All right. Hey everybody. From wherever you are joining us, let's welcome in all of our campuses, whether you're at Gainesville, Lewisville, Denton, Flower Mound, Venue, online, wherever you are on the world, let's welcome each other together today. Come on, we are Valley Creek. We are a movement of hope for the city and beyond. We are Valley Creek, we're Jesus-focused, Spirit-filled, life-giving. We are Valley Creek. Hope is here. Everyone is welcome and Jesus changes everything.

Welcome to Valley Creek and welcome to summer. And summer at Valley Creek is going to be so good. And so before we get started, I just want to encourage you, summer is supposed to be restful, summer is supposed to be fun and summer can be reflective and refreshing and refilling if we lean in to what God is doing, not lean out of it, lean into it, be here when you're here, be here, be part of what God's doing across our church family because this week we begin a brand new series called 60 Days: Songs of Life. For the next 60 days, we're going to dig into the Psalms together. It's going to be so good. We're going to dig in, a deep dive and I believe that we're going to go on the journey that the writers went on when they wrote them. You see, the Psalms have all the sort of real things that real people really experience. It's all the pains and the prayers and the praise. It's the cries of humanity, the longing of our heart, the majesty of God.

And as we go through this series together, I believe you're going to experience some of those things and there's going to be healing that God's going to do. Even as I say that out loud, the cries of humanity, the longings of your heart. Doesn't something just like lift inside of you? Didn't that just connect with you at a really deep level? You see, it's all the pain that's in our hearts. It's the prayers that we pray for those that we love and for breakthrough to happen. It's the praise that we give God for who He is and what He's done. Those are the songs of life. Songs. You see, the word psalms actually means sacred songs. And so for 60 days, we got these sacred holy set-apart songs that God wants to actually sing over our church family. And we all know that songs resonate so deeply. Like as we think about the psalms, the songs in life, they resonate in our hearts all over the place. Like we sing Happy Birthday to usher in the new year. We watch brides go down the aisle before they get married to a special song.

I bet you can think of entire times of your life where certain soundtracks were like the season that you were in. I bet you could think of your favorite albums, what the album cover looked like. I bet you, you got a favorite decade of music. And I bet you that decade is the '80s. And I bet it's the '80s because it contains the greatest song of all time. Take on Me by the not so prolific band, A-ha. Take on me and then it gets like really high like, I'll be gone. And then everybody tries to sing like the soprano part but never can, that's a great song. That's a great song. Maybe a close second is Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, also a great song. So why? Why do songs resonate with us so deep? Why is there a place inside of us? I think it's because God has placed eternity into the hearts of men and songs into our life. Just look what the Scriptures say about songs. Check this out. Psalm 40 verse 3, "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."

I believe by faith that God is going to put a new song into you this summer. Some of us have been singing the wrong song. Some of us have been singing a song of disappointment, and depression, and discouragement, and discontentment. In Jesus' name, that's got to go. It's time to sing a new song, a hymn of praise to our God. All summer long, God's going to deposit new songs into our church family. And not only does it give you a new song to sing, He actually sings a song over your life. "The Lord will rejoice over you with singing." Wow. The God of the universe, the Creator of all things, the King of kings is singing over your life right now. Not because He has to, because He wants to, because He enjoys you, because He rejoices over you in Jesus' name. God sings over you. He's got a song He's singing over your life right now. And not only does He sing over your life, He encourages you to sing one to another, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit.

Sing and make music in your heart from the Lord. Literally, songs of life is how we should communicate one to another. Now, I know what you're thinking. Not like high school musical, but like heart to heart, deep calls to deep, spirit to spirit, speaking to one another with hymns and psalms and songs from the Spirit like at a really deep level. And so I believe that God's going to give us songs of life to speak to each other within our church family, to communicate one to another. See, in order to sing a song from the Spirit and to make music in your heart, you have to actually have a song in your heart. And don't be confused, your song, there is a song in your heart. Your heart has a song. It just depends on whether it's from the Spirit or of the flesh, if it's from the kingdom of God or the kingdom of this world. And I'm sure you can think of people who had a heart song that would often come out of them. When you talk to them, you're like, yeah, there's just like some joy, and some life, and some peace, it just flows out of you.

I can remember my grandpa growing up. He just always had a song on his lips. He had a whistle or a hum or he would sing something and it's because I think the song that was in him came out of him. And I can remember, you know, I'd go in the backyard with him or do woodworking or we drive somewhere and he'd sing like, anchors aweigh my boys. He was a navy man, he served in World War II. But more often than not, it was a literal hymn. The thing that was inside of him would come out of him. The hymn that he sang and learned on a Sunday would come out throughout the week days. I can still like -- I can even picture in my heart like, on the hill far away stood an old rugged cross. And I can remember him hymning those or humming those and singing them and just so much flowed from deep within him. You see, those are songs from the heart. In order to sing a song from your heart, you have to have a song in your heart. There's so much in our hearts, isn't there? Hope and joy, hurt, heartache.

And part of what the psalms do is they give words to the cries of a heart. And what you're going to see as we go through the series is this chaotic in nature inside of the psalms, like, oh, everything's great, it's so amazing. Oh no, everything is so horrible. Oh God, you're always with me, thank you for being with me. Oh God, why have you abandoned me to the grave? And it's like teeter-totter of emotions. Why is that? Because it's all the real things that real people really experience. And you're going to see it as you get into it that there's a lot of lamenting and repenting and worship all through the psalms. What does that mean? Lamenting just means to like grief what's been lost, like to sing a lament saying, oh man, this hurts, I'm sad that this is gone. And just to be clear, we're horrible at doing that. We're not good at lamenting. There's an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations. It's just so that we can lament, to take stock of what's been lost and then continue to move forward in Jesus' name. Repenting, to literally change your mind, to align your mind with the things of God. There's all kinds of repenting that I think God has for us in the Psalms.

Worship, to place God on the throne of your life, to bring Him above your circumstances. There's all kinds of worship that you're going to see in the Psalms. And the reason for that is because those things reflect the life of David. You see, King David wrote about half of all the Psalms and he live kind of like a teeter-totter, like his life had a little bit of good and a little bit of bad, but he was a man for God's own heart. And he would lament and repent and worship. He had all the pain and the prayers and the praise, and you put those down on paper. And so he started the Psalms and then for about the next 500 years after that, musicians and poets and priests would continue to write psalms and now we have 150 chapters right smack in the middle of the Bible called the Psalms. By the way, the whole thing is called the Psalms with an S. One is called a psalm with an M, you're welcome. So for the next 60 days, here's what we're going to do. We're going to dig into that together. We're going to read the chapters. We're going to pick one verse to meditate on for just five minutes a day and we're going to pray that verse back to God.

If you do this, your next season life after this summer will look completely different. If you step into this, it's going to change everything, the chapters, letting them wash over your life. Picking a verse to meditate on. Meditate, meditate is a word that we don't often get. But by the way, if you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. You know how to think of something over and over and over. Meditate in the English is really fascinating. Our root word for meditate actually comes from a Latin word that means to remedy or to heal. So when you meditate there's a healing that God wants to do inside of you when you meditate on the things of God. In the Old Testament, the word meditate meant to murmur or to rehearse over and over in one's mind. So there's some things we need to meditate on this summer that God wants to place way down deep inside of us, to rehearse over and over, and then we're going to pray that verse back to God. So today, we're going to do this.

We're going to read Psalm chapter 1, we're going to walk through it, all six verses of it, verse by verse, and then at the end, I'm going to pray the chapter back over you. So here's what we're going to do to start. Let me just read Psalm chapter 1. As I do, I would just ask that there's a reverence to the word of the Lord. There's an honor that we assign it value because it is valuable. That you let this wash over your heart and over our church. Psalm chapter 1 starting in verse 1, "Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction."

Thank you, Jesus, for your word over our church. May we honor it, may we assign it value and reverence, may we lean into it this summer. So here we go, Psalm chapter 1 starting in verse 1. Let's break it down a little bit together right at the very beginning. Blessed is the one. Can I tell you, blessed is not so much a state of how your life is going, blessed is a state of how your obedience is going. Blessed is not so much hashtag blessed life like if everything's working out for you, blessed is whether or not you're following Jesus as Lord and walking in the favor that comes from following him. Blessed is the one. Blessed is the one. It goes on to tell you who that one is, who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take. Can I tell you what? In the world right now, there's like a super highway of destruction, you want to go out and step back from that. You don't want to stand in the way that sinners take, you want to like get out of the way.

Jesus says, "I am the way," not go your own way and then I'll catch up. Jesus says like, "I am the way." And the world has a completely different way, you want to get out of that super highway and you want to start following the way of Jesus. Don't stand in the way that sinners take. It goes on to say, or sit in the company of mockers. There's a lot of mocking going on right now. Can I ask you? Has anybody been mocking you or your family or your beliefs or the way that you do things? There's just like a lot of that in the world right now. And what you have to catch is it's because it's kingdoms in conflict. It's the kingdom of this world coming against the kingdom of God. And what happens is the company of mockers comes from the kingdom of this world. And we're seeing a lot it. And we've even experienced a little bit in our own family. Even my oldest daughter, Anna, this semester, she had this one class in which I think the students thought it was like tongue in cheek, like they were kind of us, you know, kind of revving her and stuff like that. But what they didn't realize is they were actually representing exactly that, kingdoms in conflict.

Let me explain. So they were telling her that she just -- she wouldn't engage in the conversations they were in, so they kept telling her like, oh, you're just naïve. Well, what they don't realize is that what they deem to be naiveté is actually purity in her heart because to the pure all things are pure. And they kept missing it and so they were trying to pull her into these conversations. And I'm just so proud of her because I think that she leaned in to try to be life-giving in the middle of the mocking. And so students, very specifically, I want to speak this verse over you guys. If that's you, if you ever experienced any of that because you're following Jesus, God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Man, if you're trying to be life-giving, if you're trying to follow the ways of Jesus, if you're trying to follow after him, then likely you're being mocked just because you're a Jesus follower. That's what Scripture tells you, that's what it is. So for the rest of us, don't mock people. Don't sit in the company of mockers.

Don't jump on bandwagons. Don't dog pile on social media. The world is quick to call out and to cancel and to mock, not us. We don't sit in that company. We call out God's potential in and His heart of people. We are life-giving, we don't gossip, we don't dismiss, we don't mock. That's not how we do it. There's a different way. Jesus is the way. His ways are the best ways. It goes on in Psalm to say, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. There it is. There's a reason that Psalm 1 is the entry point to 149 other psalms, because it gives you insight in how to be affected by them. One of the ways to be affected is to literally meditate like we talked about. Over and over, rehearsing it in your mind. And when you meditate on God's law, what's His law? His law is love, His gospel is peace, His law if life, inside of resurrection, His law is the person of Jesus, his personhood. When you meditate on that day and night, it's amazing what will happen.

You meditate on the day, you'll sleep well at night. You walk with Jesus in the day, you'll have peace at night. You do the things of the Lord and you actually follow Him on the day, it's amazing how peaceful your nights will be. I want to encourage you, if you ever had the hard time going to sleep, literally, read the Scriptures and then actually just pick one, a short one that's easy to memorize, go over and over and over. Speak it out to yourself as you fall asleep. It's wild what that can do for your next day when you wake up with Scripture on your heart and your mind. Also, if you ever wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, man, I just can't get back to sleep, just start praying. God will reveal some amazing stuff at night. He'll just show you some dreams and some insights for you and He'll speak to you. He wants to speak to you even in the middle of the night. So just start praying. But meditate. I want to spend just a little bit of time here. Here's how meditation occurs in our life, okay? We begin to wonder about something, then our mind wanders, then we meander and suddenly we're meditating on it. We wonder something's going to happen, then our mind wanders a little bit, we meander to it and suddenly we're meditating.

But the same can be true for the Scriptures. You can read it, you can wonder about it a little bit, let your mind wander into the things of God, ask Him for more insight, suddenly you're meditating. So you're actually pulling it back. And one of the things that I felt like God revealed to me is that I've been meditating on all the wrong things recently. I've been meditating on what hasn't happened and how people haven't responded, and where my pastoring couldn't help somebody make a better decision, all the things that I was looping over and over in my mind. And I just had this epiphany like two weeks ago, like, I'm totally missing it. I'm rehearsing, I'm just rehearsing all the wrong things inside my own head. And so I felt like the Lord gave me a passage out of Philippians 4 that I want to speak to you today. And I think this is really the root of what God wants to give us this summer. Philippians 4 tells us to present a request to God, then the peace of God will guard our hearts and our minds. And then it tells us how to do it, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever Is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things."

The irony of this verse is this verse is a meditation. It says the same thing over and over and over and tries to get your mind to loop it, to cycle on the things of God, the true things, the noble things, the right things, the pure things, the lovely things. Let me just tell you, this might take some decision making in your life. You might have to turn off like TalkRadio. You might have to turn off social media. You might have to turn off the voices of the people that actually represent the kingdom in conflict within your own life in order to get to this point. This isn't easy, but if we do this, if we'll go in that journey, I believe the Lord will change our hearts. I believe he'll change the inside of us and start to reflect in every other area of our life. This summer, let's wonder, wander, meander and meditate on all these kinds of things, all the things that are of the kingdom. That's what I think the Lord has for us.

All right, it continues on in Psalm 1, "That person is like a tree planted by streams of water." I love that. Tree planted by streams of water. This is a common analogy that you see in the Scriptures and probably one of the most famous verses that sounds like this is actually out of Psalm, Psalm 92, Psalms with an S, all of them. "The righteous will flourish like a palm tree: they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. They will flourish in the courts of our God." Like a palm tree. Able to be flexible when the storm comes, right? A tree bends over. It can withstand the winds. Like a cedar of Lebanon, a tree of purpose. Made on purpose, for a purpose. Cedars of Lebanon actually helped build the temple. They were trees of nobility. That's what your life is supposed to look like. When you are planted in the house of the Lord, you will flourish. So let me ask you, are you planted here? Is your family planted here?

Are you in a circle here? Are you connected here? Are you shaping your calendar around the things of here? Because this is a part of what it looks like to be a family on mission. We shape our decisions and our calendar here. Because if you do, you will flourish. I'm seeing it, we're seeing generations of our church flourishing in the house of the Lord. I believe this is one of the call ups for us during this series to think, I want to be rooted here. I want to be established here. I want to be like a tree here. This is my place. The Bible actually goes on to give other examples of trees that are deeply rooted. In Isaiah 61, the people that are rooted are called oaks of righteousness. In Ezekiel 47, they are trees that shape the move and the flow of God. In Revelation 22, Jesus himself is the tree of life surrounded by the people of God. He's rooted right there in the holy city at the end of all things. Those are the kinds of trees you want to be like. Those are the kind of trees I want to be like, deeply rooted in the things of God. It goes on to say, "Which yields its fruit in season." Fruit always reveals the root.

Whatever you are rooted in is what your fruit will become like. So you know when you probably seen times and you're like, man, that person is just kind of rooted in seems like in bitterness and there's a lot of anger and frustration that's coming out of them, that's because the fruit will always reveal where the root is. The songs of life are rooted in the fruits of life that we see in Galatians chapter 5. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Oh, by the way, another list, another repetition, another thing you can focus on while you're reading it. So here's my question for you, does your life sing these kinds of songs? Because whatever the song of your life is comes from the songs inside of your heart. So do you have growing love for your spouse and joy in your circumstances and peace in your finances and patience with your one child who so much like you that it drives you crazy? Kindness to those that disagree with you? Goodness to people that are out there that are hurting?

Faithfulness to this church and to your family? Gentleness with those and all kinds of situations? And self-control, not always getting what you want when you want it? Do you have self-control? Because what you have to catch from a list like this is the list actually builds upon itself, love is at the bottom and it stacks up until self-control is at the top of the tree. See if you can catch this, if you have self-control you probably have some of all the other fruit. If you don't have love you have none of it. If you have self-control, you probably all the other fruits showing up in your life. If you don't have love, you don't have any of them. And so is your life singing these kinds of songs yielding its fruit in season? It goes on, "That person is like a tree planted in streams of water, yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." Can I just tell you, I've seen a lot of scorched out people recently. Like their souls are scorched. You could see it as you're talking to them.

One day Jesus goes to a woman at the well. She had a scorched out soul. And he starts a conversation with her. And she was there to gather water because she thought she was physically thirsty. She might have been. What she was really was, she was spiritually thirsty. And he starts a conversation and he says, if you knew who it was who asked for a drink, you would ask him and he would give you springs of living water welling up to eternal life. And in that moment, he gave her the very thing that she had been longing for. You see, she tried to look for love in all the wrong places, trying to refresh a dry and weary soul. It never worked. And I feel like we're seeing a lot of that in the world right now, withered people who are trying to refresh themselves in everything else except for -- and it's kind of like sometimes on your patio if you have like this one plant that you forgot about and you're like, oh man, I totally forgot to water that. And then like its leaves are all gnarly and it's like the root balls like all separated from the pot, it's kind of like that. Here's what happens. When we feel like that in our soul, we are so desperate to get any kind of liquid, any kind of water at all, we'll take whatever comes to us, like we'd suck it in.

And so part of what happens is people will start to just suck in what they think is springs of living water, but it's actually making them drier and drier. It's that sin, it's those old friends that you probably honestly shouldn't be hanging out with anymore, it's the decisions you're just making on your own without any guidance of the kingdom, and just sucking you in. And it's like you're sucking in saltwater and so every single season it feels like there's less and less joy, less and less hope, less and less peace, less and less the things of the Kingdom of God because there's only one place to find springs of living water. His name is Jesus. And if you knew him and you knew who it was who asked for a drink, you'd ask him and he would give you springs of living water, songs of life, welling up to eternal life in your life. So this season, there's a chance to be refreshed with the things of God. We don't have to live withered anymore, we can truly live full, filled, refreshed in Jesus' name.

It goes on to say, "Whatever they do prospers." Here's a question for you, what if we just took that verse at face value? Whatever I do is going to prosper. Like this week, in that sales meeting, when I'm on my sports team, when I'm having that hard conversation, I'm going to prosper in that. Why? Just because the Bible told me. Just because it says, whatever I do prospers. If I do all these other things, everything in my life is going to prosper. And the crazy part is, it may not even be situational. It may not be like the thing works out the way you thought it was going to, but you know you're moving forward in Jesus' name, so you're prospering. So things are working out for you because you're moving forward. Whatever you do prospers. I just believe that by faith, I believe that for our church family. I want to see us set that in motion. And live with that kind of confidence. I'm walking with Jesus, I'm planted, I'm not withering, whatever I'm going to do is going to prosper in Jesus' name. I declare that over your life and over our church this summer.

It goes on to say, "Not so the wicked. They are chaff that the wind blows away." That's a tough one. Chaff, that's like the outside of seeds. It just kind of flutters about, it's got no weight to it. It's not anchored anywhere. The wind comes through, just blows away somewhere. And I've seen a lot of that also. I've seen people that are literally blown away because they're not rooted and they're not anchored. This verse looks a lot like the verse in Ephesians. It says, "Tossed back and forth by the waves, blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and the craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming." We're seeing this in the world right now. We're seeing people blown away. And one of the analogies I've been giving is it's kind of like a fighter pilot. I don't know if you've seen a movie about fighter pilots recently, but it's kind of like a fighter pilot flying through the air. And so here's what happens, something happens on the plane, something happens in life, something happens in that situation and they want to eject out. And what they think is going to happen is that they can eject out of that relationship, that church, that situation.

And so they eject out and they think it's going to be the parachute and then they're just going to kind of float down to earth and all is going to be well. But that's not how it works. They're like chaff that the wind blows away. They eject out and then they just keep floating into I don't know where. And we're seeing a lot of that and it's heartbreaking. And that's part of why we're declaring songs of life over our church. There is no floating away, there is no where did you go, what happened, why did you go there? There is a calling up to be deeply rooted, to be planted in the house of the Lord so that we will flourish in life. It goes on in Psalms to say, "Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. God is watching over your life right now. But not with eyes of condemnation, with eyes of love in Jesus' name.

He sees you. He sees you right where you are. He wants to lead you to where you're going. He wants to be with you and he looks into your life. And he looked down on you with eyes of love. This summer, as you sing those songs of life, know that the Lord is looking down upon you with eyes of love. He sees you right where you are and he wants to lead you to where you're going. Thank you, Jesus. So here we go, so we just read that chapter, broke down each of the verse a little bit, each of the six verses. Now, I want to pray it over each one of us. So would you stand up with me? Stand up with me and I'm just going to even ask you, as a sign of faith if you're willing, to open up your hands. What that means is just a sign of humility, a sing of willingness, a humbleness to receive what God's doing and what He is going to speak over us right now. Psalm chapter 1, maybe just close your eyes with me as I pray this over our church family.

So blessed is the one, that you be blessed in Jesus' name, that you live with every spiritual blessing that comes from Jesus, this summer. May you not stand in the way that the rest of the world takes. May you be able to recognize the kingdoms in conflict and from that get out of the way. Following Jesus' way. His way is the best way. He has a different word and a different wisdom and a different way he wants to impart into our church. This summer, may you follow that way. May you meditate on his law day and night. His resurrected life, his law of love, his gospel of peace. May it fill your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. May you truly be with him in the day and sleep well at night. May you walk with him in the day and have his peace all through the night. May you be like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit, living a fruitful life, a tree that has generational significance.

A tree that is a support and anchor for your family, that your family can look at you and be like, that person is anchored in Jesus' name. They're planted, they're rooted, they're established in our home. That you'd live with more love, joy, peace, patience and all the other fruit that goes with it. That you would not be withered, that your soul would not be scorched out. You'd be refreshed in Jesus. You'd feel this constant refreshing by the fresh life, the fresh water that comes from Jesus. We believe that our church will not just get blown away. Then not only have you establishes Jesus, you're going to continue to be with us. And because of that, we will be like a city on a hill. We will be like a beacon. We will be truly a movement of hope for the city and beyond because we're just so solid when the rest of the world is not. And so I declare that over Valley Creek Church that songs of life will create a depth and a solidity to our church, so that anything that tries to come against us, it will get blown away, not us.

That we will stand truly in the assembly of the righteousness, that we will know that we have rightstanding in Jesus' name and we'll live our life as such. We believe that our righteousness is actually leading and guiding us and our positional reality with Jesus will start to dictate every other part of our life. That when we hear songs of life, they're songs that come from way down deep in our heart from the righteousness, the rightstanding in Jesus' name. We know, Lord, that you will watch over us with eyes of love, not eyes of condemnation, eyes of love, eyes of peace, eyes of hope. God, thank you that you are watching over this church. Lord, thank you for the songs of life. Thank you for the sacred songs that you're singing over our church family. May we take hold of them. May we be willing to sing them back one to another. We love you, Jesus, in your name, amen.