The Psalter begins with the commitment of the blessed person. He shows us that through all the peaks and troughs of human experience, that person ends up praising the Lord, Psalm 150.
The blessed person
Psalm 1:1-6
Book One
The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked
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.
This transcript has been automatically generated
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’s like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all 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 judgement, 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.
At St Peter’s earlier, I talked about being a grandfather, and sometimes as a grandfather, the grandchildren say, tell us, Papa, about the olden days, and you tell them about relatively recent history and they call that the olden days. But over there I talked about the fact that when you used to go to church in the last century, they’d give you a bulletin which you have, but they’d also give you a book called a hymn book. And of course, hymn book has been replaced these days by the PowerPoint. But interesting, I wasn’t having a go at anyone over there, the PowerPoint didn’t work over there today, so we had to have the words before us. But the test of a good hymn book, a book of Christian songs, was always how it started and how it ended.
So a good hymn book would always start with praise and end with commitment. For example, O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing, that’s how it started and it ended with, Make me a captive, Lord. Start with praise, end with commitment. Now the Psalms are the hymn book, is the hymn book of Israel. If you look at Psalm 4 and 5, for example, the introductory notes there are, To the choirmaster, Psalm 4, and Psalm 5 to the choirmaster.
They are— the Psalms as a package are designed to be the hymn book of Israel where they would come to the temple or the tabernacle and they would use them to praise God. But as a test of a good hymn book, the Psalms fail miserably. The hymn book starts with praise, ends with commitment. The Psalm doesn’t do anything like that. It begins with commitment and ends with praise.
So it begins with a commitment of Psalm 1, And if you flip over and look at Psalms 146 to 150, they are all praise. They are not— there’s not one request there, there’s not one lament, there’s not one complaint. It is undiluted praise. It’s interesting that they start, the psalmist starts with commitment, he starts his collection with commitment and he ends with praise. Now in week 1 of summer school, I sat occasionally with a fellow down there who was a real chess master.
Chess fascinates me but I’m not very good at it and halfway through his obliterating another opponent, I said to him, tell me, what is the secret of being a really good chess player? He said, you’ve got to recognise the patterns, you’ve got to recognise the patterns. Well, that doesn’t help me much, what are the patterns? And he explained to me the patterns that you’re looking for as you’re trying to obliterate your opponent. But it’s interesting, isn’t it, that if you take the Psalms between your fingers, so Psalm 1 and Psalm 150, let’s look at the pattern of the Psalter.
The pattern is that you start with a commitment— here is the person who is blessed— and you end with Psalm 150, the person praising the Lord. 13 occasions Psalm 150 says, praise the Lord. And what happens in between? Well, he goes through tough times, she goes through tough times, and they go through good times. So you go through the peaks and troughs of human experience and you’ll always end up praising the Lord.
So if you stand back from the Psalter and see, this is the pattern we’re going to look at briefly over the next 3 or 4 weeks. Here is the person who starts out who is the blessed person and they go through the various peaks and opposition and failure of life and the good times and the bad times and they will always come out in the end, with their last breath, praising the Lord. Now that seems to be the pattern of the Psalter. Now let’s look at Psalm 1 as the introduction. It’s a classic introduction, isn’t it?
It’s an economy of words. There’s just 6 verses here. Verses 1 to 3 are about the blessed person. Verses 4 and 5 is about the contrast, the wicked person. And verse 6 is God’s summary, the way he sees both And verse 6 really sums up the whole of the first Psalm.
Now notice with regard to the blessed person, the blessed person starts in his description of what he does not do, then verse 2 tells us what he does do, and verse 3 pictorially tells us what he is like. So who is this blessed person? What does he not do? Well, he does not show— he does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, that is the faithless. He does not stand in the way of sinners, that is rebellious.
And he does not sit in the seat of scoffers, that is mockery. Now look at those, because he’s standing, he’s sitting— sorry, he’s standing, he’s walking, he’s standing and sitting. He’s becoming progressively immobile. If I’m walking, I’m moving. When I stand, I’m not moving.
And when I sit, I’m actually settled. So for this man, there’s something about the attraction, the popularity, the acceptance of the lifestyle of the wicked, the sinner and the scoffer, but this man is blessed because he doesn’t make his address there. This man is different because he stands out from the crowd. He does not walk, he does not stand, he does not sit with the faithless, with the rebellious sinners and with the scoffing mocker. So he does not become progressively immobile, that is not his habitual lifestyle, that is not where he resides.
That is not the place of blessing. So in one verse, the psalmist says the blessed person is this person who does not make his address, is not in solidarity with these people. And then secondly, notice, well, what does he do? Where does he reside? Where is his address?
But his delight, that which turns him on and gets him to mull over, his delight is in literally the Torah, the revelation of the Lord. His delight is in the Word of God, and on that law he shows his delight by meditating on that law day and night. Now, for one year I did a course in archaeology at university, and I looked at the archaeological artefacts of the BC area and found that in the pottery and all the jewellery and all that sort of thing, Israel was not in the majority. In fact, I had one lecturer who said that Israel were, uh, they were not the brightest culture. They were well back in terms of cultural expertise because they didn’t express themselves in beautiful jewellery and beautiful pottery, and even their architecture was fairly usual and normal.
Why is that? Because for Israel, when the men of Israel met, when they met together, when they met with their families, when they went and gathered for Sabbath worship, it was always about one thing. It was always about the Word of God, that God the Creator— it was unique for Israel that God the Creator, who created all things and spoke through the creation to the whole of humankind, spoke words, and he spoke words to Israel. And so they never lost that sense of privilege. His delight is in the word spoken by Yahweh the Lord.
And on that Word he meditates day and night. It’s a beautiful picture, isn’t it? I mean, he does not walk, stand, sit with these people who have no regard for God, have no regard for the Lord, but his delight, he mulls over, he never moves beyond, he never graduates past this Word. He meditates on this Word day and night. And it’s interesting that this Psalm is very much like James, isn’t it?
James is also a wisdom Psalm. James says we have been given birth by the word of truth so that we’re the first fruits of the new creation. And James exhorts his readers to not merely listen to the word but really listen to the word. In other words, delight in the word, meditate on the word, turn it over and over. Don’t merely listen but really listen.
See what God is saying to you. Are you too much in solidarity with the people of verse 1? And does verse 2 not, does not really describe you? Now I have a friend in Sydney, his name is Rosario, Ross. He came to Australia, his father came to Australia in the early 1950s as an immigrant from Italy.
His father had 4 daughters and 1 son, Rosario. And Ross, I think, fulfilled all his father’s dreams. Ross was excellent at soccer, football, and he was selected for the under-18 Australia youth soccer squad. He was that good. Now you would think that an immigrant father seeing his son selected for their new home country, that would fulfil all his dreams.
And one day Ross is going out to training, he’s 17 years of age, and his father calls out to him, Ross! Ross, Rosario, have you read your Bible today? No, no, no, Ross didn’t have time for this. He was going to training with the Australian soccer squad. And his father said, you cut the Bible out of your life and you cut God out of your life.
And that cut through Ross. Today Ross is in Christian ministry, but that cut through Ross. You cut the Bible and you cut God Here’s a man who meditates. He loves the Lord, and therefore he loves the Lord’s word. What he does not do— what he does.
Look at verse 3, pictorially. Isn’t this an interesting picture? He’s like a tree planted by streams of water. It’s a productive tree, and his leaf does not wither. In all that he does, just to underline the point, in all that he does, he prospers.
That’s him. Now I think that you might share this with a friend and they’d say, well, that’s what I want. I want that verse 3. I want the productivity and the prosperity of verse 3. But you don’t get verse 3 without verse 2.
In other words, if you’re to have the prosperity of verse 3, you must come via verse 2. But see how significant this is. He is like a well-planted, abundant, fruitful tree And the writer is writing from an arid environment in the Middle East. So pressure may be this man’s environment, but withering will not be his experience. Whatever comes his way, good things and bad things, withering will not be his experience, even though pressure will be his environment.
He will make it through the troughs and peaks of human experience. Now keep your finger there with me and come to Psalm 73, because Psalm 73 is also about prosperity. Prosperity. And if you yearn for prosperity, Psalm 73 sets us right. And I chose Psalm 73 because it’s roughly in the middle.
Psalm 73. And notice that the psalmist Asaph starts by saying, truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But his problem is that he stumbled and nearly slipped. He almost stumbled and he nearly slipped. What was his problem?
Well, he took Psalm 1 seriously. That is, that if you are going to prosper, you’ve got to be godly and righteous, and the wicked will not prosper. But his problem is that he, as he observes the wicked, he sees that they are going very well indeed. That’s contrary to everything his parents would have told him, and it’s contrary to what Psalm 1 says. Look at what he says, verse 5: They are not— the wicked are not in trouble as others are.
They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Verse 7, their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff, they speak with malice loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues strut through the earth. Verse 12, they’re always at ease, they increase in riches, they’re doing very well indeed.
And my feet had almost slipped because I thought you had to be righteous to prosper, but here I am seeing on observation, I’m seeing seeing the wicked prospering. Look at verse 17: Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I saw reality, then I discerned their end. Truly I saw that they are in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. Ah yes, I see now as I go to the place of revelation that prosperity is not having your private jet and your big bonuses.
That’s not what it’s about. What is prosperity about? Look at verse 23. I’m continually with you. You hold my right hand.
You guide me. You will receive me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? Verse 25. And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. What is this prosperity? It’s not the passing thing, the trinkets of life, the things which can appeal and make, that seem so attractive, they pass, they’re gone. What is true prosperity, he says, is to know God and to be in relationship with God. And as long as he based his conclusions on observation, what he could see, and not on revelation, what God said, his feet had almost slipped.
He had almost stumbled. But then he went to the place of revelation. He went to the sanctuary of God. Was it something that was read? Was it a word that was uttered to him after the service?
We don’t know. But revelation brought him into line to see reality for what it is. Psalm 1. Here is this man’s non-address. He doesn’t reside here, verse 1.
His address, verse 2. Verse 3, here’s the road and here’s the pictorial representation of what this man is like. Now come with me to verses 4 and 5 because it is a stark contrast, it is a tragic contrast. Notice that the blessed is one man or one person in verse 1, the wicked, they are many. Verse 4, the wicked are not so but are like, they are like.
So there’s many of wicked. And the blessed are in the minority. Notice verse 1 tells us that the wicked have a council, they have a way, they have a seat. Pictorially, verse 4 tells us that they are as chaff, that is without root and unproductive, the wind blows it away. The man is blessed because he does not walk, stand or sit, but look at the wicked, they do not stand in judgement, That is, they do not stand in judgement because they are condemned, and sinners will not stand in the assembly of the righteous on that last day when the righteous will gather.
They are excluded from true prosperity, tragically. God’s summary, verse 6: the Lord knows, he watches, he is active in his involvement. With the way of the righteous, and He will simply let the way of the wicked perish. That’s the way they have chosen, He will let them go that way. It’s the passive wrath of God.
That’s the wrath that the Apostle Paul says we are seeing now. You choose to go your own way, I’ll let you go that way, and you will bear the fruit of that choice. Well, there it is. It’s a classic, simple, Psalm, blessed is the first word, the last word, verse 6, is perish. So at the beginning of the Psalter you’ve got a choice to be made, there are 2 ways, there are 2 roads, there’s a majority and there’s a minority way, there’s a blessed way and there’s a perishing way, there’s a watch over way, an approved way, a prosperous way, there’s an empty and an unproductive and cluttered way.
Which way will you go? Now I believe that I could stand up in any synagogue in London and preach this sermon so far and they’d think this is great, no worries at all. It’s not at all confronting, is it, to the Jewish mind? But of course the Lord Jesus, we know, read the Old Testament as referring to Himself. Who is the blessed man?
Well surely it is the man, the Lord Jesus. But you say, wait on, Jesus mixed with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus mixed with the wicked, sinners and scoffers, But Jesus never mixed with them in order to identify and make his home with them. Jesus mixed with them redemptively in order to win them to true prosperity. Jesus came and he pitched his tent in order to make a way for you and me to find a new address, a pathway away from wickedness to a pathway of blessing. That’s what Jesus did.
He did it in order to be redemptive. He is the way of blessing. Blessing of the true prosperity, to join the assembly of the righteous. And, and that’s open to you today. I don’t know where you came from.
I don’t know even if you’re a believer or not. But what Jesus has done, he has done in order to open the way for you so that you’ve got a future, you’ve got a hope, you’ve got true prosperity. And when you come his way, it’s not a matter of earning. It’s not a matter of superiority, inferiority. It’s nothing to brag It’s all by grace.
Come to him and he will set you on the path to life so that your testimony will be, verse 3, a tree planted by streams of water, productive in all that he does. I find prosperity in knowing you. Well, how will it all end? Well, come with me if you would to Psalm 150. So we’re doing the whole Psalter in one sermon.
Psalm 150, and notice here’s how he’s going to end. Through troughs and peaks, crises of war, opposition, depression, in the end, this is how the person in Christ will end. Look at Psalm 150, he mentions your lungs, he mentions your lips, he mentions your limbs. He mentions 7 instruments: the trumpet, the harp, the lyre, the tambourine, strings, flute and cymbals. He uses the Hebrew word hallel, praise, or hallelujah, praise the Lord, 3 times in verse 1 and 2 times in every other verse for a total of 13 times in 6 verses.
Praise the Lord. So let’s interrogate briefly this psalm. Who are we to praise? Verse 1, praise the Lord, the Lord who sent his Son, the Lord Jesus, into the world to save people like us. Praise the Lord, praise him, lift him up, elevate him, give him his worth.
Where should we do that? Look at verse 1. Who? The Lord. Where? In his sanctuary, in with his people.
Praise him, lift your voices. And notice, in the universal heavens. He is universal, Lord. So praise him in the whole universe, in the mighty heavens. And then why?
Underline this if you’ve got your own Bible there. What a great verse verse 2 is. Praise him for his mighty deeds. Praise him according to his excellent greatness.
One of the favourite places we go is Malaysia, and in Kuala Lumpur there is a Blue Mosque, which is one of the largest mosques in the world. When we go there, when I go there, I generally have a group of students with me, and on one occasion we went there and were met by our guide who was a young Malay man. He had a copy of the Quran which I saw was in Arabic, and before he led our tour of the mosque he said, I want to translate the introduction to the Quran. And he translated through Malay from Arabic into English. Blessed be Allah, the Gracious and the Merciful, the Lord of Judgement Day.
And he explained that this was where Allah was praised. And off we went on the tour. And someone came up beside him and said, with great respect, how do you know that Allah is gracious and merciful? Oh, he said, because the Holy Quran says so. He tells us he is.
But with great respect, what has Allah actually done to underline and prove that he is gracious and merciful? You see, we are Christians. We follow the God who reveals himself in the Bible He tells us he is gracious and merciful. And I can tell you a number of occasions where God has backed his word with deed and has proven his grace and proven his mercy. See, that’s what makes verse 2 so important, isn’t it?
Why do we praise him? Because of what he has done, his mighty deeds. And the greatest deed, of course, was coming of Jesus. And praise him because those deeds spring from his excellent greatness. Now, how do we praise him?
Verses 3 to 5: Take your instruments, your trumpet sound, your lute and harp, your tambourine and dance, your strings and pipe, your sounding cymbals, your loud clashing cymbals, make a noise! And then that breath which God gave you at your birth, the great gift of God that he gives us breath, the most sublime of that breath is that you praise him, that you use that breath to return to your Creator and Redeemer. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. And dear friends, that is why and how we Christians thrive when things are tough, when inflation’s going up, when interest rates are going up and the market’s going down. We don’t put our hope and trust there.
Our hope and trust is in the living God. The great, excellent God who by his mighty deeds has backed all this up and has brought us to true prosperity, to know him. Our first parish was out in a little country town in Australia called Weewar. Flat black soil plains, fertile, cotton-growing area. Most of our congregation there were Americans who’d migrated to Australia to grow cotton.
One day late in October, we went out a Sunday afternoon to one of the cotton properties. The cotton was that far above the dirt, the soil, so it was just starting to grow. The wheat was in head, ready to be harvested, and the man we were with owned a large property. A great hailstorm came down, and I’ve never seen hail as large, the size of golf balls. Everyone in the room was silent because this hailstorm was devastating.
It would cut the cotton down and you can’t replant it. It would take the head off the wheat and you can’t harvest it. And we went out when the hailstorm passed to look at our cars, how they had been potted by the hail. And one of this man’s labourers came down and said to my friend, well, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And he spat on the ground.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. And he spat on the ground. And my friend who had everything to lose— wheat, cotton— he said, you finish that verse. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
That’s where his trust is located. That’s where our trust is located. The crowning terminus of Psalm 1 is Psalm 150. Here is the person. You set out like this, you start today like this.
There will be troughs ahead, there will be peaks ahead of human experience, but your lasting testimony will be, praise the Lord. Verse 2 of Psalm 1, you fill it in for yourself. His delight is in— what? On his he meditates day and night. You cut the Bible out of your life and you cut God out of your life.
Let’s pray.
Our Father, you have told us that this word brings the lost to life.
And brings those who have life to be nourished and grow and mature. And so we pray that you’d help us as we meditate on this series and every series that we hear here which breaks open your word to us, that we might look for ways of being more Christlike in the way we live. Break the bread of life to us, feed us, nourish us, pray, and lead us in the way of repentance and trust in the Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.
