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Bible Studies for those who love the Word or want to discover more.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Psalm 1: The Secret to a Blessed Life

Due to scheduling difficulties we will take a one week hiatus from our study in Genesis.  Let's enjoy a Psalm today.



For those of us who are at mid-life or way beyond that point often there are times that we wish we could stay at a young and vibrant age. These longings conjures up the idea of the "fountain of youth"—hoping for a place or a tonic which would enable us to return to vibrancy.  How we can long for the things or the way of life that will lead us into blessed joy and constant abundance!

What if I told you that there is a secret to having a great life? Would you want to know about it?
As Biblical Christians we find incredible truth in the Word of God for matters such as these. We can find that in God's Word are hidden in plain view the keys to living a great life. Some of those keys can be found in the Psalms. One commentator put it this way:

"Here at the very center of the Bible are songs, rising up like a tune from its heart. They capture the innermost thoughts and prayers of Old Testament people and they still speak directly to our needs.

"For every emotion and mood you can find a psalm to match. The psalms wrestle with the deepest sorrow and ask God the hardest questions about suffering and injustice. Their voice is refreshingly spontaneous. They do not tip flowery compliments toward God: they cry out to him, or shout for joy before him.

"After you read these poems, you can't think of the Old Testament as dry and rule-bound. Nor is the Old Testament God distant and impersonal. In almost every psalm you find the presence of God, not as a philosophical principle, but as an active, strong, and loving ruler—a God who makes a difference in life."[1]

 
Let's read Psalm 1.

Blessed is the one
   who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
   or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
   and who meditates on his law day and night.
That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

   Not so the wicked!
   They are like 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 leads to destruction.

In this Psalm rest some of the keys to a great life. Most of us understand what blessing means. It encompasses the idea of favor, approval, gifts from God, enjoying happiness and provision.  It is from God that all blessings flow. 

And then we need to understand what righteousness means. There are numerous references to righteousness throughout the Bible. Let's consider just two of them.

Proverbs 4:18
The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

I John 3:6-9
No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.  The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.

A righteous person is filled with God, wants to do things the way God does them, and then actually does the things of God. In addition, Psalm 1 spells out some of those same activities—both positively and negatively.

Look at the first verse again.  A blessed righteous person does not walk, stand or sit with wicked people.  What does it mean to walk, stand and sit? Does this mean that we should completely avoid any contact with unbelievers? Does this mean that we are to completely withdraw from the world and live in communes in the mountains? I think not.

As Christians we believe in the whole revelation of the Word of God. So, when we go to the Gospels and see that Jesus sat down and ate with drunkards and prostitutes, we have to ask the question again—what does it mean to not walk, stand or sit with the wicked?

The original Hebrew of these words all indicates a more progressive activity. They imply an intentional participation with the wicked, sinners and mockers in their activities. Jesus certainly intended to participate with such folk, but with an entirely different motivation than what the Psalmist is trying to point out.  Jesus wanted to heal and evangelize.

Unrighteous people stand or sit with the wicked folks for full participation in their activities.  They want to learn how to be sinful or to find the means to more self-gratification or to learn how to ridicule others.  That is fundamentally different than evangelism of the Jesus sort. Righteous people want to engage with their world for the sake of salvation of the lost, not to learn more ways to be unrighteous. 

The psalmist shows us what a righteous person seeks out.  In fact, the psalmist tells us that a person who loves God takes delight in God’s ways. We who follow God find delight, pleasure, happiness, gladness and joy in this open secret to life.

What is that open secret? It is the Law of the Lord.  When an ancient Hebrew referred to "the Law" he wasn't talking about the Supreme Court or the policeman on the corner or the thousands of law books on a lawyer’s book shelves. The Hebrew people understood the Law to include the first five books of the Old Testament, which just happened to include the laws handed down by God to Moses.  It was the whole sweep of God's great hand in giving direction and guidelines. 

In Joshua 1 we see that Moses wanted to make sure that the leaders and people understood that God's law was for future generations as well. We can read how he stood as a weak, old man ready to die making this incredible statement: Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

There is something wonderful and miraculous about God's law. It is designed to keep us and guide us into all truth. This is not subjective idea about what is good or right, but it is a lifestyle of peace and truth based on God’s Word. When we take the time to study God's Word he will put his law into our hearts, heads and hands so that we will not end up like the wicked. That is why we meditate on it. We eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We dwell on it in our daydreams. We might think thoughts like this, "Oh, God, if I follow you into this area of ministry I know you have promised to help me." Or "Lord, I need your direction, give me your insight and wisdom. You Word says that if I ask for wisdom from You I will get it. Thank you!"

Have you heard the phrase "You are what you eat"? It's quite like that.  If you spend all your time thinking about where to get your next thrill or how you're going to pay the next bill or how you can get more stuff—­that's what you will become. Like the little girl in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who just could not resist eating blueberry gum. She ate it and suddenly she began turning blue and her body started expanding and she eventually, and quite rapidly, became an enormous blueberry!  That's what it is like with the wicked things of this world. You will become consumed by them if you consume them only.  So, why not consume God’s Word and Law, which will help you to become more like a fruitful tree than a piece of rotting fruit!

Poetry is filled with similes and metaphors. It is in the next verse of Psalm 1that we see a beautiful picture of a blessed-life righteous person.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
   which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
   whatever they do prospers.

Wow, now that's my kind of life! I recall watering the lawn some time back in the middle of a blistering summer.  I walked across a hot parking lot heading toward the sprinklers when all of the sudden I stopped. There was a remarkable change that had just come over me. I felt immediately cooler and I had stopped squinting. What happened was that I had walked under a tree with beautiful leaves spread out.  It seemed as if it was there just to protect me from that summer sun. Somewhere deep in the earth beneath me that tree’s roots had found water and it decided to stay right there and live a healthy life because it was tapped in to an underground stream of water.  If it had not found what it needed so desperately in the heat, it would have dried up and fallen to the ground.  Those deep roots were the life source for that tree.

Let's say that that tree was completely dependent upon me for its water. We have these little rain bird sprinklers that attempt to mimic rain. They are good and do a fairly good job—when I turn them on. But I'm not always here. Sometimes I forget to turn the sprinklers on. Sometimes I'm unable to be there. But when the tree is drawing from the stream that never dries up, it will never suffer and die. Now that is prosperity! That's the good life—so unlike how the wicked, sinners and mockers define prosperity!

Trees seek water by design. They send roots down as fast and as deep as they can.  But we sometimes pull up our own roots and then we wonder why our leaves are withering and there is no shade. And then, worst of all, we discover that we produce no fruit—there is no evidence of God in our lives. Sometimes it's the people around us that notice this first. They wonder why we lack the joy we used to have, why we are disgruntled and angry all the time, they wonder why we have taken up with those mockers and they see and know that very soon we will come to nothing.

In this Psalm we see the reason that God gives his Law and the reason that we need to follow it. Let’s dwell on verses 4-5 for a moment.

 Not so the wicked!
   They are like chaff
   that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
   nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

These are striking and harsh words. No matter what the mockers say, the outcome of life for them is nothing more than something that can be blown away by the very wind that blows against a tree that is rooted and firm.  Cast in theological terms, the Psalmist doesn't cut any corners here! There is a terrible outcome for these people who refuse God's ways.  They won't even be able to stand when God judges them! What a terrible day! When God's goodness and righteousness shines on them directly they will dry up and blow away as dust. Even the righteous people will stand in that great courtroom and watch them be blown away. How sad.  How very sad.

The Psalmist closes this psalm with a short and concise stanza in verse 6. 

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

My dear friends, in this short and wonderful Psalm we have found some of the essential open secrets to having a great life.
What if we took this psalm seriously? What if we wanted to be righteous every day? What if we wanted to be like a tree planted by streams of living water?

If we really want this, we can have this by meditating on God's Word and love day and night.  We can let the Living Water and his Word transform us into his righteous people.  Then we will have the way of life that will lead us into blessed joy and constant abundance.  Our challenge is to let our roots grow more toward the deep and wonderful streams of God’s everlasting waters.  Then we will be able to stand firm as a tree—being fruitful until he comes again.  What a blessed life!

Amen

Copyright M.R. Hyde 2013


[1] Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Bible NIV,1994 1995. 1996 SoftKey Multimedia Inc.

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