Practical Thoughts on Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

Well, for our time of study and the word this morning, what a journey it's been. we've been doing a study, through Romans 567 and 8. And if we were to continue with that this morning, we would be arriving at chapter 7, verse 14 and beginning to wade into the second half of Romans chapter 7. I, I've spent 3 weeks getting ready for this particular Sunday and studying ahead on the second half of Romans 7 and I have to confess to you, I am still not ready to preach.

from Romans 7:14 and, and following. What I'm realizing is I need to spend a little bit of time studying a little more deeply into Romans 8 to help me figure out some things in Romans 7. So I'm going to beg your indulgence, and, and, ask if we can wait till Romans 7 and confess to you that I am not ready to preach that sermon, this morning. All I can say is I'm sorry, the good I wanted to do, I didn't get it done.

OK. But we got to do something this morning, right? And if I can't preach from Romans 7, we need to do something, and there were two alternatives that I had, had it narrowed down to of what we could do during this particular time. Alternative number 1 was we could show a VeggieTales video.

but we, I was not able to get unanimous approval from the elder board on that. We, we fell shy of unanimity on that alternative. So what we're gonna do instead is, is what, what you see here on the screen is I, I wanna talk to you guys this morning on the subject of some practical thoughts regarding preaching the gospel to yourself. 11 of these days, we're gonna need to do a sermon series on like code expressions that are frequently used here at Cornerstone.

sometimes, certain expressions are used that, with the assumption that everyone understands what we're talking about. One of those, expressions that if you hang around with us for any length of time, That you will hear is, the idea of preaching the gospel to yourself, and that might sound weird to, to some, and others are like, what, what is that? How do you do that? Just in the last two weeks, I've been asked by a handful of people, what is that?

How, how do you go about doing that in a, in a practical way? And I got to thinking within the last couple of weeks that I've never really put, all those thoughts together on this particular topic into a sermon or two or three, just on the specific topic of preaching the gospel to, to ourselves and, and the nature of that discipline. So that's what I want to at least begin to do today and I realized putting this together that we're not gonna be able to cover everything I would love to cover, so there'll probably be another sermon or two that will intersperse in the, the coming weeks at various points.

but all we're really meaning when we say preach the gospel to yourself is just taking gospel truth and putting that in front of your face, and actually speaking it to yourself so that you stay freshly mindful of the truth of the gospel and the beauty of the gospel.

The gospel is not just something God gave us to get us converted. It's something that God gives to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving. And it's a wonderful, thing for us as believers to focus on day by day. The idea of preaching the gospel to ourselves is somewhat suggested in Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, just to name one of several passages where Paul gives believers this counsel, he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

And no one disagrees with this. When he says the word of Christ, he's talking about the gospel. He's talking about the message about Jesus Christ and salvation through him. So what he's saying is let the gospel be dwelling in you, inside of you richly.

And then he says, teaching, And admonishing yourselves, OK? And that pronoun that is translated yourselves is not the pronoun that is usually translated one another in other places in the New Testament. That's what's called the reciprocal pronoun. It's something we do back and forth to one another.

and I'm not saying this pronoun doesn't have any of that idea. I think it does, but this is the reflexive pronoun. This is something that first and foremost we do to and for ourselves. in fact, one commentator On this particular pronoun that is translated yourself says this, this pronoun is reflexive.

We all say them, in other words, the words that we're speaking first and foremost to our own selves. Yes, we're teaching and admonishing one another, but We are first and foremost teaching, and we are admonishing ourselves. So he's saying let the Word of Christ, the gospel, dwell richly inside of you, so that it can actually inform your speech as you speak to yourself, and teach yourself and admonish, which has the idea of correction, as you correct yourself. And yes, we do this again for the benefit of others, but first and foremost, we do this for our own benefit and speak these things to ourselves.

Now this might seem an odd thought to you, but we're actually encouraged in scripture by way of admonition and by way of example to be a people who talk to ourselves. All right? Normally, you commit someone who does that, but we're actually encouraged to do that. We have an example of this and In Psalm 42, where the psalmist starts talking to himself and says, why are you in despair, oh my soul?

He's asking himself a question. Soul, why are you in despair? And why have you become disturbed within me? He's calling himself out and insisting on an answer.

Why are you in despair, my soul? Why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God. Now he's exhorting himself, and then he says, for I shall again praise Him.

Now he's assuring himself, encouraging himself, delivering a promise, rock solid theological truth to himself. And if that's not enough, as you continue to read the Psalm, in verse 11, he says almost exactly the same thing to himself again. So what we learn from this is sometimes as believers, we need to talk to ourselves and say certain things to ourselves that are theologically true. And then if that's not good enough, then say it again to ourselves, again and again and again.

Speaking truth to ourselves. And in the case of what we're talking about with the discipline of preaching the gospel to ourselves, we're talking about the thing above all things that we speak to ourselves is the truth of the gospel. Listen to what Martin Lloyd Jones says in his book on spiritual depression, spiritual depression, its causes and cure. Listen to his insight on what he observes as the reason a lot of people get down and defeated and discouraged spiritually, and what he thinks one of the key elements of the cure is.

Listen to what he says. He says, we must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us. Figure that out. We must talk to ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to talk to us.

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? The main art, not just one of the arts, he says, the main art, you would rank this discipline highly. The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself.

And as you speak to yourself, I'm telling you, there's nothing better to say to yourself than rock solid gospel truth. In Proverbs chapter 15, I believe verse 30, Solomon says that good news puts fat on the bones. So you want to put fat on your bones spiritually and, and find yourself growing and waxing strong, then speak the good news of the gospel of salvation through Jesus to yourself. Now, just some real quick thoughts.

Why is it necessary for us to preach the gospel to ourselves? One is because the gospel is the power of God. and I, I simply say that to make this more compelling. all of us hunger for the experience of God's power in our lives, correct?

power to be transformed, to eliminate things from our character that should not be there, to put things in our character that should be there, power to minister, power to become all that God wants us to become. And we all hunger for that, we desire that, we need that, and in Romans 1:16, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God. We hunger for the experience. of the power of God in our lives and ministries, then we're going to want to get close to the gospel and actually speak the message of the gospel to ourselves.

Another reason why we need to be speaking gospel truth to ourselves, and preaching the gospel to ourselves is because the gospel isn't natural thinking. If you're not going to tell yourself gospel truths to think, you're probably not going to think gospel truths. The gospel is so unnatural, and so counterintuitive, that there's no way we can just wake up in the morning and be automatically thinking gospel, unless we, as Martin Lloyd Jones says, take ourselves in hand and speak to ourselves and preach to ourselves the gospel.

We learned in 1 Corinthians 1 that the word of the cross, which is the message of salvation through the person and work of Christ at the cross, is foolishness to those who are perishing, and that word foolishness is the Greek word we get our English word moron from.

So to the Gentiles, Paul says the gospel is moronic foolishness. And then in verse 23, he says to the Jews, it's a stumbling block, and that's the Greek word we get our English word scandal from. It's a scandalon. And the truth is there's a little Gentile inside of all of us, right?

the gospel does not come naturally to the thinking of that inner Gentile, and we all have an inner Jew or an inner legalist inside of us. And as a result of that, just gospel thinking is not natural. Thinking, we need to train ourselves and the power of the Holy Spirit to think this way. And when we're not thinking according to or consistently with the gospel, we then correct ourselves and speak to ourselves, the truth of the gospel that we ought to be thinking.

There's another reason, just real quickly why. I believe it's necessary and most helpful for us to preach the gospel to ourselves, and that is because we're bombarded with messages contrary to the gospel every day. The world around us, television, internet, commercials. radio, newspaper, billboards along the freeway, other people that are in our lives, co-workers and so forth, and not only from without, but even from within.

we are being bombarded from without and from within with messages that are diametrically opposed to the grace and to the humility, to the brokenness and to the power and glory and freedom of the gospel of Jesus Christ. from within, it's a real battle. John, the apostle says to his Christian readers, he says in First John 3:20, if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts, right? I, I'm intrigued by the fact that John acknowledges the fact that sometimes our heart condemns us, and he includes himself in this and his Christian readers in this, John would say, there are times where I find my own heart condemning me as a result of failing.

failure and as a result of sin, my heart is preaching a certain message to myself. And it's a message of condemnation. And he's saying to his readers, this will happen. And if it happens, God's greater than your heart.

The gospel is greater than your heart. But I just want to point out the fact that we're being bombarded with contrary messages to the gospel all the time. And sometimes those messages are emanating from a heart that is condemning us. How do we compete with that bombardment?

One of the ways we do that is by the discipline of preaching the gospel to ourselves, and doing so on a regular basis. And so here, here's what we'll try to do this morning. I don't know how far we'll get. So anywhere from 3 to 6 practical steps to help you excel in preaching the gospel to yourself.

each day. I can honestly say, like, guys, this is not the only discipline that we need to practice as believers. but I can say in the last decade, this has been like the most powerful discipline I've ever practiced in my life. and, and I'm, I'm pretty pumped about it as a result, even not just from what the teaching of scripture is, but just witnessing the, the progressive experience of the power of God and the transformation.

of God through the gospel that occurs, as a result of the gospel message and just seeking to live in the good of that and speaking that to myself at critical moments throughout the day. But 3 to 6 practical steps to help you excel in preaching the gospel to yourself each day. And step number 1 would be to stare at and study the gospel. If you wanna, if you say, OK, well I, I wanna do this thing of preaching the gospel to myself, whatever it is, I want to do it.

if you want to do that, then you need to become studied in the gospel, you need to come to know the gospel that you're gonna preach to yourself. Like Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell richly inside of you. And if it's gonna dwell inside of you, you've got to get it inside of you, you need to know the gospel, so that you can then know what to speak to yourself. As Paul looked at the Ephesian believers, for example, he, he looked at those believers and he observed that, you guys, there's so many things, amazing things that are true about you in Christ and in the gospel.

But your problem is that you don't see it. You're not looking at it, you don't realize the glory and the wealth that is yours. And so he prays for them in Ephesians 1:18. He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the exceeding riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, and he continues on.

He's like, there's so many wonderful things that are true of you in Christ, and in the gospel, and I'm, I'm, I'm praying that God will open your eyes to see the glories of these things. In 1 John chapter 3 verse 1, John is speaking to believers, and he delivers a command in the, in the Greek text, this is an imperative. He says, see, behold, and it's a command. I'm commanding you to look and to see how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God.

So they, these readers had been, God had shown them a great love, and they had been made children of God, and they were now being called children of God, all right? And these are gospel truths, good news, things that were true of them. But John is saying, I'm commanding you to see these things. Whatever you're looking at, turn away from that and stare at this, just look at this.

Look at the love of the Father for you. Look at the love that he's bestowed on you, that he would make you as children, think about that, look at that, he's saying, and that God would then even call you his children. See this, open your eyes, turn away from whatever else and gaze upon this. There's other passages in First Peter one, Peter's talking about this amazing salvation that we as believers have experienced in In Christ, and he says in verse 10, as to this salvation, the prophets who prophesized of the grace to come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

So when the ancient prophets would prophesy about this stuff, they would sit down and study the very scriptures that they just wrote, seeking to understand and to know these things that we now live inside of. Verse 12, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in the things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Guys, when we, when we say, all right, what, I'm gonna become a student of the gospel.

I'm just gonna stare at the gospel.

I'm gonna open up my Bible to passages like Ephesians 12, and 3, and Colossians 12, and 3, and Isaiah chapter 5. 3 Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, Romans 8, I'm gonna open up my Bible and I'm gonna stare at these things and I'm gonna scrutinize and study these things, asking God to enlighten my understanding as I do look upon these things. As you decide to do that, you're essentially assuming your place next to the ancient prophets, who were looking at the same thing trying to understand it.

And you're assuming your place next to the angels of heaven.

who to this day are still bending low, gazing into these gospel realities that we live inside of. One preacher I heard recently said angels' IQs are far higher than ours, and they're still staring at the gospel trying to comprehend it all. What are we looking at? So we need to become students of the gospel, gaze upon it.

I call this gospel specction. We do a lot of introspection, and other kinds of specction. How about gospel specction, get to know the gospel, get to know your gospel narrative. You find that especially in Ephesians 12 and 3, that's your story.

And it goes all the way back before the foundation. Of the world, read your Bible from cover to cover. Because everything properly understood connects to the gospel. Anything in your Bible that tells you about the greatness of your God, anything in the Bible that tells you about your sin problem and the magnitude of that sin problem, anything in your Bible that tells you about Jesus Christ, the person of Christ, and the work of Christ on the cross, and being raised from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, Study those things.

Those are, those are, that's good news that God wants you to understand, and to seek to master anything in your Bible about all of the benefits and the glories that are now yours as a result of having believed in Jesus, you're forgiven, you've received the Holy Spirit, you have a home in heaven, Christ is preparing a place for you in heaven for all of eternity. You've been redeemed, you've been delivered from the power of sin, you no longer have to sin anymore because since chains have been broken, you are now a justified one, you've been declared righteous as a result of that, you have peace with God, you're in an unalterable experience.

of the grace of God, all day every day because of what Christ has done and because you're a justified one, on and on the list can go anything along these lines that you see in the pages of Scripture, just gaze upon them. And take them in, study them.

This is your story. As a believer in Christ. Like, man, I gotta, I gotta stare at all that. I'm just tired thinking about that.

And there's even more things I gotta do beyond staring and studying these things. Guys, again, this is good news. Good news. if God came to you and said, hey, I want to let that I've I have all of your debts that you have.

I've paid all of them off, and I have deposited $10 billion in your bank account. And not only that, but I've taken several other billion dollars and I've diversified it beautifully, some in commodities and I've got you some properties and stuff and, and he's listing all the things that he has given to you with that billions of dollars. And then he hands you a packet and says it's all right here. This is yours.

All right? Look at this. Just study this. Would you say, oh, all right, I guess, I guess that's a discipline I need to practice.

Practice. No, you would be staring at these things, right? You'd be going online and just going, look at all those zeros, and it's mine. You'd be going on your credit card accounts online and just, or when it comes in the mail and you're like, the balance is 0, it's been paid off, and you would enjoy staring at that, would you not?

You'd be gathering the family together saying, kids, we're going to go to this property over here that, that God purchased for us. And it wouldn't necessarily even feel like a discipline. It's something you're enjoying doing as you're seeking to comprehend the fullness financially of what God would have given to you. And guys, something far greater than that has been given to you and God says, look at it.

Look at it, gaze upon it. Do some gospel section. I've done amazing things for you and I, I want you now to know those things. And the more you do that, the more armed you're going to be with raw gospel material to remind yourself of and speak to yourself.

there's a 2nd thing that I would encourage you to do, a 2nd step to take if you want to excel in preaching the gospel to yourself, and that is position yourself to experience the gospel through others. Position yourself to experience the gospel through others. Listen to what Paul says to the Ephesian elders. He says, and now I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace.

That's the gospel, which speaking of the gospel continuously has power to edify you and To give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. In other words, what he's saying is the gospel has the power to serve as the channel through which God actually gives you all the things that are yours in Christ. but it only has the power to yield up those things to you if you're properly located in a community of those that are in the process of being sanctified. Does that make sense?

If you want to position yourself in a location to experience the real fullness of all that God wants to give to you in the gospel, you need to locate yourself among those who are being sanctified. Become a part of a local church full of people who are in the process of being sanctified, meaning they're not there yet. but we learned in Ephesians one that the church is the fullness of God. Outside of heaven, this is as good as it's gonna get.

If you really want to experience the fullness of all that God has for you, you will experience that as you position yourself in a community of faith with brothers and sisters, spiritual leaders, and so forth, and positioning yourself there to experience the fullness of The gospel What we learn here is that, like even the discipline of preaching the gospel to yourself and getting yourself fully evangelized, it's not some individual discipline. It's not just something you get by yourself and do.

That's great, and we need to do that. I preach the gospel to myself when I'm driving, and sometimes I get awkward stares from people as I'm speaking to myself, the awkward stares are less now that there's Bluetooth and what have you, people just assume I'm on the phone.

but years ago, I remember sitting at an intersection and I'm just, I'm bringing the heat, man. I'm just, just preaching gospel truth to myself and I get this weird sensation on this side, and I look and there's someone from our church sitting at the intersection just staring at me like, what are you doing? But we need to do this privately, when, when we're by ourselves, but this is a discipline that encompasses relationships. It's something we do in community with one another.

So become a part of a local church, and, be around brothers and sisters that are seeking to live and breathe the atmosphere of the gospel, so that they can be speaking gospel truth to you. you think about, Paul is talking to Timothy, who was a, essentially a pastor of the Ephesian congregations, and he's telling Timothy, do the work of an evangelist, do the work of an evangelizer. Paul is saying to, to, Timothy, and he's not just saying preach the gospel to lost people, but in your ministry to God's people and to these Christian people in the congregations, be speaking the gospel to them.

And I think that's actually primarily what Paul means in 2 Timothy 4:2, when he says, be preaching the word.

He's saying be preaching the message in season and out of season. You need to be a part of a local church in which the leadership of that church is putting the gospel in front of you and speaking gospel truth, and then helping you in reasoning from the gospel to the ethical and theological issues that you have to deal with as a believer. But see, God wants more than just you being in a church where there's pastors, teachers, and what have you that are doing that. God wants you to be a part of a local church where you as brothers and sisters are doing that for each other.

I think in a couple of weeks in the men's and women's Bible study, you'll be getting to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and the, the section that ends in verse 18 where Paul is talking about what happens to those that have fallen asleep in Christ, those who have passed away, what will happen. To them and Paul, like he reasons with them, he says, now, if we believe that Christ died and was raised from the dead, therefore, we then believe this about what will happen in the future with regard to us who are still alive, and those who have gone before us and have fallen asleep in Christ.

And so he gives them gospel truths in that passage in chapter 4, verses 13 through 18. And then what's interesting is he doesn't say, I am an apostle, and I have spoken, you heard it from me, and that's all you need to hear it from.

Now, he then says, when he's done preaching those gospel truths, He then says in verse 18, encourage each other with these truths, with these words. The words I've just spoken, memorize them, get them in your heads, and then I want you now that I've said this, I want you to turn and face each other and say these things to each other. Speak these encouragements of the gospel to one another. That's what Paul intends for all of the scriptures, all of the New Testament, all of the epistles that he's written.

I'm saying this as an apostle, it's the inspired word of God. Now, you take these words and speak them to each other. That's what Paul's vision for a local church is that it's full of brothers and sisters that are just evangelizing each other, speaking gospel truth to one another. We need this.

I'll never forget Just under 10 years ago, I, I was at that point just getting really pumped about the gospel and, but I noticed how easy it was for me to fall back under a spirit of condemnation or a performance mentality. before God, and so, I was preaching the gospel to myself each day and it was hardly even a discipline. It was like drinking a tall glass of water in the desert. It was like, it ministered to me, it blessed me.

It always seemed to make a difference in a, in a profound way whenever I would take the time to just put gospel truth in front of my face and preach that to myself, reminding myself of it. There was one particular day. It was a Wednesday where I woke up in the morning and there was this very heavy spirit of condemnation. That had come over me and my heart was condemning me over past sins and failures.

And the Lord had moved me past those things, but I don't know, just that day, just, there was a spirit of oppression that came over me with regard to those things and the memory of those things. And And I got up that morning, I had to go to a meeting and while I was on my way to the meeting, I'm like quoting Romans 5:1 through 11, I'm like preaching the gospel to myself and for the first time ever, my conscience would not be appeased and it made no difference at all. In fact, the heaviness grew.

And I sat through the meeting, but I just mentally wasn't hardly there.

And I, I drove from that meeting to the church. And as I'm driving to the church, again, I'm quoting scripture and I'm singing just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and saying those things to myself and, and again, it was like falling on deaf ears, my conscience would not be appeased. And I, I pulled in the church parking lot downstairs and And I picked up my cell phone and I called my wife. And, and when she answered, I just, I just started sobbing.

It freaked her out, and she's like, what, what's the matter? And it was literally minutes before I could speak. And, and then I began to speak and I told her what I was going through and, and the guilt that I was feeling and it was stuff that she and I had already talked about and And I said, I just, I need you to pray for me right now. And there on the phone, my wife began preaching the gospel to me, and you're speaking God's grace, God's forgiveness, the cross of Christ to me, the forgiveness and freedom that's mine through Christ.

And, and then she prayed over me. And just a gospel rich prayer. And by the time she had said amen, the whole cloud of oppression had completely lifted. I spent the rest of the day like walking on, like 9 inches off the ground.

I was like, this is amazing. But I learned something really valuable, and that is this whole thing about preaching the gospel to myself. It needs to be more than just me doing it, because sometimes I won't listen to me. I need to enlist my wife's help in that journey and other brothers and sisters.

The discipline of preaching the gospel to yourself is a community discipline, and it's something that you best do and best experience the fullness of it and the benefits of it when you do it in community with your brothers and sisters in the Lord. And so, enlist the help of others and you be one of those individuals. who do that for others. You need to know the gospel, not just so you can speak it to yourself, but so that you can appropriately speak it at opportune times to your brothers and sisters in the Lord.

You might run into a brother or sister later today after the service who's just fuming mad, and they're angry at someone and they're sharing that with you, and that's a moment where it's like, this person needs to be evangelized right now. I need to speak the gospel to this person and speak to them of, of the cross of Christ and the grace that God has given to them for their sins against God, and that they need to be willing to give that same grace to the person who has wronged them, or maybe someone discouraged or someone's anxious, we as a community need to become skilled at thinking gospel and then helping our brothers and sisters to reason from the gospel to whatever the issues are that they might find themselves dealing with in that moment.

Does that make sense? OK.

Well, even if it doesn't, we're moving on. a 3rd, and I think this is about as far as we're gonna get, this morning. A 3rd thing that I would encourage you to do, a 3rd step to take, to help you to excel in preaching the gospel to yourself is memorize, meditate on, and recite gospel-laden passages of scripture. you want to be a memorizer of scripture, and you might be like, oh man, now, now I gotta memorize.

I've got to stare and be a part of a local church, and now I gotta memorize. Pastorm, I'm not a good memorizer. Yes, you are a good memorizer. we've got a lot of lies and deceptions memorized, don't we?

And we quote that we just find ourselves quoting those things to ourselves. I bet just about every one of you, if I brought you up here, you could probably spend at least half an hour quoting all the lyrics of the songs that. we are all memorizers, whether we try to be or not. Why not be intentional about memorizing the scripture, memorizing, especially passages of Scripture, wherein the good news of the gospel is being explained and preached to us.

Passages like Ephesians 12 and 3, Colossians 12 and 3, Romans 5, Romans 6, Romans 7, and Romans 8, Isaiah 53, Titus 3:1 through 8, on and on, the passages can go in Scripture, anything in Scripture that speaks of the greatness of God, and of your sin problem, and of Jesus Christ and what he's done for you, any passage of Scripture that explains to you the Benefits that have come to you as a believer in Jesus, or of the future awaiting you, anything, any scripture, read those, study those, memorize them.

As you memorize them, you're basically saying, I want that thought inside my head. And something amazing happens when we memorize, and that is that a thought that at one point existed only in the mind of God is now inside my head. That's an amazing transaction.

That a, a glorious, infinitely glorious truth that at one point existed in the mind of God is now in my pea-sized brain. It's amazing. And now it's mine, I own it. It's not just a scriptural thought, it's Milton's thought now.

Memorize Meditate on. And then recite. The, the, the reciting is like where most of us, that's the step we forget about. We memorize scripture, but do you ever say those to yourself?

Do you ever speak those scriptures to yourself? Part of the reason why you want to memorize scripture is because you want to recite scripture, not just to others, but also to yourself. Get rid of the lies and move in the new furniture of the gospel furniture through memorization, meditation, and then reciting. these passages to yourself.

By the way, and we don't have time to belabor this, but the word meditate in the Old Testament, Just a quick word about this, like in Psalm 12, but in his law, he meditates day and night. Joshua 1:8, this book of the law will not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. That even the word meditate has the idea of vocalizing what you're pondering and meditating upon. The Hebrew word hagah.

it's a fascinating word and it's, it means literally to be so preoccupied with something that you audibleize what you're preoccupied with. That's what it means to meditate. This word is used in various contexts and Isaiah, it speaks of a lion that's growling over his prey, and that word growl, that's the word meditate. The lion is focused and preoccupied with its prey, the lion is hungry, and so much so that the lion is audibleizing that.

With its growl. Speaking of mourning, I moan like a dove, and that word moan is hagah in Hebrew. I am mourning and I'm audibleizing that mourning by moaning. Isaiah 16, you will moan for the raisin cakes.

in other words, you're going to be so hungry, you're going to audibleize that hunger through moaning. You ever done that before? Really hungry, so hungry that it, you audibleize that in a moan or whatever. This word haga is actually translated as declare in Psalm 35:28.

What we realize is that the concept of meditation in the Old Testament, meditation is not just something you do with your brain, it's something you do with your tongue, that you're so absorbed with and preoccupied with. biblical truth and with scripture that you're actually like muttering that to yourself, you're audibleizing that preoccupation, you are speaking it to yourself. That's a part of meditation, biblically. So, memorize and meditate on.

And as you meditate, realize that a part of meditation is audibleizing that, speaking that, reciting that to yourself. And let me encourage you also. To, I think it's great to memorize individual verses of scripture, like Galatians 2:20 and passages like that. that's a great place to start, but I want to really encourage you guys to, to memorize whole paragraphs and chapters.

memorize Romans 5, which is one beautiful, long, lengthy gospel train of thought, where there's one truth that leads to another truth, which then therefore leads to another truth. So that which leads to another reality, you memorize that and get that in your head. You don't just have like 2 gospel truths that are now in your head, but you see the connection of those, you learn to think gospel, you learn to think in a gospel train of thought. Is it not true that The devil rarely ever nails us with one lie.

You ever noticed that? Does the devil just come with one lie and, and then he stops there? And now we're trapped inside of one lie. No, normally what the devil does is it, it's a whole web of deceptions.

That he gets us caught up in. A man gets up in the morning and does not spend a few moments at the very least connecting with God and reminding himself of the gospel circumstance in which he's awakened and just, just connecting with God in a fresh way to establish that at the beginning of the day, obviously feeling that something else was more important to do. That's lie number one. so he's vulnerable right now, operating according to his own wisdom, and an hour later, his wife says or does something that gets under his skin and makes him angry, and he's feeling entitled to that anger.

That's lie number 2. he then begins rehearsing his grievances against his wife as other memories of that similar failure come to him, and he feels entitled to nurture that grievance. That's lie number 3. Shortly thereafter, a lustful thought, introduces itself into the mind of this man, and he feels entitled to entertain.

That lustful thought, that's lie number 4. He then acts on that lustful thought in some way, feeling entitled to do so given the circumstances in his relationship with his wife. That's lie number 5. Then he feels a crushing load of guilt and feels that he's lost his favored standing with God.

That's another lie. And he thinks I dare not come to God right now because he's angry at me and he does not want me in his presence. That's another lie. And so now he's under a spirit of condemnation.

And he's in no position to give anyone any grace in his life. On the freeway, someone cuts him off, makes him, God forbid, slow down from 70 miles an hour to 68 miles an hour. He's fuming. He's upset at the person who would dare make him slow down.

He's short fused with his wife and his kids because you can only give what you've received, so He's got a lot of anger. He's not under grace, he has no grace to give. And so he's responding with anger to any provocation from his wife and his kids. And every time he does that, that creates a response in them that is probably similarly angry and in each of those instances, additional lies commend themselves to the man.

And before long, the man is caught in a whole web of deceptions. I'm exhausted just thinking about all that. The devil rarely nails us with one lie. It's normally a web of lies that can extend from one day into the next and into the next week.

It can extend for weeks and months and years and decades, and sometimes even extend from one generation to the next, a whole network of deceptions. And I'm just submitting to you guys, if you're going to combat those webs of deceptions. You're probably gonna need to do more than memorize some floating verse of scripture. You want to memorize paragraphs, you want to memorize chapters, you want to memorize whole networks of gospel truths where there's a gospel truth here, gospel truths that are connected by words like, therefore, in order that so that and because of, memorize those so that you have a whole constellation of gospel truth that you can bring to bear in your battle against the deceptions.

That the devil seeks to ensnare you with. I'm not saying go home and memorize all of Romans 5 by the end of today. Memorize one verse. And then another, and then another and build those gospel trains of thought and then relish speaking them.

To yourself There's more that we can look at, in the coming days. But we'll stop right here for this morning. Let me ask you to bow your heads. God has done amazing things for us.

And, and it's, it's called good news, and we're called to To enjoy this good news, that's the discipline. Enjoy the good news and Live inside of it, relish it, cherish it, memorize it, speak it to yourself, memorize your gospel portfolio. Enjoy looking at it. Speaking it to yourself.

Speaking it to others, having others speak it to you. May we as a church community wax strong in the gospel and in any discipline. There are other disciplines we need to practice, but in any discipline such as this, that takes us deeper in our experience of the gospel. We're going to give you an opportunity to give to the Lord.

We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to. To give, let's, let's pray together. Father We have far to go as a church community and as individuals, but we have great hope because you have given us amazing resources, power, provision. That is found in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ and in the message of salvation through Him.

And if we as a church community, Lord, can really imbibe just the gospel. And be letting it dwell richly in us and among us and teaching and admonishing not just one another but our own selves. We will never lack for the abundant experience of your transforming power. I pray this for me, I pray this for all who are here today.

Thank you for the privilege of giving of our offerings to you, Lord. Receive these offerings that we give and do much with them for the glory of your Son Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, and all God's people said,