Frankie Mazzapica - Returning From Drifting
Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Frankie Mazzapica. The title of the message is "Returning from Drifting," Returning from Drifting. I'm going to talk about a guy in the Bible. His name is David, and he promoted him as king over all of Israel. This was his man, and the Lord was excited about it because the king before him, he was just a very sinful, evil person. So, the Lord was really excited about this. David was nervous, but he ended up being a phenomenal king. However, he started to drift about halfway through his reign. What do I mean by that? As a boy, he would sit in the field, and he would pluck a harp, and he would worship the Lord.
Some of you can remember being a child, being a young person in church, just worshiping God. This was David. Just, the Bible says that he was good looking, but he was a ruddy boy. He had, just, wild curls. He was just already kid, spent time in the field watching sheep, and he would just worship God or with a harp and just worship. Nobody was around. He didn't care. He just worshipped the Lord. Have you ever done that? If you ever just worshipped God when you were by yourself, worship God on the car. This is what he would do all the time, just worshiped God, completely devoted, but at some point, at some point, all of a sudden, his worship began to go on the side. It was on the side burner. He began to tell himself new theology... not theology in scripture, his own theology, things like, "Well, I just believe that I don't have to worship every single day. I just believe I don't have to go to the temple all the time. I mean, God knows my heart. God is everywhere. I don't have to do the things that I used to do to the same extreme. It's okay. This is a personal theology".
You can't find it in scripture anywhere at all. Jesus used to say, I love when they gather together in Psalms 23, verse 8, even David said, he goes, I love the sanctuary of God, because it's where his glorious presence dwells. Yes, God is everywhere. That's the omnipresence of God. He's everywhere, but there are certain places on the earth where he says, "My people will meet me here". Whether it's a tent or a tabernacle or a church, the sanctuary of God is where God meets with his people. Can you put your hands together for that? That's the sanctuary of God, but there was a moment in his life where he just started drifting, and there was a particular sin that he committed that indicates how far he had drifted.
It's in 2 Samuel, chapter 12, verses 1 through 8, and then I'm going to just share a little bit of verse 9, it reads like this. "So, the Lord sent Nathan to go to David and tell him this story. There were two men in a particular town. One was rich. One was poor. The rich man owned much cattle, and flock, herds, and cattle. He owned a lot, but the poor man, he only owned a little lamb that he had bought. He loved that lamb. He raised the lamb, and it grew with his children. He held the lamb in his arms, and it ate off of his own plate. It drank out of his own cup, and he cradled it. He cuddled it like a baby girl. One day, a guest showed up to the rich man's house, and instead of killing his own animal from his flock or from his herd, he took the poor man's lamb and killed it, sacrificed it and served it to his guests," and David, when he heard this, the Bible says that he was furious, and he said this.
"As surely as the Lord lives, I vow any man who has done any such thing should die. They should give back four lambs for the one lamb they stole because they had no pity". And Nathan the prophet looks at David, and he says, "You are that man". No doubt, if you'd let me take a sidebar, how he's stepped back, shocked that anybody would ever speak to him that way. Nathan says, "You are that man". And then he says this. "It was you who murdered Uriah the Hittite by the sword of the Ammonites". He set up Uriah, put him on the front lines to make sure that he would be killed. He arranged for that murder. "And then you stole his wife. You are that man". And the Lord, and he says this. He goes on after that, after the ninth verse. He goes on to say all the ways that the Lord is going to punish him for what he's done.
See, at some point, he went from this young man to this worshiper, this one to just say, "God, I devote my life to you, I'm not just giving you, Lord, I believe in you. I believe in you. I believe in you. I can't wait to see you in heaven". No, no, no, it was the Lord of his life, "How can I serve you. I live to serve you. I live to worship you. You are my Lord, my Savior," to all of a sudden drifting so far that murder and adultery is something he could easily do. It was as if his heart had been seared with a hot iron. And so, I'm gonna share with you three things, three verses, three verses that came from his journal that he penned immediately after Nathan rebuked him. He felt bad. He felt sorrowful. He felt guilty. He was embarrassed in front of the Lord, but he wanted to be back in relationship, but he didn't know how to do it, and so he journals his thoughts in Psalms 51.
There were 19 thoughts, 19 verses. I'm going to pull out of three. But I don't know how all of a sudden, but yet I do, how in his life went from having boundaries to seemingly having no boundaries, that everything is okay. Just as a commercial time out, I was in the truck yesterday with my son Luke, and he said, "You know, I wish Yamaha, the company Yamaha, would consolidate all of their products into one building to where someone can walk into a building and say I would like to buy a Yamaha piano," and they would say, "It's right this way". And then someone else could come in and say, "I would like to buy a Yamaha guitar". They would say, "Well, it's right this way". And someone else could walk in. "I would like to buy a Yamaha boat," and they could say, "Right this way".
Someone else could walk in and say, "I want to buy a Yamaha motorcycle". Okay, right this way. "I want to buy", theirs, "is there anything that Yamaha doesn't make? I want to make a Yamaha, I would like a Yamaha lawnmower". It's like there's nothing, they make everything. They started off saying there's one product we want to make, and now they make anything. I got an idea. Let's make a toaster oven. Let's do it. I wanna make a refrigerator or whatever go ahead and do it. You need some money? How much do you need? Anyone else have any ideas? This is how Yamaha lives. It just, anything and everything and this type of lifestyle causes a very, very quick slide a very, very brisk drift.
So, I want to unpack three thoughts that he wrote in his journal. The first one is in Psalms 51, verse 3, he says this. "I recognize my rebellion. I think about it every day and every night". When a person's heart is not completely seared... when our heart is completely seared, they don't feel guilty anymore. They don't feel bad anymore. They have a new theology. They believe that some way, somehow they're gonna be in heaven, because everyone goes to heaven. It's fascinating because the scripture says choose the narrow gate. Choose the narrow gate, and it talks about how the broad gate leads to destruction. We got that inverted. We think that the broad gate leads to everlasting life and the narrow gate leads to hell. No, no, no, it is the narrow gate. It's the narrow gate and not a lot of people go through that gate. It's the narrow gate.
The Bible says that it is a hard path. It's not a wide gate that you go, "Look where I'm at". That doesn't happen. He's saying this. I recognize my rebellion. I can see where I'm at, and if that's you today, you're in a beautiful spot, because there's so many people that have taken an entry drug. You know an entry drug. They're drugs that someone takes before they get into hard drugs. They call them soft drugs, like cigarettes or alcohol or prescription medicine. They're soft drugs. You don't feel guilty, typically, about it, and you just kinda stay there, but then what ends up happening is that the soft drug all of a sudden becomes a crutch that you cannot live without, and oftentimes, this goes from soft to hard.
Now it's a prescription, I heard this one time, that people with hardly a little bit of money, they get their drugs off the street, but people with a lot of money, they get their drugs from a prescription. Now, this just got awkward. All right, let's go back over here. I have a friend of mine who has a teenage daughter, and she said, "Daddy you're addicted to wine". And he sat back, and it's true. He goes, "Jesus made wine. Wine is not a sin," which is true. She goes, "Yes, but, you can't live without it. You're addicted". So, my friend said, "You know", you can imagine, "I am not addicted. I can put this down anytime I want". So, she said, "Well, do it for one month, and let's see how that goes. Let's see if you can go one month". "I can do one month. That's easy".
Six hours later, he's staring at the bottle. The next day, he's just mad at his daughter. The day after that, he's mad at everybody. By the next day, he's mad at himself because now he's wondering if it's true. Just mad for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, he made up for the 30 days. I'm just kidding. I don't think so. At least he didn't tell me. When it's something you have to have, all of a sudden, the most important thing is when you back up and you say, "I recognize this". Do you know every single step towards sin is an invitation to the next step. Your flesh will never be full of sin. It's the moment you begin to sin you will want to sin more. There's nothing in your life. There's nothing in your life. That's a temptation from hell.
Once you take the temptation, there's another temptation. Once you take that temptation, there's a... your flesh will crave sin. It craves sin. Well, what's sin? You know in here. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 16, it says, "I will write my laws on your mind and place them in your heart". I don't need to stand up here and make a list of the sins. The Lord has placed it in your mind and placed it in your heart. You know when the Holy Spirit says... no. Are you with me? Say yes. Just clap your hands if you've ever felt the Holy Spirit saying, "Oh, no, no, no, no". The second point that I want to say is... so the first thing in Psalms 51, verse 3, he says, "I recognize it". Very, very important. The second one I want to say is verse 10, where he says, "Create in me a pure heart. I can't do this anymore".
Have you ever been there? I've talked to so many people, so many people in the hallway, in the foyer of the church, where they say, "I don't even wanna ask God to forgive me anymore because I know I'm gonna do it again. I know I'm gonna do it again. I know I'm gonna say it again. I know I'm gonna do it again. I know I'm gonna stop doin' it again. I know me. I've been doing this my whole life. I'm not gonna change. I'm not gonna do it". That's the reality. You can't do it. Wouldn't it be nice, like in your car, if you say, "I want to love Jesus more, be more committed and just turn up the volume and like, wow, that was easy. I love..." wouldn't that be nice? Just to turn up the volume? But we can't do it. We will sleep right through everything that has to do with God. There's no passion. You put your hand on your pulse. It's not there. Put your hand on your pulse, not there, not there, not there. It's just not there.
"I'm sorry, Frankie. I want to love God. I wish I could love God like you, but you know, it is just not there. Sorry". What are you gonna do? Send me to hell? It's a scary place to be, and this is where David was. He's like, "You saw what I just did. I'm gone. Help me. Help me. Create in me. You're gonna have to take your hand and shove it in my chest and pull out my heart and put a new heart in, and if you don't do that, I'm gonna keep on being the way I am. You're gonna have to create in me, just take it out and start over". Have you ever been there? "You're gonna have to just start over. I need a mirror. You're just gonna have to start over".
That is a wonderful, wonderful place to be, and then he says this in Psalms 50:117. This is the last point I'm gonna share out of his journal. He says this. He says, the sacrifice, and it's almost like the... and he was, the Holy Spirit, just breathed into him and said, "David, David, David, David". He'd just committed murder, just committed adultery. The Lord just chastised him. And so, now he's saying, "What do I have to do to come back? I've recognized what I've done wrong. I need you to create a new heart in me. What do I have to do? What do I have to do to be back to that little girl who used to squeeze her fists in the air because she had so much passion for God? What do I have to do to be the young man that I've never been, where I'm excited to be in the presence of God? What do I have to do? Tell me what to say, and I'll say it. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. What do I gotta do"?
And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit just breathed right into his soul, and he took his stick and dipped it in ink, and he wrote verse 17. "The sacrifice I desire is a broken spirit. For I will not reject a broken and an apologetic heart. I will not". He's saying to David, "I've seen all you've done. I've seen it all. I seen what you did when the lights were out and the door was shut. I've seen it. I've heard what you said. I've watched you blow your head. I've watched you mess up every... we had so much momentum, so much going good, and you do this. All I want is a repentant heart. That's it. That's all I want is a repentant heart. I want you to recognize sin. I want you to ask me to create a pure heart, 'cause you can't do it by yourself".
You know how the Lord knows that you can't do it by yourself? The Lord knows you can't do it by yourself, but we think we can do it by ourself. We're just going to be more holy. "I'mma be more righteous. I'mma be more holy". And the Lord says this. This is a great verse. It's in Psalms 103, verse 14. He says, "I remember how you were made. I know that you were made from dust". He's look it, "I remember. I remember that you were made from dust. I remember that your entire body came from dirt. With love I say this, you're a dirt bag. You're a dirt bag. You've got a beautiful heart, a beautiful soul, a beautiful spirit, but this whole thing is just a bucket of dirt. 'I got a jar of dirt. I got a jar of dirt.'"
This is how much he loves you. I wanna close with this story of this young man who got healed recently, because what he had to go through, he went through, he had Lyme disease for a long time, long time, several years. When I heard his story, it just broke my heart because the Lyme disease got so bad that he couldn't get up and take a few steps. I'm not gonna tell you the rest of his healing, I'm not gonna tell you the rest of the miracle because he's gonna say it himself on the video, but how many of us... maybe it's not Lyme disease. When he had Lyme disease, he couldn't even get a few steps in without having to sit down. How many of us wake up in the morning, and before we're even out of bed.
We "go, Ugh, again? We gotta do this again"? And you could hardly put two steps in front of each other. You can hardly get through what you're goin' through. The Bible says this in Matthew chapter 11, verse, I think it's 28. He says, "You come to me. Come to me those of you who are exhausted. You're exhausted. Come to me". If there's one thing that you hear me say this morning, if this is the only thing that you remember this morning, you came to church this morning to worship him, you came to church this morning to stand in his presence, you came to church this morning to hear a Word from God. This is the Word for you, come to him if you are weary.
Come to him. I'm begging you. Don't clap. I'm sorry. Don't clap. I'm begging you. Because if you don't go to him, you will stay in the state that you are, best case scenario. The most likely scenario, you go down a very slow spiral, and you're a walking corpse. You got your nails did, you got your hair did, and you're wearing Revlon, but on the inside, you're a walking corpse, and the guys in the room are just saying, "This is my life. Just get used to it". No, this is not the way it's supposed to be. We're supposed to come to him and say, "If you still do miracles, do one now. Do one now". Take a look at this.