December 7, 2025 • 45 mins
Listen to Pastor Chris for his weekly sermons and lessons. Enjoy his down-to-earth and experiential style of communicating the Truths of an Eternal Life with Christ, which starts now and continues throughout all eternity.
It is made complete not only by His Sacrificial Act of the Cross but also by the Love, Grace, and mercy He has demonstrated, and serves as the model of how we should treat each other daily!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/TNR
It is made complete not only by His Sacrificial Act of the Cross but also by the Love, Grace, and mercy He has demonstrated, and serves as the model of how we should treat each other daily!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/TNR
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I guess the microphone is actually just works for downstairs,
Is that right? So well, I was just gonna say,
if if you can't hear me, just go down to
the nursery. You'll be able to hear me down there.
Really well, exactly actually being here's a wonderful blessing, and
(00:25):
give most of my family will be here, I guess
at the normal.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
At eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But this not just I don't mean just this place,
this building, but when I say the church, I mean
the building, but also the memories of the family of
God that meets here and met at other places before
this building was ever built. That's how far back I
go in connection with this body.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I actually met my wife in this church.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Which was actually meeting over at the student ugen building upstairs.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
When I visited, she was joining the church. And it's
probably just a small.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Crowd like this, And I grew up in California where
there's lots of you know, two three hundred people, like
is this really a church? It was, and so then
we so I started going and joined the church there,
and so me and my wife were baptized in this church.
(01:28):
Our two daughters were dedicated right up here somewhere, and
beautiful little linen dresses, you know, when they were about
two months old. So a lot of new things happened
in our life. We grew up spiritually in this body
of Christ, were discipled by past pastors that you know
Dan Robinson, Dan Walker and others that have touched the
(01:53):
life of my family. So wonderful to be here. I
was helped build that. I guess that's be the north wall, right,
you know. I stacked a bunch of cinder blocks up
on the scaffolding, got down from the scaffolding, and the
scaffolding fell down. The wall fell down, and the cinder
blocks came crashing down. So have lots of wonderful memories,
(02:18):
a lot of firsts, and another first today. And this
is the first time that I have ever preached this
early in the morning.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
This want you to know, so if I don't quite
get it, you'll understand, okay. So I want us to
look at a familiar passage I trust, and that is
a Psalm twenty three. The Lord is my shepherd. What
I want you to do first of all for me,
just one thing, because actually you may have read that psalm,
(02:52):
heard it quoted many times. Your grandmother probably made you
memorize it, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And beautiful psalm.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And if David had no more time than just to
write the Lord is my Shepherd, that would have been enough.
So I want you to just bow your heads for
just a moment, just kind of be quiet still right
where you're at, and I want you to think about
something for just a moment. I want you to think
about what you think that it means, or even maybe not,
(03:21):
just think about what it means. Imagine what it is
like for God or Jesus Christ to be your shepherd.
What's it look like, what's it feel like?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
What is he doing?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
How is he touching your life? And I guess you
could even think of it this way. Think not so
much about what is the shepherd like and how he
touches your life, but think about for a moment what
it's like to be the sheep and how the shepherd
touches the sheep's life.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Just think about that for just a moment.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Could probably put you to sleep, couldn't it, Because it
should be such a beautiful picture. Now you can look
up here and then tell me, I hope this you
can see this print from here? Does it look did
you imagine something similar maybe to this.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Can you see it back there? All right?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I was given to me by a very good friend
of mine, David and Carolyn Roper. And it just pictures beautifully,
does it not? The sheep and a shepherd. If you
noticed the mail scuard hand there, that's our shepherd.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And we may not like it, but that's us. Okay,
we probably don't like to be likened to a sheep
very much.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But because that's the kind of picture I think that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
David wants us to get in our minds. There are
a lot of great passages of scripture in the New Testament,
especially that describe Jesus in some very heavy theological ways.
You know, you think about John chapter one, and you
know Jesus being the Word and the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and Philippians chapter two, where he
(05:11):
gave up heaven and came down and gave up his life,
died on the cross for us, Colossians chapter one, where
it talks about the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ.
And some very wonderful passages of scripture that speak about
our savior, Jesus Christ gets us to be thinking about
(05:32):
some of the theological aspects of our God and our Savior.
This passage of Scripture I like because not the theological
theology isn't something that we're supposed to focus on. But
here David gets past maybe the theology, down to the
nuts and bolts of how God truly relates to us.
(05:56):
I heard the story about a pastor in all of
his years of counseling, would have sort of the beginning
session with the people that he counseled, had them draw
a picture of how they viewed God. And it was
sort of revealing how many of those that he ministered to,
and probably maybe even ourselves as well, we sort of
(06:17):
misappropriate thoughts and ideas regarding God and his approach to
us and the way that he relates to us. One
man brought this big picture of an eyeball. That's all
it was, was just one big eyeball, and he said
that it signified that he felt God was always watching,
and not in a good way, but it's sort of
(06:38):
in a negative way, you know, that just watching to
see if he was going to slip up, what kind
of mistakes was he going to make that day? And
God was then ready to sort of pounce on him.
Another man brought the drawing of a hawk, you know,
with those sharp talents, communicating the idea that he was
sort of the prey of God, and that God was
(07:02):
just ready to take his prey and her. Another came
with a like this, when a Christmas illustration of Ebenezer Scrooge,
you know, with Ebenezer over this ledger book, you know,
in front of him, hunched over it, and there was
the quivering Bob Cratchett standing there before him, fearful of
(07:23):
what his.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Boss might say.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Now we may not always be thinking or believe this way,
but sometimes I think, in you know, times when maybe
our faith might be shaken or tested, times when we're
stressed or sort of anxious about things in our lives,
that bits and pieces of these ideas begin to creep
(07:50):
into our heart. Sometimes I don't know where I got this,
but I sort of have this superstitious sort of outline
about God, and that is that if I think too
good about a situation and how it might turn out,
then I just think that God's gonna tear it all down.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I think the worst, so.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That when something good happens, I can feel good about it,
but that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It's just superstition, isn't it. But I think about.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
God that way sometimes, But that's not how David understood God,
and that's not how.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
He wants us to understand. God is in this sort
of mean way, ready to hurt and ready to pounce
on us. So it speaks very.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Beautifully, very descriptively of our Lord and how he relates
to us. It focuses on our Savior as a shepherd
and how that shepherd lovingly.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Impacts the lives of his sheep.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And so here's David the shepherd boy, so he knows
what he's talking about in terms of describing God, our
Savior as a shepherd. Saw this very profound parallel in
the relationship between a shepherd and a sheep and the
relationship between God and his children. And like I said,
the parallel is not very flattering. It's pretty good for
(09:19):
God or for Jesus to be described as a shepherd,
but not for us to be described as livestock. Really
when you think about it, as sheep, right, But like sheep,
we are in need of a shepherd, right, So really
it does fit because we need to be cared for
we need to be protected, We need to be guided
and watched over constantly, and so this psalm beautifully describes
(09:42):
that relationship one of.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
A shepherd to his sheep.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So I want to remind you of your God, want
to remind you of your Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ,
a very good shepherd who will watch over you, who
will care for you, who will sustain you.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He will provide for you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Though we might stray away from him quite often or
from time to time.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
He will never leave us, and he will never abandon us.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And so to know God as your shepherd means first
of all, that he will provide all that you need.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Now, to begin with, we need.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
To sort of capture get the right understanding of the
tone of the passage. Okay, because this inspired poem, and
rightly so, has found its place in many funerals.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I'm sure that you've seen it in the funeral bulletin
on the back many times, or some elderly man with
a very baritone voice will get up and recite allowed.
Psalm twenty three is a part of the service, and
it goes something like this.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
All on and goes in that sort of way, but
really the way that it ought to be spoken of
is totally different from that, because here we have David,
and though he's a shepherd, he's acting as though he
is the sheep right and with a lot of pride,
with a lot of devotion. He is literally boasting aloud,
the Lord is my shepherd. It's as if he's saying, look,
(11:23):
look who is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
It is the Lord. I belong to him.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He is mine, and I don't have anything to be
scared of. I don't have anything to be worried about.
Look at who my shepherd is. It's like a child
that hasn't seen their father in a week and comes home,
opens the door, and what happens That little boy, that
(11:49):
little girl comes running down the hallway screaming Daddy, Daddy,
Daddy can't wait to see the father. Or with the
pride and exuberance of the State alumni that can say what,
I am proud to be a part of the Bronco nation.
That's sort of the tone of David as he speaks
here with a lot of pride and a lot of excitement.
(12:12):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want now
in my younger years. As a child, lacking and understanding
of poetic structure, I really just misunderstood exactly what I
couldn't understand. Why would David say on one hand that
the Lord is his shepherd, and on the other hand,
(12:34):
but I don't want him. That's how I understood it.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want him.
Does that makes sense? I shall not want I never
kind of put it together, though he's actually saying, because
the Lord is my shepherd, I am.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
In want of nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I don't need anything because the Lord is my shepherd.
Not that Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Just didn't make sense to me why he wouldn't want
his shepherd.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You know what I'm saying, so Bo.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What he's saying is this shepherd, who is the creator,
who is the sustainer of the universe, the one who
has every resource at his disposal. This person, this God
is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's how he relates to me. Because God is our shepherd.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He cares for us, he watches over us, he works
for our benefit.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He can and does provide for every.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Kind of need that we could ever have in this life,
and just in some of the testimonies this morning, you
could already see that the Lord had been working in
your lives as what a shepherd providing at your very
hour of need. So truly David was saying, I do
not lack anything. What could I be in want of
(13:52):
when the God of the.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Universe is my shepherd? Nothing? Absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
But he might think, you know, critically, say well, you know, David,
he could say that easily anyway, because he's King, right,
he has everything that he could ever want. Yes, but
we need to understand Number one, he knew the difficult
job of being a shepherd because he was one. But
before taking the throne of Israel, David was forced to
(14:20):
what take refuge in the desert, constantly under duress and
of the threat.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Of King Saul.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
He knew what it was to be deprived of just
the you know, just the daily needs that we and
the comforts that we so much need, and the difficulty
he was being marked out for death was he not
by King Saul? Chased all around the desert, hiding in caves,
And even under those circumstances, David could say, God is
(14:50):
my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Therefore I don't need anything. See, that's what I think.
He was doing is he's writing the saw.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
He's looking way back into his life as a shepherd
boy and underst standing the relationship he had with his sheep,
and then he was going forward a little bit in
history as he's looking back at being chased around in
the desert by King Saul, his life threatened daily, and thinking, wow,
there's a pretty cool little comparison there, and so he
(15:16):
writes this psalm from that perspective. So I think he
was certainly thinking about just those normal sort of things
that we need in life.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But I think he.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Was also speaking of things deeper than just material needs
and physical needs, things like the peace of God that
surpasses all understanding, and the abundance of grace that God
gives us, the loving kindness that endures forever, the comfort
of all comforts, the unlimited forgiveness that God gives to us.
(15:50):
That's our shepherd. And that's what David wants us to
understand or to be reminded of. Now I must confess that,
and I always make this claim.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You know that the Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I shall not want because like sheep, we stray and
we go away from the one that loves us, and
the one that cares for us. And it's in those
times that I have strayed from my shepherd that I
forget about the peace, and I forget about the comfort,
and I forget about the grace, and I forget about
the forgiveness that has touched my life. And then all
(16:25):
of a sudden sudden, I am in want. I realize
how much I do need when I'm not connected with
the shepherd, and so I become in want of all
of those things, and that drives me back to the
shepherd again. But it's not just those gifts, because I
(16:46):
think that's an important thing for us to remember. It's
not just that Christ gives us things in abundance, those
spiritual sort of gifts that.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Are important to us.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But I think that God or Christ Jesus is the gift.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's the actual presence of our shepherd.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
David is thinking not merely of the blessings that the
shepherd provides, but the shepherd himself. Just being in the
presence of our shepherd is all that we need. We
can be utterly satisfied as sheep in the presence of
our owner. We can be content knowing that we are
(17:26):
our shepherd's sheep. So are you satisfied with Jesus? Are
you content with Christ's lordship over your life?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
We can be so restless. I can tell that by
many hours of sleep I get at night. We can
be so unsettled.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We can be envious people wanting this thing and wanting
that thing.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But can you say that the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. He will sustain you, will hold
you up.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He will come to your rescue, and he will touch
you and soothe the hurt that is in your soul. O.
Let me tell you that life and the circumstances of
it can strip away everything without much.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Of a moment's notice.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I was thinking about our ten brothers and sisters in
Christ who were incarcerated over there in Haiti for so
long that we had been praying about them. I thought
about their deprivation and the stressful circumstance that they were under,
and we just had to trust at that time and
pray for them along with David that they were saying
(18:42):
as well, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And I've been trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Actually at night and those restless, sleepless nights that I have,
or those times when start beginning to panic, and I
just sort of wonder sometimes what's going to happen next
in my life, and I start thinking about the future
that hasn't happened and starting to panic, and I just
have to say to myself over and over again, the
(19:08):
Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Nothing else. Just keep saying the Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The Lord is my shepherd because he provides all that
we need.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Also he provides rest and refreshment.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
To look at verse two of Psalm twenty three. He
makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me
beside quiet or still waters. He makes and that interesting
that we have to be made sometimes to be quieted.
It's like when we tell our kids they're bouncing around
(19:42):
our house, right, I can't.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
They're not just not under control. Just settle down, just
be quiet, I might.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I guess he's almost two years old. I have triplet grandchildren,
and their father works for Idaho Power, so he's out
of town for eight days. So my daughter, those little
triplets come over to grandmother and grandfather's house for about
five days at a time. And so two of them
are downstairs in a closet in a portable crib, and
(20:09):
the other ones in our closet in a portable crib,
and the one in our closet decided that she just
didn't want to sleep last night, so we picked her
up and put her in our bed with us. And
those little kids they just man, you know, they moving
their arms or moving their feet, and I just I
had to.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Make her sit still and grabbed her feet. Stop moving your.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Feet, you know, as if at twenty one month old
is really going to understand that. But she was sleeping
but in constant motion, you know, and I had to
make her. And that's how God has to do with
us sometimes, just make us to lie down in green pastors,
just settle down, because it's impossible really for a sheep
to lie down unless the sheep is free from fear,
(20:56):
free from past like flies, and free from hung as well,
just the sort of normal things of life. And so
it's only the shepherd, only the shepherd, that can provide
release from these sorts of anxieties. Our shepherd provides that
release from those kinds of fears. Now, there's certainly work
(21:18):
for us to do in the Kingdom of God right
and for the Kingdom of God Lord.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Has ministries for us.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But there's also just this beautiful rest for us to enjoy.
And I'm not acting like I'm some big expert about
this beautiful rest the Lord provides for us, because I
have to tell you there's sometimes I rarely truly can rest,
you know, unless I really get connected.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
With the Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So I'm not speaking as an expert here, but i
have experienced it, and I know sort of the peace,
you know, and the comfort that can come over a
person's heart and spirit when we understand and we can't
enjoy the rest that God has for us, it's in.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
His presence again. Remember that that that's where the panic
and the fear is dispelled from our life.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Knowing that the Shepherd is with us and for us
makes all of the difference in whether we are going
to fear what lies before us, or fear what lies
around us, or instead find rest in him. Whether we're
going to run in panic or whether we're going to
gather close and near to him.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So he makes us to lie down.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
In those green pastures where we can just feed and
find wonderful rest.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
He leads me beside still waters.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Literally that phrase means waters of refreshment. Sheep can go
a long time without water, but they still need it.
And the key to water for the sheep again lies
with who the shepherd. Now, God is always ready to
refresh us, refresh a weary and tired.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Soul, if only we will let him.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Augustine said, Oh God, you have made us for you,
and our souls are restless, searching until they find rest
in you. It's in God's presence that we will find
still and quiet, deep, clean, pure water that can satisfy
(23:21):
his sheep and bring calmness and security to us his sheep.
Just this past winter, my siblings and I were looking
for about a week of rest and relaxation in Arizona
after sort of a two year marathon of all sorts
(23:43):
of things going on in our life.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And it was surely a trying.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Two years, and we were just looking to get away
from things and to enjoy a little time of rest
and relaxation, little rest and refreshment from the end of
our difficulty. But what is so amazing about our shepherd
is that he brings us to those green pastures, and
(24:09):
he brings us to those quiet and still waters in
the midst of our chaos and in the midst of
our difficulty. I know that God sometimes and I pray
for it often. Lord, just end this trial, would you please?
Just end this difficulty, put a stop to this constant
(24:30):
bombardment of things that are happening in my life, and
give me a little rest, please, And He'll say, I've
got a different kind of idea, and that is I'm
going to bring you that rest, and I'm going to
give you that refreshment, but I'm not going to end anything.
I want you to discover what it's like to have
(24:50):
rest and refreshment when all of life is falling apart
around you. That truly is the kind of rest that
God wants us to experience. And I suppose, boy, that
would really be some spiritual groundbreaking moment in my life,
to truly find peace in the midst of chaos. Instead
(25:10):
of asking God all the time, just end the chaos
so I can have peace, I says, no, I want
you to have peace.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
In the midst of it instead of ending it.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You see, you remember the caves and the desert that
David was driven to. I think what he was trying
to say was that that desert actually was like green pastures,
and those caves and all those places that I was
hiding and that was like.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Still waters to me. Why because the shepherd was with me.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I remember again hearing some of the news reports about
our brothers and sisters while they were in Haiti and
there how they were going back and forth to those
appointments and so called court or whatever it was, the
hearings that they were going to, and they were all
thrown into those little wagons or cars that they were
driving in.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
As they were driving.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Away in the vehicle I was taking him back to
jail after one of the hearings, a reporter just noted
that they were quietly singing hymns. I don't know if
you remember that one story, but that that was one
of the stories that I remember as I watched a
lot of things and a lot of things that certainly
weren't very truthful that came out of that reporting, But
(26:25):
that was one truthful thing, and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That was that they were singing hymns.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And I was thinking, Wow, I think that's evidence, you know,
of sheep resting calmly in their shepherd amid all of
this chaos of a confused and sick society. Someone said,
Christ comes quietly and invites us to come to him,
because he himself is our true pasture. Christ himself is
(26:51):
our pool of quiet water, the nourishment.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
That we need, our living water. If we don't take
him in, we will starve.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
What else does he do for us? Where he provides
restoration and guidance? Looking verse three, he restores my soul.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness. For his name,
He restores my soul. It's the sheep and the good
Shepherd's care. Again, who is speaking? And I think David
(27:25):
is speaking from experience? Is he not that he knows what.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's like to have his soul restored?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And I think this phrase has a couple different applications.
Number One, I think he's talking here about how that
the shepherd revives the believer who is exhausted and weary,
because you know that life can drag us down, tire
us out with all of the constant demands and responsibilities
(27:54):
that lie before us. Not only are these obligations that
we have to meet, but we can get just swallowed
up in the extracurricular activities.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And boy, there's a lot of them that.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We can sign on some of them even good things
that we can sign on to, right, But there's a
lot of things, and all those things just can add
to the exhaustion, so we can just easily get caught
up in a whirldwind of activities, and then we find
ourselves running out of gas. And after we get over
(28:25):
fifty we just don't recover very well from any sort
of sickness, do we, And we find ourselves well as
we put I'm at the end of myself.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I'm just at the end of myself.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
My daughter is a mother, I guess now of twenty
one month old, on the move, demanding triplets, and she
is in constant need of restoration. And when she comes
over to our house after they leave, we are too.
In fact, one thing that my wife, she'll say, as
(28:59):
she puts it, some in one breath, she'll say, I
miss my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I'm exhausted. Both those things.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
All in one breath, because they are exhausting. But there
have been many a weary soul who, in turning to
the Shepherd, have been restored. And our shepherd raises the
fallen and refreshes the week. And these past two years,
actually about two and a half years now, of my life,
(29:28):
I've been challenging. It have been many times, have been
very difficult, I think it was about two and a
half years ago that I resigned for my role as
pastor there I think, in Ontario for over sixteen years.
A few months later I started a new job, and then,
as I said, I became a grandfather of those triplets.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
In that same.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Year, I gained another son in law, a good son
in law by the way, and then we move from Ontario,
which was our home for sixteen years, to come back
to this very busy, traffic infested town. And let me see,
then I lost both of my parents in less than
(30:14):
one year, and then inherited the responsibility of the family
business along with my siblings.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And then I thought I was kind.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Of coming out of it, you know, two year anniversary
and think, okay, this is this is the end of
all this stuff, right, And then I got shingles.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Anybody ever had shingles, Well.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You don't want them, and you ought to get inoculated
for him if you can, because they are terribly, horribly painful.
And I just happened to be of the special five
percent that lasts more than two weeks eight weeks. So
then there were shingles. Yet I found that in that
time that the words of my shepherd were always restorative,
(31:01):
lifting me up, encouraging me, and giving me the needed
strength to face an ever changing and ever busy and
always challenging life. In fact, the Bible says of itself,
the law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul,
so it revives the believer who is exhausted. And where
(31:24):
I think the other kind of application is that it
clantons as those who those believers that are separated or
estranged from God.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
The prophet Isaiah said, all of us, like sheep, have
gone astray, each to his own way.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
There is a way which seems right to a man,
but that way leads to destruction.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I think what the.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Prophet is saying is that sheep are creatures, have habits,
aren't they, And we follow the same trails, and we
graze the same places until they be come desolate places.
Someone said that no class of livestock recar requires more
careful handling and direction than that of sheep, because we
(32:13):
blindly and habitually follow one another and go our own way.
If somebody's going the wrong way, we follow them. And
if we're going the wrong way, there's some other sheep
following after us, and we can be stubborn. We can
be wilful if we turn to our own way, make
our own path, even though that that path can lead
sometimes to heartache and pain and difficulty. And I was
(32:35):
like that once, you know, going my own way, doing
my own thing. I was blind and I needed to see.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I was lame, and I.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Needed to walk, was lost, needed to finding by the Shepherd.
I needed total restoration of my soul. Needed to be
put back together and to be put back right the
way that God intended. Any of you know Paul Thompson, well,
part of the Thompsons this week, now, didn't you?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I purchased a nineteen sixty one Ford Falcon from him
about five years ago, and of course that's caused me
pain and consternation because I decided that I was going
to restore it the right way, and that way was
everything was going to be.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like it was new.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Well, I'm eighty percent there after about five years. But
that's the way that God wants to do. He just
wants to restore us the right way, to complete wholeness,
the way that He has designed and desires for us
to be, and so that we will walk and will
be guided the way that He wants to guide us,
and that is to be guided in paths of righteousness
(33:39):
or straight pass literally is what it wants what it
reads there in in verse three, Jesus wants to lead
us down a path of obedience, a path of righteousness,
and the sheep we never need to worry if we
are following the guidance of the ship.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's always the right path. If you seek.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
God, if you look to him for answers, if you
trust him for the unknown, he will answer, and he
will show you the right way, you know. And I
was just out before I came in this morning. I
was just reading over Psalm twenty three again, and I
never really put this together, but.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Listen to verses three and four together. He restores my soul.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
He guides me in paths of righteousness, and I think
this is key for his name's sake.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And then notice what comes next.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. And this
was the first time that I actually put it together.
And I don't know if it's intended that way or not.
But he talks in verse three about how God guides
(34:57):
us down.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Righteous paths, right right path.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And no matter what the path might be, no matter
what our opinion of what we meet down that path,
if God has guided us down it, it is the
right path.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right, it is the righteous path.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Even even if it is a path that we are
walking that is called the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
And we might say, as we're walking down it, this
doesn't seem right, this doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I don't like this. I don't like what it's leading to.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I don't like what it's doing to me and to
my family and all the things around me.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
This just can't be the right path.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But if God has let us down that path, it
is the right path. It is the righteous path. And
guess what if we stick to the shepherd and walk
down that path the way that he intends for us,
guess what will happen. It's going to lift up his
name because it's for his namesake, it's for his glory.
And so and I'm not saying that we do everything
(36:05):
perfectly when difficulty comes our way, I mean, obviously I don't.
But when we humble ourselves and to follow after the Lord,
even when it just doesn't seem like, well, it doesn't
seem like it.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Would be the way that I would plan it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
This is not the way that I would structure things.
And I was starting to think about it, all of
the little things that happened in my life. I was
thinking about my mother when she passed away, and she
so much wanted to live that she reached out to
some doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center there
(36:53):
to see if they could help her. And so that's
where she ended up in the hospital and having surgery
there and didn't go very well, and she passed away
in Utah instead of passing away here in Boise, where
her family was. And I said to God, now, this
is just this is not the way that I would
plan it. Why would you have my mother pass away
in some lonely town, you know, five six hundred miles away.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
And then I thought about my.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Daughter who has triplets, and I would think, Okay, you
know she has triplet that means she really needs to
have a husband around, right, and a father who's going
to come home and you know, take charge and give
her a little bit of time off.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
But he doesn't come home for eight days at a time.
And I thought This is not the way that I
would plan this. This just does not seem right.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
But it's God's will for some reason. And I don't
know what it is, and I probably won't ever know
until we get.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
To having some day and I'll ask him why. But
as the sheep, we have to trust.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Even when we don't understand, even when we think that
this is just not right the way that I would
ever structure things at all. We have to trust our shepherd.
He is the one that is leading, and if he's
leading down a certain.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Path, it is the righteous path. We need to trust
him for.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It, because really, when you think about it, sometimes I
don't think straight anyway as a sheep, right, but the shepherd.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Does, so we have to trust in him.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, that's where it brings us. Sometimes it's screen
pastures and nice, wonderful still waters, and at other times
it's the very shadow of death. And he's not talking
about death itself, but being in the shadows of it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I thought about job.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
That was somebody who was in the shadow of death,
wasn't I mean, he was as good as dead, And
I think his wife wanted him to die, curse God
and die right. So he was pretty close and suffering
terribly in his life, and so he was walking through
the Valley of the Shadow of death.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
But guess what what did he say? What did he proclaim?
I fear no evil, for you are with me, whether
day or night, peace or danger.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
You are with me in every situation, in every dark trial,
every dismal disappointment, in every distressing dilemma. Remember who's speaking
here about this Valley of the Shadow of death. It's David,
not a stranger to that kind of dilemma and that
(39:29):
kind of experience.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
But let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
We'll do this in closing, because I guess you have
Sunday school at what nine forty five, so you probably need.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
A little break. You're supposed to think about the Shepherd.
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Has God not shown his faithfulness to you in the
past crisis crisis of your life?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Has for me? Has He not proved himself.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Over and over and over again in your life? Remember
what the good Shepherd has said to us. In this
world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I have overcome the world.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord
delivers him out of them all. So although I walk
through the valley of the Shadow of Death, our fear
no evil. And he reminds us why, because you are
with me?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Is that simple?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Because God, because Christ, God in Christ is with us.
Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow you all the
days of your life.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Not maybe, not probably, but surely wonderful good things.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Of God is bounty, and his loving kindness is unfailing love.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
All of those things.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
And then guess what we get to do after all
that is said? Done to dwell in the House of
the Lord forever. And I think for David, obviously there
was something special about the House of the Lord, the
physical place.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That they worship.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But I think for us also it has that future
sort of understanding, does it that we are going to
dwell in the House of the Lord forever?
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Endeavor? So let's just power heads from a moment.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I'm not sure exactly how you handle this, so well,
let's just think about it again.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Think about the shepherd, okay, and what.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Does that shepherd? How does he appear to you, how
does he relate to you? How does he treat you.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Christ, our Savior, God in Christ is our constant companion,
one we have wonderful, beautiful communion with. And then the
wonderful promise that it's not only now well they're in
the good, the bad, the ugly, but also in the
future as well, that our Shepherd will be with us forever,
(42:16):
endev and ever. And that's something that I think we
need to grasp as we deal with the difficulties of
this life, to know that our Shepherd's with us, and
then also to be able to think that the weariness
and the trouble and the heartache coil and someday when
our Savior comes again to us. So for a few moments,
(42:36):
why don't you just pray right where you're at, just
quietly commune with the Shepherd, thanking him for.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Who he is to you, that he is a good.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Kind, gentle, tender God to you, not one that's ready
to pounce, one that's God's never ready to punish.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
He only does that.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Because he has to, because he has to punish in
But it's not something that he enjoys, something he's ready
to do. He's just ready to comfort, to get peace
and to give forgiveness and all those wonderful things. So
whatever wonderful, whatever good gift that it is, or if it's.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Just him himself, take that in.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
For just a few moments, and then I'll close this
in prayer.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Your Father in heaven. I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
For who you are to us, and I know the
truth the scripts you are that you do punish sin,
but it's only because of the great, wonderful God that
you are. And I want to thank you that you
loved us so much that you've sent your son, Jesus
Christ to.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Die for us.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
And then to live again, to be with us forever
in this life and in the difficulties that we face,
the challenges that meet us every day. I pray for
everyone here, with just their unique lives and their unique situations,
the things that they have to face this week, maybe
even today, that you would be a shepherd to them,
(44:46):
that you would guide them, Father, that you would give
them the humility and the strength to accept your guidance
wherever it leads, knowing that you will be with us always,
that your comfort, that your tenderness, that your peace, that
your goodness, that your mercy will follow us all the
(45:07):
days of our lives. And to know that we will
dwell in your kingdom with you forever and ever. One day,
May that encourage us, May that lift us up.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
In Jesus precious name. Amen. May God richly bless you,
I guess the microphone is actually just works for downstairs,
Is that right? So well, I was just gonna say,
if if you can't hear me, just go down to
the nursery. You'll be able to hear me down there.
Really well, exactly actually being here's a wonderful blessing, and
(00:25):
give most of my family will be here, I guess
at the normal.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
At eleven.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
But this not just I don't mean just this place,
this building, but when I say the church, I mean
the building, but also the memories of the family of
God that meets here and met at other places before
this building was ever built. That's how far back I
go in connection with this body.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I actually met my wife in this church.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Which was actually meeting over at the student ugen building upstairs.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
When I visited, she was joining the church. And it's
probably just a small.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Crowd like this, And I grew up in California where
there's lots of you know, two three hundred people, like
is this really a church? It was, and so then
we so I started going and joined the church there,
and so me and my wife were baptized in this church.
(01:28):
Our two daughters were dedicated right up here somewhere, and
beautiful little linen dresses, you know, when they were about
two months old. So a lot of new things happened
in our life. We grew up spiritually in this body
of Christ, were discipled by past pastors that you know
Dan Robinson, Dan Walker and others that have touched the
(01:53):
life of my family. So wonderful to be here. I
was helped build that. I guess that's be the north wall, right,
you know. I stacked a bunch of cinder blocks up
on the scaffolding, got down from the scaffolding, and the
scaffolding fell down. The wall fell down, and the cinder
blocks came crashing down. So have lots of wonderful memories,
(02:18):
a lot of firsts, and another first today. And this
is the first time that I have ever preached this
early in the morning.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Ever.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
This want you to know, so if I don't quite
get it, you'll understand, okay. So I want us to
look at a familiar passage I trust, and that is
a Psalm twenty three. The Lord is my shepherd. What
I want you to do first of all for me,
just one thing, because actually you may have read that psalm,
(02:52):
heard it quoted many times. Your grandmother probably made you
memorize it, all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And beautiful psalm.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
And if David had no more time than just to
write the Lord is my Shepherd, that would have been enough.
So I want you to just bow your heads for
just a moment, just kind of be quiet still right
where you're at, and I want you to think about
something for just a moment. I want you to think
about what you think that it means, or even maybe not,
(03:21):
just think about what it means. Imagine what it is
like for God or Jesus Christ to be your shepherd.
What's it look like, what's it feel like?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
What is he doing?
Speaker 1 (03:35):
How is he touching your life? And I guess you
could even think of it this way. Think not so
much about what is the shepherd like and how he
touches your life, but think about for a moment what
it's like to be the sheep and how the shepherd
touches the sheep's life.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Just think about that for just a moment.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Could probably put you to sleep, couldn't it, Because it
should be such a beautiful picture. Now you can look
up here and then tell me, I hope this you
can see this print from here? Does it look did
you imagine something similar maybe to this.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Can you see it back there? All right?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I was given to me by a very good friend
of mine, David and Carolyn Roper. And it just pictures beautifully,
does it not? The sheep and a shepherd. If you
noticed the mail scuard hand there, that's our shepherd.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
And we may not like it, but that's us. Okay,
we probably don't like to be likened to a sheep
very much.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
But because that's the kind of picture I think that.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
David wants us to get in our minds. There are
a lot of great passages of scripture in the New Testament,
especially that describe Jesus in some very heavy theological ways.
You know, you think about John chapter one, and you
know Jesus being the Word and the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and Philippians chapter two, where he
(05:11):
gave up heaven and came down and gave up his life,
died on the cross for us, Colossians chapter one, where
it talks about the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ.
And some very wonderful passages of scripture that speak about
our savior, Jesus Christ gets us to be thinking about
(05:32):
some of the theological aspects of our God and our Savior.
This passage of Scripture I like because not the theological
theology isn't something that we're supposed to focus on. But
here David gets past maybe the theology, down to the
nuts and bolts of how God truly relates to us.
(05:56):
I heard the story about a pastor in all of
his years of counseling, would have sort of the beginning
session with the people that he counseled, had them draw
a picture of how they viewed God. And it was
sort of revealing how many of those that he ministered to,
and probably maybe even ourselves as well, we sort of
(06:17):
misappropriate thoughts and ideas regarding God and his approach to
us and the way that he relates to us. One
man brought this big picture of an eyeball. That's all
it was, was just one big eyeball, and he said
that it signified that he felt God was always watching,
and not in a good way, but it's sort of
(06:38):
in a negative way, you know, that just watching to
see if he was going to slip up, what kind
of mistakes was he going to make that day? And
God was then ready to sort of pounce on him.
Another man brought the drawing of a hawk, you know,
with those sharp talents, communicating the idea that he was
sort of the prey of God, and that God was
(07:02):
just ready to take his prey and her. Another came
with a like this, when a Christmas illustration of Ebenezer Scrooge,
you know, with Ebenezer over this ledger book, you know,
in front of him, hunched over it, and there was
the quivering Bob Cratchett standing there before him, fearful of
(07:23):
what his.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Boss might say.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
Now we may not always be thinking or believe this way,
but sometimes I think, in you know, times when maybe
our faith might be shaken or tested, times when we're
stressed or sort of anxious about things in our lives,
that bits and pieces of these ideas begin to creep
(07:50):
into our heart. Sometimes I don't know where I got this,
but I sort of have this superstitious sort of outline
about God, and that is that if I think too
good about a situation and how it might turn out,
then I just think that God's gonna tear it all down.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So I think the worst, so.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That when something good happens, I can feel good about it,
but that's really what it is.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It's just superstition, isn't it. But I think about.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
God that way sometimes, But that's not how David understood God,
and that's not how.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
He wants us to understand. God is in this sort
of mean way, ready to hurt and ready to pounce
on us. So it speaks very.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Beautifully, very descriptively of our Lord and how he relates
to us. It focuses on our Savior as a shepherd
and how that shepherd lovingly.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Impacts the lives of his sheep.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And so here's David the shepherd boy, so he knows
what he's talking about in terms of describing God, our
Savior as a shepherd. Saw this very profound parallel in
the relationship between a shepherd and a sheep and the
relationship between God and his children. And like I said,
the parallel is not very flattering. It's pretty good for
(09:19):
God or for Jesus to be described as a shepherd,
but not for us to be described as livestock. Really
when you think about it, as sheep, right, But like sheep,
we are in need of a shepherd, right, So really
it does fit because we need to be cared for
we need to be protected, We need to be guided
and watched over constantly, and so this psalm beautifully describes
(09:42):
that relationship one of.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
A shepherd to his sheep.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
So I want to remind you of your God, want
to remind you of your Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ,
a very good shepherd who will watch over you, who
will care for you, who will sustain you.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
He will provide for you.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Though we might stray away from him quite often or
from time to time.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
He will never leave us, and he will never abandon us.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And so to know God as your shepherd means first
of all, that he will provide all that you need.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Now, to begin with, we need.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
To sort of capture get the right understanding of the
tone of the passage. Okay, because this inspired poem, and
rightly so, has found its place in many funerals.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I'm sure that you've seen it in the funeral bulletin
on the back many times, or some elderly man with
a very baritone voice will get up and recite allowed.
Psalm twenty three is a part of the service, and
it goes something like this.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
All on and goes in that sort of way, but
really the way that it ought to be spoken of
is totally different from that, because here we have David,
and though he's a shepherd, he's acting as though he
is the sheep right and with a lot of pride,
with a lot of devotion. He is literally boasting aloud,
the Lord is my shepherd. It's as if he's saying, look,
(11:23):
look who is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
It is the Lord. I belong to him.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He is mine, and I don't have anything to be
scared of. I don't have anything to be worried about.
Look at who my shepherd is. It's like a child
that hasn't seen their father in a week and comes home,
opens the door, and what happens That little boy, that
(11:49):
little girl comes running down the hallway screaming Daddy, Daddy,
Daddy can't wait to see the father. Or with the
pride and exuberance of the State alumni that can say what,
I am proud to be a part of the Bronco nation.
That's sort of the tone of David as he speaks
here with a lot of pride and a lot of excitement.
(12:12):
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want now
in my younger years. As a child, lacking and understanding
of poetic structure, I really just misunderstood exactly what I
couldn't understand. Why would David say on one hand that
the Lord is his shepherd, and on the other hand,
(12:34):
but I don't want him. That's how I understood it.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want him.
Does that makes sense? I shall not want I never
kind of put it together, though he's actually saying, because
the Lord is my shepherd, I am.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
In want of nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I don't need anything because the Lord is my shepherd.
Not that Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Just didn't make sense to me why he wouldn't want
his shepherd.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
You know what I'm saying, so Bo.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
What he's saying is this shepherd, who is the creator,
who is the sustainer of the universe, the one who
has every resource at his disposal. This person, this God
is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's how he relates to me. Because God is our shepherd.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He cares for us, he watches over us, he works
for our benefit.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
He can and does provide for every.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Kind of need that we could ever have in this life,
and just in some of the testimonies this morning, you
could already see that the Lord had been working in
your lives as what a shepherd providing at your very
hour of need. So truly David was saying, I do
not lack anything. What could I be in want of
(13:52):
when the God of the.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Universe is my shepherd? Nothing? Absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
But he might think, you know, critically, say well, you know, David,
he could say that easily anyway, because he's King, right,
he has everything that he could ever want. Yes, but
we need to understand Number one, he knew the difficult
job of being a shepherd because he was one. But
before taking the throne of Israel, David was forced to
(14:20):
what take refuge in the desert, constantly under duress and
of the threat.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Of King Saul.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
He knew what it was to be deprived of just
the you know, just the daily needs that we and
the comforts that we so much need, and the difficulty
he was being marked out for death was he not
by King Saul? Chased all around the desert, hiding in caves,
And even under those circumstances, David could say, God is
(14:50):
my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Therefore I don't need anything. See, that's what I think.
He was doing is he's writing the saw.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
He's looking way back into his life as a shepherd
boy and underst standing the relationship he had with his sheep,
and then he was going forward a little bit in
history as he's looking back at being chased around in
the desert by King Saul, his life threatened daily, and thinking, wow,
there's a pretty cool little comparison there, and so he
(15:16):
writes this psalm from that perspective. So I think he
was certainly thinking about just those normal sort of things
that we need in life.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
But I think he.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Was also speaking of things deeper than just material needs
and physical needs, things like the peace of God that
surpasses all understanding, and the abundance of grace that God
gives us, the loving kindness that endures forever, the comfort
of all comforts, the unlimited forgiveness that God gives to us.
(15:50):
That's our shepherd. And that's what David wants us to
understand or to be reminded of. Now I must confess that,
and I always make this claim.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
You know that the Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I shall not want because like sheep, we stray and
we go away from the one that loves us, and
the one that cares for us. And it's in those
times that I have strayed from my shepherd that I
forget about the peace, and I forget about the comfort,
and I forget about the grace, and I forget about
the forgiveness that has touched my life. And then all
(16:25):
of a sudden sudden, I am in want. I realize
how much I do need when I'm not connected with
the shepherd, and so I become in want of all
of those things, and that drives me back to the
shepherd again. But it's not just those gifts, because I
(16:46):
think that's an important thing for us to remember. It's
not just that Christ gives us things in abundance, those
spiritual sort of gifts that.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Are important to us.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
But I think that God or Christ Jesus is the gift.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's the actual presence of our shepherd.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
David is thinking not merely of the blessings that the
shepherd provides, but the shepherd himself. Just being in the
presence of our shepherd is all that we need. We
can be utterly satisfied as sheep in the presence of
our owner. We can be content knowing that we are
(17:26):
our shepherd's sheep. So are you satisfied with Jesus? Are
you content with Christ's lordship over your life?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
We can be so restless. I can tell that by
many hours of sleep I get at night. We can
be so unsettled.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
We can be envious people wanting this thing and wanting
that thing.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
But can you say that the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. He will sustain you, will hold
you up.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He will come to your rescue, and he will touch
you and soothe the hurt that is in your soul. O.
Let me tell you that life and the circumstances of
it can strip away everything without much.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Of a moment's notice.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I was thinking about our ten brothers and sisters in
Christ who were incarcerated over there in Haiti for so
long that we had been praying about them. I thought
about their deprivation and the stressful circumstance that they were under,
and we just had to trust at that time and
pray for them along with David that they were saying
(18:42):
as well, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
And I've been trying to do that.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Actually at night and those restless, sleepless nights that I have,
or those times when start beginning to panic, and I
just sort of wonder sometimes what's going to happen next
in my life, and I start thinking about the future
that hasn't happened and starting to panic, and I just
have to say to myself over and over again, the
(19:08):
Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Nothing else. Just keep saying the Lord is my shepherd.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The Lord is my shepherd because he provides all that
we need.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Also he provides rest and refreshment.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
To look at verse two of Psalm twenty three. He
makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me
beside quiet or still waters. He makes and that interesting
that we have to be made sometimes to be quieted.
It's like when we tell our kids they're bouncing around
(19:42):
our house, right, I can't.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
They're not just not under control. Just settle down, just
be quiet, I might.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I guess he's almost two years old. I have triplet grandchildren,
and their father works for Idaho Power, so he's out
of town for eight days. So my daughter, those little
triplets come over to grandmother and grandfather's house for about
five days at a time. And so two of them
are downstairs in a closet in a portable crib, and
(20:09):
the other ones in our closet in a portable crib,
and the one in our closet decided that she just
didn't want to sleep last night, so we picked her
up and put her in our bed with us. And
those little kids they just man, you know, they moving
their arms or moving their feet, and I just I
had to.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Make her sit still and grabbed her feet. Stop moving your.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Feet, you know, as if at twenty one month old
is really going to understand that. But she was sleeping
but in constant motion, you know, and I had to
make her. And that's how God has to do with
us sometimes, just make us to lie down in green pastors,
just settle down, because it's impossible really for a sheep
to lie down unless the sheep is free from fear,
(20:56):
free from past like flies, and free from hung as well,
just the sort of normal things of life. And so
it's only the shepherd, only the shepherd, that can provide
release from these sorts of anxieties. Our shepherd provides that
release from those kinds of fears. Now, there's certainly work
(21:18):
for us to do in the Kingdom of God right
and for the Kingdom of God Lord.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Has ministries for us.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
But there's also just this beautiful rest for us to enjoy.
And I'm not acting like I'm some big expert about
this beautiful rest the Lord provides for us, because I
have to tell you there's sometimes I rarely truly can rest,
you know, unless I really get connected.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
With the Shepherd.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
So I'm not speaking as an expert here, but i
have experienced it, and I know sort of the peace,
you know, and the comfort that can come over a
person's heart and spirit when we understand and we can't
enjoy the rest that God has for us, it's in.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
His presence again. Remember that that that's where the panic
and the fear is dispelled from our life.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Knowing that the Shepherd is with us and for us
makes all of the difference in whether we are going
to fear what lies before us, or fear what lies
around us, or instead find rest in him. Whether we're
going to run in panic or whether we're going to
gather close and near to him.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
So he makes us to lie down.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
In those green pastures where we can just feed and
find wonderful rest.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
He leads me beside still waters.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Literally that phrase means waters of refreshment. Sheep can go
a long time without water, but they still need it.
And the key to water for the sheep again lies
with who the shepherd. Now, God is always ready to
refresh us, refresh a weary and tired.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Soul, if only we will let him.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Augustine said, Oh God, you have made us for you,
and our souls are restless, searching until they find rest
in you. It's in God's presence that we will find
still and quiet, deep, clean, pure water that can satisfy
(23:21):
his sheep and bring calmness and security to us his sheep.
Just this past winter, my siblings and I were looking
for about a week of rest and relaxation in Arizona
after sort of a two year marathon of all sorts
(23:43):
of things going on in our life.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
And it was surely a trying.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Two years, and we were just looking to get away
from things and to enjoy a little time of rest
and relaxation, little rest and refreshment from the end of
our difficulty. But what is so amazing about our shepherd
is that he brings us to those green pastures, and
(24:09):
he brings us to those quiet and still waters in
the midst of our chaos and in the midst of
our difficulty. I know that God sometimes and I pray
for it often. Lord, just end this trial, would you please?
Just end this difficulty, put a stop to this constant
(24:30):
bombardment of things that are happening in my life, and
give me a little rest, please, And He'll say, I've
got a different kind of idea, and that is I'm
going to bring you that rest, and I'm going to
give you that refreshment, but I'm not going to end anything.
I want you to discover what it's like to have
(24:50):
rest and refreshment when all of life is falling apart
around you. That truly is the kind of rest that
God wants us to experience. And I suppose, boy, that
would really be some spiritual groundbreaking moment in my life,
to truly find peace in the midst of chaos. Instead
(25:10):
of asking God all the time, just end the chaos
so I can have peace, I says, no, I want
you to have peace.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
In the midst of it instead of ending it.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
You see, you remember the caves and the desert that
David was driven to. I think what he was trying
to say was that that desert actually was like green pastures,
and those caves and all those places that I was
hiding and that was like.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Still waters to me. Why because the shepherd was with me.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I remember again hearing some of the news reports about
our brothers and sisters while they were in Haiti and
there how they were going back and forth to those
appointments and so called court or whatever it was, the
hearings that they were going to, and they were all
thrown into those little wagons or cars that they were
driving in.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
As they were driving.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Away in the vehicle I was taking him back to
jail after one of the hearings, a reporter just noted
that they were quietly singing hymns. I don't know if
you remember that one story, but that that was one
of the stories that I remember as I watched a
lot of things and a lot of things that certainly
weren't very truthful that came out of that reporting, But
(26:25):
that was one truthful thing, and.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That was that they were singing hymns.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
And I was thinking, Wow, I think that's evidence, you know,
of sheep resting calmly in their shepherd amid all of
this chaos of a confused and sick society. Someone said,
Christ comes quietly and invites us to come to him,
because he himself is our true pasture. Christ himself is
(26:51):
our pool of quiet water, the nourishment.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
That we need, our living water. If we don't take
him in, we will starve.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
What else does he do for us? Where he provides
restoration and guidance? Looking verse three, he restores my soul.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness. For his name,
He restores my soul. It's the sheep and the good
Shepherd's care. Again, who is speaking? And I think David
(27:25):
is speaking from experience? Is he not that he knows what.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
It's like to have his soul restored?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And I think this phrase has a couple different applications.
Number One, I think he's talking here about how that
the shepherd revives the believer who is exhausted and weary,
because you know that life can drag us down, tire
us out with all of the constant demands and responsibilities
(27:54):
that lie before us. Not only are these obligations that
we have to meet, but we can get just swallowed
up in the extracurricular activities.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
And boy, there's a lot of them that.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We can sign on some of them even good things
that we can sign on to, right, But there's a
lot of things, and all those things just can add
to the exhaustion, so we can just easily get caught
up in a whirldwind of activities, and then we find
ourselves running out of gas. And after we get over
(28:25):
fifty we just don't recover very well from any sort
of sickness, do we, And we find ourselves well as
we put I'm at the end of myself.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
I'm just at the end of myself.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
My daughter is a mother, I guess now of twenty
one month old, on the move, demanding triplets, and she
is in constant need of restoration. And when she comes
over to our house after they leave, we are too.
In fact, one thing that my wife, she'll say, as
(28:59):
she puts it, some in one breath, she'll say, I
miss my grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
I'm exhausted. Both those things.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
All in one breath, because they are exhausting. But there
have been many a weary soul who, in turning to
the Shepherd, have been restored. And our shepherd raises the
fallen and refreshes the week. And these past two years,
actually about two and a half years now, of my life,
(29:28):
I've been challenging. It have been many times, have been
very difficult, I think it was about two and a
half years ago that I resigned for my role as
pastor there I think, in Ontario for over sixteen years.
A few months later I started a new job, and then,
as I said, I became a grandfather of those triplets.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
In that same.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Year, I gained another son in law, a good son
in law by the way, and then we move from Ontario,
which was our home for sixteen years, to come back
to this very busy, traffic infested town. And let me see,
then I lost both of my parents in less than
(30:14):
one year, and then inherited the responsibility of the family
business along with my siblings.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And then I thought I was kind.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Of coming out of it, you know, two year anniversary
and think, okay, this is this is the end of
all this stuff, right, And then I got shingles.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Anybody ever had shingles, Well.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
You don't want them, and you ought to get inoculated
for him if you can, because they are terribly, horribly painful.
And I just happened to be of the special five
percent that lasts more than two weeks eight weeks. So
then there were shingles. Yet I found that in that
time that the words of my shepherd were always restorative,
(31:01):
lifting me up, encouraging me, and giving me the needed
strength to face an ever changing and ever busy and
always challenging life. In fact, the Bible says of itself,
the law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul,
so it revives the believer who is exhausted. And where
(31:24):
I think the other kind of application is that it
clantons as those who those believers that are separated or
estranged from God.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
The prophet Isaiah said, all of us, like sheep, have
gone astray, each to his own way.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
There is a way which seems right to a man,
but that way leads to destruction.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I think what the.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Prophet is saying is that sheep are creatures, have habits,
aren't they, And we follow the same trails, and we
graze the same places until they be come desolate places.
Someone said that no class of livestock recar requires more
careful handling and direction than that of sheep, because we
(32:13):
blindly and habitually follow one another and go our own way.
If somebody's going the wrong way, we follow them. And
if we're going the wrong way, there's some other sheep
following after us, and we can be stubborn. We can
be wilful if we turn to our own way, make
our own path, even though that that path can lead
sometimes to heartache and pain and difficulty. And I was
(32:35):
like that once, you know, going my own way, doing
my own thing. I was blind and I needed to see.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I was lame, and I.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Needed to walk, was lost, needed to finding by the Shepherd.
I needed total restoration of my soul. Needed to be
put back together and to be put back right the
way that God intended. Any of you know Paul Thompson, well,
part of the Thompsons this week, now, didn't you?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:03):
I purchased a nineteen sixty one Ford Falcon from him
about five years ago, and of course that's caused me
pain and consternation because I decided that I was going
to restore it the right way, and that way was
everything was going to be.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like it was new.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Well, I'm eighty percent there after about five years. But
that's the way that God wants to do. He just
wants to restore us the right way, to complete wholeness,
the way that He has designed and desires for us
to be, and so that we will walk and will
be guided the way that He wants to guide us,
and that is to be guided in paths of righteousness
(33:39):
or straight pass literally is what it wants what it
reads there in in verse three, Jesus wants to lead
us down a path of obedience, a path of righteousness,
and the sheep we never need to worry if we
are following the guidance of the ship.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It's always the right path. If you seek.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
God, if you look to him for answers, if you
trust him for the unknown, he will answer, and he
will show you the right way, you know. And I
was just out before I came in this morning. I
was just reading over Psalm twenty three again, and I
never really put this together, but.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Listen to verses three and four together. He restores my soul.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
He guides me in paths of righteousness, and I think
this is key for his name's sake.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
And then notice what comes next.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. And this
was the first time that I actually put it together.
And I don't know if it's intended that way or not.
But he talks in verse three about how God guides
(34:57):
us down.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Righteous paths, right right path.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
And no matter what the path might be, no matter
what our opinion of what we meet down that path,
if God has guided us down it, it is the
right path.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right, it is the righteous path.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Even even if it is a path that we are
walking that is called the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
And we might say, as we're walking down it, this
doesn't seem right, this doesn't seem fair.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I don't like this. I don't like what it's leading to.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I don't like what it's doing to me and to
my family and all the things around me.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
This just can't be the right path.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But if God has let us down that path, it
is the right path. It is the righteous path. And
guess what if we stick to the shepherd and walk
down that path the way that he intends for us,
guess what will happen. It's going to lift up his
name because it's for his namesake, it's for his glory.
And so and I'm not saying that we do everything
(36:05):
perfectly when difficulty comes our way, I mean, obviously I don't.
But when we humble ourselves and to follow after the Lord,
even when it just doesn't seem like, well, it doesn't
seem like it.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Would be the way that I would plan it.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
This is not the way that I would structure things.
And I was starting to think about it, all of
the little things that happened in my life. I was
thinking about my mother when she passed away, and she
so much wanted to live that she reached out to
some doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center there
(36:53):
to see if they could help her. And so that's
where she ended up in the hospital and having surgery
there and didn't go very well, and she passed away
in Utah instead of passing away here in Boise, where
her family was. And I said to God, now, this
is just this is not the way that I would
plan it. Why would you have my mother pass away
in some lonely town, you know, five six hundred miles away.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
And then I thought about my.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Daughter who has triplets, and I would think, Okay, you
know she has triplet that means she really needs to
have a husband around, right, and a father who's going
to come home and you know, take charge and give
her a little bit of time off.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
But he doesn't come home for eight days at a time.
And I thought This is not the way that I
would plan this. This just does not seem right.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
But it's God's will for some reason. And I don't
know what it is, and I probably won't ever know
until we get.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
To having some day and I'll ask him why. But
as the sheep, we have to trust.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Even when we don't understand, even when we think that
this is just not right the way that I would
ever structure things at all. We have to trust our shepherd.
He is the one that is leading, and if he's
leading down a certain.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Path, it is the righteous path. We need to trust
him for.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It, because really, when you think about it, sometimes I
don't think straight anyway as a sheep, right, but the shepherd.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Does, so we have to trust in him.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
So though I walk through the valley of the shadow
of death, that's where it brings us. Sometimes it's screen
pastures and nice, wonderful still waters, and at other times
it's the very shadow of death. And he's not talking
about death itself, but being in the shadows of it.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
And I thought about job.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
That was somebody who was in the shadow of death,
wasn't I mean, he was as good as dead, And
I think his wife wanted him to die, curse God
and die right. So he was pretty close and suffering
terribly in his life, and so he was walking through
the Valley of the Shadow of death.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
But guess what what did he say? What did he proclaim?
I fear no evil, for you are with me, whether
day or night, peace or danger.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
You are with me in every situation, in every dark trial,
every dismal disappointment, in every distressing dilemma. Remember who's speaking
here about this Valley of the Shadow of death. It's David,
not a stranger to that kind of dilemma and that
(39:29):
kind of experience.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
But let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
We'll do this in closing, because I guess you have
Sunday school at what nine forty five, so you probably need.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
A little break. You're supposed to think about the Shepherd.
So let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Has God not shown his faithfulness to you in the
past crisis crisis of your life?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Has for me? Has He not proved himself.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Over and over and over again in your life? Remember
what the good Shepherd has said to us. In this
world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I have overcome the world.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord
delivers him out of them all. So although I walk
through the valley of the Shadow of Death, our fear
no evil. And he reminds us why, because you are
with me?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Is that simple?
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Because God, because Christ, God in Christ is with us.
Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow you all the
days of your life.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Not maybe, not probably, but surely wonderful good things.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Of God is bounty, and his loving kindness is unfailing love.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
All of those things.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
And then guess what we get to do after all
that is said? Done to dwell in the House of
the Lord forever. And I think for David, obviously there
was something special about the House of the Lord, the
physical place.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
That they worship.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
But I think for us also it has that future
sort of understanding, does it that we are going to
dwell in the House of the Lord forever?
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Endeavor? So let's just power heads from a moment.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
I'm not sure exactly how you handle this, so well,
let's just think about it again.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Let's go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Think about the shepherd, okay, and what.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Does that shepherd? How does he appear to you, how
does he relate to you? How does he treat you.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Christ, our Savior, God in Christ is our constant companion,
one we have wonderful, beautiful communion with. And then the
wonderful promise that it's not only now well they're in
the good, the bad, the ugly, but also in the
future as well, that our Shepherd will be with us forever,
(42:16):
endev and ever. And that's something that I think we
need to grasp as we deal with the difficulties of
this life, to know that our Shepherd's with us, and
then also to be able to think that the weariness
and the trouble and the heartache coil and someday when
our Savior comes again to us. So for a few moments,
(42:36):
why don't you just pray right where you're at, just
quietly commune with the Shepherd, thanking him for.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Who he is to you, that he is a good.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Kind, gentle, tender God to you, not one that's ready
to pounce, one that's God's never ready to punish.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
He only does that.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Because he has to, because he has to punish in
But it's not something that he enjoys, something he's ready
to do. He's just ready to comfort, to get peace
and to give forgiveness and all those wonderful things. So
whatever wonderful, whatever good gift that it is, or if it's.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Just him himself, take that in.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
For just a few moments, and then I'll close this
in prayer.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Your Father in heaven. I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
For who you are to us, and I know the
truth the scripts you are that you do punish sin,
but it's only because of the great, wonderful God that
you are. And I want to thank you that you
loved us so much that you've sent your son, Jesus
Christ to.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Die for us.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
And then to live again, to be with us forever
in this life and in the difficulties that we face,
the challenges that meet us every day. I pray for
everyone here, with just their unique lives and their unique situations,
the things that they have to face this week, maybe
even today, that you would be a shepherd to them,
(44:46):
that you would guide them, Father, that you would give
them the humility and the strength to accept your guidance
wherever it leads, knowing that you will be with us always,
that your comfort, that your tenderness, that your peace, that
your goodness, that your mercy will follow us all the
(45:07):
days of our lives. And to know that we will
dwell in your kingdom with you forever and ever. One day,
May that encourage us, May that lift us up.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
In Jesus precious name. Amen. May God richly bless you,
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