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00:14 That was very kind of you.
00:19 Sometimes your life is defined in a moment.
00:26 The morning broke on February 26th, 1945,
00:31 and a young farm boy from Tuscambia, Alabama, was one of a large number of
00:38 men in an armada for the Marines uh as they were attacking Ewima,
00:45 one of the volcano islands. happened to be one of the deadliest battles in World
00:50 War II for the loss of American lives and Japanese lives. And that young man
00:58 uh had been trained as a Marine. And as you may know, the Marines are one of the most disciplined and well-trained parts
01:06 of the US military. He went ashore with his battalion
01:14 and they immediately came under fire. They were over a period of a couple of
01:19 days advancing on an airirst strip that the Japanese held there on the island.
01:25 It was vitally necessary that they take this uh airirstrip so they could win the
01:32 battle. And this gentleman's name was Wilson
01:37 Douglas Watson, 23 years old. his platoon, his group uh
01:45 was pinned down uh on the other side of the airport taking ferocious fire from
01:51 the Japanese machine gun nests and pill boxes.
01:56 And as he saw his fellow soldiers being shot to pieces, something gripped him
02:05 and he decided he couldn't take it any longer. and he charged one of the pill boxes
02:12 with his machine gun, a Browning automatic rifle, and he devised a way to
02:18 work his way around to the side. And eventually over the course of about an hour, he uh destroyed
02:27 six Japanese pill boxes with hand grenades, throwing them in, and as the Japanese would run out the backside, he
02:34 would shoot them. Ultimately, he killed 60 Japanese before a mortar fire from a
02:41 reverse side of the hill that he was assaulting uh wounded him severely with shrapnel in
02:48 the neck and several places on his body. That young man was awarded the highest
02:55 military honor that's available in the US. It's the Congressional Medal of Honor. And uh my distinct privilege was
03:03 to know that young man much later in life as my uncle uh Douglas Watson.
03:10 And uh next year, Lord willing, I will return to Euima along with my wife. And
03:16 we will be taking his uh Medal of Honor uh to that site to consecrate and
03:22 remember the great valor that Uncle Doug displayed. It's said by uh Congressman
03:28 Bob Dornan that John Wayne learned his shooting from the hip style that he
03:33 displayed in many of the films that he played in, particularly The Sands of Ewima from My Uncle Doug, who it states
03:41 in the Congressional Record that when he assaulted those pill boxes, he stood alone on the hill silhouated by or
03:48 silhouetted by the sky and he was firing from the hip his Browning automatic rifle when he uh took those guys over.
03:56 So, that's my brief little brush with history and the uh the Congressional
04:02 Medal of Honor. How does that relate to our topic today?
04:08 Uh the the discipline that the Marine Corps instills in the men that fight for them is uh second to none except perhaps
04:17 our special forces. And you've probably seen some movies or heard some things about that uh you know over the time.
04:25 Today I want to talk to you about a subject called spiritual disciplines and in particular hiding the word of God in
04:32 our hearts and the value of doing that. But first I want to uh share with you
04:38 this quote. We live in an undisciplined age. Ours is an undisiplined age. The old disciplines
04:44 are breaking down above all the discipline of divine grace. It is derided as legalism or is entirely
04:52 unknown to a generation that is largely illiterate in the scriptures.
04:57 We need the rugged strength of Christian character that can only come from discipline. You know, for us, discipline
05:04 is often a painful word to hear and sometimes a painful word to practice.
05:11 And I would tell you that if discipline has no purpose, then that is the reality probably of
05:17 discipline. But when one sees the purpose behind the discipline, the cost that we pay to discipline
05:24 ourselves is quite insignificant in comparison.
05:29 For instance, I know only a few musicians that are uh capable enough or
05:34 have a natural talent uh to play music by ear. That's very few. Most of the
05:42 musicians, artists, others that have a great talent, even athletes, uh,
05:48 practice over and over and over again. And sometimes they don't like the idea
05:53 of the practice, the practice is not uh joyful necessarily.
05:58 But when they keep the long view in mind of what it is they're trying to accomplish, then the practice and the
06:04 drudgery uh fades into signi insignificance. So when we say
06:09 discipline, what do we mean? I want to talk to you first about the spiritual discipline or discipline and then
06:14 spiritual discipline and then relate that particularly to how it relates to memorizing the scripture.
06:21 So discipline is the practice of training people to obey rules or a code
06:27 of behavior using punishment to correct disobedience. We as parents do that. We
06:33 try to discipline our children and we should by the way. Uh sometimes it's not
06:39 enjoyable, you know, particularly if you're in public and the the kids are running a muck, you know, and disturbing
06:45 uh others. Sometimes hard to uh correct our children, but a necessary thing.
06:52 Scripture admonishes us to do that. The word itself, discipline, which we're going to read several times in several
06:58 different passages, is from the Greek word gumnazo. And you probably recognize
07:04 in that word itself uh that we derive the word gymnasium and gym from that and
07:10 it's literally means just to uh practice naked exposed as they did in the old
07:16 days for the Olympic not the Olympic games but uh the games in Rome.
07:22 And so it it really just means uh to be uncovered and exercise in that fashion. And so I
07:30 would tell you that there's something about what happens when we study the word of God and we memorize the word of God that it divides us. The Hebrews
07:38 tells us that it's uh sharper than any two-edged sword and it divides us and it
07:44 reveals in us uh the truth uh of the scripture of the word of God. So uh one
07:50 of my favorite writers of old was a man by the name of Awtoer and in the path of
07:56 power he writes the church has lived through its early travailes and has now
08:01 come to accept an easier way of life. They're no longer under a lot of persecution and uh resistance. It's
08:09 content to carry on its painless program with enough money to pay its bills and a
08:14 membership long enough to assure its future. its members now look to it for
08:20 security rather than for guidance in the battle between good and evil.
08:25 There's social networks. It's it's part of our theme is building gospel communities. We've come to center on the
08:32 community aspect and the fellowship aspect of some uh to some extent. And we've left the other purposes, the more
08:39 deeper spiritual purposes behind in this battle between good and evil. It has become a school instead of a barracks.
08:46 Its members are students, not soldiers. They study the experience of others
08:51 instead of seeking new experiences of their own. You may recall that in uh uh
08:58 uh Ephesians chapter 6, we're given the whole armor of God in those several verses through the mid part of chapter
09:05 6. And I would say to you, while it's worthy to be a student of the word,
09:10 that's not the ultimate purpose of a Christian. The ultimate purpose of a Christian is to be on the battlefield
09:16 waging a war against sin, self, and Satan. And we're to carry the gospel
09:22 message is the means to do that. That's our weapon. School students don't need
09:28 armor. And so you can see the purpose of uh following God and learning his word is
09:35 to arm yourself so you can protect yourself against the devil against the
09:40 uh evil and uh wicked philosophies of the world and that you can join the
09:45 battle as it were uh in defense of the Christian faith.
09:51 Uh this is going to be pretty obvious to you, but people who we know that uh evidence uh uh a good discipline are a
09:59 lot of professionals like doctors and lawyers, accountants, law enforcement, sometimes clergy. What I've learned by
10:06 preparing sermons, the few times that I've spoken is that there there's a lot of discipline in preparing a sermon. a
10:13 lot of study, a lot of prayer, uh preparing your heart, just the logistics
10:18 of uh preaching sometimes. And yet, it's interesting that God says that by the foolishness of preaching, he chooses to
10:25 save some. Sometimes as congregants, you sit out here and occasionally you'll see
10:31 something you may classify as a little foolish in preaching. I know uh one of the American churches uh started
10:37 baptizing people and he used a water slide to put the people into the baptistry. I
10:44 guess that was that was great fun to me. Somehow or another it loses its significance when you go down a water
10:49 slide into the baptistry. But uh nevertheless uh another group would be
10:55 artists. These are actors, musicians, lyricists that uh do a lot of writing. I
11:01 completely get how people can write the words to a song. What is absolutely
11:08 beyond my understanding is how they can put notes to those words to create a melody that moves people. I mean that
11:16 just is beyond my comprehension. It's a gift. And uh but a lot of these people,
11:22 they don't just do this uh one u as a one-off. We've all heard of one hit wonders uh and songs that have made it
11:29 popular, but usually these people are very practiced and they don't just come up with a hit song on their very first
11:34 occasion. Sculptors, painters, chefs, these are other people who demonstrate an artistry. Uh athletes, particularly
11:42 professionals operating at the highest level of their sport. You don't see anybody in the uh FIFA uh series of uh
11:50 World Cup that just walks on and from the very first uh time they're a
11:55 champion. It takes a lot of practice. Malcolm Gladwell, a journalist in the US, has posited that it takes 10,000
12:03 hours of training to become an expert in your field. 10,000 hours. If you'd work
12:09 2,000 hours a year, that's at least five years in your given per perfection or
12:15 profession of intense training and concentration on whatever the skill set
12:21 is you're trying to develop to become an expert. So these are things that don't come easily. And then because I love
12:27 military history and history in general, uh the military personnel are people who
12:33 also uh exercise a great deal of discipline. And in particular, some of these highly trained special forces
12:39 outfits, they have uh job descriptions that are things like snipers and hoscu
12:46 uh rescue teams, medics, linguists that can talk to the people within the country uh they're in. And aside from
12:53 speaking in tongues, I don't know anybody that can just speak a foreign language and having never trained
12:59 themselves uh in vocabulary or grammar to do that. So uh it takes a great deal
13:05 of discipline. There are two types of discipline. There's a physical discipline.
13:11 They both, by the way, these two types involve a mental component. Uh the mind is is fully engaged. Uh this is a object
13:20 lesson. I hope that doesn't offend you. Uh this is my youngest son. Okay. He uh
13:28 since he has been 16 has been the most disciplined kid I ever
13:33 know. He must have got it from his mother. Okay. But since he was 16 he has
13:39 been very very strict about his diet and he spends a couple of two two or three
13:44 hours a day in the gym. He rarely misses and uh he just posed for his first
13:51 competition after 10 years of this routine. He eats nothing but uh skinless
13:58 chicken breasts, eggs, cottage cheese, and a few other things that are supposed to be healthy for bodybuilding.
14:05 And uh uh he just won his didn't win, sorry, he came in second in his first
14:10 public competition. But after 10 years of training, he's uh also a police
14:16 officer in St. Louis and is the uh the father of my only grandbaby, my
14:22 granddaughter. So I have another son. Someday I'll show you a picture of him. But uh any rate, he has an incredible
14:30 amount of discipline. He knows how to say no to what he doesn't need in his life to
14:38 get what he wants in his life. That's one of the most valuable things that we
14:43 can learn as a believer. It's not what we need per se. We need to be
14:50 disciplined enough that we make our wants become the heart of Christ. That we become godly uh in the pursuit of
14:57 that. The other type of discipline is spiritual discipline that we're talking about today. Here's a gentleman spending
15:03 time in God's word. There are a number of uh uh disciplines
15:09 that I'll go over in just a moment. spiritual disciplines, but we're going to talk today simply and hopefully fairly quickly about the spiritual
15:16 discipline of memorizing scripture and what the value of that is. So, the
15:21 purpose of these disciplines is uh found in 1 Timothy 4:6 and 7. If you put these
15:27 things before the brothers, you'll be a good servant of Jesus Christ, being trained in the words of the faith and of
15:34 the good doctrine that you have followed. have nothing to do with inherent or excuse me irreverent silly
15:40 myths rather train yourselves. This is the word train is the word gymnazo that
15:45 I uh shared with you earlier. So go to the gym train yourself for
15:51 godliness. Now if we're all being conformed to the image of Christ as the scripture tells us in Romans, what's the
15:59 point of spiritual discipline? Why do we have to do anything? Why don't we just coast after we've been saved? Why don't
16:06 we just coast into heaven or Christ's return uh and just wait for him to make
16:11 us perfect, you know, at the last day? This verse tells us the reason why. It's
16:17 to produce godlikeness uh in us through the disciplines.
16:23 For while bodily training is of some value, he's not saying it's not of any value.
16:28 I never look like my son, okay? But when I was boxing, I used to run five miles a
16:34 day into boxing practice. I would do my boxing practice, including sparring, and
16:40 I would run home. I had great stamina, and it's the reason why I won most of the fights that I won. And the reason
16:46 why I lost them was because the other guy was better. Uh I got got knocked out
16:52 on television one time. That was a a really interesting uh thing to live in
16:57 front of my schoolmates. I took a lot of uh ribbing or a lot of joking for that. But notice bod bodily exercise. It has
17:05 some merit, some value. He's not saying ignore it all together. But what happens if you quit exercising?
17:13 Okay. At nearly 60, you know, it's a little more difficult to exercise. You
17:19 know, the desire is not quite as high as it once was when you're a kid. when you're a younger, you know, a guy and
17:25 you're looking for a girl, maybe uh you you take care of yourself differently.
17:31 Uh I'm blessed beyond measure by the young lady that I uh have a privilege to
17:36 call my wife and she's very disciplined. So, she keeps me on the uh on the
17:42 straight and narrow as it were. But godliness is of value in every way. And
17:48 why is that? because it holds a promise for the present life and for the life
17:53 which is to come. So there is a purpose in the discipline when we are trying to
17:59 memorize scripture or we're trying to pray and we war against the flesh uh
18:05 against our natural inclinations and impulses. If we keep in mind that the
18:10 important thing is the long view that we're being transformed into godlikeness
18:16 uh by exercise of these disciplines then we know that we please god and I say
18:21 that we have to do this we have to do it in a proper way because you can uh do
18:27 these spiritual disciplines as just a mental activity and lose the spiritual benefit that's uh that comes along with
18:34 it. So the purpose of discipline is to produce godlikeness in our lives.
18:40 And so spiritual disciplines are those personal and interpersonal or corporate
18:46 group type disciplines that promote spiritual growth. They're the habits of
18:51 devotion and experiential Christianity that have been practiced by the people of God since biblical times. And many of
18:58 these are enumerated in the scripture. Scriptural disciplines properly practice
19:04 draw us into communion and intimacy with God.
19:09 Spiritual disciplines. Well, let's talk about what they're not. They're not a means to attain righteousness.
19:16 Okay? Uh it's not a way in which we can merit God's favor, nor a means of gaining righteousness. The believer
19:23 prays and hears and fasts and goes hard after God. Confident in that the righteousness of another, namely Jesus
19:30 Christ is what gives us our uh confidence and peace with God in our
19:36 faith. What uh builds our faith. Our acceptance with God, this is very important. Our acceptance with God is
19:42 not determined by the quality of our fastings, the number of our prayers or the zeal of
19:48 our disciplines even. It's guaranteed by the perfect fastings, prayer and
19:54 disciplines of Christ which is then accredited accredited or imputed to our
19:59 account. So it's not it's not something that we do in the flesh that gains God's
20:06 approval. It's actually when we surrender our lives in submission and practice the spiritual disciplines that
20:13 encourage the character of Christ to come alive in us where we gain the benefit.
20:19 The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts.
20:26 And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil but for the simple pleasures of this earth. Let's
20:33 call it convenience Christianity, comfortable Christianity. Those are the true enemy of God.
20:41 For when these uh replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is
20:47 scarcely recognizable and almost incurable.
20:52 This is from John Piper from his book, The Hunger for God. We don't even
20:57 recognize that we're being lulled into a sense of apathy and complacency when we seek the comforts of this world.
21:05 When you think about our brothers and sisters around the world, even to this day, who suffer great great persecution
21:11 for their faith, who pay any price, we have to thank God that we're blessed
21:17 with the relatively peaceful uh environment in which we get to live and
21:22 practice our faith. But don't let that lure you to sleep. And by practicing the
21:28 spiritual disciplines and in particular memorizing scripture, the world becomes
21:34 clearer to us. We see more of who God is and uh
21:39 uh more of the reality of the world, the unseen world as it were. If we don't
21:44 feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it's not because we have drunk deeply and are
21:49 satisfied. It's because we've nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is
21:56 stuffed with small things and there is no room for the great. Again, John
22:01 Piper. So, a lot of us we fill up on junk food.
22:07 Now, the scripture is called the bread of life and Jesus has referred to the bread as the bread of life. It's called
22:14 many other things. We'll look at a few of those in a moment. But you know when we eat sometimes at my home I like to
22:21 snack. It's maybe obvious, okay? But uh I sometimes will eat the wrong things
22:28 and I'll get full and my wife's prepared a meal, a very nice meal and I sit down
22:33 to the meal and I don't enjoy it because I've compromised myself with the empty
22:39 calories of a chocolate bar or, you know, a piece of pie or whatever. Okay.
22:46 Same is true for our spiritual appetites. We can lose our spiritual appetite by
22:53 filling our lives with the wrong things that stimulate us. Maybe they intrigue
22:59 us or they interest us and they give us a false sense of happiness or fulfillment. Maybe even a false sense of
23:06 purpose and then we lose our hunger for God. I will submit to you that if you
23:11 stay close to the scriptures that is less likely to happen. A lack of
23:16 spiritual discipline leads to spiritual pro poverty. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard somebody say who's been
23:23 a Christian for a long time that I am discouraged. I'm in despair. Uh you
23:29 know, it's not working for me. I'm unhappy with God. And ultimately, if you
23:36 can get close enough to them to understand their situation and you ask them about the kind of
23:42 behavior that they're demonstrating in their life with respect to these spiritual disciplines, they're on a starvation diet
23:49 from uh the word of God. And they expect God somehow to move in
23:56 their life when they are ignoring God. They filled up on the junk of the world,
24:01 the empty calories as it were, and they're satisfied to live in their
24:07 despair and disappointment. It doesn't have to be that way. So, let's just look
24:12 at a list of some spiritual disciplines. Uh there's two types. Personal which you
24:17 practice privately, and then those which you p uh practice publicly. But the first is memorizing scripture, and we
24:23 will take a look at that in just a couple of slides. Bible reading and study and meditation. We're told to
24:30 meditate on the word, prayer, fasting, which is abstinence of
24:36 uh or suppressing your physical appetites, whether it's food, drink, sex, parties, uh exercise, whatever.
24:45 Abstinence, uh introspecting, introspection, we're told to examine ourselves. journaling,
24:52 writing down what God says to us so that we can look at that at some later date
24:57 and uh count the blessings of God and how God has moved and spoken in our lives. Waiting on the Lord, I'm an
25:05 impatient person. This I find very difficult. But the times that I have
25:10 waited on the Lord, rather than jumping into a situation of my own creation
25:15 because I've made choices when I haven't heard from God, the times I've waited on
25:20 the Lord, he has come through in miraculous ways. Uh some of you uh
25:25 probably know that I've completed my responsibilities at Oasis International School. The school is built. All the
25:32 non-educational services are operational. uh we decided that we were going to look
25:37 at retiring here in Malaysia and under MM2 we could not do it and so we said uh
25:44 how are we going to stay we don't have a visa you know we're going to have to go uh back to the US or somewhere else and
25:51 we prayed about it for a very long time and then I spoke to uh some people from my former industry
25:59 we were praying diligently for God to lead and show us what he wanted us to do And I was looking at some of my former
26:06 employers over the 28 years I was in another industry. And to my surprise,
26:13 I found a company that I worked for in St. Louis, Missouri, where we're from. I
26:18 was the director of sales and marketing for the Americas for a large German specialty chemical company. And to my
26:25 surprise, as we started praying and the door started closing for us to stay here, I looked on the internet to see
26:31 what that company was doing. And guess where they put a manufacturing plant in
26:36 2014, right over here by Federal Auto, the
26:42 Volvo dealership, 10 minutes from here, if that. And so I
26:48 called the managing director on the phone and I said, uh, you know, I'm interested in, uh,
26:54 looking, uh, for an employment opportunity with your company. I know a lot about the business. And, uh, after a
27:00 few conversations, he said, "We'd be very happy to have you." And we just got our next two-year business visa, so
27:07 we're legal, permitted to stay. That was a blessing.
27:14 You know, I could have done any number of things. We could have left the country. We could have tried to retire in some other country. I could have
27:21 manipulated circumstances and instead God was moving all the time.
27:26 My wife loves to tell the story. She was very discouraged about this door slamming on our potential retirement
27:33 here because we didn't want to leave. We love this church. We love you. We have such great respect for so many of you
27:38 and your walk with the Lord. We didn't want to leave. And she said, "God told me when I found
27:46 that that your employer, your potential employer is less than 10 minutes from work, God said,"I know where you are.
27:54 I know what your circumstances are. I've made a way for you." And these are the
27:60 things that spiritual discipline like waiting on the Lord to do something miraculous rather than us trying to take
28:05 our future in our own hand. These are the things where God can show himself strong in your life if you will exercise
28:12 these disciplines. Now some of the corporate disciplines, the interpersonal uh disciplines are witnessing uh
28:19 witnessing is that on that list because it involves another person but sharing your faith with Christ, church
28:24 attendance or preaching. Preparing a sermon I can tell you takes uh uh spiritual discipline. Bible study under
28:31 spiritual leaders. This is not studying the Bible on your own which may go in the other column. This is uh things like
28:37 alpha and gamma and uh it's a spiritual discipline. Bearing one another's burdens is a
28:44 spiritual discipline. Are you in a life group where you can share the burdens of
28:49 your life with a brother or sister? Maybe some sin difficulty that you're
28:55 having uh uh that you're struggling with that you don't have a victory over. You
28:60 know, the scripture tells us that we should uh confess our sins to one another and we gain strength from doing
29:07 that of coming clean of kind of exercising naked. You know, if you tell a brother
29:14 or sister, I've got a problem with this sin in my life, it exposes you in a way
29:20 that not many of us are comfortable with. And yet I would tell you that the doing of that fulfills not only a
29:26 command of God but it gives you a freedom and a power to overcome that sin
29:31 problem in your life. Fellowship uh with believers is another corporate worship like we're doing uh earlier with the uh
29:39 with the worship team. Service works or projects uh in the community. Uh we have
29:45 so many of those types of ministries here in the church. Are you involved in in those? Now, I'm a lifeg group leader
29:52 and as a lifeg group leader, I've decided that for this year, we're going to memorize scripture in our life group
29:58 and uh it's ohana. So, if you want to come or if that scares you and makes you want to stay away, choice is yours. But
30:06 uh we've now memorized as a group three scriptures or three passages. We're doing one a month for each of the 12
30:13 months. And so hopefully at the end of this one year, we have some new Christians in our group. Hopefully at
30:20 the end of this one year by hiding God's word in their hearts, they'll be uh more
30:26 mature and uh have the ability to recite the word of God when temptation comes or
30:33 when difficulties come and it will make them stand. And then uh uh I've already mentioned
30:40 confession of sin to one another. So, let's look now specifically at the discipline of uh scripture memory and
30:48 meditating on God's word. And I want to give you a few verses to hopefully impact on you the importance, the vital
30:56 critical importance of memorizing scripture. Now, if you've been a Christian a long time, if you've been raised in church, you probably memorize
31:03 scripture as a young kid, a child. But, you know, as you get older, maybe in
31:09 your mid to late teenage years, that's not so cool. You know,
31:15 it seems a little awkward and it doesn't fit well with your new personality or or
31:21 what you're trying to identify as in your life. But I would tell you in my experience, by the time I was 23, I
31:28 probably had 500 scriptures memorized. And uh those stay with me to this day. I
31:35 remember one summer we went to Bible camp and uh one of my Christian brothers, iron sharpening iron, said,
31:42 "Let's memorize the book of First John together." And I said, "Rusty, First
31:47 John, an entire book of the Bible." He said, "I'll bet we can do it this week at church camp." 105 verses. And in
31:54 those five days, Monday through Friday, by the end of that one week, we had both recited First John, almost word perfect
32:02 to each other. uh at the end of that week. And do you know I still know a lot of verses. He chose First John because
32:09 we're told that in the book of First John, every doctrine, every major doctrine of the Bible can be found in
32:16 the book of First John. And I thought to myself, if I can memorize the book of First John, then I'll have what I need.
32:23 You know, if we should lose the Bible, if we go to a foreign land someday and the Bible's not readily available, I'll
32:30 have what I need. And I tell you that was one of the great blessings of my life. Now I wish I could say that I had
32:37 maintained that pace from my early 20s or so and and it was like a,000 or 1500
32:44 today. What I have decided is that we're going to start on a personal basis doing
32:50 this again because I think it promotes mental health. And one of the concerns
32:55 that I have as a 60-year-old and having a history of Alzheimer's in my family,
33:00 my father passed away from that uh last year with Alzheimer's is that my mind
33:06 will not stay sharp. And I believe by taking in the word of God and memorizing
33:12 scripture that God will use that because the word of God is so powerful.
33:18 It is life that it will infuse my mind with an energy that will keep me uh uh
33:27 sharp until the end of my days. My wife's parents are 89
33:33 and they both are just wonderfully wonderfully uh acutely
33:39 intelligent and they've lost none of their their mental faculties. Now their bodies, you know, at 89, you know, you
33:47 get older, but doesn't necessarily have to happen to your mind. It's like a a
33:52 singer. Uh where's our brother that leads the uh the Chinese or the Japanese festival? Uh
34:00 Yihing. Is he in here? He may be gone on on holiday, but that man can still sing.
34:06 I don't know when he began singing, but he still has his gift and he still uses his gift. That is so important as we get
34:14 older. And so I've rededicated myself and as the leader of our life group,
34:19 we've rededicated ourselves to finding the value of memorizing scripture.
34:27 There is a vital relationship that we don't often understand between memorizing scripture or scripture, the
34:35 word of God, and Jesus Christ. We find in John 1 1 and two that in the
34:40 beginning was the word. And you're going to see throughout these next six or seven or verses or so, uh, the word or
34:47 some some word that is similar, uh, to that, a synonym for the word. And the
34:53 word was with God and the word was God. This is the pre-incarnate Christ. That's
34:58 the theological term that we use for this. The word was in the beginning.
35:04 And we'll see in verse 14, he was in the beginning with God. And the word became
35:09 flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only son
35:15 of from the father full of grace and truth. That identifies Jesus perfectly.
35:21 So Jesus always existed. We get some theology from this scripture. Jesus
35:26 always existed. He existed in the form of the word. When God spoke from
35:31 eternity past and spoke the world into existence, the causitive force for
35:37 creation was Jesus speaking the word of God and creating the world.
35:45 So there is a there is a vital relationship between Jesus and the word.
35:51 And my belief is that when we study the scripture and we memorize the scripture,
35:56 we're communing with God in a way that is uh not to be duplicated in any other
36:01 fashion. And I think you'll see that here in a moment. He says, "I'm the alpha, the omega, the first and the
36:07 last, the beginning and the end." That's Jesus talking at the end of the uh Bible. So is there a biblical mandate to
36:14 memorize scripture? The word is inextricably tied to the identity of Jesus. And together they are the sum
36:21 total of what we know about God revealed by the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit
36:26 illumines our mind and helps us to understand. How we treat the Bible reveals what we really believe about
36:33 Jesus, not just what we say we believe. When I was again a young man, I remember
36:39 this quote. either this book will keep me from sin
36:45 or sin will keep me from this book. And do you know experientially that is
36:51 absolutely the truth. If I make room for concessions of sinful behavior in my
36:58 life, I find myself withdrawing from the presence of God and withdrawing from the
37:04 word of God. And when I'm forced because I'm preparing a sermon or I'm memorizing
37:10 scripture to exercise some of these deh spiritual disciplines, I'm in communion with God in a way that builds my
37:17 confidence, that strengthens my faith, and gives me a passion to pu uh continue
37:22 to pursue service for the Lord. So I I hope you don't miss that. It is
37:28 really a self-checkup statement. You know, how much time do you spend in the
37:34 word? How much time do you spend studying, memorizing, reading the word
37:40 on your own? Not not during preaching. You remember I said my son worked two hours a day in the gym to get that
37:46 fantastic physique. Do we even spend 10 minutes a day in the word?
37:53 If the word of God is our food and uh a source for our strength, are we on a
37:58 starvation diet? Let's look at a handful of these verses
38:04 that address that question both directly and indirectly. The first one is the one
38:09 that my wife read Deuteronomy 6 6 and 7. And these words that I command you today
38:16 shall be on your heart. How can those words be on your heart? We're not going
38:22 to print them on a muscle, right? Uh, you shall teach them
38:28 diligently to your children at church. That's not what it says. You'll teach
38:34 them diligently to your children and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house. Doesn't say talk about them
38:41 sitting at church. You're you're discussing the word of God as you're sitting in your house and when you walk
38:47 by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. Well, excuse me. I'll
38:53 bet most of us don't carry the Bible everywhere we go. Do some of you ladies have a a small Bible in your your purse?
38:60 Maybe you have a Bible app on your phone. And so in that regard, you can say you always have the Bible with you.
39:06 But I'll tell you, before those Bible apps and before technology gave us that convenience, the only way to do this was
39:13 to memorize the word so that you could use that as a object lesson for
39:18 instruction for your children and for guidance in your own life.
39:24 Your words were found in uh Jeremiah 15:16. And I ate them, and your words
39:29 became to me uh a joy and a delight for my heart. For I am called by your name,
39:35 oh Lord, God of hosts. So he says he's eaten the words of God. He's taken them
39:40 in. He's be uh has begun to digest the word and he's drawing nutrition and
39:46 strength from his knowledge of the word. Joshua 18, do not let this book of the
39:52 law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night. How is that possible if you don't memorize it?
40:00 How do you how do you meditate? Would you just kind of use a paraphrase,
40:05 you know, about some of the godly principles? You, I suppose, could do that. But
40:12 there's nothing as strong as the method that Jesus used when he was taken out on
40:17 a mountain to be tempted by Satan in Matthew 4. And in there, he says, I think verse four, man shall not live by
40:24 bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And do you know when he said that he was
40:30 actually quoting a scripture from the Old Testament? So it seems to me that the vital
40:37 necessity of memorizing scripture is evident by some of these scriptures that
40:42 we're looking at today so that you may be careful to do everything written in
40:48 it. This is our instruction. And I I say to you, if you don't know
40:54 the scripture, you ought to make a commitment to try to know the scripture and to try to uh engage in this exercise
41:02 of memorizing scripture. And I know a lot of you do and have done that. But if you like me have walked away from the
41:09 ferveny in taking this task to heart, then today I want to encourage you to
41:15 pick up that spiritual discipline again and watch what happens in your life in the life of our ohana life group. I'm
41:22 watching some of these new Christians as they begin memorizing scripture. And you know the remarkable thing is you can see
41:29 the transformation of their lives before your eyes because of the power of the
41:34 scripture. And so I I know that preaching, I mentioned it earlier, sometimes foolish. You know, God has not
41:41 promised to bless my words. He did promise to bless his words. And
41:46 so typically when I preach on those occasions, I always try to use a lot of
41:52 scripture because it's the scripture that the Holy Spirit uses to pierce your
41:58 heart and to convict you and then to instruct you uh in in righteousness.
42:04 If you do this, he says, then then you'll be prosperous and successful.
42:10 John 15:7 and 8. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you
42:17 wish and it will be given to you. Now, how do these words remain in you if you don't memorize them,
42:24 right? You have to memorize scripture. This is to my father's glory that you
42:30 bear much fruit showingelves to be my disciples. If you are concerned or have ever been concerned about the quality of
42:37 your Christian life, your walk, your experience, the fulfillment of God's promises in your life, and you just
42:44 don't think that God's keeping up his part of the bargain, I want to ask you, are you doing what he's asked you to do?
42:52 Have you put yourself in a place of being blessed by being obedient?
42:59 Very important point. Something we all struggle with more or less degrees. we're uh sometimes uh successful and
43:05 sometimes not so much so. Colossians 3:16, "Let the word of God or
43:11 Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom
43:17 and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your heart to God." How does it dwell in us
43:25 richly if we don't memorize it? I think the word is or uh the answer is
43:31 self-evident. Psalms 1 1-3. Blessed is the man who
43:37 does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. So we see a
43:45 guy that uh I think this is called sit walk stand. This first part of the verse we see a progression of pulling away
43:51 from God. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates
43:58 day and night. Again, how do you meditate on the word of God if it's not
44:03 hidden in your heart? If you haven't memorized it, he's like a tree that's planted by streams of water, which
44:09 yields its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does
44:14 prospers. That's a blessing I want to claim for my life.
44:20 My son, Proverbs 7:1 through3, keep my words and store up my commands within
44:26 you or uh store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live.
44:32 Guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. What is the apple of your eye this
44:37 morning? Is it your car, your job, your beautiful wife?
44:44 You know, is it your holiday that's coming up? Or does your heart beat passionately
44:50 and follow ha hard after your intimacy with Christ? Is that the priority of
44:56 your life? Bind them on your finger. Write them on the tablet of your heart.
45:03 And the one I've already quoted, Matthew 4:4, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the
45:10 mouth of God. So I think you look take all these scriptures in context and you see that it becomes necessary to
45:16 memorize the scripture. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Sanctify
45:24 them in your word is the shortened verse. Set them apart as holy
45:31 vessels for God's purpose through your relationship with the word.
45:38 Jesus also was also spoken of as the truth in John 14:16. He was the way, the
45:45 truth, and the life. So when we sanctify them in the truth and your word is truth
45:51 and Jesus is the word, we go right back to uh John chapter 1 where Jesus was in
45:57 the beginning with the word and he was with God and he was God.
46:03 John 6 uh 63 and 68. I'm going to read these two verses, but the context here,
46:08 Jesus has come off of a great uh uh uh ministry opportunity, and the disciples
46:16 are kind of arguing among themselves, who's going to be first in heaven. And a lot of the disciples have left. He
46:23 started talking about his upcoming death and what you'd have to do. And uh people
46:29 perceive that. As a matter of fact, the scripture says that's a very hard saying what you've just told us. Very hard to
46:34 hear. And the majority of the people left him. They no longer followed him. And he says uh in talking to the
46:42 disciples, the 12 at this point in the scripture, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The
46:48 words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
46:55 The words I have spoken to you. The word of God, the printed word of God, the Bible, the scriptures are life to us.
47:04 And if you've made a uh decision to follow Jesus and you're doing that, look
47:10 what Simon Peter says to him. Jesus is going to die pretty soon.
47:17 And uh he's asked Simon, "Who who do you say that I am?" And he gives his answer.
47:24 But look at look at Simon's response to the Lord. All these people have now left him. There's a small group of disciples
47:30 that are intimate with Christ that have paid the price to follow him. And he says,"Lord, to whom shall we go?
47:39 Where am I going as a believer? Where are you going? If you walk away from God, what does your future hold?" He
47:45 says, "You have the words of eternal life. In fact, he is the eternal life. I
47:50 am the way, the truth, the life." And so your relationship to the word of
47:56 God is critically important to your spiritual health and vitality. And we have believed and have come to know that
48:03 you are the holy one of God. What a uh declaration experientially.
48:09 Do you know Jesus Christ that intimately?
48:15 The way to know him is dependent on your knowledge of the scripture. That does
48:20 not mean that you have to be a scholar. That does not mean you have to study and know the Bible for 30 years for God to
48:26 speak to you. James uh 2:20 says that the Holy Spirit is capable of leading
48:32 you into all truth. You don't need me as a a a preacher to tell you what to do. The Holy Spirit who
48:40 lives in your life, who takes up residence in your heart, he is your teacher and your guide.
48:47 And so you just need to be faithful to what you know. You need to do what you need to do to become who Jesus wants you
48:55 to be uh and reach your potential and your fulfillment. And we can call that success. Psalms 119 long longest book of
49:03 the Bible, 150 verses. That would be something to memorize. Every one of those 150 verses talks about the
49:10 scripture. Every single one of them. It uses the word statute. It uses the word law. It uses the word promises. He uses
49:17 the word the word. All 150 verses are about the word of God. The longest book
49:23 of the Bible. And just before that, Psalms 118, I forget which exact verse it is. It's
49:30 the very center verse of the Bible. And do you know what that verse says? It's better to trust in God than man. It's
49:38 better to have our confidence in God than in man. And yet so many times we look at our fellow men, our employer,
49:44 maybe our spouse as giving us what we need. What you need is Jesus.
49:52 Living in vital, intimate, passionate love relationship with Jesus is all you
49:59 really need. We have some brothers and sisters that are uh soon going to be with the Lord unless the Lord decides to
50:06 intervene. And I know some of these uh personal stories and I know they're
50:12 ready to meet their savior. They're satisfied with Jesus. He is enough.
50:18 They've lived a long life. You know, they've had all the relationships. They've had maybe money or wealth or
50:25 good jobs or status or travel or whatever the things of this life are that we tend to enjoy. And these
50:31 brothers and sisters as they look back on their life and they're prepared to step out into eternity and give their
50:38 future eternity uh to God based on the promises of God,
50:44 they are at peace and they're ready. And that's the way we all should live. We
50:50 should all live like there's no tomorrow. Many of you know I buried my first wife in uh 2013.
50:57 Here one day and gone the next. died in her sleep of a massive heart attack. We
51:02 have no promise of tomorrow. So, when are we going to make this commitment to give our all for Christ?
51:10 When are we going to start practicing these spiritual disciplines? You do not need to be frustrated in your Christian
51:16 life. If you will do the things God has commanded according to the promises we've looked
51:22 at here today, you can have victory in life and spiritual victory in your life.
51:27 If you don't don't have to live defeated, he's already won the battle. That doesn't mean that you won't get scarred in the battle. Soldiers prepare,
51:35 they train. When they engage the enemy, sometimes they get shot, they get wounded, like my uncle Doug.
51:43 Sometimes they're fortunate enough to live to survive the wounds. They may even get some recognition from the
51:50 battle. But I'll tell you something. When I see a soldier, a picture of a soldier and he has an artificial leg or
51:56 his face is messed up because he was uh involved in an explosion or something, I
52:02 know that man has paid a price. He has paid a price and I would rather see that
52:08 man and the honor that his life represents because of his sacrifice,
52:13 because of the training and discipline he went through to put himself in that position. I take more confidence in that
52:21 man and what he has to say than a recruit that's just gotten out of boot camp with his shiny new uniform and you
52:29 know is is just prepared for battle. That man has lived, he's fought, he survived and uh he has my greatest
52:36 respect. Two verses out of that Psalm 119 that I want to point out. Verse 11,
52:42 I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. This is one that some of our life group
52:48 members are are memorizing. I've stored up your word to keep me from sinning against you. You know, all sin
52:54 is ultimately directed against God. So, I hide the word in my heart so I won't
53:00 sin. And the more I appropriate that word and rehearse that word in my mind,
53:06 the less I am to be uh interested in committing the sin in the first place.
53:11 Last verse, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. When I don't know how to go, where to go, I
53:18 look to the word and God can help. This is what my wife and I did as we sought employment. We talked with some of the
53:24 elders of the church. We told them that what was going on and sure enough, God moved.
53:31 The more a person disciplines themselves, the freer they actually become. You know, we think that
53:36 discipline is drudgery and discipline without purpose is that
53:42 brief story about this sansi diamond. It's the second largest diamond in the world. It was originally uh given by a
53:50 Frenchman. You see some of the details on the left side of the screen. It ultimately wound up in the uh court of
53:57 King James. The uh 1611 King James Bible
54:02 was authorized by this king who owned this diamond. Okay, it's again even to
54:09 this day the second largest diamond in the world. This diamond was in the hands of a
54:14 Frenchman and he had sent it to another king and in the transfer of the diamond
54:21 to its new owner, the guy that was carrying the diamond was robbed and
54:27 murdered. And they went back to the king who sent the diamond originally to the future
54:33 owner of the king and they said to him, uh, didn't arrive.
54:39 You know, the the new owner wants to know where is the diamond. And he said, uh, where's the man? Find the man, you
54:48 find the diamond. And they said, we cannot find him. You know, he he's missing. He may may have
54:54 stolen the diamond. And the king, the original owner of the diamond, said, "I know that man. He
55:01 didn't steal that diamond. Find the man and you'll find the diamond." And so
55:06 they continued to look and they found his body down the road some distance and
55:12 off in the woods. And they said, "The diamond's not on him. He It apparently
55:17 was robbed or taken." And he said, "Cut the man open.
55:25 Cut him. Cut it open. Cut him open. And they did just that. And they found that
55:31 he had swallowed the diamond to protect it. Ultimate sacrifice.
55:39 He knew, the king knew his servant well enough to know that he could be trusted,
55:44 that he would pay any price with that special treasure. That is the word of God for us.
55:52 Do you have the word of God taken into your life, sealed away, stored,
55:58 memorized? It's a precious diamond in our life and
56:04 it will uh influence our life. One of the last verses of the Bible, you
56:10 remember, oh, by the way, I was going to mention and I'll close with this. There is a Bible called a chronological
56:17 Bible. It's written as it happened. Do you know what the first verses in the chronological Bible are?
56:24 Even before in the beginning of Genesis 1 is John 1.
56:31 In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and he was there from the beginning.
56:37 That's the first verses in the chronological Bible. So history starts
56:43 with Jesus speaking the world into existence. And here we are at the end of
56:48 days and Jesus comes back and let's look at what it says here. Now I saw heaven
56:54 open and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true
56:59 and on his head were many crowns. His he was uh clothed with a robe dipped
57:07 in blood and his name is called the word of God.
57:13 Jesus is the word of God. He's coming back someday to judge the world.
57:19 Are you ready for his return? The word of God. And the armies in heaven clothed
57:24 in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses.
57:31 So all of human experience starts with the word of God and it ends with the word of God, Jesus Christ. What place
57:38 does he have in your life? So my challenge to you is in this Chinese New Year, recommmit yourself to
57:46 a vital, intimate practice of memorizing scripture, of taking it into your heart.
57:52 Can we have the worship team come? I want to thank you for your patience. I
57:57 want to uh offer a a prayer and then they'll lead uh the uh the remaining
58:03 part of the service. Lord Jesus, we come to you humbly
58:10 because we recognize how small we are in all of creation.
58:15 And yet, we're not insignificant. You created us for the purpose of
58:21 becoming like you. And had there not been a fall in the Garden of Eden, we
58:27 would have fulfilled that responsibility. But Lord, because man is in his heart sinful and rebellious,
58:36 we trust you for the price you paid on Calvary to secure our freedom, to secure
58:42 our eternity. Lord, we pray that we will commit ourselves a new and aresh,
58:49 to reestablishing our spiritual discipline of memorizing your word so
58:55 that we can be uh godly. We thank you for this time together in
59:01 Jesus name. Amen.
59:07 No, I don't think so. Was I supposed to?
