The Word is Your Life, part 4
Loving God's Word is the Path to the Full Life
Psalm 1
David Taylor
September 28, 2014
We are in the fourth of our five week fall series, “The Word is Your Life,” to help us see and feel the necessity of making the word central in our lives. We started by looking at the centrality of the word in our lives and I challenged you to read the New Testament in sixty days. Then the last two weeks we looked at Psalm one, “Loving God's Word is the Path to Life,” looking at memorizing and meditating on word. I challenged you to memorize Scripture, and we as a church family are going to memorize one verse a month over the course of this next year. This week we are finishing Psalm one, looking at meditating on the word and next week we end this series by looking at sharing the word with one another.
Big Idea – The path to life and salvation consists of loving God and saturating yourself with his word.
Today I show the necessity of spending regular time meditating on the word. I am going to start by reviewing the picture of the blessed man who meditates on the word to heighten our need for meditating and then look at how to meditate on the word.
Let me review
1. Saturate Myself With the Word for a Fruitful Life (v. 3)
Let's review the fruit of those who saturate themselves with the word. First, we saw fruit that those who meditate on the word are strong and stable, being like a tree planted by streams of water. The tree is strong and stable because its roots go deep by the streams, being a constant source of life and nourishment. Next, we say that those who meditate on the word are productive, producing fruit in season. They are fruitful because they have planted themselves by streams of water, which is a picture of saturating of them memorizing and meditating on the word. Third, they are durable, they do not wither or crumble when the storms and struggles of life come. To summarize he says 'he prospers in all he does.' We have looked at the characteristics of the life that meditates on the word, now lets look at how to meditate.
2. Saturate Myself With the Word by Meditating on the Word (v. 2)
'His delight is in the law of Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.' We delight in what we love, and what we love we put our minds to it. The godly person loves and delights in God's word so he mediates on it day and night. The reason he can mediate on the word at any given moment is because he has committed it to memory. To meditate on the word means to put energy into thinking and reflecting about it with the goal of gaining understanding and raise your affections for God, what Jonathan Edwards called affectional knowledge. Mediation is a means of grace in which God gives you understanding about him and his ways and so that the heart is re-calibrated accordingly.
Let me walk you through how I meditate on the word.
• First, set aside a regular time. Scripture commands us to 'grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You are to take your spiritual growth seriously, not casually or in a cavalier manner. Everything in life benefits from regular and consistent attention how much more important is your spiritual life. So make time for a regular bible reading, meditation, and prayer. In reading God speaks to us and in prayer we speak to God. Meditation is the link between reading and prayer. Reading is the food for meditation and meditation is the fuel for prayer? What we take in by reading, we digest in meditation, and let out with prayer. I recommend morning because I think there is scriptural support for it but I will not be dogmatic about it. I spend time with God in the morning because I need spiritual strength for the day.
• Second, set aside a regular place. Find a quiet spot, where you can be alone and uninterrupted. Get rid of all distractions, including your smart phone, computer, etc.
• Third, establish a routine. Start out asking God to open your eyes that you may behold wondrous things out of his law and ask him to incline your heart to his word. Then read a section of Scripture. I read several chapters and meditate on the section that struck me. If nothing strikes me then I meditate on the first paragraph I read. I start reading through it several times slowly, emphasizing different words as I read. I look for flow of thought, repeated words, connecting words, and theological concepts. I look for themes that connect to other scriptures. Sometimes I rewrite the passage in my own words. If at that point God has not spoken to me in specific ways then I ask, God what are you saying to me from this passage? Lastly, I turn my meditating into prayer and worship.
The key to meditating is delighting in God and the key to delighting in God is meditating on the word. If you do not delight in God or his word, then you will not meditate. Jonathan Edwards said that 'true religion disposes a person to be much in solitary places for holy meditation and prayer.' So if you don't delight in the word or don't enjoy reading there could be two reasons. The first is that maybe you may not have come to genuine saving faith in Christ. The other reason may be that the Christian life is not always better than the day before. We don't always desire God or his word; worse yet we desire other things more than God like TV or movies, novels, Xbox, smart phones, your spouse and kids, etc. This is the reason the apostle Paul describes the Christian life as 'fighting the good fight of the faith.' A big part of that is to fight for our desire for God and his word but that is humanly impossible apart from grace. The good news is that there was a man who was perfect, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life because you cannot and died as a perfect sacrifice to pay for your sins. You can look to him for life and strength. So if you do not desire God or his word turn to him in prayer and ask him to:
• Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.
• Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!
• Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, that I may rejoice and be glad all my days.
