The Blessed Man | Psalms 1-2

If you have your Bibles with you, open them to Psalm 1. We’re just going to go ahead and jump right to doing that. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there are black Bibles positioned under the chairs around you. You will be helped to have a copy of the Scriptures in front of you. Open your Bibles to Psalm 1. You’ve heard that multiple times today. We’re going to be looking at Psalm 1 and 2, and I want to read the passage before I say anything else about it. So let’s look now immediately to the Scriptures and listen as I read. This is the Word of God beginning in Psalm 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, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

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. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, as for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

I will tell of the decree, the Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son lest he be angry and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Amen. Amen. We thank God for his word today and every day. A fairly popular commentary on the Psalms begins with these words on Psalm 1. It seems Psalm 1 was specially composed as an introduction to the whole Psalter. Certainly, it stands here as a faithful doorkeeper.

Close quote. And then that commentary goes on expressing a widely held view these days that Psalm 1 articulates the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. And we are to be righteous. This, in the minds of many, is the tone setter for all 150 Psalms. Here’s the way of the wicked. Here’s the way of the righteous. We’re to be righteous. Sincere question. If Psalm 1 is the doorkeeper to the Psalms in that way, in that sense, how does anyone get past the threshold of even the very first verse? Pulling back the curtain a little bit, we’re going to be spending some time in the Psalms this summer. Psalm 1 and 2 was preached here about five years ago.

And in thinking about doing a series in the Psalms over the summertime, it seems good on occasion to go back and readdress pivotal passages in the scriptures. It’s good for us as a church. It’s good for me as a Christian, as a pastor, to study again, to wrestle again with significant passages. And if we’re going to think about Psalms together, even for the next several weeks, it seems good that we would orient ourselves here. If this is, in fact, Psalm 1 and 2 we’re going to contend are, in fact, the double doors through which we enter the entire Psalter, all 150 of them. It seems good that we would look at them to understand them rightly. And if we’re going to, if we’re going to rightly understand them as the entryway into the Psalms, we need to keep a few things in view first. Psalms 1 and 2 are broken up in our translations, and that’s fine.

But interpreters from the earliest days, both Jewish and Christian, have seen them as one unit. So Psalm 1 and 2 are one poetic unit. Secondly, Psalms 1 and 2 are not about us. Now, don’t misunderstand. They apply to us, but they are not about us. That makes a world of difference. You probably think this Psalm is about you, right? It’s not. Jesus understood the Psalms to bear witness about Him. You know that. Luke 24. The New Testament writers did too. The Psalms are cited more often in the New Testament than any other portion of the Old Testament. Jesus spoke the words of the Psalmist as His own. For example, most pointedly, on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22 verse 1.

He did that at a number of other points. And then at numerous points alongside this, the New Testament writers put the words of the Psalms in the mouth of Jesus, even though they were written by David or others. Third thing we need to keep in mind as we’re going to approach Psalm 1 and 2 this morning, is that Jesus is the singer of the Psalms, as Augustine called Him. Many through church history have seen the same your pastors do too. Hear the voice of Christ echoing through the Psalms. Some of the Psalms have language that’s really clear. It’s like, OK, this is obviously Messiah stuff. I can understand how this is the voice of Jesus. Other times, though, in the Psalms, we will hear Jesus speaking for us as our representative. As the God-man, as our high priest, as the man of sorrows acquainted with grief. Jesus in the Psalms comes alongside us and puts words to our experiences and then puts words in our mouths that we speak to God.

Sometimes even in prayers of repentance or in songs of lament. And then there are times in the Psalms where Jesus speaks to us and shows us our need of Him. We must read the Psalms this way. In light of Jesus, we read the Psalms knowing that we, nor David, nor Asaph, nor Moses, are the main character. Jesus is the main character of the Psalms. His voice echoes through them all. So all that by way of introduction. You’ve already got your Bibles open. We’ve already read. We’re doing well. Basically, my plan is four points in a conclusion, basically. I will try to make it plain to you as we go. Point one is from Psalm 1, verses 1 to 3, the sermon title, The Blessed Man. That’s what point one is. The Blessed Man.

The Blessed Man (Psalm 1:1–3)

Now, I have down here in my notes just laying my cards on the table, but Jason has done that already about seven times today, and we have confessed it. We’ve sung it. We’ve prayed it. The Blessed Man of Psalm 1 is Jesus. Now, when I preached this sermon five years ago, that might have been more revelatory for you than it is today. And we praise the Lord for that. That for that to be spoken here in this assembly, that Jesus is the Blessed Man of Psalm 1, you don’t go, really? You say, yes and amen. He is. This is going to be woven through our time together today, so I’m not going to say it all at once. Right out of the gate in his commentary on Psalm 1, Augustine, so fifth century theologian. You’ve heard of him probably. He writes this about Psalm 1. This Psalm is to be understood of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Man. This is even clearer to us when we remember that Psalm 1 and 2 should be read together.

Blessed is the man, the Messiah, who we will learn more of in the second Psalm. A few things to note in verses one to three. Put your eyes on the text. So blessed is the man. Then you’re going to see three phrases who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. All three of those phrases are speaking to a way of living and a way of believing. It’s a way of thinking, of believing, of living. It’s speaking to how you live your life. And in all of those phrases, the perfect tense of the verbs emphasizes this, that whoever this blessed man is, he is never involved and has never been involved with anything tainted with evil. This is a man who never walked in the counsel of the wicked.

So what we’re doing right now, for the next two or three minutes-ish, is we’re trying to do some good heart diagnostic stuff. So whether you’re a Christian or whether you’re not, think about yourself right now. The blessed man is a man who never walked in the counsel of the wicked. Do you know what the Lord says about all of us in Adam? Naturally. Their feet are swift to shed blood, he says. In their paths are ruined in misery. In the way of peace they haven’t known. It’s what we all are by nature. This blessed man is a man who never stood in the way of sinners. God’s Word says to us that we naturally, in Adam, have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, that surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

That all have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. I saw this clip on X, Twitter, whatever it’s called now, and it was a kind of compilation of different preachers saying things. There was one well-known preacher in Houston, Texas who said, you don’t need to tell people that they’re sinners. People already kind of know that. Couldn’t disagree more strongly. We’re pretty good, really good at thinking well of ourselves, of justifying ourselves, of dismissing the wrong that we do. We stare our sin in the face in our liturgy every week and we assess ourselves in light of God’s Word every week to acknowledge that in Adam naturally we are sinners because this is so important for us to see who and what we are in and of ourselves and therefore what we need.

And then to see Christ as the one who came, to be everything that we could never be, to take the punishment we really deserve. It’s pivotal that we always assess ourselves in light of the Scriptures and that we understand that the problem, the fundamental problem, does not exist out there. It’s in here. Yes, sin happens against me. I live in a world that’s broken, that affects me. All that is true. There’s compassion for that. There’s mercy for that. There’s gentleness for that. There’s patience for that. And while it sounds compassionate to tell people that the real problem is outside of them, not inside of them, it actually robs us of any real hope we could ever have because we are always looking to Christ who is outside of us to save what’s wrong in here. And knowing that He stands for us always as our righteousness and the forgiveness of our sins grounds us. It gives us peace and assurance and comfort even as we’re honest about our own frame.

And as we fight against the corruption of our flesh. This is a man, the Blessed Man. It also will keep us from doing silly things with the Scriptures where we think that it’s kind of grace and it’s kind of our effort. No, it is not kind of you at all. It is only Christ. And when we read a text like this and we think that somehow this is a blessed man who was once a sinner and now has been turned to righteousness, we miss it. All right. This man not only never walked in the counsel of the wicked, he never stood in the way of sinners. This man never sat in the seat of scoffers, but we in Adam naturally our throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps, of snakes is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. This is a man who delighted in the law. And when you see that word law here, it’s Torah, meaning instruction of the Lord.

The teaching, the word of God, he delighted in God’s instruction and lived in light of it every moment. He always believed just like we said in song. He kept his father’s every word. What’s true of me. What’s true of you is that we in our unrighteousness suppress the truth. For the Lord made this diagnosis early on in the book of Genesis. He saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention and the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. This blessed man is a man who is like a tree planted by streams of water. He bears fruit. His leaf doesn’t wither ever. And truly, he has prospered in everything that he does. There’s an interesting section of the prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah 17, seven to nine. You can write that down. You don’t need to turn. Listen to verses seven and eight of Jeremiah 17. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

He is like a tree planted by water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green. And he is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. That sounds very similar to Psalm one. But then you know the very next verse in Jeremiah 17 verse nine. The heart is deceitful above all things. And desperately sick. Who can understand it? It’s pretty wild. The main point of this section of the sermon, the main point of point one, is that the blessed man is Jesus. The blessed man could never be you. It could never be me. Because from Jump Street, we had failed. This is not about a person who was once a sinner and has turned to righteousness. This is about a person who has never sinned. And who is delighted in the law of God day and night and lived in perfect accord with it his entire life. And there’s only one. And he is the one in whom we trust. Second point, the wicked and the righteous. The wicked and the righteous, verses four to six of Psalm one.

The Wicked and the Righteous (Psalm 1:4–6)

So the psalmist here is contrasting really the blessed man and the wicked. I mean that’s the real contrast. He says, verse four, the wicked are not so. The wicked are not like the blessed man. He is like a tree planted and rooted by a stream, fruitful, enduring, eternally, prospering in all he does. The wicked though are like chaff. It’s like something a harvester discards to the wind. Just blows away. They will not endure. They have no future. The wicked, verse five and six. We’re going to think more on all this in just a second. The wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Their end is destruction. I’m going to use a big word really quickly.

Verse five, verse six. These verses are eschatological, meaning they have to do with the last things, ultimate things, the end of all things. The wicked will not stand in the judgment. That’s the great judgment. Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. So if you’re here this morning, if you’re a Christian, listen in. If you’re not, listen closely. This is one of those like two ways to live kind of moments. You got two alternatives. There’s this great contrast. The wicked won’t stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. But we’ve just been talking about the fact that we are not righteous. None are righteous, no not one. So how could we ever stand amongst the congregation of the righteous? If we want to talk about being righteous, we have to go back to the blessed man, the way of the blessed man, the way of the righteous describes that one person.

And so if you are going to be counted amongst the righteous, you’re going to need to be with him. You know how in life it matters so much who you know. How many times have we heard this? It’s about who you know. That’s going to apply at the end of all this too. Who do you know who you’re with? Our appeal. As we stand before the Lord, our appeal is never in the first person. It’s never I. It’s always he. I’m with him is how we would speak. I’m with him. He is for me, united to him, trusting in him, believing in him. If you want to be amongst the congregation of the righteous, it won’t be on your own steam. It will be because you stand in Christ by faith. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous. And on the one hand, it’s like, yeah, I’d say so. He’s the only one who ever walked it. He knows this road very well. And he knows those who are made one with himself. Both are true.

He knows the way of righteousness is the only one who ever did it. And he knows all of those who are united to him. He has a covenant relationship with them. He assures, cares for and protects them. So hear this. Everyone in this room who has put your faith in Jesus Christ. When you read Psalm one five from now on, think this. The wicked will not stand in the judgment, but we will. Because there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Now, you may be thinking, brother, is there anything for us to do with this song? With these verses? Yes, first and foremost, with no shame, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you sit here today, the great call of this passage to you is to put your faith in Jesus Christ for your forgiveness and righteousness in eternal life, to turn from yourself.

You have notions about how good you are. You’re not. You have notions about your own righteousness. You don’t have any. Your flesh loves sin. Turn from it. Turn to the one who loves you and gave himself for you. Yes, brother, but is there anything else? Well, keep trusting in Jesus, saints. But seriously, for us who hope in Jesus, this is like a first John three kind of thing for all of us who hope in Christ. What do we seek to do? You know this. We seek to what? Imitate Him. Everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies Himself as He is pure. So it is a good secondary application for us as we look at this Psalm. We are in Christ by faith. He is the blessed man, and now in Him we look at Him and we seek to imitate Him. So let’s take something from our passage. The blessed man meditates on God’s law day and night.

I already told you that law is Torah, so instruction of the Lord, word of God. But secondly, I think this needs to be clarified. When we read the word meditate, what do you think about? You think about, so do I. We think about setting aside a special time for a particular practice. That’s not really what it means here in the context. Here, the emphasis is on living and thinking perpetually in a way that is in perfect accord with the word of God. So it’s not just this kind of discipline you have or this special time that you set aside. It is a way of living. Living in light of God’s word all the time. Thinking after God’s word all the time. Living in perfect accord with the word of God all the time. So what would that look like for us? It would mean that we agree with God in all things. That we side with God in all things. We take Him at His word regarding who He is and what He’s like.

We consider His law with sobriety. We don’t try to lower its standard. We understand that it requires perfect, perpetual, spiritual obedience from every one of us. We agree with God about our sin and our need. We agree with God about the way of salvation. And then we also look to God’s law in ways that we do even in our services. The things that the Lord says are good. We pursue those. The things that He says are bad, harmful, sinful. We run from those. We train our hearts and minds according to the Scriptures. We consider and love our neighbor in everything. We aim to speak in ways that give life and build up.

We strive not to speak in ways that tear others down and destroy the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We do all of this together in the church. We keep gathering together like this to receive from the ministry of Christ. We watch over one another. We talk honestly, this is big, we talk honestly about the deceitfulness of sin. But how easily sin not only leads astray, but hardens our hearts. And we keep pointing one another to Jesus, the Blessed Man. And this is key to everything I’m saying, and I hope you see this. What I’m describing right now is not a program. This is not about even your quiet times. What we’re talking about right now is comprehensive.

What we’re talking about right now is a way of living. So the call is not to, and again, personal disciplines are fine and good. But they are not the be all and end all of the Christian life. This is a call to a comprehensive, different way of living than we used to live. This is a call to locking arms with other saints as we all not only cling to Christ but agree with God and side with God and are intentionally in one another’s lives doing all those things I just described. It’s a way of life. You know that the first way that Christianity was ever described was it was called practicing the way. This is overarching. I think it’s helpful for you to view your life like that, for you to not think about what are the little things that I can tweak.

That’s wise in some respect, but it’s actually good to back up, pan back and just reorient the way that you think about your life. And you can, right now or later on, you can look around this room and make eye contact with some of the other people who are thinking the same way about their lives and encourage each other. Really cool little observation, at least to me. You may not think it’s cool and it’s fine. I want you to put your eyes back to verse 3. The Blessed Man is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. Do you realize that you, that we, are the fruit that Jesus bears? That Jesus is the tree and we are the fruit. In Him we are planted by the river of life.

In Him we become the righteousness of God and then in Him we also become a fruitful people. The Blessed Man of Psalm 1 is Jesus the Messiah. We live in Him by faith and we’re now going to learn more about Him in Psalm 2.

The Raging of the Nations and the Christ of God (Psalm 2:1–9)

Which brings us to point three, the raging of the nations and the Christ of God. The raging of the nations and the Christ of God. How many of you keep up with the news? This is not to shame anyone. How many people? This is not a right or wrong? Yeah, okay, please. Yeah, it’s a normal thing for us to keep up with the news. It’s been a tumultuous few weeks, has it not? If you think about different things that have gone on around the world, beginning in verse 1 of Psalm 2, we see that the nations rage and plot. That verb, plot, is the same verb for meditate in Psalm 1 verse 2.

So the nation, where the Blessed Man meditates on the law of God, the nations rage and plot against the Lord and against His Anointed. When you read that word anointed, that of course applied to David and other kings of Israel and Judah, but it ultimately applies to Jesus. These words are quoted in Acts 4. This is right after Peter and John are released from custody by the Sanhedrin. And they’re quoted to describe what had happened in the life and the ministry of Jesus. The kings and rulers, so Pontius Pilate and the religious leaders of Israel, had set themselves against the Lord and against His Messiah. That’s how the apostles understood it. And this was all according to God’s plan. The plotting and the raging of the nations and the peoples and the kings and the rulers, that plotting and that raging, it’s in vain. The Lord isn’t shaken. So this is why I asked you if you watch the news. Because it’s very easy as a human being to watch the news and be unsettled.

It’s very normal. So this is very practical what we’re looking at right now. The Lord is not shaken. You can look at his response, verses four to six. He who sits in the heavens laughs. So on the one hand, all the raging and the plotting of the nations is laughable to the Lord. How so? This isn’t out of cruelty, but it’s because he’s the everlasting God. He’s the creator of the ends of the earth. He hung the heavens like we would hang curtains. Right? I mean, he numbered the stars and he knows them all by name. That one will strike you about how big he is.

You look up on a starry night and think about the vast expanse of space. He put them there, spoke them there, named them all. He does everything he pleases. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of the world to nothing. The nations are like a drop in a bucket to him. They’re like dust on the scales. For his dominion is an everlasting dominion. And his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven. That’s angels. And among the inhabitants of the earth, people. And none, angels nor men, can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? That’s why he laughs. It doesn’t matter who you are, for any human being to rise up and shake his or her fist at God is in one sense laughable.

And what’s more, when it comes to geopolitics, the Lord has always used the antics of kings and nations to advance his own plan of salvation. If you survey the Old Testament with those lenses on, it is astonishing. How many of the greatest empires in the history of the world show up in the pages of scripture? And the Lord makes audacious claims about what he does with them, through them, in them. How emperors and empires are instruments in his hands to accomplish the things that he has ordained from the beginning. The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus is, of course, Exhibit A. In one sense, all of world history is summed up in Genesis 50 and verse 20. What you meant for evil, God meant for good. In one sense. So not only is it laughable, the ways that the nations rage and plot against the Lord and against his anointed, the Lord, you see in the second part of verse four, holds them in derision. They are responsible and their end will come.

Vengeance is mine and I will repay, declares the Lord. Then in verse five, the Lord will speak to the nations and the peoples in his wrath and he will terrify them. And what will he say? Verse six. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. It’s as though the Lord looks at the nations, the rulers and the kings and the peoples of the earth. And he says this. You do what you want. I’ve got my guy. I’ve got my king, my son, my Christ, and he reigns on Mount Zion. And then beginning in verse seven, the Messiah speaks. He recounts the Lord’s decree. You are my son. Today I have begotten you. We confess that this morning. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, his only begotten son, our Lord.

While the kings of Israel and even Israel itself are referred to as little ‘s’ sons of God, this capital ‘S’ Son of God is not a creature. He was not made. He is the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It’s interesting where this verse, Psalm two seven, shows up in the New Testament. The Father speaks in a way that echoes it twice in the ministry of Jesus. Once it is baptism, once it is transfiguration. So it’s not wrong for you to see Psalm two seven and think baptism of Jesus, for you to think transfiguration of Jesus. Legitimate. In Acts chapter 13, Paul connects Psalm two seven to the resurrection of Jesus. So it’s not wrong for you to read Psalm two seven and think today I’ve begotten you resurrection of Christ. And then the writer of the Hebrews and making his argument for the preeminence of Jesus in all things, cites this verse two different times in chapter one and chapter five of Hebrews.

So it’s right for you to read Psalm two seven and think that this son of God, this Messiah is literally preeminent in all the universe. The father goes on, saying to the son, I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel. We’re going to do a little bit of this kind of fun, how the whole Bible is one cohesive, beautiful story thing right now. So just prepare yourself for this. So in those verses, Psalm two eight and nine, think about the following things. Jesus is the savior of the world and he’s the king of kings. God promised Abraham that he would save the nations through his promised offspring who is Christ. Daniel wrote about the divine son of man and to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people’s nations and languages should serve him.

You’re going to inherit the nations, Son. You will rule over them forever, son. In Ephesians, Paul prays that the saints at Ephesus would know not only the hope to which they’ve been called, but also the riches of Christ’s glorious inheritance in the saints. So you can draw a straight line from Psalm two seven to Ephesians one eighteen. In the book of Revelation, we read of the new song that the living creatures and the twenty four elders sang as they fell down before the Lamb. It goes this way. Worthy are you to take the scroll. This is to Jesus. Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. Later in the book of Revelation, we read these words. Hallelujah. For the Lord, our God, the almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready.

In Genesis forty nine, we learned that the scepter would not depart from Judah. The Lion of Judah. And that a messiah king would come through Judah. Well, that promised ruler from the tribe of Judah came, the lion from the tribe of Judah, who is also the lamb slain. He came. He came as the promised son of David to establish his kingdom forever. And here’s the key for us, the application for us. We are his inheritance. See yourself in Psalm two eight. I will make the nations your inheritance. I will make Jenny and Kelly and Stephen and Kara and Nick and Tommy your inheritance. Think like that. And he delights in us. We’re going to be presented pure and blameless before his throne when this is all over.

And we will reign with him forever in a new heavens and a new earth. And as we reign with him, we will praise him and glorify him and honor him every moment. And it will be natural as easily as we breathe. We will glorify and honor Christ forever and will enjoy him and he’ll enjoy us.

Refuge in the Son (Psalm 2:10–12)

Point four, verses 10 to 12 of Psalm two, I’m calling it refuge in the Son. refuge in the Son. I’ll just say this now. The image of taking refuge in the Lord is shot through all of scripture. It is all over the place. So like when we sing rock of ages cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee. That is a beautiful gospel redemption image that is shot through the Bible. So think of salvation that way. I am by faith. Jesus, you’re all I got. You’re all the only hope I have.

And I am literally I am hiding myself in you. And as much as it depends on me, Lord Jesus, I’m taking refuge in you. Protect me. Shelter me. Hide me. All right. Here we go. The psalmist exhorts the kings and the rulers of the earth to be wise. Stop doing what you’re doing. Stop this raging and plotting. It’s foolish. It’s wicked. It’s pointless. Repent. Turn. Serve the Lord and believe in the Son, his anointed. He warns them of the wrath, not just of God in general, but he warns them of the wrath of the Son. You remember Revelation six. When kings and generals and great ones of the earth, along with everyone else, begin to call for the mountains and rocks to fall on them.

Why? So that they might be hidden from the face of God and so that they might be hidden from what? The wrath of the Lamb. Really wild, you know, to think that like that’s that Jesus revelation 19 1 to 16 kind of stuff where he comes riding on a white horse or 11 to 16, excuse me, where he comes riding on a white horse and it is awe and power and glory and justice. He is that and the beauty is that he’s also your shepherd who’s called you by name and has loved you from before the foundation of the world and is tender and gentle and lowly with you. You need not fear him. But if you ever look at what’s going on in the world and you think this is wrong, will anybody ever do something about this? The answer is yes. The Lord Jesus is coming.

But then, after this warning and this exhortation to the kings and the rules of the earth to be wise and to repent and to believe in the Son, there’s the closing words of Psalm 2. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. And I want to do this. This may be obvious to you, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe this is your first Sunday here or you’ve not been here long or you’ve not considered Psalm 1 and 2. If you’re an OG and you’ve been thinking about Psalm 1 and 2 this way for a long time, it won’t hurt you to hear it again. Look at Psalm 1-1, the very first phrase. Blessed is the man. Now look at the very last sentence of Psalm 2, the end of the unit. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Blessed is the man, Jesus of Nazareth. And blessed are all who take refuge in him. That is the point. If you take anything away today, if you leave here with anything today, leave with that. Blessed is the man, the Christ. And blessed are all who take refuge in him by faith.

Friend, may it be you today. That, I’m going to say that sentence again. Blessed is the man, the Christ. And blessed are all who take refuge in him. That is the doorway into the entire Psalter. So if you’re reading Psalms ever, which you should, pray them out loud. This is good stuff to do. If you’re reading the Psalms ever, don’t ever forget. The two doors through which I entered into these beautiful poems, these beautiful songs, is just that. Blessed is Jesus of Nazareth. And blessed are all who trust in him. And I read every Psalm through that lens. It will bless your soul. Jesus is the only one who knows the way of the righteous. He’s the only one who declares us righteous. He’s the only one who can one day make us inherently righteous by making us one with himself.

So when you hear this, there’s only one blessed man thing. There’s only one man who’s ever done it stuff. You should also have bells going off in your head. It sounds to me a lot like, you remember this passage from Matthew Chapter 7, the way is hard and the gate is narrow. The narrow way, you know about this? The way is, yes. In fact, more narrow than you think. And more narrow than I was ever taught to think. The way is so narrow and the gate is so narrow that there’s room for only one person to get through. And we, here’s the beauty, we get through on his shoulders. We get through because he carries us through. How particular, how exclusive, how whatever word you want to use is the gospel. It is that. There is one person.

One who has ever walked the way, who has ever entered through the gate. And if we’re going to enter through the gate, it will be on his shoulders and in his arms or not at all. It’s never you and Jesus. It is him for you always.

Conclusion: The Blessed Man Is Jesus of Nazareth

All right. I want to conclude. I want to do this by relaying to you a story. I think it beautifully depicts the things that we have been thinking about today. There’s a story, not mine, that a Bible teacher named Harry Ironside told. It’s about a friend of his who took a visit to Palestine. And this has been the better part of a century ago. On this visit to Palestine, Reverend Joseph Flacks had the opportunity to speak to a gathering of Jews and Palestinians. And he chose Psalm 1 as his passage. He repeated it to them. He was a linguistic guy. He repeated it to them, spoke it to them in Hebrew, their native language.

He emphasized like we have done today, he emphasized the perfect tenses of those verbs there early in Psalm 1. And having done that, he says to this assembly of Jews and Palestinians. Now, my brethren, who is this blessed man of whom the psalmist speaks? Notice that this happy man is a man who never walked in the counsel of the ungodly. He never stood in the way of sinners. He never sat in the seat of the scornful. He was an absolutely sinless man. Who is this blessed man? Nobody spoke. And Joseph Flacks said, shall we say that he is our great father Abraham? Is it father Abraham that the psalmist is speaking of here?

One old Jew said, no, no, it can’t be Abraham. He denied his wife and he told a lie about her. I said, Joseph Flacks, it doesn’t fit, does it? Abraham, although he was the father of the faithful, yet was a sinner who had to be justified by faith. But my brethren, this refers to somebody. Who is this man? Could it perhaps be our great lawgiver, Moses? No, no, they said it. It cannot be Moses either. He killed a man and he hid him in the sand. And another said, yeah, and he lost his temper by the waters of Meribah. Well, Joseph Flacks said, my brethren, who is it? There is some man here that the Spirit of God is bringing before us. Could it be our great King David? The sweet psalmist of Israel who perhaps even wrote this very psalm? No, no, they cried. It cannot be David. He committed adultery and he had Uriah killed.

Well, he said, who is it? To whom do these words refer? They were quiet for some time. And then one Jew arose and said, my brethren, I have a little book here. It’s called the New Testament. I’ve been reading it. And if I believe this book, if I could be sure that it is true, I would say that the man of the first psalm was Jesus of Nazareth. And then an old Jew got right up and said, my brethren, the man of the first psalm is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the only one who ever went through this world who never walked in the counsel of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners.

And then this old man told how he had been brought to believe in Christ. And he took that occasion to openly confess his faith. If you sit here today right now in your seat and you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, thank God right now. Thank you, Father, that I have been brought to believe in Jesus, that he is the Christ. You did not do that for you. God and his extravagant grace and mercy has done it for you. May that never be lost on us. Even as you hear about this old Jewish man who stands up in an assembly and says the righteous man, the blessed man of Psalm 1 is Jesus of Nazareth. And let me tell you how I came to believe it is so. And let today’s time together in the word, thinking about Psalm 1 and 2, may it encourage you in your own soul and your heart and your mind to talk to others about how Jesus is this for you.

How it is not your goodness or your abstinence from sin. It’s not you at all. It’s Christ for you. Friend, let me tell you about it. May we have that aroma amongst ourselves and with everybody that we know. But when you consider Psalm 1 and 2 this way, I hope something that is going on in your mind and heart is just how wonderful and marvelous and praiseworthy Jesus is. He’s our king. He’s our refuge. He is the creator of the ends of the earth. And he came into this world that his hands and his word made and he became a man. And everything we sang earlier is true, how he felt the sorrow and the tears of human pain. But in living in this life as a human being, he went through it in absolute perfection.

Think about your last 24 hours. I think about my last 24 hours. There’s a lot that’s not good in here. He never knew a moment while he was on this earth. He ministered to the needs of sinners. He lived and died and rose again to save sinners. But you realize that he never once, not for five seconds, did he ever join with sinners in our rebellion against the father. Never. Ministered to us, lived and died to save us, but never joined in the rebellion. He is the blessed man of Psalm 1. He is the Lord’s anointed, the Lord’s King and the Lord’s Son of Psalm 2. And we, the sinners, are blessed in him.

So you can walk out of here today knowing I am blessed. I’m not the blessed man. I haven’t done that. But by faith in Christ, I am blessed and favored by God. Loved, adopted, known, secure, and I have an unshakable hope and an invincible inheritance. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Worthy is he to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. Now and forever, let’s pray.