in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Old Testament that may have originally been met with a lower idea of who would fulfill them, only for them to be more fully realized in Christ Jesus. Or to put it another way, the prophecies of the Old Testament, including the Psalms, that were realized and fulfilled in Christ were always intended to be fulfilled in this way by God, even though there were times that human authors did not know their words were being used in that way. So, for example, we read in 1 Corinthians 2, 7, where Paul writes, We speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. And so, we must labor hard to see this connection. This connection between the blessed man of verse 1 and the one Savior who came to earth for his people. For when we do, when we see the blessed man of Psalm 1 can be, as it must be, none other than Jesus Christ, we then begin to see the bigger picture of all of redemption and how it applies to us in particular. Christ was anticipated in the Old Testament and revealed in the New. He was foretold in the Old and announced in the New. For even the prophet Moses, while leading the people from Egypt into the Promised Land, declares to the people in Deuteronomy 32, I proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God. He is the rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright is he. The rock, the perfect one, whose ways are just and true, righteous and upright. This is how we are taught to describe God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, our triune God. And so it shouldn't be a surprise to us that the first psalm of the Psalter, the first of 150 psalms that express every emotion known to man, should begin with a messianic reference. a casting of our eyes to the one righteous and upright man who alone is blameless and holy. What does it mean to you that Christ is the righteous one? Are you provoked by your own unrighteousness? Or have you become numb to your own sin and generally content with your efforts to make yourself a better person? Are you filled with joy that the promised Messiah of the Old Testament promised to Adam and Eve in the garden, to Abraham and to the people of Israel, is announced again here in Psalm 1 and manifested in his birth in Bethlehem. For every psalm on the Psalter takes on a deeper and fuller meaning after the first Christmas, a more pronounced character after the birth of Christ, a more complete manner after the grand intrusion of God incarnate. For Christ, the righteous man, came down from heaven when he was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man. He alone walked not in the counsel of the ungodly. He alone did not stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful. He alone delighted in the law of the Lord, glorying in the perfect truth of all the revelation of God to his people. For he alone comprehended all that was contained in the writings of the law and the prophets. He alone meditated day and night in the law of the Lord and he is that tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither. And whatever he does shall prosper. So there is a blessed man. His name is Jesus Christ. He was anticipated and expected by the people of God. And so Psalm 1 is a psalm of identification. It's that the blessed man is Jesus alone, for he alone can meet the requirements laid out in the psalm and in the law more broadly. These are 128 words announcing Christ and proclaiming a powerful truth about the dual paths, the two ways of the godly and the ungodly. So can you see where this train of thought must necessarily go? For there's still plenty in this psalm that we haven't explored. There's still material that's outstanding. For there's still the ungodly. There's still the sinner who cannot be in the congregation of the righteous. Moses declares this in Deuteronomy 32, saying, They have acted corruptly toward him. To their shame, they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation. Those who walked according to the flesh, those who walked in the counsel of the ungodly and stood in the path of sinners and sat in the seat of the scornful, upon them the burden of sin and sorrow is crushing. And do you know that burden? For sin is a trap that we regularly fall into. We fall prey to its temptations, the temptations of the flesh, the world, and the devil. And as you look at the text, notice the progression in the verbs used by the psalmist to describe the progression of sin. The first is walking in the counsel of the ungodly. The second verb used is standing in the path of sinners and finally sitting in the seat of the scornful. First walking and slowing to a standstill and finally sitting. I said earlier that the Psalms reflect every human emotion known to man, but they're also very descriptive of the sin that we face and the way in which it comes to us, isn't it? How many times have you been tempted to linger a little longer in a place you had no business being in? Or walking up to a crowd of people that you just knew were going to push you to compromise the very things that you believed in? Or walking towards a temptation instead of fleeing from it? Some of you may be familiar with the sad state of affairs in the downtown areas in most of our major cities in the United States. Open drug use, incessant prostitution, regular violence, and the blatant criminal activity that goes on amidst a troubled population. If you venture into these areas after regular business hours, you might not gain too much attention if you were to quickly walk through. if you slow to a stroll, you'd probably be propositioned for drugs. And if you actually stop there for a while, pretty quickly the criminal types would be approaching you with all sorts of offers. And if you set up shop down there, if you sat down, it would certainly be an open invitation to all sorts of temptations and illicit offers of substances and services that would test you in your resolve. And how easily we ourselves descend into the sin that comes naturally to us. Here, the psalmist is keen to describe this progression, and he uses this fascinating three-fold process to show us how our path, our way, is met with increasing temptations as we progress along them. First you're walking, then you're standing, and then you're sitting. Remember Abraham's nephew Lot in Genesis? We read in Genesis 13, Lot looked up and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan was well watered like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt towards Zoar, for this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. And the two men parted company. Abram lived in the land of Canaan while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. So here you have Lot, and he's still on the outskirts of the city. But then if you keep reading in Genesis, only six chapters later, what do we read? Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. He looked, he journeyed towards Sodom, he began to dwell there, and finally when the angels come to rescue him, in a dramatic moment, he's sitting in the gate of Sodom with the leading officials of that city. Beloved, lots of powerful image for us. But we see how the corruption is magnified when we're headed in the wrong direction. And just like a frog in a vat of water, we don't seem to mind when the water is being heated slowly until it's too late. And this is the grave threat of ongoing sin, the warning that's presented to us. It is the Christian's constant temptation that keeps us from boasting in our increasing holiness. For when we see ourselves, when we see that we're not preventing ourselves from being influenced by these temptations, that all too often we're fleeing from them as the great fount of Christian humility. And look at verse 4. We read these stunning words. The ungodly are not so. That is, they're not like the blessed man. They are like the chaff which the wind drives away. The image of chaff is a powerful one. Do we know what occurs with chaff? It's the parts of the harvest when you're harvesting grain that have no value in themselves. They're the dust and the husks of the grain. And the farmers would use these large baskets to sift it out. They would throw everything in there. They would shake the baskets. They would throw it up in the air. And the chaff would just simply get blown away by the wind and the grain would remain. And then whatever chaff was left would be burned up. So that way only the grain was left. And John the Baptist in Matthew 3 declares this to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, saying of Jesus, that his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And later Jesus echoed this in the parable of the wheat and the tares. We have to see the ungodly are not so. They are not righteous. They are not fruitful. They find no delight in the word of God and they are like the chaff which the wind drives away while the farmer harvests the grain, scattered and useless and burned up with an unquenchable fire. And we can't escape the stark warning presented in the opening psalm setting the stage for the rest of the Psalter. It's striking, isn't it? Could it be that people don't understand the book of Psalms very well if this is the way that it opens? With a description of a man who ultimately can only be one man, the incarnate Christ, and a penetrating analysis of every one of us that compels us to see our own misery and need because of our sin. This is alerting us to the way in which we are to approach the entirety of the Psalter. Five verses into the Psalter and we encounter the pronouncement of judgment which not a one of us wants to hear. And yet, beloved, we know that the gospel of good news can only be good news when we see the bad news in its fullness. What is it that verse 5 says? Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. Two things stand out when we read this. First, what does it mean to not stand in the judgment? And then, what is the congregation of the righteous? Well, first, to stand in judgment is the Hebrew way of saying that one could sustain the judgment or remain untouched or unscathed following the judgment's rendering. And the psalmist declares that the ungodly shall not stand in judgment. They will be crushed by the judgment. They will not survive the judgment. The verdict is, and will be on the final day, guilty. And just as Matthew 3 says, he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Who? God will. God in his righteousness and in his justice as the true judge of all creation. And then the second phrase, the congregation of the righteous. The word for congregation occurs only six times in the Old Testament and it refers to the people of God, the chosen people that he has set apart by his electing love as those whom he has loved and shown mercy to. And we know that the manifestation of God's love is that he chose for himself a people who would make up the congregation of the righteous. And as verse 6 continues, the Lord watches over the way of the righteous. but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Who then are the ungodly? Well, there are two types of people. Are we seeing it yet? And we need to see with the prophet Isaiah that we, all like sheep, have gone astray. Each one of us has turned to his own way. But then, Christian, in Romans 5, 6, we read these words of immense comfort in the context of seeing ourselves as those who are ungodly. For we read, You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have been now justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? The Apostle Paul understood the Psalms. He was steeped in them as a child. And here Paul declares that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How did this turn happen? How did the ungodly who could not see themselves in Psalm 1's description of the blessed man suddenly find themselves reconciled to God? We read these words of great comfort. Through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved through his life. So here I pause to ask, do you believe that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior? For we must repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. For without his cleansing blood, which alone can take away our sin, we will continue to stand in the way of the ungodly, being without God and being without the reconciliation that came in Christ. For those who do not know Christ, pray to the Lord now or when you are at home. Seek him, shedding your own self-confidence or self-righteousness. seeing your sin, declaring your need for a righteous Savior to rescue you from this present evil age. But what then for all who have been reborn in the Spirit and rest in full reliance upon Christ? Well, here we can see the riches of the new and glorious claim that Christ makes on your life. You are His. You were bought with a price, and now you are, by His blood, grafted into the tree which is planted by the rivers of water. You are a branch which brings forth abundant fruit in its season. And by the grace of God, the leaf shall not wither and the abundance of God's blessings will be granted to you. Yes, there's still trouble and turmoil in this world that go on in our lives. And we're still battling our own skeptical thoughts and confronting our own internal fears. But the glorious truth of the word of God is that the righteous man, the blessed man, Jesus Christ, has set you free so that you, too, might be as he is. Christian, this is your hope and this is your joy. An entirely new way is open to all who are made right with Christ in God. A way of righteousness, a way intimately and completely known by the Lord. And in this newness of life, something is different when we read this psalm. For it is no longer the condemnation of the ungodly that is your sentence, though we and I justly deserved it. For our sentence, our destiny, our life has been radically altered by God. You must see your own unworthiness. What you once were in the psalmist's declaration of your unworthiness, but you can now rejoice that it is no longer true of you. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous. He intimately knows his sheep because he has bought them with his precious blood. As Paul in Ephesians 2 declares to us, Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. That is the gift of God which will sustain you through this life and usher you into the eternal life in the congregation of the righteous. This is the grounds for our joy and the source of our great comfort in this age. Believer, see the way in which the psalm speaks. It is descriptive at every point. These are not paint-by-number instructions on how to be a blessed person, but rather the Word of God is declarative here, telling you what you once were and what God and Christ has done in you and for you. And I hope that all here tonight can see this crucial shift in how we read the first psalm. For we cannot, we must not approach the psalm in a smug satisfaction that we of ourselves are the blessed ones and the heathen is simply that ungodly one to whom all the negative parts of the passage apply. For that is our lot, our portion, we are the ungodly sinners and yet it is the riches of the grace of God that in Christ, in his death on the cross, we are transformed from being the ungodly to being in the congregation of the righteous. In Christ, you have a new inheritance, a new way to walk, a new path to follow. Yes, it's foreign to you and I, but it is an abundant way marked out by Christ himself. And the things of Christ are then applied to us. For we, in spite of our sinful nature, begin to find delight in the law of the Lord. We begin to delight in his word, the holy scriptures, which guide us and teach us how to live. And we, as a matter of fact, stemming from our transformation in Christ, we draw more and more upon the word and meditate it on a day and night. Now there is this stark warning for the ungodly who have not called on Christ in faith. The way of the ungodly will perish. But the new man, who has been born from above because of the rich mercy and love of God, will walk in the way of the righteous, known by the Lord and loved by Him. And so as we close, do we see the two ways? The way of death for the ungodly and the way of life for the righteous who have the righteousness of Christ as their covering and the power of their Holy Spirit as their constant shield. Loved in the Lord, heed the call of Psalm 1, And go forth in this week considering the wonders to come for those who have been made like Christ. For as we close, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Revelation 22. Take your Bibles and turn to Revelation 22 because here we see clear echoes of the language used in Psalm 1. Trees, rivers, fruit, and leaves all united in one new creation by our sovereign God and Christ Jesus our Lord. For we read in Revelations 22 of a new river with trees of healing on its banks and the Lord God, who knows the righteous by name, reigning with his people forever and ever. What is it that we await? What do we anticipate? Revelations 22, verse 1. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and His servants will serve Him. They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever. Christian, rejoice! For our triumph, our righteousness, our coming purity and holiness is already accomplished in the life, death and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Psalm 1 marks out the two ways, the two outcomes of fallen humanity. It clearly anticipates the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And it prophesies of the coming of a kingdom of God's people, the congregation of the righteous, where we will be the trees planted by streams of water, yielding abundant fruit in season. The Lord, our God, has looked upon us and declared us righteous, and so we can praise him for all that he has done. Amen. O God, our merciful Father, we give you our adoration and praise as transformed men and women who have been set free from the ungodliness and made alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. We pray that you will accept our praises as we reflect on your goodness in this new week ahead and rejoice in your abundant love and mercy. Work in us, we pray, through the power of the Holy Spirit that we might find delight in your law and that we might meditate it on a day and night. Transform us, we pray, and bless us as we go from here renewed by your word of truth and promise. In the glorious name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, we pray. Amen.