If you would, you can please open your Bible to Psalm 1. It's the text that we'll be looking at today, and we'll be looking at the entirety of Psalm 1. We'll introduce our text this way. In 2006, an economist named Richard Layard published a book which is entitled Happiness. And while I've never read it, I came across it in preparing this sermon. I did read a review that gave a few key takeaways of the book. And one of those key takeaways was this. The simplest thing that Western countries could do to increase happiness is to raise taxes. And I thought to myself, well, that's an interesting idea and it's probably a little counterintuitive. and maybe not in the good way. But what's not counterintuitive is that our world is obsessed with happiness. Our country, for instance, was founded on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And while our definition of that happiness may have changed a bit since then, this theme of happiness has dominated the American mind ever since then. In 1972, the fourth king of a small Himalayan country named Bhutan created and declared the Gross National Happiness Index to be the most important measurement of his country's health. It seems like everyone, whether here in our country or across the world, wants to be happier. Everyone seems to desire a more fulfilled life. Just a few searches on the internet, it seems that the worldly wisdom on this subject is to, one, change your circumstances in some way, two, to accept the circumstances that you're currently in, or three, some mixture of the two. Frankly, some of the ideas, some of the worldly wisdom that we can find is better than others, and some of the worldly wisdom may yield better short-term results than others. And then maybe there's a fourth way to raise taxes. Again, I'm still not convinced on that one. So what is the answer? What is the answer? And that's what we have in Psalm 1 this morning. The psalm begins with the word blessed, which could simply be translated happy. And even better, the word is actually plural. And so this psalm is going to tell us how to find blessednesses or happinesses. Psalm 1 is going to reveal the secret to happiness by describing the blessed man and contrasting him with the wicked. And what we'll find in this psalm can be summed up in this simple statement. The key to happiness in this life and the life to come is to know the Lord and His law and to have the Lord know you. The key to happiness in this life and the life to come is to know the Lord and His law and to have the Lord know you. And we'll see this in three points. First, we'll see the blessed man's principle, we'll see the blessed man's picture, and we'll see the blessed man's preservation. So his principle, his picture, and his preservation. And you'll find that brief outline in your bulletin. So with that brief outline in mind, let us read Psalm 1, and then we'll pray, and then we'll look at these verses. Starting in verse 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore, the ungodly shall 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 ungodly shall perish. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to be in your Word. We thank you for the opportunity to meditate on your Word, on your instruction to us, and to hear from you. Lord, I pray that your Spirit this morning would take this psalm and apply it to our hearts and to our minds. And Lord, we pray that we would walk away from your Word this morning happy, that you know us and that we can know you in your word and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. So first we'll see the blessed man's principle in verses one and two, and I'll read them again. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. Our psalm begins by establishing the principle that runs the blessed man's life. What is it that guides him? What is the principle of his life? What contributes to his blessedness, his happiness, both now in this life and in the life to come? And the psalmist does it in a way that we might not expect, and he even does it in a way that if you're someone who appreciates people getting to the point, he may do it in a frustrating way to you. He does it by first defining what the blessed man does not do. And the blessed man does not do three things. First, he does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, he does not stand in the path of sinners, and he does not sit in the seat of the scornful. Now at first glance, you might be tempted to say that all of those mean just about the same thing. And that's a fair thought to have. And yet I think there's much more here for us than we might see on first glance. So let's take a second glance and notice a few things. One, the psalmist presents these actions with verbs describing posture. So verbs describing posture. What do I mean? Well, the blessed man walks not. in the counsel of the ungodly. He stands not in the path of sinners, and he sits not in the seat of the scornful." And notice the descending nature of these postures. It goes from walking to standing to sitting. In a way, we could see a slowing down, a descent. So that's interesting. Let's also notice something else. The psalmist presents a place or a setting where these things are done. So the blessed man walks not in the counsel, in the counsel of the ungodly. He stands not in the path, in the path of sinners, and he sits not in the seat, in the seat of the scornful. And notice again how there's another pattern of descent, or we could say we're getting closer and closer and closer. First, he merely hears their counsel, and that's something that you could do from afar, especially in our day. You can hear the counsel of others from thousands of miles away. Then he's actually there in the same path with them. So he's not just hearing their counsel anymore, but he's in the same path with them. He's next to them. And then he's actually sitting in their seat, reclining at their table. We might say that this is the closest that you can get to someone, maybe, outside of your family, to be invited into a home, to be sitting at their seat, to be sitting in a chair that they own and reclining at their table. And again, it's an interesting pattern, but also notice something else. The psalmist presents the people that the blessed man does not associate with, or the people associated with these actions. That's the ungodly, that's sinners, and that's the scornful. And again, you see a pattern of dissent, if you will. So first, the ungodly, and we might say certainly they're sinners, but in our text they're not identified that way just yet. They're identified more in line with who they are and mostly how they think and the counsel that they give. So they're identified with the counsel they give and the implication being how they think. And not necessarily what they do just yet. Here the temptation given is to listen to their counsel but not necessarily to join in their acts of sin. And then we have the word sinners, and there is a path of sinners. It's not just counsel anymore. Now the temptation is to join in their sin, to move from listening to doing. And then we have the scornful. Not only are these ungodly, not only are they sinners, but they are scornful. They're scornful against God and His Word. They're scornful against the godly. They're not just sinning anymore. but they are, in fact, mocking righteousness. So rather than see these three phrases as just the same thing in a different way, we should see here a trajectory. There is a trajectory to sin. Sin moves in a certain direction. You do not wake up one day and decide to be scornful. It's a process of getting there, is what we see in the psalm. And this direction that sin moves is away from the blessedness or the happiness that this psalm describes to us. And really, I think that all of us can identify people in our lives who may fit into these categories. We may even be able to identify times in our own life when we fit into one of these categories. There may even be certain compartments of your life where you fit into one of these categories. We can all think of a person who maybe doesn't seem to be caught up in open, blatant sin. They live what some might call a good and moral life, and we could put air quotes around that. Yet they have a worldview, they have an attitude, they have a system of thinking that does not have God at the center of it. Or we could say they are ungodly, and we can see it in their counsel. And then maybe you know someone who openly sins, and maybe this is especially in the workplace, or in friendships. Maybe you know someone who openly sins, but still seems to have some semblance of respect for God and for virtue. Outwardly, at least. We could call this person a sinner, though we know that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Yet this person, they still in some way understand that their sin is wrong, and when caught in it, they would be embarrassed by it. And then we've also probably met someone, or maybe more likely seen something like this on the internet, someone who has so seared their conscience with sin that they hate and mock righteousness, that they do it openly and wear it like a badge to be proud of. They speak of their sin as a moral good rather than being embarrassed by it. And the psalmist is warning against even beginning down this path. Notice it starts with counsel. It's just thoughts and ideas planted into your mind. And then if we continue moving in, moving that direction, it turns into actual acts of sin in your life. And eventually you are so numb to that sin that you mock it openly and even wear it as a badge that you are proud of. And so the application here, of course, is that we should be aware of this slippery slope of sin, and we should be cautious to not flirt around with the counsel of the ungodly, lest we slide into open sin, and then even mockery. The psalmist is saying that the guiding principle of the blessed man's life should not lead him in this direction. The guiding principle of the blessed man's life does not have this trajectory associated with it. So we ask the same question that we asked earlier. What is the principle of the blessed man's life? And we see it in verse two. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Now notice the key here. Instead of walking in the counsel of the ungodly, the blessed man's delight is in the counsel, if you will, or the law of the Lord. where the scornful mock the law of God, the blessed man delights in the law of the Lord. And rather than walking in the counsel of the ungodly, the blessed man meditates day and night on the law of God. Now I ask you to notice the warmth here. This is not a cold, white-knuckled, or coerced thing. The blessed man loves the law of God. He can say with David in Psalm 119, 103, how sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. And it should tell us one thing for certain. And if we're not careful, we can miss this. Often we can read a psalm like this and think, ah, I should be delighting in the law of God. And we think about, what can I do to delight in the law of God? And that's a good thing to consider. But also consider this. The law of God is delightful. The law of God is delightful. Often, when we read the word law in scripture, we automatically think of the moral law or the Ten Commandments. Maybe you think of the Mosaic law. And in their context, there are places where the scripture uses it in that way. And the Hebrew word that we translate for law is Torah, which might make you think of the Pentateuch. It's Genesis through Deuteronomy, the first five books of the Bible. But I think what the psalmist is after here isn't so much a set of books or specific rules, but rather he's contrasting with the beginning of verse 1, where the ungodly have their counsel, the blessed man has the instruction, the counsel of the Lord. What we have here, what the blessed man delights in, is not, again, a set of books, but it's the whole body of God's instruction to man. It's his revelation of himself. And looking at it this way, we can expand it out from just what the psalmist might have had available to him, what books he might have had, what scripture he might have had available, and we can look at it as all of God's word that he has been pleased to bless us with. And so the response is that we should delight in all of God's instruction. We should delight in all of God's word. So I'll warn you, the next question might be a painful one, and it has been for me in preparing this sermon. Can you say with the psalmist that you delight in the law of the Lord? Maybe here's a better way. When was the last time that you can remember that you felt, with a heart holding nothing back, a sincere love for the Word of God? And I don't ask that question as a means of shaming anyone or heaping condemnation on anyone. I ask it because I know how cold and how uninterested my own heart can be at times with God's Word. For instance, have you ever experienced sitting down at God's Word, reading it, and feeling absolutely nothing? Feeling no joy towards its good news? Feeling no pleasure in its beauty? Feeling no appreciation for its help? Feeling no awe of the Lord which it reveals to us? Sometimes our affections lag behind the truth that we know in our heads. We know that the word of the Lord, the law of the Lord, is sweet like honey, but sometimes we don't taste it. So sometimes our affections lag behind the truth we know in our heads, but we should always be striving to have the truth set ablaze in our hearts. And that's how the psalmist describes the blessed man. His heart is set ablaze with delight in the word of God. And even more, this delight is translated into action. The blessed man delights on the law of the Lord day and night. He consumes it regularly. And he doesn't just consume it, he thinks about it. He meditates on it. Matthew Henry said something extremely insightful. He said, what we love, we love to think about. What we love, we love to think about. So the question, what do you love to think about? What is your heart so enthralled with that it brings the mind along with it? What is your heart so enthralled with that it brings the mind along with it? What do you meditate on? Often in life, it's important things. Maybe like work. Maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's your children. These are good things. Yes, I'll say they're good things to meditate on at times. Often, it's less important things. It's frivolous things. It's trivialities. It's things that have no eternal value. And of course, we can't always be consciously meditating on the Word of God. There are times, like I said, to meditate on our families, on our spouses, on our work. There are times to meditate and think about and appreciate even our hobbies. And again, sometimes our affections, they lag behind the truth in our heads. But the psalmist is saying that the blessed man's heart and mind love the Word of God, and they love to think about it. He loves the Word of God, and he loves to think about it. So we have to find some purposeful ways to set our minds on the Word. There's something to be said for waking up early and getting in the Word. There's something to be said for getting in the Word before you go to bed at night. Our Father, I think it also, there's something to be said for regular family worship, taking the time to sit down with your family and to look at the Word and to read it and to hear it, to ask questions about it, to think about it, to meditate on it as a family. Another suggestion, that's what it is, a suggestion. I also make it a point to read at the dinner table. We pray everyone begins to eat, and Dad reads from the Word before he takes a bite. That's not a law, these things, but it's just a suggestion for you. Think about how can I get the Word of God in front of my family, in front of myself, in front of my spouse. This reading at the dinner table forces me to put Scripture in front of myself and my family, and sometimes questions get asked, which forces everyone to meditate on what we're reading. And I heard it said once that if you can't explain something to a three-year-old, then you don't know it, which means that parenthood has taught me that I don't know many things. But at the end of the day, however you do it, it's vital to have a regular intake of God's word. We can read this Psalm and we can appreciate it, but we also need to meditate on the law of the Lord and then delight in it. The goal is to develop a delight in the law of the Lord and really a delight in the Lord himself. And that's the principle that guides the blessed man's life. His life is guided by a delight and a meditation on God's word. His life is guided by a delight and meditation on God's word. But now we turn to verses 3 and 4, and the psalmist gives us a picture of the blessed man. Our second point, a picture of the blessed man. What does he look like? And what does this delight and meditation on the Word of God result in? Verse 3 says, He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Earlier this year, I read the psalm to our family at the dinner table, and I wanted to drive home the psalmist's point about the tree. My wife and I took our oldest daughter, Oakley, out to a tree in the backyard, and we tried to push it over. And this was mostly for Oakley's benefit, though I think my wife and I got a lot of benefit out of it as well. And I gave it the first shot, then my wife gave it the second shot, and then little Oakley put her small hands on the tree and attempted to push it over. And the climax is really anticlimactic. The tree did not fall over, though my ego is sure that I saw it move a little bit when I pushed. And the point of all that is to show Oakley, and really to show myself and my wife, to show Oakley what a tree is like, to remind her of what a tree is like. And that's what the psalmist is doing here. He's using the image of a tree to show us what the blessed man is like and comparing it to what the ungodly are like. And the psalm doesn't spell it all out for us. It just gives us the picture and asks us to look at it. We have to do some thinking and some meditating, which is probably appropriate after verses one and two. So the psalmist tells us that the blessed man is like a tree planted by the rivers of water. Now notice that he's not just growing there, rather he is planted there with intention. And like a regular tree in our world, they don't plant themselves. The blessed man, like a tree, cannot plant himself there on his own. And that's our first hint that there's more to this man's happiness than his own effort. He must be planted and nourished by God first. He must be put by the rivers of water. Psalm 92, 12 through 13 makes it even more explicit. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. And this should forbid all pride from our minds as we look at the other aspects of this tree. Starting with that the blessed man is like a tree in its strength. Just as Oakley, Ashley, and I tried to push the tree over and failed, a tree is strong. The blessed man has roots planted deeply by the word of God. He is able to weather even the strongest of storms. He is prepared to face all the trouble and persecution that we'll see later in the Psalms. David is going to face a lot of trouble and persecution, poverty, hunger in his life, and we're going to see it played out in the Psalms. Here in this first Psalm, we see how he is to weather that storm. We see his fruit. We see that he's planted by the rivers of water. After being nourished by God, he's able to provide nourishment even to others. We might even be able to say that he's fulfilling the creation mandate in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply as the seeds from his fruit are spread to create other trees. He's nourished by the word of God. He's planted by the rivers of water and that nourishment produces fruit. And the splendor of that fruit shows the goodness of the rivers of water that he is planted by. The blessed man is also like a tree in its beauty. The psalm says, his leaf does not wither. Again, he reflects the goodness of the God whose law he meditates upon. His leaf does not wither because he's planted by the rivers of water. He provides shade for others. A Christian who is rightly focused on God's word and following it is and can be and should be an oasis for those around him. We might think of Jonah and the tree that he sat under and that tree's leaf withered and left him out in the hot sun. But here in this psalm, the blessed man's leaf does not wither and he can provide shade to others. We might say it is and should be pleasant to be around a godly person. The blessed man also prospers in all that he does. And now we might be tempted to sit back and say at this point, well, this one must be an exaggeration. Can the blessed man really prosper in all that he does? And I do take it in some ways as an exaggeration, but really as a normative statement. This is a rule to which there may be exceptions. It doesn't mean that the blessed man will have unlimited success in every area of his life, but he will tend to enjoy prosperity in his life generally, in all the different areas. And why is that? It's not because of his own power. It's because the Word of God addresses every area of our lives. And the man who delights in it and meditates on it will gain wisdom from it for his life, and he can find prosperity everywhere in a general sense. Again, a rule that may have exceptions. He can find prosperity spiritually, and that's the one we think of first, of course. He can find it in his family life, in his work. You think of the Proverbs and all their practical helps about money and work and relationships. He can find it in his relationships with others because the scriptures instruct us in all godliness. To illustrate, here's what's required of a pastor. that he be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence, for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God, not a novice, lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil? Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. And I read that quickly to give you an idea of all the things that are there. It's a lot of things to excel in. And in general, most of those traits are something that every believer should be striving for. Some of them certainly are particular to the pastoral office, but in general, they're things that we should all be striving for. And they're possible. You notice that Paul gives this as a requirement for someone to be an elder. So we can expect someone to fulfill these, not in a perfect way, but in a way that makes them qualified to be a pastor. And that's only possible when a man is planted by God in God's word and meditating on it day and night. Next, the psalmist compares this strong, fruitful, beautiful, prosperous tree that we've looked at. He compares it to the ungodly and to what the ungodly are like. And he says, they are like the chaff which the wind drives away. So again, we'll have to do some thinking and meditating on this picture that's been given to us. The ungodly are like the dry, scaly, protective casing of seeds of grain. I learned that chaff is indigestible to humans, and really all it's good for is to be driven away by the wind. That's all it's good for. In Gideon we find, or not in Gideon, but with Gideon we find him, he's doing his work He's beating out the grain in the wine press. And that's significant because we would expect him to be doing it outside, so that as he beats the grain, the wind would drive the chaff away. But he's doing it in the wine press. Inside. And that chaff, all it's good for, again, is to be driven away by the wind. The ungodly, like this chaff, are not strong. Even the slightest breeze of life can lift them away. They're not fruitful. No one else can truly enjoy them. In the end, for they produce nothing. And they're not beautiful or pleasant to others, even maybe the opposite. If you get some chaff in your eye, it might be a cause of pain to you. And they do not prosper, but in the end are driven away. This picture of the blessed man in the contrast with the ungodly are meant to give us a picture of what we ought to be striving for in the Christian life. Isn't a stable tree that glorifies God with the fruit it produces and the shade that it provides for others, isn't that what we're to be striving for? I'll submit to you this is a picture of loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. So we've seen the principle of the blessed man, namely that his delight and meditation upon the law of God, and then we've seen the picture of the blessed man. He's like a strong tree that glorifies God with his good works and has a positive impact on those around him and provides nourishment to others. But now we'll see the blessed man's preservation in verses five and six. Verse five says, therefore the ungodly shall 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 ungodly shall perish. If you remember back to one of the first things we said, sin has a trajectory. It moves in a certain direction. And in verses one and two, it ended in scorn and mockery. But here in verses five and six, we see the ultimate trajectory of sin. Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. And we could connect this to the last verse about the ungodly being like chaff. A tree can stand. The ungodly are like chaff, and they cannot stand. They'll be blown away. The Baptist theologian John Gill references Malachi 4.1 when he's talking about Psalm 1, and he says, for behold, the day is coming or rather Malachi says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble, or we could say chaff, and the day which is coming shall burn them up. We can even see how Malachi is echoed by John the Baptist in Matthew 3.12, who said of Christ, "...his winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." And then notice even the connection to verse 1. The blessed man does not stand in the path of sinners. But here in verse 5, the sinners do not stand in the judgment. And we cannot really take time to talk at length about the great suffering which will come upon the ungodly on that day. We did a little bit of that in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, so you can think back to then. But notice how the psalmist further explains the judgment on sinners. He says, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. We often think of the judgment as God's wrath poured out on sinners, which it is. And here that wrath is described as the disconnection, as disconnection from God and from his people. One of the great glories of that day is that all believers from all time will be gathered together and glorified. They'll be cleansed. of their remaining sin because of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We see here in this psalm that, in a way, the congregation of the righteous will be cleansed of sinners. So the wicked will not stand in that day, yet the righteous will. So there's a difference. The wicked will not stand, yet the righteous will. And why is that? Psalm says, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish. And notice the imbalance in this verse. If we read the verse backwards, we might accidentally read it like this. The way of the wicked shall perish, but the way of the righteous shall live forever. But that's not what the psalmist gives to us. He says instead, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous. The difference between the perishing way of the wicked and the way of the righteous is one thing, being known by the Lord. The wicked continue their natural trajectory of their sin, but the righteous instead are known, are loved, have favor, from the Lord. He knows them in a way that he does not know the wicked. The righteous have his special favor and grace and mercy. It is not because they are righteous that the Lord shows this special favor towards them, but it is because the Lord has shown this special favor towards them that they are righteous. It is because of the Lord's preservation of the righteous that they will not perish. It's because he knows their way. Think of the rest of the psalm. The beautiful picture of the blessed man does not spring out of the blessed man's own strength. The tree is not strong on its own, but rather the blessed man is nourished by the law of God. He is planted by the rivers of water by God and nourished by God. The blessed man can be happy because he has been known by the Lord and preserved for his glory. And here in verse six, we see the Lord's kind preserving of the righteous. His kind preservation of the righteous on the day of judgment. So rather than this being a psalm that encourages us to double down on our law-keeping to survive the judgment of God, Rather than that, it should always remind us to fling ourselves onto the Lord. It's Him who plants us by the rivers of water. We should always remember that it is the Lord who planted us in His Word. Namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. the word of God, and he will preserve us. And it is this Lord and his law that we ought to delight in and meditate upon out of love and gratitude. So we've seen the blessed man's principle, the blessed man's picture, and the blessed man's preservation. So now we'll conclude with a few closing thoughts. And up until now, I think it's okay for me to say this, most of what I've said, in some way, could be amended in a synagogue. And this would hardly be a Christian sermon if I did not take time to make much of the blessed man that this Psalm truly speaks about. We would do well to emulate the blessed man in this Psalm. But we must always remember that the blessed man in this psalm emulates another blessed man, or maybe we could say is the blessed man the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ explained to the disciples on the road to Emmaus all the things in the scriptures concerning himself. And I would like to think that he made at least a passing remark to Psalm 1. It only makes sense because just one Psalm later, we have a very explicit reference to Christ and the king that God has set on his holy hill of Zion. So why wouldn't we see Christ here in Psalm 1? Christ is the blessed man. In 1 Timothy 1.11, it says he is the very blessed God. And yet he is a very blessed man. In fact, he is the blessed man in a way that neither you or I could be. Though he was tempted, and though he walked among the ungodly as we do, he never once walked in their counsel. He never once stood in the path of sinners. He never once sat in the seat of the scornful. And at one time, we were the ungodly, we were the sinners, we were the scornful mentioned in this psalm. Yet Christ, the blessed man, fully delighted in the law of the Lord and meditated on it day and night. We see that in the Gospels. Him going up on a mountain late at night to pray, to speak to his Father. He fulfilled it perfectly in a way that you or I could not do in our sin, even if we had a thousand lifetimes to study the law. If we could set aside all of our work, all of our play, our need for anything, our need to eat, we could not delight in the law of God, meditate on it day and night, or fulfill it in the way that the Lord Jesus Christ, even if we had a thousand lifetimes to do it. Christ the blessed man was, is, and forever will be the strong tree which provides nourishment. The fruit of his sinless life and atoning death provides nourishment and even life for the most dead sinner. And his leaf will never wither. It will never stop providing shade for those that he sets under him. We might also take from this that he should always be beautiful to us. His leaf will never wither. He will never be like a dead tree in the winter without any leaves. He should always be beautiful to us. And he has prospered in all that he has done for his people. Not only in living a perfect life, which he did, but in dying a perfect death and defeating all his and our enemies. And we could say the Lord knew his way, for he was well pleased with his son. Yet despite being the epitome of the blessed man in this psalm, despite Christ being everything that we see here in this psalm, in the blessed man, the Lord Jesus Christ also experienced all the curses of the wicked that we see in this psalm too. He became like chaff on our behalf, blown away by the hot, dry wind of God's wrath. He underwent the judgment due to the wicked. And we could say that for a moment he did not stand in the congregation of the righteous because he who knew no sin became sin for us and perished in our place. And in some sense, in his crying out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He became unknown by the Lord so that you and I might be known by the Lord. Yet, of course, we know that none of those things were permanent, but rather that he was raised on the third day, proving that he had taken the judgment, the wrath of God in full in our place. And this really is the key to happiness. That Christ made a way for us to know the Father. That Christ is the blessed man. That Christ is the tree that provides nourishment for us. That Christ is the tree whose leaves shade us from the wrath of God. And we ought to fling ourselves onto him every day. We ought to delight in him. We ought to look at Christ the word with delight and we ought to meditate on him day and night. And if you're an unbeliever here this morning, don't don't miss. Don't miss that the way of the wicked shall perish. The difficult reality is that that is your way and you will perish along with it. And if you miss Christ this morning and the song, you've missed everything. If you miss Christ this morning in this psalm, the strong tree that provides nourishment, that provides shade, you've missed everything. Do not miss the Savior who is held out for you this morning. My plea is that you cast yourself upon him and you will always, always find him to be a strong tree that shades you from the wrath due your sin. If you are a believer, a Christian here this morning, as you go forward today, remember the quote from Matthew Henry. He said, what we love, we love to think about. So the question is, do you love Christ? If yes, think on him. Think on all that he has done for you. Think on all that he has given you in his word and be blessed, be happy in him. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, You have provided everything for us. In Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, You have nourished us. You have shaded us. Lord, we have strength. We're strong like a tree because we're in Him. And we might say in a way that we are planted in Him. We receive the nourishment of the rivers of water. We receive nourishment from Your Word. And because of this, we can become like Him. We can come to delight in the law of the Lord. We cannot be put into Him. We cannot be put into Christ because of our law-keeping. because we meditated on the law of the Lord enough, yet because we are in Him, we can become like Him. We can delight in the law of the Lord, and most importantly, we can come to delight in you, because all of our sin, all of our sin has been wiped away, cleansed away, cast away, because we are in the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank you for the great promise of preservation that we have in this psalm. And even that we saw this morning in the confession reading, that you have ordained the means of our salvation. And you will bring all those that you have elected before the foundation of the world, you will bring them to completion in the Lord Jesus Christ, who's the blessed man, who's the tree that we see here. So Lord, we pray that you would do so. We pray that you would be kind to us. Lord, we pray that as we sing this final song that we would Lift up our hearts to you in praise and adoration and joy for the things that you have done for us. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen.