Calvary Chapel River Oaks

Pastor Grady Clark: The Psalms are interesting writings in more than one way. A lot of it is considered poetry because there are a lot of poetic aspects to the Psalms and the way they were written. David wrote many of them, but he didn't write them all.

I was talking to my son the other day and we were talking about the different books of the Bible. He was saying he doesn't really see that there is a lot of teaching in the Psalms like you might get in the New Testament or even in some of the Old Testament. I told him it is not teaching in the standpoint of Paul giving instructions. It is not like a letter to the church.

There is so much meat on the bone when you start getting into the Psalms because you are really starting to see the entirety of human nature. I think you see all of man's struggles, his victories, the good days, the bad days, the times that he is fearless, and the times that he is on his face before the Lord.

There is a lot of emotion in the Psalms. In the way that God gives me the messages, we try to stay away from an emotional high because emotion is not what we are after. I love the Spirit of God to move and when we can feel His presence and really grasp ahold of those moments and those times. But what we are seeing here, and a lot of what we see in the Psalms, is how important the Word is.

That is what we are going to see in Psalm 1 tonight particularly, the importance of the Word. Psalm 119, which we have assigned to Chad since he is new, is the longest Psalm in the Bible. If you go through that entire Psalm and all the different little sections of writings, almost the entire Psalm is about the law of the Lord and staying in connection with the Word of the Lord. It talks about how I meditate day and night on Your law. That is a continual theme throughout the Psalms as a whole.

As we get into Psalm 1 tonight, one thing I want to go over is where we got our name. We got our name, Calvary Chapel River Oaks, in part from Psalm 1. I am going to read the whole Psalm and then we will break it down and go through it. Beginning with verse one 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. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment."

Taking it from verse one, "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly." We know that in the culture that we live in, the percentage of people walking on the ungodly side is more than those who are walking on the godly side. The church is a minority as far as a percentage of actual believers. In some cases, you have to go into who is and who isn't, which we won't do tonight. That's not our place to do. Even within those who sometimes call themselves believers, they are not walking in the counsel of God.

They have still brought the world into it, and so now it is a mixture of me and God instead of God. When we see here, "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," there is a hard line here. This is something that I think that we have to address in all of our studies. When we are doing teachings of the Word, we have to come to the point and realize and recognize that there is always a hard line.

For many, there is a lot of gray area. People say, "Maybe it said it, but this is who it was talking to and it was all about them. That doesn't apply to us today." Well, there are some cultural things in the New Testament that are written that Paul was addressing specifically for things going on in the church.

Back in the day, you have to remember who Paul was preaching to. He was preaching to major paganism with temples on every corner and prostitutes in front of these temples, some women prostitutes and some male prostitutes. They were temples worshipping pagan gods. When Paul would go and preach to them and teach them and they became believers, they were coming out of a hard, rough background.

A lot of the ladies who came out of that were some of the prostitutes who were loud and boisterous because they were trained to call out to the men when they would come down the street. That was a lot of personality and training. Now, they were coming into the church and they were having to learn not to be boisterous. It wasn't just the women; there were men who were doing this too. Particularly Paul wrote in the cultural sense that women should be quiet in the church. What he meant was they shouldn't act out the way they were acting out on the streets, but they should now come in with a whole different countenance. That was a cultural thing he was talking about.

But when he wrote about women not being pastors or leaders over men, that was cultural and prophetic. It was for the whole church. Why do I say that? Because you have to read the next verse after that when he said women should not be overseeing men. He says because as it was in the beginning, God created man first, then woman. He gave the whole picture all the way back to the Old Testament. So, that is not my decision to say it. God said it, and it wasn't just cultural. It is the Word of God.

You have to understand that. When we are looking at the Word today and we are going through this, we have to understand that there are many that will take bits and pieces of the Word and say they are walking in godliness because they have this and they have that, and they believe this and they believe that. Unless you are really walking in the full counsel of God's Word, then you have a problem when it comes to aspects of bringing the world into the church doors.

That is what we see in our culture today. we see a tremendous amount of people who will call themselves believers but walk in the way of the world because they feel like this is how we are to get other people into the church. We will just live somewhat like they do. It is kind of like a political system. One political party will say, "Look what this side is always doing and they are getting away with it. Why don't we do that too?" Well, is that going to get you what you want? No, because it messes with your message.

If your message is this and you act this way, then your message is washed out and it means nothing. It is the same thing in the church. Your message has to be consistently and continually in line with the Word of God. What we are seeing here is if you do walk in the Lord and you are walking in His Word, then you are blessed. But you are not blessed, this is the hard line, if you walk in the counsel of the ungodly, if you stand in the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful.

It goes on and says, "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night." What we are seeing in this aspect of this passage is the importance of staying in the Word, the importance of meditating upon it, and the importance of asking for wisdom and discernment regarding the Word. If we are not doing that, then we can also be swept away by whatever wave comes across the country or wherever it might come from saying this is the new thing. We can water this down, we don't have to say this, and we don't have to do that. Let's just all love one another.

Well, that is what the hippies tried and you saw how well it worked out for them. Actually, for many of them, it worked out pretty good because they wound up seeing the reality of the emptiness when they got to California. That is where they met Calvary Chapel, Chuck Smith, and the whole Maranatha thing just exploded in a Holy Spirit movement there. That was a wonderful thing, but they had to come to the end of themselves.

That is again one of the weaknesses that we in America have, which is coming to the end of ourselves. There is always another way, another book, another video, another piece of exercise equipment, or something that tells you this is the best and this is going to make it right for you. It works on our emotions and we go get that thing and it doesn't work because that is not what we need. What we need is to be in the Word.

We are going to see in this passage walking in relationship with the Lord and meditating on His Word. Verse 3, when it says he shall be a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, that particular verse right there is where River Oaks came from. That was one of the very first places that we saw. He shall be a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in season.

The other place that we actually gleaned our name from is in Isaiah 61. I want to read that to you. I've actually got it printed here, but this is actually more fun to find it. Isaiah 61, starting in verse one. You will recognize this passage for two reasons.

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified."

That was the second aspect. I think the King James calls it oaks of righteousness. I think that is what it reads. Those two passages fourteen years ago is where we came up with the name Calvary Chapel River Oaks. It is funny because a lot of people in the Calvary movement when they address us, they say River Oaks. That is what we kind of go by. Those passages are where we got our name.

Looking at Isaiah 61, we know that Jesus actually quoted these very words when He came in. It's in Luke's version, in Luke chapter 4. It says He closed the book. He went into the temple, He opened the scrolls, and where did He open to? Isaiah 61. He read this out loud. After He read this entire passage, He closed the book and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him, and He began to say to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Again, these passages in the Old Testament and the passages in the New Testament are connected. One thing you will see is that New Testament writers quoted the Old Testament over and over and over again. Jesus Himself quoted scripture and quoted it to Satan when He was being tempted. This again is how important the Word is. We need to know where to grasp it. If we are studying it and meditating on it, the Holy Spirit is going to bring it to remembrance when we need it and He is going to give us what we need when we need it. Are there any thoughts on that so far as we get into this tonight?

Guest (Male): I think there is a little interesting sequence here in the first verse where he says he walks not in the counsel, he stands not in the way of sinners, and nor sits. That is the process of sin. You walk into it, you hang in there and have a look around, and then you sit down and indulge.

Pastor Grady Clark: Well, that is exactly what Lot did. You described that perfectly. Lot, when he was with Abraham, was getting too big. Both parties were growing, their families were growing, and their slaves were growing. They finally started arguing over things and Abraham said this shouldn't be so. You go and you choose. He gave Lot the first choice. Lot looked toward Sodom. The land looked good and the water looked good. Next thing you know, he is in Sodom and then he is sitting at the gate. One step at a time, he progressed from looking toward it to being a part of it.

Guest (Male): The other thing too I was looking at is the verse that says scornful or scoffers. We need to question who we are hanging out with and who our friends are. If they are not encouraging us to get closer to the Word and follow Jesus, then we need to question our relationship. I don't mean that you shouldn't have non-Christian friends, but you need to ask yourself if you are listening to their counsel. Jack Hibbs said that if you really want to see someone's character, go check out their Facebook page. If they are trying to conceal that from you, then you have to be concerned about that.

Pastor Grady Clark: Particularly if you are the one doing most of the posting and comments and all those kinds of things on your Facebook, absolutely. One thing about building relationships is that relationships take discipline. It's easy with people who are like-minded. You can build those relationships fairly easily. You have things in common and you like them. I have relationships with a couple of people, one particularly I've had since high school. We are not as close as we used to be, but we still keep in touch. I have other friends that I've gained along the way.

In relationships and in friendships, you have to spend time with them. If you are developing relationships, intimate type of relationships where you are really communicating on a deeper level, if that person you are building that relationship with is not spiritually on the same page, then that verse that tells us to be careful not to be unequally yoked comes into play. Most of us when we read that passage, we think about marriage, which it absolutely applies to. I think specifically it applies to marriage because that is a bonding under God. If you are unequally yoked with an individual and you are coming under a God covering, there is a problem and it is going to be a mess out of it.

But it also applies to business relationships. I don't want to be in business and be a partner in a business if they are a scoundrel and they cheat and they go about to do stuff to gain for themselves and they don't care who they hurt. I don't want to be in business with them. That is unequally yoked. That is exactly what we need to be careful of in those intimate relationships. At the same time, Jesus hung out with the sinners.

Guest (Male): Exactly. Right.

Pastor Grady Clark: He went with them. He was with them, but Jesus wasn't with them for the purpose of that intimate relationship. He was there for the ultimate relationship that they would believe in Him. He wasn't there to build an alliance with a group of people that did not believe in who He was. He wanted to shine the light, and there is the difference. When you are actually in the world, you want your light to shine. You can still have close relationships, but there is a hard line. You cannot waver on who you are in your walk with Christ, no matter who this person is that you are spending time with. You have to let them know where you stand and it is so important to do that.

When it says not the one who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, it is saying there not to become one of them. Not that you can't be around them, but you can't become one of them and act and do as they do when you're with them. In a way, Paul had to call out Peter for that very thing. Not in a sinful way, except in a sense it was, because Peter would come and eat with all of them when he was by himself. But when the other Jewish men came, he would separate himself from the Gentiles and then be over here with the Jewish people. Paul called him out for being a hypocrite. You can't do that. We are all believers here now in Christ. You have to understand the whole picture of what he's saying. Are there any other comments?

Guest (Male): There is one I wanted to make. I studied Psalms a long time ago. There are five books of the Psalms incorporated in the Psalms. They correlate to the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. That might be something that we can kind of keep in the back of our mind.

Pastor Grady Clark: We will definitely keep that in mind. Again, I think the way it was put together was for that very specific reason, to kind of be in alignment with the first five books of the Bible.

Verse two says, "His delight is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates day and night." There again, it comes back to discipline. There has to be a discipline on our part to pursue the relationship. The scripture says draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Well, the Holy Spirit is the one that draws us to the place where we believe. Once we believe, then we have to initiate that time. God is always here with us, and the Holy Spirit dwells within us, but we have to desire Him, delight in His law, and meditate upon it.

It goes back to the close relationships. When Jesus was with the twelve, one being a betrayer, He was still with them the whole time. Jesus ministered for that full three years, and they were with Him everywhere He went. They left immediately when He said follow me, and they followed Him. There was an intimacy there that we are not actually privy to completely in the Word. We don't know all the conflicts that those disciples had with each other, just the ones that we read about. We don't know the lightheartedness sometimes and the funny times that they had. We don't know all the times that Jesus had to correct them. We only have examples of those things.

We know they were human and they were real people that just sometimes like Peter just put his foot in long enough to take it out to put the other one in. But there was an intimacy there that we're not really privy to. Now that we are in relationship with Jesus, we have that intimacy, but we have to desire it and we have to seek it and pursue it. That's something that is very important.

Getting back to verse three, "He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper." This describes something very strong, very grounded, rooted. It talks about being rooted and fruitful. The leaves don't wither. Here in the south, in Georgia particularly, we have the seasons. We'll see the trees and fall will come. They'll turn and they'll lose their leaves and then they'll come back. We do have some evergreens, the pines and different types of trees that are evergreens here.

This goes beyond even what we can probably picture regarding trees. He uses that as a description, but it really gives us the whole aspect that when we are in relationship the way God wants us to, our strength is His strength, our fruit is the fruit that He produces in us, and the prospering that He does will be according to His will. This is where you have to be careful because somebody will read this last part, "Whatever he does shall prosper." That line will be quoted.

Let's go back to when the scripture tells us that when you pray, you pray according to His will, and when you pray according to His will, then your prayers will be answered in accordance to His will. The way that it is worded, in many ways people look at it and say, "I can pray whatever I want and I am going to get it. If I pray for that mountain to be moved, it is going to be moved." Did God tell you that He wanted to move that mountain, and did He tell you to pray that that mountain be moved?

I can be honest with you. In my early days of Christianity, I prayed for many mountains to be moved and none of them did. I never saw a mountain move. To this day, I can tell you this, I've never heard God tell me to tell that mountain to move. Now, if He speaks it to me and I know it's Him, I'm going to do that. But this again, in context, when it says whatever he does shall prosper, it means that we are in such an intimate relationship with Him that we're hearing His voice when we pray. We're hearing His direction, and the Holy Spirit is guiding our steps.

Therefore, what we are doing is in His will and therefore we will prosper in it. When you get outside of His will because you get bold and a little bit aggressive or maybe ahead of God, then all of a sudden you're in a dangerous territory and start claiming things that God never said were ours to have, whether it be things for ourselves or even things for the church or things for others. I'm very cautious when I am praying for healing. We have seen healing. We've seen God move. He healed Loretta of a couple of things that she came back and she was healed from. No doubt and still is from those very things. Those are miraculous things and they are wonderful things.

But when you are praying for healing, what is God's purpose in His plan for this healing or for not healing? Because God has a purpose and plan for everything. He has always got a plan. When we are focusing on what we want to see the result to be because God doesn't want somebody to suffer, so He wants to heal everybody. Ultimately, He will heal everybody that is in relationship with Him. But just because He healed many, many didn't get saved. He used healing in His day again to gather people around to teach them about Himself.

Listen, I am showing you I have the power to heal. I'm showing you I have the power over the Sabbath and Lord over the Sabbath. I'm showing you that I have power over the demons. But I don't want you to get so focused on what I can do in my power. I want to show you that I have the power to forgive sins so that you can enter into heaven when you leave this world. Jesus didn't heal everybody. He healed the masses and a lot of them, but He didn't heal everybody. Again, we can always go back to the fact that when Jesus healed them, they still died at some point.

It brings us back into focus again. If we are like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season and our leaves are not going to wither and whatever we do shall prosper, we need to be asking ourselves if I am in His will before we start quoting that scripture over ourselves. Am I seeking His will? Am I desiring His will? Because if I'm not, then I'm taking this and applying it in ways that He never intended for us to do and we have to be guarded there. Any thoughts on that?

Guest (Male): I'm looking at if you are like an oak tree or a tree firmly rooted in the ground and you are drinking of His living water. It doesn't mean that there aren't going to be no storms. It doesn't mean that things are no woodpeckers are going to get up in your tree and drive you crazy because it's going to happen. But when it happens, if you are firmly rooted and you're drinking of that living water, you're going to be rooted and you're going to be there. I remember with my first wife, we prayed for healing over her and the church prayed for her and we prayed. She still died. Then I discovered that the lesson in everything was for me and it didn't mean I didn't like it and stuff, but as a result, I became stronger. Things happened.

Pastor Grady Clark: In that grief, you called upon the Lord, and that drew you closer to Him which made the roots even stronger. I appreciate you sharing that because the Word doesn't tell us, even though it says whatever he does shall prosper, it doesn't say that there will not be ditches and valleys and whatever in the way as he is prospering in the will of the Lord. There are going to be learning times. There are going to be periods that God has to teach us things and there are going to be times when we are not going to understand. Wait a minute, let's back up a minute, hold on. I'm a tree, I've got fruit, I'm supposed to be prospering. This doesn't feel like prospering.

I don't feel it and I'm not seeing it. There is the area too that we have to be very careful in when we are walking in relationship with the Lord. It's not about what we see with our eyes, what we hear with our ears, what we feel in our bodies, the emotional highs or even the lows. It's about the fact that God reigns above all of those things and He teaches us to bring our emotions into balance because emotion is what has been out of balance in the church for a long time. I really believe that a lot of the drives for altar calls have been manipulated in ways to play on emotion. If the Holy Spirit is bringing someone, He is going to bring them.

If they respond in, "Yes, Lord, I need a Redeemer, I'm a sinner," and it's not about the emotional songs we just played and it's not about that they just scared me to death preaching fire and brimstone, it's about a connection between me and You. When that's real, then they grow and they move forward from there. So, it is not about the emotional aspect of it. Emotions are good and God gave them, but they are not to rule over and reign us. That's really what happened in the garden. When you really go back and think about it, Satan twisted things. He tempted Eve and twisted what God's Word said, but he played on her emotions. Look at how good it looks.

Look at how you can touch it. It's beautiful and it tastes good, too. Sight, touch, taste, those three things he played on her emotion. And then he also played on the emotion of pride and saying God only doesn't want you to eat that because He knows when you do, you're going to be equal to Him. You're going to have all the knowledge and you'll be like Him. And that again played on her emotion. So sure! It's that way for all of us. We get angry, our emotions get out of control. We get overjoyed over feelings and touching and all these things and then next thing you know, those feelings fade away and there is nothing to hold you there. There is nothing to sustain you in our emotions. That's why they are not designed to control us. In the garden, they were in control. Their spirit was alive and awake. It controlled their body and it controlled their mind.

But when they took of that fruit, their spirit went to sleep and their mind took over. The body and the mind then are wrestling with each other even about pleasure and pleasing and all these things. The spirit now is re-awakened when we meet Jesus. In our training ground, from the time we receive Jesus till the time we go home to be with Him, it is discipline to allow the spirit to rule over the flesh. The way it was designed to be in the beginning, but we don't want that. Most fight it. It is the fleshly nature that does not want to die. Paul talked about that ongoing battle.

We need to make sure that we are rooted in Him because it is His river of water, it's His fruit, it's His leaves that we are displaying, and whatever is prospered is Him in us and through us. Then it goes on. The ungodly are not so, but like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. There are many scriptures that talk about our life as a vapor or it is just like the wind, it will be blown away.

In a sense, while we are on this earth, for those who don't believe, this is already happening. I think it was said if you don't believe in something, you'll believe or fall for anything. You have to have something that grounds you. If not, like the wind, whatever comes along, you're going to go after. I think of Bob Dylan, the writing of his songs and all of the things in his day. He tried all kinds of different religious things. At some point, he came to Christianity. He wrote a couple of cute little Christian songs. God gave names to all the animals in the beginning. Yes, he did.

He did that song and then he came to a couple of other Christian songs and then next thing you know, he was gone, on to something else, doing this, doing that, seeking this, seeking that. Now supposedly, I've seen things that he's come back to the Lord. I don't believe half of anything I see when the testimonies are out there because again, a lot of it is just for ratings. They'll do this for a while. I'll try this. Have you ever heard somebody say, "I tried that Christian thing and it didn't work. I didn't like it"? Well no, you don't try it. You don't put it on like a shirt.

It didn't fit me, so I took it off. You don't do that. That's not what Christianity is. It's either real or it's not. It's either true or it's not, and each person has to make that decision for themselves. So even as we're seeing today, before what God is speaking of here, in the last day, they will be driven away, separated from God like the wind, they will be cast away. But in the here and now, they are allowing the wind to take them wherever because they can't focus on truth. They don't want that truth. That means submission, that means denial of themselves, and most people aren't willing to do that.

Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. They will stand at judgment, but they will not be able to stand in the judgment. In other words, when they hear that sentence, "Away from me, I never knew you," they are going to collapse. I don't know particularly how the bodies will be in that particular case. I know that after the resurrection, we are going to have new bodies when we die and we rise up to be with Jesus. He is going to give us new bodies, He is going to give us new minds, and all of these things. Particularly in the last kingdom when we are in the new heaven and new earth and all of that, it's all going to be new.

We are all going to be recognizing and all of these things, but it's all going to be new. Well, I don't know what those are going to look like that are resurrected for judgment. I don't know what kind of body they are going to have in that judgment. It may not be a body at all, but whatever it is, there is going to be a, "Whoa, I can't believe I missed this," and they won't be able to stand in that judgment. God's judgment is real and it's coming. As we have talked about here, and again as I alluded to on the video today, it's not our place to be in that judgment seat either, not today. We are not there. We are not called to be judgmental. We are not called to judge people in their walk.

We are called to let the light shine, to be a light that we're supposed to be, and according to the Word here, we're blessed when we do that. We're blessed when we're walking in the counsel of God's Word and not with the ungodly. We're blessed when we are delighted in the law of the Lord.

Guest (Male): Tony is watching us and I got a text message from him concerning the message. We must be of the spirit, not of the world. God's will must be one's first goal. Like the riverside tree, we must develop deep roots of faith in God's will. We must always pray according to God's will, not our wants. God's will is the source of living water.

Pastor Grady Clark: Amen. Thank you, Tony, for sharing that with us. We appreciate you watching and appreciate you texting in. For anyone who might be streaming the service, you feel free to, I think there is a way they can reach out online back here and if you get any questions back there, raise your hand and pose it unless it's one I can't answer, then I'll give it to somebody else. But we do appreciate the input because that's encouraging to know people are watching when they can't be here. Any other thoughts?

Guest (Male): I'm looking at if you're like an oak tree or a tree firmly rooted in the ground and you're drinking of His living water. Right? It doesn't mean there aren't going to be no storms. It doesn't mean that woodpeckers aren't going to get up in your tree and drive you crazy, because it's going to happen. But when it happens, if you're firmly rooted and you're drinking of that living water, you're going to be rooted and you're going to be there. I remember with my first wife, we prayed for healing over her and the church prayed for her and we prayed. She still died. And then I discovered that the lesson in everything was for me. It didn't mean I didn't like it, but as a result, I became stronger. Things happened.

Pastor Grady Clark: In that grief, you called upon the Lord and that drew you closer to Him which made the roots even stronger. Amen. I appreciate you sharing that because the Word doesn't tell us, even though it says whatever he does shall prosper, it doesn't say that there will not be ditches and valleys in the way as he is prospering in the will of the Lord. There are going to be learning times. There are going to be periods that God has to teach us things. There are going to be times when we are not going to understand. Wait a minute, let's back up a minute, hold on. I'm a tree, I've got fruit, I'm supposed to be prospering. This doesn't feel like prospering.

I'm not feeling it and I'm not seeing it. There is the area too that we have to be very careful in when we are walking in relationship with the Lord. It's not about what we see with our eyes, what we hear with our ears, what we feel in our bodies, the emotional highs or even the lows. It's not about those things. It's about the fact that God reigns above all of those things and He teaches us to bring our emotions into balance. Emotion is what has been out of balance in the church for a long time. I really believe that a lot of the drives for altar calls have been manipulated in ways to play on emotion. If the Holy Spirit is bringing someone, He is going to bring them.

If they respond in, "Yes, Lord, I need a Redeemer, I'm a sinner," and it's not about the emotional songs we just played and it's not about that they just scared me to death preaching fire and brimstone, it's about a connection between me and you. When that's real, then they grow and they move forward from there. So, it's not about the emotional aspect of it. Emotions are good and God gave them, but they're not to rule over and reign us. That's really what happened in the garden. When you really go back and think about it, Satan twisted things. He tempted Eve and twisted what God's Word said, but he played on her emotions. Look at how good it looks. Look at how you can touch it. It's beautiful and it tastes good, too. Sight, touch, taste, those three things he played on her emotion. And then he also played on the emotion of pride and saying God only doesn't want you to eat that because He knows when you do, you're going to be equal to Him. You're going to have all the knowledge and you'll be like Him. And that again played on her emotion. Sure!

But it's that way for all of us. We get angry, our emotions get out of control. We get overjoyed over feelings and touching and all these things and then next thing you know, those feelings fade away and there is nothing to hold you there. There's nothing to sustain you in our emotions. That's why they are not designed to control us. In the garden, they were in control. Their spirit was alive and awake. It controlled their body and it controlled their mind. But when they took of that fruit, their spirit went to sleep and their mind took over. The body and the mind then are wrestling with each other even about pleasure and pleasing and all these things.

The spirit now is re-awakened when we meet Jesus. in our training ground, from the time we receive Jesus till the time we go home to be with Him, is discipline to allow the spirit to rule over the flesh the way it was designed to be in the beginning. But we don't want that. Most fight it. The fleshly nature does not want to die. Paul talked about that ongoing battle. So again, we need to make sure that we're rooted in Him because it's His river of water, it's His fruit, it's His leaves that we're displaying, and whatever is prospered is Him in us and through us.

Then it goes on. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. There's many scriptures that talk about our life as a vapor or it's just a drop of whatever. It's gone like the wind; it will be blown away. In a sense, while we are on this earth for those who don't believe, this is already happening. I think it was said if you don't believe in something, you'll believe or fall for anything. You have to have something that grounds you. If not, like the wind, whatever comes along, you're going to go after. I think of Bob Dylan, the writing of his songs and all of the things in his day. He tried all kinds of different religious things.

At some point, he came to Christianity and wrote a couple of cute little Christian songs. "God gave names to all the animals in the beginning. In the beginning, yes He did." He did that song and then he came to a couple of other Christian songs and then next thing you know, he was gone, on to something else, doing this, doing that, seeking this, seeking that. Now supposedly, I've seen things that he's come back to the Lord. I don't know, I don't believe half of anything I see when the testimonies are out there because again, a lot of it is just for ratings. They'll do this for a while. "I'll try this." Have you ever heard somebody say, "Well, I tried that Christian thing and it didn't work. I didn't like it"? Well no, you don't try it. You don't put it on like a shirt.

"It didn't fit me, so I took it off." You don't do that. That's not what Christianity is. It's either real or it's not. It's either true or it's not, and each person has to make that decision for themselves. Even as we're seeing today, before what God is speaking of here, in the last day, they will be driven away, separated from God like the wind, they will be cast away. But in the here and now, they are allowing the wind to take them wherever because they can't focus on truth. They don't want that truth. That means submission, that means denial of themselves, and most people aren't willing to do that.

Therefore, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment. They will stand at judgment, but they will not be able to stand in the judgment. In other words, when they hear that sentence, "Away from me, I never knew you," they're going to collapse. I don't know particularly how the bodies will be in that particular case. I know that after the resurrection, we are going to have new bodies when we die and we're rise up to be with Jesus. He's going to give us new bodies, he's going to give us new minds, all of these things. Particularly in the last kingdom when we're in the new heaven and new earth and all of that, it's all going to be new. We're all going to be recognizing and all of these things, but it's all going to be new.

I don't know what those are going to look like that are resurrected for judgment. I don't know what kind of body they're going to have in that judgment. It may not be a body at all, but whatever it is, there's going to be a, "Whoa, I can't believe I missed this," and they won't be able to stand in that judgment. God's judgment is real and it's coming. As we have talked about here, and again as I alluded to on the video today, it's not our place to be in that judgment seat either, not today. We are not there. We're not called to be judgmental. We're not called to judge people in their walk.

We're called to let the light shine, to be a light that we're supposed to be, and according to the word here, we're blessed when we do that. We're blessed when we're walking in the counsel of God's Word and not with the ungodly. We're blessed when we're delighted in the law of the Lord.

Guest (Male): Tony's watching us, and I got a text message from him concerning the message. "When you live according to God's will, you are rooted in grace. There is no trying, only doing."

Pastor Grady Clark: Amen. There is no trying, only doing. That again is one of the misstatements that happens a lot of times in the church. "Well, God helps those that help themselves. So you gotta do your part and then God will do His part." That's not scriptural. You don't come to the table with helping myself and then God comes in to give me what I don't have. He gives me what I don't have from the very beginning. God helps those who are humble and broken. That's the ones that God wants to help and to lift up. If I come to God with, "Well, I do thank You that You gave me this good job, but I earned it. I'm the one that went out there and made that sale. I'm the one that fixed that car. I'm the one that knows the talent and went to school. I'm the one that has all of this stuff."

A lot of people don't say that out loud, but they really believe it. They really believe that their efforts, God wants to take and then put Him on top of it or align with. "I have all this stuff and God's just going to come alongside me now." Not the way it works. When you have that attitude, you may walk your whole life thinking that you're pleasing God, but you're really pleasing yourself and God's not happy with that. So it's an attitude of the heart, and that really what all of this comes down to in this short little Psalm here. What is the attitude of the heart? Do we want the full counsel of God's Word or do we want the counsel of the world? Do we want to be as those strong trees by the river or do we want to be a rotten limb that's about to break off or uproot when the wind comes? I'll be honest, there are some oak trees that look really strong. We had one uprooted, I don't know if it was last year or the year before. We didn't see it go down; my son heard it go down. That tree is every bit of this big around. It was tall, really tall, big old oak tree.

But it just the wind just uprooted it. It didn't break it; the roots and all came down because the roots were shallow. Where it was planted, it was shallow roots. It's just a big root ball now in the air and the tree laying there. It was a beautiful oak, but it's not anymore. So again, where are our roots? Are they rooted in Jesus or are they rooted in ourselves? Any final comments before we get ready to close tonight?

Guest (Female): I have another verse. Did we do verse 6?

Pastor Grady Clark: I stopped at five, but I have it in my notes here. We'll go and read that. We'll start with verse five. "Therefore the ungodly shall 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 ungodly shall perish." It summarizes what we've already read. It was all in one little column here, and that was right on top of chapter two.

The Lord knows the way of the righteous. He also knows the way of the wicked. The way of the wicked and the ungodly, they will perish. Just another aspect of the fact that it may appear that people are getting away with a lot of things. There's a lot of wickedness out there that claim to be right, and they're getting away with it, but not for long. It will collapse, and if it doesn't collapse in this world, it will collapse when they meet Jesus face to face. The way of the ungodly shall perish. Thank you for pointing that out, Mary.

Guest (Male): One thing that you talked about is as we go through Psalms and as we go through Proverbs, it is personal. He's talking about the man here in verse one. If you look at Proverbs, he's talking about the son. He's laying it out as a personal thing because the Holy Spirit's the one that is our counsel. It's okay to get counsel if the person you're getting counsel from is a godly person. In that same aspect, yes, we are grounded in God's Word. We are rooted. So if you talk about that moving that mountain, well, a circumstance can be a mountain, and God can move any circumstance because He's above all things.

Pastor Grady Clark: Absolutely, and sometimes He keeps you in that circumstance because He wants you to grow through it. But you're exactly right, all according to His will. Final thoughts? I know you've got one.

Guest (Male): Looking back at the first verse, "Blessed is the man." If you made positives out of each of those three statements, that is like fellowship in the body. If we have that, then our roots will go deep into that fellowship and they'll be supported by the others. What is the benefit from that? You'll prosper. This is just richness in here where people of body are rich and offer us things and help us in our difficulty. If you don't follow that, then you're going to be like chaff which is going to be dried up and blown away. But the reward is at the last there. You'll be up there with the Lord. That was just kind of a sequence of things that I saw when I went through.

Pastor Grady Clark: Absolutely, and "Blessed is the man." It goes down the line. This is all corporate. I appreciate you saying that too because the church is individual, but it's corporate. It can't be corporate without the individuals. If the individuals are doing these things and walking in the ways of the Lord and in His counsel of His Word, He's blessed, and it does reach into the body. That blessing extends to other people in the body for encouragement, for enlightenment, for bringing people together for edification. That's the whole purpose. If you want to take that just a little step further with the gifts of the Spirit, when you are grounded, blessed is the man who's so grounded in the Lord that his roots spread and it does reach out to others, then the gifts that God give you, the fruit we have from the Spirit which are all the things that we are not naturally with, He gives us that which gives us the ability to love others, to be able to speak joy into others and things like that. But then the gifts of the Spirit He gives are for the edification of others too.

It's not just about the man, but it is about the man because if the man receives it in the fullness of how God intends, it will flow out of him into the body, the edification will happen, others will grow deeper, and it's an ongoing, and that's how the church really is to grow. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

It's Tony again. Tony, you're limited to three. Praise God for a lot of the oak trees in our fellowship. So many of them have gone through so much stuff, and then they're still rooted in God's Word. We can think of Mark Wolf, we can think of Barb's husband Tom and Barb herself, and Paul and others, and Tony here.

"God's will is the source of living water. When you live according to God's will, you are rooted in grace. There is no trying, only doing. We must live in God's will to achieve true harmony with God our Father, the Holy Spirit and Jesus our Savior. This is our blessing."

Amen. Thank you again, Tony, and we will close on that.