of memorizing scripture.
And the Bible reads in verse number 8 there, this book of the law shall not depart out
of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to
do according to all that is written therein.
For then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then thou shalt have good success.
And of course, that's what all of us want in our lives.
We want our way to be prosperous.
We want to have good success.
We want to succeed in life and we want to do great things for God.
We want to succeed at everything that we set our hand to in this world.
And God says that the key to succeeding in the Christian life is to meditate upon God's
word day and night.
Well, obviously to meditate upon God's word day and night, you have to have God's word
memorized.
You have to have it in your heart in order to be thinking about it all the time.
What does it mean to meditate?
Meditation is recalling something and just kind of turning it over in your mind, right?
Just kind of thinking about it, pondering it.
And so when we meditate upon God's word, we're thinking about what the Bible says.
And so the Bible says here that we should meditate therein day and night.
Go if you would to Psalm verse one, go to the book of Psalms verse one and we'll find
a similar scripture with a similar promise attached to it.
The Bible reads in Psalm chapter one verse one, it says, blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the
seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth this fruit
in his season.
His life also shall not wither.
And here's that amazing promise once again, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
I mean, that's such an amazing promise.
How would you not want to get in on that?
Just everything that you do prospers, right?
Just having success in the Christian life, having success with your family, with your
business endeavors, whatever you do, you want God to be blessing you.
You want God to be helping you.
And if you meditate upon God's word, that's the promise.
Now the key to this is in verse two when it says his delight is in the law of the Lord
and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
You see, it's going to be pretty hard for you to meditate upon God's word day and night
if you don't love God's word, if you don't delight in it, because obviously self discipline
can only take you so far, right?
Being disciplined and strict and scheduled, that can only take you so far because there
are going to be some days when you just don't feel like doing it.
There are going to be some weeks and months like that when you just don't feel like doing
it.
And so self discipline is something that, yeah, we can force ourselves to do things,
but here's what I've found in my life is that the things that I end up sticking with are
things that I actually like or enjoy because, you know, maybe you're more disciplined than
I am, but I just don't have the discipline to just keep doing something that I don't
like.
You know, every once in a while somebody will come at me with some new workout and they
tell all, man, this workout is so effective and it's going to get you in great shape and
whatever.
But here's the thing.
If I don't like it, it's worthless to me.
I don't care if it's the most effective workout in the world.
I don't care if it's been scientifically proven and everyone agrees because if I don't enjoy
it, I just know that I'm going to do it a few times and then I'm just going to be like,
nah, I don't feel like doing this.
No one's making me do it.
So nuts to it.
Right?
So I always tell people, you know, the, the, the workout that is the most effective is
one that you like because then you actually end up doing it and then you stick with it
and then you actually get the results.
Well, here's the thing.
When it comes to meditating upon God's word day and night, there's this essential ingredient.
You have to love the Bible.
If you don't love the Bible, if you don't love the word of God, well then this isn't
going to work for you because it takes love of the Bible.
In order to devote that 15 minutes, 30 minutes or even an hour or two hours to the word of
God every day, you have to have a desire for it and a love for it.
And here's the thing.
If you don't love the word of God, well then you've got even bigger problems.
Okay?
So that's a whole nother sermon.
You should love and delight in the word of God.
And so then, you know, this will not be such a chore to you to memorize some scripture.
Turn if you would to Psalm 119.
So let me just give you a practical tip and I'm going to kind of pepper throughout the
sermon little practical tips on memorizing the Bible because the sermon in general is
to try to motivate you or inspire you to memorize scripture, but I'm also going to pepper in
some just kind of nuts and bolts and practical tips on how to do it.
And so the first thing I want to point out is that you're going to have the most success
at memorizing scripture if you pick the parts of the Bible that you like the most because
then you're going to enjoy what you're doing.
Okay?
So a lot of people, when they hear about memorizing the Bible, they say, okay, where do I start?
And I would give two pieces of advice on where to start, okay?
Number one, I would start with something that you like because if you enjoy it, if you like
it, then it's not going to be a drudgery for you because your delight is in it.
Or number two, I would start with something that is the most familiar to you already.
Now maybe these are both the same thing because probably stuff that you like is more familiar
to you as well, but these are really the two things that I think about when I think about,
okay, where, what chapter do I want to do next?
Where do I want to go next?
I think about the stuff I like and I think about the stuff that I already know well because
chapters that are totally unfamiliar to you are going to be much harder to memorize than
chapters that you're already pretty familiar with or on a smaller scale versus that are
unfamiliar to you versus versus that you're familiar with.
Okay.
Like for example, I remember memorizing first Thessalonians chapter three.
Now first Thessalonians chapter three is a pretty short chapter.
If you look at it in the Bible, it's just a little short, simple chapter.
There's really nothing crazy about it.
It's like 13 verses.
They're not very long.
And you would look at this chapter and think that it's not a big deal.
But I remember that chapter just being so hard for me to memorize.
And I remember just spending hours and hours and hours and hours and hours trying to memorize
this little chapter and it was so hard.
And I remember just wondering like, why is this so hard?
Why am I having such a bad time with this chapter?
But then I realized, I thought to myself, you know what?
I've been in church my whole life.
And I have never heard any preacher ever preach any sermon out of first Thessalonians chapter
three.
I've never heard any verse out of chapter three ever quoted in a sermon.
So it was just totally unfamiliar to me.
Like I'd read it in my personal Bible reading, just reading through the Bible, like I read
everything in the Bible, but I didn't have any associations with it of like hearing it
in a sermon or coming up in conversation or whatever.
So that really drove home this lesson to me that, wow, if stuff's unfamiliar, it's
way harder to memorize than stuff that's easy.
So therefore I would go for something like Psalm 23, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 13, John
chapter three, right?
The most popular, famous scriptures that you've heard a bunch of times, you've heard them
come up in discussion, you've talked about them, you've heard sermons on them, or maybe
chapters where you already know a few of the verses, you know, like let's say Romans
chapter three or something, cause it's like, Hey, I already know verse 10, I already know
verse 23, a lot of this is familiar to me.
And so I would pick stuff that you like and pick stuff that is familiar because you want
to pick the low hanging fruit because when you have those easy victories, it's a confidence
boost.
I remember the first time I heard about someone memorizing Psalm 119, which is just one chapter,
but it's the longest chapter in the Bible, so it's 176 verses.
And this guy told me, he's like, this is when I was a kid, this guy told me, he's like,
Hey, my grandma memorized and recited Psalm 119 perfectly.
And I was just like, what?
And I couldn't even believe it.
I was like, is that even possible?
Like is that even humanly possible?
How can anyone even do that?
You know, but, but that's, that's how we are sometimes is we have these kinds of barriers
in our minds of what we think is impossible.
But then other people, you know, they break things down into small pieces and they just
learn one short verse a day and in 176 days, they've got it.
And so of course it's doable.
Of course it's possible.
But sometimes we have to kind of prove that to ourselves because we might think like,
okay, that's possible for someone else.
Grandma did it, but I don't think I could do it.
So you want to prove to yourself that you can do it.
So you want to give yourself a little easy victory by say, memorizing Psalm 23 or Psalm
one or something, because then you can be like, Hey, I memorized the chapter.
I did it.
I can do this, you know, and, and it's something that you already knew pretty well, so it'll
go quicker.
So that's a little practical advice.
Look at Psalm 119.
There are a lot of great, speaking of Psalm 119, there are a lot of great verses in Psalm
119 that tie in with memorizing scripture.
It says in verse 11, thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.
So having God's word in our heart can also keep us from sin.
Look at verse 15, I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways.
I will delight myself in thy statutes.
I will not forget thy word.
So notice that delighting in God's word and not forgetting God's word are once again tied
together.
Verse 23, princes also did sit and speak against me, but thy servant did meditate in thy statutes.
Look at verse 48, my hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments which I have loved
and I will meditate in thy statutes.
Again, loving God's word and meditating God's word go hand in hand.
Look at verse number 78, let the proud be ashamed for they dealt perversely with me
without a cause, but I will meditate in thy precepts.
And then jump down to verse 97, this is one of my favorite little sections in this whole
chapter because of course Psalm 119 is broken into 22 sections because in the original Hebrew
each section starts with the same letter.
So like for example, the first eight verses are the aleph section, the first letter of
the Hebrew alphabet's aleph.
In fact, it's where we get our word alphabet, aleph, bet, alphabet.
And so aleph, those eight verses, they all start with the letter aleph in the original
Hebrew.
And then in the bet section, they all start with the letter bet in the original.
And so in this mem section, everything starts with basically an M in the original Hebrew.
And so that's what these sections are.
But I kind of like this section and I always think of this section as the Bible memory
section because it's called mem, and so I think of like memorizing scripture just by
coincidence.
But look at verse 97, it says, Oh, how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day.
Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever
with me.
There's kind of an interesting double meaning here because, you know, are the enemies always
with them or are the commandments always with them?
Well, probably both.
But if I had to pick one, I'd say it's probably the commandments that are always with him.
You know, through thy commandments, thou has made me wiser than mine enemies.
And we all want to be wiser than our enemies.
You know, we're all gonna have enemies in life.
But it's it's always nice when our enemies are idiots, you know, and thankfully, a lot
of my enemies are totally idiot total idiots.
So it's a really good blessing from God.
You know, thank you, Lord for blessing me with idiots for enemies.
But he said, you know, I have more understanding than all my teachers in verse 99 for thy testimonies
are my meditation.
So he says, Look, you've made me wiser than my enemies.
I have more understanding than my teachers.
And he says, for they are ever with me.
I think what he's saying is that the commandments are ever with him.
And it's not because he just carried around scrolls of the Word of God with him physically
everywhere.
But God's commandments are always with them because they're in his mind.
They're in his heart.
You know, it's it's sort of like that old thing where when we were growing up, and I
don't think that kids are told this anymore.
But we were told when we were growing up, hey, you have to learn math because when you
grow up, you're not gonna have a calculator with you everywhere you go.
It turns out we all have a calculator with us.
Everywhere we go 100% of the time, we have a calculator.
But I don't regret my teachers telling me that we you know, I have more understanding
than all my teachers.
No, just kidding.
But anyway, you know, I don't regret my teachers telling me that because we still need to learn
math.
And the reason we need to learn math is so that we're not a complete idiot.
Okay.
And we don't want to rely on the calculator because you'll see some people, they know
so little math that they rely on the calculator so much that they'll they'll type something
into the calculator and just get an absurd answer and just kind of believe it.
Like it's gospel, you still need a little common sense to know how to use the calculator
and to kind of judge whether what the calculator is telling you is even accurate.
It's sort of like you turn on the GPS, and you're trying to go somewhere in Phoenix.
And the next thing you know, you're just like out in the middle of the desert, just
driving further into the wilderness.
You can't just be like, well, the GPS says that if I go 400 miles, I'm gonna get there.
And it's taking you to like Phoenix, New Mexico or something.
Okay.
So you know, you want to be able to use a little common sense and look out the window.
Right.
And so you say, well, you know, I don't need to memorize scripture, because I'm gonna have
the Bible with me everywhere I go, because I've got the Bible app right here.
But here's the thing about that is that, number one, yeah, okay, you should have a
Bible app downloaded on your phone to where you can access the Bible everywhere you go.
But in life, when you're talking to people, when you have an opportunity to share the
gospel with someone, when an opportunity to talk about the things of God comes up, you
don't always want to have to be like, oh, here, let me pull out my phone and look something
up and read it to you.
Okay.
You want that stuff to just be kind of on the tip of your tongue.
Okay.
You know, there have been a lot of times when I wanted to give someone the gospel, and I
didn't have my Bible with me.
This is before the days of the smartphone.
And I was able to present the gospel just from memory, and just quote all the scriptures
and just go through it.
But even in the age of the smartphone, here's the thing, sometimes, if you pull out a Bible,
or if you pull out a phone or something, sometimes it can kind of like ruin the moment
and people kind of like, blow you off or they're not really in, you kind of have to get in
on that opportunity or strike while the iron's hot, as it were.
Sometimes it's funny, I've been out soul winning before, and I'll knock on somebody's door,
and I'll ask them if I can open the Bible and show them how to be saved or Oh, no, no,
no.
I'll start to open the Bible.
No, no, but then they'll want to keep talking to me.
So then it's like, they want to talk.
So then we talk for a couple minutes, and like, okay, well, you know, oh, no, no, no.
And they kind of it's like, they don't want to go that deep or they I guess they feel
like once the Bible opens, we're going to be there all day or something.
So then in that situation, I've just then just continued the conversation and been able
to give the entire gospel and get someone saved.
It was just like, if I opened my Bible, that was like a little too serious for them.
But if I quoted it to them, it was a way to kind of like sneak it in there and get
them saved.
And so, you know, there are still situations when maybe pulling out a Bible isn't necessarily
practical or appropriate or it's not, you know, or there have been other times in the
workshop, I'm driving the work truck, giving the gospel to my buddy while I'm driving the
work truck.
You know, I'm not going to necessarily be like, you know, trying to give the gospel
and do it.
You know, you know, you know for sure where you're going, buddy.
But the thing is, you know, you still want to have God's Word with you all the time,
even in situations where you don't have your phone, if that ever happens, if you don't
have a Bible, whatever, it's still good to just have it on the tip of your tongue just
ready.
You can just access it.
Okay.
So, it says in verse 99, I have more understanding than all my teachers for thy testimonies are
my meditation.
I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts.
I've refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word.
I've not departed from thy judgments, verse 102, for thou has taught me.
How sweet are thy words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way.
So again, love for God's Word and memorizing God's Word go hand in hand.
Look at verse 148, it says, mine eyes prevent the night watches that I might meditate in
thy word.
Now, if you would flip over to James chapter one, James chapter one in the New Testament,
James chapter one, you know, the Bible said, while you're turning there, I'll read for
you from second Corinthians 10 verse three, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not
war after the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through
God to the pulling down of strongholds and watch this part, casting down imaginations
and every high thing that exalted itself against the knowledge of God and bringing
into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
So the Bible says that we're in a spiritual battle, right?
We're in a battle that's not a physical battle, flesh and blood battle, but it's a battle
for the mind.
And sure, it's a battle for the hearts and souls and minds of others, but it's really
a battle for our own mind as well, because of the fact that there are so many corrupting
influences that can mess up our mind and we want to have a godly mind, a spiritual
mind.
And so one of the ways that we can bring into captivity, every thought to the obedience
of Christ, as the Bible says here is to meditate upon God's word.
You know, think about God's word and just have God's word saturating our brains to make
up for all the other junk that has come into our brains over the years and kind of clean
up some of the garbage that we have in our minds just from living in this sinful world.
We get exposed to all kinds of wrong things and so the word of God can help cleanse that
and help offset some of that damage from the junk that's out there in this world.
So again, back to some of the practical tips.
You know, I said, hey, start with stuff that you like, start with stuff that's familiar
and then also have a plan, okay?
If you don't have a plan, you're not going to go very far if you just, hey, every time
I feel like it, I'm just going to randomly do some Bible memory.
That's not really going to go anywhere, right?
Is that how athletes train?
No, of course not, right?
You have to have a plan.
You have to have some kind of a schedule and so therefore, you know, come up with something.
And this is a good time of year to be thinking about this because it's almost a new year.
So you could even come up with a big plan for 2023, what you want to accomplish.
Now obviously you got to be realistic.
I mean, some people in this room have never done any Bible memory before.
Others have already done a lot and so they would be looking to take this to some whole
other level or something.
You know, everybody's at a different level.
Everybody's at a different stage and that's okay.
So if you're a beginner, don't compare yourself to someone who's really advanced and then
get discouraged with yourself because you're comparing yourself to someone who's been saved
for 30 years or something.
You know, you're comparing yourself to someone who's been memories in the Bible since they
were a little kid and this is all brand new to you, right?
So you want to just have a reasonable goal, but come up with some kind of a goal or a
plan and you know, maybe the whole year is too big for you.
Maybe you just have a plan for January and say, Hey, this is what I want to accomplish
in January.
This is when I'm going to work on it.
This is what I'm going to do each day.
And so like I said, you could pick just a short, easy chapter, maybe something that's
familiar to you would be the easiest.
Or you could even just pick individual, individual verses that you like or individual verses
that are meaningful to you in some way.
Or maybe you could pick all the verses that you would use to share the Gospel with someone
and say, Hey, I want to memorize all the verses that I would use when giving the Gospel.
Romans three 10 Romans three 23 Romans six 23 Romans five eight Romans five 12 that kind
of stuff.
Romans 10 nine those type of scriptures.
You can memorize those and and do it that way.
Now the reason that I like to memorize by the chapter instead of by the verse is simply
because it's easier to organize that way.
You know, if I just have a whole bunch of individual verses floating around, that's
a little harder to keep track of than just kind of memorizing one chunk and one verse
kind of flows into the next and kind of reminds me of the next.
So it's just a little easier to organize it that way.
And here's the thing, memorizing a whole chapter doesn't mean that you have to memorize something
crazy because there are chapters in the Bible that are only a few verses long.
You could pick little short chapters that are, you know, Psalm 23 is like six verses,
right?
So you could do that.
It's nothing crazy.
Six verses, Psalm 23, boom, you memorize the chapter.
Even in the New Testament, there are a few chapters that are short like that.
First Thessalonians chapter one, 10 verses, right?
The book of Second John, the book of Third John, then you can memorize a whole book of
the Bible, even though it's just like 14 verses.
But yeah, those are some things that you could do.
But just just have a plan and say like, hey, I want to learn one verse per day, five days
a week, you know, Monday through Friday, I'm going to learn one verse a day or, or if you
are more advanced with this and want to be really aggressive with you could say I'm gonna
learn four verses a day or something, you know, but that's gonna take a lot of time
to learn them and to review that.
Another practical tip is do not review it too much.
Do not review Bible verses too much.
This is the biggest mistake you can make when memorizing the Bible, I know it sounds
crazy.
You say, what in the world?
How could you do it too much?
Let me tell you something, you will never succeed at memorizing the Bible if you review
too much, okay?
And I learned this the hard way when I first started learning the Bible.
When I was a teenager, I got excited about memorizing the Bible, I went to a church summer
camp and we studied or there was a thing where if you memorized Philippians chapter three,
you would earn extra points for your team or whatever.
And so it's like 21 verses long, pretty good size chapter, great chapter.
And so this is the first chapter of the New Testament that I ever memorized was as a teenager
at the summer camp, I learned Philippians chapter three and it kind of just got me excited
about Bible memory in general.
It kind of just got me started like, wow, if I can do chapter three, how about chapter
four?
So the next chapter I learned was Philippians chapter four and then I started memorizing
more and I got to the point where I had, this is when I was about 17 years old, I got
to the point where I had about 17 or 18 chapters memorized.
But this was the big fatal mistake that I made was that I recited all 17 of them every
day.
So I was like, I got to maintain this, so I just recite all 17 chapters every day.
Well guess what?
You're gonna get burned out on that pretty quick because that's a lot of work and it's
going to get kind of boring reciting the same 17 chapters every day.
It takes a long time and it was a chore.
So then what I did, I did that for like a month, month and a half.
I quoted those 17 chapters every day for like a month, month and a half and then I just
couldn't do it anymore.
I was just like, ah.
Then I went like, I went only like a week and a half or two weeks without doing it.
Not that long.
Week and a half, two weeks and I couldn't quote them anymore.
Then just after that short time I lost it.
And here's the problem is that those chapters never went into my long term memory.
My brain kept them in the short term memory because it's like, hey, we only have to memorize
these for 24 hours.
As long as I can recall these 24 hours later, that's all I need.
And so it kept it in the short term.
So even after a week and a half it was gone because it was like, whoa, I'm not prepared
to remember this for a week and a half, two weeks.
And then it was gone because I had drilled it too much.
So then years and years later, then I didn't do a lot of Bible memory for like five, six
years, seven years.
I don't remember how long, maybe five, six years because they just like, I was discouraged
by that experience.
But then I learned about what's called like the, uh, what is it called?
Like a spaced repetition method or something like, like Anki cards for example.
But basically I learned this, this thing of spaced repetition.
And so then I came up with a, uh, a new plan based on this new strategy I learned, which
was this, once you have a chapter memorized, only quote it every day for one week, okay?
Then wait a week and then quote it every week for a month, okay?
So every day for a week, every week for a month, and then it's just every month for
the rest of your life.
That's what I used to say, but now I've changed it even more to where now I say every month
for a year and then every year for the rest of your life.
Cause I found that if I could quote the chapter every month for a whole year, usually then
I only have to quote that chapter once a year and I can still remember it.
We're perfect because it moves into your longterm memory.
Now think about it.
If I could go back in time and I wouldn't want to do this, but if I could get in a time
machine, go back because it, you know, changed too many things.
But if I went back in a time machine, I told my, my 17 year old self, Hey, listen, don't
quote these every day.
Do it every day for a week, every week for a month, every month for a year, okay?
Think about it.
I quoted it every day for like a month and a half.
If instead I would have quoted them like weekly and then literally instead of going a week
and a half or two weeks, I could have gone a whole month and not forgotten anything.
So I would have done far less work, less work, less effort, and I would have remembered more
and I wouldn't have gotten discouraged.
So I would have kept going and who knows what would happen.
But you know, things had to happen the way they did.
So I'm not going to make use of my time machine, uh, because it's too dangerous, too risky.
All right.
But the, the point is that, you know, sometimes doing more work isn't always better.
You got to work smarter, not work harder sometimes, right?
It's sort of like if I want to get strong, I'm not going to go to the gym and lift weights
for eight hours.
If you go to the gym and lift weights for eight hours, unless you're taking drugs, you're
going to get weaker.
You know, less is more when it comes to weightlifting, you know, because you have to, you know, you
have to basically space things out and have recovery and everything like that.
And so it's the same thing here.
You don't want to overdo it.
So don't review too much.
In fact, sometimes I'll catch myself wanting to review something.
I want to review a chapter and I'm just like, nope, tomorrow.
And so I just, you know, if I really want to work on Bible Memory, I just need to work
on something else.
Grab a different verse, grab a different chapter.
But that one's like, nope, can't think about that until next Tuesday because of the fact
that if you overdo it, it'll never get into your long term memory.
Now when you first switch something from daily to weekly, sometimes it's a little hard to
quote that first time, but then it comes right back.
And I'm telling you, I did it for years and it works.
Okay, here's another tip.
When you memorize the Bible, recite it out loud.
Don't recite it in your head.
Recite it out loud, quote it out loud.
And the reason why this is so important is that you get kind of a muscle memory with
your mouth too, not just the words in your brain, but also the way your mouth feels saying
them.
All that feeds into your memory and so by reciting it out loud, and what did the Bible
say?
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein
day and night.
And how many verses that talk about meditating in the Bible involve the mouth, meditating
with your mouth, okay?
And if you think about it, there's an illustration of rumination, which is like when a cow, they
eat something and they swallow it, right?
They eat grass and then they swallow it and then they regurgitate it and then they chew
on it in their mouth to digest it more.
And then they swallow it again and then they vomit it back up into their mouth, chew on
it for a while, and then they keep bringing it up and down.
That's why cows have four stomachs, right?
Because they go through this process of bringing it up, bringing it down, bringing it up.
And that's a great picture of Bible memorization, rumination, meditation upon the Word of God
is that basically you're pulling out the Word of God from your heart and kind of chewing
on it for a while, meditating on it, and you do that with your mouth by reciting it, by
quoting it out loud.
Now I'm not saying to be obnoxious about this.
You don't want to walk down the street and people think that you have Tourette's syndrome
or something because you're just yelling, you're walking down the street in some really
rough passage of Revelation or something, yelling about hellfire and damnation as you
briskly walk down the street, combining your speed walking workout with reciting Revelation
and then, you know, yeah.
I'm not saying to be weird about it and you don't want to be this holier than thou who's
just kind of just everywhere you go, just really loudly kind of just quoting the Bible
everywhere, just acting weird.
Don't make it weird, okay?
But you know, you don't have to be super loud about it and you can also do this in your
own quiet time and study.
And look, I do recite a lot of stuff while I'm walking down the street in my neighborhood,
but I'm not doing it at the top of my lungs and when other people walk by with their dog,
I just kind of take a break for 20 seconds, kind of let them pass and then kind of get
back into it so that I'm not just kind of walking by them, you know, somebody with their
dog is like, and for this cause, God also gave them over to vile affections.
Oh hi, just quoting the book of Romans, how you doing?
So you know, obviously use common sense, but I'm telling you doing this out loud is a big
help.
It really helps out a lot.
Now if you can only do it in your mind, sometimes you can only do it in your mind because you
know, you're busy.
But here's what I typically do, when I'm actually learning a verse, when I'm actually learning
my verses for the first time, a lot of times I'll just do that in my mind because that's
something where, you know, it's not as important to do it out loud.
It's more like when I'm reciting the whole chapter that I feel like it's really important
to do it out loud.
Learning them, I'll just chant them in my brain a lot of times because that takes a
lot longer and I have really bad vocal cords, which is kind of ironic since I'm a preacher,
but I actually lose my voice all the time.
I have sore throats all the time, bad vocal cords all the time, and so I have to kind
of save my throat.
But when I'm reciting things, especially like for a monthly recitation, then yeah, I want
to do that out loud.
Even if other things I might do in my brain just a quick, you know, learning something
or whatever.
So again, practical tips, have a plan, don't review too much, follow a schedule, you know,
daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, start out with passages that are the most familiar.
And then here's another great tip.
Use the word of God.
Now look at James chapter one in your Bible there.
It says, but be doers, I'm sorry, verse 22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only
deceiving your own selves.
For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his
natural face in a glass for he beholded himself and goeth his way and straightway forgetteth
what manner of man he was.
Verse 25 of James one, but who so looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continue
it therein.
He being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in
his deed.
Notice two kinds of people, forgetful hearer and doer of the work.
One great way to remember the word of God is to use the word of God.
So let's say you have verses memorized and then you have an opportunity to talk about
them or to bring them up in a certain situation and say, you know, that kind of reminds me
of that verse in the Bible.
You know, you're talking to somebody about something and say, Hey, you know what?
It's like that verse in the Bible and then you quote it.
It becomes way more memorable to you because you used it, you used it in a situation.
So like for example, most of us never even sat down and memorize the salvation versus
for sowing.
I know I didn't.
I never sat down and was like, okay, I'm going to sit down and memorize Romans three 23.
I'm going to memorize Romans.
I didn't do that.
Most people, they underlined them in their Bible and put little tabs of how to find them.
But guess what?
I would say probably 75% of the people in this room could probably quote from memory
right now, Romans three 23, Romans six 23, Romans 10, nine, John three 16, revelation
20, 14, 15.
Why?
Why could literally probably 75% of people here just easily quote those, even though
they never tried to memorize it's because they're constantly using them because when
you're going on soul winning, the verses that you use out soul winning, you end up remembering
them and you didn't even try to memorize them.
You just use them so much.
So obviously you're not going to be able to necessarily use everything that you memorize
unless you're a preacher.
See I'm a preacher so I can, as I'm preaching, I can start quoting stuff and I can make a
way to work it in, you know, cause I wrote the sermon.
Obviously in daily life we're not going to get as many opportunities, but you know what?
Those verses that we do get a chance to use, those are probably going to be the ones that
we know the most.
And when we go to quote our scriptures, we'll probably blow through those the easiest because
we've actually used them.
Because if you're a doer of the work, you're not going to be a forgetful hearer, okay?
Also and if you would turn over to Deuteronomy chapter six, Deuteronomy chapter six.
You know, as I said earlier, you want to be able to have the word of God on the tip of
your tongue so that when you have an opportunity to use it, you can use it.
So and sometimes it's because you have an opportunity to give the gospel to someone.
And so, you know, and by the way, here's a great rule of thumb.
I heard this a long time ago and I always think about it.
When you're alone with someone, give them the gospel.
Yeah, that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
I'm not saying it's always appropriate in every situation, but the vast majority of
the time that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
That if you're alone with someone, give them the gospel.
Now there are sometimes, yeah, you give the gospel to two, three people at a time, but
when you're alone with someone is usually a good opportunity to bring that up because
it's usually better to talk to people about these things just one on one.
So you're not distracted and they're not worried about what other people think.
And so, you know, sometimes you get in those situations where you are on a work trip and
you share the hotel room and you're alone with someone in the hotel room or something.
You know, that's where a lot of good conversations take place or you're at the dinner table.
You know, it's like you and your buddy, I used to work in construction, I'd be out of
town all the time and we'd go to the restaurant and that was a time to bring up the subject.
And so, you know, you want to be able to have these verses on the tip of your tongue.
The Bible says, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give
an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and
fear, right?
You're always ready to give an answer because you've got God's word in your heart.
You've got some verses ready, but not only just giving the gospel, sometimes people will
just bring up stuff in this world and they'll be like, hey, you know, doesn't the Bible
say something about blah, blah, blah.
And it's usually something that the Bible doesn't say anything like that.
And then you can be like, well, hey, here's what the Bible actually says.
And you can actually recite something that you've memorized, right?
There are a lot of situations that come up like that.
You know, there's also the idea of, uh, as we said before, fighting a spiritual battle
and in Ephesians six where it talks about putting on the whole armor of God.
Okay.
One of the things that says, well, you know, it tells you about the helmet and the breastplate
and all the different things, but then it says the sword of the spirit, which is the
word of God.
You know, so the word of God's the weapon.
It's the sword of the spirit.
Well, the Holy Spirit indwells all of us that are saved.
But you know, if you don't memorize any Bible, you're basically expecting the Holy Spirit
to fight for you and you haven't handed him a weapon, you know, cause how can he bring
to scripture to your remembrance if you never read any scripture or memorized any scripture,
right?
Cause the Holy Spirit will bring verses into our mind, but you got to put some verses into
the tank for him to even access.
You know, he's, he's looking in the arsenal and it's like, there's nothing there.
You know, you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip.
You know, you expect some kind of just divine inspiration to hit you.
You never read your Bible, you never memorized anything and you expect the Holy Spirit to
just, you know, divinely inspire you.
No, the way it actually works is that you read the Bible, you memorize the Bible, and
then the Holy Spirit will bring the right word in the right situation, the right scripture
to mind.
Okay.
Deuteronomy chapter number six verse four says, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one
Lord and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul
and with all thy might and these words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when
thou risest up and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand and they shall be as
frontlets between thine eyes and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house and
on thy gates.
And so here we're not just talking about coworkers and strangers and people out in the world,
but even in your own home, the Bible says, Hey, talk to your children about the word
of God.
Teach them diligently to your children.
And it says in verse seven, talk of them when thou sittest in thine house.
When you're sitting at the breakfast table, when you're sitting at lunch and dinner, why
not bring up, Hey, here's something interesting I read in the Bible.
Here's a verse I memorized, you know, here's what it means.
And talk about the word of God with your family and say, I don't know, it sounds a little
awkward.
Well, you know what?
If that's awkward, you know, maybe change the atmosphere of your home a little bit to
where it becomes natural and normal to talk about the Bible because you know, I feel totally
comfortable in my house looking at my wife or any of my kids and saying, Hey, let me
tell you what the Bible says.
Here's something interesting.
I was reading the Bible.
Hey, I just thought of something new about this Bible story and you know, it feels as
natural as rain.
And I guarantee you that you could probably create the same atmosphere in your home by
maybe just breaking the ice a few times and bringing up spiritual things so that everything
in your house isn't just carnal all the time.
Might as well bring up the Bible and talk about the things of God a little bit, even
in your home, not even out there in front of other people in the privacy of your home.
I mean, it's your house, you know, talk about the word of God in your own house for crying
out loud.
And he says, write them upon the posts of thy house and on thy gates.
That's basically saying, you know, have that little frame thing on the wall that says,
as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
You know, you have a little bit, if you go into the vast majority of Christian people's
home, what they'll have a little verse here, a little verse there, right?
Just you know, maybe a theme verse in the kitchen.
You know, in the bedroom, just different verses on the wall just to kind of keep God's word
in their mind and in their heart just to create the right atmosphere.
So again, I'll close with just a few practical tips and things.
You know, pick something that you like, pick something easy, pick something short, so that
it's just an easy victory, confidence boost.
Don't just be like, well, you know, grandma said Psalm 119, let's go.
Psalm 119 is a bad place to start.
Okay.
Difficult chapters, long chapters are a bad place to start.
Pick something easy, familiar that you like, something that you have practically half memorized
anyway because you've heard it so many times, you know, and, and just to kind of point you
in the right direction.
If you've been in church for a long time, the stuff you've probably heard a million
times is going to be found in books like first and second Timothy and Titus, because those
are books that preachers are constantly preaching from.
And you know, things like John chapter three, John 14, Psalm 23, first Corinthians 13, Romans
three, Romans six, I mean, because there's nothing more exciting than when you're learning
a chapter and then you get to like a group of like four verses and you're like, I already
know all these four.
Yes.
And it's like, it's like on mind sweeper, you click one box and just a bunch of things
open up and you're like, whoa, I was, I'd done more than I thought.
And so that's the kind of encouragement that you need to help you keep going and, and,
and being positive.
And so pick the stuff that's easy, familiar, have a plan and the plan keeps you from quoting
it too much.
So you know, what I used to do back in the day is I just had like a three ring binder
that I used for various things in my life.
And then on the back I just drew a chart on the back and it just had a date like, and
it said like monthly, daily, weekly, and this is what I have to quote every day is what
I have to quote every, and I would just move things, you know, as I work down the chart.
Now I'm more high tech with it.
So I have an Excel spreadsheet that I have it all in an Excel spreadsheet and I like
that a lot better.
And then every time I quote something, you know, for the day, week, month or whatever,
I put a one in that box because then I could just like check the column for like a total
and it tells me, Hey, this is how many chapters I've quoted this month or whatever.
And so I can kind of see where I'm at all the time with the technology.
So I have like an elaborate spreadsheet, but you don't really need anything elaborate because
you could just literally draw it on the back of a piece of paper on the back of a notebook.
That's what I used to do for years and just, you know, Hey, this is what I'm doing every
month.
That's what I'm doing every day.
That's what I'm doing every, and then just kind of put little check marks by it or whatever.
Have a plan, have a goal.
You know, maybe, maybe you've already done a lot of Bible memory and you want to kind
of take it to another level.
You know, you could, you could memorize something big for the year.
You could say, Hey, there's 365 days in the year.
You can memorize the whole book of Hebrews if you did one verse every day, six days a
week.
I mean, that's pretty incredible, right?
Dude, that's a huge chunk of scripture there.
You could pick another book that you like better, Philippians, you know, Romans, whatever
whole books.
Let's say you're more of a beginner, you know, you could even just do a plan where you just
learn a couple of verses a week, you know, and say like, Hey, I'm going to learn two
verses a week.
And even if you did that, if you actually stayed consistent and followed the plan, that's
a, that's 104 verses by the end of the year.
And I mean, 104 verses is a lot.
That's like, you know, three, four big new Testament chapters, maybe five short chapters.
I mean, that's a lot.
You could do like a book of the Bible, you do like Philippians doing like one or two
verses a week, if you got in a bit of a routine with it, so you don't have to go too crazy.
You know, you could do something easy, you could do something hard, do something basic,
and maybe you don't want to commit to the whole year.
Just come up with a plan for January and just see how it goes and just say, Hey, I'm going
to learn Psalm 23 in January or something, you know, just a really small goal, crank
it out, get it done.
You're not going to regret it.
And it's something that can easily stick with you for the rest of your life.
Because you know, how long does it take to quote a chapter of the Bible once a month,
eventually quoting it once a year, and then you just always have that chapter whenever
you need it.
It's been a big, big influence on my preaching.
I'll tell you right now, like, because I've been a pastor now for 17 years.
And one of the biggest things that has helped me when I preach is having stuff memorized
because, you know, I don't I don't constantly have to be like, Oh, man, where is that?
Where do I find it?
Because I'm not very good at writing sermons.
So I'll put things in my notes.
But then usually once I get up here preaching, I go in all these other directions that I
didn't even plan.
And and literally about 50% of the time I get up to preach, I don't have any notes.
The other 50% of the time I do have notes, but I usually end up deviating from the notes
or or I get up on this isn't really working, you know, taking another direction, whatever.
But the thing that allows me to do that is that I have some memorized so I can I can
draw from the memory banks.
And so it really helps with soul winning.
It really helps with preaching.
It really helps with just keeping your mind occupied.
Sometimes you can just start quoting some scripture sometimes when you're bored and
just thinking about things.
I mean, they're just they're just a lot of benefits.
And God told us he said, Hey, thou shalt meditate there in day and night.
And then he promised us that if we meditate in God's Word day and night, that he'll make
our way prosperous, and we're gonna have good success, God's gonna bless us, we're gonna
be like the tree planted by the rivers of water.
There's so many benefits.
It isn't that hard.
You know, spend time in the Word of God.
And you know, the sermons about memorizing.
But also, let me just briefly mention reading the Bible is something that we all need to
be doing every day anyway, as well.
Besides memorizing about we need to be reading the Bible.
And here's the thing about that is that again, we're starting the new year.
If you've never read the Bible covered together, if you're like 99% of Christians out there,
I'm talking about real born again, save Christians.
99% of them have never even read the Bible one time cover to cover and that's a shame.
And then they want to tell you all about how they know what the Bible says and doesn't
say.
It's like, well, read it once and then we'll talk.
You know, you really want to read the Bible at least one time.
If you haven't done that, that should be your number one goal for 2023.
And that's about 15 minutes a day to read through the entire Bible in a year.
It's about three and a half chapters a day, a little less than four chapters a day.
There are all kinds of plans online.
You can print out plans, you can check them off and you know, read through the Bible in
a year plans, tons of great plans out there to do that.
And if you've read it once, well, read it a second time, read it a third time, right?
I believe that Christians should be reading through their Bible at least one time cover
per year because I don't think 15 minutes a day is too much to ask to read your Bible
and get through it.
And if you've never done it, man, start now.
Start immediately and say, well, I'll start January 1st.
Start now and then you'll finish like on December 18th or something.
There's no reason not to begin right away and get it done by the end of next year.
But you know, why not supplement that with a modest Bible memorization goal as well?
Say, okay, this is the reading I'm going to do and I'm going to spend a little time memorizing
too.
And here's the thing, you know, when I used to work a blue collar job, I was able to do
a lot of Bible memorization at times that I couldn't have read, okay?
Because you know, while I'm doing the actual electrical work, I can't be reading, I'm working.
But a lot of times I did stuff that didn't require my brain at all.
I'd be like installing devices on the wall, like I did fire alarms, so I'd be installing
horn strobe devices like flashing light, noise maker things on the wall.
And so what I would do is I would have flashcards in my pocket and I'd pull out a card of the
verses that I was learning.
And as I'm walking over to the wall to put up that device, I would just grab one quick
little phrase, okay?
And so the way that I memorize a verse, the way that I memorize a verse, let's just pick
a random verse, okay, to memorize.
Let's say like Luke chapter 2 verse 1, the famous Christmas passage, right?
So if this were the verse that I'm memorizing, Luke chapter 2 verse 1 says, and it came to
pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should
be taxed.
Literally, if I were memorizing this verse, I would literally just pull out my card, just
glance at it.
It wouldn't take any time out of, because I was walking anyway, I'm walking from one
place to another, just get it in my brain real quick.
I would literally just grab the part that says, and it came to pass in those days.
And I would just be like, and it came to pass in those days, and it came to pass in those
days.
Just in my brain, just like, I'm just like turning my screwdriver and it came to pass
in those days, and it came to pass in those days.
Just kind of have that rattling around.
Then I have to go get another material off the card or whatever, and then I'd grab the
next part, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that there went out a decree
from Caesar Augustus, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, and then just
kind of have that rattling around.
That's how I memorize the Bible.
Now look, a lot of people think that maybe I have some special talent or special memory
or special ability.
I don't.
In fact, I think I'm bad at memorizing the Bible.
I'm probably below average on how long it takes me to memorize stuff, because I would
say that it takes me, to memorize three or four verses takes me like a full hour.
So I'm not good at it.
Other people are way faster and way better at it than me, and I don't really have a lot
of tricks.
I pretty much just brute force it, okay?
I just brute force memorize the Bible.
If I can do it, anyone can do it, because I just do it by chanting it, like I just said,
and so I don't have a lot of tricks.
Every once in a while I'll use a trick, like I'll take the first letter of everything,
like here's a trick that I use, like, therefore my brother, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever
things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are good report, if there be any virtue and if there
be any praise, think on these things.
I just make like a nonsense word, thijepel, in my mind, thijepel, and it's like true,
honest, just, pure, lovely.
You know, so every once in a while I have a little stupid trick like that to just like
remember that, but the vast majority of the time I'm just brute forcing it by just chanting
them over and over again.
So if I can do it, anybody can do it, because I'm not even necessarily good at it, but the
nice thing about doing this kind of chanting method is that it's so brainless that like
I can focus on my electrical work and I'm just kind of just, you know, and it came to
pass in those days.
It doesn't take a lot of brain, like most of my CPU, most of my RAM is working on the
electrical job and then I just kind of have this one background program processing that's
just like, and it came to pass in those days.
It sounds like it's not going to work, but I've put in like an eight hour shift before
doing fire alarms on a day that I was particularly motivated, and by the other day I had literally
made it through an entire chapter like that, just doing one little piece at a time, and
then I just took like 10 minutes at the end of the day and just kind of put it all together
and it was all there.
All the pieces were there, all the elements were there, and it just kind of like sewed
it all together.
Anyway, I hope that this motivates you, I hope that you be inspired, I hope that you'll
memorize some scripture, because it's going to be such a blessing to you and to others
if you can know the word of God and use it, and so I hope that something I said today
inspired you and I hope that something I said will help you in a practical way to get it
done.
Let's bow our heads in the word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and I just pray that we would be people
who spend time studying your word and that we love your word because of course it's our
daily food, it is so important to us, it is the source of all truth and knowledge and
understanding, Lord God.
Help us to delight in it and spend time in it, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Let's take our hymnals, please.
Let's go to hymn number 424.
4-2-4, O Come, All Ye Faithful, hymn number 424, let's sing it out in that first verse
together, hymn number 424.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye,
O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come
ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come ye, O come
true, honest, just, pure, lovely.
You know, so every once in a while I have a little stupid trick like that to just like
remember that, but the vast majority of the time I'm just brute forcing it by just chanting
them over and over again.
So if I can do it, anybody can do it, because I'm not even necessarily good at it.
But the nice thing about doing this kind of chanting method is that it's so brainless
that like I can focus on my electrical work and I'm just kind of just, you know, and it
came to pass in those days.
It doesn't take a lot of brain, like most of my CPU, most of my RAM is working on the
electrical job, and then I just kind of have this one background program processing that's
just like, and it came to pass in those days.
But it sounds like it's not going to work, but I've put in like an eight hour shift before
doing fire alarms on a day that I was particularly motivated, and by the other day I had literally
made it through an entire chapter like that, just doing one little piece at a time, and
then I just took like 10 minutes at the end of the day and just kind of put it all together
and it was all there.
All the pieces were there.
All the elements were there and it just kind of like sewed it all together.
Anyway, I hope that this motivates you.
I hope that you be inspired.
I hope that you'll memorize some scripture because it's going to be such a blessing to
you and to others if you can know the word of God and use it.
And so I hope that something I said today inspired you and I hope that something I said
will help you in a practical way to get it done.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and I just pray that we would be people
who spend time studying your word and that we love your word because of course it's our
daily food.
It is so important to us.
It is the source of all truth and knowledge and understanding, Lord God.
Help us to delight in it and spend time in it.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.