In The Night Watches

Tuesday

Dec212010

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at 9:43AM

Modern life is so busy and hectic and noisy; it’s easy to imagine a person not having a free or quiet moment from the time he wakes up to the iPod alarm to the time he falls asleep in front of the bedroom television. Whether you are a student, a professional, a laborer, or a panhandler, there seems to be nothing but frenzied activity all day long. Of course, on further inspection, much of that is by choice. When the power goes out or we suffer a broken leg, we quickly find out how much of this cacophony was self-inflicted. When we explain that we have no time for meditation and devotion to quieter, spiritual pursuits, what we are really saying is that we have little interest in them. There should be a time when we can ditch the little white earbuds, silence the television, go into a quiet place, and commune with God.

I. Solitary and Salutary

A. Private Moments of Reflection

1. Eliphaz was a friend of Job, but many of his suggestions to his friend were well-intended, but self-righteous and misdirected; Job was not the secret ogre his friends thought and was active in the religious works they offered

Should a wise man utter such windy knowledge [as we have just heard] and fill himself with the east wind [of withering, parching, and violent accusations]? Should he reason with unprofitable talk? Or with speeches with which he can do no good? Indeed, you are doing away with [reverential] fear, and you are hindering and diminishing meditation and devotion before God. (Job 15:2-4; The Amplified Bible)

a. the only lasting value in the words of Job’s friends is the warning against assumptions and hyper-criticism

b. we do not, however, want to be guilty of the things that Eliphaz assumed were wrong with Job, specifically, abandoning our reverence for God and hindering our faith by diminishing meditation and devotion before him

2. if we reduce our religion to showing up at the church building once a week and writing a check, we are only deceiving ourselves and the people who are just like us; faith is only faith if it defies place and time and transcends appearances (see John 4:19-24)

3. faith is only faith if it includes regular periods of private meditation and devotion (Psalm 1:1-4)

B. Examples

1. sometimes private devotion opens the way to the greatest blessings of life, by communicating to God our readiness to handle them (Genesis 24:62-67)

a. through his devotion, Isaac found solace after his mother’s death and the answer to his need for companionship

b. grief and disappointment are not occasions to shut God out, but to speak to him more desperately, yet with resignation

2. David discovered a sense of purpose not only in prayer, but also in song (Psalm 55:16-18)

a. inspired by God, many devoted Christians express their faith in song, poem, or other works of art

b. those moments of creativity can be very pleasant times of devotion and contentment

3. yet for many Christians, moments of solitude are anything but content; they lie awake at night, finally with the opportunity to reach out, but they do not and then wonder why they suffer such insomnia (Psalm 63:3-6)

a. watchmen looked after the city while their neighbors slept, deep into the wee hours of darkness, but faithful people found a higher source of comfort and strength as they punctuated each day with meditation upon the power and goodness of God

b. instead of deadening your brain with mindless entertainment or driving it back into the disappointments of today and fears of tomorrow, learn to meditate upon grace and hope (Romans 5:1-5)

4. the son of God himself provides the sweetest example of this communion

a. Jesus was under constant pressure during his ministry to contend with enemies and false teachers, to heal countless lame and diseased people, to battle and exorcise powerful demons, and to count down the days to his own cross

b. perhaps you can relate to the pressures, even if you must admit that yours are not quite that intense and perhaps you can find solace where Jesus found it (Mark 1:32-37)

c. on other occasions, the enemies of Jesus were furious with him, but he responded with the same kind of salutary devotion (Luke 6:11-13)

1. this period of meditation preceded the selection of apostles both because it was a momentous choice and because it served to spread the pressures on Jesus through friendship

2. no significant decision should be enacted without approaching God

C. Methods

1. solitude is as essential to meditation as company is to corporate worship, although some periods of devotion can be shared among families or small groups

a. some seek out a quiet spot in their houses or perhaps out on the back porch, while others prefer to take a walk through the neighborhood or in the park; others yearn for a beautiful spot in the woods or by the water, and some can find all the privacy they need simply by shutting a door

b. we want to minimize the distractions and promote the quietness and solitude that will allow us to concentrate on nothing but spiritual things

2. meditation and devotion are about spiritual nutrition, feeding upon manna truly come down from Heaven in the form of the word and witness of Christ Jesus, for, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4).

a. meditation is more than just reading the Bible; it is taking time to think about what was read, to pray about it, to approach God with questions, doubts, concerns and fears (Psalm 119:10-16)

b. contemplate your relationship with God; seek just a closer walk with him by pondering his majesty and mercy, both in creation and revelation; “On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate” (Psalm 145:5).

3. pray – not as we do in our invocations and benedictions here, but in a more personal way, “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father’” (Romans 8:15)!

a. some scholars suggest that Abba is less formal than Father and might be more akin to “Papa” or something still reverential, but more familiar

b. we want our private communion with God to be just that – less formal than public worship, still reverential, more personal

4. we can sing praise to God if we know the words to some spiritual songs and are able to think about them as we sing, making melody in the heart and expressing our joy in verse

II. Meditation

A. Drawing Nigh

1. God is not headquartered in some hut on Earth where we can physically approach him only at certain times or by traveling great distances; God is in Heaven and devotion is the portal

2. if we leave God behind at the church building and don’t revisit him for an entire week, it should not come as a surprise that we begin to feel distant and disconnected from him

a. the words of a man after God’s own heart, spoken to his own son, resonate with anyone who wants a more meaningful relationship with God (First Chronicles 28:9-10)

b. Stephen was thinking about that as he defended himself against his persecutors: “But it was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says, ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest? Did not my hand make all these things’” (Acts 7:47-50)?

c. it is there that Christ has entered to “to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” and to intercede as our advocate with his Father when we summon his help from anywhere and anytime on Earth (see Hebrews 7:25, 9:24)

3. whether in the night watches or during the day, we can draw near to God through a moment of devoted thought; God is found by those who seek him

a. “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

b. most of that search is not going to take place in a church building on a Sunday morning; assembling for worship is a big part of it, but only a part of it, and only a few moments compared to the breadth of time available throughout the week and in the night watches when things quiet down and others have retired (Hebrews 10:19-23)

B. Quest for Peace

1. meditation and devotion involve a worshipful attitude, thoughtfulness and consideration of important, spiritual matters, reverence and praise for a deserving God, prayerfulness and simplicity (Matthew 6:5-13)

a. this command is essentially about the kind of moments we are recommending today; it might have bearing on our public prayers, but really it is about our private ones

b. private devotions are not ever about impressing anybody else or straightening out our speech for public consumption; they are times to lay ourselves bare before God who sees all

c. away with the poetic speech and stilted expressions, the cliches and standardized speech; it is a time to speak personally and frankly

2. a quest for peace is not an effort to find self-justification for remaining in sin, but to find strength and reason to break bad habits, to kick addictions, to abandon bitterness and resentment, to pray for enemies, to focus upon hope and not hate (James 4:7-10)

a. there will be difficult times in our lives when we might wonder if God has forgotten to bless us, just as the psalmist Asaph did: “When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints” (Psalm 77:3).

b. his meditation cleared away the doubts (Psalm 77:10-14)

3. humans need some way to release the pressures of life, even the self-induced ones, to find solace in a pitiless world, to reconnect with a God that speaks through the Bible and is approached through prayer; there is no substitute – worship services included – for the supplementary moments of private devotion (Hebrews 4:14-16)

a. controversy swirls around the subject of making prayers to Jesus, but it is he who can sympathize with our weaknesses when we confess them to his father

b. prayer through Jesus is the same as telling a dear friend your troubles, knowing that this friend has been through it before – disappointment, stress, dread, frustration, loneliness, grief, even temptation; yet he also has the wisdom that so often fails earthly friends

4. in our devotional moments, we are on a quest for fellowship that promotes a heightened sense of hopeful contentment (Philippians 4:6-9)

Conclusion

The psalmist wrote, “May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD” (Psalm 104:34). True faith does not stop when the worship service is over; it follows the believer out into the parking lot and accompanies him as he heads home and then off to work or school. True faith is out on the hillside, down by the quiet creek, in a corner of the house while others sleep. Contemplative faith praises, prays and ponders.

Questions For Review