THE PSALMS – A JOURNEY IN WORSHIP AND FAITH - PSALM 1

July 24, 2014 – Day 1

 Psalm 1

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with the same word as the first Psalm begins, blessed, which actually translates as happy. The Book of Psalms is a book on how to worship God in the midst of anything we might face in this life. For those like me who struggle daily with the burden of depression, the Psalms are a great place to find God’s comfort and to be reminded of the surety of our hope in Him. Maybe you don’t struggle with daily depression but are just sometimes feeling down as occasionally storms pop up in your life. The best advice to those who are in the midst of a storm is to first worship God in that storm.

So who is the one who can be happy in this life? Here God speak in this Psalm.

Psalm 1:1-2, “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.”

If you want to find happiness in this life then you must not listen to those who do not follow God’s Word. It is the Word of God, The Bible, within which God has given us every answer to every problem that exists on the earth. The blessed man is the one whose “delight is in the law of the Lord” and who “on his law he meditates day and night.”

Hebrews 4:12 says this about God’s Word. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Lesson one from this Psalm is that we must read God’s Word and make its ways our ways. Notice it says to meditate on it day and night. The use of the word “meditate” in the Hebrew speaks of how a cow eats. The cow chews its cud over and over again because that is how it extracts the nutrients from its food. We must not only take time to read the Word; we must constantly be thinking about it and taking it in slowly piece by piece. We must then apply its truth into our lives. It is our emotional nutrition.

Joshua 1:8 is as relevant to us as it was to the Jews. It says this, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Psalm one starts with the word blessed but it ends with the word perish. God wants us to know there are only 2 ways our lives will go. We can be blessed both in this life and the next by following His Word or we can live out this life on our own. But the final words of Psalm 1 say this in verse 6, “ but the way of the wicked will perish.”

God has given us a choice. Follow His Word and be blessed or listen to man and perish. I end with the words of Joshua.

Joshua 24:14-15
"Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

Which will you choose?