Journal

Psalm 1 - Worship is faithfulness

Posted on November 4th, 2005, in the morning

I've been reading and meditating on Psalm 1 this week for the first in a (long) series on Worshipping with the Psalms.

It's clearly not by accident that Psalm 1 is the first psalm, but it initially struck me as a surprising choice to kick things off. I think I would have expected the book of Psalms to start with the focus very clearly on God; Psalm 1 focuses on the worshipper.

In the text, those who resist the influence of the wicked are contrasted favourably with 'the wicked'. Those who follow the Lord will produce healthy and lasting fruit; the wicked will produce lives that ultimately count for nothing.

The heart of the psalm is in verses 2 and 3, elaborating on the one who rejects the way of the wicked:

Instead, his delight is in the Lord's instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
He is like a tree planted beside streams of water
that bears its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Psalm 1.2-3

Worship in Psalm 1 is about faithfulness to the word of God, and about producing the fruit of that faithfulness. This understanding echoes throughout the New Testament, particularly in Jesus' teaching in John 15: "The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit" (John 15.5), and in Paul's prayer for the Colossian church "that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God." (Col 1.10)

The role of Psalm 1 in worship must be in provoking examination of the worshipper's life rather than in congratulation for not being one of 'the wicked'; although it could come across as the latter and lead to the awful response Jesus observes in the temple: the proud Pharisee praying "Lord, thank you that I am not like other men..."

The most puzzling thing about this psalm is that 'the wicked' are only shadily defined, and those commended are not even given a name. I wonder whether this is deliberately to beg the question "how do I know which I am?"

Unlike the Pharisee, we should humbly ask that question. When we come to a specific time of personal or corporate worship we should examine our lives to see whether we are truly worshippers. Are our lives producing lasting fruit through obedience to God? (And I think the "fruit of the Spirit" in Galatians 5.22-23 is a helpful definition of 'fruit'.) If not, nothing we do in those times of worship will be worth anything.