Evergreen

What's our attitude toward the things we delight in?

Here's Stephen Davey with some practical comments. Bobby, you've spent time in it in recent days. The blessed person, the advancing person delights in the Word, which means he spends time in it. What comes to your mind when I say the word, Bible, or the phrase, the Word of God? Maybe you think of it as long and difficult to read. Maybe you feel a twinge of guilt for not spending more time in it.

Maybe you feel condemnation because you don't live up to it. Or, do you actually love and delight in the Word of God? Psalm 1 tells us that a blessed person is the person who delights in the law of the Lord.

This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's lesson is called Evergreen. Green trees are an analogy for godly people. We have to be rooted in good soil, watered consistently, and receive sunlight.

The more dependent we are on God, the more fruitful we will be. To millions of people, the news was devastating. You've read about it in the past few years, one major corporation after another, having to acknowledge the fact that their clients' credit cards and information had been breached. Millions of credit card accounts have been hacked and money stolen from Target to Chase to Chick-fil-A. Hackers have found a way in. I read, as I researched a little bit on it, one cybercrime gang has stolen as much as $34 million in just this year alone.

$34 million. But another group of hackers impacted 34 million lives. They hacked their way into an online business called Ashley Madison, an online dating site with one primary objective to allow married people to meet other married people so they can cheat. Their advertising motto, as I read about it, is one rather crude, brutal, wicked phrase.

Life is short, have an affair. That's it. And more than 34 million people signed on. The hackers evidently wanted to shut the site down, and so they hacked in and they published the names, the addresses, the phone numbers, the email addresses, and even private messages they had sent to other potential spouses or people that they would meet. Business leaders were exposed.

Bankers, teachers, authors, pastors, UN peacekeepers, staff members inside the Vatican, all brought out into the light. I read a little bit about it, and so I read more just to make sure I understood it. But I thought it was interesting, the response to this particular hacking. The Ashley Madison website has been nicknamed, evidently, the Google of cheating. And its president, when this was found out, responded publicly, and ironically, I might add, by saying that this data breach was, quote, an act of criminality. An act of criminality, how can they be so bad?

Full investigation is underway. The problem, beloved, isn't cyber crime. The problem is a sinful heart. And cyber crime and stealing and adultery are simply the fruit of sin.

And none of us are beyond any of it, none of us. Frankly, no one, especially the believer, gets up in the morning planning on ruining their reputation, ruining their marriage, ruining their lives. It doesn't happen with one big decision.

Here I am, if I do that, I'm going to ruin my life. It's one little decision after another, one little compromise after another. Many sins along the way. A few years ago, one research organization asked adults who consider themselves to be Evangelical Christians, which of the eight following behaviors had they done or acted upon this past week, in one week.

In the past seven days, 28% of them had used profanity, 20% had gambled, 19% had viewed pornography, 12% had gossiped, 12% had gotten drunk, 11% had lied, and 9% had been sexually involved with someone other than their spouse in just the past week. Say all that to simply say, as we gather as a body of people that are pursuing the light, right? None of us are out of harm's way. We all have the ability to manage sin, to commit sin, to compartmentalize sin, and to fail. And none of our sins should be managed, none of them should be hidden, all of them should be repented of, all of them. And we do that with abandon and rehearsing all of this leads us to do it again.

To open our lives and our hearts to Christ and go to the cross. In fact, Peter would write to the believers and remind them to be alert. He would say, stay awake, literally.

Stay awake because the devil, that old serpent, he's roaming around like a lion, he's roaring as he roams about, seeking someone to devour, 1 Peter 5.8. That verb, to devour, literally means he will swallow you whole. Swallow you whole. He can't have your soul, but he can destroy the totality of your life. If you want him to, he'll be happy to swallow you whole. You don't flirt with a hungry lion. I remember being on a safari in Africa in a jeep and we pulled right into a pride of lions and they got up and the back of those lions came up to the edge of the window and their purring could be heard vibrating inside the jeep.

You don't roll your window down and pet their head and say, nice little kitty cat. Don't play with it. It has the ability to swallow you up. Now let's go back to Psalm 1 and remind ourselves of the warning. Psalm 1, we got through verse 1, we'll finish it tonight. How blessed is the man, that word blessed, how wonderfully advancing, how progressing in godliness is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. That keyword to walk, if you haven't circled it, circle it. It effectively says you don't merge lanes with someone who will give you wicked counsel.

Change your lunch partner, sit on a different seat in the bus. Nor, notice, stand in the path of sinners. This literally refers to taking a stand. This means you're agreeing with this person. You're agreeing with their perspective, which is wicked.

Because if you do, notice the third step downward in this digression. You're going to end up sitting in the seat of scoffers. At first you're walking with them, then you're standing around agreeing with them. And now you're sitting in the seat. Remember that means the chair.

That is the chair that authoritatively scoffs at the truth of God. Don't walk, stand, or sit under the influence of those who want nothing to do with God and his word. It'll ruin your relationships, it'll ruin your marriage, it'll ruin your life.

It'll potentially ruin the entirety of your personal life. So this is what you are not to do. Telling someone what not to do is not enough, right? Verse one tells us what not to do, now verse two tells us what to do. Look at verse two. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. The next key word to circle is that word delight. Notice his delight is in the law of the Lord. In other words, the word is our joy. It is our delight. If you delight in a person, you're going to spend time around that person. If you delight in a song, you're going to be singing that song throughout the day. If you delight in a book, you're going to read the book.

If you delight in some hobby, you've spent time in it in recent days. The blessed person, the advancing person delights in the word which means he spends time in it. He doesn't walk with the wicked because he doesn't delight in them. He doesn't stand around with sinners because he has no delight with them. Unless he wants to win them the faith of Christ. He doesn't sit with the scoffers because he takes no delight.

He's not even interested. His delight is in the law of the Lord. Now in the Psalms, the law, that expression is often used not simply as a reference to the Torah, but as a categorical expression of God's revealed mind or his will. Which means the psalmist here isn't referring to just one little part of God's law, but all of it.

He delights in all of what God has revealed about himself. The apostle Paul said the same thing effectively to Timothy, remember from our study. The word of God is inspired, it's profitable for doctrine, that's right. For proof, that's what's wrong, tells us what's wrong. For correction, that's how to get right.

And for training, that's how to stay right. So that the man of God, that one who belongs to God, will be thoroughly stocked up for his voyage through life. So it is the totality of the word. It isn't, oh I like that verse, that's going to be my theme verse, I like that text. It's all of the revealed truth of God. Some people get a verse or two and they twist it around so badly.

They make it defend their own opinion and distort their own perspective. I read the funny story about a man who got a verse or two from the Bible. It was quoted in a book written to men on how to be a real man. In fact, the title of the book was The Man of the House.

So he's reading it, and he'd read it on his commute by train to work and back. And one day he read it and he figured it was time to work it out at home, try it on his wife. He walked through the front door and he pointed his finger at her and he said, from now on I am the man of the house. My word is your command. I want you tonight to fix my favorite dinner. And then when I eat it, I want you to draw my bath. After I finish relaxing in my bath, I want you to guess who's going to clothe me and comb my hair.

She said, well that would be the funeral director. Good girl, good for her. Let's not take delight in our little verse. Let's delight in the revealed will and bind of God. And so we're in it because we delight in it and we want to practice it. Now the second key word to practice is the word meditate.

Notice. And in his law, he meditates day and night. The word meditate, meditation, hegah, means to mutter, to mutter. It refers to the movement of the mouth.

This explains the command of Joshua, which might not be understandable, when he's commanded to not let the book of the law, this book of the law, depart from your what? Mouth. Your mouth. In other words, you're constantly muttering it. You're constantly ruminating on it.

You're constantly chewing on it. You're talking to yourself. And you're talking to yourself in terms of God's revealed word. One of the wonderful things about Bible memory is you mutter that as you rehearse it to make it sink in. So meditation is not the emptying of your mind and you're sitting around in some placid form.

In fact, that trend has sort of worked its way into the evangelical church and it really troubles me. It's called contemplative prayer. This is the practice of simply remaining silent, maybe even getting a piece of paper, because you're going to wait for God to say something. We don't wait for God to speak.

God has spoken in these last days through his Son, Hebrews 1. You're holding it in your lap. You ruminate on it and you meditate on it. You're recalling it and muttering it and repeating it.

You're chewing on it. And the one who does that, he says, you're blessed. You are progressing. You're going to progress in relationships, in marriage, in work ethic, in life itself.

The person then who sinks the roots of their mind and their life into the soil of the written word with an attitude of submission, here's what's going to happen to them. Three words begin to characterize their life, their relationships, their marriage. They're tree-like, and that's the analogy he shifts to.

Let me give them to you. The first word is stability. That's how I would characterize or principalize this next phrase. Look at verse 3. He will be, here's the result, like a tree planted by streams of water. The illustration is of a tree firmly rooted. Some Hebrew scholars think he's referring to being transplanted by the river.

It grows strong and stable because it's able to draw from water nearby. This is the idea of Paul to the Colossians who said, As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now built up, growing up in him and established in your faith, Colossians 2, 6, and 7. This is the person who says no to the dry counsel of the wicked, no to the scoffing of the unbeliever.

This is the person who says yes to the thirst-quenching revealed truth of God's mind in the Word. And the analogy then here is that the roots of your life will drink in the wisdom and counsel of God. Now, be patient. Trees don't appear overnight. You don't plant a tree and expect to go out and see anything. It takes a lifetime. Be patient as God works in you as you're rooted by this stream, this counsel of God's revealed will.

You will, though, experience and begin to evidence stability. There's a second characteristic of someone whose life is becoming tree-like. I'll use the word fruitfulness.

Look at verse 3 again. It will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season. In other words, roots that pull up and in spiritual truth result in fruit that is spiritual. And what is spiritual fruit but the fruit of the Spirit, right? Paul writes, and by the way, consider how these might affect your marriage, your life, your relationship. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Galatians 5. You see, but I've been trying. I've been trying. I decided yesterday I'd get up and I'd work on patience.

It's the worst day of my life I've ever had. You don't know how long I've been working at this marriage thing either. Well, one of the wonderful things about the assembly is you get around people who've been working at it longer than you. I had one guy in our church several years ago. He came up to me.

He'd been married over 60 years. He came dead serious, dead serious. He said to me, Steve and I have discovered the secret of a great marriage. I don't know if I ought to get out a pen or what.

It was right in the auditorium between services. I said, really, what is it? And he said, on the day I got married, I looked my wife in the eye and I said, I will not try to run your life and I will not try to run mine. Wow. Have you ever thought about the fact that Adam died at age 930? It's possible he and Eve were married for 900 years. You're thinking, I don't have it so bad after all.

Imagine that. Listen, the issue is not to try to work up love and kindness and patience. The issue is to dig down roots into the word of Christ, the mind of Christ, the character of Christ, by that river, the wisdom of Christ. And then this becomes fruit. Stability, fruitfulness, one more word, endurance. Look at verse three. He'll be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither. Whatever he does, he prospers.

Again, that word is he advances according to the purposes of God. Did you notice? This is an evergreen tree. Its leaves don't dry up, blow away.

Even in the harsh winter, green, the dry summer, green. Verse four, the wicked aren't like this. They're like chaff, dry chaff, which the wind drives away. They will not stand in the judgment. In other words, one day the holy truth and the piercing, omniscient logic of God will dismantle their justifications and reveal their deceptions. The godly person's like a tree rooted.

The unbeliever is constantly scattering in the wind storms of the world. I read that one of Germany's lawmakers has actually proposed legislation that would legally terminate marriages after seven years. The legislation would allow couples to extend their marriage or allow them to terminate automatically after the seventh year ends. That has moved across the pond.

It's picking up steam. The idea is now called, here's the phrase, wed leasing. Wed leasing. That is the dry and fruitful counsel of the ungodly which turns life into chaff. Unstable, self-centered lives tossed around by the winds of life. No, nothing of stability and fruitfulness and endurance. Let me put it into a simple phrase. Let our lives never take root.

Let me read the difference between wed leasing and the covenant of marriage according to the wisdom of God. In his wonderful book, The Disciplines of a Godly Man, Kent Hughes writes of his friendship with Robertson McQuilkin, the former president of Columbia International University. Robertson's wife Muriel was in the latest stages of Alzheimer's. Dr. McQuilkin resigned his presidency and retired in order to care for her.

In his resignation letter, he wrote this to the student body. My dear wife Muriel has been in failing mental health for about eight years. So far I've been able to care for both her ever growing needs and my leadership responsibilities at Columbia. Recently it has become apparent that Muriel is contented most of the time she is with me and none of the time I am away from her. It isn't just discontent, she is filled with fear, even terror that she has lost me.

And she begins to go in search of me. It's clear that she needs me now full time. This decision was made in a way nearly 50 years ago when I promised to care for myself and in health till death do us part. So as a man of my word, I will do it. She has cared for me fully all these years. And if I cared for her for the next 40 years, I would not be out of debt. Duty can be grim and stoic, but I love her.

I do not have to care for her. I get to. I get to. This is the result of a man who rooted himself along the wisdom of God's river. And his life now is bearing fruit that is remarkable to us and distinctive. I remember as a kid we had a tree in our backyard, perfect for climbing. As I tried to remember back, I think it might have been a maple, I'm not sure, but its branches were just perfect for four boys and perfect for a mother that needed a place to send four boys in the afternoon. We built a tree house.

The word house is an exaggeration. It was a lot of wood and a lot of nails going every which way, upon which we finally got a little platform, and that was our tree fort. We love that tree and that little tree house. What made that tree house possible wasn't our ingenuity or our strength. It was the strength of the branches of that tree. I couldn't help but think the best place to build a life next to a river of wisdom is in the branches of a tree. A tree that has refused the polluted wisdom of the world and it has and continues to drink in the wisdom of God's word.

Drink it in. Isn't that a good reminder today? Everything in your life, your marriage, your relationships, your business, your testimony, your very life itself, it all becomes like strong branches of a firmly rooted tree as you drink in God's word. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is currently working through a series on some selected Psalms called The Song Volume 2. Today's lesson from Psalm 1 is entitled Evergreen.

Do you know someone who's been neglecting time in God's word? Maybe they need a fresh reminder of the importance of delighting in the law of the Lord. We've made it possible for you to share this lesson from both our website and our smartphone app. I encourage you to do that. When you share the teaching ministry of Wisdom for the Heart with others, you're helping to expand this Bible teaching outreach. It's a blessing to those you send it to and it's certainly a blessing to us as well. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org and you'll find the Wisdom International app in the iTunes and the Google Play stores. We're going to continue through this teaching series tomorrow. So be with us here on Wisdom for the Heart.