The Blessed Man

Psalm 1

I’ve always been impressed by master builders. Not being a particularly good builder myself, I am amazed and,

yes even inspired, by those who are masters of their respective trade. It’s a good thing I don’t have regular

access to cable TV as I know I would be addicted to DIY shows and endless reruns of Norm Abrams and his

New Yankee Workshop.

Mastery of a trade, a craft, a talent, some academic pursuit, or some other subject or profession requires high

commitment, long hours, focused attention, and the strong desire to give the very best of ourselves, perhaps

even the best years of our lives, to mastering it.

When looking to master something in our lives, we are wise to submit ourselves to the influence of a master, to

allow ourselves to germinate and grow under their watchful and sustaining care, and follow in the path they set.

But how do we know which master to trust, how do we know when we are following a master builder, and not

some imitation or inferior teacher? The Bible spends a fair amount of time concerned with encouraging and

laying out the reasoning for why God should be followed as a master teacher.

This morning we are going to take a look at God’s master course in the blessed life as it is found in Psalm 1.

The Psalmist will show us what God’s master course of the blessed life entails by comparing and contrasting it

with the master course of wickedness that is also available for us to choose. Now please don’t miss this. Living

the blessed life from a biblical perspective does no happen by chance. It is chosen and acted upon.And there is

an alternative which brings its own consequences, and from the biblical perspective, its own curse. The choice

is always before us.

So with this in mind, if you have not done so already, I invite you to please turn with me in your Bible’s to

Psalm 1, which can be found on page ........... of the sanctuary bible.

As we begin we need to define what it means to be blessed. To be sure I could preach a few sermons just on this

topic alone. For our purposes this morning, I am broadly defining the blessed man as the person who

experiences happiness that flows from a sense of well-being and rightness. In other words, to be blessed

biblically is to experience and receive God’s acceptance of you.

We begin God’s master course in the blessed life by Choosing the influence of the Master Mentor. By way of

contrast to the Master Mentor the Psalmist wants us to choose, we are given in verse 1 examples of the kind of

mentoring influence the blessed person is to reject. Verse 1 says, “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.”

Three kinds of negative mentors, detrimental influencers are mentioned. The first is the wicked. The wicked are

those who have been judged guilty in a court of law or would be if they were brought to trial. They are to be

avoided as mentors as they desire to lead those who are seeking God astray by their seemingly insignificant

disobedience of God’s standards. The Psalmist says to do not seek their counsel.

The second negative mentor to be avoided is called a sinner. These are people whose lives are dominated and

shaped by an inclination to sin. You’ve probably met them, whenever there is an opportunity to choose to obey

or disobey, they are naturally bent towards choosing sin for themselves, and desire to take as many of those

around them with them.

The third negative mentor to be avoided is the mocker. The Mocker does not wait for opportunities for sin to

arise, the mocker actively creates opportunities to sin and be disobedient to God. The mocker is someone who is

in open and active rebellion against God, and again, they are to be avoided at all costs.

The point the psalmist is driving at is that we need to realize that whatever shapes a person’s thinking shapes

their life. Who we give our minds over to, what we allow to shape and guide our thinking will ultimately shape

and guide our lives. For the person in God’s master course in the blessed life, who you get your instruction

from, who and what has influence over you, who you choose as mentor makes all the difference.

That is why the Psalmist tells us that there is a better way. Verse 2, “But his (the blessed man) delight is in the

law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

If it matters who we give our minds to and what we allow our minds to be influenced by then the blessed man,

as the Psalmist states, is the one who gives their mind over to the influence of the Word of God, the Bible. The

blessed person is the one who is immersed in the word of God, is the one who is wholly consumed with

knowing and understanding the revelation God has given of Himself in the Bible. If you think I am overstating

the matter, listen again to the words that Psalmist uses to describe the way of the blessed man.

The blessed man DELIGHTS, or takes great pleasure in the law of the Lord. He takes such great pleasure in the

law of the LORD, being under the Bible’s influence that the blessed man meditates on the Bible day and night.

The picture here of meditating is of someone who is muttering to themselves under their breath.

Have you ever had an important presentation to make for your job or in school, or something very important

you wanted to say to someone that you wanted to make sure you got just right, and so you mutter under your

breath what you want to say, you rehearse it over and over to make sure you’ve got it internalized. I do this with

names when I meet new people. I mutter their name a few times to make sure I’ve got it in my head, and then

when I see them next time I start to mutter again as I approach them.

This is the picture the Psalmist is trying to create. Being so engage and entrenched in being under the influence

of the Master Mentor that we not only will mutter to ourselves the things that we read in God’s word, but will

do so as often as humanly possible. The Psalmist says that this is done day and night. The point is not to be

reading the Bible 24/7, the point though is that for the blessed person, the person in God’s master course on the

blessed life, their main influence and constant preoccupation is the word of God.

And I hate to say it, actually I love to say, this is very easily done. There is no reason at all that any of you

cannot read at least one chapter of the Bible every day. On average it takes less time to read one chapter of the

Bible than it does to put on your shoes and socks. There really is no reason not to make this commitment, other

than we don’t really think that God’s word s all that important. And if that is your attitude, you need to seriously

consider who or what has the real influence over your life. Whatever shapes a person’s thinking shapes their

life. I strongly urge you to choose the influence of the Master Mentor and begin to delight in his Word.

The second choice we are given in God’s master course in the blessed life is to choose the tending of the

Master Gardner. Abundant, successful, and lasting fruit is what is produced by the blessed person under the

tender care of the Master Gardner. Verse 3 says, “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.”

The blessed person is not one who haphazardly wanders into good things in their lives. There is a process and a

careful system which enables abundant, successful, and long lasting growth to occur. The fruit the blessed

person produces is cultivated by the Master Gardener. The blessed man produces fruit each season and never

experiences drought, not because of the blessed man but because God as the Master Gardner has planted them

by streams of water, that is God the Master Gardner has given the blessed man what is needed to make him

grow.

With this kind of environment, the blessed man prospers. This does not mean that the blessed man prospers with

material wealth and gain as some would teach. Prosperity in the Bible typically deals with a lack of frustration

in the pursuits that one engages in.

This is again set against a negative example that the blessed person needs to avoid.

In rejecting the Master Mentor, the wicked have also rejected the Master Gardner, and thus are rendered in their

pursuits as utterly useless. Verse 4 says, “Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.”

When a farmer is seeking to separate out the useful part of the grain from the useless parts they take the grain

and toss it into the air. The useful parts are heavy and will fall back to the ground, but the useless parts, the parts

that have no weight to them, the parts that are not even bothered with collecting to be recycled into some other

use, are carried away by the wind. The Psalmist is saying to us that the wicked have not only rejected the

influence of the Master Mentor but the things that they do, the deeds that they have are ultimately utterly useless

and will not only bring them a lack of success but will lead them to ultimate ruin and destruction.

Verse 5 sadly states, “ Therefore the wicked (because the wicked in rejecting the Master Gardener are seen like

useless chaff) will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”

The rejected tending of the Master Gardener is seen in the withered and windblown lives of the people that

surround us every day. But again, God desires to give a different way, God is at the ready to till the depths of

our lives, to break up the hard ground of our hearts, and to plant us by streams of living water. Will we let him?

Will we subject choose to subject ourselves to the tending of the Master Gardener. How do we do this, how do

we give ourselves over to the Master Gardner, again it comes from placing deep roots into his word.

The final choice we are given in God’s master course in the blessed life is to Choose the leadership of the

Master Guide. Verse 6 says, “For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked

will perish.”

Again in contrast to the righteous, to the blessed man, the wicked are shown for their lack of clear course and

utter lostness. The way of the wicked is not only a pathway of sin and disobedience, it is a pathway that is

wholly and completely devoid of the presence of God. And to continue down this pathway will ultimately lead

to the wicked's eternal separation from God.

However, this does not need to be the pathway that is chosen. The Psalmist says that the Lord watches over the

way of the righteous, he is telling us that God knows the path the righteous are to walk well because he has not

only walked it himself, he has created the path. Therefore, God knows the twists and turns that will come. He

knows the areas of danger, how to spot them, and more importantly how to avoid them.

Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Jesus Christ himself. For those who would be disciples of Jesus,

would be followers of Jesus, he is the incarnation, the living embodiment of the Master Guide himself.

Therefore, the blessed man, the blessed woman, the blessed teen, the blessed child is one who ultimately

decides to follow the Master Guide, to follow Jesus.

Throughout the Bible, the consistent theme we are faced with is that of a fork in the road and a pathway to

choose. As we stand again at the fork in the road, for some of you here today the choice is a familiar one and an

opportunity to be reminded of the blessings found in the choice you have made, for others, you stand at this fork

in the road for the first time, and I as the Psalmist does, strongly urge you to consider choosing the life of the

blessed man and rejecting the life of the wicked man. Choose to come under the influence of the Master Mentor

by engaging in God’s word, choose to be tended to by the Master Gardner by being planted and rooted in the

source of life that God provides, and choose today to follow the Master Guide by becoming a disciple of Jesus

Christ.

Let’s pray