M&M's: Memorizing and Meditating on God's Word

Turn your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 24. Proverbs chapter 24. I was going to start a series today titled Bible stories you thought you knew, but I thought I knew them better than I did. And I'm not ready to start it. Uh, one of the thing reasons why is I wanted to do for the whole church, not just for the uh, preaching time, but for the kids as well. So, we're working on lessons for that. So, we'll probably start that in January. And so, instead, I came up with a different message. And instead of telling you the title of the message, I uh we had our singles group on Friday night. We uh did a Mr.

Potato Head. You can see their artwork out in the uh welcome center. And had a great time with that activity. And if you are single, didn't join us, we'd love to have you come out and join us. But I asked them to introduce the message and tell you the title of the message. So they're going to go ahead and do that right now. need some more hands back. Little enthusiasm there at the end, but the title of the message is real simple. So, and that's not only the title of today's message, but it's going to be the title of the next six weeks message as well. Just think about when you say, what do you mean by that?

There's many different connotations to the and one of them is when you eat something good. Isn't that like you you eat something you really enjoy just go m that's so good and pros proverbs chap 24 and 13 and 14 the bible says my son eat thou honey because it is good and the honeycomb which is sweet to thy taste so shall thy knowledge the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul when thou hast found it then there will be a reward and thy expectations shall not be cut off uh back in the Bible days they didn't have chocolate they didn't have all of the candies that we have today. And and so their sweet treat was either uh something made of honey or it was something made of fruit.

That was what they got for a sweet treat. So back in that day, instead of going to your mom and say, "Mom, can I have some candy?" They would have said, "Mom, can I have some honey?" And it was the same idea. You could read the verse, "My son, eat thou chocolate because it's good." And chocolate caramel, which is sweet to thy taste. And so it's the idea of the sweetness of the word of God. And that's the what we want to talk about today. I want to talk about M&M's, memorizing and meditating upon the word of God. M&M's. Now, we use that phrase for different things. And sometimes we do it like this.

We say trying to remember something. And the first thing we need to do is memorize the word of God to remember the word of God. In Psalms chapter 119 verse 103 it says, "How sweet are thy words unto my taste, ye sweeter than honey to my mouth." Now there's two different words for sweet here. The first word means how sweet are thy words unto my taste means how smooth. You know when you eat something good like a good piece of chocolate and just smooth and goes right down. And that's the idea. How sweet or smooth are thy words unto my taste. Yay. Yay sweeter than honey. And the word sweeter there, it means sticky.

Honey is sticky. You eat honey, it sticks to your mouth. It sticks to your fingers. It's sticky. And and what he's saying is you can enjoy the sweet things of God. But we want them to stick with us. We want them to stay with us. We read our Bible and we close our Bible, we walk away, we forgot what we read. We come to church, we hear the message, and we walk out the door and we forgot what we heard. And and what God wants is to stick with us as well. In Proverbs chapter 4 and verse four, he said, "He taught me also and said unto me, let thine heart retain my words, keep my commandments, and live."

God wants us to retain those words, to hold on to them, to hide God's word in our heart. Turn over to Psalms 119. Psalms 119 and:es 9-11. Psalms 119 beginning with verse number nine. It says, "Wherewith all shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee." And then verse 15, I will meditate in thy precepts and have respect unto thy ways. The the the God says we need to hide his word in our hearts. The word hid there means to hoard, to protect, to deny, to cover over.

Now, what does that mean? Well, how many of you got a brother or sister growing? You grow up with a brother, sister, raise your hand. If you had a brother or sister growing up, now let's say you got some candy and you're in your room and your brother or your sister walks in the room and before they can see that candy, what do you do? You hide it. Why? Because you know they'll take it away from you, right? You you hoard it. You hide it. They say, "What do you have?" Nothing. Yeah. Uh, you want to hold on to it for yourself. And and that's what this idea of the word hide, to hoard it, and to hold on to it for myself that I want it.

You see, it's to to cover it over. Um, in Job 23 and:e 12, it says, "Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips. I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." That word esteemed is the same word as the word hid. comes from the same root word and it means to hide uh that to keep it for yourself. My mom was a choahholic. Uh that was one of her vices and she loved chocolate and so did we as kids and but uh she would buy these big old candy bars, you know, the great great big chocolate candy bars and she would hide them from us and our job was to find them cuz we loved our mom and we were trying to protect her against herself.

So, we figured if we found the chocolate and ate it, we would save her from herself. She didn't quite see it that way, but uh she would hide that chocolate because she wanted it for herself. She wanted it to to joy personally. And that's what God says. The word of God ought to be sweet to your taste. It ought to be something you want to hoard, that you want to hold on to, that you don't want to let go of, that you even hold it for yourself to cover it over. And we need to apply ourselves in Proverbs chapter 22. Turn over there. Proverbs chapter 22 and look at verses 17-19. Proverbs 22 beginning with verse number 17.

It says, "Bow down thine heart and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee, there sh they they shall be with all befitted in thy lips, that thy trust may be in the Lord. I have made known to thee this day, even to thee. You see, have you ever craved chocolate so much that you searched your house looking for some? You ever done that? You know, you you you go and you look in the refrigerator, see if there's some in there. You go look in that candy drawer you have and see if there's some in there. You you go into the kids' room to see if they're hiding some from Halloween.

you you and you you you you're so desperate you'll even eat leftover Halloween candy 3 months later, you know. Um and and some of you, if you've got the point, and be honest now, some of you got the point where you went in the living room, you pulled up the couch cushions and you searched down there in the couch cushions to see if there's some M&M's down there, right? And uh and you ate those. Come on, be honest now. There's there's other sinners in this room that have done that because you got to you got to have it. You got to have it. And that's the way the word of God ought to be. It ought to be I've got to have the word of God.

I I want it. I need it. And Psalms chapter 62 and verse number five, my soul wait thou only upon God. For my expectation is from him, expecting going in expecting to get something good. You know, when we were traveling in Europe and we would travel around and and uh different countries and the and we heard all about European chocolate, you know, and we we would go into those candy shops just expecting something great and expecting something good. It's that anticipation. My wife and I, what we like to do is um every once in a while we want to go to Cheesecake Factory. And so what we'll do is we'll ride the rail out to the mall out there.

And if you know the rail ends a mile and a half from the mall, that's good use of our tax money, I guess. And um and and so we'll walk to the mall and eat cheesecake and then walk back to the rail. See, that balance that counterbalances out each other, you know, so we can eat our cheesecake and not and not have it affect us, you know. But you know, when we do that, that anticipation, oh, that cheesecake is going to be so good. We look forward to that cheesecake. It's even worth taking that long walk to get it. The anticipation. That's the way it ought to be with the word of God. Go over to Proverbs chapter 24.

Proverbs chapter 24 and look at verses 13 and 14. Proverbs chapter 24:es 13 and 14. It says, "My son, eat thou honey because is good and the honeycomb which is sweet to thy taste. So shall thy the knowledge of wisdom be unto thy soul when thou has found it. Then there shall be reward and thy expectations shall be cut off. You see the word of God is not only good for you, it can be good to you. It can benefit you. I was looking on the internet and I found a study 10 reasons why dark chocolate is good for you. And uh and you know they got doctors writing this article so it must be true, right? It's on the internet.

And uh you know there's a lot of good benefits I suppose supposed to be of eating dark chocolate. But we ought to see the good benefits of of the word of God. It's not only good for you, but it can be good to you as well. And we need to enjoy the the sweet smell of chocolate in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse1 15. For we unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and them that perish. I remember we walked into this one Belgian chocolate shop store in Europe there. And the moment we walked in there, it was like, I think I gained three pounds just by breathing. You know what I'm talking about?

You walk in and you you smell that chocolate and it just smells so good. And and that's what God says. We ought to be the sweet savior of Christ. He is our sweet saver. Now, guess what? But when we walked out of that chocolate shop, for the next half hour, we smelled like chocolate. Even that night we went to bed, my wife still smelled like chocolate. I think it's the most I've ever loved her. You know, when you've been with chocolate, everybody knows it. And when you've been with Jesus, everybody ought to know it as well. You ought to walk out of church today and people say, "Where have you been?"

because you've been with Jesus. Turn over to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 and look at verses 1 and two. Ephesians chapter 5:es 1 and two. Says, "Be therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and given himself to us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." You see, Jesus is our sweet smelling savior. He's our savior. But you need to have him as your savior. You see, having religion without Jesus is like eating chocolate without sugar. I remember one day I went to my refrigerator when I was growing up and opened up the door of the refrigerator and looked inside there.

Right there in the door was a big bar of chocolate wrapped up in tin foil. There it was right in the door. I I thought my mom's losing it. She She didn't even try to hide it. And And I thought, if she's if she's losing it that badly, I need to help her out and I'm going to eat that chocolate. And so I grabbed that big old bar of chocolate was thicker than any chocolate bar I've ever seen before. I grabbed it and I just took a big old bite out of it and I started chewing on that. And after about 10 seconds, I was going all over the place. You know what it was? Baking chocolate. Y on no sugar in baking chocolate.

Chocolate without sugar is bitter. Religion without Jesus is bitter. You tell me. You need Jesus. He's the one that makes it sweet. It's his sweet savior. He's the one that died on the cross for us. And you need to receive him. In John chapter 1 verse number 12 it says how many verse one 12 it says that John 1:12 but as many as received him gave the power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name. You see you have to receive Jesus just like these candies here. How many would like to receive a candy? I've got some up here right now. Uh I'm going to give away. So I'm going to grab a bunch of them.

Anybody here wants some candy? Raise your hand and I'll bring some to you. Who wants some candy there? All right. You want some candy? There you go. All right, there you are. You want some candy? All right, here we go. You want some candy? Who else wants I'll go to the backsliders back here and give them some? All the way back here in the back. All right, there you go. Anybody else want some candy? Oh, we got some more volunteers over here. All right, just see. All right, here you go. All right, you guys can Will you share with your sister? You share. You promise you share. Okay. All right. Who else?

I got one more over here. All right. Here we go. Oh, there you are. All right. Now, you're going to have a chance to get some candy of your own. I'll tell you how to do that. But here's the thing, folks. You got to receive it. How many have got candy? Raise your hand. How many don't have candy? Raise your hand. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son of God hath life. Either you have him or you don't. Either you have Jesus as your savior or don't. You see, you have to have him, but not just in your hand. There's a lot of people that know who Jesus is here, but they do not know who Jesus is here.

Candy in the hand is worthless because it's you can't don't get to taste it. You don't get to eat it. You got to put it in your mouth and you got to put Jesus in your heart. You need to receive him as your savior. In 1 John chapter 5 12 and 13, it says, "He that hath the son hath life. He that hath not the son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life that you may believe on the name of the son of God. Here's simple. It's just simple. If you've got candy, you know it. If you don't have candy, you know that too.

If you got Jesus, you know it. If you don't have Jesus, you know that, too. John 1:12. But when he's received him, to them gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. You need to receive Jesus Christ as your savior. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Jesus said, "Take eat. This is my body which is broken for you." We don't eat the literal body of Christ, but his body was broken upon the cross. His body was a sacrifice for you and I that we can receive to be saved. In Romans chapter 10 and:es 9 and 10, it says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God has raised from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

For with the heart man believeth under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. In Romans 10:13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And today you can call upon Jesus Christ in your heart. You see, you need Jesus, have Jesus in your heart, not just in your Bible. You need to have him as your savior and receive him into your own life. Because religion without Jesus is bitter. You need him to make it sweet. In Acts 4:13, the Bible says, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they'd been with Jesus."

You know, when somebody eats chocolate, you know they've been that they do it. You ever you ever sneak into the kitchen at night and raid the chocolate chips? You ever done that? I do that. My wife does that. But I'm better at it than my wife. My wife will eat chocolate chips and come back to bed and I can smell it on her breath. I brush my teeth after I eat my chocolate chips. That way I'm not caught. You see, you can smell it. That sweet savor of Christ in your life when you've been with Jesus. People know that. There's no doubt about that. And what about you? Will people know this week that you've been with Jesus?

Will they see the sweet taste of Christ in your life? In Psalms 34 and verse number eight, it says, "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in him." Do you trust God? You need to trust him for your salvation, but you need to trust him in every other area of your life as well. This Zeke, do you trust me? Come on up here. All right, come stand right over here, Zeke. Close your eyes and open your mouth. That baking chalk. That got it. You sure you trust me? Yeah. Tiff your head back a little bit here. All right. There you go. Here you are. All right. I could have given him baking chocolate, but I decided to be nice.

But the thing is, you know what? A lot of us don't trust Jesus because we're afraid what he's going to ask us to do, we're not going to like, but we need to trust him. Go over to First Peter chapter 2. Uh 1 Peter chapter 2 and look at verses 2 and three. 1 Peter 2:2 and3 as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby if so be that you taste the Lord is gracious have you tasted that God is good see folks we can trust him because we know he is good and even if he gives us something that doesn't taste good there's a reason for it I've trusted my mom and I got medicine in my mouth that didn't taste good but it was still good for me cuz she loved me.

And we need to trust God and have a desire, a craving to for him. In Psalms 19:10, it says, "More to be desired are they than gold, yay, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb." In verse 14, it says, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable, I sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer." You see, God wants us to chew on it, to enjoy the full flavor. You know, kids don't know how to enjoy chocolate. Kids are like my dog, Bandit. Bandit, I don't think ever tasted food in his life. Cuz when you get the food, you just go and be gone. He never got to enjoy the taste of it.

And that's the way kids, you give kids chocolate and they just go, it's gone. The older you get, because you can't eat as much chocolate as you get older because it's not good for you in that way. So the older you get, the more you learn to chew on it for a while. You more to get all that flavor and get it all enjoy it as much as you can before you swallow it down. You know what that's called? That's called meditation. The word meditation simply means this, to murmur in pleasure. It's like when you're eating candy, it's just some it's murmuring and pleasure, enjoying the full flavor of it. Joshua 18 said, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate there in day and night, that thou may observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

One of the reasons you're going to have success in life is so you learn to meditate on the word of God. And to meditate is just to think on it. To to meditate is to keep it with you all day long. Not just to hear and put it away, but to keep thinking on it over and over again. What's what's the motto for M&M's? M&M's melt in your not in your mouth, not in your hands. And and and we need the word of God to melt our hearts. You know what? Your Bible cover is the strongest thing about your Bible. The weakest part of your Bible is the individual pages. But do you know what wears out quicker for most people?

The cover rather than the pages. Because they're not reading their Bible. They're not in the word of God. It's the pages that ought to wear out. In Luke 24:32 it says, "And they said one to another," did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way and while he opened to us the scriptures. The word of God is meant being in our hearts. So learn to get to the heart of the verse. Go over to 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verses 15 and 16. 1 Timothy chapter 4 and:es 15 and 16. The Bible says, "Meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all.

Take heed onto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them for do doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." The idea is we want to get to the heart of the verse. You know what's what's your favorite Eminem color? How many of your favorite Eminem color is green? Raise your hand. How many's blue? How many's red, orange, yellow? You know, the thing is, folks, you can't taste the color. I know because I took a whole bag of M&M's and tried it to see if I could taste the color and not one of them worked. You can't taste the color cuz what is it? It's the inside. We're going for the heart of that M&M.

We're going after that chocolate. It's what's inside that we're after. And that's what we need is we need to get the word of God. Needs to get to the heart. And Psalms 104:34 says, "My meditation shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord." Do you meditate upon the word of God? Meditation is a lost art today. It's why most Christians don't grow because they may read their Bible, but they don't meditate upon it. They don't think on it. They don't take it throughout the day and keep enjoying the flavor again and again and again to get the full flavor of God's word. And Jeremiah 15:16 says, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoice in my heart, for I'm called by thy name, oh Lord, God of hosts."

You like M&M's? Anybody want some M&M's? Anybody want some? All right, here we go. Can they help you out here? Here you are. Anybody else want M&M's? Here you are. They don't look too thrilled. Anyone else here wants some? There you go. You know the thing is All right, you three over here. There you go. Thank you. There you are. You don't give out just one M. Yeah. Which one? Oh, okay. There you are, Ning. All right. So, the point is, you don't give out just one M. I don't want one M. I want M&M's. And that's the way I'll be with the word of God. I don't want just one. Thy words were found and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoice in my heart.

Can you truly say that about the word of God? Do you just love reading the word of God and devour it because it's so sweet? And Psalm 55:14 says this, "We took sweet counsel together and walked into the house of God and company." Isn't it nice when somebody says, "Here, you want some of mine to share what God has blessed you with?" We need to memorize. We need to meditate. And we need to remember. Go to Psalms 143. Psalms 143 and look at verses 4 and 6. Psalms 143:es 4-6. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me. My heart within me is desolate. I remember the days of old. I meditate on all thy works.

I muse on the works of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee. My soul thirsteth thee as a thirsty land. Sila, it's not just the Bible we want to remember. We want to remember the goodness of God, the works of God, the things that God has done in our lives. To meditate on the goodness of God. Folks, I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't use drugs. My addiction of choice is chocolate. And we ought to be addicted to God. Go to Proverbs chapter 15. We're going to look at two verses and we'll close. Proverbs chapter 15 and look at verses 13 and 15. Proverbs chapter 15:es 13 and through 15. A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance, but by the sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.

The heart of him that hath understanding seeketh knowledge, but the mouth of fools feedth unfoolishness. All the days of afflicted are evil, but he that is a merry heart hath a continual feast. Do you ever pretend that M&M's were medicine? I did. Best medicine I ever had. Hey, but you know what? And chocolate is a comfort food. But the word of God is the same thing. The word of God is like a medicine. The word of God is like a comfort. The word of God brings joy. In Psalms 145 verse number 7, it says, "They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness and shall sing of thy righteousness. That's good. Say that together with me. That's good, Stephen. And and that's the way it ought to be when you read your devotions, when you come to church, when you open your Bible. That's good.