Summer Playlist: Part 6
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
We are continuing in our summer playlist series today and we're going to cover a really popular psalm. Have you guys heard of Psalm 23 before? Yeah, you've probably heard about it. Maybe here or there, maybe you saw it on a pillow somewhere, or an embroidery, a beautiful or a shawl or a throw or something. But Psalm 23 is such a unique song and psalm that I want to take some time to dive into it this morning. But first off, two things I want to say this morning, just real quick. Two things. I feel I need to say this. God loves you more than you think he does. If you hear anything this morning, I want you to hear that God loves you more than you think he does. And he is doing more in your life than you think he is. Let me say that again. He's doing more in your life than you think he is. So if you've come in this morning, maybe from a really tough week, maybe you're discouraged, maybe you're worried, maybe you're anxious, it's easier to say, but I want you to hear it. Don't be. Don't be. God's not for you. God, sorry, excuse me. Whoa. God is not against you. Now you're going to remember that this week, aren't you? God is for you and your future is bright. Okay? So if you would turn to Psalm 23, I want to pray real quick before we get started. Jesus, thank you for this morning. God, we thank you for another wonderful Sunday to gather together. God, we know that you're not against us. God, that you are for us. You love us more than we can imagine. You're doing more in our lives than we can see right now. And so Jesus, we thank you for our future that is in you. God, we trust you. We seek after you. We love you. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
Before we jump into Psalm 23, I want us to just really quick talk about Psalm 20, 21, and 22, because it kind of leads us into Psalm 23 of where David is. So it says here, coming to Psalm 23, the author, King David himself, he has been through it all. If you think you've had a crazy life, read about the life of David. He has, oh my gosh, he has, so start off here. He was picked to be king of Israel out of nowhere. Lots of political problems there, okay? He's been involved in more drama than anyone has ever experienced in both middle and high school combined. He's been hunted down. He was almost killed. He fled for his life. He's been hailed at the same time as a mighty warrior. He's been loved and hated. He's been everything in between, and God has taken him through highs and lows and twists and turns and surprises to the max. And we find David at this critical moment in Psalm 23. But if we look at Psalm 20, verses one and nine, it says this, it says, "May the Lord answer you when you are in distress. Lord, give victory to the king. Answer us when we call." This is David's heart right here. And then the next chapter, 21, it says, "The king rejoices in your strength, Lord. How great is his joy in the victories you give. Be exalted in your strength, Lord. We will sing and praise your might." David's on the high right here. He's like, "God, you are God. You are victorious. You are king. You are Lord of all. Everything is going great." You flip the page, Psalm 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In a matter of verses, I know this isn't chronological order, so this isn't 13 minutes later. It's like that's not how this stuff does when we flip through Psalms. But in a handful of minutes and verses, it feels like, David goes from, "You are the greatest Lord of all. You are king of all. Your victory is ours," to, "Where are you, God? Why have you left me all alone?" I know I've had moments and days and weeks like that before, where Monday and Tuesday, I am riding a high in Jesus, and it is just, "Let's go." And then Wednesday comes around, I'm like, "God, you've abandoned me. Maybe you've been like that.”
Here's Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for His name's sake, even though I walk through the darkest valley." Maybe you came in here today and you're in a valley. Maybe that's where you find yourself. Can I tell you? You don't have to stay in that valley. You don't got to set up camp. You don't got to build a fire. You don't got to start making s'mores. You don't have to invite people to come hang out with you. If you are a follower of Christ, you have Christ covering over you today, know that the truth of Psalm 23 is probably the thing you need to hold onto the most right now in your life. You know what it says there? "From where I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil. You are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup is barely full." My cup is half full. Is that what it says there? My cup. Okay, this is the part where you say the next word in the verse, okay? My cup. My cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. If you're taking notes this morning, you want to write something down, here's what I want you to write down. Psalm 23. Singing praises whether you like it or not.
Singing praise whether you like it or not. Why? Because I found as a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, sometimes you have to tell yourself the truth whether you like it or not. And you got to do it often. Sometimes when you can't see it, you say it. Sometimes when it's too hard to say it, you have to sing it. You sang some songs of victory in Jesus this morning together, by the way. I don't know if you picked up on that. Sometimes we have to sing it to remind ourselves of what is going on. Even if it's annoying. You ever have that Christian friend, like nothing is ever wrong in their life? How you doing? I'm so blessed, pastor. I'm so blessed. The Lord is leading me by still waters. My cup's overflowing. That's probably not true in their life, let's be honest. But even if it feels like a Christian cliche, sometimes we have to be the best worship leader and pastor in our own life. It's not me. It's not Pastor Lauren. It's not Pastor Andre. It's not some guy you saw on TV. It's not some podcast you're listening to. It's not some song you heard on Spotify or Apple Music. It's not a song you heard on K-Love or somebody you watch on YouTube. You have to be the best worship leader and pastor in your own life to remind yourself of the truth when you're in the darkest valley and remember the promises of God. David is singing to himself right here. He's trying to remember who God is as he finds himself in this valley. We saw as he progressed, Psalm 20, 21, 22, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" David is saying here, "The Lord is my shepherd." The hardest part in this is learning our role. This is the hardest part. So if God is our shepherd, what does that make us? Okay, okay. Say it louder for the people in the back. Yeah, there we go. Sheep. So if God is our shepherd, that makes us sheep. Without understanding that, this Psalm 23 is just a pretty little poem. It's something you'd find, like I said, embroidered on a throw or a pillow, maybe on a T-shirt or maybe scripty written on a wall somewhere. Unless we understand that God is our shepherd and we are sheep, this doesn't mean anything. But when we understand this, it changes everything forever. Changes everything forever. But I sit here and I wrestle with this because I was like, "God, why would you choose sheep of all the animals, God? Why sheep? Why can't we be an eagle, right, or a bear? Maybe a T-Rex. Jurassic Park just came out. Anybody seen it yet? Anybody see it? No? No? Okay. Maybe a lion. But why sheep? No one gets a tattoo of a sheep on them to go like, "Look how bad I am." Like, come on. Nobody answered, "What's your spirit animal?" Sheep. Like, nobody's saying that. They don't look cool. They don't smell cool. Sheep can't even walk backwards. Did you know that? Sheep can't even turn around. They don't have strength. They don't have horns. They don't have claws. They don't have anything. No one wants to be a sheep. They're lame. Let's just be honest. Right? They can't attack. They're not a strong animal. What's it going to do? Like, really? But they need a shepherd.
We need a shepherd. Yes, God is our friend. He's our comforter. He's our helper. But when we understand that God is our shepherd, it changes everything. Here's a question for you. Have you chosen in your life to have Jesus as your shepherd? Let it sink in for a little bit. See, there's a crisis in our society that says that we don't need a shepherd. I'm my own leader. I'm the one in charge. I'm making all the decisions. Where does that lead us? I know I've met a lot of wiser and more aged people, I'll say, in my life. I'm not going to say older or elder. But they've shared wisdom with me and said, "I've tried to lead myself and it didn't go well. This plan I had just went the wrong way. It didn't work out. I told myself I got this moments later. Nope, don't got this." Psalm 23 is a song of David that brings a reality check to us. Because if we're sheep and God is our shepherd, we no longer have to chase in the right direction, situation or things. We simply have to follow. This unlocks so many incredible things. Says in Matthew 633, "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you." You don't have to make your own way or prove yourself. You just have to follow Jesus. Jesus has already done it all for you. The world tells us that we have to pursue, we have to chase, we have to buy, we have to own, we have to grab life by the horns, we have to climb the corporate ladder, we have to do all of these things. And Jesus comes in and He actually tells us the complete opposite of that. All we have to do every day is wake up and just say, "Jesus, I'm following you." You interview the richest people in the world and they're always chasing, right? More houses, more cars, more vacations, more stuff, more people under them to do their things, to cook their food, to clean their house, to drive them around. They're chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing. Jeff Bezos, former CEO of Amazon, he's one of the top richest people on the entire planet, billions of dollars. I mean billions with a capital B. He recently got married. He spent $50 million on his wedding, $50 million. I think collectively in this room, we would never see that in our entire lifetime. On a wedding. Always pursuing. He's into space travel. He's got this massive yacht. He's probably planning to build a new massive yacht that's even bigger that the little yacht would sit on top of. He's got yachts on yachts on yachts. It's crazy. And we get caught in that and we think, "I have to have that. I have to have that next thing. I gotta get... Jesus is telling us all we have to do is wake up every single day and follow our shepherd. That's it." He says, "Go." We go. He says, "Turn left." We turn left. He says, "Stop." We stop. That's it. All we have to do is rest in Him.
But why does this matter? Why am I talking about all of this today? The problem is when things don't go the way we want, we get antsy, right? We get anxious. And sometimes when God tells us to stop, it's the worst thing because we want to what? Keep going. We want to keep going. There are many times in my life when God has told me to stop and I was just like, "Nope, I know better." And I kept going. I'd like to tell you it went to a really good place. It did it. It never ended up in a really good place. I was outside of God's will and His timing. But when I slowed down and I listened to my shepherd and I followed in the way that he wanted me to go, he took me to places that I never could dream of, aka still quiet waters. Sheep don't strive for anything. I've never met a sheep in the third year of their doctorate program looking to graduate early with honors. Have you? No. Sheep aren't one-uppers. Everybody know the one-upper? You tell a story and someone's like, "Well, yeah. What about this?" And then they got to top your story. Sheep aren't doing that out in the pasture while we're sleeping, just to let you know. But we get caught up so many times trying to strive for God. I think our hearts are in a good place, but we have this messed up theology of we think we're on the show X Factor and God has just got His back to us and we're trying to impress Him with flowery language or praying in King James or singing the best worship song. Justin hopes that he hit that button and his chair would turn around and God would be like, "I love you." But we do that, right? We laugh at it, but then we find ourselves in some of these moments like David and we think, "God, I need you. Okay. I'm not praying hard enough," or "I'm not doing something good enough," or "I haven't accomplished this. I haven't received my Bible study badge yet from Jesus, so He's not going to listen to me yet." Newsflash, that's not how Jesus works.
So what if we could live a life free of striving? What if we could? What would it look like if we lived a life that we weren't trying to chase after stuff maybe in the world for ourselves or even in our own personal walk with God to try to prove something to Him or prove something to somebody here in our church family? What would that look like? Let's put up that photo of the sheep. Does that look like it's striving towards anything? Does that sheep look like it has a problem in this world? Does it look like it has plans this afternoon? No. That sheep has almost a stupid ridiculous bliss to its face, right? Why? Because that sheep has a shepherd. They don't have to worry about food, water, attacks from things that are going to harm it. Fill in the blank. The shepherd has the sheep covered. What if we lived our life with a mindset like that? Changes a lot of things, right? We would be free to be who God created us to be, nothing less, nothing more. We wouldn't have to be the perfect parent anymore. We wouldn't have to be the perfect spouse, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect boss, the perfect coworker, the perfect student, the perfect son, the perfect daughter, the perfect anything. We wouldn't even have to strive for a perfect life. There would be no problems. Why? Because we know God is God. We're back. Story was first with my oldest, Adelyn, but one of my kids every time has gone through something like this. We find out that the ice cream is all gone in the house. What I would think would be a crisis for my children. I remember specifically my oldest, I'm sorry, babe, we're out of ice cream. That's okay, daddy. I was like, oh, you're taking this really well. She goes, that's okay. I know you can drive to the store and go get some more and bring it home. But how beautiful is that picture, right? That hopefully as a parent, my children don't have to worry about anything. You as a sheep of Jesus who is your shepherd, you don't have to worry about anything. We think, well, you know what? I can't be generous or I can't tithe or I can't help my friend out because I don't know if I'll have enough. God, if maybe next week, God, if you fill my cup to overflowing, then the next week I'm in for your generosity. No. Or God, I will follow you as long as you give me the next 10 steps in front of me. God, as long as you bring me in on your plan, I'm in. It doesn't work.
We have to let go and we have to let God. That's what it's about. And when we want to take control of life, which newsflash, you're not in control of life. When we just hand over to God our worry, our anxiety, our stress, our unbelief, whatever it is, fill in the blank, you know what it's going through. And when we let God, we can truly, truly, truly rest easy. Because the Father is there. See, there's two qualities of a good shepherd, two qualities of God who is your shepherd. The first is our shepherd will always correct. Our shepherd will always correct. Here's a little thing, a little rhymey way to remember. When we're tempted to ponder, this is something to ponder. Hebrews 12, 5, and 6 says, "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline. Do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son." See, here's the thing, here, grace of God. Grace of God is amazing. Grace of God is so good that you can come to him just as you are, and he will accept you. You don't have to do any pre-work, pre-cleaning, pre-tightening up, buttoning up, whatever you want to do. You don't have to do any pre-work. You can come to God just as you are. That's how amazing God's grace is. But the other side of that is the grace of God is so great that he doesn't leave you as you came. Let me say that again. The grace of God is so great that you can come to him as you are, but the grace of God is also so great that he doesn't leave you the way that you showed up. You know, sometimes in life, things can get hard. And there's this thing called the shepherd's staff. See, we like the God that's just like, "Oh, hey, come here sheep. Come here little sheepy sheep. Oh, I love you sheep. Oh, don't go over there sheep. Come here sheep. I love you sheep." And David writes, "Your rod and your staff, they cover me.”
But there's two parts to this. There's two parts to this. The staff is the part that brings sheep in, that just lovingly cares for them and watches out for them. But there's the other side to the rod. And that is, there's times when the shepherd has to get after the sheep. And the shepherd will warn them. I did some studying on shepherding, by the way. So if you got any herds, I'm your man. No, just kidding. A shepherd will warn the sheep multiple times. "Hey, don't go over there. Come over here. Come on." Just kind of pulls them back. Just brings them back. Warn them again. "Hey, don't go over there. Come over here. That's dangerous. You got to stay with the pack. Don't go over there." But the third time is when the rod comes out. And the rod isn't so nice. The rod is a swift whack to the behind of the sheep. And it hurts the sheep. Sometimes to the point, you ever seen that cute drawing of like Jesus with the sheep on his shoulders? You guys know that one? Where he's just like, "Oh, Jesus is carrying the... Just snuggling with the sheep, carrying the sheep." No, Jesus just broke the sheep's feet. And legs. Because there'll come a time and a point where the sheep is too ornery and too wandering that the shepherd will have to break the sheep's legs. And then what happens is the shepherd then has to carry the sheep as its legs heal. Hand feed it. Hand water it. Talk it through its pain. But carry the sheep until its legs are fixed. And during that time, the sheep is so close to the shepherd that the sheep begins to learn the shepherd's voice so intimately. To where when that sheep is healed and good to go and can go and run around, when the shepherd calls for that sheep, who's the first one to the shepherd? Oh, that sheep is. See, sometimes there'll be times in our lives when we need to take correction from heaven. Not as a problem to be solved, but as promises from our Father who so deeply loves us. We might need to change some things in our life to get right with our shepherd. But you think, "Oh, pastor, that's so harsh. That's so mean. That's not who God is." Yeah, sometimes it is who God is. But the opposite would be even worse, right? What if that shepherd was just like, "You know what? Forget it. That sheep can just wander off." What's not going to happen to that sheep? It's going to get eaten. It's going to die. It's going to get killed. It's going to get stolen. There's nothing good that's going to happen to that sheep on its own. Have you ever heard that term, like when a coach or a teacher gives up on you, that's like the worst thing that could happen? Because when the coach is on you or the teacher says, "Hey, I believe in you. I know you can do more. I know you're smarter than this. I know you can do your stuff." That truly shows that that teacher and that coach loves you because they know the best for you. The worst part is when the coach goes, “Okay."
There's so many times in life that I've messed up and I was so thankful for a mentor to come alongside of me and call me on the carpet. There was a time, I remember, I was an intern at a church over a summer and I was supposed to help go lead worship at this other church who didn't have a worship leader. They're a really small church. I was dragging my feet and my boss, my superior, my reportee, I guess it would be, kept saying, "Hey, have you talked to that pastor yet? Hey, have you talked to that pastor?" And I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to go lead worship at this place. I didn't want to go to the church. I was going to miss all my friends at my church. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to do it. I kept dragging my feet, dragging my feet, thinking, "Maybe he'll find somebody else and I'll reach out and then he'll be like, 'Oh, I already got it covered.' Oh, cool. Thanks, sweetie." But I remember the boss, the executive pastor, called me in his office and sat me down. He said, "Okay, Chris, we have a problem." I said, "Oh, what's going on?" He's like, "You haven't talked to that pastor yet, have you?" I said, "Oh, no, I was going to get to it." He's like, "No, you weren't." I was like, "You in my head?" He's like, "I know you're dragging your feet. I know you don't want to be there." He goes, "But we're called to help other churches however we can." He said, "You're not on the worship team this week. You need to drive over there and you need to lead worship for that church because they need your help." I walked out of there and said, "Yes, sir." Went and called the pastor, went and led worship that Sunday. That executive pastor is now actually my boss. It's funny how things work like that, right? I was like, "I thought I was free." No, no, he's an awesome dude. But I sit there and I go, "Man, how many things have I missed in my own life from my earthly mentors? How much have I missed from my heavenly mentor?" And that remembering how much God loves me, that even when the ouch happens, to keep going knowing that He loves me so much that He doesn't want me to stay the person that I am. Just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean it's unloving.
That's hard. That's hard for us to understand, right? You ever heard the, "Hey, we need to have a talk." No, no, no, I don't want to do it. But sometimes you have to have the hard conversation and it's stretching and it's growing and it's sanctifying and I don't like it, but so are growing pains. So are growing pains, but we couldn't get there without the growing pains to become the better person that we are. Exercise, working out hurts, but we know it's good for us. Eating healthy, sometimes it hurts. Vegetables. But we know it's good for us. If you're looking for a simple, easy life, it's not with God. I'm sorry. It's not. But I want to tell you today that you have a shepherd who's taking care of everything for you. The good shepherd corrects because he loves you. The second thing is our good shepherd always protects. Everywhere you go, everywhere you're at, you have God's hand of protection over you. Everywhere you go, Christian. Everywhere.
He says Psalm 23, 5 through 6, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." You anoint my head with oil. Something else the shepherds would do to their sheep is a good shepherd would cover the head of a sheep with oil. Why? Well, the sheep have no way to swat at flies that get in their face. And the oil discourages the flies to not come near. They don't like the smell of it. They want to be away from it. And so the sheep would get down in the face of the sheep and would just slather the sheep, their face with oil. Do you think the sheep liked it? No. The shepherd probably had to wrestle with that sheep. Maybe pin them to the ground to cover their head with oil. But what the shepherd was doing was it was protecting the sheep. Why? Because the shepherd who doesn't care about the sheep wouldn't put oil on the face of the sheep. And flies would come and land, would crawl into their nose, lay eggs, they would hatch, and sheep would literally go crazy because they literally had flies on their brain. You would see sheep that literally would just run and ram their head into trees and rocks and anything that would try to knock out the flies because they literally were going crazy. So when David here writes, "You anoint my head with oil," the shepherd is protecting them. And if you think about it, it's so, this is so cool, if you think about it, the sheep themselves hated the process. But God, the shepherd, was protecting them. This is our life. There are times God's going to do things in our lives that we are going to be just hate. We're going to be angry at God. We're going to go, "God, why didn't you give me that? Why didn't I get that job promotion? Why didn't I get this in my life? Why didn't I get that house? Why didn't I get this? Why didn't I get that? I needed that. I needed this over here. I needed this over here. Why are you doing to me?" And sometimes God in life holds things back from us to protect us.
Sometimes God in His grace and His mercy doesn't give us things in life so that we are safe. This one's a really hard one to get around because we want God just to open the heavens and just bless us. But sometimes those things were going to actually hurt us more than they were to help us. God's hand, His protection, His anointing is over you to protect you. Sometimes we just need to take a moment and to praise God for the things that He protected us from that we had no idea. That sheep getting its head covered in oil has no idea what flies are. It has no idea. It doesn't know that if they don't let the shepherd do that to them that they are going to lose their minds. And it's uncomfortable and they don't like it and it's annoying and it's frustrating and the sheep doesn't want anything to do with it. But that's God's protection on them. Sometimes we need to praise God for the things that He didn't give us because we would have been dead but we are alive today because of it. You ever pause and just kind of took note of your life? Like, "How did I get here? How did I end up at this place? Look at my life. How did we get here?" Just take inventory. It's by the grace of God. It's by the grace of God. And then if we would have known how good God was, maybe we would not have cried that night. Maybe we would not have fought that fight. Maybe we would not have run away. But the difference is when we know our ship and we know who God is, we know that even when we fail, He doesn't. Even when we're wrong, He's not. Even when we fall flat on our face, He is still standing. It's a perspective shift that we have when we understand that Jesus is our shepherd.
See, there's a story of a teacher in New York City who was teaching a public speaking class or a speech class. Did you know that's the number one fear of most everybody is public speaking? Followed by sharks and then clowns. I don't understand that because I public speak for a living. That's my life. So sometimes it's hard when I hear people who are like, "Oh, I can't talk in front of people." I'm like, "Just get up and talk." But the speech class, the teacher found this dusty old book and brought it out and said, "Okay, someone is going to read from this today." And he opens it up and he calls the quiet kid from the back of the class that, "Come up here. You're going to read in front of people today. You don't have to have a speech prepared. You're just going to read." So the kid sheepishly comes up and opens it up and it's the Bible. And it's Psalm 23. And the student begins to read, "The Lord is my shepherd." And then just burst into tears. Class waits. He composes himself. He gets back to it. For the next 15 minutes, he struggles to fight through Psalm 23. But he finishes out the Psalm incredibly strong. He gets to the end. And to see where he came from the beginning to the end of that Psalm, the teacher gets up and goes, "Wow." He says, "I know Psalm 23. That kid knows the shepherd. That kid knows the shepherd." There's more to just coming to church and reading the Bible and knowing some facts or a couple of worship songs. My question for you today, do you know the shepherd? Do you know your shepherd? Jesus is Lord of all. And if Jesus is Lord of your all, then you can sing praise like David did in worship with a smile on your face. That even if the world is 100% against you, like it was at David when he wrote this song, you can sleep easy at night knowing that the Lord is for you. Even when all that seems completely lost, everything seems completely lost. Maybe you're in a financial mess. Life's upside down. It's in shambles. Do not give up hope. Know that God, your wonderful shepherd, has got your back. I pray for those of you this morning who would say, "I don't know my shepherd." Maybe you need to have a conversation with your shepherd. He's right there. Because if Jesus isn't Lord of all, he's not Lord at all. And just as much of coming to church you think makes you a Christian, walking into Krispy Kreme, it doesn't make you a donut. I'm sorry. That's the reality. So is the Lord your shepherd? If you would say yes, then how's your sheep-ness going? Because the reality is the Lord is our shepherd and we are the sheep, just like that stupid photo of a sheep. We no longer have to chase in the right direction, to the right situation. Whatever the world says, we have to have. No, we simply have to follow the shepherd. Because our shepherd will always correct, our shepherd will always protect. All we have to do is worship by following our shepherd today. Amen?
And let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for who you are. Thank you, Jesus, for being our shepherd. Thank you, Jesus, for being our caretaker. Thank you, Jesus, for being everything that we need in life. God, I pray that we would lay down our own agenda and our own desires in life, that we would pick up the plan that you have for us. The reality is that we can't even truly comprehend how loving that you, the shepherd, are. And as King David wrote this song about being our shepherd and following you, God, I pray that that would echo in our hearts today and in this week. And Jesus, we would rejoice in the beauty that we don't have to have it all figured out. We simply have to run to you as our shepherd and our father and follow you. So Jesus, I pray that we would daily choose you, Jesus, as our shepherd, every day, again and again and again and again. God, when you anoint our head with oil, God, may our cup overflow and may we dwell in your house, your house, Lord, forever. Amen.