In a 2013 interview, Conan O’Brien asked the comedian Louis CK why he doesn’t let his kids have smart phones.

Here’s what he said:

“Phones are toxic. You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away. The ability to just sit there. That’s just being a person...Because underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty, forever empty, that knowledge that its all for nothing and you’re alone. Its down there. And sometimes when things clear away and you’re not watching and you’re in your car and you start going, ‘Ooh, here it comes...that I’m alone’, like it starts to visit on you just like this sadness. Life is tremendously sad... That’s why we text and drive. Pretty much 100% of people driving are texting. And they’re killing and murdering each other with their cars. But people are willing to risk taking their life and ruining another because they don’t want to be alone for a second.”

“[The other day I was in the car and an old song came on]...and it made me feel really sad ... so I had to get the phone and write ‘Hi’ to like fifty people...but then I said, “You know what: Don’t. Just be sad. Just stand in the way of it and let it hit you like a truck.”

“So I pulled over and I just cried... And it was beautiful...Sadness is poetic...You are lucky to live sad moments. ...But because we don’t like that first feeling of sad, we push it away with our phones. So you never feel completely happy or completely sad. You just feel kind of satisfied with your products....And then...you die.”While Louis CK and I certainly don’t agree on the meaning of life, we do agree on this. We are avoiding boredom, aloneness, and sadness with our screens and that is making us shallow people who are nearly completely unable to think a thought all the way through because we are constantly reaching out for a distraction. So what Trev? So what if I just want to be entertained. So what if I watched 8 episodes of my Netflix show last night. What’s wrong with being happy? What’s wrong with a little escape from the real world?

Well, today, I want to show you, when you think in those moments of boredom or sadness or loneliness, you think you are escaping by reaching for your phoning or starting your next television binge, you aren’t. You’re going deeper into a prison. You are closing doors, and locking them and throwing away the key.

Today, I want show you the way out of that prison.

Lets go.

Psalm 1

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

As we lose the ability to sit, to read, and think, and meditate deeply, we are losing the very ability to actually be happy. At least in the deepest and most profound sense of that word.

The irony is as we chase away quiet & sad moments with technology, we’re keeping ourselves from the kind of happiness that actually perseveres through sadness, helps us overcome it.

So lets look at this Psalm and then we’ll look at our gadgets and then we’ll look God square in the face and hopefully, when you look at Him, you’ll stop being afraid of being alone. Here’s the first thing this Psalm tells us.

1) Trees don’t fear winter and happy people don’t fear sadness.

This Psalm starts out by describing a man that is “Blessed” That word “Blessed” means “Happy” but its not just feeling good, its more than just a smile. It means deeply secure joy. But before we talk about happiness, lets talk about Un- happiness. Here’s what I want you to notice about verse 1.

There is a progression of deep unhappiness in it. A complete lack of joy. Look at the 3 verbs that describe the opposite of the blessed man. First you’re walking, then you’re standing, then finally, you just sit down and make yourself at home.

Here’s how the progression into deep unhappiness goes: First, you are trying to figure out how to find happiness, so you ask for counsel and you listen to the wicked, that word also means “guilty”

Do you know what guilty people do? They give advice to other people that justifies their actions. That makes them feel less guilty. Misery loves company. The counsel of the wicked pulls you down with the guilty.

The guilty think “If I can just create a whole bunch of people who act like I do, what I’ve done won't be wrong anymore, it will just be popular.”

Then next step is to stand. Now I’m not just listening to advice from the guilty... now I’ve stopped moving. I’m standing in the way of sinners. I’m planting my feet in a lifestyle around the wicked counsel I’ve received. A kind of philosophy that says, “I don’t really need God to be happy.”

Then, finally, I just sit down in the middle of it. You know what sitting means right? It means you are committing yourself to something.

You ever had somebody come by your house and they say they just want to “stop by” to bring you something? Well, if they are truly just stopping by because they are “on their way” you know what they do right? They leave the car running in the middle of your street, they leave the door wide open, kids in the car screaming and they barely wave as they drop something off on the porch.

But, sometimes, heaven forbid, they come in. But all is not lost yet. Sometimes they just stand in your foyer, leave on the coat and gloves and so you know there is a chance they could leave anytime.

But then....oh but then...there is that moment, when they come in, and walk to the couch and sit down. Right then you know, these folks ain’t stopping by, they’re gonna be here a while. They are sitting.

See, in v 1 these unhappy folks, the ones who aren’t blessed, have committed themselves to scoffing. They’ve taken a seat on the couch with the scoffers. This is not just unbelief in God, but scoffing, cynical mocking at anything that has to do with God.

When you sit in the seat of scoffers, you aren’t simply doing something sinful, you are settling down into mocking and laughing at God, and at people created in his image. But this blessed person is different, he’s got a totally different source of happiness. He meditates on the law of the Lord.

Now, Doesn’t that sound exciting? I mean, this isn’t exactly something that you see on a beer commercial. You don't call up your friends and say “Hey, wanna pick up a bucket of wings, and come over to my place to meditate on the law of the Lord?” Or maybe you do, in which case, I salute you.

But for the rest of us, before we talk about what it means to “meditate on the law of the Lord” let’s get thirsty for it. I want you to WANT it...not just know you “should probably do it” So lets start with what you become when you meditate on the law of the LORD.

First, in verse 4, the psalmist writes that the wicked are like chaff that the wind drives away. The chaff is the shell of a seed. The seed was heavy, but the chaff was light. So when the seed was removed from the chaff, the worthless chaff would all blow away, while the seeds or kernels of wheat could be gathered and turned into food or replanted. But you still had this chaff, that on the outside looked like a seed. It appeared to have substance, but it didn’t. See, the chaff is superficial, but the seed is significant. So the Psalmist is saying-

Meditating on the Law of the Lord makes you significant instead of superficial.

We all want people to think we are people of substance. We all want people to believe that we count. And we spend a lot of energy trying to look that way, especially on social media. But let me ask you this?

Would you rather have thousands of people think that you are doing something significant with your life, but be hollow inside, like chaff or would you rather quietly fall to the floor like a seed, and maybe no one notices you but through you, thousands of people could be served, loved, fed, and multiplied?

The promise of meditation on the law of the Lord is that it makes you significant. It helps you to throw off superficiality and turns you into someone who is making a real difference. There is a kind of depth to who you are and what you do, that goes beyond worthless appearances. You become significant instead of superficial.

Now look at verse 3. The Psalmist compares the meditating person to a tree planted by streams of water. Think about the difference in a deeply rooted tree and a the lightweight shell of a seed. Which one is still there after the storm blows through? The tree with deep roots doesn’t move...sure, it might get beat up...but its still standing in the same place...but even the slightest breeze can blow away chaff with no weight to it. That means...

Meditating on the Law of the Lord makes you stable instead of fickle.

Think about this for a minute. Remember the unhappy folks from v1 that commit themselves to scoffing at God. Why do you think that is? The reason many people scoff at God, is because a storm of suffering blew you over...and you’ve blamed God for it. You’ve been hurt, you’ve lost someone close to you, you can’t get a job, you can’t find a mate, you’re walking through cancer...and you feel like God has forgotten about you...this is what the Psalmist in Psalm 23 calls “The Valley of the Shadow of Death”...the valley of sadness...and it feels lonely in there.

The truth is, you are scoffing at God not because you developed some intellectual resolve that God doesn’t exist...but because you think God should have kept you out of this valley. So you used to believe...you used to trust God...but now...like chaff... you’ve been blown away from him.

Meditation is the way back. Meditation on the law of the LORD is the way you see him again and it's the way that when the next storm blows through, you won’t lose sight of him. Instead, you’ll see he never left you.

Meditation on the Law of the Lord is the way you become stable in your faith... instead of fickle.

Here’s one more benefit. Any tree, no matter how deep the roots MUST have rain. Trees have to have rain. They can’t handle long dry seasons. UNLESS...unless a tree is next to a stream...a spring of water that comes up out of the ground. It doesn’t matter how dry it gets...the weather doesn’t really matter anymore. Its always going to grow.

See, Meditation gives you direct access to something that makes you not only stable...it makes you invincible....everlasting.

Meditating on the Law of the LORD means you keep growing, even when it seems like you’re dying.

See, deep happiness, isn’t the absence of sadness. Its not the absence of trouble or difficult circumstances. It means your roots are drawing water from an underground stream that never runs dry. The source of your joy is eternal.

Notice that this tree yields its fruit in season. That implies that there is a season when it DOESN’T yield fruit. It may be barren...but its NOT DEAD! All trees go through the winter. There is seasonal fruitlessness for every tree. To be fruitless means it seems like you aren’t growing. Like you aren’t changing. Like you aren’t really producing anything.

Can you imagine being a tree that didn’t understand seasons? Every winter you’d freak out “Oh my gosh...what happened to all my apples! They all fell off! Wait... what happened to all my leaves...they’re Gone!....OH NO! What’s wrong with me... quick, somebody look this up on Wed MD.” That’s a lot of drama.

Yet for many of you who claim to be Christians, this is the normal pattern of your life. If you aren't doing a thousand things “for the LORD” you think “What’s wrong with me...” and instead of getting quiet...you get busy! and your Instagram feed becomes proof that “you always yield fruit”.

Social media definitely gives us an outlet to pretend like we don’t have seasons. Like we always are accomplishing bigger and better things.

For many of you, church is like this. You think church is a place you walk into to pretend like there are always apples on your tree. Church is the last place you would ever want anybody to think that you are sad or feel like you aren’t really producing anything good.

But remember, God doesn’t love you for what you produce, he loves you because he’s your Father. We are human BEINGS not human DOINGS.

And the only way you’ll produce bigger an better fruit...is to go through seasons...to walk through the valley of the shadow of death...WITH HIM.

If you are going to be deeply happy, you have to embrace the seasonal sadness of winter...let it hit you like a truck...all the while meditating on the Law of the LORD.

See, in those winter seasons...in the valley of the shadow of death...just because you aren’t producing fruit, doesn’t mean that God is not growing your roots down deeper. That’s precisely what’s happening. And on the other side of winter, that tree that endures always produces bigger juicier apples.

The promise of this passage is not “read the Bible and every thing you touch will turn to gold”...that’s not what “in all that he does he prospers” means...there will still be rain, drought, wind, storm, winter... But it does mean through all of that... you’ll roots will grow deeper...more deeply connected to the stream that gives you life...and eventually, you’ll produce sweet fruit that others in your life will be blessed by. You won’t blow over in the storm or die in the drought or freak out in the winter...you’ll grow stronger.

Let me tell you how I’ve seen this in my life. First marriage fell apart but I had been meditating. FRUIT: was a more beautiful marriage, my wife went from chaff that the wind was blowing away, to a steady tree with deep roots, and that was a beautiful blessing from the LORD, because a storm was about to hit.

See another fruit of our restored marriage was getting pregnant for the first time. Then telling college students at the Institute about how much I grew in that suffering and almost having a longing, not for more suffering, but for that kind of growth and closeness to God. Then Chai died. But we stayed together. Fruit: I still receive notes and emails about what God has done through watching us endure suffering faithfully.

Its why we planted this church.

You know what I didn’t have in 2010? A smart phone. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened differently if I did.

2)Happy people use solitude to answer God, but the wicked text their way out of loneliness.

Let me show you exactly what meditation is, and then, why we are slowly but surely losing the ability & desire to do it.

Meditation is the link between reading the Bible and praying.

If you grew up in church in the last 60 years, you probably heard that a good Christian reads the Bible and a good Christian prays, but you probably never heard much about meditation and that’s a shame. It's a mistake.

It's probably due to people afraid to talk about meditation because they think its only something that a Hindu or Buddhist does. But this is a different sort of Meditation...in fact its quite the opposite.

Eastern meditation tells you to empty your mind. It tells you to think about NOTHING. But Psalm 1 meditation is all about FILLING your mind...In order to meditate like this blessed man, you have to fill it with the LAW of the LORD.

Now what’s the LAW of the LORD? Is that just the 10 commandments? Am I supposed to just read “Deuteronomy and Leviticus” all the time...Well, no. There is a place in the New Testament, John 10:34 to be exact, where Jesus talks about the law of the LORD, and then he quotes a Psalm. A Psalm was not included in the “Jewish law”...the Psalms were called “Writings”.

Here’s what Jesus was doing. He is including all the Bible, the revelation of God as the law. All of the law reveals God’s character...his holiness, his justice, his mercy, his love. So, when we are talking about the law, we’re talking about the Bible... Scripture.

Before you can meditate...you have to read. You have to fill your mind with Scripture. That’s the first step. Read the Bible.

We also know that meditation should lead to prayer. The Psalms, or the Psalter as its called when you refer to it as one book, is a book of prayers. And this first psalm is like a preface, its like the introduction to this book of prayers.

In other words, this first Psalm is telling you how to pray. Its telling you why the rest of the prayers of this book are good for you. But before you get to those prayers... you have to meditate. And that’s why I say Meditation is the link between reading the Bible and praying.

The word used for meditate in verse 2 is the Hebrew word Hagah. It means to growl...or moan...or mutter. Here’s the way I think about meditation. You ever read something and have to ponder it over...think it through? I usually make a sound when I do it like this. MMMMMF. It’s the sound of furious thinking... I also mutter. I’ll read a line again, quietly to myself when I don’t really understand it.

In many ways, this Hebrew word is the sound of thinking deeply....mulling something over...and having moments of clarity about what you are reading.

So here’s how the process goes. First, I read. Then I read back over what I read, thinking about it... “What does this word mean, what does that word mean?” Then I start thinking about what its telling me about God. “Wow, this text says that God is a God who blesses...that he actually wants me to be happy....to have deep unwavering joy...MMMMFFF!!!”

Then I start asking...”So...do I believe it? Does my life align with this truth... [MMMMMFF!] Nope. Because I often skip meditating...I skip delighting in the law of the LORD because I think something else will be more fulfilling.” and that leads me to prayer where I worship, I confess, and I stick my roots down deeper into the stream that gives me life.

“Oh Father, how beautiful that you bless your children! What a good Father you are. Thank you. Yet in my selfishness, I’ve neglected the richness of your word. I care more about getting to the promised land than having a relationship with the promised one. I’ve worried if I don’t get the accolades of people...that I’m not really worth anything. Will you work in my daily life to drive me back to the Scripture...to dwell richly in your word...to delight again in who you are?”

Now, when you pray like that, do you know what you’re doing? You’re answering God.

There are really only 2 ways to pray. One is to ask God to answer you and that’s not a bad way to pray. It's the kind of prayers where you say, “God, today, here’s my list of what I want you to do. Will you do it?”

The problem with those prayers is that the part of my heart that always bends its way back to making me the center of the universe, starts to rear its ugly head. I start asking God for things without regard for what he really wants for me. But meditation is the way you start prayers that answer God. He tells me in the Scripture who he is, and what he wants and I start to ask him for peace, and patience, and gentleness, and faith, and love, and self-control...instead of ...I don’t know...traveling mercies.

Meditation is the way to let God start the conversation.

The truth is, I love you praying no matter what kind of prayers...but the kind of prayers that drive you deep into joy of knowing God don’t start with you asking things and him answering...they start when you let God start the conversation with Scripture...let HIM tell you what to ask for...and then you get real specific about the relationships and circumstances you want him to show up in. Like your marriage. Or the death of your child.

In some ways, technology can be good for our meditation. With your phone, you can have a Bible in your pocket all the time. But you know what else comes with that...constant distraction and unfiltered access to a million things that will tell you they are more important...and more delightful...than meditating on the law of the LORD.

Let me show you. First, with the internet, our very ability to read is being affected. There is a practice that has ben called by neuroscientists “Deep Reading”... It's the kind of reading where you aren’t just scanning your eyes over words on a page, but you focus intently on the meaning of the words, you are critically thinking about what they mean and how they translate into life off of the page.

Deep reading calls for focus and attention span. Its something that's developed over long periods of time...and reading more and more difficult books and passages. You know what deep reading is? Its meditation.

And we’re killing our ability to do it.

When you read a blog on the web, all the status updates on Facebook, or even reading a book or the Bible on your phone...you are training your mind to only take things in small bits...you are training your mind that intaking MORE information is better than going deep into one particular type of information.

When you read the Bible on your phone or iPad, you also get a notification of an email, then a text, then a message on Facebook, then an important cat video pops up-- “THIS IS EVERYTHING.” Then a new blog post by your favorite leader who is giving you the 5 things every successful leader has to do. Its constantly pulling away your focus and your ability to sit and think.

Here’s the way Nicholas Carr, the author of the book “The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our Brains” puts it:

“The Net is making us smarter, but only if we define intelligence by the Net’s own standards. If we take a broader and more traditional view of intelligence- if we think about the depth of our thought rather than just its speed- we have to come to a different and considerably darker conclusion.” - Nicholas Carr, The Shallows pg 141

Listen, if we come to know who God is primarily through meditating through, growling, mumbling, wrestling our way through the Scripture until we find the kind of delight the Psalmist is talking about, what happens to us when we can’t actually read anymore without someone condensing it down to 5 points in a blog?

Well, we won’t know how to pray anymore, because we won’t know who God is anymore, and then, we’ll end up in the seat of scoffers when God doesn’t answer prayers to give us things he never promised us in the first place.

We end up as chaff that the wind drives away. No roots. No substance. No ability to weather the storm...no patience to wait through the winter just a bunch of fickle and angry people blowing around trying to find happiness in the next iPhone, just settling for being satisfied with our products.

But technology isn’t just affecting our ability to read and meditate...its driving out the quiet moments...the sad moments...that we should be using to pray.

The last time you had a sad moment. The last time you felt aloneness, or boredom creep up on you...how long did it take you to reach for your phone...or cycle through all your open tabs on your browser? So many of us are afraid to be alone, because we think being alone means being lonely...but it doesn’t. Being alone is a time that you use to prepare to be with others. It's a time you spend responding in prayer to what you have been meditating on. It's a time you cry out to God about the injustice in the world, the hurt and pain that you are seeing or experiencing personally.

But, because we are afraid of the loneliness and sadness overtaking us...we reach for the phone at the stop light. We pull it out while we wait in line at Starbucks. Or, like Louis CK said, “We text ‘hi’ to fifty people” ...just so we can be sure that someone else is out there...to hear us.

But when you are doing that, you are filling a void that’s intended for you to growl over that fighter verse you’ve been memorizing...or to groan too deeply for words in prayer about the heartache in your life...

We are selling out our quiet moments, our bored moments, our moments of sadness and trouble to technology...and we are losing the voice of God...and our relationship with him.

Listen, let me just give you a couple of practical ideas. First, don’t give up on reading the Bible. Is it hard to understand sometimes...yes! But you don’t want the Bible that is a revelation of the God of the universe to be a blog post. What kind of God would that be that could be totally revealed in 5 simple bolded statements? You want this big dangerous, beautiful, loving, just and holy God to be more than meets the eye.

You want him to be deep, and beautiful, and someone to delight in. YOU DO NOT WANT A SHALLOW GOD SO DON’T EXPECT HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF IN A SHALLOW BOOK.

Expect groaning, and growling, and wrestling, and thinking, and then expect delight and joy and beauty...but don’t give up on the Bible because “Its hard to understand.”

Second, read widely and deeply without electronic distractions. Turn off the phone. If you are going to read electronically, put it on airplane mode so you don’t get buzzed with texts or notifications. And don’t just read the Bible, read books about the bible that help you understand. Read books about culture so that you can put your thoughts about God to the test. He’s not afraid of the challenge. The more you read difficult and challenging things, the better you get at reading longer and deeper.

BUT...always read the Bible as your ultimate authority. Read it as the way to understand all the other concepts and ideas you are reading about. But read it mostly to understand who God is...and who you are in relation to him. And then, take your thoughts to your community. Talk to other people in the church about what you’re reading...ask questions.

This is why we do a monthly discipline of memorizing a verse of Scripture we call the fighter verse, and then get together with other people, in our families, and in our community groups to wrestle with that text, to meditate on it, and to pray through it.

Third, let your first response to loneliness, sadness and boredom be prayer, not texting or scrolling. View times of waiting not as a chance to catch up on email, or send out texts, but as moments to answer God. To thank him and confess sin, and ask him for MORE of him in your life based on whatever Scripture you are meditating on.

I mean look at the prayers in the Psalms. So many of them come from a place of sadness and desperation, from a feeling of being totally alone. So many of them are cries to God, “GOD YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO BE HERE...and it doesn’t feel like you are!”

But constantly through the Psalms the prayers end with this deeply rooted unshakable person talking about the faithfulness of a God who never left.

Can you imagine if David had a smart phone? Maybe he just would have texted his friends in those moments “...Hey....LOL..ROFL!” ...and that would have been a shame. He would have been chaff...instead of a deeply rooted tree next to a stream.

There’s something I haven’t told you about in this Psalm. We haven’t yet fully meditated on it. We haven’t yet resolved a mystery it brings up. So lets finish by practicing what we preach.

3) Jesus is the only way to delight in the law, because he delighted in us first.

Let’s be honest. Are you going to be able to meditate on the law of the Lord day an night? Are you going to be able to keep this up? How quickly before you walk out of this building before you make your progression back down into the seat of the scoffer?

Here’s the truth. I’m not the Blessed MAN in this psalm. I’m the scoffer. I’m not the Rooted TREE...I’m the sinner. I’m not seed that is falling to the floor to produce a crop...I’m the wicked chaff. The law says I’m guilty. How can I delight in something that gives me standards I can’t live up to? I’ve already sat down in the seat of the scoffer...how can I get back up?

The end of this Psalm 1:5-6 says when I read the Law...I should despair...IN fact, in this very book of Prayers...Psalm 14 says none is righteous...not a single one...so how can I delight in that? This Psalm says that I am going to perish...this Psalm says I’m guilty! But see, the blessed man in this Psalm is not me...its Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews says Jesus was the one who perfectly obeyed the will of the Father. Day and Night he dwelled on the Law of the LORD....and prayed according to God’s will. He was the tree that was connected into the stream of God’s love and mercy. He is the righteous one, that the LORD knows. Yet he was cut off from the stream. He was hung on a tree, where he dried up. From the Cross Jesus said “I’m thirsty”...but he wasn’t talking about his mouth being dry...he was experiencing the dryness of his soul...the one that you and I deserve. And he was quoting...the Psalms. Psalm 22:1-2: My God why have you forsaken me?

From the Cross all the Scripture that Christ had dwelled on...was bleeding out. He was dried up and received no answer from the Father... so you...even though guilty... could plant your roots into the underground stream of God’s mercy.

The Tree traded places with the Chaff

See, Jesus went through the sadness...to find the blessing. He endured the cross, to find the joy of saving you. He delighted in you...before you ever thought to delight in him. We sat down in the seat of scoffers, but Jesus sat down at the right hand of God when he resurrected. See, to sit down is to finish something. To commit yourself to something.

After his resurrection, Jesus sat down in heaven next to the Father, because his work of saving you is finished. His joy is complete. Its done. Nothing left for you to prove. And now you can know, as you set your mind...Meditate...free from worry and distraction...on Christ seated at God’s right hand...Jesus himself becomes the stream that your roots go into.

Dwelling on him, on the good news that he’s already saved you from judgment... well, that’s exactly what makes you a fruit-bearing tree...its what makes you unshakeable. You know what comes after Psalm 22...where Jesus quoted from the cross...., “My God where are you?”

Psalm 23, because of Jesus, is now yours to pray.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death...the loneliness...the sadness...I will fear no evil...Because Christ died for me... surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life... ...and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Next time the sadness hits you...Don’t sit in the seat of scoffers...and don't reach for your phone to distract yourself from the valley of the shadow of death....but don’t just sit there, either...MEDITATE...set your mind on why Christ is just sitting there at the right hand of God. He promises you...You’ll be blessed.