Joshua Williams, professor of Old Testament and director of Research Doctoral Studies, Southwestern Seminary, preached from Psalm 1 in SWBTS Chapel on September 12, 2024.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Joshua Williams 0:04
All right, good morning. Thank you, TBC band, for leading us this morning. The music, as always, excellent, excellent. Thank you so much. Amen. That’s right. And I want to say thank you to Dr Dockery for the invitation to preach here in chapel, and also for your kind introduction. And to say thank you for my colleagues who are here, I wanted to say thank you to friends, brothers and sisters in Christ from Wedgewood Baptist church right here in the middle. I would call them the cheering section, but I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do. They have threatened to distract and to wreak havoc if possible, to throw me off track as much as possible this morning. But they’re not going to. Okay? So just to let you know and to all the students who are here, thank you so much. My prayer this morning is that you hear the word of the Lord. We need nothing more.
Joshua Williams 1:16
Now. How many of you have ever heard of the Ministry of Silly Walks. Anybody. the Ministry of Silly Walks? I hadn’t heard of it either, but this is a Monty Python comedy sketch about a government agency that registers and funds silly walks, you know, like silly walks. I mean, that’s, that’s what they do. Thank you very much. Now it is a brilliant parody of British bureaucracy, really, all government bureaucracy, but especially British bureaucracy. And I knew nothing about this, because I’m not a big Monty Python watcher, until several years ago, when I was in high school, I was with some friends. We were at a big conference, and we had an adult leader there with us, and we were trying to figure out where to go. What do we do next? And suddenly I realized, Oh, I knew where I was, and I knew where we needed to go. And so turned to my friends and said, Hey, walk this way. And then, of course, I started going in the right direction, but I also started, you know, doing some kind of silly walk myself, like this, thinking that they would walk this way. And about that time, the adult leader said, Oh, that’s like the Ministry of Silly Walks. And I had no idea what he was talking about, but I still remember it to this day, and I think part of the reason I remember it is because of the play on the phrase, right, “Walk this way.” It was both a direction to walk, but also a manner of walking.
Joshua Williams 3:15
And in Psalm one, the Psalmist has done something similar for everyone to describe both the direction that we should walk and also the manner in which we should walk. And the psalmist does this by contrasting two different ways, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. Now the way of the righteous leads to, and this is really what the psalmist is encouraging, follow the way of the righteous, because the way of the righteous leads to an enduring, fruitful life. But in order for us to identify which way to walk, I want us to look carefully at these two ways, the way of the righteous and the way of the wicked. The Psalmist begins with the way of the righteous in verses one through three. And actually, if I just read the very first word here. “How happy,” the CSB reads. Older translations say “blessed.” The Hebrew is just ASHRAE. It doesn’t, it doesn’t actually say righteous. It says the Blessed One, the fortunate one, the happy one. Well, what is the Blessed One? What does that mean? Well, this is the one who lives a life of peace, a life of harmony, a life of balance, you could even say a life of good fortune. The Blessed is the one who has success. It’s a good life, and we find later on that this blessed one, this happy one, is also the righteous. And so the way of the Blessed is the way of the righteous.
Joshua Williams 5:11
Now to describe the way of the righteous, the Psalmist begins by looking at the companions that the righteous one avoids. Read with me in verse one, how happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked, does not stand on the path of sinners and does not sit in the company of mockers. Now who are these wicked? It says that the righteous one does not walk in the advice of the wicked. The wicked are those who are wrong before God, right? And the scriptures give us lots of descriptions of what they do. They do everything from desiring what is bad to robbing to worshiping idols. Those are the wicked. Furthermore, it says, does not stand on the path of sinners. Which just a side note here. This is some translations read, stand in the way of sinners. Standing on the path is a much better translation, because this psalmist is not trying to say that the righteous just let the sinners go on. It’s like, Hey, don’t let me get in your way. Right? Just go on and do your thing. No, no, the righteous may stand in the way of sinners to stop them, but the righteous won’t be found taking their path right, which is really what is being communicated here.
Joshua Williams 6:50
Well, who are these sinners? The sinners are those who do not do what they’re supposed to do. They go astray and forsake the LORD. They are like those that are found in Sodom. Those are the sinners. And then finally, the righteous does not sit in the company or does not sit in the seat of mockers, who are mockers? Well, mockers are those that not only enjoy what is wrong, but they also make fun of those who do what is right. They make fun of what is right. They are proud and arrogant. They will not accept correction, and anybody who gives them correction, they hate. That’s a mocker. Now many interpreters, when they look at this first verse, They notice a progression, right? You go from walking to standing to sitting. You move from the wicked to sinners to mockers. And although I understand the point, I actually don’t think, I think, like other poetry, what’s happening here is not a progression, but this is a holistic picture. In other words, these three groups and these three activities, it’s really one group, one activity, and it just, it displays how thoroughly the Righteous One does not associate with the ungodly. Right, does not walk in their advice, does not follow their path, their lifestyle, and will not be found in their company, right? These are the companions that as one is walking on the way of the righteous. These are the companions that are avoided in contrast, right?
Joshua Williams 8:58
Notice in verse two, the Psalmist describes the delight that the righteous enjoys. Verse two, but in the Lord’s instruction is his delight, and in his in this instruction, he meditates day and night. What does he want? He wants the Lord’s instruction. What does he desire? He desires it. You know, in today’s language, we might say it’s his passion or it’s his obsession, right? He is thinking about it all the time. But what is this instruction? Is this the law of Moses, right, the Old Testament, law? Is this some prophetic proclamation, or is it something else? What is it? Well, I see no reason for us to think that what the psalmist has in mind is something specific. Like, that would exclude prophetic proclamation or Mosaic law or other elements of divine instruction. It would be similar, just to give an illustration, if, right now I said, Okay, everybody get up from your seat. Don’t but if I were to say, Everybody get up from your seat, and you responded to me, whoa, wait. Which seat are you talking about? Are you talking about the little folding seats that we’ve got? I mean, are you talking about, like, piano bench, if somebody’s sitting there, are you talking about the regular chairs that are in the sound booth? Which seat are we talking about? Well, I don’t care, right? I mean, any of them, it’s, I mean, it in a very generic sense. I just mean stand up. And I think in many ways, when we look at this divine instruction, it’s general.
Joshua Williams 9:08
But from our point of view, let’s think about, where can we find God’s instruction? Where do we find the infallible, inerrant, faithful, reliable directions of the Lord? In the Bible. That’s right, yeah, exactly. This is a little bit of you know, like call-and-response here. Okay, so that’s right, this is in the Bible. Now it is true that in the days of the psalmist, they did not have paper and pages and leather bindings. They didn’t have books the way that we think of books, but they understood divine instruction, and the Bible itself was the matter. Right, for us, it’s that matter, that material of divine instruction. And notice what this righteous one does with divine instruction. It says he meditates on it. Now in our context, meditation is usually internal mental right? Something we do in our heads. This is not quite the same in the ancient world. In the ancient world, you didn’t have as much access to written texts, and so if you wanted to have something you memorized it, and the way of memorizing was not just mental activity. It was through recitation. They would recite what was important to them. This is how you kept it. This is how you hid it in your heart, was through recitation. They would recite over and over and over again, they would recite, sometimes by themselves, other times in a group. And notice when, day and night, all the time, constantly, it was a constant recitation of the Lord’s instructions. And why not? It makes sense, because this is the righteous one’s passion, the righteous one’s obsession. Of course, the Righteous One is going to recite, to meditate, to repeat all of the time in the mouth the instructions of the Lord. It’s an obsession, passion.
Joshua Williams 11:25
Now, how many of you, at some point you’ve been introduced to something new and you just could not stop thinking about it, right? Maybe it was a hobby, or maybe it was a game or a puzzle. I’m the worst at this. Okay, so every once in a while, my family will pull out a jigsaw puzzle. Now, we don’t have a huge number of jigsaw puzzles, but we have a few. And every once in a while, they’ll pull out a jigsaw puzzle, set all the pieces out on the table. And then I start working. I start putting together the puzzle. And then every once in a while, my wife say, okay, dinner’s ready. And I’m like, All right, I’ll be there. I just need to figure out where this piece goes. And it’s like we’re all sitting at the table waiting for you. I’ll be there. I’ll be there. I’ll be there. Kids go to bed. Everybody’s in bed. I’m still there trying to figure out where this puzzle piece goes. I get obsessed. Now, it is not the noblest of pursuits to be obsessed about. But it is true for me. Not so with the righteous. With the righteous one, the obsession, the passion, is on the Lord’s instruction. That is the delight that the righteous enjoys. Now, what? Where does this passion lead? That’s verse three. He is like a tree planted beside the flowing streams, which its fruit is always born in season, and its leaf never withers. Everything which he does succeeds. This is the result that is produced from the righteous life. He’s like a tree. Well, what kind of tree, a tree that’s planted beside the streams of water? How many of you have seen a tree like this? I mean, not here, in Fort Worth, but I mean somewhere else, right? Like streams of water. I’m not even sure what that is, but you’ve seen a beautiful, luscious tree. It’s a healthy tree, right? Its trunk is strong, its leaves are green, its fruit is abundant and delicious. And that tree is going to be there for generations. Your great, great great great great great grandfather saw that tree. It’s going to be there for a long, long time. That’s the way of the righteous. That’s where it leads. It leads to an enduring and fruitful life. And this is the point of comparison.
Joshua Williams 16:17
So I’m going to take a very small aside here to talk a little bit about the interpretation. One comment about the interpretation of this tree. I do not think this is an allegory. I don’t think that the parts of the image point to other spiritual things, the leaves, the fruit, the water. I don’t think it stands for something else. It’s not for good works, or it’s not for the Bible. I think it’s one image, and that one image is compared to the righteous person, to show that the righteous person is an enduring “flourishing,” to use a word that’s making a comeback these days, it’s an enduring, flourishing individual. Now why would I say that? Well, let me use a very brief example. Let’s say that I’m out of the park somewhere and I hear a mother say, Look, you better be careful, or my mama bear is going to come out. I do not then at that moment, think, Oh no, she’s going to grow long teeth and be fully covered in fur. No, I know there’s one point in comparison, right? What is that? Like a mama bear protects her cubs? This Mama is about to be very protective of her children. And so the image of the tree, the leaves, the fruit, it all contributes to the overall image of flourishing, of enduring. And there’s for me, no need to see anything else, because the image itself is beautiful, right? So this is the way of the righteous, the how of that way, right? How you walk in the way of the righteous is by avoiding bad company and meditating, reciting, becoming obsessed, delighting in the Lord’s instruction. The direction or the destination of the way of the righteous is an enduring, fruitful life.
Joshua Williams 18:27
Next, the psalmist contrasts the way of the righteous with the way of the wicked in verses four through six. Let’s start with verse four, the wicked are not like this. They are like chaff, which the wind blows away. The wicked, they’re not an enduring, fruitful tree. They produce no results. They’re like chaff. Chaff is the little protective material on the seeds of grains. It’s dry and it’s almost weightless. It’s like, if the clippings, the hair, clippings from a haircut, right? If you look down on the ground, you could see them, but when you pick one up, it’s, I mean, imagine a breeze blowing into a barber shop, hair everywhere, right? Because here those clippings, they have no substance. It’s the same for the wicked. They are like chaff? They are useless, without substance. Now, verse five tells us how they are like chaff. How are they like chaff? Well, verse five therefore. They, the wicked, they cannot stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. See they have no standing. They bear no weight. So when it comes for it, when it comes time for a decision to be made, they’re not there. They have no voice. They have no standing. And you’ll notice that, just as the righteous avoided the wicked as companions in verse one, so here in verse five, the wicked are rejected as companions among the righteous. Now, if verse five tells us how they are like chaff, they make no difference, they have no influence. It’s fleeting and imperceptible at best. Well then verse six. Verse six shows us why they are like chaff, for the Lord watches over or knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin. And what does it mean when it says that the Lord knows or watches over the way of the righteous? It means he cares for them. This is the same thing that happens in Exodus. 225, The Lord looks out and sees the suffering of the sons of Israel, and he knows, he knows what? Well, it doesn’t mean that he knows this. It means that he cares for them. He decides to do something. He’s going to lead them out of Egypt, out of bondage. In the same way, the Lord knows the way of the righteous. He cares for them. He preserves them, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin. It perishes. I think the image to think of is something that fades away so much that it is completely gone. It’s just it’s not there anymore, right? This is the perishing of the way of the wicked. It just fades. It just disappears. It has no lasting result. That’s the destination of the wicked. It’s nothing, leads to nothing.
Joshua Williams 22:41
To illustrate the way of the wicked, I want you to [picture] a man. Imagine a young boy. Let’s say he’s playing with his siblings. He’s pretty happy, pretty typical kid, kind of mischievous, right? Mischievous at times, but typical kid, good kid. And as he becomes an adolescent, he falls in with the wrong crowd, bad company. And because of that, he starts to do bad things. He starts drinking. He starts smoking pot. He starts selling it. He starts getting into other things. He starts stealing in order to get what he wants, right, the alcohol or the drugs, everything else. And it seems that this little kid happy playing with his siblings, little mischievous, but now it’s turned into a different person, hostile, defiant, disobedient, angry. And time goes by and that defiant adolescent, that defiant teenager, well, his choices begin to catch up to him. His choices start to erode who he is, all that he has to offer, and eventually he turns into a shell of what he was. He’s now isolated and alone. He’s now withdrawn, paranoid and he starts to wander the streets, just looking for whatever he can find to make it to the next thing, just carrying on. And eventually, and unfortunately, it all catches up to him, and he dies alone, no possessions, no connections, no real connections to anybody who has ever loved him, not even sure if he’s taken his own life. He’s just gone. His life, gone. Now, and his death will not have any impact on the world around him. Hardly anyone will notice, if anyone at all, like chaff. Did you know that guy? You seen that guy? Do you know his name? Man? His name is Frank, Matt, James, John. His name is Kendrick. I mean his name is so many, because there are so many of him. This is the way of the wicked. It’s a way that leads nowhere. It’s empty and it’s void.
Joshua Williams 25:51
And so we have this contrast. I mean, this is what the psalmist wants us to see. The psalmist wants us to see the difference between the way of the righteous on one hand and the way of the wicked on the other, and to motivate us to choose the way of the righteous, because the way of the righteous leads to an enduring, fruitful life. The way of the wicked leads nowhere. And how do we walk the way of the righteous? Well, it gives two items, you avoid bad company and you delight in the Lord’s instruction. Amen. So there it is, Psalm one. I’ve preached it all right? I was telling somebody the other day, not every good sermon is short, but every short sermon is good. […] But some, something’s bothering me. Yeah, something on my chest, and that it is… this a Christian sermon. You know what I’m saying. And I mean this in two ways. I mean it in two ways. Number one, how does the picture of Psalm one, the way of the righteous apply to Jesus? How is he the fruitful tree man? He was convicted and hung on a cross, not exactly succeeding in everything which he did. Furthermore, he ran around with sinners. He invited them. He said, Come on. Let me go to your house. Tax collectors and sinners are his company. How in the world does this apply to Jesus and the people who seem to hate him the most? They’re the ones who knew the law. They were the Pharisees, the scribes, the experts in the law. How does Psalm one apply to Jesus?
Joshua Williams 28:01
And second, how does the work of memorizing and reciting and delighting in God’s instruction lead to an enduring, fruitful life? I mean, haven’t you known people who can recite chapter and verse of the Bible, but they are rascals. They’re bullies, right? They’re mean, mean spirited. They are proud, they are arrogant. They are self serving. I mean, what about faith? What about faith in Christ? Well, I’m glad you asked those are two questions, and I’m not going to be able to dive deep into answering both of these questions, but I want to, I want to start. I want to move in a particular direction. Let me make one observation to start in Psalm one. Notice that we get how the righteous lives, how the righteous walks, and where the walk leads to. But with the wicked, we only get the destination. Psalm one doesn’t say anything about how the wicked lived. What do they actually do? Well, for this, obviously, Scripture tells us a lot about what the wicked do, but there’s one passage in particular that holds special significance for this question, and that is Psalm two. Many, many people have noticed several connections between Psalm one and Psalm two. In fact, most today would argue that Psalms one and two are the introduction to the whole psalter, the book of Psalms, right? Not the, not that kind of psalter, but. Uh, the book of Psalms. And this introduction, it makes sense, right? Because there are these twin themes in Psalm one, we’ve got the way of the righteous that leads to the enduring, fruitful life, which is going to be a theme that we’ll see over the course of this semester, pops up again and again and again. Psalm two, however, is a different picture altogether. Psalm two is about the dominion of the Lord and His anointed one, his king, and it talks about how the nations they plot against him, their hostility towards the Lord, and the futility of all their rebellious plots.
Joshua Williams 30:43
But then you get to the end of Psalm two. The end of Psalm two, kiss the Son. Or some translations will say, pay homage to the son. Show respect to the son. Submission. Lest he be angry, and you perish in your rebellion. You perish in your way, for his anger can break out in a moment. But happy are all those who take refuge in him. Two observations. First, you pay homage to the Son, otherwise you will perish. This is the same word that was used in Psalm one, and it described the way of the wicked. It leads to ruin. It becomes nothing. Same word used here. Furthermore, notice, “happy, blessed” are those who take refuge in Him. The same word that started Psalm one. So here by connecting Psalm one and Psalm two, which has happened textually, we see that the wicked, well, the wicked are just like the rebels. The wicked are those who don’t pay homage to the Son, they don’t respect the Lord and His anointed one. Instead, they intend to rebel. So if you want to be righteous, then don’t be like them. What do you do? Instead of rebelling, you submit. It’s about submission to the Lord, to his anointed one, to his king, now to his son, even now, the son of the Lord, the Anointed King of the Lord. This title would apply to David and Solomon and other Davidic kings in the past. But who fills out that picture more clearly, more fully than any one else, call and response, Jesus, that’s right. We talk about Jesus, right? Jesus, exactly, trust and submission, reverence, recognition of who he is. Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, right? Those who confess Jesus as Lord, they’re the ones who are going to be saved.
Joshua Williams 33:33
So that answers that second question, right? Like, how does this apply to faith, belief? What about the first one? How is the tree like Jesus? Let me ask you, when will all of the Earth’s kings be subdued? Well, on a spiritual level, right? All the the forces against the Lord, they were subdued with the death and resurrection of Christ. Spiritual realities. Resurrection. What about [the] final, full– when does that happen in the eschatological judgment? Right? So in other words, with Psalm one connected to Psalm two we get we see how this picture of the tree is not just a picture of blessing on earth, not just in this world. It has a spiritual and an eschatological significance to it. And in that way, man, nobody beats Jesus, right? He is truly the Blessed One. Now, I started this sermon by talking about the Ministry of Silly Walks, right? Well, I’d like to end the sermon by talking about the ministry of spiritual walks, if you will. And this spiritual walk, it has two elements to it, as we see in Psalm one. The first is scripture, meditation, recitation of Scripture again and again and again. And the second way is submission, submission and obedience to the Lord and to his anointed, the Lord Jesus, Christ, the Anointed One. And so now I want to offer you the same invitation that I offered to my friends at that conference many, many, many years ago. Walk this way.
Joshua Williams 35:58
Will you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father, Lord, I pray that you would do what I can never do. Lord, I pray that you would take your word and press it into our hearts. Lord, that you would bring it to bear in shaping us in changing the way that we think, the way that we speak, and the way that we act and Lord this, not just for our good lord, but also for your glory, for You are the Lord. You are the king, and we submit ourselves to you all these things. I pray in Jesus name, amen.
