00:00:01 We have started a new series called Summer in the Psalms. [clears throat] Whenever I go to the airport, as I love books, I try to walk into those gift and bookshops, and the books that are prominently in display are always books with a very provocative title that promise self-help, of how you can become richer or more successful or invest better, and all of that. In fact, among the perennial New York Times bestseller list, there\'s a book right now that\'s going. 00:00:39 It\'s called \"Atomic Habits,\" by James Clear. It\'s the number one New York Times bestseller. And I know he talks about how tiny changes, doing something 1% better every day than the day before will help you get better. And there is always this time, the book that has transcended time and stayed high is Stephen Covey\'s \"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,\" which talks about how you just change some habits, you can be more effective in life. 00:01:16 Or \"The Power of Now,\" or a book that\'s been there since the \'80s. It\'s called \"How to Win Friends and Influence People\" by Dale Carnegie. I don\'t know if any of you remember those books. And some other books that are also there. But anywhere you go, you\'re constantly bombarded with people or others suggesting how we can live, how can our lives be better. 00:01:43 And then when you go and sit and you\'re waiting for a flight, you open your phone, and you start either listening to a podcast or social media. You\'re flooded with reels and shorts and influencers and life coaches all telling you what you should do, what you should believe, and how you can become the best version of yourself. Every day, we are being discipled by someone\'s vision for good life, and every voice that we hear is offering a path to blessing, success, fulfillment, happiness. 00:02:28 But long before podcasts, social media, and all these other things, God gave us His own guide to what He calls as the blessed life. As we begin this series in Psalms, Psalm 1 opens not with techniques for success, but with a portrait of a truly blessed person. It begins not by asking what we should achieve, but what voices would shape our lives. The Book of Psalms is a very special book in the Bible. Martin Luther, when he wrote a preface to the Psalter, he calls the Psalms as the little Bible. 00:03:13 He says, \"The Psalms might well be entitled a little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended and compacted together in the Book of Psalms.\" The Psalms are beautiful in that, in one sense, they not only have a condensed version of the whole Bible, they also reveal to us, lead and point to us, Christ Himself. Every psalm is a Messianic psalm. Martin Luther continues. 00:03:54 He says, \"Yeah, the Psalter ought to be precious and dear, were it for nothing else but the clear promise it holds forth respecting Christ\'s death and resurrection, and its prefiguration of His kingdom and of the whole estate and system of Christianity.\" It is the most heartfelt book in the entire Bible, and is really enduring to us in times of sadness or trouble, isn\'t it? 00:04:23 Whenever we go through significant pain or suffering or loss or grief, there is no other book that ministers to our heart and soul than the Book of Psalms. And I\'ve experienced that in person, and I\'m sure each one of you have, and the saints have across the centuries. And this year we started with speaking about covenants, all the covenants God made with God to get us a better understanding of who God is. 00:04:52 Then we spoke about spiritual disciplines, how we can enjoy and experience this God, what are the means, the ordinary means of grace that He has given to us. And so in the summer, as we enter into the Psalms, the Psalms are to provide a fuel for enjoying and experiencing God deeply this summer season. So we\'re going to look at three things from the Psalm: the portraits of a blessed person, the experiences of a blessed person, and the destiny of a blessed person. 00:05:27 The portraits of a blessed person. The psalm begins with the word blessed or blessed. There are only two Hebrew words that are translated as blessed in the Bible, in the Old Testament. One is the word that is always exclusively used in relationship with God when God blesses. The word is berek or barak, where it is the image of kneeling to receive a blessing from God. But the second word that is predominantly used when it is applied to you and me is the word asray. 00:06:10 And that\'s the word we find in this psalm and in several other psalms, and in the entire Old Testament, the word blessed, this word, is used 46 times, and more than half of those times it is used exclusively in Psalms. It is never used of God or never describes something God gives or confers in the moment. The root word, I was trying to understand what was the Hebrew root of this, it simply means to go straight or advance or walk in a straight path. 00:06:48 It carries the picture of one who is on the right road and is making progress. So I have a definition that I deduced from this and that we will try to refer back to periodically as we go through this. It\'s very contrary to how you and I understand what being blessed means. For most of us, being blessed means we think of God blessing us with something. God blessing us with a good job, or a good spouse, or good children, or good grades, or a good car, or any goods. 00:07:31 But that is not what this word is talking about. He said you can experience a blessed, you can have all of those blessings. Of course, God blesses us. He gives all those good things to not just us, even to those who don\'t know him. You can still have all those things and still not lead a blessed life. Because according to the psalmist and according to God\'s word, a blessed life is not based on the blessings you receive. 00:07:56 A blessed life is one that helps you to walk straight to a destination that is unending and beautiful and glorious. And we are going to see here the sum and essence of that. Blessedness is not about receiving blessings from God. Blessedness is about experiencing the very bliss of God. Let me repeat. Blessedness is not about experiencing the blessings from God. Blessedness is about experiencing the very bliss of God as it talks about here. 00:08:36 And it is writing to us or to anyone who is living in a culture that is very hostile to who God is. There is no name attached to this psalm. It\'s perhaps a Davidic psalm. It forms like a title psalm for the whole of the psalter. David was constantly surrounded by enemies in his life. People who were close and dear to him turned their backs against him. His own children went against him. 00:09:12 His own sinfulness made him to fall and lose going in the straight path and wandering off into a crooked path. He knows exactly what living a blessed life is and what is not living a blessed life. As the king, he had everything he could ask for. He conquered vast territories. Whatever he laid his eyes on, he could get. But he knew that that was not the essence of a blessed life. 00:09:41 The blessed life he desired, and he cries out, especially in Psalm 51, is to God to give him a pure heart so he can walk straight in his life. So this psalm tells us by framing what is the portrait of a blessed person by talking about three groups of people the blessed person avoids and three postures he never takes. In short, it talks of what you don\'t do if you want to walk straight and live this blessed life. And who are these people and what do they do? 00:10:26 He says, \"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.\" He talks about three groups of people. The English translates them as wicked, sinners, and scoffers. We are going to see who they are. And he talks about three gestures which have a progression, walking, standing, and sitting. So let\'s start with who are these three groups of people? 00:11:02 The English word does not capture the true essence of what the real root Hebrew words mean. The wicked, when we hear the word wicked, we think of criminals or murderers or like really, really bad people who we can pick and find and who are hurting us or hurting others. But the Hebrew word wicked doesn\'t refer to criminals. Whenever you see the word wicked, especially in the Old Testament, it talks about people who do not have God in their lives. It talks about godless people. 00:11:40 They can actually be very sophisticated. In fact, they are very brilliant people. These are philosophers who sit and think of how can we live a life without God, and they have had tremendous influence in our culture and in our society. Their thoughts still influence the leading academic institutions. Their thoughts permeate pop culture, songs, and movies. And now the influencers, I feel the philosophers would cringe. They are the real influencers. 00:12:24 You don\'t become an influencer because you have a million followers. The real influencers are these philosophers, if you read them, because they have impacted how we ought to live, and it has trickled down and come to us. Their whole essence was to say, \"I don\'t want to believe in God. I don\'t believe in God, so how then should I live?\" And they\'ve tried to come up with ideas. That\'s the wicked. He says, \"If you want to walk straight, don\'t listen to them.\" 00:12:52 And you can\'t avoid them because they\'re not just far out or they\'re dead 200 years ago. Their influence is circulating in your school curriculum, in your college syllabus, in your work environment, in boardroom meetings, in the social media you consume. It\'s right there. The second group of people he\'s talking about are sinners. You know the Greek word, hatta\'im. It comes from a root word that means to miss a mark, to miss a target, to miss a road. 00:13:29 In the Book of Judges, this word was used to describe slingers, the slingshot people, who are so skilled that they could sling a stone at a hair and not miss. And when they do, they would apply this word. This is not primarily someone who commits discrete bad acts, but is someone whose life is aimed wrong. These are people who believe you can do whatever you want. And then the third is mockers. They just are people who just don\'t believe in God or do what they want. 00:14:12 They have moved beyond arguing with or about God to find him laughable. They laugh at you. They say, \"You\'re a Christian. Oh, you believe in God. How could you be an intelligent person and still say you believe that there is a God?\" He says these are the influencers. And there were philosophers who said exactly that. Friedrich Nietzsche literally said God is dead, and his idea had consequences. 00:14:42 His idea influenced Adolf Hitler, who acted out how one can live if there is no God who holds anyone to any accountability and went and committed a genocide of killing six million Jews. So that\'s a problem, and these are worldview ideas that are constantly circulating around ourself, and if we are not beware, we catch them. Even if you are a Christian, I\'m going to explain and share and show us how this can influence our own self-thinking as well. 00:15:23 Because these ideas have been carefully developed by enlightened philosophers, and even much of secular counseling today is built on that. When you go to a counselor and you say, \"I have a problem. How should I live?\" They follow all of these thought processes, where if God is dead, then how do I figure out how to live? Rene Descartes or Descartes, I don\'t know exactly how to say, his famous one line is, \"I think, therefore I am.\" I just have to use my mind and my reason to live my life. 00:16:04 If you think, \"Hey, I don\'t believe in God. I have to just find reason to do whatever is reasonable,\" you didn\'t come up with anything new. I\'m so sorry to break it to you. You\'re not that creative or smart. Rene Descartes already did that hundreds, several years ago. Secular counselors are influenced by significant voices. Sigmund Freud said, because when you go to a counselor or even when you think, \"What is the problem with my life? Why am I doing this? Why am I experiencing this? 00:16:37 Why am I feeling this?\" They have to come up with finding what is the problem, right? Unless you find the problem, you cannot solve it. I remember my PhD supervisor when I started my research, he said, \"The biggest problem, JP, is finding the problem.\" Because once you find the problem, you can find a solution. If you don\'t even know what the problem is, you can\'t find what the solution is. 00:16:56 So when you go to someone, and especially secular philosophers or secular counselors who don\'t believe in God, try to find how can we help people? They go to some of these persons. If you\'re a Freudian, because Sigmund Freud, he said our problem is because of our suppressed desires or feelings, which are a result of something that happened to us way back in our lives. 00:17:25 So look at your past, excavate your past, explore your unmet desires, connect your behaviors and your failures to things that happened to you. Bottom line, you\'re not responsible. Don\'t feel too bad about it. They\'re supposed to make you feel good and make money, isn\'t it? That\'s Freud. Skinner came up with a different philosophy. He said the reason you\'re having problems is it looks like problems because it\'s just your behaviors and it\'s about the environment. It\'s not you. 00:18:02 You\'re doing this because your environment is making you do it. You\'re basically a good person. So you just have to rearrange your environment. And some of the psychiatrists linked to Freud, like Pavlov and others, those who study to become teachers, you would have studied this. I think I heard my mom say they even studied it way back. It\'s called the dog and the bell experiment. Where you ring a bell and the dog comes, and you place food. 00:18:35 So whenever you ring the bell, the dog knows the food is there and it\'ll come. So when they ring the bell, and even when they don\'t put the food, the dog will come. And so they said, \"See? Our behaviors can be manipulated purely by changing the environment.\" And you know who I have seen practice this faithfully? I\'m sorry. Please don\'t get me mad. Young parents. I\'m not talking about Rajiv and Sony. She\'s too young for that. I\'ll have to see if they do this too. 00:19:05 When their child does something wrong, \"But my child is beautiful. She is wonderful. He is wonder-- it\'s not her, it\'s just the environment. I don\'t have to discipline my child.\" Or if she is fighting with another boy for a toy, \"I just have to take the toy away.\" That solves the problem. Because the problem is not in the child. The problem is in the environment and the toy. When you do this, you\'re being counseled by Skinner, who developed that counseling. 00:19:35 So don\'t think this is like some pie in the sky, abstract philosophical stuff. So if you\'re Freud, you\'ll try to find blame in your past. If you\'re Skinner, you\'ll seek to find blame in your environment. And Rogers, these are just three leading figures. There are many more. I\'m not going to go down the entire list. Carl Rogers is a humanistic psychologist. He said your problem is because you have a too low a view of yourself. You need to have unconditional positive regard, self-actualization. 00:20:15 You\'re unnecessarily beating yourself up all the time by thinking you\'re a sinner, or you do bad things, or it\'s a bad thing. You don\'t have to do that. It sounds so nice, doesn\'t it? Oh, I\'m just beating myself up, and therefore, I\'m feeling I\'m bad or miserable. When you should be because you\'re doing something sinful. This just says it\'s because in your mind, you\'re thinking a low view of yourself. It\'s actually the other way around. 00:20:43 You\'re so proud, you think you should be a perfect person, and when you fail, instead of feeling contrite and repentant, these psychiatrists will tell you, \"That\'s just wrong thinking. Erase that.\" Don\'t worry about God\'s laws. You are better than what you think. Now, all of these can play out in relationships. I\'m going to come to that in a minute, but he talks of three postures. He says, \"A blessed person is someone who does not walk, who stand or sit.\" It\'s not a random list. 00:21:19 There is a progression here, and which is the frightening part. First, you walk in their counsel, you kind of buy it, you believe it. Maybe it\'s true. Maybe the problem is not me or in me or whatever the Bible says. The problem is probably in my past or my environment, or I\'m just having a distorted view of myself or anything else. You take some advice, you hear a podcast, you see a reel, or a friend talks about it at work, and you just absorb it. 00:21:48 Or if you\'re at school, you look at your friends around you, \"Hey, they are doing so many things.\" And you go back to your parents and say, \"Why can\'t I do what they do?\" Right? Because you just let their assumptions guide your decision. It seems harmless. Because you like it. And that\'s what Israel did. But the counsel of the faithless flatters us. It tells us what we already want to hear, and that\'s what Israel did. 00:22:19 They rejected the prophets that God sent and listened to those who spoke what they wanted to hear. So that\'s walking in their counsel. Second is you just don\'t walk and you\'re absorbing, you stand. You\'re locked in, and you start acting on it. You\'re walking in that direction. Now you\'re walking away. You\'re moving away from being a blessed person, walking in a straight path. That advice has become a direction in your life. 00:22:48 It seems, again, I don\'t know why I\'m coming back to this, tying into our baptism to it. It\'s very evident in parenting. There\'s dime a dozen parenting tips and advice and gadgets and other things these days. When a child is throwing a tantrum, saying the child needs something, the parents rush to give the child that. What the child needs, as the Bible says, is the rod of correction. [chuckles] \"Oh, I\'m such a nice guy. I can\'t do that to my child.\" 00:23:22 But if you started practicing it, you\'re borrowing their ideas, you\'re sharing their road, your trajectory now is not the path that God wants you to go towards them. It\'s now their trajectory. You have taken the exit, and you\'re off the ramp, and you\'re headed in a different direction. That\'s when you stand, you\'re taking it in, and finally, you sit in their seat wherein you have settled. You\'ve actually believed, maybe I really don\'t have a problem. Maybe this is not my problem. 00:23:56 Maybe this really is because of this past thing, which could be a reason for something to start in your life. Can be sitting on that. Or maybe it\'s just this environment, I had these bad people and bad experiences. Or maybe I\'m just beating myself up But once you accept and you\'ve settled in is when you sit, and you now start rolling your eyes against God as a mocker. \"Really, God? What do you mean I need to repent of this? What do you mean I am proud person?\" You roll your eyes. 00:24:36 You know the eye rolls of children? It\'s more popular in America. I learned it from my kids as well. I can\'t do it quite yet. But if I try to do this when I was young with my mom, my eyes may have needed some other treatment. You know the heart, when you do this, the heart that once could have warned us stops warning. The internal thermometer is broken, and you\'re now angry when either God or His Word or someone tells you something which you don\'t like, and you become a mocker of God then. 00:25:22 And that\'s what most secular counselors do. The whole therapy movement is just this. I\'ve been a president of a Christian counseling center with 50, 60 counselors. It was very sad to me how many of them go to secular universities and just buy these ideas. And guess what? They actually make a lot of money. People are willing to pay money to someone to tell them, \"You\'re actually okay. There\'s nothing wrong with you.\" 00:25:51 And I was talking to one of our pastor\'s wives [lip smack] when I had Revive Church. She\'s a Christian counselor. And she was telling how even many Christians, when they go to her and she sees, when they talk about their problems, and she sees that their problem is a spiritual problem for which the solution is very simple from God\'s Word, but it\'s hard. 00:26:20 And they ask them, especially in some forms of depression, not all depression, some forms of depression come because of your stubbornness and unwillingness, or you feel hurt that someone told you you\'re wrong or you\'re not able to do. And she tells them, \"Hey, do you want me to refer you to your pastor who can counsel you? Or do you just need medication to send you to a psychiatrist who can give you medication to treat?\" She said two-thirds of Christians choose that route because it\'s easy. 00:26:48 I can take a pill and numb the feeling that\'s making me bad than dealing with the source of the problem. It\'s not just these philosophers out there who do this. We can wear this cap ourself when we discover our brokenness or our failures or our sin, when we fall or fail in marriage or relationships. When conflicts arise, the source of the conflict is sometimes just my desire matters. I matter. My feelings matter and not you. You then pick who you want to listen to. 00:27:25 And at that time, if someone shares a counsel that hurts you, you turn to someone else who will affirm you. They\'re basically doing a Roger on you and make you feel good. So the question to ask is: What kind of a self-counselor am I to myself? Am I a Skinner, a Roger or a Freud or a combination of all of these? 00:27:46 So what then is the solution if I should not walk and stand and sit and let me be influenced by the wicked, the sinners and the mockers, by the Freuds and the Rogers and the list of others, what solution does Psalm say? It says beautifully in verse 2, \"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.\" The solution is not to come up with a list of new rules. The word it says law is Torah. 00:28:23 That was God\'s word that the people of Israel had, along with the prophecies and the instructions they were receiving. It says the solution is the blessed person finds delight in God\'s Word, which is filled with His promises and how He has acted in history. Now, why would someone delight in God\'s Word? How can we delight in God\'s Word? Because in God\'s Word, when the psalmist tells you and you open God\'s Word, you find the covenantal love of God in action. 00:29:02 Where now, instead of these people telling you how to live, what should be the plan for your life, God\'s Word, when you open, you discovers God\'s plan for our life. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, how it all started. God\'s Word tells the reason why the world is bad and why and how the fall happened. It tells how God did not abandon us when we fell and failed, and instead has come for us. 00:29:35 It talks about the promises after promises after promises that are embedded in each and every single one of the covenants that we saw earlier this year. That should delight you because I know I\'m a broken person. I know I will fall. I know I will fail. What I need now is not be beaten up with a book that says, \"Do these 10 things.\" 00:29:56 What I need is to find a way towards experiencing this unconditional love of God, which He graciously offers to us, as Westminster Confession of Faith says, by means of His covenant. And you read that. You look at a guy like Abraham, who lies, and God Makes a covenant with him and calls him the father of faith. Look at a guy like Jacob, who\'s a deceiver. He uses his wits and his-- He thinks he\'s smart enough to make his way in life. 00:30:33 And you would think God would destroy a person like that, and God reveals himself to him and makes a covenant with him. You look at a guy like Moses, who\'s so proud. He has the best education, strength, and power, and he thinks he can use his strength to solve a real, genuine problem, and goes and kills someone. And yet God uses Moses to give his law to a people. When you read those, you realize, wow, this is beautiful. I want this God, and therefore you delight in his word. 00:31:11 And when you have this God revealed in his word, that can give you true joy, why do you need to hear from the philosophers and counselors of the world then? God\'s word had the grand historic redemptive story, fallen people getting restored, not through therapy or secular counseling or AI counseling, but through God\'s work through his Spirit in our lives. So if there are problems in our life, come in order to direct us to find God and not to ourselves to find our own solution. 00:31:49 So what is the command it is giving? He says, if someone-- You want to experience this blessedness, it\'s by meditating on his word day and night. The word for meditating is actually in Hebrew, it talks of murmuring. It\'s like someone kind of repeating God\'s word to himself. It\'s like self-talk, but using God\'s word to keep changing your thought patterns. And that\'s why it\'s recommended as an ordinary means of grace to read God\'s word every day. 00:32:21 Because you don\'t know every day how your mind keeps switching and changing and buying all these other alternate things about life. And if you don\'t read God\'s word, you\'re going to drift. There\'s no other shortcut. When you fish, especially in a river, and I\'ve mostly fished in lakes, and last year I was in Michigan, and behind where Kiersa lives, there\'s a Huron River, and I was walking up the bridge. 00:32:54 That was the first time, and you could actually-- Whenever, if you\'re a fisherman, you see water, you only think of fish. You don\'t think of how beautiful the scenery is and all of that. So I\'m looking always for fish in any place of water. And I saw some fish, like five or six of them, and I was stunned. They were stationary against the current. The current is flowing in one direction. The fish are staying right there. And you would think that it\'s easier to go down the stream, isn\'t it? 00:33:26 But you know what goes down the stream is dead fish, fish that are not alive. So if you want to stay against the current, if you need your mind to be reset, it needs a daily reset, you need the counsel of God\'s word in your life every day for your good. So you can delight in rediscovering you and rediscovering God. 00:33:51 When you mess up, you don\'t go the either extreme of not accepting and owning up or beating yourself and trying to get better so you can tell yourself, \"I did it by my own effort,\" and pat your pride. You come running to this God of grace. And that\'s why a blessed man meditates on God\'s word day and night. My dear friends, you shut them out and you drift. And that\'s why prayer is important. When you speak to God, he seals these truths. 00:34:27 That\'s why being in others\' company and communion, the table, as Sat was preaching to us, is important. That\'s why hearing God\'s counsel, godly counsel from godly people is important, from your pastor, elders, your discipleship leaders. Especially when they tell you what you don\'t want to hear and you don\'t like it. You shut them out, and you\'re going to drift for sure in your life. 00:34:52 And it will be too late because you would have taken the exit ramp and gone far, far away in a totally different route. We just finished two verses. Let\'s go to verse 3.2, the experiences of a blessed man. Says he\'s like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Two things it talks of. It talks of a flourishing phase, but it also talks of a scorching phase. 00:35:24 Just because you\'re walking in the blessed path doesn\'t mean your life is always going to be sunshine and roses and flowers. There will be scorching heat, but the promise is your leaf will not wither. A person shaped by God\'s word becomes something, first of all. The analogy it uses is a tree. This is one of scripture\'s richest pictures. And there are four characteristics that I\'ll walk us through quickly about this. Four characteristics. 00:36:01 There\'s intentionality, there is locality and stability and fruitfulness. Intentionality. First it says a tree planted. Trees do not plant themselves. It has to be planted. Someone plants the tree. And that\'s when it can grow As believers, we are not self-made people. God graciously plants us. Salvation begins with Him. Secondly, locality. Where you get planted is important. Says by streams of water. A tree survives because of its source. Its strength comes from continuous nourishment. 00:36:43 And what is your nourishment and my nourishment? Jesus later declares, \"Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will spring forth from them,\" referring to the presence of His Holy Spirit. The streams ultimately point us to Christ. Our life doesn\'t come from self-discipline alone. It comes through our union with Christ. And third, it talks about its stability. Its leaf does not wither. The Psalm never says drought never comes. Storms still come. Heat still comes. Loss still comes. 00:37:20 The difference isn\'t the absence of hardship, it\'s the presence of living water. We had a fig tree in our backyard, and people in our house love figs, and very excited. And then one summer, we found that there was a hornets\' nest or yellow jackets that built a nest right at the base of the tree, and it was hidden because we had storms. And it would come out and sting our kids, and they\'ll go screaming and running. 00:37:52 And when we try to find out where is this coming from, the nest was right close to the root of the fig tree. And the only way to get rid of that is to smoke it with fire. So I had to wear some stuff, and I lit a fire, and I went and smoked the whole thing out and burned it. It felt very satisfying. Huh. But what happened was, the next two years, these leaves started to literally wither. One half of the fig tree. There was no fruit anymore. And I felt terrible. 00:38:25 Man, I killed not just the yellow jackets\' nest, it also looks like I killed the fig. And this year, I was thinking, if there are no fruit, I was reminded of Jesus\' act on the fig trees. I\'m going to do a Jesus on this fig tree and just get it out. Lo and behold, it started blooming. You know why? Right next to it was a sprinkler that kept doing its job faithfully every day. It took a year, but now it\'s beautiful and healthy. If you come to our home, I\'ll show you that. Yeah. 00:39:00 It was the presence of that water that helped that fig tree to survive getting burnt, half its roots. And it\'s the presence of Christ, our living water, through His Spirit and our union with Him, that will help us navigate through any storm in our life. Recently, we were traveling, and we went along one of our California hills, and we saw a wildfire that had just started, literally. And just before us was a fire truck, and it said, \"The fire is jumping. 00:39:35 It\'s going to jump across the freeway, turn around, and go.\" And as we turned around, we saw that there was a helicopter that came up, and right next to this small hill was a lake. Hmm. And it went down and swooped the water, and went and doused the fire, and I heard within a couple of hours, they were able to get the fire under control. And then on our way back when we came, we saw that the ground was charred, but the trees survived because they were able to get the water. 00:40:08 And it\'s because those trees were remaining right next to the source of water, they were able to survive. And it\'s the same with your life and mine. It\'s the presence of the living water that enable us to overcome this. And lastly, it says when you delight in God\'s love and when you are being nourished by the living water, says it yields its fruit in its season. Fruit takes time. Trees don\'t strain to produce fruit. Healthy roots naturally produce healthy fruit. 00:40:44 And likewise, the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, cannot be manufactured. They grow through abiding in Christ. And you notice the progression, fruitful, alive, prospering, not necessarily wealthy, but God\'s purposes flourishing. And then comes the shocking contrast. It says, \"The wicked are like chaff.\" The imagery shifts. Here is the tree, and you know what a chaff is? Chaff is not a tree. 00:41:20 It\'s when wheat is harvested, it\'s beaten, and then the seeds are taken, and the fluff is the chaff. That\'s the imagery the psalmist switches metaphorically to talk about chaff. Chaff have no roots, no fruit, no permanence, no presence. They may fly high and look attractive, but they are [exhales] gone. Weightless emptiness. The wind decides where the chaff goes. 00:41:53 And without Christ, people spend life being blown by every trend, every new influencer, every opinion, every temptation, and every fear. But if you are in Christ, you will have fruit that lasts. And ask yourself, my dear friends, if your life ended tonight, what fruit would remain? Not accomplishments, not positions. What eternal fruit of your life would still speak? And lastly, the destiny of the blessed man, verse five and six. Psalm 1 says Our life spills into eternity. It doesn\'t end here. 00:42:36 The blessed and the wicked do not simply live differently, they arrive somewhere different. The wicked may flourish for a season, but they cannot stand before God. The righteous belong forever in God\'s congregation as his covenant children, because the Lord knows the way of the righteous. This doesn\'t merely mean God possesses information. It means he loves. He watches over us. He covenants himself to his people. Now, the question that all of us would have is: who can live such a blessed life? 00:43:09 Who can always walk so straight without deviating to the left and right? Who has actually lived Psalm 1 perfectly? Certainly not its author, if it was David. We know how bad his life was, how many detours he took before he could come back. There was only one man who lived this blessed life perfectly, and that was Jesus Christ. He never walked in sinful counsel, though he was with sinful people all the time. 00:43:41 He was surrounded by Pharisees and tax collectors and prostitutes, yet was never defiled by them. He delighted perfectly in his Father\'s will, even when it meant going to death on the cross. He meditated upon God\'s word day and night. He alone bore perfect fruit. Yet something astonishing happened. The blessed man took the judgment seat reserved for the wicked. 00:44:17 The righteous one stood where sinners deserve to stand, so that sinners like you and me can stand where only the righteous belong through faith in Him alone. So his righteousness becomes ours. His Spirit becomes our living water, and his fruit begins growing in us. Psalm 1 is not first telling us try harder. It is inviting us, come to this blessed man. Only union with Christ transforms barren trees into fruitful ones, as you meditate and delight in his word daily. 00:45:00 And that is why this same Jesus, the blessed man of Psalm 1, when he came into this world and when he started preaching his Sermon on the Mount, he begins with this very same word, blessed. You know the Septuagint is the Greek translation of Hebrew, and the Greek translated word for this blessed is the word makarios, which is the same word Jesus uses in his Beatitudes of talking about blessedness, where it talks of having the very essence or the nature or the character of God. 00:45:36 And that\'s the essence of blessedness. That\'s the essence of bliss, is becoming like Christ. And he gave us this pathway, this true Psalm. Blessed one says, how you can experience this blessed life is blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. But smack in the middle of the Beatitudes is this beautiful one line that captures the essence of this. 00:46:04 Says, \"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.\" When you experience that, you\'re not going to want another fancy car, another fancy toy, another fancy house, another better job. You will see God. Experience the bliss of God. So let me conclude by three applications for us, especially for those who are in school or children. Choose your friends carefully. You don\'t have to let yourself be influenced by others, but you be an influencer. 00:46:46 Psalm 1 begins with walking in someone\'s counsel. Your biggest influence in your life is the friends you choose. Who are you walking with? Who are you hanging out with in your breaks, in your evenings, in your weekends? Are your closest friends helping you love Jesus more or pulling you away from him or mocking Jesus? It\'s sad, I hear sometimes kids even literally mock Jesus. I hear this phrase, jawline Jesus. 00:47:17 Parents, if your children are using that, if you hear them using that, please stop and correct them. That\'s not funny, kids. The friends who make you laugh today may also shape the person you become tomorrow. Proverbs 13:20 says, \"Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise.\" Pray for one godly friend, and be that godly friend to someone else. For couples and parents, here is an application you can take with. Build your home around God\'s Word. Every home is built on a set of values. 00:47:56 Some homes, and most homes among Asians, are built around achievement, sports, academics, comfort, or financial success. And I might have shared before, I was counseling someone. They\'re not from our church. And this girl, who\'s a junior in high school, was sobbing. She came for career counseling, but somewhere in the way, as I was counseling her for a career, it pivoted, and she started crying, and I asked her why. 00:48:26 She said, \"Every time I get in my car, my dad,\" who she actually loves and respects a lot, \"the only thing he asks me is about my grades and where I\'m applying to for college. I can\'t take it anymore.\" She sobbed literally for five minutes. I just had to stop and hear her out. Is your home built around that or sports or success? Someone asked a different question: What voice governs your home? 00:48:59 When your children remember growing up, will they remember a home where God\'s word was opened, prayed, discussed, and actually lived out? Will your spouse know that Christ is the center of your marriage because of the way you speak, forgive, and make decisions together? How about this week? As a family, if you have not done anything or you\'ve been slipping on your devotions, just start reading a Psalm along with the devotions you might get from church. And start. There\'s always time to start. 00:49:36 And those who are not married, and for young adults or professionals, let me remind you and encourage you, let scripture shape your decisions more than success. Many of you spend hours and hours, 40, 50, 60 hours a week in environments which are very caustic and toxic in the Bay Area where success, ambition, and performance define your value and worth. Don\'t drink that Kool-Aid. 00:50:03 Every promotion or business decision or ethical dilemma and career opportunity comes with competing voices asking what will advance your career. Psalm 1 challenges you to ask a different question: What honors the Lord? The blessed person isn\'t the one who climbs the ladder the fastest, but the one who remains rooted in God\'s Word while climbing it. And for young adults, the same applies to your major life decisions. 00:50:30 Whom you choose to marry, what career you pursue, where you live, and what you prioritize. The world asks what will make you successful. Scripture asks what will make you faithful. So before making your next significant decision, here is your application question. Ask not what is best for my future, but what best reflects Christ and His kingdom. And as we conclude, I want to remind us every day we choose between two voices, two paths. The voice of the world or the voice of God. 00:51:06 Two paths, two trees, two destinies. One ends in fruit that lasts forever. The other becomes a shaft scattered by the wind. The invitation of Psalm 1 is not merely to become more disciplined in life, it is to come to Jesus Christ, the truly blessed man who walked the paths of Calvary, who sat on the judgment seat before Pilate, and who gave His life away so you and I can stand and experience God\'s presence every day in our life. 00:51:46 Drink deeply from His living water, delight in His word, and over time, by His Spirit, your life will become exactly what Psalm 1 promises: a tree whose roots run deep, whose leaves never wither, and whose fruit blesses generations long after you\'re gone.