Roots in the Fountain of Life

I am number four out of four
for you as far as the student preachers are concerned, but
I think the three previous did an excellent job, and I think
you’re going to see how this morning The things that have
been taught in the previous month really are going to come to a
head and wrap up here. It’s interesting in our institute’s
class, we spent time learning Greek and we read all these great
books and things, and then it was time to come to the preaching
course where each of us chose a specific passage and only one
good student, Barry, chose a New Testament passage. The rest of
us ran for the hills as far as we could to avoid extra homework. But this morning we’ll be in
Psalm 1. But before we turn there, I’d like to just ask you a question,
maybe an interesting question to think about. What is it that
truly makes you happy? What is it that gives you a sense
of fulfillment, a sense of really completion in life? What is that?
I think for many of us that can be different and it looks different
in our lives. Philosophers have really been
debating that question for centuries. And the bottom line is really
everything that we do once you think about it, whether it be
pursuing financial gain or prosperity in some different way or popularity
or status at a job is all designed around one thing is to fulfill
us, to make us happy. And so people say that money
is what I want. Well, ultimately, it’s not money
that they’re searching for. It’s money to buy what they want
or to feel how they want to receive that great joy and pleasure of
feeling fulfilled or satisfied or really happy. And the song
we’re going to deal with today is going to answer that question.
But again, to keep probing about that, in 2003, according to a
British magazine, New Scientist, There was a survey that was done
about 65 different countries all around the world. And it
sought to answer this question of really, who is the happiest?
What is the most delightful country? What people really experienced
the greatest amount of joy over the course of the year and in
their lives? And as I said, 65 different countries from around
the globe, all over the map. And I think as many of us would,
we might think the United States would be pretty high and it did
all right. But out of the 65 countries,
that were surveyed, the United States was number 16. So there
are 15 other nations that ranked higher according to the survey
in 2003. In 2003 were a little better
times economically than they were now as well. And so why
is this? Well, the two top countries that
ranked the highest were Puerto Rico second and Mexico first. And you think about that and
that doesn’t make a lot of sense. The United States, in comparison
to these countries, has a better educational system, more financial
wealth, much better health care, really a higher overall quality
of life. But yet, for some reason, the
people surveyed didn’t agree with that. They didn’t see the
connection between those things and truly what made them happy.
Hollywood also sought to explore this question. And there was
a movie in 2007 that many of you might have seen, The Bucket
List. It featured Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, and even
if they’re not two of your more favorite or preferable actors,
there was still an interesting plot line. The whole idea was
that these two guys that were older that get struck with terminal
illnesses and are forced to share a hospital room together in their
dying days. And it’s ironic because one of
them, Jack Nicholson, was actually brought in to be a consultant
on how the hospital could save money. And the final mandate
was there had to be two to each room instead of one. And so he
gets diagnosed with cancer and is stuck in with another guy
right after this mandate comes down. And at first, these two
older guys really don’t like each other. They just bicker
and Morgan Freeman was a real poor mechanic that was actually
a happier guy while Jack Nicholson was this grumpy old billionaire
with no family. And what ended up happening is
after these two got to know each other a little bit, they ended
up creating this list, this bucket list of things they wanted to
do or they felt like they needed to do before the time they died
to give themselves a sense of fulfillment or happiness. And
it was a great list. There’s things that you and I
would love to do. They went to the top of the Himalayas.
They visited the Taj Mahal, went to the four corners of the earth,
went all around, saw majestic things, saw world class Broadway
shows. It was really an amazing thing.
But at the conclusion of the movie, after Morgan Freeman dies,
Jack Nicholson is standing in a church at his funeral, at his
memorial service. and recalls that all these things
that they did, none of them really gave them that sense of completion.
None of these amazing endeavors and things they had going on
really did it for them. And it’s so interesting in our
own lives how we try to fill that void or meet that deep-seated
need of joy and satisfaction and contentment with all different
kinds of toys and pursuits and things. But at the end of the
day, even Hollywood got this one right in that it doesn’t
actually fulfill the dream by just doing things. And so this
morning, we’re going to answer this question of what is it that
truly makes us happy? If happiness is defined as an
emotional state, that indicates our satisfaction with life. And
it’s a measure of how we really perceive the overall quality
of life to be. And as we know, there’s a difference
between just happiness and deep-seated joy and contentment. And we’ll
look at that a little bit. What are the differences and
what are we truly searching for? And then how is it that we accomplish
that goal that every one of us wants to have? So open your Bible
right now to Psalm 1. I think the passage is there
in your bulletin as well. And let’s read that. And then
we’ll jump right in and answer some of these questions. Psalm
1 verse 1, we’re going to do the whole thing. It’s not very
long. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel
of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the
seat of mockers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and
on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted
by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose
leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers, but
not so are the wicked. They are like the chaff that
the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not
stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the
way of the wicked will perish. As we look at Psalm 1 this morning,
we’re going to answer two main points. Those two main points
are the two consequences of every man’s choice. And what we’re
going to see is the pursuits of our life either follow one
pattern or they follow another. And hopefully we will see that
today. But please pray with me before
we dive in and let’s set our hearts and minds right to begin
that endeavor. Father, But we just ask that
this morning when we open your Word, that it wouldn’t just be
an academic exercise where we go in to just learn something
new. But this morning when we open
the book of the Psalms, we see a lot of heartfelt emotion. We see and know the psalm writer
so often just crying out for your help or for understanding.
And this morning we cry out in the same way to understand what
it is that truly makes a person blessed, truly makes a person
happy. And so we pray as your Holy Spirit moves and touches
each and every one of us in a little bit different way and speaks
to us in our hearts and convicts us, that our response to this
would be one where we take these things to heart. But right now,
we pray that you would remove all distractions, you would improve
anything that might prevent us from listening in, from clearing
our mind, and really dialing into the word that you have for
us this morning. So what we ask is that it would be your word,
it would be your message that would speak forth where I am
weak and where I am lacking. I pray that there will be strength
there and that you would speak boldly, that you would have our
hearts be attentive and that your spirit might do a work in
each and every one of us this morning. And so we ask that we
ask your presence on this time this morning in Jesus name. Amen.
Psalm 1. really broken into two parts.
We come to that proverbial fork in the road here. The first three
verses give us a picture of one consequence, and then the second
three will give us a picture of quite another. So we come
to this fork in the road, learning and looking to see these two
different kinds of people, maybe see ourself in one of these two
camps. But the bottom line is all of
us in here, God divides us up in two ways, either righteous
or wicked. They’re polar opposites on the
spectrum. And maybe it might be difficult
at first to see ourselves as either over here or over here.
But hopefully, as we define these terms and see as we walk through
the course of this passage, we’ll see ourselves very clearly in
here. The first point in the first
three verses, though, gives us the blessings that are on God’s
highway, the blessings that are on God’s highway. It starts off
with a word, blessed. Blessed is the man. So here we
have a recipe for happiness right off the bat. And this word blessed,
I think a lot of us get different understandings of that word.
But the way this is defined is happiness, not just happiness
in a superficial kind of way, something that makes us temporarily
happy, like a good meal. But that deep seated joy, that
deep seated satisfaction and contentment, that real sense
of purpose, that real sense of longing. And so God is going
to give us a message right now about the blessed man and how
that looks. This word in the Hebrew of blessed
here or happiness is given 44 different times throughout the
course of the Old Testament and 25 of them in the Psalms. So
we see it very frequently in there. And this recipe for happiness
is going to give us our first picture of this righteous man.
But the first picture is in the negative. It’s going to give
us three things that the righteous man does not do. Verse one tells
us that the righteous man is one who does not do three things. He does not walk in the counsel
of the wicked. He does not stand in the way
of sinners and he does not sit in the seat of mockers. In the
first picture here, we have a series of verbs, a series of actions,
walking and then standing and then sitting. And there’s a reason
that that flow is given. To walk is a series of steps. It’s just decisions in a general
direction, nothing too specific at this point. To stand on something
means to now begin to make a commitment, to be firm, to have a firmly
established position on various causes. And then finally, to
sit is really a fixed disposition on a specific attitude. And this
progression here goes from the active to the stagnant. And this
progression of walking, standing and sitting leads us from the
beginning of the progression of compromises, the progression
of sin. If you see the pattern of sin that arises in each of
our lives, you’ll see this pattern of first thing that comes is
a bit of wrong thinking to then a bit of compromise. And then
before we know it, we’re comfortable and complacent in a certain lifestyle
or pattern of sinfulness. But he stands and walks and sits
in something. Well, what does he walk in? He
walks in the counsel of the wicked, the way counsel is spelt there. gives us a sense of trusted advisor
or wickedness being internally corrupt. So it’s a pattern of
walking in the trusted advice of the internally corrupt. Might
be tough to put ourselves in our shoes or really think that
the people around us are listening to the advice of the eternally
corrupt. But in reality, really refusing wisdom, refusing understanding
that comes from the Bible, the Word of God, anything outside
of that, even though initially an appearance that is not of
God, is internally corrupt. There’s two kingdoms operating
in this world. There’s the one of this world,
and then there’s the one of the Father, the one of the Kingdom
of Heaven. And so we’ll be exposed on which set of values, which
set of principles do we not only live life by, but which set of
values controls our thinking. Because right thinking will lead,
hopefully, to right action. But wrong thinking will inevitably
lead to wrong action. The second, in the way of sinners. Standing in the way. Well, a
way is a pursuit. And sinners, those defined by
sinful practices. up here is refusing to go with
the world or the crowd just because the culture declares something
is okay. Refusing to walk in the way of
sinners will appear that way. Also, it could be avoiding the
temptation to conform just to the world because everybody else
is doing it. In Romans 12, 1 and 2, we get a great passage in
the New Testament, really a major, major section in the entire book
of Romans and in the New Testament. that offers us as to a main point
to acknowledge and view what God’s mercy is in the gospel.
And then in light of that, as believers, to offer ourselves
as living sacrifices. And then the passage doesn’t
stop there. It tells us how to offer ourselves as living sacrifices.
And the first point is to no longer be conformed to the world.
A true picture of walking and standing in the way of a sinner
is to conform to the ways of the sinful. And then thirdly
and finally, the seat of mockers. The last stage in that progression
of compromise of walking, standing and sitting is the refusal of
the righteous man to sit in the seat of a mocker. A seat to be
seated is comfortable and established. Most people for a long period
of time, as we viewed this morning, would rather be sitting than
standing. It’s more comfortable. But to sit in the seat of mockers,
mockery is opposition. It’s scoffing. It’s those who
really are against something. And before we know it, when we
start walking by something and then we stand to check it out,
see what it’s about. And before we know it, we’re
sitting there enjoying and delighting in the same thing. It’s not a
good picture. So what would a righteous person
or somebody in right standing with God who refuses to sit in
the seat of mockers, how would that look? Well, it might look
like refusing to associate with those who just mock God, who
are outright opposed to God. How about refusing bad company
because it corrupts good character? 1 Corinthians 15.33. Refusing partnership with anyone
or anything that opposes God and His will. Well, that sounds
kind of harsh. That maybe means, okay, if somebody’s
not a believer, we have no interaction with them? Absolutely not. We’re
called to be salt and light in this world. But it’s an understanding
of partnership. It’s an understanding of close
ties or walking arm in arm. You are like the company that
you keep. And really, the company that
we keep is representative of what our heart is. We tend to
join arms with the people that we are most connected with, that
we have the most in common with, And so if the company that is
around us gives us the counsel of the ungodly, walks in the
way of the world and stand or sits in the seat of mockers,
it’s probably evidence to our own heart that we may not be
in this first camp of people. But in verse two here, now we
start to see the true message. In verse two, maybe the one that
we put the big gold star around in our Bible is the main point
or the true picture. of what the blessed person or
the happy, joyful person is going to practice in and appear as. His delight is in something. It’s in the law of the Lord.
So often we take Christianity or the good news of Jesus Christ
and turn it into something it’s not. And we turn it into just
a message that’s similar to fire insurance. You’ve got to get
this message. You’ve got to believe this or else the consequences
await you. And that may be true. And then
after that, we couple it with moral rules and moral standards.
And Christianity becomes about not going to hell and following
moral rules. That’s not the picture. That’s
not the heart of it at all. The heart of Christianity, the
heart of the gospel is about reconciliation with God. It’s
about the righteous or right standing person uniting with
God in intimate relationship in his church corporately and
delighting in that as the greatest treasure of your heart. And that’s
a tough picture. And we’ll talk about some of
the difficulties and that is a bit of a strain and that’s
a bit of a conflict. But the central part of the psalm
or the heart issue here really lies in verse two about where
your delight is. And I began by asking you, what
kind of things make you happy? Well, I’ve given the hobbies
or passions or joys. But if we were to take away one
of those, would we still have contentment in life? It’s maybe
an important question to ask. If we were to take away the relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, would we still have a sense of hope,
a sense of understanding, a sense of control from a sovereign God? would all that be lost and then
our pursuits from that point on be in vanity? It’s a question
that we have to rightly ask ourselves. But to the blessed person, God’s
law, really better translated, His instruction, not just the
Ten Commandments, but the full counsel of His will is not something
that he feels obligated to do, but it’s actually something he
delights in, wants to have, enjoys having around him. It’s a different
picture. If that law means instruction, or full counsel, and there’s
a way that we can actually find joy and delight in that full
counsel, what would that look like? Well, keep your finger
in Psalm 1 and flip over to Psalm 119. And we’re going to read
a number of verses. So get your fingers ready to
turn. But Psalm 119 will offer us a great picture. of what this
blessed man looks like. And really, the writer of Psalm
119 will show us the heart of the one who delights in the instruction
and delights in the law of God. We’ll pick it up in verse one.
We’re going to read a number of verses again, like I said, to
give us the picture. Verse one. Blessed are they whose
walk is blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed
are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.
They do nothing wrong. They walk in his ways. You have
laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. Oh, that my
ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees. Then I would not
be put to shame when I consider all your commands. I will praise
you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.
I will obey your decrees. Do not utterly forsake me. How
can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to
your word, I seek you with all my heart. Do not let me stray
from your commands. I have hidden your word in my
heart that I might not sin against you. Praise be to you, O Lord.
Teach me your decrees. With my lips, I recount all the
laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and
consider your ways. I delight in your decrees. I
will not neglect your word. Do good to your servant and I
will live. I will obey your word. Open my
eyes that I might see the wonderful things in your law. I am a stranger
on earth. Do not hide your commands from
me. My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all
times.” Verse 33, “‘Teach me, O Lord, to follow your decrees.
Then I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding and
I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart. direct
me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight. Turn
my heart towards your statutes and not towards selfish gain.
Turn my eyes away from worthless things. Preserve my life according
to your word.” Keep flipping to verse 97. Oh, how I love your law. I meditate
on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than
my enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more insight
than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes. I have more
understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts. I have
kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your
word. I have not departed from your
laws, for you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words
to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” Last section, 129.
Your statutes are wonderful. Therefore, I obey them. The unfolding
of your words gives light. It gives understanding to the
simple. I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands.” Back
to Psalm 1. You see, there’s really a great picture
given there of a heart that desires the full counsel, the full instruction
of God above anything else. That psalm writer sounds to me
pretty clear, like a satisfied, delighted, joyful person. And
his delight purely is in the law of the Lord. In verse two,
we also see the frequency of how much or how much he delights
in or how much time he spends meditating. It’s day and night. Well, what does it mean to meditate?
Well, to meditate, It means to marinate, basically. If you think
about a rack of ribs or a good barbecue. You marinate those
ribs for quite a while, and even though I’m no chef, as many people
will tell you, I understand this principle, that when the fire
goes on the ribs, it only takes a very short time, and then the
flavor of the ribs will be exposed by the fire and the taste. And
it’s the same way. What we marinate in, what we
put our minds and our hearts fully towards, will be exposed
when the fires of life come. to the one who delights in the
law of the Lord, spends time and rejoices in that, when life’s
troubles come, the exposure to that delight will be evidence
of it. How frequently? Day and night. So that must mean
that this psalm writer never slept, had his Bible open, walked
around everywhere with it. No, not the point. The point
here is a meditation or an internal conversation or muttering taking
place throughout the day on a consistent basis. In Christendom, we have
a little phrase that’s been used, quiet time. And you have to punch
in and punch out of your quiet time every morning to be a good
model Christian in the morning. And you punch in and you do your
half hour in the Word and then you go off to work and live life
like everybody else. That’s not the idea. The idea
is that we would learn the word, write it on our heart so that
it might speak to us throughout the day. And instead of listening
to ourselves throughout the day and all the trivial things that
go through our mind, we might allow God to speak to us through
his word and the truth that we’ve written on our heart by the law
that he’s given us. It’s a much different picture.
But the idea, again, is not that we have to. The whole point of
this is that we get to. We walk in the approval of what
God has said about us as his children. We don’t try to work
towards that approval by reading our Bible. It’s a difference
between are we pursuing something for God’s approval of us or do
we walk in his approval of us and learn about him and what
he has done for us and who he is out of the joy and overflow
of our heart. Now, there’s a picture given
next of what this would look like, and it’s a picture in nature. of really what it is to be firmly
planted, or what it is to be like a tree planted by streams
of water. And you’re going to see how this
picture is really appropriate and how it will give the true
evidence of whether or not our delight is in the law of the
Lord. It says it’s like a tree, in verse three, planted by streams
of water. And the planted tree does three
things. The first thing is it yields
its fruit. The second thing is the leaf
on the tree does not wither. And then the third thing is it
prospers. Well, the first picture, it’s
fruitful. What does that mean? Well, as Matthew 7 tells us,
a good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears bad fruit. It’s
pretty simple to understand. So what does good fruit look
like? If the one who delights in the law of God is the firmly
planted tree, then what does fruit look like in that believer’s
life? Well, fruit, we know the fruits of the Spirit, Galatians
5, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, the whole list there. But I think
many of us know people that are not Christians that have love
or peace or patience or joy in their life. So is that a foolproof
list? Not necessarily. It’s certainly
true that we’ll grow in those things as God’s Word continues
to penetrate us. But there’s also some other things
that should be evidenced as well. How about a greater desire? for the word, a greater desire
for the full counsel of instruction. As the deer panteth for the water,
so my soul longeth after thee. It’s a thirst that shouldn’t
just be quenched, but that should be growing. This is a tough one,
but maybe a good picture. Good fruit might look like a
clearer picture and desire to image the glory of God in our
lives. I know I so often get caught
up in obedience and doing things because I think I should or I
ought to, which is true. However, it’s sometimes very
easy for me to place this whole idea of what God is all about,
about me and my obedience, and that’s what it’s about. And really
it’s the opposite, it’s about God’s honour and God’s glory.
And through my heart and my obedience, that brings Him joy, because
if that is my delight, not a religious duty, it’s a completely different
picture. And so when I find in my own
heart that I’m actually conscious of honouring God, then I find
that my obedience follows with that. And so maybe a question
to ask ourselves as well is do we do things because we think
we ought to or not ought to or do we do them out of the abundance
and joy of our heart because that honors God. The second picture
of the firmly planted tree leaf doesn’t wither. Carly and I just
bought a home that was foreclosed and looks pretty good for the
most part, except the yard is awful. There’s a dead tree. back
there, there’s a lot of work that needs to happen. Well, why?
Well, the lawn didn’t receive care. It didn’t receive nourishment.
And so the leaf withered. Well, if there had been that
proper nourishment, if there had been that proper care, when
the hot summer came, then it would have been able to withstand
the heat. In the same way, if we are not delighting in the
law of God, spending time in that, how is it that we miraculously
think that when the hot winds of summer in trial and life come,
that we will stand that test in faithfulness? It’s foolishness
to think if we’re not putting the right materials in, that
we’ll get the right product out. Then the third picture is one
of prosperity. Prosperity, you hear that word,
a lot of different ideas come to mind. And we have a lot of
late night televangelists that would give us a bit of a different
theology on what prosperity means. Just read your Bible and send
in the check and you’ll be rich before you know it. It’s not
the picture. It’s not the idea. Prosperity
is really the idea of growth, sustainment, joy, pleasure, happiness
in all things. The firmly planted tree is one
that can gather nourishment and will grow, and that is the promise.
In the same way, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
Word of God. If our true happiness and true
joy lies in the light of God, then are we spending that time
with Him? And if we do, there is a promise not to become rich,
not to have success in everything, but to have that deep-seated
joy and deep-seated contentment. I had a football coach that used
to have all these great one-liners, and one of them was, everything
in football is 10% action and 90% reaction. Whether that makes
any sense or not, it’s the similar kind of idea in life. We can’t
control the things that happen to us, but we can’t control how
we respond to them. And how we respond to them will
be indicative of how we’ve prepared ourselves in those times. If
we want to prosper, if we want to be fruitful and we want to
be stable, then it’s up to us to be sowing correctly so that
we might reap in prosperity. Now, the next section here, we’re
going to see a vastly different picture. As I said, we have the
two consequences of every man’s choice. And in the first picture,
we see the blessings on God’s highway. In the second picture,
you see the instability from Satan’s sideway. Now, I know
That word sideway doesn’t really make a ton of sense, but that’s
the idea here is the idea is the first camp is the righteous
or right standing with God. It doesn’t mean perfect. It doesn’t
mean without sin. It just means those who have
trusted and delighted in God as their highest treasure. And
the sideway is anything other than that of the kings or God’s
highway. And this picture is really given
in contrast or the consequences of not doing the things in the
first three verses. Look at this, let’s read four
through six again and see a picture of the change of language that
happens immediately. Not so are the wicked. They are
like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will
not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the
righteous. The Lord watches over the way
of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. A
major contrast. We don’t see here that the wicked
or the internally corrupt person without the Lord in their hearts
is blessed. We don’t see that. We don’t see
them truly being happy. We see that they’re like the
wind and they blow one way or they blow another direction and
they pursue all kinds of different things, none of which truly satisfies
them. There’s never a goal. There’s
never an end that can be satisfied in the end of the rat race. They
do walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners
and sit in the seat of mockers. And God gives a picture of what
this person is like. He says they’re like chaff. Well,
chaff isn’t a word that we use very often today. What is chaff?
Chaff is the part of the grain separated during harvest time. It’s the outer shell that concealed
the valuable kernels of grain and the chaff was removed during
a process called threshing and winnowing. After the plants were
cut during this harvest time, pieces were thrown up into the
air and then the chaff was very light and so it would separate
and be swept away by even the slightest bit of wind, the slightest
bit of direction that would pour it away. And that is the way
that farmers used to separate that which was worthwhile with
that which was worthless. And it would naturally do that
by its weight. And God says the wicked here
are like chaff. The wind blows them away. In
James 1, we see another picture. The person that asks of God without
fully believing or with doubt is tossed around like the waves
of the sea by the wind. Instability, no fruitfulness,
no prosperity. They won’t do something else
either. In verse five, the consequence of their wickedness will lead
them to not stand in the judgment. It doesn’t mean they won’t stand
in a judgment. It just means the outcome of
that judgment will not be the same as the righteous. If there
is a spectrum, and as we talked about, there’s righteousness
over here and there’s wickedness over here. In the patterns of
our lives, we do practice or we do have one foot in each camp
in certain times of our life. But there’s a picture of positionally
how we are viewed by God. We are either separated from
him or we are adopted by him. It can be one or the other. There
is no middle ground. And where it is that we lie in
that determines where it is where we will be. It is not determined
by what we think. If we walked up to the White
House steps and said, President Obama, I know President Obama,
let me in, let me in. The Secret Service is going to
be all over us in a heartbeat. But if we walk up to the steps
of the White House and President Obama comes out and says, hey,
I know them, let them come in, then we’re going to get in. So
the real fact of the matter is not do we claim to know him,
but does he really know us? It’s a huge difference there.
And that’s the picture here. Does God truly know us intimately?
Well, how does that happen? Turn to 2 Corinthians 6, verse
14, and we’re not going to pick up where we left off for a few
months, but we’ll just look very briefly here. Here’s a picture of being yoked
or united together with unbelievers. And here again, you see the picture
of being divided into one camp or the other. Do not be yoked
together with unbelievers, for what do righteousness and wickedness
have in common? Or what fellowship can light
have with darkness? What harmony is there between
Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in
common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between
the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the
living God. It’s very clear. Either we are the temple of the
living God and his spirit resides within us or it does not. And
again, we’ll move to what that looks like and how that happens.
But a good indicator is if our desire, if our delight is not
truly in God, then why would we ever want to be in his presence
in heaven anyways? If we’re separated from him now
and desire that, then what would make us want to be united with
him in eternity? It doesn’t make any sense. But
the true picture of is there anything we can do about this
judgment? Is there anything that we can
do about reconciling with God? Well, it’s not as easy as just
waking up one morning and making a decision, but it comes from
an understanding of a couple of things. And that understanding
starts with firstly, a right view of God and God is holy and
he has set apart and he is the model of righteousness. But in
response to that, in his creation of man, man sinned. Man chose
away from God and as a result of that is cursed and internally
corrupt. But God didn’t just send his
judgment then. He sent a peace offering, a mercy
sacrifice in Christ. And Christ came down and lived
a perfect, sinless life as fully God and fully man and died on
the cross. And what saves us is not just
him being beaten along the way, but it’s the full measure of
the judgment of the sinner, the full measure of God’s wrath against
sinfulness against him. And as a result of that death,
burial and resurrection, he’s raised three days later, seated
at the right hand of God in heaven. And now there is a response that
we must have to that. And the response is this, is
to understand our heart and our life is inherently being separated
from Him. And then we are called to repent
and believe, not just raise a hand. And to repent means to turn 180
degrees away from something and trust something else. And so
it’s not just as simple as I’m not going to do that, that, that
or that anymore. I’m just going to be a better person. It is
trusting an entire way of thinking is waiting on the Lord, trusting
in Him. As we learned last week in the
Proverbs, it is not trusting in ourselves. It is declaring
ourselves as the enemy in our flesh and trusting in him. switching
seats if God is our co-pilot and having him be the king now.
It’s a vastly different thing. And then what will follow from
that will be that delight, will be that joy, will be that obedience. We can’t force ourselves to love
something. We can’t force ourselves to delight
in something. But once that thinking begins
to change and once that allegiance against ourselves and toward
God begins to take shape, then the natural fruit and outcome
from that will be delight, will be joy, will be obedience by
His Spirit in our hearts. And you see, there’s two consequences
of every man’s choice. Either we are in the righteous
camp and our delight is in the law and we meditate on His word
or we are in the wicked. We’re like chap, the wind blows
away, we won’t stand in judgment and the sinner cannot be joined
in the assembly of the righteous. But there’s a few closing questions
I have for you to see. Is the Lord watching over your
way? Are you the way of the righteous
or are you in the camp of the wicked? in no particular order,
but questions you might want to jot down and think about when
you leave here to maybe probe and truly examine your heart
of whether or not you are in the faith. The first, what path
of life are you traveling? Not geographically, not where
do you live or where are you driving, but what way are you
walking? Where are you standing and where
are you sitting? You sit in the council of the ungodly and the
wicked. or is it towards the godly and the righteous? Nobody
gets on I-25 and goes north and tries to get to Denver. That’s
foolishness. Well, in the same way, nobody would honestly seek
to be in the assembly of the righteous and not be practicing
godliness. The second question, are you
experiencing the blessings of true joy and true happiness in
your life on a consistent basis? It might expose us to whether
we find our joy in trivial things, or is our deep-seated contentment
and deep-seated joy, as Romans 8, 28 would reassure us that
God works out all things for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose. The third question
for you is God’s word actively producing fruit in your life.
Now, there’s different seasons. There’s springtimes and harvests
and winters. There’s times where it doesn’t
appear that we’re going to grow very much or it appears that
God is distant. But it’s the pattern of our life indicative
of growing fruitfulness, of growing godliness. That’s the question.
Number four is a tough question. Is your greatest joy found in
the gospel? Is it found in the good news
of what Jesus did through his life, death and resurrection? Or are there other things that
we would much rather set our hearts upon? And fifthly, does
the gospel, the good news, affect your mind, heart and life on
a daily basis? Or is it just that fire insurance
coupled with the moral rules? That’s a humongous question.
I remember reading the Bible when I was younger and it seemed
to just say the same thing over and over and over and over. And
it was rather boring, redundant, kept talking about a guy named
Jesus dying and sins and walk in new life and get the point.
But then when truly that understanding grips us. Then we can hear that
gospel message over and over and over. And each time we hear
it, it will become more sweet. It never becomes old news anymore.
And so is the gospel old news? Is it routine or is it something
that still affects you? If maybe that the answers to
the questions are that have been revealed in your heart, even
after just thinking about them for a short time, have been difficult,
there’s two things I’d advise you to do. First one. is stop
in humility and pray for God to begin to change those desires. Pray that you might either for
the first time, or again for the first time in a long time,
see Him as He is meant to be seen. That He would help you
die to your own sinfulness and die to your own pride and see
Him truly as He is meant to be seen. And then the second thing,
if you are a Christian, is to begin to meditate, to have that
internal conversation, to marinate and search God’s word and his
promises on a consistent basis. And he will then begin to reveal
those answers on how that happens to you. But many times we do
not have because we do not ask. The main idea here in the two
consequences of every man’s choice and one being a very simple understanding
of the way of the godly on God’s highway and the way on Satan’s
sideway is the righteous, the ones who are in right standing
with God. They’re the blessed ones. They’re the happy ones.
And they live lives that are insulated from the world. They
don’t conform any longer, but they become transformed or changed
or metamorphosized by the renewing of their mind that comes from
God’s Word. If you want a heart that is fully
surrendered and submitted to God, it cannot happen. without
first allowing your mind to be transformed and changed. Pray
with me in closing. Father, it’s so much easier said
than done. We understand that it’s not just
as easy as following a list of commands or doing good or being
nice, but to live breathe and move in a contradiction with
what our flesh and our sin tells us to do, provides a lot of challenges. And the way for us even attempting
to walk the righteous life is not always easy. It’s not always
a straight path. It goes up big hills and big
mountains. And so wherever anyone in this
room may be right now on that journey, we pray, first of all,
that they would be comforted. in that. It is difficult. It
is hard. There are seasons of life. But
the bottom of the line is, if we truly desire to be happy,
if we truly desire to be joyful and content in our life, we need
to stop looking for those things in the ways of the world and
in just hobbies and toys and different passions and pursuits.
But the only way that that peace of heart will come is by completely
surrendering to you. And so we ask that we would be
a people defined by that. We would be a people that stop
fighting, that stop surrendering. But in the same way in a card
game, somebody would push all their chips in the middle of
the table, we would push all the chips of our heart in and
just say, it’s not about us anymore, it’s about you. And we want to
be the person like the psalm writer that truly delights in
you, but it seems like a far road away. And so just give us
the strength through your spirit to be able to take one step ahead
of the other in that. Thanks for this morning. And
we pray that the things that we have spoken about, the things
that we have listened to would be the meditations of our heart
for some time and that we would not just brush this off and be
like water through a pipe, but we would take them to heart.
And so we thank you and love you for knowing that you’re a
God that honors His people and fulfills His promises. And so
we thank you and we love you in Jesus’ name.