"Be a tree - meditate on the word"

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Psalm 1. Best is the 1 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, prosperous, not so the wicked, they are like tough, but 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.

My name is Ben. I'm 1 of the elders here at Hope Church. It is lovely to see you here. As John mentioned, in January, we're taking some time out to do a spiritual mot. You'll know, or you should know that a car every year has an mot, and the idea is that there is a a check to make sure your car is in good working order, but it's the same with this sermon series.

This is to look at the the basics of discipleship to have a look at our lives. And maybe there'll be some minor faults, maybe some major faults, but we need to ask that the mechanic will be at work in our lives to help us follow Jesus. And so this series looks at bible reading. It looks at prayer, church, and rest as the next, 4 series, 4 sermons coming up. And today, we're looking at Psalm 1.

So do keep those verses open. And as we begin, let me pray. Father we do, thank you for your words that speaks powerfully to us. And we ask that your spirit would be at work in making us more like Jesus. We pray that you would transform our hearts that we would become or continue to be followers of Jesus and that we would love you more.

This might ring a bell with you because there is there is something in British culture that makes us at this time of year go for a walk. I don't know if that's happened recently, your family. It has a title even, and a new year's day walk. We should go for a walk, we say. But before that happens, there is 1 decision to be made.

This is often a dad type role, and he will pull out the map, and he will look at the routes, he will decide a destination and declare this to the family about where the walk is gonna be. It's a big decision to make. The destination, isn't it? And which which path are we going to take? Well, this sum encourages us to think very carefully Which path are we on?

What is the destination? And so this song presents us with 2 destinations. And this is my first 0.2 destinations. You'll see In the beginnings, at the top and tail, the first destination is blessedness. And at the end, you'll see in verse 6.

The second destination is destruction. Now it seems a simple choice. Yeah? Surely, everyone's gonna choose blessedness. But as you look at these 2 paths, you notice that they are well trodden.

And there are people seemingly happy going in both directions. Now as we look further at these destinations, I want you to think about which which path am I on? Which destination am I heading towards? At this moment. Let's begin by looking at the path to destruction.

Verse 6 describes whose way this is. It says this. The way of the wicked leads to destruction. Now that word, you'll notice is used several times, wicked. It's in verse 1.

It's in verse 4. It's in verse 6. And it characterizes the ungodly. Is those who don't care about god's way. They're often described as morally backwards, and it is the anthem of our age.

There's a song lyrics behind me from the mummers and the puppers this was their song. Go where you wanna go and do what you wanna do with whoever you wanna do it with, baby. That's that's the song that is sung in this culture, isn't it? Do do what you wanna do. It's a it's a conscious choice, isn't it?

To reject the way and to make up our own way? And and that makes us mini gods because we are deciding what is right and what is wrong. Let me let me take you back to verse 1, because verse 1 shows the inverse of what we're looking at. Let me read that to you. Bless is the 1 who does not walk in step with the wicked.

Or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. So if you're on this path of destruction, then you are walking in step with the wicked you are standing with the sinners and sitting with the mockers. This person is marked by who they are with and what they are doing together. Did do you see the progression there of wickedness and sin in in those verses? It goes from walking to standing to sitting.

Now may maybe you've experienced this this progression before because it goes from thinking like the wicked to behaving like sinners and belonging to mockers. Yeah? Or or to put it another way. Might be more helpful. It's a sinful way of thinking which leads to a sinful action, which becomes an accepted and promoted lifestyle.

It's the progression of sin. Maybe you've experienced that. There's a there's a wonderful picture of this, in the book called Animal Farm, that starts off with with some pigs, and they despise their human owners. And at first, they, just walk alongside the other animals and they talk of freedom and equality. But slowly, the picks begin to stand apart.

They're making decisions, they're bending the rules, they're compromising, And eventually, they're sitting in the farmhouse. They're replacing the humans that they once moaned about. They're drinking the milk, sleeping in the beds, and now they're walking on 2 legs. And by the end, you can't tell the difference from the pigs from the owners they once complained about. There's a progression there that they've slowly, slowly, slowly morphed.

And God wants us to be very careful about the influences that we have because in time they will ensnare us. So there's an encouragement here for careful company Because if not, being with the wicked is risky because in the end, you will find that you have become 1 of them. And together, you will have recklessly walked towards destruction. I mean, haven't you noticed that the things that we listened to, the things that we watch, they have influence on us, don't they? And over time, this affects our thinking and behavior.

You know, think about it. The things that we watch as we sit on our sofas They sway our thoughts and opinions over time. I mean, just think of maybe the the violent or the sexual content that you've watched. It begins to permeate our minds. To change the way we look and think about other people.

Behere. This path of destruction isn't a flat 1. It's a slippery slope. Behere. Now, m most family walks, well, I hope yours do end in a nice end, you know, they they have a a pub at the end, or a Vista, a waterfall.

However, verse 5 describes a very different destination from that. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. The destruction we read about in verse 6 is a result of the judgment in verse 5 because the lord sees what is going on. He sees that their hearts delight in something other than himself. God has allowed the wicked and the mockers to continue along their path.

In fact, he's given signs and opportunities to encourage them to turn back, but There will come a time when god's courtroom is in session, and all those who have actively turned their backs on him will be found guilty of treason. And those who have persisted on this path have rejected the king. They have or they will be barred from being with god's people, and they will be unable to turn back. And as we've mentioned, the sentence passed here by the judge is destruction. It's the complete opposite of blessedness, isn't it?

They're in contrast to 1 another. So let's look at the blessed path. Shall we? The blessed destination. Now bless, that's such a a rich word, isn't it?

And it's there to say total fulfillment or complete well-being. Or to put it another way, it would say happy is the 1 who takes this path. Happy is the 1. That's that's a state we want, isn't it? To be happy, to be joyful?

Our lives are often orientated around this around being happy as the biggest desire we have. And you might have noticed at Christmas, on the TV, on the radio, our culture, materialism, It cries out for us to buy something that that happiness can be found in material possessions. But the happiness that we're talking about here, the blessedness can't be bought. It's a different type of blessedness here. Because people on this blessed path aren't necessarily rich.

They're not necessarily well or healthy. Instead, they have found their happiness and their joy in god. Now this destination of this path leads to everlasting life. Now it's life that can't be purchased. It can't be earned.

It can't be stolen or gained through deceit. No. It is a gift for those who choose this path. And you'll notice in verses 5 and 6, there is an encouragement that on this blessed path, you are not alone. Verse 5 speaks of an assembly of the righteous and verse 6 speaks with the lords watching over the way of the righteous.

You'll notice that both paths have company But is it good company? Be aware of of the path of destruction of where those people lead you. And the wonderful encouragement from verse 6 is because the lord is with you. The lord is watching over you on the blessed path. The righteous can have peace because God knows their way.

He will protect them and he will preserve them till the end. So Christian, as as you wake up in the morning, as you go to work, as you do the school run, wherever you do, you can know that the lord is with you. And he hasn't blindly sent you on this path. You won't get lost on this path. No.

Instead, he has promised to be with you and be watching over you. But as with any road network, there is a highway code. And with the highway cage, you need to know it and you need to follow it. So I'll run you through a few rules. Firstly, everyone is on 1 path or the other.

You you can't sit on the fence or to add to the analogy. You can't sit on the central reservation. Yeah. You're on 1 path or the other. Secondly, there there is no third way.

Now don't be arrogant to think there is a third way or a third destination because there isn't. It's a mistake that Adam and Eve made. Who thought they knew best, they ignored the clear instructions and took the fruits and did what they wanted. And as a result, they faced judgment and ultimately death. Because to think there is a third way makes yourself out to be god, doesn't it?

That you get to the sides, the map. So look at look carefully at Psalm 1. And realize there is no third way. And then thirdly, you need to know that there are no shortcuts. It's dangerous to live on the path of destruction with the intention of turning back before you reach the end.

There are no shortcuts to be found. And lastly, and somewhat surprisingly, u turns are allowed. People have been known to turn back from 1 path before the end. So I want to pose the question again. Think about this.

What path are you on? Look look ahead. Where is the destination that you're traveling to? Because some people, you you might you might know them. I foolish and don't think the path terminates anywhere.

They think it just goes on and on. As we think about this further, I encourage you to reflect on what this Psalm is saying. Now when you're on the walk, there is something to be said for the people that are around you. You you might have heard the phrase, we'll we'll follow these people. They look like they know where they're going.

I don't know how that works. Yeah. You you can tell a lot from the people on the path, about the path. So let's look at the 2 travelers that are found in this farm. This is my second point to travelers.

We'll begin with traveler 1. They delight and meditate on the law of the lord. Have a look at first 2. It would read blessed is the 1 whose delight is in the law of the lord, and who meditates on his lord day and night. The traveler on the blessed path is someone who delights in the law of the lord.

Now that doesn't just mean that the 10 commandments. It means the whole body of scripture, the whole the whole Bible They delight in that. And it shouldn't be like an Ikea catalog that you begrudgingly come to because you have to. And it shouldn't be like an in encyclopedia. That you that you read just purely to gain knowledge?

No. It's to be read and delighted in because it gives life. It acts as their source of truth and wisdom and insight. Cause because where else is that gonna come from? And I delight in it because of who it is from, who it is written by.

The maker of heaven and earth has spoken, and the hero wants to delight in him and what he has said. And not only do they love it or delight in it, they meditate upon it. That's 1 of the key words here. Now it's worth thinking about what meditation means or what it doesn't mean. We're not talking about eastern meditation where you empty your mind.

Yeah? It's quite the opposite. In fact, the word meditate means to think, to plot, to work it out, to mull it over. We're to occupy our minds by god's word. So for example, the gold word isn't just to be read once.

His laws are to be meditate meditated on day and night. So does the day have an a in it? Well, it's another day to read the Bible. It's another day to meditate upon it to reflect and to apply scripture. Let me let me give you an illustration of what the opposite looks like.

I've known in my households, for for singing around the house, but with the wrong lyrics. Now this this is unintentional. I think it's a character fault because I've heard the song, you know, played, and I've tried, I've listened But I haven't it hasn't gone in. Yeah? I'm humming along, but I haven't got the words.

And sometimes bible reading can be like that concert. It seems to go in 1 ear and fall out the other ear. We we failed to kind of think it through to think what are these words actually saying to me, in this world, in this culture? Was it tell me about gods? And that's probably because I haven't meditated on it.

I haven't listened carefully. And this Thomas taught me that I am guilty of that in my bible as well. I read it and then move on. Here's a wonderful quote. It should be, behind me from a man at a puritan preacher called Thomas Watson.

Leave not off reading the Bible till you find your heart warmth. Read the words not only as a history, but labor to be affected with it. Let it not only inform you, but inflame you. Isn't that? And a wonderful encouragement as we read our bibles this year.

To have this as our desire. Now verse 3 does paint a helpful picture of what this does look like. Let me read that to you. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruits in season, and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever they do, prosperous.

The illustration here is of a person who has roots deep into the Bible. That is the source of life for this tree. That's what it is soaking up And the person's roots are in streams of fresh, living, good water. It's meant to take our minds back. To the gun of Eden.

Genesis 2 describes a river that flows out of Eden representing the source of life. It's meant to take our minds forward to the book of Revelation Revelation 22 describes a river of the water of life flowing from god's throne. So this isn't a dry stagnant lake or pond. No. And this isn't the Hogsmeal where sewage is pumped in.

No. This is fresh water. If everyone could get their hands on it, they would. They'd bottle it and sell it. This person has roots in living water because they know that without this water, they will die.

That's how important it is. And the result of this tree that has its roots deep in this water is fruit. The tree yields fruit. And the tree doesn't die. It prospers So think of like an evergreen person plugged into a non stop supply of life itself.

And the roots, as I'm sure you know, it give its stability So it's stability when the wind comes, stability when the seasons change, stability to survive and thrive. The roots are important. Now over the summer, we had a a small bush to get rid of them talking that high. And I thought that this will be a a 10 minute job to get rid of this. And now or later, I was still there.

My spade and my fork I thought this would be easy to get rid of this, but the roots were far, far deeper than I imagined. It's worth thinking about that, isn't it? What are our roots into? What are we soaking up and absorbing? Do you delight in the law of the lords?

Does the Bible occupy your mind at all? Does it have a priority in your day? Let's let's look at verse 4 because it shows us the other traveler. Trouble of 2. First 4, not so the wickets.

They are like chaff that the wind blows away. They're described as chaff Now if you're not a farmer like me, it's pretty worth knowing what Chaff is. So Chaff is the dry outer husk that surrounds the wheat seed. So essentially, it's the inedible waste material You you don't need it. You throw it up in the air, and the chaff is blown away because you don't need it.

It's the complete opposite of a tree, isn't it? The chaff is rootless, fruitless, it's weightless, and ultimately worthless. The chaff is not full of life. It has no roots into anything. So much so that the wind blows it away.

It's here for a moment and then gone the next. This is how a second traveler is described. You remember that in verse 1, the, wicked, standing, sitting, but now gone, blown away. I mean, maybe maybe you've experienced this type of thinking before. It's kind of an emptiness.

It's kind of what what I'd call chaff like thinking. It's it's often found, isn't it? When we put our delight in something other than god, It's a fallacy that delight and joy and life can be found elsewhere so that the worship of created things rather than the creator. Here's an example of that. You'll see behind me this quote from Fern Cotton.

Let me let me read it to you. It's been challenge after challenge recently for various reasons. And I found myself in a very negative mindset. Why is everything going wrong? And so she go she goes on to say that she, found herself help book that encouraged her to change the, why is everything going wrong to something brilliant is gonna happen, thinking.

Now how about helpful this might have been to her at the time? It is ultimately weightless, isn't it? It's just positive thinking. It has no substance to it at all. And you can see that she feels buffeted around by circumstances.

As the winds come and go and as the seasons change in her life. Let me let me give you another example. This is by an American author, Ramona Anderson. She wrote this People spend a lifetime searching for happiness, looking for peace. They chase idol dreams, addictions, religions, even other people hoping to feel the emptiness that plagues them.

The irony is that the only place they ever needed to search was within. This isn't biblical thinking. Is it at all? It's like a tree trying to feed itself from within. We need wisdom from God outside of ourselves.

We need feeding from god's word, not from the world. So god's warning for everyone is to not be like chaff. Don't be buffeted around by the wind. The changes in life. Don't live your life with no roots.

Attached to nothing of substance, and don't end up being worthless, ultimately discarded by the judge. Cause whatever path we are on, We have to admit, don't we? That there have been times where our delight has not been in god. We have meditated upon things other than him. And we are therefore falling short of what this Psalm instructs.

We deserve, don't we, to be on the path to destruction? And we are in need of someone who has walked this path before us. Perfectly. We are in need of someone who will rescue us from the destination of destruction. Now you might have noticed in this Psalm that it is referring to 1 So have a look in verse 1, you'll see it says blessed is the 1, and then verse 3, that person.

I don't know if you remember this, but newspapers ages ago, used to print a picture that you would stare at for, like, 10, 15 minutes. And the longer you looked, something would pop out from the page. I could never see it when my dad could. So I I thought he was a liar, but that that's how it worked. The longer you looked, something popped out.

Or here in this Psalm, it's not something. It is someone. It's my third 0.1 prophecy. Who is the 1 who is fully blessed? Who is the 1 who was never wicked, never mocked, never sinned?

Who is the 1 that fully delights in the law of the lord? Who is the 1 who lives like a healthy tree with roots into the law of the lord? Who is the 1 who defeats death and is therefore evergreen? Who is the 1 that ultimately prospers forever? Who is the 1 the lord watches over?

Well, the 1 we are talking about is Jesus. Hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus hears prophesied about in this Psalm. Jesus is the personification of Psalm 1. Let me give you a few more examples in, in John 4 verse 13. Jesus speaks to a woman at a well Explaining that the water Jesus gives is water of life.

Let me read you this. Jesus answered everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Jesus says the source of all life, but yet he gets nailed to a cross and put to death in a Psalm 22 verse 15.

Again, Jesus describes Jesus is described that his strength is dried up. His mouth is dry and he is laid among the dust, like chaff. He deserve the blessed path, but yet he chooses to take the path to destruction. He chooses to lay his life down for us. And Jesus is disposed off like Chaff.

So that we can escape that judgment. Jesus is the 1 that this Psalm is talking about. So if your delight is not found in him, that I'd encourage you to seek delight in him. Could 20 26 be the opportunity to be you for us to reinvigorate our love for Jesus? I'd encourage you to love our savior more in this year ahead.

So as we close, let let me think about what it what it means to meditate. And delights. If you if you think about that, think about chewing food, like mulling over. That's the type of language we're talking about here. Meditate upon god's words.

It's like being a cow. They they have 4 stomachs. They're just regurgitating it over and over again. But before you read a single word of scripture, I suggest that we ask the lord to reorientate our lives towards him that our delights will be found in him and his word. Cause wouldn't it wouldn't it be worthless for us to read, read, read, think, think, think, but still our delight to be in something else.

Remember how these verses say, bless just 1 whose delight is in the law of the lords. The first action here, isn't it? Is delight before meditating, we need our hearts to delight in his words. Now maybe this Christmas period, you realize that your heart is far from god. Well, today is a chance to repent, to turn back and ask for help.

The triune god, father, son, and holy spirit will answer your prayer. Being encouraged that Jesus has walked this path before us. Being encouraged that the Holy Spirit is with us and being encouraged that the Lord watches over us. Now if you've never read the bible for yourself, or maybe you've fallen out of the habit, then here is a chance to reboot that and to meditate on his words. Firstly, it's just a big plug for gospel opportune sorry, gospel communities.

They are a wonderful way to meet together with other Christians to reflect to think about, to mull over, to apply, scripture. Yeah? We we've heard the preaching on the Sunday, and now is a chance to discuss it. All women's bible study midweek, another opportunity to mull over god's words. So do what you can to attend these meetings.

They will be good for your soul. And if you'd like to join 1 of those groups, please do speak to myself, 1 of the other elders. We'd love to have a discussion with you. The next 1 is that there are a number of, devotionals that you can buy. So there there's 2 behind me.

First 1 by Alastair Begg, it's a helpful book called Truth For Life. This can be purchased or it's available online for free. Just looks at 1 verse with a few paragraphs, a wonderful way to start and end the day. And again, Charles spurgeon has got a book called Morning and Evening. Very similar idea.

1 1 verse expounded enough to think and pray about. And then, today, Jackie has helpfully bought some books long and devotionals at the back of the room, for you to look at and purchase So please do go and speak to her or have a look. It'd be wonderful this year if hope church committed ourselves to meditating upon god's word. As we close, let me finish and pray. Followies, thank you for your word in Psalm 1, and this clear picture of these 2 destinations.

We ask this year that you would encourage and help us to delight in you and your word and help us to meditate upon it. Help it not to just go in 1 ear and out the other, but instead for us to think on it, to apply it, to discuss it, to love it, to live it. To lord, we ask that your holy spirit would be at work in changing us to make us more like Jesus. Man.