Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Well, good morning, West Campus.
[00:00:07] It's a great Sunday. I'm so excited to share this message with you to dive in. I was prepared for like some sort of teasing comment from you. Chat. I don't know what to do with myself right now.
[00:00:18] I guess we should just start with prayer. Would you bow your heads and pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, we love you. You are a good and mighty God. Thank you, Lord, that you are the good shepherd of our lives, Lord. Thank you that we can trust you and trust that you are always with us through the high moments and through the lows. I pray, Lord, that your message would speak to every heart here. I pray that if our hearts are heavy and just need to hear from you, God, that today would be the day. I pray that we would feel energized and refueled and, Lord, that we can be the men, women that you have called us to be. We love you. We trust you. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:00] Well, every year or so, my family and I, we try to take a vacation.
[00:01:05] We've gone to places like Disney and North Carolina and South Carolina. I think I have a picture. Oh, there they are.
[00:01:14] We've got my husband Bob, tall man, parking cars.
[00:01:19] My daughter Mia, she's going to be driving soon. Yeah, this is scary. It's good, but it's.
[00:01:25] And then my little one, Lexi. But yeah, we've gone to Disney Florida. And me personally, I would love to fly. I think it would save us a lot of time.
[00:01:35] Two of my family members, they don't want to fly. So my daughter, I won't say which one because I'm not going to embarrass her, but she's terrified. She said the only way we're getting her on a plane is if we knock her out, carry her body and physically put her on a plane.
[00:01:53] I've not seen it done.
[00:01:55] I don't know if it's possible, but I'm not going to be the first one to try.
[00:01:59] And then the second family member, I will tell you, it's my husband.
[00:02:04] He's. I don't know how else to say it other than he's a little bit of a control freak. So he's not getting on a plane. He would prefer to drive. There you go. Same. So he wants to leave when he wants to. He wants to pack the car the way that he wants to. Our luggage is nice and organized and.
[00:02:23] Yeah, so.
[00:02:25] And because my husband thinks.
[00:02:28] Got some control freaks in here this morning.
[00:02:34] And because my husband thinks that he is a professional Race car driver.
[00:02:40] He ends up driving the whole trip, which leaves me. Are you ready? It leaves me as the navigator. That is right. I am in charge of the gps. I am in charge of getting my family miles and miles from point A to point B.
[00:02:58] Me, I'm gonna be honest.
[00:03:03] You know where this is going. I'm not a good navigator. I'm not good with directions. I have gotten lost in Elyria. I've lived here my whole life.
[00:03:12] Um, that's me.
[00:03:23] Something happens when I'm in the car. And I've been in the car longer than, like, 30 minutes. We could take it down now.
[00:03:32] You were a little early, but that's okay.
[00:03:36] But no, really, I'm not a good navigator. Something happens when I'm in the car. I get so cozy. I want the head pillow. I want the blankets. I want the snacks. I don't know if my mom or dad, did they drive me around when I was a baby to put me to sleep at night. I don't know. But listen, I'm not a good navigator. And as you can guess, once or twice or a few times, I may have missed an exit. I was supposed to be paying attention to the GPS and I was so distracted or I fell asleep.
[00:04:07] Which then leads to a very irritated control freak and a lot of chaos in the car and us not knowing where we're.
[00:04:17] But do you ever feel like this in life? Like sometimes life is just really hard to navigate.
[00:04:24] Like sometimes we have these expectations and we can make all these plans and we think we know how life is going to go and we just get lost.
[00:04:32] And life can feel overwhelming. Listen, I've got two teenage daughters. Sometimes life is hard to navigate.
[00:04:40] But the Bible tells us that there is someone who is qualified to be the best navigators of our lives.
[00:04:49] He will lead us. He'll guide us. And his very presence alone renews our soul. And today we are going to look at a very popular psalm.
[00:04:59] And before we dive in, I just want us to have fresh eyes, fresh hearts. Because, see, some of us have heard this.
[00:05:07] But when we meet God and we experience God, it changes our hearts. So today we're going to look at Psalm 23.
[00:05:17] And it goes 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 restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
[00:05:36] Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 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 enemy. 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.
[00:06:03] The one thing that I want us to take away from this today is that God qualified to lead our lives.
[00:06:11] God is the good shepherd of our lives. So I want to break this down in just three parts today.
[00:06:19] Why we need a shepherd.
[00:06:22] What kind of shepherd is God, and what does that mean for us?
[00:06:28] The Bible uses a lot of metaphors. It's its way of connecting an image to our spiritual life. And this metaphor and many others in the Bible, they use the metaphor of God as a shepherd, and we are like sheep.
[00:06:44] And you might not know this by looking at me, but I am not a farmer.
[00:06:52] It's true.
[00:06:54] But I have learned a lot about sheep. And when the Bible is saying that we are like sheep, they're not saying, like, oh, we're so cute and fluffy and adorable.
[00:07:05] Not exactly.
[00:07:07] See, sheep, they tend to wander.
[00:07:10] They get lost easy. They need help with basic needs like food and water. And by design, they were created to need a shepherd.
[00:07:21] And us like sheep. By design, we were created to be with God.
[00:07:30] So spiritually, we're like sheep.
[00:07:34] So why do we need a shepherd? Because, like sheep, we need rest.
[00:07:38] You weren't very excited about this time change, but I'll tell you what, it feels like a gift from God himself.
[00:07:46] Clearly, I like to sleep now when we lose an hour. Satan's real.
[00:07:53] He comes to kill and steal and destroy, and he takes that hour.
[00:07:59] No, but really, when we are not rested, we are physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted.
[00:08:11] And we don't think the same way we normally would. We can overreact.
[00:08:18] We can feel like the weight of the world is just on our shoulders.
[00:08:24] So I showed you a picture of my husband. He is amazing. He really is. He's a good man.
[00:08:30] I think somewhere along the lines, he must have gotten bit with, like, a radioactive spider and didn't tell me, because this man is the most productive human I have ever met in my life. Like, this man will knock out a checklist and then my checklist and then other people's checklist. Like, he's so busy, he doesn't stop.
[00:08:52] You saw me.
[00:08:56] But really, we're all made and wired different, and we all need rest. Looks different for each and every one of us.
[00:09:04] But David is saying God makes him lie down in green pastures. He leads him beside still Waters.
[00:09:14] See, God wants all of us to rest, and it's going to look different for each of us in our lives. And another reason we need a shepherd. When we're not rested, we end up carrying more than we're meant to.
[00:09:31] We're just being super transparent today, so I'll share with you. Whenever I go grocery shopping, I have this challenge in my mind. I get the groceries home, and mom is getting these things out in one trip.
[00:09:43] I've gotten more than one trip's worth of groceries. But I don't know, I'm determined. So I'll get out of the car and I just start loading, and I'm pulling those bags over my arms, and I've got the, you know, whatever it is, the paper towels, and it's ridiculous.
[00:09:59] And more times than not, I end up dropping something.
[00:10:03] Sometimes it's the cheese, sometimes it's the eggs.
[00:10:07] But see, sometimes in life, we end up spiritually caring more than we're meant to.
[00:10:15] And some of us in this room, we have a hard time asking for help.
[00:10:20] And see, God wants to help. He wants to lead us.
[00:10:26] And sometimes we have to ask others for help. And that is a challenge.
[00:10:33] Being vulnerable and sharing what's going on, it can be hard sometimes. But I promise you, God has put good people in this church, good people in your life that love him and are going to be there to support you and encourage you.
[00:10:49] Another reason we need a shepherd is because we can become spiritually distracted.
[00:10:57] I can become easily distracted. Not just spiritually distracted, but see, our shepherd, he wants our time and our attention.
[00:11:08] There's been times where I've been on the phone and I'm talking to someone, and someone. It never fails. My daughters will ask me a question, and I'm, like, trying to pay attention to the phone conversation. I'm trying to pay attention to their needs. And then I hang up the phone, and then I'm looking at my daughters. I'm like, what did we just buy?
[00:11:28] Where are you going?
[00:11:30] And I think, I can just. We can do this in our faith. Like, there's some mornings I am on fire for God. I am his girl. We are changing the world. Lead the way. I get my Bible out. I get my journal out, and I'm just ready to be with him.
[00:11:48] And then my phone will ding, and I'm like, okay, I'm just going to check my phone. It's just one text message.
[00:11:56] Oh. And then I see there's emails, and I'm like, okay, I'm just going to check these couple Emails and God, I'll be right with you in just a minute. I know you're there.
[00:12:05] And before I know it, all this time that I thought I had set aside for God, I was so distracted.
[00:12:16] And spiritually, when we're distracted, we can get lost easily.
[00:12:22] Something else I've learned about sheep is that they can travel the same road every single day. They can travel it every single day and still get lost.
[00:12:36] Sounds like someone else.
[00:12:40] They get lost because they're out looking for food and they wander off away from their shepherd. They'll get lost because something will scare them and they'll just scurry off.
[00:12:52] And sometimes I think this can happen to us. Like, we can get lost for many reasons. Sometimes we become so confident, like, God, I got this. Don't worry. And before you know it, we're lost.
[00:13:11] See, we need a shepherd that is going to continue to guide us, our lives.
[00:13:18] Not only is God a caring shepherd, He's a protective shepherd.
[00:13:28] Verse 4 says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
[00:13:37] Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
[00:13:42] So we need a shepherd, and God is a present shepherd. It says that he's present in the valley. So to find these green pastures and these nice, clean puddles of water, shepherds would have to travel with their sheep through the dark valleys and through hills and through mountains.
[00:14:03] And see, sometimes in life, we're going to experience those valleys.
[00:14:08] Sometimes in life, it gets real heavy.
[00:14:12] And I used to think that when my circumstances were good, like everything else was good, if I do all the right things, then God is a good God.
[00:14:24] But see, God doesn't promise us an easy life.
[00:14:29] He promises that he'll never leave us and that he'll always be with us.
[00:14:36] And see, sometimes our instinct in the valley, it's to turn away from God and not towards him. Stephen Kuss, he's an author and he writes a really good book on managing anxiety. And he says when we are under pressure, tired, anxious, or feeling threatened, our tendency is to depend on ourselves rather than God. This is because our self is somewhat tangible, whereas God is invisible and can feel intangible.
[00:15:13] And I think that's so true. Like, when life gets hard, we end up looking away from God, as Chet said. I am enrolled in seminary school.
[00:15:28] Yes. I'm so excited. This is just an amazing opportunity. I'm so thankful for the church and for their partnership and just this opportunity to keep learning and to keep growing. So good.
[00:15:42] I'm gonna be honest School's a little hard.
[00:15:47] It's a little challenging. Any students? College? High school? Are you okay?
[00:15:54] Yeah, that's right. If you need prayer or blessing after service, I got you.
[00:16:00] But really, my classmates and I, we recently, we had this paper due, and I knew I was going to be preaching today. So I thought, okay, I'm going to work smarter and not harder, and I'm going to do my paper on the thing that I'm preaching on. It's going to make sense. Easy, right?
[00:16:16] No, no. It turns out writing an academic paper is a little different than preaching.
[00:16:25] I thought they were right.
[00:16:28] So here's the thing. I struggled. And, man, I became very discouraged. And writing this paper was really hard. And my mind started to go into the valley.
[00:16:42] I started to get so discouraged, I started to question, and I just thought, how awkward. Chet's going to have to hire someone else. Like, this is going to be so embarrassing.
[00:16:52] But really, one morning, it was so bad, I grabbed my Bible and I grabbed my journal, and I turned on worship music. And I said, God, it's just you and me.
[00:17:05] No one else.
[00:17:06] I said, God, I just. I need you to be with me because this is too much.
[00:17:12] I need you to be the God that I'm reading about. I need you to be present with me. I need to experience you. Those are the exact words that I used. I wanted to experience God and man. Church. That's exactly what happened.
[00:17:30] As I was reading through the psalms, I was reading words like, I see you.
[00:17:34] I see your affliction. I see your tears. I'm with you, man. That just. It changed my heart. Like, I could have stayed in that room all day being with God.
[00:17:48] Still haven't gotten my paper back yet, though, so if you could pray for that.
[00:17:55] No, but really, I do want to get a good grade on that paper. But, man, being in God's presence in the valley, it changes our perspective.
[00:18:14] See, there's no place that's. That's dark enough for God.
[00:18:18] There's no place where he's not going to meet you. And not only is God a present shepherd, but he's a protective shepherd now. See, every once in a while, sheep will become cast down.
[00:18:31] It's a very funny image, sheep on their back, but it's actually pretty dangerous because they can't get back up.
[00:18:38] And if they stay, it's funny, but if they stay there too long, they're prone to predators coming and attacking them, or gas fills up in their stomach and they could die.
[00:18:56] But, see, God, he doesn't leave us when we fall down, he's running after us and he picks us back up.
[00:19:05] He protects us.
[00:19:07] Verse 5 also shows what kind of shepherd God is. It says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemy. You anoint my head with oil, My cup overflows.
[00:19:20] God is a gracious host.
[00:19:24] And I love it because this metaphor shifts from the sheep to becoming about the psalmist.
[00:19:32] And when he's anointed, he's saying, I choose you. Not only do I choose you, I will treat you so much better than you thought. Your cup will overflow.
[00:19:44] God says, you're not just another sheep.
[00:19:47] I'm choosing you. I see you.
[00:19:51] You're God's anointed guest at his table.
[00:19:55] And you're not just an afterthought.
[00:19:59] My husband and I have been to a party once, and the host had a banner up and it said, please leave by nine.
[00:20:11] That's one way to say it. Right?
[00:20:14] You don't have to do the awkward going, oh, it's getting late.
[00:20:18] Get work in the morning.
[00:20:21] No, God is a host that invites you to his table. He doesn't get sick of you. He doesn't kick you out.
[00:20:32] So we looked at why we need a shepherd.
[00:20:36] Because we're tired, distracted, we can become overwhelmed.
[00:20:43] We looked at what kind of shepherd is God. He's present, he's with us.
[00:20:49] He's a protector, and he's personal.
[00:20:54] So what does this mean for us?
[00:20:58] It means that we can invite God to be the good shepherd of our lives.
[00:21:03] We can. We can say, God, I trust you.
[00:21:09] I trust that I'm not the best navigator. I fall asleep while driving sometimes. Just kidding. Not while driving, but my husband's driving.
[00:21:19] And we have to invite God to be the good shepherd. And if you haven't done that, I just want to give us a moment. And in your heart, you can just say a little prayer like, lord, I trust you. I trust you to be the shepherd of my life. Would you lead me?
[00:21:36] But see, after we do that, we have to spend time with God.
[00:21:44] This helps sometimes if we have just a special place that we go with God.
[00:21:48] We are in the process of building a new facility. Praise God. So exciting.
[00:21:58] Yeah. So we're in the process of. We have 22 acres, and I love to go there.
[00:22:04] I love to go to the property. And I like to just sit, and I like to just detach from all the distractions, all the noise, all the chaos of life. And I like to just sit with God and pray and just thank him and ask him where we're going.
[00:22:19] So I encourage you, if you don't have a special time or place to do that, and you can memorize Psalm 23 and just meditate on it, meditate on the verses and be reminded that God's got you.
[00:22:38] This also means that instead of following ourselves, we have to follow God.
[00:22:47] Like Stephen Kuss said, we don't have to depend on ourselves.
[00:22:53] Sometimes in life, we think, like, the grass is greener on the other side.
[00:22:58] And when I just get this job, everything's going to be better. When I get through this season, life's going to be great.
[00:23:05] Things are going to slow down.
[00:23:10] See, sometimes we. We know what God wants us to do, but we have a hard time doing them.
[00:23:17] And as we read through and meditate and spend time with God, can we just choose today to do the things that God's asking of us?
[00:23:29] My favorite part of the verse, this is the last one.
[00:23:38] It says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
[00:23:50] I love this idea of God's goodness and mercy following us.
[00:23:57] His goodness, mercy, and compassions are new every single day.
[00:24:06] And I think when life gets heavy and God seems far away, it's helpful just to have this picture in your mind of God's goodness not running away from you, but it's running after you see, God's not angry. An angry God, he's not frustrated. When we walk away, he doesn't say, well, good try. Maybe next time.
[00:24:36] His goodness and mercy, it follows us.
[00:24:41] We can't outrun it.
[00:24:45] At the end of the day, a shepherd would check each of his sheep. He would go through one by one and one. And he would look for sticks and ticks and scratches, and he would clean them up and bandage them and heal them.
[00:25:08] And I think, how good is our shepherd that looks at each of us one by one by one by one?
[00:25:17] He says, I know you. I see you.
[00:25:21] I've got you. He heals every tear, every bruise, one by one.
[00:25:30] And it's such a beautiful picture of who our shepherd is.
[00:25:37] John 10, verse 11. It says, I am the good shepherd.
[00:25:43] The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep church. God is worthy of our trust in our worship.
[00:25:55] See, he loves us so much, he wrote himself into our story as Jesus, our shepherd.
[00:26:04] And he said, you are so worth it. He gave his life for us so that we could dwell in his house forever.
[00:26:13] At the end of the vacation, I'm ready to go home.
[00:26:17] I'm tired. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want to see my dog.
[00:26:22] It's just a place of, like, comfort and peace.
[00:26:27] And see, when God is our shepherd, we can look to Jesus and just say, lord, you are my home and there is no other place I'd rather be.
[00:26:39] Would you bow your heads in prayer with me?
[00:26:42] Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so, so much. Thank you that you are the good shepherd. Thank you that we can trust in you. And know, Lord, that no matter what we're walking through, we're going to be okay because we've got you. I pray for hearts today that just need reminded that they are the one. They are the one sheep that you see, that you love, that you heal. Thank you for your goodness. And we pray this in Jesus name, amen.
