Meditating On The Word | Christian Disciplines

Introduction: Read Psalm 1:1-3.

We’re continuing our study of the Christian Disciplines today. To this point we’ve primarily studied Bible intake. Ways to hear, read, study and memorize God’s Word. Of all the Bible intake disciplines, today’s may just be the high point or climax of Bible intake. Unfortunately, it is also perhaps the most underrated and misunderstood of all the Christian disciplines. It’s possible that when we began our series on the Christian practices, you never imagined meditation would be the focus of one of our lessons.

What comes to mind when you hear the word meditate?

You may think of people sitting in certain postures: crossing legs and closing eyes.

You may imagine someone disengaged from reality, high on a mountain or in a cave.

Perhaps when you hear the word meditate you think of people trying to empty their minds.

Those are the common ways people think about meditation, influenced in large part by the popularization of eastern religious practices. If that is the kind of meditation you are thinking of, then it makes good sense that you do not think of it as a Christian discipline.

But biblical meditation - the kind exemplified and commanded in Scripture - is nothing like that. It does not call for specific postures, it does not lead to people being disengaged, and most of all it is not practiced to empty the mind of everything. Biblical meditation does not call for an emptying of the mind of everything, but a filling of the mind with Scripture.

For God’s people, meditating is not a trend recent believers have picked up from the culture or other religions and adapted to Christianity. God’s people have actually been meditating people for a very, very long time. 

If meditation seems foreign to us, it is not because we need to get up to speed on eastern religions or cultural trends: the problem is that we have lost touch with the ancient habits of our own religion. We need to get back in touch with this important discipline. Today we will answer three questions: (1) What is meditation? (2) Why should I do it? And (3) How can I do it?

What Is Christian Meditation?

So what does meditation look like for Christians? Don Whitney defines it like this: “… deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture, or upon life from a scriptural perspectives, for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer.”

To help flesh this out, let’s use an analogy and an example.

ANALOGY: Let’s think about Bible intake like brewing tea. Think of the disciplines we’ve studied to this point and compare it to brewing tea.

Hearing or Reading the Word is to dip the teabag into a cup of hot water. With each quick dip, the water becomes a little more like the tea being dropped into it. 

Studying the tea bag involves knowing what it contains and what it should do to the water. 

Memorizing the Word is to remember what the tea bag is like. 

But Meditation is what happens when you leave the bag in for an extended period of time. 

“Meditation on Scripture is letting the Bible brew in the brain.”

EXAMPLE: What does this actually look like? Turn to Romans 5:1. (Read 5:1). You just heard this passage read. You may listen to a sermon on Romans 5:1, walking away with the knowledge that you are justified in Christ. You can read it to yourself. You can study the passage. You can memorize it, and be able to quote it word for word. 

What happens if you were to meditate on the truth of Romans 5:1? When you are tempted to think God will punish you for your sin, you can tell yourself “Wait, that’s not true. Jesus makes me right with God.” When you realize you are living in the fear of man, you can tell yourself, “Hold on, I am fully accepted by God in Christ, I shouldn’t be so concerned with my acceptance by others.” When you become worried that God will not take care of you you can remember, “I am at full peace with God because of Jesus’ death, why I am worrying about this?”

Do you see the difference between meditation and the other Bible intake disciplines? Certainly, we couldn’t have meditation without the others: there would be no scriptural truth to meditate on. But if we never let Scripture soak in our minds, we will never bring it to bear in all the areas it can speak into our lives.

Why Should I Meditate on Scripture?

So we have an idea of what meditating on Scripture is - but why should we do it? 

Meditation empowers obedience

Read Joshua 1:8. The old covenant people are on the cusp of entering the promised land. What determines whether or not they can keep the land? Obedience: their faithfulness to what they agreed to. What lies underneath their obedience? A clue is given in God’s charge to Joshua. “God means not for Joshua to be merely familiar with the Book, or that he read through sections of it quickly in the morning, or even that he go deep in it in study, but that he be captivated by it and build his life on its truths. His spare thoughts should go there, his idle mind gravitate there.”

Read Colossians 3:16-17, Ephesians 5:18-20. What follows from both of these commands (i.e., let the word dwell in you, be filled with the Spirit) are very similar sets of instructions. How does a congregation sing meaningfully? How do we have peace in the home? Is this the Spirit-controlled life or the Word-dwelling-in-you life? The answer is yes. The similarities between the two passages make it clear that being filled with the Word and being filled with the Spirit are one and the same. 

Often times, Spirit-filling for Christians sounds a lot like the eastern meditation practices. Believers talk about emptying themselves of everything that is self and flopping onto the Holy Spirit so he can control them. But Paul uses these commands interchangeably.

The life under the influence of the Spirit is the life meditating on God’s Word. 

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Meditation is the gateway to prayer

We began our lesson by reading from Psalm 1. The Psalms are a book of prayers and songs to God. But did you notice Psalm 1 is not a prayer directed at God? Why is that? 

Psalm 1 is an invitation to prayer. It is pre-prayer. The blessed man, that is, the truly happy person is the one who constantly meditates in God’s law. The Words of God sunk deep into our minds prepare us to talk back to God. Since we cannot know God without his Word, we are not ready to speak to him until his truths have changed out thinking. The rest of the book on prayer can’t take place effectively until one has meditated and filled their life with the Word.

We will talk more about prayer in future lessons, but we need to see meditation as a prerequisite for prayer. It is through constantly thinking about God’s Word - and life in light of God’s Word - that our distracted lives are gathered into the act of supreme attention: praying to God.

Meditation develops the Christian mind

First, we should meditate because it develops the Christian mind. (Read Philippians 4:8-9)

Paul wants the Philippians to know that in spite of the coming difficulty they do not have to be consumed with anxiety and fear. Instead, they are called to evaluate their thinking and make sure their minds please God. What should their extended thoughts look like? 

They need to focus on what is true: filling their minds with what reflects reality. 

They need to think about whatever is honest: what “lifts the mind from the cheap…to that which is noble.” 

They need to fill their minds with what is just: giving to God and…fellow human beings their due.” 

Their minds need to be occupied with what is pure. That is, untainted by evil. 

Their thoughts need to be on what is lovely. If this thought were put into action would it be a beautiful action? 

They need to concentrate on what has good report. This concerns what is appealing, what is likely to win people and seem gracious rather than what is shocking and disgusting.

How do we know what is true, what is honest, what is just, pure, and lovely and appealing if we are not meditating in Scripture?

II. How Can I Meditate on Scripture?

Realize you are already meditating

The first thing we need to address when it comes to the how of meditation is the fact that you already know how to meditate because you do it all the time. You may not be meditating on Scripture, or meditating on life from a scriptural lens, but you do meditate. 

David Mathis writes “It is a distinctively human trait to stop and consider, to chew on something with the teeth of our minds and hearts, to roll some reality around in our thoughts and press it deeply into our feelings, to look from different angles and seek to get a better sense of its significance.”

You mediate all the time. For instance, consider worry. What are you doing when you worry? You take one thought - something that could happen in the near future, and think about all the ramifications if it did happen. If you worry, you do meditate. The same is true with holding grudges. The problem is not knowing how to meditate, but meditating on the right things.

Commit to the other forms of Bible intake

Hearing, reading, studying and memorizing all feed meditation. To meditate on Scripture, you have to know Scripture. You have to be familiar enough with something if you want to dwell on it. Thus, meditation is not a substitute for other Bible intake disciplines. Rather, meditation is the destination of all Bible intake.

Think of it as the goal of your other related disciplines. Listen to the preached Word so that you can mediate on Scripture. Read your Bible in the morning so you can be thinking about it throughout the day. Memorize verses so in your spare time your mind will wrestle with what you have committed to memory. Study the meaning of Scripture so you can think through its application in life. 

Conclusion

In what ways did you practice some form of meditation this week? Did you worry? Did you harbor anger about something?

Is your thought life marked by the injunctions of Philippians 4:8?