How to be Blessed

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​Many of us are starting this year with a renewed sense of hope. It’s a New Year. I love new starts. Fresh calendars, new notebooks, new goals, and new equipment to reach those goals from my Christmas haul. “This year is gonna be different,” I repeat from last year, “I can feel it!” That’s asking a lot from a new notebook, calendar, and productivity app, though. Those things can help my mind, but they can’t really change my heart. I want to remind you of something that you need to keep in the forefront of your mind this coming year: blessing only comes from God. Actual, real, long-term blessing (that’s the kind you want) is only going to come from God this year. And really, you can to a certain degree determine how much of a blessing you will receive. Obviously, I am not talking about material prosperity here. You can’t gin up enough faith to make a new car appear in your driveway. You can’t pray a certain prayer and new toys show up in your room. That’s not the kind of blessing I am talking about, nor what this Psalm is talking about. 

Psalm 1 is laying out some wisdom for us that is counter-intuitive, even for Christians. This Psalm is telling us things that we wouldn’t know otherwise without this Psalm’s help. So let’s dive in and find out blessing looks like transformation and blessing comes through the word of God 

We begin in verse one with the very first word, “Blessed.” There are two different words for “blessed” in Hebrew. One of them is only used of God or by God (such as when God created the world and “blessed” it) and the other one is used here in Psalm 1 that is used of or by man, never God. For this kind of blessing, one has to do something to receive it (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament). This is a positive gift from God still, but one can either have more or less of it based on how they act. To be clear, this is not saying that one is saved by what they do, but how much they enjoy that salvation is absolutely determined by what they do. 

So let’s see what is the first step in obtaining this kind of enjoyment and blessedness. That first step to blessedness is avoiding the ways of sinners. Now, I’ve been careful to say “the way” of sinners. I don’t mean to avoid sinners. Because that is impossible! In fact, Paul says something to that effect in 1 Corinthians 5. He tells them not to associate with those who claim to be Christians yet live horribly dishonorable lives, in that particular case, sexual sin. Paul clarifies that he doesn’t mean not to associate with anyone in the world who sins in that way or other serious was, because, in Paul’s words, you’d have to leave the world! Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners as well as religious Pharisees and political rulers, not to act like them, but to call them to repentance. The only way that sinners are going to hear about the good news of the gospel is to go to them and tell them! 

As you are going to tell sinners about the good news of the gospel, take care about what you hear them say. The Psalm starts out by telling us not to walk in their counsel, or their plans. This is something that is sneakier than you think. First of all, these people who are termed “the wicked” may not necessarily be mean people. The word used here can simply refer to those who simply aren’t believers (Ross, 185). Most of the time, sinful counsel doesn’t present itself as such. Usually there is a lot that seems helpful but there is something off. It can be something like, “Look, your faith is important, but like, let’s not go overboard on this thing.” The first part is true! Christianity is important. The second part has a true principle in that we need to do things in moderation. Where this goes wrong is in how we apply this principle. Usually, “going overboard” in Christianity means doing something that might actually cost. The underlying assumption there is, “Jesus isn’t really that important. I mean, yeah, He died on the cross for you, but let’s not go crazy! We aren’t extremists or radicals around here.” That’s a lie. With all due respect to David Platt, there is no such thing as a radical Christian. There aren’t tiers of Christianity. We don’t have a setup where bronze level Christians go to church once a month while the gold tier go into missions. There is only one level of Christianity and it is being obedient to the call that God has placed on your life in this season of life. That is going to look different in different people’s lives. But can you see how just a slight twist on something can make all the difference? God doesn’t love missionaries more than moms. 

We’ve got to be so careful in what we listen to, and we have never been more talked to than now. You are getting shouted at by every scroll, every podcast, every advertisement, every brand label. They are all trying to get you to believe something. And they are all very happy to play the long game. They are happy if all you do is notice them now. One step towards them is all they want for now. It won’t stop there. Don’t walk in those ways. Interrogate what you are listening to. 

My dad and I used to play this game with commercials where we would state very flatly what the commercial is trying to convince us of. The ad would be of some fancy car driving really fast down these inexplicably empty roads in the middle of a vibrant city, ending with some sort of tag line, “Escape to your commute.” We would look at each other and say, “huh, so all I have to do to never sit in traffic again is buy your car?” That’s the feeling that they want to sell you, but their car isn’t actually going to do that. You will never finally be happy with one more thing. We all kinda know that, but if you hear something often enough, you’ll believe it, no matter how crazy it might be. These days, messages like that can come to you through your phone while you are walking down the street, standing in line, or sitting in your chair. Don’t linger there. They aren’t selling you righteousness. That only comes from one source, and that is what we turn to next. 

The blessed man doesn’t live like the sinners do, but rather, the man who wants to be blessed meditates on God’s Word day and night. We get the wrong idea when we talk about meditation in our country. When we think of meditating, we think of sitting cross legged on the floor, emptying our mind, and saying, “ooommm.” That’s not biblical mediation; that’s eastern religious mediation. Biblical meditation isn’t emptying your mind but rather filling your mind. The idea of emptying your mind assumes that you have to get rid of all assumptions so that you can hear your own inner voice to guide you in the way of all truth. That’s garbage. Your inner voice is not the voice of truth. Truth comes from one place: God’s Word. So if you want truth, you better fill your mind with God’s Words, not yours. 

The Hebrew word for meditation actually has this sense of low speaking, or even like a growl (TWOT). Have you ever had to prepare a speech for a conversation that you knew was going to be hard (you got WHAT at Home Depot?)? You prepare for it by repeating what you are going to be saying changing this word and that word so that you convey exactly what you want to say. Every word is important and thought through in that process. That is exactly the process of Biblical meditation (just without the nervous feeling).   

Biblical meditation pours over the Word of God, weighing every word for everything that it is worth, wringing out every bit of truth that there is to find. That isn’t done by running your eyes over some words on a page for a moment and then never giving it a second thought in the day. You will miss 99% of what is in your Bible by doing that. How much art could you appreciate in a museum if you ran through the hallways? Imagine sprinting through the Louvre tearing through every hallway just so you could say that you’ve “seen” the entire museum? Have you really looked at anything by doing that? Could you even remember all that you saw? Museums expect you to stop and focus. Study. They even set up benches in front of some paintings because there is so much for you to see there in that one work, it would be unrealistic to expect you to stand that long. 

You need to bring a bench to your Bible. Take a seat in front of the Scriptures. Linger over these words of life. Memorize them, think on them, and apply them to your life such that it makes a difference (Ross, 189). Yes, you do have time, if you delight in them. Notice how that is framed. The blessed man doesn’t walk in the way of sinners, but he delights in God’s word. We don’t pour over God’s Word like an attorney trying to find a loophole. We read God’s Word like a letter from a beloved friend. You study that letter, but it doesn’t feel like study, does it? You remember connections, references, and analyze word choice. This doesn’t really happen with letters anymore, but they sure do happen with screenshot text messages, don’t they? Every word and emoji choice is terrifyingly analyzed in those group chats, aren’t they? All sorts of theories abound! All without asking the original source! That level of detail is what meditation on the Bible is like. It is pouring over a text written by someone you love that will greatly benefit your life to know. 

That is what the Psalmist gets to here in the middle about the effect of that blessedness. You will be like a tree, a firm strong plant, rooted deeply next to a stream. A tree that can do that has access to the water it needs, not dependant on the rainwater which is here one day and gone the next (especially in a Middle Eastern context). But it isn’t just sitting there. It is producing a fruit (though there will be dry spells, which is what “in season” refers to [Ross, 190]), providing shade, and prospering. The blessed man who avoids evil ways and delights in the law of God will prosper in all that he does. 

Now, does prospering mean basically a blank check from heaven? No. The very wonderful and transformative thing about being a blessed man is the definition of prospering changes. Your eyes get blown open to see what is actually important, what is actually worth pursuing. Because you’ve been meditating on the Words of wisdom from God and been avoiding the useless garbage of the world, you won’t take your cues of prospering from them. Prospering won’t look like stuff. It will look like righteousness! It’ll look like this from the book of Hebrews talking to the persecuted church, “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.” Prospering will look like your heart chained to your Savior even if everything is taken away from you because of your stand for Christ! 

The wicked won’t be like that. They are described in entirely the opposite terms. Instead of a producing tree, the wicked are described as useless chaff. Chaff was the hard, inedible shell over grain. You would beat that stuff off the wheatsheaf and then you would toss the mixture of chaff and seed into the wind. The light chaff would get blown away, and the wheat grain would fall to the ground to be gathered up. The wicked aren’t a tree. They aren’t even a shrub. They aren’t even a plant! Just a husk. Husk that will get blown away. They won’t stand in the judgment. They’ll be separated, not planted, not prospering. 

You may say, “Well, it sure looks like the wicked are prospering!” Sure. They are running the ball down the field right now. They might even score a touchdown on the drive. That’ll make the score about 7,000 to 7 in Jesus’ favor. There’s twenty seconds left in the game. Guys, Jesus won. The chaff isn’t winning. The nations rage, the rulers of Earth plot and scheme, and the Lord, who sits on high, laughs. Let’s fight like we are going to win. 

The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. That means that the righteous are going to live. Spend some time meditating on that this year. I promise that there is going to be a blessing there. 

So what does that mean for you this year? Make this a year of blessing for you. I’m not promising health or wealth, because that is not what the Bible is promising you. But I am promising you that the more time you spend meditating on, not just reading, what God says to you, you will find blessing. Take the meal that God is serving you, and rather than just wolfing it down, dine on God’s word. Hold it in your mouth. Savor every flavor and texture. 

That’s part of what we are doing here in the Lord’s Supper. This is giving us a chance to meditate on the gospel. We are given the opportunity to reflect on Christ’s incarnation, His death, and His resurrection, and in that we will find blessing.