Like a Tree

Psalm 1

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Hi, it’s Pastor Marcus Nelson with the Beacon Campus Ministry. And at the beginning of every semester here we do a special devotional painting night. Where we just pick one section of scripture and then students reflect on that. And as they’re pondering it and meditating on it, they paint. So this semester we chose Psalm 1, where it starts out by saying,

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. (Psalm 1:1)

It starts out like that, just saying that God cares about who we spend our time with and how we spend our time. And there’s some balance to that, right? We talk about that in campus ministry. You can think about that for yourself, too, that there’s a principle here that we shouldn’t spend all our time with people who aren’t good for our faith. Those who the Bible describes as wicked or mockers or sinners. But we also know there’s a balance there that Jesus calls us to go and spend time with people who aren’t yet close to Jesus so that we can share with them.

So we can reflect on our life and see how is this balance going and how can we be more in tune with Christ and how do we do that? Well, the Psalm goes on and it says

Who does not walk in step with the wicked or standing in the way that sinners take or sitting in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither–whatever they do prospers. (Psalm 1:1-3)

So God instead encourages us to gather around His Word and to get into His Word and meditate on it day and night and delight in His Word. And when we do that, it’s like a tree that’s next to streams of water and we’re just sucking in all these good nutrients and it fills our life naturally with fruit. And it results in a very different ending than the unbeliever. The verse goes on.

Not so the wicked. They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1:4-6)

So not surrounded by wickedness, but instead, how do we find these blessings that God gives to us? Well, it’s through His Word that this Word of God that says that nothing depends on you and everything depends on Him. It gives us strength and nourishment as it tells us about who Christ is and what he’s done. As it shows us that Christ has taken our failures to another tree, to the tree of the cross, where he died for them, where he’s planted faith in your heart through the gospel and through baptism, that we go back to him and His Word, where he strengthens our faith and it produces fruit in our lives naturally, just like a tree.

So as you think about these words, let me just read the words of this psalm again. And I want to show you some of the art that our students created while you’re pondering this and meditating on these words.

Psalm 1.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither-whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1)

This is God’s Word.