The Fork in the Road: The Two Ways Text: Psalm 1:1-3
Introduction: The Worldview Gate
The book of Psalms is the songbook of the church, the prayer book of the saints, and the anatomy of the soul. It is where God teaches us how to speak to Him, how to feel before Him, and how to live in His world. And like any good book, the first chapter sets the stage for everything that follows. Psalm 1 is not just an introduction; it is the gate through which you must pass to understand all the rest. It presents us with a stark, non-negotiable choice. There are two ways to live, and only two. There is no third way, no middle path, no demilitarized zone. There is the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. One leads to life, stability, and fruitfulness. The other leads to ruin, instability, and judgment.
Our modern sensibilities recoil from this kind of sharp antithesis. We are a people who love nuance, who prefer shades of gray, who want to believe that everyone is basically good and just trying their best. But the Bible will not have it. From the two trees in the garden, to Cain and Abel, to the sheep and the goats, Scripture consistently presents us with this fundamental divide. This is not a failure of imagination; it is the bedrock of reality. To refuse to choose is to have already chosen the path of the wicked.
Psalm 1, therefore, is a worldview psalm. It tells you what kind of person is truly fortunate, truly happy, truly blessed. And the world's definition of a blessed man is diametrically opposed to God's. The world says the blessed man is the one who follows the latest trends, who stands with the popular crowd, who sits in the seat of the influential and the cynical. He is unconstrained, autonomous, and self-defining. But God says the blessed man is the one who is carefully, deliberately, and joyfully separate. He is defined not by what he embraces from the world, but by what he rejects from the world and what he embraces from God.
This psalm is the great fork in the road at the very beginning of our walk with God. It forces us to answer the question: Whose advice will you take? Where will you plant your feet? What will you delight in? Your answer to these questions determines not just your mood, but your destiny.
The Text
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the way of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, And in His law he meditates day and night. And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.
(Psalm 1:1-3 LSB)
The Great Refusal (v. 1)
We begin with the character of the blessed man, described first by what he does not do.
"How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the way of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!" (Psalm 1:1)
The first thing to notice is that the word "blessed" here is plural in the Hebrew. It is not just a single blessing, but a cascade of blessings, an overarching state of blessedness. It is a profound, settled happiness that comes from being in right relationship with God. This is not the fleeting, circumstantial happiness the world chases; this is deep, doctrinal joy.
And where does this blessedness begin? It begins with separation. It begins with a holy refusal. Before we get to the positive action of the blessed man, we are shown his deliberate avoidance of evil. And notice the progression here, for sin is always progressive. It is a downhill slide. First, one "walks" in the counsel of the wicked. This is the initial stage of compromise. You are still moving, but you are listening to the wrong voices. You are casually entertaining ungodly ideas, taking advice from those who have rejected God's wisdom. You start reading their magazines, watching their movies, and absorbing their assumptions without critique.
If you continue walking in their counsel, you will soon "stand" in the way of sinners. The casual stroll has become a halt. You are no longer just listening; you are loitering. You have stopped to take up their habits and their lifestyle. The "way of sinners" is their path, their manner of life. To stand there is to begin to adopt it as your own. You've become comfortable in their presence and are starting to blend in.
From standing, the final step is to "sit" in the seat of scoffers. This is the final stage of apostasy. Walking was flirtation, standing was participation, but sitting is enthronement. You have now become a settled, tenured member of the opposition. You are no longer just a sinner; you are a mocker of righteousness. The scoffer is the one who sneers at the things of God, who makes a joke of holiness, who is cynical toward all that is good and true. He has gone from being influenced by the world to being a chief exporter of its poison. The blessed man cuts this progression off at the very beginning. He knows that you cannot dabble in ungodliness without getting dirty. He refuses to take the first step.
The Central Delight (v. 2)
Having seen what the blessed man rejects, we now see what he embraces. His life is not an empty vacuum; it is filled with a holy preoccupation.
"But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, And in His law he meditates day and night." (Psalm 1:2 LSB)
Here is the great pivot. The blessed man's joy is not found in the absence of sin alone, but in the presence of God's Word. The word "law" here is Torah. It does not simply mean a list of rules and regulations. It means instruction, direction, the entire self-revelation of God. It is the story of who God is, what He has done, and how we are to live as His people. The blessed man does not see the law of God as a burden, but as a gift. It is not a straitjacket; it is a roadmap to life.
His relationship to the Torah is one of "delight." This is not a grim, dutiful slog. This is exquisite pleasure. To be told to delight in God's Word is like a command to never skip dessert. It is where he finds his deepest satisfaction. The world seeks its delights in ephemeral pleasures, but the godly man has found the fountain of all true and lasting joy. And because he delights in it, he "meditates" on it day and night.
This meditation is not some kind of empty-your-mind Eastern mysticism. The Hebrew word means to mutter, to ponder, to speak to oneself. It is the quiet rumination of a mind saturated with Scripture. He chews on it. He turns it over and over in his mind. It is the first thing he thinks of in the morning and the last thing on his mind at night. This constant meditation is what vaccinates him against the counsel of the wicked. His mind is so full of God's truth that there is no room for the world's lies. The Word of God becomes the very grammar of his thoughts, shaping his instincts, his reactions, and his affections.
The Fruitful Result (v. 3)
This delight and meditation are not just an internal state. They produce tangible, external results. The inner life of the blessed man results in a stable and productive outer life.
"And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers." (Genesis 1:3 LSB)
This is one of the great images in all of Scripture. The man who is rooted in the Word of God is like a tree. First, he is "firmly planted." He is not a tumbleweed, blown about by every new fad or cultural pressure. He has stability. His roots go down deep into the life-giving truth of God's Word, which is represented by the "streams of water." In a dry and arid land, access to water is life itself. While the world is withering in its spiritual drought, the blessed man has a constant, subterranean source of nourishment.
Because he is nourished, he is fruitful. He "yields its fruit in its season." This is not a frantic, anxious striving, but a natural outflow of his rootedness. The Christian life is one of fruitfulness, love, joy, peace, and so on. But notice the phrase "in its season." There are seasons of growth, seasons of pruning, and seasons of harvest. Godliness does not produce everything all at once. There is a divine patience to this growth. His leaf also "does not wither." Even when the heat is on, when trials come, his spiritual vitality does not fail, because he is not dependent on his external circumstances. He is drawing life from a deeper source.
And the summary of this blessed life is that "in whatever he does, he prospers." We must be careful here. This is not the cheap and tawdry prosperity gospel that promises a Mercedes in every garage. The Bible is full of saints who were poor and persecuted. The ultimate fulfillment of this promise is eschatological; the righteous will stand in the judgment when the wicked are blown away. But there is a real, partial fulfillment in this life. The prosperity spoken of here is the prosperity of the tree. It is the success of being what God created you to be. It is the prosperity of fruitfulness, of stability, of enduring vitality, of finishing your course. It is the deep success of a life lived in accordance with reality, a life that pleases God. And there is no greater prosperity than that.