Summer in the Psalms - Week 1, Pastor John Mozingo

Summer in the Psalms is a sermon series from Family Church that journeys through the beauty, honesty, and depth of the Psalms. From songs of praise to prayers in seasons of struggle, this series shows how Scripture gives words to every part of our lives. Each episode explores a different Psalm, offering biblical insight and practical encouragement to help you grow in your relationship with God. 

Thank you so much for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week! If you would like to learn more about Family Church, please visit our website myfamilychurch.com or follow us on Facebook or Instagram at @myfamilychurchVA.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We're so glad you're here. Each week we share a message from God's Word to encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, and help you grow in your walk with Jesus. We hope this time blesses you and draws you closer to the heart of God.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I was a kids' pastor for about 15 years, so I miss talking to kids. So I'm glad you guys are in here. Melinda and I just got back from uh a week in California. We went out to uh LA with my daughter and her husband and our two grandsons. And so we got to do all the touristy things. We got to go see, you know, like the walk of this the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the stars on the ground, and and we'd spend a day at Disneyland, you know, all the all the cool California stuff. But I knew, since Melinda was there, that if that trip did not include a trip a day at the beach, that it would not be a good trip because the beach is Melinda's happy place. Okay? So Melinda has two happy places: the beach and on the back of a horse. Those are her happy places. So so I guess the perfect vacation would be to ride a horse on the beach. So and and now that I've said that, yeah, now that I've said that, I probably probably should make that happen soon. Um but that's her happy place. And and you know, uh everybody, everybody has their happy place. You know, that whatever makes them happy, whether it's going somewhere, being with people or whatever. But but sometimes those things, those things fall short of really bringing us happiness. They might bring us temporary happiness, but they don't bring us happiness. You know, if if your happy place is wrapped up in people, people change and people let you down. You know, and so so that might not might not always be your happy place. And if it if it's if it's an activity or if it's a location, you know, though in time, those are just gonna become so familiar that they don't make you as happy as they used to. You know, and so the Bible tells you exactly how to have happiness. If you want to go to your happy place, the Bible tells you exactly how to do that. And and so today we're starting a uh series called Summer in the Psalms, and we're gonna be studying uh through through different Psalms, not all of them, but we're gonna look at a bunch of different Psalms. So today we're gonna start in Psalm chapter one, and and if you feel like you know you need some happy in your life, Psalm 1 is a great place to start. Look what it says. Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2. It says, Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join with mockers, but they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. Some translations say, Blessed is the man, some say happy is the man. This one says joy, uh the joys, but the little translation is happy. It means happy. Happy is the person who fill in the blank. And and and it tells you, it starts off by telling you not not how to be happy, it starts by telling you what's not gonna make you happy. And it tells you three different people that that we think, oh, this this will make me happy if I follow what this person's doing, if I do what this person's doing, if I do it, that's gonna make me happy. The Bible says that's not that's not gonna make you happy. And so the first one it says, if you follow the wicked, you will never be happy. You know, and and the word wicked describes a very specific kind of person. Wicked is a person who who someone you know willfully chooses a life of sinfulness. You know, and it might not even be, I'm not talking about hardened criminals or anything, it might just be somebody who says, I'm gonna do things my way instead of the Bible's way. They choose to live a life of sinfulness. And and kids, if you hang out with with other kids that choose to disobey the rules and choose to do what they want to do rather than what this what the Bible says, that's gonna rub off on you. Now, when I when I first started going to school, my first day of school, I went to kindergarten, my mom, it was in afternoon kindergarten, so my mom took me out to the end of the driveway, the bus pulled up, mom put me on the bus, first day of kindergarten, never been to school before, she put me on the bus and I survived. So I got on the bus and I and I and I got on and I looked at the bus driver and she smiled and said, Have a seat, and I turned, you know, took that left and I started walking, and I figured at some point she would tell me where to sit, but she never did. So I walked all the way to the back, and I turned around and I looked, and and it used, you know, they used to have the long bench seat in the back, and so I just sat right in the middle of that. That's where I sat, all by myself. And then the next stop, another kid got on. And and and this kid got on, and and he wasn't cautious like I was. He wasn't waiting for anybody to tell him. In fact, he walked down that aisle with so much swagger, it's like he had been to kindergarten already. Okay, so he walked down that aisle, he walked all the way down, he sat down right next to me, and he introduced himself like James Bond. He goes, Small, Tommy Lee Small. And I said, My name's John. And so after after we sat there a minute, then I I crossed my legs and I put my leg up over my knee like that, and Tommy looks at me and goes, Don't do that. Everybody will think you're trying to be cool. And I thought, man, I have hit the jackpot. I have a new best friend, and he's got the inside track on what it means to be cool in kindergarten. This is a great day. So Tommy and I were inseparable for six years, all the way to sixth grade until he moved away. But Tommy liked to disobey the rules. I had other friends, and when I hung out with them, I never got in trouble. When I hung out with Tommy, I got in trouble. Because I did what Tommy wanted to do, and Tommy liked to break the rules. Like we used to ride our bikes uh from our house or from our neighborhood. We ride it over to the Fairfax County Animal Shelter on West Ox Road, and we do this on a Saturday when they were closed. And this was before security cameras and alarms and all that stuff. We figured out how to jimmy the door, and we'd go in when it was closed, and we'd play with the dogs. Yeah, you say all, but that's called breaking and entering. You know? So that was not right. That was not a good thing. So I did that because I followed somebody who had total disregard for the rules. And and like we we used to have the scholastic book fair. Do they still have book fairs in the schools? You know, when I was a kid, they'd have the book fair, they'd have it like in the fall, right after school started, and you'd order a book, and then sometimes, maybe before school was out in the spring, you would get those books and they'd hand you these books and go, What are these for? Like you ordered them, and I don't remember ordering a peanut butter and jelly cookbook. I don't remember that. You know, but but we had those book fairs back then, and you'd go in and you'd order the books and you'd have to pay for them. Tommy thought it would be cool just to go in and load up on books and walk out, and we did, and we got in trouble for it. Because that's called stealing. You know, so when I hung out with Tommy, I got in trouble because Tommy is like those those people that the Bible describes who are the wicked. They have total disregard for what the Bible says, and the total disregard for what is right and wrong. And if you hang out with people like that, you become with people like that. And your life does not get happier that way. You don't get happy by hanging out with the wrong crowd. Next, next it says this if you stand around with sinners, you will never be happy. Now that's a hard one because we're all sinners. Alright? So it's not about just, you know, you're not allowed to have friends with anybody because nobody's perfect. Everybody's a sinner. What it the the the key word there is stand. All right, it says, if you stand around with sinners, you'll never be happy. So when it says stand, it means that you are being taught by sinners. Because back in that day, the teacher would sit down and all the students would stand around them and listen to them. So, kids, it would kind of be like you get up tomorrow morning and you go to school and you walk in your classroom and all the furniture's gone, and there's just a real comfortable chair right in the middle of the room. That chair is for your teacher, and your teacher gets to sit there all day while you stand and listen to them talk. So when it says stand with sinners, it means that you're being taught by sinners. Now, if you're being taught by anyone, you're being taught by a sinner. So that's not the point that you can't be taught by by people. What it means is you can't be taught only by people because people can lead you astray. You can't be taught just by people. You have to be taught by the Word of God. You have to make the Word of God a priority in your life so that when you are being taught the wrong thing, you know you're being taught the wrong thing. So you can't stand with sinners. You can't be taught by sinners. Then it says, uh, if you if you sit with mockers, you'll never be happy. Now, a mocker is someone who is arrogant. Somebody who's arrogant, someone who thinks he's better than everybody else in the room. And and and and the point that they to the point that they mock other people or other ideas. They think they're so important, they're the most important person in the room, they're the greatest important in the room. So everyone else must be wrong. Whatever anyone else is saying must not be important, is what I have to say. And and these people are dangerous because they think they are never wrong. They think they're never wrong. And and the more you hang out with people like that, the more you start to start think the way that they think. The more you become like them. And when a mocker disregards the Bible or Jesus or the church, they're gonna start disregarding you because of your faith. They're gonna start mocking you because of your faith, and then you have a choice to make. Am I gonna stand on the word of God or am I gonna compromise what I know to be true because someone's making fun of me or somebody's mocking me, or somebody's making me feel like I don't know what's going on because I'm gonna do what the word of God says. That's a tough choice to make. You know, and you can sit right here right now and go, oh, that would be an easy choice. I can do that. You know, it's different when you're in the middle of it. When somebody, when somebody is pressuring you, it's different. It's harder to stand. You know, and and adults, maybe you've got friends and coworkers. All your friends and co-workers are Christians, and you don't have a problem with this, you know, so so you don't worry about mockers and arrogant people, you're not influenced by that. But but we live, we live in a in a in a world that more and more every day they mock the things of God. What you see on television, movies, music. It mocks the things of God. Politics, every facet of life, everything we watch, everything we hear, there is some part of it that mocks who God is and mocks what we believe. And and it's very easy, even as an adult, to be sympathetic towards that, to the point that maybe you start agreeing with it. And if you don't stand on the word of God, you're gonna give in. You're gonna you're gonna cave to the pressure. So if you want to be happy, you have to know and obey the word of God. You have to know and obey the Bible. And and you can say that you're a Christian and you can have perfect attendance at church on Sundays, you can be the nicest person on the block, but if you don't know and obey the word of God, you're not gonna be able to resist the wicked, the sinners, and the mockers. You're not gonna be able to stand the pressure. It's kind of like these beach balls back here. You know, these beach balls are floating on top of the water because if you put them under the water, there's air in the beach balls. If you put them under the water, they can't stand the pressure of the water, so they pop right out and they get water all over my shoes. Okay? And it's because it's because the pressure outside is greater than the pressure inside. So, what would I have to do to this beach ball to get it to stay under the water?

unknown 11:41

Deflate it.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Deflate it? That might work, but it would probably still float on top. What would I have to do? Fill it with water. Smart kid right here in the third row. Fill it with water. If I fill it with water, it'll go right to the bottom and it'll stay there. Because the pressure inside is the same as the pressure outside. So if you have the word of God inside, you can stand the pressure from the outside. And that's important. That's why, as believers, we have to prioritize spending time in the word of God. Otherwise, we won't be able to stand the pressure. And I forgot to bring a towel out with me. That's unfortunate. So my notes are gonna get wet. So you have to you have to have the word of God in you if you're gonna stand the pressure outside of you, if you're gonna be able to withstand that pressure. And and there is strength in knowing and obeying the word of God. There's strength in that. Listen to this verse, Psalm 1.3. It says they are like trees, okay, talking about people who delight in the law of God. They don't follow uh uh mockers or sinners or the wicked. It says they are like trees planted. Oh, thank you very much. Appreciate that. They are like trees planted by the riverbank, bearing fruit in each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all that they do. They're like trees planted on a riverbank. A tree planted on a riverbank, the roots grow deep because there's so much water. And the roots grow deep and it makes them strong. It anchors them to the ground. And so so when you when you are when you are uh uh in the word daily and you you the word of God is in you, you become anchored, you become rooted. All right, and then when you become rooted, you become fruited.

unknown 13:26

Okay?

SPEAKER_01 13:26

If you are well rooted, then you are gonna bear fruit. You're gonna bear fruit. If you know and obey the Bible, you're gonna be rooted and fruited. You'll be like that tree that has a strong root system and bears fruit. Look at Colossians 2, verses 6 and 7. Oh, come on, kids. I set you up. I couldn't do it. 6, 7? Yeah, 6-7. I couldn't have I couldn't have teed that up any better. Colossians 2, verses 6 and 7. And now, now just as you accepted Christ, and now just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him, let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Let the word of God dwell in you. Okay? Following him means that you're gonna follow his word, and you can't follow his word if you don't know his word. So if you know his word and you follow him, you're gonna be rooted. There is strength in knowing the word of God. And when you are rooted, that means you're gonna be fruited. A healthy, a healthy tree bears fruit. Look at Matthew 7.20. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, you can identify people by their actions. When the word of God is in you and you're bearing fruit, it's obvious. People see it. People see a difference in you because you're bearing fruit. Because you are you are nicer than anybody else at the office, and you are more generous and more patient, you're humble. All those things that are fruit of having the Spirit of God living in you. People see that. And when you are rooted, you are gonna bear fruit. Psalm 1 verses 4 and 5 tells us what happens to the wicked. Okay? Tells us what happens to the wicked. It says, but not the wicked, they are like worthless chaffs scattered by the wind. They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place, no place among the godly. Okay? So, what this is talking about, and when it says it it'll it'll be scattered by the wind like worth worthless chaff. When they used to pick wheat in the Bible, they'd they'd harvest wheat, they would take it to what was called the threshing floor. It was a big, big flat surface and probably made of stone or whatever, and they put all the wheat on it, piles of wheat, and then they would take it and they would just take sticks and beat it. Just beat that wheat constantly. And then then what it would do, there's a thin hull, like like real thin paper wrapped around the wheat. It would break that loose. And if you don't break that loose, when you grind up the wheat, it ruins the flour. You can't make bread with wheat that has the chaff, that's called the chaff, that that hull. So they would hit it and they would break it up, and the chaff would let loose. Then they would just take the wheat and they would throw it up in the air, and the wheat would fall to the ground, and the chaff would blow away with the wind. The Bible says that's what's gonna happen to the wicked. They're just gonna be gone. And on judgment day, they will be condemned. They're gonna be condemned. So look at this last verse, verse uh six of Psalm 1. It says, For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. So you have a choice. You have a choice. Am I gonna am I gonna follow God? Am I am I gonna be am I gonna be that person that delights in the law of God, that delights in the Bible? Because you can't follow Jesus if you're not following his word. It's impossible. Tell me you're a follower of Jesus. My first question is to be How much time do you spend in God's Word? That's how much I know. Are you committed to being follower of Jesus? You have to spend time in God's word. Even if it's, you know, if all you can fit in, because your day is busy, if all you can fit in is two, three verses, God can change your life with that. But it's got to be daily. You gotta do something in God's word. The more the better. But if that's all you can fit in that day, do that. But you've got to be in God's word if you're gonna follow Him. And the other choice is to be like that chaff, and you're gonna follow people who are condemned. So, what choice do you want to make? What choice do you want to make? To follow God and be in his word or to follow the people that are condemned? Because it's kind of the only two choices. Kind of the only two choices. So here's the challenge this week. If you are not already in a habit of spending time in God's word, here's a challenge for you. Okay? If you're not in the habit of reading your word, what I want you to do, if you if you don't already have this, I want to take your phones and I want you to download the Bible app, okay, UVersion Bible app. And then when you when you go to the Bible app and you set up your uh your personal profile on there, you can choose your church. And if you choose family church, you can bring up the family church page. And is there a yeah, you can use that QR code right there to do that, and you can you can set up family church as your church, and when you set up family church as your church, you're gonna see that there is a featured reading plan. All right, there's a featured reading plan, and it's called Lifted 30 Days in the Psalms. I don't think it's lifted, it's something else, but something like that. I'd have to look at it. But it's 30 days that we're gonna we're gonna spend 30 days together reading through the Psalms, and and each day there is a short devotion. There's a short devotion, and then you read one psalm and then a couple verses from other other books, and and uh you do that every day for 30 days. And and we can do that together as a church. If you sign on with Family Church and you choose that plan, then we'll be able to see everybody that's that's participating in it. You can make comments, you can send encouraging words to people. It's an awesome way to study the word together. So, especially if you're not in the habit of studying it every day, I want you to I want you to sign up for this and do that with us. Start that habit by doing it with some friends, with 200 of your best friends, and and and give yourself some accountability and a reason to stick with it. So that's the challenge for today is to establish this routine and this habit of being in God's word every day, and we can do it together as a church. Now, if you're here today and you've never accepted Jesus as your Savior, you know, you might be thinking, you know, I I I've read the word, I don't get it. Well, let me tell you, let me tell you what the word's all about. God created man, and man sinned. And the only way for man to be able to have that relationship back with God, because that relationship was broken when man sinned, the only way to have that relationship back was for somebody to pay the price of the sin. And Jesus paid that price. That's what the word of God is about. Jesus paid that price on the cross. And and you know, though some may tell you that if you want to go to heaven, you have to be a good person, you have to be a generous person, you have to do this, you have to do that. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says you don't have to do anything because God did it all for you when He sent Jesus, and so Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose again on the third day, so that you can have eternal life. He paid the price for your sin on the cross. Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. So Jesus' blood was shed on the cross so that you can have forgiveness of that sin. The sin that Adam chose thousands of years ago, the sin that we inherited, we're all sinners because Adam sinned. And the only thing that could pay for that is for someone to die in our place, someone's blood to be shed in our place, and Jesus did that. So let me have every head bowed and every close, every eye closed for just a second. If you're here today and you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, you've never accepted Christ as your Savior, it's it's that simple. It's as simple as what I just described. And kids, if you're here today and you've never accepted Jesus, you can do that today. It's simply a matter of telling Jesus that you trust him, that you trust in his death, burial, and resurrection and his shed blood for forgiveness of sin and your salvation. It's that simple. And so if you want to tell him that right now, or or if you're struggling to put what's going on in your heart and mind, you're struggling to put that into words, you can say something like this to God. And it's not about repeating a prayer, it's about what's going on in your heart and mind that you want to give your life to Christ and you want to follow him. And you just say something like, Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus. Because on my own, I can never earn my way to heaven, I can never deserve it. There's no way I can spend eternity in heaven on my own. So thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross. And to be buried and rise from the dead so that I can have salvation. Thank you that his blood was shed so that I can have forgiveness of sin. And today, I accept that free gift of salvation. And I ask forgiveness for all of my sin. And I choose to follow Jesus. And if you prayed that today and you meant it, that means that means lots of things just changed. The Bible says that you just cross from death unto life. That your name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that you're going to spend eternity in heaven, and nothing can change that. So if you're here today and you just prayed that, I want you to, I want you to do something very brave and I want you to, while heads are bowed and eyes are closed, I want you to lift your hand and leave it up so that I can see it. Because I want to pray for you. Let me know that you prayed that. Parents, if you want to peek at your kids, because there are kids raising their hand, parents, that means you need to have a discussion with your kids after church about this. Alright. You can put your hands down. God, thank you for these today that have uh indicated that they want to accept you as their savior. Lord, even even young kids, God, you made it so simple that even a child can understand it. Even a child can understand the love that you have for us. And sometimes they understand it better than we do, because we're old and cynical and jaded. But God, you made it so simple that a kid can understand it. So thank you for those kids that today that accepted Christ and adults that accepted Christ. I pray that you would just bless them, help them to understand the decision that they made, to seek out people that will help them to understand it. I pray that they would depend completely on your word to understand who you are and understand the salvation that they've accepted today. Still with heads bowed and eyes closed. If you're here today and you want to make that commitment and say, John, I'm going to start today and I'm going to spend time in God's Word. I've never done it or I used to do it and I've been out of it. I'm going to start today if I spend time in God's Word. I want you to lift your hand because I want to pray for you too. All right. Hands going up everywhere. God, thank you for these people that are honest to say, I've dropped the ball or I've never done it. But today I'm going to start spending time in your word every day. Lord, I pray that you would bless them. Pray that you would remove distractions. Lord, we can always find reasons not to do something that we know we should do. So, Lord, take those reasons away. Give us that determination that we are going to spend time in the Word. And Lord, I pray that as we do this as a church, as we as we uh look at certain psalms for the next 30 days, Lord, I pray that you would just use this. Use this to change this church, to transform this church, to draw us closer to you. Lord, I pray that this church would grow to be a light in this community, that people would seek out family church for solutions for their family. Lord, when their family's struggling, that they would say, Let's go to family church and hear what we're supposed to do to get through this rough time in our marriage or with our family, with our kids, whatever it is. I pray that family church would have the reputation of being the solution. Not that we're the solution. We know that you're the solution. Your son is the solution. Your word is the solution. But God, I pray that people would see that in us and we would have that kind of an impact on this community. God, thank you so much for this amazing uh day that we've had, Lord, as we go and we have fun and we play. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time of fellowship together. Pray that this would strengthen families, it would strengthen our church, and Lord, we just give all of this to you today. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Thanks for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We pray this message encouraged you and helped you grow in your faith. If it blessed you, share it with a friend and follow so you never miss a new episode. You can learn more about Family Church at myfamilychurch.com. If you are in the area, join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We meet at Patriot High School 10504 Kittle Run Drive.