Shepherd | Week 6

How do you do it? Well, what's cool is like in Psalms 23, in the culture of the day, they did have a way. If you guys remember Pat's sermon last week, which he did an amazing job,

the last part of verse five in Psalms 23 says, you know, and your cup will be filled to overflowing. You know, the cup will overflow with God's blessings. And it's talking about this overflowing cup, and and he was talking about how in this Bedouin culture, the shepherd culture, but also it was more than just them. It was kind of a cultural thing that if you were in someone's home, even if you were at the king's court, if you were invited to be at the king's court, in their culture,

as long as you're my guest and you're at my table, they would never let your cup get empty. Your cup would never get empty. It would never get empty.

And so what he's saying there, like he said last week, Pat said, it was like, and that way when it says it's filled to overflowing, it's going beyond what their culture would say. Not only will your cup never be empty, it'll be overflowing. But what Pat didn't say was,

yes, as long as you're a guest in this culture, your cup would never get empty until they let it get empty. That was their way to tell you it's time to go.

So as long as you're eating and you've been there for days, weeks, however long you're sitting, every time you're at a meal, they never let your cup empty until all of a sudden, one day you're drinking, you're drinking, your nose is getting low, you're kind of and next thing you know, they just do not pick up the water and refill it, and your cup is empty. And then that's their way of saying, you know what? You don't have to go home, but you gotta get out of here.

Kind of a passive aggressive thing, don't you think? But what's cool about that is when we know that in the context of the scripture, you can understand when it says, God will fill our cup to overflowing. It's saying that he is doing something even more powerful,

even more wonderful, even more hope filled than anything we experience on this side of heaven. And it really connects to verse six, which we wanna wanna look at here today. And verse six says this.

It ends with my cup overflows with blessings, and verse six is like picking up on how. How does that work? What does that mean? It says, surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life. And then it ends with this little exclamation point, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

So what it's saying when you put that together, is he's saying unlike the best attempts in this world to find hope and and be accepted and all this stuff, it's like eventually,

those world will let you down. The cup will go dry, but in God's house, he will not only not let your cup get empty, it'll always be overflowing, and you'll live in the house of Lord forever. He will never let it get empty. You'll never be asked to leave. You'll never be rejected.

God will always love you, and we will spend an eternity with the God who loves us. That's a powerful statement. And I think this this last verse kinda summarizes, and and it kinda drives home this whole passage, Psalms 23. It's considered one of the greatest, most well known passages in scripture to give hope.

It's it's talks about having that hope in the dark valleys. It's talking about these topes during tough times. But you gotta remember, when did King David write this? He was walking through a valley of the shadow of death. And it wasn't just figuratively, it feels like death. He thought he might die.

See, he wrote this as an older king, who was actually having some of the things that he was told back when he made his biggest mistake ever as a king. And and he slept with a woman named Bathsheba,

tried to cover it up, and she ends up pregnant. And he ends up, when he can't get it covered up, ends up killing his friend, one of his great mighty men, to cover it up, and then marries her, and and goes on, and and and the prophet came and David repented.

He went before the Lord and he says, he's forgiven you, you're not gonna die, but this isn't a curse, it's more of a result. The way you've lived out these family relationships and this weird contanglement you have, some of this is gonna come back and haunt you, and it did. His son Absalon has now rebelled against him.

And David actually, the great mighty warrior, King David, the greatest king of the history of Israel, had to run away from Jerusalem. Had to leave with his tail tucked and get out of there. And now he's out in the wilderness again, having lost his kingdom to his son,

and now he's sitting out there wondering, I'm outnumbered, are they gonna come and wipe me out? Or even, I think what broke his heart even more, or am I gonna rally my men and go take my son out? He's in a very dark, hopeless valley, and that's when the Holy Spirit inspired him to write these words.

See a lot of us sit there, hey when times are tough, yeah you give me that, that's great, it's nice, it's inspirational at right time, but what about what I'm going through now? These words were meant. I think they're meant for 2,020. I mean, it seems like we are in some dark valleys.

You know, you know it's a tough year when you're super pumped that you can come to church and not wear a mask. I mean, when that's the highlight of your week, yeah, it's it's kind of it can be brutal. And I think many of us like we think about today and we are in these dark valleys and it gets kinda hopeless.

It gets it gets kinda tough. Matter of fact, right now, it's You know, and it makes tomorrow feel fearful. We can be really afraid of tomorrow.

And and or you might even be like me. I'm not even sure if I fear tomorrow as much as I'm just trying to avoid thinking about it. You ever get that way? You're just so sick and tired of everything that you're afraid of happening, that you're like, I'm just gonna do whatever it is I can do to not even think about tomorrow.

Not even think about an election. Not even think about what's gonna happen. Not even think about these things. And it's it's it's It gives us anxiety. And I think this last verse actually gives us some hope. How do we handle the future without fear? And so here's the big idea I wanna share just straight from this one verse.

I won't fear the future if I have faith in who holds it. I think this verse, this whole chapter, but this verse especially is saying, I do not need to fear the future if I place my faith in the one who holds it. I have to actually trust. Faith in this tantas mean, will I trust the one who holds the future?

Or am I gonna be stuck where I'm at fearing it?

So how does that work? I think there's three things that are stated in this verse, and I think there are three things that give us hope. I think I can face the future confidently because of these three things. That's all I wanna do here. Then we'll take communion, sing a song, and be done. And

and I think if you look at it, what are these three things? That these three things, if I embrace what they're saying, believe it, but embrace it, and every time I wanna get worked up and anxious, focus on it, I think I can start walking into the future

not as fearful because I put my faith in the one who actually holds the future. I don't have to put my faith in what I hope the future holds. If my faith is always in what I want and have to happen, I'm gonna be freaked out all the time.

So where what's the first point? The first thing here, I can face the future confidently

because God is watching over me. Now, if you look here, it says the first thing it says, surely your goodness, then it goes on. Your goodness is the first thing he says that pursues me all the days of my life. God's goodness, he's watching over me. He's Even when it feels like he's not.

But here's the problem, it says goodness will pursue me. Another translation says will follow me, and that's where I think we freak out because of two things. One, how we define goodness, and secondly, the order in which it said it'll show up. It says it follows me. A lot of us are freaking out because we don't want, we wanna trust God. We want goodness to go in front of me, and then I will follow the goodness,

and that's where I'll go. So if we don't see good, then we're we're we're upset, and that's it says it pursues. It follows after. And the reason it's saying that is because I think we also have the wrong understanding of what goodness means in this context. The the the Hebrew word for goodness there is a word tob.

And it literally means the perfection of God's will.

Now, don't know about you, but it's sometimes I don't think a lot of us define goodness as God's will being perfected in our lives. We actually define goodness as getting God to agree with my will, and giving me what I want, and that's goodness. And when I don't get what I want, that's badness.

And I want what I want to proceed me to go in front of me. God gives me what I say is good. Oh, now I'll follow you. You know, that that that's like your your your wife asks you where do you wanna go for dinner, and you know she already knows where you're going for dinner.

You're you're like, hey, yeah, you're kinda gonna decide, but really, if you gotta do what I want you to do. That's what the goodness means here. That's why it says it pursues. It means when we follow and trust the shepherd, even when we're going through a valley of a shadow of death, if you trust the shepherd, his will,

his agenda for your life will come to fruition, and you can find hope in that. Instead of always freaking out, is God gonna do this to me? He's gonna do that? Is what's gonna happen? Am I not gonna get this? Am I not gonna get that? And we get fixated on the wrong thing,

And then our relationship with God turns into this game. But we need to embrace that he is watching out for us in his will, the perfection of his will. Well, there's a second thing that goes right along and says, pursues us. Not just his goodness, but it's the next thing it says here.

Verse 23 verse six, the next part says, surely your goodness, but then it says, and unfailing love. Unfailing love is the second thing that will pursue me all the days of my life. So God is watching over me. His goodness of his will will follow-up, but it's also grace is working in me.

Grace is working in me. So God will follows us and and pursues us and ultimately be perfected. Kinda like what Pat said last week, when he went to Romans chapter eight, where it says all things, God works all things together for good, for those who love him and call according to his purposes.

He's saying that that goodness pursuing is God will take anything that happens and make it good. It'll be a part of his will. He'll be able to get us to where he wants us to go. But like Pat said last week, it doesn't say all things are good. Matter of fact, the very nature of that verse in Romans eight is implying that this is how you need to perceive when bad things happen to you. He's not promising that everything is good. It says, all things are works together for good. It's implying the idea that a lot of things are really really really bad.

But if you trust God, in the end, he will use it, and it'll turn out to be something to perfect his will. Even though that was a terrible thing to go through. But, there's a disclaimer there just like in this verse. It only works for those who love God and are called according to his purposes. Meaning God does not

make things work out for good that are bad if you not are not one of his sheep. If you don't follow him, and embrace him, and trust him, you could say Jesus is Lord, but you need him to be your shepherd. Then he can do that. If you don't, you're just gonna have bad things and pain happen for nothing.

The hope is found in trusting him. So that pursues.

But what goes along with how does he make that happen? That's that second point. His unfailing love. His unfailing love pursues us. He's always there for us. So God's watching over me is the first point. Second point is grace is working in me. The word there for unfailing love, I like in this translation unfailing love. Some translation said mercy,

and it the word literally in Hebrew can mean mercy, but it means mercy in a different way to think. Because when we hear the word mercy, the difference between mercy and grace. I don't if you know that, but mercy by truest definition means not getting something bad that you actually deserve.

Grace on the other hand means getting something amazing that you don't deserve. This word for unfailing love is saying you get the mercy and the grace, and that's pursuing you. In other words, if you wanna understand the mercy and grace working together, if you're a parent that has kids,

it's what they get every Christmas from you. They get mercy. You probably don't deserve all of this stuff. You deserve something else. But I'm also gonna give you grace. Not only are you not gonna be in trouble for what you've done, I'm gonna give you a bunch of presents.

So that now kids are like, that's why did you say that? It's getting close to Christmas. Don't don't speak these vile truths into my parents' ears.

I already got them feeling sorry for me for having to be online school. Actually, you should feel sorry for your parents. So what does it mean? That word is said, when it means the grace, unfailing love, it means a covenant love, redemptive power, and faithfulness, grace actually in action.

So I can face the future because God's watching over me, his goodness of his perfection of his will, but his grace is always working in me. They're always working in me. You know, this is a great illustration that's still kind of a shepherding illustration.

Because as we said before, cattle are driven, sheep have to be led. So a shepherd is always walking in front of the sheep when he's taking them somewhere. The problem is they can start wandering off the back and and disappearing. So what does a good shepherd have? He always has a couple sheep dogs.

And so what this is describing is God's goodness and God's grace are his sheep dogs. So as he leads us, and we start to fall away, what does a sheep dog do? It it'll run after bark at, and even nip at the heels.

And that's kind of like, hey, the dog's barking at me and biting at my heels, but what is that dog actually doing? Rescuing you, protecting you. It's keeping you closer to the flock. It doesn't let you get wandering away. I don't think it's sheep. I sounded more like a poodle, didn't I? I don't know.

I guess I'm not meant to be a big dog. I'm sorry. Gotta get a drink now. Why did I do that? There we go. So it's the sheepdogs that kinda keep us together, And that sheepdog of his grace and mercy is a powerful illustration because that means I could fall away because I'm being stupid.

But God's grace will always pursue to bring me back.

And it's cool to know that, that I can get back up, get right back on mission with God. I don't have to sit there and wallow in that. I just come back. Regain the hope. Start going, Jesus, where do you want me to go? And not let the fear stop you.

You know, I watched a special on the building of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was finished in 1933, so they'd started years before.

And it was called the bridge that wasn't supposed to ever be built, because back then they could not make a bridge that span, and also the construction could be enormous in cost, not only money, but in lives. Because at that day and age, when you did a really big construction for something that's big and tall and all that, they expected about one death for every million dollars

that something costs. So if you got a big brand, they thought that Golden Gate Bridge is gonna cost a $100,000,000.

So they're expecting massive deaths because the span it was, and it was not only being up high on stuff, but there was fog, there was gusts of wind, really windy. Everything was damp all the time, and if you did fall and survived the fall into the water, the currents were terrible, so a lot of times you would die. So they knew they're gonna have a hard time getting the construction workers to either a sign up for the job, but b even if they're doing the job,

that they wouldn't work fast enough because they would be so terrified of everything, and that's what was gonna happen. So the guy who designed it came up with a plan that actually cost more money, which you would think would be stupid. But he said, we're gonna spend this $130,000 back in the twenties.

Was it was a ginormous amount of money. And what we're gonna do is this is gonna actually make it safer for the guys to build the bridge.

And what they did is they built these giant nets under them. Now you guys are lucky because I forgot to bring this yesterday and this morning. So you're the only service that gets to see this. I found a picture. This is a picture of those nets. And see those guys? One of them had fallen in it? That way they can work,

and if they fall, they fall into the net. Probably still terrifying, because you saw what those nets look like. Right? They they they that they they're look at the water. They are way up high over the water. Like, that's probably not that fun. But you didn't die.

And so once they had that, and the guys started a few of them fell into it, and the first when they realized no one's dying, by being that safe, it was actually finished quicker than expected. Because they had that net, and what the net was there for was, yeah, you fell.

But you didn't die, you can get back up, and get back to building the bridge. Get back on mission. That's what God's grace is for us. We mess up. We get sidetracked. We get the wrong idea of what our mission in this world is, and we fall. But his grace catches us. And why does he catch us? So we can get back up.

But what a lot us do, when you see those nets, they kinda remind me of it, the circus.

You know, when the trapeze artists are flipping around, all the young people are like, what's a circus? They don't exist anymore. They're they're they're mean to animals and stuff like that, so we don't have them. But but we used to have them, and they had that big net below them that so when they they fought, I'd always was amazed. I got to watch them spinning around. That's kinda cool. But what I was always mesmerized with is that when they would get down, they would spin around and just let himself fall into the net, and they would flip them back up. Sometimes they would jump. It was more like a trampoline.

And I was like, that looks more fun than actually swinging.

Right? Does it looked more fun to just jump on the net. I always wanted to be able to go up there and not swing. I just wanted to jump into the net. And I go, that's what some of us do with the grace of God. It's not actually just a safety thing. Oh man, I'm glad that caught me, and I am so thankful. I'm gonna get back up and get back to building the bridge. We make it into a trampoline. Woah.

Is pretty fun. And we're just jumping up and down on the grace of God. Just like, you know what? And if someone says you shouldn't do that, you're like, don't judge me. The Bible says not to judge. Yes. It's for me not to judge you against myself and think I'm better than you. But the Bible is actually judging you, not me, pretty harshly right now.

But no. We we wanna jump up and down on the trampoline and go, hey, I'm saved. Jesus loves me. What does it matter if I live this way? What does it matter what I do with my time? What does it matter to do with my money? What does it really matter how I spend my relationships? What does it really matter what I watch on the computer? What does it really matter?

But when you use God's grace as a trampoline, you're gonna be afraid of tomorrow.

You just will be. But what happens if I just step back and realize what it's really meant and it's always going to be there? Because God loves you that much. I can choose to trust him. I can choose to trust them. 19 men fell during the construction that had saved them. 19 lives were saved because of those nets

And they finished the job. God is watching over me. Grace is working in me. But then finally, the exclamation point at the end of this whole passage is this,

and I will live in the house of the Lord forever. God's watching over me, grace is working in me, and heaven is waiting for me. Heaven is waiting for me. An internal relationship with God is waiting for me. The house of the Lord. I will never be sent away. If if the shepherd's my Lord,

I ultimately do not have to worry about even if this life has a lot of terribleness in it. Now, no one wants to hear that. But what he's saying is heaven is waiting for me. And I think we've underestimated

how often the scripture talks about it. How often in the New Testament? How often whenever there's tough things that that that the Bible reminds us that we're just passing through. Just like it says, you go through the valley of the shadow of death. We're just going through a valley here. This whole existence

that we call life is just merely a a a little teeny mist that the Bible says. It's just like that morning,

the the morning fog. Like if you grew up in Arizona, you have no understanding of that. But it's like you get up in them and then it's gone. And and then we we were meant for all of eternity. Why do you think we're always running after more and more and more? The book of Ecclesiastes talks about it. We keep chasing after more and that's not a bad thing. It's the way we try to find more is the bad thing. But the reason we chase for more guys is because God created us for eternity. It says in the book of Ecclesiastes that God planted eternity in the hearts of men, but we don't even understand what he's doing from one moment to the next. Because we are planted with a desire for eternity,

but we try to fulfill it with something that's temporary.

Even as Christians. So we turn our relationship with God into the game of, I'm gonna pursue him, so I hope I get all of these things that I want in this life. And then when it doesn't happen, we're super disappointed. And then we end up in a year like 2020, we're like, what is gonna come tomorrow?

And we start freaking out when we realize that the desire for more was God given, but it can only be God satisfied. We can only have that. And what he's saying is, we are meant for this eternal relationship. And so over and over again it talks about, hey, even if life didn't get better,

this is the greatest hope ever. You're going to spend all of eternity with Him. And man, the Bible, when it describes what's next, it's beautiful. Talks about no more pain. No more suffering. No more tears. No more election cycles. Vote Jesus. No, Satan's the best. No, that won't be happening.

And you know where a lot of that's described at? In the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, that everyone is so afraid of as Christians. And now a lot of you are so afraid that it's happening right now. Well, it might be. And if even if this was the end of time,

and and and it was the end, we as Christians should not be paranoid, and we should not be trying to stop it. Have you read the book of Revelation? A better name for it should be called happily ever after.

I actually preached to the book of Revelation number years ago. That's what I called the series. Because you know what? It's just like a great story. And that is a story of a the son of a king, a prince that that comes to the far off land to battle a dragon to save his bride. And that's what happens. And in the end, God wins. In the end, we win. In the end, we're not meant for destruction. We're just so afraid of our life getting upset that it being a little bit scary that we don't look at what comes on the other side. I mean, it's in the book of Revelation that says there'll be no more tears. There'll be no more pain. There'll be no more struggle. We this world was created by God, and it is beautiful in so many ways, but it's broken.

We're on the wrong side of heaven right now. And our goal and our mission was never to turn this into heaven. We never can do that. That'd be like, we're gonna save the Titanic. No. You know what we can do? Build a whole lot more of lifeboats, and let's get everybody in it so there's hope. Their hope is we keep living.

That's the mission. But if we make it about us, if we make it about this and now too much, that's where I think most of us have lost hope. I put it this way. I I love history. I was a history minor. I I kind of fancy myself to be a minor historian, and I have a I have a a

theory of how history works. I call it Bill Bush's pendulum theory of history. I've seen it all through history, and I've seen it all through the church. Church history too. And I believe it happens this way because it's man's attempt to try to make the world work right.

So we make great attempts. But what I say is like, you know, pendulum, It can either sit straight down, but it's never really is. As we get a pendulum going, it goes one way, and it starts to swing one way, and it gets so far, and then all of a sudden gravitational

forces and stuff, it runs out of energy, and it goes, it's going too far this way, so it stops. Then gets pulled back the next way, and it gains a whole bunch of speed, and it shoots down through, and it goes way over the other way. And then it gets so far that it kind of stops, it goes back. It's only in the center,

in that center for just a moment.

And I think that's what I see through history. Movements keep moving way this way, and they get too far, and there's like, this needs to stop. This is ridiculous. And they get pulled back down, and like, alright, this is better. This is better. This pretty good. This is no. No. No. Too No. Far. It was like, okay. No. This is terrible. We're getting no. No. No. No. No. No. No. That's called the

several hundred years of American politics. And and and so it goes, but I've seen it in the church too. And and starting with my generation, the pendulum had gone too far one way. Churches were more of a book club.

Let's talk about all the do's and don'ts from this book, and we're and you know what? What makes us great and godly before our lord is that, you know, like some of you, if you're still that way, you're like, I got more godly because I know what the Hebrew word tob and hased means.

I like that. It's cool stuff. It helps us to have a clear understanding.

But it's not how much we go through the word. It's how much we let the word go through us. And so there was a generation that churches were being ineffectual, because all they were was people for generations went to church. They thought sitting here for an hour, putting up with a sermon, and then, you know, saying, I know more about you, and I know the to do and to don't list, and I am actually better than the people out there. And so the church spent all of its time trying to yell at sinners rather than show them the love of Christ.

And so then all of a sudden, a new movement comes on goes, we need to go back the other way. We need to be more involved in our communities. We need to which is a very scriptural thing as well. We should show people the gospel. We should care about things. But somewhere in the last,

I don't know, it's really sped up in the last like ten years. I see a younger generation of Christians, and if you're in this, do not hear what I'm not saying. We should be involved in this. We are as a church. But here's where the fear for the future comes. This thing we should be involved in is not the end goal.

It's not even where we get our hope from. That's where we make the mistake. So we become more about basically, we've turned the churches into another wing of a political party, or we've made it a charity that sprinkles Jesus on top,

or we become a social just social justice, social action team that's all about social justice, but very little Jesus. We say Jesus when we say Jesus would want us to do these things, and that's true. But then we get more about the movement of the social justice, and we miss the mission of building a bridge between people

and God through Jesus at the cross. Like I said, being involved is good. Sound doctrine? Good. But when I let the pendulum go too far, I leave it out the wrong way. And then my goal becomes when we get this world in the right order, then I'm content.

And I am just telling you, if that is your goal, you have not read the whole Bible, and you are setting yourself up for frustration, frustration with God, and frustration with everything else, we should go after those things. But we should be going after them because we want people to know Jesus.

And in the end, that's all we have. Because in the end, this world does not write itself. Jesus comes and rights this world. What we're supposed to do is bring as much of the kingdom as we possibly can as a light into this dying world so we can rescue people and save people. So, yes, be involved in action.

Care about politics. Let your faith inform it. Do not do it the other way around. Don't let your politics inform your faith. It should be reversed. And when we don't do that, in my estimation, what I see scripturally and I've seen in thirty years as a pastor, the biggest mistake I see this generation making

is we're replacing the gospel with just doing good. The gospel should lead to doing good. But doing good does not automatically lead you to the gospel. And when you make it that the goal, you're worried. When society goes backwards, you freak out.

But think about it. We have heaven waiting. We're not meant for this world. We're passing through. Paul put it this way, to live is Christ. Right? He said to live. So as long as I'm alive, it's about Christ. I can point people to Christ. I can do what it takes to show them Christ. I can glorify

Christ in my life. I can worship him. But then what did he say about dying? But to die is unfortunate. To die is the end. To die is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me as a follower of Jesus? Does anybody know what he actually said to die is? Which one was the game? Die is the game.

If I live to gain the world, I don't remember that when I die is when I gain. And so then I make my life about the wrong thing. And then I get upset. And then I freak out.

I mean, I'm telling you, Even Christians are doing this right now. Do you realize toilet paper and canned goods are all a sudden going on shortage again in some places? You know why? Because an election's about to happen, and both sides are convinced if the other guy wins, we're going to hell immediately.

That's a hopelessness that comes from looking at the wrong thing. Heaven is waiting for us. We are meant for eternity, for something more. And what's interesting is that word and ties it all together in verse six, and I will live in the house, Lord. So all this this whole passage

ends with and. It's the I say the cherry on the top. He's saying through these dark times, you can trust God, you can go through in all this, but and I will live. That word and ties yesterday with today to tomorrow to forever. Heaven waiting for me.

We're just passing through. So what you gotta ask yourself in a reflection moment is, if you know the Lord Jesus as your savior, you need to ask yourself, well, is he my shepherd?

Because if you know him to be your savior, wouldn't it be a lot easier to trust someone to shepherd you if they saved you? It says in the New Testament that the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep.

That means he knew this was a mess, and he knew that we needed help, and he came and died for us. If I'm gonna say as a Christian, I trust that Jesus is my savior, God himself, even though I rebelled against him, and I deserve something way worse than what I'm getting, gave me mercy and grace by sacrificing himself.

Why would I day to day refuse to trust him as my shepherd? Seems like that'd be pretty easy. So you gotta go, if he's my lord, why is he not my shepherd?

And then some of us in this room, ask this question that you have turned Jesus. You've been coming to church maybe your whole life, but you've thought of it as every other religion. It's like a self help. I like the words of Jesus, so Jesus is my shepherd.

You're trying to let him shepherd your life, but you've never let him be Lord. He's never been savior. Which one are you? To reflect on in the because that's where the hope will come back. The hope will come back when I embrace that he's watching over me. He's working in me and heaven's waiting for me. And,

you know, in in in the end, I'm reminded of of this story. I need my glasses. I won't be able to

When you think of heaven waiting for us, you can think of the right focus, which is the gospel and Jesus.

It's my favorite story to tell. I I love the story. It's it's happened years ago, but it was a dad had it was with his daughter. They're out camping. They're out in the mountains. And if you ever get away from a city out in the high mountains, you're you'd be amazed at how many stars are in the sky.

And and they were out there watching, it was a meteor shower. So not only is this beautiful sky that all the meteors are shooting by. And and as they were watching it, the the little daughter was, you know, dad was holding her. She's looking up in absolute amazement.

And then she just stopped and then grabbed her dad's face. You know how little kids will do that sometimes? They want your attention. They just grab your face, kinda steer you right towards eye to eye. She grabbed her dad's face and she says, daddy, if the wrong side of heaven can be so beautiful,

what does the right side look like? Man, that little kid gets it. Do you? There's a lot of beautiful things on the wrong side of heaven here, but the right side is so much more beautiful. But if your hope is only found in this world,

you're always gonna fear tomorrow. You're always gonna be disappointed. You're always gonna be frustrated. Let's embrace the great shepherd who laid down his life for us and then trust him on how we need to walk through our every day. A matter of fact, I wanted to close by summarizing this entire Psalms 23.

The entire passage is just a one of hope during hopelessness. And this is a paraphrase that was written. Mean, it's more like a poetic kind of retelling of the Psalms 23. And just listen to this and see if this does not just make you have hope for tomorrow, No matter what comes tomorrow. It says, if I know the shepherd,

I don't have to fear anything. I don't need to fear poverty because the Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need. I don't need to fear loneliness for he is with me. I don't need to fear mistakes for he guides me on the right path. I don't need to fear failure for he restores my soul.

I don't need to fear the future because goodness and mercy are gonna follow me all the days of my life. And I don't even need to fear death because I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

God is beneath me in green pastures. He's beside me in still waters. He's with me in the valley. He's around me even in the presence of my enemies. He's upon me anointing my head with oil. He is before me leading me in the right path. He's behind me. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me. He's even beyond me in heaven because I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen?

What does COVID and a weird election cycle and craziness and all the weirdness of the world, what does that have against this? How can you fear that if you embrace that?

Where are you at on it? And I think that's why the night before Jesus died, he instituted a little ritual for us to do when we gather. He broke bread and said, this is my body broken for you. He

took the wine. He said, this is my blood. It's built for your forgiveness. You know, the disciples were confused at that point. Because at that point, they thought goodness was the same thing we thought. Everything's gonna go perfect. Nothing's gonna happen. And then Jesus literally went and had his body broken and his blood spilt, and he died. And they're like, you

know, it kinda freaked him out. And he went through that dark valley of death, but then he came back and said, see, trust me.

Trust me. I can take you through a dark valley. You know, even in Psalms 43, he never said, I'll walk you around a dark valley. He said, I'll never walk you around that valley, but I will hold your hand as we walk through it. And we need to embrace that.

And that's why he he answered this communion. He says, this is the thing he wants us to do in remembrance of him. Of all the things he wants us to continually come back and remember the cross. Remember what he did there. Because if you can see what Jesus did at the cross, you'll have hope.

If you can embrace what he did for you at the cross, you'll trust him. And so I think that taking communion together is a reflection moment to ask ourselves,

am I embracing the hope? Or am I sad because God's not giving me every hope I wanted?

So here's what I'm gonna do. If you already know Jesus as Lord, start praying right now. Take a reflection moment. Go, okay. If he's Lord, where am I not listening to him as a shepherd? Because in John 10, it says, my sheep listen to my voice. Where do you need to realign?

So then the goodness of the perfection of God's will will follow. But some of us in this room, before we take this and then sing a song online too, you might be here, but you're trying to make Jesus a shepherd, but he's never been Lord. You need to put your faith in him, not you. You see, because we're all sinners,

not mistake or sinners. And what does it mean to be a sinner? It doesn't mean that God made some random list and said, if you do this, it's wrong. If you do this, it's right. God is the list. It's his character. It's who he is. He he is existence.

And what we do when we sin is basically every sin in his heart is, no, God. I trust me, not you. Every sin. Everything we do is I trust my way, not your way. And the problem is many of us come to church and we try to even be right with God our way.

When the only way to be made right with God is saying, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me. He bore my sin. Then he resurrected.

And it's my faith in that that makes me right with God, not what I do. I don't follow God as my shepherd for his love. I followed him from his love. When I realized how much he loves me, I wanna go where he goes.

So some of you have never put your faith in Jesus. You never said yes to Jesus. So I wanna pray with you guys. And then we'll take communion, sing a song of God's goodness, and then hopefully walk out here and celebrate it in our life. So would you pray with me? If you're someone who's never just,

like I said, said yes to Jesus, just you can do that right now. You can become one of his sheep. You can enter the fold, enter the family. But I just pray in, dear Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I've ignored you. I've gone my own way. I've tried to make things work my own way. Even when I'm being religious,

I'm doing that in my own way. But I thank you that you came, and even though I didn't deserve it, you died for me. And you resurrected beating death for me to give me life. So right now, in the best way I even know or understand, I'm gonna take you up on your offer to confess my sin and profess my faith.

And your offer to forgive me and to heal me, I accept it.

Help me to go from here and learn more and more each day what it means for you to be my shepherd. But thank you for being my savior. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

He then took the bread. He broke it. He said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat.

He took the cup, said, this is my blood, spilled for the forgiveness of your sins. This represents a new covenant. In other words, this is our hope. Nothing more, Nothing less. Just this, take and drink. Amen.