How to be blessed

Let us read together Psalm One. We want to read together Psalm One.

„How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and in his law he meditates day and night.“ And he will be like a tree, firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. And in whatever he does he prospers. The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Let us pray. Almighty and good Father, thank you for all the words that you have given us. You have shown us the way, Father. Help us to walk in the right way. Help us, Father, that through this Psalm we may walk according to your word and your counsel. We pray that you may lead the remaining hour. We pray this in Jesus‘ name. Amen. Amen.

As we live in this world, there we will often receive all sorts of counsel. Which way and which counsel to follow in our life? We have been looking… we have been looking through the Gospel of Luke in the past. And during this time, for a long time, I longed to give and to proclaim and to preach through the things this Psalm is teaching us. I don’t know how to say how deep I went to get the truth out of the depth of the Psalm. I went as far as possible. This, we can give a lot of headings for this Psalm. But the one we want to look at today is „How to be blessed.“ We could also say that it is about how to have true joy or how to lose blessing, how to lose true joy. We see two different people in the Psalm. One is the wicked, the other is the blessed. Sorry, it’s not the wicked and the blessed, it’s the wicked and the righteous. Or the other way we could see it, it is the blessed or the sinner. And as we look into verse 1, we see the counsel, we see the way, and we see the seat. In verse 1, we see we see the blessed man. Or in other words, you can also translate it as the man of joy or the blessed man, the joyful man. The only person who can be called blessed is the one born of God. Only a born-again person, a person with new life in God, can be called blessed. Let us have a look at one verse, Deuteronomy 33:29. Deuteronomy 33:29. God is talking here about the people of Israel. „Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by Yahweh, who is the shield of your help and the sword of your majesty? So your enemies will cower before you and you will tread upon their high plac¹es.“ What characterizes a blessed people or a blessed man? It is a people saved by Yahweh.

This blessedness is something that God has created within us. The blessed man is someone who is satisfied in the Lord. It is someone who possesses a deep, unshakable joy. He possesses a supernatural joy. It is not a blessedness that he earns or he gets from his circumstances. It is not a state of blessedness that he got from his circumstances. He did not receive this blessedness from birth or from his family. In the letter to the Philippians, Paul writes and commands the Philippians again and again to be joyful in the Lord. In Philippians 4:4, Paul says, „Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!“ This blessedness is something God grants us from above. It is something that is happening by the work of the Spirit within us. It is like a source of water. It is like a well that is created and flows. A blessed man is someone who has been separated from this world. And next we see the blessed man is characterized here as someone who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. The word wicked means it is a godless person, a person without God, and we can understand a bit more about this in other verses. In this, we read in verses 2-11 a lot about what a wicked person is like. As we read through these verses, Psalm 10:2-11, think about how the wicked is described. It begins with his lofty pride and it moves on to his other aspects. In his lofty pride, the wicked hotly pursues the afflicted. „Let them be caught in the thoughts which they have devised. For the wicked boasts of his soul’s desire, and the greedy man curses and spurns Yahweh. The wicked, in the haughtiness of his countenance, does not seek him. All his thoughts are ‚there is no God‘. His ways prosper at all times. Your judgments are on high, out of his sight. As for all his adversaries, he snorts at them. He says in his heart, ‚I will not be shaken; from generation to generation I will not be in adversity.‘ His mouth is full of curses and deceit and oppression; under his tongue are mischief and wickedness. He sits in the places of the villages where one lies in wait. In the hiding places he kills the innocent. His eyes stealthily watch for the unfortunate. He lies in wait in a hiding place as a lion in his lair. He lies in wait to catch the afflicted. He catches the afflicted when he draws him into his net. He crouches, he bows down, and the unfortunate fall by his mighty ones. He says in his heart, ‚God has forgotten; he has hidden his face; he will never see it‘.“ We read here about their pride, about their lusts and their greediness. He curses and spurns towards God. He does not seek God and in his pride he lives like there is no God. He is evil and he is wicked and he thinks in his heart he will not be shaken. He thinks from generation to generation he will not be in adversity.

So we have seen in the beginning of the Psalm about the wicked, and we have seen through the other verses how the wicked is characterized. So we see in Psalm 1:1, the blessed man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. The counsel of the wicked will be evil and sinful, but in the beginning, this counsel itself doesn’t look like a big deal. It’s just a beginning, it’s just a small word, a word of advice, a small counsel. That’s how it begins. We may not see it as something big, as something that is a very big issue or an enormous thing. It’s just advice. It’s just a small counsel. Let us read Proverbs 12:5. Proverbs 12:5. The thoughts of the righteous are just, but the guidance of the wicked… tells us what the guidance and the counsel of the wicked is like. The counsel of the wicked will be always deceitful. Let us read Psalm 33, 10 and 12. „Yahweh nullifies the counsel of the nations. He frustrates the thoughts of the peoples.“ „Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance.“ Verse 10 tells us Yahweh nullifies the counsel of the nations. But verse 11 tells us the „counsel of Yahweh stands forever.“ It is the nation, the people whose God is Yahweh. So first it is about the counsel of the wicked, this thing that seems minor, it seems small. Then the next step we see in verse 1 is standing in the way, and then one step further in the end, they sit in the seat. We see here a progression and in the end that person is at the seat. He has fellowship with the scoffers. In Matthew chapter seven we see two ways, Matthew 7:13-14. „Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it.“ So we see the way, the gate that leads to destruction is wide, but the way, the gate that leads to life is narrow. And it says in verse 13, many enter through the wide gate. But in verse 14, there are few who find the narrow gate. So the blessed man is the one who chooses the narrow gate. So it is very important that we examine the counsel we receive. Because in verse 1 we see it starts with just a counsel. It starts with a small thing. But then he stands in the way of the sinners. And then he already sits with them and has fellowship and is united with them in their seat. So first he listens to the counsel, then he stands in their way, and then he sits together with them. We have to understand that we are people who have been separated away from this world. The way of this world is to elevate men and to praise men. But God has not chosen us or called us to praise man or to elevate man. So we see how this happens. It starts with listening to the counsel, then you stand in their way, and then you unite with them sitting in their seat. This is the deceitful way sin operates. It slowly catches you with minor things and then it traps you further and pulls you deeper and deeper into sin. Let us read 1 John chapter 2:15-16. „Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.“ We see here it says, „Do not love the world nor the things in the world, because if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.“ We see how severe this is. Similar to the description of the wicked we read earlier in the Psalm, we have here the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and boastful pride of life. This is not from the Father. Let us read another verse. Second Corinthians 6:14. „Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?“ He says, „Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers,“ because „what fellowship has light with darkness?“ It is because God has given his only begotten Son and sacrificed him in our place to save us from the world, to separate us from the world. Then how can we have fellowship with this world? Let us also read 1 Peter 2:24. „Who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live to righteousness. By his wounds you were healed.“ He bore our sins on himself and through his wounds we were healed. So through his death we were made righteous. Titus 2:14. „Who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.“ He redeemed us from all lawlessness, making ourselves his own. So we are a separated people unto God Himself. Let us read Ephesians 2:4-5. „But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.“ We see here by his mercy and by his grace, because he loved us, he has saved us, made us alive, those who were dead in our transgressions. A blessed man does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He will not stand in the way of sinners. He will not sit in the seat of scoffers. So we have to be very careful in our lives. What are we listening to? What are we seeing and watching?

Now we’re coming to verse 2 where it’s about how the blessed man will be. So how the saved person, the separated person, is. He will be very different. He walks in the light of the law of God. He will have a new hunger and thirst. Why? Because he has been given a new heart. Let us read Ezekiel 36:25-27. „Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to do my judgments.“ You see, the person who has been given a new heart, in his heart the law of God is written. And this is the person, the blessed man, whose delight is in the law of Yahweh. It’s like he’s eating it. Why? Because he delights in it. He has a thirst for it. He doesn’t just read or meditate Monday, Wednesday or Sunday. He reads or he meditates day and night. Let us read Psalm 65:4. „How blessed is the one whom you choose and bring near to you, that he would dwell in your courts. We will be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple.“ So it is the blessed man who God chose and brings near to himself. Let us read Psalm 89:15. „How blessed are the people who know the loud shout of joy! O Yahweh, they walk in the light of your face.“ This is equal to the joy the person has who meditates day and night. It is a joy, it is a blessedness, it is a wellness of that person. He meditates day and night. Does it mean day and night I have to walk with the Bible in my hand? Let us read Psalm 34:8. „O taste and see that Yahweh is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!“ This blessed man, he tastes. It is tasting and like food digesting. It is not about walking day and night around with the Bible in your hand, but it is about tasting and digesting. Like the cow who after just eating the grass and getting it into his mouth, after that he keeps mulling over that grass, keeps digesting, keeps chewing that grass. That’s what he is talking about when he talks about meditating day and night. This is the responsibility, this is the life of every newborn believer to love the word and to digest, to meditate on the word always. To read the word, to think and meditate about the word, to digest the word, to bring it into his thoughts again and again. The life of the blessed man is the life that is grounded on this true on God’s word. That is Jeremiah 17:7-8. „Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose trust is Yahweh. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that sends forth its roots by a stream, and he will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor refrain from yielding fruit.“ Very similar to verse 3 in Psalm 1, we have a very similar verse here in Jeremiah 17 of how the blessed man is like and he is like a tree planted by the water with deep roots by the stream. And he will not fear when the heat comes. Whatever problem may come, whatever circumstances he will find himself in, he will stand firm because his roots are going deep by the water. He delights in the word of God. He loves it, and he meditates day and night. Let us read Psalm 112:1. „Praise Yah! How blessed is the man who fears Yahweh, who greatly delights in his commandments.“ So we see again the blessed man, he fears God, and he has great joy, great delight in his commandments. We read in Psalm 19:7-11 how the word of God is described. „The law of Yahweh is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of Yahweh is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of Yahweh is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of Yahweh are true, they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, ²even more than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward.“ It is making wise the simple. The word of God is right and it rejoices the heart. His commandments and his righteousness and his judgments, they endure forever. We are warned, convicted, and corrected by them. It is true, it is perfect, it is right, and it will do right. And the blessed man is in the plural. So it is everyone who is like that is blessed. Now let’s come to verse 3. Let us read. „And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.“ The illustration that is given here is of a streams of water. So like a river or something where streams of water are, and the idea of the streams of water is that there’s always running water. There’s never going to be a lack of water. It’s always going to be running water and it’s firmly planted by that stream where the stream is. It illustrates a constant stream of blessing, of blessedness. Grace and more grace, always available, always running like a stream of water. Let us read Psalm 46:4-5. „There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be shaken; God will help her when morning dawns.“ Whose streams, so we see a river whose streams make glad the city of God. They bring joy, they bring happiness. It is where God is, it is a place of blessing. And this is illustrated by the tree that is deeply rooted by these waters. So we see here the blessing of how the blessing is illustrated of that man who is meditating on the word and delights in his word. He’s like this tree whose roots go deeply to where this water is and he receives all the blessing from the streams of water. Let us read Psalm 36:7-9. „How precious is your loving kindness, O God! And the sons of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They are satisfied from the richness of your house, and you give them to drink the river of your delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.“ Do you see how blessed this man is? What kind of blessedness he receives here? „How precious is your loving kindness.“ They are satisfied from your richness.

And they drink from the river of God’s delights. „For with you is the fountain of life and in your light we see light,“ they say. Why? Because he has fellowship with God. Because of this fellowship with God, he receives the blessedness. They will always be green and bring fruit. „It yields its fruit in its season.“ The blessed man, the separated man, the man who has been saved and given new life from God, he will bring forth fruits of the spiritual life. He will bring forth godly character and godliness. Let us read 2 Corinthians 9:8. „And God is able to make every grace abound to you, so that in everything, at every time, having every sufficiency, you may have an abundance for every good deed.“ In every way they will abound, Corinthians says. So this is the blessedness that is brought to this man. A true happiness and joy. Let us read Jeremiah 31:9. „With weeping they will come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters on a straight path in which they will not stumble, for I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my firstborn.“ When³ it says that he will bring its fruits in its season, it’s talking about exhibiting a spiritual life. Because he is deeply rooted by the streams of water, he will surely bring forth fruit. So we see here the characteristics in these verses, the characteristics of the blessed man, and it is the characteristics of the separated one. It is the characteristics of a believer. We saw in the Gospels that Jesus sees a fig tree which has leaf, but it didn’t bring forth fruit. And Jesus curses it as an illustration for Israel. And it says, „and its leaf does not wither.“ It is again a sign of blessing. When a tree has always a green leaf, if the leaf does not wither, it’s something. Even when we see it, it brings us joy. It’s nice to see a colorful and full tree. And this is how it illustrates the blessedness of this man, of the believer, of the saved one, that he does not wither. Whatever issue he may face, he will be firmly rooted and his joy and his blessedness is not going away. Let us read Matthew 15:13. „But he answered and said, ‚Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant shall be uprooted‘.“ Jesus says here, „Every plant which my heavenly father did not plant shall be uprooted.“ The illustration being of a tree that is not easily shaken or taken away. It will be firm because its roots are deep. It is something strong. And this is what the state of blessedness is, according to this illustration. Why? Because he delights in the Word of God. He meditates on his word day and night, and that’s why he is firm. He is unshakable. He is firmly grounded and rooted in truth. And that’s why it says in the end, „and in whatever he does, he prospers.“

And next we come to verse 4. We see him… for the wicked. And we see in verse 1 it will talk about the wicked in verse 4, in verse 5, and in verse 6. So it is important for the Psalm to understand the wicked. Those who walk in the counsel of the wicked are unsaved people, those who love the darkness rather than the light. Because they are not like the righteous, not like the blessed man, they don’t have deep roots. They don’t have the source of water from which they get the resources and energy and the joy. They are not deep rooted, so they are shakable, they are not firm. They are spiritually dead. They don’t have light. Their life is driven and their eyes are full of wicked thoughts. That’s why I said in the beginning, you have to be careful about who you listen to, where you stand, and where you sit. „The wicked are not so,“ it says. „They are like chaff which the wind drives away.“ So the illustration of the wicked is the exact opposite of the righteous, of the blessed man. They are like chaff which is driven away by the wind. The blessed man we see is firm and rooted and grounded and does not wither in every season, but the wicked man is like the chaff. It is unstable, it is not firm, it is carried away by the wind. The sin which has been come through Adam is still in him. His heart has not been changed. He has not been born again. A brother once gave an illustration: the wicked person is like a plant where he gets his water from contaminated water by cyanide. And that contaminated water is what he gets his energy and resources from. So that’s why it is such a cursed life. So where on one hand we have the righteous compared with the tree, we have on the other side the cursed, the wicked, who is like the chaff. Driven away by the wind. He’s not firm, he’s not stable. He’s not a big one. No matter if he’s a wise or if he is wealthy and he is rich, it doesn’t matter, he will perish. Because he has no deep roots, he has no access to streamy water. That’s why he will not prosper. Let us read Psalm 49:10-11. „For he sees that even wise men die, the fool and the senseless alike perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses are forever, and their dwelling places from generation to generation; they have called their lands after their own names.“ Even here we see the wise man dies, the fool, the senseless alike perish. They think they live from generation to generation and their houses are forever. That’s their inner thought. But then when the winds of life come, the problems of life come, they will not stand. Let us read Job 40:23. „If a river oppresses, it is not alarmed; it is secure, though the Jordan bursts forth to its mouth.“ We see here this plant that is talked about here is not shaken, is not alarmed, even if the river oppresses. It is secure. Even if the Jordan bursts forth to its mouth. The behemoth is talking about your context, and it is not shaken, it is not disturbed. So when we compare the tree and the chaff, it’s clear which is firm, which will endure and which doesn’t. Therefore, „the wicked will not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.“ The wicked will not rise in the judgment nor sinner in the congregation of the righteous. Let’s read Psalm 5:5. „The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all workers of iniquity.“ They will not stand before the eyes of the Lord, the boastful. The sinner will not rise or stand in the congregation of the righteous, so in the group of people, in the gathering of the people who have been saved by God through his mercy, who have been justified, who have been made righteous in the congregation, in the assembly of these people, the sinner will not rise. And it doesn’t say he will never be there or he will never appear or exist in this environment. Sometimes he can, but he will not rise. He will not stand or endure in this congregation.

Let us come to verse 6. „For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous.“ What a blessing. What acceptance we have received from God. What joy can we have? No matter how many troubles may come, no matter how much grief may come, God knows your way and he knows my way. What a blessing. He knows the way of the righteous. The man who delights in the law of God and meditates on his law day and night is the blessed man. The righteous person is individually in a personal, intimate relationship with God. This means here that he is in an intimate, deep relationship with God. Let us read 2 Timothy 2:19. „Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: ‚The Lord knows those who are His,‘ and, ‚Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to depart from wickedness‘.“ What a word, what a blessing. Read this verse and really digest it for yourself. „The firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, the Lord knows those who are his. And those who all who call the name of Jesus.“ In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus says the opposite part of it. „Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you.“ It is the Psalm that describes the blessed life of the Christian, the joy and satisfaction of the believer. What can we learn from this psalm for our life? Let us believe in the Lord and have and keep the intimate fellowship with him no matter what we endure or face in our life. I skipped over this part for the sake of time. It says in verse 6 in the end, „but the way of the wicked will perish.“ You can read Proverbs 11:7 and Psalm 9:5 to further understand it. We also should be worried and think about the people we know in our lives, our relatives who do not know the Lord. I have a brother who, no matter what he goes through, no matter what hardship in life he goes through, he really stands firm and grounded. He never loses his firmness, but whenever he sees a man die without Christ, that’s when he’s shaken and that’s when he grieves. What a responsibility we have to pray for the unbeliever and to take care of them by giving them the word of God. We have to also guard ourselves from the counsel of the wicked. When we hear their counsel, we have to be careful. The world will only give us worldly counsel. It will give us counsel to advance worldly… There are only two ways in this world. The one is wide and open, the other is narrow. Maybe as we walk through this text, you have been convicted from your own failings, but if you have been, don’t be discouraged, but we can go to our Lord and from His grace receive forgiveness. Seek God’s kingdom and his grace and he will bless us. Everyone of us who has been born again, we have to meditate on the word, delight in the word, and live according to it. Let us pray. Almighty God, we thank you that you have given the strength to explain this Psalm. Thank you that you have also taught me a lot and convicted me through the Psalm and brought the light through this text in my life. Thank you for giving us insight into the depth of your word. We see the blessed state of this man here. Also in Matthew 5, your son has given us directly how a blessed man is characterized. Thank you for all of that and that you have given us this time. Thank you also for leading both of us here through this time. We pray this in Jesus Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.