Good afternoon WOL Chapel!
Before I recap some of my sermon from Sunday (Storing God’s Word in Your Heart, Psalm 119:11), let me explain why it’s so important to listen to sermons every Sunday morning and why I send an email afterwards with a recap:
Walter Brueggemann has written about this:
“The congregation, as a community in crisis, gathers to decide one more time about its identity and its vocation. The people gathered have been bombarded since their last gathering by other voices of interpretation that also want to offer an identity and a vocation” (Preaching like Paul, James Thompson, pg 96).
Every Sunday, you hear the Word of God and you are reminded who you are once again, where you are headed, and how you are to live in the meantime. But then you spend 6 days hearing the preaching of culture through your screen, through your televisions, media, commercials, social setting, peers, and the conversations that go with it. The truth is that every pastor is getting out-preached every week by other voices. I’ve talked a lot about sermon lengths and thought hard about what it should be. There are many opinions on this. But what isn’t an opinion is that we hear more minutes of preaching from our phones and screens throughout the week than one sermon once a week (hopefully Sunday school/discipleship hour too!).
I say all of that to say that this is one reason we need Sunday mornings and we need sermons. This is also another reason why I try to write to you after a Sunday morning sermon, so that you can remember what may have been forgotten or detrained from you in the days since!
And since this past Sunday, is it possible that many of us have had trouble focusing/hiding God’s Word in our heart? I know that it’s a battle for me, even with my pastoral calling, because I’m bombarded with pressures, anxieties, distractions, and exhaustion from day to day. So I can find it very hard to focus on Scripture even as a pastor! (Ps. 119:23!).
And yet, of course, I am dedicated to this lifestyle because I love God’s Word & need it! And I hope and pray that you would find the same love and need for storing God’s Word in your heart too (Psalm 119:11).
Because of my love and practice of storing up God’s Word in my heart, it comes quite easy to say as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1, “follow me as I follow Christ.”
And as I wrote that verse, I wrote it from memory because that’s one of those little verses stored in my heart. I say that to try to encourage you to keep on memorizing Scripture, because there are dozens and dozens of stellar Scriptures that are short and easier to memorize. & yet they are packed with eternal truth (like 1 Cor. 10:31…”do all for the glory of God!”). And if we are God’s people who are shaped by His Word instead of the culture around us, then we’ll be people who have God’s Word stored in our hearts.
I would like to give you a few stories of how Scripture memorization has worked in my life with the hope that you can know me a little better and that it might inspire you:
- First, let me start with a confession. My biggest problem with Scripture memory is taking breaks from practicing it. Scripture memory is a mental and emotional exercise, and like any exercise—like biking, running, lifting, swimming, etc..—it can be hard to get out there and do it simply because it’s exercise and we don’t feel like it. Sometimes I take longer breaks from intentionally memorizing Scripture because I’m undisciplined or lazy.
- However, I will admit that there are many verses of the Bible that have naturally uploaded into my mind from simply reading the Bible so much and highlighting the verses. When treasuring God’s Word in your heart (just like the word “stored” means in Psalm 119:11), you will often automatically just remember certain verses because they’re valuable to you, so your brain stores them in you. This is what our bodies and brains automatically do…if you know that your bank account number is your only way to your money, then you’re going to use it constantly and memorize it if needed. And if we find ourselves treasuring a specific Scripture, perhaps because of the way it meets us in our need, we naturally memorize it.
- Being a dad with growing kids, I’ve developed the habit of teaching my kids to memorize Scripture. We go over Bible verses or sections of Scripture at nighttime before bed, and in doing so, we verbally repeat over and over again that particular Scripture , and as I speak the Scripture, & all 3 of my kids repeat the Scripture, I learn it too. My point is that if Scripture memory was actually a social event, weather in your family or in this Church, then we could memorize Scripture must more effectively. Unfortunately, hiding God’s Word in our hearts is not in vogue these days, even among Churches.
- I have precious memories formed around hiding God’s Word in my heart. It has truly shaped me. I memorized Psalm 34 and 37 in my early 20s and even though I can’t quote that whole Psalm verbatim to anyone anymore, I can still remember the truths that God taught me and the way that that whole Psalm still lives within me. Psalm 37 talks a lot about generosity, and it formed a generous spirit in me while I was in my young 20’s. It formed an optimistic spirit on the Lord, as it mentions how good He is. And that too, is one of the aspects of memorizing that Psalm that remains within me as it’s still “stored” in my heart. Although you won’t find that Psalm coming out of my mouth verse by verse, it comes out of my life, still even today.
- I can remember memorizing Psalm 71 which is the prayer of an old saint. And what it did for me was teach me how to be old before I am old, hence the reason that the young guy writing Psalm 119, in vv99-100 says that he understands more than the aged and more than his teachers because of God’s Word in his life. Psalm 90 is another Psalm that has taught me how to live as if I’m already old…”teach me to number my days and give me a heart of wisdom.” That means, I should realize that I’m vapor, such a fleeting part of life compared to my eternal God who “from everlasting to everlasting is God.” So I mention that to say that God’s Word will make us grow beyond our years, as I mentioned in the sermon on Sunday. God’s Word transforms us, and this is one of the primary ways that storing up God’s Word in our heart helps us “not sin against God” (119:11).
- I could go on all day speaking about verses I memorized, not to brad, but because I love it. It’s a passion, and because I’ve benefited so much from the process. Yes, Scripture memory or meditation takes time. Like the time it takes for a computer to download files from another source, it takes time to upload the Word of God into our minds and hearts. However, the process is such a wonderful process. In my experience, the longer it took to memorize a portion of Scripture, the better the experience. If it took me 1 month to memorize a portion of Scripture, then I had one month of intimacy with the Lord. So don’t make the time requirement a negative part to Scripture memory. It’s actually one of the purposes. God is with you through His Word and is active, teaching you and applying His Word to your heart in every minute you take to mediate on His Word. And it’s a delight.
So I pray that you would all love memorizing Scripture, and out of a love for God and His Word, because His Word is more valuable than gold to you (Psalm 119:14, 127, 162), you lay it up in you like money in the bank. It will become useful in your journey to fight against sin. It will transform you and it will help you experience what is already yours, which is, ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ (Eph. 3:8).
With love in Christ,
Aaron
P.S. What if we formed a Church culture that could ask one-another with expectation, “hey, what Word from God have you been storing in your heart recently?” And then the reply is given. That should describe Church life, and yet I too find it easier to talk about the weather or the Eagles most times!
