How To Delight in God's Word

The first sermon that I will preach in 2015 this Sunday is from Psalm 1, titled: The Secret of Happiness.

The theme: One is happy and blessed when they delight in the law (instruction) of the Lord, and meditate on it day and night (Ps 1:2).

What does it mean to delight in God's word? Loving God's word cannot be separated from loving God and loving others. Delighting in Gods word should include at least the following:

1. Loving God.
2. Loving others.
3. Loving Scripture.

I. Love God

1. Delight yourself in the Lord (Ps 37:4).
2. Love God with all your heart (Dt 6:5; Mt 22:37; Mk 12:30).
• Love God and delight in God when (not if) we are tempted to sin. We sin by doing what we should not do (giving in to "younger brother sins" and to "older brother sins") and by not doing what we should (availing ourselves to the means of grace: Scripture reading, prayer, meditation, contemplation, reflection, repentance).

II. Love Others

1. Love one another (Jn 13:34-35).
2. Love your neighbor as yourself (Lev 19:18; Mt 22:38; Mk 12:31).
• Love and embrace those who sin, instead of criticizing and condemning others as the Pharisees did.

III. Love Scripture

1. Meditating on God's word day and night (Josh 1:8) and all day long (Ps 119:97).
2. Delighting in God's word as being sweeter than honey (Ps 19:10).
3. Practice, persist and persevere in the reading of the Bible and the living out the Bible.

What happens when we do not delight in God's word? It produces Christians who are split between loving God and being influenced by the world, as aptly quoted by George Verwer in Hunger for Reality:

"If we give the matter a little thought, we will realize that most of us are living in 'two worlds'... In the first place our religious experiences; what we believe; what we sing about; what we pray about; and what we defend in argument. The second category contains our world of secular values and actions: our use of leisure time; our actions taken to impress people; our attitude towards associates who are better or worse at their job than we are; and how we get our money and use it... This evangelical dichotomy has had more serious results than we admit. It has produced men who are hard to get along with, women who rank themselves by the furnishings of their house and the style of their clothes, and whole families that put on smiling faces with their Sunday clothes for a few hours at church... Everywhere I go I find young people who are aware of this split of Christian and secular values. Many have become atheists or agnostics because of it, while others have skidded into pits of indifference. Many Christians--leaders included--have admitted to me that their beliefs do not control their everyday lives. Yet many are hungry for reality and genuineness in life."

But there need not be a split between the sacred and the secular. A. W. Tozer addressed this beautifully in his book, The Pursuit of God:

"It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything. Let a man sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For such a man, living itself will be sacramental and the whole world a sanctuary."