We all make choices in our lives. Some are trivial – like what to eat or what to wear. Others have implications that may last a lifetime. How do you make these choices? Who do you listen to, who influences you? Are they leading you to peace, prosperity, and blessing? Or are you following a pied piper of empty promises?
Two paths
Psalms 1 and 2 describe two paths we can choose to take in this life. One path leads to utter emptiness, like the fruitless, fruitless, dried-up path that ends in destruction, the path of the wicked in Psalm 1. What does this path look like? Psalm 2 gives us the answer. This is the path of rejecting the authority of God. It is a path that will lead to facing His wrath.
But we don’t have to go down this path. Psalm 1 illustrates a beautifully fruitful path that leads to spiritual prosperity, a path of delight and sweet blessing. Psalm 2 points the way to this path. Take refuge in the Son. Yield to His authority. Discover the sweetness of living in His Kingdom.
When Jesus came He echoes these words in Psalms 1 and 2. In the Sermon on the Mount, He described these same two paths. He said:
Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
Matthew 7:13-14 ESV
When we see the choice laid out before us in Psalms 1 and 2 it’s so hard to imagine anyone willingly choosing the path of wrath and destruction. But Jesus tells us that that is exactly the path that so many will choose to take! Here in Matthew Jesus explains why so many choose that path. It is easy. It is wide. It is enticing with its promises of comfort.
The path of blessing is not an easy one
Following the path of blessing, the path that leads to prosperity and life, is hard and filled with difficulties. Jesus never said, “Follow me and your life will be easy.” He said, “Follow me, and I will always be with you.” We find ourselves at battle with the world, with those who have rejected Jesus, with those who conspire to rid our culture of God’s ways.
Why is this? Read through John 14-17, and notice what Jesus says about the relationship His followers will have with the world around us.
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 15:18-19
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
Perhaps you are nodding, having experienced the difficulties of the path. You’ve spoken truth in love and had that truth be utterly rejected by those who chose the paths of the world. You’ve lost relationships with friends, or family members grow distant. Perhaps you’ve lost a job or had to pass up opportunities that would cause you to have to compromise with the world’s insistence on their ways.
But this is the blessed path. This is the path of taking refuge in the Son. This is the path that leads to life. And even in the difficulty you can attest to having a peace that passes all understanding, a nearness to the Lord that is sweet and life-giving. He is our delight – and He is our refuge, our prosperity.
Are you on the path of blessing?
So, “good” people are on the path of blessing, and “bad” people are on the path of destruction, right? Not necessarily. Remember that the Bible defines “good” and “wicked” a little differently than we do. Simply going to church and “behaving yourself” most of the time doesn’t assure you that you are walking down the path of life. Jesus told a parable in Matthew 13:24-30, the parable of the wheat and the tares, that there would be both wheat – or those on the prosperous, fruitful path, and tares, or chaff, growing together, and that they would be nearly indistinguishable until the end of the age when the path they are walking on is made clear.
So what does this look like? I want to bring you to a story in the New Testament, and see it through the lens of these two paths that are described in Psalms 1 and 2.
The story is found in Luke 18:18-30. It’s the story of a young man at the crossroads of these paths. What is surprising about this story is that he had a heart to be pleasing to the Lord – at least externally – and yet still chose the wrong path. Let’s see what it is that is so tempting about that path so that we can learn from his mistake.
The Path of Self-Destruction
And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’ ” And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.
Luke 18:18-23 ESV
Here’s a person who honestly believed he was following everything that Psalm 1 teaches – and experiencing the blessing and abundance that Psalm 1 seems to promise. He knew the law of the Lord – he had meticulously followed it all his life – or so he thought. And he was prosperous! A major point that is made in the story is that this was a very wealthy person. This was one who seemingly lived in the blessing of God – especially as Jews would have recognized God’s blessing.
A misguided sense of direction
You can imagine him reading the Psalms, seeing their descriptions of the wicked and the righteous – of the curses that come to the wicked and the blessing that come to the righteous. And just based on this interaction, where you do think this person would have placed himself? Would he have placed himself among the wicked? No way. The wicked, in his mind, would not have spent their lives trying to follow the commandments of God – they reject the commandments of God, right?
I can almost guarantee that as he read the Psalms he saw himself in the place of the righteous, the blessed, the ones whose paths the Lord knows, those who are finding their refuge in God against the wicked rulers of the world – in his world, specifically Rome.
The direction Jesus gives
And so he comes to Jesus asking about the one thing that money cannot buy – eternal life. Somehow this ruler had figured out that Jesus had the wisdom he was seeking. Maybe he was just trying to get confirmation from Jesus that he was already on the path of life – how often do we do that? We can tell by the tone of the conversation that this ruler was not trying to challenge Jesus. In fact, Jesus usually dealt with those types of challenges in a very different manner. It was an honest question, and Jesus gave him an honest answer.
But the answer he was seeking was not the answer that Jesus had for him. Rather than confirming that yes – this young man was a good man – he says – hmm – why are you calling me good? Don’t you recognize that no one is truly good except God Himself? Jesus challenged this young man’s assessment of his own standing before God. He thought he was among the good -the righteous – but there is no one truly righteous before God, no one can call themselves good in the presence of the Holy One.
Jesus’s challenge
And then Jesus pinpointed this man’s true allegiences. This young ruler had judged himself to be prosperous and successful because of the wealth he had been blessed with, so Jesus presented him with a challenge. In a sense, He asked him, “Are you willing to release your own sense of self-sufficiency to follow me? Are you willing to take your refuge in me – or are you going to take refuge in your finances, in your ability to provide for yourself? Are you taking refuge in your own sense of goodness? Are you willing to stop living for yourself, walking along the easy path, and give up both your financial and your social status to enter my Kingdom?”
A disastrous choice
Jesus presented this young man with the narrow path – the path that leads to life. He would have to recognize that he was walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing in the way of sinners, and sitting in the seat of scoffers – and truly follow the path of the righteousness that Jesus offers. He would have to redefine prosperity and success and recognize that true prosperity is walking side by side with Jesus. He would have to reject the earthly status offered by those who reject the authority of the Anointed One and become a servant. And when he weighed the options, he chose the temporary pleasures of earth rather than the eternal joys of true life.
The Path of Life
There’s more to the story though. Jesus’ disciples were listening in on this conversation. Jesus’ response to this man shocked them. They couldn’t believe that such a good person would not receive life. In their eyes, he was everything they would have wanted to be. He was wealthy. He had status. He was a good man by all the standards of their culture, an apparently blessed man.
And yet Jesus said that this is the person that will find extreme difficulty in finding the path of life. They are blinded to their need, and they are living in comfort and self-sufficiency. If this person, who seemingly would have been a shoe-in to heaven, would have such difficulty being saved – who could be saved? Who can walk that path of blessing? Jesus reminded them that God has made it possible. And He has – in Christ, everyone has access to salvation. Everyone can walk in the path of blessing. It simply requires that we take our refuge in the Son of God.
What is the secret to blessing?
Peter wanted to make sure he and the other disciples are in the right place. If this guy who seemed to have it all together missed the path – what about them?
And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Luke 18:28-30 ESV
There’s a lot we could get into here – but just notice the contrast. There is one key difference I want you to see that makes the difference between the path of life and blessing, and the path that leads to rebellion.
The rich young ruler came to Jesus wanting life, but not Jesus. The disciples gave up their lives and received Jesus. The young life wanted life according to his own authority. The disciples found life according to Jesus’ authority. The young man was not willing to give up being the ruler of his own life. The disciples placed themselves under the rule of the Son. This is what makes the difference between the path that leads to life and the path that leads to destruction.
The Choice to Be Blessed
Earlier in Luke Jesus summarizes the path of life this way
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
Luke 9:23-25 ESV
Don’t fall prey to the temptation to define prosperity by the World’s standards. God has a bigger plan in mind for you. God recognizes that this life is short, and this world is destined for destruction. He is patient – not wanting anyone to perish but for everyone to find the path of life. The Lord has given us instruction in His Word that leads us very clearly to the path of life.
He has given us everything we need to receive life. We have the offer of forgiveness of sin. And even more, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit who continues to teach us all of the instruction of the Lord. God Himself is offering to place us on the path of life and keep us on the path of life.
The path of blessing is the path of submission – and peace!
It is the path of submission to King Jesus, of recognizing His authority over us, and of accepting that we will be at odds with a world that is at war with him. The blessing He offers to those following that path that is far greater than any blessing this world offers. There is peace, relationship, true prosperity, true goodness, true satisfaction – everything that the world promises but can’t accomplish.
The choice is yours to make. In His love, God gives us that choice and empowers us to make that choice. It’s not about our goodness, our status, or anything we can offer. And it’s not about adding Jesus to our list of earthly riches. It’s about yielding entirely to the authority of the Son that is on the throne. As we do, we will live in the blessing of the refuge He provides, worshipping Him as our sovereign Lord.
This post has been inspired by and corresponds with Lesson 1 of Call to Worship: An Inductive Introduction to Studying Psalms.
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