Well congregation this afternoon, let's open our Bible. And we'll turn to Philippians chapter four. Philippians chapter four. We'll begin our reading there in chapter four at verse four. We'll go through verse nine and our focus and attention will be on eight and nine. As we consider now scripture meditation number two, we learn these things from God's holy word. So to Philippians chapter four, beginning at verse four, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you. So beloved, God's glorious and wonderful word of great help and value to the Christian. Let's ask his help by the spirit this afternoon as we continue, shall we? Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you so much that young and old alike have the desire and the delight by the spirit at their capacity and ability to grow, to learn, We pray, oh Lord, that you would indeed help us to grow, enable us to grow, strengthen us by the grace of Jesus Christ for that growth and maturing. We know, Lord, that it is right to, from the gospel, exhibit thankfulness. And this then, meditation being a part of that, Lord, we pray that you would help us to glory in the study of, thinking about, pondering, and applying of your word in our lives. Hear us now and help us. Oh Lord, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we began this short series on scriptural meditation last week. We had that introduction to this unfamiliar scriptural discipline from Psalm 1. Maybe we've been considering Psalm 1 or pondering Psalm 1, those first couple of verses since then. We said then last week that that general introduction was in a sense merely paving the way so that we might now begin to examine some of the details. And the first thing that we need to be reminded of, and this is the primary detail before us this afternoon, is this. that it is a true blessing to see now how Christ does keep us near him, how Christ does keep us near him in spiritual disciplines. Because, and here's something we will probably all agree with, because he needs to keep us near him because, as the familiar song puts it, we are prone to wander, Lord, we know it, prone to leave the God we love. So then we need to see these activities, as we're calling them as spiritual disciplines, we need to see these activities as graces. Now I use that plural, we're not always using grace that way, but these are graces from God, His grace in multiple different ways. We would say prayer is by grace, Bible reading is by grace, and so also meditation is by grace, and fasting is by grace, and even something as maybe not thought of as journaling by grace. Well, this afternoon, then, we need to dig more into the details of the what and the how of scriptural meditation. And then we will discover, as we do that, that it is not as unfamiliar as we might think after all. For we all already have an inner thought life. We all already have an inner thought life. So people of God, here's your first fill in the blank. People of God, scriptural meditation is that grace-led spiritual discipline of focusing and directing our inner thought life to truths and topics that will bring a harvest of godliness. Beloved, Christ Jesus will enable us to his glory through scriptural meditation. So then scriptural meditation is the decision to think about, for action, godly themes. Scriptural meditation is the decision, notice that, we'll come to it, it is the decision to think about, for action, godly themes. Well, we'll take from the text these four things. First, finally, brothers. Second, for profitable meditation, evaluate and decide. Third, then think on those things. Meditate. And then fourth, then put them into practice. Act. Again, scriptural meditation is the decision to think about, for action, godly themes. Now Paul, in Philippians four and verse eight says, finally, brothers. Well it seems reasonable to assume then that there are two things to be learned here which will set us on the course of hearty scriptural meditation and we'll take brothers first. Obviously, using that language, Paul is addressing believers. Now that seems almost too obvious to state, but we need to realize the great gulf of difference between what the world calls meditation, which is often the Eastern idea, we hinted at this last week, of something called transcendental meditation, where the desire is to empty one's mind, to be as free from thought as is possible. That, beloved, is entirely unbiblical. And it is not at all what we're talking about. Scriptural meditation is far from the emptying of the mind, rather it is the filling up of the mind. And this is why we understand this to be Christian in its very nature. Paul is addressing believers. Christians, we, do benefit from scriptural meditation because we are in union with Jesus Christ. And in union with Jesus Christ, we each have the sanctifying Holy Spirit. To put it theologically, we are in Christ and the Spirit is in us. We are in Christ and the Holy Spirit is in every believer. As the Spirit is in us, he is at work in us. And one thing he is at work in us doing is causing us to learn and to submit. Now, we don't use that second word in a negative way. Learning is positive, but so is submission. Because by learning and submission do we come to grow in godliness and to love the Lord Jesus Christ all the more. We need to then be ready to accept this all-important teaching. Paul says, finally, brothers. Now we might ask, what does he mean by that? Has he come to the last things? Well, sort of, a little bit, but he has a lot more to say. And actually, he said finally earlier than this. Back in chapter three at verse one, he said finally already. So he can't just mean now I'm coming to the very end of what I have to say, it's something a little bit different. What he's really saying is now, to me, Paul is writing personally, to me, says the Apostle Paul, this what I'm about to say is very important to me. To come down to it, to deal with a very substantive matter now in Paul's heart, he comes to the matter of verses eight and nine. Paul says what comes next is very important to him. Dearly beloved, the apostle who writes to Christians, to our hearts as well, here tells us that to him, scriptural meditation is a very important spiritual discipline. He says, now I want you to understand how significant this is to me. Now we would say, backing up just a step for a moment, we would say what a blessing it is here to realize that scriptural meditation flows out of union with Jesus Christ. May I say that differently? It is not an add-on. It is not Jesus Christ plus scriptural meditation, or if we could even think of saying this, it's not Jesus Christ plus prayer or plus Bible reading, is it? You say, no, of course not. You say it's because I'm in union with Jesus Christ that I pray or read the Bible. And we say, well, that's obvious. Well, so to Paul, is it here obvious that scriptural meditation comes flowing out of our union with Christ? This is a grace which shapes us because we are in union with Jesus Christ. You can't, and I've said this before in kind of funny ways. You know what I'm about to say in terms of Amazon. You can't click on your phone and order from Amazon the blessing of scriptural meditation and they'll deliver it to you the next day. It doesn't work that way. But Christ, by his spirit, strengthens us so that we will be more and more in communion with God. What are we saying, and why is this important to say this up front? Because we need to understand, again, contra, against, opposed to, the Eastern idea of meditation. We need to understand that scriptural meditation is not, first of all, a work. It is not, first of all, a duty. It is not, first of all, well, if I do this, and if I do it right, and if I do that, and if I do it right, well, then all of a sudden I'm gonna flower and blossom, and everything's gonna be all great with me, scripturally, spiritually, no. Beloved, it is, first of all, grace. It is, first of all, what Jesus Christ, by his spirit and word, is doing in us. Here is something, if I can put it now very bluntly, that we can be certain about as Christians. Christ loves to see his work in us bearing fruit. He loves to see his work in us bearing fruit. I might even say it this way. He loves that more than we love it. He wants to see us grow more even than we want to see ourselves grow. Now that's, I hope we see, sort of natural. Because he is Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, our King, and we are in the process of growth, in the process of maturing. Well, people of God, there is no doubt that Jesus Christ will strengthen you spiritually for the activity of scriptural meditation. Almost want to say we have to stop here and not go any further in the sermon unless we understand that There is no doubt we need to say this it needs to be an affirmation There is no doubt that Jesus Christ will strengthen you spiritually for the activity of scriptural meditation It is what he is doing About this Paul is convinced and so must we Well, let's look at that and find it to be more convincing. Secondly, in this for profitable meditation. Evaluate. And decide. Verse 8. Finally, brothers. Engage in evaluation. Now you might be asking, well, wait a minute, Pastor, I don't see that Paul wrote that well, not exactly. But let's get behind what he is saying here. You see, here Paul lists eight examples of topics or qualities or virtues or concepts that meet the standard. Well, what standard? The standard of things worthy for meditation, you see. or to ask it differently, what things are worthy to be thinking about in depth and in detail? Now, it's very true that there are other things beside Bible verses or beside Bible topics that could be a blessing for you and for us and our minds and our hearts to ponder and meditate on. That may be true, but this is a series on scriptural meditation, and so we want to focus primarily on that. Even more intentionally, we will limit ourselves then to the Bible. And that's where we find the great benefit of what it is Paul is addressing here. Paul says here, engage in evaluation. And since all scripture meets the criteria of things worthy to be meditated upon, all of the Bible is available to us. And then we ask this question, which text or topic, what scripture do I need right now in my life? Instead of some negative thought about myself, what is true, what is lovely about me as one in union with Jesus Christ, for example? Dearly beloved, We look at our situation and then address our situation out of the word of God, meditating on that appropriate text or topic from the Bible. Do you see that Paul is saying to us we need to address our inner thought life? If I can put it this way, instead of things untrue about ourselves, about a friend, about a family member, about a situation, about a fellow congregant, instead of things untrue, we need to think about things which are true. Instead of things that are not noble, we need to ponder and meditate on things that are noble. Whatever is wrong shouldn't be our thinking, but rather whatever is right and so forth and so on. However, We apply that overarching concept to our particular situation in life. For example, where in the Bible do we find a text that is lovely in the face of our fears about the future? Now follow this. Sometimes we think about the future, especially for our children and maybe our grandchildren. And we think, well, this world is going in the wrong direction quickly, and things are unwinding, and things are coming apart, and how do we think about something lovely in terms of our fears about the future? Well, how about this? Psalm 46.1. Could we meditate on this? God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. Or we go in a slightly different direction. Do we ever doubt that God loves us? Now, we don't doubt that He has a glorious salvation in Jesus Christ, but do we sometimes doubt that is true about ourselves? Well, where do we turn in Scripture for help? Is there something right? Something true? Something noble? Something right? Something lovely? that addresses an unfounded fear that God no longer loves me. Well, how about Psalm, there are many places. Here's one, Psalm 17, verse seven. Show the wonder of your great love. And then verse eight, Psalm 17, verse eight. Keep me as the apple of your eye. Now, did you realize that God has you as the apple of his eye? Now, notice that we're setting up the little stages, the steps along the way, so that we can begin to think on those things in an attentive, purposeful, and deep way. If you just take that one verse, Psalm 17, verse eight, and you turn it over and over in your mind and in your heart, and you think, keep me as the apple of your eye, you begin to say, well, whose eye? Oh, God's eye. Who's the me? That's me, myself, my situation. Are we really concerned about the immorality in our world? Or how much of the world seems to be seeping into the church or into our own lives? Is there a, whatever is true, whatever is noble, to meditate on in regards to that, the troubles of this fallen world? How about this one? In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. So people of God, and notice we're getting into the details here, the nuts and bolts, people of God evaluate how scripture addresses the situation you are struggling with, pick a passage, and focus on that truth by meditation. All right, so thirdly, then, think on these things. Meditate. But I want you to notice, please, the flow of verse eight. There's a very intentional logic the apostle is using here. It goes like this. Evaluate, select, so that you have something fruitful to think about. Evaluate, what's my situation, what's my dilemma? Select the appropriate text that might address that situation so that you have something fruitful upon which to think. Or to put it differently, now here, this should be helpful. Scriptural meditation is no more than, it's no more than organized, focused, intentional thinking. Scriptural meditation is thinking. Now we need to see that it's a developed and it's a spiritual thinking, but beloved, that's the easiest way to understand what meditation is. This is what the Apostle Paul says here, but the NIV translates it, and this is not unhelpful, but it's an interesting translation. Think about such things, because we use that language regularly. Think about such things. The new King James translates the Greek word here, meditate. The old New American standard has something perhaps a little bit more challenging, but I think very beneficial. Let your mind dwell on these things. Let your mind dwell. On these things. So what could be more fruitful or joy bringing? Then to bring scripture to bear on our situation. OK, so if we've done that so far, we've assessed here's my situation and and here's a good scripture text that I could apply to the situation. How do I actually engage in that kind of biblical scriptural thinking and meditation? Let me give you. 5 basic principles. I'm not trying to overwhelm us with too much detail, and these are just some bare bones, principled issues, but I think we'll be able to apply them. Well, first, memorize the text or use an aid. Now, if we're a little older, we probably realize already how much easier it was to memorize things, rather, when we were younger. I'm not trying to let us off the hook just because we're of a certain age, but when you reach a certain age It's a little harder to memorize things, but if you're still good at biblical memorization great pick a small text like that's psalm 17 8 keep me as the apple of your eye and memorize that because then you have that in your mind in your heart to turn over and turn over and turn over if if If meditation's just not possible, and for a lot of us it isn't, use an aid. I would have said 20 years ago, use a three by five card. That's still okay. But a lot of us have phones. And there's lots of apps freely available for your phone if you carry that around in your pocket to simply have that verse plastered on your screen of your phone. So anytime you're in line somewhere, you can just pull out your phone, tap the app, and there's the verse. Oh yeah, keep me as the apple of your eye. which having it before you at every moment allows for, you see, meditation. Now, what I'm gonna say next is kind of going against the idea of standing in a line, but you can meditate when you're in line waiting to check out, but more desirable is to find a quiet place or some place that is to you peaceful. The song we sang a moment ago, I wonder as I wander out under the sky. And then for some people, that's a glorious place to meditate, out in nature. Jonathan Edwards, the greatest American theologian, the greatest in American history, used to go out on horseback to meditate and he would carry a whole slug of pieces of paper And he would come to a thought in his meditation, he would stop his horse, he would take out a piece of paper, jot down that note, pull out a pin that his wife had given to him, and pin the note to someplace on his coat, and I'm making this up. And he would do that for a couple of hours, and he would get home, and he would walk in, and his wife would kind of snicker because here he was with all of these notes pinned to his coat, and she would pull out the pins and keep the notes and set them in an organized way for him. He would do that out in creation, out in nature, and that would be the wonderful place for him to think upon and dwell upon and ponder God's word. Whatever that place is for you, a quiet place in your house, A quiet place at work if you can find such or out on a walk or something find a place That is peaceful third Go over and over in your heart Each word in the verse or each aspect of the topic Go back to Psalm 46 for a moment now this again is a passage we know pretty well and God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. By the way, that's a lot for meditation. But what you do is you stop and you go over each word of that passage and you think through the implications. Who is my refuge? God. What is God like? What are his limitations? He has no limitations. What is his heart? He loves me. What is his will for me? Romans 8, 28, only good things and so forth and so on. When we begin to turn that over, okay, what is a refuge? Do I think of castle? Do I think of a fortress? Do I think of a, you know, someplace in my home that is safe from other people? Something for me is a refuge and you begin to think through that. God is, Not just a refuge, but the scripture says God is my refuge, our refuge. That's personal, isn't it? That's covenantal. And so you're thinking of those various words of that text or a topic, and you're beginning to rehearse to yourself what it is you know from the scripture about those words. Turn them over and over and over. I've often heard it said, I don't necessarily like this illustration, but since it's stuck with me, it might stick with you, and maybe you've heard it before. It's like the cow, yes, chewing his food, and it swallows it, and it brings it back up again, ew, and it chews it some more, and it swallows it, and it brings it back up again. We don't have seven stomachs like cows do, but we try to get every bit of nutrient out of that food. We think about each of the sections of that verse. Okay fourth and I think this is very valuable Fourth Fix your heart on two or three words within that verse or under that topic just two or three and Really dig into those All the words in a verse of ten words might be important, but just pick out two or three You will find out that those words are closely connected to that situation that you're facing. This will happen almost normally. The words that seem to occur to you that are really closely aligned to the situation you're facing will be the words that you want to dig down into and really turn them over and ponder them and apply them. Just a couple of words. Well then, fifth and finally, draw out very personal applications particular to you. This one's gonna be important as we go on in a moment to our fourth point of putting them into practice. You're gonna need this. Draw out very personal applications that are particular to you, not just general to Christians everywhere, but specific to your situation. Well then, dearly beloved, We can develop a strong mind for the word from scriptural meditation upon that word. Finding out, and here's a great blessing, finding out that God has more than enough grace in scripture for all our concerns. More than enough grace in scripture for all our concerns. Well, let's have a little bit of a practice in this for a moment or two. Let's work this out. What's our situation? So our situation happens to be that we need to make a significant life decision. Maybe it's, do I get married or should I marry that person? Maybe it's, do I switch jobs or do I move? Do I buy that house? Do I not? Okay, so if that's our situation, we need to make a major life decision. Let's turn to a very familiar passage of scripture and see how this works out. So in your Bible, go to Proverbs. Some of you already know where we're going. Go to the book of Proverbs in chapter three. Proverbs three and five and six. Now remember what we're doing, we've discovered our situation and it is that we need to make a major life decision. And we want a scripture text that addresses that situation and we want to read it, maybe memorize it, put it on an app, write it on a three by five index card, whatever. Go out and ride our horse and pin notes to our coat. No, not that. I mean if you want to. But let's meditate on this. So Proverbs 3, five and six, listen. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Now, there are many words in those two verses and we're probably very familiar. So let's just pick the first one. We've decided in those two verses we're gonna meditate on the word trust. Now I hope you see and are convinced without me having to say it at all that that's a huge issue right there, isn't it? There's a lot to be considered in that biblical word, word trust. We ponder and we think about that. It's such questions like this. What is required for me to trust? And you think, well, I want to trust somebody or something that's undeniably true, not going to lead me astray. And we immediately are thinking about God, right? Trust in the Lord, of course. OK. What might be a benefit to trusting God? You begin to say to yourself in biblical meditation, scriptural meditation, what might be a benefit to me to trusting God? But then we ask a question like this. What things about me and my personality make it more difficult to trust? Because I would imagine if I can just pause here for a moment, we might have life experiences behind us in our history for some that make it more difficult than for others to trust. If you, and I'm looking out at us, and I don't think for any of us this is the case, and if it was the case for you, I'm sorry, come up and tell me, but I don't think any of us grew up in broken homes with great angst and anger and abandonment of a parent or both, and we were left on our own. If that was our case, trusting is gonna become a much more significant issue, isn't it? So that's something about us personally. There might be something different than that about you and trusting. What things about me make trusting the Lord difficult? Then we ask this. What has Jesus done in my life, in my past, that makes trusting more joyful and easier? And now we're going in the other direction, aren't we? We're reminding ourselves, great is thy faithfulness. Lord, you have been the same yesterday, today, and forever, Psalm 90. You've shown yourself glorious and true, and I can trust you. And now, now remember, beloved, in this two-verse section of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, that's just one word, trust. Well, people of God, people of God, the sustained, focused thinking about a passage or topic out of God's word, scriptural meditation, blesses us with thoughts about those things which are True, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. You see what we're doing? We're saying, I want to think about right things. I want to think about lovely things. I want to think about excellent things and praiseworthy things, about the situation I face. How do I do that? I draw from the word of God, and I turn them and ponder them and think about them and dwell on them. And then fourthly, I put them into practice. I act. So our text has this structure. Think about, meditate for action, for action. That is, when we see verse nine flowing naturally out of the result of scriptural meditation as taught to us in verse eight, then we see that scriptural meditation results in godly actions. Scriptural meditation results in godly actions. Paul is not changing course in verse nine. He is not turning away from what he was teaching by the Spirit in verse eight. He is saying now this is the natural course of things. This is how it works. Scriptural meditation being very practical, thinking, pondering, personal applications, back to Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, need to be applied. And how? Well, here's one way. We take the issues that we've discovered about ourself in that meditation and we turn them into a resolution, as in I am resolved. So here's one. We were pondering, meditating on Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 and that first word, trust, and we came to the conviction that I struggle trusting God to hear my prayers. I wonder if God hears my prayers. I wonder if God answers my prayer. We turn that into a resolution that goes something like this. Resolve to ask God in prayer to help me trust him. We've discovered something, we turn that into a resolution. Resolve to ask God in prayer to help me trust him. Wherever I doubt, whatever I'm unsure about, I know that he has this, he's got this, he can do it. Resolve to ask God in prayer to help me trust him. You see, dearly beloved, Paul says, verse nine, whatever gospel truths you have learned and which you have been thinking about, go to the next step and put them into practice, and God's peace will guard you. So how do we decide which truths need to become resolutions for action? By scriptural meditation, as we are thinking through a verse. Let's take one more, this one from this morning. And this is incredibly important. Matthew 121, for he will save his people from their sins. We can ponder, meditate, focus our thinking, our inner thought life on that verse. For he will save his people from their sins. And we think about the words, he will save. And we can ask a question. Do I believe those words? And we say, yes, I believe those words. He will save. And then we turn that into a resolution, resolved to have great comfort about my sins because I believe Jesus Christ did save me from all my sins. Now, as I said this morning, this is not a license to sin. We know better than that. We're not saying, well, because he saves, I can do whatever I want. We know better than that. But I think we often have the opposite problem. Oh, I sinned again. I sinned that same sin again. I'm still a sinner after all these years and we are resolved to say I should have great comfort. Because Jesus said, he has come to save me from my sins. Comfort, comfort you, my people, for you have received double, more than enough, both the removal of our sins and the applying of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We have had given to us more than enough. So that we can have peace. So that we can have joy. So that we can look to him in faith. Now, the morning of December 31st, a couple of weeks, we hope to put all this together from Joshua 1, verses eight to nine. What we've been learning, put it into practice to prepare us to enter into a new year. But for now, people of God, scriptural meditation, brings us real comfort extracted from the rich food of God's word and put into practice addressing real life. Amen. Our Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that we can dwell upon, think about, ponder, meditate on your word. Lord, send us home this afternoon pondering that Jesus came to save us from our sins, to remember, to trust in the Lord, and he will make our paths straight, to believe that God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in times of trouble, to know that you call us the apple of your eye. Oh, Father, as we remember these truths, think about those words. We are dwelling on things that are true and noble and right and lovely and admirable and excellent and praiseworthy, good things, which we need. Help us, Lord, this day and this week. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well congregation, let's turn then to our Blue Psalter again, 208. Oh Lord, how manifold the works. We'll sing the stanzas 208, then our doxology 487.