Sermon Tone Analysis

MEDITATING ON GOD’S WORD—BENEFITS AND METHODS

One sad feature of our modern culture is that meditation has become identified more with nonChristian systems of thought than with biblical Christianity.

Even among believers, the practice of meditation is often more closely associated with yoga, transcendental meditation, relaxation therapy, or the New Age Movement.

Because meditation is so prominent in many spiritually counterfeit groups and movements, some Christians are uncomfortable with the whole subject and suspicious of those who engage in it.

But we must remember that meditation is both commanded by God and modeled by the Godly in Scripture.

Just because a cult uses the cross as a symbol doesn’t mean the Church should cease to use it.

In the same way, we shouldn’t discard or be afraid of scriptural meditation simply because the world has adapted it for its own purposes.

The kind of meditation encouraged in the Bible differs from other kinds of meditation in several ways.

While some advocate a kind of meditation in which you do your best to empty your mind, Christian meditation involves filling your mind with God and truth.

For some, meditation is an attempt to achieve complete mental passivity, but biblical meditation requires constructive mental activity.

Worldly meditation employs visualization techniques intended to “create your own reality.”

And while Christian history has always had a place for the sanctified use of our God-given imagination in meditation, imagination is our servant to help us meditate on things that are true (Philippians 4:8).

Furthermore, instead of “creating our own reality” through visualization, we link meditation with prayer to God and responsible, Spirit-filled human action to effect changes.

In addition to these distinctives, let’s define meditation as deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer.

Meditation goes beyond hearing, reading, studying, and even memorizing as a means of taking in God’s Word.

A simple analogy would be a cup of tea.

You are the cup of hot water and the intake of Scripture is represented by the tea bag.

Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup.

Some of the tea’s flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag.

In this analogy, reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word are represented by additional plunges of the tea bag into the cup.

The more frequently the tea enters the water, the more effect it has.

Meditation, however, is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavor has been extracted and the hot water is thoroughly tinctured reddish brown.

Joshua 1:8 and the Promise of Success

There is a specific scriptural connection between success and the practice of meditation on God’s Word found in Joshua 1:8.

As the Lord was commissioning Joshua to succeed Moses as the leader of His people, He told him, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

We must remember that the prosperity and success the Lord speaks of here is prosperity and success in His eyes and not necessarily in the world’s.

From a New Testament perspective we know that the main application of this promise would be to the prosperity of the soul and spiritual success (though some measure of success in our human endeavors would ordinarily occur as well when we live according to God’s wisdom).

Having made that qualification, however, let’s not lose sight of the relationship between meditation on God’s Word and success.

True success is promised to those who meditate on God’s Word, who think deeply on Scripture, not just at one time each day, but at moments throughout the day and night.

They meditate so much that Scripture saturates their conversation.

The fruit of their meditation is action.

They do what they find written in God’s Word and as a result God prospers their way and grants success to them.

How does the Discipline of meditation change us and place us in the path of God’s blessing?

David said in Psalm 39:3, “As I meditated, the fire burned.”

The Hebrew word translated “meditated” here is closely related to the one rendered “meditate” in Joshua 1:8.

When we hear, read, study, or memorize the fire (Jeremiah 23:29) of God’s Word, the addition of meditation becomes like a bellows upon what we’ve taken in.

As the fire blazes more brightly, it gives off both more light (insight and understanding) and heat (passion for obedient action).

“Then,” says the Lord, “you will be prosperous and successful.”

Why does the intake of God’s Word often leave us so cold, and why don’t we have more success in our spiritual life?

Puritan pastor Thomas Watson has the answer: “The reason we come away so cold from reading the word is, because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.”

Psalm 1:1–3—The Promises

God’s promises in Psalm 1:1–3 regarding meditation are every bit as generous as those in Joshua 1:8:

Blessed is the man

who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

or stand in the way of sinners

or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree planted by streams of water,

which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither.

Whatever he does prospers.

We think about what we delight in.

A couple who have found romantic delight in each other think about each other all day.

And when we delight in God’s Word we think about it, that is, we meditate on it, at times all throughout the day and night.

The result of such meditation is stability, fruitfulness, perseverance, and prosperity.

One writer said it crisply: “They usually thrive best who meditate most.”

The tree of your spiritual life thrives best with meditation because it helps you absorb the water of God’s Word (Ephesians 5:26).

Merely hearing or reading the Bible, for example, can be like a short rainfall on hard ground.

Regardless of the amount or intensity of the rain, most runs off and little sinks in.

Meditation opens the soil of the soul and lets the water of God’s Word percolate in deeply.

The result is an extraordinary fruitfulness and spiritual prosperity.

The author of Psalm 119 was confident that he was wiser than all his enemies (verse 98).

Moreover, he said, “I have more insight than all my teachers” (verse 99).

Is it because he heard or read or studied or memorized God’s Word more than every one of his enemies and his teachers?

Probably not.

The psalmist was wiser, not necessarily because of more input, but because of more insight.

But how did he acquire more wisdom and insight than anyone else?

His explanation was,

Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,

for they are ever within me.

I have more insight than all my teachers,

for I meditate on your statutes.

(Psalm 119:98–99)

It is possible to encounter a torrential amount of God’s truth, but without absorption you will be little better for the experience.

Meditation is absorption.

MEDITATING ON GOD’S WORD—BENEFITS AND METHODS

MEDITATING ON GOD’S WORD—BENEFITS AND METHODS

One sad feature of our modern culture is that meditation has become identified more with nonChristian systems of thought than with biblical Christianity.

Even among believers, the practice of meditation is often more closely associated with yoga, transcendental meditation, relaxation therapy, or the New Age Movement.

Because meditation is so prominent in many spiritually counterfeit groups and movements, some Christians are uncomfortable with the whole subject and suspicious of those who engage in it.

But we must remember that meditation is both commanded by God and modeled by the Godly in Scripture.

We shouldn’t discard or be afraid of scriptural meditation simply because the world has adapted it for its own purposes.

The kind of meditation encouraged in the Bible differs from other kinds of meditation in several ways.

Worldly meditation employs visualization techniques intended to “create your own reality.”

And while Christian history has always had a place for the sanctified use of our God-given imagination in meditation, imagination is our servant to help us meditate on things that are true ().

Furthermore, instead of “creating our own reality” through visualization, we link meditation with prayer to God and responsible, Spirit-filled human action to effect changes.

In addition to these distinctives, let’s define meditation as: Deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer.

Meditation goes beyond hearing, reading, studying, and even memorizing as a means of taking in God’s Word.

A simple analogy would be a cup of tea (pinky finger up).

You are the cup of hot water and the intake of Scripture is represented by the tea bag.

Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup.

Some of the tea’s flavor is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag.

In this analogy, reading, studying, and memorizing God’s Word are represented by additional plunges of the tea bag into the cup.

The more frequently the tea enters the water, the more effect it has.

Meditation, however, is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavor has been extracted and the hot water is thoroughly tinctured reddish brown.

and the Promise of Success

There is a specific scriptural connection between success and the practice of meditation on God’s Word found in .

As the Lord was commissioning Joshua to succeed Moses as the leader of His people, He told him, "This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it.