Blessings Of Afflictions 8

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Transcript

Let’s open our Bibles to 1 Timothy.

And as we turn to 1 Timothy 4, we’re going to begin studying what I call the Word filled life. You’re going to hear that a lot because we are going to actually, after this introduction, go back to the 119 Psalm and study the concept of meditation from the 119 Psalm. There are eight different passages, and I really think that in, in all the Bible in one place, 119 Psalm, distills down the essence of what meditation and the Word filled life is all about.

But as you turn to 1 Timothy 4, let me introduce that idea by talking to you about the distracted generation. That’s the generation that you and I live in this morning. Have you ever noticed how distracted people are? It seems like everyone is looking for something to do, and then when they do it, they don’t enjoy it because they were thinking about doing something else.

Now, think about that. I was thinking about it Friday night, Friday afternoon. I don’t remember when it was, but somehow, I was conned into taking the kids to the noisiest place in Tulsa. It’s called Chunk E. Cheese’s or something like that. And it’s certainly a place you would never find me. I actually wore my earplugs I use when I mow the lawn.

So, there I’m with these big orange earplugs in, it’s just too noisy for me. And the kids were having a blast, and they had raked our half acre of leaves. And for that they each got a dollar to spend at Chuck E. Cheese, but I’m not selling their services. You can’t have them do your yard, but it was wonderful.

And so, they went and they had their little cup of coins and those little tokens. And so, I was enjoying watching them. And while I was enjoying them and listening to them and watching their delight, I began going like this. And looking at all the adults that were around me. And I noticed something interesting about them.

I noticed how distracted they were here. My children were excited and having a blast. And for a few moments, as I looked at the parents around me, many of them appeared to still be at the office. Their children were excited running from game to game, gleefully enjoying themselves. And there were those parents like me holding their cup of tokens.

But if you looked at their faces, they were looking. They were looking somewhere. They were not connected with where they were at that moment, and as they stood there holding the cup of tokens looking off in the distance at what I couldn’t tell one thing was sure they weren’t at Chuck E. Cheeses. Those parents were riveted in my mind because they are a picture of our distracted culture holding tokens to life.

Those around us are spending and we’re not even paying attention. You see, they weren’t where they were. They were somewhere else wishing they were somewhere else, but they had to be here. And so, they were enjoying neither place. Neither were they enjoying where they wanted to be, nor were they enjoying where they were. They were distracted and torn between two worlds.

And hand in hand with distraction is dissatisfaction. Part of the reason there are so many dissatisfied people in our world is that they’re completely distracted from what they’re doing by something else they think they want to do. And so, this morning we live in a distracted world among distracted people, with distracted minds, with distracted families, and with distracted lives.

And distraction when practiced by habit leads to aimlessness. We don’t really have a direction because we’re always wanting to be somewhere than where we are. And then that leads to a feeling of uselessness and uselessness often leads to hopelessness, and then we’re powerless to do anything about it and it just becomes a vicious cycle.

And for a believer, God has said, and we’re going to see specifically starting in verse 11, God has said that the guard against a distracted life is what the Lord offers to us. He calls a Word filled life, a word that is filled with God’s Word so that he can focus us so that God Himself can nurture us to go in a direction that He has chosen.

The only protection we have to prevent our lives from being distracted is a Word filled life from being dissatisfied is a Word filled life from being useless as a Word filled life. God wants me to have His focus in my life. God wants my life to be aimed at His glory. He wants my life and your life to be fulfilling. His calling filled and overflowing with His hope and living after the power of an endless life. That’s what a believer has, and that’s what you and I are to be doing.

And God has one solution for an aimless and hopeless, and useless and powerless life in his people. He describes it eight times in the 119 Psalm. Meditation. We need to look at a discipleship manual. Now, I love 1 Timothy. I want you to think about what this is. The apostle Paul led a young man to faith. His name was Timothy. He nurtured that young man until he grew up and went off into living out what Paul taught him. And then Paul wrote him discipleship lessons.

Now, I don’t know whether you collect these, but I checked them my shelf and I have. About 120 different books on discipleship in my office. I was thumbing through different ones in this week, and I kept looking on the spines at the numbers going up, and I thought of all of those books that are trying to take what this one book says and kind of put it into our language.

Let’s see what this one book says, because the letter that Paul wrote to Timothy whom he had led to Christ. It was a letter of nurture. 1 Timothy is a discipleship manual, a guide for directing a life Godward. In chapter four, we find a series of steps, and what I love is it’s not suggestions and it’s not principles.

Each one of these steps, I’m going to show you. God commands very interesting. He commands through. The Spirit of God breathing out through the apostle Paul says to Timothy, you must do this. Now the thing about my 120 discipleship books I have on my shelf, you don’t know which one to do. They all have a different pattern and plan and idea and steps and all that. But what’s neat about this is it just cuts right through it, and it says, this is what you have to do if you want to be nurtured. If you want to be a disciple, if you want to grow in Christ’s likeness.

So, let’s look closely at the words of Paul’s discipleship manual for a godly young believer in 1 Timothy 4 starting in verse 11. And I want you to follow along with me as we listen to these commands. Verse 11 of 1 Timothy 4, these things. Command. Now that’s an imperative. I got my green marker out again. See, I’ll be in the front row, all the green. I love to mark these commands because remember Jesus said in the great commission, go into all the world and teach all those who come to faith to obey those things, which I’ve commanded you.

And if you ever wonder what he commanded, he puts them in the imperative mode. So, here’s one. These things, command and teach, that’s another imperative. So, he says, I want you to get these things down so that you can tell others you can command and teach them.

Verse 12, let no one despise your youth. Timothy was a young fella, weak from a broken kind of an unsafe father home with a godly mother. He cried, if you read this letter. He was weak. People didn’t think well of him, and he just had a lot of problems. And so, he says, and one of the things, they looked down him ’cause they said he was young.

He says, don’t let anyone despise your youth, but here’s another imperative, but, and here’s an imperative. Be an example. To the believers in Word and the idea and the force of this is you repeat that idea. Be an example in conduct. That’s an imperative. Be an example in love. Be an example in spirit. Be an example in faith. Be an example in purity. The word example is tupa. If you have a coin in your pocket, you look at that thing that was die cut, there was a blank, and a dye came and stamped against it, and the exact image on the dye was cut into that blank, that coin. He says, I want you to be an exact representation that can be stamped onto someone else’s life of what they should be in their conduct, in how they talk, in how they, their love is expressed, how their spiritual life is, their faith, their purity. And then verse 13, here’s another imperative. Give till I come. Give attention to reading, and it’s the same idea. Give attention to exhortation. Give attention to doctrine.

Here’s another imperative. Verse 14, do not neglect the gift that’s in you. Boy this is what Discipleship’s all about. If you’re here this morning and you’re born again, you have a gift that God put inside of you, don’t neglect it.

You are going to answer to him. One day all alone. What you did with the gift he put within you. In our churches we often are so concerned about the abuse of gifts in other places, that we neglect the gifts that we have and we should. Verse 14 is a sobering, don’t neglect the gift, the charismata that is in you, which was given you by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the eldership.

Verse 15, this is our theme, meditate on these things. It’s commanded, meditate. Have a Word filled life. Give yourself entirely to what you’re finding in the Word that your progress others can see. It will be evident to them.

And then a couple more imperatives. Verse 16, take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them for. In doing this, you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

Let’s bow for word of prayer. We bow our hearts before You, our Redeemer and King. We have already been so blessed, so ministered to so led into worship through Your dear servants who have ministered to us. We joined with them in our hearts, with our voices and now we ask You, with our prepared hearts, as You have said, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. Worship precedes service, but service is based upon the Word that You give us how we are to act out and apply that in our life and serve You. Show us how this morning, open our eyes, open our wills, open our hearts to say yes to You in some specific ways. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

We need to think deeply about God in our shallow world. We live in a shallow world, a distracted world, as I call it, and meditation, or some of your Bibles if you look at verse 15 of 1 Timothy 4, it might say, take pains with or, they’re all different ways, but the base word underneath that is described as the mind, digesting what it takes in.

So, meditation is taking pains or being absorbed by or getting into what we’ve taken into our mind. What we take into our minds, we process by meditation. And so, meditation is learning to think deeply about something. Meditation is chewing through. Digesting what it is that we’ve taken in.

There’s a terrible spiritual condition that just is rampant in the Church. One is biblical anorexia. That means that people have no hunger for the Bible. The other is biblical bulimia. That means that they lose all of it before they even leave the building. In other words, it just, it’s gone. They just, they’re gone. They don’t even remember what the sermon is about. Now, it’s okay when you’re four. ’cause every week I do this.

This is my habit with my kids. I say, what’d you learn in Sunday School? It’s so sweet. Dear, 4-year-old say, I don’t remember, but it was good, and that’s okay when you’re four. It’s horrible when you’re 40 or 24 or 34 or 14, and that’s bulimia where you just eject it from your mind, and you don’t even let it take root and meditate on it. When meditation is going on, we take God’s Word, we examine it, we turn it over and over in our minds, and that’s the way we properly nourish ourselves.

And the Scriptures tell us because we’re surrounded by confusing voices and twisted pathways that kind of lay out before us, and we’re not sure which one to take. And because there are so many voices coming and so many paths before us, and so many lives that are in confusion and traveling fast, God says, I have a cure for you. And it’s right here. It’s just in this sequence. He starts earlier in verse seven of 1 Timothy 4 reject profane. And oh, wise fables. Exercise yourselves toward godliness. Discipline yourself. And that’s how we got to Psalm one 19. And then he goes down, he says in verse 12, he says, be an example. Verse 13, give attention. You see, he says, I want you. All of those are the concept of getting your mind focused on one thing and doing something about it.

So, Paul instructs Timothy to devote himself completely to Christ. He gives him a simple list of items to follow. They start back in verse seven. He says, exercise yourself toward godliness. Then he’s to command and teach the truth. In verse 12, he’s to be an example in verse 15. He’s to meditate. Paul says, think deeply on what I’ve told you. Digest it, apply it to your life. In fact, in the New Testament world, the word that Paul chose for what? What’s in the Bible meditate or take pains with carries the idea of listen, being in something.

In fact, what’s interesting it, this word uses the idea of being absorbed by something or being submerged in something. I was thinking about that when I was sitting. We had a little spill. That’s that children are so full of illustrations, they spilled something and so what do you do? You put your napkin over by where the little spill is, and if you put a napkin near liquid. The liquid is drawn to the napkin. It just goes like that. Just, you can just, I love watching. It just goes right up the napkin. And you know what, that’s the idea of the word filled life. You and I should allow our lives to get in contact with the word and to be calculated and drawn up into our lives. Like the spill goes up into the napkin that’s he’s saying, Timothy, let it in. He says, give yourself totally to absorbing like a napkin, absorbing water. It’s hard to keep him apart. The napkin draws the water to itself, and the believer is to draw the word into his life.

And what we meditate on controls us. What we meditate on dominates us. One way to look on meditation is to think of all the applications to life that a certain verse could have for us. And I challenge you this morning to start doing that for yourself. You look at this verse and you say, for example verse 12, let no man despise youth, but be an example to the believers in Word.

And you start saying, how could that apply to me? Do I ever say things I wish I hadn’t said? Do I ever look back and say, oh, I wish I hadn’t said that. I wish I hadn’t spoken so quickly. I wish I hadn’t. And you start applying that. Say, okay, I want to, as the Scripture say, set a watch at the door of my mouth. See, that’s right there. What I’m doing right now out loud is meditation. I’m taking a word from the Scriptures, allowing that word into my mind, and applying it to my life, and I’m thinking of all the ways that Scripture could apply to me. That is meditation, that is thinking deeply. You think deeply about what a verse implies and what our response should be to God. And then we think of every possible application that Scripture could have in my life. And when we do that, we’re meditating.

Now, all of you that are students, I’ve had students in my home for a long time and I was just looking at Elizabeth and I have, 14 more years of her. So, we’re going to have about, I don’t know how many years I haven’t, I don’t want to think about that. It’ll wear me out thinking about how many years we’ve been having students that are learning. But think about, what would you think, say of a computer class that you went to, they had no computers for you to work on. Would you feel cheated if you went to a computer class and never touched a mouse? Never felt a keyboard? Never saw a monitor? Never actually interacted with a computer? Wouldn’t you feel cheated? How about an aviation class that you went to, and you never saw an airplane? You never went to an airport? You never took a flight? You never did anything to do with airplanes? Would you feel cheated about an aviation class? Don’t you feel cheated?

If you go into this Book and you never experience what it’s talking about now the experiencing is up to you that’s what the word filled life is all about. You got to get your napkin near the water, and you got to let it come up into your life and start affecting you. And that choice is studying the Bible, reading it, and applying it. Meditation applies it to my life. The Word applied to my life lived out.

Now, if you’ve ever succeeded in anything, you understand what meditation takes. Anyone who succeeds in anything learn to completely focus on that one thing. How about riding a bicycle? This, how many children in a row have I, the day they take their training wheels off, and dad holds onto the back of the seat and they’re like this, and they’ve got there, and they can’t keep their feet on the pedals. And I’m saying, just keep your feet on the pedals. You won’t fall over. I’m going to hold the back of your seat.

And so pretty soon they keep both hands on the handlebars, and they keep both feet on the pedals, and they start feeling. The pedals and all of a sudden, they don’t feel like they’re going to tip over and you just keep holding the back of that seat. And usually, I just go in a circle with them and find, I keep my hand there, but I’m really not holding on.

And finally, I just pull my hand back and you should see they go and then they crash. Because they weren’t watching where they were driving. That’s the second lesson. Watch where you’re driving, but it’s the idea that finally, they totally focused on holding on and pedaling, and they did it before they were worried about falling and they were looking at the cement and they were looking at whatever. And if you’ve ever succeeded in anything in life, you’ve learned to completely focus in, in anything, in sports, in business you learn to fully concentrate this morning, God wants us to succeed. God wants us to achieve the maximum life possible on Earth. And to do that, we have to stay focused in spite of the distractions.

And what I want you to do is to introduce this idea of meditation. I want to show you how a group of people, I call ’em God’s team, how they made it through life in a very distracting world. Men and women who, who went through every single distraction you and I face, they went through upheaval, job loss, spouse loss, family loss, health loss. They went through everything, success and affliction. They went through it all. And yet they all had what I like to call a word filled life in spite of what was going on around them.

And so, I look at these people and I say, if they can do it, I can do it. And God’s team of word filled lives as a collection of individuals. They’re God’s team, they’re men and women who lived extraordinary lives. Yet they were ordinary people, by the way, all of them were not sinless. They all had problems. They all made mistakes. They all sinned. They all disobeyed. They all crashed. They took their eyes off where they were going, like the bicycle learner and they like that, and tumbled. I just even saying that I can still see ’em flying off the bicycle, and it’s good thing they’re young and nothing breaks usually, but this collection of people we’re going to look at. As we go on a journey through some chapters of the Bible.

Let’s go back to Genesis 5, and I want you to do this. If you’ve got a pen, pull it out because I’d like you to write just one little phrase about each of these people because I want to show you starting in Genesis 5, a group of Word filled lives in a distracting world with ancient people having contemporary problems. Nearly every one of us can relate to completely their problems that, that are in the ancient times, but they so contemporaneously attached to us in chapter five. Let’s see, the first one who has a simple habit. In fact, each of these I’m going to show you, has a simple habit that sets them apart from the rest of the world. They each practice the simple discipline of meditation. Each one practiced what I like to call a Word filled life. And how did they do it? Were there key books or seminars or tapes or study guides that they all bought? No, they all heard from the Lord. He gave His Word to them. So, we’re on common ground.

You and I have God’s Word, but the difference is all of these people got that Word and they completely focused on what God told them and did something about it. Chapter five, starting in verse 22, God’s team of ordinary men and women who had word filled life.

First one, Enoch had a Word filled life. Verse 22, even as a dad, he had a Word filled life. It says in verse 22, after he begot Massel, Enoch, walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters and Enoch, verse 24, walked with God and he was not for God took him. That’s all we have about him. Little short, like that. But look at this. Enoch walked with God and this walk, verse 22 says, started after the birth of his son.

Now listen to this. His family wasn’t an excuse for him to neglect the Lord. Did you catch that? I hear a lot of times, oh, I don’t have time for that. I got so much going on. I’ve just… My family’s just taking all my time. Did you know that that a family cannot be an excuse to neglect time with God?

It doesn’t stop there. That family, it says after he had this child, it prompted him to seek the Lord daily. Your family, if you have a family, and you know what is a family, it’s when you get married, there’s a family of two, you and your husband or wife. So, if you are married, you ought to be even more than ever prompted to have a Word filled life, because that’s the only way you’re going to make it and not be distracted and empty and aimless and useless. But Enoch learned how to seek the Lord while living in a world so wicked that God had to drown every person alive on the earth except for the eight in the Ark. How did Enoch stay Word filled? He meditated on the Lord while he walked.

Now there’s one all of us walk, or most of us do. I only saw one wheelchair in here this morning. Okay? So, all the rest of you are walking and one is being wheeled. But it works when you’re wheeled too. But the majority of us walk. And what he did is he thought deeply about God while he walked through life. Now you and I are walking, and we can choose what we think about while we walk.

And if you take one verse, if you, in fact, on the way over in the car. This morning, I said, okay, everybody in the car, we’re all going to share one verse that we have on our mind that we have memorized and we’re thinking about. Now. It was easy because I’ve been doing that quite a bit, but the first time I said that people dove for their Bible to find one.

You know what I mean? ’cause they knew dad was going to look at him and say, what verse are you thinking about? I was just at a lunch, and I did this with a group of adults. I said, okay, I want all of you to quote at this lunch, the verse that you have memorized, that you’re thinking through in your mind.

Forks dropped. They were going, oh no, it’s coming to me. What am I going to say? I haven’t been thinking about a verse, but we should have a verse in our mind. What I’m thinking about is Romans 14:11-12. It’s as I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue shall confess to God. So, then every one of us will give an account of himself to God. I’ve been thinking about that for two weeks now. I have to give an account before God for my life and I can’t hide behind the elders, and I can’t hide behind all the great Sunday school teacher. I can’t hide behind the whole army of deacons. I can’t hide behind an incredible godly wife or wonderful children. I have to give an account for my life to God. And so, this idea is that he thought deeply, and you and I should think deeply about a Scripture. And so, he did. Enoch walked with God. He followed the Lord.

Look at chapter six, because Enoch so well, and I want to show you in verse 22. A second member Enoch walked with God. So, he meditated while he walked with God. Meditation means that Enoch walked his talk with God. But chapter six, Noah, Noah had a Word filled life and he was consumed by his job. Did you catch that he had a Word filled life while he was consumed by his job? Did any of you have a job that really consumes you, that you really have to do?

If anybody had to do a job, Noah did. He had to get that Ark done or everybody was going to drown. You talk about a job with pressure. If he didn’t get that boat built, can you understand? This was a make it or break it life or death thing. So, he had a consuming job. Yet that consuming job never kept him from having a Word filled life.

I know a lot of people whose consuming job consume their spiritual life. He lived in the wickedest work spot in all of history. Did you catch that? That didn’t detract his walk with the Lord. Noah lived in a time, if you look back at verse five, we’re going to look at 22, but look at verse five. It says, at every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

Did you know that where Noah lived and worked, every single person’s, every thought was only evil continually? Now, you can’t say that about here. You might think your coworkers are bad, but you do not live with a world that is completely demonized and completely given over to sin. This world was so bad that God said, I must exterminate everyone. That’s how bad. I mean it, it’s, we don’t really sometimes think about how bad the world was. So, he lived in the wickedness worst spot in history, and Noah had to work among people who had every imagination filled with evil. They were demonic, they were murderous, and they were immoral.

Now, how on Earth did he do it? And you think your coworkers are bad. How did he do it? It says in verse 22, thus, Noah did according to all that God commanded him. So, he did. Did you know if you read closely in the text, and we’re not going to, we did this a few years ago and really waited through this, did you know sometimes that God didn’t speak to him for as long as a whole year between speakings a year?

In fact, we don’t even know how much God talked to him during the long period that he built the arc, which is anywhere between 60 and 120 years. But you know what? Verse 22 summarizes it. What God said Noah remembered, Noah did. According to all that God commanded what God said. Noah kept thinking about what God said. Noah obediently did it.

Let me ask you this. Have you obeyed the last thing that God told you to do? Think about it. What is the last thing that your heart was spoken to? Influenced by? Impacted by? Pierce? Whatever you want to call it. Warmed, touched by the Spirit of God, speaking through the Word of God. What’s the last thing that God told you from His Word to do? Did you do it? See, that’s the simple thing.

Noah did what God said. What God said he kept thinking about. What God said he obediently did. Have you remembered, thought about, and acted upon the last truth you learned when God spoke to you through the voice of His apostles and prophets and servants in His Word? The last time you opened God’s Word, were you listening to God or were you just reading? Think about that. When you open this book, it’s not like reading the sports page. It’s not like the financials. It’s not like your emails. It is not just reading and seeing if it’s worth even looking at. When you and I open this Book, God is speaking and He’s saying, are you listening?

Now, husbands, how many times has your wife talked and talked? And then she said, are you listening to me? Oh yeah, what did I say? And we get so embarrassed we don’t remember because we really weren’t listening from our heart. We heard, and yeah, we know we’re supposed to do that. We have so many voices around us. There’s so much coming toward us. In fact, for me, I get so much communication that sometimes I don’t read it all. And what’ll happen is Bonnie, I print out a lot of things and she’ll say, did you read this? I said, Uhhuh. She said, did you really? Do you know what it says? I said, what did it say? I said, I didn’t see that in there. She said, I know you didn’t. That’s why, we need help in really listening, and if we don’t get the voice of God, then we don’t think deeply about what He wants.

And so, I have a practice that the only thing that I read every Word of is the Bible life is so full. And so, when I read this, I click in. I focus on. That’s why I had the earplugs at Chuck E. Cheeses. After I got everybody off, spending their tokens, I plugged those things in, and I started reading. And right there with all the carrying on, I was just enjoying so much because I could look at every Word and listen to God. Yeah, that’s what the Lord wants. That’s what Noah did. And the next time you open God’s Word, listen to God. Don’t just read.

Genesis 12, real quickly, let me show you now. There are 11 of these. Let’s look at Abraham for a moment, chapter 12. Abraham had a Word filled life. And in verse seven of chapter 12, we’re going to see he had a Word filled life while experiencing a complete turmoil in his personal life.

Boy, can you relate to him this morning? Abraham had a Word filled life while packing to move across the continent from one coast to the other. He went from the coast of the Persian Gulf all the way over to the coast of the Mediterranean. And he had to do a cross-continental move, and he packed up and had to go there and he didn’t have, Atlas United Van Lines, to help him. He had to do it himself. So, he had that Word filled life while moving across the continent from coast to coast. He had a Word filled life, even though he lost his job in the city and had to take up outdoor work. He had to go from a city slicker to being a cattleman out in the ranch; being a herdsman.

Abraham had a Word filled life while he had to move away from his family while he had to raise his brother’s son. Remember his brother died and he inherited Lot, and had to raise his brother’s son. And even while moving from life in a two-story home in the city to a goat hair tent in the hills of Canaan, which I told you he ended up living in for a hundred years camping. He had a Word filled life, even with all those distractions. How’d he do it?

Meditation meant Abraham built an altar or a meeting place with God everywhere he was. Look at verse seven, then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your descendants, I’ll give this land. So, here’s he got something from the Lord. And look what he does with what he got from the Lord. And there he built, the word means he established, or he constructed, an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him.

Now, how did how Enoch did it was he walked with God how Noah did it was he obeyed what God told him to do. How Abraham did it is, look at this, he built these altars. Abraham marked out reminders of what God had revealed to him.

Now, in a real sense, that’s how I look on the Bible. That’s why I mark in my Bible, when I learn something from the scriptures, I kind of make a little altar out of that and I mark it so that every time I come back through the Scriptures. I see what I learned about God. I remember that process of Him revealing something of Himself, some truth, and some response He desired from me, and I marked that in my Bible. Abraham marked out reminders of what God had revealed to him. Abraham wanted to remember what God said, so he invested in special time-consuming efforts to never forget what God had done, what God had promised, what God expected. And so, on that spot, he rolled these big stones up and he made this altar, and he made it special. He cleared around it so he could find it again, and he piled up these stones. And actually, the word for built in altar, it isn’t just piling stones, it actually is the word for a sacrificial. He didn’t just pile stones, he gathered sticks. He brought a prize, lamb or calf or whatever from his flock, and he killed them and shed their blood and burned them on top of that altar.

We’re not talking about a momentary thing. Cut a couple of rocks and throw ’em over there. He invested time. This man was old when he started this walk with God. He didn’t have endless energy and yet he wanted to remember anything God did so much that he invested whatever it took to build this altar to make a sacrifice to blacken and bloody and mark those rocks so he would never forget what God said.

Can you remember what you read in the Bible yesterday? Do you remember what you read last week? Do we even take the time to make a mark in our lives for when the God of the universe intersects with us and reveals Himself to us in His Word, and we just flip channels and go to something else just like that in life? Abraham couldn’t do that.

Alters marked the big events of his walk with the Lord. The question to us, do you listen? Do you mark clearly God’s plans for you? Are you remembering or are we forgetting? Abraham built alters Noah obeyed Enoch, walked. And each of them were going through personal stress struggles and distractions that are unparalleled in our lives.

I have to say, none of us have walked 900 miles with our family, walked and moved across the country walking, and none of us have lived in a tent a hundred years. All of us can make an altar. When God meets with us and say, God, I’m going to hold onto that. Even if I don’t remember anything else in life. I’m going to remember what You taught me today, and I’m going to think deeply about that. I’m going to apply it to my life because if I do that. Then you will continue to reveal Yourself to me. That’s what a Word filled life’s all about.

Let’s bow before the Lord in a word of prayer. Father, I thank You for commanding, in that discipleship manual Paul wrote to Timothy, that we learn to practice the discipline of meditation in our lives. Thinking deeply, applying to our life, not to other people’s lives. Not for biblical fact and trivia questions but applying Your Word to our lives by obedience.

I pray that You would help us to get absorbed in Your Word this week so that if You tarry and if You let us gather again next week, that when we gather and when I talk about remembering what You have taught us, that Your saints, in this place, will actually remember meeting with You day after day, this past week. Oh, Lord, help us to think deeply about You and apply Your Word to our life so that we can live a Word filled life. In the name of Jesus, we ask that. Amen.

DOAGL-32 Psalm 119-13 Afflictions-8 The Disciplines of a Godly Life: Meditation Psalm 119: Part 12 The Blessing of Affliction – Bringing God to Our Doorstep

This morning you and I are just a heartbeat, just a brainwave, just a breath – away from the Door to Eternity.

For a moment can I remind you how fragile we are? To stay alive through this day the following systems must work in perfect harmony:

First, your sealed, four chambered, submerged pump (a.k.a. your heart) MUST work. What machine can compare with the human heart that HAS TO pump around 100,000 times EVERY DAY or we stop dead in our tracks. Our Creator placed within us this pump that has a work expectancy of over 70 years without shutdown for maintenance or repair.

But to stay alive more than our heart has to work. All day today all of these systems must work together. o A heart that beats 103,000 times in 24 hours or you felt weakness. o A supply of blood that must travel 168,000 miles through your body or your tissue and organs would slowly die. o A set of lungs that breathed 23,400 times as you took your 20 breaths a minute, to inhale the 450 cubic feet of our atmosphere a day it takes to sustain our respiratory needs. o A body frame strong enough to resist the weight of atmosphere that stretches 50 plus miles above us and that equals 2100 lbs. square foot or 15 lbs. square inch at sea level. So every one of us walks around with a total atmospheric pressure equally a load of 14 tons pressing us down. Now do you know why you are tired? o A healthy organ system so that every cell of ours can be born again in our body every 28 days.

So — this morning you and I are just a heartbeat, just a brainwave, just a breath – away from the Door to Eternity. And, if you ever want to get someone’s attention just let him or her think that they are dying. It is amazing what goes on when we feel that death is near. Every relationship in
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life is examined, every activity scrutinized and the best of the best is all we care about.

It was 2 ½ years ago that I sat on the white crinkly paper that covers those examination tables in my doctor’s office. For several weeks I had to endured more exams, tests, pokes, and samplings than I knew were possible. My doctor had analyzed the results; now he sat on his stool in front of me looking up into my eyes. He was a brother in Christ, a godly man that I trusted, admired, and respected. With those sad eyes that told more than words he said, “It appears that you have cancer, liver cancer. There are very few options we have to treat that…”

That was all I heard. Immediately my mind went into warp speed. I left the room in my thoughts and raced to my family. At that moment I had an infant daughter, 2 toddler sons, and five other young children and teens, a wife, a ministry, and so on.

In a millisecond my ENTIRE life changed.

Everything I owned seemed so unimportant to me.

Every person I loved instantly rose to the top of my priority list.

And then like a flood I realized I might see Jesus Himself SOON, in a matter of just weeks or months. Everything I had ever read in God’s Word, ever heard about Heaven, ever learned about eternity — was all going to be actually my personal experience!

The fear of all the unknowns, the inevitability of all the pain, the loss of all the hopes of the future ministry, family joys and so on became my personal affliction.

And for those three weeks that I had cancer (or just thought that I did) that massive life dominating affliction BROUGHT THE LORD TO MY DOORSTEP! In fact I have often said since them that everyone needs to have cancer for three weeks!

And that is exactly the 7th and final blessing of affliction. Please stand as we read —

Psalm 119:153 Consider my affliction (code for IT HASN’T STOPPED) and deliver me (code for COME TO WHERE I AM AND BRING WHAT I NEED), for I do not forget Your law (code for I AM DOING MY PART).
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Pray One of our health challenged saints1 sent this note to one of our now departed saints when that saint was told he had terminal brain cancer. I remember reading these words at his bedside where he died some weeks later.

Our greatest enemy is not disease, but despair.

Cancer is so limited. . . It cannot cripple love, It cannot shatter hope, It cannot erode faith, It cannot eat away peace, It cannot destroy confidence, It cannot kill friendship, It cannot shut out memories, It cannot silence courage, It cannot invade the soul, It cannot reduce eternal life, It cannot quench the Spirit, It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.

…though the outward man perishes, yet the inner man is renewed day by day…we look not at the things which are seen, but at things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Cor 4:16 & 18

The Great Physician isn’t expensive, but His work is priceless! You are so loved, Pat

Afflictions allow us to experientially test God’s promises. Affliction is a blessing.

This morning we find that when troubles come, and we experience affliction watch out, if you are a believer – God is headed your way. Remember that this is the final point in our discovery in Psalm 119 — of the Seven Blessings of Affliction.

AFFLICTION can be used by God to bless our lives. Have you marked the pathway of His blessing that He has laid out in His Word? Here is what the Lord has told us. Affliction can be a blessing if it —
1 Personal card from Pat Bartlett to her friend Bill Robinson prior to 4.3.01.
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1. PUSHES US INTO GOD’S WORD: Psalm 119:50 2. PULLS US BACK ONTO HIS PATH: Psalm 119:67 3. CHISELS GOD’S PLAN INTO OUR LIFE: Psalm 119:71 4. TEACHES US THAT GOD IS FAITHFUL: Psalm 119:75 5. KEEPS US FOCUSED ON OUR TEACHER: Psalm 119:92 6. FORCES US TO TEST HIS PROMISES: Psalm 119:107 7. BRINGS GOD TO OUR DOORSTEP: Psalm 119:153

Trials refine us, pain opens our eyes to the realities of life, and sorrow tunes us in to what really matters. And on and on through life it goes. Traumatic and painful experiences actually help us be more aware and apart of the world around us.

How do afflictions bring God near? By all the other wonderful blessings we have already learned. Through all these – He is NEAR! Overview Chart on Affliction in Psalm 119

1. AFFLICTION: PUSHES US INTO GOD’S WORD: Only God’s Word can really help us in afflictions – cards, visits, gifts, activities all can only offer temporary relief through distraction or amusement. Psalm 119:50 This is my comfort in my affliction (6040 emotional), for YOUR WORD (Reading Divine Word to find and follow God’s Will for my life 565) has given me life. Life often dulls or deadens us to spiritual things, so when God sends afflictions our way God’s Word quickens us or “has given life”. So affliction makes God’s Word comes alive, it is fresh and seems to jump off the pages at us. 2. AFFLICTION: PULLS US BACK ONTO THE PATH: A consistent life is built by afflictions. God uses afflictions to pull us back and keep us on His path for our lives. Often we only call when we need something – so He gives us reason to call. Psalm 119:67 Before I was afflicted (6031 physical) I went astray, But now I keep YOUR WORD (Reading Divine Word to find and follow God’s Will for my life 565). Affliction can stop us from straying away from God, so “now I keep”. Have you ever been driving late at night and slowly drifted to the side of the road? Remember when you hit those rumble strips and the way you jerked the wheel — so that you got back on the road quickly? Afflictions are the rumble strips God uses to make us jerk our wheel of life to get us back on the road and to keep us from heading into the ditch! So affliction makes us start wanting to obey God’s Word! 3. AFFLICTION: CHISELS GOD’S PLAN INTO OUR LIFE: There are truths and lessons we only can learn in the furnace of
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trouble. And remember in the fiery furnace of Daniel 3, only the things that kept them from walking properly were burned away! So affliction scrapes away what is not part of God’s plans for our lives – people, possessions, positions, and securities… Psalm 119:71 It is good for me that I have been afflicted (6031 physical), That I may learn YOUR STATUTES (Following the Divine Plans to build Life the way God intends it to be). Afflictions can remind us in a life long way of God’s Hand, His plans for us. Some of our greatest moments we will always remember were forged in the furnaces of affliction. So affliction makes us want to find and follow God’s plan for our life. 4. AFFLICTION: TEACHES US THAT GOD IS FAITHFUL: God’s unchanging faithfulness is learned best in affliction. Afflictions remind us that everything the Lord does is good, right, and the best thing there could be for us. Psalm 119:75 I know, O Lord, that Your judgments (Building Life upon God’s Unchanging Decisions) are right, And that in faithfulness You have afflicted (6031 physical) me. Afflictions are very personal “me”. So affliction makes us feel God’s arms around us. 5. AFFLICTION: KEEPS US FOCUSED ON OUR TEACHER: The onset of troubles marks the beginning of a personal tutorial with our Divine Teacher. Affliction is an opportunity to “delight” in Him or for us to “perish in our troubles. Psalm 119:92 Unless YOUR LAW (Receiving Divine Instruction from the Divine Teacher that is perfect). had been my delight; I would then have perished in my affliction (6040 emotional). Affliction “perishes” us or squishes our lives under its weight. So affliction makes us keep our eyes on HIM! 6. AFFLICTION: FORCES US TO TEST HIS PROMISES: Affliction usually increases, as we get older. But God’s Word will always renew, refresh, and revive. Psalm 119:107 I am afflicted (6031 physical) very much; Revive me, O Lord, according to YOUR WORD (Hearing the Divine Voice walking us through life 1697). Often we know so much more than we experience. Affliction is a reality check. Afflictions seem to grow through life to be more and more. After disasters people often listen better. The word for “very much” is the same Hebrew word used of the waters of the Flood covering the earth (Genesis 7,18-19) and of the plagues covering Egypt (Exodus 9.3 on cattle; Exodus 9.18 the hail; Exodus 10.14 the locusts). The word
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for “revive” is actually save my life and is the same Hebrew word as used for the rescue of Rahab from Jericho as the walls crumbled and everyone else was destroyed and she and her family alone were rescued (Joshua 2.13; 6.17, 25). So affliction makes us veterans in testing the promises of God! 7. AFFLICTION: BRINGS GOD TO OUR DOORSTEP: When Ezra said deliver me – he was asking the Lord to come to him with what he needed. Isn’t that what a deliveryman does? He brings exactly what we need? And that is the final blessing of affliction. Affliction comes with a promise from God for a special delivery. He comes right to us – with everything we need. Psalm 119:153 Consider my affliction (6040 emotional), and deliver me, For I do not forget YOUR LAW (Receiving Divine Instruction from the Divine Teacher that is perfect).

For just a moment think of the testimony of Job. I was reading through the remarkable record of Job in God’s Word this week. Do you remember the conclusion of those 42 chapters? Real quickly think through the events. Job 1 introduces a wealthy and powerful man. o Job has flocks, treasures, servants, and family (Job 1.3). o Job is a good man with a close family (Job 1.4). o Job is also a godly man who was a praying dad (Job 1.5). o Job has a testimony in the sight of God (Job 1.8). o Job is “destroyed by God without cause” (Job 2.3).

All that to say that Job is by all human measures a great man, an exemplary man, a godly man. Any of us would admire his walk with the Lord, his testimony in his community, and his wonderful leadership in his family. Right? But look at what affliction did to him. Last chapter of the book, verses 5-6:

Job 42:5-6 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. 6 Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”

When affliction comes it brings God to our Doorstep. We see Him as never before. Job did, we can. Life is full of trials. Most people face an uphill climb just to make it through life. But, when we become Christians there is an added amount of troubles that come our way.

Richard Swenson says2:
2 Margin, p. 66-68.
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“Life is full of daily minor struggles: ringing telephones, fighting children, traffic jams, and overdue bills. These chip away at our lightheartedness and erode our joy. Then there are the major struggles, such as the infirmities of aging, the loss of a job, or the divorce of your closest friends. These stressors don’t chip, they detonate. We reel under the impact, and the pain is often palpable.

J. I. Packer says: “This is the ultimate reason, from out standpoint, why God fills our lives with troubles and perplexities of one sort and another — it is to ensure that we shall learn to hold Him fast. The reason why the Bible spends so much of it’s time reiterating that God is a strong rock, a firm defense, and a sure refuge and help for the weak, is that God spends so much of His time bringing home to us that we are weak, both mentally and morally, and dare not trust ourselves to find, or to follow, the right road … God wants us to feel that our way through life is rough and perplexing, so that we may learn to lean on Him. Therefore He takes steps to drive us out of self-confidence to trust in Himself”3

Peter wrote to some suffering saints in the AD 60’s. He gave them some rules for making it through problems in life. Living the way Jesus asked us to live is certainly not easy. To put it mildly, it is an agonizing struggle at times. Peter says endure the suffering such a life brings! WHY? Because:

1. AFFLICTION COMES BY SOVEREIGN DESIGN. 1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. o Peter reveals to us what may be called the law of Christian affliction. Affliction is the doorways to some amazing promises of God. o God will restore, establish, strengthen and settle us who suffer affliction; and each of the words which Peter uses has behind it a vivid picture. 2. AFFLICTION COMES WITH A SUPPLY OF SPIRITUAL POWER. [“Restore or perfect”] 1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. o Through suffering God will RESTORE a man. The word for restore is difficult in this case to translate. It is kartardizein, the word commonly used for setting a fracture, the word used in Mark 1:19 for mending nets. It means “to supply that which is missing”, to mend that which is broken.
3 (Knowing God [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1973], p. 227).
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o So suffering, if accepted in humility and trust and love, can repair weaknesses in our character and add the greatness, which wasn’t there. Look at Paul’s testimony in II Corinthians 12:7-10. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 3. SUFFERING SOLIDIFIES OUR DAILY LIVING. [“Establish or confirm”] 1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. o Through suffering God will ESTABLISH a man. The word is sterixein, which means “to make as solid as granite.” Affliction will either cause us to collapse or – if we participate by faith, it can temper us like steel through the furnaces. The best example of this is Jesus Himself as He was tempted in Matthew 4:1-11. 4. SUFFERING STRENGTHENS OUR ENDURANCE. [“strengthen”] 1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. o Through suffering God will STRENGTHEN a man. The Greek is sthenoun, which means “to fill with strength.” Here is the same sense again. A life with no effort and no discipline almost inevitably becomes a flabby life. Hebrews 2:18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 5. SUFFERING SETTLES US IN CHRIST. [“settle or establish”] 1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. o Through suffering God will SETTLE a man. The Greek is themelioun, which means “to lay the foundations.” When we have to meet sorrow and suffering we are driven down to the very bedrock of faith. It is then that we discover what are the things which cannot be shaken. It
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is in time of trial that we discover the great truths on which real life is founded. o 1 Peter 2:21-25 For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: 22 “Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth”; 23 who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness— by whose stripes you were healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. o Matthew 5:10-12 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.