Summer in the Psalms - Week 4, 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. 

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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

We have been talking for several weeks now, uh kind of working our way through different books in uh in the Psalms. And so today we're gonna look at uh a psalm of David. And the the cool thing about the Psalms with the ones that David wrote, you can you really get a glimpse of who David really is, you know, and probably more than anybody else in the scripture besides Jesus. You we we can learn about who David is because in 1 and 2 Samuel and in 1 Chronicles, you know, we see the life of David. We see the history of David. But when you read the Psalms that David wrote, you get to see the heart of David. And you don't get to see that with every every person in the Bible. You don't get to see their heart that way. And it's kind of like, you know, you follow a country singer for a long time. You know, when he's young, you know, he's writing songs, he's singing about beer and girdles and trucks, and you know, then he's a little older and he's singing about his wife and his kids, and you know, then when he's then when he's an old man, he's singing about God and country and all the stuff from his life that he regrets. You know, so their songs change over time as their life changes. And you see that in the life of David through his Psalms. And it's awesome. You know, you you can picture him as a young man kind of out in the field with the shepherds laying on his back, looking up into the sky, and thinking, when I gaze into the night skies and see the heavens and the works of your hands and everything you've created, the sun and the moon and the stars that you've hung in space, and all I can think is, why do you care about me? Why am I so important to you? When you when you've done all this, you know, and then he's he's a little bit older, he's a little bit older, and and you you see him, you know, as when he's when he's on the run from Saul, you see the heart of a fugitive that says, Rescue me from my enemies, O God, protect me from those who have come to destroy me. Then in Psalm 71, David's an old man, and David writes, uh uh, Now that I am old and gray, do not abandon me, O God. Let me proclaim your power to this new generation, your mighty miracles to all who come after me. So you see David change, and David's conversations and and his heart change over time. And in Psalm 51, you see the heart of a broken and repentant man. And so we're gonna look at Psalm 51. Ola just read it uh this morning, and and David, David wrote this psalm after he had sinned, after a time that he had sinned. And and most of you know this story. You know what happened when David sinned. You know, he was so he was supposed to be out in the field with his soldiers. He was supposed to be out there with his army fighting, but this time David decided, I'm just gonna stay back. I'm gonna stay home this time. I'm gonna let them go and do the work that I'm supposed to be doing. So David's on his roof of his palace, and he looks out over his kingdom, and he sees a young woman named Bathsheba. And he sends for her, and he sleeps with her, and she gets pregnant. And so to hide this, David sends her husband, who was one of his most valiant warriors. David knew this man. He's listed among David's mighty men. His name's Uriah, and David took him and he sent him to the front of the battle, to the fiercest part of the battle, and told the commander of his army, Joab, said, When it when it's at the battle's at the at its hottest, I want you to call retreat, but don't tell Uriah. And so Uriah died on the front lines. David murdered Uriah. And so now David's got these things weighing on his conscience, you know, and and and the things like that. You don't you don't just sweep them under the rug. You know, he may have he may have thought that he hid it temporarily, but but he's got to live with this now. It's weighing on his conscience. He's a murderer, he's an adulterer, and that's weighing on his conscience. He he's got one guy that is a powerful person in his army, in his in his city, in his country, named Joab, who at any moment, he knows what happened, at any moment, he could turn on David. And so he's always looking over his shoulder, wondering when's that gonna happen? And he he marries Bathsheba, and now he's got this this wife that is going to resent him for the rest of her life because of what she did. She's gonna resent David. And so David, you know, he thinks this is a one-time fling, it's gonna be easy, it's gonna go away fast, nobody's gonna know. But now he's a slave to it. He's a slave to that sin. And that's what sin does to you. That's what sin does. Sin enslaves you. Jesus said this in John 8, 34. He says, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. So you become a slave to sin. So God sent the prophet Nathan to talk to David. And Nathan came to David and he tells him a story, and he says, David, there is a man in your kingdom who has more sheep than anyone else. And he looked at his neighbor who has one sheep, and he went over to that neighbor and he took the one sheep. So now he has one more sheep, and that neighbor has no sheep. And David said, That sheep stealer should be put to death. He should be put to death. And in 2 Samuel 12, 7 to 10, Nathan responds to David. He says, You are the man, you're the sheep stealer. The Lord the God of Israel says, I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul. I gave you your master's house and his wives and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. And if it had not been enough, I would have given you much, much more. Why then have you despised the word of the Lord and done this horrible deed? For you have murdered Uriah the Hittite with the sword and the Ammon and uh of the Ammonites and stole his wife. From this time on your family will live by the sword, because you have despised me by taking Uriah's wife to be your own. And the next verse is one of the most important, in my opinion, one of the most important verses in the scripture, because it tells you the heart of God to somebody who repents. Tells you this is this is God's heart to a person who repents. Look at verse 13. It says, 2 Samuel 12, 13, then David confessed to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan replied, Yes, but the Lord has forgiven you, and you won't die for this sin. So David's defiant heart is broken. He repents and immediately he experiences God's forgiveness. That's the heart of God towards someone who repents. No matter what your sin was, if you repent, that's God's heart, that you are forgiven immediately. And you don't have to do anything, all you have to do is repent. You know, you don't you don't have to you don't have to say specific prayers, you don't have to make a trip to a confessional, you don't have to do penance, you don't have to do anything. It's just a heart of repentance, a broken heart that says, I repent of my sin. That's all that the all that is required. Just the un and you get the undeserved forgiveness of God. That's all it takes. And Psalm 51 is a glimpse into David's repentant heart. So I want to start in in Psalm 58, or excuse me, 51, 8, verse 8. Uh Ola just read the whole thing with us, but we're gonna start in verse 8, and it says this, Oh, give me back my joy again. You have broken me, now let me rejoice. Let me show you some things that happen when you repent. Some some some results of a repentant heart. The first thing is repentance restores joy. Repentance restores joy. Jesus said this in John 15, starting in verse 10. It says, When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow. When you repent, when you repent of sin, God restores joy to your life. He restores joy. Sin is a joy thief. If you sin, your joy is going to be gone. You're not gonna experience joy if you're living in sin. And we know that joy was absent from David's life because he prays, God, restore the joy of my salvation, restore that joy to me. And nobody prays that unless they're not experiencing joy. And then in Acts 3, Peter told the Israelites this now repent of your sins and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped away. Then times of refreshment or times of joy will come from the presence of the Lord. If you want joy in your life, start with repentance. If you're deplaced in your life, you're thinking, I just don't feel it. I'm just not feeling the joy. Start, you know, could be a lot of stuff, but start with repentance. There's probably something in your life that you're saying that you have not turned over to God and you're and you're thinking, I have to repent of this if I'm going to restore joy. Second, repentance takes away the guilt of sin. Look at verse 9, Psalm 51, 9. Don't keep looking at my sins, remove the stain of my guilt. And there are basically two reasons that people will feel guilt. Two reasons. First is unconfessed sin. You committed a sin, you haven't taken care of it, you haven't confessed it, you haven't repented, you're gonna re you're gonna feel that guilt of that sin. The second reason that people feel guilt is because they don't understand the depth of God's forgiveness. They don't understand that God has forgiven you completely of your sin. And it's kind of like this. It's kind of like this. Got this trash can back here. You know, when when God takes, when God takes our sin, when we confess our sin and we repent, God takes that sin and disposes of it, puts a lid on it, and then we sit back and go, man, I still feel guilty. God, why do I still feel guilty of that sin? God looks at us and says, What sin? I've forgiven that sin. I forgave you of that sin. In Psalm 103, verses 10 through 12, it says, He does not punish us for all our sins. Aren't you glad that he doesn't punish us for all of our sins? Man. He does not deal harshly with us as we deserve, for his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west. So when God disposes of our sins, he looks at us and says, What sin? I forgave that. It's covered by the blood. What sin? And you might think, well, John, I know that. I've heard that verse. I know that, you know, our sin is cast as far as the east is from the west, it's covered by the blood to be remembered no more. I know that, but why do I still feel the guilt of my sin? Here's why. It's because we have an enemy who wants nothing more than for you to take your eyes off of Jesus. And if he can get you to focus on your sin, then he's got your eyes off of Jesus. And that's a victory for the enemy. He wants you to focus on your sin. He wants you to focus anywhere but on Christ. And so that enemy will tell you, hey, come here. This is you. This is who you are. That sin that you feel so guilty about, you feel guilty about that because this is who you are. You know, and it's like God has this giant banquet for you over here, and it's a banquet of total forgiveness, total, total absence of the sin of your past, and Satan is telling you, come eat out of this garbage can. Satan wants you stuck on your sin, on everything that you've done before. He wants you to focus on that. But when God forgives you, you don't have to live in guilt. And when we live in guilt, it's, you know, really, we're condemning ourselves. If you're struggling with guilt, you're condemning yourself. But here's what God says about condemnation in Romans 8.1, it says, so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. So if you're feeling condemnation, that's that's you're you're putting that on yourself. Because Jesus said, I no longer condemn you. If you've accepted Christ as your Savior and you've repented of your sin, I no longer condemn you. You are free from the guilt of your sin. Third thing, repentance helps you stand strong. Look at verse 10. It says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a loyal spirit within me. That word loyal is probably better translated as steadfast or established. Some of your translations may use those words, but every time you confess sin, you are strengthening your commitment to purity and standing up against Satan and standing for God. Every time you repent is an exercise in standing up to Satan and standing up for God. So the more you repent of your sin and you keep short accounts on your sin and not letting them pile up, and you you repent of your sin, you're practicing standing up against Satan, standing against him. And James 4 7 says, if you resist the devil, he will flee from you. So the more you stand up to him by repenting of your sin, the more he's gonna leave you alone. He's gonna flee. Every time you stand up against him and resist him, he's gonna leave you alone. He's gonna flee. Next, repentance frees the Holy Spirit to work within you. You repent of your sins, it frees the Holy Spirit to work within you. Now, it's important to understand how the Holy Spirit works. Here's uh verse 11 of Psalm 51 Do not banish me from your presence and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. The Holy Spirit had a different function in the Old Testament. Okay, God, God would send the Holy Spirit to come upon someone to accomplish a specific purpose at a specific period of time. So Saul and David are good examples of this. When Saul became king, when when uh uh Samuel anointed him to be king, it says that the Spirit of God came over Saul. And there are times when Saul sinned where the Spirit of God left him. And Saul repented, the Spirit of God came back. And then finally, he had turned his back on God so much that God said, I'm gonna take my spirit off of you, and I'm gonna let an evil spirit come upon you. And Saul just spiraled out of control after that. And then when Samuel anointed David to be king, it says that the Spirit of God came upon him. Now David watched Saul go back and forth, Spirit of God coming and going. And so David's praying, please don't take the Holy Spirit from me. But when that was the old covenant, that's how it worked under the old covenant. Under the new covenant, the Holy Spirit comes and stays with us. Jesus promised, before I ascend, before I go into heaven, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. I'm going to send a comforter. I'm going to send, I'm going to send an advocate for you who will take up residence in you and not leave. He is your guarantee that you're saved. He's the guarantee. He's the stamp, stamp of approval, so to speak, that says you are saved because you have the Holy Spirit living within you. But Paul says that we can quench the Holy Spirit. We can quench the Holy Spirit from working in us. He doesn't leave, but his work working through us and leading us can be limited. So so the more the the more that you repent of your sin and keep short accounts, and you repent of that sin, the Holy Spirit can work within you. Now, here's number five. Repentance help you to helps you to obey God. Psalm 51, 12 says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you. Now let me tie all of this together because we just mentioned five things that happen when we when we repent. Five things that that grow within us when we repent. Joy, freedom from guilt, standing strong against Satan, being led by the Holy Spirit, and obedience. Okay? All those five things are part of a process that happens. They're not disconnected. They're not not five disconnected things. They are all part of a process. And you know, the first the first time you realize, hey, you know, I need to repent of sin, it's probably because you didn't have joy in your life. That's where it started. You didn't have joy. And so that lack of joy in your life uh brought you to the point of recognizing unrepentant sin and then then because that sin has stolen your joy, causing you to focus on your guilt, then you have to stand up against Satan and repent of that sin and say, I'm not buying it. I'm gonna go eat at God's banquet. I'm not eating out of your trash can anymore. I'm not I'm not buying the guilt thing. And then the Holy Spirit uh leads you once you've once you've gotten rid of the guilt problem and you let the Holy Spirit lead you, then it leads you to obedience. This is what that looks like. The Holy Spirit always first will lead you to God's word. It will always lead you to God's word, God's word. Now, does it lead you in other ways? Absolutely. But apart from God's word, I think the Holy Spirit is gonna say, you know what? You probably ought to look in God's word first before you make that decision. Even, even, you know, high school kids, when you start, when you start uh choosing college and you think, okay, I want the Holy Spirit to lead me. I want the Holy Spirit to lead me to the right college. That's a great prayer. Okay, but there's some scriptural principles that will help you to make that decision, that will help the Holy Spirit to lead you. One of them being that your parents know more than you. Okay? And when your parents say, hey, you know what, I think maybe we should consider this college, you probably ought to take that seriously. You probably ought to take that seriously. When you're, when you're when your parents say, you know, I I don't think, I don't think you're strong enough to go to this college. I don't think you're a strong enough Christian. I don't think, I don't think, I know your friends are going to this college, but I think for what you want to do, I think this college is better. You know, your parents are wiser, they're smarter, they love you more than you think they do, and that's why they're helping you to make that decision. But that is a biblical principle that the Holy Spirit is not going to ignore when you make that decision. You know, there isn't, there isn't a you know, a chapter and verse that says, that says, you know, thou shalt go to Liberty University or thou shalt go to James Madison. There's, you know, there is no chapter and verse. Those are decisions you have to make on your own. But the Bible has things that if that if you are being obedient to the scripture, the Holy Spirit will lead you in the right direction. If you are ignoring principles of the Holy Spirit or principles of the Bible, the Holy Spirit is go is not going to lead you. He's going to lead you through the truth of God's word first. And that lack of joy is what set you on this journey to repentance. Okay? So that's where it started. And your joy is restored when you repent. So you repent, you follow the Holy Spirit's leading, and it leads you to follow the Word of God. That's where joy is restored when you're obedient to the Word of God. So let's talk about joy for a minute. Let's talk about joy. About a month ago, Melin and I had a uh a great reason to be joyful. We were sitting in a uh in the airport in Pittsburgh, uh Pennsylvania on a connecting flight when we were going out to California, and uh our son calls and we're FaceTiming with our son, and uh just out of the blue he goes, Oh, look at this, and he shows us this. Okay, so yes, we have we have grandchild number six coming February of 2027. So we're needless to say, we were over the moon with joy, but then our son said, but don't tell anyone. I'm like, yeah, right. I sat down and we we were flying standby, so we didn't get to sit to sit with each other. So I sat next to the person that that uh you know, a stranger on the plane. The first thing I said to them was, I just found out my son's expecting his wife are expecting baby. It didn't matter if they knew they were strangers, but I couldn't hold it in. When you have that kind of joy, you want to tell somebody. You want to tell somebody. And when you have that kind of joy from repentant sin in your life, you want to tell somebody. You want to tell somebody about it. Repentance makes you eager to tell people about Jesus. Look at Psalm 51, 13. It says that David was repentant, he was forgiven, and he says, Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you. When you're that overjoyed by the fact that, man, your sins have been forgiven. You know, the fact that that we read in Psalm 103, God doesn't punish you for all your sins. Thank God he doesn't. And when you recognize that and you realize that, man, that that's joy. That that's a reason to be joyful, and that's a reason to tell people about Jesus and what he's done in your life. And you can tell other people, man, you can have the same kind of joy. And you can have freedom from your sin. You can have freedom from guilt. No matter what it is, you can have that kind of freedom. Because when you have joy, it makes you want to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

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 at O Run Drive.