The Art of Scripture Meditation

A couple of weeks ago we launched a brand-new series called Onward and we discovered that theme of the book of Joshua is simply this: the direction of the Christian life is “onward!” We need to be reminded of that, because what we’re learning is, no matter how far you’ve come, no matter how long you’ve been a Christian, no matter far you have followed, God always has something “onward” He wants you to reach for.

And the good news is this: if this is your very first time in church, and you have no idea what just happened, and “Who is this Jesus guy, and why is he telling me to open an old Book?” The message for you is this: No matter how far you have wandered, no matter how long you have strayed, God is calling you onward, to follow Him.

There is something He wants you to enter; there is a Promised Land that He has created for you. That’s what the book of Joshua is all about. Last week we said this, “God prepares leaders to propel His people onward.” We find, through history and in the Bible, God’s people often get stuck in the wilderness.

God raised up the leader, Moses, to get His people out of slavery in Egypt. They wandered around in the wilderness for forty years and then Moses died. But God’s not finished. Israel didn’t die when Moses died; God didn’t die with Moses died—He raised up a new leader—what was his name? Joshua! Joshua now has the leadership baton in his hand, and he is calling his people onward: “We’re not yet where we need to go.” We learned about that last week.

Let me give you the big idea of this week’s message. Now, the good news is, in these last three messages, there has only been one point. Today’s message has just one point, but there are about forty-seven sub-points. The one point of the message today is this:

 

The strength and the courage to go onward is the byproduct of meditation on God’s Word.

 

We’re going to break down those three very important words. We’re going to find out, what is strength? What is courage, and what is meditation? The reason this is so important for us to learn, is…the world is a scary place!

Have you noticed? If you have read the paper’s headlines or if you have watched the evening news, there is a lot that you could be frightened about. There is terrorism, there are killer viruses, there is a weak economy, and there is relational difficulty. On a more personal level, there are some of you that are fearful of losing your marriage or losing your children or losing your life-long savings or your retirement accounts. There are all kinds of things to be fearful of.

Some of you got a terrible health report in the last few weeks. There is even the fear of death. There is so much that we could be fearful of. Do you know what happens when God’s people get fearful? God’s people stop moving onward! There is no onward progress where there is no strength and courage.

I got an email this week from a good friend of mine, Bob Lepine. Bob is the co-host of FamilyLife today, a daily radio program that’s heard nationally. We speak with him from time to time in our FamilyLife ministry.

Bob was recollecting a time back in the early ‘80s when his two daughters were very young—four years and one year old. They slept in a room on the opposite side of their parents’ master bedroom in the back of the house. Fortunately in the 80s, these little nursery monitors were invented. Do you remember these little things? You could set one by the baby on one side of the house, and set one on the other side of the house, and you could spy on your children through the baby monitor!

Bob remembers waking up one night in the middle of the night, hearing a man’s voice on the nursery monitor, speaking to his children on the other side of the house. He was speaking softly and gently to one of the children while this creepy music box music was playing in the background. Bob was thinking, “We don’t even have a music box. What in the world is going on?” That made it even more creepy.

Bob remembers just being paralyzed by fear: “What is going on, on the other side of the house, and what should I do at this point? Should I race in there and tackle the assailant or should I call 911?” Well, Bob gulped real hard and courageously got out of the bed and began slowly shuffling down the hallway and opened the door to his daughters’ room, only to find they were both sound asleep with no one in there.

Curious, he walked back to the master bedroom and picked up the baby monitor, and recognized the voice was actually his neighbor who had just purchased a nursery monitor that was broadcasting on the same frequency. He was talking to his children in the house next door.

Well, there are a lot of things that might terrorize us. The problem is, we get paralyzed by fear when we don’t have the strength and the courage to move onward. But do you know what the number one thing is that keeps Christians from moving onward? It is the fear of obeying God! We think, “What will this cost me? What will happen to me if I do everything God tells me to do?”

Here’s a better question: “What will happen to you if you don’t?” That’s a better perspective! So, we find Joshua here with that same dilemma. We’re going to dive into Scripture, Joshua chapter 1, and read about eleven verses. We’re kind of just going to march through it. I want you to just notice that Joshua 1, verses 5 through 9, are a record of the words of God. Don’t rush past that. God has chosen to speak to Joshua, calling him to be courageous.

Beginning in Joshua 1:6, I want you to read with me the first four words: “Be strong and courageous!” We’re going to see those words four different times in these eleven verses we’re going to read. God says to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore [spoke] to their fathers to give them.  Only be strong and very courageous. . .” “In case you didn’t hear me the first time, be strong and very courageous…” “…being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.”

Would you underline the word “success,” there at the end of verse 7? It’s a very important word; we’re going to talk about what it means. And then verse 8. I just want to say this: Joshua 1:8 was one of the most foundational and formational verses that God used in my life as a young Christian. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night…” underline the word “meditate, “so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous…” underline “prosperous,” “and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you?” Uh, yeah, God, what was that command You gave? I remember something about being strong—oh yeah! “Be strong and courageous…” For the third time He says it! “Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

That ends the recorded words of God. And then, in the next section, we read words of a courageous leader Joshua, who is calling his people onward. We read in Joshua 1:10-12, “And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, ‘Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, “Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.”’ And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said…”

So, in verse 12, he identifies three of the twelve tribes of Israel. These three tribes were going to get to possess the land on the east side of the Jordan River. That’s where everybody was standing at this point, and Joshua was calling everybody to go onward to the left side. But, these three tribes were saying, “We’re already here! This is home for us; this is what God told us to do. So do we have to go over there and fight those big ugly giants?” Well, as a matter of fact, you do.

“Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’ Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan” on the east side, “but all the men of valor…”

Let me just…you cannot pass those three words without making a comment. Do we have any men of valor in the room right now? I didn’t prepare you for that—a grunt would be appropriate at this point, okay? Let me back up and give you another run at that! Are there any men of valor in the room? I didn’t say “growl!” That was scary!

If you think that Christianity is for grandmothers and Girl Scouts, you need to understand, you aren’t strong enough to be a Christian! Christianity requires strong, valiant, courageous men who are willing to go onward into scary places as they are commanded by God. That’s what Joshua was charging those people to do. He wanted to get some men of valor to go into occupied territory—into this danger zone—and occupy this land that was promised to them.

So, “All the men of valor among you shall pass over armed…” I will resist the temptation to give a lecture on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution at this point, but they were to be armed. They all had their concealed carry permits and they were ready to go, “before your brothers and shall help them, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession…” So, they’re to go over, fight the battle and then when the battle is won, they’re permitted to go back to the east side and live on the east side, “and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.” Which direction does the sun rise? East! So they were going to be on the east side of the Jordan River.

The next passage, Joshua 1:16, begins another conversation. In the first section we saw God charging Joshua to be courageous. In the second section, that we just read, it’s Joshua charging the people to be courageous. In the third section, that we’re about to read, the people now charge Joshua to courageously lead them: “And they answered Joshua, ‘All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.” That is a statement of a strong and courageous people! Do you hear what they’re saying? “We will do whatever you tell us to do, wherever You tell us to go.” That’s the heart attitude of a strong, courageous people.

Continue with Joshua 1:17, “Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you.” Hopefully, they’ll obey actually a little better than they obeyed Moses, because they grumbled against Moses and didn’t like him. Actually, that was the previous generation—God didn’t let them see the land. So, here’s this young, new next generation of believers, and they’re saying, “We’ve got more courage than our parents had. We are going in!”

Scripture says, at the end of verse 17, “Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses!” Do you know what they’re saying? They’re saying, “You know, Joshua, we’re not so much impressed with your leadership, but it’s going to be a lot easier to follow you as our leader as long as we know that you are following God as your leader.” That is what gave them confidence to move!

Look at Joshua 1:18: “Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only…” fourth time! “be strong and courageous.” Is there an echo in the room? “Be strong and courageous! Be strong and courageous!”

First Joshua hears it from above—now he’s hearing it from below. Everybody is charging Joshua to be strong and courageous. But the strength and the courage to go onward is the byproduct of meditation on the words of God.

Let’s talk about these three words; let’s give them a definition. Strength. What does it mean to be strong? To be strong means that you are supernaturally empowered to complete every assignment that God gives.

Joshua was called; his assignment was to strap the weight of God’s people on his back and lead them into the Promised Land. Up to this time Joshua had relied upon the strength of Moses. But Moses was dead, and God was now calling Joshua to be strong, because there was no one else to lean on other than God.

God had given him such a difficult assignment; it would be impossible for him to complete without complete reliance upon the strength of God. There is no onward progress where there is no spiritual strength—no strong determination—no strong endurance to get to the finish line. God was calling Joshua; now God is calling us, to be strong, to move onward.

Now, when I say strong, some of you are misunderstanding “strength.” I am not talking about an ability to lift weights; I am not talking about an ability to run a marathon; I am not talking about an ability to make money, to rule or to push or to bully. I am not talking about being an intimidator or a dominator. I am not talking about a false bravado of manhood.

We are talking about a complete reliance and dependency upon a strength that lies outside of you. What does it mean to be strong? It means to be relying upon a God-given power that gives you the ability to do something totally disproportionate to who you are. That’s the kind of strength God calls us to have.

To be strong means to be able to withstand intense pressure to conform. It means to possess a power to endure spiritually demanding tasks. What it would look like is for a man to be willing to strap the weight of responsibility on his back and carry for his wife and for his family. Strength is shown when a man knows he’s been wrong, and rather than covering and hiding and excusing and blaming, and kicking the dog, he humbles himself. He admits his failure, he seeks forgiveness, and he moves on to do what God has called him to do.

Strength is shown when God entrusts a man with an assignment that is way too hard for him, and yet he doesn’t give up, he doesn’t back out, he doesn’t back up, he doesn’t quit when things get hard. Are you strong? The truth of the matter is, there are some seventh-grade boys in this church who are much stronger than their forty-two-year-old fathers, because they are willing to do what God calls them to do, wherever He calls them to do it. And they are willing to endure the hardship to get where God wants them to go.

Now, when we talk about being strong, and when you wonder, “Am I strong here this morning?”—what you need to understand is, God doesn’t just give you a random strength. He gives strength for a specific assignment. God gives strength for something—to do something. Strength is not tested until God gives you something to do that you are incapable of doing without His presence.

So, what has God called you to do? Is it to carry the weight of your family? Is it to stay put, where you are, and to learn the lesson God has for you? Many times God gives you the assignment, not because He wants to do something through you. God’s giving you that hard assignment because He wants to do something in you. Our strength is developed when we exercise strength.

When I go to the gym I lift weights. It’s amazing how lifting weights—exercising strength—gives you more strength to lift more weight. You can’t get strong without the weight, without the pressure, God has given you.

Phillip Brooks was a nineteenth-century New England preacher, and he’s famous for a statement he said. Here it is: “Don’t ask for tasks equal to your strength; ask for strength equal to your task.” The man who relies on God’s strength realizes, “I’m too weak to do this apart from the strength of God.”

And so, what has God called you to do? You know, our culture right now is creating a generation of young people who—quite frankly—are weak. We’ve communicated to a younger generation that you can rely upon the strength of others to take care of you, to coddle you, to pamper you, to change your diapers—to pay for your diapers. And God is calling many of you of the younger generation to quit relying upon the strength of mommy and daddy and youth pastor and the strong people around you, and to rise up, take possession—go over and exercise some strength: a supernatural ability, power, to complete every assignment that God gives. So, be strong!

Here’s the second word: Be courageous. What does it mean to be courageous? Let’s give it a definition: Courage is having an abundant confidence in God’s presence and promises in the face of fear.

Do you think Joshua was afraid? You bet he was afraid! He’d already been over Jordan. Do you remember, he was one of the two spies that had gone over and he got to see what was going on, on the other side, and what did he see? He saw big, ugly, stinky strong giants in the land, and they were intimidating. Yet, because he had that courage that we talked about—that lies outside of us—he went before the people and said, “They’re just like little grasshoppers.”

Do you know what you do with grasshoppers? You step on them! And it’s a little therapeutic—you hear the crunch and you just kind of feel strong in that moment, right? You’re thinking, “You’re so sick!” Well, that’s a courage. Are you afraid of a grasshopper? Some of you are. You should step on one; it gives you a great sense of accomplishment and strength. That’s what Joshua saw was his assignment, as he went over into the land to conquer that land for God’s glory. He was courageous in the face of fear.

Let me tell you what courage is not: Courage is not the absence of fear! Let me tell you what courage is: George Patton, the famous general, said, “Courage is fear holding on one minute longer.” G. K. Chesterton said, “Courage is a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die.”

If those don’t impress you, John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death and saddlin’ up anyway!” Ambrose Redman said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important.” More important than my safety, more important than my security, more important than my significance—I’m going onward in the face of fear because what lies on the other side is so valuable, I’ve got to take possession of it.

World War I flying ace, Eddie Rickenbacker, said, “Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared.” So, it’s doing your duty under fire, in the face of attack. Courage is not doing something big for fame and glory; courage is doing something right, no matter what it costs. That’s courage. And you know, courage is not even needed until God gives you an assignment that is impossible to complete without Him.

But look in Joshua 1 verse 9. The promise is this: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you…” The promise is that God would be with him—not that you wouldn’t be afraid, but in the midst of your fear God is there. Do you see the little three-letter word “for” in that verse? “Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you…” God never calls you to do anything without Him.

You know, this past week there was a school delay on Tuesday. And you know, if you’re a parent, you start getting those calls like at 5:30 in the morning, to tell you there’s going to be a two-hour delay. It wasn’t for snow; it was for fog this time. And, you know, the children are so happy about school delays. They get to sleep a little later, and we didn’t have to go down and wake them up early to go to school. We just kind of let them sleep.

Andrea and I were up, we were getting ready for the day, and all of a sudden Scott, our newly adopted ten-year-old son, comes rushing up the stairs, frantic, with terror in his eyes. What had happened was we let him sleep past the time he normally wakes up. So, when he woke up, he looked at the clock and realized, “I’m supposed to be at school right now! I wonder if they forgot me!”

He sleeps down in the basement, he has a room down there, and he didn’t know we were up, just getting ready for the day or whatever, and he didn’t know about the two-hour delay. But Scott has had many experiences where he has been forgotten—where he has been left alone to fend for himself.

So, terror was rushing through his body, and he raced up the stairs asking, “Where is Mom? Where is Ali? Where is Leah?” And what he was asking was, “Am I alone?” That was the source of his fear, and that was just rumbling around in his heart until Andrea grabbed his chubby little cheeks and said, “Look at me! I am here. I am with you, you are with me. I have you! You are not alone!” And the fear subsided.

That’s the promise God gives to us. No matter what you are going through, no matter how terrorized you are, God says, “Look at Me! I’ve got you! I’m here! You are not alone! Do not be frightened, for the Lord Your God (He emphasizes Who He is) is with you wherever you go.” That’s where courage comes from.

Dennis Rainey is famous for speaking to men, and anytime he meets a man, within about twenty seconds he’s going to ask you a question: “What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?” And Dennis says, “I’m shocked at how many men look at me like, “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything courageous!” What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done?

Now if you’re thinking right now, “Uh, I went to the dentist last week.” “I asked my wife out for a date when I was eighteen.” Listen, if your courage resume is a little short, could it be it’s because you have never understood, “The Lord your God is with you?” Don’t be paralyzed to stay where you are in your progress with God. Get over your fear and go over Jordan and go onward into doing things that require courage.

What are you scared of? Are you scared of being wrong? Are you scared of being ridiculed? Are you scared of looking stupid? Are you scared of losing money? Are you scared of feeling inadequate? Are you afraid of not measuring up? All of those are the result of pride.

Are you afraid of financial loss? Are you afraid of failure, and that’s keeping you paralyzed—not to move onward? It takes courage to lead your family in prayer; it takes courage to accept a leadership role; it takes courage to give sacrificially, trusting the Lord is going to take care of us anyway. It takes courage to reconcile a broken relationship. It takes courage to move on and do something you’ve never done before. And—listen—it takes courage to stay put where you are! What’s God calling you to do that would require courage?

Where does it come from? You see, if I were to stop the message right now, I would do you a great disservice, because the reaction to this is, “Sigh! Okay, I’ll be more courageous. I won’t be afraid so much. I’ll be stronger.” And if you’re a man, you’re like, “I feel like doing some push-ups right now. I can do better!”

That’s religion—and it will send you to hell. Because you can never be strong enough and you’ll never be courageous enough! But where do courage and strength come from? God tells us in verse 8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Now, a lot of “prosperity” preachers have twisted and distorted that passage of Scripture to tell you that God wants you to be healthy, wealthy and wise. That is Benjamin Franklin, that is not God, okay? That’s not what he’s talking about. What does it mean to be successful as a Christian? What does it mean to be prosperous? It means that you will be able to complete the mission that God has for you.

Courage and strength are spending your life on the mission God has assigned—mainly being holy as He is holy and making disciples of all nations. That’s what it means to be a success. That’s what we need courage and strength for. So where do you get it?

It’s this word: meditation, so let’s give that a definition. What is meditation? Meditation is quiet contemplation on God’s self-disclosure in Scripture. Quiet.

Do you remember this concept, quiet? Do you remember way back in like 1993, there were those ten minutes of quiet? Back before email, back before smart phones, back before iPods and iPhones and music and a thousand channels on cable TV? Do you know how hard it is to be quiet? Quiet enough to contemplate and focus on the self-disclosure of God in Scripture? That’s a lost art. And, before the day’s over, I trust that you’ll understand just a bit of what it means to meditate on God’s Word.

Let me tell you what meditation is not. If you are thinking of eastern transcendental meditation right now, you do not understand what we’re talking about. If you’re thinking about clearing your mind and focusing on the lint in your navel, that’s not biblical meditation—no. If you’re thinking of yoga right now, that’s not meditation. If you’re thinking about yoga pants right now, you’ve really got issues!

What we’re talking about is focused pondering on the words of God that He has recorded for us in this book. Now, when God gave Joshua that command in verse 8, how much of this book did Joshua have to meditate on? Five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The parts of the Bible that most of us avoid, right? We’re like, “Ugh, I’m not meditating on that. That’s boring stuff! I mean, I don’t understand half the stuff in there!” That’s what God told Joshua to meditate on, and He said do it day and night!

And so, here, we have the progressive revelation of God – the complete, sufficient Word of God. We have all of this, and yet how much time do we spend wrapping our minds around the words from the mind of God? That’s what He’s given us.

And what is the promise? “If you will do this, you will have success and prosper in everything you do.” How many of you would sign up for that program? How many of you like to be successful in everything you do? How many of you like to prosper in everything you do? “Yeah, I’ll sign up for that program!” Then what He’s telling you—the key that unlocks the success is meditating on God’s Word.

I was a very average student in high school. As a senior in high school, someone shared with me this principle of meditating on God’s Word: focused, quiet contemplation on the words of Scripture. I started doing it. I started setting aside a time every day to turn everything else off to think and ponder and glory in the words of God. I can’t explain this to you—I got into college and I started getting A’s—in things I did not have the capacity to get A’s in. My grades were totally disproportionate to my intelligence. Some of you are getting C’s and are like, “Me, too!” Yeah, see that’s the problem—you don’t quite get this.

Meditation on God’s Word…God promises to bless this. So, what does it mean to meditate on God’s Word? Let me show you what the Scripture says: Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” How much of the thoughts that go through our mind are totally unacceptable to God? The song lyrics, the movie plots, the philosophies that came from our sister or our cousin or our philosophy teacher in college? Godless thoughts, totally unacceptable.

How do you get that stuff out? You have to replace it with the truth. You put the truth of the mind of God in your mind and it transforms your thinking. Romans 12:2 says “don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” You do that through the process of meditation.

Psalm 119:97 and 99 say this, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day…I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.” Meditation is drawing near to God in quietness. Meditation is experiencing God’s presence. Meditation is actively pondering the depths of what God has said in His Word.

Meditation is the slow, intentional, repeated reading and reciting of God’s Word. It’s listening for instructions from a timeless book in your timely spot on this planet. It’s being assured of God’s presence and purposes for my life, and God transforms me as I think about it.

There’s an analogy someone taught me years ago, just in relation to meditation, and it comes from studying biology. Remember when you were in eighth grade and you were studying the digestive system? Remember how gross that was, and you had to dissect things and all that stuff? Well, you probably studied—like I did—the digestive system of a cow.

Now, let’s just meditate here for a moment on the digestive system of a cow. Just think about this: how many stomachs does a cow have? Four! Just meditate on that for a second! How awesome would that be! You could eat twelve times a day. Some of us think we have four stomachs—some of us look like we have four stomachs!

This cow what does she do? She takes a bite and she chews it up and she swallows it, and it goes down into stomach number one (the rumen) and it just kind of sits there for a while and some of the digestive juices kind of work on it a little bit. But after a while, do you know what happens (and this is the gross part)?

She regurgitates and it comes back up and she chews on it, and chews on it some more and then she swallows it and it comes back up, and then she chews on it some more, and she swallows it and it comes back up. It keeps going back and forth until what she has eaten becomes part of who she is—what she eats becomes cow.

That’s called rumination, and that’s what it’s like in meditation. You take a bite, you chew on it, you swallow it, you put it away, and then you bring it back up for a while and you chew on it some more and you put it away until what you’ve eaten becomes you. That’s meditation.

How does meditation produce strength and courage? What’s the connection between those two? Let me put it this way: How many of you have ever driven over this bridge? This is the Mackinac Bridge, that goes from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. How many of you have driven on that bridge? How many of you have enjoyed that? How many of you were terrified as you were driving over it?

Now, most of you, when you went across this bridge, you didn’t even take your foot off the accelerator. You just kept going; you were probably going about fifty miles an hour over this bridge, and every now and then you would look over the side and think, “Oh, yeah, that’s cool. That’s cool.”

But let me ask you this, what if they had not put guard rails on the bridge? Would you be a little terrified? Why? Do you see cars bouncing off of the guard rails as you go across the bridge? Are people pretty much capable of holding the car between the lines as they cross the bridge? But what do the guardrails do? The guardrails give you courage to go onward. That’s what God’s Word does.

That’s what the law of God does. It gives you guardrails in your mind to say, “I can move forward knowing Who God is, how much sin costs, that Jesus is enough, and that help is on the way, and that hope is alive!” All of those thoughts going through my mind as I read this Book remind me, “It is safe to move onward. God is with me, and He will be with me wherever I go.”

Meditation is intentional—you need a time; you need a place. Meditation is rhythmic. He says, “day and night.” How many of you are morning people? Raise your hands. How many of you are night people? Raise your hands. How many of you still haven’t figured that one out—you’re just kind of lunch, period. “Lunch is kind of my time, right there.” Day and night—there’s a rhythm to doing this, but notice there’s not much room for twelve hours to pass until you need to get your mind on the focused reality of God’s Word.

There is no movement in the Christian life, there is no progress in the church without the truth of God’s Word. Do you know what we’re doing right now? We are gathering together to meditate on the words of God. That’s why the first pillar of our church is “proclaiming the authority of the Word of God without apology.”

Listen, any church or any pastor that diminishes the importance of the clarity of God’s Word is a church that will be fearful and weak. And so, if you find a pastor who is not leading with God’s Word, you are finding a pastor who is not leading you where God wants you to go.

What the pastor is doing is not enough. This is a predigested meal that I am feeding you. This is baby food. I have to scoop it out of the jar, it’s been mixed up, smashed up. I have to wipe it off your mouth and stick it back in; you spit it out again and I have to stick it back in there—if you’re a parent, you know the process, right? Well, listen, what a strong, courageous Christian does is learns to feed himself—and that’s what meditation is all about.

So, can I take just a few more minutes and give you some very simple thoughts about how to meditate on God’s Word? First of all:

 

1. Remember who the book is about.

 

Listen, there are so many “devotional books” out there that will give you this idea that this book is about you. This book is not about you! We say we believe that the Bible is about God, but we read it like it’s about us!

If you come to the Bible thinking it’s about you, you’re going to misunderstand and misrepresent what God was saying. One of the keys to understanding this book is to realize that God used human authors to accurately record His words. But those human authors lived in a different time, in a different context, and they were writing to a specific group of people going through specific issues.

When we read the book of Joshua, we’re reading a book that is thousands of years old! As it was recorded, it was recorded to be read by people in that context. Now, the miraculous thing about God’s Word is, when we read it, the Holy Spirit illuminates it and applies it to our lives. But if you come to the book thinking it’s about you, you’ll read Joshua 1:8 and say, “God wants me to be rich!” Really? You want to try to preach that in Uganda?

And, so, what we have to do is understand: The meaning of the Scripture is determined by the author, not assigned by the reader. You have to understand, “What genre am I reading; what was the context it was written to? What was written before, what was written after? What do we now know about that culture?” So many things have to be understood, or you will misinterpret so many of the things.

The second thing is this:

 

2. Know what you are looking for.

 

The questions you should be asking are: “What is God like? What am I like? What does He require of me? Why was Jesus necessary; why was the cross necessary? What’s coming? What is God requiring of me now?” Can I just tell you, these five basic truths? This is going to blow your mind—that’s all that’s in the Bible. Everything in the Bible can be put into one of these five categories.

And so, if you’re looking for something else, there are so many stupid books out there about Bible codes and “if you line up the words, it’s the matrix, and if you kind of cross it this way and that way you get some message about who the next President’s gonna be, and”…like, come on! Do you know what you’re going to find in the Bible? Do you know what the first five books of the Bible are going to tell you?

 

• God is holy.

 

That’s it. The Bible will also tell you how:

 

• Sin is costly.

 

And then we learn what our responsibility is.

 

• Faith and obedience is required.

 

But I’m never gonna have enough faith and I’m never going to perfectly obey. That’s why I need to know the fourth thing.

 

• Jesus is enough.

 

It’s not my faith and my obedience that accomplishes anything – it’s my faith in Jesus and it’s my confidence that He is enough and He is sufficient to pay the debt that I owe. And yet, in response in who Jesus is, I have great faith and obedience toward what He’s told me to do.

And the last thing is so important:

 

• Hope is alive.

 

The fact that Jesus came and inaugurated a kingdom that has not yet been consummated means that I am a citizen of a kingdom that has not yet fully been realized on this earth.

And so, when you run into things like suffering and pain and hardship and college and biology—and debt and cancer and Alzheimer’s and unemployment—what do you need to know in those moments?

If you’re not a student of Scripture and haven’t been meditating on Scripture, you have no category for that stuff! “Well, I guess God isn’t in control! Well, I guess God just doesn’t love me if He’s letting me go through that stuff!” You’re showing your incredible ignorance of the Bible, if you say those things.

What you will learn is this, “This world is not my home, and one day, help is gonna come and Jesus is going to be here, and every sorrow and every tear will be dried up and wiped away.” There will be no more sorrow, no more death, no more disease, no more crying, no more sorrows—but that’s coming later. That’s what I meditate on when I get in God’s book. My best life is not now. My best life is coming later. And so, that’s why hope is alive. That’s what the Bible teaches me. Now, how are you going to learn all that stuff?

 

3. Invest the time.

 

It’s going to require an investment of time, and I would say this—it’s going to require an investment of money. I am shocked sometimes at people…oh, let me not assume anything… you’re going to need one of these [a Bible]. Do you have one of these—that’s, like, not your grandmother’s. Do you have one? Are you afraid to mark in it? If you look at the strongest, most courageous Christians in this church, ask to see their Bible. There will be blood stains and tear stains and coffee stains all over it, because they have invested so much time; this has become part of who they are.

That is how a student of God’s Word meditates. It just becomes a part of who you are, the investment of time. Some people are like, “Well, I can’t afford a Bible. I mean that’s like fifty bucks for a Bible!” C’mon. How much was your cell phone bill last month? So that you could talk to your kid? God wants to talk to you. Invest the time, use good tools.

 

4. Ask good questions.

 

Listen, the first book I ever read as a Christian—I was about fifteen, sixteen years old. I still have this book in my office; I saw it this morning…it was a book by Rick Warren. Do not judge me. It was a book talking about how to study God’s Word. It helped me so much!

It was in that book I learned these questions. I’ve used these questions every day of my life as I’ve meditated on God’s Word. You don’t just blindly go to God’s Word and speed read through it. You are asking God to speak to you, and you are asking, “Do I see any sin that I need to confess, in this text? Is there a promise here that I need to claim? Is there an attitude here I need to adjust? Is there a command I should obey? Is there an error I should avoid?”

One of the great things about the Bible, and you know it’s inspired by God, is that God actually records the flaws and the sins of people that were His people. If it was a human book? Uh, we would have edited that! But God records errors of His people so that we could avoid them in the future.

“Is there a prayer to pray? Is there an example to follow? Is there a truth, simply, that I need to believe as I meditate on God’s Word?” Ask good questions.

And then, fifth thing:

 

5. Record what you discover.

 

You need a journal. There is something about reading God’s Word, ruminating it through your mind, and then beginning to express that out, down your arm with a pen in hand on paper, writing it out—now you’re seeing it again, and maybe you’re even quoting it as you’re saying it.

We haven’t really talked about memorizing it, we’re just talking about meditating on God’s Word, but what happens when you meditate on it? You begin to memorize it. And so, if you stop at number five, you’ll be a hypocrite. That’s why you need to get to number six.

 

6. Obey it.

 

Now you’ve got to obey something and then love somebody enough to share what God has shown you.

 

7. Share it.

 

If you want to be success, what would you do this week, for God, if you knew you could not fail? What would you do? Do you remember the promise? “You shall make your way prosperous and you will find success wherever you go, if you meditate day and night on the words of this Book.” That’s the promise!

And so, I trust this week that you’ll have the discipline to set aside time, carve it out, schedule it, turn off every other distraction—a quiet place of contemplation to focus on what God would say to you so that you can be strong and courageous.