WEBVTT 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.240 I'm going to invite you to turn Psalm chapter 1. 00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:10.240 We'll dismiss the 10 and 11 year olds for their class, and give a little intro to where we're going today 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:11.220 in Psalm chapter one. 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:17.080 If you want to find the Psalms, the easiest place to do that is to open right up to the middle of the Bible and usually find yourselves right in the Psalms there. 00:00:17.640 --> 00:00:22.600 Psalms chapter 1, for us as a church, is wisdom literature. 00:00:23.480 --> 00:00:27.200 Psalms is poetry, but the Psalms also qualifies as wisdom literature. 00:00:28.380 --> 00:00:30.500 I want to stop here for a few reasons. 00:00:30.560 --> 00:00:37.660 I'm going to tell you, I've shared this with you guys before, but sometimes when I preach, I just like to preach to myself and let everybody just listen in, and 00:00:37.660 --> 00:00:44.680 this morning, it's one of those days where this psalm is one that not only inspires my heart, but it also provides us a good 00:00:45.040 --> 00:00:52.040 gut-check as believers to see if we can just examine our lives and determine if we're on a healthy trajectory in our relationship 00:00:52.240 --> 00:00:54.560 to Christ and where God calls us to. 00:00:54.860 --> 00:01:01.940 Wisdom literature I think is important and the value of wisdom literature, we tend to highlight more as we live 00:01:01.940 --> 00:01:08.960 life, and the reason is because the older you get, the more you tend to be responsible for, and 00:01:08.960 --> 00:01:15.880 the older you get, your decisions tend to have a bigger wave in how it affects those around you. 00:01:16.220 --> 00:01:20.900 For example, my wife and I know, today, in just a couple hours, we're going to have another baby. 00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:24.690 And so if I start preaching, all of a sudden my mind just wanders, you know why. 00:01:25.560 --> 00:01:29.640 So just give me some grace in that and hopefully we carry some coherent thoughts. 00:01:30.320 --> 00:01:37.360 But with that, there becomes responsibility, right, it's sort of like this sobering moment of, "Oh, Lord, I am responsible for another 00:01:37.360 --> 00:01:38.040 life now. 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:39.460 What am I going to do with this? 00:01:39.800 --> 00:01:40.770 I don't want to mess up. 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:44.300 How do I do it?" And obviously you're like, "Give me some wisdom," right. 00:01:44.300 --> 00:01:51.360 And so wisdom literature becomes very important because you realize that your life is about to impact other lives, so you sort of get to this 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:53.610 moment in life where you're a little bit more of a sponge now. 00:01:53.920 --> 00:01:58.660 Okay, I can embrace some things here, I know I'm out of my league, I want to learn. 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:02.000 I messed up with the first two We're going to get this third one right, right. 00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:03.540 So wisdom literature... 00:02:03.580 --> 00:02:11.200 Apologize to the kids, but wisdom literature is important for us and wisdom, it's 00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:16.870 this practical application in life where when you study wisdom in Scripture, I think this is more true in Proverbs, the book of Proverbs. 00:02:17.460 --> 00:02:18.640 Proverbs is wisdom literature. 00:02:19.060 --> 00:02:26.160 Wisdom literature doesn't mean that it's always true in every circumstance, but it tends to be if you shape your life according to the proverbial statements of the wisdom 00:02:26.160 --> 00:02:30.200 literature in Christ, it sets your life up for success, right? 00:02:30.980 --> 00:02:35.080 Psalm chapter 1 is that communication to us. 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:39.280 It's wisdom literature in how we direct our lives. 00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:44.900 More specific than that, this particular psalm, it really deals with happiness. 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:46.360 I love that. 00:02:46.360 --> 00:02:49.240 You start off with the Psalms, psalms, 150 of them. 00:02:49.240 --> 00:02:56.480 They're Israel's top 150 charts of the songs that they would sing to each other, and the very first song, very first few words, it starts talking 00:02:56.480 --> 00:02:57.080 about happiness. 00:02:57.500 --> 00:03:02.340 To sort of, before you get into this worship book, to ask you the question, are you happy? 00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:06.990 I realize there's a lot of things in life that can affect happiness. 00:03:08.220 --> 00:03:14.420 Your mood, diet, exercise, seasons of life or just seasons in general. 00:03:14.420 --> 00:03:17.660 We just, getting out of the winter, it's a more depressing time for some people. 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:19.100 You need your vitamin D back, right? 00:03:19.380 --> 00:03:21.170 There's different things that can affect your happiness. 00:03:22.620 --> 00:03:28.200 When it comes to wisdom literature though, when it's describing this idea of happiness, it's more than just the temporal. 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:31.120 See, in our culture, here's the crazy thing with the word happiness. 00:03:31.360 --> 00:03:32.910 It really derives from the root happenings. 00:03:34.020 --> 00:03:39.040 It almost causes us to think that circumstance should dictate whether or not you're happy. 00:03:40.020 --> 00:03:43.300 In that case, it's sort of a disheartening thought. 00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:51.100 What it really means is your happiness is really determined on what happens to you, and you're not really in control of it, so you just better hope that only good things happen in your life. 00:03:51.100 --> 00:03:51.960 Therefore, you can be happy. 00:03:52.460 --> 00:03:59.740 When happiness is related to scripture, it carries this idea that really, happiness starts on a very foundational 00:03:59.740 --> 00:04:02.580 point, and it's deeper than just circumstances. 00:04:02.860 --> 00:04:10.040 Joy in the Lord, it's deeper than just circumstances because there's something sustaining about the Christian life that endures beyond the moment. 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:14.720 If you build your life upon that, it really lasts for eternity. 00:04:14.720 --> 00:04:15.800 It doesn't fade away. 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:23.620 For us, when we talk about happiness, and there are different things that we could speak of in regards to happiness, but in terms of this passage, 00:04:23.960 --> 00:04:26.320 we're looking for a sustaining happiness of life. 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:31.250 It's almost like, you come to this passage and you're sort of a clean slate, just like I described in the beginning. 00:04:31.500 --> 00:04:36.720 You're looking for wisdom because you realize you have some responsibilities and you don't want to mess this up, right? 00:04:36.960 --> 00:04:41.860 In this clean slate, if I want to just build a life full of joy, which God created all good things. 00:04:42.460 --> 00:04:43.580 God wants you to be happy. 00:04:43.580 --> 00:04:44.840 God's not a killjoy, right? 00:04:45.100 --> 00:04:52.180 God wants you to experience the joy of things, and use that joy really to worship him, to see the goodness of who he is by the good things that he's created. 00:04:53.120 --> 00:04:56.310 This psalm story starts with this clean slate of how can you be happy? 00:04:56.380 --> 00:04:57.620 Are you ever going to be happy? 00:04:58.080 --> 00:04:59.840 I mean, what if your life stays the same? 00:04:59.900 --> 00:05:02.080 What if your relationships stays the same? 00:05:02.120 --> 00:05:04.440 What if your job stays the same, right? 00:05:04.760 --> 00:05:11.820 When I talk about happiness this morning, I'm not going to tell you now, I know the problem to your happiness is everyone around you, so I'm going to tell you how to eliminate 00:05:11.820 --> 00:05:14.360 all of them, or I'm going to tell you how to change all of their hearts. 00:05:14.520 --> 00:05:16.320 That's, I'm not doing that this morning. 00:05:16.340 --> 00:05:23.640 If you think that's how happiness is the result of, we should just turn to James chapter 4 and proceed, but happiness 00:05:23.640 --> 00:05:27.380 should be at a deeper level than just your happenings, right? 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:28.920 I'm on one today. 00:05:29.320 --> 00:05:33.120 Happiness needs to be deeper than your happenings. 00:05:33.380 --> 00:05:40.480 That's where this passage of scripture is starting with the idea of wisdom, this idea of happiness, 00:05:40.760 --> 00:05:44.660 and if you want to know how I'm getting happiness from this passage, this is how it starts. 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:50.220 "How blessed is the man." This word blessed literally means happy. 00:05:52.460 --> 00:05:55.960 So the thesis of this psalm is happiness. 00:05:57.340 --> 00:06:00.160 It's saying to you, God cares about your happiness. 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:08.120 At the same time, he's writing the psalm because there's always conflict that comes in terms of where happiness is discovered. 00:06:09.180 --> 00:06:14.200 We fight a spiritual battle, and God is a good God that created us to experience joy in him. 00:06:14.480 --> 00:06:19.620 There is a battle for your heart and how you discover that ultimate joy in this world. 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:22.760 Happiness is the thesis. 00:06:23.020 --> 00:06:24.160 How can you be happy? 00:06:25.080 --> 00:06:26.090 I want to know the secret. 00:06:27.300 --> 00:06:27.720 Psalm 1. 00:06:30.260 --> 00:06:34.820 I want you to know the answer to this questions, I'm not going to give the cliché answer in Christianity. 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:39.580 As Christians we joke, we know sometimes the answer's always Jesus, right? 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:44.140 I want to dive a little deeper into the thought of what this means for our lives. 00:06:44.540 --> 00:06:51.660 I want us to know, I don't want to end in this invitation of this religious living of life, but really invite us into relationship with 00:06:51.660 --> 00:06:54.300 the Lord, dive deeper into this text. 00:06:55.540 --> 00:07:02.560 One of the perspectives I want to carry into this is this text for us is not a one hit wonder, meaning sing this psalm 00:07:02.560 --> 00:07:04.320 once, and the rest of your life is just happy. 00:07:05.080 --> 00:07:11.370 I want you to know, this is a target for life, meaning this isn't an accomplishment, but this is a pursuit. 00:07:12.920 --> 00:07:20.040 This is where we fix ourselves to discover what this psalm is talking about, and we should saturate ourselves in this psalm not just 00:07:20.040 --> 00:07:27.040 today, but discover what it communicates every day to build on this foundation for which this blessed life or this 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:29.310 happy life is discovered. 00:07:29.820 --> 00:07:32.880 The psalm is saying there is a battle for happiness. 00:07:33.320 --> 00:07:40.840 It's kind of interesting when you look in terms of life, in a human life, that when you're young, you 00:07:40.900 --> 00:07:42.230 tend to see things very optimistically. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:44.930 The world's kind of your playground. 00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:47.820 Happiness is inevitable. 00:07:47.820 --> 00:07:52.560 It's a wonderful life you live, and when you grow up you can be anything, right? 00:07:52.740 --> 00:07:55.920 I can remember our firstborn, when we would travel as a family. 00:07:56.820 --> 00:08:00.480 Kids, when you drive around, they fall asleep and then they wake up and they see new things. 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.500 All of sudden, and you pray as a parent, God let them fall asleep. 00:08:03.980 --> 00:08:07.540 I really want to get there in peace, and we want to love each other when we arrive. 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:14.330 Your kid wakes up and I remember our oldest, when he would, we'd go on these trips and he would wake up, we would look at the different landscape. 00:08:14.520 --> 00:08:18.440 Landscape changes so beautifully out here in the west, but we would fly to different places too. 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:22.420 When he would wake up, he'd see the new landscape, he'd always say the same thing to me. 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:28.770 "Dad, I love this world." He literally thought like, the way he described things, he fell asleep and his dad would take him to a whole new planet. 00:08:29.060 --> 00:08:30.100 Dad, I love this world. 00:08:30.140 --> 00:08:31.840 He'd see the mountains and he loves it. 00:08:32.120 --> 00:08:33.580 He sees the canyons, and he loves it. 00:08:33.580 --> 00:08:34.880 He sees the beach and he loves it. 00:08:35.400 --> 00:08:35.419 He loves this world. 00:08:35.419 --> 00:08:42.480 For kids, happiness, they look at it very optimistically, but when you get older, the number 00:08:42.480 --> 00:08:44.179 of disappointments in life grow. 00:08:46.040 --> 00:08:51.480 I think happiness has this tendency to go from inevitable to unattainable. 00:08:53.060 --> 00:09:00.120 When you're young, you see yourself on this trajectory of happiness, and as you get older you wonder if you can be happy because of what 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:00.540 you've lost. 00:09:02.800 --> 00:09:06.760 The overall thought of this psalm is to tell us you can be happy. 00:09:08.420 --> 00:09:15.480 So as to say, it's not unattainable, but at the same time, things can pull on us, 00:09:15.480 --> 00:09:17.660 and rob us of happiness, so it's not inevitable. 00:09:18.180 --> 00:09:24.690 Just assuming you're going to be happy is naïve, but being pessimistic about happiness is also unrealistic. 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:31.660 In this psalm, the psalmist, I'm going to read verse 1 and 2 in a second, I'm going to skip a little bit ahead. 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:39.220 The psalmist gives us the platform here, "How blessed or happy is the man," and he starts to describe the life of two individuals, the one that finds themselves 00:09:39.220 --> 00:09:46.580 settled in the trajectory of this happiness, that the psalmist describes, or the other person that finds themselves 00:09:46.930 --> 00:09:48.880 unpleased with the journey of what life is. 00:09:48.920 --> 00:09:55.920 Now, I want you to know when you read the psalms, this is just in general, when you go through the psalms, psalmists have a tendency to write psalms in a particular way. 00:09:56.100 --> 00:09:57.140 Psalms are poetry, right. 00:09:57.460 --> 00:09:59.670 In our culture, you know how you write a poem, you got to rhyme. 00:09:59.880 --> 00:10:00.830 You got to be good at your rhymes. 00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:04.100 You got to set up the beatbox and you just let the rhymes flow, right? 00:10:04.100 --> 00:10:07.780 In Hebrew literature, poetry is written a little bit different. 00:10:07.980 --> 00:10:14.980 They would write a statement, and then they would write a following statement that would either contrast the previous statement or be similar 00:10:14.980 --> 00:10:16.360 to the previous statement. 00:10:16.740 --> 00:10:18.480 That's how Hebrew literature flows. 00:10:18.500 --> 00:10:23.860 When you look at this psalm, it's broken up this way, between verse 1 and 2, verse 3 and 4, and verse 5 an 6. 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:27.540 1 and 2 is contrasting between a happy person and unhappy person. 00:10:28.220 --> 00:10:29.740 Verse 3 an 4, same thing. 00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:31.080 Verse 5 and 6, the same thing. 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:38.940 When you get to verse 3 and 4, it tells you the outflow of what happens to a person that sets themselves up on this trajectory 00:10:38.980 --> 00:10:42.340 of this happy, blessed life, so this is what it says. 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:50.140 "He'll be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its seasons, and its leaf 00:10:50.140 --> 00:10:53.620 does not whither, and that whatever he does he prospers. 00:10:54.960 --> 00:10:56.160 The wicked are not so. 00:10:57.120 --> 00:11:04.260 They're like chaff which the wind drives away." So the psalmist describes two individuals, one, 00:11:04.540 --> 00:11:11.580 this tree, fruit-bearing life where the seasons come and go or the chaff, which blows away, the 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:12.940 seasons come and go. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.520 In either case, what the psalmist wants us to know is life has seasons. 00:11:22.180 --> 00:11:25.520 In life, you experience ebb and flows. 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:35.540 To base your happiness off of things which are circumstantial, in the end, 00:11:35.780 --> 00:11:36.800 it will ultimately fade. 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:42.580 That's where the psalmist drives you to the idea of chaff. 00:11:44.260 --> 00:11:51.660 In the days of the psalmist they would take the weed or the harvest to the threshing floor and they would separate it, and 00:11:51.660 --> 00:11:53.580 the pieces that were unwanted were the chaff. 00:11:53.620 --> 00:12:00.840 They would literally toss up this, the harvest into the air and the chaff would separate and 00:12:00.900 --> 00:12:07.870 just blow away, as if to say in our lives, we tend to find happiness sometimes in circumstances. 00:12:08.060 --> 00:12:10.340 Like in our culture, we'll say this. 00:12:10.400 --> 00:12:10.870 What do you pursue? 00:12:10.980 --> 00:12:11.820 Whatever makes you happy. 00:12:13.100 --> 00:12:17.160 It's like chasing an illusion because happiness isn't the product of happiness. 00:12:19.780 --> 00:12:21.820 Happiness is simply the result of something else. 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:28.840 In our lives, when we live for the circumstance, it's like chasing the chaff. 00:12:30.500 --> 00:12:35.020 Ultimately that season will end and what delighted us in that moment will fade away. 00:12:37.520 --> 00:12:38.720 Ultimately it won't matter. 00:12:40.600 --> 00:12:41.200 Life has seasons. 00:12:43.380 --> 00:12:46.340 I try to think about what this looks like. 00:12:46.380 --> 00:12:48.480 What does it look like to live your life full of chaff. 00:12:48.780 --> 00:12:50.000 I created an image in my head. 00:12:50.280 --> 00:12:54.600 It's that guy that always wants to photo bomb everything, going, "Ahhh, you only live once. 00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:58.020 Every moment, live for it," which is cool. 00:12:58.060 --> 00:13:02.420 Enjoy the moment man, but at some point, your life has to matter for something more. 00:13:05.810 --> 00:13:13.290 So this writer is getting us to recognize, there needs to be something deeper than just the happenings 00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:15.800 on which you base your happiness. 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:19.460 Circumstances should not dictate. 00:13:20.860 --> 00:13:27.320 That's not to say, life can't be difficult, but there's something deeper. 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:33.840 When you read this psalm, you begin to see it in the idea of this fruit, right? 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:36.140 I want that fruit that sustains. 00:13:38.100 --> 00:13:45.380 I want that fruit that endures, and so we see things in life that look good and so we want to pursue the fruit that's better than just the chaff. 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:46.000 I don't want the chaff. 00:13:46.280 --> 00:13:46.940 I want to fruit. 00:13:46.980 --> 00:13:47.940 The fruit tastes better. 00:13:47.940 --> 00:13:50.560 The chaff's intended to fade away, but I want the fruit. 00:13:50.920 --> 00:13:55.760 I want us to know even in reading these few verses that the fruit isn't even what satisfies in life. 00:13:56.180 --> 00:13:57.700 The fruit is simply the result. 00:13:58.700 --> 00:14:00.320 We have a tendency in life to do that with things. 00:14:00.360 --> 00:14:07.460 We look at circumstances of other people and we're like, "Man, their grass is greener." Nevermind the amount of fertilizer 00:14:07.460 --> 00:14:08.920 it took to get there, right? 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:16.440 The grass looks greener, and so we chase after the idea of the fruit of what produced it. 00:14:16.460 --> 00:14:24.420 But the point of this section of scripture is to get us to recognize that it's not even the fruit that we're after, that there's 00:14:24.420 --> 00:14:25.840 something deeper still. 00:14:25.860 --> 00:14:27.040 It's not about the fruit. 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:27.620 Look what it says. 00:14:27.940 --> 00:14:29.280 The fruit is simply the result. 00:14:29.480 --> 00:14:33.660 What it's talking about here is to get us to recognize the root and what it's attached to. 00:14:33.660 --> 00:14:38.660 It's not about the fruit, but about the root. 00:14:39.480 --> 00:14:41.900 The root is important. 00:14:43.900 --> 00:14:51.100 It's as if the psalmist is saying to us, what do you tap your life into in order 00:14:51.100 --> 00:14:55.440 to see the significance of life being played out through you? 00:14:56.140 --> 00:14:59.260 What matters to you? 00:15:00.020 --> 00:15:01.920 What do you tie yourself in? 00:15:03.900 --> 00:15:10.960 I think in life we can take some good things, some godly things, and we can wrongly make 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:12.620 it the idol of our pursuit. 00:15:14.260 --> 00:15:21.380 There's so many good things to experience, right, but we can make an idol of family, relationships, 00:15:23.260 --> 00:15:23.880 job. 00:15:26.430 --> 00:15:33.800 We can just desire the fruit and we forget that in order for that fruit to be healthy, the foundation 00:15:33.800 --> 00:15:35.080 for that is necessary. 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:44.440 That form of idolatry, when you make your life about family, at some point, 00:15:44.440 --> 00:15:47.840 parents, kids get older, and kids move on. 00:15:49.660 --> 00:15:54.380 When you make your whole life a satisfaction in that, then what happens when kids leave? 00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:01.500 Husband and wife in a home, they no longer know each other because the relationship is all about the kids and the identity is gone right? 00:16:02.920 --> 00:16:07.080 Things in life that are special, they're still all temporal. 00:16:08.800 --> 00:16:10.280 Everything in this world is temporal. 00:16:10.500 --> 00:16:15.080 When you make your life and your identity wrapped in that, there's not always a guarantee. 00:16:17.340 --> 00:16:22.900 Where is it we can find the blessed hope, happiness that endures beyond all of that? 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:30.280 I say, I think I've said this before in church, but we can make our job even an idol, a good, godly thing. 00:16:30.320 --> 00:16:32.670 If I'm not careful, it can be that way even with church. 00:16:34.260 --> 00:16:38.180 My job now is here, right? 00:16:38.380 --> 00:16:43.840 I made a decision early on when we did ministry, one of the goals that I didn't want to be about, I didn't want to be about numbers. 00:16:45.680 --> 00:16:51.760 Like, I know, I want to see a church thriving, growing, experiencing wonderful things here in this valley. 00:16:52.300 --> 00:16:54.740 I want all that, but I want you to know my goal isn't the fruit. 00:16:54.860 --> 00:16:59.140 My goal isn't to just care about the size of the church. 00:16:59.200 --> 00:17:00.960 Now numbers matter, right? 00:17:00.980 --> 00:17:01.560 Numbers matter. 00:17:01.560 --> 00:17:06.020 If you have a bank account and a thousand bucks go missing, you should probably say something, right? 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:06.660 Numbers matter. 00:17:06.800 --> 00:17:07.990 You go to the grocery store and you come back. 00:17:08.119 --> 00:17:13.560 You got five kids when you go and three kids when you return, I mean, your spouse is going to probably say something about that. 00:17:13.560 --> 00:17:17.339 Numbers are important, but it's not what you base things on. 00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:18.859 That's just the fruit. 00:17:21.369 --> 00:17:22.579 What's important is the root. 00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:26.300 Where do you drive yourself? 00:17:28.940 --> 00:17:31.310 I think God is far less concerned with numbers. 00:17:31.600 --> 00:17:33.580 You know what I think he's more concerned with this morning with us? 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:37.040 Your heart. 00:17:38.420 --> 00:17:38.720 Where's your heart? 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:42.850 What's the desire of your heart? 00:17:44.700 --> 00:17:46.320 To know him, to make him know. 00:17:46.400 --> 00:17:49.200 To seek his face, to worship him, to encourage his community. 00:17:51.660 --> 00:17:52.680 Or how many butts are in a seat? 00:17:55.540 --> 00:17:57.620 I think God more cares about my faithfulness. 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:07.140 If me, you, if we're faithful, the fruit takes care of itself. 00:18:10.060 --> 00:18:14.040 It's not about the fruit, but it's about the root. 00:18:16.320 --> 00:18:20.790 When the root is committed and latched into the right thing, the result is beautiful. 00:18:22.980 --> 00:18:26.700 Do you know what you call a tree that isn't plugged in with the right roots in the right place? 00:18:28.320 --> 00:18:28.720 Tumbleweed. 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:33.270 How many of you've been like, man I just can't wait to see myself a good tumbleweed? 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.020 Nobody cares about tumbleweed. 00:18:37.620 --> 00:18:40.500 Seasons of life come and the tumbleweed of life goes, right? 00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:48.200 The best thing I've ever said about a tumbleweed one time, well I've said a lot of bad things about tumbleweed, but the best thing I've ever said about tumbleweeds is one time I was 00:18:48.200 --> 00:18:53.990 driving down the road and I said, "That's freaky." Only because I happened to think it was an animal that crossed in front of me and I flipped out for a second. 00:18:54.180 --> 00:18:55.630 Then I just, I summed up the moment. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:56.440 That was freaky. 00:18:57.100 --> 00:18:57.760 Then we moved on. 00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:00.220 No one cares about tumbleweed. 00:19:00.740 --> 00:19:01.580 It comes and goes. 00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:02.980 There's nothing sustaining about it. 00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:04.840 I don't delight in tumbleweed. 00:19:05.260 --> 00:19:06.880 You wait two seconds and then it's done. 00:19:09.580 --> 00:19:12.620 I want something that sustains and satisfies the soul. 00:19:14.500 --> 00:19:21.700 Something that at the end of the day matters, something that when significant things of which I'm responsible for in life, come into my hands, 00:19:21.740 --> 00:19:25.980 and I know how to direct it in a way in which, you find satisfaction. 00:19:32.080 --> 00:19:39.480 If you're a tumbleweed, people come to you and ask, "How can you be happy?" The 00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:43.380 answer is, in a tumbleweed sense, I don't even know, because I don't know the meaning of life. 00:19:43.820 --> 00:19:47.020 I mean, just pursue whatever makes you happy and I hope in the end that you're happy. 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:50.280 The reality is, there's only two roads. 00:19:53.420 --> 00:19:54.560 Chaff or fruitfulness. 00:19:57.180 --> 00:20:04.260 So the psalmist starts this psalm by really laying out the two answers to that path and you see the results here but this is what he says. 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:11.620 "How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers but 00:20:11.620 --> 00:20:17.520 his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law, he meditates day and night." He gives one answer. 00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:25.700 How do you find this life that sustains, that's built on this foundation of a joy that endures beyond circumstance? 00:20:26.060 --> 00:20:33.180 His answer is God's word, but he contrasts this secret to a happy life in two ways. 00:20:33.220 --> 00:20:35.980 It's really no secret, but he contrasts it in two ways. 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:40.460 There's everything else, and there's the foundation in God. 00:20:41.100 --> 00:20:47.620 When he describes everything else in this opening psalm, he pictures three categories of people here, right? 00:20:47.700 --> 00:20:54.920 He says, the counsel of the wicked, this is how you think, nor stand in the path 00:20:54.920 --> 00:20:56.060 of sinners. 00:20:56.080 --> 00:20:59.280 This is how you live your life, the paths in which you pursue. 00:20:59.740 --> 00:21:01.610 Then he says, set in the seat of scoffers. 00:21:02.040 --> 00:21:05.920 This is where you think and how you find your identity. 00:21:07.660 --> 00:21:11.660 It's like the psalmist is saying, your friends are the future you. 00:21:13.980 --> 00:21:17.300 Who you hang with, who you rub elbows with, that's what you become. 00:21:18.600 --> 00:21:22.100 Now this isn't to say, so isolate yourself from the bad world. 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:25.500 That's not what this passage of scripture is saying. 00:21:25.840 --> 00:21:32.880 The Lord calls you to be an ambassador, a light in the midst of darkness, to be used in this world to make a difference, to reach 00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.940 the hearts of people for the cause of Christ, to storm down the gates of hell. 00:21:36.980 --> 00:21:39.560 It reminds you, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. 00:21:41.300 --> 00:21:47.940 It's to recognize even within your own soul, there's still a battle, and you need encouraged. 00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:57.180 So he tells us, guys, and I know before even reading this, that most likely, if we'll return to the psalm, if I asked you questions on how 00:21:57.180 --> 00:22:04.520 we could pursue happiness and joy in our life, that we would start with this foundation of saying, "Okay, it's got to rest in God." Because 00:22:04.520 --> 00:22:09.550 the pursuit of happiness, out of happiness itself is a false dichotomy. 00:22:10.240 --> 00:22:14.580 Happiness doesn't produce happiness, but rather, God is the producer of all things. 00:22:14.600 --> 00:22:19.900 In order to discover the joy for which you were created, you must find its origin and a root deeper than happiness itself. 00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:25.000 The only place from which you can discover that is the one who created it and the one who created it was God. 00:22:25.300 --> 00:22:27.740 I'm sure you'd say something like that, right? 00:22:27.760 --> 00:22:31.570 Like we could have looked at this psalm and probably come to some sort of conclusion like these. 00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:37.560 The psalmist says, the answer is God's word. 00:22:39.780 --> 00:22:42.560 To nourish yourself in God's word. 00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:45.880 Can I tell you what makes the word of God so powerful? 00:22:48.390 --> 00:22:52.360 It's because the word of God is rooted in the identity of God himself. 00:22:54.220 --> 00:22:54.660 Listen to this. 00:22:54.720 --> 00:23:00.620 This is how God equates the authority of his word in Isaiah 40, in verse 8, in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 25. 00:23:00.700 --> 00:23:01.480 They say the same thing. 00:23:01.940 --> 00:23:05.300 The word of the Lord endures forever. 00:23:08.020 --> 00:23:15.200 So if you want a foundation that will not disappoint, a clean slate for wisdom, in order to find yourself in 00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:22.610 something that sustains, in a joy that will last day to day, it's God's word. 00:23:24.380 --> 00:23:26.770 The word of the Lord endures. 00:23:28.140 --> 00:23:35.520 In fact, when you look at the power of God's word, if you just test that in the bible and you look at the power of God's word, you start all the way back from Genesis, you see when 00:23:35.520 --> 00:23:36.640 God speaks, life begins. 00:23:38.940 --> 00:23:41.280 And God said, then it was. 00:23:42.400 --> 00:23:45.410 Morning and evening, the first day, and God said and it was. 00:23:46.280 --> 00:23:48.550 Morning and evening of the second day, when God speaks. 00:23:48.920 --> 00:23:49.520 Life begins. 00:23:49.800 --> 00:23:50.480 He creates Adam and Eve. 00:23:50.780 --> 00:23:55.900 He speaks and breathes into them life-giving spirit, which they become a living being, created in his image. 00:23:56.500 --> 00:23:57.500 God speaks. 00:23:57.600 --> 00:23:57.920 Life begins. 00:23:59.980 --> 00:24:03.640 So what it's saying to you is that you want a foundation of hope that endures. 00:24:04.040 --> 00:24:08.400 God has spoken so that you can connect to him and we call that God's word. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.400 This is the miraculous thing that God does. 00:24:11.900 --> 00:24:19.000 God takes the truth of his word into your heart, through the power of his Spirit to 00:24:19.000 --> 00:24:21.720 eternally satisfy and enrich the soul. 00:24:26.640 --> 00:24:32.170 When you embed your heart in a root that matters, the word of God, the fruit takes care of itself. 00:24:34.160 --> 00:24:38.000 Human tendency, we fixate on behavior. 00:24:38.300 --> 00:24:44.970 We fixate on the external, but God begins by transforming the heart. 00:24:47.120 --> 00:24:52.260 Now as a result, it will affect life, but God begins on the inside. 00:24:54.140 --> 00:24:58.010 So if you want to build this kind of life, here it is Christian. 00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:05.500 So follower of Jesus, so if you want to be a follower of Jesus, you are a follower of Jesus, you want to build a life that sustains in this type of joy that the psalmist 00:25:05.500 --> 00:25:11.040 is singing about, you got to sustain your life in something that matters and that answer is the word of God. 00:25:12.500 --> 00:25:13.380 We can say this. 00:25:13.540 --> 00:25:16.070 Okay, but man, I am that, so all of it's relevant. 00:25:16.540 --> 00:25:17.800 Didn't need to show up today, right? 00:25:17.800 --> 00:25:19.600 I mean, it's God's word, right. 00:25:19.980 --> 00:25:21.240 But here's the challenge. 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:27.820 Let's just press this a little deeper and just ask ourselves, are you really saturated in this? 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:35.940 Is the word of God really the foundation of your life or do we just say that as words off our lip? 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:39.900 Do we just make spiritual statements, or do we really see it lived out in our lives? 00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:46.740 Because what the psalmist does is he gives a couple of statements for us, just to peel back our heart and say, okay. 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:48.220 Is this really me? 00:25:48.220 --> 00:25:51.820 Like, Nathaniel, is this the mark of your life? 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:53.060 And this is what he says in verse 2. 00:25:54.680 --> 00:25:58.710 "But his delight is in the law of the Lord. 00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:07.320 And in his law, he meditates day and night." I want you to just think about those 00:26:07.380 --> 00:26:11.020 two words for a minute, as it relates to you and God's word. 00:26:12.420 --> 00:26:13.980 Delight, meditate. 00:26:16.800 --> 00:26:17.650 Delight and meditate. 00:26:17.780 --> 00:26:20.690 Do you delight in the word of God? 00:26:21.720 --> 00:26:23.380 You think about things in life that you delight in. 00:26:24.580 --> 00:26:29.440 Like I can tell you today, at 6:00, Utah Jazz tip off. 00:26:30.360 --> 00:26:31.910 At 6:30 we're supposed to have a baby. 00:26:32.460 --> 00:26:39.520 I'm trying to figure out how to get that child in front of a Utah Jazz game as soon as possible so that we can delight together and it is an eternal Utah Jazz fan 00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:41.700 that has just been birthed in the state of Utah. 00:26:41.740 --> 00:26:43.150 It will be wonderful, right? 00:26:43.620 --> 00:26:44.480 I delight in the Jazz. 00:26:44.720 --> 00:26:46.720 You don't have to tell me to be excited about the Jazz. 00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:48.400 When they're on, I already know. 00:26:48.420 --> 00:26:50.060 No need to text me about their start time. 00:26:50.280 --> 00:26:51.080 I've got those dates. 00:26:51.260 --> 00:26:52.320 I delight in it, right? 00:26:53.960 --> 00:26:56.540 When you delight in something, no one has to tell you to be happy about it. 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:01.720 When you delight in something, you don't let go of it. 00:27:03.480 --> 00:27:07.360 It's what you love naturally because it's what you care about. 00:27:09.420 --> 00:27:16.700 So the question is, if you are this person described in this psalm, bearing this type of fruit in your life, 00:27:16.700 --> 00:27:24.230 then it should be said that you're able to look back in your life and you're the type of person that delights in God's word. 00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:26.200 Not only that, meditates. 00:27:28.220 --> 00:27:35.440 If we delight in God's word, we meditate on it, because you think about the things you delight in. 00:27:36.960 --> 00:27:38.880 It circulates in your mind. 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:46.060 This word meditate in scripture, it also comes from the same word for where a lion growls over its food. 00:27:47.800 --> 00:27:48.460 You ever think about that? 00:27:48.480 --> 00:27:53.440 I don't want to be in this circumstance, so I'm just going to use my imagination, but you're walking through the Sahara here. 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:54.180 You come upon a lion. 00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:00.390 It has now started to devour this great kill that it has accomplished, and I try to get near that lion at that moment. 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:05.100 Either my life will be over or at best I'll probably hear some sort of growl. 00:28:05.100 --> 00:28:06.140 Like this is mind. 00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:07.520 I am devouring it. 00:28:07.740 --> 00:28:08.560 I own this. 00:28:08.860 --> 00:28:10.140 I'm meditating on this. 00:28:10.140 --> 00:28:17.260 This is what it's describing in this passage of scripture, that this type of life, that bears this fruit, the root that it possesses is 00:28:17.260 --> 00:28:18.860 one that both delights and meditates. 00:28:20.520 --> 00:28:23.980 It churns scripture within their mind. 00:28:24.040 --> 00:28:27.800 Maybe if the lion doesn't go well with you, maybe you can think more like a cow chewing its cud. 00:28:28.920 --> 00:28:34.220 It takes a bite of grass, at least, I don't, I've never been on a farm, but you get near a cow. 00:28:34.220 --> 00:28:34.630 I see them. 00:28:34.700 --> 00:28:36.580 I pass them when I talk to them, but I don't hang out with them. 00:28:37.360 --> 00:28:37.970 I'm told this. 00:28:39.120 --> 00:28:42.450 Cow chews the cud, pukes, chews the cud, pukes. 00:28:42.900 --> 00:28:43.380 Right? 00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:45.120 It's the same thing over and over and over. 00:28:45.340 --> 00:28:50.080 It's just processing what's there. 00:28:50.120 --> 00:28:50.360 Why? 00:28:50.460 --> 00:28:52.310 Because it's delight. 00:28:53.600 --> 00:28:54.400 Then he says this. 00:28:54.520 --> 00:29:01.720 Not only do you delight, but you meditate and then in verse 20 gives this negative statement, that the type of influences that will not encourage you 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:03.920 to make the word of God the priority. 00:29:04.020 --> 00:29:05.520 Let's just take the reverse of that for a moment. 00:29:07.320 --> 00:29:14.420 Because let's acknowledge while there are people that may encourage you away from God's word, that it's also important to be near those that encourage you into God's word. 00:29:14.820 --> 00:29:15.770 This world can be discouraging. 00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:21.700 I mean, I can almost guarantee everyone this morning, let's just pretend that you did this, okay? 00:29:21.920 --> 00:29:25.420 By show of hands, how many of you in life would like some encouragement right now? 00:29:25.740 --> 00:29:27.720 I'm going to say probably the majority of us would raise our hands. 00:29:29.180 --> 00:29:33.490 You can just assume when we meet together, because the things that we experience in life, we need encouragement. 00:29:35.320 --> 00:29:37.720 We need reminded of the source from which our joy comes. 00:29:38.940 --> 00:29:40.340 To delight, to meditate in it. 00:29:41.540 --> 00:29:48.260 To sit with those that point us to this and to exhort one another in the delight of what God's word is about. 00:29:50.360 --> 00:29:52.250 We appreciate it as a part of God's body. 00:29:54.000 --> 00:30:01.040 So let me pause here for a minute and tell you this because what my fear is in reading this is that now you feel this guilt and shame for not 00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:04.130 performing in your delight and meditating on God's word. 00:30:05.720 --> 00:30:07.630 But I don't want that to be the result. 00:30:09.760 --> 00:30:14.430 This person isn't writing this psalm to get you to legalistically start reading God's word. 00:30:15.340 --> 00:30:22.680 This delighting, this meditating soul has made his heart about God, and he delights 00:30:22.740 --> 00:30:27.990 and meditates on the kingdom he loves, and the result is fruit. 00:30:29.340 --> 00:30:35.820 This morning I'm not telling you, let's just add one more thing on the to do list of all the things you got to do today, and now read the bible. 00:30:36.100 --> 00:30:36.360 Go home. 00:30:36.360 --> 00:30:37.130 Read the bible everybody. 00:30:38.800 --> 00:30:45.800 But rather what I'm saying is, guys when your love is God, and you want to 00:30:45.800 --> 00:30:52.880 see God's will accomplished in this world, you'll hitch your wagon to the things of God and know 00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.660 God as he desires to make himself known. 00:30:54.740 --> 00:30:57.540 The beauty is that God has made himself known in his word. 00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:07.100 When the goodness of that God has made himself known in your heart, in your life, the 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:13.680 driving force in your is to connect with him, to delight and meditate. 00:31:13.920 --> 00:31:17.080 Really, this is more of a question, is God really your love? 00:31:20.360 --> 00:31:21.790 Is he your foundation? 00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:26.250 Do you see him as the source of joy and happiness? 00:31:26.280 --> 00:31:27.460 Do you think he is a good God? 00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:33.200 Because if he is a good God then to delight in him will produce that fruit in this world. 00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:37.820 So connect your fruit into what will sustain. 00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:43.000 Because everything else in life is chaff. 00:31:44.220 --> 00:31:47.930 It's tumbleweed, and on top of that, I'm not telling you to read to go just gain information. 00:31:49.860 --> 00:31:53.300 We're not about being Christians just to be intellectually smart in scripture. 00:31:53.320 --> 00:31:57.840 I know a lot of people that know a lot about the bible and I'd say have little to do with a relationship with Jesus. 00:31:58.760 --> 00:32:05.840 Give them a trivia question on scripture, they can knock it out of the park all day long, but talk about a relationship with God, it's like a foreign concept to them. 00:32:07.760 --> 00:32:11.420 God made himself known not so you can walk around and show yourself how smart you are with his word. 00:32:13.040 --> 00:32:18.010 It's so you can know him, walk life with him, right? 00:32:19.300 --> 00:32:21.420 It's not, I would say third about the last statement. 00:32:21.540 --> 00:32:23.840 It's not about legalistically just going to church. 00:32:26.040 --> 00:32:33.440 It's about recognizing when you know this God and you get to experience this God and you see the richness of his word blessing your life, you want to gather with those 00:32:33.440 --> 00:32:36.320 that are like-minded and encourage one another on this pursuit. 00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:41.060 So it's not about legalism. 00:32:41.140 --> 00:32:44.660 It's about the delight of your hearts, the question of what do you delight in. 00:32:46.660 --> 00:32:50.580 What makes your soul sing and what satisfies the depth of who you are? 00:32:51.480 --> 00:32:57.600 Because if it's anything other than the Lord, the answer to this psalm is just saying to us, waking up and answer the question why? 00:32:57.660 --> 00:33:02.660 Because that root, what it leads to is tumbleweed, emptiness. 00:33:04.980 --> 00:33:07.960 It may temporarily satisfy but not long term. 00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:11.080 It's one of the hardest things to be. 00:33:11.080 --> 00:33:13.540 You look at the two positions in this psalm. 00:33:13.560 --> 00:33:15.820 One is this path of wickedness. 00:33:16.340 --> 00:33:20.540 The other is delighting in God's word and sometimes we'll look at that and we'll say, what if I'm neither? 00:33:20.600 --> 00:33:24.580 What if I'm no Mother Theresa, but I'm no devil or demon either? 00:33:24.580 --> 00:33:31.720 Where's the psalm for the normal people kind of in between that doesn't want to teeter on either side, but I just want to keep it cool down 00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:32.110 the middle? 00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:33.220 How does that exist? 00:33:33.280 --> 00:33:40.340 I want to say, if you're wrestling with that, you're probably, just trying to be honest. 00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:47.110 I feel like this is a little blunt, but to me that sounds like one of the most unsatisfying, unpleasant ways to live your life in this world. 00:33:48.320 --> 00:33:50.100 The bible tells you sin is fun for a season. 00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:56.980 If you don't want to give your heart to God, at least, I mean sin is fun for a season, but in Christ there is eternal joy. 00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:03.420 If you try to play the middle of the road, you're miserable because the world, because the world... 00:34:04.600 --> 00:34:09.219 You're miserable, excuse me, and living in the world because you have enough of God in you to make you miserable with that. 00:34:09.679 --> 00:34:13.320 When you're with God you're miserable with God because you have enough of the world in you. 00:34:13.420 --> 00:34:14.679 So either way you find yourself unsatisfied. 00:34:17.510 --> 00:34:22.400 But the delight is to ask your question, what are you rooted in? 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:30.719 I recently, I love reading stories on church history, about individuals. 00:34:31.600 --> 00:34:34.790 One of the stories I recently read about was a man by the name of John Bunyan. 00:34:36.659 --> 00:34:40.889 John Bunyan was alive in the 1600s, towards the end of the Reformation. 00:34:42.659 --> 00:34:45.780 He wrote one of the famous works of literature called Pilgrim's Progress. 00:34:46.900 --> 00:34:50.840 Some even claim that it's the second most published book in history, just behind the bible. 00:34:52.520 --> 00:34:57.720 I know some of you probably thought that was like Twilight or Harry Potter or something, but nope, it's Pilgrim's Progress. 00:34:57.720 --> 00:34:59.490 At least that's what people claim. 00:35:00.840 --> 00:35:08.000 John Bunyan wrote that work, one of the most inspiring works in history, and the interesting thing about 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:12.220 that work though is he wrote, scholars think, most of that in jail. 00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:19.880 John Bunyan in jail had a faith that sustained him that's just inspiring to Christians. 00:35:19.940 --> 00:35:27.080 I love reading about Christian history just because you can look at lives of individuals that based on circumstance, happenings, you would think 00:35:27.080 --> 00:35:32.240 that they shouldn't be happy, but here they are walking with God, delighting with him enduring some of the greatest hardships. 00:35:33.100 --> 00:35:35.080 John Bunyan was one of those individuals that endured hardship. 00:35:35.260 --> 00:35:37.280 He was put in jail because he preached the gospel. 00:35:38.460 --> 00:35:45.680 When you read his story, one of the crazy things is the punishment for preaching the gospel during his day was just to be in jail for a few months, but to get out, at 00:35:45.680 --> 00:35:48.300 the end of those few months, you had to agree not to preach the gospel anymore. 00:35:49.780 --> 00:35:50.240 Bunyan refused. 00:35:52.090 --> 00:35:55.360 He spent over a decade in jail. 00:35:57.440 --> 00:36:04.580 One of the things that intrigued me about John Bunyan in relating to this scripture is, as I just looked at his life, was when he was in jail, John Bunyan requested two 00:36:04.580 --> 00:36:04.680 things. 00:36:06.680 --> 00:36:09.640 The word of God and Fox's Book of Martyrs. 00:36:11.380 --> 00:36:15.900 John Fox, about 100 years earlier, had written a book about the martyrdom of Christians throughout the centuries. 00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:16.420 I thought, how incredible. 00:36:18.380 --> 00:36:25.600 Here's a guy that his joy sustains beyond the circumstances in something much deeper, which it can delight in, seeing that during the quarter of time, how 00:36:26.040 --> 00:36:29.160 God has allowed him to do something that matters. 00:36:29.600 --> 00:36:36.600 I think if John Bunyan right now could hear this, just to see his life impacting to such a degree that we even talk about it on Sunday morning, that is 00:36:36.600 --> 00:36:37.500 something to delight in. 00:36:38.300 --> 00:36:39.370 The fruit of that. 00:36:40.500 --> 00:36:42.120 How beautiful what God can do. 00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:49.380 Even beyond that, he asked for Fox's Book of Martyrs, which says to me, he's living out this verse where he's not in the counsel of the wicked, but he wants 00:36:49.460 --> 00:36:56.520 to be around godly people, so much so that when he can't physically be there, he wants to be inspired by the stories of those who remained faithful to God 00:37:00.820 --> 00:37:03.360 because his delight and root is in him. 00:37:05.520 --> 00:37:10.190 See, the encouragement from the psalm for us this morning isn't just to say oh yeah, I read God's word. 00:37:12.420 --> 00:37:17.870 But it's to stop in your heart and to just simply reflect, is that my delight right now? 00:37:19.790 --> 00:37:22.570 Is that what I think about and meditate on? 00:37:23.860 --> 00:37:27.930 Is that where my heart goes in those moments where I'm free? 00:37:29.840 --> 00:37:31.320 He ends the psalm this way. 00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:39.020 It says in verse 5 and 6, "therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor 00:37:39.160 --> 00:37:43.560 sinners in the assembly of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous. 00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:49.900 The way of the wicked will perish." All right, so you see these two positions again. 00:37:50.740 --> 00:37:51.900 The wicked will not stand in judgment. 00:37:51.980 --> 00:37:53.200 That doesn't mean the wicked get out of judgment. 00:37:53.200 --> 00:37:55.580 It means when it comes to judgment, they have no leg to stand on. 00:37:56.660 --> 00:38:00.360 But then, in verse 6, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. 00:38:00.780 --> 00:38:02.530 This word knows, it's two important words. 00:38:03.600 --> 00:38:05.300 It's yada in Hebrew. 00:38:05.300 --> 00:38:07.390 Literally means intimately. 00:38:07.740 --> 00:38:10.780 It's the same word used in Genesis 1 that says Adam knew his wife. 00:38:12.520 --> 00:38:13.500 God knows them. 00:38:13.960 --> 00:38:15.300 They're tapped into the Lord. 00:38:15.540 --> 00:38:18.980 That root is supplied by the nutrients of who he is. 00:38:19.060 --> 00:38:24.160 It sustains them in his joy into their soul. 00:38:26.020 --> 00:38:30.580 God knows the way of the righteous, and the question is for us then, are you righteous? 00:38:33.640 --> 00:38:35.330 Where is your heart before God? 00:38:37.160 --> 00:38:37.520 Is it righteous? 00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:40.360 If you only have two paths here? 00:38:40.760 --> 00:38:41.840 Which one do you fall on? 00:38:43.300 --> 00:38:44.560 Can I take the middle road again? 00:38:45.300 --> 00:38:48.780 I'm not perfect but I'm not horrible either, right? 00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:52.040 Here's what I want us to know when it comes to righteousness. 00:38:53.420 --> 00:39:00.600 Something I want to imply to just reading scripture for you is because God wants to take 00:39:01.040 --> 00:39:08.010 this word that is full of nutrients to produce this fruit in your life, but here's the cool thing in agricultural society. 00:39:09.160 --> 00:39:16.540 When you saw vegetation, when you saw things grow, when you saw fruit produced, you not only had something to eat that year, but 00:39:16.580 --> 00:39:20.100 you realize you had the seed to plant something next year, right? 00:39:20.980 --> 00:39:23.450 This fruit continues to produce itself. 00:39:24.560 --> 00:39:31.560 So when your root is tapped into God, it's not just saying, okay, you're good, but it's saying what flows from your life now is something that 00:39:31.560 --> 00:39:33.600 can saturate itself in the life of other people. 00:39:33.640 --> 00:39:35.280 That fruit can continue to reproduce itself. 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:44.880 When you think about God's word for us, look we don't need to make this so unattainable to understand that we teach it on Sunday 00:39:44.880 --> 00:39:51.880 morning and we want us to see the richness of what it is, but God wants you to take this richness in your life and let it just bleed out of 00:39:51.920 --> 00:39:52.620 who you are. 00:39:53.400 --> 00:39:54.780 Let it flow from you. 00:39:54.860 --> 00:39:58.940 Let it not only influence your heart, but let that flow out of your life and in the influence of other people. 00:40:00.300 --> 00:40:01.600 It doesn't look like this with my kids. 00:40:01.600 --> 00:40:03.480 I don't go to my kids and be like, "Read God's word. 00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:07.030 You must delight." That's not going to delight for anybody. 00:40:07.680 --> 00:40:14.980 You can't force someone to delight, but when they see the joy of the Lord in your life being made known and you share that joy with them, it's 00:40:14.980 --> 00:40:17.500 a much better experience than just simply being forced to it. 00:40:17.600 --> 00:40:19.480 We got to start this not legalistically. 00:40:19.880 --> 00:40:23.040 We're not asking the question or just saying to you, guilt. 00:40:23.040 --> 00:40:26.160 Go read God's word and do it now, or you're bad, right? 00:40:26.360 --> 00:40:28.760 That's my best demon voice I could do. 00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:30.580 That's not what we're saying this morning, okay? 00:40:31.680 --> 00:40:34.730 What we're saying is look, make God your prize. 00:40:36.160 --> 00:40:36.800 Delight in him. 00:40:37.040 --> 00:40:39.660 I'm going to share this verse with you in talking about righteousness, right. 00:40:39.660 --> 00:40:45.220 He says, in this psalm, chapter 1, verses 5 and 6, that God knows his righteous. 00:40:46.060 --> 00:40:46.980 His righteous people. 00:40:47.760 --> 00:40:48.230 Are you righteous? 00:40:49.240 --> 00:40:51.620 Now if that gives you a pause for a minute, like ah, I don't know, right? 00:40:52.680 --> 00:40:56.760 I don't feel like I can live God's rules, like I don't know if I'm under that righteousness. 00:40:57.040 --> 00:41:01.520 This week, let me tell you, when it comes to God's word, this is what I did, in my own personal life. 00:41:02.780 --> 00:41:03.580 I just read the book of 1 Timothy. 00:41:05.380 --> 00:41:10.810 I read the book of 1 Timothy in the morning and the evening, every day this week and I just meditated on it. 00:41:11.420 --> 00:41:11.920 Delight in it. 00:41:13.480 --> 00:41:16.160 While I was mowing the grass yesterday, I had this thought. 00:41:17.020 --> 00:41:18.240 I thought well this is just a good example. 00:41:18.360 --> 00:41:22.140 I'll use too I guess, but I didn't even realize this until I was mowing the grass. 00:41:22.360 --> 00:41:24.800 It was just in my mind, so I was able to meditate about it. 00:41:25.300 --> 00:41:28.500 In 1 Timothy 1:9, Paul's talking about righteousness here and he says this. 00:41:29.000 --> 00:41:36.240 "Realizing that the fact that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for 00:41:36.240 --> 00:41:39.030 the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane." Let me just stop there. 00:41:40.820 --> 00:41:42.380 Who is, who is the law made for? 00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:44.940 That's the debate in Paul's day. 00:41:45.120 --> 00:41:45.900 Who is the law made for? 00:41:46.380 --> 00:41:52.710 Because in Paul's day, people are following behind Paul wherever he establishes a church and they're saying you have to obey the law in order to be righteous. 00:41:53.920 --> 00:41:59.360 Like God's law is for the righteous people and those that obey this law, therefore they're righteous. 00:42:00.120 --> 00:42:03.190 What Paul says to Timothy in this story is the law is not made for the righteous. 00:42:05.100 --> 00:42:06.860 The law isn't to prove how good you are. 00:42:08.440 --> 00:42:15.680 When you read psalm 1 and verse 6, and you ask yourself, am I righteous, I can tell you, if you're measuring yourself according to the law, there ain't a person here 00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:16.980 that can call themselves righteous. 00:42:17.340 --> 00:42:18.220 We're all on the side of the wicked. 00:42:19.580 --> 00:42:20.900 So the point of the law isn't about righteousness. 00:42:22.800 --> 00:42:24.860 Rather this is what Paul says in Philippians chapter 3. 00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:25.720 We saw this a couple weeks ago. 00:42:26.560 --> 00:42:30.120 "He found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. 00:42:31.720 --> 00:42:39.020 That which is your faith in Christ, but righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." I 00:42:39.020 --> 00:42:40.160 want to know Christ. 00:42:42.580 --> 00:42:49.540 So this really points to where your delight comes from, where your joy and desire for meditation comes from. 00:42:52.540 --> 00:42:53.760 It's not because you're righteous. 00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:57.630 It's because he is and he died for you. 00:43:00.620 --> 00:43:03.940 Christ died for you, that your root could happen to him. 00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:08.440 That was what makes the word of God so special. 00:43:10.740 --> 00:43:18.040 It's not a list of laws that condemn us, though we are condemned by the law, but rather in the condemnation the law presents, 00:43:18.120 --> 00:43:19.960 it's to show us where freedom truly is. 00:43:21.620 --> 00:43:22.180 It's in Jesus. 00:43:24.220 --> 00:43:29.220 So when I tap into God's word, I'm not tapping into God's word to legalistically just pursue God. 00:43:29.580 --> 00:43:33.820 I'm tapping into God's word because I want to know this Jesus that loves me so dearly. 00:43:35.500 --> 00:43:37.700 This Jesus who made me righteous in him. 00:43:38.800 --> 00:43:41.720 The one that makes my life matter for more than just chaff. 00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:51.780 This word is important, and that's what I want us to just really understand this morning when you walk away, is 00:43:51.780 --> 00:43:55.360 the power of God's word can be known in my heart every day. 00:43:56.920 --> 00:43:58.220 It should be known every day. 00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:03.200 It's like refusing to tap into this tree that bears such beautiful fruit. 00:44:03.860 --> 00:44:06.350 Why would I ever do that with a God that loves me so dearly. 00:44:09.560 --> 00:44:14.360 As I realize being a pastor is a sacred thing, right. 00:44:15.180 --> 00:44:16.070 I don't want to take it for granted. 00:44:16.340 --> 00:44:23.440 I know God judges what I say and I want it to be truthful, but I don't ever want 00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:30.520 to put the position of serving in a church, in a pastoral role or and elder role above other people to the 00:44:30.520 --> 00:44:36.200 sense that you can't have the power of God's word the same way. 00:44:36.300 --> 00:44:36.800 Does that make sense? 00:44:38.220 --> 00:44:41.680 God made his word known for all of us, all of us. 00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:49.020 All of us have an opportunity to go out into this world and to share this joy and to know this God. 00:44:49.040 --> 00:44:51.520 It doesn't, I don't have any mystical powers in this. 00:44:54.320 --> 00:44:59.900 I'm just a person that reads God's word and uses the gifts I think God gave me. 00:45:01.860 --> 00:45:03.530 I want to know him, not always. 00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:05.860 I mean, I'm a sinner too, right. 00:45:06.820 --> 00:45:10.320 Your encouragement is important in my life as well, but this is all of us on this journey. 00:45:11.800 --> 00:45:12.500 So here's the answer. 00:45:14.420 --> 00:45:14.800 How are you happy? 00:45:17.860 --> 00:45:22.510 You root your life in what sustains, what brings you righteousness. 00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:29.000 What brings ultimate joy and satisfaction, and where is that? 00:45:30.680 --> 00:45:36.180 In all the things in this world, that the world could promise you, the truth is that it always and will always rest in Jesus. 00:45:38.340 --> 00:45:42.160 Does your heart delight, does it meditate? 00:45:44.420 --> 00:45:50.180 The answer isn't to guilt yourself over it, but to fall in love with the Lord and desire to make him known in your life.