Happiness and Success

Psalm 1: Happiness and Success

Before we look at Psalm 1, I would like to give 2 points of introduction on the Psalms.

1. Psalms in the context of the OT
Psalm 1 begins the book of Psalms. Well, that is obvious. You didn’t need to call a pastor to tell you that. This book is a collection of 150 Psalms of different types. It is not a haphazard collection, like that corner of your basement that you will sort out…one of these days.

Sometime after the Israelites returned from the Exile, the book of Psalms was set in its present form. It drew from very ancient psalms and new ones as well. It was arranged into 5 collections or books. And these 5 books are not random. There is a reason to their order. Psalms 1 and 2 are the introduction psalms to the book. Psalm 1 contrasts the righteous and the wicked, and demonstrates that true happiness is found in delighting in God’s Word.

I want to step back and take an even larger view of the Old Testament. The Jews divided their Scriptures into 3 major sections: the Law (or Torah, which is the Hebrew word for law). The Law contains for the first 5 books that Moses wrote. The second section is the Prophets, which contains most of the major and minor prophets, as well as the earlier historical books. The third section is called the Writings, which contains the poetic books like Psalms and Proverbs, and some of the later historical books. This is the division of the OT that Jesus would have used.

These 3 sections are in rough chronological order. Moses wrote the law, then later other people wrote the books in the Prophets, which begins with Joshua. Then later, the Writings section was collected, and Psalms was placed as the first book in that collection. Joshua 1 and Psalm 1 both connect their respective sections of the OT, with the first section: the Law. Hold your place here and turn back to Joshua 1, verse 8:

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

Sounds a lot like verse 2 of Psalm 1. By doing this, the authors are pointing to the Law, but also saying- these books too are God’s instruction in our lives.

All that to say, Psalm 1 connects the book and the Writings section with the rest of the Old Testament. It also sets up two major themes that will reoccur in the book: 1. Meditating and delighting in God’s Word, and 2. The contrast of the righteous and the wicked.

Now, that we took that high altitude view, let’s land the plane and read Psalm 1.

2. Hebrew Poetry
The second point of introduction is about Hebrew poetry. The book of Psalms is a book of poems in Hebrew. How do we recognize poetry in English? Often it rhymes. Often it has meter…a certain number of syllables per line. When I was sorting through some things after the move, I discovered some of my poetry from high school. It is awful.

Hebrew poetry is recognized by parallelism. If you have read through the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, or some of the prophets, you will notice that they like to repeat themselves. What they say in one line, they give a variation of in the second line. Sometimes there is a contrast between the first line and the second line. And that is Hebrew poetry. The fancy word for that is parallelism. The reason is not that they ran out of things to say, but they wanted to further the meaning of the first line. The meaning is found with the two (or three) lines together.

Look at verse 5 of Psalm 1. The thought of the two lines is that sinners will not survive judgment and so will not enjoy the company of the righteous. In verse 6, look at the contrast: the righteous have the Lord and the ungodly do not. If you look at verse 1, we see the progression given by the three lines: walking, standing, sitting.

Don’t worry, Sunday evenings are not going to turn into Hebrew poetry classes. Understanding a little bit about how Hebrew poetry works will help us together to learn more about God from the Psalms.

Psalm 1, then.

1. The Way of the Righteous (1-3)
2. The Way of the Wicked (4-5)
3. The Way of the Lord (6)

1. The Way of the Righteous (1-3)
A. Negative
First, the righteous person finds blessing or happiness by turning away from wickedness. Happy is another way to translate this word blessed. This is not first a feeling, but first it is a gift from God to his children. It is experienced as happiness. We would probably want to call it joy, because it is rooted in God and not in this world.

I have never met anyone who did not want to be happy and successful. If your goal in life is to be unhappy and unsuccessful in life, please see me after the service. We need to talk. People may be happy being unhappy. They may find success in being an abysmal failure. But we were wired by our Creator to pursue joy and find meaning in being successful. Enter sin. Sin has twisted our desires so we look for happiness in all the wrong places. We find success in tearing down what God has built.

Psalm 1 calls us to root our happiness in God. To find our success in obeying his Word. That is the way of the righteous person. The wicked person rejects God and His Word. That way leads to destruction.

You can see the progression of what the godly person avoids: walking, standing, sitting. This shows that the righteous person rejects the complete range of evil and wickedness. Whether that be wicked acts, thoughts, or wicked company. We would call this holiness. Rejecting sin and pursuing Christ is holiness. This is the negative aspect of holiness- what we reject. And blessing is promised for holiness.

The Scottish preacher, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, noted this about holiness: “Believe me, God himself could not make you happy except you be holy.” This is how God has designed it: you will not be happy any other way.

Some people come to church to get their time in. They do the Christianity thing because it is familiar or provides some benefit for them. Then they look elsewhere for their happiness. Do not be deceived. Unless you are saying no to sin and following Christ, happiness will allude you.

B. The positive aspect of holiness is shown in verse 2. The righteous person delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it. If I told you that I delight in keeping traffic laws, you might find that a bit weird. “I just LOVE obeying the speed limit!” “It warms my heart to see that stop sign there.”

God’s law is not just the commands he has given us, like thou shall not steal or commit adultery. God’s law is his instruction about who he is and how we should live before him. We delight in his law because it is good. It is good because it is from God. It is good for us to live in submission to this law. We were made for this. Delighting it the law of the Lord is a way of life shaped by the Word.

Delighting in God’s law is not just learning it…it is also obeying it. How do you know a person really loves the Word? They obey it.

The righteous person also meditates on this law day and night: all the time. Delight and meditation are not separate. We think about what we are most excited about. Like someone who just started dating- always thinking about their boyfriend or girlfriend. They do that because they really like them. Or think of that dreamy look your coworker has a few days before they take off for a tropical cruise in the middle of this winter. They are thinking about sun…warm temperatures…sandy beaches.

The righteous person does not merely acknowledge God’s Word, but he is soaked to the bone with its truth. That is what meditation does. Do you delight in God’s Word? Obedience is one way you show it. It is also shown by how much you think about God’s Word.

C. The result of holiness: rejecting sin and delighting in the Word is found in verse 3. The picture is of a vibrant tree. It is planted alongside irrigation ditches, so it always receives the nourishment, bears fruit, never wilting. Whatever the righteous person does, prospers.

Following the way of God set forth in verses 1 and 2, results in happiness and success: whatever he does prospers. I can’t say I really feel like everything I do prospers. Just try to make a decent egg over easy. Some days can go terribly wrong: your alarm doesn’t go off. Then you stub your toe bolting out of bed. You burn your toast and forget your coffee, then hit every red light on the way to work. We have even more significant plans than these evaporate before our eyes.

Who does we understand this text? How does it work? Perhaps we aren’t righteous or godly enough?

Whatever you do will prosper if you are delighting in the law of the Lord. Delighting in God’s Word gives us new desires. It gives us a new definition of what it means to succeed. You may know this verse from Psalm 37:4: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” When your heart’s desire is for God’s will to be done, you will always prosper. If we are following Christ and feel unsuccessful, we need to be recalibrated by God’s Word. Success needs to be redefined for us, so that when we delight in God ways and obey him, we know that we are truly prospering.

People who pursue happiness and success in themselves will be empty. Those who seek the Lord in His Word will find both happiness and success. Happiness is rooted in God. Success is defined by the Word.

2. The Way of the Wicked (4-5)
In stark contrast to the way of the righteous is the way of the wicked. They are not a vibrant tree but chaff. Waste from grain that is thrown into the wind. Fleeting. Temporary. No value.

Verse 5, puts this contrast into eternal perspective. In the final judgment, the wicked will not survive. God will vindicate the righteous and reward them. The wicked will be punished and cast away. That all depends on what?

3. The way of the Lord (6)
The righteous are saved because they are known by the Lord. This is more than God knowing who we are and what we are doing. God knowing us is describing a personal relationship that the Lord has with his children. The righteous are safe, not because of their good works, but because they are intimately connected with God. The wicked are not know by the Lord in this way: they will perish.

Psalm 1 brings a much-needed eternal perspective to our lives. Flirting with sin looks appealing from this world’s perspective. But when we look further down the road, we see the absolute ruin of the wicked. Eternal tragedy will befall those who ignore the Lord and do not delight in his ways.
We need to be reminded that delighting in the Lord and soaking up his Word is completely rewarding in this life and in the life to come. The world around us scream the opposite. We as sinners need this reorientation constantly. As we soak in God’s Word and follow Jesus Christ, hell burns hotter in our minds, and heaven shines brighter.

I would like to close with two calls: the first to individuals, the second to us as a church.

1. Repent of not delighting in the Lord
Perhaps you are dull to the things of the Lord. The Bible is boring. Sundays are just an empty formality. I’ve been there. God calls us to repent of our misplaced delight and to find our delight in him. How? Prayerful mediation on the Word. Meditation on the Word fuels delight in the Lord. Delight in the Lord fuels meditation on the Word. It’s a daily battle. But it is eternally rewarding.

2. Delight in God’s Word as a Church
We want to see our church prosper. For that to happen, we as a church must delight in God’s Word. Not just a desire to learn the Word, but an equally strong desire to obey it. God’s Word gives life to the church. It defines for us what it means to prosper.

The Christian as well as the church must be firmly planted along the life-giving waters of the Word if they are to prosper and bear fruit for the glory of God. Meditate-delight-obey.