Opening Illustration: Redwood Trees

Redwood trees can grow to be over 300 ft tall—bigger than three 10-story buildings stacked on top of each other. They can live longer than 2,000 years. Their bark is often a foot thick. These are big, big trees.

A tree that big must be pretty heavy, right? They often grow to be an estimated more than 1.4 million pounds. So, I want you to think about something. How deep do the roots of that tree, do you think, need to grow in order to keep a tree that big, that heavy, stable when there are storms and wind and rain softening up the soil? You’d expect that the roots would have to go quite deep.

But actually with the redwood trees, the roots don’t go deep at all. They’re quite shallow, especially for a tree that size. They’re usually between 6 to 12 feet deep. Twelve feet of roots doesn’t sound to me like it’s enough to keep a tree that big, that heavy vertical in a storm, but it actually is because what their roots do is quite remarkable. They grow out instead of growing down and they become interconnected with the trees around them. So their roots come together and they provide strength for each other—an incredibly strong web of roots.

So they’re held up by these roots. They’re also able to share water and nutrients. So when there’s a sprout, they can send more nutrients that way so it can build up and get strong quickly. If a tree is weak and it’s leaning, they’ll build more roots—another root ball right there—to try and keep that leaning tree in place.

Trees are a wonderful part of God’s creation. We see his creativity, his wisdom, but they also provide a wonderful picture for the Christian life. We need each other. We need each other. The church needs the church.

So, we’re coming back to this theme that we’ve been hitting on throughout the camp. We need to be around wise people. We need to be around God’s people. The howling storms of life are enough to take any one of us on our own out. But when we’ve been strengthened by God’s word together and we’re rooted, we’re locked in, we’re able to stand by God’s grace, right?

So tonight, we’re going to consider Psalm 1. In this psalm, the godly are likened to a tree and the wicked are likened to chaff. We ought to desire. You guys ought to desire to be like a redwood grove: locked in, rooted together, strong.

So, we need to be benefiting from each other. We ought to be preparing ourselves to be a benefit to those around us. Only those who strive to make their life primarily influenced by God’s word and his people will see this kind of thing.

Prayer

So let’s pray one more time and then we’ll read our passage.

Oh Lord, coming to your word again, God. And we need it. We need this message that you have for us in Psalm 1. Oh God, please give us attentive hearts. Give us hearts that are eager to acquire wisdom and to get understanding. Please teach us, grow us, and grow us in such a way that there would be lasting fruit and not just the response of one weekend.

But God, that you would work in each one of us so that for the course of our lives we could be more pleasing to you, bring more glory to you because you’re worthy of it. So help us we pray. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Read Psalm 1

So let’s read Psalm 1.

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—they 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.

Your influences determine whether your life will be happy, wasted, or eternal

Our outline this evening is your influences determine whether your life will be happy, wasted, or eternal. Your influences determine whether your life will be happy, wasted, or eternal.

So let’s talk about how our influences determine whether our life will be happy. Psalm starts the entire psalter with this phrase: how blessed. How blessed is the man. When you guys went through the Sermon on the Mount, you may have learned that the Greek word for blessed is happy. It’s true here, too.

Here we have the key to true blessedness—true happiness. Not the kind of happiness that comes just from your good circumstances in a moment, not from achieving some goal that you have. Certainly, no real happiness can come from chasing your idols.

But we’re talking about a truer happiness, a deeper happiness that is founded on God’s blessing—a happiness that doesn’t fade in time, a happiness that doesn’t even need to be interrupted when hard things come.

I hope that sparks your attention. I know that there are many, many young people today who are not happy. They’re downcast, anxious, life is hard, and maybe it doesn’t always work out the way that you would expect. But you can actually still have this kind of happiness. So let’s talk about this man who is so blessed—this man who is so happy.

He does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

Okay, notice first: he does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. He doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. Walking in their counsel is talking about taking in their way of thinking, letting your thinking be influenced by them.

Right? The wise man doesn’t let ungodliness influence his thinking or his heart. He doesn’t look for the world’s advice. The unbelieving world has been judged. They hated Christ. And so they’re going to hate his principles, his way—of course, his people.

And they’re faithful evangelists. Many people who are miserable, they don’t understand, they can’t even fathom this kind of happiness that you guys get a window into tonight. And yet they will evangelize you. They will bring you into their way and try to get you to think like them. If sinners entice you, do not consent. Don’t go.

But if you walk according to their counsel, according to their aims, their principles, you will find yourself coming to the same conclusion: not blessed. The sorrows of those who run after other gods are multiplied. Psalm 16 says, “Don’t go that way. Don’t walk according to their counsel.”

Notice that it also says the blessed man does not stand in the way of sinners. This is their behavior, their way of life. The picture is one of descent, right? First, don’t take their counsel. Don’t be influenced in thinking. But now, don’t draw near. Don’t draw near to take in their way of life. You linger. You’re attracted to something there. If you receive the counsel of the wicked, it will not be long until you live like the wicked.

Next, it says that the righteous does not sit in the seat of the scoffer—an even lower descent. This is someone who mocks God. And it might not always be like, “Goliath, I defy the God of the army of Israel.” Maybe not always that brazen. But the scoffer won’t treat these times seriously. The scoffer will make light of the opportunities that they have to come before God’s word. They don’t understand the weight, so they make jokes.

Notice that the righteous person will not sit in his seat. And the idea is the blessed man won’t have table fellowship. He’s not going to be in that man’s home enjoying a meal—one of his compadres, rooted together. He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to be in close fellowship with a blasphemer. It’s not comfortable there. And besides, someone who does honor God doesn’t belong with the scoffer. It’s not the place for him. How could one who fears God be at home with someone who despises him?

Notice they go from bad to worse like I was getting at. There’s no resting or coasting—slowing down and lingering and standing in their path. And the next thing they know, they are sitting at their table.

We must never think—I hope you never think—”I can entertain a little bit of sin. I can have a little bit of folly. I know that’s not good, but it’s not that big of a deal.” No. It starts with being influenced and it ends with you comfortable at the table of blasphemers. That’s the progression here that’s given to us.

Discernment: Remove yourself from influence

One of the first things that you need to do if you want to live well, honor God, be blessed, is to remove yourself from being influenced by those who walk according to the counsel of the wicked.

So the blessed man actually has discernment, right? He knows God’s word. He knows what it says. And so he can look out and say, “Oh, he’s a scoffer. I shouldn’t let him influence me to do that. Oh, she’s walking in worldly counsel. I want to be a friend, but I need to be careful that I’m not influenced in the same way.”

The blessed man has that discernment. He’s able to look at the counsel of the wicked and say, “That’s not good. That’s not the way I want to go.”

Think of mushroom scavenging. Has anyone ever mushroom scavenged? No. Okay. I’ve tried. Some mushrooms are healthy and delicious, especially with steak or pizza, right? Love mushrooms. Others are toxic, poisonous, and will kill you.

Someone is going mushroom scavenging—they need to have their eyes open for all the signs. You need to know which mushrooms grow where and in what climates, what they all look like, subtle differences between different kinds of mushrooms. You need discernment to make the right choice. And it’s life or death.

We need to be discerning. Sometimes we don’t know how. Sometimes it’s hard to discern wisdom from folly. Okay, so how do we learn that? Where do we go to get that discernment? Look at verse two.

His delight is in the law of Yahweh

“But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, and in his law he meditates day and night.”

The godly man will learn this discernment from God’s word. Notice what he discerns to be good. What does he want to be an influence in his life? The law of Yahweh. The word for law also means instruction. In this case, I think it means all of God’s instruction—all of his word to us.

He doesn’t care for the wicked’s counsel. He knows better. He wants Yahweh’s instruction. He wants the Lord’s instruction.

This blessed person knows that all wisdom, guidance—everything they need to live this happy, blessed life that pleases God—comes from him, and it can be found in his word. That’s where he goes.

We shouldn’t expect to please God. We shouldn’t expect to experience God’s blessing when we are seeking wisdom from other sources.

Listen, there are lots of influencers out there—people online, friends, other people in your life—who think they know how to tell you what is wise. They think they can teach you foundational things like how to be a good man or a good woman, about dating, about being a student, about being an employee.

And how do we know? How do we know if they understand how to help us? Well, does it accord? Does it line up with God’s word? That’s the question.

Any contrary advice—any advice that doesn’t line up with what God says—needs to be rejected. And your heart needs to be settled that you want God’s instruction and no one else’s. That needs to be a foundational conviction for you if you want things to go well with you: I want God’s instruction.

Notice he delights in it. This man doesn’t wake up in the morning and say, “Oh, darn it. I’ve got to do my devotional. My parents are making me. Let me go read my Bible. Oh, there’s this pearl of great price I got to go find.” No. No. He delights in God’s word.

He reads God’s word and it’s good. His commandments are life. They can tell you what is wise. So he says, “My heart is given over to God’s word. I love it. I need more of it. I need more understanding.” That’s the attitude of this blessed person.

You know, he doesn’t groan in obedience. He recognizes that God’s commandments are not burdensome. Just like it says in 1 John 5:3, they are life-giving. They are glory. They bring us to God’s blessing and happiness.

God’s word is this man’s treasured possession. Have the image of an older saint who has had the same Bible for a long, long time. They’ve made all their little notes in it. The pages are yellow. They started white, but now they’re yellow because this is an old Bible. And this man has spent decades investing in that book that I saw right there on the table in front of me.

That man loves that Bible. It’s one of his dearest possessions. You couldn’t buy it from him for a million dollars. He delights in God’s word.

Because this man delights in God’s word, notice that he meditates. He meditates on it day and night, all the time.

To meditate is to have some portion of God’s word on your mind. And the idea with the word is you’re muttering. You’re repeating it back to yourself. You’re memorizing it. You’re thinking about it. You’re asking, you know, “How does this verse apply here?” And you’re turning the gears, right?

One way to meditate that you guys have been taught—this is one method of meditation—is to go read your Bible and then think about it and ask the questions: What does the text say? What does it mean? What does it teach you about God? How should this affect you? You guys know those questions. It’s a fruitful way to meditate on God’s word.

Now, some of us might be tempted to think, “Well, I don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. I mostly spend my time at home with my family and they’re Christians, or at church and they’re Christians, or I go to a Christian school and I think my friends at school follow most of the rules. So, am I blessed? I’m not around the wicked. I’m pretty insulated.”

Okay, that’s good for what it’s worth. But the question is: do you delight in God’s word? Do you meditate on it like this person? Do you pursue it every day that you live?

If we don’t pursue God’s word like the blessed man in Psalm 1, the blessing doesn’t belong to us. It’s not enough to just be isolated and in our Christian bubble. But we need to delight. We need to meditate.

Why? Well, because your thinking determines your life. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

If we’re not filling our thoughts with God’s thoughts, then we won’t conform our behavior to his standard. We won’t walk in his ways.

Right? What I think determines what I do. So when my actions are off, the first place to check is my heart. Where’s my thinking going wrong here? And then we correct our wrong thinking with God’s word.

We need to pursue God’s word. And look at this: the man who thinks God’s thoughts after him will see the fruit of it in his life according to Psalm 1. Look at verse three.

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water

“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.”

So he’ll be like a tree. This is a strong tree. This is a rooted tree. It is stable. This tree is planted by streams of water. It’s planted—it didn’t just happen to sprout there. No, this place was chosen intentionally.

And the tree was planted right next to streams. The word for streams here teaches us that these streams are not natural streams. These are canals that were intentionally dug to give the tree an overabundance of water—an overabundance of what it needs to be strong, rooted, fruitful.

Look at the result: it bears fruit in its season. The tree’s fruitful. It’s full of life at just the right time, just like you’d expect. It’s in season and it bears much fruit.

This blessed person is full of spiritual strength and spiritual fruit.

It’s worth noting that it takes time for fruit to grow in your Christian life. It doesn’t happen immediately. It takes time. It comes in the right season.

Maybe you’ve been tempted to think at some point or another, “I read the Bible. I try to grow. I go to church and it’s still hard to fight sin. Maybe it’s not working.” No. No. It’s working.

Just like you get bananas from the store and they’re green—it takes time for them to turn yellow, to ripen. The same is true of the fruit that God wants you to bear in your life. It doesn’t happen in a day. It takes time. And then a little more time—and probably a little more time after that. All the time you have in this life.

Christian, your fruit is not as mature as it will be one day if you keep meditating on God’s word.

But here’s what else this means: this also means that we don’t have time to waste. I can’t just sprout a fully grown tree full of fruit tomorrow. No, I need to be laboring today for tomorrow’s fruit—for next year’s fruit. I can’t take it easy on this.

But don’t be discouraged if fruit doesn’t come as quickly as you would like, as you hoped. If you remove yourself from the counsel of the wicked, you give yourself to be influenced by God’s instruction, you will bear the spiritual fruit of maturity in due time, and you will bear much fruit.

Notice also that the leaf does not wither. This tree is like an evergreen. It doesn’t matter if it’s the heat of summer or the dead of winter—the circumstances around it. This tree’s leaves stay vibrant. It’s right up against these canals. It has all it needs.

And so for the happy, blessed person—whatever season of life, okay—whatever hardships, whatever trials, whatever difficulties—the godly person can be fruitful, lively, have vigor, strength in their walk with the Lord. They can bear fruit because they can get from God’s word the wisdom and encouragement that they need.

Notice also that in whatever he does, he prospers. This person will find God’s blessing upon his life. Now, this doesn’t mean that he will certainly be rich or healthy or have really good circumstances around him all the time, but we’re talking about the spiritual fruit—the maturity, the godliness, Christlikeness, holiness—for the man who meditates on God’s word.

This person uses God’s means, his word, according to the power of the Spirit in him. Whatever sin they aim at, they can conquer it—they can do it. If there’s a characteristic of maturity that this man can point out in his life and say, “I’ve got room to grow there. I’m not where I want to be,” if he uses God’s means, his word, according to the power of God’s Spirit, he can grow. He can do it.

In all that he does, he will prosper. Again, it takes time, it takes effort, but this person can succeed in these things. As they depend upon God’s word and God’s help, their spiritual life will thoroughly prosper, as they are giving their heart and mind over to God’s word in every part of their life.

What a blessing for this person. What a blessing for the person who lives this way—fruitfulness, success as a regular because they feed on God’s word that’s available to you, to every single one of you. That kind of blessing.

And we’re told, we’re given instructions on how to get there—what we need to be doing. It’s not easy, but it is very clear. It’s very clear. Don’t walk in the counsel of the wicked. Delight. Delight in Yahweh’s instruction.

The wicked are not so

Now, the wicked, they’re in a completely different position. Unless God’s grace changes them, takes them off of that path, they will not be happy. Look at verses four and five.

“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.”

All the blessing, all the fruitfulness of the person who meditates on God’s word that we just read about—it’s not for those who don’t meditate on God’s word. It’s not for those who actually prefer the counsel of the wicked. The blessed man prospers, but it’s not so for the ungodly.

It says they are like chaff. Chaff. The ungodly are the farthest thing from a fruitful tree. The tree is strong. It’s healthy. It’s sturdy. It’s stable in the storm. And the ungodly are like chaff.

What’s chaff? I think of when you get peanuts at a ball game and you crack the shell—there’s that little layer of like papery around the peanut. Do you guys know what I’m talking about? Okay, that’s like chaff.

We don’t live in a farming community, so that might not be obvious to all of us, but chaff is the waste. It’s the part you don’t want to eat. There’s no nutrients. It doesn’t taste good. It’s rootless. It’s weightless. It’s easily blown away. A slight breeze will take it away. It’s unfruitful. It’s not good for anything.

Again, please—I’m going to keep coming back to this—please don’t think, “Maybe, just maybe, I can reject God. I can not obey the Bible and things will go well for me. I can get the things I want.” It’s just not true. You’re going to find yourself sorely disappointed. I don’t want that to happen to any of you.

No. For those who live that way, they will be like chaff. So a life that could have been fruitful, a life that could have been strong—it’s wasted. It’s nothing. It’s gone in the breeze.

Not only are the godly and the wicked different in the characteristics of their life, but let’s look at the future for the wicked. Okay, verse five—I already read it. The wicked will not rise in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

They won’t stand in judgment. They will actually have no leg to stand on—no excuse. Every one of us who stands before God in our sins is quickly removed. We have no reason to talk back, no way to blame-shift or dodge accountability. We are there, if we find ourselves there, because of our own choices—our sin.

We went according to what seemed right in our own eyes, and God will judge us, and we will know that that judgment is just. It’s appropriate. It’s right.

There’s a certain end of those who do not submit to God and his word. Guys, don’t do that. Don’t go there. Humble yourselves before God. He will exalt you. He will bless you.

Look at the next part of our verse: there will be no sinners in the congregation of the righteous. After judgment, there will be a people. There will be a righteous people—God’s people. We can’t even begin to fathom what that will be like. But no unrighteous person will be there. Not in that group.

I want you to think about this. Think about how much of a difference there is between the godly and the ungodly. Span that gap.

Blessed, fruitful, prosperous in this life—all by God’s hand, his kindness through his word as it works in us. On the other hand: wasted, nothing, and judged. It’s opposite.

One is in accordance with God’s wisdom and the other in accordance with the counsel of fools. One leads to spiritual fruitfulness, blessing, prosperity, true godliness, and the other leads to a wasted life.

One ends in eternal reward with God and all his friends forever. The other: judgment. Not only a wasted life, but a wasted eternity.

Who are you? Which path are you on? Who have you chosen to surround yourself with? Are your friends moving you, influencing you towards God’s blessing? Do your friends pull you away?

Again, the godly and the wicked, they’re going in opposite directions. Why would someone who wants to honor God, who wants to walk in his way, knit themselves so closely together with the ungodly when we see what they’re like here?

So, we’ve seen that how you choose your influences determines whether you will be happy. It determines whether your life will be wasted. Now, we’ll learn that it will also determine if your life will be eternal—blessed forever.

For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous

Look at verse six. “For Yahweh knows, he knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”

Yahweh knows. The idea is he is knowing. He’s always looking. He’s always aware. He never loses focus or gets distracted. He always has his eye on the righteous to bless them.

Often in the Bible when it talks about knowing, it’s talking about more than just knowing facts. It’s not merely that God happens to know the direction of the path of the righteous like GPS directions. It’s not that at all. But he knows the righteous. He knows their path. He loves them. He knows the way they walk, and he delights in it, so he blesses them.

This verse is the culmination of what we’ve been talking about. Why is the man blessed who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, but he delights himself in God’s law? Why? Because Yahweh knows that way. He knows that person, and he is intent on blessing his people who live like that.

He also discerns, just like we ought to. God also discerns between the righteous and the wicked. He can spot who’s who.

Look, it is easy to fool people. It’s easy to fool your friends. You can fool your leaders. You can fool your parents. It’s not hard. We can do that if we’re committed to it. But you cannot fool God. He’s looking. He’s aware. He knows. And he discerns.

And when God looks at those who embrace the counsel of the wicked, reject his instruction—when he discerns them and their way—the only right ending is destruction. The way of the wicked will perish, the text says. So God looks, he discerns, he chooses.

Please come to Christ

So who will get to be God’s friends eternally? His people, the righteous. Those who do not walk according to ungodly influence and waste their lives and their eternity, but those who submit to God’s instruction will have lives that are eternally happy.

Of course, I want to make clear: when God looks at the righteous, he doesn’t accept them because they’ve found a way to be wise enough. They’re not earning their way into heaven, into God’s good graces. “If I do enough, then maybe I’ll get to be his friend.” No.

Rather, their wisdom, their righteousness, the good deeds that they walk in—those are the fruit of what God has already done in their lives through the gospel.

For some of you, that’s the first step. Consider that Jesus died on a cross for rebels—enemies. Those on the wicked way. Those who loved, delighted in the counsel of the ungodly. They loved to stand in their path. They were at home with the scoffer. Jesus died. He died on a cross to bear the sins of foolish sinners and to bear the wrath of God in their place.

Some of you might assess your life and say, “Yeah, I know I’m not that blessed man. I know I’m living according to the counsel of this world.” If you’re there, please come to Christ. Come to the saving God who rescues people from the way of the wicked—this way that certainly will perish.

I’m also confident that there are some of you here who would say, “Yeah, I believe in God. I know he exists, I know the Bible’s true,” and yet you haven’t submitted yourself to him. You haven’t submitted yourself to his word. I would just plead with you: why? Why would you waste your life? Why would you waste your eternity and run headlong into judgment?

Be the wise person who sees danger coming up ahead and they hide themselves from it. The fool doesn’t slow down when he sees danger—he goes rushing off the cliff even quicker. Please, please don’t do that.

You can find forgiveness from your sins in the cross of Christ, in his payment for sins, and he will establish you on the path of righteousness. And then he will give you a delight in his word, and you’ll be blessed. You’ll bear spiritual fruit forever.

I pray—I’ve been praying—that this look at the difference between the life and the future of the godly in contrast with the wasted life and future of the wicked might be motivation, that God might be instructing you in the folly of the way you’ve been going so that you would turn. You would turn to him and plead for mercy and find it. Find grace, wisdom, righteousness, love.

And I’ve been praying as well for all of us that we would be meditators—rejecting the counsel of the wicked, delighting, delighting in Yahweh’s instruction.

Closing Prayer

So, let’s pray.

Oh Lord, your word for us tonight has been so sufficient. It is so what we need. God, you know it’s what these students need. And I pray, God, I pray for each one of them. I pray that they would know you. I pray that you would rescue them from their sin. Rescue them from the way of the wicked. That you would set them on your path.

That you would be gracious to them, give them mercy, and that we would all delight in your word. That we would all be meditators in your word and tasting that—tasting the goodness of your grace, your kindness to us in the gospel, your wisdom in your sufficient word—that we would easily reject the counsel of the wicked.

God, please help us again. These are only things that you can do. We’re dependent upon your Spirit. Please work in us. Pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.