The Godly Man

Dan and Dave! These are an interesting pair. Reebok designed a promotional ad that would bring them millions in revenue. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Reebok didn't even have it in mind that Dan wouldn't make it to Barcelona. They had to get the ad company to supplement their promo. Dan supported Dave. Then the blow that no one could foresee, Dave finished fourth. No Gold, no Silver, no Bronze--no medal. What is Reebok going to do now? Remember their ad: It's all in the shoes. Does this mean, wear Reeboks and lose? Their ad campaign blew up in their faces (knowing the ad world they will make it for their benefit).

What kind of ad campaign do you run? Now, stop and think about this. We are God's billboard to the world, what kind of campaign are we running? As believers we have set rules on what and what not to do in providing our publicity for Christ. As we see with Dan and Dave, we provide publicity--we determine the type, good or poor.

The opening of the book of Psalms provides us with the proper ad campaign for the man and woman of God. The Christian is to promote Christ by his mere existence, how he lives and breathes is his testimony of God. Not only does this testimony, this campaign, glorify God but it also provides a multitude of blessings for the one who lives and promotes as God has stated.

ILLUSTRATION: Before we actually look into Psalm 1, allow me to explain the very first word: It is blessed. This Hebrew word actually means "blessednesses." It means that God does not give blessings one at a time but they come in waves, they pour in as Jesus said in John 1.16--"we receive one blessing after another."

It is a lot like the ocean waves. We know that when one passes us and envelops us, one more is sure to come.

We need to look at what the Godly man and woman does not do before we can understand what he does. To me it is interesting that God opens this large book with a negative statement by an unknown author.

First of all, the godly do not walk in the counsel of the ungodly (1.1). Let us consider the meaning of this. When we begin to associate with the ungodly, we generally walk with them, not always doing what they do, but being with them nonetheless.

Classic examples of walking with the ungodly. Abraham as he walked to Egypt, away from where God had sent him. Lot as he chose the decadent city of Sodom over the fertile fields and fellowship with Abraham. Peter when he followed Jesus from afar and hung with the crowds before Christ was judged. Judas began to listen as he walked with the Pharisees. After time we step into the second area where a Christian is not supposed to be:

He does not stand in the way of sinners (1.1). When he stands in the way of sinners he begins to practice what he has seen them do as he walked with them. When this occurs, we lose our testimony.

Abraham lost his testimony when he went to Egypt, twice. Lot lost his testimony when he desired to live in Sodom. Peter lost his testimony when he denied Christ in the courtyard. Judas lost his testimony as he betrayed Christ. They decided to live and look like the people that surrounded them--with no thought of the consequences.

Thirdly, he does not sit with scoffers (1.1). Abraham, Lot, and Peter all turned from the ungodly path they were on and didn't quite sit with mockers. However, Judas did and his guilt drove him to suicide. The results of following, standing and sitting with the unrighteous are found in verse 4-6:

The person who says he follows Christ but is a lousy billboard for Him, needs to check his salvation. He may not be a true believer. You may say all the right things, do all the right things but in the end you don't know Him. Matthew 24 & 25. I John 5.11-12 tells us how we may know we are truly Christians, if we believe in Jesus as having died for our sins and was raised for our salvation then we are Christians. If we behave as those who walk-stand-and sit we may not be believers or we may just be backsliding Christians. Both are bad, the former is deserving of Hell, and the latter of God's rebuke. The former people, the unbelievers will be tossed by the whims of society while the believer stand upon the Solid Rock of Christ. The unbeliever is doomed from entering God's presence after death, the believer has the privilege to enter His throne room right now and every day. The unbeliever will be damned to eternal perishing, while the believer will be blessed in eternal life.

If you notice there is a progression of falling away from God: walk, stand, sit. The further we fall the stronger the grip sin has on us. This is testified to in Romans 1.18-32.

The man of God who does not walk nor stand nor sit in the counsel of the ungodly has a different Counselor--the Holy Spirit; a different cause--Christ's; a different love--a love for God that is seen in his devotion to God.

This brings us rightfully to this question: How are you in keeping your appointments with God? For the godly man does delight in the Word of God.

The president emeritus of World Vision International says God is as important as the Rotary Club. We must not treat our appointments with Him with less respect. Write your appointment with God on your calendar.

1) "deliberately place [yourself] daily before God to allow Him to use [you] as He wills."

2) "isolate a known point of spiritual weakness and work with the help of the Holy Spirit to correct and strengthen this area of [your] life."

3) "ask God at a specific time daily to reveal His strategy and will for [you] that day."

"How are you keeping your appointments with God?" by Ted W. Engstrom. Ministry, Jul 1989. Pages 4, 5.

When these become commonplace for you during the week then God's Word has captured your full affection and it has claimed your full attention.

An interesting note on the word "planted," it should be transplanted. This is a great picture of the believer for we were transplanted from the Kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light. We were transplanted with our roots in eternal realities

This reminds me of the trees in the eternal kingdom of God, they are nourished from the river of life flowing from the throne of God. When we derive our nourishment from the Word of God, we are benefiting from the river of life that flows from His throne as-well.

Galatians 5.22 implies that the fruit of the Spirit is the outward expression of Christ dwelling within me. Or as Paul elsewhere states: For me, to live is Christ. This fruit that the Spirit works within us is to repeat the miracle of the new creation we have in Christ on a daily basis.

The New Testament lists about five types of fruit the Christian can produce by allowing the Holy Spirit to produce His Fruit within them.

1) The Fruit of People--Paul tells the Romans that he planned to have a harvest of fruit when he came to visit them.

2) The Fruit of Holy Living--Paul later tells the Romans that the fruit they reap leads to holy living.

3) The Fruit of Gifts--Paul commends the Macedonians in Romans for their fruit of money or gifts.

4) Fruit of Good Works--Paul reminds the Colossians that there is fruit in good works.

The life Christ desires from us is a life of godliness. The fruit He so wants us to produce is the fruit that He produced on earth. When He told us to go forth and bear fruit, He was saying be like Me. Fruit is nothing more than the profile of Christ lived out in His disciples.

"Becoming childlike (not childish) represents the same transformation as becoming Christlike."

Jesus said we must become like little children in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Through studying the Gospels and observing his own children, the writer has become convinced that Jesus Himself lived the life of a child in four basic ways.

(1) Simplicity: All a little child has to do is eat, sleep, and play. It's a simple life, and if their basic needs are met, they are usually happy. We see this same simplicity in the Lord's prayer (Jesus told His disciples to ask only for enough food for one day) and in His gentle rebuke to Martha (He rejected busyness). (2) Naivete: Little ones ask innocent questions and readily believe everything their parents say. Their confidence in not in the logic of the answers for they often make no sense to a child's mind but in the one who gives the answers. Jesus' contemporaries often perceived Him as embarrassingly naive. The Pharisees whispered among themselves, "Doesn't He know what kind of woman is touching Him!" Yet like Jesus, we need to believe everything our Father tells us no matter how out of synch with the world's expectations or our own experience.

(3) Living in the present: Children at play have no concept of time; now is all that exists for them. Jesus was like that when dealing with people. He put seemingly more important things on hold to give His full attention to "insignificant" individuals. Two human tendencies will keep us from focusing on the present. Guilt binds us to the past while fear forces us into the future. Since we belong to Christ, neither of these should bother us. God has taken care of both of them.

(4) Reckless confidence: Children have a natural confidence when they feel secure in their parents' love, i.e. when they sense that that love is not conditional. Jesus had so much confidence in His relationship with the Father that He dared to call Him by a more personal name. Others had used the name "Father," but Jesus was the first to call Him "Abba." He invites us to know God with the same intimacy.

"Acting like a child" by Michael Card. Discipleship Journal, Jan/Feb 1991 [#61]. Pages 8-10.

Fruit must grow out of life, in Psalm 1 the life is the tree, in Galatians 5 it is the life of the Spirit. The fruit is produced at its proper time, with regularity and unfailingly.

Benjamin Franklin learned that plaster sown in the fields would make things grow. He told his neighbours, but they did not believe him and they argued with him trying to prove that plaster could be of no use at all to grass and grain. After a little while he allowed the matter to drop and said no more about it. But he went into the field early the next spring and sowed some grain. Close by the path, where men would walk, he traced some letters with his finger and put plaster into them and then sowed his seed in the field. After a week or two the seed sprang up. His neighbours, as they passed that way, were very much surprised to see, in brighter green than all the rest of the field, the writing in large letters, "This has been plastered."

Benjamin Franklin did not need to argue with his neighbours any more about the benefit of plaster for the fields. For as the season went on and the grain grew, these bright green letters just rose up above all the rest until they were a kind of relief-plate in the field--"This has been plastered."

How can we live a fruitful life that results in a life that is intimate with God? The answer as we have seen is to be in His Word.

"Sit quietly. Pray for the illumination of the Spirit. name the events of your day. Relive each event. Note your feeling response to each one. Give thanks to God for it. Confess the sin or brokenness that you discover. What fruit flowed during the day? What themes were repeated in your life? What new word did God seem to speak through the events? Symbolize the day. Look at it as a whole. Contemplate the God who came to you in the clothing of these events."

Where do you walk, stand and sit in relation to God? Over the next few weeks we will be allowing ourselves to be our own judge in where we stand with God. We will see the fruit that He desires for us to produce and measure where we, as individuals need to grow.

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