It's impossible to be a parent on a car ride with your kids
without eventually being confronted with one of the
age-old car questions that kids ask.
And here it is. If you were an animal, what
animal would you be? Take a second turn, Your
neighbor, the one you like? Answer the question, if you had
to pick which animal, which animal would you be?
I'm I'm watching some of you guys are a little embarrassed by
what you just heard. This, it's going to be tough.
We asked at multi site. We asked the staff that were in
there for the day. If you were going to be an
animal, which animal would you be?
We got some dolphins and some whales.
I've never heard that before. That was interesting.
Someone picked a Flamingo and another person picked a turtle.
They're not going to last, but we were thankful for their
honesty. We we had a person pick a duck
to which I replied, don't fly over Pike County.
There were a couple people who picked an eagle.
Come on, America. I was like, that's good, That's
solid. And who doesn't love flying?
I like it. But you know the well, there was
also a wolf, but you know, the predominant family of animals
that were chosen. We had lions, tigers, snow
leopards. Two different people said they
wanted to be a Panther. And a lot of these were fellas,
which I found interesting because for as much as men hate
cats, secretly you want to be 1. My answer to this question has
always been the same, all the way back in junior high.
So if you could be an animal, what would you be?
Easy silverback gorilla. That is 100% my position.
You're just strong. You eat whatever you want.
You seem like you have a pretty good life.
But I had to ask the Internet, is the gorilla the ultimate apex
predator? Because that's what I want to
be. I want to be an apex predator.
Comes find out. They would lose to the lion.
They would lose to the tiger, but the apex predator is the
polar bear, which is now my new, that's my new answer.
I'm done with silverback gorillas.
I'm now on team polar bear. Would it surprise you that the
animal that you would choose for you is completely different than
the animal that God would choose for you?
And the animal that he has for you didn't make anyone's list.
I want to welcome all of our different locations.
Those of you watching online, those of you who are part of our
inside family, specifically those of you who are at our 48th
St. location or Macomb or Kirksville, 929 Pike County,
Hannibal, Lima, Mount Sterling, Keokuk, Monmouth, Jacksonville,
Weaver. We are so thankful to be a part
of this ministry alongside each and every single one of you.
Today we are starting a new series designed to help you grow
in your love and appreciation for God.
The sermon series is called same name.
Turn your neighbor and say same name.
I've heard lots of times, you've probably heard it as well, that
there are people who struggle with the God of the Old
Testament and they'll say things like I just I have a hard time
with the God of the Old Testament.
Well, what's surprising to me is that the people in the Old
Testament had a completely different view of God than we do
of the God of the Old Testament. In fact, the names that they
gave God run contrary to the narrative professed by modern
day critics and skeptics. And I thought it might be a
little helpful for us to allow the people of the Old Testament
to tell us what the God of the Old Testament was actually like.
And what you'll find is that the God of the Old Testament is the
same God in the New Testament. It's the same God with the same
name because he is still offering the same power and the
same promise, if you're willing to receive it.
So what animal would God choose for you?
A sheep. And I know what you're thinking.
Please, no, not a sheep. Yeah, a sheep.
The dumbest animals in the animal Kingdom.
Let me just walk you through the stat sheet on sheet.
No defensive weapons, no offensive weapons.
Poor sense of direction. They wander, they get lost.
Add to that, they don't have the ability to clean themselves.
You've heard me talk about my golden dummy, Suge.
Suge, When he goes outside after it's rained and he, you know,
does his number one and his number 2, the golden dummy comes
back in the house and he lays down and he will clean himself
all night long so that way he can present himself to the world
like he's like a chick getting ready for work in the morning.
Like that's sugar. Sugar can clean himself all
night long. Not a sheep.
Sheep have zero ability to clean themselves, so their thick coats
collect dirt, hold and sweat and without somebody pulling them
aside and shearing them, they will become heavy laden and
overheat and die. You've heard me talk about this
a bunch. That we have a tendency to take
all the stupid pills in the medicine cabinet that like we
love a good stupid pill. Do you know who really loves
stupid pills? Sheep.
It's their favorite meal. So since sheep are defenseless,
dirty, susceptible to attack, and cannot take care of
themselves, they need something that nobody else in the animal
Kingdom needs. Sheep need a shepherd.
And so God has always raised up leaders, shepherds, to take care
of His sheep, His people. Look what it says in Psalm 78.
He chose David. What was David?
David was a shepherd, his servant, and took him from the
sheep pens. What was he doing in the sheep
pens? He was shepherding from tending
the sheep, from shepherding the sheep.
He brought him in to be the shepherd, the leader of his
people, Jacob of an Israel, his inheritance.
And David shepherded them, LED them with the integrity of
heart, with skillful hands. He led them, He shepherded them.
And God takes the care of his people so seriously that he
pronounced judgment on the leaders of Israel for not
shepherding, leading the sheep, the people.
Look what it says in Ezekiel chapter 34.
The word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, prophecy against the
shepherds of Israel, prophecy and say to them, This is what
the sovereign Lord says. Woe to you, shepherds of Israel
who only take care of yourselves.
Should not shepherds take care of the flock?
You eat the curds, clothe yourself with the wool,
slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the
flock. You have not strengthened the
weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.
You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.
You have ruled them harshly and brutally.
So. They were scattered because
there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered, they became
food for the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the
mountains, on every high hill. They were scattered over the
whole earth, and no one searched for them or looked for them.
And for some of you at our different locations today or
watching online, this is your story.
Your father was supposed to be a Good Shepherd to you, but he
wasn't. Your mom was supposed to take
care of you. She didn't.
Your parents were to watch over you and protect you, and instead
they only cared for themselves. There's no doubt that there are
some women in attendance today who you have lived with.
A man who was selfish, harsh, brutal in his dealings with you.
There are many, I'm sure across this region.
If you were to describe the status of your soul, you could
use the word scattered. And you feel like no one came
looking for you. And I want you to hear me say
this. God takes what happened to you
personally and He does something about it.
This is Ezekiel 34. You know, Old Testament, the
book that nobody reads. Look what God says in response,
verse 11, same chapter. For this is what the sovereign
Lord says. I myself will search for my
sheep and look after them as a shepherd looks after his
scattered flock when he is with them.
So I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the
places where they were scattered on the day of clouds and
darkness. I will bring them out from the
nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them
into their own land. I will pasture them on the
mountains of Israel, in ravines, and in all the settlements in
the land. I will tend them in good
pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their
grazing land. There they will lie down in good
grazing land. There they will feed in rich
pasture on the mountains of Israel.
I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the
sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost,
bring back the strays, bind up the injured, strengthen the
weak. This is the God of the Old
Testament. This is not someone off moment
or one off metaphor either. Over and over and over again in
the Old Testament, we see God establishing his relationship
with his people as a shepherd with his sheep.
Most notably, perhaps the most famous piece of all Scripture is
found in the Old Testament in Psalm 23.
Now, before we read it, the mission of this church is to
help people find an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus
Christ. And you may at some point in
time have somebody come up to you and go, well, where is that
in the Bible? Psalm 23 is the answer to that
question. If somebody were to come up to
you and say, I think I would like an intimate personal
relationship with Jesus Christ, I just don't know what that
looks like. What does an intimate personal
relationship with Jesus Christ look like?
The answer to that question is 6 of you are smarter when somebody
goes, the mission of this church is to help people find an
intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Where would I go to see what that relationship looks like?
All you have to do is go to now. So many of you are smarter.
Now watch. We're going to walk you through
what life with Jesus looks like and what you're going to find
out is it's really stinking good.
Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd.
I lack nothing. Right off the bat you and I get
a name, a title given to God and for God from David, the name
Jehovah Rohi. God is my shepherd.
Now that is good news right there.
You want to know why? Because a shepherd has a job and
his job is to take care of his sheep, that means that not only
has God handled my eternity, but He is caring for me in my
reality. I know a lot of people that were
hoping that their job would take care of them only to find out it
wouldn't. I know a lot of people who are
hoping that their health would pull them through only to find
out that it wouldn't. I know people that were hoping
and they looked for a spouse who would take care of them only to
find out that they were not strong enough to handle their
deepest needs nor powerful enough to handle their greatest
longings. If you go looking for a shepherd
and you get the wrong one. But I have never seen anyone
trust in God and be let down. I've never seen a cry of the
heart that missed his ear. I've never seen a person who
trusted in him put to shame. I've never seen a person who
built their life on him not be able to survive the storms of
life. Verse 2.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes, restores my soul.
This means that he takes me to the places that he knows I need
the most. He knows my deepest longings.
He knows my greatest needs. And he knows where to get them
taken care of of. And in doing so, he refreshes
and restores my soul. And you might be going, but
Clayton, I don't think he's doing that for me.
Oh, yeah, he is. Maybe you didn't realize it.
Maybe you showed up for ADBS. It's the DBS you've been going
to for a while. But for some reason on that
particular day, at that particular DBS, it was on the
subject matter that you had been struggling with.
And you went, boy, that's a coincidence.
It wasn't. It was God saying, come here, I
have green grass and good water for you.
I'm about to restore your soul. It's when you're having your
anchoring time and a verse that you didn't know you needed jumps
off the page. It's a word of encouragement
from somebody that you didn't see coming.
It's the worship song at the end of the service that you didn't
know and you didn't know how bad you would end up needing it.
That was God pasturing you, watering you, restoring and
refreshing your soul. Here's why this is good news.
This takes the burden of you off of you, and it puts the burden
of you on him. And when the burden of you is
off you and it's on Him, this leads to peace and to rest.
But the only way you and I are able to access this is through
faith. When you begin to trust that
God's ways are above your ways and you allow Him to be your
Shepherd, what's He do next? He guides me along the right
paths for His namesake. I don't know about you, but I
can find the wrong path on my own.
I don't need Agps to get lost. I can do.
I can do that right now. And since I like to go through
life fast, not only can I get lost fast, I can go the wrong
way for a long time fast. You know what you need though?
If you're going, I'm tired of going the wrong way and I want
to start going the right way, you and I need the exact same
thing. We need divine direction.
If my heart longs to walk in the ways of God, I need somebody to
guide me. And if I have Jehovah Rohi, I
have a shepherd who will guide me along the right path that I'm
supposed to take. Verse 4, Even though I walk
through the valley or through the darkest valley, I will fear
no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they
comfort me. This is the part of the message
that gets a little depressing. There's only three types of
people in the world, people who are coming out of the valley.
Those are the happy people. There's people who are in the
valley and there's people who are about ready to walk into it.
Which means that only about 1/3 of you right now showed up to
church today going, man, God got me through.
The other third of you are in it, and the other third of you
are like, oh Dang it, it's going to be a rough week.
We're not coming out and we're not in it.
Yeah, you're going to bump your head.
Here's the good news. Watch, watch, watch.
Let me clear this up for those of you who are watching.
Like health and wealth, people being in an intimate, personal
relationship with Jesus Christ does not mean you don't have
valleys. It means you have Jehovah Rohi
in the valley with you. Valleys are tough.
Valleys are incredibly tough. The sunsets the fastest in the
valley. It rises the slowest in the
valley. Valleys are by nature dark, and
it is impossible to outrun the shadows.
But when you are in Christ, when God is your Jehovah, Rohi,
instead of looking at the shadows, you can look at the
shepherd. Verse 5 You prepare a table
before me. In the presence of my enemies,
you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my
life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
This means I have nothing to fear.
If I have Jehovah Rokie, I could dine in the presence of those
who desire my destruction and have No Fear, knowing that
Jehovah Rohi is my protection. I grew up on the water.
We would go up to a place in Iowa and we would go boating and
we had a blast and then we moved down here.
We started trying to make it as often as we could down to the
Lake of the Ozarks and you guys can have all the beaches you
want. Give me the lake.
I am a lake guy. And I like going out, but I know
what people say when they go to the Lake of the Ozarks, those
big boats make it impossible for you to enjoy your time.
That's just because your boat ain't big enough.
Because you get on the right kind of boat, you're like giddy
up, but you're out there. And I get it, the boats flying
by and their weight comes and it hits you and you're, you're
laying down on like those expensive Styrofoam things that
people marketed you for like 1000 bucks and you're taking a
nap. And then you accidentally get
waterboarded by yourself because the the weight comes through and
you inhale all. I get it, I get it, I get it, I
get it. But what's happening is David is
showing us that as you and I go through life, you and I leave
awake just like a boat. There is stuff that is coming
off of you. And I got to ask you kind of a
tough question. What's in your wake this week?
When you were in the office, you're having a tough
conversation with some people you work with.
When you left, were your Co workers going?
Was that was that goodness and love that I just experienced?
We were getting ready for Valentine's Day.
Everybody's got high hopes, trying to keep everybody happy
in the house. But you started a bit of a
conversation that turned into a bit of an argument.
And when the argument was over, was your spouse going goodness
and love right there? Yeah, No, on my own.
The wake you and I produce, hear me, is not the wake we want.
This is Romans 7. There is a good that you and I
want to do that we do not do. But the thing that we do not
want to do, we keep on doing. So we nobody wants to make their
spouse angry, especially during Valentine's Day week.
But sure enough, the good you want to do, you don't do.
And the thing you don't want to do, you end up doing, and your
spouse is left with. And I'll let you fill in the
blank, but when God is your Jehovah Rohi, and he leads you
on the past that you're supposed to go in, and he takes you to
where you're supposed to feed, and he takes you to where you're
supposed to get water. And your soul, soul is
refreshed. What leaves behind you when you
are with God is goodness and love.
I can stop this sermon right there.
But we said that this sermon series was called the same name.
Why? Because it is the exact same
God, with the exact same power, offering the exact same promise.
Can I take you to the New Testament?
To Jesus when he's talking? He says this in John chapter 10.
See if you notice the similarity.
I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep
know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
Let me pause right there. God knows you as well as he
knows God. Jesus knows you as well as he
knows God. He has a perfect understanding
of you. All the good you want to do, all
the bad you don't want to do. Watch and all the bad that you
do, and all the bad that you do, that nobody else knows.
He knows you perfectly. And I lay myself down for the
sheep. How good is this shepherd?
He knows just how bad and evil you are and still is willing to
lay his life down for you. That's a Good Shepherd right
there he goes on verse 9. I am the gate.
Whoever enters through me will be saved.
They will come in and go out and find pasture.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his
life for the sheep. Jesus came to be your Jehovah
Rohi. He laid his life down on your
behalf so that you could experience the fullness of his
abundant life. Like I said, it is the same name
because it's the same God with the same power offering the same
promise if you're willing to receive it.
I want to take just a a quick moment and just honor our
English teachers that are with us all across this region day.
And the reason I want to honor you is because nobody likes you.
You don't teach the cool subjects like math.
Like nobody's walking up to somebody going, man, that's a
good reader right there. That's a good writer.
That's a great sentence structure.
How's your kid doing in school? Oh, yeah.
He's taking honors math. Nobody's saying he's writing
complicated paragraphs. Yeah.
We get you and we say stuff, and then you correct us.
And then we stop inviting you places.
God bless the English teachers. But this, this is all about the
English teachers because if you were to hang out with an English
teacher and we were talking about the Lord is my shepherd,
what they would tell you as that the word is, is present tense
means that something is happening right now and tense
makes all the difference. Nobody, nobody would be talking
about how good Psalm 23 is if David wrote that in the past
tense, the Lord was my shepherd. That just doesn't hit the same,
does it? That's just not the same kind of
thing because a past tense provision in a present tense
need will not pull you through. And past tense power in a
present tense pain is not what you're praying for.
There are a lot of you right now that that was how you would
probably describe your relationship with Jehovah Rogi
past tense. That's the song you're writing.
That's your Psalm 23. And then you came down with an
awful case of the used to's. You used to follow God.
You used to seek him in prayer. You used to seek his counsel.
You used to submit to his ways. You used to follow his voice.
And I just got to ask you, how's that working for you?
We teach here at the crossing that God's way is the best way.
So if you're walking your way, it's not his way, which means
you are not walking the best way.
Thank you. There's some of you.
If you were to write Psalm 23, it would be future tense.
God will be one day my shepherd, just not this day.
This is where it gets tough. I'm glad you're here, but this
is going to hurt. You're going.
I want to get right with God. I just need a little time.
I just need to get it together. And I need you to hear me say
this clearly. That is satanic thinking.
It's demonic watch God wants you to be in relationship with him
right now. So anything that is keeping you
from starting a relationship with him right now is satanic
because what does Satan want you to do?
He wants you to delay getting right with God or Satan wants
you to think that you have to fix you before you can get with
God, which takes the gospel and rips it of its power because we
are made right because God sent his son to make us right so we
could be right with him. But if you think that you have
to get you fix before you can get right with God, that means
that somehow you are your own savior.
That's from Satan. Satan wants to deny you of the
ability to access the cross, and he wants to rob you of the
ability to see the power of the cross.
And so he gets you to say, maybe next week he gets you to say,
one of these days. The problem with one of these
days I'll get right with God is sometimes one of those days
never actually comes. One of these days of your life
is snatched from you. Life changes in an instant.
There's some of you you're going.
I want to get right with God. I just kind of like sinning and
listen, I get that. I've never had a bad time
sinning. Sinning's not like broccoli like
I guess I got to go sin today. Nope, it's it's not like that
Sin is fun. I've never been in the middle of
my sin and been like, this is the worst.
Not once. All of it feels good in the
moment. It feels good to win in an
argument. And you Can you imagine being
married to me? I mean, you guys comp on me that
I can put some words together. Can you imagine me in an
argument? I'm great.
And I'm like, well, that was wicked.
That was good. That was some wordsmithing.
It rhymed. And then afterwards you're like,
nobody wants to be around me. It's the after sitting that's
tough. It's what happens after I choose
to step into sin because the invitation to sin is always
good. It just never leads to good
places. And so some of you are going, I
kind of like God's forgiveness and I kind of like sin, which
means you don't really like Jesus.
You want to be close enough to the fire to get warm, but not
close enough to get changed. You don't actually fully regret
who you are outside of him and don't realize who you can be in
him. So David writes, the Lord is as
Tony Evans says, we have a right now God.
You know why that's good news. That means that right now I have
access to salvation. Not in the future, not in the
past. Right now means I have right now
access to hope, right now access to peace, and right now access
to power. It means that right now I am no
longer my responsibility. I am my shepherd's
responsibility because the Lord is my shepherd, which makes me
his sheep. But is he your Shepherd?
We're moving to a time of decision.
To those of you who are in the room or watching online,
everything we just talked about lacking nothing, restoring
souls, being guided, directed, experiencing His presence, His
power and His protection in the valley are there for the taking.
And we spent so much time talking about the Lord is that
we didn't spend nearly enough time in the sermon talking about
the next two letter word, which is equally important.
My, my shepherd. It doesn't matter if your friend
can say it, if your mom can say it, if your grandma said it, if
your grandpa said it. The question is, can you say it?
Can you say, Jehovah Rohi, the Lord is my shepherd?
And if today you haven't started that relationship with him, I
got really good news for you. Today's a good day to start.
And in just a few moments, all around this room, they're going
to be people who are going to stand up and they're going to
sing and worship, and there's going to be other people who are
going to come to the steps and pray.
And while they are doing that, you can walk right over there
underneath that screen next to the baptistry and you can talk
to somebody. If you don't want to do that,
look across the room and go, I know somebody here and go and
talk to that somebody about how you can start that.
So you can say this sentence, the Lord is my shepherd because
if he is your shepherd, He will lead you wherever he is going to
be. And the Bible says that he is
with the Father. And if you want to be with the
Father when you die, you better make sure you have a shepherd
right now to the rest of you in the room, to those of you who
already know who Jesus is. Since Jesus is a shepherd,
Shepherds tell shepherds stories, and one of his favorite
and most famous shepherd stories is found in Luke chapter 15,
verses 3 through 7. Many of you have heard it.
Then Jesus told them this story. Suppose one of you has 100 sheep
and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the
open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his
shoulders? This is where we get the Hobby
Lobby pictures, right here. So he picks it up when I watch
joyfully. What do you think about God?
Not only does he look for you, but when he shows up, he is not
showing up with condemnation. He is joyfully putting you on
his shoulders to take you home. And then he calls his friends
and his neighbors, and he gathers them together, and
that's what he says. Rejoice with me.
I have found my lost sheep. That's the kind of shepherd he
is. Maybe you've been wandering off
from him. He came looking for you.
Verse 7. Then he explains it.
I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in
heaven over 1 Sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons
who do not think they need to repent.
One of the things is if He is your shepherd and He is come
looking for you and He has found you in your sin, He has found
you in your wandering, maybe today what you need to do is you
need to repent. You need to start a party in
heaven. There's a sin that you've been
carrying for way too long. There's a thing you can't seem
to let go. There's an area where you're not
trusting Him. There's a sin you're clinging to
heaven that throws a party when God's people repent others of
you. You've been wandering for a long
time, and for some reason you find yourself here today.
That was God searching for you. Will you allow Him to put you on
His shoulders and take you to the throne room of God?
Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, help us to be
about your mission of finding the lost sheep.
Help us to trust you and silence the voice of Satan in our lives
and in our spirits so we can follow your voice.
God, help us to trust you more and more each day.
Grow our faith and our dependence in you and God.
Right now, all across this region, you know what every
single person is navigating, what every single person is
struggling. You know exactly what it is that
they need to do. And y'all, we're asking in
faith. And not only would you show us
what we're supposed to do, but give us the faith to do it.
Your name, I pray. Amen.