Fight for Delight by Planning Your Devotions
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.720 | We fight off personal despondency through a habit of daily Bible reading.
00:00:10.320 | That's what we've been seeing here in these early weeks of 2023 as we focus our attention
00:00:14.920 | on Psalm 77.
00:00:15.920 | Thank you for joining us here on this Wednesday.
00:00:18.880 | We're going to do so with one last clip from John Piper's sermon on Psalm 77.
00:00:23.720 | We close our little study of the psalm with a practical plea and a summons from Pastor
00:00:28.640 | John for making and holding to a daily Bible reading routine in this new year.
00:00:35.160 | Here he is speaking to his church in the early days of the year 2000.
00:00:39.360 | Remember, I will remember, I will meditate, I will muse.
00:00:45.560 | We must become an intentional, purposeful, active, aggressive, warrior people who fight
00:00:52.440 | for delight.
00:00:55.160 | It doesn't come automatically.
00:00:57.360 | We fight for delight.
00:01:01.200 | I close with this very practical plea, summons, call, and this.
00:01:07.200 | Will you, this afternoon, before you go to bed tonight, if you haven't already got it,
00:01:14.120 | take enough time, five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, whatever, to plan when in
00:01:21.680 | your days you are going to read the Bible every day in the year 2000.
00:01:26.520 | When?
00:01:27.800 | If you don't have a time picked out, it won't happen.
00:01:30.800 | If you say, "I'll read it tomorrow whenever I get a chance," there will be no chance.
00:01:36.880 | Satan will see to that.
00:01:37.920 | Your flesh will see to that.
00:01:39.260 | If you don't plan to read the Bible at a particular time, you will become a hit and miss, hazard
00:01:45.080 | Christian and weak.
00:01:47.760 | Another question to ask this afternoon is, "Where will I read the Bible?"
00:01:51.400 | Closet, kitchen, bedroom, living room, den, car, conference room at work, park.
00:01:59.160 | You choose.
00:02:00.160 | If you don't have a place picked out, you'll stand in the halls and you'll say, "There's
00:02:04.200 | no quiet place.
00:02:06.080 | There's no place to go.
00:02:07.080 | Music in there.
00:02:08.080 | TV's in there.
00:02:09.080 | Cooking's in there.
00:02:11.120 | There's no place to go."
00:02:12.120 | Well, let's check the email.
00:02:18.320 | You never know what you might get sent.
00:02:21.160 | Susanna Wesley had 16 children.
00:02:23.800 | Housewives, she knows where you're coming from.
00:02:29.040 | So five little kids, noise, noise, noise.
00:02:33.760 | Where are you going to go?
00:02:34.760 | What are you going to do?
00:02:35.760 | Two of them are sick.
00:02:38.160 | Susanna Wesley was such a disciplinarian that she taught these 16 kids, "When you walk into
00:02:43.360 | the kitchen and my apron is over my head, you don't say a word."
00:02:51.000 | That's her closet.
00:02:52.600 | She's created one.
00:02:53.920 | And she was strong enough, really strong, I'll read some maybe of her excerpts from
00:02:59.280 | her words on Wednesday night, really strong that they obeyed.
00:03:05.040 | When mommy's apron is over mommy's head, we know what's happening.
00:03:07.600 | The Bible is open and she's praying.
00:03:10.000 | And you don't go into the holy place.
00:03:13.280 | It can be done if you want it, if you believe in it.
00:03:16.840 | And the third question, when, where, and how.
00:03:20.480 | How are you going to do it?
00:03:21.920 | If you don't have your own way, you've got to have a way.
00:03:24.520 | I tell you, I've been working at this now for 48 years or so, and I know a lot about
00:03:30.920 | defeat in Bible reading.
00:03:33.080 | And one of the defeats that's most painful is to have the place, have the time, sit down
00:03:37.560 | and open the book and you don't know where to go.
00:03:40.240 | I don't know where to go, I'm a pastor.
00:03:43.080 | And you just open it and you say, "Well Malachi doesn't look right."
00:03:45.040 | "Son, look right."
00:03:46.800 | And Satan will actually persuade me that's a good enough reason to reach for a book on
00:03:51.600 | theology.
00:03:52.600 | Isn't that crazy?
00:03:53.600 | And if it happens to me, probably it happens to you.
00:03:56.640 | And therefore, we just got to have some guidelines.
00:03:58.960 | You don't have to keep them, you just got to have them there so that you can fall back
00:04:02.520 | on them if there's no better thing to do that day.
00:04:05.720 | Okay, how, where and when will you, if you don't already have a plan, take whatever amount
00:04:14.840 | of time, 5, 10, 15 minutes a day to plan to do it?
00:04:18.200 | I'm not asking you to do it.
00:04:20.760 | Isn't that easy?
00:04:24.000 | I'm asking for intentionality here.
00:04:26.000 | I'm asking for a plan.
00:04:27.240 | And you might in your heart even make it a vow to the Lord.
00:04:30.760 | Would you stand with me for closing prayer?
00:04:33.560 | Father, I ask you that you would fulfill every good resolve and work of faith by your power.
00:04:46.560 | Bless these people who have seen the way to live the Christian life as a life on the Word,
00:04:53.520 | meditating, musing, remembering.
00:04:57.120 | And Lord, make it part of our arsenal of how we triumph day in and day out against the
00:05:04.960 | evil one.
00:05:05.960 | Oh Lord, make us good warriors, I pray.
00:05:07.880 | Help us know how to fight for delight.
00:05:10.480 | And all the people said, "Amen."
00:05:13.000 | You're dismissed.
00:05:14.000 | Yeah, that apron story reminds me of an old APJ we recorded titled "Bible Time for Busy
00:05:20.160 | Moms."
00:05:21.160 | There, Pastor John encouraged moms of young kids to "find your apron."
00:05:24.880 | That was APJ 437, and you can find that episode at AskPastorJohn.com.
00:05:31.520 | This sermon clip was from a message preached on January 2, 2000 on Psalm 77.
00:05:36.640 | The sermon is titled "I Will Meditate on All Your Work and Muse on Your Deeds."
00:05:42.720 | A message in the sermon archive at DesiringGod.org.
00:05:46.800 | I am your host Tony Reinke.
00:05:48.000 | We'll see you back here on Friday.
00:05:50.000 | Thanks for listening.
00:05:50.640 | [BLANK_AUDIO]
00:05:58.980 | you