1Turn in your Bibles with me to Psalm 1. And if you’re

Bible’s anything like mine, I know that may require a little bit of

effort for you, because my Bible naturally wants to fall open to

Galatians after spending the last six months there. And I thank

God for our time in Galatians. God has been so good and so

faithful to teach us rich, deep, powerful, life-changing truth in

Galatians. I know for me personally, God has used our time in

Galatians to challenge me and comfort me, to convict me and

encourage me. He has driven me to Jesus … to love Him more,

to rely on Him, to trust Him, to die with Him, to live with Him, to

throw myself on Him, to value His gospel and His glory. And I

know that God is doing that for many of you, as well. Your

passion is for Jesus and His gospel. You’re trusting Jesus and

relying on Him. You’re hungry for His Word. You glory in the

cross. You want to make Jesus known. You want to extend His

grace. You want His glory to be seen. And I praise God that

He’s doing that in our lives. God is accomplishing His work

through the truth of His Word, and it has been a privilege to

preach through Galatians with you. And in spite of what it

sounds like, we’re not spending another week in Galatians today.

We’re going to move into a shorter series for the rest of June and

July. I’m calling it the “Psummer Psalms.” We’re going to

spend the next seven weeks in the psalms, and we’re going to

start today with Psalm 1. So read the six verses of Psalm 1 with

me, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the

wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of

2mockers. 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, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf

does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

“Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that 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 will perish.”

As we start our “Psummer Psalms” series, there are a few

things I want to point out about the Book of Psalms as a whole.

The Book of Psalms contains 150 individual psalms written over

a span of about 1000 years in Old Testament Israel. The psalms

mention at least seven different authors, including Moses,

Solomon, Asaph, and David. Almost half the psalms – 73 – are

attributed to King David. Another 50 are anonymous. There’s

no indication of who wrote them. And the psalms are songs,

poems, and prayers to God. The Book of Psalms is the worship

book of Old Testament Israel. They sang these songs and recited

these poems and read these prayers during worship. In fact, a lot

of the psalms even give instructions about which instruments are

to be played as you sing them.

So the Book of Psalms is a worship book. But there’s

something unique about the Book of Psalms compared to any

other worship book or hymnal or book of prayers that you’ll ever

read. Psalms isn’t just a human book of worship. Psalms is a

3divine book of worship. The psalms are written by men, but

they’re inspired by God. And what that means is that God guided

how these psalms were written and how they were arranged in

the Bible in order to reveal His truth to us and in order to teach us

about Him and about worship and about life. And probably the

best evidence I can offer as to why you should believe the psalms

are inspired by God is that Jesus Himself believed the psalms are

inspired by God. For example, in Mark 12:36, Jesus quotes

Psalm 110 and He says, “David himself, speaking by the Holy

Spirit, declared: ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right

hand until I put your enemies under your feet.”’” Jesus says that

when David wrote Psalm 110, he was speaking by the Holy

Spirit. In other words, he was inspired by God. We see the same

thing in John 10:35 when Jesus quotes Psalm 82:36 and says,

“Scripture cannot be broken.” And in John 13:18 he quotes

Psalm 41:9 and says, “This is to fulfill the Scripture.” Jesus

believed the psalms were Holy Scripture, and He quoted them as

the very Word of God. So Psalms isn’t just a worship book

written by men. It’s a worship book inspired by God to teach us

divine truth about God and about worship and about life.

The last thing I want to point out about the Book of

Psalms is that the book has been very carefully and intentionally

arranged. It’s actually divided into five smaller books that begin

with Psalm 1, 42, 73, 90, and 107. And part of the reason we’re

starting with Psalm 1 today is because it was placed not only as

the introduction to Book 1, but also as the introduction to the

4entire Book of Psalms. When God inspired the arrangement of

the psalms, He inspired this psalm as the starting place. So I

thought it made sense to start here.

So let’s jump into Psalm 1 and see what God teaches us as

He introduces the Book of Psalms. The first thing to notice is

what this introduction focuses on. Look at verses 1-2, “Blessed

is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or

stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his

delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates

day and night.”

This psalm is focused on the person who delights in

God’s law and meditates on God’s law. And right off the bat, we

need to do a little work to make sure we get the full meaning of

these verses. I think for most of us, when we hear the word law,

we automatically think of the Ten Commandments and other

laws like that. And that’s partially right, but there’s actually a lot

more to it than that. You see, the word translated law is the

Hebrew word torah. And torah has a much broader meaning

than what we usually think of when we think of law. Torah can

be translated instruction or teaching. And Torah is the name that

the Jews gave to the first five books of the Bible. Genesis,

Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy are called the

Torah. They’re God’s instruction and teaching that He originally

gave to His people. And that instruction included what we think

of as the law… the Ten Commandments, the sacrificial laws, the

ceremonial laws… but it’s also much more than that. Torah isn’t

5just laws. It’s the entire Word of God in the first five books of

the Bible. So when the psalmist uses the word torah, he’s not

just referring to the law. He’s referring to the Bible.

Now, the other important thing for you to know has to do

with something I told you about the Book of Psalms a minute

ago. I told you that the Book of Psalms is divided into five

smaller books. Well in Judaism, it’s understood that those five

books correspond to the five books of the Torah. So when Psalm

1 talks about delighting in the torah and meditating on the torah,

it probably means even more than just the first five books of the

Bible. It also means the five books of psalms. That’s why this

psalm is the introduction to the Book of Psalms. It starts by

telling you, “You need to delight in this book. You need to

meditate on this book.” Why? Because this is God’s instruction

for you. This is God’s teaching for you. This is God’s Word for

you.

And since this psalm refers to much more than just legal

ordinances in the law, but rather to all of God’s instruction, the

application for us is that this is a call to delight in and meditate on

the entire Bible. We actually now have more of God’s

instruction than even the psalmist did when he wrote Psalm 1. At

that time, the Old Testament wasn’t even finished yet. Now, we

have both the entire Old Testament and the entire New

Testament. We have the full revelation of God given through

God’s apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ Himself as the

chief cornerstone. And if the call was to delight in and meditate

6on God’s Word even before they had it all, how much more

should we do so today?

Church, the Bible is God’s revelation to us. It’s God’s

instruction for us. It’s God’s teaching for us. The Bible is God’s

very words given to us. This is the most powerful, most

significant, most valuable book ever written in the history of the

world. Nothing else can feed your soul like the Word of God in

the Bible. Nothing else can change your heart and transform

your mind like the Word of God in the Bible. These words are

breathed by God Himself. They are truth, and they are life. And

we should delight in them. We should meditate on them.

And I want to challenge you… I want to challenge

myself… to make sure God’s Word has the priority that it

deserves in our lives and in this church. Why can we spend hours

watching TV and not find 15 minutes to read the Bible? Why

can we sing the lyrics to 14,000 songs and not be able to recite 14

Bible verses? Why do we check Facebook 20 times more a day

than we check this book? Why is church life often governed

more by by-laws and traditions than God’s revelation and

teaching? It’s because we still need to grow in our love and

passion and hunger for God’s Word. And please don’t

misunderstand me right now. I’m not condemning all TV and

music and Facebook. I’m not. I’m challenging us to recognize

the infinite value of God’s Word. And I want to urge all of us to

pray that God will give us a hunger for His Word that matches

the value of His Word. That’s the only way we will ever love

7God’s Word the way we should. You can’t be harassed or

scolded to love and delight in God’s Word. It has to flow out of

your heart. And God’s the one who changes your heart. So I

want to draw your attention to the truth about God’s Word, and

then my prayer is that that truth will drive us to God. And we

will pray for Him to do His great work and to create in our hearts

a hunger and love and passion for His Word.

So Psalm 1 introduces the entire Book of Psalms by

urging us to delight in and meditate on God’s Word in the Bible.

And the majority of the psalm describes for us the blessing that

comes from delighting in God’s Word. So in the rest of our time

this morning, I want us to look at six blessings that come when

you delight in God’s Word.

The first blessing of delighting in God’s Word is that you

will be happy. And some of you may think it’s a little strange for

me to use the word happy, but that’s a very accurate translation

of the word “blessed” in verse 1. When the psalmist says,

“Blessed is the man,” that word blessed means happy… not

some shallow, surface-level happiness, but a deep, rich, well-

rounded happiness that comes from mental and spiritual

wellbeing. This type of happiness is a joy and satisfaction and

contentment.

And everybody is looking for that type of happiness. We

all want to be happy. In our Declaration of Independence, we put

the pursuit of happiness right up there with life and liberty. But

unfortunately, even though millions of people are pursuing

8happiness, there are very few who actually seem to find it. And

Psalm 1 tells us that’s because most people are looking for

happiness in all the wrong places. We look for happiness in

stuff… in new cell phones and fancy cars and nice clothes and

big houses. But cell phones lose coverage and cars break down

and clothes wear out and houses fall apart. So the pursuit of

happiness moves on and we think maybe happiness is found in

the lifestyles of rich and famous celebrities. But celebrities spend

a lot of time in rehab and therapy and they write tell-all books to

confess their misery. So the pursuit of happiness moves on and

we pour ourselves into our job or a hobby, thinking that will do

the trick. But the rat race wears us out and the hobbies aren’t

enough. So the pursuit of happiness moves on…

And in the midst of all that, God is calling out to us in His

Word, saying, “I want to give you happiness. And I can tell you

where to find it.” Look at verses 1-2 one more time, “Blessed –

happy! – is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the

wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of

mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his

law he meditates day and night.”

Notice that there’s a contrast between verse 1 and verse 2.

Verse 1 says, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the

counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the

seat of mockers.” Verse 1 describes what it’s like to be

influenced by the world. You’re receiving advice from the

wicked. You’re heading in the same direction as sinners. You’re

9saturated with the mindset of mockers. In other words, your

focus is on the ways of the world. You’re constantly exposed to

the world and you think like the world. Contrast that with verse

2, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he

meditates day and night.” Verse 2 describes what it’s like to be

influenced by the Word. You delight in God’s Word. You

meditate on it day and night. You read God’s Word. You study

God’s Word. You memorize God’s Word. Your focus is on

God’s Word. You’re constantly thinking about it and chewing on

it and digging into it, and your mind is transformed, and you

begin to think more and more like God.

And the psalmist says this is the key to happiness. Not

phones and cars and clothes and houses. Not wealth and fame

and success and power. No. The person who is truly, deeply

happy is the person who is so focused on God’s Word and so

influenced by God’s Word that God’s mind becomes his mind

and God’s heart becomes his heart and God’s priorities become

his priorities. That is where happiness is found… Because all joy

and all pleasures and all good things flow from God. And the

more we know God in His Word, the more we find life and joy

and pleasure and happiness in Him.

So let me ask you: What’s your focus? What influences

you most? What has your attention the majority of the time? Is it

the world or the Word? When you think about love and

relationships… when you think about dating and marriage and

sex… when you think about money and possessions… when you

10think about your hopes and dreams and passions and priorities…

is your thinking shaped more by the world or by the Word? Are

you focused on the ways of the world? Are you listening to the

world? Is your mind and heart being shaped by the world? Or

are you focused on God’s Word? Are you listening to God’s

Word? Is your mind and heart being shaped by God’s Word?

Church, this is why we put such a priority on the

preaching and teaching of the Bible here… Because we must be

shaped by the Word of God. We must be saturated with the

Word of God. That’s why I challenge you to memorize

Scripture. That’s why we’ve memorized the Sermon on the

Mount and Galatians in the past year… Because we need God’s

Word to influence us and shape us and form us. We need to be

focused on God’s Word.

And the word that the psalmist uses to describe this focus

in verse 2 is a word that we’re not very familiar with. He says we

should meditate on God’s Word. And most of us, when we hear

the word meditate, we think of somebody with their legs crossed

and eyes closed making some sort of noise like, “OHMMMM.”

That’s not what the word meditate means in the Bible. Meditate

literally means to murmur or speak repeatedly under your breath.

To meditate on God’s Word means to constantly be speaking

God’s Word to yourself. It means that you’ve spent so much

time in study and memorization of God’s Word that it flows out

of you like breath with every thought you have. When you walk

outside and look at creation, you meditate, “The heavens declare

11the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

When something good happens in your life, you recognize it as a

gift from God, and you meditate, “What is man that you are

mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” When

you’re struggling with sickness, you meditate, “My flesh and my

heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my

portion forever.” When you’re struggling with depression or

sadness you meditate, “But now, Lord, what do I look for? My

hope is in you.” “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth

has nothing I desire besides you.” When you’re convicted about

your sinfulness, you meditate, “Create in me a pure heart, O

God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me

from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to

me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to

sustain me.” More and more, in every situation of your life,

God’s Word flows out of you, because God’s Word is what’s in

you. And that is where true happiness is found. When you

delight in God’s Word, you will be happy.

The next blessing that comes when you delight in God’s

Word is that you will be secure. Look at the beginning of verse

3, “He is like a tree planted by streams of water.” When you

delight in God’s Word, you are planted. You’re held in place.

You’re steady. You’re secure. God’s Word is a firm foundation

for your life. It is a rock. That’s because God’s Word is truth,

and truth does not change. Your circumstances will change.

Your situations will change. Your emotions will change. But the

12truth of God’s Word does not change. So when you build your

life on God’s Word, you are building on a true and steady

foundation that will always be there to hold you.

We see the contrast to this steadiness in verse 4, “Not so

the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.” If

you build your life on the wicked ways of the world, there will be

no lasting substance or significance to your life. Ultimately, it

will all blow away like dust in the wind, and you’ll have nothing

to show for your life. But when you delight in God’s Word and

build your life on the truth of God’s Word, you will be secure.

The third blessing that comes when you delight in God’s

Word is that you will be fruitful. Look at verse 3 again, “He is

like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in

season.” Spiritual fruit can only come from a spiritual source.

So the only way there will be spiritual fruit in your life is if you

rely on a spiritual source. And God has chosen for His Spirit to

produce His fruit by the power of His Word. When you’re

plugged into God’s Word, you’re like a tree whose roots are

running straight into a river. You’re constantly drawing

nourishment from God’s Word and spiritual fruit just keeps

popping out of you.

And it’s worth pointing out that this fits very well with

something we saw over and over in Galatians. Godliness and

righteousness and spirituality is not a work that you do. It’s fruit

that God produces in you. He is the Source, not you. Fruit is

produced when you rely on the power of God’s Spirit and draw

13nourishment from the stream of God’s Word. So when you

delight in God’s Word, you will be fruitful.

The fourth blessing that comes when you delight in God’s

Word is that you will be sustained. Look at verse 3 again, “He is

like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in

season and whose leaf does not wither.” If a drought comes in

the middle of the summer and the heat’s rising and the rain’s not

falling, the leaves on most trees are going to wither and die. But

if the tree is planted by streams of water, then those streams

sustain the tree, and its leaves don’t wither even during the

drought.

That’s the picture of the person who is planted in God’s

Word. Your life doesn’t depend on your circumstances. It

doesn’t depend on whether or not the rain’s falling for you. Your

life depends on the faithful and unchanging source of God in His

Word. He sustains you. He is your strength. He is your

nourishment. He is your life.

And make sure you notice something important here.

There’s no guarantee that droughts won’t come in your life.

Delighting yourself in God’s Word doesn’t mean everything’s

always going to be easy. It means that even when the droughts

come, God will sustain you. Even when life’s not easy, God’s

grace will be sufficient, and His power will be made perfect in

your weakness. When you delight in God’s Word, you will be

sustained.

14The fifth blessing that comes when you delight in God’s

Word is that you will be prosperous. Verse 3 one more time, “He

is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in

season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does

prospers.” And I hope that many of you have already become so

saturated with the Bible that this fifth blessing raises an

immediate question for you. What does the Bible mean when it

says we will prosper in whatever we do? Does it mean that our

business will always turn a huge profit and we’ll never get sick

and our family will always be safe?

Well, the Bible does say that God often takes care of us in

those ways. And any time we receive any of those blessings,

they have certainly come from God’s hand. However, the Bible

also teaches that God’s people often suffer and are persecuted.

Joseph, Job, Jeremiah, and most of all Jesus, are all biblical

examples of God’s people who suffered for their faith. So how

does that fit with what Psalm 1 says about God’s people

prospering? It fits when we allow verses 5-6 of Psalm 1 to help

us understand verse 3. Verses 5-6 say, “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 will perish.” Those verses remind us

that the ultimate focus of this psalm is not just on this life but on

eternity. The only way to accurately measure success and failure

is in light of eternity. For those who live apart from God and

ignore the truth of God’s Word, nothing in this life – not even

15their successes – will produce eternal spiritual fruit. In the end,

nothing they do will matter. But for those who live by faith in

God and rely on the truth of His Word, everything in this life will

ultimately prosper. Everything that is given to God in faith will

bear lasting, eternal spiritual fruit. Even our failures will prosper

in the hands of God’s grace. God will redeem our failures and

use them for His eternal glory.

So as God’s Word gives you God’s eternal perspective,

you see that, yes, whatever we do prospers eternally in the hands

of our great God. When you delight in God’s Word, you will be

prosperous.

Finally, when you delight in God’s Word, you will be

righteous. Look at verses 5-6 again, “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 will perish.” The psalm started by

contrasting those who focus on the world and those who focus on

the Word. And it ends by saying that those who focus on the

world will ultimately perish for their wickedness, but those who

focus on the Word will be righteous and God will watch over

them. And once again, this is great practice for us to make sure

that we allow God’s Word to show us how to understand this

truth. It would be all too easy to think this truth means we earn

our righteousness and earn God’s blessing by delighting in God’s

Word. But we just spent six months in Galatians seeing that

righteousness is a gracious gift from God that only comes by

16faith in Jesus. And we don’t have to go to Galatians to find that

truth. We don’t even have to leave the psalms. Listen to what

Psalm 32 says about the person who is blessed by God and who

is righteous. David writes, “Blessed is he whose transgressions

are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose

sin the Lord does not count against him… I acknowledged my sin

to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my

transgressions to the Lord’ – and you forgave the guilt of my

sin… Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all

you who are upright in heart.” According to the psalms the

person who is blessed… the person who is righteous… is the

person who has been forgiven by God. You don’t earn

righteousness. You receive righteousness when you trust God

and confess to God and He forgives you and cleanses you and

makes you righteous in Jesus. That is the truth of God’s Word.

And when you delight in God’s Word, you find that truth over

and over and over. And when God’s Word stirs up faith in you

and you believe that truth, then God makes you righteous by faith

in Jesus. So yes, when you delight in God’s Word, you will be

righteous, because God’s Word teaches you the truth that you can

only be righteous by faith in Jesus.

So Church, I pray that you will delight in God’s Word. I

pray that you will read it and study it and memorize it and meditate

on it day and night. I pray that in God’s Word, you will find true

happiness and blessing and righteousness. And I pray that you will

be driven to faith in Jesus through every word of the Bible.