Freedom to Do What We Ought (Psalm 106)

Well, good morning, church. It's good to be here with you. We're starting a new sermon series today. We're calling it Summer in the Psalms. It'll run the entire month of July, and over the course of July, you will hear from each of your three pastors. We'll be taking some time off each of us, I think, and at least most of us, and and get a chance to hear from each of the three different voices around the Psalms.

I think this is good. The Psalms are important, and I don't know if they always get their due. The Psalms are in the middle of the scripture. They're in the Old Testament. If you open the Bible about halfway through, you'll find yourself probably in a psalm. There's 150 of them. They're poems, or they're songs, or hymns, or prayers, however you want to look at them. Some of them are set to music, though we don't know the cadences of all of them, but you can kind of feel them and see them as you read them, these poems. What I think makes them so special, what I think makes the Psalms so special, is that if you look through these 150 Psalms, it covers the full gamut of human emotion.

In there, we see Psalms of praise to God, of adoration to God, recognizing God's love for us, but there's also Psalms of lament, Psalms of hopelessness in the moment there, as we feel all hope is lost, and there are even Psalms of anger toward God. I love how real and how raw they are, and that's helpful to me, because there's times, if I'm honest, when I'm mad at God, and I'm not sure if it's okay to be mad at God, and I feel guilty for being mad at God, so I try to hide it. There are times when I'm ashamed of what I've done, that I don't do the things that I know I should do, and I feel the shame of that, and I don't know how to talk to God about it.

There are times when I'm in awe of God and God's work in the world, and I just can't seem to find the right words to help me articulate how I'm feeling. In the Psalms, they help me. There are Psalms in there of persons who are angry with God, and they tell God about it, and I can turn to those Psalms and read those, and articulate those, and tell God how I feel, and that's okay.

There's plenty of people who love God who are angry with God, and that legitimizes my feeling and shows me how big God is. There are Psalms written by persons who are filled with shame for the things that they have done, and I can turn there, and it gives words to my shame as I talk to God. There are Psalms that beautifully express the admiration and awe and wonder of God that we see around us, and it helps me to put words to how I'm feeling when I'm in awe.

There are Psalms that give us hope in the midst of despair, Psalms that speak of God's faithfulness, Psalms that remind us of God's plan in the world. If we turn to the Psalms, then we can find whatever it is that we're feeling, or whatever it is that we're looking for, we can find it speaking into all aspects of our life. The Psalms are a treasure that we have at our disposal.

So I thought, as we begin this series on July the 5th, 2026, one day after celebrating the 2250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with in essence, birth to a new nation, I thought, well let's look at the Psalms to see what they may say to our nation on its 250th birthday. Now there's a whole lot that it could say, and there's a whole lot depending on what aspect you want to look at it, but I've kind of zeroed it in. I was like, we got like 20 minutes to to talk about this, or y'all might rebel against me here.

And so I've kind of narrowed it down to one Psalm, Psalm 106, that we read from today. Actually, I'm sort of including Psalm 105 in it, and referencing Psalm 105 as well, because they're sort of companion Psalms. They're meant to kind of go together in some sort of weird yin-yang kind of thing of opposites, because the main theme of Psalm 105 is, Remember God's Mighty Deeds.

And it talks through about all of God's Mighty Deeds and all that God has done for Israel. And Psalm 106, the main theme is, They Forgot God's Mighty Deeds. Israel Forgot all that God had done. And so I think we need to look at these together because 105 tells us of God's faithfulness to us, of all that God has done, and Psalm 106 points out our own human will and our struggles. Psalm 105 is about following the light of God's will for his people. Psalm 106 shows us the shadow that we have placed in the world because of our own struggles against the light.

Psalm 105 is about God's goodness, while Psalm 106 is about human sin on display. So to understand this as it relates to Israel, let's give just a little bit of history to make sure we're all on the same page. God freed Israel from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. Remember they cried out to God, God heard their cries, lifted up a leader, and led them to freedom. And he led them across the wilderness, and I'm going really fast through all this, to a land that he had promised them, a land flowing with milk and honey, to a place where they could have a healthy and prosperous life together. And Psalm 105 reminds us of all of those things. It reminds Israel of all that God has done, of God's faithfulness to them, of how God keeps his promises. And it's a reminder to us, even spilling into Psalm 106, that in keeping God's laws, then humanity is expressing their joyous gratitude to God for all the benefits the Lord has provided his people. Psalm 106 begins talking about God's love, God's faithfulness, God's provisions, God's protections.

But then it goes into Israel's disobedience, and Israel's unbelief, and Israel's desire to stray from God and do instead what they wanted, and God's judgment on them for that. Some of the named issues in Psalm 106, and we just read a little bit, I encourage you to go back and read it, but some of the issues that Israel struggled with was impatience. They were quick to forget what God had done. Jealousy, they wished that they were in a different place with different people, had different leaders, they were jealous of what others had and weren't thankful for what they had. Idolatry, they turned from God, and they found other images and idols to worship and make their top priority instead of God. Unbelief, they didn't believe that it was God that brought them where they were. They thought it was their own abilities. They didn't believe that God was faithful and would fulfill his promises. They felt they needed to take matters into their own hands and rebellion. They actively turned against God. Right now, some of you are thinking, preacher, this is the worst 250th sermon I've ever heard in my life. We're celebrating our birthday.

Why are you pointing out these negatives? It's because of this. I think you see the correlation to Israel as a nation and America as a nation. There's good in us and there's flaws in us. But every 4th of July, there's a quote that comes to mind that I can't shake and it kind of sits in my mind and I just sort of chew on it all day long. And it's from Abraham Lincoln. I have a lot of respect for him and his leadership. But he says, freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought. Freedom is not the right to do what we want to do, but what we ought to do. In other words, we don't have freedom, whether that freedom be from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, which that's what the freedom Israel experienced, or whether that freedom comes from independence from the British, which is the freedom that we as Americans experience.

Or if it's the freedom that Jesus talks about in the gospel where he says, if the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed. Regardless of the freedom we're talking about to Israel, to the US, or to those of us who are followers of Jesus, without the responsibility that comes with it to do the right thing, then are we truly free indeed, without the responsibility to do the things that we ought to do? Israel is our example of what happens to a group of people if left on their own to do what they want. And the Old Testament is largely the story of Israel and how God was faithful to them, and how they experienced prosperity, and how they felt like they could do it on their own, and how they turned from God, and how they fell, and how they had to suffer the consequences of that failure, and how God was faithful to restore them.

And that's the cycle that happens in the Old Testament over, and over, and over, and over. So what does it mean, as Lincoln said, to have the freedom to do what we ought, to use our freedom with responsibility to do the things that we're supposed to do? I think Lincoln's trying to teach us that with our freedom, it comes with responsibility for it to work. And I'm pretty sure that Lincoln is quoting Spider-Man there, who said, with great power comes great responsibility.

Freedom is a great power that we have when used correctly. But freedom doesn't mean that any of us, or all of us, can do what we want to do. That's what Lincoln's bringing us to. That wouldn't be healthy for any of us. That wasn't healthy for Israel. But when we hold intention our freedom with the responsibilities that come with it, then it's healthy not only for us, but as a nation. And we see times when Israel did that, and it prospered. So what are the responsibilities that we have? Well, Israel had the Ten Commandments that was the central guide for them to live by, given to them by God, to create order and responsibility for this new nation freed from slavery at the hands of the Egyptians, if they would follow it. We know through Jesus's life, he continued to lift up the Ten Commandments, but through his life and teachings, we have an image, an understanding of what it means to follow God.

It's a law written not on stone tablets, but rather written on our hearts through relationship. These things are non-negotiables for us as followers of Jesus, not only the Ten Commandments, but the beatitudes and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus offered further clarification on the Ten Commandments when asked what the greatest one was, and he said, was to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and another just like it to love your neighbor as yourself.

He offered clarity to us on if we truly want to be first, then we must be last, and if we want to be great, then we must be a servant to all. He talked to us about the challenges of love and how it's easy to love those who love you, but he calls us to love our enemy and to pray for those who persecute us. He reminds us that following God's law is not just an outward act, but an inward responsibility as well that our heart is just as important as our actions, saying that if you hate someone in your heart is as if you've already killed them.

He talks to us about the importance of understanding that we're going to be judged based on how we treat the vulnerable, the least, the last, the lost, the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned. By saying when you do it to the least of these, or don't do it to the least of these, it's as if you've done it to me. Likewise, our nation has a God.

Our country has a God that's been given to us, that's been passed down, that's withstood 250 years as of yesterday of what it means to live in freedom together. On that document signed 250 years and one day ago it says, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We hold these truths to be self-evident, meaning these truths are fundamental and require no further proof or argument, they are part of the foundation of our nation, they are the basis for our relationship together that binds us as one, that all are created equal with certain unalienable rights, rights that cannot be taken away, the ability to live without fear or of unwarranted harm, the ability to express ourselves without oppressive control, and the ability to seek out and pursue happiness, to live the best life that we can possibly live.

When we hold to the foundation of this as a nation, then we begin to find the responsibility that protects our collective freedom. It gives us the framework to honor the obligation and responsibility of freedom, it's doing what we ought, with an understanding that doing what we want could lead to destruction. Being a proud follower of Jesus means we strive to grow closer to Jesus every single day and to live into Christ's teachings better, that's what we ought.

Being a proud American, I think, means we love our country enough to help us to live into those famous words penned by our founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence, that's what I think it means to do what we ought. You're just saying at the beginning of our service today was probably my favorite hymn around America written by Catherine Bates, America the Beautiful. I think it strikes the perfect balance of how we should approach our nation. It does an amazing job of pointing out not only the natural beauty of our land, but the beautiful principles that make our nation great, while also challenging us to continuously work to make it better. I love the end of the last two verses. They're Psalms in their own right, they're prayers that we should pray. In verse two it says, may God thy gold refine. I think there's an image there that we've struck gold as a nation in our Declaration of Independence. Now we refine it, we purify it, we polish it, we make it usable. 'Til all success be nobleness, till all success be nobleness, in every game divine. And then the last verse where it says, God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul and self-control, thy liberty and law. I think Catherine Bates is quoting President Lincoln or Spider-Man.

Freedom's not the right to do what we want, but it's the responsibility to do what we ought. That applies to our citizenship in this 250 year old nation, and it applies to our citizenship in the kingdom of God. And may we steward both of those things responsibly.

Thanks be to God.