Which Way are You Going, The Way of the Godly or the Wicked? – Pt 1 – Psalm 1:1-6

Which Way are You Going?

The Way of Godliness or The Way of Wickedness

Introduction:

• The first Psalm is an introduction to the entire psalter
• The first psalm sets clear guidelines for who can worship God
• The Ungodly-Wicked Cannot worship the Lord,
• But The Godly-Righteous can do no other –
• Their life is must be continual expression of worship for God
• It is not merely Godly lips that worship, But, the whole life is lived as a constant, overflowing expression of worship to God
• The Psalmist promises that those who are Godly – Righteous
  • Are abundantly blessed by God
    • Joyfully satisfied, well-spoken of by God
    • Blessed in all biblical senses
  • Are insulated from the influence of the wicked
  • Are delighting in the Law of the Lord
  • Are meditating on the Word of the Lord
  • Have been planted by the Lord – Salvation
    • to drink of living water – sustaining of life
    • to be fruitful – the outworking of a godly life
    • to prosper – knowing sp. prosperity (not material)

As you are watching this by video, are you that person?

• Does that description – fit you?
• Are you walking in the Way of the Righteous… of the Godly?
• Perhaps that is the Life that you Desire, listen on!
• I invite U: keep watching: discover how this Life may be Yours

But the Psalmist, here also describes those who’re Wicked:

• They are Unlike, They’re Opposite to the Godly
• They’re Disobedient to God and They’re Cursed by God
• They Walk-Live by their own counsel not God’s
• They Stand-hold fast to those who’re disobedient to God
• Sit-dwell-abide amongst those who mock God & His People
• They have no fear of God before their eyes
• They have no desire for God’s Word, God’s Will, God’s Ways
• They’ve no lasting Foundation – Not planted on the Rock
• They Have no stability – like chaff, flakes and fluff
• They Offer no improvement-value to those surrounding them
• They Have no resistance-stability in times of difficulty
• Have no expectation of surviving judgement

Does that Description describe you?

• Are you that wicked person described by the psalmist…
• I am so glad that you have stumbled across this Msg.
• Listen on!  Discover how you may turn from: Wicked, Ungodly life, to find, New Life, New Joy; Peace w/ God & Others

The Psalms are the Bible’s song-book of the Godly

• True Godliness must come before worship can flourish
• Psalm 1 as the perfect gateway, barrier, warning to all who enter in to worship the Lord\
• Psalm 1 almost certainly written as an introduction to Psalter
• My Friend, Which way are you Going?
• On which Way are you walking and Living?
• All Ways do not lead to God, to Life and to Blessing
• There’s One & only One Way to God, the Way of the Righteous

The Way of the Godly-Righteous is described in vss.1-3 – Read.

First: The Godly Way Begins w/ Salvation by God’s Grace – Read vs.3

• The Way of the Godly is a Life – New Life – Planted by God
• Trees do not plant themselves – a farmer plants them
• Godly lives do not begin with us-my sucking it up & striving with great effort to grow – like lying on the floor and trying to yank yourself to an upright position by pulling on your belt
• The Life of Godliness Begins as God imparts to us New Life,
• He plants us – He causes us to be born again – How?
• Through the preaching of the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ

Gospel: Greatest Message of Good News of Great Joy for all People

• We are all Sinners: born in sin, Living in disobed. to God’s Word
• God has every right as our Holy, Righteous Creator and Lawgiver, who wrote on our hearts and minds His law, such that we all have an inherent knowl. of right-wrong, of fairness
• God will hold us accountable for our response to Conscience
• God has determined to judge, to condemn us for sin – Eph.2:1-4
• But God, In Immense Grace, sent His Only Son, Jesus Christ, to be judged in our place, to be condemned for us, to suffer the humiliation, and abandonment by God, in our place, He who never can sin, never did sin, never will sin – Impossible,
• He was made to be the offering for our sin – in our place
• God poured out all of His righteous, holy, indignation at us, for our sinfulness, on Christ; He took my place; Did He take yours?
• God delivered Christ into the hands of sinful men, who crucified Him – But He died by his own willingness and will.
• But God also raised Him from the dead – displaying Him to be truly the Son of God, Truly without sin, Truly the only one qualified to be the All-sufficient Saviour, to save us!
• God then turns to us and calls to us to repent –
  • to turn away from sin – and towards God
• God calls us to be born again, to forsake sin and follow Christ
• God calls us who are dead in sin and trespasses to Live
• God imparts to us the faith to believe the message
• God fills us with His Holy Spirit – all this is described as:
• God plants us like brand new little trees in the ground, to Grow
• We hear that message – we believe it
• We’re Raised to Life by God
• We’re Living, Growing, & Bearing fruit for God…

Second: The Godly Way is Sealed with God’s Blessing – Read vs.1

• Blessed: spoken well of  – by God – He’s declared us Righteous
• Blessed: blessed by the Divine Favour-Grace of God
• Psa.65:4, Blessed is the one you choose
• Psa.32:1, Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven,
• Psa.84:4, Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah
• Psa.34:8, Bless’d is the man who takes refuge in (God)
• Psa.84:12, Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord
• Psa.128:1, Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!
• Psa.94:12, Blessed is the man whom you discipline,
  • O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law,
• Psa.119:2, Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
  • And who seek him with their whole heart,
• Psa.84:5, Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
• Psa.146:5, Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,
• Brothers and Sisters in Christ, those who know God, who walk with the Lord – those are some of the many blessings of being Declared Righteous by God’s Grace, thru Faith in Jesus Christ
• Are we – Am I giving thanks to God for those blessings?
• Are we – Am I living in the full reality of those blessings?
• They can lock us up, they can beat us up, they can mock us out, they can take our houses, livelihood, our jobs and our freedom, but not one of those blessings can ever be taken from us

Third: The Godly Way is Separation from Wicked – Read vs.1

• They do not walk-live-behave in the counsel of wicked
• They do not stand, hold-fast, remain in: way of Sinners
• They do not sit, rest, dwell, remain with Mockers of God
• Notice the decline: from movement – to motionless
• Beware Christian of the Influences that you allow
• They will hinder your walk, to cause you to stop, to entice you to sit down and rest – and fall prey
• We’re to be In: world, but Not a product of its thinking
• We are like boats in the midst of the sea,
• the shark-filled waters of wickedness are Not in: boat – under
• We have a witness to: world, because we are Not like the world
• Salt has an effect because it is different to the meat
• Light has an effect on darkness because it is Not Dark.
• The Way of Godliness is the Way of Separation from Wicked
• The Godly way is the way of walking-Living:
  • against the grain,
  • against the flow,
  • swimming upstream, against the flood of sinful life…
• Is that description fitting with your life Christian?
• What needs to be sorted out and set right?
• What needs to be renounced from your life to separate you from wickedness to live in righteousness?
  • Prov.1:15 my son, Do not walk in the way with them; hold back your foot from their paths,
  • Prov.4:14–15 Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. ¹⁵ Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.
  • Prov.13:20 Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.
  • Jeremiah 15:17, I did not sit in the company of revelers, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone, because your hand was upon me

Fourth: The Godly Way Is Soaked in the Word of God – Read vs.2

• John Bunyan and the “Bibline Blood”
• The Life of Godliness is a life: delights, desires, craves: Word
  • 1Peter 2:1, Baby that Craves Milk = Godly craves Word
• Psalm 1 – He delights in the Law of the Lord
• In Psalm 19 – God’s Word is Perfect, Sure, Right, Pure, Clean, and Righteous altogether
• God’s Wd. more to be desired than Gold, even the finest Gold!
• To the Godly Man, It is sweeter to the taste than Honey
• In Keeping the Word there is Great (not little) Great Reward!
• In the Word of God there is Warning and Reward
• In Psalm 119, 176 vss. of prayer-soaked exposition of the immense, immeasurable value of God’s Word to the Godly Man!
• Do you, Christian want to grow in Godliness – Go to the Word

Remember Bunyan, in his jail cell, off-on 3x over 12 years

• 1 Bible, 1 Concordance, 1 – Foxes book of Martyrs
• Considered an “illiterate tinker” – yet today regarded by millions now for his phenomenal knowledge of the Word
• Wrote 1 of the greatest books in Christianity aside fr. Bible
• He Delighted in the Law of the Lord – but Godliness is not just a delight in the Word, it is a meditation, a soaking, a saturation, a steeping of one’s heart, soul, mind, and life in the Word

Notice, vs.2, He Meditates on the Word

• To Meditate is deep reflection, deep consideration, deep thinking – Paul said to Timothy, 2 Timothy 2:7 Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
• Medit. On Word is fuel for the Life of Worship (in-out church)
• Medit. Is basis for obedient practice – foundation for Success
• Josh 1:8, This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
• Psa.63:6, I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
• Psa.119:48, I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes.
• Psa.119:78, as for me, I will meditate on your precepts.
• Psa.119:148, My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.
• Psa.143:5, I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that You have done; I ponder the work of your hands.
• Psa.145:5, On the glorious splendour of your majesty, and on Your wondrous works, I will meditate.
• Psa.77:12, I will ponder all your work, and meditate on Your mighty deeds.
• Does that description describe you – me?
• Is that the Desire, Delight of your life:
• to delight in the Law-Lord, to Meditate on God’s Word,
• to know and Meditate on God – His person, on His Works, on His Words-Promises
• Godliness produces a never ending, ever satisfying craving for God’s Word, to know God

Fifth: The Godly Way is “Signalled” by Fruitfulness Read vs.3

• Remember where we began, with God planting us – finish here
• The psalmist says we are planted (by someone else-God)
• Planted by streams of water – the roots of the tree suck up that life-giving water and grow tall and strait and strong
• That Life Giving Water is Christ
• John 7:37³⁷ On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
• John 4:14¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
• We’re Planted to Grow & Bear Fruit the Fruit of Godliness:
• Psa.92:14, They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green,

• Mark 4:20, But those that were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word, and accept it, and bear fruit, thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold.”
• John 15:2, Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
• John 15:16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
• Rom 7:4, Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
• Do You Bear Fruit?
• What does the Fruit of Your Life say about You?
• What does the Fruit of Your life display about Whom you are planted by, on Whom you have been planted

Vs.5) The Godly Way Finishes in the Assembly of the Righteous.

• Which way are you going?

Most Important Point of all:

Christ: the Ultimate Example of The Godly

• Christ is Both Blessed and the Blesser of the Godly
  • Every blessing of God comes only through Christ!,
    • Isaiah 42, Christ is made as a covenant to nations, so that all the covenant blessings are experienced in Him alone
• Christ Lived in the world but Separated from Ungodliness
  • Separation from the World is only possible by Separation to Christ
• Christ Delighted in the Law of the Lord –
  • Living in the Word of God, & Living from the Wd. of God
• Christ was Planted:
  • He died, He rose, producing life for all who would follow Him
• Which way are you going?

Two: The Way of the Ungodly-Wicked

• Vs.4) The Un-Godly  – Not so the wicked not so – Opposite, Antithetical
• Psalm 1) The Ungodly Way is Cursed by God.
• Vs.1) The Ungodly Way is Fastened, Accompanied, Joined to Sinners
• Vs.2) The Ungodly Way Despises the Word
• Vs.3, 5, 6) The Ungodly Way Leads to Death & Destruction

Conclusion:

• There is only One way to Truly Live: Godliness, Righteousness, Christlikeness
• All other ways are ways of Living Death
• Which way are you going?