Sermon Transcript
Lockwood Community Church, Coldwater, MI
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Speaker: Pastor Kevin Looper

Words to Live By: Joshua 1:8
The Critical Importance of Bible Memorization

We're in Joshua chapter 1 and just verse 8 today. This is what it says:
"Keep this book of the law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
Now, I want to do something a little different than normal today. We're going to try an experiment. And if you're a younger person, you might struggle with this experiment, but you can try it anyway. What I'd like you to do is turn to the person next to you if there is someone next to you. If not, just do it to your own self. And I would like you to tell them your childhood phone number - your home phone number from childhood. If you remember it, try to tell them.

Okay. Raise your hand if you were able to do it. Wow. Okay. Good. That's good. Now, I want to try one more thing. I would like you to share the current cell phone number of the person that you text or call the most that is not your spouse. Go ahead and try that.

Okay, raise your hand if you could do that. Okay, that's good. There's a lot fewer hands though. My point with the experiment is that what we use or what we need, we remember. We don't need to remember the cell phones now because we plug them all in our phones. To have something stored in your brain, you have to need the information and you have to use it.

We live in an interesting age right now. People call it the information age or the digital age. Because of search engines like Google, we have access to the world's collected knowledge, history, and information; and because of smartphones and computers, we have immediate access to it. And that has a lot of benefits for humankind. But you know what? It actually comes along with an equal number of problems for us. And one of those problems is what researchers call digital amnesia. Have you heard of this before? Digital amnesia is the idea that people are willing and ready to forget important information in the belief that they can immediately retrieve it from their digital device. Hence your not knowing your cell phone number of the person you call the most. For instance, I don't need to remember my passwords on my computer because I can use my fingerprint until I'm using a different device, right? So having a computer or smartphone kind of works as an external hard drive for our brains, and it's allowed us to know a lot of things without having to keep the knowledge inside of us. Researchers have even proven that storing our personal memories through photos, through videos on our phones actually distances us from the memories themselves. Now, because the modern human brain has adapted to this digital world, we are literally less mentally capable of memorizing things than people were hundreds of years ago. And in some ways, you could say that humans are not as smart as they were in ancient times. Ancient people could store, and this would amaze us. It'd be like a magic trick. Ancient people could store massive amounts of information and details of memories from their past in their minds in a way that we could hardly imagine.

We need to relearn how to use that memory function of our brains - which is possible to do. And why do we need to do that? Because storing ideas and knowledge and facts and even memories in our own minds does have an effect on our character and on our soul. Storing it outside of us creates distance. Enough distance where our hearts cannot be touched. And so this is especially true when it comes to the Word of God. And this is my main point for my sermon today. If the scriptures are not within you, they cannot really change you. They have to be in you.

So how do you get the scriptures inside of you so that they change you? You have to intentionally put them there. Nobody else can put them there for you. And the way that we put scriptures inside of us, to become a part of us, is by memorizing them and meditating on them. In fact, the more dependent our culture becomes on digital information, the more essential it is to do what King David did. He said, "I've stored your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."

Now, it's a simple fact that you can't act on the word if you can't remember what it says and if you haven't carefully considered how it applies to your life. So, in Jesus's day, people did not have personal Bibles and they definitely didn't have the Bible app on their smartphones either. Most communities had one copy of scripture that stayed in the local synagogue and under lock and key most of the time. It was the treasured possession of the village or of the town, and it was made at a great cost. They were extremely expensive and a lot of effort to reproduce. So how did Jesus teach his disciples the scriptures while they were walking along the road if he couldn't carry the scriptures with him? He had it all memorized. How did Peter preach at Pentecost with no preparation and quote scripture verse after scripture verse from multiple book multiple books of the Old Testament? He did it from memory. How did Paul write his New Testament letters and quote so much of the Old Testament scriptures while he was in prison? Did he borrow a copy of the scroll of Isaiah from the Romans? No, he had it memorized.

Did "normal" Jews have the scriptures memorized like that? No, not nearly so much. But disciples did. That was their job. That was their role. They they learned the scriptures, and they had it inside them. The main job of a disciple was to be a learner. That's what the word means: a learner, a student. And you know what? That's what a Christian is, being a disciple of Jesus. If it's your intention to live your life for God, you must purposely through daily discipline and mental effort set your mind on God's words and deeds and character that have been set forth for us in the scriptures.

God told Joshua in our main verse today, "Keep this book of the law always on your lips." Joshua had just taken over leadership responsibility from Moses, and Israel is about to enter the promised land, and Joshua has been given this huge job. He is Israel's general. He is their political head, and he is their spiritual leader. That's a big job when you have 600,000 people with you. If he's going to lead well, it is essential that he clings to the Word of God as closely as possible. Hence, "keep this book of the law always on your lips." The book of the law was the physical copy of the instructions that God had given to Moses in Genesis through Deuteronomy. And so God's talking about the Bible here, at least the part of the Bible that they had. And this copy of scripture was stored in front of the ark of the covenant inside the tabernacle.

But you know what? Joshua did not spend all his time in the tabernacle. He had things to do when he was on the battlefield. Joshua couldn't take quick breaks and go look go into the tabernacle and study the scriptures, right? This book shouldn't just be stored in front of the ark. It needed to be stored inside Joshua for it to be effective. It needed to be always on his lips, which means that he had memorized it and recited it over and over again. A more literal translation of the Hebrew is, "do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth." And so that gives the sense that God's concern is not just that Joshua has it committed to memory, but that he never lets off thinking about it and repeating it to himself all the time.

Now, I'm afraid that many Christians keep their Bible stored not in the tabernacle, but in the church. They check it once a week and only the part that the pastor wants to preach at the time. Or perhaps we store our Bibles on our bedside table, right? But if the Bible is not stored inside us, it's not kept in our hearts. If it's only stored in our our minds, and put on our lips, we won't be changed by it.

I hope you noticed that I often encourage you to memorize verses from the passage of the Bible that I was preaching that day, right? And that's very intentional. It's because I know that we're all, probably, including myself, going to forget what I preached about by the time the next Sunday rolls around. But when God's words stick and stay, and when they're internalized, they make a lasting difference. It's God's word that changes people.

But I know some of you are probably thinking that memorization is terribly difficult. And as as we get older, it gets harder and harder. And age is not the only factor that makes it difficult. This digital amnesia is a real thing. We live in a culture of busyiness and distraction. ADHD is becoming more prevalent even for adults, making it harder to focus. I know that actually having a verse memorized is almost impossible for many people no matter how hard they work at it. But there are two very important things that I want you to understand.

The first is this: Just because something is difficult doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. There's no better use of your time, nothing more valuable to you, than to have internalized the word of God, because man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And that's why I think memorization is even more important than daily Bible reading. Both are essential, but if you could only do one on a certain day, I would choose memorization. And that's because when you memorize a verse, you have it available in your mind to reflect upon it throughout the whole day.

The second thing I want you to understand is this, and this is what trips many people up: The point of memorizing scripture is not it is not to be able to repeat it word for word to somebody else. The point is not even to have it memorized so that you won't forget it. You will eventually forget it. The reason we memorize is so that we can make God's word our constant meditation and we can put it into practice in our lives when the time comes. What that means is that the process of memorization is meditation and it's the process of it that does us good. You know, if you could just today go out and run a marathon and each year you didn't do anything but one day a year you ran a marathon, that wouldn't do your body much good. It's the day in the day out activity of running that makes somebody healthy. And so it is the day-in day-out activity of memorization and meditating on the scriptures. It's good for your soul.

Now, it would be better for someone to go over and over John 3:16 or Psalm 23 a hundred times and for them to struggle and to agonize over it than for them to have memorized it really easily when they were 8 years old and not given it much thought since. It doesn't matter if you have a whole book of the Bible stored in your head like you're a computer if you don't meditate on it and apply it to your daily life. That's the point. And just the process of trying is good for you even if you can't get it.

God says, "Keep it always on your lips and meditate on it day and night." You know Joshua 1:8 is not the only time when we're told to meditate on the scriptures. Psalm 1 says that the man is blessed and happy whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates it on it day and night. Moses says this in Deuteronomy 11 (it's a lot like Deuteronomy 6): "But fix these words of mine in your hearts and your minds. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your forehead. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you sit at home, as you walk along the road, as you lie down, and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." In other words, fill your whole world with scripture, and then your mind will be occupied with God at all times.

We don't often talk about meditation and I think that's because it draws up these images of eastern religions where people are trying to empty themselves of thought and feeling. But that is not what it means to meditate in Biblical terms. To meditate on Scripture simply means to keep your thoughts fixed on it, and to deliberately contemplate and reflect on it throughout the day. And so like a cow: a cow eats grass and then they they bring it up and they chew the cud all day long. We digest the word of God into our into our minds and then we bring it up and we just chew on it continually thinking about it and meditating. Meditation is a discipline. It requires practice -- intentional effort. It's not something that happens by accident. Memorization then is just a tool. It's just a tool to help you to meditate on scripture. If meditation is chewing, and if it's savoring the Word of God, then the first step has got to be putting it into your mouth through memorization.

There are other ways to meditate on the Word, and these shouldn't replace memorization, but they're good for supplementing it. For instance, daily Bible reading, of course, will help you if you're reading it day in and day out; that'll help you to focus on God. Singing hymns just to yourself or Christian songs based on Scripture would be the best. Also listening to sermons, podcasts, and excellent Bible teaching. There's a lot out there. And reading very good Christian literature. Now there is some very bad Christian literature; don't read that. But if you want to if you want to know some good books, you can come and talk to me about those that would be helpful.

All those things can help you meditate on God's word day and night. And that's what God wants Joshua to do. He says to commit His word to memory. Don't let it depart from your lips. Make it your constant meditation day and night, having the word on our lips and in our minds and stored in our heart. That's absolutely essential for us too.

And here's a number of reasons why it's essential that we start meditating on Scripture. The first is this. Thomas Watson is a great Puritan writer from the 1600s. He says meditation is the bellows of the affection. Remember what bellows are? There's this thing in a fireplace that makes the fire flame up and catch more. When you meditate on something (and everybody meditates on things), what you meditate on is what you will desire. It's what you will love. It's what you will be passionate about. And those who set their minds on their pain and on their problems all the time, they're just putting the bellows to the coals of the bitterness in their soul. Those who are always full of ambition and personal goals, they meditate on their achievements, on the agilation they'll receive, on the wealth they'll get. That blaze of self-centered thinking will just consume them. Those who cultivate lustful fantasies in their mind are only making the rage of lust, the flames rage hotter in their soul. The more they think about it, the more uncontrollable it becomes. But those who make the Word their constant meditation, they are fanning into flame desire and passion and love for God. The people who are closest to God and are growing the most are always those people who have set God's word like frontlets before their eyes. It's their constant meditation.

The second reason this is important is because the only way to become truly wise is to meditate on Scripture. To be wise is to know and understand reality as it really is. And so to know God, to know yourself, to know others, to know the world in an accurate way, in the Scriptures we are presented with this clear picture of reality the way God sees it. And it's the reflection, it's the turning over of the truth of God's Word that that puts wisdom into a person's soul. And wise people always live the best lives because they understand how to live. One of the best things that we could do for our futures, for our relationships, for our finances, you name it, is to memorize and meditate on the Proverbs, on the book of James, and especially on the words of Jesus. They'll make you wise.

The third thing is this. We should learn how to meditate on the Word day and night because there we're going to find healing for our souls from all the scrapes and bruises that we go through in life. So St. Basel compared the Scriptures to an apothecary which is like an ancient pharmacy. The Bible is has every kind of medicine, every antidote, every remedy that your soul could need. Are you feeling spiritually dead? Then the scriptures can revive you. They can refresh your soul. Are you feeling overwhelmed by guilt and poisoned by shame? The Word of Truth is your antidote. But let me remind you that you got to put medicine to your lips and actually swallow it to get something out of it. In the same way, you must internalize the Word of God into you for it to be effective. It can't just be in a book somewhere. It can't just be in a sermon that you heard. It has to be in you. So he says, "be careful to do everything that's written in it."

Always remember the goal of Biblical study for memorization and meditation is not to be a Biblical teacher. God didn't tell Joshua to memorize and meditate so that he could instruct other people. And having large portions of the Bible memorized does not make you any more righteous than anybody else. The reason God told Joshua to do this is so that he could be careful to do what the Scriptures say. And so here's a trick that might be helpful. If you're struggling with memorizing a verse, the best way to do it and to make it your constant meditation is to actually intend to put it into practice through obedience. If you're just trying to be able to say a verse out loud to other people, and you don't have any intention of doing what it says, you're not going to be able to remember it. It doesn't mean as much to you. It's also important to know that if you don't have the Word within you in your heart and your mind, your body is not going to be poised to be able to do what it says. No matter how good your intention might be, no matter how sincerely you want to please God, it's not the person with the Bible in their laps that does what it says, but the person that has it in their heart.

So God told Joshua the pathway. He said this is the pathway to success and prosperity as a leader, as a general, as a judge, as a father, and as a man. That pathway is to be completely dependent. It it was completely dependent on how close he lived by the word of God. And that's true of us as well. Let's say you're an accountant. Do you want to be the best accountant you can be? Then you must learn to do your work in accordance with the Word of God. If you're a business owner or a doctor or a secretary or a policeman or a teacher or work in retail -- whatever it is -- it doesn't matter; your first priority, your foremost duty is to know and carefully obey God's Word, which is applicable for all things. Your success absolutely depends on it. No matter what field you're in, dads and moms, our role is crucial; the best thing that you could do for your family is to keep this Book of the Law always on your lips. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do what's said in it. Grandparents, I hope you know how valuable it would be to your kids and to your grandkids if you knew the Word inside and out and lived it out. It's better than giving a large inheritance when you die. Believe me.

Look, this is not going to be easy. Right now, your life might be structured in such a way that makes memorization and meditation very difficult, maybe even "impossible." Maybe you need to change your life in significant ways. Set up boundaries for yourself in order to be able to do this. But I promise you, because God promised, that the result of all this will be a life that is prosperous and successful. I'm not saying easy and convenient, but it it will be a good life. It'll be a godly life, a Christ-centered one, one with good relationships.

Now I want to quickly go through some just practical advice, bits of advice for actually memorizing which is only the first step to help you meditate and obey. But here's just a few things. First is this. Don't bite off more than you can chew through meditation in a day. One verse per week is a good place to start if you're new at this. But if you're going to do it, you really got to do it daily. Let's say you're doing one verse per week. You got to memorize that every single day of the week. And you need to make it into a daily habit. Otherwise, you'll just forget and put it off.

My second bit of advice is this. If you're going to do it, you just have to start doing it. You don't have to figure out all the best ways and everything like that. You know, if you if someone wanted to figure out how to swim and they had to figure out how to do it perfectly before they got in the pool, they would never get in. So, just just dive in and try this.

My third bit of advice is that you can't just memorize words and expect them to stick in your mind. You have to memorize the whole idea too. So, for instance, John 3:16, "for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." If you don't actually put any thought and prayer into what that verse means, that God is so loving, that he cares about the whole world, that he was willing to send his only begotten Son, that whoever, it doesn't matter who it is ... that's how you memorize a verse. You think through it, you emphasize the parts, and you squeeze all the juice out of it. I use a little thing, a little box, a memory box that helps me with long-term memory. And so I if you want to know about this, you can talk to me. Also, there'll be an email with the website that'll describe how to make this box. It's really helpful to not only memorize a verse, but to put it into your long term memory. You can write out note cards, you can put them on your mirrors, put them everywhere in your car. One great place to start is individual proverbs. Those were made to be memorized, right? And so you could start with those. Eventually, if you get used to this, it'd be good to start memorizing longer passages because those do something different for you than just memorizing individual verses. And so that might take a while if you're able to do that at some point.

But the most important thing to remember is that even if you feel like God is calling you to do this, even if you really want to do it, it's going to be difficult. And that's okay. You you might lose track. You might stop doing it sometimes. When it happens, don't give up. Get back to it. It's not about how much you have memorized. It really is not. It's just about keeping God's Word in your mind throughout the day so that you may be careful to do everything that's written in it and then you'll be prosperous and successful in living your life for God.

All right, let's pray. Lord, I ask that you would make us here in this church people of the Book. Would you help us not just to to to stick to Scripture and be faithful to it, but to love it, to be passionate about it, because in the Scriptures we find You and You're the center of our hearts. Lord, I pray that you would teach us as a church from your Word yourself. And I pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

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