The Power of Scripture Memorization: Feeding on God's Word

In this sermon, Reagan encourages the congregation to turn to John chapter 4, discussing the essential act of feeding on God's word similarly to how we crave and enjoy our favorite foods. He emphasizes the importance of memorizing scripture to fortify spiritual discipline, resist temptation, and live a life aligned with Christian values. Reagan invites listeners to engage deeply with the Bible, echoing Jesus' own practice of quoting scripture in response to trials. Through practical advice and actionable steps such as memorizing and meditating on verses, this sermon aims to inspire believers to internalize and live out the word of God in their daily lives.

00:00 Introduction and Opening Prayer
00:47 The Metaphor of Food and God's Word
06:31 The Importance of Memorizing Scripture
07:42 Jesus' Use of Scripture in Temptation
26:11 Practical Steps for Memorizing Scripture
36:07 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

Good morning. If you have your Bible with you, would you take it out please and turn to John chapter four, John chapter four, and we'll start reading in verse 13 here in just a moment. Just read a couple of verses out of that chapter. As a jumping off point for our lesson this morning. Appreciate so much how well you've worshiped whether you're a member here or a visitor with us.

I'm grateful that you've joined in, in what we've tried to offer to God this morning with our worship. I appreciate the prayer that Brian prayed that I'll have boldness and clarity in the things that I have to say this morning. May it be so Amen. And I hope that God is able to speak through his word by the things that I share with you this morning.

The Bible is filled with metaphors that appeal to different kinds of people. Imagery. As we talked about in our Bible class this morning. I know the food image lands really well because a week before last when I asked you who had already thought about lunch, I'm pretty sure 99% of the hands went up in the congregation.

So let me ask you another food question to begin our lesson this morning. What. Is your favorite food, so you gotta identify what your favorite food. I know it's tough, I know it's a difficult choice. There's so many good ones to choose from, but if you had to pick your favorite food, what would it be? Well, I guess I'm probably a 13-year-old boy because pizza would be my favorite Food, always has been.

I imagine it always will be my favorite food as well. Now, how many times do you think I've eaten pizza over the course of my life? I mean, I love pizza and, and I'm not particularly discerning. I appreciate really good gourmet pizza, but I, I appreciate a good Tony's frozen pizza as, as much as the next man, right?

So I love pizza. Do you think that I've continued to eat pizza? Of course I have. Now imagine that favorite food that you're thinking of. Has there ever been a point in your life where you ate that favorite food, whatever it is, pizza, ice cream, mashed potatoes, whatever the case is, and said to yourself, that's it.

No more. I'm totally satisfied. I'll never eat that food again. It can't get any better than that, and so never will I put that over my lips again. Has that ever happened to you? In all likelihood, probably not. Probably you've eaten that we're satisfied in the moment and thought to yourself, you know what, I could probably have that again sometime as soon as tomorrow.

Maybe I would be good with eating that again. So we think about this imagery of the word of God as food, and I think that's helpful to us as well. The word of God is intended to be something that we yearn for and hunger for again and again. Over and over. We keep coming back to it, even after we've been satisfied, before we want it again.

Portions of the word of God come back to us again and again, and they change us from the inside out. We've talked about our congregational focus to walk like Jesus and how over the course of the quarters this year, we've talked about finding the quiet places alone with God, how we fall at God's feet through prayer and fasting.

And this quarter we're talking about feeding on God's word. And week before last, we talked about this idea of feeding on God's word when we read and meditate on God's word. What does that do for us? Well, I want you to look there in John chapter four, beginning in verse 13, John chapter four, beginning in verse 13.

This is an interaction that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman at a well. Most of you are probably familiar with this passage, and we remember that Jesus asked her for a drink. She has kind of a, a pithy, snotty response to him. He responds to her in this way. Beginning there in verse 13 of John chapter four, Jesus answered and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into e eternal or everlasting life, depending on your translation.

Now in, this is the paradox of what God's word does for us. It should produce in us who are Christians, a hunger unlike any other hunger we've ever known. A desire to have this word each and every day. And yet paradoxically it satisfies us in a way that nothing else has or can satisfy us. We, we hunger for it.

We desire for it daily. Yet, it produces in us things that nothing else can produce it. It provides this living water that Jesus promises. It provides that to us through his words. And as I said a couple of weeks ago, we talked about meditating on God's word as we read God's word, that we're filling our mind up with the word of God as we hunger for it.

The questions and concepts related to God's word. We chew on those things. We, we mutter, we murmur, we speak quietly to ourself as, as Hebrew and Greek. Both have that image of speaking to oneself, conversing with oneself. We think deeply about God's word because we care about God's word and want to know what it is God communicates to us.

And so we relow the same ground over and over and over again without getting tired of it. Just as we would in tire of our favorite foods, and most all of us who are Christians do this kind of thinking, this meditating to one degree or another. But it is, I would suggest this morning so much easier and in many ways, so much better to be able to call these verses, these scriptures to mind and to see what it says and relow that ground without having to look it up and read it.

Without having to listen to it. Although those things certainly are things we should be doing. But to mutter or speak quietly to yourself, the scriptures themselves, and we have a word for that, of course, in English, and that's what I want us to think about for a few moments this morning. This idea of memorizing the word of God.

If you wanna meditate on the word of God, one of the very best ways. You can go about doing that as memorizing the scriptures and memorization has always been an important part of Bible study. In the original rough draft of this lesson, I had a number of examples from the scriptures where we can see from the way the scriptures are arranged, that they were arranged in part.

To be memorized. Maybe that's partly because so many illiterate people in the ancient world, but also I think there's benefits to us in modern times of memorizing the word of God, of putting these things in our heart and in our mind. We have such easy access to the Bible. We can have a book that we carry around with us, big or small.

We have it on our phones and on our computers and on our tablets, all those sorts of things. That doesn't mean that memorization is not still valuable to us today. So what I'd like to do this morning is make the case that yes, it is valuable. And then talk a little bit practically about how we might go about doing that.

How is it valuable? Well, as disciples seeking to walk like Jesus, we should remember first of all that Jesus. Memorized the scriptures. Jesus memorized scriptures, and you might say, well, I don't know about that. He's, he's the son of God. He is the word incarnate. He knew all the scriptures. He's the source of all the scriptures.

So what do you mean when you say he memorized the scriptures? Well turn with me to Matthew chapter four, if you would for just a moment. Matthew chapter four from John four. Turn back through Luke and Mark. To the first gospel, Matthew the fourth division, Matthew chapter four. We've used this kind of as a jumping off point in each of our quarters, that Jesus found the quiet places that Jesus fell at God's feet in the quiet places, and that he fed on God's word.

But let's look at these scriptures anew beginning there in verse three. After he's fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness, afterward, he's hungry and the tempter comes to tempt him. Verse three. Now when the temperature came to him, he, Satan said, if you are the son of God, command that these stones become bread.

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that precedes. From the mouth of God. Now, this is pretty meta, right? We're we're talking about this idea of feeding on God's word. We're using an example of Jesus quoting scripture, and the scripture that he quotes is about feeding on God's word, right?

Jesus says it's not just this physical bread that we should be concerned about. What we really live on ultimately are the words that proceed from God himself. Verse five. The devil took him up into the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written.

He shall give his angels charge over you and in their hands. They shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against. Stone. Now, Satan does what he often does. Satan is not above quoting scripture if he can misinterpret misapply or sometimes even misquote what God says to serve his own purposes. Jesus is not fooled by this.

Verse seven, Jesus said to him, it is written again. The whole of your word is truth. Let me clarify what God was talking about there. You shall not tempt the Lord your God again. The devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to them, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

But Jesus said to him, oh way with you Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and Him. Only you shall serve. And the devil left Him and behold, angels came and ministered to him. So what did Jesus do for all three temptations? This is something you're familiar with. Certainly those who are members here are familiar with, as we've talked about this idea, this concept before, for all three temptations, when the devil tempted the Son of God, divinity incarnate, he answered with the scriptures, he answered with it is written where he quoted from the word of God.

That's what Jesus did, and I would suggest that's what we should do as well. Now, put yourself here in this moment, and so the devil's there with Jesus and the devil is tempting him in these three ways. Do you think Jesus said it is written and then pulled out the scroll and rolled it out and said, let me find the plate.

It's written right here. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. Do you think that's what happened? Of course not. What did Jesus do? He quoted the scripture. It was already in his mind and in his heart. He quoted the scripture that we might say he had memorized, and we might say again, well, he's the son of God.

Of course, he had them memorized. He was the one who wrote them to begin with and, and while that's true, consider two points with me. Number one, Jesus was tempted in all points as we are yet without sin. He is being tempted as we are here. And I think he is using the same spiritual tools and weapons that God provides us in order to respond to that temptation.

And secondly, I think there is a, a deeper point being made from where Jesus quotes the scripture or where from. He quotes the scripture. All three of his scriptural replies come from the same section of text. Deuteronomy chapter six through eight. In a context where parents are commanded to teach their children the word of God, and that those scriptures, the words that Moses gives them, should be written on their hearts and on the hearts of their children.

Turn to Deuteronomy chapter six, if you would. Deuteronomy chapter six.

Deuteronomy meaning second law. Moses is going back over the laws that God has given him from Mount Sinai with a, a new generation before they enter the land of canon. And he describes chapter five, the 10 Commandments, a number of other commandments. He talks about how we should love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

But notice what he says in chapter six in verse six.

These words, which I command you today, shall be in your scrolls. No shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house. When you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets before your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. He says, you gotta teach this diligently to your children. And you do it in all of these different ways. So what Jesus does in responding to the devil's temptation is he recited the scriptures that every little. Fateful Jewish boy or girl would've had memorized.

So if you drew, grew up in a fateful Jewish home, these are the scriptures that you would've had memorized. And so Jesus, in my judgment, wasn't using supernatural powers as the son of God to overcome temptation. Instead, he was using the same simple spiritual weapons that every other man or woman would've had available to them at that time.

In fact, the spiritual weapons that he and every other little Jewish boy and girl growing up in Judea would've been taught as a little kid. And so he was prepared to face temptation by the things that he had memorized. And speaking just a moment to parents, you can help your kids to prepare for that as well.

Kids are sponges, aren't they? I mean, they just. Consume and absorb everything, maybe good, maybe bad. And so we need to feed them the good things that they can consume and memorize and remember, and maybe they don't understand the, the full import of that. Maybe they don't understand the full meaning of the things that they're memorizing, but a day will come where they will be grateful that they have those things in their mind and in their heart.

I, I'm grateful for my raising in many ways. My mother especially did a great job of, of teaching my sisters here, my sister and I a number of things from God's word. We, we did some memory work as well. We had memory verses and that sort of things. We had things set to Psalm Galatians two 20, the Fruit of the Spirit, Psalm 23, the Beatitudes.

Sometimes those songs and, and memory verses are from the old King James. And so it gets a little confusing in my head sometimes, like, jerry was talking about giving a moment ago, you know, two Corinthians nine, I think it's verse seven. There was a song that we sang from the Old King James. You know, let every man according as he purposeless in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly, nor of necessity for God.

Loveth a cheerful giver, 5-year-old Reagan, had no idea what that meant, right? Cheerful giver. I got, maybe the rest of it would've been a little more difficult, but now 40-year-old Reagan. I, when I put my check in the basket back there in the back, that's often what I recite to myself As I do that, God has given me so much and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to give back in return.

And there are many of those memory verses I don't still have memorized to this day, but there's a paraphrase in there somewhere and they come back to my memory so much more quickly because. My parents tried to live out what is found here in Deuteronomy chapter six and helping me as a child in memorizing these things.

Now we have memory verses in our Bible classes, all sorts of things. I wanna encourage you as parents, to really emphasize that with your children and emphasize it with yourself as well. What was the devil doing in these temptations of Jesus, especially in this idea of quoting scripture to Jesus? Well.

I think if we boil it down, the devil was tempting him by trying to distract and distort reality. And then that what the devil always does, he tries to distract us from what is reality? What is truth? He tries to distort what God has revealed in God has said to suit his own purposes, but the word of God.

It cuts through all of that. It's sharper than any two-edged sword, and it cuts through the devil's temptations in just this way by showing us the way things really are. That's what allows us to see questions that are misleading from the devil to be reminded of God's true and awesome blessings and promises to ge to see God's restrictions as beneficial protections for our good Always.

To know that God's blessings only come from God in his way and in his time. And Jesus used the scriptures not just to respond to the devil, but to remind himself of those truths. When faced with the temperature, what does God's word say about this? Do you ask that question about everything? What does God's word say about this?

That's my answer to the devil. The world or even my own desires. What does God's word say about this? That should be the first answer to every question. We have the first response to every quandary we find ourselves in a clarifier to every uncertainty, a motivator to every good deed. What does God's word say about this?

Even more. There is power in actually quoting the scripture that applies by having in our mind and heart, this is what God's word says about this. And that's what should have happened at the very beginning. We don't have time to get into all of them this morning. A lot was cut out of this lesson from rough draft to final version.

But there are a ton of connection between Satan's temptation of Jesus that's found in the gospels and the very first temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden. And we won't go into all of those connections today, but would you notice one thing with me? Turn back to Genesis chapter three's the same kind of temptation, lest the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life, the way the devil goes about tempting Eve is so very similar to the way he goes about tempting Jesus.

The response is different. And I want you to imagine this morning for just a moment. What if the response was the same in type if Eve had done what Jesus does thousands of years later, read with me. Genesis chapter three, beginning in verse one. Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman. Has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Now, that's almost a quote of what God said, but it's just enough off that it's exactly the opposite of what God really said, and the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden.

God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die. We know what the serpent says. You will not surely die, and ultimately Eve gives into temptation.

Where did Eve go wrong? She said, well, God has indeed said such and such, such and such. But the issue, one of the issues was, is she didn't actually explicitly exactly quote what God said. Have you ever noticed that we kind of almost run over the things that she says in response? Oh yeah, she responds in the right way, but she didn't really.

You know what God actually said? Chapter two verses 16 and 17. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. Now imagine for just a moment.

Instead of all of the back and forth and rigor Monroe and looking at the fruit and all those sorts of things that Eve does, what if she had just said this to the devil? Full stop. That's it. That clarifies that answers and it shows the right way to proceed, and there would be no need for the rest of the Bible.

That one command from God had been quoted accurately and explicitly and then followed on this occasion. But of course, she didn't do that. Christ had to come and thank God that he did and that he responded to the devil this way by pulling out the sword of the Spirit. Only two points this morning. The second point is that memorization is implied in this concept of the sword of the spirit.

That's what God gives us in order to respond to the devil's attacks. And we talk about the Bible as a sword. You know, I've, I've used that before. You know, don't forget your sword. Or, I left my sword on the pulpit. I'm gonna go and get it. And that's, that's kind of cute. It's kind of a neat way to think about your Bible, you know, that I'm pulling the sword out of its sheath and all those sorts of things.

But that's not really exactly accurate to what we see the imagery being in Ephesians chapter six. Turn to Ephesians chapter six, if you would. Ephesians chapter six. We'll look at this verse and then make some practical applications. Ephesians chapter six,

Paul tells the Ephesian brethren to put on the whole armor of God. Among the weapons and armor, he says this beginning in verse 16, above all, taking the shield of faith, which, which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and notice the sword of the spirit and giving clarification, which is the word of God.

Now as good Bible students, you probably know there were two types of swords that soldiers would've used in Paul's day. One was the long, broad sword. That's not what Paul's referring to in this passage. He refers to the other type of sword that every Roman infantryman would've carried a short double-edged dagger or short sword.

No more than a couple of feet long that would've been used in close combat. So you can take it out. No matter how close your enemy is, you can still use it. Paul doesn't leave us guessing as to what this image of a sword refers to. He calls it the sword of that is the so sword supplied by the spirit, which is the word of God, but Paul doesn't use that word for word that we usually know in Greek logos or logos for the written word of God.

Instead, he uses a different word, rima, which is usually referring to the spoken word of God. The word of God that you would speak to someone else. And so the word of God probably refers to taking and speaking a particular passage of scripture. Not so much scripture or the Bible as a category, but a particular specific portion of God's word.

It's not the Bible in the abstract, it's the Bible as it's used and practically proclaimed. Paul wants us to know and use scripture in our fight against Satan, and isn't that exactly what Jesus did in his temptation? He used what we would call individual verses to respond to the devil's attacks. And if that's what Jesus did, that's what we should do as well.

So. What does that look like practically? Well, four action steps for memorizing God's word, for, for having the sword of the spirit written in our hearts. The first thing that I would suggest for you to do is find your swords, your verses, your passages to meditate on and ultimately memorize. We need to find the right scriptures corresponding to temptations or motivations that we need to be doing or not doing as a Christian.

There was a handout that was handed out in between the, the Bible class and the worship service. You wanna take that out. If you did not get one of those, you may raise your hand. We've got some young men that'd be willing to come down and bring those to you. So back there and over here, we've got a few mixed throughout.

If y'all do that, I'd appreciate it. Now there are any number of lists that we might provide to show, okay, this, this scripture corresponds with this temptation, or this scripture corresponds with the motivation we might have. But I've given you two lists, one for temptations, one for motivations.

Hopefully will be helpful to you. This is actually a, a, a kind of bible study that, that Google or AI is actually really helpful with. If you, if you were to ask an AI search engine give me verses about blank temptation. Give me verses that provide motivation for worshiping God, as I should include at least three verses from the New Testament.

An AI search would actually do pretty good on that sort of thing. So there are any number of lists that you might find. I know the high school class right now is actually using the Book of Psalms in just this way. As we're reading through the book of Psalms, they're notating and saying, Hey, this psalm would go well with this, this verse would go well with that.

That sort of thing. And the most powerful lists are always those that we make ourselves. And so we can do that with all of scripture. Because every situation that we face in life is covered, at least in principle, in the scriptures. And so read these over and over again as you're facing temptation or needing motivation to do what it is God has called you to do.

But I also wanna suggest that you copy these verses down that you actually write these things down. That's a good next step. Writing the word yourself. You might say, well, what's the benefit of that exactly? Well, it, it slows us down and forces us to consider the passage word for word as we go through it.

Your good Bible students who were the most famous people, we see them show up in the New Testament quite a bit. The most famous people in copying the word of God. In copying the Old Testament, you remember what they were called? The scribes. That's exactly right. And and why? Whenever Jesus is talking about experts in the law, why is he always talking about the scribes?

All they did was all they did was just copy down the word of God. That copying down of the word of God. Put those things in their mind and heart where they were able to recite and recall and find the places in the scripture that applied to all sorts of different things. They were known as experts in the law because they copied the word down and they did it with incredible accuracy and attention to detail and reverence for the word of God, and maybe for some of them, certainly in the days of Jesus, this was just kind of an outward thing.

You know, I've memorized this, I know this, but it's not really something that is. Penetrated my heart and my life, but there were many of the scribes who had good hearts in doing this, and so they would check and recheck what they copied. They would count letters and words per line, and then a total number of lines on the page, the total number of letters and words on the page to make sure that they got it exactly right.

And after making all of those calculations, if something didn't add up between what they ha were copying from and the addition that they were then copying, they would scrap that page and start over from the beginning. And that allowed them to become experts in the word of God. What was it? In Deuteronomy 17 verses 18 through 20, what was it?

That every King of Israel and Judah was commanded by God to do long before there were kings We're talking about the book of Deuteronomy. Every king was commanded. Every one of God's kings was commanded to do what? Read the word of God. But before that, you know what they were supposed to do? Copy their own copy.

Take the word of God, make, write down their own copy of that word. Read it every single day, and then do what it says. If that's something that was helpful to them in memorization, I think certainly that would be helpful to us. Copy it down and carry it in your pop pocket. Copy it and put it on your computer screen.

Copy it and put it up on your mirror. Copy it and put it up on the refrigerator. Find a copy that's pretty, put it in a frame and put it up on the wall. Keep the word of God as frontlets before your eyes, and if you do, as you do. Make the effort to memorize those verses as well. Memorizing takes it a step further and has several really helpful applications for us.

First, memorizing, as we said, forces us to see what the text really says. Y'all know I'm a little dramatic. I was in, in drama in plays. You say, well, how can you be in sports and plays at the same time at the same school? I went to a very small one, a school, so you could do just about anything you wanted.

So I was in plays as well. And I really liked kind of ad-libbing a little bit in the play. You know, making up a line here or there, that sort of thing for, for a number of reasons. Number one, I was pretty bad about procrastinating and memorizing my line, so sometimes it was of necessity. I had to ad-lib a little bit.

I always thought it was kind of funny to do that. But when it came to competition, so one act play where you go and have competitions, the director of these plays that we were in forced me to memorize word for word, exactly. Why? Because you could be disqualified if you didn't do it word for word. Why?

Changing what is said could change the meaning of what was written. You didn't have any right to do that. What was written was written by the playwright, and you could make interpretation of how you said it or what you were doing while you said it, but you couldn't change what was said because it could change the meaning.

And if we memorize these verses word for word, would it. What it forces us to do is to say, this is what it actually says, which aids us in seeing what it actually means. And sometimes messing the verse up just a little bit doesn't matter. Sometimes it really matters and memorization is helpful in that way.

Secondly, if we have some scriptures memorized, we can access those scriptures at any time. What do you do when you can't sleep? I've not had that problem a lot in my life. There have been times where I've had trouble sleeping, any number of things that I might do. Y'all know me too well. I keep sharing things about myself.

There'll come a day where I have nothing left to share, and I guess I'll have to go somewhere else, but I don't think I've ever shared this before. One of the things that I do when I have trouble sleeping, Stephanie is making a weird face at me right now. It's not bad. Sometimes I will play golf courses in my head that I've played before.

You can't choose the things that stick in your head. I can remember almost every golf course I've ever played just about hole by hole. And so I'll sometimes play those back through my head. That particularly helpful for anything in my life. No, but it's the way my mind works. Well. A couple of years ago, I figured out there's a, an ancient way of memorizing things where you associate the thing you want to memorize, the text, you wanna memorize with a location, and as you walk through the location.

If you're able to memorize the thing that you want to remember, so, for example, Ephesians one and two, I can recite most of that from memory. And I walk through the house that I grew up in. In order to do that well, I've started trying to associate scriptures with golf holes, and so I'll go down the golf hole and as I play the hole, I have the scripture to go with it.

Let me tell you, that's a lot more productive than just remembering how poorly I played the hole to begin with.

Find a way that when you're laying in bed at night, you're able to recite the scripture to yourself. Maybe that's not what works for you. Maybe you don't play golf, but you probably had a house you grew up in that you can walk through and as you're laying there, you can remember and read, quote unquote, the book of Ephesians or the Psalms or whatever else you have memorized from God's word.

If we have scriptures memorized in this way, we can pull out the sword of the spirit at any time. In any situation, I need motivation. I need help against temptation. It is already there in my mind, ready for me to pull it out and do what it is God has called me to do. Whether someone cuts me off in traffic or I'm procrastinating, or I'm arguing with my spouse.

I'm prepared with the word of God to help me to live and think and behave the way a Christian ought to. So I would encourage you this week to find these swords. Write them down, look at them, memorize them, and then meditate on them as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, anywhere time. And if we do, I want you to turn to one last passage, Psalm one 19, beginning in verse 97.

David's love letter to the word of God. He talks about meditation in this series of verses. Psalm one 19, beginning in verse 97, and this will be how we'll conclude our lesson this morning. Let's be like David. Let's be taught by the word of God and make God's laws and testimonies are meditation both day and night.

David says. Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies are. My meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts.

It's not just that they're remembered, they're observed and practiced. I have restrained my feet from every evil way, even the ones that were tempting for him. I have not departed from your judgments. For you yourself have taught me. How sweet are your words to my taste? Sweeter than honey to my mouth. My favorite thing to eat is your word.

Through your precepts. I get understanding. Therefore, I hate every false way. Why verse 97? Because I love your law. Now we have this same hunger and love for the word of God that causes us to. To find those things that apply to our life and our situations to to copy 'em down and memorize them so that we might meditate on them day and night.

And if you have thought on God's word and realize there's something that you need to do in response to it, there's nothing we would love more than to help you with that. If you'll come now while together, you stand and while you sing.