Victorious Christian Living: Tools to Conquer: Meditation on God's Word
Name of Assembly: United Apostolic Church
Type of service: Bible Study
Date: September 29th, & October 6th, 2020
Series Topic: Victorious Christian Living
Lesson 4: Tools to Conquer: Meditation on God's Word
Scripture Text: Joshua 1:8; Psalm 19:1-14
Memory Verse: Joshua 1:8
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Joshua 1:8
Introduction
On January 15, 2009, Captain Chelsey Sullenberger was the pilot who was flying US Airways flight 1549, carrying 155 souls from New York’s LaGuardia airport toward Charlotte, North Carolina.
As the plane hurtled upwards, its engines struck a flock of Canada geese. Both engines were disabled, and the plane, which had reached an altitude of only three thousand feet, was too low to glide to a nearby runway. The only chance the passengers had was for Sullenberger to land the plane in the Hudson River.
In the moment of crisis, there was no time to whip out the flight instruction manual or watch a YouTube video on what to do in a flight emergency. In that moment Sullenberger’s thousands of hours of preparation kicked in. The complicated process of landing the plane under such circumstances—a process which, to the novice, would have seemed impossibly complex—was second nature to him. During his years as a pilot, he had studied the manuals, learned the ins and outs of planes, and meditated on various flight procedures. Everything he had learned through the years had penetrated below the level of short-term memory and into the deeper levels of the mind where instincts lie.
Living the Christian faith requires many of the same principles. Living as a Christian under all circumstances isn’t something someone can do without preparation and experience. Making biblical principles second nature takes trial and error and years of training and meditation upon God’s Word. But when the hour of crisis comes, when everyone else is looking for the manual and fumbling for instructions, the one who has patiently meditated upon the Word in the quiet hours that others have wasted will rise to the occasion.
Scripture urges us repeatedly to meditate upon God’s Word, not merely reading or memorizing. It is when we meditate upon God’s word that our minds begin the process of being transformed and this process causes the words of our mouths to be reshaped.
The Christian transformation is to be so complete that even the things we used to delight in are replaced with new, holier delights. But can we truly achieve this – YES!!! God’s Word must be internalized for these radical and fundamental changes to take place.
What is Meditation?
The word meditation spoken of here must not to be confused with an emptying of the mind that Eastern religions practice. Rather, as used in this lesson, meditation refers to a long, regular, and carefully measured consideration of a topic. It is a careful knowledge of Scripture, along with an intense commitment to the faithful application of this Scripture to one’s life and the present and future life of one’s community.
Meditation is pondering the Word in our hearts and souls. It is how we sanctify our thinking and bring it into submission to Christ. Paul reminded us in Romans 12:2 that; We should not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Careful Knowledge of Scripture
Psalm 1:1-2 says, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night”.
For the psalmist, the focus of one’s careful knowledge ought to start with God’s Word.
Contrary to the man who constantly situates himself in the company of foolish talkers (the ungodly, the sinners, and the scornful); the psalmist said that the blessed man’s primary company is the Word of God. The blessed does not spend his time in unfruitful and unnecessary discussions with the godless; the blessed man takes comfort in the Scriptures. Above all, his meditation, or careful study of the voices of Scripture, is regular. He meditates day and night. In other words, meditation on Scripture is not a day job; neither is meditation something one is to do only after a day’s work is done. Essentially, the psalmist pronounced a blessing on the one whose lifestyle is a continuous conversation with Scripture.
Delighting in God’s Word
The constancy of meditation is regulated by what the psalmist calls “delight.” The blessed man is the man who delights to think upon the Word. He is in love; no sooner has his mind been released from having to concentrate upon some task at hand than he falls to thinking upon the Word. Scripture is the “gravity” of his mind—every thought, sooner or later, drifts naturally toward it and the God behind it. He cherishes the words of the Scripture but also searches those words, listening if possibly a second meaning lies hidden in a subtle tone and expression.
So often our lives may seem to resemble the opposite of the blessed one. We find ourselves surrounded by those for whom God is an afterthought, or even worse. We are called to live in this world, and we cannot isolate ourselves from the environment to which we are called to be salt and light. Thus, our public lives are not our own; we have little choice in determining what we hear. However, what we meditate upon, what we take delight in, is our own choice.
The Word of God Becoming Our Word
Great poets of the past have often agreed that the essential habits of the individual who would become a great poet is the habit of reading, living, sleeping, eating, and breathing good poetry. Such poetry is not just about having good feelings and then describing them in rhymes. Good poetry requires an extreme sensitivity to words. The great poet chooses words like a pianist chooses notes; dozens of different words could get the job done and convey the author’s basic meaning, but good poetry requires just the right word. He rolls words around in his mind, weighing and “tasting” each one. A word’s meaning is not enough; the poet must consider the sound of the word—its vowels, consonants, syllables, and accents. Moreover, the right word or phrase is not determined just by what the word or phrase means to him; the poet has a keen perception of what other ears hear in these words and phrases.
The careful knowledge of the would-be poet, which compels him to explore the heights and depths of every word he uses, is the kind of knowledge that characterizes meditation. When called upon to lead the people of Israel into the Promised Land, Joshua was charged with the responsibility of having a careful knowledge of the words of Moses: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” (Joshua 1:8).
One would think Joshua would be required to memorize military strategies for “good success.” He was, after all, Israel’s general; he was to lead Israel on a long campaign to conquer, city by city, the land of Canaan. But he was told instead to meditate upon the Law that he might observe and perform it.
The Law was not a list of battle tactics; the Law did not contain weapon-making secrets. It did not hold a list of training techniques. It did not even provide vital intelligence of the lay of the land Israel was set to conquer. The written words of Moses merely informed the reader of how to properly relate to others, how to manage one’s land and possessions, and how to worship God. Yet Joshua failed or succeeded only to the extent that he failed or succeeded in following God’s Word.
Joshua’s knowledge of Moses’ words was to become so complete that the Law was not to depart out of his mouth:
- That is, the language of the Law was to become the language of Joshua.
- His responses to questions were to be informed by the Law.
- His praises and rebukes were to be the praises and rebukes of the Law.
- The Book of Joshua lets us know that Joshua’s knowledge of God’s Word was carefully remembered and applied.
At the end of Joshua’s life, after decades of war, triumph, and disaster, Joshua’s words to Israel sound strangely familiar: “Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 23:6).
These are almost the exact words he had heard from God when Joshua was still a young man: “Only Be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:7).
God’s word to Joshua as a young man had indeed become almost indistinguishable from Joshua’s words as an old man.
Meditation upon Scripture calls for a knowledge of Scripture that is so careful that one’s language begins to alter and conform to the language of Scripture. This does not necessarily mean quoting Scripture word for word in King James English whenever we speak, but it does mean knowing how to give a scriptural response to the problems we face.
A Commitment to the Faithful Application of the Scripture
We have discussed the chief characteristics of one who meditates upon God’s Word. Now we will closely examine how meditation upon Scripture considering the gospel of Jesus Christ can transform one’s mind and nourish the possibility of doing extraordinary things.
Many people memorize Scripture, which is commendable. However, memorization and knowledge of Scripture is not enough. There must be a commitment to a faithful application of the knowledge one has gained from Scripture.
Paul is an exemplary figure for many reasons, but perhaps above all other reasons, he is especially exemplary for his intense commitment to meditating upon Scripture in hopes of proving that God is faithful to His Word.
Paul experienced a struggle between the promises of Scripture and his calling to evangelize the Gentiles. At one point in his life, he saw the two as mutually exclusive. During this time, he reasoned that if God’s Word was true, then Israel was exclusively God’s people. But if the Gentiles were also to be God’s people, then God’s Word could not be true. However, once he encountered, and was commissioned by Christ, he had to conclude that indeed the Gentiles were to be included in God’s covenant.
But he had to ask: Was God’s Word to Israel then true?
Paul, through meditating on Scripture, came to the extraordinary discovery that not only had God indeed welcomed the Gentiles, but He had also done so in accord with His Word. Let us trace this discovery as Paul described it in various places in his letters.
Paul’s Meditation on Scripture
Paul’s Bible did not include the books and letters of the New Testament. Paul’s letters were written before the Gospels. What we now call the Old Testament was Paul’s Bible. When he wrote that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost,” he meant by the phrase “all Scripture” the words of the Old Testament.
For Paul, the difficulty was not so much in presenting evidence from the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah. Other early Christian preachers, for example Stephen and Philip, were paving the way and saying that Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, and resurrection were prophesied in the Old Testament. Moreover, in addition to his own Damascus testimony, Paul had Jesus’ still-empty tomb in Jerusalem and more than five hundred eyewitnesses who had seen the risen Jesus to testify to the fact that Jesus is Lord. I Corinthians 15:6, “After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.”
When Paul was faced with the reality that either the Bible was wrong and God was unfaithful to His covenant or Paul and his fellow Jews’ traditional interpretations of the Bible were wrong, Paul chose the latter. He insisted that Scripture is a record not of God changing His mind when men change theirs, but Scripture rather is a record of God’s unchanging faithfulness.
Paul went to the Scriptures and read it with new eyes. New patterns began to emerge in what had been perhaps overly familiar passages. For instance, in the story of God calling Abraham and making a covenant with him (Genesis 12–21), Jewish teachers saw Abraham as the father of the Jewish people who had been offered an exclusive covenant with God. But Paul now realized that God had declared Abraham righteous long before he had ever submitted to circumcision, which is the traditional Jewish sign of election. For Paul, this could mean only one thing: God had intricately orchestrated the plot of this story to lay the foundation for the Gentiles’ inclusion in the covenant.
Many early Jewish believers resisted the notion and dared Paul to find this strange based on their understanding of the Scriptures. The greatest difficulty was that, as Paul noted, this “fellowship” between Jew and Gentile in the covenant was a “mystery” that had not been “made known unto the sons of men” and had been hidden “from the beginning of the world . . . in God”
“4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ). 5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; 6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel: 7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. 8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; 9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:” - (Ephesians 3:4–9).
Paul now had “ears to hear” what the Spirit was saying through the timing of this Scripture: God had declared Abraham righteous before he was circumcised so that Abraham could be not only the father of the Jewish faithful, but also the father of the uncircumcised Gentile faithful!
Paul was the first to understand this: he saw that the gospel of Jesus Christ had “broken down the middle wall of partition” (Ephesians 2:14) between the Jews and Gentiles and that the “Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of [God’s] promise in Christ by the gospel” (Ephesians 3:6).
Paul’s understanding of this challenging doctrine did not come to him by merely a brief look at the Scriptures. He had to spend the time to meditate upon the Scriptures that he had and with the help of the Holy Ghost he was able to understand God’s word.
So, the charge is given to us - We have a responsibility to ourselves ensuring that we benefit from the wisdom of the word. Its great knowing the word, it’s great reciting the word but the greater benefit is when you can meditate on the Word, there is a level of excitement that exuberates when the word takes root in the heart.
It is not enough to read Scripture; it is not even enough to know Scripture. Our fathers in the faith have taught us to meditate upon Scripture. Meditating on Scripture cleanses the mind, transforms it, and alters the way we speak. Meditation is the habit of those who delight in God’s Word; it is the characteristic of those for whom God’s Word is the gravity to which every thought ultimately bends.
When we meditate, we think about God’s Word, we dwell on it, we internalize it and we verbalize it, preaching to ourselves. When we meditate upon the words of God, we will be able to admonish both ourselves and others to do and say the right things.
Meditation is of utmost importance to the Christian discipline and it must be treasured and practiced. This should become a part of our lives despite the fact the it will take some real effort. Find time during the day meditate upon the Word, talking and preaching to yourself. Try to understand the meaning of the scripture so that we will able to apply to our daily walk with God.
When we meditate upon the Word – the truth of God will be so impactful in our lives – nothing else around us will be more important than speaking, teaching and listening to the His word.
Colossians 3:16 admonishes: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." ... Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts."
Philippians 4: 8 reminds us: "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy meditate on these things."