Sermon Notes -- January 27, 2013

10 Practical Suggestions on “Holding Fast”

1. Pray that God would give you the good and honest heart described in verse 15.

• “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).
• “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:24).

2. Read, memorize, talk about, and meditate on the Word the week prior to Sunday.

• One of the glorious benefits of verse by verse studies is that you know what text will be preached the following week. Read it repeatedly, read commentaries about it, listen to sermons about it and come with some understanding of what you are about to hear.

3. Talk about the Word and specifically how it applies to your heart with someone during the week following Sunday. 

• Meet in small groups, bring it up at lunch, talk about it with your friend or  spouse, discuss it with your children – How should what you heard today affect your life tomorrow and how can people pray for you and hold you accountable to that?

4. What you watch and hear seeps into the soil of your heart.

Have you ever witnessed places in the soil where oil, gasoline, or chemicals were poured? That places tends to stay barren and never bear fruit.

• “Put aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). “How do you receive the implanted word? By putting aside all filthiness and wickedness. This is what makes the word ‘unreceivable.’ It astonished me how many Christians watch the same banal, empty, silly, trivial, titillating, suggestive, immodest TV shows that most unbelievers watch – and then wonder why their spiritual lives are weak and their worship experience is shallow with no intensity” (John Piper). I love the old hymns, but also prefer different styles of worship and accompaniment. However, for those of you who just can’t seem to “get into” the worship on Sunday morning, I would challenge you to examine whether or not you have unreceivable soil. MAYBE it is not so much a style issue as it is a soil issue?
• “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Look at what is before your eyes” (2 Corinthians 10:3-7a).
• “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

5. Get a good night’s rest on Saturday night. 

I am aware that some of you work all night on Saturday, get off at 7 AM and shower and grab a bite to eat and come straight to church. Bless you. God has special graces for you and you must seek his special help. Trust him. He will help you. But I am talking to the rest of us who make our own choices about when to go to bed. My counsel is: decide when you must get up to have time to eat, get dressed, pray and meditate on the Word, prepare the family, and travel to church; and then compute backward eight hours (or whatever you know you need) and be sure that you are in bed 15 minutes before that. Read your Bible in bed and fall asleep with the Word of God on your lips and in your mind. 

It takes more discipline to go to bed on time than to get up on time. There are not as many pressures to go to bed. And sleep is so boring compared to playing or going out or watching TV. I especially exhort parents to teach teenagers that Saturday is not the night to think of staying out late with friends. If there is a special late night, make if Friday, not Saturday. It is a terrible thing to teach children that worship is so optional that it doesn't matter if you are exhausted when you come. What happens here is more important than a college entrance SAT, and we do work hard to get our kids to sleep well before an important test. 

Without sufficient sleep, we are not alert; our minds are dull, our emotions are flat and unenergetic, our proneness to depression is higher, and our fuses are short. "Take heed how you hear" means get a good night's rest before you hear the Word of God. 

6. Forebear one another without grumbling and criticism. 

Psalm 106:25 says, "They grumbled in their tents; they did not listen to the voice of the LORD." Saturday night's and Sunday morning's grumbling and controversy and quarreling can ruin a worship service for a family. My suggestion is this: When there is something you are angry about or some conflict that you genuinely think needs to be talked about, forebear, and put if off till later on Sunday after worship. Don't dive in Saturday night or Sunday morning. 

And when you come to worship, don't come as hypocrites pretending there are no problems. We've all got problems. Come saying: Lord, show me the log in my eye. Humble me and cleanse me and show me so much of yourself that I know how to deal with this in a more Christlike way than I feel now. You may be surprised how many of your crises get changed in the light of God's Word and worship. 

7. Come in a spirit of meek teachability. 

Not gullibility. You have your Bible and you have your head. But James says "In meekness receive the implanted word" (1:21). If we come with a chip on our shoulder that there is nothing we can learn or no benefit we can get, we will prove ourselves infallible on both counts. But if we humble ourselves before the Word of God, we will hear and grow and bear fruit. 

8. Be still as you enter the room and focus your mind's attention and heart's affection on God.

I would like to recommend that as we enter the room here we "come on the lookout for God and leave on the lookout for people." That is, come quietly and go hard after God in prayer and meditation. Then leave with a view to taking risks as you extend your welcome and love to other people. We will not be an unfriendly church if we are aggressive in our pursuit of God during the prelude and aggressive in our pursuit of visitors during the postlude. 

Are you with me in this? This is different than the way many churches conceive of the pre-service atmosphere. For many, the louder the better, because it connotes life and friendliness. That is legitimate in some contexts, but something huge is lost, a sense of the greatness and holiness and wonder of God. There are almost no times in our lives when we together get blood- earnest about God and our meeting him in his greatness. Let Sunday morning be one of those times. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Where do we do that? Let's do it just before the service in this room. Let the Commons be abuzz with greetings. But let this room reverberate with the electric power of silent passion for God's glory. There is a world of difference between the silence of apathy and the silence of passion! Pray, meditate on the text to be preached, ponder the words to the songs. Go hard after God. 

9. When the worship service begins, think earnestly about what is sung and prayed and preached. 

Paul says to the Corinthians, "Brethren, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature" (1 Corinthians 14:20). And he says to Timothy, "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything" (2 Timothy 2:7). Anything worth hearing is worth thinking about. If a message does not require the engagement of your mind, it is probably not going to take you anywhere beyond where you are now. But that would probably not be biblical preaching. If you would take heed how you hear, think about what you hear. 

10. Desire the truth of God's Word more than you desire riches or food. 

As you sit quietly and pray and meditate on the text and the songs, remind yourself of what Psalm 19:10-11 says about the words of God: "More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward." So because the Word of God is greater than all riches and sweeter than all honey, take heed how you hear. Desire it more than you desire all these things. 

As Proverbs 2:3-5 says, "If you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God." 

May God make us a people who hear the Word of God and bear fruit a hundredfold so that the lamp of our lives will be on a lampstand giving light to all who enter the kingdom of God. Take heed how you hear! Amen. 

PSALM 63 – Pray God would mold your heart into this. 

Italics above: (http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/take-care-how-you-listen-part-2; By John Piper. ©2012 Desiring God Foundation. Website: desiringGod.org)