Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Sermon Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ. Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina.

When I first came back to Kerwin and I introduced to you, we had to work with the youth for a while when I first came back and I introduced our new youth program and I gave a whole system of our youth ministry that we wanted to use out of Psalm 1, 1 through 3. I've got so many, but while I was sitting there with my mom's outline that she had written down, I said, well, I'm just going to come up with just three or four quick ones just to show you, and I've never used these, never seen these, but like verse one, I see that God tells us to be careful where you stroll, where you stand, and where you sit. You know, you're not going to end up sitting, being close, fellowshipping with individuals you shouldn't be close to if you don't even go near them. That's why he says be careful where you walk, where you stand, where you sit, or where you stroll, where you stand, where you sit. Verse one, I see that Jesus deals with our direction that walketh not on the counsel of the ungodly, our distinction, nor standeth in the way of sinners, our demeanor, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

Verse two, he deals with our delight, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and then he deals with our dedication, and in the law doth he meditate day and night. Verse three, I see that the Lord deals with how you're planted, how you're placed, how you produce, how you perform, and how you prosper. How you're planted, he shall be like a tree. Trees are stable.

Where you're placed, by the rivers of water. How you produce, that bringeth forth his fruit and his season. How you perform, his leaf shall not wither. How you prosper, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Verse one deals with a blessed man, verse two deals with a better man, verse three deals with a bountiful man, verse four deals with a bad man, verse five deals with a bitter man, and verse six deals with a battered man. You could outline Psalm 1 a thousand different ways, but this morning in verses one through three, I'd like to preach yet another outline that I found in my mom's Bible. And that is this, a blessed man, what does it take to be blessed? And God gives some very clear instruction here. I guess at my age, and my children at their age, you begin to wonder what you're going to leave them, not necessarily materially, I hope, but spiritually, a legacy, memories, you know, I'm sure that maybe they'll have some really good memories, Lord willing.

I'm sure they might have some that aren't so great, I don't know. But I guess if I had one thing that, man, I would just love for my boys to have, and that's the blessing of God. There's really nothing else in life that's worth having if you don't have God's blessing on what you're doing. Everything else is vain, everything else is a waste of time, everything else is frivolous, everything else would simply be investing in what this world has to offer, but what I would love to be able to see my three boys experience is the blessing of God.

How about you? Then I begin to think, well, one of the best ways for them to experience the blessing of God is to see the blessing of God in their mom and dad's life. And mom and dad have got to do some certain things to be blessed. And you know what, it's the same things that you have to do, doesn't matter if you're a preacher, doesn't matter if you're a plumber, doesn't matter if you're an electrician, doesn't matter if you work at the grocery store, doesn't matter if you're a waitress. God requires the same things for you to be blessed. So I'd like to ask you this morning, and especially I guess if I, I'm not preaching just a particular group at all, but I think I would especially be talking to men this morning, because you know we feel the responsibility for the family. Let me ask you this, do you want to be blessed?

I mean, do you really want God to bless your life? And as you do, God has made it very simple for us to understand what must be done. Number one, I want you to notice in verse one, it says this, Blessed is the man, blessed is the man, or the individual that does the things I'm getting ready to say will be blessed. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.

My mom had written down here a simple outline, and I'm going to give it to you in its entirety right now, and then I'll deal specifically with each one and we'll let you go this morning. She wrote this, a blessed man seeks the right advice, seeks the right associations, seeks the right attitude, seeks the right affection, and seeks the right activity. Let's look at the first one, seeks the right advice.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. Now listen to me this morning, there is plenty of bad advice everywhere we turn. You want to get a whole bunch of really good bad advice, just walk in and turn the TV on. You want to get some really bad advice, just scour the internet blogs. You want to get some really bad advice many times, just get on Facebook. Hey, I'm going to give you some advice. Are you listening? This is a freebie.

Some of you are like, oh Lord, here we go. Let me give you some free advice. Nothing wrong with Facebook, enjoy your Facebook, whatever the case might be. But if you've got a friend on Facebook or anybody and they say one negative thing about their church, your church, or any church, you de-friend them immediately. That is a person that is a bad influence on you. That's bad advice. There's plenty of bad advice everywhere you turn folks. Listen to me, we are wired, you and I, because we're flesh and our flesh is sinful, we are wired to be more likely to listen to bad counsel.

We're just wired that way. I mean folks could give us really good biblical counsel, but we're going to be wired to do something different, totally different, and because we're just wired that way because that's what our flesh wants. And God says that a blessed man walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. That means this, you and I have to choose not to walk around the wrong counsel. We have to choose not to listen to the wrong advice because our flesh is naturally going to want to. So we have to fight against it and make sure that we don't listen to the wrong advice. All God's people said, Proverbs 12, 15, The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. Good advice has to be sought out.

It has to be searched for. Good advice isn't laying around everywhere. Bad advice is laying around everywhere. Bad advice is around every corner you go to because we live in a sinful society. You all agree with that?

I believe America is the greatest country that there is, ever has been. I believe that. But we have made some choices in our country and believe it or not, we're a pretty sinful society and bad advice is everywhere you turn around. It takes discernment to know good advice. And I am saying, if you want to be a blessed individual and you want God to bless your life, then you're going to have to make sure that you seek out, search out good biblical sound advice. I think of the book of Job.

Job went through unbelievable testing, and his wife, I'm sure maybe out of a heart of love, she gets a hard knock as far as I'm concerned. Imagine if you are a woman and you just lost every one of your children. Would you be the most spiritual person at that point? If you lost your house, your goods, every piece of security you had, you lost all 10 of your children, then your husband lays in sickness.

I don't think you would have had the most spiritual attitude either. But she looks at Job probably because she's seeing him suffer, thinking death would be better than what he's going through. And she says, just curse God and die. And Job says, you speak as one of the foolish women speaketh.

Notice the wisdom of a husband here. He didn't call her a fool. Aren't we men good at that? Well, honey, I didn't really call you that. I just said, you're acting like that right now. I don't like this, her sitting up here.

She needs to be sitting down there. Job said, you know what? That's bad advice. That's bad advice. Dear friend, listen to me, the devil will make sure that you have plenty of people giving you bad advice at the worst possible time when you are most vulnerable.

Satan will make sure bad advice finds your ears. But if you want to be blessed, you say, well, look what happened to Job. He lost all his kids, lost his land, lost everything he had. Yeah, and at chapter 42, the Bible says God gave him twice of everything he had, gave him other children. You say, yeah, but he lost his first children. No, he didn't. They were in heaven.

He didn't lose them. That was a blessed man. The Bible says the latter end of Job's life was better than the first. You know why? Because Job sought good advice. He even had three so-called Christian friends that came by. And they did nothing but preach to him and belittle him and gave all their advice and all this or that, and Job didn't listen to him at all.

You know why? Because Job knew what was good advice and what was bad advice. And if you and I will just learn to know the difference and not listen to bad advice and not listen to what everybody's telling us to do, but find good advice and follow it. God says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of ungodly people. Dear friend, be careful who you listen to. Are they godly people or not? Just because they go to a church and sit in a pew doesn't mean they're godly people. Here sometimes people, you know, not necessarily here, but here at churches, you know, so-and-so, you know, they don't really like the music.

And I say, well, you know, it's so-and-so godly individuals. I haven't seen so-and-so at any visitation. I haven't seen so-and-so bring anybody to church. I haven't seen so-and-so win anybody to the Lord recently. Are you sure they're godly or are they just in church?

There's a difference in godly and non-godly influence. Do I have an amen right there even on a Sunday morning? I find it amazing. You say, boy, you're just wearing out one point, aren't you? I am.

I'm going to wear it out. I find it amazing how rarely people come and ask advice from their pastor. Now, that's at the expense of saying, hey, you know what, who do you think you are?

Do you think you're just Mr. No, not at all. And probably I would push this more if Brother Joe were still the pastor because I would tell you, listen, God's given you a good, wise pastor. Go talk to him. Go ask his advice.

Go whatever. It amazes me how many things happen and individuals, they come and say, well, I said, why didn't you come? Well, we didn't want to bother you.

We didn't want to... Wait a minute. I don't understand that. It's amazing how rare people come and ask the godly influence that God has put in their life as a pastor to lead that flock. That's his job. And it's amazing how rarely they even ask his advice.

And second, it's amazing how rarely when they ask it, they follow it. Proverbs 22 19 says that thy trust may be in the Lord. I have made known unto thee this day, even to thee, have not I written to the excellent things in counsels and knowledge? God says, have not I written to the excellent things in counsels and knowledge? A blessed man seeks the right advice. Second, a blessed man seeks the right associations.

This is a big one. Do you know that you and I don't accidentally surround ourselves with good influences, with the right kind of people? That doesn't just naturally happen.

You have to work at that. Our flesh automatically gravitates to negative influence. By the way, negativity is contagious.

You all know that? And you got to be careful who you're around because sometimes there are certain individuals. I'm not saying they're just rotten people. Sometimes they're not the best people for you to be around or for me to be around because when you are, you end up acting like them.

I don't care what they've done and I don't care how good they've been to you or whatever the case might be, but if you find yourself becoming a negative, critical, sarcastic person about everything and everybody always complaining, let me tell you something, you have become around the wrong influences and you better get away from them. A blessed individual seeks the right associations. Why would God say that? Nor standeth in the way of sinners.

Why would God say that? That word stand means that I was walking amongst the wrong kind of people and I latched on to someone, now I'm standing. There's closer fellowship. It went from walking with to standing with and then it finally ends up to sitting with.

That's why the Bible puts it this way. There's the casual, then there's the more personal, then there's the closeness. And you won't ever become close to the wrong individual if you don't even hang around them. Does that make sense? We're not talking about winning friends and influence people here.

We're not talking about politically correct. We're talking about being a blessed individual from God. So you've got to determine what you want to be.

Seeks the right association. You and I have to choose who we're going to stand with. We have to choose who we are going to let influence our life.

We have to choose who we're going to associate with. Good influences are godly influences. Good influences are honest with you. Good influences pray for you. Good influences don't gossip and tear down others to you. That's not a good influence. Because when they talk to someone else, they're going to do the same thing to you. Good influences motivate you to be more faithful to God's word and God's house.

Not less. Good influences uplift and encourage. Good influences don't tear down. Dear friend, you and I, and I know we think this isn't that important. Listen, dear friend, you have no idea how important it is the people you're around. The associations.

You have no idea how important that is. And if you want to be a blessed individual, God says stay away from that. Third, I find that a blessed man seeks the right attitude. Notice this, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. That word scornful means to mock, to scoff, to make mouths against.

What I find interesting about this particular definition is that it doesn't just say to make mouth against, which would just be you, it's to make mouths against. When you are sitting in the seat of the scornful or when you are a scornful person, not only are you unfair and unkind to an individual, but you cause others to feel the same way about that individual. And God says don't you dare sit in that seat to become a scornful person. You need to have the right attitude in life, not a negative one. There's enough people with bad attitudes everywhere you go. You and I ought to have the right attitude. Not only about individuals, but we ought to have the right attitude about life.

Y'all agree with that? We need to get off this thing, well everybody just seems, I always get the raw end of the deal, and everybody's always been unfair to me, and I've never seemed to get my break, and I've never been able, listen dear friend, that's a wrong attitude to have. That's scornful. You are scorning what you call your luck, and you're scorning your life, and you're scorning the blessings God's given. A different attitude would be in order, the attitude of this, hey Lord everything I have I don't deserve anyway, I'm thankful for it. You've been good to me. Here's why I say this, when you sit in the seat of the scornful, rarely do you ever get up.

Whenever you end up in this seat, you normally stay. It just becomes habit in your life to be that kind of person. God says I can't bless individuals that don't have the right attitude. I can't bless individuals that aren't content, and appreciative, and grateful. A blessed man seeks the right attitude. I want you to notice, fourthly, a blessed man seeks the right affection. Notice what he says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight or affection, what he desires, his delight is in the law of the Lord. A blessed man has the right affection. What do you mean preacher, a blessed man has an affection, a desire for the word of God.

You say well I don't have to, no you don't. But a blessed man has to. A man doesn't, but a blessed man does. We're talking about here if you want to be a blessed individual. I'm not even talking about what the world terms as blessed, I'm talking about what God terms as blessed.

A blessed individual seeks the right affection. That word delight means pleasure, what matters, what is important to you. And dear friend, you and I, to be blessed of God, God's word has to be first and foremost in our life.

It has to be the most important thing. You say preacher, what does that mean? That means this, not only should we be reading it and applying ourselves to it and meditating in it, but it means that God's word should be guiding our life. Remember the Bible says thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. That means this, if my decision and the things I want, if I find a principle in God's word against it, then I don't do it. Because God's word is first and foremost. I would ask you later on in life, would you like to have it said as you're laying in the casket, this man had a lot of things.

This man made a lot of money. Or would you rather have it said this man was blessed of God? I find last in these verses, it says that a blessed man seeks the right activity. Notice what it says. And in his law doth he meditate day and night. Now, let's think about this.

Put our thinking caps on. What does it mean? Preacher, I've got to take this Bible and I literally have to read it all day and all night. When would I sleep?

When would I eat? Folks, we have some common sense here. What is he saying when you meditate there in day and night? The right activity means this. If I have God's word in my heart and mind all day, I'm not going to end up doing things that would go against God's word. Do you understand? So if I'm seeking to please God and obey his word, odds are that's going to limit a few activities that I used to do. Does that make sense to everybody here? It means this, that if I, in his law doth I meditate day and night, that means this, if God's word's constantly, at least on my mind, and it's guiding my day, and when I have a decision to make, do I go here?

Well, would that go against God's word? Do I meditate? Do I do this? Do I participate in this?

Well, you know what? That would hurt God, and that's against what God says I should do. Should I listen to this?

Should I do this? Dear friend, listen to me. The more God's word gets in you, then the more decision-making progress you have. The more that you listen to God's word and let it guide your life, then the better decisions we're going to make.

I don't even know if I can get everything out that I want to say, but let me just put it this way. You get in the word, and the word will get in you. Let me tell you what I would love as a pastor of this church. I would love to see God bless you. But my desire for you to be blessed doesn't make you blessed. The way you live and the way I live determines God's blessing on our life. Some of you would say, preacher, I feel like I've tried to do a lot of these things, and I don't feel really blessed.

Well, dear friend, I guess maybe sometimes you and I need to look at ourselves, and maybe we've got the wrong definition of blessing. Or it might be that we need to take a closer look and make sure that we really are following the guidelines God's given. I want you to look at verse three. This blessed man, if you do these things, this is the way it describes him.

If you do those things, if you seek the right advice, the right association, the right attitude, the right affection, the right activity, if you do that, this is what the Bible, how it describes you. Look at verse three. And he shall, he who, the individual that abides by verse one and two, the blessed man, the blessed man that walt not in the counsel of the ungodly, the blessed man that didn't stand in the way of sinners, the blessed man that didn't sit in the seat of the scornful, the blessed man that did delight in the Lord, and the blessed man that did delight in his law all day and night. That is the blessed man, and he shall, notice this, be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit and his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Four things I notice. Verse one, the Bible says you're gonna be solid. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

Dear friend, look at me. In a society right now that is changing constantly for the worse, the Bible says a blessed man is a solid man, a solid individual. A tree that is planted by the rivers of water means that there's plenty of nutrients getting to those roots, and those roots are growing deeper and deeper and deeper.

And you know what? The first windstorm that comes by doesn't knock over a solid tree. And the first temptation that comes your way doesn't knock over a solid Christian. The first person that comes by with negative influence doesn't influence a solid Christian.

He'll be solid. Second, he'll be a soul winner. That bringeth forth his fruit and his season. You say, preacher, why is that?

Listen to me, dear friends. One of the biggest tools you have of reaching others is your testimony. Now, there are some people that say, hey, you just need to live right in front of people. And then there are some people that say, hey, you know, you need to just obviously talk to them, confront them with the Gospel.

I think both are true. If you confront them with the Gospel and you've got a rotten testimony, they're not gonna listen to one thing you have to say. But if you live right in front of them and they're never confronted with the Gospel, many times folks will never make a decision. But, dear friend, I'm here to tell you one of the best ways for you to start bearing fruit as a Christian is for you to start following verses 1 and 2.

When you have the right advice and the right associations and you begin to start having the right affections and the right activities, all of a sudden people begin to see there's a difference and they see something different in you. You know what? He doesn't do all the things that everybody else in the world says is fun, and yet he still seems to be able to have fun.

No, so we're not trying to criticize here. Listen, you don't have to have anything this world has to offer for you to have fun. The best fun is when you don't have to feel guilty about it one bit. The best fun is when you don't have to be afraid of who might see it.

You can just have fun, not feel bad. He's solid, he's a sole winner. Notice this, he's steadfast in verse 3. His leaf also shall not wither.

What does that mean? It's like this tree all of a sudden gets green, has fruit, and then dies. No, when you're a blessed individual, when you've taken the steps in verse 1 and 2, not only are you solid, planted by the rivers of water, not only are you a sole winner, bringing forth fruit in his season, but you're steadfast, his leaf shall not wither.

It continues and grows and continues to do well. It's not like, hey, I'm alive for a while and then I die. It's not like, hey, my leaves are green and now they're withering. A lot of Christians are like that.

They'll get in for a while, get out for a while, in for a while, out for a while. I'm saying a blessed man is strong, stable, solid, sole winner, and steadfast. The leaf shall not wither.

By the way, really a whole sermon ought to be on that phrase. His leaf shall not wither. I would have to ask you this question, has your leaf withered lately? Where are you in your relationship with the Lord and your relationship with serving him? Was there a time even recently where you were just more excited than somebody said this, somebody said that, and you noticed something got critical of this and critical of this and didn't like this, didn't like that, and now you find yourself in a situation where you're not near as close to God as you were? What that is is that phrase, that leaf is withering, because you should have been getting so many nutrients from God's Word.

If you cut off this nutrient, your leaf will wither. At last he's successful. Look if you would, verse 3, And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

You know what my mind thinks about? My mind thinks about Joseph who went through so much trial and difficulty and yet everywhere Joseph went he was given more responsibility and more responsibility and more responsibility because those over him saw that there was a quality in him. He was honest, upright, steadfast.

Everything the Bible says that Joseph did, God caused him to prosper. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kerwin Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kerwinbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.