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White Horse Media

Steve Wohlberg

Psalm 1 for 2024

Heavenly Father, it is so good to be here back in the Newport Church to be with friends.

So many faces that we know and others that are new, but thank you that we have a chance to be here together.

And we just pray, please give us your Holy Spirit.

Help me to be a channel for the voice of God to everybody here and those who are watching and maybe those who will also watch the recording.

Please be with us now in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, Psalm 1, first Psalm in the book of Psalms.

We're just gonna go through this verse by verse and see what we find.

Right, now the word blessed is really the biblical way of saying happy.

And it's very clear as you read this psalm that that really can only happen if we put God first in our lives.

And people today are looking for happiness, aren't they?

There's an old song that says, looking for love in all the wrong places.

You know, people are trying to find happiness.

But people don't realize, most people don't realize that the only way that you're really going to find that in your heart and in your soul is if you have a relationship with God.

It really doesn't happen any way, any other way.

Now I don't believe this is just talking about men, so ladies don't feel bad, This is that this is overlooking you.

This is just the way the Bible describes it.

But I believe this is talking about a man, a woman, a child, you know, youth, young people.

This is God's invitation to us all to understand and learn how to be happy and how to be blessed.

Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful." This is really a progression here.

This is talking about a person who first he's walking, and then he's standing, and then he's settled in and he's sitting down, sitting down in the wrong seat, in the wrong place.

And it's talking about the counsel of the ungodly, that if we, God doesn't want us to listen or to follow the counsel of the ungodly, which the word ungodly basically means those who don't have God in their lives.

No, it says, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly.

Because if we walk in the counsel of the ungodly, eventually we'll start standing with them.

Or stands, It says, in the way of sinners, ungodly and sinners are parallel words, nor sits.

So first you walk, then you stand, and then you sit.

And it says they sit in the seat of the scornful.

And it seems to me the scornful are people that just, you know, they have no respect for the things of God.

They mock God, they mock Jesus, they mock religion, they mock truth.

And God says, basically, don't go along that path.

Don't start walking in that direction because if you start walking there, eventually you'll stand there.

And if you start standing there, eventually you're gonna sit down and you're gonna be very content to just mock the things of God.

And the Lord says, He doesn't want us to do that.

Now, I don't interpret this to mean that we should never take advice from anybody that's not a Christian.

I don't think this is what this is talking about.

I think it's talking about spiritual counsel, spiritual advice, because I mean, if a young person takes a swimming class from a swimming coach, that person may not be a Christian, but they can still give you good counsel on how to become a good swimmer.

If I have computer problems, I may take my computer to ex Babylon down the street.

And the person who gives me advice and counsel on what needs to happen in my computer doesn't have to be a believer in Jesus.

I can still take advice from that person or a mechanic if I don't know how to fix my car, or a financial advisor, a CPA, countless professions that are out there.

So this does not mean that you shouldn't ever listen and take advice from people that don't know the Lord.

I think it's specifically talking about your spiritual life, about guidance concerning what you should be doing in your life concerning God and the things of God.

And the Lord does not want us to be taking counsel from the wrong people.

Now, if you keep going, it describes what the man who is blessed does.

Instead of walking in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of the scorners, what does he do?

It says, but his or her delight is in the law of the Lord.

And in his law, does he meditate day and night.

And this is really describing a person that is doing something that most people don't do.

I mean, how many people, if you look at all the, what are there, 7 billion or getting close to 8 billion people on this planet?

How many of them really put God first in their lives and meditate day and night on the Scriptures, on the Bible.

I don't think there's a lot of people that are that are doing that.

Now this text says his delight is in the law of the Lord.

That means that the person actually enjoys thinking about God's law, which is a rare thing these days.

Now as I as I ponder this and think about this verse, it seems to me that naturally as humans that are born with fallen natures, we're naturally sinners in this world.

And there's not a lot of us that just naturally delight and enjoy the things of God.

You know, we just, if you talk about, you know, meditating on God's law, thinking about scripture, you know, meditating on this book, learning what God has for us, and then actually enjoying it.

You know, it's a picture of meal, a meal that you would eat, you know, some food you just, you don't really like it, but you eat it.

And other times you'll sit down at a meal and you'll go, yum, I can't wait to eat this food.

You know, that's your, you're delighting in that food.

Or if you really look forward to spending time with a certain person, you just, you just can't wait.

You know, if you have some, something that you just really enjoy doing, God's plan for us is that we would delight and enjoy His word, His law, And ultimately what's behind that?

And that doesn't happen naturally, because naturally we just don't have it in us.

I think naturally we just like other things.

But somewhere in the midst of this world and this life, God's plan is to open our eyes, to change our hearts, and to lead us to understand how precious this book really is, and how good he really is, and how valuable his law is, which I would say applies to the scriptures in general.

The first 5 books of Moses is also called the law, but to me, it specifically refers to the 10 commandments.

I think that's the epitome of God's law, is the law that he wrote with his own finger on stone.

And this verse says that we're blessed, we delight.

So instead of enjoying the counsel of the ungodly, we delight and we enjoy the 10 commandments.

And that really has to be a miracle in a person's life because we don't naturally do this.

And it says, his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law does he meditate.

It's not just once a week coming to church and enjoying a good message, but God wants to be with us every day and every night.

And I've taken this counsel to heart and I have developed a habit and it really, I think it really started a number of years ago when I was really going through some, some dark times about 5 years ago, I was really struggling ahead of some, some just terrible experiences.

And I, my life was hanging on, on a thread.

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Psalm 1 for 2024

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