WEBVTT
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The title of my message is A Blessed Life.
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Live your best life.
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Have you ever heard that phrase?
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We try and live our best life.
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But God wants us to live a blessed life.
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Being a Christian is not becoming a better version of yourself, but it's recognizing you're a new creature in Christ.
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Christianity is not self-improvement, even though there are changes that take place in our lives.
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There are changes.
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There is repentance, and fruit of that repentance, you start to see the fruit of the Spirit.
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But it's not about me becoming a better person through my own effort and choices.
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But rather, it's me recognizing that when I align myself with God's ways and God's purposes and God's plans, that my life takes on a whole new meaning, and I live a blessed life.
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In Psalm 1 verse 1 to 3, it says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
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He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
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In all that he does, he prospers.
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Here he's describing a blessed life.
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Now there's three main thoughts on a blessed life.
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A blessed person, he or she.
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It says in verse one, walks not, who walks not.
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In verse three, in all he does.
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Verse six it says, For the Lord knows.
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And we are going to look today at three thoughts about a blessed life.
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What a blessed person does, not do, what a blessed person does, and what God does for them.
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Number one, what they do not do.
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And it's very convenient for me today that verse one is my first point, verse two is my second point, and verse three is my third point.
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What they do not do.
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It says in verse one, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
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Now I want you to notice a progression in this verse.
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Walk, stand, sit.
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It starts by us beginning to hang about negative influences, negative thoughts, poor habits or unhelpful habits.
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And after a while of walking around, we begin to stand, and then eventually we sit and we become comfortable in that setting.
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Now I think it uh it's interesting where it says, who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.
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That means the advice, the thoughts of people who are wicked.
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Now, we often think culturally and perhaps fed by the Disney movies, wicked is someone with horns and a tail and a and a and a pitchfork.
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Wicked simply means not walking in God's ways.
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And you know, it starts small and begins to grow.
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And when you when you begin to take on a thought pattern, it starts to bring adjustments in your life.
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It starts as a seed and it begins to take root and then it starts to get entrenched in your thinking, and then it can start to cloud everything in your life.
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And I think it's so important for us to purposely choose not to walk in the council of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers.
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And these three things are not virtues, they're vices.
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Wicked, sinners, scoffers.
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Blessed is the man who does not.
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We can learn by getting it right and by making mistakes.
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When I first started in ministry, the person who was training me used to say this as Christians, we don't make mistakes, we just learn.
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And you only learn when you take responsibility for your mistakes.
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Don't make excuses for them, let them be a learning experience.
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A wise person, though, realizes two things.
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Number one, Christians don't make mistakes, they just learn.
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Some lessons are costly.
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And number two, a wise person learns from others' mistakes.
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So, number one, to live a blessed life, we've got to intentionally say, I'm not going to do this.
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I'm not going to be caught up in the counsel of the wicked.
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I'm not going to be walking in the way of sinners.
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I'm not going to sit in the seat of scoffers.
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Number two, we see what they do do.
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They delight themselves in the law of the Lord.
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And on his law they meditate day and night.
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They meditate on God's word.
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They delight in God's word.
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They meditate on it day and night.
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Now let's just think about these words.
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To delight.
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To delight in God's word.
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Jeremiah 15, verse 16, which says, I found your words and I ate them, and they became a delight for me.
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Delight yourself, meditate on God's word.
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Consume God's word.
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It's interesting how it says, delight yourself in God's word and meditate on it.
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That word meditate is a powerful word.
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It doesn't mean empty your mind.
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God's concept is to fill yourself with something, not to empty yourself.
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The second thing we see in verse 2 is he delights in and meditates in God's word day and night.
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Now this can mean two things.
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Number one, it can mean constantly, day and night.
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All the time.
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Not just for an hour on a Sunday morning, but constantly, not just during your quiet time early in the morning or late at night.
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Whenever you do your Bible reading at lunchtime or whatever.
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Not just then, but all the time.
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And isn't it true that the more you meditate on something, the more um established it becomes, the more magnified it becomes?
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Let's fill our minds with the right stuff constantly.
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But day and night also can mean when it's light and when it's dark.
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When you can see and it's good, and when you can't actually see the way forward and it's not so cool.
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And sometimes we get disorientated in the dark.
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We feel like I can't see the way forward.
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When it's light and when it's dark, make sure you're meditating on scriptures.
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Don't only do it when things are good.
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You know?
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And in particular, we should do it when things are bad.
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And I remember this saying: don't doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light.
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And then number three, so what they do not do, what they do, they spend time in God's Word.
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What how do you do it?
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I I simply take a Bible verse and I begin to memorize it and I think about it, and the more I think about it, I get more out of it.
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Sometimes it's a Bible verse that relates to a challenge I'm facing, other times it's just something I got out of a reading, or it might be something I saw on Instagram that gets my attention.
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And I just begin to meditate on that, think about that.
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Number three, what God does for them.
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Verse three, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither.
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In all he does, he prospers.
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I just love this.
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He's planted or rooted by the stream.
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God wants us to be like those trees planted by the streams of life.
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And God wants us to put down our roots into our relationship with Him.
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I love the way He says they are planted by streams of water, and the result is they yield their fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
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A tree needs both leaves and fruit.
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It's interesting how the leaves do not wither.
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And leaves show that the tree is healthy.
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Fruit comes in season.
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And I just felt to say this that if we put down our roots in our relationship with God, we fill our minds, our hearts and our minds with His promises.
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We will bear fruit in season.
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If you're not bearing fruit right now, maybe it's not the season.
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Because there are different seasons in life.
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There's seasons of sowing and there's seasons of reaping.
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And you might be in a season of sowing.
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Don't grow weary in doing good.
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For in due season, you might be in a season where you're sowing in tears.
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God wants you to sow in tears.
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But another season will come where you will reap in joy.
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And let me just tell you, the Christian life is not just all hunky-dory.
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It's not just dancing through the roses, holding hands, singing Kumbaya, my Lord.
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Are you with me?
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There are times in the Christian life where it is challenging, it is difficult.
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And there's times when we are in a season because of difficulty, because of our choices and our actions.
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Sometimes because of someone else's choices and actions.
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But let's stay faithful in season.
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Let's keep our roots in our relationship with God.
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Let's keep filling our hearts and minds with God's word.
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And then I love the way it says this.
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He says, in all that he does, he prospers.
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Now, prosperity biblically is different from the world's concept of prosperity.
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God's concept of prosperity is this that you know spiritually that you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That if I were to leave this earth, I would be in heaven.
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God's prosperity mentally is that you're living in peace.
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You're not filled with anxiety or worry or overwhelmed by life.
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God's prosperity for us physically is that we're walking in health.
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God's prosperity for us in our relationships is that we have meaningful, healthy relationships with others.
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It's normal for there to be conflict and disagreement, but we need to process that in a way that glorifies God.
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And then God's prosperity in us with our material things is that we have enough to meet our needs and something left over to be a blessing to somebody else.
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That for me is God's prosperity.
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And when we say God wants us to live a blessed life, doesn't mean everything's just gonna be great.
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But it means even when the pressure's on, your leaves remain green.
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You stay healthy.
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And there are times when you're gonna be fruitful, and there's other times when it's not gonna be so fruitful.
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But stay steady.
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Keep meditating on God's word.
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Each one of us meditate on something.
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Think about that for a moment.
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You're all meditating on something.
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And you pause and you say, What am I thinking about today?
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And then say, choose, then choose to say, No, actually, it's not, I'm just thinking about something more positive.
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No, I am gonna take a promise from God's word and meditate on that.
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So let's pray.
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And as we do, Holy Spirit, we ask that you speak to us and show us what you want us to do.
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Lord, we want to take this simple message today.
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We want to say our relationships, our habits, the things that we are reading, the things that we are imbibing, are they wicked, sinful, scornful?
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Help us not to become entrenched in negative thinking.
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But Lord, we want to spend time in your word, to build our faith, meditating on your word day and night, when it's light and when it's dark, consistently and constantly.
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And I pray, Lord, for each person that we would truly be like trees planted by streams of water.
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That when it's time to be fruitful, we would be fruitful.
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But even in seasons where it's drought, that our leaves would remain green.
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And Lord, I pray for each that in all we do we would prosper.
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Wholesome biblical prosperity, that we would know that we have peace with God, that we would walk in your peace and joy in our hearts and in our minds, that we would have friends, and that you would truly bless us in Jesus' precious name.
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Help us to be blessed so we can be a blessing to others.
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In your name we pray.
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Amen.
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The title of my message is A Blessed Life.
00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:34.049
Live your best life.
00:00:34.049 --> 00:00:36.049
Have you ever heard that phrase?
00:00:36.049 --> 00:00:38.929
We try and live our best life.
00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:43.329
But God wants us to live a blessed life.
00:00:43.329 --> 00:00:52.850
Being a Christian is not becoming a better version of yourself, but it's recognizing you're a new creature in Christ.
00:00:52.850 --> 00:01:01.090
Christianity is not self-improvement, even though there are changes that take place in our lives.
00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:03.250
There are changes.
00:01:03.250 --> 00:01:08.689
There is repentance, and fruit of that repentance, you start to see the fruit of the Spirit.
00:01:08.689 --> 00:01:14.609
But it's not about me becoming a better person through my own effort and choices.
00:01:14.609 --> 00:01:27.969
But rather, it's me recognizing that when I align myself with God's ways and God's purposes and God's plans, that my life takes on a whole new meaning, and I live a blessed life.
00:01:27.969 --> 00:01:42.370
In Psalm 1 verse 1 to 3, it says, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:49.569
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
00:01:49.569 --> 00:01:58.769
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
00:01:58.769 --> 00:02:03.250
In all that he does, he prospers.
00:02:03.250 --> 00:02:08.129
Here he's describing a blessed life.
00:02:08.129 --> 00:02:12.530
Now there's three main thoughts on a blessed life.
00:02:12.530 --> 00:02:15.889
A blessed person, he or she.
00:02:15.889 --> 00:02:21.969
It says in verse one, walks not, who walks not.
00:02:21.969 --> 00:02:26.449
In verse three, in all he does.
00:02:26.449 --> 00:02:30.209
Verse six it says, For the Lord knows.
00:02:30.209 --> 00:02:36.209
And we are going to look today at three thoughts about a blessed life.
00:02:36.209 --> 00:02:47.409
What a blessed person does, not do, what a blessed person does, and what God does for them.
00:02:47.409 --> 00:02:51.650
Number one, what they do not do.
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And it's very convenient for me today that verse one is my first point, verse two is my second point, and verse three is my third point.
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What they do not do.
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It says in verse one, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
00:03:18.210 --> 00:03:22.530
Now I want you to notice a progression in this verse.
00:03:22.530 --> 00:03:25.650
Walk, stand, sit.
00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:42.129
It starts by us beginning to hang about negative influences, negative thoughts, poor habits or unhelpful habits.
00:03:42.129 --> 00:03:52.530
And after a while of walking around, we begin to stand, and then eventually we sit and we become comfortable in that setting.
00:03:52.530 --> 00:04:00.289
Now I think it uh it's interesting where it says, who walks not in the counsel of the wicked.
00:04:00.289 --> 00:04:06.289
That means the advice, the thoughts of people who are wicked.
00:04:06.289 --> 00:04:16.129
Now, we often think culturally and perhaps fed by the Disney movies, wicked is someone with horns and a tail and a and a and a pitchfork.
00:04:16.129 --> 00:04:19.569
Wicked simply means not walking in God's ways.
00:04:19.569 --> 00:04:23.090
And you know, it starts small and begins to grow.
00:04:23.090 --> 00:04:33.810
And when you when you begin to take on a thought pattern, it starts to bring adjustments in your life.
00:04:33.810 --> 00:04:43.730
It starts as a seed and it begins to take root and then it starts to get entrenched in your thinking, and then it can start to cloud everything in your life.
00:04:43.730 --> 00:04:54.209
And I think it's so important for us to purposely choose not to walk in the council of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers.
00:04:54.209 --> 00:04:58.290
And these three things are not virtues, they're vices.
00:04:58.290 --> 00:05:02.129
Wicked, sinners, scoffers.
00:05:02.129 --> 00:05:04.529
Blessed is the man who does not.
00:05:04.529 --> 00:05:08.689
We can learn by getting it right and by making mistakes.
00:05:08.689 --> 00:05:18.050
When I first started in ministry, the person who was training me used to say this as Christians, we don't make mistakes, we just learn.
00:05:18.050 --> 00:05:22.449
And you only learn when you take responsibility for your mistakes.
00:05:22.449 --> 00:05:27.089
Don't make excuses for them, let them be a learning experience.
00:05:27.089 --> 00:05:30.610
A wise person, though, realizes two things.
00:05:30.610 --> 00:05:33.889
Number one, Christians don't make mistakes, they just learn.
00:05:33.889 --> 00:05:35.889
Some lessons are costly.
00:05:35.889 --> 00:05:40.930
And number two, a wise person learns from others' mistakes.
00:05:40.930 --> 00:05:48.930
So, number one, to live a blessed life, we've got to intentionally say, I'm not going to do this.
00:05:48.930 --> 00:05:54.689
I'm not going to be caught up in the counsel of the wicked.
00:05:54.689 --> 00:05:58.769
I'm not going to be walking in the way of sinners.
00:05:58.769 --> 00:06:03.170
I'm not going to sit in the seat of scoffers.
00:06:03.170 --> 00:06:06.290
Number two, we see what they do do.
00:06:06.290 --> 00:06:10.129
They delight themselves in the law of the Lord.
00:06:10.129 --> 00:06:15.009
And on his law they meditate day and night.
00:06:15.009 --> 00:06:17.170
They meditate on God's word.
00:06:17.170 --> 00:06:19.250
They delight in God's word.
00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:22.050
They meditate on it day and night.
00:06:22.050 --> 00:06:23.569
Now let's just think about these words.
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To delight.
00:06:24.610 --> 00:06:27.329
To delight in God's word.
00:06:27.329 --> 00:06:33.730
Jeremiah 15, verse 16, which says, I found your words and I ate them, and they became a delight for me.
00:06:33.730 --> 00:06:37.490
Delight yourself, meditate on God's word.
00:06:37.490 --> 00:06:39.730
Consume God's word.
00:06:39.730 --> 00:06:46.610
It's interesting how it says, delight yourself in God's word and meditate on it.
00:06:46.610 --> 00:06:51.009
That word meditate is a powerful word.
00:06:51.009 --> 00:06:53.490
It doesn't mean empty your mind.
00:06:53.490 --> 00:06:57.810
God's concept is to fill yourself with something, not to empty yourself.
00:06:57.810 --> 00:07:04.050
The second thing we see in verse 2 is he delights in and meditates in God's word day and night.
00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:05.649
Now this can mean two things.
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Number one, it can mean constantly, day and night.
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All the time.
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Not just for an hour on a Sunday morning, but constantly, not just during your quiet time early in the morning or late at night.
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Whenever you do your Bible reading at lunchtime or whatever.
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Not just then, but all the time.
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And isn't it true that the more you meditate on something, the more um established it becomes, the more magnified it becomes?
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Let's fill our minds with the right stuff constantly.
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But day and night also can mean when it's light and when it's dark.
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When you can see and it's good, and when you can't actually see the way forward and it's not so cool.
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And sometimes we get disorientated in the dark.
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We feel like I can't see the way forward.
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When it's light and when it's dark, make sure you're meditating on scriptures.
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Don't only do it when things are good.
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You know?
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And in particular, we should do it when things are bad.
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And I remember this saying: don't doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light.
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And then number three, so what they do not do, what they do, they spend time in God's Word.
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What how do you do it?
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I I simply take a Bible verse and I begin to memorize it and I think about it, and the more I think about it, I get more out of it.
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Sometimes it's a Bible verse that relates to a challenge I'm facing, other times it's just something I got out of a reading, or it might be something I saw on Instagram that gets my attention.
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And I just begin to meditate on that, think about that.
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Number three, what God does for them.
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Verse three, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither.
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In all he does, he prospers.
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I just love this.
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He's planted or rooted by the stream.
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God wants us to be like those trees planted by the streams of life.
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And God wants us to put down our roots into our relationship with Him.
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I love the way He says they are planted by streams of water, and the result is they yield their fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
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A tree needs both leaves and fruit.
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It's interesting how the leaves do not wither.
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And leaves show that the tree is healthy.
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Fruit comes in season.
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And I just felt to say this that if we put down our roots in our relationship with God, we fill our minds, our hearts and our minds with His promises.
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We will bear fruit in season.
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If you're not bearing fruit right now, maybe it's not the season.
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Because there are different seasons in life.
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There's seasons of sowing and there's seasons of reaping.
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And you might be in a season of sowing.
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Don't grow weary in doing good.
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For in due season, you might be in a season where you're sowing in tears.
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God wants you to sow in tears.
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But another season will come where you will reap in joy.
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And let me just tell you, the Christian life is not just all hunky-dory.
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It's not just dancing through the roses, holding hands, singing Kumbaya, my Lord.
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Are you with me?
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There are times in the Christian life where it is challenging, it is difficult.
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And there's times when we are in a season because of difficulty, because of our choices and our actions.
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Sometimes because of someone else's choices and actions.
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But let's stay faithful in season.
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Let's keep our roots in our relationship with God.
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Let's keep filling our hearts and minds with God's word.
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And then I love the way it says this.
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He says, in all that he does, he prospers.
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Now, prosperity biblically is different from the world's concept of prosperity.
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God's concept of prosperity is this that you know spiritually that you have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
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That if I were to leave this earth, I would be in heaven.
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God's prosperity mentally is that you're living in peace.
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You're not filled with anxiety or worry or overwhelmed by life.
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God's prosperity for us physically is that we're walking in health.
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God's prosperity for us in our relationships is that we have meaningful, healthy relationships with others.
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It's normal for there to be conflict and disagreement, but we need to process that in a way that glorifies God.
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And then God's prosperity in us with our material things is that we have enough to meet our needs and something left over to be a blessing to somebody else.
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That for me is God's prosperity.
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And when we say God wants us to live a blessed life, doesn't mean everything's just gonna be great.
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But it means even when the pressure's on, your leaves remain green.
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You stay healthy.
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And there are times when you're gonna be fruitful, and there's other times when it's not gonna be so fruitful.
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But stay steady.
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Keep meditating on God's word.
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Each one of us meditate on something.
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Think about that for a moment.
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You're all meditating on something.
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And you pause and you say, What am I thinking about today?
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And then say, choose, then choose to say, No, actually, it's not, I'm just thinking about something more positive.
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No, I am gonna take a promise from God's word and meditate on that.
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So let's pray.
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And as we do, Holy Spirit, we ask that you speak to us and show us what you want us to do.
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Lord, we want to take this simple message today.
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We want to say our relationships, our habits, the things that we are reading, the things that we are imbibing, are they wicked, sinful, scornful?
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Help us not to become entrenched in negative thinking.
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But Lord, we want to spend time in your word, to build our faith, meditating on your word day and night, when it's light and when it's dark, consistently and constantly.
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And I pray, Lord, for each person that we would truly be like trees planted by streams of water.
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That when it's time to be fruitful, we would be fruitful.
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But even in seasons where it's drought, that our leaves would remain green.
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And Lord, I pray for each that in all we do we would prosper.
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Wholesome biblical prosperity, that we would know that we have peace with God, that we would walk in your peace and joy in our hearts and in our minds, that we would have friends, and that you would truly bless us in Jesus' precious name.
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Help us to be blessed so we can be a blessing to others.
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In your name we pray.
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Amen.
