In the sermon 'Delightful Meditation' by Scott Brown, the focus is on Psalm 1, highlighting the contrast between the happy and the wicked. Brown emphasizes that true happiness is profoundly influenced by what one does not do, such as avoiding the counsel of the ungodly, and by what one does, like delighting in and meditating on the law of the Lord. The sermon elaborates on the natural human tendency to desire what we don't have and how this affects our contentment and happiness. Brown explains that delighting in the Word of God brings various returns, including pleasure, rejoicing, understanding, wisdom, healing, life, and sweetness. The act of meditation is likened to 'chewing the cud,' a process that entails deep reflection and constant engagement with God's Word to strengthen one's spirit against worldly temptations. Ultimately, the sermon encourages believers to restore their joy and happiness through a deeper meditation on the Word, drawing closer to God and experiencing the true delight and life that comes from Him.

Please open your Bibles to Psalm chapter 1. We're just looking at these first two verses in Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But His delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law He meditates day and night. Lord we pray that you would Come and meet us here in your word and lead us in the everlasting ways that are here Amen Well the Psalms teach you how to live.

This psalm teaches us many things. The Psalms meet us in really the most difficult moments of our lives. I know that when we gather together, there are always some who are worried, who are here. There are always some who are discouraged. There are some who feel like a failure.

Whenever we meet, you find there's somebody here that's weary and dispassionate, meaning they just wonder if they care anymore. It's easy to let the difficulties of life overcome you. What he's given, not being satisfied with it. Discouraged about what he has withheld from you or what he has taken away from you I was grateful to hear that sermon just a few minutes ago about contentment this passage touches on so many of the same things. People want what they don't have.

This psalm addresses that because it speaks of delight. It speaks of how to grow a culture of delight in your soul, how you do that. God teaches us how to live. It's so important because by nature we are people who want something that we don't have. It didn't surprise me when the preacher told us about the man who is overweight who declared himself to be trans-slender.

Well, I'd like to be trans-brilliant. You know, I've always wanted to be brilliant. You know, most of us want to be trans-beautiful. You know, we don't think we're that beautiful. We'd like to be beautiful.

We'd like to declare ourselves to be beautiful and self-identify as beautiful. Well, we always want something that we don't have. That's just the nature of our sin, sinful inclinations. The message here in Psalm 1 Teaches us how to be happy God desires a happy people in the midst of all their sufferings Remember when you're in Isaiah You have a picture of a person who he's in a flood, but God takes him through the flood. He's in a fire, but God takes him through the fire.

God takes his people through things so that they can walk In contentment and happiness. That's why the Westminster confession speaks of the the chief end of man Which is to glorify God and to Enjoy him Forever. That means from right now. So, if life gets too hard, often our delight gets lost. And David is addressing this here.

You know my mother has been in terrible back pain for about a month. She hasn't been in church for a month. That's never happened before in her whole life. And I was talking to her this morning, and she was telling me about, she was singing the song, Praise to the Lord the Almighty. And she said, Scott, what really grabbed me in that song this was just this morning The line ponder anew what the Almighty can do if with his love he be friendly well that's what Christianity looks like in suffering.

To ponder new. I want us to ponder anew what the Almighty can do. Now the summary of Psalm 1 begins in verse 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful." You have a blessed, you have a happy person, but one of the reasons he's happy is because he doesn't do certain things. He's happy by what he doesn't do.

And you notice the progression in this first verse that it starts out exposing yourself to the counsel of the ungodly and all of a sudden you're standing in their place and you're just as cynical as they are. That's the progression. And the whole idea in verse one is what you do not do is a source of your happiness. So you should always ask yourself, is there anything that I should not be doing in order to be happy? God tells us that and he's Speaking of how our misplaced delights mean diminished happiness.

Often we're not happy because we're putting our delight in things that can't make you happy. And so when we move to verse 2, David is still talking about two kinds of people, and he's going to talk about two kinds of people all the way to the end. You have the happy person and you have the wicked person. You have the delighted person and you have chaff. You have the person who perishes and the person who's like a tree.

So these two people are being contrasted throughout the psalm. But it's really clear that your happiness is profoundly influenced, first of all, by what you do not do, like don't listen to the ungodly and What you do do whatever you think is delightful and that I think really is the heart of Christianity It's everlasting delight. That's what heaven is. And the object of our communion with the Lord and our delight will always determine the quality of our happiness. The kinds of things that we delight in are the things that drive our happiness, one way or another.

So if you tell me what's delightful to you, and that it's a diminished thing, then you're going to have diminished happiness. So that's that. Now, so the first part of this is, you know, our lives are shaped by what we delight in. Now, when we go to verse 2, there are two words, delight and meditation. That really explains the heart of it.

Verse 2, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. So what's the focus of his delight and meditation? The happy person delights in the law of the Lord. I believe he's talking about the 66 books of the Bible for those who are living in the new covenant If you delight yourself In the testimonies of god from genesis to revelation then you can be happy And that's the that's the logic and god God wants to keep us from getting ground down in the grind of life, and so he gives us a way to escape that grind, at least to go through it. And He wants to interrupt our lives by happiness So the first word is delight I want to talk a little bit about delight and then I want to talk a little bit about meditate and then we'll wrap it up.

Delight. But His delight, meaning this is a person who takes pleasure in the Word of God and the law is His delight. The question is, is his law a delight to you? Do you want it every day? And I'm not asking, do you have family worship?

That's not the question. I'm not asking, do you go to church and listen to sermons? That's not the question I'm asking. Do you delight? I'm asking do you delight that's the question do you hunger for it this isn't even the same thing as I read my Bible every day.

I've known people who read their Bible every day and they're not even Christians and they're just kind of doing it because they're supposed to do it. Maybe their parents make them do it. And I'm not here to say that parents shouldn't make their kids read their Bible, they should, but I'm not even asking do you read the Bible every day. I'm asking that do you delight in the words of God? That really tells you who you are.

You know the Apostle Paul delighted in the law. He says, for I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, Romans 7, 22. The Apostle Paul had delight inside of his soul in the law of God. That's what David's talking about here. Pleasure is the key to study.

That's why David said in Psalm 111 verse 2, he said, the works of the Lord are great. Now follow this. The works of the Lord are great, studied by who? Who are the works of the Lord studied by? By all who have pleasure in them.

It's the pleasure that drives the study that creates the happiness. So if you think it's pleasurable, then you will study it. If you think your life depends on it, then you'll pursue it. I've found my life depends on the words of God. I can't get through life without the words of God.

David felt like this, he said, "'As the deer pants for the water brook so my soul for you oh god my soul sir thirsts for God for the living God so all This means that pleasure is regulated by what you think is pleasurable. Now we go through periods as sinful human beings, times of greater pleasure and passion for God and lesser. That's the way we're built. Now if you're at a low level of desire and delight, well it's okay in this sense. There are things that you can do to grow your delight.

There are things that you can do to grow your delight There are things that you can do to shape your affections to a better place you can do that And you do it by pursuing the word of God. The way that we're wired is, is that we delight in the things that we do the most. Like, it's like that for everything. If you, if you set your mind to do certain things, you begin to delight in them. If you think about certain things, you'll begin to delight in that many years ago I owned this, then this, this classic car company and all these guys were, were chrome worshipers and they would spend thousands and thousands of dollars on their chrome.

And so I, during that period, I remember that I actually cultivated, acquired a greater delight for chrome and absolutely gorgeous paint on a car. I did I Grew my delight because I was looking at it. Well, that's the way we're wired our delight grows in the things that we do that's how it works so if your delight is a little low level well you can get it back it's by pursuing the Word of God and your pursuit will increase your delight but there's a little bit more to it I will get I'll get to that in a minute now there are there are there really critical things about this. I'm going to mention several. First of all, There is a return of pleasure when you seek the Word of God.

God wants you to have a return on your investment. And the return on the investment in the Word of God is pleasure. Why do I say that? Psalm 36, 8. David is speaking about people who drink from the river of delights.

He says, they are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of your house and you give them drink from your river of pleasures." And he's really speaking about Jesus Christ and his word. Drinking of the river of Jesus Christ is a river of pleasures. And then he says, for you, with you is the fountain of life. In your light, we see light. So there's this return of pleasure.

The second is a spirit of rejoicing. You get a return on your investment, and it's a spirit of rejoicing. Psalm 63 speaks of this. He says, Oh God, you are my God. Early will I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty Land where there is no water and then he says thy loving kindness is better than life And he's then he speaks about going to bed at night and he says what on my bed I remember you I think of you through the watches of the night that's meditation. But in Psalm 63 The return on the investment of the Word of God is a spirit of rejoicing. If you want to restore a spirit of rejoicing, the Word of God is the fastest place to get it. I know that's true.

Here's a third return. It's the return that you get in understanding and knowledge and wisdom. Now Proverbs 2 makes this very clear. I wish we had time to really delve into Proverbs 2, 1 through 7, but what we find here is Solomon says, my son, if you receive my words, if you go get my words, if you take them in, if you treasure my commands, if you do that, something's going to happen to you. He says, if you incline your ear to wisdom if you apply your heart to understanding if you cry out For discernment you notice all these ifs if if if if you do these things if you lift up your voice for understanding and say Lord give me understanding he says if if you seek her as silver and search for her as hidden treasures What's gonna happen?

Will you give there's a return on that? Then You will Understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God for the Lord gives wisdom From that from his mouth come knowledge and understanding He stores up sound wisdom for the upright he is a shield to those who walk uprightly And what Solomon is telling us is that if you seek Wisdom there's a return and the return you get is Understanding knowledge and wisdom in other words you can look at what's going on around you and have an understanding that you never had before. You can look at what's happening in your own life and you can have a sense of what's happening. So the fourth return, healing. He returns healing.

The Bible makes this very clear. Ezekiel 47 speaks of the river that flows out of the temple of God, and it's really a picture, it's really a picture of the final temple in heaven where this river flows out of the temple of God and there are trees that are well watered on each side of the river and the leaves are for the healing of the nations. This is the rivers of water, of life, of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is that river of life. And then, fifthly, the return that you get is life.

Job said in Job 33, 4, the breath of the Almighty gives me life. The word of God breathed, the God-breathed word of Jesus Christ gives you life. And then finally the sixth return on the investment sweetness that's Psalm 19 verse 7 his law sweeter than honey in the end and the honeycomb sweetness that's what you get so God God wants to change us and He wants us to have a return in pleasure, in a spirit of rejoicing, in understanding and wisdom, in healing, in life and sweetness. Sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. So God gives us a way through our disappointments and our discontentment.

You know, we sang that song right at the beginning. Are you thirsty? Are you empty? Come and drink these living waters. My favorite line in the whole song is this, bring your children to the shoreline.

You knew I was going to say that. I've said that before. Bring your children to the shoreline you knew I was gonna say that I've said that before bring your children to the shoreline you know You can take your children to the garbage dump, or you can take them to the shoreline where there's living water. That's where you should take them. So is there anything, Any affection getting in the way of That joy that he's speaking of is there anything You are delighting in right now.

That's giving you a poor return on happiness Because God desires you to get a good return on your time. Invested in the Word of God and get happiness. That's Psalm 1. Okay, now meditation. Let's talk about meditation.

In his law, he meditates day and night. Meditation. So you have delight and meditation, those two things. Now, Isaac Ambrose defines meditation this way. Meditation is a deep and earnest musing upon some point of Christian instruction to strengthen us against the flesh, the world, and the devil, and leads us toward the kingdom of heaven.

So I like, I like the way he speaks of it. It's a deep and earnest musing on some point of Christian doctrine. Haggai the prophet says, consider. Solomon in Proverbs says, ponder. Paul the apostle in Philippians 4-8 says, think on these things.

Whatever is true, whatever is lovely, think on these things. Christians should be thinkers. We're designed by God to be thinking about things. An English Puritan, George Swinick, Talked about meditation as stirring the affections stirring the affections stirring them up Get you know give giving them life. He talks about The fact that what he he says short glances on truth, short glances do little good.

Long glances, long glances by implication do lots of good. You know, we live in an age right now where everything is a short glance. Everything is reduced down to 22 words. We have the shortest attention spans ever because of the way that the internet is structured in a way that information is delivered it's it's actually dangerous because it it steals From us the value of meditation of long glances on things we need long glances Brothers and sisters we live in a world of short glances. Let's not live like the rest of the world.

All of us have many opportunities to take long glances. Personal Bible reading, family worship, reading books, listening to sermons. Reading books, listening to sermons. Well, by the end of today, you will have heard two sermons. So, take some long glances on some of the things that you heard when you go home.

Take them with you. Take them with you into the day. Remember them. Maybe you wrote some of them down. My mind is poor enough, I have to write things down to remember them.

So I wrote some things down. There are two ways that you do this. I'm gonna steal a term from the Puritans and the farmers chewing the cud chew the cud you know that's what cows do oh cows are wonderful animals They certainly are but cows chew the cud and then it goes down And then it comes back up and they chew it some more and then it goes back down And then it comes back up and they chew it some more, but they get life they get energy out of every session Jeremiah the prophet says your words were found and I ate them and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart. David said oh taste and see that the Lord is good blessed or happy is the man who trusts in him that's what the Bible teaches about life about living this life chew the cud Satan is always at the door to steal the word of God that's sown in your heart. He's always there to steal it through distraction of different different ways.

Richard Baxter, I'll just tell you where the term chew the cud came from. I'll read the sentence. Richard Baxter, chew the cud all of you cows and call he didn't say that chew the cud and call up all when you come home in secret so call it up be a good cow I was I was so delighted to hear Hensworth Jonas talk about this yesterday. He talked about meditation. If you're here, you'll remember it.

He said, what's meditation? He says it's talking to yourself. So talk to yourself. Like David did, David talked to himself. He said, why are you so cast down, oh my soul?

Why? Why are you disquieted within me, my soul? Well, meditation Includes talking to yourself about about the Word of God Now one way to talk it talk to yourself about the Word of God is by memorizing it Today is in some ways. It's a confrontation of our church in careless acquisition of the truth, careless listening, careless chewing, short glancing. I want us to feel the sting of that.

I don't want us to get by this without somehow rebuking all of us, by the way, including myself. You understand? Myself you understand you know I want to drive you know I want to drive a knife in here to all of us and say are you short glancing stop short glancing get back to long glances long looks long meditations consider the words of God And do you seek it for yourself for your own good? Do you seek it because you know it's the very best thing that you can ever do? I'll tell you what I I'll tell you what I do.

I try to do this every day I get up early and I just I just read through the Bible. I try to read You know three to five chapters, and then I just write down something. I want to take with me through the day So I'll go back a couple weeks. I just want to read a couple of them to you. First Chronicles 18 6 the Lord preserved David wherever he went.

How about that? And then the next verse says I have been with you wherever you have gone. I needed that. The same day I read John 7, 18, he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. Yikes.

I needed that. Couple days later, 2 Chronicles 8, 16, now all the work of King Solomon was well ordered. You know what? That really helped me that day. And I thought about the ordering of my affairs and the different things I'm involved in.

Well, something well-ordered. He was talking about the queen of Sheba showing up and seeing how well-ordered Solomon's kingdom was. It was astonishing. Everything was in order. The next day no one is able to snatch them out of my hand.

Second Chronicles 15, 2 Chronicles 15, Azariah to Asa, the Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, He will be found by you. I needed that. If you seek Him, He will be found. Well, that's like Psalm 1.

And then he says this, Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. In other words, Crank it out. Don't, you know, be strong. Go do it. Go for it.

Go for it. It's not in vain. This is just a couple days ago, 2 Chronicles 25-8, God has power to help and to overthrow. This is about in the middle of last week in John 14. I've been thinking about this ever since, because part of it is I'm writing a book on family life and a home.

So you'll see why in a minute here John 14 23 if anyone loves me he will keep my word now hang on and my father will love him and we the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we will come to him and make our home with him." In other words, he makes a home. He makes a home in your heart for himself and he dwells in you and he is with you. Anyway, those were things that I just tried to take into the day. I tried to meditate on them. I wish, you know, I wish during the day I had remembered them more, but I did take them in the day sort of as best as I did.

You know, David said, you know, one thing have I desire to the Lord, that will I seek. And then he says that I may behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. So all of this has to do with our communion with God, inflaming joy in our hearts By pursuing the Word of God, which is the face of Jesus Christ When you read this his delight is in the law of the Lord You can also read it his delight is in Jesus Christ and in the face of Jesus Christ. That's the whole thing. Okay.

So, let me just wrap this up. This psalm describes two different kinds of people, two very graphic pictures. The unhappy people who will never be satisfied with this life, the reason is that they do the things that don't make for happiness. And so he starts out and says, Your happiness depends on what you don't do. So stop doing things that don't bring happiness Don't let don't let anything get in the way of the Word of God in your life And then you have those who delight in the law of the Lord and they meditate on his law day and night and that's the source of happiness So I'm here today To increase your delight by listening to the admonition of the Lord and If you've been really lazy lately with the Word of God Get back on it.

Go for it. Behold the face of Jesus Christ in His Word. Get back on it. Take something with you every day from the Word of God. Get it in the first thing in the morning and take it with you all day.

Chew on it, chew on it some more. Get as much nourishment out of it as you can possibly get. And if you're saying, well, I've kind of lost my delight. Well, here's how you get it back. You get it back by going for it.

That's what you do. So get back on it if you need to. David said here in this Psalm, happy is the man. Happy is the man who delights and meditates. You know when Jesus said in John 7 37 he said if anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink He who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his innermost being Shall flow rivers of living water now John is talking about Salvation and the beginning of salvation that you drink of Jesus Christ and out of your innermost being flows living water So I don't want to let this moment pass without saying if you don't if you haven't turned to Jesus turn to Jesus Christ believe in him repent of your sins and He wants to fill you with living water He wants to make you like that tree not like the chaff not like the one who perishes remember Psalm 1 begins with the word blessed and it ends with the word perish and You want to be on the side of the blessed and You do that by beholding the face of Jesus Christ, so I pray that this week there would be deeper meditation more acquisition of wisdom maybe than last week maybe God has me here to just spur you on to poke you in the side and say hey let's get back on it let's get back toward happiness so you've heard two sermons today Some of you have heard like a bunch of sermons this weekend.

Go back and chew the cud. Happy is the man who finds wisdom. Would you pray with me? Lord, we thank you that you've given us the path of life. You show us how to live.

You're always rescuing us from our own ridiculous passions and bringing us back to the things that really make for sweetness and healing and pleasure. We thank you, Lord, that you take us through everything as we behold the face of Jesus Christ so that we might be that person who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. Lord have mercy on us, make us that people. For happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Amen.