Corey Speer
Immanuel Sermon Audio
Psalm 1
Good morning, so glad to see you this morning if you have a Bible. Go ahead and take it out and turn to the book of Psalms. We are going to start a series today on the book of Psalms and we will work through the book of Psalms until sometime in the fall. Let me just say hello, my name is Corey. This is not my normal position on a Sunday morning. But Landon, he did a wedding this weekend in Oklahoma and he's taking some time. He's going to go up and see some family in Kansas, maybe the Amarillo direction and head back. So be praying for him and his kiddos as they are away this weekend. But when he's away, I get to step in and speak with you and I'm very honored and privileged to do that this morning. So we're going to be in the book of Psalms. So what I want to start with today before we get into Psalms, chapter one, or Psalms book one, sorry. We're going to give like an overview of what Psalms is. 'Cause maybe you may not know exactly how Psalms came to be the book of Psalms. So the book of Psalms is a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew poems and songs and prayers that came from many different periods in the history of Israel. And so 150 ancient documents. So who wrote the book of Psalms? Well, it has lots of authors. You can look at this. You can see David is accredited with 73 of them. David also being known as a poet and a harp player wrote 73 of those. Asif with 12 books accredited to him, the sons of Kora, 11, human and Ethan too. These were actually worship leaders in the temple who wrote these books. Solomon and Moses are accredited with three. And then of course about one third of the book of Psalms, about 49 books or 49 chapters are anonymous. We do not know who wrote them. So many of these Psalms that we're going to look at over the next few months are, we're used as choir music in the temple. These were actually songs that we're saying and worship to God. But the book of Psalms, and let me just say this, it's not a hymn book. The book of Psalms is not a hymn book. It's every one of these that you're going, we're gonna read, will not be a song that was saying. Okay, so at some point during Israel, Israel's captivity in Babylon. Okay, all of these books were gathered together. Now let me just make sure I make this point. These were not written, some of these were, but some were not during the captivity of Babylon. But these were all gathered at that point and put in the order that they are today for a reason. We're gonna look at some of those reasons today. But it's very unique, the order that they put them in, that if you read them from beginning to end, they will tell a story. They will tell from beginning to end, it tells this unique story. So let me ask you a question. How many of you like to read? Come on, let me see your hands. You book readers out there for the world. How many of you do not like to read? My people are right there. How many of you, I want you to be honest since we're in church, right? I want you to be honest. How many of you have read the last chapter of a book before you started the book? Anybody guilty of that? Okay. This is kind of unique. Sometimes when something's going bad in a book, someone will skip to the back and go, "Okay, are they there?" Just skim the pages. All right, they're still there. So you go back and you read on it. To look at the book of Psalms and understand where we're going, it's very important to begin at the end. So, let's look at the end. To see how the book of Psalms is designed, we look at chapters 146 through 150. You don't have to turn that. We're not going to read any of it. You're good. But these are what's called the five books of praise to the God of Israel. 'Cause each one of these books, each one of these chapters will end with this hallelujah praise. Each one of those will end with something like, will end with this hallelujah command, meaning to praise y'all, to praise y'all way. And it makes a great conclusion for the end of the book that we will see. But it asks, you know, as we look at the end, okay, we have all of these hallelujah endings, okay? And you read that and you're like, "Oh, this is a great ending to a book." So, let's see what the middle is all about. So, let's look at the middle. And you will see something very important in that these books, the book of Psalms is broken up into five different books. And you will see, starting in chapter one, it has a title above it more than likely in your Bible it says book one. And starting in chapters 42 through 72, and we'll say book two, right there. Chapter 73 through 89, you will see that it has the title book three. This is a mini version, and this is kind of cool, this is kind of a cool connection, as we're gonna look at today in the scriptures, it talks about meditating on the law of God. And if you are here today, the original book of the law, the original law is the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, okay? And it's no coincidence that the book of Psalms is broken up into five books. They did this for a reason. Now I will tell you this, when you look at the first book, it is not an image of Genesis, and the second book is not an image of Exodus. But this was broken up for a very specific reason, and that some scholars call the book of Psalms a little Torah, they call it a mini Torah, it's the new law, often referred to as the new Torah. So we have, and you will see the end of each of these books will actually end very similarly. They will say, "May the Lord God of Israel "be blessed forever, amen, and amen." Kind of an ending that when we go to Kenya, we will hear people say, "Many amens at the end of a prayer, amen, amen, amen." All right, making a point. And each of these books will end with AA men. So as we're digging into the book of Psalms, it's divided up into two basic themes, okay? As we look over the next several months, as we look at the book of Psalms, we will see two basic themes. We will see, first of all, Psalms of lament. And these Psalms of lament are prayers of pain, they're prayers of confusion, they're prayers of anger, they're about all of the horrible things that are going on in the world, all the horrible things that are going on with the person who may be experiencing those things. The Psalms are, these Psalms of lament are drawn to what's wrong with the world. And these Psalms are actually a prayer to ask God to do something about it. Now, as I say that, let me just say this. You may be at a time in your life that things may not be exactly as you would want them to be or they may seem very chaotic. This is a, as we read these Psalms of lament, as we read these Psalms of suffering, of anger, of confusion. Let me just say this, it is not a bad place to be in that type of attitude, okay? When we look at this through the scope of Psalms, through the scope of the Bible, we will see that there will be a time for mourning. There will be a time for sadness. And this attitude that we're gonna see in these Psalms of lament are a Psalm of asking God and praying to God to make those things right, to do something about it. And of course, it's also for us to help us to keep the right attitude as we look at those Psalms of lament. So, as you go through these five books, you will see that these Psalms of lament are increasing, they are very, they're a lot of them in book one, and they get fewer and fewer as you go towards book five. So, they are decreasing as you go through and read the books of Psalms. So, the second type of Psalms that we see are Psalms of praise, okay? These are poems of joy. These are poems of celebration. These draw attention to what's good in the world, okay? We have a lot to celebrate in the world. But these also retell the stories of what God has done in our lives and in the life of the Israelites. And it gives thanks. So, as you read through the book of Psalms, starting in book one, the prayers of lament are many, and the prayers of are these praises, these Psalms of praise are very few. And as you continue reading, they get more and more. And of course, this ends with this lovely five part ending that ends in Hallelujah praise to God. So, we have our middle, we have our end, this begs to go for where we start. And that's exactly what we're doing today. We're starting in Psalm chapter one. So, if you have a Bible, you can turn there. The outline that we're gonna look at today shows the, the first section is the way of the righteous. The second section is the way of the wicked. And the third part is the comparison of the two ways from Yahweh's perspective. And if you haven't keyed in yet, that's exactly what we just sang. We just sang Psalm chapter one. And it was a great song actually written by Steven Stroop, who's sitting right back there. So, he wrote that song and I love it. We should sing it more often. Maybe we should preach Psalm one, or now I'm just kidding. So, let's look at the big idea. Let's look at the big idea. Delighting in and meditating on God's word is key to God's blessing. It is key to God's blessing. So, let's go ahead and read Psalm chapter one. Starting in verse one. "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 is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit and season. And its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, 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." Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for giving us another day to live, another day to worship you. And Father, whether we are in a great time in our life, whether we're in one of the hardest times in our life, Lord, the same attitude of worship you want us to enter into your presence with that attitude. Father, I pray that as we look at these scriptures, as we talk about what these mean for us personally, for us in our world, I ask that you would help us to take a look at this, take a look at our own lives. And Father, I pray that we would obey all the commands that you've given us. So Father, as we look at the blessed man, as we look at the wicked man, I pray that you would reveal truths in our lives. And we ask all this in the powerful name of Jesus, amen. So Psalms one serves as a gateway into the rest of the book of Psalms. Psalms chapter one and psalm, I'm sorry, Psalms one and Psalms two, both were added later, okay? When the books were compiled, they say that Psalms one and two were added as an intro into the rest of the book of Psalms. That's why it's anonymous. No one knows who wrote the Psalms chapter, Psalm one. So as we look at that, keep that in mind that they're making a very important point in Psalms one that if you want to worship God genuinely, you must embrace his law. And yes, his law is talking about the first five books of the Bible, okay? And I want you to think about what this means for you because we all have a choice today. As we read Psalm chapter one, we have an important decision to ask ourselves, which way are we going? You know, a lot of people try to make there be so many different roads, okay? But there's really two, okay? And as we look at, as we examine this scripture today, I want you to think about, there's two ways here, okay? Let's look at the first one, the way of the righteous. The chapter begins with the word blessed, okay? And I know in a world filled with prosperity gospel preachers, when we think of the word blessed, you're just like God just wants to give us everything that we ever wanted, God wants to make us just happy. Well, guess what? This word literally means yes, God wants to make you happy, okay? But there's only one way to achieve that happiness. This is not a happiness that goes towards possessions. This is not happiness that comes from our health. This is not happiness from our circumstances as life in life. This is happiness that comes from being right with God. Being in a relationship with God in such a way that it makes peace in our life, okay? And it's amazing that even in the most chaotic of times, when you are at peace with God, it's amazing how much the peace of God will come and just be on you. I'm just at peace. Yes, my world is chaotic and everything's crazy, but I'm at peace. You all know what I'm talking about. If you have a relationship with God and you're walking with Him daily, you know what that feels like. You know what it feels like to be at peace with God. And you also know if you're human, what it's like to not be at peace with God. You know what it feels like to be, just things aren't right. And I know why and I know what I should do, but it's hard for me to do those things. Let's look at some things that the way of the righteous does not do, okay? And these are some blanks that you have. First of all, it does not walk in the council of the wicked. The blessed man, his worldview, the blessed man's ethical life, the blessed man's moral decisions are not affected by the world. That's what it means when it says you do not walk in the council of the wicked. You do not let these types of things impact your life. Does not stand in the way of sinners. His identity, his standing, his lifestyle is no longer determined by those who rebel against God. You know, there's really two choices here. You're either influenced by God or you're influenced by the world. And that's a little bit of the meaning behind standing in the way of sinners. And it does not sit in the seat of scoffers. He isn't learning from the world. Now, I want you to notice in these three things that we just talked about, there's a downward spiral here. I want you to notice, first of all, we see the man walking, does not walk in the council of the wicked. The next thing we do is we see him standing, standing in the way of sinners. And the next thing we see them doing is sitting in the seat of scoffers. There's a downward progression here. If you're in the gospel project in Sunday school, this last week, it was this last week for me. I think some of you did it this week, but we talked about the story of Aiken. And we saw a downward spiral with Aiken, okay? We saw a downward spiral in that they knew the Lord's commands. They saw something that they wanted, okay? They desired it and they took it. There's a downward spiral there, right? Same thing with Adam and Eve. They knew what was right and wrong. They saw the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They desired it and they took it. And it's the same downward spiral that is talking about here in Psalm chapter one, this downward spiral. And this is a warning for the readers of this book to not start down that downward spiral, to avoid the advice of the ungodly. And this negative expression in verse one prepares us for the positive in verse two. Here the blessed person has an attitude of delight. Here this person is delighting in something, okay? So I want you to think about what you delight in, okay? It could be a new, it could be so many different things. Some of us delight in TV shows. Some of us are like, okay, which day is it? Monday, yes, I get to go watch this TV show. Or Tuesday, we go home, what am I gonna watch? This TV show, right? That is something that we delight in. I have my favorites, you have your favorites, right? Something that we delight in. Something that we look forward to. Maybe it's a significant other, okay? And you delight in spending time with them. You cannot wait to get a babysitter so that you can go on a date with them or whatever, right? We delight in spending time with people, okay? Some of us may delight in going to work so much so that we don't ever come home, I don't know, right? We all have delight in our life. Some of us, it could be food, right? We delight in food, I'm not gonna lie to you. I love Mexican food. Mexican food loves me too, that's all I'm saying. But it's amazing the things that we delight in, okay? Because the Bible is telling us very specifically here in verse two that there's something that we should be delighting in, that I would be willing to bet that if we all took a straw poll with ourselves and God only, some of us do not really delight in God's word. When we think about God's word really, I guess I should read the Bible. Something that I need to do. That's what good Christians are supposed to do. Is it your delight? Because it says the blessed man, it is his delight. Check out this, the fact is the right attitude, delight, will lead to the right action, meditation. It will lead to the right action, meditation. You know, I'm just gonna put in a plug right quick for our Awanis program, because it's amazing the amount of scriptures that my four-year-old can quote to me. I'm ashamed to say, okay, that when my wife says, "What does John blah, blah, blah, blah, say?" And I'm like, and I say, it's like, boom, and he says it. And that's all because there are people in the church who spend time going over scriptures with your children. And let me just say this, parents, if you have a child in Awanis, two things need to happen here. One thing, you need to teach those scriptures to your child, one, so they can get their sticker in Awanis. (congregation laughing) But two, and most importantly, you need to be teaching scriptures to your children. You need to be learning them for yourself, and you need to be teaching them to your children. I give kudos to my wife because she is the one that does that. She beats them into our children's brains, and it's awesome. It's amazing how many scriptures my four-year-old child can repeat. And there's no reason why we should not be the same way. Because guess what, I want to grow Isaiah to love God's Word and to love God more than I do. But our delight has to be in God's Word if we are to teach it. And I hope it is a delight for us. Let's look at what Joshua says. Since we're in the book of Joshua in Sunday school, let's look at Joshua in chapter one, verse eight. Says, "The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you would be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success." Likewise in John chapter eight. Says, "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if," there's a big word right there. "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples." I want you to think about the weight of that verse. If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. So my question to you this morning regarding this part is are you in God's Word? Do you make it priority in your life? Do you, is it something that you delight in? I can't wait, you know, one of the things I hate most, anything in the world is getting up early in the morning. I hate to wake up early. I would be one of the best that most of you have that same feeling. I don't like getting up in the morning. Some people delight in working out and working out early in the morning, that is not my forte. I love to sleep in, I love to hit snooze at least four times before I get up. So it's amazing, they put a snooze on the phone, but delight in God's word, if that means getting up early to spend time in God's word, then do it. If that means making time to spend time, maybe you say, I'm not going to watch this show until I spend some time in God's word, delighting in God's word and making it important. And as you meditate on the word of God, you will continually be watered by the word. And when that happens, we flourish, we grow. Check it out. It says, two things will happen. We will bear fruit in season. And I just want you to be reminded of that. You will bear fruit in season. That doesn't mean that the first day you read God's word, something's just miraculous is going to happen. God's going to pour down blessing and amazing. He will bear fruit in season. Secondly, it says, we will not wither. We will be evergreen. When we're in the word, it's like we're a tree planted by the water. We always get nourishment. We always are ready. Even in the dry times, even in the barren times, we are there and we have nourishment. So that's the way of the righteous. Next, let's look at the way of the wicked. 'Cause they are not like a tree that's planted by the water, okay? They're like chaff that the wind blows and drives away. So I'm going to show you a few pictures. This is the way of the wicked. Okay, this is some wheat and I'm going to explain what it means, this chaff being blown away, okay? This is wheat and next picture we see that this is what's called threshing or what they do is they take the wheat, they pile it up after they've taken it off the stalks and they will throw it up in the air, okay? And the dead parts around the seed will blow away and the seed will fall back right to the pile that it's in. So they will do that. And the next picture will show you this is what blows away and the next picture is the seeds that remain. So this is the whole threshing process. This is the chaff that is blown away when it talks about the chaff that the wind drives away. This is what the wicked are like, okay? They're blown and tossed by every thing that comes about, by every little wind, they have no foundation. They're not grounded, they're not watered. In essence, if you think about what chaff really is, what that stuff is, is it's dead material that's unuseful. The only thing it's good for is literally to be thrown into the fire. That's what other parts, the Bible read, let's say. Apart from God's word, you have no root. Apart from God's word, you have no nourishment. Apart from God's word, you have no fruit, no life. And this is exactly what Jesus is teaching to us about in Matthew chapter seven, about the house that is built on the sand. When the storms of life come, they crash. They will not stand in judgment. They have no defense for themselves. They will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. They are excluded when God's people are called together. We talked about this last week a little bit. When God's people are called together, they are excluded from that call. They will not stand in judgment and they will not stand in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. If you know Jesus, if you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior and you are walking with him, guess what, he knows your way. He knows your way. The word know here can be translated to know, to have an intimate relationship with, or even the future tense of, he will know. He knows you. He knows everything about you. He knows everything that's going to happen in your life. That's how well he knows the righteous. But the wicked are not so. They're captive to sin. They're led by the world. The ungodly take have taken the paths that lead to death. And that root word there literally means to wander off. They're like chafe, chaff that blows away. They literally are nothing. So, what path will you choose? That's a real question today, is what path will you choose? We all have a choice. And you know the thing is, when you read this chapter and you say, "The way of the righteous, the way of the wicked." This is the most obvious decision I can ever make in my entire life, right? It's like looking at a picture, and you see this road that leads to a bright, beautiful sunset, and a road that leads to dead trees, and darkness, and you're like, hmm, this decision is not hard. This decision is easy, right? And you would think that it would, this is like a common sense decision. But it's always, always so difficult to find people who are living the life of the blessed man. So, you want some good news or some bad news? We'll go to the bad news first. You can't live this. There is no possible way that you can be the blessed man in this story. There's no way that you can delight, and God's word the way that you need to. There's no way that you can do the things that God has asked you to do here. There's a story of a man named Harry Ironside. He was a teacher. He was a professor, but he was also a missionary. And he was writing about a name, a guy by the name of Joseph Flax. And this man, Joseph Flax, was teaching on Psalm chapter one. And he gets to the end of Psalm chapter one, and he looks at his class, a class that are filled with Jews and Arabs. Okay? He's over in the Middle East. He's teaching this class. He has a class full of Jews and Arabs. And he looks at them, he gets through reading Psalm chapter one, he looks at them and he says, who is the man that Psalms one is talking about? And he asks him, do you think it's Father Abraham? No, can't be Abraham. He denied his wife and he lied. Okay, that's not Abraham. What about our law-giver Moses? Could it be Moses? Moses was a pretty awesome guy. No, he killed a man, and he lost his temper again and again and again, right? Can't be Moses. What about King David? 73 of the books that were reading in Psalms, it's credited to him. He's a pretty awesome guy. And they all just kind of sniggered and with this smile, like, no, can't be David, right? 'Cause we all know David was David. And then this elderly Jew stood up. This is a true story. This elderly Jew arose and said this. He says, my brothers, I have this little book here. It's called The New Testament. I've been reading it, and if you could believe this book, if it could be sure that it's true, I would say that the man of Psalm one was Jesus of Nazareth. You know, the bad news is we are not the blessed man. But the good news is Jesus made a way for us to be the blessed man in Psalm chapter one. Jesus came to this earth. He lived the sinless life. He delighted in the things that brought honor and glory to God, and he took your sin, and he took my sin, and he paid the penalty for that sin so that we could be the blessed man in Psalm chapter one. Now, even though there's bad news there and there's good news there, it doesn't let us off the hook when it comes to the lighting in the law of the Lord. It doesn't let us off the hook when it comes to living the life that God has called us to. It is Jesus who's the blessed person, and it is through Jesus that we become the blessed person. And I pray that that is something that we really would examine in our own lives. There's two categories of people in here today. I just want to make sure that if you are here today and you have never asked Jesus into your heart and you do not have a personal relationship with him, I hope that you will come and talk to someone about that, ask someone what it means to have a relationship with Jesus because here's the truth. He came so that you could be the blessed man that we're talking about. There's the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. None of us are righteous, but Jesus came and made away so that we could be called the righteousness of God. Okay? If you're in here today and you are a Christ follower, you belong to Jesus, you have a relationship with him, I just want you to take this time and just think about, do I really delight in God's word? Do I really delight in my relationship with him? Do I really spend time with him the way that I should? Because guys, I would be honest with you, okay? I don't, and I need to. I need to delight in God's word. I need to make it a priority in my life, and I hope that you will as well. So the band's gonna come up and we're gonna pray. And if you have a decision to make today, I just wanna say that you're more than welcome to come down and talk with me, Hunter will be down here and Chris will be down here. If you would like to talk with the pastor, we would love to introduce you to Jesus. If you have a decision to make as far as spending time in God's word and delighting in God's word that the way that he wants us to, then you can do that. Let's pray right quick. Jesus, we love you. And I pray that as we have read Psalm chapter one, as we have read about the blessed man. Lord, I pray that it's something that we long to be, that we take this relationship that you have given to us. We take, you've made us righteous with the Father. You have given us a second chance at life. You've given us another chance. And Lord, I pray that we not take that for granted. I pray that as we think about our relationship and as we think about the world around us. Lord, it's our job to delight in your truth and that Lord, as we delight in your truth, you will bless us. You will use us for your kingdom's purpose. Father, I pray that if anyone here does not know you and they are in that way of the wicked, they are walking in that way. They are standing in that way. They are sitting in that way. Father, I pray that you would show them your love and your truth and that Lord, that they would come into a relationship with you today. So Father, again, thank you for this day of worship. We ask that you would use us to further your kingdom. It's in Jesus' name, we pray.