A Journey to Holiness - Meditating on God's Word for Holiness
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Meditating on God’s Word for Holiness
Meditating on God’s Word for Holiness
This morning we are still continuing our series on Holiness, this morning we are looking in the Old Testament in the Book of Deuteronomy.
This mornings message is Titled Meditating on God’s Word for Holiness, now do not get the word Meditating confused with the worldly form of meditation or meditating.
The word meditation means to focus one's thoughts on : reflect on or ponder over, that is according to the Webster-Merriam Dictionary.
Therefore, in reference to the Word of God, it is to focus on the Word of God, to reflect on it and ponder over its meanings.
Therefore, today we are going to look at how Meditating of God’s Word will help us be Holy. How it will draw us closer to God for holiness.
There are multiple Scriptures throughout the Bible that even tell us to Meditate on the Word of God, and I will be using just a few of them today.
Our main text today again will be found in Deuteronomy if you have already found the Book we will be in chapter six, now our main text does not include the actual word meditate in it, but it has the idea of meditate in it.
We are going to look at 6 verse from chapter six here and then look at three things that will help us to see the importance of meditating on God’s Word for Holiness.
The main text is Deuteronomy 6:4-9, if you will look with me as I read our main text.
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
7 “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
8 “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Pray
Pray
I. A Devoted Heart.
I. A Devoted Heart.
4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.
The first thing we need to see from our text is that the Lord our God is one, there are not multiple ways to heaven or salvation, but there is one God.
Jesus said when telling the disciples that He was preparing to go to heaven that there was one way.
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
Jesus said there I am the way and no man come to the Father, that is God the father but through Jesus Christ, the shed blood of the cross, the repentance of sin.
Then we are told in verse two of our text that we are to love God with all that we are, the text says with our heart, soul and might, that is with everything that we are.
Jesus quotes this verse when being tested by the Pharisees, after he had silenced the Sadducees, one of the leading Pharisees asked Jesus in Matthew 22:36-37
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
Here we see according to Jesus this is the greatest of the commandments in the Law.
As we seen last week we are to put Jesus in first place in our lives.
God says to the Israelites in Jeremiah 29:13, and we can even take it for ourselves today.
13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Verse six of our text, we are told there, that the words that are commanded there, shall be on our hearts.
That is write them on our heart, we are to have a devoted heart for God, a heart that is set towards God and God only.
A devoted hearts is one that has a love for God that is unmatched, as verse five says, we are to love God with all that we are, nothing less.
II. Night and Day.
II. Night and Day.
7 “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
Here we are told that we are to teach them, what are we to teach, well, that is the commands from verse six, the law, everything that has been given up to this point.
But for us today, the entire Bible, all Scriptures, are for us to grow from, to learn from, to profit from.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
We do not select which ones we want to learn, we do not take out the ones we do not like, or ones that go against the way we want to live, but All Scripture is inspired that is breathed by God, and is for us to learn from, and is for our correction, for our training into righteousness, and Holiness.
1 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!
2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
We are to teach them to our children diligently so that they are not caught up in the evil ways of this world, and let me tell you if you are not teaching your children, or if your children are not teaching your grandchildren the ways of God, then you can bet the world is teaching the ways of the world.
We have to make sure our children and grandchildren know the truth.
I want to read you a short article that I was handed from the Christian Law Association, the title of the article is Should Parents be in the Dark?
Although it is very difficult to believe this could actually happen in America, a case is currently being appealed to a federal court over whether a public school can assist a student in becoming transgender while actively hiding the transition from the student’s parents. The school intentionally instructed its staff not to tell the parents anything that the child was doing.
This clearly should not be legal. The idea that minors should be encouraged to make life-altering decisions without any input from their parents is unthinkable. Yet some people do believe that educators and medical personnel should usurp parents rights in order to achieve their agenda.
Let me tell you people this is just one of many things like this that is going on in our country that goes against the Word of God, that not just affects us, but more importantly it affects the younger generations that do not even understand the what all is involved with something like this.
That is why God has told us to teach our children His Word night and day, that is meditate on it, think back to the definition of Meditate, it is to focus one’s thoughts on: reflect on or ponder over.
We need to focus our thoughts on the Word of God night and day, as the text says, when we sit down, when we walk, when we lie down, and when we rise up.
As the Israelites were preparing to enter the Promised Land God told them in the Book of Joshua, to Meditate on His Word.
8 “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.
We meditate on it so that we may be careful to do as it says, that we may follow it, that we may learn from it, that we may apply it to our lives, and live a Holy life.
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
As we meditate on the Word of God day and night we then can then present ourselves approved before God.
III. Be a Sign.
III. Be a Sign.
8 “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.
9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
We are to bind the Word of God as a sign on our hand, that is as we meditate on the Word of God, we will start to memorize it and know it like it is a sign on our hand.
Or even a frontals on our forehead, a frontal was a little box that was tied onto a bracelet or around the forehead and the box would contain Scripture that was written down.
Therefore, this frontal or frontlet was a type of sign or symbol to others that the person was study or memorizing, or meditating on the Word of God.
Verse nine tells us to write them down on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Again this is a sign or symbol that the person was devoted to God and devoted to meditating on the Word of God.
I have a cousin up in Tennessee that works for a contractor that builds houses and she is the architect, and they had a customer that as they built the house wanted to come in and write Scripture all throughout the inside of the walls, on the studs, and on the bare floors, and just all over where ever they could.
Then the Executive Director of Florida told us that when he was the Senior Pastor of First Brandon I believe it was and they were building their new sanctuary, they place a Bible in the foundation right below where the Pastor would stand when preaching.
It is important that we have a sign to show that we are God’s, and that we stand on the Word of God, but it is so much more important that we actually meditate on the Word of God constantly.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
We must remember what Jesus has done for us, to often we make excuses that we do not have time, we are to busy, we got this to do or that going on.
But Jesus was not to busy for us when it was time for Him to go to the cross, He was not to busy when He left eternity to come to this sin sick world to give His life a ransom so that we could have salvation.
Why can’t we take time out of our day, shut that T.V. off, put that other book down, put Facebook down, or Ticktock, whatever it is that distracts us throughout the day.
I know we live in a busy world, life is fast paced, and we are always rushing from this thing to that thing, but put the Bible app on your phone and let it read it to you while driving down the road if need be, listen to preaching driving down the road.
There are always other ways to get into the Word of God, we just have to want to get closer to God, see the thing is it is a heart issue, not a time issue.
It is just like the verse I shared earlier - Jeremiah 29:13
13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
If you really want to find God, if you really want to get closer to God, and have a journey of Holiness, you will seek Him with all your heart.
It is like Jesus said in His sermon on the Mount - Matthew 6:33
33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
You have to seek God - Jesus first, meditate on Him and His word, Focus your thoughts on Jesus and His Word, Reflect on what He has said in His Word, Ponder what it means, and how you can apply it to your life.
Are you truly seeking God, and focusing on Him, meditating on His Word, trying to get closer to Him, or you just showing up on Sunday mornings hoping that you get to heaven when the time comes.
See church attendance does not get you to heaven, a relationship with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gets you forgiven of your sins and into heaven.