Sermon Transcript
All right, Church, today we are in the book of Psalms in chapter one. And so go ahead and turn over to Psalm 1.
Church, we live in a world that is at an all time high with depression, anxiety, loneliness, and fear. But it does not have to be this way. In fact, I propose to you that in 2026, you can have your best flourishing year yet.
Now, don’t worry. I’m not here to get all blab it and grab it, you know, the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. But I am here to tell you that your life can be happier, grander, and much more exciting. And I’m going to tell you how to do it.
But I want you to hear me well. When I say these things, I do not mean happier and more exciting according to the world standards. You’re not going to be happier because you’re going to have all the money. You’re not going to be exhilarated because you’re climbing Mount Everest. And you’re not going to be living the high life eating caviar.
But I’m talking about human flourishing. The kind of flourishing that we as humans were designed to exhibit in the world before we fell in the garden (Gen 3:1–24). The kind of joy that no one can steal. The kind of exuberance that only comes from God on high. The kind of satisfaction that the world cannot give you. True human flourishing. And I am going to tell you how to have that done.
The kind of flourishing that I’m going to talk about today is the kind of flourishing that God has designed for us to experience only because of the tool He has given us in His word.
So, Church, will you rise with me? As we read Psalm 1.
How happy is the one who does not
Psalm 1 (CSB)
walk in the advice of the wicked
or stand in the pathway with sinners
or sit in the company of mockers!
Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams
that bears its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.
The wicked are not like this;
instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand up in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.
This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Father, I pray that You please grant my brain the ability to focus. I pray, Lord, that You bless everyone here with the ability to focus. Father, I ask that You would grant us the sweet blessing of experiencing Your presence through Your word today.
Please be with us, Father. I pray that we would see more clearly the incredible, the magical, and powerful tool that You have given us in the word of God. And I pray that we would harvest it to our advantage to make much of You in our community. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
I became a believer in Christ Jesus after Hurricane Katrina. We lost everything in New Orleans and I was in this bedroom and I’m reading the Bible for the first time because alcohol and other dark things in the world weren’t cutting it anymore. And I decided I would give another thing, a wild and crazy thing, a try that I had not done before.
I picked up the Bible. I picked up a little bitty Gideon’s New Testament Bible. And that is why the Gideons are so dear to my heart. I absolutely treasure that organization and the brothers and their wives who work with them.
But I picked up this little Gideon’s Bible, and I started reading, and it was just the New Testament, and I’m treating it just like any other book. I hadn’t been exposed to the tendency for Christians to jump around the Bible so much. So I just started at the beginning thinking it’s just like any other book and I’m reading it.
And as I’m reading through the book of Matthew, I’m running into these radical phrases from this radical guy named Jesus (Matt 5:38–48). Now, I knew of Jesus because we were from a Catholic background in New Orleans, except my flavor of Catholicism came with a whole bunch of other things.
And as I’m reading and I’m reading about this radical teacher who is turning the other cheek and forgiving His enemies and going two miles when He’s forced to go one. And I was absolutely enthralled with what I was reading. I actually couldn’t put the Bible down.
I made a Christian friend at school and I compelled her to buy me my first Bible, a Bible that I could actually understand. At the time, I was trying to wage my way through the King James and I was really struggling to read 500 year old English. And so she bought me this NLT and I’m reading the NLT and it’s just making sense to me. And I could not stop.
Something magical was happening in my heart. And I wanted more and more of it. It got to the point where I was going to school and I was skipping lunch. I would just go straight to the library so I could read some more. I was falling asleep with my face in the book. And I’d wake up and I’d resume early in the morning and I’d go to school.
I read ferociously when I first became a Christian. I could not get enough of it. The sweetest times of my Christian walk have been when I have been closest to this book. In fact, you could say that my proximity to God was directly proportionate to my proximity to Scripture. I could not get enough of the Bible.
Now, that’s not me. That’s a supernatural work done by the Holy Spirit. And that was just the point in my life when He decided to break in and give me a new joy and a new delight.
But Church, let’s face it, we have a ton of things that are fighting for our affection. We have social media, we have cell phones, we have gizmos, gadgets, television, Internet. We have 24-7 cable news networks that are on in the background all the time if you still subscribe to cable. And if you’re younger than 35, then you have the world always turned on.
In fact, if you’re young, likely, chances, the first thing you do when you wake up, you haven’t even gotten out of bed and you’re already scrolling on your phone. In fact, our world has more things today to stop you from seeing the treasure that God has given you than ever in human history.
It’s funny, the devices that give us so many conveniences are the same devices that are absolutely killing us spiritually. And God does not want it to be that way for you. You see, He loves you too much to let you suffer.
In fact, it is statistically true that we are more depressed than ever. And I am here to tell you that if you can put your devices down, stop watching doomsday media. And just read this book at least four to five times a week. You will experience a joy and an exuberance that nobody can touch.
Main Point: If we are to flourish as humans, we must delight in God’s word through meditation.
So. The main point of today’s sermon is if we are to flourish as humans, we must delight in God’s word through meditation.
If you didn’t grab a bulletin on your way in, I see we have some guests here. I would encourage you to grab a bulletin by the door. OK. All right. Well, maybe we ran out.
So we do have notes and I recommend that you follow along with the sermon notes if you’re able to. So the main point of today’s sermon is if we are to flourish as humans, we must delight in God’s word through meditation.
1. Bold Claim: We Live in a World With Only Two Types of People—Those Who Delight in God’s Word and the Wicked (Ps 1:1–2a)
So with that, let’s turn to the first point. Church, I’m going to make a bold claim for you right now. That bold claim is we live in a world with only two types of people. Those who delight in God’s word. And the other type, the wicked.
Now, this sounds really bold because what? There are only two types, people who love the Bible and the wicked. Well, let’s see what scripture has to say.
So in the book of Psalms, we open up with this first Psalm. A lot of Psalms open up with an author. This one does not have an author. This one just has, “Blessed is the man.” It gets right to the nitty gritty.
And he says that “blessed is the man…who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.” The Law of the Lord is his joy. If your Bible doesn’t say the Law of the Lord, it might say the “Lord’s Instruction.”
But what we have here in Hebrew is Torah Adonai, Torah Yahweh, the “Torah of the Lord.” And when we say Torah in this respect, I want you to understand this means much more than what our English translations are leading us to believe.
He is talking more than just about God’s collection of commands. He is using the word Torah in the sense that we use the word Scripture.
How do we know that? Well, for one, this is appearing in the last part of the Hebrew Bible. And at this point, the word Torah has evolved to be, yes, referring to God’s commands, but it also has come at this point in history to refer to the whole Bible.
And this is the way that Jesus uses it in John 10:34 when he says, “In your Law,” and then He proceeds to quote from the book of Psalms. So we know that Jesus, when He says “the Law,” He’s using it in the same way that the psalmist here is using the word Torah. Torah being a reference to Genesis through Deuteronomy and the prophets and the writings that follow all of Scripture.
So with that caveat mentioned, let’s answer this question. Why is it that we are seeing that there are only two types of people, those who delight in the word of God and those who are just wicked? Psalm 1 contrasts these two people, and Psalm 1 shows that these are the only two roads that you can go down.
You see, he says here that the wicked is a combination of three different groups. The wicked, the sinner, and the mockers. And these three names are just describing the same group of people, the wicked.
And you see, wickedness is a mindset. And this is made clear by the psalmist when he writes “advice” here, or counsel, if you’re a KJV reader. It’s counsel. It’s a mindset. It’s a worldview.
You see, a worldview is a lot like your pair of glasses. Everything that you get coming into your eyes, your worldview filters them, and it tells you how to interpret them.
So if you’re born and raised in New Orleans, raised as a non-Christian, you go to a liberal high school, and you see that gay marriage is legalized, well, you throw your hands up, and you throw a big party, and you’re happy. Why? Because your worldview is telling you this is a good thing.
The worldview tells you what is right and what is wrong. That’s the Hebrew word etza here in this psalm.
You see, wickedness is a worldview. And it’s a worldview that rejects everything from the Lord. If the Lord says it is good, wickedness says that it’s bad. It’s pure and simple. It’s just the way it goes.
And guess what? Everybody in this room has a worldview. Everybody in this room has a rubric by which they say that thing is good or that thing is bad.
And then there are going to be some people who might even venture to tell you there is no such thing as right and wrong. That also is a worldview. Because if I tell you there is right and wrong, they’re going to say, “No, that’s wrong for you to say that.” See my point? Everybody has a worldview. You cannot deny it. And wickedness is a worldview. We are describing the one of two ways.
So with that, let’s understand the wickedness of this worldview according to the book of Psalms. The wicked in Psalm 34:21, they are seen as the people who oppose God. So if you are one who is a part of God’s family, just know the world will not be able to stand you. That is normal. If the world hates you, give yourself a pat on the back. (If they hate you for the right reasons, because you’re walking with the Lord, not because you’re a jerk. But if people hate you because you love Jesus, you’re probably doing something right. But make sure it’s because you love Jesus.)
Not only that, but in the book of Psalms, we see that the wicked, they are basically practical atheists. In Psalm 10, the psalmist describes what the wicked are like. Psalm 10:4, this is what the wicked person says. He arrogantly thinks there is no accountability since there’s no God. A wicked person lives as though he’s an atheist. He might say he believes in God, but if he lives and sins in a pattern that says he has no fear of judgment day, then he is a practical atheist and wicked.
In verse 13, it says that the wicked, they mock God (v 13). And that’s why in our psalm, we see that they are also called mockers.
But Church, this isn’t just a mindset because all mindsets lead to conduct. And that is why our psalm in Psalm 1 says that “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the mindset of the wicked, but he also does not stand in the pathway of sinners.”
When he says pathway and “standing in the pathway”, this is another way of saying conduct. Depending on your worldview, your mindset, you are going to behave in a certain way.
And if you think that bad is good, then you will do that which you think is good. If you do not think it is wrong to look at pornography, then you are prone to just looking at it. If you think it is not wrong to cheat on your wife, then you will likely do that. If you think that anything bad is good, you are prone to do it.
And this conduct leads to company. If you’re reading the ESV or the KJV, they translate the Hebrew word moshav as “seat.” They “sit in the seat of scoffers.” But this word can be one of two things: it can either be seat or it can be company, like congregation, gathering. This gathering (i.e., the church) would be considered a moshav.
I’m going to posit that I believe the CSB got this one right. The CSB translates this as “company of mockers.” Now, why do I say that? Because the psalmist is contrasting between two groups of people, the wicked and the righteous. And if you look in v 5, it says that sinners will not stand in the assembly or the congregation of the righteous.
In Psalm 1, the psalmist is contrasting everything between the wicked and the righteous. So if the righteous have a congregation, then so do the wicked. So I think this Hebrew word here is better translated as “company.”
So with that, I want to show you that when you have a mindset, it leads to conduct. And shared conduct leads to a new congregation.
We are a homogenous people. This means we like to hang out—I don’t know if it’s necessarily because of sin, but I think that we generally follow the path of least resistance. So humans like to hang out with humans who are like them.
Right. If I walk into a room and—let’s see—if I’m in the Middle East and I’m doing some work on the oil field in the Middle East, and I walk into a lunch hall and I see nothing but Afghanis and then I see one white American off in the corner—what is the average human going to do? He’s going to go sit with the American. Is he sinful? No. He’s what we would call homogenous. We like to hang out with people that are like ourselves. Why? Because it requires the least resistance.
Now, this is what we do. And the psalmist is picking up on this, and he is saying that this is exactly what sinners do. When you like to sin, you also like to hang out with other sinners. So if you like to get drunk, you love to go get drunk at a bar. If you like to smoke pot, you’re going to go smoke pot with a bunch of friends.
Everybody loves community. It’s just the way God designed us. And if we like to sin, we like to sin in community. And that is what the psalmist is showing us.
The wicked—they have a worldview. Worldview leads to conduct. Conduct leads to community. And what is it doing? It destroys them.
Now that’s one type of person. What is the other type?
In this psalm, we see the righteous. It opens up calling the righteous the Blessed One. And yes, this word, as the CSB translated, “Oh, how happy is the one.” And yes, this word can mean happy. But because he’s talking about human flourishing, I believe he’s talking about more than just happy. He’s talking about a certain blessedness. So this is more than just joy. This is absolute flourishing. A state of goodness.
So if you’re not wicked, you are good and flourishing—but specifically, you are rejecting the worldview, the conduct, and the company of the wicked, and you replace it with a very specific thing, and that is Scripture.
In fact, I was struck this week as I’m looking at this, and it reminded me of my own walk with Christ. When I became a Christian, I’m coming out of witchcraft, voodoo, drunkenness, all the dark things on the internet—everything, you name it. I’m coming out of it, and all of a sudden I still got the same friends, but all of a sudden I’m reading this book, and I’m finding so much joy in it. And I’m still looking at the same old friends that I had from childhood, and all of a sudden we’re not connecting anymore.
And you would think that I would feel incredibly lonely. I’m reading Psalm 1, and I’m going, “Look at this.” The wicked in v 1—it’s plural. There’s more than one. But how many is called the blessed man? There’s just one.
The wicked is abundant. There are so many people who choose evil in the world. Matthew 7 makes this clear.
Matthew 7:13–14 (CSB)
“Enter through the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.”
Jesus says that broad is the way that leads to destruction, and narrow is the path that leads to life, and few choose that path.
But I’m looking at this this week, and I’m going, “Psalm 1—you see, there are many wicked; they’re plural, and it says that they’re plural like three times. And in vv 1–3, it’s just one man.”
And I would go, “You would think that this guy is lonely, right?” But he’s not. Because in Psalm 1, he is delighting in the Lord’s word. And he is fellowshipping with God. And he’s fellowshipping with God in such a way that it is reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.
This is why he says he is like a tree planted by streams of water. In fact, the ancient Hebrews—they have these commentaries called Targums. And this week I saw that one of the Targums’ comments, saying that he becomes like a tree of life. So even the ancient Jews see a connection between the blessed one and the Garden of Eden.
So while you might look like you are alone—because you are choosing the path of the most resistance, the path of life—you will feel like you are the only one that is choosing righteousness by replacing the world with the Word. You are becoming a Garden of Eden. And you have the best friend that man could ever dream of. And that is Yahweh, the Lord of lords, the King of kings, who wrote the book that you are eating.
You are never alone. The world will look at you and think, “That guy is weird. He’s a loner. He never does anything. He never goes anywhere. He doesn’t hang out with people. He’s always reading that book.” That man is flourishing, and you can’t shake what he’s got.
So Church, I want you to see that. Scripture has made this bold claim that there are only two people: the wicked and those who delight in the Lord’s Word.
If you delight in the Lord, you will delight in His Word (Deut 10:16; 29:4; 30:6; Jer 24:7; 31:33; Ezek 36:26–27; 2 Cor 3:15–18).
But it’s not just Psalm 1. This is also seen in the rest of Scripture. When the Lord had redeemed Israel out of Egypt, He said to them:
Deuteronomy 29:4 (CSB)
“Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.”
He says, “I haven’t given you a new heart yet. That’s why you’re not obeying my commands.”
Deuteronomy 30:6 (CSB)
“The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live.”
And in 30:6, He says, “I’m going to give you a new heart. And when I give you the new heart, you’re going to love Me. I will be your delight and your joy.”
And then we see in Jeremiah 24:7:
“I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God because they will return to me with all their heart.”
In chapter 31, when He’s promising the new covenant—and when the new covenant comes, we get the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has God’s—He writes His Law, His Word on our heart, and we delight in Him.
Jeremiah 31:33 (CSB)
“Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.“
Ezekiel 36 says the same thing.
Ezekiel 36:26–27 (CSB)
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.”
You see, the one who has been born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, has delight in the Lord. And if you delight in the Lord, I guarantee you, you will delight in His word—if you pick it up.
You see, that’s where the responsibility falls on you. The Lord does many mighty things, and He even changes our desires. That much is clear when I say, when I read these passages about Him giving us a new heart. But He will not force you to pick up a Bible. You must make that decision if you are to flourish.
So simply put, I refer to what Jesus says—I think it’s John 14:15. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” Or to put it another way: if you delight in the Lord, you will delight in His word.
2. If we delight in God’s Word, then we meditate on it (Psalm 1:2)
But it goes even further. Our delight does not just stay still. When I cut my grass, I can go look at it and be like, “Yeah, I delight in that.” But we’re not just talking about the fresh grass-cutting joy. We’re talking about a different joy—a joy that comes with action.
And that’s why the next point on the bulletin is: if we delight in God’s word, we meditate on it. And that’s what the next verse in Psalm 1:2 says: “He delights, the blessed man—he delights in the Lord’s Torah, and he meditates on it day and night.”
So, just in case you haven’t grasped this yet, everything was written on a scroll. If you are meditating on the word of the Lord day and night, you are not in the temple with a scroll—you have memorized it.
This is why in Luke 24, when they’re walking on the road to Emmaus and Jesus has cloaked His appearance to His disciples—He has risen from the dead, and He starts talking to them, and He starts explaining how all of the Scriptures, from Moses through the prophets (that’s the entire Old Testament, the whole Hebrew Bible)—He walks them through how all of Scripture points to Him. And then later they realize that it was Christ, because they knew that while He was speaking, their hearts were burning.
Now my question to you is: How could Jesus—okay, apart from Him being God—how could Jesus sit there and explain to them from Genesis through Malachi that everything pointed to Him? He has meditated on the word of the Lord day and night.
This is clear from Luke 2–3. Jesus grew up in obedience just like you and I are expected to. He was in His Father’s house studying the word of God. He was the man of Psalm 1, meditating on the law of the Lord day and night—the Torah, the Scriptures of God.
Jesus did everything that you and I are capable of doing. In fact, it was common practice: if you were to become a teacher in the temple, you memorized the entire Old Testament—all of it, word for word. Let that sink in.
I would be overjoyed if every person in this church memorized 20 verses a year.
Meditating on the law of the Lord day and night—it comes with power. And it has its full effect.
But in order for that to happen, Church, I want you to understand what this word “meditate” means. You see, meditate—the Hebrew word here—it’s an onomatopoeia. Who here knows what that means? Onomatopoeia. Just give me a hand raise if you’ve ever heard this before. Okay, I’m going to thank you in the back.
So, bang, wow, clang—all those are onomatopoeias. These are words that reflect the sound they’re pointing to. Bang! It’s an onomatopoeia because it sounds like the sound it’s describing.
Well, in Hebrew, the word for meditate is the sound of a man reading the Scriptures out loud over and over and over again. So what does the psalmist want you to understand? Meditating on the law of the Lord is work. It is work.
This is meditating:
“How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked?
How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked?
Blessed is the man who walks in the path of righteousness.”
It is a man who is repeatedly saying the word of God out loud in his heart, in his head, and it becomes a part of his DNA.
Meditating is not what your yoga instructors are telling you meditating is. You see, in Buddhism, the whole point of meditation is to empty your mind. But according to the Bible, the whole point of meditating is to fill your heart with life-giving words.
3. If we meditate on God’s Word, then we flourish in this life and build hope for the next (Psalm 1:3–6)
And there is blessing in it, because in vv 3–6 he says that if you meditate on the law of the Lord because it is your delight, then you will flourish.
But I want to focus in on this word “delight,” because I have just told you that it is work. And maybe you hear “work” and you go, “Ugh, I already do so many chores—why?”
Why? It is his delight. You see, Bart—he has these wonderful Christmas lights. And you go look at these lights and you go, “Golly, that’s like 50 hours of work.” I look at that and I go, “That’s work.” And then Bart goes, “I love it.” It’s not work for Bart because he loves it.
This is the same principle as meditating ont and storing God’s word in your heart. Do not think of it as work. Think of it as opening a treasure chest and drinking a supernatural, amazing box of Christian nutrition.
Now with that, the third point: if we meditate on God’s word, then we flourish in this life and we build hope for the next.
a. We are firmly grounded and bear much fruit (Psalm 1:3)
That is how we flourish in this life. Look at 1:3: “He is like a tree planted beside flowing streams.”
I’ve already pointed out to you that he is using language of the Garden of Eden. We become like that place.
But Church, we are firmly grounded when we are like trees. The wicked are not like that. They experience instability because it says that they are like chaff.
I don’t know—I was raised in the city, so I had to learn about this from books. But there are plenty of farmers in this church, and you probably understand this illustration much better than I do. But when they put wheat or harvest on the ground, they put it on a threshing floor. And they’ve got to separate the chaff from the wheat, right? So the chaff is just all the bad stuff that you don’t want to eat. And so they throw it on the threshing floor and they stab it with a pitching fork. Any farmers—if I’m wrong, you’ve got to correct me now. They stab it with a pitching fork. They throw it in the air. The wind catches the chaff, blows it away. And the only thing to fall on the threshing floor is the wheat to eat. Am I right? All right.
But the chaff is what the wicked are described as here. You see, they catch the wind. They are weak. They are brittle. They are unstable. They have no root.
Does that describe your life? Do you feel like your life is out of hand? Do you feel like you’re always chomping at the bit to find stability and a foundation, and your life is just going haywire and crazy?
I’m here to tell you that if you tell the world to shut up for a second and you open this book for 20 to 30 minutes a day, you will feel more grounded than you have ever felt in your entire life. I guarantee it—assuming you have the Spirit of God.
The wicked are not like that. They have no grounding.
But also, the Bible makes clear that the people who drink of this fruit—they bear their own fruit. And they do it in their season.
Every single one of us has an appointed season to do a mighty work for God. And that time is going to come to your front door. And when it comes time for that door to be flung open, will you be prepared to bear fruit for God’s glory?
How many times, Christian—I’m talking to the Christians who were truly born again—how many times have you had an encounter with someone in public, and the Lord was telling you, “Go share the gospel with that person. Tell them I love them and that I died for them, and I want them in My courts.” The Spirit was telling you to do that, and you did not. And you got back in your car, and you sat there, and you gripped that steering wheel with a pile of guilt.
Any born-again Christians who haven’t experienced that? I know I have. In fact, I drove around the corner to get back to that spot because I wanted to be able to sleep that night.
But my point is, there will be an appointed season for you when God expects you to bear fruit. And the only way that you will bear fruit is if you are a well-nourished, well-grounded tree—and you find that in the Bible.
And I’m looking at you, fathers, because your time to bear fruit is every day. Fathers, you have the responsibility of rearing not just your children, but you are building nation-builders, Dad. It is your job to raise men and women who will radically change our planet. Do not lose sight of that.
And you will not be able to bear that fruit if this is not where you get all of your daily nutrition—I guarantee you. Because guess how the world handles children who disobey? They get angry, they scream, they yell, they throw things. I mean, I’ve seen some things.
And I’m here to tell you that if you are not grounded in the Spirit, life-giving word of God, you will be a terrible parent. And you might say, “I’m just too busy to take in Scripture.” We’ll talk about that.
My first advice to you if you’re still a parent—if you think you’re too busy for Scripture—is turn screen time on your phone and then let your phone tell you how much time you spend on it every week. And then proceed to tell me that you still don’t have time for Scripture. That’s my advice. I think you’ll find that you actually have a ton of time for Scripture; we just misplace it.
b. We experience intimacy with the Lord (Psalm 1:6a)
So Church, the next thing that I want you to understand is we flourish in this life—and that sub-point on your bulletin—we experience intimacy with the Lord.
This is made clear in v 6. You see, the Lord watches over the way of the righteous. In Hebrew, it’s the word “know”—it’s an intimacy like Jesus. He says, “Many are going to say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but I’m going to say, ‘Get away from Me, you evildoers, because I never knew you’” (Matthew 7:21–23).
Matthew 7:21–23 (CSB)
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!’”
This is an intimate knowledge. This is knowledge you have of someone because they’re in your courts. They’re eating at your dinner table. They commune with you. They talk with you.
The Lord knows the person who is in His word daily. It’s how we experience intimacy with the Father.
So you want to feel God’s hugs? Open the book.
c. We build our hope to stand with God’s people in the next life (Psalm 1:5b)
And then we flourish because we build our hope to stand with God’s people in the next life. You see, look at v 5: “The wicked will not stand up in the judgment.” Why? Because they’re like chaff.
But at the second half of v 5, it says, “Sinners will not stand in the assembly or the congregation of the righteous.”
Church, this is the picture of the end of the story—when all tongues, tribes, and nations will all be standing and singing praise to our Savior who has redeemed us from this dark world. And in that congregation, you will not find the wicked.
But when we read this book, it kindles in us our hope and our joy and our focus on the end of days and the sweet blessing we find in it.
4. Some Practical Tips
a. Follow a Bible Reading Plan (4x/week to make a difference)
Now, some of you might be thinking, “Josh, this is all good and great, but I have no idea where to start. I’m not a good reader.” You might say, “I have a really bad attention span.” You might say, “My eyes are terrible; I have poor eyesight.”
Let me say this to you: If you contact me and you say that you have this boundary in your life that’s stopping you from reading the Bible, Lord willing, I will move heaven and earth to make sure that barrier is removed in your life.
If you cannot see but you can hear, and you’re not comfortable with technology so you can’t use a Bible app on your phone—I will buy you a stereo system and an audio Bible set on CD or cassette if I have to find it. I will find whatever technology you need to ingest the Bible daily. I don’t care what it is. If God equips me, I will make sure—this church will make sure—that you are fed daily.
We live in a world where there is no excuse for a person to not be able to access the Bible—certainly in the richest country in the world. And I guarantee you this church would very quickly make room in the budget to make sure everybody has access to God’s word. Amen?
Now, here’s some other advice, because let’s say you have some other things. If you have other concerns, like feeling overwhelmed by the Bible, let me start with this first step of practical advice.
Church, I recommend starting with a Bible reading plan. And guess what? We’ve already done the hard work of finding one for you. So here it is—a Bible reading plan.
And this Bible reading plan that I’m presenting to you today only goes five days a week. And there’s a very good reason for that. Because there is a study that has been done—and it’s been done several times over, and it has proven correct. And this is a study that was done by the Center for Bible Engagement. Check this out.
A person who reads the Bible at least four times a week—they are 30% less likely to experience loneliness, 14% less likely to feel anxiety, 31% less likely to feel discouraged, 60% less likely to feel spiritually stagnant. But Church, this is my favorite stat: they are 231% more likely to make disciples. Did you hear that? And in fact, it showed in some cases, for a few minority, 400% more likely.
So if you want to see the Lord grow a church, start by reading your Bible.
I’ll have these stats over there at the front if you want to look at them later.
So this Bible reading plan takes you through five days. I like this because there have been times in my life when I could not get that last day or two days in, and then I feel like I’m playing constant catch-up. If you fall behind, just worry about the next check mark. Don’t worry about keeping—if you fall behind, it’s okay. Just keep slow and steady.
b. Use your hands
The next bit of advice is: use your hands. What do I mean by that? Always have a pen or a pencil in hand and writing notes. When you see something you like, put a tick mark next to it in your Bible or keep a notebook and say, “I like this.”
c. Strive to arrive
My third bit of advice is—and my ladies from Friday know this well—strive to arrive. That means that your goal is not perfection. Your goal is to at least get to the table with the Bible open. Strive to arrive and give the Lord 20 minutes at least—you will find magical things will happen if you can at least pull this off four to five times a week.
Our desire, Church, is for you to flourish as God has intended. And we know that you will flourish because in the word of God we see that Jesus embodies the word of God, and when you draw near to the word of God, you are drawing near to Jesus.
And if you don’t know Jesus, He has come to reverse all the pain, depression, loneliness, and sadness in your life—because we are a rebellious species and we have turned from Him. And when we turned from Him, we rejected that flourishing.
So if you do not know Jesus, the first step to flourish as a human is to turn to Him. And I recommend that you just call out to Him and say, “I don’t know where to start, but will You please make an impact in my life? And make known to me the truth and help me to love You—because right now I don’t even know You.”
And if you do that, I guarantee you, God will break in.
So Church, let’s flourish in 2026 and enjoy His word as often as possible.
Father, I thank You so much for the blessing of Your word. I pray that it would make a major impact in our lives this year. I pray that we would all begin the steady diet of Bible intake. And I pray that You would transform us to make us more like Christ as we ingest the word of God. We love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.