April 21, 2024

The Road Less Traveled | Sunday Message

43 minutes

Pastor Greg Laurie begins our new "Psalms of David" series with a message focused on the choices we have in life, including the choice to follow God.

Notes:

Matt. 7:24-29/ Ps.1

Choices matter, because we make our choices, and our choices make us!

We are not the only ones who make choices; God makes choices, too!

There are over 59 references to David in the New Testament, yet he was far from perfect.

He wasn’t only a shepherd, warrior, and king, but also, an adulterer, murderer, and abysmal failure.

In battle, David was fearless. In wisdom, in ruling, he was without peer.

“My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed, O Lord.”
Psalm 57:7

The book of Psalms gives real insight into David’s heart; it shows his courage, his weakness, his fears, and prayers.

Psalms is a collection of 150 Hebrew poems, songs, and prayers of Israel’s history.

The first Psalm gives a contrast, as we see the difference between right and wrong choices.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” ¾Robert Frost

Read: Matthew 7:24–29

We make our choices, and then our choices make us.

The final test of what our foundation is will come in times of testing and hardship in life.

Read: Psalm 1:1–6

The happy person walks the right way.
Psalm 1:1

Walking is used often to picture the Christian life.
Colossians 2:6

The happy person walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.
Psalm 1:1

Ungodly does not necessarily mean immoral or outwardly wicked.
It just means, “Without God.”

You can be ungodly and still be moral and relatively nice.

We, as Christians, can vote them out and vote others in.
Proverbs 29:2

“Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Psalm 33:12

The happy person thinks the right way.
Psalm 1:2

“Man must have some delight, some supreme pleasure.
His heart was never meant to be a vacuum. If not filled with the best things,
it will be filled with the unworthy and disappointing.” —C.H. Spurgeon

In Eastern meditation, the goal is to empty the mind.
In biblical meditation, the goal is to fill the mind.

You must read, study, memorize, and meditate on God’s Word.

There is an art to listening. If in conversation you look at a person, respond!

God told Habakkuk to write down the vision He gave to him.
Habakkuk 2

The happy person is rooted the right way.
Psalm 1:3

A godly person, a happy person, stays in the Word of God every day.

As we abide in Christ, we bring forth spiritual fruit.
Matthew 7:17

Our change in conduct and character is described as spiritual fruit.
Galatians 5:22

“By their fruit shall you know them.”
Matthew 7:16

Worshipping God is spiritual fruit.
Hebrews 13:15

Winning others to Christ and helping them grow spiritually is fruit.

Psalm 1:4–6

The choice is yours, to be godly or ungodly.

The choice is yours, be planted or be rootless.

The choice is yours, the happy life or the wasted life.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father, except through Me.”