Campus Community | Sept. 9

so [Applause] oh thanksgiving because he has done great [Music] things [Music] he has [Music] he has done great things he has and break every chain oh god you have done great oh things [Music] [Music] forever and i know you will do it [Music] will do again things [Music] [Music] is jesus [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] stick [Music] oh oh jesus [Music] so oh [Music] stories [Music] a treasure [Music] the image of the father until heaven [Music] let him hear it me [Music] jesus [Music] accusers [Music] [Music] [Applause] the yes [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes you are [Music] [Music] my savior my refuge my hiding place you're my helper my healer my blessed redeemer my answer my saving grace [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music] yes [Music] [Music] um [Music] you were my jesus [Music] so [Music] and every man [Music] so let's start right now [Music] fill this place [Music] i just want to be with you i just want to be manner [Music] me [Music] is [Music] me [Music] hallelujah [Music] hallelujah again [Music] [Music] hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] um i want us to circle back around to that song in just a minute um man the the beautiful picture of that lyric is that we're not asking him to be in this physical place right that we are asking the holy spirit to come and dwell within our hearts and in our souls and in our minds that no for the 150 of us in this room that can be true but for each of us that are watching in community group right now that song can still be very true for each of us that are gathering in circles all over this campus and in commuter lounges this song can be true that we can sing king of glory come fill this place not brick and mortar but the place of our hearts the tabernacles the holy of holies where king jesus comes to dwell in our lives so before we we have a special moment in a prayer over an amazing couple that we are sending out from the liberty family let's sing that one more time king of glory fill this place i just want to be with you i just want to be with you let's leave [Music] that of glory fill this place [Music] jesus [Music] come on liberty family can we just give the lord a round of applause here in this room and all across our campus um we get the opportunity on occasion to not say goodbye but to see you soon to some members of the liberty family and a week from today admin and fiona boksha will be returning back to their home country of romania to be a part of their local church and serve in and the in not only in their own church but in the church planning network with the harvest family who we love and appreciate and mean the world to us but this couple um have been pioneers not only on our campus but specifically for the liberty worship collective they were they were a part of this team throughout their college experience and god used them in an amazing way to pour into the men and women on our team that means one of our drummers he's actually about to lead from drums here in a few minutes for this song the song that we want to uh to sing out together and listen god gets the glory but it's okay to honor our brothers and sisters in this moment as we send them out and we commission them as a part of the liberty family that's going back to the nations declaring the glory of god in the name of jesus the very first song that fiona led in convocation was the song tremble and so that's been an anthem here for years now we don't sing it quite as much in the rotation of what we of how we lead however this song is so near and dear to her and near and dear to our team that we want to sing this declaration together before we do that however i want us to uh in a manner that is healthy and respectful but loving that we would extend our hands towards this br this brother and the sister and we want to voice a prayer over them as they go from here that we would remind them that they always have a home with the liberty family amen and that they always have a place to come back and be a part of here in the states but we are excited though we're sad to be losing them we are seeing romania gain a couple back that is going to make a rippling effect on their city and on their country and on the world and we are excited about that for them so let's pray together and then we'll continue in a time of worship extend your hand towards either fiona or admin at this time and we'll pray father in heaven we thank you lord we thank you for this sweet and precious couple we thank you lord for the impact that they've made not only on the collective but the impact that they've made on the student body the faculty and the staff of liberty university god we are grateful for their hearts we are grateful for how refreshing they are we are grateful for the impact and the legacy that they are leaving and the in what you've entrusted with them they have handled so well they have carried this baton and they've run this race the season of their lives here in america in a way that is worthy of the manner in which you've called them they have honored the gospel they have magnified the name of christ in their homes they have poured in to the men and women on our team and we are delighted to send them out though we're sad and we will grieve and it will feel like a loss we do know lord that they are in your hands and that when fear and worry and doubt come in our hearts and souls or even in admin and fiona's transitional season that they're about to walk into the lord they don't have to tremble because they belong to the king of kings and the lord of lords that they are a son and a daughter of the most high king help us to love them well as we send them out help them feel commissioned in a way that is loving and gracious and god may you and you alone be magnified and honored and glorified as we continue in worship tonight and it's in christ jesus name that we pray and all god's people said amen let's continue in worship [Music] peace bring it all the peace [Music] the raging meat is still everywhere jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus jesus jesus you make the darkness call these jesus jesus you make the darkness jesus jesus you make the darkness jesus you make the darkness jesus jesus [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] jesus [Music] the light that shines darkness does not overcome you [Music] we put our trust in his name today his name alone saves [Music] jesus [Music] do you believe that today come on sing [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] jesus jesus [Music] jesus [Music] missing this together out of the depths out of the depths i cried in in darkest places i will call [Music] incline samia new mercy lord [Music] how could i come before your throne your full forgiveness your full forgiveness meets my gaze i stand i stand my team by grace [Music] surely wait for you till my soul [Music] completely and emerging from the grace [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] now he has come to and god himself has paid the price that all who trust in him today [Music] y'all [Music] [Music] satisfies [Music] and i will wait for you [Music] i will wait for you [Music] till my soul [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] on your word [Music] till my soul is amen [Music] i want us to pray but uh before we do pray i just want to say to you that i'm so grateful for you um i remember the very first time that i watched your audition tape for the worship collective and i was instantly just blown away by just the way god had his hand on your life you obviously are incredibly talented admin is the same you're just very talented but you're you're a humble servant you have um you've just done right by this university you've come you put your head down you didn't look for fame you were just faithful to the lord you've served well and so may the lord bless you you know may he keep you i may shine his face on you and admin god's going to do incredible things this is not a funeral because i mean we're just sending her out hey man we love you we're just going to be rooting for you as you go to just be salt and light in romania can we just thank her and admin we love you all right yeah you're so awesome and lord thank you for this morning uh that's what you did god here on this campus to our convocation time lord you used our students this morning to lead us to um just not lead us in worship with the collective but also our our time of talking with the holo god and with the meno was just so fruitful thank you lord that tonight even now our students like joseph just now leading us out are being used god to lead one another towards christ's likeness and we pray tonight now for your word the bible that's living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and cutting through bone and marrow and judging the attitudes of life to do what your word does hide people tonight from what is um not truth god hi people for what is my opinion let them quickly forget those things god that are not aligned with what you want the essence of you god and your truth for people and let them really stick god to the truth that is from you we pray now for the preaching of your word that it would be received well god by your people so that we won't just celebrate these truths but submit to them we pray this in your name amen amen so i know that uh we literally have thousands and thousands of you watching tonight via live stream and um i know that it's a bummer i mean we can frame it any way that we want we can call it like you know in one sense an advantage that you're going to be right in your community groups watching and then from that you're going to go right into this moment where you know after this you'll go right into those discussions get out of rows into circles immediately and i think there will be some advantages to that but at the end of the day we'd rather tonight have good weather and be in that football stadium with about 5 000 of you and then have the other you know three to four thousand just watching live stream and then like rotating in and out like we've been doing the last few weeks we'd rather have that but we have this and in this we will have also a q a time that we can add a component that we had last year that will happen again uh tonight that we don't we don't have afforded to us when we do the football stadium right so at least we'll have that but we're just praying for god to do just a great work in us and we want to keep tracking through despite the weather and um kind of get into week two of the series that we've had called deeper can i have some just a little bit of monitor if you don't mind christian by the way christian is one of the hardest working servants we have on this campus can we thank him he does a great job thank you guys just a little more on yeah thank you so much christian you're awesome um so we last week we kind of launched out the series called deeper the idea behind the series is that through spiritual disciplines through spiritual formation through acts like prayer and meditation and fasting and bible study and solitude through these these diving gears that god has given us we can become deep-rooted believers we talked about how in psalm 42 7 the psalmist says deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls meaning that the deepest part of me longs for the deeper parts of god the shallow parts of me and then that's when i say shallow that doesn't mean anything bad i don't might have a negative connotation but the shallow parts of me that the introductory parts of me because even ocean has a shallow shore and it's still a real ocean the shallow parts of me come into the kingdom of god come in as a child of god in the kiddie pool you know stages of faith but as i grow deeper there's something in me that wants to go deeper and deeper in that relationship with god and so there's nothing wrong with being a baby who acts like a baby but there's something wrong with being a grown adult who acts like a baby there's nothing wrong with eating gerber when you're a baby there's something wrong if you're eating gerber and you're like 17. there's nothing wrong with needing potty training when you're two one and a half there's something wrong if you need potty training when you're 19. and so expectation here is that a believer grows in faith a believer goes deeper in relationship with god because god is in plain hide and seek with us right god is wanting us to know him he says call to me and i will scripture says what answer and so in that we we wanted long deeper for god and so we talked last week how it's about a deeper relationship with god a deeper love affair with god a deeper commitment towards god deeper familiarity with god when you first become a christian you kind of know all the highlights of god right you know like god is love god is salvation but you grow deeper in your walk with god and you begin to learn some of the nuances that are in all gaps you're not just learning all the shouts of god but the whispers of god you become more familiar you have a deeper longing you know your taste buds for god become more nuanced it's not just like sweet god sour god it's more like wow this is a more complex moment with god there's sweetness even in a funeral deeper sensing deeper listening deeper ingrained in everything that we do and everything that we're embodied and so every one of us has something in us that longs for that relationship with god and the good news is this if you long for a deep relationship with god god's answer to that already you can know is yes i want that for you he doesn't go some people are allowed access and some people are not some people get an all-access pass but some people can just be in the audience from a distance god desires the same for us and so we're going to talk about some spiritual disciplines in the next few weeks that are ways that we can go deeper with god and the first one is going to be tonight which is meditation all right now everybody here is a uh expert on this and we'll talk about why i believe everybody's an expert on this but let's just go ahead and define meditation for us if you're taking notes 58 times that word meditation shows up in scripture so i get it i get that um you know a lot of people hear that word meditation and certainly out of the four inward disciplines that we're going to talk about prayer fasting bible study meditation this one seems like the most quasi this one seems the most like new agey this one seems like the most like weird one like granola eating sit around under a tree all day like where birkenstock's kind of weird you know kind of a thing but that's really a work of the enemy because again over 50 times scripture shows us the benefits of going deeper with god through meditation and so since we talked about this whole new age idea of it and how it's just been hijacked as a counterfeit you know let's just talk about what it is and what it isn't okay here we go what it is not is um a clearing of the mind eastern meditation is all about a clearing of the mind but but christian meditation is not about the clearing of the mind but about renewing the mind the bible tells us that they were called to not live according to the patterns of this world would be transformed by the renewing of our mind so so to be a people that are filled filled with the mind of christ right so we take god's word and we renew our mind and so eastern medicaid meditation is all about clearing the mind where christian meditation is all about filling the mind renewing the mind it might be an emptying of the old but it is also a filling of the new it's not nothingness it's the very opposite of that eastern meditation looks like detaching but really for us as christians it's not detaching when we meditate but stronger attaching so that's christian meditation eastern meditation by the way is also about centering on oneself eastern meditation so many times it's about like finding your true self it's more about like you centering self-centering but that just at the very least if you're successful makes you self-centered and christian meditation isn't about self-centering but about christ-centering we sing that all the time right when the collective leads us jesus be the what center of my life so if you have a tire and it's wearing itself out it's because it's out of alignment it's not been centered and so you put a weight on it so it becomes center so that the tire doesn't wear itself out so quickly and so through meditation if you're out of alignment guess what happens you re-center christ becomes again the center you push them off the center you push them over to the side and all of a sudden christ through meditation becomes the center again and so here's the definition for meditation for us it's not the eastern definition it's the christian definition it's simply this meditation is the intentional and repeated reflection rooted in the worth worship and the word of god don whitney in his book spiritual disciplines defines it this way he says meditation is a deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in scripture for the purposes of understanding application and prayer i really like his definition because he shows you the purpose the reason behind meditation is not so that you can gain i know information but transformation you're gaining information you're getting clarity uh you're gaining more depth you're getting insight about a reality out of god's word perhaps or in prayer an attribute of the worth of god but when you gain that or a worship song that you've sung 50 times all of a sudden has a new meaning to you because of the circumstances of your life when in worship or in word or in worth all of a sudden you gaze deeper into god all of that out of that meditation has an application to it the play out on that is understanding but then application right of how that plays out so it's not about just huddling with god but running to play afterwards and so meditation for you and i is about that it's about also perpetual chewing regurgitating all right and it's hebrew language all right it's actually saka which means the word meditation means shaka which means to choose slowly and repeatedly to reflect deeply so what meditation does is it slows us down so that we don't choke on truth it slows us down so that we can really taste and enjoy all that god has for us a lot of times we're in a hurry and as we come to god in a hurry god is saying slow down in relationship i don't want us to be in a microwave mode with one another i want us to be in a crock-pot mode with one another and when god as a father wants us to slow down you know what he's showing us he's showing love love more than anything else we got this new dog jennifer nye and actually grace uh she's actually the one who was like championing the hardest like we got to get this dog all right so she actually flew to arkansas picked up the dog brought it home then she went to college and now we got to take care of this dog all right rafa and we love our dog rafa but the other day jennifer came home with this and uh it's called the slow feed bowl and what it does is it says on the side here that it promotes fun and it is healthy for eating and as a slow feed bowl what it does is it solves a problem that we've had with rafa ralph has a puppy he's just 14 weeks old and when you when you when you take a scoop of food and you put it in front of rafa rafa gets so excited he's like and he just like gobbles down the food he's a he's a burner doodle like the guy's 30 pounds right now he's gonna be a hundred pounds all right so parts of him already look like a hundred pound dog he's got these and he just like he's too kind of big and kind of clumsy and his tail is like like this morning it hit my coffee you know mug and he just splattered everywhere and so he's still like learning himself and as he's learning himself as a puppy he'll just eat really really fast and it'll make him throw up or meet really really fast and all of a sudden like it hurts his tummy as a as a puppy and so jennifer got this for him and the reason she got this form is you you pour the food in here right you put the two scoops that he's getting he was getting just one scoop now you're getting two scoops you get the two scoops right here and because of this little puzzle thing guess what it does it slows him down and so i know that maybe as a puppy he's like what is this thing can i just have that bowl that i had in the beginning where like everything was just poured in and i could just gobble it up but but we love him too much to let him choke does that make sense and god loves us too much loves us too much to let us choke on truth and you're saying how do i choke on god's truth some of you have so much knowledge that you've choked on it you have so much knowledge but you've not applied any of it as as weird as it sounds some of you need to gain knowledge in god you don't know anything about the bible outside of like what you learned out of a hillsong united song and we we love worship songs but like all your theology comes from that but as much as we have that we also have some people in this room that you don't need any more new information about god you know a lot of bible verses you just need to go out and sweat it out but you already learned at camp you don't need any more new information from like the camp that you went to when you're in the ninth grade in the 10th grade in the 11th grade you got a lot of insight a lot of information you were bible drill champion three years in a row congratulations that's awesome but it's not just about hiding the word of god in your heart it's about then applying that truth in your life and so some of us we need to slow down and taste the nuances of a passage and so let's say it's john 3 16. everybody here probably knows john 3 16 or the majority of us like god so loved the world that he gave his only son that if you believe in him you will not perish but have eternal life you know what happens when you meditate on that you slow down and you go god so loved the world god so loved the person that i have a really hard time loving god so loved the horrific person that had four parts in a series on netflix who abused people like god god didn't condone that person but god loves epstein that's amazing god loves hitler god loves mother teresa is easy right billy graham is easy right we we sent to like love ourselves so much where we go god so loved me i'm like i know i'm lovable like no but beyond that god so loves imagine the abusive father imagine the absent mother imagine the people that are famous for being bad that god so loves them that he gave his son for them that if they believe in him they would not perish but have eternal life and so jeffrey dahmer who is a cannibalist sits in prison and god so loved him that god saved him and so we don't get to do society with him because he's rightfully in prison for what he's done but guess what because of god so loved we'll be in heaven with him i don't know how that sits with you but it'll sit with you a little bit deeper when you begin to take a verse you already know and you slow down and think i need to think about the power of the gospel and how that plays out in the earthly consequences in the heavenly consequences i need to really think about this and for some of you it's not somebody distant like a famous cannibalist or murderer for some of you it's someone that is your family member that you don't need to condone and you might need to even physically be apart from but at the same time you need to begin to forgive and forgiveness doesn't mean that you forget forgiveness means that you let go of their damage in your life and the way that maybe that begins is with a verse you've always known you've just gulped it down god so loves the world gospel loves the lord he gave it all of a sudden you go god so loves that person and if god is extending that level of forgiveness undeserving forgiveness towards them maybe then god can allow me as someone who's had that much given to me to forgive them as well and so that's hard it's hard we just this week remembered september 11th it's hard and i know it just feels like in this moment so hard to say but god so loved islam bin laden that he gave his one and only son that if osama bin laden would believe in him he would not perish but have eternal life let's get look at me in two days from now we have a convo guest coming who is literally the homeland security man and we're going to talk about how they celebrated how they finally finally brought justice for all those people who lost their family members on september 11th when they got osama bin laden then they got him but as much as that's a truth and as much as that's a moment of celebration we as the people of god who have meditated on the gospel have to also come to that moment and go wow what if someone had led that man to the lord before what if the gospel walks into the life of an 11 year old who without the gospel might be raised one day to be the next osama bin laden so that's what happens when you begin to slow down you begin to chew the cut you begin to go deeper and deeper and deeper into a truth about god and when we go into those truths again both things begin to happen you begin to to think about the obvious but then you begin to see the tiny little notes that god is saying they've been there all along you just didn't notice the details because you didn't slow down see the enemy of meditation is busyness and distraction i love this quote from richard foster in celebration of disciplines i know a lot of you bought that book this week and we're beginning it together richard foster says if the enemy he's talking about satan can keep us engaged in muchness and many-ness he's talking about busyness if he can keep us engaged in muchness and many-ness he will rest satisfied what's weird about that is that muchness and many-ness today has actually become a merit badge for most people bro i'm so sorry i didn't call you back i was slammed today with nine meetings as if to say i'm very valuable because i had nine meetings what's happened in a society today is like we have begun to celebrate muchness and busyness because we think it's the antidote to laziness but somewhere in the middle of that is like yeah laziness isn't good but neither is muchness and maniness somewhere and there has to be a rhythm where we begin to fight as john comer says right john mark homer says the the ruthlessly we begin to fight and eliminate hurry why because when we fight hurry guess what happens we begin to find ourselves in a rhythm where we can slow down and have time for what god wants for us when john mark homer was here we were talking about our h's our h values as our department and it was really fun as we were talking about him he said well i got to tell you i love everything about these h's he was genuinely like i want i want that t-shirt that's got the h's on it i was like i got you and he said but the one i don't love is hustle i said what do you mean he's like i just don't like that word hustle he goes you know because that word hustle means like hurry he goes as a matter of fact i'm writing a book against that like i'm coming out with a book i said tell me your definition and he told me the definition i was like you got the wrong h i was like we got that's not hustle that's hurry we don't value hurry we value hustle he goes what's your definition apostol so our definition of hustle is like ingenuity you know someone who hustles is like someone who in this season figures out how to do you know campus community even though it rained even though we got a socially distant even though we get somebody who hustles is somebody who figures out how to make something happen right figures out how to duct tape an ingenuity figure something out that's self-initiative that's what we call hustle he's like oh okay okay okay but that's different than hurry yeah so what we're saying here is that a hurry can become an enemy for us when it comes to the gift of meditation as a matter of fact carl jung the christian psychologist says hurry is not of the devil it is the devil and so meditation allows us to slow down to perpetually chew and regurgitate it's a gift from god especially when it is fixing our eyes okay fixing our eyes slowly and rechewing regurgitating revisiting dwelling waiting for him like we're just saying over and over again in redemptive truth this is why i really think all of us are already experts when it comes to meditation everybody here including me were experts on rechewing something over and over again i like to call it the boardroom of the mind every one of us have this boardroom in our mind you know but this table in our mind right and and uh they're just people sitting there and one of them is worry and one of them is anxiety and the other one is gossip and the other one is like you know like honor and the other one is dishonor and the other and we have these people on the board and and they all just kind of bring up a topic and they have long meetings about the topic anybody else like you just fixate on something you meditate on like i know that girl didn't say that about me today and you just begin to let that just become a boardroom discussion can i just ask you a question who sits at the head of that boardroom in your mind is it appropriate that god would like to sit at the head of that table is it appropriate that god would want to be at the head of that table reminding you in that moment hey don't listen to this side because this side wants you to fester and meditate on things that are ungodly meditate on things that are gonna bring extra anxiety on you extra hurt on you are gonna meditate it's gonna they're gonna bring you to a place of meditation to where they're harming you focus on this i love this passage philippians 4 8 such a practical meditation passage paul says in this to the church in philippi he says finally brothers and sisters this is he's he's kind of wrapping up his his encouragement letter to them and the epistle of joy and he's given him a a practical way to find joy in their life and he says finally brothers and sisters whatever is true so there's things that are things that are true and the things that are not true whatever is true whatever is noble whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things so what does it look like for us to come and say i'm going to fix my eyes i'm going to dwell in the boardroom of my life i'm going to i'm going to escort the things out that are not praiseworthy that are not true and i'm going to put a seat at the table for the things that honor god because the ones that are allowed to linger the ones that are allowed to linger are the ones that i'm gonna give you know time to so that they can soak in the redemptive truth in my life when jennifer and i first got married a couple years ago i mean a couple of years ago wow a long time ago i would travel just about every weekend and i'd go and i'd come home and it was so cool like jennifer would make these amazing meals for me she's a she's an incredible cook and um one night i came home and um jennifer knows i love this thing called dale's marinate sauce anybody here uh and i know we have a handful here and i've got thousands watching but like where we are anybody know what i'm talking about when i say dale's marinade sauce all right jordan you're from ma mississippi so you know dale's marinate sauce our dale's marinade sauce is worth the hype i don't know what all's in it it's like msg lsd worcestershire whatever's in it i'm just it's just so good i love me some dale's marinate sauce it's a and and dale's marinade sauce is my favorite marinade for steaks for chicken for meat and people just in the south they love it it's from a steakhouse it's a secret sauce no one knows what all is in it and jennifer knows that i love dale's marinade sauce but if you look at the bottle when you buy it even though everybody calls it dale's marinade it's so sodium infested that they don't actually want you to marinate with it they just want you to throw it on the meat and like eat it you know basically i throw it on the meat grill and eat it matter of fact we had some folks over for uh you know last monday for the holiday and uh we were making burgers and i didn't marinate the burgers in it like the meat in it i was slapping it on right as we were we were leaving you you remember i walked over to you and i gave you a brush of it and i was like this is going to take it to the next level that was dale's marinade sauce and so i um jennifer knows i love dale's marina sauce so one time she she knew i was going to come home and she decided like since he loves dale's marinade so much i'm gonna make for him a special meal and so she took this like two pieces of chicken breast and she put it in a pyrex dish and she poured an entire bottle of dale's marinade sauce in there and she closed it and she just left it there for like an hour to just give it some good smack you know and i was good with that but i come home and uh and she's like we're gonna make this special meal it's gonna be great and the phone rang and it was my mom and dad my mom and dad had looked on my schedule because we gave them a copy of my schedule and it was on their refrigerator and seeing how their son that they hadn't seen for a while had come home so they called and they were just like exactly like what a mom and dad would do you know they were like we have not seen you forever we miss you my mom was like i forgot what you even look like you know whatever and so jennifer was like let's just go eat with them we love them we said okay so we go and ate with them but we forgot to take that stuff out of the the chicken out of the marinade so overnight this chicken sat in the marinade so then she was gonna make for me this special lunch the next day when i woke up you know and when we woke up enough and my in-laws found out that i was home and we went and ate with my parents but not with them so they called and they're like you don't love us you love them more now so the next thing you know we had to go with them so this chicken continued to sit there so over 24 hours this chicken sat there and then about this time like we're going to make the meal so this time she goes why don't you just grill to me and i'll never forget i went out to the grill i opened it up got it you know all warm and everything and i took a little thingy thing and i and i took that piece of chicken and i pulled it out and as soon as i pulled it out i looked at it and it had been in that marinade and it was no longer chicken it was like satan jerky it was like something out of the lord of the rings he was like yeah my precious whatever that was it was it had been marinated to where she didn't accent the flavor of the chicken she changed the chicken it was satan jerky y'all all right now that's horrible for chicken but it's exactly what god is saying when he says meditate meditate is marinate does that make sense take a piece of chicken do whatever you want with it i remember we put it in the in the clorox for a little while in the dryer and it never we didn't do that take take a piece of chicken do whatever you want with it and it will never go back to its original form why because she didn't change the flavor of the chicken she changed the identity of it now that's very bad when we get to a place where we just watch so much netflix we watch so much office we watch so much something else in this world that we are marinated in it and it's hard to get it out of us but it's a whole other thing when we hide the word of god in our heart when we get to a place where all of a sudden it becomes something that is so deeply rooted in us and i'm giving you all that because i want us to look at a few passages of scripture and i want us to look at it knowing what the definition is knowing what it's not and see how the psalmist for example in psalm 19 14 sees this as a good thing that it is getting in him in a way where he'll never be able to get it off of him it is seeping in to where it is completely changing everything about him because he has weighted in it he's marinated in it listen to what he says he says let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your silo lord my strength and my redeemer i love psalm one one through three listen to this he says blessed is the one let's just stop right here anybody want to be blessed if you want to be blessed he's about to give us instruction manual on how you can be blessed this world's definition of blessing is going to be very different than this definition of blessing this world's definition of blessing is marinate yourself in all these things that are going to leave you actually empty and wanting all the money in the world all the fame in the world all the you know the thing the toys in the world that's the definition of this world marinate yourself a new and all of these things i have no eternal value but god's definition of blessing is very different he says blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or listen to this or sit wait marinate sit in the company of mockers what does it look like by the way to sit in the company of mockers to sit in the company of mockers is when we watch something that mocks god but it doesn't bother us and we just sit in the company of mockers i'm not a legalist trust me i am not a legalist but you are lying to yourself if you're marinating yourself in the things of this world and expecting to smell like the things of god maybe the reason that every time you hear something the instant thing that comes to your mind is that's what she said it's because you've marinated yourself in the office maybe we got a little too personal tonight or sits in the company of mockers but who's instead the light is in the law of the lord and who meditates on his law once a week though it says no during camps that always says no who meditates on the law of god day and night that person becomes like a tree planted by streams of water which yield its fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither whatever they do prospers anybody here want to be blessed anybody here want to prosper god says the way that happens is when you refrain from the things that break the heart of god and run and sit and bask and dwell and choose slowly and marinate your life in the things of god that honor him and god is a god who's given us this gift meditation so that we can come to god and say you know what god that's what i want with my life amen let me pray for us father we thank you for this moment that you've given us we thank you god for the gift of meditation and we don't want to just celebrate that god we want to come to it and and say god forgive us of the times when hurry has made us hurly god go walk quickly away from you and run to the banqueting tables of the things of this world but past repentance lord we thank you for your grace and forgiveness and we thank you that god you have given us bible study you have given us prayer you have given us truth about yourself and so we pray that we would begin to make a priority god to say that our quiet time can become the loudest time of our day that we would we would slow down we would be too busy to not want ample quality valuable precious time with you it's all over here before as our worship team's coming up all right for us to sing again um all over here just in all these groups that are watching um in dorms and in hallways and in apartments uh all of us that are in this concert hall together if you're here right now and you're saying i just i want to confess to the lord that i tend to find myself marinating in the things chewing the cut into things that are worry or chewing to cut into things that just are dishonoring to god marinating the things that are just are trivial or it might be just songs that are dishonest if we've just talked about a lot of different components here or not if you're there and you just want to bring that before the lord in confession will you just um just right now in the huddle that you are in just with your heads bowed just in in intimacy with god will you just bring by the way it's not a surprise to god so in all honesty will you just lift your hand and just say god that's where i'm at you just lift your hand to him lord i'm convicted by that okay just know god knows that he's not angry with you but he wants you not to just lift your hand and get a mri and then not do the surgery empowered by his spirit he's saying i've got more for you and i think the fear might be if you have your hand up you can put it back down listen the fear might be fomo like the fear of missing out that everybody's watching something so i want to watch it everybody's listening to this song so i want every everybody's in this podcast i want to make sure i'm in the know but what does it look like for us to be so distracted by god that maybe some of these things come and go as trends and that they become devalued for us because we have a greater aim for our lives amen so i just pray blessing on you as we come into community groups i pray that you will have honest conversations about how you will begin to implement meditation in your life and that you would think like it says in philippians 4 on the things that god wants you to just sit in longer and refrain from the things that break his heart amen let's stand together and let's just [Music] worship without you i fall apart you're the one that guides my heart [Music] sing lord i need you lord [Music] my [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] when temptation comes my way when i cannot [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] says [Music] is [Music] is [Music] i oh you

Channel: Liberty University

Views: 2,017

Rating: 4.7714286 out of 5

Keywords: Liberty University, LibertyU, Liberty, Jerry Falwell

Id: BOYbMyd_8oI

Length: 74min 37sec (4477 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020