Meditation
Download MP3Would I invite you to open your bibles to Psalm 1, the book of Psalms chapter 1. We'll be reading the entire chapter. If you don't know where Psalms is, it's pretty much right in the middle of your Bible, maybe a little left. Psalms chapter 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
Joel Brooks:But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
Joel Brooks:For the lord knows the ways of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Pray with me. God, we ask simply that you would come and you would speak and that we would hear. It's a simple request, yet if you do not send your spirit to move in power, it will not happen Because our ears are dull, our minds are dull. I'm incapable of presenting the truth that you have presented in scripture.
Joel Brooks:And so we we ask through the power of your spirit that you would allow those things to happen, that you would speak and that we would hear. That you would come and you would bring life. For those of us here who need encouragement, I pray that you would surround them with encouragement. For those who need to be convicted, I pray that you would rest heavy on them, and bring them a heart of repentance. God, now I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Joel Brooks:But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. We're gonna take a break, a brief break from the book of Acts tonight. Actually, this is something we're going to do throughout the entire year.
Joel Brooks:The last Sunday, of the of the month. We're going to take a break from whatever series we're going through. We're right now we're going through the series of the book of acts and we're going to look at a different Psalm. And so we're going to look at a total of 12 Psalms throughout the year, which, which is really only scraping the surface because there's a 150 of them. We're gonna look at 12.
Joel Brooks:John Calvin, he thought that these Psalms were so important that he preached from the Psalms for over 500 Sundays in a row. And the Psalms are hugely important. They deserve that attention. There's a reason that when you buy a new testament, if you were to go to a bookstore and you were to buy a new testament, it's always gonna be the new testament and the book of Psalms. It's not the new testament and the book of Genesis.
Joel Brooks:The New Testament and the, the prophet Isaiah. And those are great books. These are foundational books, but it's gonna be the New Testament and the book of Psalms. The New Testament quotes from the book of Psalms more than any other book in the Old Testament. When you look at Jesus, the life of Jesus, he's always quoting the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:When religious leaders would reject him, he would quote from the Psalms, Psalm 118, and he'd say, hey, the stone that the builders rejected becomes the chief cornerstone. Or when he wanted to give a definitive argument that the Messiah was the son of God, when when Jesus gives his apologetic, if you will, he doesn't turn to Isaiah. He doesn't turn to Genesis. He doesn't turn to any other book that was available there. He goes to the Psalms, and he goes to Psalm 110, and he says, explain to me this.
Joel Brooks:How can David say the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand and I put your enemies under your feet? Said David calls him lord, but how can he call him lord if if he's his son? Now granted, this is not the argument I would use. Not the the the watertight argument that I would use to show people that I am the son of God, but Jesus knew the power of the Psalms in a way I don't. When Jesus was on the cross, he wanted to express his agony, his grief, his abandonment.
Joel Brooks:He went to the Psalms to find voice for those things. And he quoted Psalm 22 when he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Literally, when you would poke Jesus, when you would spear him, he would bleed the Psalms. He embodied the Psalms. And the book of the Psalms was his prayer book.
Joel Brooks:It needs to be our prayer book. Don't make the mistake that I think, probably a number of us make when we think about prayer. We think prayer is, it's simply pouring out your heart to God. That's all you need to do for prayers. You just need to pour out your heart and that makes a good prayer.
Joel Brooks:If that was the case, the disciples would not have had to ask Jesus teach us to pray. And then he wouldn't have given them instruction on how exactly to pray if it's simply to pour out your heart. Because prayer is much more than that. It is pouring out your heart, but how do you pour pour out your heart? And the Psalms teach us how we pour out our heart before god.
Joel Brooks:They they give expressions to, to longings that we didn't even know we had, or they or to stir up longings that we need to have. They're full of emotion. I was just reading through a number of the Psalms this weekend. They're packed full of emotion, more emotion than I honestly am comfortable with. They're full of, joy, celebrations, victories.
Joel Brooks:They're full of sorrow, defeat, agony, suffering, anxiety. And the Psalms are there to teach us how through all of those emotions to have god at the center. Do all of that. And this is why we need this book so desperately. We do ourselves a great disservice, and I think the last couple of generations this has become more and more prominent.
Joel Brooks:When we treat the Psalms as, you know, you just kind of flip through the Psalms and you find that one little cheery verse that you can sing a chorus to. You know, maybe you highlight it, maybe you memorize it, and okay, well, there's a good cheery verse. There's a a verse I can memorize to maybe battle sin, and and you just kinda take these these little cheery verses or these little pithy sayings, and and that's your extent of knowledge of the Psalms, but you really need the entirety. You need the full range of motions. So you can go through all those and through all the complexities of life, and you can see that Jesus is the center of it all.
Joel Brooks:Without the Psalms, we would not know how to pray. We wouldn't know Christ, because when you read through the book of Psalms, and you and you see those highest joys, those highest praises,
Jeffrey Heine:it it
Joel Brooks:obviously leads us to Christ. But also when you get into those Psalms where you see the lowest of the lows, and the suffering, and anxieties, the anguish. Those also teach us about Christ. The judgment Psalms, they teach us about Christ and everything that Christ experienced on the cross. We see both the exaltation and we see both the cross there as we go through the book.
Joel Brooks:We we want to know Christ and so we want to know the Psalms. The best way that I know of to introduce the book of Psalms is to go to Psalm chapter 1. There's a reason that Psalm 1 is Psalm 1. There's a reason it's in the beginning. It's because the very first psalm gives you instruction as to how to read everything that follows it.
Joel Brooks:Actually, if you go through some ancient bibles, this is common a lot in medieval bibles. What you see as Psalm 1, is doesn't have one there. Psalm 2 has the first Psalm. Psalm 1 was just seen as the introduction to the Psalms. They they didn't even consider it one of the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:This is just the introduction to the Psalms that follow, and it is a great introduction. And so let's, let's kinda work our way through this. The psalm begins with blessed is the man, or if you prefer King James, blessed blessed is the man. Blessed is the man. Blessed means happy.
Joel Brooks:It means satisfied. It means fortunate. It could read this, how rewarding or how satisfying is the life of. And so I don't know anybody here who would not want this, would not want a rewarding, a satisfying life. And in Psalms chapter 1, it tells us how to do this.
Joel Brooks:Let's read the very first verse. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. There's actually an acceleration of sinful behavior here. First, there's you see the counsel of the wicked, then you see, you know, this way, and then you say this see this seat. And so the council begins with the mind.
Joel Brooks:The way begins with your actions and the seat is your identification. It becomes who you are. And that's that's how sin moves. That's how it accelerates in your life. And so, you might have something, let's just play out a scenario.
Joel Brooks:Let's say you're late to work and your boss asks you, why are you late to work? And so you began to have a internal debate. You you are counseling with yourself. You're thinking through your options, your answers, and, the reality is you just overslept. But then you start thinking, well, you know, he's gonna be really upset at that.
Joel Brooks:I know other coworkers, they've lied. I can do a little white light. And he start thinking through excuses and so you say, there was actually a wreck. Traffic was all backed up. I couldn't make it in.
Joel Brooks:So now your counsel has turned into an action or it's turned into the way. Now, if you continue to lie and you continue to lie, it becomes your identity. You're no longer the person who lied. You're a liar. You are sitting with the scoffers.
Joel Brooks:It could be the same with, one I would struggle with is, is generosity or giving money apparently or what if what if somebody came before you and they're needy? You know they're needy. They're your brother in Christ, And they ask for help, and you know you can give that help, and you feel that you should give that help. Then you begin this internal debate. And even though you you you feel compelled to give your life, well they're just going to waste it.
Joel Brooks:I've worked hard for my money. I deserve this money. I'm not going to give this money. And so your counsel then turns into a way and you say, no. I'm not going to give that to you.
Joel Brooks:And then over time as you continue to do this and continue to do this, you're no longer the person who just didn't give money. You are now greedy. It's your identity. It is who you are. You are sitting in greed and this happens all the time.
Joel Brooks:Nobody immediately decides, you know what? I want to be greedy. You know, I want to be a liar. It's this gradual effect, And the psalmist is so good to show that this happens over time. You know, first the person's walking, says they're walking and then also they're standing, and then they're sitting.
Joel Brooks:They didn't decide I'm just gonna go and sit with scoffers. No. They're they're they're walking by, and then they they hear it. Then they kind of stop so they could hear a little bit more, and then finally they settle down. And that's that's the effects that sin has on us.
Joel Brooks:Now, contrasted to this is the blessed man. The blessed man whose delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law, he meditates day and night. The psalmist then tells us of 2 different outcomes, 2 different lifestyles, and there are only 2. There's the righteous man, and he becomes a man of substance. He becomes prosperous.
Joel Brooks:He becomes full of life. We see this in verse 3. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in the season, and its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, he prospers. And then it contrast that with the wicked.
Joel Brooks:I like the King James when it's like not so the wicked. I mean, it's just very abrupt. It's like you have this wonderful water tree, but not so the wicked. They're blown away like chaff. A chaff is, is the husk of grain.
Joel Brooks:It's, it's dry. It's dead. It's hollow. It's worthless. So you you have only 2 options, and there are only 2 options.
Joel Brooks:There's there's not a third option that's put there. The psalmist doesn't give you a 3rd option. Jesus doesn't give you a 3rd option when he says there's only 2 ways. 1 that leads to death, 1 that leads to life. It's the same thing we see here.
Joel Brooks:Two options. You can either become a man of substance and of life, or you could become a hollow, shallow man, full of destruction and death. But there is no other way. And then we get to the key of it all. It's the key to this entire Psalm, and it's the key to the rest of the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:And that's found in verse 2, which tells us how to become a person of substance and full of life. Says, but his delight is in the law of the lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. Meditation is the key to the Psalms. It's the key to the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:It's interesting that you know the Psalms, it's the prayer book of the Bibles, the prayer book for for God's people. Yet the very first Psalm is not a prayer. You've got all these prayers are gonna follow, but the very first Psalm is not a prayer. It's a meditation. That's what it is.
Joel Brooks:And that tells us a lot about the, the importance and the place of meditation, where it should be in our life. Meditation, don't think of, don't think of yoga or emptying your mind or, trying to figure out what one hand clapping sounds like or or, that that that's not it's not meditation. It's it's not the emptying of your mind. You're gonna fill your mind with something. You're gonna you're gonna chew on this.
Joel Brooks:When I was in seminary, I took a class on prayer. So don't worry, I'm an expert on prayer, so you're all in good hands. I was really excited about my professor. He, was the founding dean of Regent College in Vancouver. He was actually good friends with CS Lewis and he was still alive then and he's still alive now.
Joel Brooks:He had written several fantastic books on prayer and so I was really excited about taking prayer. I think the actual name of the class was the transformative power of prayer, and I was thinking, wow. And so, I remember the 1st day of class I went in and, I was instantly kind of disappointed because it just it wasn't what I expected. I wasn't expecting, like, you know, tons of fire, you know, around or anything like that, but I light a candle would have been nice or, maybe some incense. I thought for the, you know, very least, they throw some cushions on the floor because, I mean, we were gonna get down and we were gonna pray.
Joel Brooks:This was a seminary class on prayer. And, so the professor comes in and he teaches for an hour. He walks through some Psalms, walks through some attributes about God, and that was it for the class. I mean, he opened this up in prayer. I I was like, Okay.
Joel Brooks:Well, you know, 1st day of class is always kind of bad. So the next day of class, it was the same thing. It was just a lot of instruction there, and I actually got just a little upset and angry. I'm not angry. It's not the right word.
Joel Brooks:I guess I was disappointed. So disappointed that I went up to him afterwards, and I I said his name was James Houston. I said, Doctor. Houston, I gotta be honest. I'm a little disappointed.
Joel Brooks:I thought in a class about prayer, we would be praying. That's what I was hoping for is is we would be praying, and I'll always remember his response. He said, before we pray, we need to wait for God to start the conversation. Before we pray, we need to wait for God to start the conversation. Because the person who initiates the conversation is the one who's in control of that conversation, is the one who has that power over the conversation.
Joel Brooks:You know, after this service, we're gonna have our common meal. We're gonna set up tables all around here. You're gonna sit down next to somebody. Whoever begins the conversation will determine what's talked about. And so if if you you could talk about politics, you could talk about sports, you can, talk about, you know, whatever concert you went to last night.
Joel Brooks:You you can talk about whatever. The the moment whoever speaks first, whoever initiates that conversation has set both the tone and the topic for what's gonna follow. And so that's what my professor was trying to teach me was, you need to let God start the conversation. You need to meditate on the truths about him. Meditation is letting God start the conversation with us.
Joel Brooks:It's not just instantly just kind of jumping into his presence and kind of blurting out all your problems or blurting out all your praises. It's it's not that. It's that those are good. That's gonna happen many times throughout the Psalms, but it doesn't happen here. Meditation is a deeper, a more transformative power of prayer.
Joel Brooks:Because we let God set the topic and the tone of the conversation. So we, when we come before God and we meditate, we want to first hear from his word and hear from him, and then we respond. That's why the Psalter begins here with meditation about God. Verse 3 tells us what meditation is and what it does. Verse 3 says, he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.
Joel Brooks:Obviously in the Middle East, it's a very arid climate. Trees just don't grow everywhere. The only place a tree is gonna grow is if it's by a stream. There's not gonna be enough rain to sustain a tree. And that's what the psalmist is kind of alluding to here is you need a direct water source, and the spiritual life is no different.
Joel Brooks:If you wanna be a tree, if you wanna be a person of substance and of life, you need to have this direct water source, which is the word of God through his spirit in you. That's where life changing prayer begins. You need to to hunger for that word, to absorb that word like a tree does, it's water. You need to soak it up like your very life depends on it, which it does. And and and I I just need to say this.
Joel Brooks:This is not talking about a Bible study. Don't don't read this and think, oh, okay. I I need to I need to join another Bible study. I need to listen to another podcast. I need to listen to another sermon.
Joel Brooks:I need to, to read another book. That's that's not it. Americans always think that, you know, the solution to their problem is just to get another book or to get more facts, and that's not it. This is much more than just learning new facts about God. The word meditation literally means murmuring, or talking to oneself is meditation.
Joel Brooks:We like to read silently. Maybe your lips will move sometimes, but you don't actually make sound. They didn't do that in this culture. Everybody would read aloud. They would read very softly, but they would read aloud.
Joel Brooks:And so when there was a group this size, you would hear this murmuring all over. People are reading aloud and that's meditation is when you're speaking God's word to yourself. Meditation, that murmuring there. And so you are telling yourself what God has just told you. Alright.
Joel Brooks:May maybe it'll help if I can give you a few examples in the Psalms of meditation. Psalm 42 says this. It's a very familiar Psalm. It says, why are you downcast, oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?
Joel Brooks:Hope in God. Who is the psalmist talking to? Why so downcast, oh my soul? He's not talking to God and he's not talking to other people. What he's doing is he is meditating.
Joel Brooks:He is talking to himself. Soul, why are you downcast? Soul, why are you in turmoil? Soul, put your hope in God. Psalm 103 is another example of this.
Joel Brooks:Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Bless the Lord. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all of his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all of your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit.
Joel Brooks:Once again, the psalmist is not talking to God. The psalmist is not talking to other people. He is talking to his soul. And he's saying, soul, remember God. Remember how he's merciful.
Joel Brooks:Remember how much he has benefited you. Remember how he saved you. Bless him because of those things, soul. One more meditation. Psalm 116.
Joel Brooks:Gracious is the Lord and righteous. Our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple. When I was brought low, he saved me. Return.
Joel Brooks:Return, oh, my soul to your rest for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. So the psalmist is suffering from anxiety here. And what the psalmist needs is not another book. He doesn't need more information. He doesn't need another seminar.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't need any of those things. What he needs is to to meditate or to remind himself of who God is. God, you've saved me. God, you've brought me up out of the pit. God, you've been merciful to me.
Joel Brooks:And he reminds himself, he says, in light of that, return, oh, my soul to your rest. Soul, you can rest. It's chewing on those words and preaching to himself. So meditation is when we talk to ourselves, God's word. We we we draw it in like a tree draws in water.
Joel Brooks:Back to Psalm 1. Let's look at the results of this meditation. The results are the second half of verse 3. When it says, the tree will yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Notice what meditation does.
Joel Brooks:Draws in water, but then kicks out fruit. Alright. It's not water in, water out. Something transformative happens. It's it's water and it's it's fruit out for us as believers.
Joel Brooks:It's the word of God in, and then somehow it's transforms and it works its way out into fruit. I like to think of it this way. It's it's the word becoming flesh. It's the word being fleshed out in our life. That's what meditation does.
Joel Brooks:It makes the word of God flesh, and we see that here. Jonathan Edwards, has actually helped me out a whole lot as I was going through this. Jonathan Edwards was a preacher, philosopher, theologian during the Great Awakening, brilliant man. I think he graduated from Princeton at the age of 16, 17. And during the Great Awakening, there's all these people who are professing to be Christians.
Joel Brooks:And so he, he asked a question, well how do we know if a person is a mature Christian or if they're a shallow Christian or if they're a Christian at all? How do we know? And his bottom line was this. He said, he could sum it up in 2 words, spiritual reality. Spiritual reality.
Joel Brooks:Is the spiritual world really real to this person? I would phrase it like this, does this person really believe what they say they believe? Do their actions show that? For instance, depending what polls you look at, either 85% up to 92% of Americans believe in heaven. Okay.
Joel Brooks:So 85% to 92% of Americans believe in heaven. That is a that's the vast majority of Americans believe there is a heaven. Is it a spiritual reality for them? Because if you believe in heaven, if if 85 to 92% of Americans really believe in heaven, this would be the least materialistic society probably that ever walked the planet. Money would have no hold on you.
Joel Brooks:Possessions would have no hold on you because you believe in heaven that is to come. But the fact that people 90% believe in heaven doesn't mean it's a spiritual reality to them. They don't really believe what they say they believe. It's not real enough to them to put flesh on it to make a difference, And so they go on just living a normal life. And this is why meditation is so important because we remind ourselves about truth.
Joel Brooks:Things like heaven is real. It's all throughout the scriptures. Heaven is real. In light of that, Joel, heaven's real. In light of that, you can give up your possessions.
Joel Brooks:It's real. Hey, soul. Let go of some of those things. Meditation. Or you can remind yourself about things like, god, you're sovereign and you're good.
Joel Brooks:And and as you chew on that, you begin to preach to yourself in light of that, Joel, why are you anxious? Soul, don't be anxious. Trust. And so those theological concepts, those beliefs now actually bear fruit. The word of god becomes flesh in my life.
Joel Brooks:And I think about those things like in light of worship, if you really understand that God has saved you the way that God says he has saved you in the bible, trespasses and sin, that you had no hope apart from him. And you remind yourselves of those things. You know what you're gonna say? Soul, wake up from your callous worship. Rejoice in God.
Joel Brooks:Praise him like you've never praised him before. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. And and you're gonna tell yourself that make it a spiritual reality. The word of God then becomes flesh in your life. It's meditation.
Joel Brooks:Nobody, of course, did this any better than Christ. Jesus embodied the Psalms. The Psalms were so in him literally. It was the word of God made flesh. You would see how Jesus lived, and you would say, it's the Word of God.
Joel Brooks:There's one problem in all of this that kinda hit me, as I was going through this, yesterday. It's actually a pretty glaring problem. I was reading through the Sermon of the Mount. Actually, it wasn't yesterday. It's it's a few days ago.
Joel Brooks:I was reading through the Sermon of the Mount, because of the word blessed. That's what you do as a pastor. You know, you're like, hey, there's a word blessed. Blessed is the man. Well, let's see where Jesus talks about blessing.
Joel Brooks:Alright. He talks about the the the beatitudes as blessed are the and so I started reading the beatitudes to see if it would shed light on this. And that was all great. That's all good. But then I kept reading through the Sermon on the Mount.
Joel Brooks:And it got ugly. I mean, it just got bad, because Jesus starts meditating on the law of God. He starts delighting in the law of God. At first, I thought that was gonna be good, but it turned ugly because Jesus starts saying, hey, let's let's meditate. Let's, let's delight ourselves in the law of God.
Joel Brooks:Let's thou shalt not murder. Let me delight in that. Let me meditate on that. Well, really the the heart of murder is anger. So I tell you, if any of you been angry with your brother, you've committed murder let's just delight ourselves in the law and thinking about why we should not commit adultery.
Joel Brooks:And he says, actually, everybody out there, if you, if you've lusted after a woman in your heart, you have committed adultery and you're liable to judgment. Like, delighting in the law was not going well for me. Meditating on God's law didn't give me joy. It didn't make me feel like a tree. It made me feel like chaff.
Joel Brooks:It made me feel like I deserve judgment, and I was I was feeling those things. And this is where the glory of the gospel hit. It's like, yes, you Joel, as you meditate on the law, as you try to delight in the law, it's gonna kick you, and you deserve punishment. And Christ became the chaff So that I might be the tree. And it's just so clear.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I deserved all of those things that are ascribed to the wicked there. I I deserve to be blown away and to not stand in judgment. But Christ became all those things. You know, on the cross, he felt hollow. He felt he felt abandoned.
Joel Brooks:He felt empty. He cried out, my god, my god, why have you forsaken me? He felt like he was burning up that there was no water source. I thirst. He's he's feeling the judgment there so that I can be the tree.
Joel Brooks:If you really look carefully at the Psalm, I wish we had time to just take another few hours. You can, you can see the gospel in so many ways. You know, one of the ways that just kind of hit me is, is look at those first three verses. In this first three verses, the wicked are always plural. There's the counsel of the wicked.
Joel Brooks:There's the way of the sinners. There's the seed of the scoffers. They're all plural. But there's only 1 righteous. There's many many wicked but there's only 1 righteous until judgement.
Joel Brooks:Judgment happens, and now there is the congregation of the righteous. There's now many righteous. So many times as you begin to just look at the Psalms and meditate. That's what that's what you do. You're just chewing on it, chewing on it, preaching to yourself that things God begins to come alive.
Joel Brooks:Your prayer life deepens in a way you cannot imagine. The word becomes flesh. Pray with me. God, we thank you that your word became flesh. You so embodied the Psalms from the highest joys and jubilation and praises, exaltation, far more than we can imagine.
Joel Brooks:At the same time, the judgment, the despair, the abandonment, the anxiety, far more than we could comprehend. Both of those are there. Embodied perfectly through Jesus. So, Jesus, we've come here to remember you and to thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for becoming chaff for us so that we can be planted.
Joel Brooks:We don't plant ourselves. You plant us. You save us, and then you give us your water. May we drink from you tonight. We pray this in the name of Christ.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
