Jump Start # 3099

Psalms 119:97 “O how I love Thy law! It is my meditation all the day.”

NOTE: Monday is a holiday and there will not be a Jump Start that day.

The other day I was working on some projects at home and needed to look up some verses. I had left my preaching Bible at the church building. I had many other Bibles at home, but they weren’t in translation that I was wanting. So, I turned to my wife’s Bible. And, I found myself flipping through the pages, noticing what she had underlined, written in the margins and had recorded on the back pages of her Bible. What a wonderful journey that was. Beside some verses she had made a treble clef. The passages had nothing to do with music, but she, the musician at heart, used that symbol as something special and meaningful to her.

On my desk at the church house, I have three special Bibles. One, belonged to my grandma. A baptismal certificate was taped in the inside cover. Next to that Bible is my dad’s Bible. When I open it, it smells like his house. It is full of notes, underlined passages and pieces of paper with thoughts written on them. And, next to that Bible is my old red study Bible. It’s a mess these day. Pages literally fall out. It’s marked by me and I can find things so easily in that Bible. It’s my first choice and go to Bible when I want to really look at things.

Have you ever taken a look at another person’s Bible? I have a friend in our congregation whose Bible is filled with the names of preachers. Every time a preacher visits, he has him sign his Bible. What a treasure chest that is. Have you ever just flipped through your spouse’s Bible? That might be a good thing to do. It might give you some insights as to what helps them and what they value. How about flipping through your child’s Bible?

A Bible that creaks and pops as you open it hasn’t been used very much. But a well worn Bible belongs to someone who has spent a lot of time with the Lord and His word. Their lives will reflect what they have read. They have sermon notes that were meaningful to them and they never wanted to forget.

And, I know I’m old and old fashioned to boot, but you can’t do those things on your phone or tablet. Electronic versions of the Bible are here to stay and they are so convenient and easy to use, but what’s missing is the feel of the Bible in your hand, the writing of notes in the margins, the key points of a sermon that you wanted to remember, and those quotes that were so impactful to you. And, what I feel is missing in our electronic age, is the passing down of an old Bible from one generation to the next.

Our verse today reminds us of the value of God’s word. As one thinks about it, that word will shape his heart which will influence his choices. Attitudes, emotions and even our words run through the filter of the Bible. The more the Bible is in our hearts and our lives the more it will shape our character into the righteous person that God wants us to be.

Some thoughts for us:

First, make your Bible truly yours. I’m not talking so much about the covers and the stickers that some may place on the cover, but what you do to the insides of it. Mark it. Underline it. Highlight it. Write words and definitions in it. No one else has to understand these markings but you. The more familiar you become with the Bible, the more confident you’ll be and the more likely that you’ll use it over and over.

Second, get a Bible that’s readable to you. Small print. Regular size print. Giant print. Jumbo print. It doesn’t matter. If you have a Bible and it hurts your eyes to read it, then you won’t read it. If you have a translation and you struggle to understand it, then you won’t use it. Get one that fits you and you’ll use.

Third, learn some basic ways that your Bible is printed. Marginal notes, those little numbers by words, abbreviations such as “ms” or “mss” all can help you in your study. Reading the introduction to your Bible, will explain what the publishers do with those symbols and notes. This will make things helpful to you.

Fourth, wear the Bible out. Just use it, use it, use it. Read it often. Bring it to services. Read it at home. The more that the Bible is in us, the less that the world will be. Find out about how the English Bible came to be. Understand the differences in the translations. Then understand how each book of the Bible fits in with the overall picture that God is showing us. Don’t just read your favorite sections. Read the whole story, cover to cover. Go on a journey and look for things. Find repeated words. Look for questions and the answers to those questions. Reading is an adventure and one never tires of reading the amazing word of God.

Looking in someone else’s Bible…that can be a real insight into that person.

Roger

Jump Start # 3022

Psalms 119:97 “How I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”

A recent seminary grad, heavily influenced by TED talks has proposed preachers deliver 18 minute sermons. This is based upon the average length of most TED broadcasts. Eighteen minute sermons—many in the audience may like that.

The atmosphere and setting that the 18 minute sermon is proposed is in the denominational and mega churches. The entire service would be short. Most do not offer weekly Lord’s Supper. Most are entertained by a rock praise band. And, in a time when fewer and fewer are reading the Bible, are shorter sermons a good idea?

Here are a few of my thoughts:

First, movies last more than an hour. In fact, the average length is just under two hours. Imagine an 18 minute basketball game? Or the Super Bowl lasting only 18 minutes? I’ve watched my little granddaugthers play basketball games. Even the little ones play more than 18 minutes. Imagine being told you had to each your dinner in 18 minutes and then your table would be given to someone else? It is interesting, that what we are fond of and are passionate about, the length of time doesn’t matter. Ever get lost in a book and find out your have been reading more than two straight hours?

And, why 18 minutes? Why not 15 minutes? Why not 10? Why not just one amazing bullet point? What works in the business world doesn’t always transfer over to a spiritual setting.

Second, the sermon on the mount is short. It doesn’t take long for one to read it. However, it is layered and layered with so many subjects such as: attitude, worry, righteousness, prayer, forgiveness. These themes would be repeated over and over throughout the N.T. Peter and Paul’s sermons in Acts, while not long on paper, may have been much longer than 18 minutes. The premise of all of this is that shorter is better than longer. Less is better than more. And, with that, why not just have one worship service a month? Maybe, just Easter and Christmas? Maybe just one service a lifetime? Isn’t this already where so many are? Before long, Christ has no impact and fellowship is meaningless.

Third, an 18 minute sermon can’t lower the nets very deeply into God’s word. Without Bible classes, which the vast majority of the religious community is at, what results is shallow thinking and empty lives. Like those hollow chocolate bunny rabbits we give the kids at Easter, that’s what we become. And, when storms roll in, as they always do, our faith will collapse. Substance, depth, and knowledge takes more than a few cute sayings to remember throughout the week. We need to know Romans. We need to understand Revelation. We need to see the Messiah in the prophets. But there is something behind 18 minute sermonettes. It keeps the audience in the dark. It offers a lollipop to make them feel good without having to do any real changes. If the people studied deeply and knew the Bible, they would toss out most of those fake preachers who are fooling the audiences. The organizational structure, the method of worship, the pattern for using money is ignored Biblically in most of these churches. And, the people never know because they never study those things.

Fourth, eighteen minute sermons is a tactic to keep the crowds coming. Big crowds with full parking lots means more to some today than faith, truth and Biblical integrity. There was more than one time when crowds walked away from Jesus. He didn’t chase after them. He didn’t promise to be nicer in His message. He didn’t say let me shorten my sermons. The hearts of the people were empty and they would have nothing to do with Jesus, so the Lord let them go. It is amazing to me that a seminary grad is proposing this. Just how many sermons has he preached. How hard has he worked at fulfilling the ministry as Paul told Timothy. What all has he endured as the young Timothy was told to do. Arm chair quarterbacks, backseat drivers and Monday morning coaches all seem to know the answers to the world’s problems. But I’d rather listen to someone who has spent decades in the trenches. I want someone who has the scars of warfare telling me what the best method is.

Now, can a person preach too long? Yep. Can sermons be boring? Yes. It is a challenge to connect the word of God to a highly visual audience these days. The preacher must remember that “the mind can only endure what the seat can.” I saw a sign once, hung underneath a clock in a church auditorium that said, “Remember Lot’s wife.” I guess people were turning around looking at the clock and hoping the preacher would finish. I suggested taking that sign down or I would hang up my sign. When asked what my sign said, I replied, “Even the Lord concluded.”

It wasn’t all that long ago that Gospel meetings lasted days and days, even into weeks. It wasn’t all that long ago that sermons averaged around an hour. We’ve adjusted. We’ve adapted. We’ve found more than one way to connect and teach.

But, 18 minutes? I’m not seeing that. It takes some longer than that to get to the church building. Why bother if there is nothing much to come for. My suggestion to all us preachers is simply, “Preach the word.” Give it your all and work hard at it.

And, for Mr. Seminary Grad, my advice is to tune out all those TED lectures, open your Bible and preach. Leave the business world alone and get saturated in the Kingdom of God.

Roger

Jump Start # 1478

Psalms 119:97 “O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day!”

  Our verse today comes from the longest chapter in the Bible. It is broken into sections by the Hebrew alphabet. The chapter is a tribute to the word of God. The value of the word and the praise of the word are expressed continually throughout the chapter.

The verse we are looking at today expresses three thoughts.

First, the law was loved. The law was more than just information. It was more than just things people needed to know. There was an attachment to the law. The writer loved the law. In college I was a science major. I took lots and lots of biology classes. I don’t think I ever thought that I loved my biology text book. It was necessary to complete the class, but most students either sold their book back to the school or ditched it in the nearest trash can. There was no love there.

Understand also, for the Psalmist, the law that he loved included the dreaded Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. We are not talking about Philippians. We are not talking about the amazing Gospels. His law was the very parts of the Bible that we read the least and dread the most. He loved it not because it was intriguing literature, but rather, because it was from God. This was God’s word. This was God trying to connect, lead, shape and help the people that He loved. How could a person not love it for that very reason.

Second, because he loved God’s law, he would make it a part of his life. Loving the law and ignoring the law do not go together. Today, people say, “What’s the big deal?” What’s the big deal about how we worship? What’s the big deal about the form of music in worship? It doesn’t matter? Really? Those that say that make that claim on their own. They won’t find the Bible making that claim. They won’t find God in the Scripture saying, “I really don’t care.” No, it’s just the opposite. God is specific. God declares. To love the law is to love the way of God. Those that are determined to change things, often claim that they are fighting tradition, but most times, they are fighting God. It doesn’t bother them to introduce new things, different things, even wrong things. Their actions reveal that they do not have a love for the Lord nor a love for His word. You can’t love the Lord and not love His word. His word came from Him. His word is part of Him. “I love God, but I don’t do much of that Bible stuff,” is ridiculous. It’s modern theology. It’s a lie of Satan. You can’t know God without the Bible. To purposely ignore what the Bible says is to insult God.

Those that love God, love His word. They make the word of God a part of their lives. They read it. They study it. They know it. They use it. That word shapes their lives. Because of that word, they make adjustments in their language, attitude, and even friends. That word warns them. That word defines the boundaries of what is right and wrong. That word becomes a central piece of their lives.

Third, because of that love for the law, the Psalmist thought about the law. He meditated upon it all day long. That’s how the Bible gets into us and works upon us. It’s more than just reading several verses every day. It’s chewing on a verse or two. It’s thinking about what it meant then and what it means today. It’s finding applications. It’s using that word in our world. It’s seeing how that word helps us at work and at home. It’s learning and changing because of that word.

The Psalmist meditated upon the law of God. He went about his day thinking about that law. This brought God into his day. This raised the bar for him spiritually. He didn’t turn off his spiritual radar once he left the place of worship. It stayed with him. At home. In business. In his travels. With the law racing through his mind, he would be more thoughtful and thankful. He would see things as God sees them. He would have a proper perspective of his place in the world. The evils of pride, materialism, judgmental spirit and apathy are driven out when one is thinking about the law of God.

This meditation did not involve sitting with your legs folded like a pretzel, burning incense and humming with your palms facing upward. This wasn’t a Hindu practice. Meditation involves thinking about things on purpose. It’s bringing great thoughts to your mind. Here, it involved bringing the word of God to your attention. He seemed to do this on his own. It wasn’t that someone told him to do this. It wasn’t that he was sitting in God’s house. It seems he decided to think about God’s word on his own. Why would he do that? Because he loved the word. We tend to think about what we love. If you think a lot about money, guess what? You may have a love of money problem. If you think about yourself a lot, you may have your priorities out of order. If you think about wrong things, you might one day do those wrong things. Here was a man that loved God, loved God’s word and he thought about that word. He thought about it often. Our verse says, “all day” he meditated. He thought and thought about God’s word.

We wonder, didn’t the guy have to go to work? How can you think about the law when at work I have to think about numbers, people, budgets, inventory and so forth. Then, when I get home, I have to think about dinner, the kids, taking care of the place, catching up on the news. We look at our verse and think, “I’d love to be able to do that, but I have a life.” It’s easy to conclude that our Psalmist was like a monk that just sat around all day thinking about the word. That’s not a fair picture. More than that, it’s not accurate. Sure he worked. Sure he had a family. Sure he had obligations. But he still thought about the word. Could it be that when in different settings, the word of God that affected that is what he thought about. For instance, at work, he might have thought about honesty and working hard. There are verses about that. At home, he thought about his love for his family and his need to be a spiritual leader. There are verses about that. With friends, he thought about his light shinning. There are verses about that. In worship, he thought about the God he loved. Lots of verses about that. Maybe, just maybe, what he was doing shaped what portions of the word he thought about. Maybe his life and the word walked together, each helping the other.

The person who does this finds that he rarely turns off his spiritual thinking. This easily leads to multiple prayers to God throughout the day. That “pray without ceasing,” becomes a pleasant reality. He thanks God. He asks God for forgiveness. He asks God for understanding. Praying, thinking, walking with the Lord. This becomes natural. It’s not like the artificial leg that has to be strapped on. It supports a person but there is neither feeling nor warmth in the fake leg. This is not our faith. This is not our religion.

Give some thought today to God’s word. Find some passages that fit what you are doing today and let them simmer a while in your mind. Learn. See. Grow. That’s the way this works.

Roger