Today, we're going to take a little break from the book of Genesis, and God put it on my heart to share this message with you from Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is one of my all-time favorite passages.
It's primarily focused on happiness, a great subject matter that is of interest to everybody, how to be happy, what happiness is like, the future fate of the happy versus the unhappy, and it presents a pivotal choice to every person who reads it or
hears it. And that's a prominent feature or device in Hebrew poetry, the contrast, the pivotal choices.
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Psalmsʼ Unique Nature
If you're not familiar with the Psalms, they are a collection of poems originally written in Hebrew by the ancient Israelites. They're just an absolute treasure for the people of God.
I think of Charles Spurgeon, who wrote a famous set of commentaries on the Psalms called The Treasury of David.
And it's just that for centuries, they have served the people of God as a way to inspire prayer and worship, a way to connect us with God through hard times. And I think it's going to be a real delight going through Psalm 1 this morning.
King David wrote most of the Psalms, but there are others involved as well. They are probably written around 1000 BC.
And out of the hundreds, if not thousands of kinds of poetry, if you think about it, so many cultures around the world have produced poetry.
There's poetry in probably hundreds of different languages, but of all the kinds of poetry on the planet, Hebrew poetry is probably the one kind that doesn't get ruined by translation into other languages.
Think about it, when we write poems in English, so much of it is about how it sounds in our language, with the meter and the rhyming and so forth. But most of the time, if you were to translate it into a different language, it would be ruined.
It wouldn't make a lot of sense. It wouldn't sound good. It wouldn't work.
But Hebrew poetry is unique because it's more about ideas. So it doesn't get ruined by translation.
It's almost as if, interestingly enough, it's almost as if God planned for these Psalms to be translated into languages and cultures all across the world. We also know that the words of each one of the Psalms were inspired by God.
The Bible is full of these inspired words, words from God to human beings. But the Psalms are a little bit different because they're full of inspired human words directed to God. They're human words written to God.
And at the same time, the authors of the Psalms were carried along by the Holy Spirit, inspired by God, as they wrote their words to him. So they have this dual function, both God's words to man and man's words to God.
Both Jesus and the apostles had an incredibly high view of the Psalms. The Psalms are quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament book. Let me say that again.
The Psalms are quoted in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament book. Jesus quoted the Psalms a lot. Three times, he quoted the Psalms in a way that made it crystal clear that he viewed them as inspired by God.
So all of that to say, the Psalms are incredible. They are unique and profound and beautiful. I'm always telling people to read Psalms, especially in hard times, times of grief, times of suffering, and trials, and challenges.
And so we're just doing one Psalm this morning. But I hope that this inspires you to spend time reading Psalms to make it a regular part of your life, especially Psalm 1. Psalm 1 is just an absolute treasure.
Like I said earlier, it's primarily focused on happiness. Raise your hand if you want to be happy. Anybody?
It's primarily focused on happiness, and it presents a pivotal choice to every person who reads it or hears it. And let's read the text together. Please stand for the reading of God's word.
I'll read the text for us.
Psalm 1, Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore, the wicked will 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 wicked will perish. This is the word of the Lord.
Please be seated and join me as I pray for us. Father, would you draw us deep into communion with you as we meditate on your word this morning? We know that those who meditate on your word are blessed, and we want to be blessed, God.
We want to be happy. So I pray that you would give each and every one of us a little taste of the happiness that comes with meditating on your word.
Pray that we could experience that this very morning, that we could be nourished, that we could be filled with life and joy in you. Please guide us and help us, we pray this morning, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Well, I put together a little outline for this text. The first section is how to be happy and not unhappy, and the focus there is in verses one through two.
And then verses three through four describe for us the next section, what it's like to be happy. And then finally, in verses five and six, we have the ultimate fate of the happy and the unhappy.
Now, you might have noticed that the word happy is not even in this text, but it is. Look again at verse one. It says, blessed is the man.
And that same Hebrew word is often translated as happy. However, we're not talking about some silly, fleeting emotion that is shallow or disconnected from reality. Like getting a bag of Cheetos on a road trip might make you happy.
This is something different than that, which is probably why the translators chose to use a different word, like blessed, but it is happiness.
It's just a, it's a rich happiness, a deep and lasting happiness, the kind of happiness that everyone longs for, the good life. Ancient philosophers and scholars would often write about the good life. What makes life good?
Or what makes a life a good life? Well, this is the Bible's answer to that question. This is how to be truly blessed.
And it really is a how-to kind of thing. The Bible is a practical book. And what we're learning is that happy is the person who doesn't do this.
Happy is the person who doesn't do wickedness, who doesn't do sin, who doesn't do scoffing, but instead does this. Meditates on God's word day and night. It's a simple formula, but also beautiful and profound.
One reason we read the Bible and we talk about it each and every week is because there's depth to it. It's a gold mine with more treasure the deeper that you go. So let's go deep.
Let's dive into these first few lines here.
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Unhappinessʼs Path
Happy is the person who doesn't do these things. As the psalmist puts it, blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
One great scholar of the Psalms, Derek Kidner, points to the key words here, council, way, and seat. These words are emphasized in the original Hebrew by the structure of the poetry.
That's where the emphasis is, those three words, council, way, and seat. And Kidner points out how they draw attention to the realms of thinking and behaving and belonging. Like wise council, what is wise council?
Well, wise council helps you to think about things properly. And the way that you do things refers to behavior, and a seat at the table is about belonging. So put all that together, and this is what the psalmist is saying.
He's saying that the way to unhappiness in life, the way to unhappiness in life, is to think in ways that are forbidden by God. That's one of the chief ways to get yourself onto the road to unhappiness. Just think in ways that are forbidden by God.
Well, what ways of thinking are forbidden by God? Fear is one great example. The Bible commands us over and over and over again to not be afraid.
But if you don't listen to that command, and you continually indulge in fearful thoughts, well, you're gonna be unhappy. You're going to be riddled with worry and anxiety and fear.
Everybody knows that if you just give in to fear, that if you just let the anxiety run rampant in your brain, that if you let the worry wash over you unchecked, that you don't confront it, if you don't confront it with reality, if you don't stop
yourself, if you don't control yourself, you will be unhappy. You see, the Bible is right. It's always right. It's always true.
There are many other examples besides fear, like lust or greed or bitterness. See, obeying God is not merely about behavior. It's also about your thoughts, but behavior is a big part of it.
The psalmist is also saying that the way to unhappiness in life is to not just think in ways that are forbidden by God, but also to behave in ways that are forbidden by God. Maybe that's adultery or laziness or gossip or pride.
And the psalmist is also saying that the way to unhappiness in life is to get yourself accepted by non-Christians, to translate that into modern language, to stand in the way of sinners, to sit at the seat of scoffers.
To sit at the seat means that you belong. You belong with the scoffers. You are accepted by the scoffers.
You're one of them. So translating that is to get yourself accepted by non-Christians. To get a seat at their table, to earn their respect, to belong with them.
And how many times have Christians compromised on what God has told us so that non-Christians will accept us? That's called serving the creation instead of the creator. That's living to please the enemy instead of the king.
The Bible never says that we should try to earn the respect and approval of non-Christians. The Bible never says that. I've seen this so many times in my life.
Seen this with other pastors who want to be respected amongst the elites and the academics. They want to get quoted in the New York Times.
They want everybody at Harvard to recognize their intelligence and their knowledge and say, man, some of those Christians are actually all right. Some of those guys aren't so ignorant and backwards after all.
They want the people in the community to think that they are, well, actually, it turns out those Christians are really just so kind and so loving that they're cool with us.
We didn't like Christians before, but those ones, they did so much good in the community and they were so nice that after all, we like those Christians. Those Christians are cool with us.
So we're gonna show people how virtuous we are and how smart we are, and we're gonna prove to those non-Christians that we belong, that we're cool, that we're respectable.
The Bible never says that we should try to earn the respect and approval of non-Christians. It never says that we should try to make them like us and appreciate us. You can't outnice Jesus.
You can't be so loving that non-Christians love you when Jesus couldn't even do that. The Bible says that they will hate us. That's what Jesus told us.
He said, they will hate us. The apostle Peter says in his epistle that if you are living a godly life, that will inevitably lead to persecution. These are hard words, but that's what the Bible says.
These three phrases here in Psalm 1 are also meant to show us three degrees of departure from God. They refer to conformity to this fallen, broken world at three different levels. First, accepting its advice.
This is the road to unhappiness. You accept the advice of the world, the council of the wicked that says you've just got to love yourself more. Oh, you're going to that church and they talk about sin and you feel guilty?
That is so messed up. That is so archaic. Go find a church that lifts you up.
That makes you feel good about yourself and who you are. Don't go to a church that talks about sin. That's the council of the wicked, and that is the road to unhappiness.
The council of the wicked says, oh, that marriage isn't fulfilling anymore. They're not meeting your needs. You deserve a chance at happiness.
You deserve a chance at real love. You need somebody who respects you for you and loves you for who you are. Get out of that marriage and find your happiness.
That's the council of the wicked, and it is the road to unhappiness. The psalmist is also highlighting the road to unhappiness in terms of participating in what the wicked do, doing things or walking in the way of sinners.
That's another degree of separation from God. And the third degree of separation is adopting the fatal attitude of scoffing, sitting in the seat of scoffers. This means sneering, mocking, ridiculing God, ridiculing his people and his commandments.
I can't tell you how often I see this kind of thing. It's everywhere. A lot of people even who call themselves Christians look at other Christians, true Christians, and they sneer at them.
They mock their commitment to the Bible. They say they're uptight, ignorant, backwards.
There's all kinds of people out there who call themselves Christians, who have adopted the ways of the world, the thinking of the world, the morality of the world. And they think they're still Christians.
They just have a modernized version of Christianity, a more loving and tolerant version of Christianity. And they look at people like us, and they sneer, and they mock, and they scoff.
Instead of honoring God and his people, they sneer and mock and scoff. We see this outside the church as well, of course.
All the articles and opinion pieces about those awful evangelicals, all the movies, all the media and TV shows that make fun of Christians or make Christians look bad, like The Handmaid's Tale would be a great example.
But this is something I've mentioned a bunch of times before. But a professor in grad school said to me a long time ago, he said, take note every time you see a Christian in a movie or a TV show because they're gonna turn out to be an ax murderer.
Every time, the Christian is gonna turn out to be an ax murderer. And that was his way of saying that in every show, in every movie, they're gonna make Christians look bad. And ever since then, I've noticed it, and it is absolutely true.
The Christians always look dumb, ignorant, evil, or all of the above. That's what we mean by scoffing. The world scoffs at God and His people.
Now again, here's the main point of the psalmist. The scoffers, the sinful, the wicked, and those who connect themselves to them, they are destined for unhappiness, and they are destined for God's judgment. Is that what you want for your life?
Of course not. But in contrast, happy is the person who does this one thing. Happy is the person who does this one thing, the one key to happiness, according to God, is you meditate on God's law day and night.
There's this direct, powerful contrast throughout the whole passage.
It's the happy and the unhappy, the blessed and the not blessed, the wicked and the righteous, a sharp contrast between what they delight in, sinning and scoffing, versus God's word, what they're like, like a healthy tree, or like chaff that the wind
blows away, and what will happen to them when God judges them, either destruction or the favor of God. And here's the point, as Joshua once said to the people of Israel, choose this day whom you will serve.
The Psalmist is saying to us, I'm saying to you, choose this day, October 11th, 2026, choose today a rock solid, unwavering commitment for the rest of your days, which path you will take. And I'd like to add this.
If you choose to forsake wickedness and serve God and meditate on God's Word day and night, you never could have made that choice on your own. God's grace enabled you to make that choice.
As Christians, we must always remember, there is one difference between us and the wicked. Because we still act wicked many times, we still sin, we still scoff, but the one difference is the grace of God. That's it.
That's the difference. And if you make that choice, it's because God gave you the power to choose.
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Happiness Key: Meditation
Now, I really want to focus for a minute here on what it means to meditate. We've said that that is the one key to happiness, to meditate on God's Word day and night. Well, the psalmist clearly views meditation as essential, as crucial.
And in our worlds, we are constantly bombarded by claims about what will make us happy. The psalmist says, this will make us happy. And then everywhere you look, there's somebody telling you, no, actually, this will make you happy.
That's what advertisements are, right? If you really want to be happy, if you want to have a good time this weekend, you need a certain kind of beer, or a certain kind of car.
Or if you really want to find peace and contentment and happiness in life, you need to get out and see the world, vacation more, or eat right, or get more money.
The world has a billion answers to what will make you happy, but the world didn't make you. How would they know? Who made you?
God did. And what does God say about how to be happy? He says this.
He says, meditate on my law day and night. We should note that the word law just means instruction. The psalmist was probably referring here to the whole book of Psalms.
Psalm 1 serves as an introduction to the book of Psalms. So, so narrowly speaking, he's saying meditate on the Psalms day and night, but we can and should expand this application to the whole Bible.
The whole Bible is inspired by God, so we should meditate on the whole Bible day and night. And day and night doesn't literally mean 24-7, continuous, all you ever do is read the Bible.
Like quit your job, don't go to the doctor, don't eat, just read your Bible. That's not what the psalmist is saying. Effectively, what this comes out to is regularly and often.
Get a schedule and stick to it. Make it a regular thing, and not a regular as in I do this once a month, but a regular as in like I do this every day.
Recently, I was reminded of research that has proven conclusively that those who read their Bible one day per week receive almost zero benefit from it.
They've shown, they've studied this for years, that people who read their Bible one day a week, it has no effect on them. And people who read their Bible two days a week, it has virtually no effect at all.
There's no discernible difference in their life, in their levels of happiness, in their behavior. Same for people who read their Bible three days a week. But people, once you get to that four day a week threshold, everything seems to change.
And I don't know how to explain that. It almost doesn't make any sense to me. But that's what the research has shown in people's lives, practically speaking, over a number of years, studying a number of participants.
You've got to read your Bible at least four days a week. Don't mess around with that once a week stuff. It's not going to do anything for you.
So regular and often. Now, notice how this passage doesn't merely say read it. It says meditate on it.
To meditate is not the same as to read or study. To meditate includes those things. It includes reading.
It includes studying. It includes having a study Bible where you stop and you look up that phrase that didn't make sense to you. It includes Googling something in the Bible to make sure that you understand what it's saying, but it's more than that.
It's deeper than that. Maybe you've practiced meditation before. Maybe you know all about meditation.
Or maybe you've never meditated in your life because it sounds like some Eastern mysticism and you're skeptical of it. And there's a lot of reason for Christians to be skeptical of meditation.
But we can also learn a few things from even non-Christian meditation. Think about things like yoga, Hinduism, Eastern meditation. What is it usually like?
Well, it's quiet, slow, intentional, focused. It might include repeating words or phrases. And Christian meditation is somewhat like that.
The main difference, I think, is when Christians meditate on God's law, on God's instruction, when Christians meditate on the Bible, we're not emptying our minds. We're filling our minds with God's thoughts.
We're taking God's words and we're repeating them and ruminating on them, and we are quiet. It's slow, intentional, focused. Is that how your Bible reading is?
Or is it rushed, like pull open the app, just read the chapter as fast as I can, and then go do the other stuff that I need to get done? God is calling us to engage with his word like that. Quiet, slow, intentional, focused.
Happy is the person who reads the Bible like that. Happy is the person who reads the Bible like that often and consistently. Tim Keller defines Psalm 1 meditation like this.
He says, it is thinking about and reflecting on God's word until you sense God's saying something to you, and then responding. And he's not saying until you sense God's saying something to you, giving you some new revelation that's not in the Bible.
He's not saying that. He's not saying until you sense God like speaking audibly to you and telling you the future. He's not saying that.
What he's saying is reading the Bible, thinking about and reflecting on God's word until God emphasizes some part of it for you.
If you've been a Christian for a while, if you've been engaged with the scriptures for a while, you know what I'm talking about, where you're reading along and all of a sudden something just jumps off the page at you, or all of a sudden something
hits you in a different kind of way, and you're like, wow, that is so helpful. That's just what I needed to hear. Do that regularly and often, and it will make you happy.
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Blessed Tree Imagery
In fact, you will be like a tree planted by streams of water. That's what you will become like. It says that in verses three through four.
The psalmist is painting a beautiful picture of what happens to us when we meditate on God's law day and night, a beautiful picture of what it's like to be happy. And he's painting a picture using poetry. He's inviting us to feel it and imagine it.
That's what poetry is for, right? It goes beyond just your rational brain to your heart, to your imagination.
So I'm going to read this again, sort of transliterate it for us, but I want you to turn on your imagination for a moment, and to just picture in your head a tree planted by streams of water. Picture that scene.
Imagine that you are like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in your season. Your leaf does not wither. In all that you do, you prosper.
I want to be like that. I don't know about you, but that sounds peaceful and pleasant and wonderful. And that's the whole point of this.
This divinely inspired poem is supposed to awaken your imagination and desire. I recently got an email about a surf resort in the Maldives.
The Maldives are a chain of islands off the southern coast of India, and they are gorgeous, just the most pristine tropical beaches you could ever imagine, just absolute turquoise crystal clear water, tropical perfection, and they have great waves.
And this ad awakened my imagination. It filled me with desire to go there. And this psalm is supposed to work like that.
And you might think, how could this ancient Hebrew poem compete with glitzy photos on the internet? How could this ancient Hebrew poem compete with the advertisements crafted by marketers and psychologists and backed by decades of research?
Well, this little Hebrew poem has one massive advantage. It was inspired by God, the same God whose spirit dwells in you. If you are a Christian, then God has given you his Holy Spirit dwelling inside of you.
And one reason he did that was so that when you read the Psalms, they will transform you. He gives us his spirit so that we can connect with his word in a real, transformative way.
God is painting a picture for us of the beautiful results of meditating on his word. He could have just written an essay, right?
He could have inspired the great theologian, the Apostle Paul, to write us this logical, rational essay about the value of studying his word. But God knows that you are not just a brain on a stick. You are not a purely rational being.
We have hearts and dreams and desires and imaginations. So God inspired the psalmist to write poems so that they could appeal to our hearts and dreams and desires and imaginations. So let that happen.
Meditate for a minute on what it would be like to be this tree planted by streams of water. By God's grace, it will stir up your heart and change your desires to really want to be like that.
And the message of the psalm is that meditating on God's word day and night will make you like that. But it's not just a pretty picture. There's also depth to it.
If you meditate on it, you'll notice there are two very helpful things we can learn from this beautiful picture of the tree. First, the tree transforms the water into fruit. And the second is that the tree thrives independent of circumstances.
Let's look at these in turn. This lovely tree planted by the stream is continually taking up water from the stream. And we could fast forward to the New Testament.
We could connect this to Jesus in John chapter four. What does Jesus say about himself in John chapter four? He says that he is living water.
He uses this illustration throughout the gospel of John. He talks about us being transformed so our hearts become like streams, wells of living water. But the main point here is that the tree is not a pipe.
Trees don't just move water from one place to the other. They don't just take it in one side and spin it out the other end. No, trees take in water and they transform it into something else.
Fruit. Well, you're supposed to be like that. You, as a Christian, are designed by God to take in the Word of God, like a tree taking in water, meditate on it, take it up into yourself, and then it's supposed to bear fruit in your life.
You draw in the water, so that you can become a spiritually and emotionally thriving and healthy person. This tree is a picture of health and vitality, and the message is that God's Word can make you like that.
If you read it regularly and often, if you meditate on it regularly and often. This is the design for our happiness as human beings, as God's people.
For us to take in God's Word and for it to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's the kind of fruit that we're talking about.
That's the kind of happiness that we're talking about.
We can connect other parts of the scripture to fill out this picture for us, and the happiness that the psalmist is talking about, that God is promising us this morning, there's no other happiness like it.
Getting a lot of money will not give you this kind of happiness. Having a bunch of beautiful, well-adjusted, successful children, and a bunch of awesome grandchildren, and everybody gets along great, will not give you this kind of happiness.
Nothing else will give you this kind of happiness, where you become the kind of person whose character is shaped by God's word, so that you are overflowing with love.
The kind of person who is overflowing with joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and self-control. That's what we have before us today. Or instead, we could just be the opposite of those things.
There are two paths. That's one path. The other path is you can become the kind of person who simply doesn't give a rip about other people.
You don't care about others, you're selfish, you're unloving. You can become the kind of person who's miserable and unhappy, you could have no peace, you'd be agitated, impatient, irritated, worried, unsettled.
Who wants to be agitated, impatient, irritated, worried, and unsettled? You could just be mean. By neglecting God and His word, you are choosing to become that kind of person.
Two roads, a pivotal choice. Be that or by God's grace and God's power, you can be delivered from those things, and you can be truly happy. You can have a happiness that is not dependent on circumstances.
We're talking about a tree that thrives independent of circumstances. I love what Elizabeth Elliott said about this. She said, Joy isn't the absence of trouble, it's the presence of God.
This, if you don't know, is a woman who lost her husband. He was a missionary, and he got killed by the tribe that he went to minister to.
And she learned through her experience, she learned through the word of God, and his goodness in her life, that Joy isn't the absence of trouble, it's the presence of God. For the tree that is planted by streams of water, trouble may still come.
There may be heat and drought and many other challenges, but ultimately that tree will be safe. Ultimately that tree has roots that are connected to a source of life, so that in all that he does, he prospers.
That doesn't mean that everything will be perfect. The tree doesn't bear fruit all day, every day. It bears its fruit in its season.
And most importantly, its leaf does not wither. The key is this. Are you connected to that source of life?
To God's word, to God's son, Jesus. He is the living water.
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Wickedʼs Fate: Chaff
But again, we cannot ignore the other side of this contrast. We have this beautiful picture of blessedness in life, but the wicked are not so.
Those who repeatedly, continuously choose to think in ways that are forbidden by God, to behave in ways that are forbidden by God, they are not so. They are like chaff that the wind drives away. Now, what is chaff that the wind drives away?
Well, I had to Google this. So according to the internet, chaff is the shell around the seed of grain. It's the dry, scaly, protective casing on the seeds.
So the seeds come out, they go into the ground, they have a good purpose, they bring new life. And what's left after that? Basically nothing.
The chaff is just empty, hollow husk. It is empty and hollow without any life inside. Do you know anybody like that?
Do you want to be like that? That is the picture of the wicked painted for us by the psalmist. That's the other path.
And according to the Bible, there's no middle ground. There's no middle ground. Either we meditate on God's word day and night, or we choose wickedness and sin and scoffing, and we become like the husk.
Derek Kidner says that the chaff is the ultimate example of what is rootless, weightless, useless. It is so rootless and empty that a tiny little breeze blows it away. It follows from the nature of chaff that it will ultimately be destroyed.
That's the logic here. What do you do with chaff? You throw it away.
As it says in verse five, the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment. They will be crushed. So again, we have this sharp contrast.
This time between the wicked and the righteous. Like many passages in the Bible, this is meant to serve as a warning. The Bible tells us that God does not want to crush anybody.
God does not want to crush anybody. He doesn't want to destroy anybody. So he warns us over and over and over again.
And you read this passage and you feel like, I don't want to be crushed by God. I don't want to be empty, rootless, weightless. I don't want to perish.
I want what this passage is describing, like verse six, I want God to know me and care about me in my life. I want to flourish and thrive and everything that I do, I want to prosper.
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Righteousness Through Jesus
But here's the problem. I don't feel righteous. The righteous are known by God.
The righteous receive God's favor. The righteous flourish and thrive. But the problem is, I don't feel righteous.
The problem is, I know that I disobey God all the time. I know that I don't measure up to his standards. So what do I do?
The answer is not to go back to verse 2, to make sure that I meditate on his law more. That's a good thing. That comes later, though.
It's a very good thing, but I will never, you will never be able to meditate enough to make yourself righteous on the day of judgment. Jesus and his grace is the only way to righteousness. We are made righteous in him by grace through faith.
Everybody knows that Jesus was a righteous man. Even the most vehement atheists can recognize the righteousness of Jesus, but the gospel teaches that his righteousness can become ours. 2 Corinthians 5, 21.
For our sake, he that is in God made him that is in Jesus. For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.
That's the good news of the gospel, that Jesus got the penalty for our sin, and we get the righteousness of his perfect life. So if you want to be righteous and to be known by God and loved by God, Jesus is your only hope. But he is a certain hope.
He's not a lottery ticket. He's not a wish. He is a certain hope that he will make you righteous.
This is so typical of the Psalms. Over and over and over again, they point to Jesus. Jesus quotes Psalm 22 in reference to himself.
Jesus quotes Psalm 110 in reference to himself. He applies it to himself. And the apostles follow his lead and point out many other Psalms that refer to Jesus.
Indeed, the whole Bible is pointing to Jesus, starting in Genesis 3, all the way through Revelation 22. So as we are inspired to meditate on the Bible, by this passage, we have to remember what God's word is all about.
It's all about Jesus and what he did in his life, in death, in resurrection. So let us meditate on these things day and night.