July 4, 2018 - Suggested Reading Psalm 1 for July 8’s message on Matthew 5:1-12 in our summer worship service at 10am

“That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”

Psalm 1:3 (NIV) 

Here is a wonderful description of what it means to be a blessed person.

Can you imagine having this said of you?

“whatever they do prospers”

Don’t get uptight nor defensive for this is not the false teaching we call “prosperity gospel”, for this blessing comes to the person who refuses to take the path of the wicked, who refuses to stand with sinners, who refuses to sit with mockers BUT who delights in God’s laws and meditates day and night on God’s law. This psalm makes it crystal clear that this blessing is granted to those who order their lives according to the Words of God.

Let us not make the mistake of thinking that somehow, we can earn this blessing,

for that thinking has trapped many people into legalism and hypocrisy.

No let us realize that God’s grace gave us the law to guide us in good ways, God’s grace moved in our hearts to cause us to desire the law, God’s grace opens our minds that we might meditate on His law and God’s grace brings this blessing into our lives as we line our lives up with all He has taught us, so that whatever we do prospers!

The sceptic asks us to define prosper, ignoring the requirement of faith, and the reminder in this psalm of the last judgement, for there and there alone will the full definition of prosper be revealed. But let us not be sceptics, rather let us be people of faith who seek His Word, seek to know His Word and through the application of His Word in our daily lives find Him beside us.

Now that is a prosperity to be desired!

“But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.”

One of the hardest words for us to understand in the Beatitudes is “meek”

Psalm 37:11 (NIV)

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Perhaps it is our self-seeking sin nature that makes it so hard for us to understand this word, or to even describe the characteristics of what a meek person looks like. Could it be that God has given us a list of characteristics of a meek person in the first 11 verses of Psalm 37?

Verse 1 & 2 a meek person does not fret when the wicked prosper nor envy them

Verse 3 a meek person trusts in the LORD and does good

Verse 4 a meek person takes delight in the LORD

Verse 5 & 6 a meek person commits their way to the LORD and trust Him for vindication

Verse 7 a meek person is still before the LORD and waits for Him and doesn’t fret

Verse 8 a meek person refrains from anger and wrath and doesn’t fret

Verse 9 a meek person hopes in the LORD

Verse 10 & 11 a meek person will outlast the wicked and will enjoy true peace and prosperity.

Even if we can’t define it, may God grant us the grace to live lives in meekness.