Download Sermon on Psalm 1 Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ

Sermon on Psalm 1
Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Many of you will have seen this old poster from the days of our fathers, of the two ways
and the two gates. I am pretty sure it is based on the saying of our Lord in his Sermon on the
Mount in Mt. 7:13-14 about the wide gate and the easy way which leads to destruction, and
the narrow gate and the hard way that leads to life. The poster shows the easy way on the left
hand side. There are many people on this road and there is a lot of entertainment along the
road. I think I remember there is a ball room on that road somewhere, with people dancing
inside. But the end of the road is a dark abyss, with red hot flames roaring at the bottom. The
hard way on the right is narrow and rocky. And the gate is very small too. There is a
dangerous lion on its path, probably a reference to the devil who prowls around like a roaring
lion seeking someone to devour (1 Pt. 5:8). Not many people are on this way, but this one
ends in a shining light.
This is basically what Psalm 1 is about as well. Psalm 1 is like an OT version of the words
of our Lord in Mt. 7. The person who chooses to go the way of the Lord will reap everlasting
rewards. But the person who chooses to live without God, will find himself judged by God,
and he will perish.
And so Psalm 1 is one of the Psalms we call Wisdom Psalms. There are several categories
of Psalms. There are Psalms of praise, Psalms of repentance, lament Psalms, and more. The
Lord willing, we will study a number of Psalms in the coming weeks, and we will take them
from these different categories.
So this is a Wisdom Psalm. That means that its purpose is to teach the reader something.
And the lesson is pretty obvious: the way of the godly man is blessed, the way of the godless
man is not. The godly man bears fruit in his life and will be with God forever. The godless
man lives a useless life and will be abandoned by God forever. So which way should you
choose?
Now as we read the words of this Psalm and consider its message, several questions come
up. First of all, it says that the godly man delights in the law of God. Now how many of you, I
wonder, can sincerely say that they take pleasure in God’s law? To many the law, or any law
for that matter, is like a necessary evil. You obey it because you must, and because you know
it is good for you, or because you know that you will be fined if you don’t. But to actually
delight in the law, that is a different matter altogether.
Secondly, again, if we examine what lives in our own hearts, we do not really want to
choose between the way of the godly man and of the godless man. If at all possible, we would
like to have it both ways! We would like to live close to God, but at the same time, we would
perhaps like to spice up our lives a bit with a bit of naughtiness. How boring would life be
without the occasional sin! So, yes, we would choose to go on the narrow road, but every now
and again we would not mind taking the tourist route for a little bit of adventure. So what do
we say to that?
There are other questions we can think of. And these are all serious questions, no doubt.
But let us not allow them to cast a dark shadow onto this Psalm. In all its seriousness, it is
actually a very bright and promising Psalm. It talks about blessings, delight, prosperity, and
about God who knows the righteous ones. It is a serious and joyful Wisdom Psalm. And we
should read it in that atmosphere. It is good to be a child of God, it is wonderful to be a godly
person. It is lovely to walk in the way of the LORD. So why would you choose to go the way
of godlessness? Only a fool would, because
A godly person is truly blessed
1. His fellowship is with God
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2. His life is for God
3. His future is with God
1. A godly person is truly blessed because his fellowship is with God
If you think back for a moment to the Sermon on the Mount we mentioned earlier, you will
remember the best known part of this section, the so-called Beatitudes. That is where the Lord
says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the meek.” And
so the list goes on. Nine times our Lord uses the word ‘blessed’ to express the supreme
happiness of those who live with God and receive his gifts in this life and the next. It is the
same word used by the writer of Psalm 1. The very first word of the Psalm is ‘blessed’. And it
means that someone is to be congratulated for he has found true happiness in God and
fulfilment in his life.
True blessing is always in God. And so the writer of Psalm 1 first makes clear that this
blessing is not found in the company of sinners, of godless men. It is not found in the counsel
of the wicked, or in the way of sinners, or in the seat of scoffers, that is mockers of God.
Some take these three statements to indicate a situation going from bad to worse. I prefer to
take them together, as the focus of the Psalm is not on explaining a process of joining sinners,
but on the fellowship with them. That is what vs 1 basically says: a man who has fellowship
with sinners, can not be blessed in God.
Mind you, this does not mean that godly people can not associate with people of this world
altogether. This is not about Pharisaic isolation from the world, but it is about the forsaking of
the world as John speaks about it in 1 Jn. 2:15: “Do not love the world or the things in the
world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” It is not about talking
and working with sinners, it is about partaking in their plans, about sharing in the pursuit of
their desires. It is about joining sinners in their wicked ways and in their denial of the God of
heaven and earth.
Indeed, true blessing is not found in fellowship with the sins and sinners of this world, but
in fellowship with God. That is the focus of vs 2. The godly person takes pleasure in the law
of God, he ponders and considers it all the time. Now that is something that we sometimes
find hard to understand. Like we said earlier, how can a person take pleasure in laws? A law
is a rule which restricts your freedom. It tells you not to do something, or it commands you to
do something. The mere fact that you have to be told indicates that you would not do this of
yourself. And people do not like to be told to do something. It goes against our sinful nature.
We want to lead our own lives, we want to make our own decisions. It is like the first sin of
Adam and Eve. They wanted to be like God, knowing right from wrong. And we are just like
them, true children of Adam, sharing in their sin.
So how can we delight in God’s law? Well, we can if we see God’s law in the context of
his covenant. The law was given to the people of God to obey at Mount Sinai. God made a
covenant with them. God had chosen Israel from all the peoples of the earth. He said that he
would be their God, and they would be his people. He would care for them and bring them to
the promised land of Canaan. This was a wonderful covenant with rich promises. God was
committing himself to sinful people.
However, for the people to be so close to God, and for God to be able to associate with
them, they needed to be as holy as he is. And that is why God gave his commands. Whoever
would keep his commands, was allowed to be close to him. Whoever would obey God’s will,
was worthy to receive the fulfilment of God’s promises. In other words, the law of God made
it possible for his people to be close to him. The law of God was like the fence around the
covenant, like a fence that keeps sheep together, and close to their shepherd. And if you see
that, if you understand that God’s law is not there to make life hard on you, but to keep you
close to God, then indeed you can delight in the law of God. The law of God maintains the
fellowship with God. If we want to be blessed, we need to stay away from the fellowship with
godless people, but seek the fellowship with God, in obedience to his will.
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But then, some will say, we can not keep God’s will perfectly. We can never be as holy as
God. So is this fellowship with God not broken all the time? Indeed it is. But part of the
covenant is also sacrifice as payment for sin. In the OT the sacrifices were like payment for
the sins of the people. They too were an indispensable part of the maintaining of the covenant.
The sacrifices cleansed the people of God, so that in spite of their sinfulness, in spite of their
occasional disobedience, they could still be close to God in the covenant and receive his
promises. God is a merciful God! In his holiness and majesty he demands a perfection and
holiness which we can never achieve. But in his goodness and love, he also gives us the
means to be cleansed from our sins so that the covenant can remain intact.
And this is the same both in the OT and the NT. The sacrifices of the OT never really paid
for sins. They foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. His
suffering and death were truly payment for our sins. The wages of sin is death. But our Lord
died in our place. Therefore, whoever believes in Jesus Christ, is declared righteous and is
allowed to be close to God in the covenant of grace. And within that covenant true
blessedness is found. In that covenant is fellowship with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
In addition, the writer of Psalm 1 uses the word ‘torah’ in vs 2, which is translated with
‘law’. But in the OT the word torah indicates more than just laws. Torah is the whole of
God’s Word and guidelines and statutes. The whole of God’s Word is our guide for life in this
world. And we must study and meditate on God’s Word diligently and faithfully, if we want
to stay close to God. To show that, there is a passage in our Bible that sounds very familiar to
Psalm 1. Let’s look it up and read Jer. 17:5-8. You see that the ‘delight in the law of God’ of
Psalm 1 is basically replaced with ‘trust in God’ in Jer. 17. But both have the same outcome:
fellowship with God and a fruitful life. And so we see that we must not only obey God’s law,
but also trust his entire Word! God comes to us in his Word. And through his Word the Holy
Spirit makes a dwelling place in our hearts. Through God’s Word the Spirit gives us faith.
And that, in the end, is what makes fellowship with God possible, faith in God, faith in his
Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Mind you, I do not say this to belittle our obedience to God’s will and command, but to set
our obedience in the right perspective. For a life in faith will bring forth fruits of the Spirit.
That is our second point.
2. A godly person is truly blessed because his life is for God
We have just seen that the Torah is given to us to maintain our fellowship with God. The
Torah is not the same as God’s law, but it does definitely include God’s law. The law is not
what saves us - God’s grace in Jesus Christ saves us! But nevertheless, the law does have an
important place in our covenant, in our relationship with God. Vss 2 and 3 show us exactly
what that place is.
It says there that a godly man is truly blessed because he is like a tree planted by streams of
water. That is where he spends his life. The stream of water makes him bear good fruit. A
truly blessed man lives his life for God, in God’s service. The image of the tree planted by a
stream of water, bearing fruit, makes an important theological point. It does not only simply
say that a tree planted by water bears fruit, but it says and implies that a tree planted by
streams of water will naturally bear fruit. It must bear fruit, it is a matter of fact. Let no one
say that we are saved because we bear good fruit. We are saved because we are planted by
streams of water! Salvation is the result of God making his covenant with us, and us
responding in love and obedience. Salvation follows when God places us in a position of
fellowship with him. And as a result this relationship will naturally bear good fruit! A holy
life is the inescapable and undeniable result of a life in fellowship with God. And that is
where the law of God serves as a guideline for our lives in the covenant with God.
This is true because in this relationship God the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling place in our
hearts, like we found earlier. Those who are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3), will
inevitably bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. This is, according to Gal. 5:22: “Love, joy, peace,
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patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.” Again, in the Sermon on
the Mount, our Lord also refers to Psalm 1 when he speaks about a good tree and a diseased
tree. A good tree will inevitably yield good fruit, and a bad tree bad fruit.
Now, we must be careful that we do not take this comparison too far, and get frustrated and
depressed as a result. This simile does not mean to say that we, as Christians, like a good tree,
will always and only bear good fruit. We know from experience that this is not so. And, more
importantly, we know from God’s Word that this is not so. I think of Psalm 51 where David,
in tears and agony, confesses his sin with Bathsheba. Or Paul in Rom. 3:11-12: “None is
righteous, no, not one. No one does good, not even one.” Or John in 1 Jn. 1:8: “If we say we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” So we need not despair if we see
sin in our lives, thinking that we are bad trees. Sin should not bring us to despair, but it should
bring us to our knees to find forgiveness in the blood of Jesus Christ.
At the same time, however, we see that sin breaks the covenant, that it invades and
interferes in our relationship with God. Sin creates a distance between us and God. You may
know from your own lives that this is true. Perhaps you struggle with a particular sin, one that
you do not seem to be able to break free from. A problem with addiction perhaps, with
alcohol, with pornography, or playing lotto, or other things, or with sinful sides of your own
character like anger, stubbornness, arrogance or selfishness. And you will know that every
time when you give in to your sins, you feel that there is this distance between you and God.
You don’t pray much anymore, or only half heartedly. You don’t read your Bible anymore.
Your fellowship with God becomes dry and stale.
In fact, this happens to quite a few of God’s children. The Canons of Dordt address this
problem in Chapter V, artt. 4-6. Art. 6 offers great comfort to those who are in such a
situation. It says that “God does not completely withdraw his Holy Spirit from his own even
in their deplorable fall. He does not permit them to sink so deep that they fall away from the
grace of adoption and the state of justification.” In other words, brs and srs, God will not let
go of you, if you continue to seek him with sincere faith and repentance. Because of our sins
we create a distance between us and God. But God will not let his children go, because his
Son died for our sins. He will bring you back if you will only meditate on his Torah. God will
work in your heart with his Spirit so that you will once again delight in his law.
On the other hand, as an occasional lack of fruit does not mean that there is no faith, so a
lack of faith does not always mean that there is no fruit. That is the problem of hypocrisy.
Obedience to God’s law is part of your relationship with God, brs and srs, but obedience is
not identical to your relationship with God. In other words, when you do show fruit, when
you do all the right things, when you go through all the Free Reformed motions, that does not
necessarily mean that you are a godly person. Hypocrisy is lip service, heartless morality, or
cold legalism. It is when we do the things we do in church and world only because we feel
that this is expected of us, out of a sense of obligation. We do all the things in church because
our parents did it as well, and it would make us feel uncomfortable if we didn’t. But if the
heart of faith is cut out of our obedience, then our relationship with God is dead, as in, non
existent. God wants your hearts, brs and srs, boys and girls. He wants you to love him, just as
he loves you.
And if you do love him, then you will prosper, says the last line of vs 3. The godly man
prospers. That is because the law of God is given to us for our own good. The law is good for
us. It is like the Lord Jesus says about the Sabbath (Mk. 2:27): “The Sabbath was made for
man, not man for the Sabbath.” Those who keep God’s law will benefit from it. This is not an
unconditional promise of course. We know that some people who do not care about God and
his law at all, are among the richest people of this world. And we also know that some of the
most obedient and faithful people are among the poorest of this world. However, we also
know that true prosperity is not measured in amounts of money, but in grace. Indeed,
sometimes God crowns his goodness with material blessings, but sometimes this crown of
goodness is received only after death. The fulness of this promise of God is revealed in the
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NT, where we learn that Jesus Christ rewards the children of God with everlasting life. That
outcome is guaranteed by his death and resurrection.
But not so the wicked person. If there is no love for God in the heart of a man, then not
only is his everlasting life in danger, but already this life is pointless. He is like chaff driven
away by the wind, or burned in the fire. Good for nothing. A wicked person lives his life for
himself, not for God. And then whatever he does, however good it may look on the outside, in
the end it is useless and worthless in the eyes of God. It will not remain in eternity, it will not
be rewarded. Godless people may be rich and successful in this world, but in the eyes of the
Lord they are failures. And that brings us to our final consideration.
3. A godly person is truly blessed because his future is with God
In our first point we found that fellowship with God is the blessing on the life of a godly
man. In our second point we found that this fellowship results in a fruitful life. But now we
see in vss 5 and 6 that this fellowship with God extends also to everlasting life!
But hold on a minute. When we read the word judgment in vs 5, we quickly think of the
final judgment, when the Lord Jesus comes back to judge the world. But would the writer of
Psalm 1 have that in mind as well? Remember that Psalm 1 is from the OT. And Christ’s
second coming and his last judgment is only fully revealed in the NT. That is why the writer
of Psalm 1 was probably thinking of God’s righteous judgment in time, rather than his
judgment at the end of time. With vs 5 the writer is saying that in case of a judgment by the
righteous elders of the city, a wicked man would not stand, he would be cast out of the
congregation of the righteous. His own actions would condemn him.
To explain this, see also Psalm 15, which is a similar kind of Psalm. There we read: “O
Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent and dwell on your holy hill?” This is of course the
temple, or in David’s time, the tabernacle. And the answer is: those who walk blamelessly,
those who speak the truth, those who keep their oaths, in short: the godly people. So that is
what Psalm 1:5 means to say also: only those who are righteous are allowed to be part of
God’s people, not only in everlasting life, but also already in this life. If God’s will is
faithfully upheld in the midst of God’s people, then the godless people will be filtered out
already in this life.
Only in vs 6 the perspective of God’s judgment widens and reaches into everlasting life.
From that follows that God’s righteous judgment in time, in this world also has consequences
for eternity. This is why the church discipline in the NT must be exercised with such great
care. Because God has given the church authority to use the keys of the kingdom to open and
close the kingdom of heaven, this opening and closing extends to everlasting life. And that
gives the church of Jesus Christ great responsibility. Brs and srs may not be disciplined or
even excommunicated because of petty issues or personal opinions. And office bearers must
remember at all times that they will have to give account of their actions to God himself in
this respect. In the end the only reason for discipline and excommunication is hardening in sin
as a result of unbelief. The church must be careful in her exercise of church discipline for,
says the Lord Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 7:2): “For with the judgment you
pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
Now, when we consider the serious words of the final judgment, it should not make us
fearful of that day. God knows the way of the righteous, says vs 6. The godly person is
righteous and his future is safe with God. And righteous does not mean that the godly person
is good and sinless in himself. We already found in our second point, that that can never be
the case. Psalm 1 calls the blessed godly man in vss 5 and 6 ‘righteous’. But this does not
mean: without sin. Our righteousness is not achieved through our own obedience to God’s
law. Our righteousness is the righteousness of Christ! Within the fellowship with God, in his
covenant, is where the forgiveness of sins is received. In Psalm 32 we have another Psalm
which starts with ‘blessed’ (Ps. 32:1-2): “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity.” The
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sacrifices symbolised this to the people of the OT, and it was fulfilled in the NT in the Lamb
of God who died on the cross on Golgota.
Indeed, this Psalm is a wonderful and bright Psalm. The forgiveness of Jesus Christ makes
us the blessed people that we are. It is only because of Jesus Christ that we can delight in the
law, because we also know of forgiveness. The godless man hates the law because it
condemns him. The righteous man loves the law because it keeps him close to God. For a
final example think of Paul in Rom. 7. In vs 22 he says: “I delight in the law of God, in my
inner being.” But there is always the struggle against sin and our sinful nature. And then he
continues in vs 24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this struggle?” And
he answers his own question in vs 25: “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
Jesus Christ saves us from the judgment of the law through his blood, and sets us in the
freedom of love and obedience to God.
Conclusion
So, brs and srs, which way do you want to go? The way of the godly or of the godless
man? The answer should be obvious. Thanks to our God, we choose life. However, it is not
always easy to go the narrow and rocky road. There will be struggle our whole life long. But
the outcome of our struggle is certain, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Brs and srs, live in
the Spirit, pray for strength, and for forgiveness when you fall short. Do not despair and do
not fear the final judgment, for Jesus Christ has secured your reward. Just live your lives close
to God, in fellowship with him. Then you will be blessed and you will yield the fruits of the
Spirit. Trust in the LORD your God, rest your hope in him, and it will go well with you, today,
tomorrow, and forever. Amen.
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