Shepherd | Week 3

But you know what I don't really like is going to get a physical. It's I just don't like it. With COVID, I got my annual physical. It's been two years because of COVID now, because if you do the math, hasn't really been COVID's fault. I just didn't go for a while.

And the reason I wasn't looking forward to going back is the last one I had had was I got told I had, you know, one of these numbers is a little concerning on something. And it's one of those things that it's not life threatening now, but it could be so we better keep an eye on this, but it's it's here's why I don't like it. It's one of those things that the way you fix it is you gotta eat different.

And Bill likes food.

And so I was like, okay. Yeah. That's great. So I knew when I was going back, when I go in, the doctor's like, okay. And the blood work, should probably pay attention to this because it was a little bit high last time. And so we need to to to keep an eye on it. And I knew because I'm like, well, I know it's gonna be terrible because I got told that two years ago and I've done nothing different.

And so I just know, so I'm not really looking forward to. And the reason you put off going to the doctor for that moment is because I feel great. It hasn't really affected how I feel. And that's the problem. Sometimes with physical health, sometimes we avoid like as long as we feel okay, we must be okay.

But we kinda know that's probably not true as to why we avoid going, you know, sometimes like the dentist. I'll go there when the tooth broken hurts, but I hate going when everything feels fine because they always find something wrong.

And I don't wanna pay for it, you know. And and you you just have these these moments. And I think our physical health is this thing that when we go for physical health, sometimes we realize it's not a 100% how we feel. You can feel fine and actually be dying from something.

And so just as physical health has to go beyond feeling, beyond avoiding the doctor, beyond avoiding those moments because, hey, ignorance is bliss. I feel good. I must be good, but I just don't wanna know. Sometimes we gotta step out and know what we didn't wanna know. Now, surprisingly enough, that number went down.

I don't know how. Maybe just Jesus loves me more than he loves you guys.

Because I put up with you yelling about me about masks all the time, so he's being nice to me. No. It is but but the same way how physical health is not just about how you feel.

I think that's even more true when it comes to emotional health. Emotional health. That sometimes what we we we we think emotional health. I am emotionally healthy. I have emotional healing when I feel good. And if I don't feel good, it must be bad.

And that's not true. So what we're gonna look at today in this Psalm series, Psalms 23 verse three, is this simple big idea which I got from the band Boston. Emotional healing is more than a feeling. And

it's true, it's more than a feeling. See a lot of times when we think, hey, I'm emotionally strapped, I'm worn out, I don't have strength, I'm emotionally beat up, I'm frazzled. We often think that emotional healing is just now I don't feel that way anymore.

And and we think it's all about a feeling and that's not true. It is more than a feeling. And and so we're gonna see that in Psalms 23 verse three. We're gonna start off here. It says this,

He renews my strength. Talking about the great shepherd, the Lord. It says, He renews my strength or how some translations I like how they say, He restores my soul.

That strength, that soul is talking about our emotions, our ability like, hey, I'm just worn out. I'm grieving, I'm beat up, whatever. He renews my strength. But how? Well, rest of the verse kinda tells us how. It says, He guides me along right paths. Or some translation, he leads me on paths of righteousness.

He guides me on the right path, bringing honor to his name or for his name's sake. So the Lord is the one that brings emotional healing. He brings the renewed strength. He restores our souls. But how? The how is by leading us on a path. And that word, the Hebrew word there for path means well worn rut.

What it's describing is a path that a shepherd knows to take the sheep to where the food is, where the life is, to where the restoration is, to where where it is. And the reason it's well worn is it's the only way.

And if you get off the path, you're gonna lost. You're not gonna find the renewed strength, you're not gonna find it, and you're most likely gonna get picked off by a predator or get yourself killed. And so it's saying that the here's how the God renews our strength,

how he restores our soul, how he brings emotional healing, is we need to follow that well worn path, The path of righteousness. The path of how we are right with God. How we continue to be right with God. And as we do that, we will have our strength renewed.

He doesn't just let you don't just run off wherever you wanna do and do whatever you want in your life and say, God, give me some magic elixir to make me feel better and be more healthy. It means I have to choose to take a path. And then the last line for His name's sake is talking about His glory.

And that should be the most comforting thing to us in this verse. Is because what it's saying is, and I will do that because of who I am, not because of who you are.

Basically, he's God saying, I'm the cosigner here. There's no way this will happen if you follow me. I guarantee it. Because I love you, because I am love. And I will lead you and guide you. So if I'm supposed to follow the path, what does the path to emotional healing look like?

And what we're gonna do is I wanna turn over to a passage and a story in the life of the man who wrote Psalm 23, King David.

He'd been a shepherd. He was king. And and this is a a story of of what happened in his life in a time when emotionally he needed some healing. And to be quite honest, his emotional frazzled moment here was really caused by his own sin.

What we're gonna see today, well, a lot of us need emotional healing and some of it's because of what we've done. Some of it's because of what people have done to us. Some of it's because things that had nothing to do with a person. It's just, this is what happened in life.

And this is where we're at, the season we're in or whatever. But I think the path that David takes in this story is actually a great starting path for us to start the journey to get that soul restored, to get some emotional healing started.

And so I just wanna look at it. So what's going on in the story? It's in second Samuel chapter 12. And what it is, is it's picking up as the results, the fallout of what happened when David actually had an affair with a woman named Bathsheba. Now I don't know, you know, David's called a man after God's own heart.

But one we often think that means because he was better. He was more honorable. He was more this. And he had his moments, but he was broken and a sinner just like you and I. Matter of fact, what he did at this moment is probably to many of us worse than anything we've done.

And what happened was it was at a time when kings were supposed to be off at war is what it said. In other words, David should have been with his men. So he's already gotten off the path. He's not doing his job. So he's up in his palace, taking a nap. He looks out over and sees a neighbor, lady,

the wife, actually the wife of a man named Uriah,

who is listed in the Bible of one of his mighty men. David's mighty men are his most trusted, fought with him through every time he needed a army. They were like Navy Seal Special Forces. They were the greatest warriors in all the land. They were the most devoted to him. And that's his wife, his friend, his mighty man. And he brings her over to the palace. They sleep together. She gets pregnant.

So now he's not only committed adultery, he's done it by betraying a man who has fought valiantly side by side with him. Well, it gets worse. He gets pregnant. So what he does is he tries to cover it up. Still off the path.

And so what he does is he brings Uriah back from the war under the guise of tell me how it's going, gets him drunk, says go home, spend some time with your family before you return. Well, Uriah is so honorable.

He's like, why would I do that when I'm away from my men? So he doesn't go home. And when David can't get him to go home, because he's thinking if he goes home, spends time with his wife, sleeps with her, he'll just assume the baby's his. All he's done has been covered up. We're good. Well, when we're Uriah won't do it,

he still doesn't complain. He writes a letter to Uriah's commanding officer, seals it so he doesn't read it. He says, you need to give this important document for your commander. And what he wrote in the letter was Uriah's a betrayer.

You need to put him in the thickest fighting and then tell everyone to pull back and let him die in battle. So he kills his friend. Now that doesn't sound like a man after God's own heart, does it? He's in an emotional turmoil at this point, heavy weight, which he caused himself. But what happens

shows why he's a man after God's own heart. The path he then gets back onto. Well, what does that look like? Well, in chapter 12 I'm gonna pick up where the prophet Nathan came and rebuked. He knew what David had done. And so he calls them out and David owns it.

So that's where we're gonna pick it up. Chapter 12 verse 13 says this. Then David confessed to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Nathan replied, yes, but the Lord has forgiven you, and you won't die for this sin. Nevertheless,

because you have shown utter contempt for the word of the Lord by doing this, your child will die. God forgives us, but there's still sometimes natural consequences to to to to what we've done. It says after Nathan returned to the home, the Lord sent a deadly illness, meaning he allowed the child to die.

And and and says to those of the child of David and Uriah's wife. Now, notice how it still calls Bathsheba Uriah's wife at the beginning of the story.

It says, David begged God to spare the child. He went without food and lay all night on the bare ground. The elders of his household pleaded with him to get up and eat with them, but he refused. So he spends he's just praying and not eating, laying on the ground.

Then the seventh on the seventh day, so he's done this for a week now. The child died. David's advisors were afraid to tell him. He wouldn't listen to reason while the child was ill, they said. What drastic thing will he do when we tell him the child is dead?

When David saw them whispering, he realized what had happened. Is the child dead? He asked. Yes, they replied. He is dead.

Then David got up from the ground, washed himself, put on lotions and changed his clothes. He went to the tabernacle and worshiped the Lord. After that, he returned to the palace and was served food. He got up after a week of not eating and the first thing he did was he went and worshiped God.

His advisors were amazed, it says in verse 21. We don't understand you, they told him. While the child was still living, you wept and refused to eat. But now that the child is dead, you've stopped your morning and are eating again? David replied, I fasted and wept while the child was alive.

For I said, perhaps the Lord will be gracious to me and then let the child live. But why should I fast when he is dead? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him one day, but he cannot return to me. That's kind of a cool line. What David was saying is,

I know the Lord says he's gonna die. I think what God did was he says, I'm not gonna have this child grow up in this mess. I'm keeping him. He's mine. He's with the Lord. And David's saying, I'll join him. I'll go to be with the Lord someday. But he's not coming back.

Then David comfort bath comforted Bathsheba, his wife, and slept with her. Notice how all of sudden now it's comforted his wife, Bathsheba, not Uriah's wife. David's wife. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and David named him Solomon.

The Lord loved the child and sent word to Nathan the prophet that they should name him Jedediah, which means beloved of the Lord, as Lord had commanded. So in the end, he ends up having this kid, the next child, Solomon, that if you know Bible history, he becomes the next king.

So it's kind of a crazy this is kind of a heavy story. I mean, all the brutal things David did, and then God says, you know, the child's not gonna live. That sounds harsh. But what happened in the story that made his advisors amazed? What what went on that that

kinda took this? I think there's three things we can see in this story that's kinda this path that David gets back onto, and how he got back onto that right path. And I think it's the same thing when we are emotionally drained,

and we are needing our souls restored. We need to maybe take these same three steps to remember how do I get back on to the path of emotional healing. And what are those three things? The first one is accept what can't be changed.

Accept what can't be changed. In other words, look what David did. He he he actually they were amazed when he he got up and and he and he did what he did, but they're like, why did you not lose it? The child is like, hey, I prayed. I went to the Lord. I poured out my soul. I was like, you know, I I and but now

there's nothing I can do about that. I think a lot of our soul being drained, our emotions being tapped out, is the fact that we keep trying to control stuff that we can't control. We keep trying to make things happen that we don't have the power to make things happen.

And then when it doesn't go our way, we can't accept that. And we get stuck there, and that hurts us. But it's counterintuitive sometimes. That's why the advisors were amazed to be willing to say, you know what? I can't do anything about that. I think one of the number one emotional energy drains on us in our culture

is us stressing over and trying to control stuff we have no control over. And trying to somehow, through being upset, change something that already happened. It sounds stupid for me to say it, doesn't it? But we do it all the time.

I know I do. I fret over something that there's no way it's changing. It's not I pleaded with God that God gave his answer and went this direction, and I'm still wrestling with it in my head. I'm still trying to do something. It's done.

But I think there's two really particular things that we need to do in order to accept. What can't be changed. And we've gotta really learn to accept, you know, what can't be changed. Let go of that in order to accept the God of change in my life. And so two particular things I think that really drain us in our emotionally

that we just hang on to is our guilt, the things we've done, and our grudges, the things that have been done to us.

I think those are two of the most critical things we we need to deal with. The first one is our own guilt. Like, I think a lot of us are emotionally drained because we have rebelled against God. We've gotten off path. We have done sinful things to other people, but also just right straight to God. We have denied trusting him. We have done this thing called sin. We've rebelled against our creator, and we carry that guilt around, and we don't know what to do with it. And the truth is what we're supposed to do it is we're supposed to let God remove the guilt. We're supposed to go to him for the guilt. But most of us, even as Christians, don't do that. We try this whole list of other things to do first.

And what they are is is most commonly, here's some of the things we do with our guilt. What we try to do instead of relying on God's grace, we deny it. Sometimes we just outright try to deny it. We try to pretend that it's not there. We try to just move on and forget about it.

The problem is we can't. And when you try to just deny that it's there, it always pops back up. And usually in the most awkward, horrible times, you you end up just in these weird scenarios. We deny it. Sometimes we minimize it. We minimize it. That's where we try to say it's not really that big of a deal.

It's not that big of a deal. This this I know this was bad, but I didn't really do this. You know, we do that a lot in in a marriage argument. We like to minimize what we did and maximize what they did. We become incredible attorneys at law the second we're in a fight with our spouse.

We're like calling in character witnesses. We're trying to destroy your argument. We're wanting to cross examine. We're throwing the suitcase to get the guy mister Brady throws a suitcase so the guy with the neck brace turns his head. That's a super old reference. If you laughed, welcome to being super old.

But we do whatever we can. We minimize. Minimize saying, hey, it's not that big of deal. Here's the problem. If it's really not that big of a deal, then why do you keep defending yourself and why does it keep haunting you? Why does it keep coming back up? Think about it.

We deny it. We minimize it. The other thing we like to do is we'd like to compromise it. Compromise it. I see culture doing this a lot now. Compromise it is we just decide for the sake of not wanting to feel bad anymore that it's not wrong in any ways. That's really not wrong. We do this a lot with God's word.

We we contradict. As followers of Jesus, we don't obey. And then we feel guilty, and we feel guilty, and we feel guilty, and we try to minimize it. We try to deny it. We try to hide. Eventually, sometimes if we don't take it to God and be honest and confess our sin,

we will eventually say, you know what? I just don't think it's wrong anymore. And then we start saying the Bible doesn't really say this, and we start twisting things around to try to say it. In other words, my dad used to put it this way. We take the dot of where we're at, we draw a circle around it and say, bullseye,

winning. That's what we do. We compromise it. We just say it's not wrong. We also like to rationalize it. Rationalize it. That's where we're like, well everyone else is doing it.

Everyone else is doing it. We're like, well, that's what kids do. Right? How does that work? Your kids tried it? Everyone's going. So what do you say? Your parents did the same thing to you when you tried to rationalize something. What it is they'll say, well, if all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?

You wanna know? That's a really bad comeback. You know why? Because you know what the answer is? Yes. Yes, they would. And so would you, as long as it looked fun and the first one didn't die. You know it. We're just like our kids.

We we we get mad when our kids say everyone else is doing it, but then that's usually our argument for when we wanna do something. And and people go, we should do this. We should go, I don't just think that's the best way to go. Well, we should well, the Bible kinda says, well, everyone else is doing it.

That church is doing it. That church is doing it. Oh, oh, oh, okay. So I guess we judge right and wrong by what everyone else is doing. You realize in the book of Judges,

it described that what was going horribly wrong in Israel was everybody was doing the same thing. They were all everyone else is doing it, so let's just forget it. That doesn't it might make you feel good in the moment, just like I said, but emotional healing is more than a feeling.

All of those things might make you feel good at that moment. But as my dad always told me, sometimes when you want to feel better, you should never do the thing that makes you feel better.

I'm like, are you just trying to Yoda mind trick me into doing my homework right now? What's going on? And he goes, no. What I mean is a lot of times when you don't feel good, you should never do the thing that most quickly and immediately makes you feel good.

Because that most quickly and immediate thing is usually not a healthy thing. That is the descriptor of how addictions start. You see, I when I'm being haunted by guilt, haunted by these things, haunted by all these things, and I just don't wanna deal with it anymore, but I wanna feel good, I can drink, and I'll feel good.

But it doesn't deal with the issue at all. So when we try all these things and it doesn't work, the next thing we tend to do is we blame others. Blame shifting is an incredible thing we do. Matter of fact, that was the beginning of when when man first fell into sin in the garden, when Adam and Eve

listened to a lie that said, you should go around God. You'd be happier and feel better if you don't listen to what God said. That is the heart of all sin. I can control. God is holding out on me. I will be happier and more content if I do it my way, not his way.

Well, when God shows up after they do that in their synagogue now, there's God, there's Adam, there's Eve. There's three beings in existence. There's God and two human beings and that's it. They're standing there and God says to one of the three people in the room basically,

Adam, what went wrong here? And Adam goes, well, God, it was the woman that you gave me. Talk about expert blame shifting. There's only three people and he blamed the other two. He's basically saying this would have never happened if it wasn't for her, and ultimately that's your fault. You gave me a defective wife.

I have to think that the unedited version of the Bible went on to say, so hey, let's get another rip and let's start over.

That's what we do. That's the art of sin. And when we don't deal with our own guilt, our brokenness for God, our sin, we don't talk about how it is an offense to God that we are rebels against a holy and righteous God. Yes. He loves us. Yes, He died for us. Yes, He's the one that restores our soul. But you don't even understand the beauty and the power of how much He loves you if you don't realize how much unlovable we are.

We have to own that. We're hiding from it with all these things, the denials, the compromise, the minimize, the rationalize, and the blaming. But then the last thing, what I think a lot of us do most of the time, we use all of these in any given moment. But I think the toughest one that grabs us

is a lot of us just beat ourselves up all the time over it.

You almost take the other example. Like, okay. If I'm not supposed to blame, then I do blame myself. But then you continue to blame yourself and not do anything with it. You basically become your own worst enemy in some ways.

Because you just carry this guilt and you just go in and, well, I'll just be better. I'll just be better. And you keep trying and you don't get better. And then you start to carry so much guilt like your brain. It's part of the image of God that's in us, justice. We have a natural tendency for justice. You know it. We get it in little kids. You try to break the last Twinkie, cut it in half, and a little kid will instantly become all about justice.

His piece is point o one microns larger. A mask won't stop that, but still he got more twinky than me. You know, that's justice. That's a sense of and selfishness. It's justice with selfishness added in.

Think about it. We have this just sense. So here's the problem. When we don't deal with our guilt, we can try all those other things, but our our head can try to con our heart into saying, it didn't really happen. It's not that important. Everybody's doing it. It was really their fault. Your brain can try to throw all of that at your heart, but your heart doesn't buy it.

In your heart, you know you are a sinner. You know you are guilty. You know you are not listening to God. You know you've hurt others. You know you've hurt yourself. You know it. You just know it. And the sense of justice says punishment must be given. And I think a lot of us, you are constantly derailing your life

by punishing yourself with your own guilt. But here's the problem. Even punishing yourself with your own guilt doesn't fix the problem. Only God can. It's only through him. And that's what David did here. He he let God have the guilt.

Now in this story, it seems like, wow, it must be nice and easy. Cause it's in one verse. David confessed to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Basically, so all he is like, yeah, my bad, bro. No.

That's one sentence that this entire season, David actually wrote a prayer of this is how he what it's written down of his conversation with God. What does it mean to give your guilt to God? What does it mean to confess? It's called Psalm 51. It's actually his confession. His his his confession

over this incident. And I just wanna read it. Because maybe if you gotta learn how to take the guilt you have and go to God. Because you know what? There's a really non truth thing that we say. I just can't forgive myself. Well, good. Because you're not supposed to forgive yourself.

You don't have to forgive yourself for the wrong you've done. When you say I can't forgive yourself, what you're really saying is, I refuse to believe God. That's what you're saying. Because God will forgive you if you ask him. So if you can't take that forgiveness, then you think you know more than God.

And you've gotten so twisted in your head that you you think you gotta do it. You don't need to. You just need to trust that God forgives you. And so I'm gonna read this and then maybe one of the things you can do with this is take this, get alone. And if you wanna deal with some guilt, pray this this Psalm

and then add your own words with it. And see what happens to that weight on your conscience. He says this, have mercy on me, o God, because of your unfailing love, because of your great compassion.

Blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin for I recognize my rebellion. See? He causes his sin rebellion. Not my mistake. We're not mistakers people, we're sinners. And sin is an absolute rebellion. And you look, he says, it haunts me day and night.

Carrying around our guilt will haunt us in ways that we don't even realize. It's like high blood pressure. It's a silent killer sometimes.

Against you and you alone have I sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight. You'll be proved right in what you say and your judgment against me is just for I was born a sinner. Yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there. Purify me from my sins and I will be clean.

Wash me and I'll be whiter than snow. Did it say I need to purify myself? I need to listen to no. If God purifies you, if he washes you, you're clean. You're whiter than snow. He says, oh, give me back my joy again. You have broken me. See, we think emotional healing is all about feeling good. In this moment, how David had to get back to emotional healing was God had to break him down.

Maybe some of the things happened in your life is God is trying to break you so you will confess and reveal and run to him and receive his grace. And that's where you're gonna find the healing.

He goes, go don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. I love verse 10. Create in me a clean heart, o God, and renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence. Don't take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you.

Then I will teach your ways to rebels and they will return to you. He's like, when I realize how much you love me, I really want other people who are far from know that too. In other words, I'll probably be more forgiving to other people because I realize just how much you forgave me.

He goes on, forgive me for shedding blood, oh God, who saves. Then I will joyfully sling sing of your forgiveness. And seal my lips, oh Lord, that my mouth may praise you. You do not desire a sacrifice where I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit.

You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, oh God. Look with favor on Zion to help her. Rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Then you will be pleased with sacrifices offered in the right spirit. With burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings, the bulls will again be sacrificed. Notice he said you don't desire sacrifice, but a broken spirit. That means you don't serve or earn your way out of this guilt. Your broken spirit confessing to God,

you realize he's the one that saved you. The sacrifice, the service is a response to the incredible love you've received.

You have to get to healing. You have to accept what can't be changed. And one the things that can't be changed is our brokenness. But there is one who can change it. And it's let God remove your guilt. Rely on his grace. The second thing in this, and this is my longest point by the way, is

let God replace your grudges. It's the things that have been done to you. A lot of us, we are emotionally beat up because of the hurts that have happened to us. And the problem is we need to learn to let God replace them by releasing the resentment,

by letting it go. It talks about that in Ephesians chapter four. And in Romans says, we are not to seek vengeance. God's the God of justice. He's the one. And so we gotta learn how do we release a resentment.

Instead of building resentment towards someone, instead of looking on social media and every time they do something good, getting more mad. Every time you hear something bad happen, getting a little bit giddy with it. What if you just forgave them?

And here's the problem, we don't wanna do that because you say, woah, woah, woah, this person didn't come back and make amends. They didn't do anything right. I can't forgive them. I can't let them off the hook. You think that by holding a resentment, letting a resentment go, you're letting them off the hook?

There's two problems with that. One, we are not the ones that put people on a hook. That's what God says. It's not our job. So you don't need to let them get away with or not get away with. Secondly, when you let someone off the hook by forgiving them, you didn't let them off the hook. You let yourself off the hook.

Because we get drained with the resentment looking back and holding on to the grudge, and we can't change it. You can't go back and make it happen any different. But you could stop letting what happened to you control where you're going. Your your your your past might describe you, but it doesn't have to define you.

And the things that have happened to you don't have to define you. Many of us have been victims of things, but that doesn't mean you are now a victim the rest of your life. You don't stay if that's not your identity. Some of you had stuff happened twenty years ago and you're still living as if that's who you are

because you won't let go of it. And when we forgive someone, we're actually not letting them get away. We're allowing ourselves to get away. But I think a lot of us get confused. When you hear forgiveness, you think I said reconciliation. If you were in an abusive marriage and the still the the the person is still not,

you know, doing it right, just won't own it, they won't ask for forgiveness. And I said, forget it. You think that I said you need to go make the marriage work again. No. No. You see, forgiveness takes one, reconciliation takes two. That's the difference.

Reconciliation is two people are willing to come back and own their issues and say we're moving on. That takes two people. Forgiveness takes one. Now whether or not the other person ever comes and asks for forgiveness or tries to repent and get it, that's up to them. You're forgiving to let yourself go.

You need to well, how do you even do that? Because somebody's like, it just fixates. I see something, I get I get mad. How do do that? I'll give you one simple tip that I think helps the best. Pray for them. You can't pray for and pray on someone at the same time.

I mean, I guess you can. You can start getting so mad. You're like, God, and rip their faces off and smite them with a thousand smites. Whatever a smite is, lots of smiting.

But what if you realize that you've gotten rid of your own grudge of yourself, your own guilt, and realized just how dark your own heart is that might open you up to say, you know what? I'm gonna pray for them that maybe God can do this for them too.

You know what? Sometimes that's actually led to a person actually having an experience. God answered that prayer, and then they came back and actually did make things right. Being mad. Does that person that hurt you that doesn't care, you're still letting them hurt you and they still don't care about you?

They're not even thinking about you.

So pray for them, not pray on them. See what happens. See if you don't feel that weight coming off. It's letting yourself go. It's not about them. So those are the two primary things I think we need to accept

that can't be changed and do something about it. Like, let God remove the guilt because I can't change that. Let God replace the grudges because I can't change that.

The second thing we need to do here that happened in this passage is,

I think we need to worship in the valleys not just the victories. What was the first thing David did after he begged God for a week and didn't eat? Save this child, save this child, save What happened? What's the first thing he did when God did not save the child?

He cleaned himself up and went into worship before he even ate. That was the first thing he did. He went and worshiped God when he got a great big fat no from God. That seems counterintuitive. I think a lot of us struggle with that because we have the wrong idea of what worship is. We think worship is

a rousing round of, for he's a jolly good fellow. Is we come tell God how good he is because he gave me what I wanted. So we worship when we're winning. But we don't like to worship in the valleys. We only like to worship in the victories.

And so we think worship is, hey, life's going great. I'm gonna go, for God's a jolly good fellow. For God's a jolly good fellow. He answered my prayer the way I wanted it to go.

And Bill is still a terrible singer. Think about it. Well, that's what we think of as worship. Worship is not about celebrating the victory and telling God he's good because he gave me what I wanted. Sometimes the biggest blessing God can ever give you is no. You know this if you're a parent.

I mean, any parent here that you've only said yes to your kids, that's probably the source of why you're so emotionally defeated right now and your soul is crushed. Because you've given them everything, and they still don't care. And you realize you've created a monster,

or or even worse, you've created an adult that does not know how to function in society. And yet we get mad when God does that for us. We don't worship God just because we are having it go well for us. You see, when I only worship in the wind, that means my worship is about my good, not God's glory.

Worshiping in the valley is probably the most important time to worship because it is a it is an element that will change your attitude, help change your perspective because you're choosing to consciously put your emphasis and focus on God, the alpha and the omega,

the first and the last, the creator of all, the one who died on the cross for you, the one that made you, the one that knows you better than you know yourself, the one that already knows where the whole story ends, the one that understands exactly what is going on in you better than you do. And when I worship him in that moment that I don't get it, what I'm saying is, I don't get it, but I am so happy you do.

That's what worship is. And some of you have this training. And here's the problem, it's like working out when you're tired. No one wants to work out when they're tired. But guess what happens immediately when you work out? Energy. How many of you have avoided coming to church or was like, you know what?

Life's just been too hard this week. I'm just not gonna go to church.

I'm just I'm I'm I'm not gonna do it. I'm just I'm just too drained. I just can't do it. That makes no sense at all.

If you can't worship in the valley, then you're probably worshiping yourself in your own comfort, not God.

I told you these are counterintuitive steps to get emotional healing. But, hey, worship in the valleys, not just the victories. And then finally, the third thing, last thing, focus on moving forward, not look move looking backwards.

Look what David did in verse 24. He went and comforted Bathsheba. So he realized, you know what? He lost his child. He was broken up, but he still has this wife that became his wife in a really terrible way. I mean, that was worse than drunk marriage in a chapel in Vegas. This is a bad way to start a marriage.

But what he did is he worshiped God And then he focused on what was left, not what was lost. How about you? Are you so focused on what you lost or don't have

that you're squandering all the opportunity of what is there. We need to learn to live focus moving forward, not backwards. See, a lot of us do it this way. We're trying to go through life like this.

It's weird. You bump into something and then you hit, ow, that hurt. God, why are you doing this to me? He's like, I didn't do that to you. That's just a wall. Turn around. You know? And we we try and you know there's there's a reason why windshields are bigger than rearview mirrors.

You do need to look behind you every now and again. It's okay to look back,

but what I'm saying is that's just one thing you do. That's just a small part. You need to look through the windshield more than the rearview mirror, don't you? Imagine if you've tried to drive a car that the rear view mirror was the size of the windshield and the windshield was only the size of a rear view mirror. Could you imagine what your insurance rates would end up being?

There would be no more accident forgiveness from that Allstate guy or whoever he is. Mayhem would rule.

I go, we we we spend so much time in the rearview mirror that we'd miss out on what's moving forward. And look, when he looked forward, it says she became pregnant and the next child was the next king, Solomon.

Do you realize that whole example is exactly what it says in Romans when it says God works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes?

Some people just take that first part of the verse and say, God makes everything good. Well, isn't good, so God's not good. No. He never said everything was good. It says he can make all things work work together for good. What he's actually telling you is there's lots of horrible things that happen. There's lots of bad things that happen. But if you love God and are called according to your purpose, if you do what David did, a man after God's own heart, didn't mean he didn't sin. He sinned worse than a lot of us in this room have ever dreamed of sinning. But what he did was when he realized it, he repented.

He went back to being called according to God and his purposes. He got back on the path, and because of that, God actually helped him walk through it, regain his soul strength, his emotional

health. And as he went forward, he actually worked on his relationship with his wife. She ends up pregnant, and that's the new king. He worked it together that in this messed up relationship, you ended up with the next king out of it. It didn't mean what happened was right. It meant that God was able to take it and

turn it in a good direction. But it never happens if you don't love God and called according to his purpose.

If I don't accept what can't be changed, if I don't let him remove my guilt, let him replace my grudges. If I don't choose to worship Him in the valleys, not just the victories. And if I don't choose to focus on moving forward instead of always staring backwards. That's the path.

That's the beginning of the path. That's where we need to go. In other words, don't let your mourning turn into moaning. And don't let your worship be more about whining.

It's let's look to where God wants us to go. And I get it. All three of these things, they're very counterintuitive. Every one of those is counterintuitive.

This is a hopeful message. This is a message of hope. Someone's like, oh my gosh. This is the scariest thing I've heard. These three things, that's that doesn't sound like it'll help me at all. Exactly. It's counterintuitive. Why do think David's adviser said, we don't even understand you. We're amazed.

Because what he did is not normal. Matter of fact, it's so not normal that a lot of you probably think, David still seems like kind of a jerk to me.

Because he should have moaned more. He should have lingered. You're thinking he got up and said, hey, I can't go to him. He'll come to me. Some of you that hit your heart as, wow, he's callous. He must not have loved that child. That's how ingrained we are in what we think the path is supposed to be. He was very sad.

He was mourning, but he didn't let the mourning turn into moaning and control of the rest of his life. He let God restore his soul. Very counterintuitive. Let me let me let me me give you one example. It's kinda crazy, but just end with this to challenge us. I've told you guys stories before. My dad, combat veteran, decorated

World War Two, Korea, Vietnam. And he had to do some stuff in leading men in combat that was very counterintuitive. It's not what you would think to do. And yet it saved him and his men's lives.

One in particular, I got the details. I don't even know if I've ever fully shared these details before. I got it from ended up mazily tracking down and talking to a guy that served under my dad in the Korean War.

And he wanted to thank my dad. He's like, how's your dad doing? I'd love to talk to him. Because these guys just got back from war. Bye. No cell phones. They never saw each other again. And he goes, how's he doing? I said, died. He goes, oh, that's sad. He goes, he saved our lives so many times.

And he goes, and one in particular, he ended up getting a silver star for it. But he goes, what he did we didn't even understand. It was so counterintuitive and confusing. I couldn't understand what was going on. And it was in the Korean War,

the Chinese kinda did this surprise attack around this Choson Reservoir. The marines got unfolded, but they tried to just, they completely encircled what my dad, what he was doing, got caught up in the middle of that. And he worked with some equipment. It was top secret kind of radar specialized equipment right near the front line. So he ended up encircled. And next thing you know, they had orders with this equipment

because it was so state of the art was you can't let it get captured. So it was portable, but it took a certain amount of time to load it up. But they also had explosives. They could blow it up. Well, didn't get enough warning of what happened when this surprise attack came in. That basically,

the marines and everyone else left,

and he, to run this equipment, they're up on a little high point. So they're up on this high point on a mountain that has this super narrow steep road that comes up to it about as wide as this aisle. You could barely fit a jeep on it. Barely a truck, little wider. And then there was a little same road that left out the other side.

Well, they ended up being the only ones there. All the men are gone. It's just him and his squad, his 12 men. They're sitting there, and that's all that's left. And he looks down, and there's the Chinese army. There's about a thousand men, tanks and everything at the bottom of this little mountain. And he sees that they're starting to send men up there, and and they're they're about to get overrun. 12 a thousand.

And and this guy told me, we all looked at you guys. Sergeant, we gotta get the bleepity bleep out of here. And you would think, yes. 12 a thousand.

Let's go. The problem is they had the equipment half loaded up. It would take longer to disconnect it from the truck that they needed to get away in and blow it up than it would to continue to load it. But then you would think, maybe just don't finish loading it. Leave. That would have been an idea, and my dad probably would have done that too. He would have given up the equipment to save the men's lives.

But he noticed something. He looked down and he's like, why are they not shooting that tank at us? That's the first thing you would do. Before you wanna take a fixed position that's got higher ground, hit them with the big stuff.

He goes, they're not shooting. So he got the binoculars out and looked. And he literally saw a Chinese officer looking through binoculars at him. And he's like,

oh, no. And then and he goes, what did do? He goes, well, we didn't know it was going. Your dad says, here's what we're gonna do. You guys 11, you guys keep loading.

You, which was the guy telling me the story, take everyone's rifles and all the ammo and come over here. He turned the jeep sideways facing down this hill, and he says, every time I unload with these guns, I'm throwing it down. You just sit here and keep reloading. And he goes, you guys keep loading. How long will it take? He goes, we can get it loaded in five minutes. He goes, alright. The only way we're gonna live is we're gonna fight for five minutes.

We're gonna face a thousand men for five minutes or we die. That is so counterintuitive.

If yours 12 of you and and and and then it was only one of them was gonna fight, dad's the only one that's gonna shoot a gun. And they're like, this sounds stupid. Wouldn't we have a better chance to live if 12 guys got in a truck and drove away as fast as they could? But what your dad, he said, realized

was they're not firing the big stuff because they know why are those idiots staying. They must have equipment that we don't have that we want, and they don't want us to have it. So we're not gonna shoot the big stuff as long as we're attached to the important stuff.

So he says, we can't leave until we have it all because then they'll keep chasing us, but they won't shoot us with big explosive things. They go boom. So he goes, I need to make them slow down for five minutes.

And because it was a narrow road angled down, he unloaded that rifle for five minutes and fought off a thousand men for five minutes and saved all their lives.

I don't tell that story to say, oh, look how cool my dad was. He was epically cool, by the way, but

that's the opposite of what you think you should do. And here's the cool thing. When he said, well, I'm sad that your dad passed away because I wanted to thank him as well as the other guys. Because I actually did get in contact and stayed in the military and actually knew about eight or nine of the guys.

And all I can tell you is this. Here's what I'll say about your father in my life. None of us were married in Korea. We were young. And I know that I have kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, and so do all the others. And they exist. Not just the 12 of us lived. There are thousands of us alive now

because your dad was stupid enough to fight a thousand men for five minutes.

What's your thousand men? What is the guilt? What is the grudge? What is your lack of willing to worship in the right way? What what is the thousand men that is weighing on your life that is just draining your soul, that is just hurting you, that you just keep running from with denial, compromise, blame,

you know, addictions? You're just running away and it's killing you. What do you need to do? What would happen if you just turned and faced those thousand men in your life for five minutes? What would happen if we just understood that emotional healing is more than a feeling? Father God, I thank you Lord. I thank you that you

are the one that restores my soul, our souls. And I pray simply that myself and everyone in this room could embrace that. That we could do the counterintuitive thing. Face the fear. Face the problem. Face the issue. Face our guilt. And do it by embracing your love.

Lord help us to follow that path and allow you to restore our souls. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey guys. First of all, I love you guys. Thanks for being here. It's awesome. Yay. Amen. And

secondly, if you need to talk with someone, you wanna pray a little bit more, you can go in the prayer room over here online. If you need to talk to someone, just click on the rockpoint.io need to talk tab. And other than that, enjoy the rest of your day. And I just hope that we enjoy watching the Cardinals win yet again.

Yeah.