Our God is the Greatest

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Lord Jesus, be great in this room this morning.

Individually, be great in our hearts.

Be great in our lives.

Be great in our private life.

You are worthy of all of our praise, Lord Jesus.

I pray as we transition from the singing, part of our worship, to the reading of the scriptures in your words.

God, be great in this room.

Would you speak clearly to us?

Whatever stage of life that we're all in, whether we're walking through a valley or about to get to a valley or walking out of a valley, God, would you please speak directly to us?

Be great in this room.

We are completely dependent on your greatness there this morning.

I pray these things in your name.

Amen.

And you may be seated.

Good morning, how are we good?

Awesome.

Hey, give your Bibles.

Would you grab those?

Go to Psalm 23 for me.

Psalm 23.

If you don't have a Bible, just go ahead and relax.

The text that I'm going to be reading from is going to appear here on the screen.

But we're going to be looking at Psalm 23 here this morning.

If you're new here, welcome.

My name is Leo Almeida.

I'm the teaching pastor here at Grant Parkway.

We're so glad that you're here with us.

And we're going through a short series I've titled Simple Truths, Big Difference.

And all we're doing in these next four weeks is we're checking your grip strength, checking our grip strength on truths that we say we hold.

So in these next four weeks, I'm not going to say anything profound.

I'm actually just reminding of you, reminding believers what you already believe and just walking you to the amazing implications of these simple truths.

We believe that the Bible is God's word, and this book is brimming with simple truths that whenever we hold them tightly, they change us into living more interesting lives, more joyful lives, more resilient lives, more heroic lives, brighter lives, different lives.

And as you read this book cover to cover, you notice that the real world changers that this book documents, the brightest lives of the kingdom, live lives of deep conviction, not good opinions.

They have deeply convicted lives, not just good opinions.

The heroes of the faith are not just good arguers.

They don't just have good opinions, they have deep convictions that shape their lives.

So again, my hope and my prayer in these next four weeks that their simple truths will flow from being opinions of ours into deep heart-level convictions.

The difference between opinions and convictions, opinions you would argue for, convictions you would die for.

So last week there our simple truth was the Bible is God's word.

And this we're gonna be listening to God through King David.

If you're not familiar with your Bible, King David is basically the Bible's version of Superman.

Okay, but not Clark Kent.

By Superman, I literally mean Fiesta, Texas.

Okay, there's a roller coaster the name.

That was the first roller coaster I've ever been on with Superman in Fiesta, Texas, and that's what his life looks like.

It's a holy roller coaster.

Okay, it starts off, we hear about him in a field, and then he stumbles into a situation where he kills Goliath, and the whole city cheers as he kills Goliath.

And then the king gets jealous and he gets chased in the wilderness.

And he's out there in the wilderness, his best friend dies.

And then the king dies, and he has to fight a civil war, and then he's anointed king after that.

And then he wins battle after battle after battle, and then when he's at the mountaintop, God gives one of the most, God gives him one of the most explosive promises of the whole Bible in 2 Samuel chapter 7.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

He says, Listen, the eternal king of the world is coming through your bloodline, David.

So at the mountaintop of the mole mountaintops, he sees a woman bathing.

We have the whole Bathsheba instant where he invites her over and he sleeps with Bathsheba and he gets her pregnant.

This is another man's wife, and he has he gets her pregnant and he has the man killed.

So we're back down the roller coaster.

And then he gets um that son actually dies.

And then furthermore, um, he gets chased by another one of his sons, Absolutely.

So his life is up and down and up and down.

It's like a mixture of a roller coaster and reality television, but um, through it all, he was called by God, a man after God's own heart.

And if you look closely, the simple truth behind his life is this God is the greatest.

God is the greatest.

You can see that in his commitment to the word, his thankfulness, his repentance, his faith.

He has an overwhelming persuasion that God is the greatest.

So he says things like this: Great is the Lord, greatly to be praised, his greatness is unsearchable.

He says things like this, Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty.

For all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours.

He says things like, For the Lord is a great God, and the great king above all gods.

So over and over you can tell that the greatness of God was the seatbelt of David's life.

And the beautiful thing is that we have parts of his prayer journal in here.

It's as if God screenshots their conversation, and then Jesus continually references that conversation because you and I are also invited to embrace the simple truth that God is the greatest.

God is that's our second truth.

God is the greatest.

And we're gonna look at that as we dig into these six verses in Psalm 23.

So look with me in Psalm 23.

One of the most famous passages in the whole world, about 3,000 years old, and says this the Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Now, huge sports fan, as you can probably tell when you hear me preach.

Um, when athletes, no matter who it is, Muhammad Ali, whoever it is, when athletes call themselves the greatest, that's ego.

When God called himself the greatest, that's truth.

Okay, this 3,000-year-old passion passage makes it clear who the actual goat is.

Y'all know what that stands for, right?

Because it shows us that through the gospel we get um the the show through the gospel we have the greatest possession.

Number one, we have the greatest possession.

Look at verse one.

Okay, the greatest possession.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Okay, this is one of the most famous sentences of all time.

And David is drawing on his past here to make a statement about God and his character and his activity.

Now, typically what happens when someone is teaching through this passage, they talk about how stupid sheep are.

They talk about how dumb or harmless sheep are, and it makes sense, okay?

Sheep to be called sheep is no compliment at all.

If I called y'all a bunch of sheep, that's not a compliment at all.

They're not the smartest or even the strongest animal, okay?

Baby Leo, okay, very scared of everything.

Ominous sounds made me scared.

Like ominous songs made me scared.

And I couldn't sleep.

My mom would tell me, hey Leo, close your eyes and count.

Count, she didn't say count tigers.

Count sheep.

They're that harmless.

Okay, they're even harmless to me.

Okay, however, the the focus here is not on necessarily the sheep, okay, or how dumb the sheep are.

However, the most important word here in this first line might be the word my.

Notice what he doesn't say.

He didn't say the Lord is a shepherd to the whole flock.

He says, Lord is He's my shepherd.

Okay, he's mine, I am his.

The Lord is my shepherd.

Friends, my that monosyllable right there, my is absolutely vital.

And then actually begs the question here for us.

What's the grand prize of Christianity?

Like what's the what's the end goal here?

Right?

Is it is it forgiveness?

Is it healing?

Is it relief?

Is it um oh we have the truth and the rest of the world are idiots?

Right?

What's the grand prize of Christianity?

The grand prize of Christianity is you get God at the end.

You you get God at the very end.

The gospel says, listen, you may never get what the world dangles in front of you as important.

You might never get the experiences or or or the body or the job or the romance or the fame, but you get God.

He's mine.

He's mine.

Friends, this is why we completely reject what's called the prosperity gospel.

Okay, this mindset that I use God to get to what I really want.

Okay, or God, I do these spiritual disciplines because God is a pinana.

So every time I do the spiritual discipline, I'm whacking the pinata because I want the blessings.

When the praises go up, the blessings come down.

This transactional nature, we reject that completely.

Okay, not because we're jealous of their television slots or their book contracts or their suits.

We're not even jealous, we we don't even reject them because they think too big or too grandiose.

We reject the prosperity gospel because they're thinking too small.

They're actually thinking way too small.

Okay, um, using God to get stuff is backwards.

When you realize that all the best things in this universe are just pointing to his goodness, we get God at the very end.

This is why Psalm 16, verse 11 says this in your presence, God, it's in your presence.

Psalms 16:11

There is fullness of joy.

At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

What's fuller than full?

What's longer than forever?

That's in his presence.

That's the whole point of the gospel.

We get God at the end.

If we're not in it for the unlimited fun in heaven, the what makes heaven heaven, the cream of heaven, Charles Burgeon says, is you get God.

You get God here forever.

And what regeneration does in the believer, whenever you're born again, you get a zeal or a desire for your creator.

So this right here is a psalm of trust, it's a psalm of celebration.

He's celebrating um the fellowship with God.

Okay, that my right there is a reason for him to celebrate celebrate.

Is that true for you?

So here's a question for us this morning.

Do you love him or do you use him?

Do you love God or do you use God?

Just this week or today, think about your prayer life and your praise life.

I want you to listen to yourself.

So the Bible says, um, keep a close watch on your on yourselves and in your doctrine.

Listen to yourself pray.

As you think about your prayer life and your praise life, how do you consistently relate to God?

Is he a tool or a treasure?

Is he useful to you or is he actually beautiful to you?

There's a legendary football coach.

Oh, there's a sports.

Yeah, there's a legendary football coach named Jimmy Johnson.

Okay, legendary college football coach.

Okay, Miami Hurricanes, they won multiple championships.

He was absolutely the man, he broke records, won championships.

He did so well that at one point in the late 80s, early 90s, he was hired to coach America's team, Dallas Cowboys.

Okay, well, um tragically, one of the first things he did when he got hired to coach the Cowboys.

The day he got hired, he took his wife to dinner and fired her.

Divorced her.

He told her, I can either be the coach of the Dallas Cowboys or I can be married to you.

I'm choosing to be the coach of Dallas Cowboys.

And then he went on to be tell reporters that whenever you're a college football coach, it makes sense to have a wife for social gatherings, and not only that, for for for for for moms and dads, you're trying to recruit their children.

You want to show that you're a family man.

You want to show that you I'll take care of you saying, look, I'm a family man, but now he's gonna learn a whole new game called the NFL.

So he bought himself a cheap apartment right next to the practice facility and divorced his wife.

She felt used.

Okay, she was a tool.

We can scoff at that.

But let's think.

How do you tend to act when you get exactly what you want?

Can you join Paul when he says, I have this, I have this, I have this, I have this, I have this, I have this, I have this.

But everything, all of this is worthless compared to the infinite value of knowing Jesus.

Can you join Paul in saying that?

Or can you join the man in Matthew 13, verse 44, where he says this the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.

Matthew 13:44

Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Can you join this man going with joy?

I ditch all of that because the treasure's up there.

David can.

He's celebrating fellowship with God because God is his treasure.

And since God is his treasure, he's not gonna live life operating out of the vacuum of his wants.

I want, I want, I want, I want.

No, he has exactly what he has his treasure, he has God.

He has God.

There's a book when I got to college called Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

It is an incredible, incredible, incredible book.

I never read it.

The title page, though.

Okay?

Sounds amazing.

Jesus plus nothing equals it.

It hits on this verse, it hits on like the everlasting contentment you and I are called to when we have the greatest thing that the universe has to offer.

Okay, it it's it's ours.

Okay, the Lord is mine.

This passage shows that through the gospel we have the greatest possession.

Furthermore, through the gospel, okay, this passage shows us that through the gospel we have the greatest privilege.

Look at verses one through three.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake.

Now, throughout the Bible, you hear God called names that sometimes don't look like they make sense, okay?

Names that are kind of um they're kind of a paradox or an oxymoron.

So um how does the how does the Lord's prayer start?

R what?

Where?

In heaven.

So what happens um is Jesus relates um to the Father as the heavenly father.

Okay, so there's a heavenly father.

Heavenly makes him infinitely powerful, father makes him intimately close.

And this is everywhere, okay?

Um, Emmanuel means what?

God, God with us.

Okay, and even in the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 4, um, you're called to approach the throne of grace.

Hebrews 4 · chapter mention

Okay, so um, we see a pattern of God being infinite and personal.

Okay, the first one, the infinite, makes him capable of anything.

The second one makes him eager for your best.

And in this Psalm, it starts out by calling God Lord and Shepherd.

Okay, this is surprising because in this culture, okay, this is not a cult, like in this culture, kings don't change diapers.

The same way a president wouldn't check the oil on the wouldn't change the oil on his own car or change the tire in his own car.

In this culture, kings don't change diapers.

And what David is celebrating as well, he's celebrated the sovereign king of the universe, the most high, the uncreated creator, the I am, has taken up the menial task of taking care of these sheep, of taking care of him, of being his shepherd, of condescending himself and getting down at eye level and taking care of his sheep.

Friends, just with your eyes, scan your Bible right now in verse one through three.

Look at how many active verbs there are.

This is in verses one through three.

Look at the active verbs, count the active verbs.

What do you see there?

Right?

You see makes, he leads, restores, he leads.

This is a hands-on God.

He's not using the intercom system, he is hands-on.

And he's celebrating what is the great David is celebrating the greatest privilege there is being taken care of by God.

Sheep are not animals that can do it on their own.

Okay, they're not animals that can survive on their own.

They require 24-7 meticulous care.

So, with him saying the Lord is my shepherd, he's not saying, Hey, God's on my team, God's in my corner, God's on my side.

He's saying, No, no, no.

The king of the universe has moment by moment care for me.

He takes meticulous and continual care for me.

He's continually my provider.

Verses two and three.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

Okay, this is uh this is referring to food, okay?

David's saying, I will not lack food because he has made me lie down in green pastures here.

He leaves me besides still waters.

Okay, this is not talking about central Oklahoma.

Okay, this is talking about the fact that this is talking about refreshment.

Okay, for a sheep to be led by still waters.

This is refreshment.

Okay?

Um, and even peace.

Okay, whenever sheep see water that is flowing, and whenever the sun is hitting just right in the water, glistening, they get mesmerized by that, and they sometimes jump in and they die.

He restores my soul.

Okay, that means he turns back my soul, he refreshes me.

God refreshes David, uh, or God refreshes David and his people with this quiet voice and his gentle touch.

These images here are give us a sense of comfort and care and provision and rest.

Okay, this is God's ability to take care of David's needs.

I said needs, not greeds, but needs.

He doesn't fulfill all of his earthly desires.

Actually, later on, David has a son, but gets all that fed for him.

Okay, he gets, he fulfills all Solomon gets all his earthly desires fulfilled, and he ends up exhausted and confused at the end.

Like, nah, man, try God.

Yeah, it's good over here.

Try God.

This isn't this isn't it.

He fulfills David's needs.

Now, this isn't not just for him, this is not just exclusive to Bible characters, but this is available for you and I as well.

For example, there's a guy named Philip Keller, he wrote a book on Psalm 23, and one of the beautiful things about him is that not only he's he a biblicist, a Bible guy, or a Bible teacher, a pastor, but he also, before he was that, he was an actual shepherd.

So he has a lot of insight on this verse and verses like it.

And he talks about in his book um the four things that sheep need to lie down.

Okay, for a sheep to lay down, you can't just sweep the leg.

Okay?

There are some conditions that need to be met for them to actually comfortably lie down.

Number one, fear.

Fear needs to get taken care of.

A sheep will not lie down if that bush over there is shaking back and forth.

What is that over there?

They will not lie down.

Another one is friction.

Okay, these are flocking animals.

So if there's beef among them, if there's conflict among them, they will not lie down.

Other one is flies.

If there's a parasite nipping at them, they won't lie down.

Okay, the last one, okay, um, is famine.

If they're starving, they will not lie down.

Okay, so a wise shepherd has to take care of these things if he wants his sheep to lay down.

Now you and I have a good shepherd, but a different list.

Okay, no one's going to bed uh bed like scared of bedbugs.

I hope not.

But there are four things that come to our minds when our heads hit the pillow.

Okay?

Guilt.

Okay?

Anybody's head hit the pillow, and all of a sudden what happens is shoulda coulda woulda.

Sulha coulda woulda.

You start cataloging back your day, your week, your month, your life, and it's shoulda coulda woulda, shoulda coulda wulda, shoulda coulda woulda.

Guilt.

And also greed.

I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that.

Vanity.

Me up, hem down.

Me up, her down.

Me up, them down.

Or anger.

Anybody go to bed or take a shower?

Making fake conversations of the argument you're gonna win next next day.

Okay?

How could she?

How could he?

Next time he says this, well, I got some form.

Okay, this is what Dave Murray calls the inner orchestra that starts playing when our head hits the pillow.

And the beautiful thing about having a good shepherd like Jesus, he takes care of all these with the gospel.

So guilt, listen, if you are in Christ, if Jesus Christ is your permanent address, you might have people you need to apologize to, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Your status went from condemned to no condemnation, nowhere in between.

So you might have people you need to apologize to, but there's no reason to be living in a perpetual guilt and shame.

Okay?

Greed.

We have a savior who emptied himself out of generosity, completely emptied himself, made himself poor so we could become rich.

Vanity.

Vanity.

Me up or down.

This is taken care of whenever you look at John the Baptist's joy in Jesus.

I must what?

Decrease so he can increase.

That's where true joy comes from.

Okay?

Anger.

Okay, this is taken care of when we realize all vengeance is the Lord's.

So our good shepherd takes care of this list.

Okay, he takes care of David's needs, and we too have the privilege of being taken care of as well.

Now, as I as I hit the exit of this point, um my encouragement is this, as I as I exit this point, is this.

Um David is the king of an entire country.

Okay, and he's taking great excitement and continually being dependent.

I know we have matriarchs and patriarchs and CEOs in the room and even elders in the room.

David is the CEO, or he he is the king of an entire country, and yet he is giddy about being dependent on God.

This isn't, listen, this is not just the man who sits around by candlelight writing poems that are gonna be in the Bible one day or playing the harp in his spare time.

He's a war general, world-renowned world general.

His hands are rough, if you know what I mean.

And yet, he is giddy about being fed every day, being put down every day, being made to rest every single day.

And that gives us a hint of our spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.

That means that listen, as you grow, as you grow, you and I are called to be more like children.

This is why Jesus said, learn from them.

We can stand to learn from them.

We're called not to be childish, but to be childlike.

To be childlike.

So there's a movie called Benjamin Button.

Y'all seen it?

Okay, I haven't.

I saw the trailer for it though, but here's what I know, here's what I know.

It's a Brad Pitt movie.

Okay?

He's born old, right?

And as the movie progresses, it gets younger and younger.

In that same way, sometimes in our sanctification, as we're growing, as time is progressing, you should be younger and younger in the fact that you're more and more willing to fling yourself at the feet of your shepherd.

Here's the king of a whole country doing it.

He's excited about being fed.

He's excited about being put down, being refreshed, being guided.

In that same way, we should fling ourselves like children to our shepherd for help.

Because he will take care of us.

He will take care of us.

Not because you're cute.

But look at that last those last four four four words in verse three.

For who?

It's for his name's sake.

His honor is at stake in how he takes care of you.

His reputation is at stake in how he takes care of you.

And he will not let himself down.

It's not happening.

It's the greatest privilege of being taken care of by God.

So this passage shows us that through the gospel we have the greatest possession, greatest privilege, and furthermore, um, we have the greatest comfort.

Look at verse 4.

Greatest comfort.

Says this even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

For you are with me.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Now, if you've been um a Christian for more than 30, 40 minutes, you realize our Christian life is not to go from pasture to pasture to green pasture to green pasture or mountaintop to mountaintop.

There are valleys.

Okay, it's not all green green pasture, it's in that there are valleys.

Sometimes the path of righteousness takes a scenic route right through the valley.

Other times, our sin takes us right to a valley.

Either way, this is a part of life.

Now, in this passage, interpreters split.

Okay, they they split over what's meant here by the valley of the shadow of death.

There's a lot of interpreters that have said, listen, this right here is talking directly about dying.

He's talking about death.

David is talking about dying right here.

The word death means death.

Other interpreters look at this and say, Well, this is not talking about death, but they're talking about the values of life, just the difficulties of life, the darkness of life, because that's the shadow of death.

Either way, wherever you land on that, the same truth applies to both cases.

He supplies comfort for that day.

He supplies comfort for that day.

And there are three types of people in this room.

Okay?

Those who are currently in a valley.

And for those of you, what annoys you the most about this passage is that we're such a W right there, even though I walk.

Because you know when you're in a valley, let's sprint through this.

Let's hit fast forward, let's get out of here.

Okay?

Okay, there's people who are in a valley, those who are coming out of a valley, and those who are going into a valley.

And my question to you is this What do you fear most about the valley?

What do you fear most?

Just something happening to your reputation or to your kids or to your spouse?

Is it loss?

Is it death?

Is it pain?

Is it abandonment?

Is it illness or is it shame?

I heard I heard one um psychologist talk about, hey, human beings, death isn't that scary.

Shame is a scary one.

What do you fear most about the valley?

What David has in mind is this imagine a God that's so good, so powerful, and so for you that the fear of the worst case scenario, whatever that is for you.

Imagine that God's so good, so powerful, so for you, that the fear of the worst case scenario goes down when you think of him being with you.

That's a good God.

That's a powerful God.

I used to go back to Angola.

So I was born and raised in Angola.

Okay, I was born and raised probably in the climax of a civil war.

Okay, it was not, it was not and is not an easy place to live.

Okay, my family is all still there.

It's a pretty difficult place to live.

But I used to go back every single year.

When I was here, I would hear my cousins talk about how violent it's gotten.

It's gotten so violent, it's gotten so violent.

People are dying over phones, it's gotten so violent.

And we used to go back every year.

Now, my brother in 2012, um, he moved back there.

His wife and his children are all there.

He lives, he lives there now.

So he's a local.

And he's a loco.

Right?

He's got crazy hands.

I've seen a thing or two from him.

What that means is when I would go back, I would have some fear.

As soon as I would land and go, there would be some fear, like, all right, the same, same Katie, no mo.

This is a different beast now.

It's a different beast.

And I would get there, and my brother go, Haley, you want to go to blah, blah, blah.

My reply is well as big, as long as I'm with you.

Hey, you want to go to the beach?

As long as I'm with you.

Hey, mate, I know it's nighttime, but there's these really good hot dogs, as long as I'm with you.

That's the song I sang.

Furthermore, um I got married today, this is July.

Three months ago.

About three, three, three months ago.

And one of the ways I knew I was madly in love with this woman, one of the ways I knew was it didn't matter what we were doing.

It could have been an awesome restaurant or splitting a sandwich at the DMV.

Whatever.

As long as I'm with you.

As long as I'm with you.

She's coming next service.

I don't know if I should say that out, but whatever.

But I shouldn't point it right there.

But nevertheless, this is the song David is singing.

He says, Listen, as long as I'm with you, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

I won't fear, I will walk through the worst case scenarios as long as you're with me.

This is not to say, friends, this is not to say the valley is painless.

There is despair in the valley.

And listen, there is space for that, there is grace for that.

Please do yourself a favor and God, grieve to the glory of God.

Weep if you need to weep.

There is despair in the valley.

But God's comfort is such that we don't need to live in a perpetual fear of that day.

We don't need to be like, okay, things are good.

Here comes the valley.

And I'm preaching this to myself.

My first day of college, one of my best friends in the world passed away.

So what happens now is whenever things are really, really good, when life is good, when the weather's nice, when I have Capri Sun in my fridge, when things are good, I think, okay, okay, the valley is coming up ahead.

My therapist calls it uh disaster anxiety.

When you're consistently waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Okay, but he's saying, listen, there's comfort in that, there's grace and comfort in that day as well.

Think of Jesus.

Gosh, today we're surrounded by crosses everywhere.

Some of you have crosses in your necklace, crosses on tattoos and crosses on your wall or crosses everywhere.

Jesus grew up in that same type of thing.

He said the crosses he grew up around were real.

People being crucified everywhere.

And you have to think teenage Jesus, child Jesus knew who he was, and he knew his destiny is gonna end up on that cross.

So going to school, coming out of work, going to lunch, he would see people crucified, and he knew that's where I'm headed next.

And yet his life was not marked with this perpetual, like, oh my gosh, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.

It wasn't.

Psalm 112, verse 7 says this.

Psalms 112:7

He, okay, talk about the righteous here, and then Jesus is the one that can fill the righteous.

He is not afraid of bad news.

His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

He knew who was gonna be with him in the valley.

And the irony is he was abandoned, momentarily abandoned, so you could be forever comforted.

John 10, 11 says, This, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.

When Jesus died, the sky went black from noon to about 3 p.m.

If you were here for any of those hurricanes, like hurricane Ike could treat, if you were here, you know how creepy that feels, how eerie that feels.

But when Jesus died, there was a three-hour darkness over the entire land, making it the darkest valley of all time.

And the good news of the gospel is he took the substance of death.

Satan took his best shot at Jesus and he got back up.

And now you and I are dealing with the shadows of death.

And it can be scary, but ultimately, shadows can't harm you.

Ultimately, shadows cannot harm you.

When a bee stings somebody and leaves its stinger in somebody, and no more has a power to hurt.

It can scare you.

I'll still flinch when a bee walks by you.

Stinger or not.

In that same way, death has left its stinger in the humanity of Jesus.

And then no longer has power to harm us.

Okay, we can join the apostle Paul and say, Death, where is your sting?

Where is your sting?

He rose from the valley to comfort us in our valley.

Okay, by acting like the protector he is.

Here he says, Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Notice it doesn't say, You in that day you lecture me and catalog everything I did wrong to get myself here.

No, no, no.

Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

These were tools that were used to beat off predators and direct sheep.

Furthermore, he says, um, you anoint my head with oil.

Okay, one of the biggest predators to sheep are these small things called nasal flies.

And these nasal flies are attracted to the damp part of a sheep's nose, and they get on a sheep's nose and they climb up, and they leave, they hatch eggs in there, and those edge eggs hatch and they start going up.

Okay, and that's very imagine how that would feel if flies are going up your head.

Okay, like picture you if you were handcuffed and there's a spider on your face.

What would you do?

Okay?

You would try to beat them off.

In that same way, it's not uncommon for shepherds to walk in and see their sheep hurting themselves, try to fix themselves.

Hurting themselves and trying to fix themselves.

So what they do, a wise shepherd puts a uh this oil on the head of his sheep.

So it can block out this protective oil, so it can block out the the predator of a nasal fly.

He's a protector.

And then you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.

There are times whenever we are in a valley, um, whenever we ask God, God, draw near to me and get me out of here.

And God in his wisdom will only answer half of that.

He'll draw near to you.

You're not going anywhere.

You're staying right there.

He's gonna set up a charcoal charcour board.

I just learned what that is.

Give me a break.

I told y'all from the streets of Katie, right?

So I oh man.

At least I have my notes.

So he's gonna set up a charcuterie board, set the table.

Whenever you're eating, whenever you're eating in the presence of enemies, you're eating quickly.

Especially in wartime, you're eating quickly, but no, he's gonna set it up for you, and you're gonna eat right there.

He will prosper you in front of your enemies.

I sell this to say this.

Listen, sufferer.

Whoever you are in here, okay, this room is big enough to have.

I know there's people in here that limped in here this morning.

Listen, the good shepherd is with us, even when it seems most difficult and most troubling.

And that is the greatest comfort.

As long as I'm with you, David's saying, as long as I'm with you.

So we have the greatest possession, greatest privilege, greatest comfort, and lastly, we here have the greatest promises.

I'll end here.

The greatest promises.

Look at verse 6.

Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

David, here he's celebrating two stalkers in a bright future.

Two stalkers in the bright future.

The two stalkers are goodness and mercy.

Okay, the first one is goodness.

Okay, remember the imagery of the overflowing cup.

Okay, God does not fill our cup in accordance with our faith or even our obedience.

He overflows, his goodness comes in abundance.

Okay, that shows his strength and his willingness to bless.

His goodness is overflowing towards us.

Remember Jesus.

Okay, whenever he fed an entire stadium with the little kids' lunchables, he didn't pass out out of fatigue afterwards.

But there were leftovers.

That did not completely squelch out his power.

His goodness was in abundance, meaning that his goodness will never have a shortage.

It will never be sold out.

Okay, I used to love Jordan tennis shoes when I was younger, and I used to hate it when they were sold out.

Okay, never with the goodness of God.

It will never come in a shortage and it will never be sold out.

The second stalker is mercy.

Okay, that word for mercy right there is the word Hesed.

There was an amazing sermon about that last February.

So if you remember, a young, handsome guy did that.

But Hesed, if you remember, Hesed is love, loyalty at the middle.

It combines the idea of love and commitment.

It's not fueled by how you feel, but it's love focused on loving, regardless of feeling.

It's a it's it whenever God has steadfast love, it refers to the stubborn grip that he has on his people and the sure love that he's never letting go.

So David here is he's celebrating the two stalkers he has, goodness and mercy.

We talk a lot, an awful lot about the enemy prowling around like a roaring lion.

But how often we talk about the fact that we're being stalked.

We're being pursued by God's goodness and God's mercy.

The word for follow there is literally the word that's used when it's referring to animals.

Whenever it's animals approaching their prey.

It describes an animal in pursuit.

When the Lord is our shepherd, instead of being stalked by wild beasts, we are pursued by a loving care of the Lord.

We talk.

Have you ever viewed your life with the Lord this way?

Hey, how you doing?

Still being stalked.

Stalked and pursued by his goodness and mercy.

My sin wants to wiggle out of it.

Can't.

Relentless, every morning being stalked by his goodness and mercy.

Have you ever described your life with the Lord this way?

You should start.

Because this isn't just kind of happening, it's happening right now.

What's the first word in verse 6?

What is it?

Surely.

That isn't, it's not a wishy-washy person.

Like, ah, maybe it's surely.

Surely the goodness, some of your Bible say, certainly.

Surely the goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

My dad was bitten by a dog as a teenager and it hurt him real bad.

So one of the things he passed down to me was a fear of dogs.

So, growing up, one of the things that happened to me, whenever a dog was behind me, it forced me to speed up.

Whenever they were behind me, no matter big dogs spawned up, it doesn't matter.

But the beautiful thing about being stalked and pursued by the goodness and mercy of God, we're not called to speed up, we're called to be slowed down and freed up.

You're being followed by the goodness and mercy of God.

And in the bright future, he ends it with this I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The psalm ends with the calmest assurance that he would enjoy presence with God forever.

Back to where we started.

We get God at the end.

Okay, through the good news, we inherit this reality.

We have two stalkers in a bright future.

So the gospel gives us great promises, great possessions, great privileges, and great comfort.

This is the greatness of our God.

So we just sang before I got up here.

How great is our God?

This passage gives us a glimpse in that.

And my prayer is if you've been walking with God, that you may be refreshed to the greatness of God.

One glimpse of the greatness of God in your life could change forever.

And I've been praying that God will reveal Himself in a great way that you can be changed and transformed all the more from glory to glory.

And if you were here, okay, and you are here as a spectator, meaning you're here, and like you don't know much about the greatness of God, or you here, or you're here, and you're not a believer in Christ, but you found your mouth watering when you hear about the greatness of God.

I want you to look at the pronouns of this passage.

The first three verses is he makes me lie down in a green passage.

He restores my soul.

And in verse four, he switches the pronoun and says you.

So it's not in my notes, but with the greatness of God comes the greatest invitation.

You're not called to just examine friends, you're called to experience the greatness of God.

You're not called just to know about him or hear about him.

We're not building our pastors here.

We're not building sermon appreciation societies.

Experience the greatness of God.

May we be a people that is convicted with this.

How amazing is it that I get to enjoy you forever.

And the awesome part about that is you're excited about that just as much as that, or even more than I am.

May we be people who treasure you.

God, give us more and more glimpses of your greatness, or give us eyes to see your greatness.

Holy Spirit, be great in our hearts, be great in our minds.

May we live lives that are deeply convicted with the fact that you are the greatest.

You are the greatest.

It's in your beautiful name I pray.

Amen.

Well, um, as usual, um, what we like to teach the Bible and give you some soul space to think about it.

So these are some questions of the passage that you just heard.

So what you can do is right now, I'll give you about a minute, a minute and a half to kind of take one question in your mind's eye and just venture with the Holy Spirit with that question.

Or you can take a picture of it and go through these questions throughout your week, throughout your month, or just think about these things.

But we believe that these truths are so good that they are worth pondering on and chewing on.

So I'm gonna step back about a minute and a half or so.

I'm gonna have to let you um think about what we just heard.

The flesh is no help at all.

It's you.

So as a communicator, I'm fully dependent on you to do a work in this room.

I pray that you can continue work in our hearts.

That we may join David and say, your greatness is unsearchable.

And thank you that you paid the ultimate flat price.

That we get to mine that truth forever.

We're thankful for our time in worship today.

Hope it's a sweet aroma to you.

I pray.

Amen.

So, as always, um, thank you so much for being here.

Again, my name is Leo Almade.

I'll be right up front with some of the pastors, other pastors.

Um, we love to meet you or pray for you, help you process, or just answer any questions you might have about this church.

If you're new here, welcome.

Um, you matter to the Lord, therefore you matter to us.

And what we'd love for you just to text that number here that gives us a record of your visit, an opportunity for us to follow up here with you.

And if this is your church home and today's the day that you worship through through giving, um, there are boxes all over the room for you to do so.

Now, um, we always want to keep you aware of what's happening in the life of our church.

So, would you not direct your attention here to the screen.

Here's what's happening at Ground Parkway Baptist Church.

If you're new, text welcome to 281-626-5707.

This way we can know you're here and get you connected with the church.

Hello, my name is Caleb Miller.

I'm the bridge coordinator here at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

I work primarily with our fourth through sixth grade students.

If you are interested in serving our students, living out the gospel, and working with them on Sundays or Wednesdays, email me at caleb at grandparkway.org.

Hi, I'm Ian Weber.

I'm the student pastor here at Grand Parkway.

I work primarily with 7th through 12th grade.

Every single one of our grades could use more adult volunteers to help lead discussion on Sunday mornings.

Uh we also can use help on Wednesdays as well, as well as our annual events.

But primarily I'm looking for more discussion group leaders.

And you can reach out to me at Ian at Grandparkway.org.

Hi, I'm Krista Hidden, and I'm the children's pastor here at Grant Parkway Baptist, and we need extra helpers to be in our classrooms with the kids each Sunday and Wednesday nights.

I'm Nancy Mullins, and I'm the preschool pastor here at Grant Parkway Baptist.

We are looking for people to help lead and just assist in our preschool classes.

If being in the classroom is not something you're comfortable with at all, we also have other ways you can serve in our kids' building.

We need hostesses, people to be a smiling face at the front to welcome families on Sundays.

We also can use assistance during the week with preparing our activities and crafts for Sundays and Wednesday nights.

So there are lots of ways that you can get involved in helping out in our kids' ministry.

If you're interested in getting involved, you can contact us at kids at grandparkway.org, or you can stop by our check-in desk in the kids' building right after the service is over.

One of my favorite parts about the teachers is that they're really sweet and that they're just they really help me learn more about the common and they're just really supportive and really funny and they just make us a lot.

What I love about our volunteers is that they are all so willing to listen to you and hear about your problems whenever you have something going on.

What I like about the volunteers is PowerStark.

They're it's so great.

I mean, they're always there when you need them, they're so friendly and just never felt like more welcomed or like at home.

If you would like to impact the next generation, reach out to Caleb, Ian, Crystal, or Nancy via email, or fill out the volunteer interest card.

They'll be the lobby of each ministry's building.

On July 30th, our women's ministry is storing a big summer fellowship in the student building.

There will be an easy craft, axe throwing, and an ice cream bar.

This would be a great time to catch up with some old friends or make some new ones.

You can register at grandparkway.org.

We now have Bible studies for adults at 9 and 10.30 a.m.

To find a class that's a fit for you, come to the adult building and try one out, or contact Blake at grandparkway.org.

If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

Would you stand to your feet for me?

Like to end each week with a blessing.

So would you re uh uh re uh put your hands out?

Children of God.