Be Disciplined in the Faith

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  Be Disciplined in the Faith

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  Today, we're going to get a chance to look at those resolutions, particularly in the faith. But I want to encourage you to turn to 1 Timothy 4:7. And we'll use that as a launching point this morning for the message that really, I've entitled, be disciplined in the faith, be disciplined in the faith. Anything that you're going to work at that's meaningful, that's of value... it's going to take discipline. It's going to take devotion, dedication, commitment, all of these things. No matter what you pursue in life, it's going to take some degree of discipline. And as I just mentioned, many of us make New Year's resolutions. We look at our life and we analyze it, and we say, man, these are things that I can improve on. Yeah, I may have done it this way in 2024, but 2025 I want to enhance it by doing it this way, or I want to improve it by approaching this a little bit differently. And I think God, in his kindness, he gives us seasons of life to do that. Some people do it on a weekly basis, others every month they look back and they say, how can I improve in these areas of my life so that I can be all that God's called me to be? Uh, well, 2025, you get a chance to do that on a yearly basis. And, you know, but sometimes you start out with those New Year's resolutions and then a couple of weeks in, what happens? They fade away. There's actually a day called Quitters Day. Don't even know if you realize that. But it's an official day...Quitters Day. It's the second, uh, Friday of January, and it's a day that gets its name, because that's the day that most people fail to achieve their New Year's resolutions. So they made a day...Quitters day. Now, part of it is to let you know that it's when they fail. And then the other part is to try to encourage you to say, hey man, go beyond Quitters day. So some people make it to the third Friday in January, and then they quit because they just want to at least get past that that second Friday of January. But at the end of the day, New Year's resolutions can be broken in the beginning of the year if it doesn't take discipline. And I just pray that some of you have really made an effort to list out ways in which you want to improve your walk with Jesus Christ. And if you haven't, sometimes it could be a result of spiritual apathy. And there was a church that put on the website Five Signs of Spiritual Apathy, and I thought I just might share that with you. It isn't a, you know, always true, but out of these five, you might find yourself in one of those. One of them, they said, was familiarity. Familiarity can breed spiritual apathy when you're just familiar. And one theologian said, familiarity...it breeds contempt. You become so familiar and so routine that you're just like, man, why am I even doing this? And you realize that there are some people who are not in church today, because all they did was go through the routines as a child and all through their teenage years and through their young adult years, and now they're in their 30s and 40s, they're outside of church because it was just familiar to them. I just did it. And before you knew it, they became apathetic. And they went from apathy to, I don't even need this boredom. Sometimes boredom. That's the second thing they put breeds apathy. Just bored. They're in it. They're going through it. They want to be engaged. But then they have just. Oh, man, I'm just not into the Word. I'm just not into the, you know, hearing another sermon again. Getting kind of bored with just these same things. Uh, you know, there's no life and vitality to their faith. The third thing was mediocrity. Mediocrity. The question is, is, are you satisfied with five small minutes in the Word of God. Only so you can invest 15 hours at work in a given day.  Five minutes in the Word, so that you can spend 5 or 6 hours in leisure. And one writer said, mediocrity is the sum of all times we choose to take the easy path with our faith, just to go the easy road. Disconnection was the fourth, and the writer said here that we live in a world where you can have 500 friends and still feel isolated and abandoned. That's kind of in this digital age that we're in. And this is our strange 21st century paradox. We're connected to more people than ever, but we've never felt more alone. That's sad. And some people are a similar way in the church. You're on the fringes, on the outside. Uh, won't ever be connected to the life of the body. You stay that way. Because if you're connected, you'll be in a meaningful discipleship relationship. You'll be built up, you'll be challenged, you'll be encouraged. But people stayed disconnected and therefore spiritual apathy takes place. And then last is passivity. Passivity. They just say, man, I'm gonna just make a New Year's resolution every year just to make myself feel good, knowing that I never have an intention to be about it. In 2009, Kevin DeYoung wrote a book just aptly titled. It said Just Do Something. Just do something. And in it, he writes, some Christians need encouragement to think before they act. And he said others need encouragement to act while they think. He says, look, do something. Don't just stand around thinking about it and planning. Being in analysis paralysis is what we call it. You analyze it to the death. You know, like, man, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to do this, and I'm gonna do this. And before you know it, it's June and you haven't even got your to do list together, right? That's analysis paralysis. Well, you don't need that. You need to understand that it's discipline. It's saying these are the things that God has put in His Word for me to do. I'm going to get after it, and I'm going to give every effort to the Lord because he's worthy of it. Amen. He's worthy of your whole devotion. But whatever the reason is that's keeping you back from excelling in your faith, we want you to make a commitment today to listen to these spiritual disciplines that we're going to examine this morning and apply them to your life. But I want to read 1 Timothy 4:7, and then I'll pray. It says these words.
  "But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness."
  Lord, I just thank you for this opportunity to be under the word. I ask that you would grant grace to the preacher. I need your help this morning that I might boldly proclaim the excellencies of Jesus Christ. And I ask that you would grant grace to the hearers. Lord, may we purpose in advance that we would not just hear the word, but that we would seek to obey it. Bring conviction where conviction is needed. And I pray that ultimately your truth would abound and that we all might be built up. And we ask this all in Jesus Christ's name. And all God's people said Amen.
  Paul is writing to Timothy these words to help him to understand what his focus needs to be, and that is that a good minister has discipline. He understands sound teaching, but he says, have nothing to do with worldly fables. You know, he said, fit only for old women. This isn't a knock to older women, but it was just culturally, what happened back in the day is that older women would get together and they would just talk about, girl, let me tell you what happened about such and such and such and such. You know, that never happens today, right? Girl, let me tell you about such and such. Right? Never. That never happens today. Some of y'all are giggling. That's conviction bringing upon right now. Ain't even got too far into the Word yet. But what happened is they would sit around and just talk about things of the world, and it would be of no spiritual value. And he says, look, don't get and be involved in things that won't have eternal consequence. Be about the thing that has most substantial consequence, and that is those things that matter eternally. Those are the things. And then he says, on the other hand, discipline yourself. Discipline yourself. He says, harness those areas of your life, those things that you could do. You say, no, I should do this because I want to disciplined for the purpose of godliness. Don't be disciplined just so that you can show off your disciplines. Don't be disciplined so that you can look at other people and say, my life is better than yours. You should be disciplined, harnessing your life so that you will be more godly, that you will look more like Christ. And that's the whole reason...not being distracted by the things of the world, but doing it in such a way that you look more like Christ each and every day. And this morning we're going to look at three spiritual disciplines: scripture reading, meditation and prayer. Those are the three. But keep this in mind when it comes to spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are habits of devotion that help you grow spiritually in your walk towards Jesus Christ. That's what these are. They should be habits that lead you to a livelihood. But it starts with just being devoted to it. Some of it may seem more like a duty before it gets to a delight, till you get into your rhythm, but it's done for the purpose that you would be more holy. And then another thing to note about spiritual disciplines is that they're not attitudes. Spiritual disciplines aren't attitudes. You know, similar to like Galatians 5, the fruit or the character of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. You know, those are attitudes, character, right? But spiritual disciplines are actually duties of the faith. It's things that God has commanded us to do that you're working out, not attitudes. They're actually practices. You can't say, yes, I'm a reader of God's Word and neglect to actually read the Word. Yes, I love to pray. And you pray more in public than you do in private. You know, that's not an attitude. It's actually a practice. And both Old and New Testament is filled with passages that emphasize these three disciplines that we're going to look at this morning.  
  So, without further ado, let me go ahead and go into the first discipline that will help us to be disciplined in the faith. And that's be devoted to the Word, be devoted to the Word, not talking about just having a casual reading here and there, but it's being devoted to the Word of God. Many of you are devoted to hearing the word preached on Sunday morning, but you need to have a personal conviction that you're going to be in the word every day, not some of the days. Not when you're feeling holy. Like, man, I done got up and heard my favorite song. I'm feeling it today. Let me get into the Word. I'm talking about even in those days where it's difficult. You're struggling, getting up out of bed. Those are the moments where you need to be devoted to reading God's Word. You know, reading books and listening to sermons of your favorite preacher are fine, but that's no substitution for reading God's revealed Word. Gotta have it. There's a theologian, John Frame, that said this about God's Word. He said it is his powerful, authoritative self-expression. God has given. He's revealed himself. He's done it generally in creation, but he's done it specially in this special revelation in the scriptures. Such an  amazing...read. You see everything. You see men fail in life. You see them succeed. You see God's powerful hand at work. And then you see when he's not at work and when people are left to their own understanding. It's an amazing opportunity for you to see what God loves and what he hates. But it's all found in the Word of God. You think about it. The command to read Scripture was a command to people, even when they didn't own a personal copy of the Bible. How much more should we be reading the word? You know how many copies of the Bible is in the average home in America? Guess...I see them 3 to 4. 3 to 4 copies of the Bible in the average American home. And that's not even including what we have on our tablets and phones and all of those. We have access to God's Word. But the question for you is, are you reading it? Why don't we turn to Proverbs chapter 4, and I want to show you this, uh, what it means to have a pursuit of God's Word. Proverbs chapter 4. And we'll be turning quite a bit in the Scripture. So, get your thumbs ready. Proverbs... That's what happens when it's a selected text sermon. That just means that the preacher wants you to be all over the Bible, just all over the Bible. Some of y'all are going to be like, brother, I don't need to read the Word after this sermon, bro. I don't read it all today. This is. I'm good. New year's resolution, check. I done attended first service. Proverbs 4:20-22. I want to show you this. He says, my son, this is Solomon talking to his son, and he's giving him God's Word. He says, my son, give attention to my words. And where he says my words you could substitute that as God's words...give attention to them. He says, incline your ear to my sayings. Give attention to God's Word. Incline your ear. You know what that means? That means you got to have a posture of this saying, I want to understand what God says. Because some people approach the Word of God to where they just want to go and read it and get it off their to do list, I did it....New year's resolution. I'm on my way. I'm gonna make it through Quitter's day. That's it. But Solomon is telling his son. He says give attention. It needs to be a glaring warning sign. You need this that you're about to read. Need to incline your ear, cup it and say, man, nothing else will take place. And you know how that is. You've got to give full hearted attention to being in the Word because other things will come to mind. Seek to distract you. He goes on in verse 21, don't let them depart from your sight. In this case, some of them would write them down in the sand, write them down in the areas that they work. They would carve them out in pieces of wood. They would put them around them so that they would not forget the words of Yahweh. He says, don't let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart. Tuck them in. Like the psalmist that says your words I have hidden in my heart, so that I what?...won't sin against you. He says, that's what you need to be doing when you're reading the word. It's purposing in your heart that you're going to incline your ear towards obedience and that you're actually going to obey, that you're going to tuck them in your heart in the deep crevices there, that it may cleanse you for all righteousness sake. And he says in verse 22, the reason that you're going to do this is for they are life for those who find them, health for all their body. That's the benefit and the beauty of having the Word is that it's life to you. Is the Word truly life?  Because there's some things that you can't go this life without doing. One of them is eating right. You can't go without eating. But do you approach your day like that with the Word of God? Man, I can't approach my day without eating the Word of God. I gotta get this in my system so that my mind can be right, so that the trajectory of my day will go in a direction that honors the Lord, so that I would understand that I'm a pilgrim and I'm sojourning on this land, that this earth is isn't my home. That all comes from reading the Word of God. I love how Jeremiah 15:16 says, your words were found and I ate them. He said, I found them and I ate them up. I gobbled that word up, was full on the word, and he wasn't doing spiritual obesity by just reading only. He applied them. Almost like Ezra 7:10 when he says, I purposed in my heart that I was going to read your word. I was going to practice your word, and then I was going to proclaim your truth in all of Israel. Ezra 7:10, he was going to read it, practice, then preach...in that order. Don't be a spiritual glutton going in and reading all the Word of God and not having any desire to want to practice it out. Live it out. Work out that salvation that God has put in you by working out the word that you're reading. And see this was the indictment to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 3. Those first couple of verses, Paul is is talking to the Corinthians there, and he's rebuking them, um, as he says, look, um, I'll start at verse one. He says, I could not speak to you as spiritual men, but as men of flesh. He said, I couldn't speak to you as if you were walking around spiritual. I had to speak to you just like regular men, men of flesh, as to just anybody who didn't even have Christ. He says, I had to speak to you as infants in Christ, babes. You had to be babies. He says, I gave you milk to drink and not solid food, for you were not even able to receive it. And he says, indeed, even now you're not able because you're still fleshly. They were still doing things that the world people do. He says, I couldn't speak to you that way. And realize when it comes down to the milk, the Word can either be milk or solid food, and it just depends on the person receiving it, but in this case it was nothing wrong with the Word. It was everything wrong with the believers because they couldn't have the deeper things of God. They were babes in Christ and they wanted to stay that way. And Paul had to rebuke them by saying, get ready to get to the solid food. Some of you, are you on the solid food of the Word of God, or are you still needing that Gerber diet from God's Word? He needs to smash up the basic principles of the faith. Some of you have been in Christ for years and you're still on Gerber Scripture. You got to graduate, get to the solid food, get to those areas to where you're thinking deeply so that you can live faithfully. That's the whole point in being in the Word of God. And again, these were babes in Christ. John MacArthur was making a statement about this in his book, The Keys to Spiritual Growth. He said, babies are wonderful to have around. Can I get an amen on that? Babies are wonderful to have around, he says, but they're not much help around the house. Can I get an amen to that? Babies can't cook. They can't clean. They can't do nothing. They're cute though. They're cute. They make you work, but they can't do nothing. But he says they're wonderful to have around, but they're not much help in the house, he says. Unfortunately, that could also be said of a lot of Christians. Their lack of spiritual maturity greatly reduces their usefulness to the cause of Jesus Christ. End quote. That's sad. Folks that have been in church for years, and their utility to build up the body of believers, to invest in others, to disciple, to engage, is right here. All because they're on the Gerber diet. They've just been reading a verse, you know, every week or so...maybe. Sometimes they skip a week and that's their diet. Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you in 2025 to be devoted to the Word. Incline your ear towards it. Make your heart ready to receive it. I can't tell you how many times I've ran into men, women, couples, singles and there is an embarrassing deficiency in their Bible intake. Don't let that be true of you. Every single time you get, I ask questions about the text. When I'm reading through it, I want to ask these questions. What did I learn about God's Word? What did I learn about God? Because I'm not reading just for the sake of reading, I want to learn about God. We even do this as a family in our table when we're reading our family devotions. What did I learn about God? What did I learn about mankind in general? How he works, how he operates, how he thinks, how he sins. And then what did I learn about myself? Those three questions. When I'm engaged in the Word...what do I learn about God? What do I learn about mankind? What do I learn about myself? You ask our kids at the dinner table, we read a text. That's what they're going to do. What do you learn about God? What do I learn about mankind? What do I learn about myself? And when you do that, you'll have this devotion to the Word constantly. One of the places I saw the devotion to the Word on display is, is Nehemiah 8. And I want to share that with you before I get to another aspect of the word. Nehemiah 8...I was just amazed at that. You can go left in your Bible, Nehemiah 8. I can help you. It's on page 504...my Bible. That might help you out a little bit. I don't know. I don't know if that help you all out, but it's on page 504 in mine. I put it in my sermon notes so that I'd make sure I wouldn't be fumbling up here in the pulpit trying to find Nehemiah. I'm sorry. I know where it is. Ezra. Nehemiah. Esther. But Nehemiah chapter 8, look at this amazing depiction of what happened to people as they gathered together to hear the Word of God. Ezra had found the law. They had been gone for a good length of time, but they started to get back building the temple, found the law and look at verse 2. It says, then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men and women and all who could understand and listen to the scriptures on the first day of the seventh month. And then he read it before them in the square which is in front of the water gate from early morning until midday. Look at that...early in the morning to midday. Let's just say he started at 8:00. That's from eight to noon. That's four hours in the Word. And he wasn't frustrated by that exercise, not trying to suggest that that should be your diet and how you should go about it. But they were just amazed at the Word of God. And he did that in the presence of men and women, those who could understand. And all the people were attentive to the book of the law. It said, Ezra stood in the wooden podium...that's a pulpit. And then down there in verse 5 it says, he opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above the people. And when he opened it, guess what happened? All the people stood up. They stood up. They said, this is amazing because we're hearing the words of life. In verse six, then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen. Amen. And while lifting up their hands, they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. That's a proper response to reading the Word. That's what you should do. Be so amazed that God has communicated about himself, that you should be in awe and in worship, and that should lead you to another discipline that we're going to get to in a moment, which is is meditation. But before I get there, just when you start thinking about the Word of God, not only should you be reading it on a consistent basis, you need to study the Word of God. Study it. I can show you a good place of studying. Listen to these words in Acts 17:11 really about the Bereans. You know about those. But it says these were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the Word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. There's a couple of features about these Bereans. It said first that they were noble minded. It meant that they tested the truth of Paul's messages against the scriptures. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm thinking to myself, like, if I'm listening to the Apostle Paul, this brother that wrote two thirds of the New Testament, I can tell you like this. If I hear the Apostle Paul teaching, I'm like this...hmm...go ahead. Just keep it going. But the Bereans were like, hold on what you say, Paul? Go ahead. They were examining with the Old Testament scriptures. They said, yes, I understand that he's anointed. He's God's spokesman. He's speaking with great authority. But Imma fact check, Paul. That's when you are noble minded, thinking about the words of life. How is your Bible study? Do you just go based on what your favorite preacher preaches and you say you're good. Or did you go back and say, let me own these scriptures myself? I know the preacher owned it before he preached it. Let me own it to make sure it's mine. That's what studying does. It said examining the scriptures daily. You see, what they did is they looked at the messages Paul was giving, and they compared it to Scripture rather than judging it through a political or a cultural lens. That's what they did. So I'm not going to add my own feelings to it. I'm not going to think about it from a political standpoint. That's not politically correct. No, no, they said, let me examine to see if it's what thus saith the Lord. And that's how your study should be. Is it what God said? And Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. Yes, I know he was a preacher, but that's a principle for all of us. You're going to be teaching your children. You're going to be making disciples with your neighbors. You're going to be proclaiming that Word in some kind of capacity. Some of y'all are in children's ministry. Some of you are student leaders, your life group leaders. You need to be accurately handling the Word, and you can't accurately handle it unless you faithfully study it. I would encourage you to get some commentaries, get some commentaries from some good theologians, and if you don't know any, send us an email. We'd love to point you in that direction. Uh, we have some available even in our bookstore, but go through the Bible and get a good commentary simultaneously. And as you walk through the scriptures in reading, accompany that with studying. And that's what it means to be in the Word of God. You'll also be hearing about men's and women's Bible study. I would encourage you if you've never done that before, study the Bible verse by verse. Sign up for one of those. But then after you walk away from the scripture, something that's very helpful to do is just to see how you can apply the truth to your life. Because again, at the end of the day, it's not just reading, it's about applying those truths. And I've got a slide here that'll help you to see how you can apply God's Word. It's going to be one of these four principles. When you read Scripture, it's either going to be a truth to believe, a command to obey, a deed to avoid, or an example to follow. You're going to either walk away from this word saying, I need to believe something more about God and worship and praise him as a result. Or maybe it's something that I just need to know and keep in my mind so that when some atheist comes along and tries to tell me otherwise, I'll have the truth to be able to come alongside that. Or it's a command that God specifically says, do this and you need to do it. Or maybe a deed that you need to avoid something that he says, don't do this. Or you see an example where God punished someone in the scriptures. You say, okay, I know what not to do. Sort of like how I did with my older brother. He did some things and he got in trouble. I'd be like, okay, I don't need to do that. I mean, that's what we do. We learn from Israel's mistakes, learn from the scriptures, learn from those who got judged deeds to avoid, and then also examples to follow. You see things that doesn't explicitly have a command associated with it. But you say Paul did it. God was honored. I need to probably do it. And there are all kind of benefits from reading the Word. But what you've got to be convinced in is that there's no way for you to grow in your affection for Christ...your affection for Christ can't be stirred if your information of Christ is stale. Some people got stale reading of God's Word. They riding on old biscuits that they read last year. You need to get some fresh bread livening up a bit. Read more truth. Understand, study the Word. And that's the first discipline in the faith is really understanding that you need to be devoted to the Word.
  The second is this be dedicated to meditation. You know, be dedicated to meditation. That information should lead to meditation. After you've done all that work of digging to unpack the richness of truth in the Word of God, you need to spend some time dwelling on it, analyzing what's there. It'd be like mining in a diamond mine. Right? You're going in and you're doing all that work to dig it up. Once you get it, you want to analyze it. You don't want to just kind of go about your way, like, oh, yeah, I found a few diamonds. Move on about. You want to pick it up, and what do you do? You hold it to the light, and you look at the beauty and the splendor and the magnificence of that jewel. And the same is true of being in the Word of God. After you've done that hard work of studying,spend some time just meditating and analyzing what it is that you've learned. You know people, you know, the world's view of meditation is clearing your mind, emptying your mind, emptying your mind of all that's there to hopefully provide some clarity. But that doesn't make sense. That's the world's view of meditation, but the Biblical view of meditation is to fill your mind on truth. It's to place Biblical truth in your mind, not emptying everything else out. It's not the absence of everything. It's the presence of truth. And many people, they've memorized Joshua 1:9. Some of y'all probably know it by heart. Joshua 1:9....what does it say? I heard it, somebody scared. Be strong and courageous. Yeah, you've got that. Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. But do you know what Joshua 1:8 says? Turn to Joshua 1:8 and look and read and see what God says there in Joshua 1:8. After you get outside of the Torah, first five books, Joshua 1:8. It says, 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 all that is according to what is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. The Lord says meditation day and night. That term meditation..it really can be described in two ways in the Old Testament. The first describes the ruminating stomach of animals. Those who like the cow that chews the cud, it chews it up in one section of the stomach, breaks it down, and then it puts it into another section of the stomach and it breaks it down even further in another section of the stomach. And it does that until it digests completely. That was the idea that came to mind in the Jews thinking when they heard the term meditate...ruminating stomach. There's another idea that came to their mind, and it means to murmur, to whisper quietly, you know, like the like they would do back in the day when they were doing some mindless tasks. They would be like, hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And they would just meditate on what that truth meant to them. And that's what it means for you to meditate on the words of God. Read the Word, but then sit back and and chew on it for a little bit, even murmur out loud so that you can kind of ingrain those truths in your thinking. And what it does is it conforms your life into holiness. And look at what he says there in the text. There's two promises for those who meditate on the Word of God, and the first is that he will make your way prosperous. God promises prosperity, and it's not the prosperity that you hear on television today, which is that you're just going to get. You're going to be a millionaire. You keep trusting God, sending the preacher money. You're going to be a millionaire. That's not the prosperity that God is talking about. The prosperity is that God will give you an abundance of living. That means that he will guard you from trials? And even if he gives you trials, that he'll give you the scriptures that will help you to persevere in that trial. That's a prosperous life. He'll give you those resources that are necessary. In our church age we have His Holy Spirit living in us. That's prosperity. Being able to walk with him through a difficult time, all because we're meditating on the scriptures. And then it says you'll have good success. That good success is that God will make your path straight. You're in that Word and your path is going to be straight. Not it's going to be easy, but it'll be straight because you're doing it in obedience to God. You've meditated on it, you understood it, and you're going to have a successful life. Why? Because you're doing it God's way. Everybody else around you, I go back. There are times that I visit, you know, friends and family back home in little Rock, Arkansas. And I go back and it looks like some of them brothers, we graduated in high school together, but they look like they in their 60s, 70s and 80s. No offense to you in your 60s, 70s and 80s. It was like, brother, what you trying to say, I'm old? I'm just saying that the folks that I graduate that should be in their latter 40s, they feel like they've aged. And I'm looking at them, and it's because life has torn them up. They're like, brother, what are you doing, Kurtis? He said, man, it must be that clean living. And I'm like, you're exactly right. Living in accordance to God's Word, meditating on his truth, living in accordance with his law allows you to have a life of success. And it doesn't mean that it's going to be easy. But again, you're living in God's way. You have joy. You have peace overflowing in abundance because you're doing it the way God intended. That's meditating on His Word. There are various scriptures that help us to see the importance of meditating. Psalm 119:97, the psalmist says, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation both day and night. He says, I love it so much. He even likened it to honey. Sweeter than honey to my taste. Honey was the sweetest thing that would that was there on the tongue back in the Old Testament time. You see, that's just because they didn't have refrigerators that they can have Blue Bell ice cream. Can I get a witness? That's the good stuff nowadays. So I wake up in the morning, I'm like, oh, Lord, how I love your law. It is sweeter than Blue Bell ice cream to my taste. I meditate on it day and night. But that's what the psalmist does because he says, I love God's truth. And brothers and sisters, if you've been in God's Word for decades, can't you sympathize with that truth that you love His Word? Your favorite times in the day is just to get up and just to be in God's Word because it's true. I remember when I first got saved, I said, Lord, I love this truth. And that hasn't changed even up to today. I preach the Word because I love God's truth. Walk in the word because I love God's truth. I see it on display. And you see people's lives that are in a wreck. You're like, man, they aren't living God's truth, and I want to just bring them to God's Word so that they too can say, oh, how I love God's Word. It's my meditation day and night. You see, their lives change. This is bigger than  a New Year's resolution. It should be our livelihood. The psalmist says, I will meditate on your precepts. I will regard your ways. I delight in your statutes. I shall not forget your word. That's the Psalm 119. And I would encourage you, if you're having troubles just thinking about the word and whether it's studying, reading or meditating, go to Psalm 119. It'll bless your soul just to see the importance of God's Word over and over and over again. And you'll see that word meditate, murmur. Continue to digest it over and over again. When I think about the relationship between reading and studying God's Word and meditation, I think of hiking, you know, no one goes through the great difficulty of getting up and hiking and going up a steep mountain, only so that you can kind of get up there and pull your pants up and just walk right back down again. Right? If you have been to Blue Ridge Parkway, wherever what mountain top you done got to. Once you've gone through that arduous task of getting up to the top, what do you want to do? You want to look out and check out the vista, the scenery. You want to gaze. You want to look back and see where you've come and just be amazed. That's what meditation is to the Word of God. You've done the hard work of studying and thinking about and turning on truth. Meditation is getting back and saying, let me look and see how amazing this God is. Let me dwell upon the riches of his glory. Let me think about what it would be if I applied these things to my life. That's what meditation does. It changes your perspective. It can help you break free from sin. All kinds of Advantages. But if you've never done this before, I got a slide here that just helps you to see what it would be like for you to actually...the application of meditation. Five principles I'd get for you. One just observe the Biblical text, observe it, figure out where you're going to land and sink your teeth into it. Then find the Biblical principle that's in that text. You know, if you're still there at Joshua 1:8, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. The Biblical principle is God's word should always be on my lips. I should always be thinking it through. That's a Biblical principle, and meditate on that. What would that look like for you? Another thing that you can say is think about why God wrote that particular truth. Meditate on that. Think about what this truth and how it relates to the gospel. Because all truth is pointing to the cross or back to the cross. And so you should be able to do that as you're meditating on that. And it helps you to amplify the gospel in your life, and then think about how you should apply this particular truth to your life, specifically. Those are the ways that you can meditate on it. So you're not just sitting out kind of carelessly thinking about Scripture. You've got some kind of focus to it. But the Lord promises in Jeremiah 29:13 he says, seek me and you will find me if you search for me with all your heart. If you do that and you meditate, God will reveal himself to you because he wants you to know him and spend that time with you.
  Well, the last discipline I want to talk about this morning briefly before we close, is this. We've looked at what it means to be devoted to the Word and dedicated to meditation. The last one is be dependent in prayer. Be dependent in prayer. And I specifically said dependent. You need to pray not just before you eat, you know, not just a couple of seconds before you go to bed, but you need to pray as if your life depended upon it. The lives of others dependent upon it. And some people say you show them love spelled T I M E. Well, in this case, if God we show him love by the spelling it P R A Y. Pray...spending time communing with God himself.  Sweet communion with the Almighty. This is helping you grow more dependent in prayer. I thought I'd share the ABCs of prayer. The ABCs. These are my ABCs that I think about and it helps encourage me to pray all the more.

  And the first thing is the A and that's the attitude of prayer. My attitude. The attitude of prayer is found in Colossians 4:2, and it helps me to see what it should be like for me when I'm devoted to praying more fervently.  In  Colossians 4:2, it says, be devoted and devote yourselves to prayer. It says devote yourselves to prayer. That term devote...it means that you have an attitude of desperation. It's committed. It means that I'm not wavering in it. And prayer is not optional. And when I have this attitude that I'm going to be devoted to prayer it also helps me to do the B part of that verse, which is keep alert with an attitude of thanksgiving. You not only do I have an attitude of devotion and dependence, but I'm having an attitude of thanksgiving. You know, I'm going to cry out and thank God in it...being diligent. You know what happens when you're on the alert? You're having perseverance and you're petitioning to God on behalf of all the saints. You know, you start prayer and, you know, you got to be diligent because sometimes you know how it is. You start praying, and before you know it, your mind start wondering, oh man, I wonder what the day is going to look like. And you go back and you start praying again. Then you'll be like, oh man, I wonder what I'm going to eat this next meal. And you start praying and then your mind continues to wonder. You have to be diligent and keep alert. It's almost like what Jesus was saying with the disciples when they were like, hey man, the body is weak. The spirit is willing. The body is weak. And Jesus is saying, can't you just pray? Can't you just pray? Be fervent in prayer. The hour of darkness is at hand and you're falling asleep. And some of us, we have that in our prayer life, it's cavalier. And we want to stoke the coals by praying and being alert. Alertness is a command for us to think about it. You know, you realize that this is warfare in prayer. Your flesh don't want to do it. The world system doesn't want you to be about it, and Satan is opposed to it. And we can't make excuses like, you know, I don't have time to pray. I don't have time. I'm too busy. Some people say they don't have time to pray, but then 45 minutes will go by on social media, or they'll binge watch 3 or 4 episodes of something on Netflix. I'm like, well, I just don't have I don't have time to pray. We make time for the things that are important to us. And I'm encouraging you need to make time to pray. The most prideful way you can live this life is to say, I can do it and not even ask for God's help. And I'm too busy. And some of y'all say, well, I'm busy doing kingdom work. Well, you know, I like Martin Luther when he said this. He says work, work from early until late. In fact, I have so much work to do that I will spend the first three hours in prayer. That's how devoted he was. He knew he had great things of God, but he knew he needed God in order to do it. So I would encourage you to be on your knees. Because, see, when we work, we work. But when you pray, God works. You want him to be working out those things for his kingdom. So have an attitude of prayer and thanksgiving. The B is for blessing. There's blessing associated with prayer. All kinds of blessings come. One is that we get a chance to talk to God. You realize when you pray, you're talking to Almighty God. Psalm 65:2 says, O you who hear prayer. He was just amazed that he is in the presence of Almighty God. Another blessing is that God answers prayers. James 5:16 says the effective prayer of a righteous man, what?...avails much. I heard availeth. Somebody done went King James on us. Availeth much. It accomplishes much. It does. It does great things. But that's a blessing of prayer. When you pray, you're in line with his will and his character. God blesses your prayers. He answers. And then it says, he who lacks wisdom. James 1:5-8, if you lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives abundantly and won't make you feel bad in doing so. That's all blessings of prayer. It reorients our minds around Christ. It reinforced Biblical truth, and it trains us to do the things that God would have us. And then the last thing for prayer is the 'C'. And that's the content of your prayer. The content of your prayer. We should pray to give God thanks and adoration. We should also pray to really think about our spiritual leaders in supplication. Multiple times in 2 Thessalonians 3:1, we see Paul says, brethren, pray for us that the Word of God would spread. Pray for your leaders. Pray for those who are in charge of your souls. We also pray for one another, James 5:17. That should form the content of our prayers. And then 1 Timothy 2, pray for our civic leaders and even praying for your own lives. And that's confession and petition, all for the things in your life. One way that I'll give you this last principle of prayer is as an outline, and that's this. I use it in my evernote each day, and then I just pray accordingly. I start with adoration, praying, and giving God praise for who he is. And then I go to thanksgiving, giving him praise and thanksgiving for what he's done. After that, I go into confession for my own heart. Things that I've done, and then I pray for salvation for those around me. I pray for my family. I pray for the church, both the church locally as well as globally. And then I think about the city and the nation, and that forms the substance. And that's the content of my prayers. Right attitude. Think about the blessing. Make sure you got the right content. But I would say pick a time, choose a place. Have a plan. Prayer doesn't just happen. You've got to engage it, just like all of these other disciplines. But we've seen that this is what it means to be disciplined in the faith. Be  devoted to the Word, dedicated to meditation, and be dependent in prayer.
  If you're here today and you're listening to these spiritual disciplines and you're saying to yourself, man, I can't even think about doing those at all because I don't really know where I stand with Jesus Christ. Well, the greatest thing you need today is not another resolution. You need a resignation. You need to resign from being the captain of your ship, from being the Lord of your own life. You need to do what Matthew 16:24 says that if you wish to come after me, you must deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. Come to Christ by repenting and turning to him, and that will begin your spiritual journey. But for the rest of us, let's be devoted to enhancing and excelling still more in our faith so that we can be disciplined in the Word and in prayer...all for the glory of Jesus Christ. Let's pray and ask his help in all of these things.
  Gracious Father, we come before you now, just thanking you for the privilege of being in the Word. We thank you for the truth that is ours in Christ. And  I just pray right now that you would help us all to understand just how vital it is to work out this salvation that you've given us with fear and trembling before a holy God, knowing that you began a good work and you want to carry it out to completion. But that will take our partnership and cooperation with Heaven. Help us not to just make a resolution that will fizzle out after a few weeks in this month, but help us to make it our ambition that we'll be dedicated to looking more like Christ each and every day. By applying these disciplines and all others in the great faith. We ask this all in the blessed name of Jesus Christ and for his name's sake. Amen.