Our reading plan through the Psalms begins today! Unlike previous reading plans, we’ll read one psalm a day, every day; for the next 150 days we’ll read a psalm every day of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays.

I’ll continue to provide brief daily commentary here, but I won’t be preaching on every psalm these next few months—rather I’ll use the Psalms as a jumping off point and will preach some topical series and do some other fun things with this reading plan.

Starting this coming weekend is a new series I’m excited about: Emotions. We’ll look at how the Psalms teach us to pray through our emotions to God, so we can be in control of our feelings and not be controlled by them—there is a freedom God wants us to learn and live within!

Here’s the trailer:

We now return to our regularly-scheduled programming.

Let’s GO.

Psalm 1

1  Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 
nor stands in the way of sinners, 
nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 
2  but his delight is in the law of the Lord, 
and on his law he meditates day and night. 
3  He is like a tree 
planted by streams of water 
that yields its fruit in its season, 
and its leaf does not wither. 
In all that he does, he prospers. 
4  The wicked are not so, 
but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 
5  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, 
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 
6  for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, 
but the way of the wicked will perish. 

Psalm 1 makes an explicit promise: people who study God’s word will be like trees, deeply rooted and fruitful, in and out of season.

My hope therefore is that these next 150 days will make us strong, rooted, and fruitful.

Two quick points:

1.     Note how sin works in the opening verse: the man first walks, then stands, and then ultimately sits with the wicked. Isn’t that how sin always works? It draws you in, one step at a time.

2.     I love how the Psalmist pictures the wicked as chaff—weightless and ultimately inconsequential.  In contrast, trees have a weight and a substance. Let’s be like trees!

In my second sermon at Asbury on 8/14/22, I actually preached on this psalm and set out a vision for what it looks like to be blessed according to the words of Psalm 1.

I hope you watch it and hear (again, or for the first time) what it would mean for Asbury to be a Bible-reading church, any why I am so passionate about what happens when people begin to “mediate on the Lord’s teaching, day and night.”