Automatically Generated Transcript

We're going to be asking the question, what is meditation? We're going to ask the question, does meditation do we're going to look at some challenges, maybe meditation, and then we're going to end with some, hopefully, that encouraging vision for for the future and for the present. And so, um, yeah, let's open our Bibles to Psalm one and we can read together.

Psalm one says Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scorn. His delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night, he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chap which the wind drives away, Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, For the Lord is the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall father speak to us from Your Word, I actually want to read that passage one more time. And this is kind of a interactive and demonstrative way of meditating. Is we read it and we read it again, but I want to read it in a translation by a man named Robert Walter. He's a Hebrew scholar, and he translated the whole Hebrew Bible, but he focused more on maybe retaining some of the poetic imagery, some of the poetic timing as well. And so I want to read this version as well. Happy the man who has not walked in Wicked counsel, nor in the way of offenders has stood, nor in the session of scoffers has set. But Yahweh is teaching, is his desire, and his teaching, he murmurs day and night. I want to stop there. What is that idea of murmuring or meditation? It's something that oftentimes in our culture, we think of meditating, and it's an emptying of one's mind to find peace. Perhaps in some more Eastern religions, that's kind of the idea. Maybe in pop culture. That's maybe one idea that they have in meditation. But biblical meditation was sort of a different kind, and perhaps there's some value in the former. But what we're talking about today is what is meditation when it comes to Scripture, when it comes to what this biblical authors use the word for, and foundationally, that word in Hebrew for meditation is and when one one hagas, they are, as Robert Alter translates it, they're murmuring in Isaiah, 31 verse four, he talks about, he uses the word haggah And the sound a lion makes over his prey in Isaiah, 59 Isaiah uses the word haggad to be the sound that a bear makes before his meal. And Isaiah 38 he uses the word haggad to as the sound of a dove coon in the rafters. Now actually, I don't know if the video is on there in the slides, but I was just in South Africa, and we went on a little wine Park, and it was cool in one sense, because you're seeing all these lines, they're in these, like, big cages. So it's not like you're seeing them out in the wild, necessarily. But one of the coolest things, I love, this sound will be on our glass. Is it

possible to get this house? I later.

Well anyway, another Ryan is growling at each other. There's like, one here, and then there's another on the other side of the fence. They're neighbors, but they don't have each other anyway, and they're kind of like, it's like low, like, guttural growl. And that's limitation. It. And what the heck does that have to do with the law of God? It's like guttural kind of like that. Why does the author of Psalm one say that's what the blessed hand does with the Torah, the instruction of God? Well, the scholar Robert Alter who translated this, he has a note in his translation that the ancient Jewish culture, they never read silently. So even if they were reading by themselves, it was always a quiet, low muttering, a whisper even, of God's Word. And so foundationally, that's what meditation is. It's reading scripture, and it's maybe he's someone, and you're kind of like saying it to yourself, and it's, I wouldn't say this is my daily practice or it hasn't been my daily practice for a long time, as I was preaching over practice. When I preach literally, like what they say you have to do, and so I was trying it this week, and at first it's pretty challenging, because my mind couldn't wander like it wanted to. It's a way to engage your body and your mind and your spirit as we read Scripture. For me, it transforms scripture reading into a holistic experience that my body was then a part of what my mind was doing. My mind was a part of what my spirit was doing. And I think that's perhaps one, one of the reasons why the author invites us into this Hagar of the instruction of God. But beyond that, beyond the foundation, meditation, is a reading of forwards and backwards and up and down of Scripture. We read Scripture most often, the way I most often read it, is linearly. But what the biblical authors have probably intended for us to do is to read it forward and then read it backwards, and then read it up, and then read it down, and it becomes so ingrained in the morning, in the evening and all throughout the day that our minds are transformed by these words. And the other picture that you had, I want to use this example. There's a movie called tenet. It's a Christopher Nolan film. Have any of you guys seen it? It's like one of the most Christopher Nolan films, because the whole movie is going forward, but at the same time going backwards, and it's this big mind shift, and it's wonderful, and I highly recommend it for the adults in the room at your own view of destruction I had and it's actually all based on this image right here. This is called the tent or the cedar square. This is an ancient artifact that actually has a lot of ancient Christian overlap, which is interesting. I can do a ton of research down there. So maybe you guys can do it, or you're like, oh, it's not something that's something to do with Lord's prayer, but you'll see it. The square is the big power. So you can read it left to right. It says, Seder, a red hook. Lieutenant opera, rotos. You can read it down and it says Seder Lieutenant opera protos. You can read it backwards, like from the bottom, Seder 10 opera coronavis, or you can read it

which way down from the

right. Yes, you can read it so just one huge shower room, and that's what reading scripture is like, and if that's confusing, and sometimes reading scripture leaves us with questions, and sometimes it seems like the same story happened just before, and it's happening again. And you're like, Wait, I thought I just read this, and that's actually, I think maybe what the biblical authors want us to experience growing up, I often viewed the Bible as a set of instructions to understand, or maybe lessons to learn, and I think there are definitely lessons to learn and instructions to glean from scripture, But I felt like I was doing it right if I got to the answer. But now I'm more convinced. I could say that the biblical authors are desiring it for us to gain wisdom. And wisdom comes from asking questions. It comes from seeing the same story, or the similar stories, and trying to find the differences between or the similarities that we might pull out deeper wisdom that God has for us. It's mulling these thoughts over and thinking about them in the morning and having these complex problems that plague us. Throughout the day that we're kind of muttering to ourselves throughout the day, asking the question, What is God doing? What is the biblical offer? What are the biblical authors trying to communicate to us? So that the problem lasts with us throughout the day, until we're going to bed and we close our eyes, and then the problem is back in our mind, this sort of meditation on scripture, on the instruction of God. It's the continual regurgitation of the stories of Scripture, and this is what fueled the early church. This form of reading is what led the biblical authors of both the Old and New Testament to be able to engage with scripture at such a deep level and transformative way they took these stories and then compared them with one another. They looked for repeated verbiage. They looked for things that might illuminate the stories forward and back, and Psalm one is actually in the Hebrew Bible the way it was, actually the way it's still structured for the Jewish community is you have the Torah, the first Bible says the Bible. You have the Nevada, which is the prophets, starting from Joshua through Malachi, and then you have the kitim, which is the starting with psalms, ending with person setting cards. That's the Tanak, and that's the way Jesus read the Bible. In Luke 24 we see Jesus talks about it. He says all of the law and the prophets in the Psalms. And he's talking about the structure of the Bible. So if we think about that Psalm, one is the opening of this last section of scrolls in the Hebrew Bible. And it might be good to think through, okay, what? What are some of the themes or ideas that happened at the beginning of the Torah and the beginning of the nebuchadne, the prophets that might be reflected in the Psalms. And then you see the tree of life, right? Psalm one He shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither, that should immediately light up in our minds and say, Oh, that I've heard of that tree before. I've seen that tree before in Scripture. And it's on the first pages of Genesis. We have this tree of life that Adam and Eve, interestingly, I won't go down as tan it, but they were not forbidden to eat from that tree. And so there's this tree of life that some scholars would say, is this life source of God that brings life to the ear. This tree is now in the beginning of Psalm one. And so as I was preparing, I was like, Okay, well, there's no tree of life at the beginning of Josh one. That would be too far. But what Joshua does say in Joshua one, it says, Joshua, do not let the law of God depart from your lips, but meditate on the law of God day and night. So then Psalm one is actually communicating to the reader this wisdom that the blessed man, this blessed person, the the good life, is found by observing and and by meditating on the totality of Scripture. And the blessed life transforms one into the tree of life, so that you might meditate on God's instruction. And that's that's the way that the biblical authors read Scripture and meditate on me. They allow these problems not to be quick fixes that they might keep going with their lives and to plague them throughout the day. Paul did a great job of this, and another team won't go down in depth, but it's Galatians four. In Galatians four, Paul opens with a meditation on the story of Sarah and Hagar. He then jumps to the story of Isaac and Ishmael, and then he compares two mountains, Sinai and Jerusalem. And then he compares those. And then he pulls it together with a scripture from, I think, one of the prophets, maybe. And when you read that passage, man, it's it's confusing, and it is not super clear. Peter says that Paul's writing that sometimes Paul is confusing and I but what it demonstrates is that Paul was continually murmuring the Word of God. It was transforming the way Paul viewed the world. And so there's an important aspect of meditation that is asking questions. And I think sometimes I want to be like I said earlier, quick to find an answer, and I'm going to reference this later, but sometimes I'm maybe afraid to ask those questions, because I have this view of who God is. You. But for now, I want to, I want to hold that question for a little bit later that point. But I want us to be a group of believers who approach scripture with meditation, with the confidence that God wants to be known by his people, that He longs to reveal Himself to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Okay, so

what that is, what meditation is what meditation is. But what does meditation do?

And I think in verse three, it the author is very clear, meditation transforms us into the tree of life, and that's a very big claim, but I think that's what the author wants us to be thinking through He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, who bears fruit in its season, whose leaf does not wither. And all he does, he prospers. When we meditate on the Word of God, on his instruction, we become these trees. We become the blessing that God gave to Abraham, that he would be a blessing to the whole world. Our fruit, the fruit of our lives, becomes the refreshment and joy of those who receive it, our families, our communities, our nation, all the nations will receive the blessing of the life giving trees that we become as our minds are changed and transformed into the mind of Christ, the second stanza of that is that the trees will be planted by streams or by rivers of living water. And I think there's, there's maybe two ways, or I'm sure there's more than that, but there are two ways that I would say today about what that stream of living water could be? The first idea is the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New the biblical authors would often use water imagery as reflective or communicative of the spirit, the work of the Spirit. So in this sense, desiring God's law, murmuring it day and night, leads us to plant ourselves in the life giving water of the Spirit that washes us clean. In John seven, Jesus says himself that he stood and he says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the spirit, our meditation on the instruction of God transforms us into the people and community that reflect the character and heart of God through the working of the Holy Spirit in lies, we become more generous, more humble, more certain hearted, more content. We become more compassionate, more aware of those in need. We become more willing to move towards the broken. We become less concerned with our egos and our pride. We become less worried about our finances or how we will provide it. We become people so confident in the awesome and amazing power and care of our God that we will say like David in Psalm 23 Yahweh is my shepherd. I live without lack. So if this is what meditation does, if this is so good, why don't I do it like, personally me, like, Why do I forgo it? Like, it sounds so good. I want to desire God's teaching. I want to live a life where I'm transformed into this tree of life, where people come and receive of the fruit and their lives are transformed, and they have life because I am planted by streams of water. I want to meditate on God's instruction morning and evening, but sometimes I don't, often times I don't.

Why is that? How can I want something and see its value? But still,

yeah, but still not do it. And so honestly, for me, this next portion, hopefully in a non condemning way, but in a way that I hope will bring clarity to us, and perhaps, yeah, maybe ways that we can continue to grow in Christ like this. And you probably have heard me say this before. Sorry. I think the first thing for me that keeps me from this desire is too little desire. CS Lewis has a quote, and I'm sure I've read before, but he says that it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures pulling about with drink and sex and ambition, and when infinite joy is offered us, we are like an ignorant child who wants to go on. Making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer at a holiday by the sea. We are far too easily pleased. And I think for me, a lot of this actually comes with being easily distracted. For me personally, whether it's my phone or my hunger, my comforts, I let them suck the life out of me for no value, like you sitting there, and I'm like, I gained nothing like what am I doing? But I don't, I don't think that's the end of the story. And I think we can ask God for greater desire for him. I think another reason that I or we lose out on desiring John's instruction, on remembering his wisdom, day and night, and I want to be this is my thought. We can weigh it together, but it's that we've been taught the Bible, that reading the Bible is an end in itself. In many cases, this is a misunderstanding. We see someone we see the wisdom that it provides. And the psalmist says, read Scripture and you'll have a blessed life. And we say, Okay, I'm going to have input a number of C, output, B, hoping to get the life that we think is promised, and I want to be again cautious here, but I've been perhaps in some churches where the act of reading scripture was described as the end in itself. And this can be benign at best, a misunderstanding, but in some cases, this can be devious, perhaps manipulative. The value of the Christian, the church goer, becomes equated with the amount of time they spend in Scripture, the their quiet time, their their acceptance into the community, their respect doesn't come from their inherent to my whole day, but rather their conformity to the norms of that specific culture. Now don't mishand Me. This whole sermon is about the beauty and wonder and delight and desire and awesomeness that we have in reading scripture. What I'm not saying is that we don't do it, or that it's it's bad. What I'm trying to say is that this beautiful good can become warped into a bad and it can lead us to actually move away from scripture, and it can lead to harm the individual or the community when it becomes warped. And this is like all things, all good things, can become warped by the enemy when they're taken out of their context, and when we view and treat Scripture as an end in itself, not the means to the person who is Jesus, We actually are in danger of warping that good i The ultimate goal of meditating, of murmuring God's word, is to encounter God and grow in Christ likeness, Jesus, the Word made flesh. He is the one we seek to know.

He's the one to see who we seek to grow more into through the means of Scripture.

We are confronted with Christ when we read Scripture. And this leads me, perhaps to my last challenge. I'm overwhelmed by the reality of meditation. I become paralyzed because I don't want to get it wrong. I understand that when I read scripture, I'm encountering God, and that's a weighty thing, and sometimes I am afraid to do it, or sometimes I don't know if I have the energy to do it. I don't want to mess it up, and I don't want to miss out. I have this thing for me. I have this thing where I want to be perfect at something right away. I don't have to go through the hard work of growth that is grueling, the effort that leads to that growth. I just want to start out perfectly. And some of you might empathize. This is definitely not everyone's challenge, but it is one for me. And so when faced with meditating on the instruction of God, I want to have all the insights, I want to have all the knowledge, I want to have all the wisdom, without the working, without these things. And in me, this is often a too lofty and idolized view of myself and of that I do need to repent. It also reflects in me a misunderstanding and a mis characterization, mis characterization of God. I. I view reading scripture and the desire to not mistake make mistakes, because I believe God perhaps as angry that if I take a risk and make a mistake, that God will become that he'll write me off. It'll say, You know what? Come on, Jake, you're better. Don't What are you doing? But that is not at all the picture of God we see in Scripture. Again. CS Lewis, in another book, he wrote that oftentimes our culture will save God, but his biggest critique is his lack of justice, perhaps in his punishment. But CS Lewis, he actually argues that that claim falls flat when you actually look at the totality of Scripture. The real claim that that poses actually any real challenge, is that God is a veteran risk taker that he choose to work through humanity. Now that claim also falls flat in being able to create God, but God is a huge risk taker in choosing to trust and work with us. So for me, I have a complete wrong view of God, if that's how I approach scripture, that I can't make a mistake our God, our God is a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love and faithfulness. He's a God that longs to be known by his people so much that the creating Word of God became his creation to redeem His people out of slavery and into life through his own death and praise God that this step was not the end, but he arose, conquering death, and ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God, interceding on our behalf at this moment, right now, Christ is interceding for you and for me. So when we meditate on scripture, when we ask questions of Scripture and treat it with the care that it deserves. And we come away with questions and maybe even a little bit more confusion. And we say, God, what is going on? He is not sitting there saying, why don't you get he's saying, oh, man, I love that you're interested in me, because I am deeply interested in you know, the book I want to close, we've looked at meditation what it is in both the foundational and maybe metaphysical sense. We've looked at meditation what it does. It transforms us into trees of life. It transforms us into it plants us by the streams of water, which is the Holy Spirit. It connects us to the life source of God. We looked at some challenges of what we might find when it comes to meditation. And I want to close by reading Ezekiel, 47 and Revelation 22 it sounds like a lot. You'll see. This is a picture of the resurrection life that we have in Christ, and we experience it in part. Now we indeed become these trees of life, but you and I know that we have not tasted the fullness that is to come. Yet we see it, perhaps, as Paul would say, as a mirror dimly. But then we will see it face to face for what it truly is when Christ returns and restores all things, when the darkness and sorrow that creeping are no more, when the wars and terrors and evil has had its last word, there will be a river running with the Tree of Life lining it, where we will eat of the fruit, and in every season, it will produce good fruit, the fruit that connects us to the very life source of Christ. We look forward to that day, and we believe that we can start living in that reality today. So we're going to start with Ezekiel, 47 verse six. Then he, being the guide, led me to the bank of the river. When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. And he said to me, this water flows toward the eastern region and down into the arbla where it enters into the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh, becomes clean. Swarms of living creatures will live there. Wherever the river flows, there will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh. It makes the dead water living. So where the river flows, everything will live. Fishermen will stand along the shore from end. Eat. And there will be places for spreading nets. There will be fish of many kinds, like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea, but the swamps and the marshes, they will become fresh for they will still be left for salt. Fruit Trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month, they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them, their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. Then, in Revelation 22 it says, Then the angel showed me the river of life,

the water as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and from the lamb.

Down the middle of the greatest street of the city, on each side of the river, stood the Tree of Life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse the throne of God, and the lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and there will be no more. They will not need the light of the lamb or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.

God, we want to know you. We want to meditate on your word day and night.

We want to see you clearly. We want to know your character. We want to be transformed into these trees of life that the people around us, our family, our communities. God the city of Boone, the state of North Carolina. God that all the nations would taste of the fruit of the goodness of Christ from our lives. God, that mountainside would be transformed into a community of people who bring life to the nations. God, would we meditate on your word? Would we murmur it in the mornings and evenings? Would we ask hard questions knowing that you delight in the risks that we take for that is the example that you have set for us. Would we trust in your character? We love you, God. Would we be transformed by your spirit?