What does it mean to delight in God’s Word? The word is used in the Old Testament (Gen. 34:19; Esther 2:14) of a man delighting in a woman. Now, that tells us something! Have you noticed that when a young man delights in a woman, he rearranges his priorities so that suddenly he has plenty of time to spend with her? And he doesn’t do it because he has to; he wants to! Nothing interferes with his time with the object of his delight! That was so true when I met Niki, I was very busy with a full load of classes at seminary, managing a 300 acre ranch, teaching driver’s Ed in the evenings and being a youth minister on the weekends, but I made time for her and still do.
Do you delight in God’s Word in that sense? Do you make time to spend in the Word because you delight in it? Or has it become a duty? It’s easy to fall into the duty mentality toward the Word: “A chapter a day keeps the devil away!” Besides, it alleviates your guilt to read it. So you grind through a chapter and check it off on your list, but you didn’t commune with the living God or apply His Word to where you need to change.
The Bible is God’s love letter to you. You’re reading the counsel of a loving, all‑wise Heavenly Father as to how you should live. His commandments are for your blessing and good. It should be no more of a duty to spend time in God’s Word than it is for a young man to spend time with an attractive woman. The way to true happiness is to delight in God’s Word.
We are responsible not only to delight in God’s Word, but also to meditate on it continually. To meditate means to think about what the Word says and how it applies to all of life. Meditation is to reading what digestion is to eating: chewing on it, letting it become part of you. We’re to be doing it continually (“day and night”), which implies knowing the Word well enough to think about it all day long.
As we saw in verse 1, the mind is the first bastion we must defend. Whatever shapes your thinking will shape your life. The only way for a person to reject the counsel of the ungodly which bombards him from every side is to be continually meditating on, thinking about, chewing on in his mind, the Word of God and how it applies to life.
That’s our responsibility: to delight in and meditate on the Word of God. Do you do it? Matthew Henry wisely comments, “We may judge of our spiritual state by asking, “What is the law of God to us? What account do we make of it? What place has it in us?” To the extent that you build your life on God and His Word, you will have true happiness.
This “law” means all of Scripture: the first five books of Moses, the Prophets, and the other writings. The more we know of the whole scope of God’s Word, the more resources we will have to guide us in our daily decisions. God’s Word not only blesses us but,
- God’s Word Proper’s Me (1:3).
The psalmist describes the person who delights in God’s Word as a tree planted by streams of water. This is a tree that has been deliberately cultivated, surrounded by these canals or streams so that its roots have a continual supply of water. It is solid and able to withstand drought or storms. It is fruitful and has continual evidence of life and vitality‑‑its leaves do not wither. He sums it up by applying it: “In whatever he does, he prospers.” There’s a truly happy person: the person God blesses with His prosperity, no matter what circumstances of life he finds himself in.
God is not promising financial prosperity here, but rather, soul-prosperity. The so-called “health and wealth” teaching being promoted by some TV preachers, which claims that God promises financial prosperity, is false. God’s servants may be poor in this world’s goods and afflicted by many trials. But they are rich toward God (Luke 12:21), which is true prosperity.
But perhaps, if you were honest, you’d admit that you question the truthfulness of Psalm 1. You may know people who leave God out of their lives and who seem to be genuinely happy and prosperous. They seem to have good marriages and happy families. They seem to be doing just fine without God. And you may know others who are godly people, who build their lives on God and His Word, and yet they are hit with adversity and difficulties. What about that? The psalmist goes on to show that…
- God’s Word Protects Me (1:4‑6).
The psalmist describes the wicked in contrast to the righteous. The righteous is like a sturdy tree‑‑rooted, firm, fruitful. The wicked is like chaff from the wheat‑‑rootless, weightless, useless. This is not man’s view. From our viewpoint, many who leave God out of their lives are glamorous, powerful, exciting people. Rather, this is God’s view, as verse 6 shows. God’s view takes eternity into account and says, “Those who leave Me out of their lives are like chaff.” They have no substance. They may be great before men, but before God they will be blown away like chaff in the final judgment.
“The wicked will not stand in the judgment” (1:5), which means, they won’t have a leg to stand on. Their case won’t hold up in God’s court. They won’t be in heaven, where those who have been made righteous through faith in Christ will be assembled. Even though it may not look like it at times, “the Lord knows” (is intimately acquainted with) “the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” (6) The wicked will be condemned to eternal punishment in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8).
You may say, “Isn’t that a cop‑out? That’s the old pie‑ in‑the‑sky‑when‑you‑die bit.” No, it’s not a cop‑out. It is the plain teaching of God’s Word, which says, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27). We all must stand before God. If you take God and eternity out of the picture, all you are is an accident‑‑the chance product of random chance. Your birth was an accident, your death will be an accident. All you are is an accident suspended between two accidents! There’s no happiness in that view.
The Word of God declares that you are not an accident. You are here as the creation of God, made in His image, designed to find true happiness in Him and in His Word. But due to your rebellion, as seen in your running your own life rather than in submitting to Christ as Lord, you are alienated from God. He could rightfully judge you, but because of His love and mercy, He sent Jesus Christ to die in your place on the cross. You must turn from your rebellion, trust in Him and accept the pardon He offers. If you will do that and then build your life on God and His Word, you will live happily ever after, both now and throughout eternity! And that’s no fairy tale.
Message Audio/Video and Outline: https://upwards.church/watch-now/leander-campus-videos
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Sources:
Bible.Org – Psalms
Life Application Bible Notes (Tyndale, 2007), 843.
Matthew Henry’s Commentary [Revell], 3:239.
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