The Two Paths

Transcript

It’s my distinct pleasure to introduce to you our guest preacher this morning. His name is Dr. Todd Miles, and he is a professor along with me at Western Seminary. He is a wonderful man of God. He is a great, great friend. He has been very kind to us as a church as well. Todd has stepped in at very, very difficult times for Trinity Church and has been very, very gracious with his gifts and very, very gracious with his wisdom and with his love towards us. But this morning, he has graciously come to preach to us, and by his kindness, he is going to be preaching to us from Psalm 1, which is the gateway to the Psalms and is the gateway to this wonderful topic that we’ve been working through, this gateway to wisdom. So if you would, please turn to page 418 in your pew Bibles.

If you need that, he’s going to be preaching from Psalm 1. We will read that text, and then we’ll invite Todd up here. Psalm 1, page 418 in your pew Bibles. 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, 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 that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked

will perish. Trinity Church, this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please welcome Todd.

All right, well, it is good to be with you this morning. Thank you for that. I do love emotional intimacy. Unfortunately, I did that nuclear engineering thing. I’m a little radioactive. Keep your distance, please. Little known fact about that, so, yeah, it’s just unfortunate, occupational hazard, I would say. Let me pray for us briefly again. Father, we ask now that you would open your word up to us, please, and open us up to your word that we might see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, please, Father, bless us to that end, in Jesus’ name, amen. Well, it is very good to be with you here. I was excited about coming this morning in happier times, in happier times. And I think maybe a little over a year ago, I confessed to you that I really don’t belong

The Allure of Choice

in Portland. I’m really not hipster at all. But there are some things about Portland that I like. I do like choices. I like choices. We all love choices, don’t we? And the more of them, the better, usually. Now, as I said, I feel like I don’t really belong in Portland. I have no beard, can’t grow one, no tattoos, no artwork, no piercings of any kind on me, don’t like bikes, don’t like coffee. But there is one thing that I do love about Portland. I love the food scene, especially food trucks or food carts or whatever you want to call them. I love them. And I rarely go to the same one twice. If you ask me, Todd, what’s your favorite food truck, all I can muster up is either the pod that I went to or the last one that I was at, if I paid attention to what it was

named. I mean, my goal, really, my goal is to sample from every food truck in any pod that I encounter. So I never go to the same one twice. I mean, what could be better than walking into a food court pod for the first time and seeing all of the options? It is just magnificent, whether it’s Asylum or Cartopia, you know, near where I live, knowing that you have at least a dozen meals ahead of you before you have to duplicate and go back to the same one, right? And the process of choosing, for me, is just about as much fun as the actual meal itself, right? Do I feel like Middle Eastern or Thai, Mexican, Italian, whatever my desire, there is something to cater to my tastes. It’s magnificent, magnificent. So I like to have choices, love choices, and I’m not alone. In our world today, this postmodern world that we live in, it demands that we have choices,

and the more of them, the better. There have to be options, and in our world, there have to be more than two. I mean, a common refrain in our culture is we don’t live in a binary world, and you’ve probably heard that before, right? Things are never simply this or that. Binaries we’re told are oppressive and symptomatic of backward, dogmatic thinking. Not satisfied with your religion or philosophy? No problem. We have a philosophical pod for you, right? It offers a smorgasbord of options that you can sample, you can fashion to your individual tastes without fear of reprisal in the world. Do you feel a little Christian today or Buddhist, spiritual, maybe just pagan? Whatever you desire, there is something to cater to your tastes. Magnificent. Or is it? Now, we see the fruit of this way of life in many aspects of our culture, and having

choices is great as long as there are legitimate options before you. But many times, as we know, the options are binary. They just are because that’s the way the world is, whether it’s stop or go. Do you want to go up or down? Do you want a men’s restroom or a women’s restroom? Now, I know that Portland resists this notion, right? But remember Portland’s motto, keep Portland weird. Infallible in guiding you into strangeness, but maybe not in the path of wisdom. And often, often, the most critical decisions are, in fact, this or that. One way or the other. In the world of fiction, Neo was offered the red pill or the blue pill. Which is it going to be? This one or that one? The world of nonfiction, where we’re at, so it is with us often. The scriptures say much the same thing about the path of wisdom.

You see, in the world of the Bible, the Lord offers to us a choice. And though it might look like there are lots of options out in the world, when all of the window dressing of the world is removed, the choice is really binary. Do you want to follow the Lord on the narrow path of wisdom, or do you want to follow the world on the wide path to destruction? You see, the world will tell you we live in a gray world, but this isn’t necessarily the world that the scriptures present, not the world of reality. And the Psalms, Psalm 1 in particular, introduces us to a different kind of argument than you will hear out in the world. Psalm 1 is a wisdom psalm. Now there’s lots of different kinds of psalms. There’s psalms of thanksgiving, and psalms of confession, and psalms of praise.

There’s even war psalms and imprecatory psalms, but here there is a wisdom psalm, wisdom put to music, if you will. And it deals, this first one, in a very black and white world. It offers to us two paths, just two. It introduces us to the way in which we may find happiness, blessing, fulfillment in life. And we’re told in this psalm that the path is the one by meditation and delight in the law of God, and this psalm also warns us of sure, eventual, and eternal ruin if we do not. So the stakes are high. So I’d like for you to consider this. If you’re here this morning, you don’t understand yourself to be a Christian, I would ask you, as we work through this psalm, what path are you on? What path are you on? Are you on the road that leads to blessing, happiness, or are you on the road that leads

Two Paths

to judgment and destruction? I mean, those are two pretty contrasting options, right? Which path are you on? Consider that. If you understand yourself to be a Christian, the question is still appropriate for us. Is the path that you are on consistent with your confession in Christ? That is, does your commitment match your confession? Psalm 1, as I said, is a wisdom psalm. It highlights the importance of wisdom, the choices that we make, and what it takes to please the Lord. And what we’ll find in this psalm is that the psalmist presents us with two paths, just two paths, this or that. Which is it gonna be? And then he illustrates it with two examples, and then at the end, there are two verdicts. So two paths, two examples, two verdicts. Let’s look at the two paths first. I’m gonna be reading out of the CSB because they’re paying me, not this church, but they’re

paying me to read out of it. I’ll just be honest with you, that’s why. So here it is. But I think it’s interesting to contrast, to keep your finger in the page. And I just revealed an awful lot about myself there, didn’t I? It’s good, I think, as you’re reading the ESV, if that’s what you have in front of you, to think about maybe some of the different words that are used here. Sometimes that can be illuminating. And so verses one and two, how happy, how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the company of mockers. How happy is the one, or blessed is the one. The very first word of the psalm, blessed, happy, we’re confronted with the idea of the happy one, the blessed one. He is the fulfilled one, if you will.

And it could be translated this way, if you wanted to really paraphrase it, oh, the enviable situation of this person, right? Because when we’re thinking rightly, when we’re thinking in a godly manner, we might think in a godly, covetous sort of way, if you will, that person is exactly where I want to be. That’s what the psalmist is doing. He’s giving us the picture of this individual, where if we’re thinking rightly, we would say, I want to be like this person, this man, this woman. It is happiness and fulfillment that comes from a sense of being right with God, right with your neighbor, right with yourself. And that blessing, what we’ll find, it’s not the result of luck, right? It’s not like the person won the lottery, and oh man, they’re so lucky. No. It’s not like that. We’re going to be told that the happy ones, the blessed one, their fortune in life, where

they’re at, it does come from God. And because of that, there’s a permanence to it. It doesn’t come and go whimsically. It’s impervious to chance and to circumstance. So strangely, though, we’re not told what the blessed one has or what the happy one does, necessarily, or why he might be blessed. Instead, we’re told what the blessed one does not do. What does this happy person not do? And I think this is helpful because it starts out where we’re all at in this broken world full of broken people. It starts in the world of sin, our universal experience. And so we’re introduced to the two ways in terms of a path. What path are you going to walk? And blessed is the one who does not take this fork in the road. Blessed is the one who does not go down this path. And so it’s not abstract.

It’s not academic. There’s a fork in the road, so to speak, in the imagery of the psalm. And we’re invited, which path are you going to take? Are you going to take the red path or the blue path? Which one? I’m not talking Democrat, Republican here. Which path are you going to take? And we’re confronted with the reality that godliness and blessing have a contrast. And we get the bad news first. But that’s okay, I think, because the light burns brighter against the backdrop of sheer darkness. And so we’re going to be given the path of sheer darkness first. Blessed is the one, happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers. Well, what is this path? It is the walk of life. And we’re shown a lifestyle to be avoided, not to be copied, not to be emulated.

And the sequence of verbs here in the imagery, walk, stand, sit, I think this is ingenious because it describes the life of someone who is immersed and focused on the association with all that is opposed to God. The sequence describes a path that not only leads away from blessing, but it’s a downhill path and it is difficult to get off of it. Once you get going, it is hard to stop. And as we look at the path, I invite you, consider your own life and experience. Does what I’m about to describe ring true to you? We’re told that the blessed one, the happy one, he doesn’t walk in the advice of the wicked. The wicked are the evil. They are the ones who have been judged guilty in a court of law, or at least they would be if they were ever brought to trial.

On this path, you see them at first, you observe them, maybe you emulate them, you give some of your allegiance to them, you transfer your loyalties to them, you obey them. You’re walking alongside them. But the next step on this downhill, slippery path is standing in the pathway of sinners. These are moral failures, those whose lives are characterized by fallibility, the inability, the lack of desire to do anything but sin. So at this point, you’re not simply on the path. You’re not there by accident or happenstance, well, I just wandered onto this path. What am I doing here? No, you’re standing firmly in it now. You have owned this path as the way of your life. And what was once a single action that you just tried has slowly but surely become a way of life. You don’t merely do the actions of sin, but now you start to defend them.

Of course, worse than this is sitting now in the company of the mockers. And here we get this ancient Near East imagery of the wise one who sits at the gate acting as judge. But the mockers are people who would laugh at these wise leaders. They mock their way of life. They mock the wisdom that comes from them. These are people who know what they think and they don’t want anyone to tell them otherwise. They’re haughty, they’re proud. They express active disdain for right living before God. They seek to belittle, to undermine, to make fun of those who want to do the right thing for the right reasons. They not only do what is wrong, they glory in it, they glory in it. So there’s no pretense to them. They derive their sense of worth from the ungodly choices that they make. There’s no hypocrisy here, not at all.

They give approval to those who make the same kinds of fateful decisions. And the blessed one is the one who does not do this, does not walk this path, does not stand, does not sit in the company of the mockers. What might this look like actually in life? Let me illustrate it. Maybe some of you remember your lives before Christ. So what I’m about to describe may resonate with your own experience. Imagine a young man working his way into adulthood, maybe he’s grown up in the church. He’s been told about sexual purity, right? He knows the right way to go. His conscience is telling him, his conscience is telling him that impurity is wrong, and yet he yields to the desires of his flesh. Perhaps the peer pressure of those around him, maybe because he wants to be accepted. Before too long though, what was once a difficult decision has now become second nature.

He no longer feels the pangs of guilt. Instead, he begins to justify his actions, begins to defend his lifestyle as not being wrong, that sexual ethic that the Bible prescribes is so yesterday, it’s so backward. We live in a new age, in a new time. And finally, when his conscience is utterly cold, he not only has abandoned himself to the lifestyle, but he openly mocks those who think otherwise. It’s the killing of the conscience, the abandonment of the right, the death of a soul. Right off the bat here, we should be thinking, boy, I got to watch my associations. I have to watch my associations. Remember your mom and dad always used to tell you that. Pick your friends wisely, right? Pick your friends wisely. Still good advice. Turns out they were right. Turns out they were right. The lesson learned here is crucial. Guard your heart by watching your associations.

And if you’re not a follower of Jesus, do you recognize the wisdom of this in your own life? Do you hear your conscience anymore? Do you mock those righteous ones because they don’t join you in what you used to, and the Bible certainly calls wrong or evil or that so outdated word, sin. If you do, I urge you, reconsider your path, listen again to your conscience. Christian, do you recognize from this wisdom psalm the importance of those with whom you choose to associate? Your associations will affect you. They will mold you. They will shape your worldview for good or for bad. This sounds a lot like what we find in Deuteronomy chapter six verses four through seven, the great Shema that Moses instructed the children of Israel to recite so they would remember, so that they would not lose their way. Listen Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. These words that I’m giving you today are to be in your heart. So repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Now the similarities here are not exact, but they do illustrate this totality of experience in which you are immersed, you’re focused, you’re committed to a culture of association and a fellowship with people that will dominate and shape your worldview. And here Moses instructs the Israelites, be talking one with another about the law of God. And if you went to the flip side, which is what we find in Psalm one, be careful of those who will, in a worldly fellowship, drag you down. In contrast, we find verse two, instead his, that is the blessed one, the happy one, his

delight is in the Lord’s instruction or the law of the Lord and he meditates on it day and night. Now we might expect since the wicked one is described in terms of his associations, the company that this one keeps, that the godly one, the blessed one, the happy one will now be described in terms of his associations too, like I just encouraged you to do. But that’s not the case, interestingly enough. The path to blessing here lies in delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on it day and night. So you might ask, how do you delight in the law of God? And maybe what comes to mind, because it’s the law of God, well, maybe that’s like, I need to delight in the 10 commandments, right? I need to just memorize the 10 commandments and then conjure up some joy from a bunch

of moral commands. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. That’s so good, right? And maybe if you’re like sane, you’re thinking, that sounds like I’m supposed to delight in the Oregon driver’s manual or something like that, right? That just sounds super boring. Why would I do that? How can I delight in speed limits or tax laws? Isn’t that the same thing? Well, yeah, no, no, no, it’s not, I’m kidding. The word law here or Torah in the Hebrew is properly translated as instruction, the instruction of God. Now, that could formally refer to the first five books of the Old Testament, the Torah, right? So it does include the 10 commandments, but also the entire Mosaic law, the Mosaic covenant, the story of how God graciously called and rescued and sustained his people. So the instruction of the Lord contains not just commands, but much, much more.

Even if we were to limit instruction of God, the law of God, to the formal Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy, we would find the following. Yes, there are prohibitions and prescriptions from God. We find the moral mandates that the Lord gave to Israel, many of which are still in effect, but that’s not all, right? We also find the revelation of the person of God. God reaches down, stoops down, and reveals who he is to his people. We find his own disclosure of his character in passages like Exodus 34, verses 6 and 7. Remember when Moses very humbly asked God, show me your glory, probably not even knowing what he was asking for. And so God does. But what does he do to show Moses his glory? Well, first, he kind of protects Moses, and then he walks by reciting his character, his character to Moses. The Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord is a compassionate and

gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, but he will not leave the guilty unpunished. Forgiving the father’s iniquity on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. There’s all sorts of passages through the instruction or law of God that describe who God is. We also find the plan of God. Here we find the story of God played out, his creation of the cosmos, the creation of humans as Imago Dei, ambassadors delegated with responsibility by God, and then the rebellion of those ambassadors, God’s calling of a people, then a nation, how he rescued his people from slavery in Egypt and then led them to the promised land. We also find the promises of God. Here in the Torah or instruction of the Lord, we find the promises of the Lord to protect

and to keep his people, to send a prophet to speak to them, a king to deliver them, and how he will one day circumcise their hearts so that they are truly his people with no divided loyalties whatsoever. In short, we get everything in the Bible in the Torah. Maybe not in detail, but at least in anticipation. The instruction of the Lord that we find developed through the entire Bible itself. So again, we might ask, all right, okay, so this is what the instruction is. How do I delight in that? What am I supposed to do? Well, a clue is given in the next phrase here. Meditate on God’s law. The happy one makes study of God’s instruction a habit. More than just study though, he’s to meditate on it day and night. Now, I don’t know what comes to your mind when you think about what meditation is, perhaps

like an Eastern mysticism that has much to do with emptying your mind and concentrating on the void, you know, focus on the sound of one hand clapping or something like that. But that’s not biblical meditation. That’s not biblical meditation. To meditate on the word of God is to read it and to meditate or to memorize it perhaps, to fill your mind with it. Far from emptying your mind, meditation on the word of God is to fill your mind with the word of God. It’s to work it over in your mind. I had a friend at our church who taught at Multnomah for like 50, forever, for a long time, David Needham. And I remember him talking about what biblical meditation was. And he compared it to eating a lemon drop and how you just work that lemon drop over and over in your mouth, right, you’re just moving it around with your tongue, trying

to get every ounce of flavor that you can out of that lemon drop. And he said, that’s what biblical meditation is. You are, so the Hebrew word is chaga, chaga. And it literally means to mutter over, to mutter over. Have you ever been studying for a test and you’re reading something and you just don’t quite understand it and so you read it out loud to yourself so you get like another input? That’s what biblical meditation is. It’s like you’re literally talking over it with yourself. Now be careful, people think, well, maybe not in Portland, you can talk to yourself all the time. No one will think of, no, I keep forgetting where I’m at here, right? Yeah, so go ahead, go for it, go for it. Talk out loud, repeat to yourself the words of God, earnest reflection, reflecting on the biblical text, the promises, the affirmations, the laws, the wisdom of God.

Earnest reflection on your life in light of that, your decisions, the state of your soul in light of the word of God. This kind of meditation drives our roots deep into the life-giving and preserving waters of God’s word. And we’re told do it day and night, literally all the time. Now, that’s hyperbolic, of course, right? But your life is to be characterized by this. It’s not just an every now and then sort of thing, but you’re characterized by reflection and meditation and discussion of the word of God. And here’s the thing. As you meditate on the instruction of God, you discover something, that it’s good, that it’s good. Now, this is not like brainwashing yourself. I’m not asking you to do that. The reason is you’ll find that the law and instruction of God is good because you come to discover that God himself is good.

In Psalm 19, verse 7 through 11, we’re told this,

the instruction of the Lord is perfect. It renews your life. The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad. The command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. In addition, your servant is warned by them. And in keeping them, there is an abundant reward

— Psalm 19

(ESV)

. As we reflect and meditate on the word of God, we become convinced that it is good because God himself is good. And so let me ask you, what path are you on? Christian, are your commitments consistent with your confession?

Is your life characterized by reflection on God’s word? Are you Bible-saturated? When trouble comes, does the scripture, the spirit of God, have any word of God to work with in your conscience? Are your associations leading you down the wrong path? Or do your associations encourage you on the path of ultimate blessing, speaking the word of God to you when you need to hear it? What kind of accountability do you have? Do you know the Bible? Do you know its prohibitions, its prescriptions, the person of God, the plan of God, the promises of God? Do you delight yourself in the instruction of God? And here we’re told what it looks like. Do you love the things that God loves? Do you hate the things that God hates? Those who walk in the counsel of the wicked, stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the

Two Examples

seat of scoffers, they do not. Two paths, and then two examples. First, verse three, blessing. He, the happy one, the blessed one, is like a tree planted beside flowing streams that bears its fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither, whatever he does prospers. So there’s two paths. They’re further described by illustrations, that the happy one who delights in the instruction of God draws his nourishment from it continually, just like a tree that’s planted, placed in an exact spot. It has unlimited water to drink, its leaves don’t wither, regardless of the elements. The happy one has deep roots, able to drink deeply from the stream of life that flows from God’s instruction. Well-watered, well-nourished tree, it’s fruitful. And so is the happy one of God, the blessed one of God. Jesus told us we’d recognize a tree by its fruits, and so it’s always been, hasn’t it?

The blessed one, the happy one, will exhibit these things that the Bible compares to fruit, a change to life, the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the things that grow organically from the blessing of God. That’s another Portland thing, isn’t it? Organic. And here, it’s truly organic. Well, I won’t go down that rabbit trail. We’ll just stop there. The image speaks to permanence, though, and prosperity, doesn’t it? Jeremiah 17, verses 7 and 8, the person who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed. He will be like a tree planted by water. It sends its roots out toward a stream. It doesn’t fear when heat comes. Its foliage remains green. It will not worry in a year of drought or cease producing fruit. Here, it’s like Jeremiah is meditating on Psalm 1 and just reflecting it, adding to

the imagery, probably from his own life experience. And this is Jeremiah. I mean, his life was miserable, miserable. Whatever he does prospers, we’re told. Well, what’s prosperity? Not really what the world thinks, apparently. Not even what certain television preachers teach when they promise your best life now. God doesn’t promise that you will have your fleshly desires satisfied, your bank account always full, that you’ll never go hungry, you will not grow fatally ill, or never be treated unjustly. God never promised any of those things ever. There is no promise in the scriptures of heaven on earth right now, not right now. But in the meantime, though, Jeremiah 9 describes prosperity in terms of knowing God. Jesus described it in terms of knowing him. The Apostle Paul described it as knowing Christ. Remember Paul in the letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, I want to know Christ and the fellowship

of sharing in his sufferings. What? What? Geesh. The Bible does not describe the Christian life as one free from pain or suffering. It actually comes closer to promising the opposite, actually. Jesus said the key to following him was to lose your life for his sake, to take up your cross, the instrument of execution, to follow him. Now, that’s not exactly how the world would describe blessedness or happiness or prosperity. The world’s description, though, is a bill of goods. It’s a siren’s call to entice you into the way of the wicked rather than the path of life. Prosperity is about being reconciled to God and finding your place in God’s kingdom with God’s people. So again, let me ask you, what path are you on? Do you know what prosperity is? And if you don’t know what true prosperity is, then you will go down the wrong path.

Do you trust that God knows better what prosperity is than either you or your friends? Look at verse 4. This is the example of the path without blessing. The wicked are not like this. Instead, they’re like chaff that the wind blows away. Here, the second illustration, keeping with agriculture. The wicked are compared to chaff. In the ancient Near East, grain was harvested, was placed on a threshing floor where the grain or barley was crushed either by animals or threshing instruments, and workers would then pinch the remaining product up into the air on a windy day. If any of you have, like, allergies at all, you’re probably thinking, this sounds like hell, right? Just nightmare, right? The heavier grain, the fruit of the harvest, if you will, would fall back down onto the threshing floor where the chaff, though, would be blown away, blown into your neighbor’s yard, I suppose, scattered to the winds or gathered and then burned.

And the point here is obvious. Whereas the righteous were like a stable tree that was fruitful, the wicked don’t bear fruit of any lasting or real worth. Their future is unstable. It’s fleeting. All that is certain for them is judgment. Consider the contrast again. A fruitful tree and useless chaff, well-watered stability, dry, dusty, wind-blown impermanence. Two paths, two examples, and then two verdicts. Look at verses 5 and 6. To close out the contrast in the two paths, there’s a comparison of ultimate verdicts here. First, for the path of no blessing. The path of the wicked ultimately leads to condemnation at the final judgment. And at that time, the foolish, the sinners, they won’t stand before God. They won’t be able to rise. They will hold no weight, no place in the assembly of the righteous. They won’t be able to stand. They won’t last. They won’t endure.

And here we have a picture of the vindicated righteous of God gathered together, but the wicked will not be able to enter. They will perish. For the blessed one, on the other hand, the verdict ushers in permanent peace. We’re told the Lord knows their way, watches over the way of the righteous. He knows. Now, what does this mean? God’s not just cognitively aware of the righteous. He’s committed to them, we’re told, and their eternal destiny. It is the end result of experience and of relationship. It speaks to care for and commitment to. And so these two paths, they result in two very different destinies that might not have been obvious at the fork in the road when the path was entered. I mean, no one wants to walk down the path of destruction. No one wants to do that, I wouldn’t think. But sin is clever and it’s evil.

Two Verdicts

It never presents itself as it actually is. It always is deceptive in appearance. It always comes in disguise, never wanting the tempted to know what it truly is, where it’s truly going. Promise is big, but it cannot deliver what is good. One of the Puritans said, sin promises like a god, but pays like the devil. Proverbs 14.12 says it this way. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death. So let me ask you again, what path are you on? If it is apparent to you that you are on the path to destruction, it is a downhill slide. You need to know that there is hope. Judgment is not inevitable. You need not face the judgment of God. Whenever I read Psalm 1, I think of Jesus. Jesus is the Psalm 1 man, isn’t he? Some people have life verses and maybe Jesus had a life Psalm, but if he did, it had to

have been this one. He is the savior of sinners. Jesus has faced temptation. He has endured the wrath of God for you and then has risen again to save you. Jesus Christ lived the perfect life of the righteous. He never strayed even once into the path of the wicked, but he was unjustly condemned to die by sinful men and all of this we’re told by the good plan of God that Jesus might taste condemnation, judgment for you in your place, but Jesus rose from the dead so that all those who bow their knee to him in contrition might be saved. The gospel message is very simple. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That is the gospel, the gospel you hear preached Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.

By repenting of your sin and trusting that Jesus’ death is sufficient for you, you can be saved. But there’s even more to this good news than that as we think about Psalm 1. Jesus did not merely die to save you from the wrath of God. He died and rose again to save you for something, to blessing of God. Why is this? Again, because Jesus is the Psalm 1 man par excellence. Christian, you need to recognize and delight in this fact. You are followers of Jesus by definition if you’re a Christian. Well, follow his example by heeding the wisdom of Psalm 1. Jesus, as I said, he never strayed into the path of the wicked. He walked the path of the righteous and he is able to lead you in it as well. Jesus said no to the world’s and to Satan’s bogus offer of prosperity because he knew

what it is to live a life fully given to God, knowing God, being fully at peace with God. He knows what it is to be God’s son and he invites you into adoption into God’s family. Jesus meditated on the instruction of the Lord. We know this because Jesus was quoting scripture all the time in temptation, keeping him on the path, always believing the promise and plan of God. Jesus delighted in the things of God. He was zealous for the Lord. He loves the things that God loves. Jesus hates the things that God the Father hates. Long before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah preached this message, predicting what the Messiah would be like. How will we recognize him when he comes? Isaiah 11, the spirit of the Lord will rest on him, a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

The Narrow Gate

His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. Well, hopefully, in this work through wisdom, you’ve heard something about fear of the Lord. The Messiah, the Christ, delights in the fear of the Lord. What’s the fear of the Lord? We’re told it’s the beginning of wisdom. Jesus is that wise guide. He’s the wisest person that you will ever encounter. I mean, you remember the words of the Sicilian, right? You’ve heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons, right? When you think of Jesus, do you think of him as the wisest, most intelligent person that has ever lived? Well, if you haven’t thought of him that way, you should start thinking of him that way, right? He is wisdom. Jesus himself is the wisdom of God. He will not do you wrong, and he will not lead you wrong. Now, our postmodern world may not appreciate that, but there are some black and white choices

that need to be made. In many instances, not in all, but in many, our world is absolutely binary. The things of ultimate importance often are an either-or sort of proposition, and that is very much the case when it comes to the path of life or the path to destruction. And you notice here in this psalm, there’s not like three, four, five paths. There’s two paths. There’s just two, following Christ or the path to destruction, the path to worldly happiness. There are only two options, path to destruction, path to happiness and blessing. And here’s the thing. If you immerse yourself in the world, it’s difficult to recognize which path is which. And oftentimes, the path to destruction, it has many entryways. So it looks like there’s lots of different options. It looks like there’s many different paths out there, but they all go one place. The path to happiness does not appear to bring joy or blessing.

It looks like a path to sacrifice, maybe social ostracism, narrow-mindedness maybe. The path to destruction looks like a road to joy, to wokeness, to popularity, to financial success, to other benefits. And our postmodern world will overwhelm your sensibilities with the message that tolerance is the prevailing virtue of the day. You are to hold your moral convictions by preference. And in this world of personal sovereignty, there’s nothing that transcends the self. It’s a world lived in shades of gray. There are no forks in the road with only two options. We live in a world with many paths. And if you don’t see a trail to your liking, then make your own. But through all of this fog, Jesus stands as the light of the world, revealing a crossroads and a warning. Do not take the path of the wicked. Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction.

And there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life. And Jesus says, few find it. But it can be found. It can be found. Because God wants you to find it. Jesus beckons. His promise is to take you off the path that leads to condemnation. And here’s the thing. You can’t take yourself off of it. It requires divine intervention. Reflect again on the imagery of Psalm 1. You’ll find it resonates, I think, with your own experiences, hopefully past, maybe present. Walk. Stand. Sit. Counsel. Weigh. Seat. Wicked. Sinners. Mockers. It’s hard to avoid the idea that the way of the wicked is downhill and sinners go from bad to worse. It’s a slippery slope to destruction. And notice also, no one’s dragging you there. You’re just on it and you’re just going with the flow.

Look at the last verse of the Psalm again and notice the asymmetry of God’s actions. He watches over the way of the righteous. Very active. But the way of the wicked leads to ruin. Asymmetrical. God intervenes to save you or you go your own way down that path. And it is hard to get off. Two words that you will never, ever find together in the Bible, sin management. Sin management. You can’t manage your own sin. You can’t tame it. You can’t master it. You cannot require it to work for you. Might make you think that you’re in control, but it only does that so it can sink its teeth into you deeper. It’s deceptive, but it’s tireless and it’s evil. Sin and foolishness will cost you everything that you have unless someone intervenes. The inevitable result of walking that path is destruction and the only one who can intervene

is Jesus. Christians, don’t dally on the wrong path. You have no more ability to manage your own sin and foolishness than the unbeliever. Your commitments must match your confession. Delight in the Lord’s instruction. Immerse yourself in the word of God and in his life giving commands. Preach the gospel of the glory of Christ to yourself over and over again. And the promise of Christ is a happiness that endures eternally. Blessing that cannot be shaken regardless of how vile this broken world assails. And life, life with God both now and forever. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let me pray for us. Father, we ask now that you would give us wisdom. And we understand that when we ask for such a thing, we’re asking for Christ. Lord Jesus, would you as the light of this world illumine a path for us into wisdom. That we might not only walk this narrow path, but that we might announce it and proclaim

it and call others to you as we do so. Give us strength to endure. Give us eyes to see. Give us wisdom to know. Give us Christ. We pray this in his name for his sake and for ours. Amen.