Pastor Tim wraps up our current series, looking at the judgment of God and how even judgment is a call to delight in the one who shows us mercy.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
The following study questions and transcript are AI generated and may contain errors.
Good evening and welcome to Steadfast. I am so glad to be here with you again as we wrap up our series, Delighted in God. Tonight we’re thinking about a topic that might not normally fit into the subject of delighting, and that’s judgment. And yet as we recognize what God does and how His righteousness is there, and yet He calls us in His mercy to Himself, it gives us all the more reason to delight. It reminds us just as we saw the earth looking so clean and pure today as we saw that beautiful snow falling, that God too purifies us and gives us hope of what is to come.
So let’s come before our God and ask for His guidance as we dive into this topic tonight, and then we’ll dig into His word. Let’s pray.
Father, thank you for your goodness and your love. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for redeeming us. Lord, would you help us as we explore your word tonight to wrestle with these hard things in a way that helps us to see your love and your mercy, how you are with us. Lord, would you help us to either come to you for the first time or to cling all the more to your promises, because they are promises that give us a lifetime of hope and delight. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As I was thinking about this passage tonight, I found myself thinking back to a bit of business news from about 20 years ago. Do you remember when it was that you could go to every corner, it felt like, and you’d see a Blockbuster video? It felt like you could really go and almost jump from one Blockbuster to another. There were all these video stores, and then there of course were the other chains as well. All these places where you could go and rent a DVD or, before that, a VHS tape, go rent a game for your video game console, they were everywhere.
Who would have thought in 2000 or so that Blockbuster would have all but vanished? In fact, there’s only one Blockbuster left in the world. It’s in Oregon, and it’s this one that you can see on screen. People actually go there now as tourists, going as if they’re going to some historical artifact. I guess that’s really what they’re doing, because it’s all that’s left.
We think about this and how this company that was so big, it had thousands and thousands of employees, and was across the world, could go and virtually vanish. Even more interestingly, it goes back to 2000 when, at the near height of their success, they had the opportunity to buy another little bitty competitor, a competitor called Netflix for $50 million. When we think about today, how big Netflix is, and how Netflix spends billions of dollars just creating content, how amazing it is that Blockbuster had the chance in 2000 to buy it for only $50 million. If they had, we’d probably be hearing people talking about watching the latest series on Blockbuster today, rather than on Netflix, but they didn’t see the value of that. They saw the immediate success ahead of them of continuing to build out what they already had, and they thought that was the promise for the future.
We often do that. We see things in life, and it looks like the things we should chase after, the things that are promising, the ways of the world call to us and say, if you just follow us, you’ll have success. But when we chase after things that are passing, we see that ultimately they’re a form of false security. They don’t last. And just as the Blockbuster stores are now just an empty shell, or some other company has come in and Blockbuster’s long forgotten, so too, when we chase after the ways of the world, what scripture calls the path of the wicked, we know that we’re actually chasing a path that will someday soon be no more significant than a closed down Blockbuster.
Let’s go ahead and take a look at verse four of Psalm 1 to get us started in understanding this path. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
The wicked aren’t just there and ultimately going to be judged and ultimately be forgotten. They’re going to just blow away, it says. They feel like they’re secure. They feel like they’re rooted in everything they built up in the world. When we fall into wicked paths, we feel like we’re secure. And yet we’re told that a wind can blow all of that wickedness away. Everything looks successful. When you think about separating the wheat from the chaff, the wheat is covered by it and it looks like the chaff’s really significant, but when they’re separated, it’s just left on the threshing floor and it just blows away. That’s how it is when we follow the ways of the world. It looks like things are going really well for those who take the wicked path, who take the path that’s displeasing to God.
And for a time, it may be. For a time, it looks like they are receiving what those who do what’s pleasing to God should receive. But what do we see? Ultimately, ultimately, it’s just something that can blow away in the wind.
We turn to Psalm 37. We read these words. The psalmist says, “I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree, but he passed away and behold, he was no more. Though I sought him, he could not be found.”
That’s what we’re told ultimately comes of the wicked path. The path and those who follow it will not be found. Even though it looks secure in the moment, even though it looks like a thriving chain with stores across the world, someday it will be just a bunch of abandoned leftover remnants. But it looks so tempting in the moment because we see that success and it can lead us on a quest to think that the ends can justify the means and we start to follow a little bit more and a little bit more of the wicked path because we think, well, but those people are getting ahead. Those people are having success and I want to have success. I want to be successful. I want to be comfortable. I want things to go well. And so we start to turn and start to follow that wicked path. Seems like it’s how we get ahead.
In fact, oftentimes when we look at what the scriptures say and we do it, we feel like instead we’re being beaten down. We think, well, how can this be true righteousness? And in the moment, it feels like we’ve made the wrong deal. In the moment, it feels like everything’s going wrong, but we’re told this, that in the scope of forever, in the scope of eternity, things are different. In the scope of eternity, all those things that look secure in the world today are things that will just be swept away by the wind.
I’m reminded of if you get a shipment from Amazon and you have this big old box. Sometimes these boxes are really sturdy looking and you look at this box and you think, wow, this is a heavy box and you carry it and then you start to unpack it and you unpack the different things you ordered. Then what happens? That box that was so sturdy seems like nothing if there’s a strong breeze. I’ve had times where I set the box down and carry something inside and I go back out and the box is blown across the yard. It could stay on the porch for a long time when it had something significant in it. But itself, in itself, it’s nothing. It’s just something to blow away in the wind. So too the wicked ways of the world. So too the things that we chase after.
And sometimes those things are like that box. They served a purpose in the moment, but we allow them to become our idol, the thing that we chase after instead of something that serves the purposes of God. And when we try to hang onto that box and get it to stay rather than on the truth of God’s word and the true promises and the true blessings that He has for us, we’re trying to hold onto things that will blow away in the wind, the winds that we hear blowing today in the snowstorm.
The righteous may not feel like they’re benefiting in this moment, but we know God’s promises are true and we will experience the benefits of those who are in Christ. At times, in fact, it feels like it just plays with our heads because we see these people prospering. But why are they prospering? At times, it’s because they actually are benefiting from the blessing of being around the people of God. Oftentimes, the wicked are actually within the church. If you’ve been in the church for a time, we know that there are people who don’t really want to do the things that are pleasing to God, who don’t act according to God’s rules, who are in the church. And during the time that they’re in there, sometimes their prosperity even comes from the way that they benefit from the righteous, but there will be a day that they can’t stand with the righteous.
We read about that in verse five. Take a look. The psalmist says, “Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous.”
You see, it doesn’t say that the sinner, the wicked person will not be in the congregation, will not be present. That’s often something that causes us great confusion when we see people do bad things in the church and we think, but the church is supposed to be better. And yet the church in the present time is a combination of people who are being made new but still at times following wicked paths, and sometimes people who are outright choosing the wicked path rather than the path of righteousness and delight in God. And those people may benefit for a time.
When that box is wrapped around whatever I happen to order online or whatever you happen to order, it gets to be held in place. It doesn’t blow away in the wind. And so too oftentimes at the moment, the wicked don’t blow away in the wind because they’re being held down by the righteous. What will come? There will be a day that God separates the wicked from the righteous. We’re told here that when the day of judgment comes, well, the righteous will be able to stand and will be able to claim their place among God’s people because they are those who trust in Jesus and His righteousness. The wicked won’t even be allowed to stand. Instead, as the righteous are escorted out of the court, declared innocent, not because of their own deeds, but because of the deeds of Jesus, the wicked will be left there for judgment.
These are hard things, but they help to start to make sense of why the world is how it is. It starts to make sense of why things seem so broken at the moment, because God in the moment has not yet separated the wheat from the chaff, the wicked from the righteous. Why does He do that? Well, we know from Scripture why He does that. He does it so that during this time, He can continue to bring more people to Jesus, that more people would be part of that righteous congregation. In fact, sometimes those who are held down by the benefits of being amongst the righteous are those whom God will someday call righteous.
So in the moment, we see a church that isn’t pure. We see a world that even when people try to do right, there’s a mixture of right and wrong, and yet we see God slowly preparing for the day in which the winds of eternity will come and will blow away everything that is bad, everything that is worthless. And the psalmist calls us to recognize that and to choose the path that is good and pleasing. Pleasing to God, but ultimately where we find our source of delight too. We shouldn’t keep focused on the empty box. We should turn our eyes to what is valuable and good.
Take a look at Matthew chapter 24. Jesus says these words.
Why do we read these words in the psalm that we’ve been reading? It’s to alert us to that, that we would choose the path of righteousness, that we wouldn’t choose the way of the wicked. Each and every one of us is called to turn, to repent. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, we get the strength to do so.
When we rest on our own strength, we look again at the allure of everything going right at the moment in the world, and we say, that looks so good. That looks so wonderful. And we start to chase after it. Or we look at our own failures and we think, well, I can’t actually ever be called righteous. I might as well enjoy the world while I live.
But how do we know if we’re on the right path or not? We can’t just look at our lives because we see in our own lives a mixture of righteousness and failure of sin. But we don’t look to a scorecard of what we’ve accomplished. We look where we’re headed. We look where our eyes are fixed.
And that’s what we see in the final verse of this psalm, verse six.
The way of the wicked will perish.
Now we read that word “knows,” and we think that that means that God has traveled down that path. It’s a highway that’s familiar to Him. But it means so much more than that. What it means is that when we’re on that path of righteousness, it’s to be known by God. To be on the path of righteousness is to be in relationship to God. You see, it’s not about us getting everything right and always being righteous in our own acts. That should happen more and more over time, but rather it’s where we’re looking to. We’re looking to the city of righteousness. We’re looking to the one who is righteous rather than to the ways of the world.
The paths themselves speak to the end of where a person’s going. When we fix our eyes on the success of the world and what the world says is good, we know where we’re going. We’re going on the path of the wicked. But when we fix our eyes on Jesus and when we turn to His word, we delight in His word as the psalm began, that’s what it means to be on the path of righteousness. Not because we’re getting everything right, we’re doing everything pleasing to God, but because we’re turning to Him and leaning on His strength and He is redeeming us. And someday we will in fact be righteous because Jesus will make us new and purify us. Purify us in a way that’s far more pure than that snow outside.
It’s about our trajectory, not perfection.
And that’s what we see in 1 John chapter 3. John says, “No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as He is righteous.”
And when John talks about practicing righteousness, he’s describing what we’ve been talking about. This idea of being one whose eyes are fixed on Jesus, who desires to do what’s pleasing to God. Not always getting it right. John says earlier in that letter, in fact, that anyone who claims to be without sin is a liar. But to practice righteousness is to be on that path of righteousness in the psalm, to have our eyes focused on God and to say that I don’t want to have anything to do with those ways of the world. I recognize that I’m sinful. I recognize that the world is sinful. I want something better. I want something lasting. I don’t want to hang on to a chain of stores that’s going to close down. I want to hang on to what is going to last. What will be there in 20 years, in 100 years, in 1,000 years, in a million years. That’s what we find in Jesus.
It’s not about those individual actions. It’s about focusing on the God who never goes away, who never will fade, who the winds of eternity won’t blow away, but rather He made those winds.
The ways of the wicked are like a mirage. When we focus on that path, it looks like this beautiful vista is ahead. And yet as we go down that path, it’s always ahead. It’s never there because ultimately it’s unfulfilling. And just like chasing after a mirage of water, it will never, ever quench our thirst. It will only make us more thirsty until the day that we realize that when we look down on that path, there’s not a path at all, but a giant hole. There’s nothing. There’s just nothing.
So we’re called instead to delight in the God who is with us. And this, in that call, can give us assurance of what we’re doing, of what our life means, of what we look forward to in the future. You see, I think oftentimes we do look at our lives and it’s almost like we’re driving through a city.
If you’re not always downtown and you go downtown, if you’re like me and you’re a suburbanite and you find yourself in the city, it can be really confusing. And you start looking around and you think, well, I don’t know if I’m headed the right direction or not. I don’t know if I’m going to get to my destination or not until I get there because I might make a wrong turn and I’ll end up on a one-way street and then I’ll go down another one-way street and suddenly I’m five miles from where I want to be.
But that’s not what God’s Word is talking about. Think for a second instead when you’re traveling and you pull onto an interstate. And there’s sort of a finality of turning onto that entrance ramp because you realize once you’re on it, there’s going to be a period of time that you simply can’t leave it. You’re on it. You can’t just say, oh, wait a second, I’m going to turn around and do a U-turn on it. Well, you could, but you shouldn’t. It will cause an accident. It’s a bad idea.
But by and large, you basically know where you’re going for the next period of time. Your trajectory is set. That’s much more like what the scriptures are describing in these two ways. When we choose to focus our eyes on what the world says, our path is set. It might feel like we’re going to and fro, but we’re set going away from God. And when we instead choose the entrance ramp onto the highway of righteousness and following Jesus, we go down that ramp and what do we find? We find a highway that doesn’t end, that doesn’t have exit ramps. It goes straight into the presence of God.
And so we aren’t constantly reevaluating, am I on that path or not? When we get into a traffic jam, we don’t think, well, I wonder if I need to make a different turn. No, we’re on the highway already. It’s already going in that direction. That’s what the way of the righteous is like. Not because things are easy on that journey as we await the day that God makes all things new, but because we have only one direction we can be going as long as we’re on that road.
That’s what the scriptures are talking about. That’s why we can have delight in the moment, even as we read about God’s distaste for the wickedness of the world, for sin, and we look at our own lives and feel sinful. What do we do? We look up and we see Jesus still on the horizon calling us towards Him, enabling us to keep going, filling up the fuel in our car when our tank gets low. And we realize that, yes, we’re not there yet. Yes, there’s a lot of reason why we should feel like the traffic jams ahead are never going to let us get there.
But the way of the righteous is known by God. God already knows us. And because of that, we can have confidence. We can have hope. That’s what this psalm is describing. That’s why it’s delighting in God. Even when we face something like judgment, we think this is horrible. How can we delight? We can delight because we know that God offers something to us for free. There’s an escape from that.
That’s my prayer for each one of us tonight, that we would know that. Too often, Christians go about life wondering, am I on the path of righteousness or am I on the path of wickedness? And spend their lives feeling uncertain and hopeless. That’s not what we’re called to do. We’re called to delight in the law of the Lord. We turn to it. We don’t see it as that that’s saying that maybe we’ve turned down the wrong one-way street in the city, but rather a reminder that yes, we’re in some traffic jams in life, but God’s restoration is coming.
And likewise, if we haven’t yet made that decision to turn onto that entrance ramp, it’s an urging by the Holy Spirit to do so now, that we wouldn’t keep driving around that city lost and wondering where we’re going, but we would turn onto a path that we know the direction of. Each and every one of us has the opportunity to do that, even this very day.
That’s my prayer for us, that we could truly delight in God because Jesus offers us the certainty of a path in which we delight in Him. So let’s go ahead and come before the God that offers us that right now. Would you join me?
Lord, how wonderful it is that you offer us that path. Lord, how often it is that we get bogged down in day-to-day life and we feel like we’re in the city, turning around aimlessly, trying to find our destination, but your word lays out a clear path. Not because we can fulfill everything in it perfectly in this moment, we know that you’re still working on us, but rather because we know for as long as our eyes are fixed on you, we already see where we’re headed. Because those who are known by you, we have hope, even in the moment.
Lord, if we don’t know you yet, my prayer is that each person in that place tonight would come to know you, even tonight, because as we go down that entrance ramp and we realize that we no longer have to have the fear of which turn to make next, but we have the freedom of being on the path of righteousness, that we have a path in which you give us your righteousness, and you will be the one to make us righteous. We can truly delight in you. The judgment won’t be a burden, but rather a delight because we see what you have done for us.
May we all have that joy tonight, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, I hope this series has been an encouragement to you, it’s been a joy to share it with you. If you’d like to continue to contemplate these things and to wrestle with what we do next, what things that we should seek to turn away from and to turn towards as we go down that path of righteousness, then I hope you’ll join me for a brand new series next week entitled 6 Poisons. We turn to the Proverbs and we see there a list of things that God hates, things that crop up in our lives, both as believers and non-believers. And in our own power, we may be powerless towards them, but as we read His word and He convicts us of them, and we seek Him, He enables us to turn more and more from these things that poison the joy out of life. So please do plan next week, 7pm, to join me for that.
In the meantime, if this was encouraging to you, if this series has been encouraging to you, please do share it on social media, help us get the word out. You can help us to encourage others by sharing. And if there’s any way I can be an encouragement to you today or this week, feel free to shoot me an email at the email address on screen. Let me know if I can be praying for you or leave a prayer request below and we can pray for each other.
I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week, and I look forward to seeing you again next week.