Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Has God Given Up On Me? | The Writings | Psalm 85

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Are you stuck in the same sin patterns? Are you overwhelmed by guilt and shame? Do you ever wonder if God has given up on you? In today's episode, Patrick shares how Psalm 85 displays God's abundant love and grace, bringing relief to sinners like us. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 85

Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Several years ago, I remember meeting with a friend named John. He'd spent his whole adult life as a public, committed follower of Jesus. He was a leader, the kind of guy that lots of other people look up to. But internally, he was combating all sorts of sins. He felt distant from God.

He struggled to read his Bible and pray. He suffered from lifelong addictions to pornography. and nicotine. He battled to keep his alcohol consumption under control. And none of this was visible to anyone. Because of his leadership position, he kept most of it secret from all the people around him. And that only pushed him further into the darkness, into the loneliness, and deep into the thought that he'd abandoned God. And that because he'd already experienced God's forgiveness and grace time and again, he'd somehow squandered it time and again. And by this point, God had probably given up on him, too.

And so he just went through life faking, faking all the motions of being a Christian, being internally dead. It was far easier to do that than get up every day and read his Bible and pray and confess all the ways he was failing and then fail again. I don't think that John is alone. I think that churches are populated with people battling all sorts of addictions. I think many of you listening to this are battling with addiction. And if not addictions, you are battling with sins and idols that you cannot defeat. and I think all of us are embarrassed. I think all of us want to keep it secret. But the longer we lie, the longer we go through the motions, well, the more unreal and dead God seems to us. But what if the

greatest lie isn't what we're hiding from others? What if the greatest lie is the idea that God actually gives up? That his forgiveness and grace have a ceiling. That if you've battled with an addiction for 20 years or more with more failure than success, then you're just a hopelessly lost sinner who burned the last drop of grace God had for you. What if that's the lie? When Jesus's disciples asked him if they should forgive someone up to seven times, Jesus replied, no, not seven times 77, seven times 77. Of course, he wasn't setting an upper limit of 539 forgivenesses per person. He was using the number seven symbolically. It's the number of perfection, completeness. And he's saying that we are to completely forgive all people without limit.

Seven times 77. That is perfect forgiveness after all. And if he calls us to do this, how could he not do far more than we imagine? The Apostle John promises us in 1.1.9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God is infinite, his grace, his mercy, his forgiveness. He is, have no upper limit. Of course, this isn't so that we'll take advantage of him, his grace and his mercy. It's not so that we would sin without caring. He expects us to care, and a repentant heart is caring. And for some of us, repentance may be the biggest victory we experience for a long time, even a long time before freedom from our sin and our

addictions ever arrives. The good news of God's endless forgiveness isn't just good news. for bad addicts who can't get over their addictions. It's good news for all of us because we are all addicted to our sins and our idols, whether it's nicotine or gossip, alcohol or greed, pornography, or anger. And it's always been this way. In Psalm 85, we read the prayer of Israelites who had turned from God time and again. And if his forgiveness had an upper limit, they certainly would have found it. And yet the Psalm invites these idolaters, these addicts, these sinners, these re-earned, these repeat offenders to come back to God repeatedly in repentance, repeatedly seeking renewal. Let's read Psalm 85 together. You, Lord, showed your favor to the land. You restored the fortunes of Jacob.

You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sin. You set aside your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. Restore us again. God are saved. God our saved. and put away your displeasure towards us. Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? Will you not revive us again? That your people may rejoice in you? Show us your unfailing love, Lord, and grant us your salvation. I will listen to what God the Lord says. He promises peace to his people, his faithful servants, but let them not turn to folly. Surely his salvation is near those who fear him, that his glory may devour. well in our land. Love and faithfulness meet together. Righteousness and peace kiss together.

Faithfulness springs forth from the earth and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. Do you believe the promises that you heard in that Psalm? That God has forgiven the iniquity of his people and that God has covered their sins, your sins in Christ? Do you believe that he set aside his wrath? And he set aside his fierce anger towards you? That he poured it out on Jesus in your place? Do you believe that he restores not once, not twice, but again and again and again? Can you pray, restore us again, God, our Savior? Do you believe that he will restore you? That his salvation is for you? That his love and faithfulness

meet together in your life, that righteousness and peace can kiss one another in your heart. It doesn't matter whether you believe it all the time or all the way the most that you can believe. The question is whether you believe enough to get on the plane of faith and repent. The pilot does all the rest, and Jesus is the pilot. Once you're on the plane, once you've put your faith in him, once you've turned from your sin, it doesn't matter how much you wobble, how much you doubt, how much you bend, how much you break, how much you sin, all that matters is Jesus's ability to fly the plane, to keep it in the air and to land it safely. You can be lost or terrified or belligerent, but that matters far less than the

most important thing. Who is behind the helm? It's not you, and praise God, it's not. Because my friend John, he needed God to revive him again and again and again. And you need God to restore you again and again and again. It doesn't matter where you are, what you've done, or what you will do. Jesus's forgiveness has no upper limits. Trust him in repentance again and again. Admit your powerlessness and admit your need for him. And he will see to the rest.

He's a pilot you can trust.