Substance, Meerkats and Meditation. Psalm 1

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Substance, Meerkats and Meditation. Psalm 1"

Jessie Shaw
5 years ago
Views:

1 Substance, Meerkats and Meditation Psalm 1 0

2 lately I feel pressured to be fine, because that s what people want me to be. And because everyone is overwhelmed, and busy, and maybe feeling inadequate themselves, I have been hiding behind the mask of fine when I m clearly not. We are natural-born actors or hypocrites who work to control our image, appearance and reputation while our hearts wither and lack real substance and stability.

3 What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance. We want to be challenged to live lives of holiness... We re not leaving the church because we don t find the cool factor there; we re leaving the church because we don t find Jesus there. Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus. (Rachel Held Evans, CNN) The best gift you can give your kids is your own vibrant love relationship with Jesus. Your substance and holiness is the best shot your kids have at seeing and being drawn to Jesus.

4 1 Timothy 4:7b train yourself to be godly. Philippians 2:12b - work out your salvation with fear and trembling God prescribes exercises/disciplines the means of grace by which he works to build us up so that he increasingly becomes the center of our hearts and lives. Meditation is one means by which God s grace is worked into every room and closet of your heart and life.

5 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing. a. Substance rather than shallowness Our best energy goes into enhancing and controlling our image, appearance, and reputation. (Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Glittering Vices) You can become a person of real substance through meditation.

6 b. Stability rather than shakiness 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing.

7 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing. b. Stability rather than shakiness

8 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing. b. Stability rather than shakiness You will naturally drift toward wherever the breezes of culture and circumstances take you. On the other hand, you can be like a tree that is firmly rooted in the ground and drawing from a nearby stream of water.

9 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing. b. Stability rather than shakiness Meditation gives you direct access to a powerful source of stability. Joy is not the absence of trouble but the presence of Christ. William Vander Haven The weather or circumstances will not shake me.

10 1. Why? Meditation yields immeasurable blessing. c. Growth in fruitless seasons If you learn this discipline of meditation, it means that when you go through the dry spell or winter season, you can grow through it. 1. Our bad things will turn out for good. 2. Our good things will never be taken from us. 3. The best things are yet to come. Jonathan Edwards Meditation will transform you from a meerkat into a substantial, stable and growing tree that bears fruit.

11 2. What is meditation? Meditative prayer will change you into a deeply-rooted growing person with substance and stability. Two basic kinds of prayer: 1. Calling prayer 2. Answering prayer Meditative/answering prayer allows God to initiate the conversation with us through His Word. Meditation means that you are meditating or thinking about what God says in his Word. Meditation is answering prayer. You are thinking about and reflecting on the text until you hear God saying something to you through it and then responding.

12 2. What is meditation? Meditation is God s Word turning into prayer. Psalm 103:1-4 Meditation involves SLOWING down and chewing and tasting and savoring the amazing food of God s Word until you hear God speak to you and then responding in prayer.

13 3. How do we meditate? a. What do we draw on? The whole of Scripture is to be the ultimate authority for your heart and life. Meditation is a means by which the Bible becomes an encounter with the Living God. But, it cannot be an encounter with God unless you accept the whole Bible as authoritative for your life. When you reject the Bible as the law for you, it cannot be love for you. If you will not allow God to knock you down with his law, you will never know the joy of being raised up with his love. Meditation requires that you accept the whole of God s Word as the law and authority for your life.

14 3. How do we meditate? b. How do we draw on God s Word? Meditation transforms the Word into flesh. The Word is given hands and feet. Meditation transforms the intellectual into experience, feeling and emotions. We want to taste and experience the wonder of all that God is for us. T what s the teaching in this text? A how can I adore God for this teaching? C what sin should I confess based on this teaching? S supplication what can I ask God for?

15 3. How do we meditate? c. When? You are to meditate with discipline when you wake up and before you go to bed. Begin your day and reflect on your day with meditation on Scripture.

16 3. How do we meditate? d. How can you meditate on AND delight in the Word of God? How can you delight in every part of God s Holy Word? All we can do is look to and trust the One who HAS delighted in and meditated on and obeyed every part of God s Word. Hebrews 10:7 - I have come to do your will, O God. Jesus thought, worked and lived out everything found in God s Word.

17 3. How do we meditate? d. How can you meditate on AND delight in the Word of God? How does it help to look to Jesus for our meditation and delight in the law of God? How can you a sinful mess delight in drawing water from Jesus? Jesus became the Word and the saving water for us.

18 3. How do we meditate? d. How can you meditate on AND delight in the Word of God? Psalm 22:14b-15 - I am poured out like water. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. Jesus withered and became the chaff that shifts with the wind. Jesus became a husk so that we can become substance. Jesus died with excruciating thirst so that you could draw from the living water.

19 3. How do we meditate? Your guilt and shame has been suffered on the cross for you. Much of God s Word will only be a dagger in your heart unless you see that Jesus was pierced in the heart for you. The more you dig your roots down into Jesus and what he has done, the more you will delight in and obey the Word. Will you take up the discipline of meditation day and night? Will you listen for God to speak to you and respond with prayer?

20 Will you take up the discipline of meditation day and night? Will you listen for God to speak to you and respond with prayer?

MY BIBLE READING MY PRAYER LIST BE A FRIEND AND BRING A FRIEND

MY BIBLE READING MY PRAYER LIST BE A FRIEND AND BRING A FRIEND Philippians 2:5-7English Standard Version (ESV) Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,