Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / Episode 55 - Meditating on the Story of God | Slowing Down to Be Formed by Scripture

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Episode 55 - Meditating on the Story of God | Slowing Down to Be Formed by Scripture · #Faith4TodayPodcast

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We read more words than any generation in human history, yet
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somehow we struggle to read deeply, slowly, or attentively.
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In this episode, we're talking about why that matters
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spiritually. Scripture was never meant to be
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skimmed or scrolled. It was meant to be meditated on.
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From Psalm 1 to Jesus own words in Luke 24, we're invited into a
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slower, deeper way of reading where God's story reshapes our
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minds, forms our desires, and leads us into an embodied
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obedience. This isn't about trying harder.
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It's about learning to dwell with God's Word until discipline
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turns into delight. Joy is waiting for us on every
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page. Welcome to another episode of
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the Faith for Today podcast. It's episode 55.
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My name is Matthew. I'm your host, and I'm so
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thrilled that you are listening in today or watching wherever it
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is that you're watching, whether it be YouTube or Spotify.
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Man, it's so, so great to have you along here on the Faith for
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Today podcast. We want to help us to be
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inspired with the message on Sunday, but then integrated on
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Thursday so that we live a life of faithfulness to the Lord
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because we really do believe that faith isn't just internal
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or or a mental experience. It's an embodied one.
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It's one that we integrate into our everyday, everyday life.
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So I'm going to recap a Sunday message.
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I'm going to share some bonus content and then respond to a
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few questions each episode. So let's jump in.
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This week we're looking at meditating on scripture,
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meditating on God's, God's story.
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And the sermon was all about that, meditating on the story of
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God. And in this teaching, I start
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with a simple but kind of sobering observation that we
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live in a generation that reads more words than any other in
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human history, and yet we read fewer books and struggle to read
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deeply. Our eyes are constantly flooded
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with texts, messages, headlines, captions, alerts, notifications.
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But this fast, fragmented way of reading is actually rewiring our
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brains. Neuroscience tells us that the
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brain reshapes itself around what we practice the most, and
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the kind of reading we do forms the kind of people that we are
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becoming digital reading and that quick reading trains us to
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skim, react, and even move on quickly.
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While scripture was designed to be read differently, it was
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designed to be read slowly and attentively.
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That's why so many of us want to engage in the Bible, but we find
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it difficult to focus. This isn't a a moral failure or
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a desire issue. It's really a neurological
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informative 1 in the message. I examined Psalm chapter 1 along
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with Joshua one and Jesus own view of scripture in Luke
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chapter 24 which show us how the Bible invites us to read it.
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Jesus speaks of the Law, the prophets of the Psalms, and at
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the seam, or the intersection of those sections of the Old
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Testament, Joshua 1 and Psalm 1 specifically, we're given a
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clear instruction to meditate on God's Word day and night.
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The Hebrew word haggah means some merber, chew on or dwell
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with Scripture, allowing God's thoughts to inhabit our minds.
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This kind of meditation is slow, prayerful, and deeply
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relational. And it practices.
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And with spiritual practices like Lectio Divina, it helps us
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to relearn how to read in a way that forms us, not just informs
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us. As we slow down, as we give
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scripture our attention and we live out what we read, something
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beautiful begins to happen. What begins is the discipline
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kind of turns into a real rich delight because joy is waiting
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for us on every page. Discipline can really grow into
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delight because joy is waiting for us on each and every page
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and Jesus is on every page. And as Jesus is revealed in
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Scripture, we find more and more joy because as Tara Lee Kaba
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would say, he's where the joy is found.
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All right, let me get into a little bit of just bonus
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content. Double click on a few things and
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share them in the message. I said that mindfulness teaches
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us awareness without attachment, but biblical meditation teaches
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us attentiveness with allegiance where we fill our mind with
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God's Word, forming our desires and even deepening our
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relationship with Him, which is the ultimate goal.
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And so I want to share a little bit of a contrast between
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mindfulness that the world teaches us and biblical
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meditation that Scripture and the spiritual practice help us
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to engage in. The first contrast is that 1 is
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about emptying the mind versus filling the mind.
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So think about mindfulness in the secular meditation for a
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minute. The primary aim is a non
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judgmental awareness of thoughts, feelings and bodily
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sensations. Practitioners are often taught
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to observe thoughts without engaging them and and in some
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traditions even to gently let those things go.
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The mind is trained towards detachment from meaning making,
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but biblical meditation does it differently.
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The goal of biblical meditation is intentional filling of the
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mind with God's Word. Scripture calls us to remember
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to rehearse and dwell on God's truth, even replacing thoughts
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we are not. Thoughts are not just released,
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they are received, weighed, loved, and then replaced with
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what is true. Psalm 119 says I've hidden your
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word in my heart. So while mindfulness emphasizes
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awareness without content, biblical meditation emphasizes
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truth with content. The second kind of distinction
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is the difference between self regulation versus relational
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communion. Mindfulness aims primarily at
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emotional regulations, stress reduction, and mental clarity.
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The self learns to stabilize through techniques of attention
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and breath. Any sense of transcendence is
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usually impersonal, but biblical meditation is fundamentally
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relational. The goal is not calm for its own
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sake, but communion with a living God.
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Peace is not manufactured internally.
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It is received through trust and surrender of the presence to the
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presence of God. That's why Psalms 46 says to be
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still and know that I am God so well.
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Mindfulness trains the self to manage the self.
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Biblical meditation trains the self to surrender and attend to
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God. The third key difference is the
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difference between detachment from desire versus formation of
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desire. So mindfulness often seeks
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freedom from suffering by loosening attachment to even
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desire itself. Desires are observed, softened
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or even neutralized to reserve to reduce distress.
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The ideal state of non reactivity, if you will just
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empty if. But biblical meditation though
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does not eliminate desires, it reorders it it it causes us to
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take our desires and submit them to the truth of who God is and
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who God what God says. So Scripture aims to form what
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we love, not merely what we notice, not just the meditation
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leads us to obedience, to worship, to transform the
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longing. Psalm 1/19/97 says, oh, how I
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love your law. I meditate on it all day, all
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day long. I think it's in Philippians
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where it says that God gives the desires to to both will and do
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of his good pleasure, that he would give us the desire to will
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and do of his good pleasure. In other words, it's not that
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we're trying to avoid desire, but we're allowing our desires
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to be reshaped and filtered and cleaned and sanctified, to use a
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biblical word, into the the way of Jesus.
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So mindfulness desires to achieve peace, but biblical
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meditation reshapes desires to love what God loves.
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And so often times, mindfulness causes us to find peace through
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avoidance or detachment. Rather, biblical meditation
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invites us to engage with God's truth, fill our minds with that
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truth, and to grow in communion with Him as we allow His ways to
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supersede our ways. It's more about replacing and
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filling than it is about emptying and releasing.
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So I think that it's a key difference and the world is
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fully OK with with mindfulness. I think we need to reclaim
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biblical meditation in a, in a healthy, healthy way.
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And again, meditation involves not just thinking, but speaking,
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the muttering, saying again and again these things because as we
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speak, we begin to shape our thoughts and our thoughts and
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our imaginations and what's incubated in our minds leads us
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to incarnation and living. Living that I'm out, which leads
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me kind of to the second thing that I want to kind of expound
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on, and that's that meditation should always lead us to
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incarnation. Meaning what we meditate on
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shouldn't just make us feel better about ourselves.
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It actually should lead us to embody the way of Jesus and to
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obey the teachings of God. In fact, many teachers of Lectio
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add this fifth step, this incarnation, this incarnation,
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we put flesh and blood onto the passage.
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We we translate the Bibles into our life to put it in our faith,
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church kind of vernacular and culture and context.
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We would say this way that we bring faith to life.
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There's a incarnational life to our faith.
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That's why Joshua and Joshua 1 he writes, be careful to obey
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all of the law. Meditate on it so that you may
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be careful to do everything written in it.
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It's not enough just to meditate and understand the Bible.
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You have to get it out of your head, even out of your heart and
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into your into your hands and feet.
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Many, I've heard many rabbis have taught that you learn the
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Torah with your feet more than your ears, meaning you learn
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through obedience, you learn through diligence.
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That's why faith is not an intellectual exercise of
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stimulation, but about physical embodiment.
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It's about an allegiance that has lived out, a loyalty that we
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embody, trust that we embrace and live.
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This is what Psalm 19 is getting at.
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In fact, in some 19 it compares God's Word to honey in our
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mouth. And this isn't like this in
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verse 99 and 100. This is I have more insight than
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all my teachers because your decrees are my meditation.
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I understand more than the elders because I obey your
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precepts. This is a hyperlink all the way
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all the way back to Joshua chapter one, right where where
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we understand more because we obey.
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We we're meditating on it day and night and we live it out.
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So then we see the life of God flourishing in us, that our way
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is successful, it's prosperous, it's in alignment with God.
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We see the life of God flourishing in our life because
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we've obeyed the things that we've considered, understood,
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and meditate on in the Scripture.
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So Psalms 9119 isn't saying to live with this sense of
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superiority to the people who teach the Bible or to like outdo
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someone else and like one up someone.
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No, no, it's not knowledge to puff us up.
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It's knowledge that leads us to life and living it out, which is
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actually what wisdom is. Wisdom is knowledge being
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applied. It's it's living it out.
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That's why the Bible says things like the fear of the Lord is the
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beginning of wisdom. Not the beginning of knowledge,
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not the beginning of knowing something.
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It's the beginning of wisdom because to live in the fear of
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the Lord is to live in a certain way, to act a certain way, to do
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certain things. And in so doing we live in
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reverence and awe and fear of the Lord.
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To, to live in such a way that we want devotion with God, not
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to pee appease him in some angry way, but rather to be known by
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him and for him to be in us. In other words, we fear life
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without God's presence and his life abounding among us and
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around us. And so we live in that way.
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And so I'm not trying to say that I, I do more.
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I'm better than other people. What what's the psalmist is
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saying in Psalm 119 is that then we've we've we've matured beyond
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just knowing something where where many people might settle
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just for insight. We've moved beyond information
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into incarnation and we're living it, living it out.
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That's the big part of what it means to follow Jesus, to obey
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his commands. Just like Joshua one was saying,
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I meditate and I obey. In our modern world, we have
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this bizarre ability to divorce knowledge from practice.
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The social critic Neil Postman called it low information to
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action ratio. There's so much information
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we're inundated with all day long that we're used to just
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hearing truth and then doing absolutely nothing about it.
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And this is devastating to our spiritual life.
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The goal is to get this library of the scriptures lived in our
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in our daily endeavors to get it out of our heads and into the
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muscle memory of our bodies. This is why I love and I think
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about on the job training perhaps being more vital than
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book theory learning alone. It's kind of why you can learn
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some things in the classroom, but it's really when you begin
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to integrate those things and, and have to see it in real life
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that it really begins to grow, right?
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Like, like you can read all of the leadership books in the
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world that you want, but you're really going to learn about
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leadership when you start leading.
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You could, you could read all the parenting books that you
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want, but it's when you become a parent and you start dealing
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with the toddler and you start dealing with the elementary
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student and then you have to engage with teenagers that are
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trying to become distant and independent.
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That's when you really begin to learn.
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You can read all the books that you wanted and that information
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is helpful, but on the job training or application learning
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or integrated learning is, is exponentially more beneficial
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than just book theory learning alone.
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And I think this is very important because meditation is
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not the end of the process. It's actually only the
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beginning. So you get more each pass
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through of the scriptures where you begin.
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The more you meditate on something, the more you
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understand it. And the next time you come to
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that passage, you, you have a foundation and you can examine
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and see some more things. And then you begin to live that
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out. And as you live it out, you
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begin to have have better intimacy with that knowledge or
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with that truth. And then the next time around
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you have a little bit more and a little bit more because you're
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not just hearing it, you're doing it.
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And this is what James gets at when he says, don't just be
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hearers of the Word, but be doers of the Word.
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He's not just saying don't just listen to sermons.
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He's saying as you memorize and recite the Scripture that you
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know you better do it, not just recite it.
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And that's part of what he's giving at it.
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And James has tried to help us understand that meditation is
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not the end of the process, it's the beginning, See, because when
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we meditate on the word, we incubate truth in our
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imagination. And the more we imagine it, we
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begin to see a clear picture of it.
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That picture in our mind of what that looks like is the hope.
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And it's when our faith, our allegiance, our live, our
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embodied trust in that understanding of God, that when
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we live that out, that it becomes evidence of a life in
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love with God, becomes evidence of a life surrender to God
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because evidence of a life has been transformed on the inside.
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How? By the spirits, by the spirits
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power. And I think it's important that
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recognizing that meditation is the beginning of the process.
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It's, it's, it's, it's not the end of it.
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And each time you come to a passage and meditate it, you're
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going to examine something. And, and I mentioned this in the
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message, but like, I don't think we need to live with FOMO when
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it comes to Scripture. Like some of us, we get to the
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text and like, we don't want to leave the text until we get
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everything out of that text. And we're like all in and we,
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we, we feel like we've mastered it.
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The problem is you'll never master it.
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And and what what we actually need to do is not rely on our
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knowledge base and settling there, but recognizing that God
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wants to give you something today.
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In other words, if God meets you in the pages of the scriptures,
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you meditate and prayerfully read the scriptures and and you
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encounter Jesus that day. Are you satisfied with that
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daily bread? Or are you one that is saying
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God, I need more than the the daily bread I need, I need to
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gather some more things. The the problem is we don't need
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more information than we can apply.
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What if you, you only heard and and and stopped on the and the
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information of Scripture? What if, what if God in his
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sovereignty, just through his spirit surfaces the, the, the,
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the one Godshot the thing about God that he wants you to see
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that day as your daily bread. And as you consume that daily
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bread and you chew on it throughout the day, you begin to
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metabolize it into action. It's just one thought about God
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that causes you to live differently that day.
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I think that's why we need to to say God give us today our, Our
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Daily Bread. So as we chew on that bread that
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day, it metabolizes into a life that is obedient and integrating
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the truth that we've heard in the scriptures.
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So we don't need to live with FOMO.
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We don't need to try to, to get all of it.
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We don't need to try to hoard information and just more, more,
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more Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada. No, no, no, it's, it's here's
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the daily bread. Let me eat it, let me metabolize
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it and let me live it out. And that's when we really begin
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to grow and be formed in the way of Jesus.
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I I don't know that we're at a shortage for information.
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I think we're just at a shortage of our incarnation, of our
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integration of those truths into our lives.
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I've heard some pastors say they're tempted to just preach
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the same message until everybody in their church is accurately
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living in like, like, why move on to the next thing if we
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haven't kind of integrated the first thing?
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And and I get it. I think it's actually kind of a
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funny tongue in cheek, but it is kind of like this, Oh yeah, I
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need to be integrating this into my life into living this, into
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living this out so that I'm honoring God with my body, with
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the truth that he's given to me so that as I have a revelation
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of who he is, it transformed how I live toward him.
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I heard it. There's a, there's a poet that
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said attention is the beginning of devotion.
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And I, I, I think it was Mary Oliver who said, I think that's
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who was the, the poet who said attention is the beginning of,
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of devotion. And I think that what we give
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our attention to really does create devotion within us.
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So, so if we we spend a lot of times reading and researching
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and understanding how to restore cars, we have a great devotion
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for restoring cars. My my question is, do you have
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more devotion into Jesus, into the ways of God, into scripture
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than you do into restoring cars? Do you know more about holistic
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living than you do about the scriptures and how it makes you
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whole? Your devotion is showing because
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of what you give your attention to.
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Then do you know more about collecting sports cards and
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memorabilia and what something is worth than you do spending
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your time giving your attention to the the truths of scripture
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and what he has to say? Like what?
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What are the things you give your attention to?
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Are you spending more of your time understanding the political
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landscape of of your of the community or of the city and
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state and nation than you do becoming aware and learning
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about the truths of God's word? Because your your attention
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leads to devotion. And I would say this, that what
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you give your attention to reveals what you really want to
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be devoted to as well. So I think we need to pay
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attention to the scriptures, to meditate on it, to slowly read,
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to mutter it aloud, to prayerfully sit and consider,
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consider and ponder to, as I'll share next week, using study to
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enhance our meditation, not replace or be an addition to our
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meditation of the scriptures. But for now, let's just become
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people who are willing to slow down, read the scripture again
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and again, meditate on the word day and night so that we can be
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careful to observe all that's written in it so that we can
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live out our faith every day. All right, let's get into a
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little bit of a question and response We had.
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We had three questions that I'm going to kind of respond to from
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from the message this week. Here's the first question.
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It says, in today's world, how do we know who the wicked are
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apart from the obvious? Can I sometimes be be wicked?
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It's a great question and it comes really from Psalm one.
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Let me read Psalm one to us because that was kind of the the
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context that this question is kind of coming from.
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Psalm one says happy is the one happy is the one who doesn't
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walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the the
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advice of the wicked or in the path of the sinners, or sit in
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the company of mockers. Instead, his delight is in the
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law of the Lord, of the Lord's instruction, and he meditates on
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it day and night. He becomes like a tree planted
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beside flowing streams that bears fruit in its seasons.
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The league does not wither, or whatever he does prospers.
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And so here in the beginning of someone, he's actually giving us
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a contrast between those who would be wicked, those that walk
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the path of sinners are mocking things and don't live
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prosperous, don't live planted by the streams are kind of wishy
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washy and tossed are reactionary rather than responsive and
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reasoned. It's it's kind of this idea of
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where we miss some of those those things.
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And so that's kind of where this question kind of came from.
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And so how do you know who the wicked ones are?
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Well, obviously mocking and being sinful.
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And I think that's kind of like the obvious, right?
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Like the the murderers and the they wants to embezzle money and
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the the terrorists, right? Like these are the evil people
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that are, you know, sexually just deplorable or immoral with
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their lives and really not, not abiding in those things.
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You know, I think we can see those those elements of it.
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And I think that's true. And yes, I think there are some
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more subtle ways that we can Co-op wickedness that we could,
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as Paul would say, walk in the flesh instead of walk in the
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spirit. In fact, Jesus himself rebuked
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Peter said get behind me, Satan, like a rebuke of the strongest
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sort. In other words, he's saying get
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behind me. You are being wicked right now,
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Peter. You're you're showing your
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allegiance to Satan and the way of the world rather than the way
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of the the Messiah in my way. In fact, the reason Jesus
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rebukes Peter is because he had competing allegiances causing
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Peter to reject the call to follow Jesus to the cross.
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In other words, you know Peter, Jesus, Peter was hearing what
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Jesus was saying about suffering and dying, about leading his
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life in situation to to not being the Messiah.
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That comes in the form of Herod, right?
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Jesus was was saying some things like this is not political power
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and this is not religious establishment in the sense of
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like separatism, right? I'm, I'm not here to separate us
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out and I'm not here to authoritarianly act like Rome
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either. And Peter was having a hard time
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because he wanted to follow Jesus, but also had a secular
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view of how the Messiah should show up.
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And anytime our worldview is more secular than biblical, we
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have a tendency to treat Jesus the same as Peter.
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What do I mean? We have competing allegiances in
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our heart and soul. And and because of that
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competing allegiance, Jesus would say, Peter, you're you're
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being wicked right now. Don't live wickedly.
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Paul gives us lots of what he calls wickedness or again, lust
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of the flesh. He he mentions things like
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greed. We know Jesus talks about not
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caring for widows and orphans and foreigners.
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James talks about that even he talks about being rebellious in
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Galatians, about being a gossip. When we gossip and we slander
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what we're actually living according to the flesh, we're
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living out wickedness, ways that are not walking in allegiance
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and loyalty to Jesus, rather that it's a different world view
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that we're living according to when we're unforgiving, even of
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those who would sow discord in the family of God, those that
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would be more infighting and bitter.
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When you hold bitterness towards another brother and sister,
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you're actually partnering with with the wickedness of the world
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rather than the righteousness of the Spirit.
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And so Paul gives us lots of insights as to can we be wicked?
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Yeah, we can give provisions to the flesh and we can.
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We can gossip. We can be unforgiving, we can be
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bitter. We can be negative.
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We can be decentive. We can be lacking in unity which
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creates chaos and divisions and not submit to authority.
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We can we can live with greed and materialism and trust in
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those things. Try to control God and not rely
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on him like so. There are ways in which
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wickedness grows in our lives and and to to go back to Peter
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and Jesus. When Jesus kind of rebukes
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Peter, this is right after he gave them a warning about the
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yeast of Herod and the yeast of the Pharisees.
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And the thing about yeast is it's almost imperceivable when
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it's operating in your soul and spirit, but it contaminates
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everything. So is it possible to to be
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operating in a competing allegiance where we're trying to
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live like according to the script and narrative of Herod or
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the script and the narrative of of the Pharisees trying to live
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better than and separate out from and yeah, I think it's
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possible. And and in so doing we have
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these competing allegiances which can cause us to Co opt and
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live out from our flesh. A worldly way of living that
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does not give our loyalty to Jesus, but rather our loyalty to
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other things shows up where where we care more about the
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things of this world than we do eternal things.
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And, and I think that's a danger.
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And so we have to be careful and check our heart.
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And This is why we have to come to the word of God and meditate
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on the scripture, know what it's saying, not to get new
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revelation, but to let it be a mirror for our soul so that as
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we're reading it and we look and we look at ourselves against the
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scriptures, we have a clear reflection on am I living the
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ways of God? Am I honoring God?
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Am I am I doing this in a way that's reflective of his
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character? Am I doing it in a way that's
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more worldly, a way that more reflects my culture and tries to
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co-ops these things so so so that my allegiance isn't really
29:10
to Jesus? It's to, to maybe the political
29:12
scene rather than to Jesus. It's it's more of a a Co oping
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where where my allegiance is more to personal comfort than it
29:19
is to the way of Jesus. My, where where my, my, my way
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is more violent than maybe the way of Jesus would be.
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Or or where where I'm trying to to live in a way that puts
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myself at the center of the story rather than recognize I'm
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a humble part of God's of God's story.
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Here's the next question. Most Christians will admit they
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don't spend enough time reading God's Word.
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They agree that they need to slow their lives down, make room
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for spiritual maturity, etcetera.
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Most will agree they even waste valuable time with devices and
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social media, TV, etcetera. But what actual advice?
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What plan can you give us to help us who really want to
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meditate on God's Word but don't know how to implement the goal?
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Yeah, I think a real sincere again, I don't think that any of
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us would be like our desire isn't to do that.
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I just think that our practice has formed us in a way that
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leads us to something against or contrary to what we want.
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And so if I'm going to set up this in my life, number one, I'm
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going to set a time to to be able to read the word of God
30:27
every day on my calendar. I have an appointment from 6:00
30:32
to 6:30. It's just called Coffee with
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God. It's my first appointment every
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day. And sometimes I can go longer.
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I can get into 7 and 7:30 if I want to, depending on how my
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morning goes. But from 6:00 to 6:30, I
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dedicate it. Hey, Lord, this is this is yours
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to set a time. Pick a time that works for you,
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for your schedule, for what you can do.
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Set a place. Where are you going to do this?
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Where's a quiet environment? What kind of lighting?
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What chair are you going to sit in?
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Is there going to be music or no music?
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Set the space. Then use a plan like you need a
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plan and I think a Bible plan, a plan where every day what you
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read is already predetermined so that you're not spending your
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time trying to figure out what to read next.
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You just spend your time reading it aloud.
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I think some things that are also helpful are stacking it on
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another habit. For me, every morning I make
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coffee. So I make coffee and then I sit
31:24
with the Lord. I implemented some of the Bible
31:27
recap, listening to the Bible recap, the, the, the, the videos
31:31
of the recap themselves while I cold plunge in the morning.
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So I cold plunge and I listen to the recap.
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I, I had the recap as a part of my life.
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I actually wanted to start cold plunging and kind of merge those
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two together and it's I'm just stacking habits together, not so
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that my my time is divided, but because if there's a habit, I'm
31:50
already doing something, adding another element at that same
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time can be very, very helpful. So I think stack it on another,
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another habit. So if you have a night routine
32:01
where you can incorporate sitting slowly meditating on the
32:05
scriptures, then do that. If you every lunch looks the
32:08
exact same, you have a lunch break and it looks the same way
32:11
every day. And you can incorporate
32:13
meditating on scripture during your lunch break.
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We'll do that. So, so stack it on another
32:19
habit. And then finally talk about what
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your plan is for and, and, and, and, and have a be able to talk
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about it with other people, whether it's every day you check
32:29
in with like, man, here's here's how it was today.
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Maybe it's once a week, every other week you get with a group
32:34
of people or have a couple friends in a group chat that you
32:37
just talk about your, your God shot that day or what was the,
32:40
your, what was the, the meditation of scripture?
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What, what was, what were you learning about God in the
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Scripture today? Again, it's a practice.
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I think more than anything, you have to be willing to not be
32:52
good at it for a while. As with any new discipline or
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any new habit or anything that you're trying to practice and
32:59
get better at, the goal is to progress in something, not
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become perfect in it. So we're trying to progress in
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what does it mean to meditate? So maybe you use the the lectio
33:10
plan, right to, to, to slowly read, then to, to, to meditate,
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then to pray, then to Inconcemplate and then, of
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course, to integrate into your life.
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Maybe you take those movements right with the Bible recap and
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that that's going to be your plan.
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That's going to be how you're doing.
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Just know, like it might be quick, you might get distracted
33:31
some days. That's the goal is not to do it
33:34
perfect. The goal is just to keep
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practicing. So just acknowledge, give
33:38
yourself some grace if you will, and be like, you know what, I
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might be really bad at this for a while, but it's worth it to
33:44
keep going at it because you're reworking your brain on how you
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engage with this. You're retraining your brain
33:52
even on engaging with scripture. So pick a place, pick a time,
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use a plan, stack it with another habit, talk about it
34:00
with friends, and stick with it knowing you're not going to be
34:04
good at it at first. Like it's a process.
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It's the beginning of a process. It's not the culmination of
34:11
something. And so hopefully that kind of
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helps you gain some traction as you as you go.
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And the more you do it, the more consistent you stay with it, the
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more you engage and learn about it with other people.
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Man, that's that's good. So don't try to be perfect and
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follow a model perfect. Find ways to slow down reading
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the scripture aloud, thinking about what you're reading,
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imagining it, praying it over, contemplating it, and then man,
34:38
really integrating into your life.
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That's the way to go in this in this in this set up.
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Here's the last question. It says to love someone is to
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know them. So shouldn't we read the Bible
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to know more about God and his story?
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Is that, quote UN quote, the pursuit of knowledge wrong?
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How do you know if you're pursuing knowledge that puffs up
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or knowledge that helps you love God and others better?
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So really, really thoughtful question.
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And I'm going to kind of maybe take this in in a few parts.
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So Psalm 119 says I've hidden your word in my heart that I
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might not sin against God. When I think about hiding God's
35:28
word in my heart, I do think about memorization, which we're
35:30
actually going to talk about the last, the last message in this
35:34
collection. When I think about meditating on
35:37
the word of God, I actually think about just meditating on
35:40
it, memorizing it, considering it and and getting it in my
35:44
heart. So I live it out more than I
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just have a fact that I know about God.
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So knowledge absolutely can puff up when knowledge is not
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embodied, when, when we don't apply the knowledge so that it
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becomes wisdom. That's just in other words, if
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you know facts and you know, but but the fruit of the spirit
36:08
isn't growing in you, well then you're not actually being formed
36:11
correctly. You're just in, in, in
36:13
information. So let me say it this way,
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pursuing knowledge that helps us love God more looks the same in
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practice as pursuing knowledge that helps you love yourself
36:25
more. Puffing up right the the the
36:28
practice might look the same. You can meditate, study and be
36:31
slow and become more arrogant and a lover of yourself than
36:36
becoming a lover of God. Both actions look the same.
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The the difference is in the motive and the eventual fruit.
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So to we read the Bible to get to know God 100%.
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So we should read the Bible to get to know God, not get to know
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us. We should read the Bible to get
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to know God, not to know things about God, to correct other
37:02
people so that we can win arguments or we can beat
37:05
browbeat them or we can control them or we can get our kids to
37:09
do what we want them to do because how we know the Bible
37:11
and you know, now we're going to use the Bible to control people.
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That's that's not a healthy way of going about it.
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To know someone is to love them when you know them intimately,
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interactively. So if I know facts about my wife
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but it doesn't help me interact with her in a more healthy way,
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I'm not really loving her, I just know things about her.
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So knowing about someone and knowing someone are different.
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One leads to intimacy, the other just stops with information and
37:45
facts. So we want to know God.
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That's the goal. We're not trying to know about
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God only. We want to know God and so if we
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stop it just information and we never integrate it, we'll never
38:00
experience intimacy with him. That communion with him, which
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is the ultimate goal to be formed in loving communion with
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him so that so that we love God more and love others better.
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That is what we want to do. So.
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So motive matters, ultimate fruit matters.
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And I think the way in which we know whether it stops and it has
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a tendency to just puff us up is if we only have the information
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but we never apply it, we never integrate it, It never becomes
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Incarnate in our lives. For me, that often becomes the
38:37
dividing line when I just have facts that I can recite, where
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my knowing outpaces my living. I don't think theology that we
38:49
know is any good if it's not theology that we live out,
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because I think that's where real love looks like.
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Jesus says if you love me, you'll obey my commands.
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He's not saying obey my commands so that you earn my love.
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He's saying the fruit, love, loving me properly, is that you
39:10
obey My commands. Why?
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Because the more we can contemplate who He is in the
39:14
Scripture, the more we meditate on who He is in Scripture, what
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happens? We obey all that's written in
39:20
it. We begin to live in His
39:22
direction. We move in His direction.
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So information alone is not bad, but information apart from
39:30
integration, man, that's where we miss out on the intimacy and
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intimacy is where the passion is.
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Intimacy is where he is. Intimacy is where we find joy.
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Intimacy is where we we find things.
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It's not that there aren't things times that I read
39:45
scripture like man, I never knew that there's an insight and a
39:48
piece of information I never had before.
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The question is, how does that help me love God better?
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Do I understand him more so that I can love him with a pure
39:57
heart? I would hope so.
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That's going to be seen in how I respond, how I interact.
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And so knowledge alone will puff up because we just know facts
40:08
about something. We want to know Him.
40:10
Now please hear me knowing facts about God.
40:14
We want to make sure they're the right facts.
40:16
That's why studying comes into play.
40:17
And I'm going to, I'm going to talk next week about how study
40:21
ought to be embedded in our meditation practice, not replace
40:26
our meditation practice and not even really be about additional
40:30
to our meditation practice that the best thing to do is to
40:33
integrate it into the whole practice itself.
40:37
So I'll talk more about that next week, but but at the end of
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the day when we come to scripture to know God, it's
40:43
knowing Him accurately. So I love him correctly and if I
40:49
just stop with knowing facts about him, I'm not any better
40:54
than the demons in hell. Because James says even the
40:58
demons know and believe about God.
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The difference is they have no loyalty.
41:03
They have no love for him. They have 0 allegiance to Jesus
41:08
as King. And so it's the the embodied act
41:11
of love for God and for others that allows us to not be puffed
41:17
up, but to properly handle the information of knowing God.
41:22
So yes, we want to know God, but we want to know Him, not just
41:27
know about him. And I for me, that might sound
41:30
like words, but I think there's a motive and a love and a
41:33
loyalty that that is shaped in our hearts when we're loving God
41:37
in that way. And so I think that's a, that's
41:40
a really, really thoughtful, helpful and insightful question.
41:43
Hopefully that response kind of helps our hearts kind of sit in
41:48
a place where it's not just about knowing data, but allowing
41:51
that data to help us create more devotion to him, to love him
41:56
that we do something with the information, not just hold on to
42:00
the information and feel really good about ourselves that we
42:02
know something like we have a secret that nobody else knows.
42:06
We we don't want that. We want to have intimacy with
42:08
the Lord and information helps, but information that causes us
42:13
to to love him more, that leads to intimacy.
42:15
That's what we want to know him, not just know about about him.
42:20
So hey man, I hope you have a great week just practicing
42:24
meditating on the scripture, reading it slow, pondering it,
42:28
praying over it, considering God in all of it, and even
42:32
integrating it into your everyday life.
42:36
May you continue to read slowly and as you see God in the pages,
42:41
may it help you have not just inspiration that may integrate
42:46
those truths into your life so that you can have loyal faith
42:50
today. I love you guys.
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I'll see you next week.