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Songs of Greatness is a sermon series on the greatness of God from the Psalms in the Bible. Blessed is the One — Human beings want a flourishing life, a life of blessing. And God wants us to flourish, too. However, we do not follow God's way of blessing. But in Jesus, we find the King who was promised of old, who offers a whole Kingdom of blessing by repentance and faith. Recorded on July 4, 2021, on Psalm 1-2, by Pastor David Parks. Sermon Transcript So today we get to start a new annual theme for our preaching ministry focused on The Greatness of God. It’s my conviction that many of the problems we face in the evangelical church today would be solved if we had a far bigger view of God. Way too many Christians have way too small of a vision of God in their day-to-day lives. But God is not small, we just need a change in our vision of him. So to kick-off this annual theme, we’re going to start a new sermon series today from the Psalms called, Songs of Greatness. The Psalms are a collection of songs/poems that the people of God have used to worship God for 1000’s of years. We’re not going to go through all 150 psalms in this series, but we’re going to start with Ps 1-2 today and end with Ps 150 by the end. Throughout this series, I hope to help you have a bigger, truer perspective, and a more compelling vision of who God is; and he is great. So if you have a Bible/app, please open it to Ps 1. I’m going to read and unpack Psalm 1 first, and then we’ll move on to Psalm 2. So first, Psalm 1: Psalm 1:1-6, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”  Both the start of Psalm 1 and the end of Psalm 2 contain statements of blessing. Blessed is the man, and, I know we haven’t gotten there yet, but Psalm 2 ends with the statement, “Blessed are all who take refuge in him.” And this is a literary device in the Bible known as an inclusio. Think of an inclusio as like little brackets which unite a section together, typically under a common theme. So to understand the meaning of these Ps, we must start with the observation that our text is bracketed with a theme of blessing. Well, what is a blessing? Many people say a blessing before eating a meal together. I often close our services with a benediction, which means blessing. But a blessing is simply something good in your life: provision, protection, guidance, health, prosperity, kids, corn on the cob, all blessings. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father…” wrote James, the brother of Jesus. And so we rightly attribute every good thing in our lives as a blessing from God. So here, at the start of the worship hymnal of the Bible, a reason for our praise is the theme of a life of blessing. And the imagery for this kind of life is really vivid: like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. That means their life consistently, and at the right times, is productive, fruitful, bears much fruit. Its leaf doesn’t wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Now this statement, like much of the wisdom literature in the Bible is not a guarantee for how life will work. Instead, it’s more of a guideline for how life typically works. This world is broken and sometimes faithful men and women suffer and sometimes evil people seem to have an easy life. But this is typically not how life works.