Of Aliens, Ants, and Obscure References…

Morning!

Raises his cup of coffee

It’s Monday March 24th and it’s supposed to be a balmy mid-sixties day with a chance of rain.  Regular rain, not the latter rain.  Let’s start the day with a thought.

Matthew 12: 36

“But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.”

Have we considered what idle means?

Idle: (adjective)

- not occupied or employed; having no employment: inactive; not turned to normal or appropriate use; not scheduled to compete

- Lacking worth or basis: Vain

- Shiftless, lazy; having no evident lawful means of support

Idle words come from idle thoughts.  We must first think idly before we can act idly. So how do we stop idle words? We begin by stopping idle thoughts.  How do we stop idle thoughts?  By renewing our minds through Scripture.  When we are single-mindedly focused on Jesus and devoted to prayer, our thoughts will not be idle—and if our thoughts are not idle, neither will our words be.

As Jesus says…

Matthew 12: 33

“Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.”

Prayer is one of our greatest defenses against idle thoughts.  The more we pray, the more we communicate with God. And the more we communicate with God, the more He fills our thoughts.  But as we learn in Matthew 6, the Lord does not desire empty repetition or vain babbling. Instead, He invites us to speak to Him naturally and honestly—with sincerity, not performance.

Matthew 6: 5-8

“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites.  For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.  Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward.  But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.  And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do.  For they think that they will be heard for their many words.  Therefore do not be like them.  For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.”

I open with these thoughts to set the stage for our next stanza in Psalm 119. This entire Psalm is a prayer of David, and in the first few stanzas, we saw him making some intense vows and bold declarations. But as we’ll see in today’s passage, David shifts gears—making some equally intense requests.

Psalm 119: 17-24

“Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I May live and keep You Word.  Open my eyes, that I may see Wondrous things from Your law.  I am a stranger in the earth; do not hide Your commandments from me.  My soul breaks with longing for Your judgments at all times.  You rebuke the proud- the cursed, who stray from Your commandments.  Remove from me reproach and contempt, for I have kept Your testimonies.  Princes also sit and speak against me, but Your servant meditates on Your statutes.   Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors.”

David asks God to deal bountifully with him. It’s important to note that he makes this request in the context of living according to and keeping God’s Word. David isn’t afraid to ask for God’s abundant blessings—but his motivation is clear: he desires those blessings so that he may live fully and remain faithful to God’s Word.

So what exactly is David asking for here?

What does it mean for God to deal bountifully with us?

Do we think he’s talking about cash surplus and wide screen TVs?

Is that what we are asking for?

David continues in prayer, asking God to open his eyes so that he may see wondrous things from God’s Law.  I believe the bounty David speaks of—and the bounty we seek—is the knowledge of Jesus. We long to understand God: who He is, what He is doing, how He works. We want to walk with Him daily, to be aware of His presence always.   If we are to see wondrous things, our eyes must first seek the Word of God. For apart from Jesus, we can see nothing—just as apart from Him, we can do nothing.

John 14: 6

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

So are we ready to pray to bountifully see wondrous things from the Word of God?

David then goes to ask God to not hide His commandments from him.  Does this ring familiar?  How many times have we prayed asking God to show us the way He wants us to walk?  How many times have we prayed for God to reveal His Work and what He is doing for us to see?  Have we considered that these verses confirm that there are wondrous things to see in Scripture?

Where’s David asking for these things to be revealed?

Scripture.

Where is David looking for his guidance?

Scripture.

He is looking to Scripture to inform his understanding of God and then David is praying and asking for God to reveal Himself in reality to Him.  Where does this zeal come from?  David meditates on God’s statutes.  They are his delight and his counselors.

So.

How are we doing in delighting ourselves in God’s Word?

James 4: 1-10

“Where do wars and fights come from among you?  Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in you members?  You lust and do not have.  You murder and covet and cannot obtain.  You fight and war.  Yet you do not have because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.  Adulterers and adulteresses!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.  Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously’?  But He gives more grace.  There He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’  Therefore submit to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Lament and mourn and weep!  Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

We do not have because we do not ask. And when we do ask, we often don’t receive—because we ask wrongly. We ask so that we may spend it on our own pleasures.  But aren’t we supposed to be asking in order to live the Word of God? I believe that’s exactly what David is showing us.  One of the key themes of Psalm 119 is a deep love for God’s Word. David seeks God through the Scriptures, and then he seeks to apply those Scriptures to the world around him. He meditates on them day and night—not just reading, but studying, absorbing, and putting them into practice.  David doesn’t separate God’s Word from his life; he allows it to shape everything he does in reality.

One of the things we teach here at The Sunrise Forest is that Jesus is meant to be with us in every detail of life—from our hardest trials to the most mundane moments of the everyday.  We don’t have to be Oxford scholars to study the Word of God. We don’t need degrees or credentials.  What we do need is simple: to spend time in it.

What does it mean and what does it look like to meditate upon the Scripture day and night?

When I first started thinking about this part of Psalm 119—where David talks about meditating on the Word day and night—I felt a little discouraged. I’m not a monk. I have things to do. Responsibilities that God Himself has blessed me with.  So I had to pause and take stock of how I was spending my time.  Because the truth was, I hadn’t made time for Jesus. Or, more accurately, I hadn’t freed up the time He had already given me to give back to Him.  In those early days, I was still filling my time with entertainment—movies, television, streaming YouTubers, music, and music videos. And while I’m a music teacher by trade—so some of that was technically research—but, most of it was an incredible waste of time.

Point is, I had to make sacrifices to what I had chosen to do with my time in order to spend more time in God’s Word.  David teaches us that he delighted in Gods’ Word.  The word used is…

Sha’a: (Hebrew)

- to look upon

- fondle

- please or amuse ones self

So I asked myself.  What is entertainment?

Entertainment: (noun)

- amusement or diversion provided especially by performers; something diverting or engaging: such as a public performance

- The act of entertaining

So I asked myself, what exactly does it meant to entertain?

Entertain: (verb)

- To show hospitality to

- To provide entertainment for

- To keep, hold, or maintain the mind; to receive and take into consideration

- To play against (an opposing team) on one’s home field or court

It was movies, music and entertainment that took up most of my time I was not working.  So I asked myself a revolutionary question.  What was more important to me?  God’s Word or movies?

I share this story because one of our challenges today is to take a moment and prayerfully consider: What are we doing with our time—and are we doing it with Jesus?  What do we want more?  The Presence of God… or the quick emotional thrill of a movie?

These are the kinds of questions I ask myself—and continue to ask myself—every time I feel the urge to watch Sigourney Weaver fight a bunch of aliens (still one of my all-time favorite movies).  But here’s what I’ve discovered: the more time I spend in the Word, the more I want to spend time in the Word.  The closer I draw to God, the more I want to be close to Him.

Have we considered?

1 Peter 2: 1-5

“Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, the you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious.  Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

We are being built into a spiritual house. Our purpose as Christians is to be holy, to move toward priesthood—not necessarily according to the traditions of men, but as Scripture calls us: disciples of Jesus.  So, I humbly present this thought— What is giving up movies for the Word of God, if not a mundane everyday spiritual sacrifice willingly offered to Jesus?  But this isn’t really about movies. It’s about anything that takes up the time we’ve yet to give back to Him. And that will likely look different for each of us.

Whatever it is, it’s worth examining.

And it definitely gives us something worth chronicling.

I have one more Scripture I want to add to our thoughts this morning.

Ecclesiastes 5: 1-7

“Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil.  Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart utter anything hastily before God.  For God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few.  For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool’s voice is known by his many words.  When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; for He has no pleasure in fools.  Pay what you have vowed- Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.  Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error.  Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?  For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.  But fear God.”

Open our eyes to see wondrous things from Your Word…

I think that’s a good start for the day.