Psalm 1 is the personal mission of every Christian

Psalm 1. Some people here know someone who you think, wow, I want to be like him or her, especially someone of legal age, maybe over 75, 80 years old, who is serving the Lord and you say, wow, when I grow up I want to be like that person. Well, Psalm 1 is the personal mission of every man and woman of God who comes to finish his career with success and glory.

This week I had the sacred privilege of celebrating and I use the word celebrating on purpose, the funeral of my wife's grandmother who is like a Japanese Toñita, I say it like that. A servant of the Lord who married her Japanese teacher at 17 and remained faithful for 70 years. He died at 90, around there. She was a servant of the Lord from her youth. During the second world war he had to go to jail, to camps that they made for all Japanese Americans, just because you are Japanese you had to go to a camp, a jail and be there, just because you look like our enemy. It doesn't matter that you were born here. They spent three years there and she came out more Christian than ever. She had two of her babies there, and she says, I like the camp. Camp is two babies free, all food free, I don't have to cook. I'd like to go back to camp, trying to trick the kids. The Lord is faithful to me, I am not afraid of camps.

She turned 90 and this week before the funeral I did a little research, I looked in her Bible and I opened her Bible and I know she used it because one day my wife and I, I know I shared this once, but I want to share it again, we went to visit her because it was a day, super, super hot, hot, like 100 degrees and we were scared, because she never turned on her air conditioning in her house, why not she wanted to waste electricity for herself. She was like, oh, it's just me, I'm not going to use it. So we were afraid for her and we went to see her one day when it was very hot and calling 'granny, granny,' she didn't answer. Leaving a message 'granny, if you're there, let us know', he didn't answer, he didn't answer. He always answered the phone. So we finally got to her house, and we ran in, worried that maybe she was sick and we went in there, and there she is sitting at the kitchen table, with her Bible open, listening to her preaching in Japanese, praying intensely. He hardly looked at us. We would say, 'Grandma, we were worried about you,' 'Oh, sorry, I don't answer the phone when I'm praying. But how could there be something more important than us to you, how could it be? His God was number one in his life. read the word

I looked at this Bible and saw scratched verses, marked verses, Japanese verses, English verses, written all over it. A woman of the word of God. And she said to me one day, 'Gregory, I want you to look at this tree' looking out the window in her kitchen and it was a tree where lightning had struck one day, lightning struck and all the windows in the house were smashed and she it says, 'look at that tree, everything burned around it, the windows were broken, but the tree is still standing.'

We are like that in the Christian life if we have roots. Psalm 1 was his psalm and it is our psalm. Says the word:

“....Blessed is the man who did not walk in the counsel of evil nor was he in the way of sinners, nor has he sat in the seat of mockers, but is in the law of Jehovah his delight and in his law meditate day and night, it will be like a tree planted next to streams of water that bears its fruit in its season and its leaf does not fall and everything will prosper. Not so the wicked who are like the chaff that the wind snatched away, therefore the wicked will not rise in the judgment nor the sinners in the congregation of the just because Jehovah knows the way of the just but the path of the wicked will perish. ..”

Father, I ask you in the name of Jesus to raise up in this church trees, oaks of justice, men and women blessed by you, Lord, I want to live this psalm, I want this psalm to whatever my life and the lives of my brothers here in this church represent, bless this little time that we have reflecting on this psalm in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

Blessed, blessed is the man or the woman. What do you want? If someone were to say, you can be a millionaire, or a millionaire or you can be blessed. You can have this new car or be blessed. What would they say in the world? What is blessing? That's a Sunday word, that's an electric word for the child of God. Blessing is more than just having things. One can have things and be empty inside, one can have money and still that space inside is not filled. To be blessed is to receive not just a blessing but to receive the person who is the source of all blessings in life.

I heard a story that really struck me, true, of a family where the wife had to be away from the family for a while to fix certain things and she had two daughters, and the husband was there with the two daughters. And the daughters missed their mother very much, and the father, trying to make them happy, gave them gifts, gave them ice cream, took them to the park, and finally the girl said, look, I don't want any more ice cream, I don't want any more gifts, I don't want go to the park, I love my mom. That is what I want. And she comes back, no problem but they knew that there are certain things that cannot be fulfilled without a personal relationship with our heavenly dad.

Lord, I don't want more money, you can say, I don't want another car, what I want is your presence in my life, I want to be a blessed man as it says in Deuteronomy 28, it says:

“... blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country, blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your beasts, the young of your cows and herds of your sheep, blessed will be your basket and your kneading trough, blessed will you be when you come in, and blessed when you go out. Jehovah will make you the head and not the tail...”

And it says many other things. What do you want to be in life? Look, it is not by chance that Psalm 1 is Psalm 1, the Lord put it there to be an introduction to all the psalms, so that it is what represents the constitution of the life of the man or woman of God. What is your mission for your life? What do you want to become? Many times we live randomly because we do not have a vision for our life. I want to be already turning 80, 90, I want to be a blessed man, I want to be a man that my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will say, "he lived Psalm 1, he is a blessed man." That man I want to be and I want you to be too.

But to be so, according to the psalm, we have to say no to certain things. How many of us know that in the world sometimes it is not easy to be a Christian? Is it easy to obey God, holiness, total surrender? The world is like a rushing river of satanic sin and God puts you in the water and says, now you have to go against the current. If you let yourself, if you calm down, it will take you away... what is this Puerto Rican saying like? Shrimp that falls asleep, it carries current. I don't want to be a sleeping shrimp, brothers.

The Lord is calling Christians who have a backbone, who can put their feet up and say no to certain things. If you look at this psalm it says that blessed is the man who did not walk in the advice of evil, nor was he in the path of sinners, nor has he sat in a chair of mockers. If you look at the psalm there is a progression. It starts with movement but then the person is standing and at the end they are sitting like a couch potato. The thing is over. It started in certain councils, it took him to a certain company and ended up in a certain chair where the person is already determined in his attitude and his way of being.

To be a man of God, a blessed man, a blessed woman, we have to say no to the advice of the bad. We know that the world wants to give you advice, the world wants to tell you how to live, and we all hear lies from Satan in one way or another. There are lies they can tell, look, everyone is doing it like this, why not you. There are lies, those are the deceitful wishes that he says, look, to be happy he has to do it like this. Why congregate? Satan's lies

Other lies that say, there is no hope for me anymore, everything is going badly for me, maybe for others things are going well, but not for me. lies. I encourage you in a quiet moment to discern the lies that you hear, the voices that are not from God that speak to you, they may be voices that you heard as children, they may be voices from society, or direct voices of demons that sometimes follow. And it is up to us to discern that lie, I am going to reject it in the name of Jesus.

For example, the voice that tells you, look, you will never prosper, your dad was a failure, your grandfather was a failure and you will be a failure. You can say, in the name of Jesus I rebuke Satan, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, in the name of Jesus I am the head and not the tail. But if we don't stop, these voices will speak to us.

Then he says that the blessed man was not on the path of sinners. what is that saying? We are going to talk about many sayings today. Show me who you're with and I'll tell you who you are. Look, we have to choose our friends. There are some people who are contagious with their negativity, there are certain places that if we go there the current of the environment will carry us. I know people who say, look, I can go to that bar to evangelize. Maybe yes, Jesus did, he went to the parties, but probably not, it is more likely a lie from Satan that you are hearing. And you go to evangelize and they evangelize you and they take you. We have to not be in certain places, on the path of sinners.

And the end is that he has not even sat in a chair of mockers. Mocking this is mockery. I know if a person is mocking the things of God. And this happens when someone is depressed or angry, they say, ah, don't come to me with church, don't come with words. These people are the toughest of all.

The chair knows that here in our environment the person who teaches is standing and those who listen are sitting down to learn. At that time it was the other way around. The person who was teaching was sitting and all of you standing for an hour, maybe we'll try it one day. No, no, they get very tired, but they were sitting like a master. If we let ourselves be carried away by lying advice, if we allow ourselves to associate with people who infect us with their perspective, we will end up having attitudes and we will be sitting around promoting bad attitudes with others.

If we want to be a man of God, a woman of God, we have to say no to certain attitudes. I will not be like this. Instead, verse 2: “...but the law of the LORD delights him, and he meditates on his law day and night....”

Brothers, if there is one thing that you remember from this message that is this. The word of God is the power for the Christian life. The word, the word, the word, has power, we have to be men and women of the word.

Do you know that the first time I read this book, my dad says, ok, now what book are you going to read? And I say, well, I'm going to start again. He says, if you've already read it, why don't you read another book. But, dad, that book has power, it is the inspired word of God. He says that the word of God is alive and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword and penetrates to split the soul and spirit, joints and marrow and discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Brethren, we truly believe that this book is inspired. What does inspiration mean? Suspiro, which word in Spanish sounds like inspiration, susususpiro, whisper, blow, means that God took this book and made, fffffffff, and these words came into being. Blowing through the writers, blowing the word of God so that when we read the Bible we are having an encounter with an electrical power of the Holy Spirit, brothers. Reading these words are words that are like seeds, like atomic bombs, once planted in the soul they have the power to transform us.

Brothers, it works. The Bible works. How many have had the experience? I don't know, before you were a Christian, before you read this Bible, maybe before you knew the Lord and after a while you don't know how, but you believe in the Lord. You don't know how but you have changed. Because the word has power in itself and if I sow this word within me, it will change me, it will have a transforming power in my life. He says that in the law of Jehovah is his delight.

Really, do you delight in the Bible? Amen. Yes, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Amen. How many of us know that there are some tastes that are easy to acquire? My son, I'm going to make a confession, they're not going to call the DSs or anything like that, ok. At a party someone gave my 15-month-old son a little bit of Pepsi, Lord forgive me, Lord don't be struck by lightning, a little taste and he said, aaah, we never got it out, that's enough, daaaam mmmmmm, but he didn't took time to want more. He's already addicted to caffeine, he's already addicted like dad, forgive me Lord. No more Pepsi for Noah, please.

The thing is that some things affect us quickly, they are tastes that you try them once, the first time we gave him the cake on his first birthday, this is more normal, he took the cake, I see some doctors in the congregation looking at me like, he took the cake and did this...... and he didn't put his hand out for 5 minutes, and he moved his feet. I was already in love with the cake, fast.

Brothers, the Bible is not like caffeine. You are not going to want to read the Bible fast. It is what is called in English, an acquired taste, an acquired taste. But you start eating the word and you start to feel better. You take half an hour to read one of the Gospels, the life of Jesus, and you read what he did, and what he said and you read it and you know what? most people read the bible from time to time, close their eyes, open them, bang, bang, and see what this says. Oh, it's terrible, and it says this. You want to take revenge on me and if you take revenge on me, I will soon make the payment fall on your head. I don't want this word for me today.

Okay, I'm going to open another one, ok, that's much better. Most of us read the Bible like this. What you have to do is decide, I'm going to take one of the Gospels, maybe Mark or Matthew, or Level 1, what are the other two? Luke and Paul. I am going to choose one and I am going to read Chapter 1, this morning with my coffee. I love when they invite me to houses that sometimes teach me, ah, look at this place, this is the chair where I sit to read the word every morning. and it's their little place, since they have a little table and the Bible on it, maybe they opened it because they knew I was coming and they wanted me... today I was reading. But he has his place or his desk, he says this is my place where I read the word, I love it.

So today you're going to read Matthew 1, and then tomorrow what are you going to read tomorrow then? Matthew 2 and then the next day, Matthew 3. and you read it, and you read it, and you start to feel better, it affects. But more than reading, the Lord calls us to meditate on the word of God, meditate on the word.

Do you know there's a boy at school? A family from this church, I asked permission to share it, they came from their school doing that, mmmmmmmm, because they had taught them an exercise at school, and their mother says, what is that mmmmmmmm? We don't believe in mmmmmmmm. This is not new. She complained to the school. But we do not believe in oriental meditation. In that meditation of the Hindus, and I studied that. Its goal is to empty the brain, empty the soul, the goal of Christian meditation is to fill the mind with the word of God, it is not to turn off my brain, it is to wake it up to the voice of the good shepherd who wants to speak to me the word of God but requires concentration.

I don't know about you, but I run around like crazy a lot here in our society. How many of us know that we are here...? Do you know the story of Maria and Marta? Marta who was all busy running like crazy. We are like Marta in the United States, and studies have been done and Boston is the busiest city in all of the United States. If you want agitated people, come to Boston. People who talk fast, who run a lot. God calls you to take some quiet time, focus on a verse, and pray the verse.

I heard a very good definition, meditating on the word is taking a verse and savoring it as if it were a fine wine, although we never drink wine. Amen. But if we were to drink fine wine that. Do you know how the professionals do it? They look at it, then they drink a little, then they do it again, they look at it and they can savor all the details of the wine. The Lord calls us to do so with the word of God.

I heard someone else say, meditating on a psalm is making the psalm my own. Others have said, to meditate on a psalm is to let the psalm take me where God wants. We have to take verses and meditate on these verses. The Hebrew word for meditation is murmuring, because you don't do it without verbally memorizing the verse a little bit. Some here memorize verses? There are some, and they don't have to raise their hand, who say, oh, Gregory, not me. You know that every semester in discipleship, someone tells me, Gregory, I'm not one to read things, I'm not... and I'm like, okay, do the best you can. We do the exam verbally and I see that they have filled out almost everything. And they say, oh, but I can't and everything is full. And they know everything because they have a heart to learn and then next semester they have everything and they get A's on their test and they're like... because it's possible. Satan doesn't say we can't, but we can.

You know that right now we are going to memorize a verse, come on, do you dare? Let's do it? Maybe we'll turn the air up a bit more if they get it right.

Philippians 4:13. I want this side to say "....I can do everything..." and this side says, "...in Christ who strengthens me..." I can do everything in Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. All together, Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Amen. You did it.

Now, that wasn't so bad. That wasn't so hard, was it? If possible. You do this, if you meditate on the word of God the Lord promises you will be like a tree planted next to streams of water, you will become an oak of justice, Jehovah's dish for his glory, which will bear fruit in its time. You will bear fruit, you will be strong, you will be immovable and God says, everything you do will prosper.

Brothers, the majority and I say this not to make anyone feel bad, but to tell the truth, most of us are more like the tabo that the wind blows away, because we do not meditate on the word, we do not have root. The winds come and carry us. God is calling us before the coming of Jesus to be a people deeply rooted in the word of God with the waters of life running in our veins so that we may be strong.

The person who is meditating on the word is transformed. You know that one of my favorite groups, I love all the groups in the church, but I, my cell, my group is what is called Grupo Lázaro on Saturday mornings, a group of men coming out of vices and many addictions of them, and they are men who begin to meditate on the word and begin to change even their physical appearance. There is a brother in the group that even his hair is changing color and I know that he does not do any ink, we are going to have to change Canito's nickname to I don't know what, blondie, he has a light that shines in his eyes. They have more lucidity, they dress better, their family relationships are healed, they receive jobs, places to live, they walk with more dignity and respect because they are in the word of God and the word is running in their veins and transforming them because the word has power.

Brothers, I want to be such a man. I want to be a blessed man, and I want you to be a blessed man or woman. The Lord says, come to the waters, come to me, eat this word, daily bread, manna in the desert awaits you. An appointment with God awaits you. Let's say yes to the invitation of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I invite you to stand up. Father, in the name of Jesus I ask you to raise up a strong generation in you, Lord. I ask you in the name of Jesus that I may be and that your people may be trees of justice, oaks of justice, plant them of the Lord for your glory, Lord. I ask that this week some of your children begin to read the word on trains and buses, that they begin to memorize verses when they are walking down the street, that they begin to have encounters with you in the word. Oh, good shepherd, I ask you to speak to us through your word, to unleash an anointing of revelation and power on a well-fed and very strong people.

Lord, I want, Lord, to stand before you, I want to be a tree planted next to the stream of water, bear fruit at the right time, Lord, and have a leaf that does not fall. Lord, in the name of Jesus we receive from you and we declare ourselves more than conquerors because you are with us and we have the sword in our hand in your holy name, amen. Amen.