Transcription
If you're able, would you stand with me this morning as we read this passage of scripture together? I know this isn't our norm, but I want to do something a little bit different over the summer. So, we're going to read this passage together.
Let's read it together:
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for 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 overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.**
Father, I pray as we study your word this morning and begin this journey through this very important passage of scripture, I pray that you would open our eyes, open our minds, open our hearts to what you want to do this morning. Because you have something for us. You don't want us to leave here the same; you want us to leave here changed by your word.
So, Lord, we're doing everything that we can. We're creating space for you. We're opening up our hearts; we're opening up our minds to hear from you this morning. And, Lord, we're believing that you'll do the rest. We trust you for it; we believe you for it. In Jesus' name, the strong Son of God, and everybody said, "Amen." You can be seated.
I remember the first time that I went to the Pacific Northwest with my wife, Jessica. Now, many of you probably know that we moved from Oregon to here. We lived in Oregon for three years—don't hold it against us—before we came here. But my wife is actually from Washington State; you can't hold that against her. No, I'm just kidding.
A couple of years into our marriage, we decided to take a trip to visit her dad. So, we flew to Washington State, and Jessica was sharing a bunch of different stuff about what I would get to see that I'd never seen before. I had never been that far west; I'd also never been that far north, and I was pretty excited about it. I was getting pretty pumped about it.
One of the things that I was super stoked about was getting to see real mountains—like legit mountains. Now, I grew up in Alabama, and the highest peak in Alabama is called Tana Hill. It's not even called a mountain; it's called Tana Hill. That's all we got. That's it in Alabama.
Now, granted, it's less flat than Kansas; I'll give you that. But there's not a whole lot much more flat than Kansas, okay? But Alabama's still relatively flat. So, Jessica kept on telling me about how beautiful mountain ranges and stuff were, and I thought, "Well, this will be cool; I'll get to see some of this."
As we were talking about it, Jessica began to kind of give me a heads-up that, "Hey, we're going in January, and the mountains are so high that the cloud coverage may keep us from actually seeing the mountains."
Boy, from Alabama, I did not understand that something could be so tall that clouds would cover it. My brain just couldn't process that. So, we flew to Washington State, and we were staying with some friends in Tacoma, which is a little over an hour outside of Seattle.
We got off the plane, drove to Tacoma, and then her family was in a little place called Gig Harbor, which is not quite in the middle. But if so, there are several of you that have lived in the Pacific Northwest and kind of understand those dynamics.
We went to Tacoma that night and got there. She told me, "As we're driving to Gig Harbor the next day, we're going to get to a spot on the interstate where we kind of ramp up, and you'll see an opening. If you're going to see any mountain, you're going to see Mount Rainier in this one spot. You're going to see it right there."
I thought, "Oh, okay, cool." So, we get to that spot, and we begin to top this area, and no Mount Rainier. No Mount Rainier. The clouds were completely covering it. She said, "Believe it or not, over there is Mount Rainier." I thought, "Okay, I guess I'll just have to trust you because I don't see any mountain whatsoever."
So, we drove to Gig Harbor, hung out with her dad, grandmother, and aunt, and then later that night, we drove back to Tacoma, Washington. It was too dark to see anything, so no Mount Rainier there either.
Day number two: same thing—no Mount Rainier. Day number three, four, five, six—no Mount Rainier. I was getting kind of sad about this. To be honest, look, I loved getting to see my father-in-law; I loved getting to see the grandma. But I was kind of looking forward to seeing like a real mountain. I was looking forward to seeing one of these things in person and not just like on Google images or in a movie, you know what I mean? I wanted to see like a real live mountain, and we didn't see one our entire trip while we were there.
We were loading up the rental car to drive back to the airport in Tacoma on the last day, and I felt a little defeated. Jessica told me, "We have one more shot." She said, "When we're going to Seattle, we'll pass that same place on the interstate, and we might see it." But I mean, the weather's been kind of the same, blah blah.
Okay, well, I've given up hope. We were driving, and Jessica and I were having a conversation about something, and I was talking. All of a sudden, I hear Jessica go, "Andy, shut up and look out the window." I thought, "Well, that was rude."
But I looked out the window, and my mind was blown at this new thing that I had never seen before, and that was the beautiful Mount Rainier. Now, when we lived in Oregon, I saw other mountains, but there's something about seeing your first one. Mount Rainier is one of the most beautiful mountains. When you Google "mountains in North America," it's often one of the ones that pulls up as one of the most picturesque. It is absolutely gorgeous.
I remember trying to drive and shoot photos on my phone with it. Yeah, don't do that; we almost died. It was dangerous. I remember just being so shocked at how beautiful it was because we didn't just get to see a part of the mountain; we didn't just see a part of it. We were able to see the entire thing. It was like the clouds moved just for us for just a few minutes to see this beautiful God-made landscape.
It wasn't just like the peak of the mountain that was gorgeous with the blues and the white caps and all that stuff. It wasn't just that; it was the entire ridge line that you could almost see and picture in your mind somebody taking the time to journey up the side of this mountain to reach this incredible beautiful mountain peak.
We took the trip, came back home, and probably a couple of weeks later, I was doing just my personal time with God, and I was reading in Psalms and stumbled on Psalms 23. As I was reading Psalms 23, I began to think about seeing Mount Rainier. I kept picturing Mount Rainier in the back of my mind and thinking, "You know, Psalms 23 is a lot like Mount Rainier."
It's a lot like a mountain because inside of Psalms 23, you can almost look at the entirety of the chapter in three different sections. There is a journey up the mountain; there is a journey up in Psalms 23 to a summit or to an apex of the passage. Then there is the apex of this passage of Psalms 23.
At the apex of the passage, once you're there, you begin to see a new reality of what's happening in the structure of the chapter after that point. Just like there, if you're looking at a mountain, you can kind of see the journey up one side, the apex, and then the journey down the other side. You can almost see that exact same thing happening inside of Psalms 23.
Really, when we look at Psalms 23, the reason that we're going to spend an entirety of our summer in it is because when we look at this passage, we can actually better understand a lot about what it means to walk with the Lord. Another phrase that we might use is to say what it means for God to spiritually form us as we know Him, as we grow with Him, as we learn to be more like Jesus. We can see that in this passage if we begin to view it in these three different sections.
If we're looking at that passage in this way, the apex of the passage is the statement, "He restores my soul." That "He restores my soul" is the summit of the chapter. If I look at what is before that statement, it is giving me guidance and direction for how the Lord leads us to a place of restoration—how the Lord takes us to a place where He is restoring us, where He is doing a work in us.
Then there is this place of restoration in our life, and then after that, there is a reality that our life shifts because of the restoration that He does within our soul, and that is the remainder of the passage.
So today, what I'm going to do is take us again through like a 50,000-foot view of the entirety of this chapter, and then the rest of the summer, we're going to break off each of these places in little bite-size pieces. Other than I'm going to be gone two different times or not in the pulpit two different times throughout the summer, and somebody else won't be speaking in Psalms 23. But if I'm speaking in the summer, this is where we're going to be.
So, let's look at this passage together. It opens up with this statement: **The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.**
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He is telling us—David, the author—is telling us how the Lord leads us. He is telling us what it means for the Lord to lead us to a place of restoration in our lives.
Now, we all know if you're familiar with scripture or you're familiar with the story of the life of David that David referring to the Lord as a shepherd was no random thing because David was a shepherd—a shepherd boy at a young age. He was placed in a field to care for sheep, and he is using this understanding of a shepherd to help us understand how the Lord leads us, as if to say that the Lord is our shepherd and we are His sheep.
Look at your neighbor and say, "Baa!" Come on, come on, do it! If you don't do it, you may not get into heaven; that's how it works. You got to do it!
I don't know that I appreciate that illustration that David gives because sheep are ornery and not smart, but that is what he tells us we are through this passage.
**The Lord is my shepherd.** What does that tell us? It tells us that the Lord leads us with care. A shepherd had to be kind and caring to sheep in order to guide them. Not only that, he guides them; he gives them direction in where they're to go, and he does this all in a gentle and consistent way.
We'll spend an entire week talking about how the Lord guides us like a shepherd.
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.** The message version of the scripture says that I lack nothing. It would be as if to say that because the Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. I get everything that I need. What leads me to a place of restoration and what leads me to a place of wholeness in my life, I receive everything I need from the one who is the good shepherd.
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.** Then he says this: **He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters.**
He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters. This is really a dual thought that David is giving us because green pastures and still waters really are definitively two different things in scripture.
The first is that it gives us a picture of peace. It's saying that because I'm allowing the Lord to lead me to a place of restoration and wholeness, when I receive that leadership, it makes me find peace even in the most chaotic of moments.
Even in the most chaotic moments in my life, I will find peace. It's not that He's forcing anything on you, but there's a reality that when I allow the Lord to guide and direct my life, that even in the most chaotic moments, I find peace.
Some of you have probably heard the stories about our experience—Jess and I's experience in Florida. The church went through some really deep chaos with just a whole bunch of stuff. When I sit down with other pastors, I tell them that story, and they go, "My God, how are you still a pastor? How do you still want to do this on a regular basis?"
The truth is, it's not because I can just handle more than other people; it's because when we walked through those difficult seasons, the Lord made us lie down in green pastures, and He led us beside still waters. He brought us to a place that even in great difficulty, in great chaos, we were still able to find peace.
Paul says it like this: there's peace that passes all understanding that the Lord desires to get to you, that even in your darkest moment, you can still find peace.
The truth is, you will never experience the restoration that God has for you when you feel chaotic. That doesn't mean that you can't experience restoration in chaos; you just can't experience it without the peace of God. Because it is in the peace of God that I can sit down and rest and allow God to do work on the inner parts of my soul.
But it's not just peace; it's also provision that I receive—peace and provision when I allow the good shepherd to lead me. I receive His provision.
Now, oftentimes when we think about provision, we think about monetary provision, and that's true; God does care for us and take care of us financially. But there is a lot more to provision than money.
There's a lot more to provision than money. We'll spend an entire week talking about the provision and peace part of this passage. But God deeply desires when He leads us like a shepherd, He is bringing us to a place where we have what we need, and we can rest. He is leading us to where we need to go.
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul.**
This is the apex of the passage—that He is restoring my soul. I think it's important; there are two different things when we talk about the restoration of our soul that are important.
The first is that it is both present and plural. It is both present and plural. The Bible says that He restores my soul. So, what does that mean? That God is doing a restorative work in us all the time. It's not something that happened; it's not something that will happen; it is something that is happening.
It's something that has happened, is happening, and will happen. It is something that's continual in our life. It's another word that we would use in church: sanctification. It is a process that we have been sanctified, we are being sanctified, and we will be made sanctified.
I believe it's Hebrews that says that we are holy and are being made holy. It's that same idea that it is consistently happening in our life—that we are consistently being restored.
Not only that, the line of being led to restoration and being restored is not linear. It's not like step one, step two—that I am being restored. If God is leading me, I am being restored in one area of my life while also being led to restoration in a deeper area of my life.
Does that make sense? So that while God is doing a work in my life, there are some areas that I need work on. There are areas we all need work on. But there are also some areas in your life and in my life that I'm not quite ready for God to work on. That's just the truth; we all have those areas.
While God is restoring us and doing a work in us, He is also simultaneously leading us to a place of deeper restoration.
**He restores my soul.**
Now, what do we mean by restoring our soul? We understand that it's plural—that there are multiple realities of restoration. We understand that it's continual; it's always happening. But what does it mean to restore my soul?
How many of y'all went to the car show that was out here yesterday? Anybody? I did not get to go, but I did see them because I passed there two or three times. It looked awesome; it looked fun; it looked super cool.
The issue that for some of us that we have, though, when we think of restoration—especially if you're a guy—we think about a good old car. Like if I could have a 1956, I think it was made in that year, Bel Air with the fins on it, I would be a happy man. I would be a very happy man.
The problem is I in no way know how to work on them, and so I would be in trouble, and so it would not be a good thing. But I want one real, real bad. There's something about an old car that you know is from like 1956 or 1957 that still looks brand spanking new. There's something about that that's just cool; that is very cool.
But that's not what the scripture is talking about. Restoration is not taking something old in scripture and making it like new; it is doing a regenerative work to make you new again.
Jesus would have described it as being reborn. Paul describes it as this idea that you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. That when we allow God to restore us, He is restoring us to something that is completely new so that the pain, the wounds, the dysfunction that we find in our life because of what we have been through—all of those things disappear because we are now made new in Christ Jesus.
**He restores my soul.**
This process that we go through is not making us like new; it's making us new. This is so important for us to understand—that God is working to make us like He originally intended us to be. That is His goal in the restoration of our soul.
So, He is leading us to places of restoration, and He is restoring our soul.
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul.**
Then He tells us why He's restoring our soul: **He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.**
He is restoring my soul because when we find restoration in us, the only one who can get glory for it is Him. I can't get glory for the fact that I am a different person than I used to be. I am very different than who I was 10, 15 years ago.
You know what? The only one who gets credit for that is the work of Jesus Christ. That is the only thing that gets credit for that. When He restores my soul in the way that only He can restore my soul, it brings glory to Him.
**He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.**
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Then the rest of the passage is telling me the reality of what happens because He restores my soul—what changes and shifts in my life because of the restoration of my soul.
He says it like this: **The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He's leading me to restoration. Then He restores my soul, and He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.**
And because of all of that, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I can fear no evil. Why? Because He's led me through restoration, and He's done a restorative work in me.
I can be confident that He is with me. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for He is—what? Come on, come on! We're a Pentecostal church; let me hear you! **He's with me!**
He's with me. And not only that, His rod and His staff comfort me. What does that mean? A rod and a staff are the tools of the shepherd.
Have you ever—we can all relate to this—have you ever had a parent or a mentor or a coach or a boss try to help you, and you know that they were right, and it ticked you off?
Anybody? Like you just didn't like the fact that they were right, but then later you realized, "My God, I needed that thing that they did." Your rod and staff that once irritated me when I was being led to a place of restoration, when I was being led to a place of healing, when I was being led to a place of life change—now that I've experienced the restoration of my soul, what once was frustrating now comforts me.
**Your rod and staff comfort me.**
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul; He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Even though, because of all of that, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. This is one of those passages of scripture that, look, I've been studying the Bible a long time, and for years I looked at and I was like, "I don't know what that means. Skip!" You know what I mean? Like you look at it, and you just go, "I don't know what that means. Next verse!"
But what it means—and we'll dive into this pretty deeply in a few weeks—it means that your restoration and what God does in you, it ain't private. It's not private.
That people who've spoken against you, people who've wronged you, people who thought less of you, people who thought you didn't matter because of the current mistakes that they saw you making—there will be a moment where that wrong is made right.
That He prepares a table before you in the presence of those—better said—who've wounded you, who've caused you pain, who've belittled you. As if to say they're going to be able to see the work that God has done in and through you and that you are not the same person that they counted out.
**He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.**
And then it says this: **He anoints my head with oil, and my cup overflows.** This speaks to God's healing protection in our life. This speaks to God's healing protection because I've allowed Him to lead me to restoration, and because He is restoring me, now I can experience healing and protection in a way that I've never otherwise been able to experience.
**The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and staff comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows.**
And because You've led me through restoration, and because You've restored me, because of all of these things, I can now be confident that surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I can trust that I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
This is the 23rd Psalm—that it is not just flowery language that's easy to say and easy to pray, and that's why we share it with children. No, no! It is an understanding of spiritual formation in and through our entire life.
When we understand that God is always leading us to restoration and He is always restoring us, and because of the restoration that He's doing on the inside of us, there is always a new reality and new trust and new faith in what He does in us and through us. It changes everything.
This is what God invites us to—a journey up the mountain of restoration. This summer, my hope for our church is that we take this journey together. That we take this journey through Psalms 23, not just as we study it, but we ask the Lord, "Lead us. Lead us through this passage. Lead us through a personal journey of restoration. Lead us to a place of restoration, and let me experience exactly what Psalms 23 says that I can experience."
Now, the question is, why for some of us do we struggle? Why do we struggle with beginning a journey of restoration? I think for several reasons, and I'm probably not going to hit everybody, but I think for many of us, we struggle with it because deep down we know that there are some things that we are aware that if we begin to work on in our life, there are some things that we have become comfortable with and maybe even have found identity in.
That if we begin to press into the Lord and we begin to allow the Lord to work in our life, that we're going to have to deal with, and we don't love that. That it may actually change parts of who we are that we've allowed to identify ourselves with—that we claim is a part of who we are—that God might mess with.
For some of us, it's not that at all, but it's just the fact that we don't trust God. We talk about trusting God; we sing about trusting God. But when it comes time to, you know, put our actions where our mouth is, it's a lot harder than we think.
Because what we're doing is we're inviting God not just to be a part of our life, but to mess with our life and to change our life and to shape our life. It requires us to be willing to let the Lord do that work in us.
Then for some of us, I think that we struggle with this type of a journey because if we're completely open and honest, there's part of us that wonders if we begin to open up that box in our own life, we wonder if the Lord will actually accept who we are.
Because in our minds, we think, "I don't know. I don't know that God actually knows about some stuff. I don't know that the Lord will accept some of the things that I've done. I don't know that the Lord will accept some of the thoughts that I have. I don't know that I can actually deal with the thought of being honest with the Lord enough to talk about these things."
And that, for many of us, is a struggle. For many of us, it's a struggle.
Regardless of which of these three that you're dealing with, regardless of which of these three that you're having to process, regardless of which of these three that holds you back, I think for all of us, the foundation is that when we think about allowing God to work in our life, the hesitation is that we think that God wants perfect people.
We think that God needs us to be perfect at the end of the restoration process or maybe even perfect going into the restoration process. The truth is, I want to take just a second in the just the minute or two left that I have with you this morning and say this:
God doesn't need perfect people; He needs present people. God doesn't need perfect people; He needs present people.
You say, "Well, you don't know what I did last night." I don't care what you did last night. I don't care what you did last week. I don't care about the thing that you've held quiet and not told people for the last 20 years. I don't care about any of that.
What I know is that the Lord is always inviting us to a journey of restoration. He's always inviting us to a journey of restoration. And where you've been, what you've done, it's irrelevant. What matters is that from where you're at right now, you say, "You know what? I'm going to be present, and I'm going to let the Lord lead me to restoration."
I don't care if you're eight or eighty; I'm going to let the Lord lead me to restoration. I'm going to let the Lord restore me, and in that, I'm going to be confident that even in my darkest day, I won't have to fear evil because He's with me.
Even those things that, as I begin the journey, frustrated me, that caused me pain, they're going to become comforts to me because He's doing that work in me. I can trust that even those people who've discounted me, who told me that I was never going to do anything right in my life, who told me I was a mistake, who told me I was nothing but a drunk, who told me that I would never be able to be faithful to a spouse because my dad wasn't faithful and my grandfather wasn't faithful, and I'd never be able to get my crap together because nobody else in my family has—all of those things, I can put them aside and be confident that as the Lord restores me, He will prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
All those things that have wounded me and hurt me and caused me pain will be healed because He anoints my head with oil; my cup will overflow. And through all of that, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
The Lord so deeply desires to take us through this journey. I'm going to ask everybody that is a part of our church—whether you're watching online or in person—this summer, we're all going to travel; we're all going to do stuff. But I'm going to ask you not to miss a service.
Whether that means you're in the room or you grab an archive online, we've made it super easy now. If you aren't here on a Sunday morning, totally fine. You can join us live, or you can, by Tuesday every week, you can typically jump online and go to our website and find just the message portion online. Super easy to get that; most weeks it's up by Tuesday.
So, I'm not saying be here because, hey, look, you can go on vacation, all that. But what I'm saying is let's take this journey together as a family and let God do a significant work in our lives.
Amen?
Everybody, stand with me all over the room. Your heads bowed and your eyes closed for just a second.
I just want to ask this morning: Are you allowing the Lord to lead you to a place of restoration? Are you open to God doing a work in your life—like really open? Not like you just say that you're open, but are you intentional about creating space so that the Lord can do work in your life?
If you're in here and you say, "You know what? I'm not there necessarily, but I'd like to be, and I want to take this journey this summer, and I want to come out of this summer different." If that's you, I'd love to pray for you for just a moment. Would you lift your hands?
Yeah, all over the room. Anybody else?
Yeah, yeah.
Lord, we're not perfect, but we're present today, and we're opening up our lives. We're opening up our hearts; we're opening up everything that we know how. We're asking You to change us. We're asking You to shape us. We're asking You to do a work in us that will leave us forever changed.
Lord, lead us to restoration. Do that work that only You can do, and allow these truths that are found in Psalms 23 to wash over our soul.
We ask these things in Your name, Jesus Christ, the strong Son of God.
Amen.