Hi, welcome back, Cindy. Let me know that I misspoke.
The time for Dwayne being here on Wednesday night at 6:30.
So 630, not 7630. So we'll see you at 6:30.
So everyone says 630 for me, 630.
All right, if you have your Bibles, please take them and
turn, turn to Luke, chapter 24. Luke is in the New Testament.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the first, first books of the
New Testament, which is probably about 80% through your Bible.
If you're looking, if you're new to the Bible, Luke chapter 24.
And while you're turning there, I love this right here.
In fact, Well, let me greet those who are watching online
for the podcast and then we'll jump into this.
If you're watching online this morning or in days to come,
we're super excited that you're with us and we invite you to
come be with us in person. We know that maybe you've
watched several times online now.
This is your invitation church, right?
Can you say come and say Amen, Amen.
So this is your invitation to come.
We have services at 9:00 and 10:30 and would love to have you
with us in person sometime soon while you're turning to Luke
chapter 24. This is kind of fun.
JJ put this together for us. This this is for this series
that we're doing on the Psalms. And he so I knew he was working
on some artwork for it, but he randomly texted me one day and
he said, Hey, what are like your favorite recordings of all time?
And I thought he was just asking me about my music, you know,
like, so. So I sent him some some that I
really enjoy. And so up there at the top right
corner. Anybody know who that is?
It's one of my favorite records of all time.
Anybody know who that is? Nobody.
OK, this is James Taylor. How many of you know who James
Taylor is? Right.
I love James Taylor, the guitar player, singer-songwriter.
Those of you who are young might not know who he is, but he's
like 75 or 6 now, but still packing out arenas, you know?
But so one of my favorite records all of all time is the
James Taylor live record from like 1994.
So that's he, he, I didn't know he's going to put it in the
artwork, but it's kind of fun for me.
It's like an inside joke. And then down here in the bottom
right, anybody know who that is? Anybody that's Miles Davis.
Miles Davis I've, you know, especially his earlier music
later on, he kind of got a little little bizarre.
But early on, like the blue record is bad.
If you know that record, it's like this 12 minute long jam
section with like John Coltrane and Bill Evans on piano.
It's really cool record. Anyways, instrumental jazz.
So that's stuck in there. And then I I would bet nobody
knows who this guy in the middle is.
Anybody know who that is? I, I, it's a very obscure folk
artist that I'm really into. His name is David Wilcox.
And this record was called Big Horizon from like 1992.
So I was in my young 20s My God. Anyways, my point is, it's kind
of fun that JJ fit these in there.
So if you're curious, that's who these guys are and that's my
taste in music. There you go.
All right, Luke, chapter 24. I'm going to read to you from
verse 44 and then we'll pray together.
This is God's word. We value it, we treasure it, we
admire it. And I'm going to read to you the
words of Jesus. This is towards the end of his
earthly ministry. He's about to ascend into heaven
and say goodbye, if you will, to his disciples that he has been
with for three and some years. He's been crucified,
resurrected. He spent 40 days with them.
And then this is what he says to them.
And it's it's profound. Verse 44, He says, then he said
to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still
with you, that everything written about me in the law of
Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Jesus himself valued and spoke of Psalms, which is the where
we're studying these weeks. Jesus, not only did he mention
Psalms, but he quoted the Psalms over and over and over again.
And what I present to you is that if the Psalms were valuable
to Jesus, they should be valuable to us.
There's so much for us to learn in the book of Psalms, 150
chapters, 150 songs in the Old Testament, about 40% in to your
Bible. The Psalms contain about 5% of
the entire Bible. They're valuable.
So we are spending several weeks in the Psalms, and I'm calling
it the OG playlist because I consider the Psalms the
original, the OG, the original playlist that God himself came
up with. Let me pray for us and then
we'll jump in. God, as we take these weeks to
study the Book of Psalms, these songs that are so valuable.
My prayer is that you will supernaturally increase within
us love for you, worship of you, commitment to you, and awareness
of what is true about you. Stir us, soften our hearts as we
meditate, as we're told to do, as we meditate on Scripture and
particularly these psalms. Grow us in your ways.
We pray in Jesus name. And everyone said, hey man, now
I am calling this study for the next few weeks the OG playlist
because again, it's the original playlist that God himself puts
the put together. And last week, if you missed the
message from last week, I won't go into great detail, but a
couple of things I said if you missed it is that the Psalms are
are written by several different authors.
Maybe you thought it was mostly David and David wrote a good bit
of them. I think it was around 70 a 60 or
70 and then Asaph wrote several. But even Moses wrote some of the
psalms and he lived hundreds of years before David.
So the Psalms are songs from a 1500 year period of the Old
Testament, the era from Moses all the way past David and
Solomon, past the era of like Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and
Daniel and the lion's Den and Esther if you know her story.
Some of the songs are even written after that post exile
period of time. So 1500 years of Psalms are
compiled, we believe by the Holy Spirit into this book of Psalms
and for us it is a gift. Jesus leaned into them and we
lean into them too. And last week I mentioned that,
you know, some of us when in the 80s, if you're my age, you'll
remember that back then, we would record songs from the
radio and remember you'd have a cassette player and you'd be
sitting there waiting for your song to come on.
And then you wanted to time it just right and push record.
How many of you remember that era, right?
Some of you were dragging with me, right?
And we were there, man, and we were leaning in waiting.
You'd call the radio station back then you'd say, hey, can
you play the song? Right?
You could request a song. You'd be sitting there trying to
record. And how wealthy did you feel
when you got a cassette tape, both sides, full of songs you
loved? Right.
So even over here, I've got a box of mix tapes that I have
from the 80s. I still have them.
I'm sentimental, man. They're still in my basement.
Tapes that I made in the 80s, sitting there with radio.
So some of you can't appreciate how easy it is now that you just
go to Spotify and you have endless playlists, endless.
And you could just, you know, search the artist that you'd
like and go to YouTube or Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon
Music, wherever you go everywhere and you get easy
playlist. But we in our generation, back
in our day, it was harder to get your mixtape than your playlist.
So we're looking at the Psalms and we're saying, wow, it's it's
a playlist of songs that the writers of the Old Testament
songwriters that their songs end up in this collection inspired
by the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm encouraging you in the
next several weeks, we'll, we'll be in this series in the book of
Psalms up till Thanksgiving, OK. And each week I'll come from a
different angle and bring a different group of Psalms to
teach about. And my hope is that you'll lean
in and that when we're done with the series, your knowledge and
understanding and appreciation of the Psalms will be much more
than it is now, even if right now you have a great discipline
of reading the Psalms. But I hope that will grow all of
us. Now I'm recommending this book
right here is only like 7 or $8. And this is the this is the ESV
by Crossway. And this is bigger than a lot of
your Bibles. But this is only the book of
Psalms and so 150 of them. But what's unique about this is
that the paper is really thick. And on my desk, I actually have
the entire Bible like this. OK, so each book of the Bible
all the way through and it's a collection about this big.
And maybe you didn't know that the Bible is a library.
It's not just one book. It's 66 books.
And if you try to approach it, it's one book.
It's overwhelming. But if you go, oh wow, it's
really 66 books and you can digest it book by book.
So this is Psalms and you can order this for like 8 bucks at
Amazon or christianbook.com. But what I love about it, and I
have one that's really beat up. This is a new one.
But when I have this quite marked up and tethered and I
have it in the leather sleeve, but over here it's just blank
page and then over here it's much bigger font.
So those of you with older eyes, it's easier to see and it's just
a way to get through the Psalms and you can journal and
highlight and scribble. It's a good way of of gathering
truth from the Psalm. So I recommend you pick one of
these up. And some people wrote me this
last week then about it and I sent links to you.
So if you're curious and you can't find it, write me and I
will send you a link to it. But this is a great tool to
utilize in growing in the Psalms.
OK, then also, they're like reader sets.
I have a six volume set of the Bible in my book self.
I've got one at home and 1 here and it's the Bible in six
volume. Again, it's the Bible's a
library, so it's a so even if you get that, then the the pages
are thicker and the font is bigger.
It's an easier way to read the Bible in my opinion.
OK, so encourage you in that. Now this morning what I want to
do is I want to talk to you about the songs in the Psalms
that I consider to be like the essential, right?
The essential ones, one of the most famous songs and if you're,
if you do Apple Music, maybe I do Apple Music.
So in Apple Music you'll find that they're artists and they
have their essential songs and it's like their greatest hits
and they might have a greatest hits record, but maybe they have
3 or 4 greatest hits records. So then you get the essentials
and these are the most famous or popular of an artist song.
So in the Psalms, there are some that are more popular and more
well known and I want to navigate through them this
morning. Some of them you're going to
know and recognize, but I want to give you context and then I,
I want to break them down to give you more insight into these
Psalms that are the ones that have kind of risen to be the
most famous and popular ones. Now I'm going to start in Psalm
chapter 1 and I want to read you the entire Psalm and then I'll
back up and I'll unpack it for you.
But the Psalm, chapter one, the first song or Psalm it is, it
sets the course for what the rest of the Psalms are going to
look like. OK, and let me read it to you.
It's the first of Book 1, and the title of the song that's
been given by the ESV translators is The Way of the
Righteous and the Wicked. So it's going to contrast two
different types of life, the righteous and the wicked, and
watch what the psalmist says. Blessed is the man who walks not
in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in
the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its
fruit in its season, and it's leaf does not wither, and all
that he does he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are
like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of
the wicked will perish. Now, that's only 6 verses.
It's quite brief. And so because of that, the
Psalms are often easy to memorize, or at least to grab a
couple truths from them and go, OK, Psalm 1 is about this.
And maybe you could paraphrase it, but that is a very popular,
well known Psalm. Some of you have read it and you
understand it. I'm going to break it down for
you so you'll understand it even better.
But the psalmist here is starting this collection of
Psalms right out of the gate. You know, the first song in a
collection of songs is really important, isn't it?
That first song kind of sets the course.
So here the collectors of these songs, they're starting with
this idea, blessed is the man and by blessed the psalmist
means like happy. Like happy is the person that is
righteous and follows the commands of God and meditates on
on God's word and God's laws, right.
Happy, blessed is the man. One translation even says it
this way, like well spoken of is the man who lives righteously
the man or the woman in this occasion?
So right out of the gate of Psalms, the first truth is
blessed, happy is the one who follows the commands of the
Lord. Now the psalmist here then is
going to give a progression, and I'm calling this in your notes,
I'm calling it the progression to wickedness, OK, The
progression, the wickedness is, is charted out here.
And if, if a person, even if they're righteous, they want to
end up in a very wicked state, then the psalmist says this is
how you do it. They say they don't walk.
OK, Blessed is the man and he's given the the Contra side of
this, the opposite side who walks not in the counsel of the
wicked. So the first thing you don't
want to do is walk in the counsel of the wicked.
Now that doesn't mean that we never interact with wicked
people, but but the psalmist is getting at this idea that's like
you intentionally go to walk and hang out and be with the wicked.
So you don't want to walk in the count, the council, the wisdom.
Lean into the wisdom of the council of the wicked.
You don't want it. And then the next thing is also
the righteous. They don't stand in the way of
the sinners. So there's a progression here.
The progression is you walk in the counsel of the wicked.
Oh, and then the next step that's even worse is now, oh,
what about when you're standing in the way of the sinners?
So you're walking now you're standing.
And eventually, if you're not careful, what the righteous can
do is end up in the place of the wicked.
Because what happens when they sit?
They sit in the seat of the scoffers.
So there's a progression here. Walk, stand, sit.
And those who walk, stand and sit with the wicked, with the
scoffers, with the sinners, well, they'll end up in a place
of depravity. Depravity is a big word.
I won't go into the weeds deep in this, but there's some
Christian traditions that promote the idea that man is
depraved, right? And then others in fact, will
promote the idea. Oh, when you come to Jesus, the
Bible says that your new creation, you're made new in
Christ. Behold, old things have passed
away. Behold, all things are new.
And that is true. But the older I get, the more I
see and believe that man is depraved.
I now have grown to believe in the depravity of man even the
more. Why?
Because I'm even the more in touch with my own depravity, for
one. So this idea that man is just
naturally good, it's not, it's not true.
Man is naturally depraved. And, and any of us, if we're not
careful, if we walk and if we stand, and if we sit in the way
of the scoffer and in the way of the wicked, then what can happen
with even us, with me? If I'm not aware that I don't
want to walk, stand, sit, and this progression, then it will
keep me out of depravity. And the best way to illustrate
this, the term Nazis, it's getting thrown around a lot
lately by both sides, right. So Nazi, this person is a Nazi,
but this person is a Nazi. But really they're the Nazis
were real in Germany in the 1930s and the 40s.
And I've been to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.
So I was in Israel 14 years ago. I went to the Holocaust Museum
there. And when you first walk into
that museum and you're touring it, one of the first things that
you see is that the the museum has set it up where they look at
the start of the Holocaust, Holocaust as like the Crusades,
the Crusades in the ancient world, the Christian Crusades.
They think that that laid the foundation for what became the
Holocaust. And then they connect the
Holocaust like Martin Luther, who was the great reformer in
Christianity. And so they see that they, they
think it has Christian roots. Those who created the Holocaust
Museum in Jerusalem. Now it sounded kind of offensive
to me. However, I'm aware that those in
Germany who became the Nazis, many of them before they were
Nazis, they professed to being Christians.
They said they were Christians, and yet they ended up in this
terribly depraved state. Why?
Because they walked, they stood, and they sat in the way of the
wicked. And if we're not aware that,
yes, you and I can even get sucked into the most depraved,
hateful, bitter places, If we're not aware that the righteous do
not walk, stand and sit in the ways of the scoffer and in the
ways and in the counsel of the wicked.
And knowing that any of us at any time, if we're not aware of
that, any of us at any time can get sucked into very horrible,
depraved sinful behaviors, we don't want to do that.
So the psalmist is pointing this out, Watch this.
But then he contrasts and says, OK, you don't want to walk,
stand, sit. What is the, what do we want to
do? Well, we want to delight in the
law of the Lord, and this is what the psalmist is saying.
But the righteous man, the, the, the blessed man, he's in woman.
His delight is in the law of the Lord.
And on his law he meditates day and night.
And that is the point of the Psalms.
The the Psalms are there for us to meditate on and to read and
to pray and to reflect. It's really a devotional book
for followers of God in the Old Testament.
You have a lot of history, you have a lot of laws you can read
through like Numbers, Deuteronomy.
Those books have a lot of the laws of God and it's worth
certainly reading those. But the Psalms, in my opinion,
are worth revisiting more often. They're short, they're
digestible, you can memorize them.
So they're valuable to use for meditation and prayer and
devotion. And my hope is in the next
several weeks that I that I increase within you a love and
admiration and an appreciation for the Psalms.
So the psalmist saying the right to span the blessed man, they
delight in the law of the Lord and on the law of they meditate
day and night. And in this we just believe that
we are called and made to delight in Jesus, to delight in
Christ. The Westminster Larger Catechism
was written by Christians in the 1600s, right?
And maybe you know this if you came from a a tradition of
Christianity that would often say these creeds, they said that
man's chief and highest end is to glorify God and to fully
enjoy him forever. We are called to enjoy our
relationship with Christ, to delight in it, to find great joy
this morning about the joy of the Lord.
It comes from relationship with Jesus.
And the psalmist here is promoting this idea of not
walking, standing or sitting in the counsel of the wicked, but
instead delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on a day
and night, finding delight in Jesus.
Then the psalmist continues with these profound ideas, and he's
talking about this blessed man who's living righteously before
God, and he says he is like a tree planted by streams of
water. The Psalms throughout are going
to use imagery and metaphors and illustrations to point out what
what these truths that they're trying to get across, Right.
So what is the righteous, blessed man like?
He's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its
fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither.
And all he does, he prospers. Now watch this picture.
In Michigan, we take for granted these big trees that we have
them got lakes and streams and rivers everywhere.
But in the ancient Middle East where they were writing the
song, they didn't have lots and lots of streams.
It was like a desert. So when they they talked about a
tree being planted by a stream of river, well, that's
purposeful. Somebody purposeful planted a
tree by this river, knowing that if it's by a river, then it can
grow great fruit. And the psalmist is saying that
is what the blessed person is like who follows the Lord like a
tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its
season. Now he's going to contrast.
There'll be a turn in the Psalm, but before that he he also
mentions prosperity. Like the man, the blessed man,
the righteous man that follows God, this person is going to
prosper. Let me just say that prosperity
has justifiably gotten a bad rap, because maybe you've heard
of like, prosperity preachers. The prosperity gospel, right?
And there's some preacher somewhere with a $300 million
plane living in a $5 billion house where I'm, I'm
exaggerating, but there are those types of preachers out
there that promoting the idea that of prosperity.
And they promote the idea that if you follow God, then you're
going to be wealthy and you're going to be rich and your
families are not going to be, you won't have sickness or these
or other things, right? So they promote this idea and
it's false, right? When we follow God, it doesn't
just give us now we have a perfect life.
No, we will still have struggles.
We'll still navigate through the challenges of life, but we'll do
it with the peace that comes from God that goes beyond
understanding and joy unspeakable.
It's full of glory. So the psalmist is saying this
occasion that this righteous man follows the principles and
meditates on God's word that they are going to prosper.
And we believe in this prospering, but it's how you
define prospering. Again, we can have struggles, we
can have suffering, but we can still have the joy and the peace
that comes from Lord and that is prospering.
So we have this imagery of a tree planted by the water, but
what's the opposite of that? What are the How are the wicked
painted? The psalmist goes on in verse 4
and says the wicked are not so, but they're like chaff that the
wind drives away. So what is chaff?
Well, chaff is that unusable part wheat, right?
It's like the shell that it, that covers the wheat and it's
worthless. It's of no value.
It's the husk that surrounds the wheat grain and it's separated
from the usable parts of the wheat and it's again of no
value. So the psalmist now is
contrasting, OK, the, the, the blessed man who follows the
principles of God, it's like a tree planted by the water.
But the wicked man, they're like chaff, worthless, of no value
whatsoever. And so then the psalmist is
therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor
sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of
the wicked will perish. So right out of the gate, the
psalmist is promoting the idea of godliness, following after
God, meditating on his ways. He's painting the godly person
like a tree planted by water. He's planted the wicked like a
chaff of no value, even though they may seem powerful and of
great influence. And God's eyes, they're like the
chaff of wheat that is worthless.
So the big idea is that the blessed life is rooted in God's
Word, producing stability and fruitfulness, while the wicked
life detached from God, leads to instability and destruction.
So this Psalm sets the stage for the rest of the psalms to come.
There are 149 more to come. And they're going to have
metaphors and they're going to have truth and poetry and
alliteration and they're made for memorizing and valuing.
So that's one Psalm, first Psalm in the book of Psalms.
Now the most famous of all the Psalms, I'm going to call that
the biggest number one on the playlist.
You probably know this Psalm, even those who are not
Christians and don't know the Bible very well, often they know
this Psalm because it's so renowned and it is the 23rd
Psalm. And it's, it's more than just a
Psalm we should read at funerals and memorial services.
There's so much truth in it. But often you've probably heard
it read at a funeral because it mentions death, the shadow of
death, the valley of the shadow of death.
But David, when he writes a song, it's so profound and I'm
going to just unpack it for you, what he is promoting.
But just notice that ain't so. David at one point is a shepherd
boy when he's young, and then he's a king when he's old.
And kings in the ancient world, often they would refer to
themselves as the shepherd of their people.
Then the people were their sheep, right?
David comes along and says, the Lord is my shepherd.
He's not promoting himself as a shepherd, He's promoting God as
a shepherd. So watch this.
It's so beautiful and profound. Psalm 23 verses one through 6.
This one especially is worth memorizing.
He says the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
In other words, he's saying I'm content.
The Lord is my shepherd. I have no wants.
I have everything I need. God has provided.
I've learned to be content. The secret to contentment.
I've learned to be content in how God leads and how God
directs. David is remembering when he's
talking about the Lord is my shepherd.
He also is is reaching back to this metaphor in this picture of
what his first job was. And being a shepherd was not a
very prestigious job. It was the job of like a kid in
this occasion, right? So David, he in the House of
Jesse, that was his dad. He got stuck watching being the
shepherd for the sheep. So watch this.
It's his first job. How many of you remember your
first job, right? Your first job is a big one,
right? I love my first job.
Jessica's back there. She had her first job for like
15 years, right? Was that your 18 years, 18
years, 18 years? So she just transitioned jobs.
But she had the same job for 18 years.
We're so proud of right? She taught swimming all those
years. Her first job she had for a long
time, right? My first job was short lived.
My first job I worked at a grocery store and I wore a white
shirt and a black bow tie and a red apron.
And in the South, working at this grocery store, I was called
a soccer. We don't call you a soccer here,
right? You are a, a bagger.
You're a bagger, right? But in the South, I was a
sagger. So I would sack up the
groceries. To this day, man, when I go to
like ALDI or Meyer or whatever, I'm still a really good sacker,
man. I got skills when it comes to
sacking. Okay, so if you can imagine this
grocery store that I worked at, part of their, you know, their
spiel was that they wanted you to carry the groceries out.
So I'm like 15 1/2 and I've got my bow tie, my white shirt on.
And they wanted to, I would pull the buggy and watch this.
They wanted you to make conversation with the people you
were carrying their groceries out.
How hard do you think that was? For me?
Not hard at all, man. It was the best job ever.
Somebody to talk to, tell stories, to listen to my
stories. And I'll be carrying out the
groceries, telling stories and asking people about themselves.
It was a great job for me, right?
So that was my first job. What was your first job?
Just remember, reach back to it. Now The thing is that David,
when he's saying the Lord is my shepherd, he's reaching back to
his first job. It wasn't a prestigious job.
It was kind of a low level job. So on the one hand was like the
Lord is my shepherd. You might think about, oh, it's
a glorious thing. Well, maybe not so much now.
Jesus, I'll read you in a minute.
He's going to say he's a Good Shepherd.
But watch this David. It's like, wow, God is
remembered. Jesus comes washing the feet of
the disciples. Jesus comes serving.
Jesus comes in, turns everything on its ear, right.
He's not going to come in as a military ruler and kick out the
rope. It's no, he's going to come
humble as a servant, as a shepherd.
And this is how David introduces him.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
And then he says he makes me lie down in green pastures.
Now, here in Michigan, we take for granted green pastures.
We were driving the sweet Jason and I went over and watched the
sunset over like near Glen Arbor on what?
Thursday night, Wednesday night, Wednesday night and got there
just in time was so beautiful. And you saw just green pastures
everywhere. We take those for granted.
But in the ancient Middle East where David would have been
writing his song, it was desert like.
And he's saying God leads me to lie down in green pastures.
Well, green pastures weren't as prevalent as what we see.
So you've got this picture of God creates these beautiful
places for us to rest. And then David says he leads me
besides still waters. It's a beautiful picture of the
way that God leads us and directs us.
Verse three, He says he restores my soul and He leads me in paths
of righteousness for His name sake.
Remember in chapter 1 it's promoting the idea of those who
are righteous and those who are godly, those who are blessed.
And David now is restating that theme.
He restores my soul and He leads me.
God can lead us in the path of righteousness.
We can walk godly following the principles of God when we
meditate and focus and lean into the laws and commands and
principles of God. And watch the psalmist.
David is saying that God values his name, his reputation.
And the name that David would have said of God in the Hebrew
word would have been Yahweh. And maybe you've heard that even
in Psalms recently. If you hear a worse of song and
it mentions Yahweh, well, it's the Old Testament name for God.
It's the name that David is referring to him as.
The Yahweh is my shepherd and David says in verse 4, even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil and watch. In this occasion, David is not
saying even though I walk through death, He's saying even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death because
death can cast a shadow. And if you've known someone
who's past, then it's like death hasn't necessarily stricken you,
but the shadow of it can be cast on to you.
David's like, hey, even the valley, the shadow that is cast
from death. I'm not going to fear evil.
God is going to sustain me because he's my shepherd.
And then he's continues. He says, for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff. They comfort me.
The curious thing is that the rod and the staff that the
shepherd would have had, you know, if you look at a like a
rod, a shepherd's rod, he'll have like a hook at the end of
it, right, that he walks with. But that hook is often to grab
the neck of the sheep when they're getting out of line.
So you grab the sheep and you pull them back when they're not
where they're supposed to be. So David is painting this
picture. Yeah.
The rod, the discipline of God, the rod and the staff, they,
they bring me comfort. God's discipline actually
comforts me. And then he says, you prepare a
table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil and my cup overflows.
And verse 5, David kind of transitions from from like the
shepherd mentality. And now he's thinking like he's
leaning into his new job, which is being king.
And when he was king, he, he would have these big parties and
big feasts and big part, you know, big festivals and like,
and he's leaning into that now. He's painting God in that way.
You prepare a table before me, like a big table in the presence
of my enemies, and you anoint my head with oil.
Oil would have been a healing ointment that would have gone on
the head of the sheep that would have been wounded.
Maybe they got in briars or prickers and the shepherd would
put the oil to heal them. So he's presenting God as the
ultimate host and he's leading into his new job as king.
And then David verse 6, he winds down his simple little, so
profound 6 verses and he says, surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the
House of the Lord forever. David ends with the proclamation
of faith in who God is, in the goodness of God, the mercy of
God. And David had seen ups and downs
in his life. David had failed miserably on
occasion. David had been depressed.
David had been, you know, afraid at times.
But he's looking now and he's saying, but the goodness and
mercy of God follows me all the days of my life.
This is where we get the song The Goodness of God, where it
gets to the part was like, your goodness is running after, it's
running after me. The modern writers are leaning
into this truth. Surely the goodness and mercy of
the Lord shall follow me. And God is moved by faith and
David ends with a great statement of faith.
So this Psalm, my encouragement to you is this is a great one to
memorize. Read this to your children.
Put it on a post it note on your mirror.
Put it on your dashboard of your car or whatever.
Just put it in places where you can meditate on it.
Lean into it. And what I'm telling you is that
meditating on these passages, really all scripture and the
Psalms, when you meditate on them, you read them over and
over and over again. Get an audio version of it, put
it on repeat and just let it sink into you.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want this is 1
especially to know and love. Now Jesus calls himself in the
New Testament the Good Shepherd, and Jesus is leaning in to
David's Psalm. Watch what Jesus says of himself
in verse 11 of chapter 10. He says I am the Good Shepherd.
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep he knew of
this 23rd Psalm and Jesus is utilizing the imagery of it.
Verse 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not
own the sheep, he sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and
flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the
sheep. But Jesus says I am the Good
Shepherd. I know my own and my own know
me, just as the Father knows me. I know the Father and I lay down
my life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of
this fold. In this occasion, Jesus is
talking about those who are not Jewish.
So he's talking to predominantly Jewish people and he's talking
now about the Gentiles. Just like there are some in
another fold. That's you and me.
He's saying I'm going to go after them too.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
So there will be 1 flock and 1 shepherd.
Jesus is leaning into David's metaphor of the Good Shepherd.
And then Jesus says in verse 17, for this reason the Father loves
me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
Jesus comes as a Good Shepherd, but it's a lowly place.
He's going to give his life. He's going to be a servant and
give his life for our salvation. Now, oftentimes we think of
sheep as being dumb. Have you heard anybody promote
that idea before, sheep or dumb? Well, I guess they kind of are.
But I, I like to look at us being the sheep of God as more
dependent. We are dependent that we, we
need Jesus in our lives. We're, we're not just hungry for
him, We're, we're desperate. We are in need of his salvation
and his presence in our lives. So watch admitting that and
saying, OK, I've Jesus is the Good Shepherd, He's the great
shepherd, I follow him and I am dependent on him.
Watch it's worded this way in John 15.
Jesus has abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear
fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you
unless you abide in me. You want to bear fruit, you have
to abide in me. And then the Psalms, when we
read the Psalms over and over and over again, that's the way
of abiding, meditating, focusing on who God is.
Verse five, I am the vine, you are the branches.
Whoever abides in me and I in him, he, he, it is that bears
much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
What kind of sheep are we for sheep that are dependent on him?
Apart from Him we could do nothing.
And it's celebrating that and leaning into it is great.
Knowing it. As Christians, we boast in our
dependency and our need for Jesus.
We are sheep dependent on Him. I'm going to show you another
Psalm. I've got a couple more to show
you that I think are essential ones that are renowned.
This is Psalm chapter 41 through 3, and maybe you've heard this.
It's one that's quoted so often. It says, I waited patiently for
the Lord and he inclined to me. It's like he turned to me and he
heard my cry. Some of you might remember in
the night, early 1980s, U2, when they were first coming out, they
had a song called Psalm 40. Does anybody remember this?
Anybody it was like I waited patiently for the Lord inclining
her my prayer. I used to lead it like in junior
high school when I was starting to lead worst way back in the
day, right. So it was a song by YouTube, but
based on song it was called Psalm 40 and verse 2.
It says he drew me up. This is a testimony.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction out of the miry blog
bog and he set my feet upon a rock.
Jesus is the rock of our salvation.
We build our lives upon him. The psalmist goes on making my
steps secure. And then verse 3, it says he put
a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
And many will see in fear and put their trust in the Lord.
And this occasion the psalmist is saying that God put a new
song. The Lord has put a new song in
my mouth and many will see, which is curious because you
don't normally see a song, You hear a song.
The psalmist here, he's using a song as a metaphor.
He's saying, OK, God, it's like I marched to the beat of a
different drum. Now I, I, I, I sing a new song.
It's not a literal song. It's a different way of life.
We get a new way of life when we decide to follow Jesus and it's
a new song that people see. And when people see the new song
on us and encourages them to be astounded and put their trust in
the Lord, I love that. Love that Psalm so much.
Another one is another essential Psalm is Psalm 121 verses one
through 8. This is one that you can pray.
If you're in a struggle, you're in a place of great challenge.
Psalm 121, go here, pray this, watch.
It says a song of ascent. So from Psalm 120 to 134, this
is a grouping of Psalms and they're songs of ascent.
And by songs of ascent, it's meaning like they're going to
ascend. Historically, yes, the Jews
would go into Jerusalem and they would send a send up the hill
into Jerusalem and that they would sing these songs of ascent
when they were going into Jerusalem.
But also they were ascending out of their sadness, their
depression, their anxiety when they would.
These psalms will start heavy with a confession and then
they'll end joyfully. Watch how it does this.
And you can check out the other ones too.
It says, I lift up my eyes to the hills, and from where does
my help come from? My help comes from the Lord who
made heaven and earth, and he will not let your foot be moved.
He who keeps you will not slumber.
He won't fall asleep. Behold, he who keeps Israel will
neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper.
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
These truths are profound. If you're in a place of sorrow,
if you're in a challenge, read again.
It's a beautiful Psalm to just just pray it out loud.
Verse 6, The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon
by night. The Lord will keep you from all
evil. He will keep your life.
The Lord will keep your going out and you're coming in from
this time forth and evermore. I've got two more for you that
are beautiful. Psalm 91.
This is one of the most renowned and most famous of the Psalm,
Psalm 91. I'm not going to read the entire
thing to you. I would encourage you to go.
But I have verses one and two and then verses 11 and 12 here.
But maybe this week you want to go read the entire Psalm.
I would encourage you to do so. The psalmist writes, he who
dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the
shadow of the Almighty. And I will say to the Lord, my
refuge and my fortress, my God, and whom I trust, for he will
command his angels, watch us. This is a great one to to say
over your children, to teach your children this.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in
all your ways. And on their hands, the angels
hands, they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot
against the stone. This idea of angels.
Now what's curious is that this Psalm, chapter 9191, the 91st
Psalm. Interesting that Jesus would
often quote the Psalms, but did you know that Satan also quoted
the Psalms? Watch this.
Satan quotes this Psalm and Matthew chapter 4 when he's
trying to tempt Jesus, tempting Jesus.
It's a temptation of Christ. And watch verse 5 of chapter 4.
Then the devil took him, meaning Jesus to the holy city and set
him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the
Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written and watch
this. He quotes Psalm 91.
He says He will command his angels concerning you, and on
their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot
against the stone. In this occasion he's tempting
Jesus to throw himself down on the rock, and he's twisting
misrepresenting Psalm 91 to promote this temptation towards
Jesus. And watch what Jesus said to him
in verse 7. Again, in this written you shall
not put the Lord your God to the test.
What's important to know here is that people, Satan himself with
Jesus in this occasion, takes and twists and misrepresents
Scripture in an attempt to try to trick Jesus out, and he's
doing the same thing with us. So how do you know?
If you just read it briefly one time, well, then you haven't,
you haven't really gotten it. But if you read it over and over
and over again and you meditate on it and you let it sink in,
then you 2 can be like Jesus. You're like, wait, wait, wait,
wait. That's not what that means.
It's not promoting suicide me to
dash myself down the rock Jesus like that's not what it means.
And Jesus quotes Scripture back in.
We can do the same thing when we meditate and absorb the word.
One last one, Psalm 146 verses one through 11.
Let me read this over you. This is a great one again to
read, to strengthen and bolster your faith, to meditate and read
through the Psalm 146 verse one through 11.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at
its swelling. And then it says say LA.
Whenever you see say LA in the Psalms, it's a clue for you to
pause and reflect on what was just said.
We think it would have been like a little instrumental section.
You know how like when we're worshiping together on a Sunday
morning and they'll be sections in the song like the
introduction. Maybe there's a place in the
little song where it's just like a little musical interlude.
It's it's a time for you just reflect and think.
So the psalmist is saying, reflect on what was just said.
Say LA. And then after pausing, they go
on. There is a river whose streams
make lad the city of God, a holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, and she shall not be moved.
God will help her when morning dawns.
This is the city of Jerusalem. And now we are abiding in God's
Kingdom, which is like now. The God's Kingdom has invaded
the whole earth. The nation's rage, the kingdom's
totter. He utters his voice.
The earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our fortress.
Saila. Come, behold the works of the
Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes worse cease to the end of the earth, and he breaks the
bow, and he shatters the spear, and he burns the Chariots with
fire. Be still and know that I am God,
and I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our fortress.
The Psalms I hope to just ignite within you hunger for them and
eagerness for them, or even the sweet.
My hope is that you'll go home even with the notes that you can
take with you or your Bible, or maybe you'll order a book of
Psalms. And my hope is that you'll
meditate on them, that you'll read them.
They're they're quick, they're easy.
You can read several in one day or just take one and read it
over and over and over again and let it sink in.
My take away for you this morning is that the Psalms are
full of principles and truths that can stir greater faith in
US. And I'll give you these
applications before we close. Maybe you have some familiar
Psalms that are already your favorites.
If you have something, go back, read them again, digest them
again, and worship with the meditate on them.
OK, if you have some that are already favorites, if not, go
get some new favorites. The 23rd Psalm is an easy one.
That's an easy one, or Psalm one, or Psalm 91.
All of these. And then my encouragement to you
is that could you commit to memorizing some of the songs?
Maybe you want to just again, put it on audio and repeat and
maybe it'll sink in and you'll be able to quote it as you
meditate on it. And then finally, my question
for you is, could you utilize some essential songs in prayer
and meditation this week? Maybe this week you want to take
one of these. And when you wake up in the
morning, like God, I'm going to use this to pray.
And you could take this Psalm and where it speaks the truth
about God, you could just speak it out loud and say, God, I know
that you're the Lord of hosts. You're the God of Jacob and God
I believe that you're working all things for our good and God.
You make war seas you God, You're the one who does that.
Be still God. I want to be still and know that
you were God. You could just take these
principles and pray them in a prayer as you meditate and chase
after Jesus. Let me pray for us, God.
I'm so grateful for the Psalms. I'm so grateful that you've
gifted us with these, these beautiful, beautiful poems and
songs that are beneficial to us today.
And as we meditate on them, it strengthens our faith in you.
And so increase within a scout as a church body, a love for
these passages and give us our favorites lead us to ones that
will be encouraging to us and our children and our our
families speak to us greatly as we meditate and lean into the
Psalms in the next several weeks.
So be glorified. We pray in Jesus name and
everyone said Amen. Hey, before we go, I do want to
just give you an opportunity. I try to do this often, but if
you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, maybe
you've been wrestling with the claims of Christianity and maybe
you're like, I'm not, I'm not sure.
But you've wrestled it. And we want our church to be a
church where you can wrestle and navigate through is the claim
that Jesus is the Savior of all. Is it true?
I'm here to tell you today it is.
And you could sit in service with us week after week, but at
a certain point you have to make a decision to say, I want to
follow Jesus. I want him to be my savior.
I want to become a Christian and to do so, it just takes you
saying, Jesus, I won't accept your salvation.
I'm going to repent of my own sin and I'm going to repent of,
you know, chasing after my own will.
And I'm now going to say, God, your will be done in my life.
And then what we encourage you to do is tell someone that
you've made a decision to follow Jesus.
And we encourage you to be baptized, say in front of your
church family, hey, I'm in, I'm following after Jesus.
I've been washed clean. You don't have to understand all
the theology and doctrine of Christianity.
You can grow in it, but you do need to understand that you are
a Sinner and the payment for your sin was covered by Jesus on
the cross and we can receive that forgiveness that is eternal
and we can receive eternal life now on this side of eternity.
And as you follow up to Jesus, he'll grow in his ways.
So I'm going to pray and I'm going to encourage you if you
want to make that decision to pray with me.
You can echo the prayer and then I e-mail me, tell a friend, tell
someone, maybe a parent or sibling, someone that you know,
tell them, hey, I made this decision.
I am all in to follow after Jesus.
I've become a Christian. Let me pray and I'll encourage
you to echo this. You might want to pray.
Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and I want to
confess my faith in you and I say I believe Jesus that you are
the Son of God, you were God. And I say come into my life and
reign and rule me. Forgive me of my sin and I
accept the penalty that you paid for.
You paid for my sin and I receive your forgiveness and
salvation. And I say I want you to reign in
my life, be my Lord. I want to chase after you and
grow me in your ways. I say your will be done in my
life and I thank you for eternal life that I'm getting now
meaning and purpose and relationship with you and I want
to grow in your ways in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
All right, hey, it was so great to be together today.
Let's all stand together before you go, I want to say a blessing
over you and this is a big part of our service.
I want to send you out blessed. So if you'll prepare your heart
to receive this blessing before you go, and now may the Lord
bless you and keep you, and may he make his face to shine upon
you. And may the joy of the Lord that
is unspeakable and full of glory, may it abound to you.
And may the peace of God that passes all understanding, may it
surprise you in the midst of all the challenges that life brings.
And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God, that is new every morning.
May it be especially new to you now in your mornings to come.
And now, may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind. You are salt and you are light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you again soon.
We'll see you Wednesday night at 6:30 for Pastor Dwayne and
Jeannie.