Psalm 1
1 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.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 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.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Other Psalms, like Psalm 137, can often come off as fairly disturbing when they say things like “blessed in the one who dashes your babies against the rocks;” the writer, of course, is speaking to his enemies. That’s not an intention which we’d be inclined to be amongst the most holy. But even those passages can be helpful, if taken the right way. For one thing, they show us that even men who are beloved by God can occasionally be a bit crazy and horrifying, so at least we’re in good company, right?
But the combination of these two things can make the Psalms sometimes tricky to interpret. But it also makes them great material for sermons. They can be impactful, insightful, and a tangled mess that provides all sorts of theological fodder to talk about.
This Psalm, the opening Psalm of the whole book, the Psalm meant to set the tone for everything else you’re about to read, if you’re reading straight through, is one of those “tangled messes.” It may not look like it on the surface of course. It looks to be very straightforward. “Do good, you get good; do bad, you get bad,” seems to be the general point of this Psalm. And it seems to resonate with common sense, even. “Serving God gets you blessed, living in sin makes you suffer.”
And yet, it doesn’t seem to fit together with two important points; first, human experience, and second, the passage selected for the Gospel reading for today:
Luke 14 starting at verse 25-
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
34"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
It seems as if Psalm 1 is saying “Follow God and you will be blessed, everything you turn your hand to will prosper,” but Luke 14 is saying “Follow God and you will suffer and die,” because, of course, that’s what “carrying your cross” and following Jesus is all about, it’s a call to come and die.
So how could these two passages possibly work together? They’re both Scripture; both are the divinely-inspired word; they have to both be true. What do we do with them then?
Well, in my mind it’s better if we look at the Gospel passage first and see how the Psalm corresponds with it.
Where does this Gospel passage come in the story? Last week, we looked at the first part of Psalm 14. And, if you remember, most of my sermon hinged on the fact that Jesus was talking about The Wedding Feast, i.e. the Kingdom of God. I should’ve mentioned then that what followed directly after was the Parable of the Great Banquet, which would’ve counted as another clue to what Jesus was speaking about. But, it serves as an interesting lead in to the passage for today, let’s give it a quick look:
15When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."
16Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'
18"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'
19"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'
20"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'
21"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
22" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
23"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "
So, here is what we might call a very “grace-oriented” passage. It’s one where it’s easy to see the mercy of God; one of those great passages that highlights the fact that “all the wrong sort of people are getting into Heaven,” and comforts us when we finally realize that we’re the wrong sorts of people too. But, coupled with it, there’s also a distinct motif in this passage of warning: don’t let the concerns of this world come between you and receiving this free gift. And this leads Jesus into the passage for today.
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
So, does Jesus really want us to hate our parents, spouses, children, and siblings? No, of course not; you already know that. Throughout the Gospels Jesus tells us to “love others as you love yourself,” that is, specifically, take care of others as well as you would take care of yourself. He wouldn’t then turn around and say, “except for your family, don’t love them.”
I imagine most of you have heard, at some point, a sermon or Sunday school lesson on this passage that told you that the way He’s using the word “hate” in a hyperbolic way, and that the original audience would’ve understood that He meant it the same way God the Father meant it when He said “Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated.” Jesus didn’t mean hate them, but love them less than something else. Which is all true, but I don’t think it captures the whole truth of the situation.
Think about first century Judaism for a minute, from whatever you might know about it, and consider the importance of family in that period. Family was what defined who you were. Family was where your career was picked for you, your spouse was picked for you, where you derived your good name and reputation from. Family was who took care of you, from the time you were a child with your parents taking care of you, until you were elderly and your kids took care of you. Family was the center of the concerns of the world, and it was all based on the concept of reciprocal love. You took care of your family and expected to be taken care of in return.
What it came down to was an issue of faith. Are you trusting in your family and the world to provide for your needs, or are you trusting in God to provide for your needs through your family?
Then Jesus gives us one of the most difficult sayings in the New Testament:
27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
So, what does this mean? If you’re a Christian, will you inevitably die for your faith? Well, for the earliest Christians, of course, this was generally true; being a Christian was a dangerous business. But, that doesn’t quite fit with our current cultural experience, and I don’t think that’s the whole scope of the saying. So, what does it mean for us? Well, as the phrase “follow me” implies, I think it is, again, a matter of what your faith rests on.
To be a Christian means to trust that God, the author of life, probably knows better than you do how it ought to work, what life truly is versus what you think your life should look like. God, the one who, as Philipians 1:6 tells us, began a good work in you and will bring it about to completion, knows what He is doing, even when you don’t. And when what you want butts up against what God is saying is the right way, He’s right, you’re wrong, and you’re just going to have to trust Him. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have hopes, and dreams, and desires, and even gut instincts, but God’s instincts are better than yours.
Then Jesus moves in to this somewhat ominous sounding section about counting the cost. He says:
28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Here’s the kicker with these verses, consider this: Here’s the kicker with both of these verses. If you were to sit down and determine whether you have the strength, the determination, the passion, and the will to get through all these things yourself in order to reach that final goal of salvation, do you think you have what it takes? If you can answer yes, let me propose that either a.) you don’t actually realize the real cost, or b.) you don’t recognize your own weakness.
This passage is, obviously, about sanctification, about this journey through life in faith, from the moment you receive faith to the moment you die in it, having persevered. But, to me it echoes of another familiar story in the Gospels, where Jesus tells His disciples that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. This, if you remember, prompts the disciples to say “then who, Lord, could possibly be saved?” To which Jesus replies “with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible;” i.e. it has to be God who does the saving, who gets you from point a to point b, from birth to death, in the faith. In the same way that justification is a free gift of grace which we can by no means procure for ourselves, so to, sanctification is a free gift, a work of pure grace, which we can by no means procure for or achieve of ourselves.
This brings me to the final passage from the Gospel for us this morning:
34"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Let me clear up any confusion here quickly. Our saltiness is Christ, Christ in us by grace through faith. It is not us, it does not originate in some inherent self-worth or dependent upon our self-determination. Our salt is Christ’s presence in and through us which we receive by faith, which, as we are told in Ephesians 2:8 is not of ourselves but is, itself, a gift of God.
So, how does our Psalm of blessings and prosperity fit with the Gospel message that “what God intends to do in you is likely to hurt?”
Well, let’s look at verse 1:
1 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.
And here’s where I got the title for the sermon, because, really, God? If you look around, it seems like it’s the other way around. If you go against the grain of the world, if you’re not at least a little unethical in the way you treat others and handle your life, you tend to lose out. It seems like the wicked are usually doing just fine while good folks often suffer. I mean, wasn’t that part of the last passage we looked at, having to take up your cross and all?
But what are the blessings of being righteous? As we saw earlier, God, the author of life, knows how it ought to work, how to make it flourish in the way it was meant to flourish. The ways of the wicked may seem to make it flourish, but at what cost? If you follow after God you end up with a soul that is cured, healed and freed from all the wounds that life afflict upon it. Whereas, for the wicked, you may get some money and have some fun, but what’s the consequences? It destroys the soul. As Christ said, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet loose his soul?”
Life with God is the life of assurance, contentment, and healing. The Psalmist tells us that such a life should look like this, he says:
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Now, delighting in the Law, that’s a hard one. Because, honestly, the Law scares me to death, as it ought to any sinner. Paul tells us that this is its primary purpose. But, from the perspective of faith, from the perspective of having all your needs met by God, for the lilies of the field do not toil, from the perspective of being forgiven, for there is no condemnation for those who are now in Christ Jesus, from the perspective of having the Holy Spirit, by which He will equip you with everything good for doing His will, in all of that, the Law is the promise of what life can and will be, what our soul will look like when it’s all done.
In this way we can delight in and meditate upon the law, treasuring it in our heart and guarding it against all other usurpers- because this, interestingly enough, is what the word “keep” in John 14:15 means when Christ says “if you love me you will keep my commandments,” you will guard them.
The Psalmist continues:
3 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.
His true life, his life in God, flourishes, even though it may appear at times as if He is dying. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
Continuing on:
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
The wicked don’t always seem to be quite so weak as all that. In fact, they’re often downright scary. But what is their foundation? No more than sand. The righteous man, however, is rooted in God, built upon the rock. 1 John 4:4 “Greater is the one who is in you than he who is in the world.”
Then, we read a more difficult passage:
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
It might be easy, of course, to have a knee-jerk reaction and step outside the flow of this passage for a moment and wonder if you, having sinned in life and still struggling with it, may be considered a sinner who cannot stand in the assembly of the righteous. Of course, though, reason eventually sets in and you realize that this passage is not talking about sinners in the “whoever has commited sin” sense, but in the “doesn’t trust in God,” and “always seeks only their own way” sense.
Then the Psalmist finishes up reminding us once again who is the driving force in all of this, who is the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of this life:
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Again, it is God, and God alone, who is in control, who has a made a way for us in His Son Jesus Christ and leads us down that way by the Holy Spirit in us, around us, and before us, watching over us.
1 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.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 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.
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
As you already know, the Psalms are the “Prayer-book of the Bible,” or we might call it the “Hymnbook.” Either way, though it may sound strange, it is one of the most “human-esque” books in the Scriptures; it’s filled with dialogue between God and Man. This makes it an interesting book for theological study.
Some of the Psalms can be very inspiring, as with the most famous of Psalms, the 23rd “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” and so on. These passages, when contemplated, when meditated upon, rather than simply read over, can be very comforting and reassuring. Other Psalms, like Psalm 137, can often come off as fairly disturbing when they say things like “blessed in the one who dashes your babies against the rocks;” the writer, of course, is speaking to his enemies. That’s not an intention which we’d be inclined to be amongst the most holy. But even those passages can be helpful, if taken the right way. For one thing, they show us that even men who are beloved by God can occasionally be a bit crazy and horrifying, so at least we’re in good company, right?
But the combination of these two things can make the Psalms sometimes tricky to interpret. But it also makes them great material for sermons. They can be impactful, insightful, and a tangled mess that provides all sorts of theological fodder to talk about.
This Psalm, the opening Psalm of the whole book, the Psalm meant to set the tone for everything else you’re about to read, if you’re reading straight through, is one of those “tangled messes.” It may not look like it on the surface of course. It looks to be very straightforward. “Do good, you get good; do bad, you get bad,” seems to be the general point of this Psalm. And it seems to resonate with common sense, even. “Serving God gets you blessed, living in sin makes you suffer.”
And yet, it doesn’t seem to fit together with two important points; first, human experience, and second, the passage selected for the Gospel reading for today:
Luke 14 starting at verse 25-
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
34"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
It seems as if Psalm 1 is saying “Follow God and you will be blessed, everything you turn your hand to will prosper,” but Luke 14 is saying “Follow God and you will suffer and die,” because, of course, that’s what “carrying your cross” and following Jesus is all about, it’s a call to come and die.
So how could these two passages possibly work together? They’re both Scripture; both are the divinely-inspired word; they have to both be true. What do we do with them then?
Well, in my mind it’s better if we look at the Gospel passage first and see how the Psalm corresponds with it.
Where does this Gospel passage come in the story? Last week, we looked at the first part of Psalm 14. And, if you remember, most of my sermon hinged on the fact that Jesus was talking about The Wedding Feast, i.e. the Kingdom of God. I should’ve mentioned then that what followed directly after was the Parable of the Great Banquet, which would’ve counted as another clue to what Jesus was speaking about. But, it serves as an interesting lead in to the passage for today, let’s give it a quick look:
15When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."
16Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'
18"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'
19"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'
20"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'
21"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'
22" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'
23"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "
So, here is what we might call a very “grace-oriented” passage. It’s one where it’s easy to see the mercy of God; one of those great passages that highlights the fact that “all the wrong sort of people are getting into Heaven,” and comforts us when we finally realize that we’re the wrong sorts of people too. But, coupled with it, there’s also a distinct motif in this passage of warning: don’t let the concerns of this world come between you and receiving this free gift. And this leads Jesus into the passage for today.
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.
So, does Jesus really want us to hate our parents, spouses, children, and siblings? No, of course not; you already know that. Throughout the Gospels Jesus tells us to “love others as you love yourself,” that is, specifically, take care of others as well as you would take care of yourself. He wouldn’t then turn around and say, “except for your family, don’t love them.”
I imagine most of you have heard, at some point, a sermon or Sunday school lesson on this passage that told you that the way He’s using the word “hate” in a hyperbolic way, and that the original audience would’ve understood that He meant it the same way God the Father meant it when He said “Jacob I have loved but Esau I have hated.” Jesus didn’t mean hate them, but love them less than something else. Which is all true, but I don’t think it captures the whole truth of the situation.
Think about first century Judaism for a minute, from whatever you might know about it, and consider the importance of family in that period. Family was what defined who you were. Family was where your career was picked for you, your spouse was picked for you, where you derived your good name and reputation from. Family was who took care of you, from the time you were a child with your parents taking care of you, until you were elderly and your kids took care of you. Family was the center of the concerns of the world, and it was all based on the concept of reciprocal love. You took care of your family and expected to be taken care of in return.
What it came down to was an issue of faith. Are you trusting in your family and the world to provide for your needs, or are you trusting in God to provide for your needs through your family?
Then Jesus gives us one of the most difficult sayings in the New Testament:
27And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
So, what does this mean? If you’re a Christian, will you inevitably die for your faith? Well, for the earliest Christians, of course, this was generally true; being a Christian was a dangerous business. But, that doesn’t quite fit with our current cultural experience, and I don’t think that’s the whole scope of the saying. So, what does it mean for us? Well, as the phrase “follow me” implies, I think it is, again, a matter of what your faith rests on.
To be a Christian means to trust that God, the author of life, probably knows better than you do how it ought to work, what life truly is versus what you think your life should look like. God, the one who, as Philipians 1:6 tells us, began a good work in you and will bring it about to completion, knows what He is doing, even when you don’t. And when what you want butts up against what God is saying is the right way, He’s right, you’re wrong, and you’re just going to have to trust Him. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have hopes, and dreams, and desires, and even gut instincts, but God’s instincts are better than yours.
Then Jesus moves in to this somewhat ominous sounding section about counting the cost. He says:
28"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'
31"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Here’s the kicker with these verses, consider this: Here’s the kicker with both of these verses. If you were to sit down and determine whether you have the strength, the determination, the passion, and the will to get through all these things yourself in order to reach that final goal of salvation, do you think you have what it takes? If you can answer yes, let me propose that either a.) you don’t actually realize the real cost, or b.) you don’t recognize your own weakness.
This passage is, obviously, about sanctification, about this journey through life in faith, from the moment you receive faith to the moment you die in it, having persevered. But, to me it echoes of another familiar story in the Gospels, where Jesus tells His disciples that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle. This, if you remember, prompts the disciples to say “then who, Lord, could possibly be saved?” To which Jesus replies “with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible;” i.e. it has to be God who does the saving, who gets you from point a to point b, from birth to death, in the faith. In the same way that justification is a free gift of grace which we can by no means procure for ourselves, so to, sanctification is a free gift, a work of pure grace, which we can by no means procure for or achieve of ourselves.
This brings me to the final passage from the Gospel for us this morning:
34"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
Let me clear up any confusion here quickly. Our saltiness is Christ, Christ in us by grace through faith. It is not us, it does not originate in some inherent self-worth or dependent upon our self-determination. Our salt is Christ’s presence in and through us which we receive by faith, which, as we are told in Ephesians 2:8 is not of ourselves but is, itself, a gift of God.
So, how does our Psalm of blessings and prosperity fit with the Gospel message that “what God intends to do in you is likely to hurt?”
Well, let’s look at verse 1:
1 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.
And here’s where I got the title for the sermon, because, really, God? If you look around, it seems like it’s the other way around. If you go against the grain of the world, if you’re not at least a little unethical in the way you treat others and handle your life, you tend to lose out. It seems like the wicked are usually doing just fine while good folks often suffer. I mean, wasn’t that part of the last passage we looked at, having to take up your cross and all?
But what are the blessings of being righteous? As we saw earlier, God, the author of life, knows how it ought to work, how to make it flourish in the way it was meant to flourish. The ways of the wicked may seem to make it flourish, but at what cost? If you follow after God you end up with a soul that is cured, healed and freed from all the wounds that life afflict upon it. Whereas, for the wicked, you may get some money and have some fun, but what’s the consequences? It destroys the soul. As Christ said, “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet loose his soul?”
Life with God is the life of assurance, contentment, and healing. The Psalmist tells us that such a life should look like this, he says:
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
Now, delighting in the Law, that’s a hard one. Because, honestly, the Law scares me to death, as it ought to any sinner. Paul tells us that this is its primary purpose. But, from the perspective of faith, from the perspective of having all your needs met by God, for the lilies of the field do not toil, from the perspective of being forgiven, for there is no condemnation for those who are now in Christ Jesus, from the perspective of having the Holy Spirit, by which He will equip you with everything good for doing His will, in all of that, the Law is the promise of what life can and will be, what our soul will look like when it’s all done.
In this way we can delight in and meditate upon the law, treasuring it in our heart and guarding it against all other usurpers- because this, interestingly enough, is what the word “keep” in John 14:15 means when Christ says “if you love me you will keep my commandments,” you will guard them.
The Psalmist continues:
3 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.
His true life, his life in God, flourishes, even though it may appear at times as if He is dying. As it says in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
Continuing on:
4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
The wicked don’t always seem to be quite so weak as all that. In fact, they’re often downright scary. But what is their foundation? No more than sand. The righteous man, however, is rooted in God, built upon the rock. 1 John 4:4 “Greater is the one who is in you than he who is in the world.”
Then, we read a more difficult passage:
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
It might be easy, of course, to have a knee-jerk reaction and step outside the flow of this passage for a moment and wonder if you, having sinned in life and still struggling with it, may be considered a sinner who cannot stand in the assembly of the righteous. Of course, though, reason eventually sets in and you realize that this passage is not talking about sinners in the “whoever has commited sin” sense, but in the “doesn’t trust in God,” and “always seeks only their own way” sense.
Then the Psalmist finishes up reminding us once again who is the driving force in all of this, who is the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of this life:
6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Again, it is God, and God alone, who is in control, who has a made a way for us in His Son Jesus Christ and leads us down that way by the Holy Spirit in us, around us, and before us, watching over us.
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