Spiritual Formations- Scripture Study and Meditation pt 2

Cling to the cross, then put both arms around it, hold to the crucified and never let him.

Go.

Come afresh to the cross at this moment and rest there now and forever. Then with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross. Welcome to the Truth and Love podcast. We are on part two of spiritual formations.

The Purpose of Scripture Meditation and Study in Christian Formation

Our first spiritual formation is scripture meditation and study. Again, we're on part number two. Stick with us. Welcome back. I'm Rob and that's Dan. How are you doing, Dan?

Fantastic. I think.

I'm getting a text message.

I really don't know. How are you doing?

Okay.

Good. I thought my text message coming in was saying that the music was too loud. I tried to turn it down real quick. We've got little ones asleep and I can understand how that could wake them up if I'm too loud.

Yeah.

I got plenty of those. I've got four of them. Just went to bed.

Nice.

Nice. So how's it going? Still have snow?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were supposed to get about a foot, you know, a little less than a foot on Sunday, Saturday into Sunday. We got like three inches. So it wasn't, it wasn't much supposed to get another couple of inches on Thursday and then it's supposed to snow all weekend.

We might get, they're saying we might get a foot this weekend, be a little bit more prolonged through Saturday and Sunday.

You had one of those Carolina forecasts. This is the big one.

Yeah.

Flurries.

Yeah.

We will rebuild.

Oh, well, let's get into it. So we're on part number two. Part number one of spiritual formation is looking at scripture, study and meditation. We didn't get very far into the introduction. So let's try to get some, put some meat on these bones tonight.

We want to continue in the introduction of the purposes and importance of the spiritual formation of scripture, meditation, and study scriptural formation. What we're saying is basically this, that the Christian life, there should be some organization to it.

We feel like our God is the God of order as he describes himself in scripture and that he has plans and purposes for us. And as we have, as we can see in scripture, as we can see evidence in, in many Christians' lives spiritual formation or spiritual growth, rarely, I mean, it can happen instantaneously.

I mean, there, there are instances where people are just, they're just healed of a certain addiction or they, they, they find a certain hurdle that they are able to cross over quickly. But Dan, would you agree that it appears from scripture and just experientially that the, the growth, spiritual growth in a Christian life is on the Holy Spirit's timing?

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. You'd like to think that you have a little bit more control over it than you do, but you really don't. And that, that's one of the things, it keeps you, it keeps you humble because we have to recognize that the righteousness we have imputed to us is the righteousness of Christ.

So it's not like we can go through and just drum it up in our, in our sanctification either. Righteousness that we're going, that's going to be formed in us is going to be formed in us because of the power of God working in us.

It's not going to be because of what we do. And we know that's true, especially because there are, there are pagans out there, you know, folks who don't believe in Jesus, who do virtuous things all the time.

We wouldn't say that Christ is being formed in them. Instead, we're, we're recognizing that, that the, the, the thing that's, that's happening to us is a result of Christ living within us, of his life, of our, our death being put to death and his life being given to us in its place.

And another thing that we're not saying is that if you, if you implement this spiritual formation and this program and organize it in such a way and insert it into your life, what we're not saying is that you will see, we are promising you this certain result.

We are saying that on our part, scripture has said, these are the things that God would have us to be involved in, the tools that he uses.

Well, even so, it's more like this. These are the ways in which God has promised to work and form himself in his people.

Right.

So where do we go then to know Christ? We go where he said he's going to form himself into his people, go to the scripture. We go to hearing preaching of the word, the sacraments, prayer, you know, those things that God has said, you know, in, in these things, my grace will be shown to you.

Yeah.

And, and how he works that out in each individual life, you know, is, is his prerogative. But there is almost that, like you said, there's that promise that he will, it's just how he does it is.

Yeah. Yeah.

He said, he says he will.

But how?

Right. That's right.

That's right.

And the speed and it's going to be different in different people for his purposes. So we're not making any promises for any certain outcome other than God is the one who's faithful fulfill his promise.

Because what we don't want to say is that we don't want to say is that if you do X, Y, and Z, then you'll have the things that are promised to you in the resurrection, the perfection of yourself and the perfection, the complete eradication of sin can be brought to you perfectly.

Now we're not saying that. What we're saying is that these are the ways in which God has called us to himself. So when we engage in those things, it builds faith in us. Now you already have faith. Great.

You've been justified. And now you're growing in that justification. What does that mean? Not that you're more justified, but that you're believing further the thing that you already believe. Your faith is growing stronger in Christ.

And as you grow stronger in Christ and in faith and what he has done for you, you do tend to see things, your desires change, your heart changes. And that's when you start to see growth. You don't really know how it goes.

Or was it that Jesus said that the spirit is like, it's like a wind. He's like the wind. He does whatever he wants to. You can see him coming or you can't see him coming. You can't see him going, but you can see that he's working and accomplishing things.

You don't really know how it happens.

Yeah. Yeah.

So let's, let's jump in here. Of course, the reason why we started with scripture is because that's, that's where we put our footing. That's, that's our foundation.

Right. The word of God as he has revealed himself to us.

That's right. So the purpose and importance of this scripture meditation study is a biblical formation or spiritual formation. John 17, 17, knowing God's truth, it says sanctify them in the truth. Your word is true.

Yeah.

This comes from that high priestly prayer where Jesus is, is praying that, that we would be, we would be sanctified or set apart by the truth of God and his, his word is truth. His, his call, his proclamation really.

Because I mean, really that's, that's what, that's what the Christian faith kind of boils down to is that there's, there's our, there's our trying to, to steal the, the divinity of God, you know, in saying that, Hey, we should be able to decide who we are, what we're doing, what we're going to go on that.

That's what we did in the garden. That's what we've been doing ever since is we said, no, I don't believe I'm going to listen to you. I'm going to take this fruit. I don't care if my wife gave it to me or not, I'm still going to eat it.

And then you go on and from there, we continually just mess things up and that is sin. So as we hear proclaim that Christ has died for your sins and he's risen for your justification, as, as you hear that message, that message will, will change you.

Now it changes you either by calling you to faith or by, in some instances, it hardens your heart as you reject it. But either way, God's word is truth and we all respond to it in one way or another.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, and I don't want to neglect by, by inserting this here that, um, it's the Holy spirit who enlightens us that God's word is true. Um, we're going to face this throughout our lifetime and who knows how, how many more generations to come that, uh, other people are going to say, well, there's many truths, um, that's just your truth or there's no truth at all.

And so personally, what is truth? What is truth?

Yeah.

Which was asked, which was asked of Jesus.

Yes.

And so our responsibility is after being enlightened by the Holy spirit is to stand on that truth where we are not. Someone else's Holy spirit. We can't, we can't push them, change their heart, change their mind to, we can't lift as a man, I can't lift the veil of someone else spiritually to, for them to acknowledge what truth is, but that doesn't stop us from standing on the truth that has been revealed to us by the Holy spirit.

Because as we press the word of God into people's lives, that's where the spirit does work.

That's right.

That's right.

A growing in wisdom and spiritual maturity. Second Timothy three, 16 and 17, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching or proof of correction for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work purpose and importance of scripture, meditation, and study.

Yeah.

So those, those four things, I heard it, I heard it put this way. One time it scripture is profitable for, for, uh, what you should believe, what you shouldn't believe, what you should do and what you shouldn't do.

And what does that cover? Everything. And so the old King James says, uh, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly equipped on all good works. And I was perfect me perfect. You mean a couple of different things in the scripture, but what, what it means in this instance is, uh, complete or full that you can have what you need to have so that you can do the things that God would have you to do so you can live a righteous life.

Um, and, and when you do sin, you, you know, that you should turn, be corrected by the word of God, seek forgiveness, and that you'll find it in Christ.

Right, right. And this is such a critical reminder, Dan, because I, I look in front of me, my wife and I have done some rearranging. Um, we put all of our combined bookshelves in here with me where I am right now.

And, you know, and I can see our books and yeah, I've got some commentaries. We, we can go into the bookstore and we have all these self-help books out to do this books and we can, you know, thumb through all those, all that we want to.

But it's so important to be reminded of this passage and remember exactly what you just said. Scripture teaches us what we should and shouldn't do, what we should believe and shouldn't believe. And it's, it's profitable and to an adequate, sufficient to equip us for every good work.

So there's nothing wrong with using other resources, but our ultimate resource, which the Holy spirit has promises that this is what he uses his own word, why not start there, continue there and in there, even if you read other books, that's, that's great and wonderful.

Hmm.

But primarily it's God's word is where we want to be.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cause I mean, the reason why, um, you're, you guys that you like to read are, are any good is because they say what the Bible said, right?

Yeah.

I mean, it's not like, I mean, anytime they stumble upon something, something wonderful and adequate, it's because it was already there to begin with, they're just kind of repeating it in their own words, right?

Yeah.

I mean, what do they say? There's nothing new under the sun. I don't know. That's somewhere. Also, can I say something about the, about self-help?

Sure.

What, what a dumb phrase. It, if you're going to somebody else for self-help, you're not getting self-help. You're just getting help. It's anyway, I mean, it kind of tries to make it, make you feel like you're, you're going out there and doing something on your own, but you're not, you're sitting, you're getting help from somebody else.

And that's another important part of the Christian life is that we are supposed to be in community with one another and pointing each other to Christ and using the scriptures and singing the Psalms to each other.

So that way we understand what the Bible is telling us. That's that way we were pushing each other towards what God would have us to do. Doing it by yourself. It's just, it's foolish.

Yeah.

Gentle way to put that there.

I guess I had to stop myself.

I guess you could call those emotional DIY books.

You're still not doing it yourself.

Nope. Oh, purpose and importance of scripture, meditation, and study strengthening your faith, Romans 10, 17. So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.

Absolutely. One of my favorite parts of our, of the church service that we do each week, I don't know if I have one here somewhere. I don't, but anyway, one of the things that we do each week is we, as a congregation, we'll confess our sins before God as a congregation.

And then the, the pastor, or if I'm preaching that day, I'll have the opportunity to read a passage of, of scripture, a small one that reminds us of the gospel and you're able to pronounce to people that their sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ.

And to hear that, whether it's your, your first time you're believing, or if you've heard it every week for years, each and every time you hear it, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the words of Christ.

And so you can have your, you can have faith come to you each and every week. As you hear the gospel of Christ preached to you and you hear the forgiveness of sins found in him, that doesn't mean that you necessarily lose your faith every week or that you don't know where to find it or anything, but.

You can have, uh, do those things.

I don't know what's going on. Oh, you can tell our thing here.

You're, you're frozen. You've got some interference from the snow. There we go. You're back now. There we go. In and out frozen again. There we go.

Uh, do you hear what I said? Do you hear what I said? I just, this is my body freeze.

You, you were in and out audibly and you froze the old max headroom thing. You were not doing that just in and out. Now you're frozen again, but your audible is good for audible. Your audio, my apologies now, no audio.

So while Dan, while Dan's coming back and he lets us know what he was trying to say. Um, I would, I would say this in response to what Dan was saying, um, that we have heaters to make us warm when it's cold and we have air conditioned to make us cool when it's hot outside.

And so this, this is a rough and terrible analogy, but we have scripture teaching us and telling us about Christ and the result is strength and comfort and joy. It's a supernatural thing. It's a supernatural thing to be in the word, be in the word with others, be in a Bible study in the, in the midst of song.

When you are, when you're reflecting, meditating, hearing about learning about your Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, and not knowing how it works, but somehow the Holy spirit brings a strength and a joy and a comfort to your soul in a way that you can't describe.

You can't understand. It just happens just as it was promised to us in scripture that it would happen. Let's see if we can get Dan back in here.

All right.

Still, still freezing some. There we go. Are you able to hear me, Dan? I don't think he can hear me. Well, what Dan keep working, keep working on it. Um, I was just saying that we, uh, just like a heater makes us warm when it's cold, air conditioning makes us cool when it's hot.

We may not understand it, how it works, but the Holy spirit gives us comfort, joy, and strength when we learn and hear or sing about Christ. It's a wonderful word that he promised to do in us. Faith comes by hearing, hearing faith comes from hearing, hearing by the word of Christ.

And then our last one in the introduction purpose and importance of scripture, meditation and study aligning our hearts with God's will. Psalm 119, 105. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path.

I have, I have sworn and I will confirm it that I will keep your righteous ordinance. I am exceedingly afflicted. Revive me. Oh Lord, according to your word, God, God's word. As it says in Psalm 119 is a light, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Um, there's many, many, many folks out there who are going to tell us that there are, um, there are many ways to align ourselves with, with God's will. Um, you've got all kinds of extremes, the, the furthest extreme that comes to my mind.

And I'm sure there are even more wild extremes on so-called, um, the, the Christian range of spiritual formation, but just an extreme example that comes to my mind is, is what they call grave soaking, where you, uh, you go to the grave of a Christian hero in your life or Christian hero, um, to the, to the Christian community and you, you go to their graves, stand above their tombstone.

And I don't know what you say, what you do or how it works, but the, in the intention of the act is that you will be soaking up whatever anointing or blessing that is that they didn't use up that still left here on this earth, but you will, you have the ability somehow to soak up that anointing that, that they didn't use up while they were living.

Okay.

That's false. That's not in scripture, but that is, that is an extreme you will see in some so-called Christian circles of how to align yourselves in God's will. But then you have the, the promises of God, the ways of God to, to truly align yourselves biblically with God's will and to stay in his purposes is to align yourself with scripture.

It says that his word is a lamp unto our feet. What is the lamp? It is a light that, that clears the path so that we can see which way to go. And that's what God describes of his word. He describes it as a lamp, as a light for our feet.

And I think maybe, maybe years ago when I heard somebody exposit this, this passage, when they're, they're trying to describe a lamp, a lamp to our feet, they're describing it as, since it's, since they're saying that this is a scripture saying, this is a light and a lamp for your feet.

It's not, it's not headlights to show you, you know, way down the road, but it's showing you where you need to take your next step. Then if you can hear me, if you're back with me, we're on aligning our hearts with God's word.

And I read Psalm 119. Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path. And sorry to repeat myself. Are you, there you go. But I use the extreme example that you can see in some Christian circles of, of graves.

That's how some folks in some Christian circles will, will use to align themselves with God's.

Will.

But we want to use God's means for his purposes, which is using his word as a lamp and a light for our feet, the light, the path. So we can see that next step to take. And this is how we glorify God by doing it according to his ways and according to his means.

We think, we think we can go off script and logic our way into making sense, but it never makes sense. Let me just say this, as much as something may make sense in our mind to strategize a way to, to do things in our own personal life, in our church, as much as we may logic it out and try to make it make sense, nothing makes sense apart from aligning yourself with God's word.

If you're trying to do all these things apart from God's word, that's not God's word is not your primary means of aligning yourself with God's word. Then whatever you're doing, no matter how much you think it makes sense, does not make sense because it's outside of God's means for his purposes.

So I will leave that there. And hopefully Dan will, hopefully Dan will get back with us. He says, I don't know what is up tonight. I'll say, keep trying. I'll keep talking about that. This is great. This is great podcast material right here.

So we're finished with the introduction for spiritual meditation and study, the primary place to start in spiritual formation. The next place we want to go is the biblical foundation that, that scripture meditation study is a biblical spiritual formation.

Meditating on the Old Testament and the Whole Counsel of God

And the first place is starting at the, at the beginning in the old Testament, the old Testament, it gives us a foundation of that scripture is the place where we start with our spiritual foundation. God's command is to meditate on his word.

Joshua 1, 8 says meditating day and night. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.

So these are the promises of God and how he wants to deliver this prosperity and success. That's up to him. We do not need to interpret what prosperity and success means in our own wisdom to feed the flesh.

If you know what I mean, and we see a lot of feeding the flesh to make money. We call it the prosperity gospel that is being sold and has been been being sold for many years now on Christian, Christian television.

That's not what we want to do that. How he interprets prosperity and success is his prerogative, but he does promise that here in the old Testament in Joshua, but he tells us that the book of the law, and this is why we shouldn't unhitch from the old Testament because the old Testament is God's.

Word.

The law is God's word. There is application. There is wisdom. There is truth. All of God's word is truth and wisdom and hearing from God. How we how we then apply it as New Testament believers may be different than Old Testament Israel, but it is still profitable.

It is still wise. It is still scripture to meditate on God's word, and so because the old and new are both God's word, you know, we can include we conclude include all of it here in this passage. This book of the law, the gospels, Paul's letters, the prophets, you back with me?

We'll see. Change venues.

So, so let me let me see if you agree with this.

Probably we're all know.

I better watch out what I say.

It's possible.

It's possible.

So we're starting in the Old Testament, which the Old Testament teaches us that we should meditate and study on God's word. We find a foundation in the Old Testament. I read Joshua 1. The law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all is written that your way may be prosperous and you will have success.

One of the things that I said was prosperity and success is according to the Holy Spirit, not man, not man, but the Holy Spirit. So he gets to interpret what prosperity and success means here. And then what I was just saying, and this is what I wanted to get your thoughts on.

Joshua says, here's the book of law shall not depart from your mouth. And, you know, and I inserted that we shouldn't unhitch from the Old Testament, that all of God's word is wisdom. It's truth. It's applicable.

And so we may interpret it differently than Old Testament Israel, however, being in the new covenant. However, it's still scripture. Profitable and wise. And so we should meditate on it. So do you think from this passage, we can include when he says the book of the law, we can include the prophets.

We can include the gospels. We can include Paul's writings that we should meditate on all those. They should not depart from our mouth, but meditate on all of those day and night. Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely. When it says, don't let it depart from your mouth. I don't know. That's probably a bad way to think of it. When I think of Will Smith, when he told Chris Rock to take his wife's name out of his mouth.

Same basic principle. He wanted him to stop saying his wife's name and talking about her. Don't let my word, the word of the law depart out of your mouth. In other words, don't stop talking about, thinking about, reading, understanding, conversing about the things that are in my law.

Like it says, I believe it's Deuteronomy. It says, when you're sitting down, when you're standing up, when you're by the way, when you're over here, when you're over there, put it on the doorpost of your house.

Tie it as a front lip between your eyes. Have it everywhere. You should be living, breathing, having it around you all the time. Especially the Old Testament. It's really important for the Old Testament because during the first few decades of the church, that's all they had was the Old Testament.

Where were they getting their stuff about Christ and about what was going to happen it came from the Old Testament and the words that Jesus had told them. So when they tell us in, Paul told us things that were written and the tradition that we have handed down to you was the Old Testament and the things that the apostles were teaching and going to codify into scripture in their epistles and the different accounts of the gospels and acts and stuff.

Paul says, learn from them.

Yeah.

And then I just preached on Acts chapter 8 with Philip and the eunuch. Philip preaches Jesus starting in Isaiah, but then preaches Jesus to him from the Old Testament. That was a scripture that they had.

And Jesus does the same thing on the road to Emmaus. Absolutely right.

One of the things that we do at our mother church in Walton, the one that we're planting one in our hometown and our mother church, whenever we go there, whoever's preaching will give two passages, one from the Old Testament, one from the New Testament.

And we don't have to, but generally what we do is we'll link them up. So that way you see a principle that's taught in the Old Testament. We'll read that passage, then we'll read the New Testament passage as well.

And then we'll preach from the New Testament passage, unless we're preaching from the Old Testament, then we'll have them both, but we'll preach from the Old Testament passage. So that way people can see that the Old Testament and New Testament are teaching the same thing.

They're just coming from different points in history, different points of the revelation that God has given to mankind.

Do you guys keep a record of that scripture reading from Sunday to Sunday?

We don't. However, there's a church in Hazleton, one of our Reformed Presbyterian churches, and they have been doing a consecutive reading through the Old Testament. And they just got, I think they're done with Matthew now, since the church started like 15 years ago.

And it's really cool when you show up that you're able to jump into that tradition of reading along. But no, we don't keep a record of it. Although we could go back to our old bulletins that are all printed right there.

Right, right.

I got an example because I preached this last week in Walton. Just so happened. I went to Isaiah 65. Let's see if I can pull it up real quick. Isaiah 65 verses 17 and 19, which says, I'm using a new Bible down here.

Thank you, Pastor Cone. He gave me this Bible to study out of. It says, Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create.

For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. I rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. So what I brought out from there is that God's doing something new.

He's recreating, He's creating the new heavens, the new earth. The things that were once are passing away, and what He's bringing new will be the new perfected, glorious creation without sin. Looking towards the resurrection and the perfection in the future.

So in the New Testament, I preached, and of course, those two pages are sticking together. There we go. In the New Testament, I preached from 1 Corinthians 13, and you go to verse 8. It says, Love never ends.

But then it talks about prophecies ending and tongues ending and knowledge ending. Uh, when the perfect comes, which I believe just means when the completion of things come, the partial is done away with.

And it says, we know in part, we prophesy in part.

Why?

Because these are partial things. These are the things that we're going through now. But what's coming later is the new heavens and the new earth when we are resurrected with Christ in the future. So then it says, uh, so now faith, hope, and love abide.

These three, but the greatest of these is love. Why are the greatest? Why is the greatest of those love? Well, faith is not going to be necessary in the new heavens and the new earth, the completion.

Why?

Because faith is going to be eclipsed by sight. We don't need to have faith when we see Christ in front of us and we're risen again. The hope that we have for all of eternity, um, that we have now, we don't need to hope for it anymore when we're sitting before the throne of God in heaven.

And then finally you have love. Why is love the greatest? Because love of all three of those is the one that's going to continue on throughout the whole thing. We have the love of Christ as he came, died for us while we're yet sinners, he died for.

Us.

And then on into the future, um, love is just going, it's going to seem to grow because we're going to see him face to face. He's going to finally wipe away our tears and take away all of our sins. We're going to be with him forever and ever in a loving relationship with him.

So you see that principle from first Corinthians 13 was taught all the way back there in Isaiah when he said, look, I'm making the new heavens and the new earth and everything is going to be wonderful and great and perfect.

And then we see in the new Testament how that's explained a little bit more. So we can think about those things from two different perspectives, but it's the same principle that what, what we have now, it's not as good as what God is preparing for us.

In the future.

And that's why he's, he sent his son to die on the cross for us to take where it says that we could glorify him forever. We'll be, we'll finally find our true purpose. The sense of longing and desire that's unfulfilled now will be fulfilled.

How will it be fulfilled? It'll be fulfilled by doing and being what Christ has created us to be. We'll finally be free from sin and in perfect fellowship and community with our God forever. So there's just a little example of how the old Testament and new Testament kind of work together and how all those things are important to think about no matter where you find them in scripture.

I don't know if that was really relevant, but I got on a kick and I was, I was frozen for so long. I had to get something out.

No, that was absolutely relevant. The last passage on our list that supports the old Testament being the old Testament supporting this spiritual formation is Psalm 1 -2. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord.