The Lord Is My Shepherd

It's impossible to be a parent on a car ride with your kids

without eventually being confronted with one of the

age-old car questions that kids ask.

And here it is. If you were an animal, what

animal would you be? Take a second turn, Your

neighbor, the one you like? Answer the question, if you had

to pick which animal, which animal would you be?

I'm I'm watching some of you guys are a little embarrassed by

what you just heard. This, it's going to be tough.

We asked at multi site. We asked the staff that were in

there for the day. If you were going to be an

animal, which animal would you be?

We got some dolphins and some whales.

I've never heard that before. That was interesting.

Someone picked a Flamingo and another person picked a turtle.

They're not going to last, but we were thankful for their

honesty. We we had a person pick a duck

to which I replied, don't fly over Pike County.

There were a couple people who picked an eagle.

Come on, America. I was like, that's good, That's

solid. And who doesn't love flying?

I like it. But you know the well, there was

also a wolf, but you know, the predominant family of animals

that were chosen. We had lions, tigers, snow

leopards. Two different people said they

wanted to be a Panther. And a lot of these were fellas,

which I found interesting because for as much as men hate

cats, secretly you want to be 1. My answer to this question has

always been the same, all the way back in junior high.

So if you could be an animal, what would you be?

Easy silverback gorilla. That is 100% my position.

You're just strong. You eat whatever you want.

You seem like you have a pretty good life.

But I had to ask the Internet, is the gorilla the ultimate apex

predator? Because that's what I want to

be. I want to be an apex predator.

Comes find out. They would lose to the lion.

They would lose to the tiger, but the apex predator is the

polar bear, which is now my new, that's my new answer.

I'm done with silverback gorillas.

I'm now on team polar bear. Would it surprise you that the

animal that you would choose for you is completely different than

the animal that God would choose for you?

And the animal that he has for you didn't make anyone's list.

I want to welcome all of our different locations.

Those of you watching online, those of you who are part of our

inside family, specifically those of you who are at our 48th

St. location or Macomb or Kirksville, 929 Pike County,

Hannibal, Lima, Mount Sterling, Keokuk, Monmouth, Jacksonville,

Weaver. We are so thankful to be a part

of this ministry alongside each and every single one of you.

Today we are starting a new series designed to help you grow

in your love and appreciation for God.

The sermon series is called same name.

Turn your neighbor and say same name.

I've heard lots of times, you've probably heard it as well, that

there are people who struggle with the God of the Old

Testament and they'll say things like I just I have a hard time

with the God of the Old Testament.

Well, what's surprising to me is that the people in the Old

Testament had a completely different view of God than we do

of the God of the Old Testament. In fact, the names that they

gave God run contrary to the narrative professed by modern

day critics and skeptics. And I thought it might be a

little helpful for us to allow the people of the Old Testament

to tell us what the God of the Old Testament was actually like.

And what you'll find is that the God of the Old Testament is the

same God in the New Testament. It's the same God with the same

name because he is still offering the same power and the

same promise, if you're willing to receive it.

So what animal would God choose for you?

A sheep. And I know what you're thinking.

Please, no, not a sheep. Yeah, a sheep.

The dumbest animals in the animal Kingdom.

Let me just walk you through the stat sheet on sheet.

No defensive weapons, no offensive weapons.

Poor sense of direction. They wander, they get lost.

Add to that, they don't have the ability to clean themselves.

You've heard me talk about my golden dummy, Suge.

Suge, When he goes outside after it's rained and he, you know,

does his number one and his number 2, the golden dummy comes

back in the house and he lays down and he will clean himself

all night long so that way he can present himself to the world

like he's like a chick getting ready for work in the morning.

Like that's sugar. Sugar can clean himself all

night long. Not a sheep.

Sheep have zero ability to clean themselves, so their thick coats

collect dirt, hold and sweat and without somebody pulling them

aside and shearing them, they will become heavy laden and

overheat and die. You've heard me talk about this

a bunch. That we have a tendency to take

all the stupid pills in the medicine cabinet that like we

love a good stupid pill. Do you know who really loves

stupid pills? Sheep.

It's their favorite meal. So since sheep are defenseless,

dirty, susceptible to attack, and cannot take care of

themselves, they need something that nobody else in the animal

Kingdom needs. Sheep need a shepherd.

And so God has always raised up leaders, shepherds, to take care

of His sheep, His people. Look what it says in Psalm 78.

He chose David. What was David?

David was a shepherd, his servant, and took him from the

sheep pens. What was he doing in the sheep

pens? He was shepherding from tending

the sheep, from shepherding the sheep.

He brought him in to be the shepherd, the leader of his

people, Jacob of an Israel, his inheritance.

And David shepherded them, LED them with the integrity of

heart, with skillful hands. He led them, He shepherded them.

And God takes the care of his people so seriously that he

pronounced judgment on the leaders of Israel for not

shepherding, leading the sheep, the people.

Look what it says in Ezekiel chapter 34.

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

The word of the Lord came to me, Son of Man, prophecy against the

shepherds of Israel, prophecy and say to them, This is what

the sovereign Lord says. Woe to you, shepherds of Israel

who only take care of yourselves.

Should not shepherds take care of the flock?

You eat the curds, clothe yourself with the wool,

slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the

flock. You have not strengthened the

weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.

You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.

You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

So. They were scattered because

there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered, they became

food for the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the

mountains, on every high hill. They were scattered over the

whole earth, and no one searched for them or looked for them.

And for some of you at our different locations today or

watching online, this is your story.

Your father was supposed to be a Good Shepherd to you, but he

wasn't. Your mom was supposed to take

care of you. She didn't.

Your parents were to watch over you and protect you, and instead

they only cared for themselves. There's no doubt that there are

some women in attendance today who you have lived with.

A man who was selfish, harsh, brutal in his dealings with you.

There are many, I'm sure across this region.

If you were to describe the status of your soul, you could

use the word scattered. And you feel like no one came

looking for you. And I want you to hear me say

this. God takes what happened to you

personally and He does something about it.

This is Ezekiel 34. You know, Old Testament, the

book that nobody reads. Look what God says in response,

verse 11, same chapter. For this is what the sovereign

Lord says. I myself will search for my

sheep and look after them as a shepherd looks after his

scattered flock when he is with them.

So I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the

places where they were scattered on the day of clouds and

darkness. I will bring them out from the

nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them

into their own land. I will pasture them on the

mountains of Israel, in ravines, and in all the settlements in

the land. I will tend them in good

pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their

grazing land. There they will lie down in good

grazing land. There they will feed in rich

pasture on the mountains of Israel.

I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the

sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost,

bring back the strays, bind up the injured, strengthen the

weak. This is the God of the Old

Testament. This is not someone off moment

or one off metaphor either. Over and over and over again in

the Old Testament, we see God establishing his relationship

with his people as a shepherd with his sheep.

Most notably, perhaps the most famous piece of all Scripture is

found in the Old Testament in Psalm 23.

Now, before we read it, the mission of this church is to

help people find an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus

Christ. And you may at some point in

time have somebody come up to you and go, well, where is that

in the Bible? Psalm 23 is the answer to that

question. If somebody were to come up to

you and say, I think I would like an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ, I just don't know what that

looks like. What does an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ look like?

The answer to that question is 6 of you are smarter when somebody

goes, the mission of this church is to help people find an

intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Where would I go to see what that relationship looks like?

All you have to do is go to now. So many of you are smarter.

Now watch. We're going to walk you through

what life with Jesus looks like and what you're going to find

out is it's really stinking good.

Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd.

I lack nothing. Right off the bat you and I get

a name, a title given to God and for God from David, the name

Jehovah Rohi. God is my shepherd.

Now that is good news right there.

You want to know why? Because a shepherd has a job and

his job is to take care of his sheep, that means that not only

has God handled my eternity, but He is caring for me in my

reality. I know a lot of people that were

hoping that their job would take care of them only to find out it

wouldn't. I know a lot of people who are

hoping that their health would pull them through only to find

out that it wouldn't. I know people that were hoping

and they looked for a spouse who would take care of them only to

find out that they were not strong enough to handle their

deepest needs nor powerful enough to handle their greatest

longings. If you go looking for a shepherd

and you get the wrong one. But I have never seen anyone

trust in God and be let down. I've never seen a cry of the

heart that missed his ear. I've never seen a person who

trusted in him put to shame. I've never seen a person who

built their life on him not be able to survive the storms of

life. Verse 2.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes, restores my soul.

This means that he takes me to the places that he knows I need

the most. He knows my deepest longings.

He knows my greatest needs. And he knows where to get them

taken care of of. And in doing so, he refreshes

and restores my soul. And you might be going, but

Clayton, I don't think he's doing that for me.

Oh, yeah, he is. Maybe you didn't realize it.

Maybe you showed up for ADBS. It's the DBS you've been going

to for a while. But for some reason on that

particular day, at that particular DBS, it was on the

subject matter that you had been struggling with.

And you went, boy, that's a coincidence.

It wasn't. It was God saying, come here, I

have green grass and good water for you.

I'm about to restore your soul. It's when you're having your

anchoring time and a verse that you didn't know you needed jumps

off the page. It's a word of encouragement

from somebody that you didn't see coming.

It's the worship song at the end of the service that you didn't

know and you didn't know how bad you would end up needing it.

That was God pasturing you, watering you, restoring and

refreshing your soul. Here's why this is good news.

This takes the burden of you off of you, and it puts the burden

of you on him. And when the burden of you is

off you and it's on Him, this leads to peace and to rest.

But the only way you and I are able to access this is through

faith. When you begin to trust that

God's ways are above your ways and you allow Him to be your

Shepherd, what's He do next? He guides me along the right

paths for His namesake. I don't know about you, but I

can find the wrong path on my own.

I don't need Agps to get lost. I can do.

I can do that right now. And since I like to go through

life fast, not only can I get lost fast, I can go the wrong

way for a long time fast. You know what you need though?

If you're going, I'm tired of going the wrong way and I want

to start going the right way, you and I need the exact same

thing. We need divine direction.

If my heart longs to walk in the ways of God, I need somebody to

guide me. And if I have Jehovah Rohi, I

have a shepherd who will guide me along the right path that I'm

supposed to take. Verse 4, Even though I walk

through the valley or through the darkest valley, I will fear

no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they

comfort me. This is the part of the message

that gets a little depressing. There's only three types of

people in the world, people who are coming out of the valley.

Those are the happy people. There's people who are in the

valley and there's people who are about ready to walk into it.

Which means that only about 1/3 of you right now showed up to

church today going, man, God got me through.

The other third of you are in it, and the other third of you

are like, oh Dang it, it's going to be a rough week.

We're not coming out and we're not in it.

Yeah, you're going to bump your head.

Here's the good news. Watch, watch, watch.

Let me clear this up for those of you who are watching.

Like health and wealth, people being in an intimate, personal

relationship with Jesus Christ does not mean you don't have

valleys. It means you have Jehovah Rohi

in the valley with you. Valleys are tough.

Valleys are incredibly tough. The sunsets the fastest in the

valley. It rises the slowest in the

valley. Valleys are by nature dark, and

it is impossible to outrun the shadows.

But when you are in Christ, when God is your Jehovah, Rohi,

instead of looking at the shadows, you can look at the

shepherd. Verse 5 You prepare a table

before me. In the presence of my enemies,

you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my

life, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

This means I have nothing to fear.

If I have Jehovah Rokie, I could dine in the presence of those

who desire my destruction and have No Fear, knowing that

Jehovah Rohi is my protection. I grew up on the water.

We would go up to a place in Iowa and we would go boating and

we had a blast and then we moved down here.

We started trying to make it as often as we could down to the

Lake of the Ozarks and you guys can have all the beaches you

want. Give me the lake.

I am a lake guy. And I like going out, but I know

what people say when they go to the Lake of the Ozarks, those

big boats make it impossible for you to enjoy your time.

That's just because your boat ain't big enough.

Because you get on the right kind of boat, you're like giddy

up, but you're out there. And I get it, the boats flying

by and their weight comes and it hits you and you're, you're

laying down on like those expensive Styrofoam things that

people marketed you for like 1000 bucks and you're taking a

nap. And then you accidentally get

waterboarded by yourself because the the weight comes through and

you inhale all. I get it, I get it, I get it, I

get it. But what's happening is David is

showing us that as you and I go through life, you and I leave

awake just like a boat. There is stuff that is coming

off of you. And I got to ask you kind of a

tough question. What's in your wake this week?

When you were in the office, you're having a tough

conversation with some people you work with.

When you left, were your Co workers going?

Was that was that goodness and love that I just experienced?

We were getting ready for Valentine's Day.

Everybody's got high hopes, trying to keep everybody happy

in the house. But you started a bit of a

conversation that turned into a bit of an argument.

And when the argument was over, was your spouse going goodness

and love right there? Yeah, No, on my own.

The wake you and I produce, hear me, is not the wake we want.

This is Romans 7. There is a good that you and I

want to do that we do not do. But the thing that we do not

want to do, we keep on doing. So we nobody wants to make their

spouse angry, especially during Valentine's Day week.

But sure enough, the good you want to do, you don't do.

And the thing you don't want to do, you end up doing, and your

spouse is left with. And I'll let you fill in the

blank, but when God is your Jehovah Rohi, and he leads you

on the past that you're supposed to go in, and he takes you to

where you're supposed to feed, and he takes you to where you're

supposed to get water. And your soul, soul is

refreshed. What leaves behind you when you

are with God is goodness and love.

I can stop this sermon right there.

But we said that this sermon series was called the same name.

Why? Because it is the exact same

God, with the exact same power, offering the exact same promise.

Can I take you to the New Testament?

To Jesus when he's talking? He says this in John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

See if you notice the similarity.

I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep

know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

Let me pause right there. God knows you as well as he

knows God. Jesus knows you as well as he

knows God. He has a perfect understanding

of you. All the good you want to do, all

the bad you don't want to do. Watch and all the bad that you

do, and all the bad that you do, that nobody else knows.

He knows you perfectly. And I lay myself down for the

sheep. How good is this shepherd?

He knows just how bad and evil you are and still is willing to

lay his life down for you. That's a Good Shepherd right

there he goes on verse 9. I am the gate.

Whoever enters through me will be saved.

They will come in and go out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his

life for the sheep. Jesus came to be your Jehovah

Rohi. He laid his life down on your

behalf so that you could experience the fullness of his

abundant life. Like I said, it is the same name

because it's the same God with the same power offering the same

promise if you're willing to receive it.

I want to take just a a quick moment and just honor our

English teachers that are with us all across this region day.

And the reason I want to honor you is because nobody likes you.

You don't teach the cool subjects like math.

Like nobody's walking up to somebody going, man, that's a

good reader right there. That's a good writer.

That's a great sentence structure.

How's your kid doing in school? Oh, yeah.

He's taking honors math. Nobody's saying he's writing

complicated paragraphs. Yeah.

We get you and we say stuff, and then you correct us.

And then we stop inviting you places.

God bless the English teachers. But this, this is all about the

English teachers because if you were to hang out with an English

teacher and we were talking about the Lord is my shepherd,

what they would tell you as that the word is, is present tense

means that something is happening right now and tense

makes all the difference. Nobody, nobody would be talking

about how good Psalm 23 is if David wrote that in the past

tense, the Lord was my shepherd. That just doesn't hit the same,

does it? That's just not the same kind of

thing because a past tense provision in a present tense

need will not pull you through. And past tense power in a

present tense pain is not what you're praying for.

There are a lot of you right now that that was how you would

probably describe your relationship with Jehovah Rogi

past tense. That's the song you're writing.

That's your Psalm 23. And then you came down with an

awful case of the used to's. You used to follow God.

You used to seek him in prayer. You used to seek his counsel.

You used to submit to his ways. You used to follow his voice.

And I just got to ask you, how's that working for you?

We teach here at the crossing that God's way is the best way.

So if you're walking your way, it's not his way, which means

you are not walking the best way.

Thank you. There's some of you.

If you were to write Psalm 23, it would be future tense.

God will be one day my shepherd, just not this day.

This is where it gets tough. I'm glad you're here, but this

is going to hurt. You're going.

I want to get right with God. I just need a little time.

I just need to get it together. And I need you to hear me say

this clearly. That is satanic thinking.

It's demonic watch God wants you to be in relationship with him

right now. So anything that is keeping you

from starting a relationship with him right now is satanic

because what does Satan want you to do?

He wants you to delay getting right with God or Satan wants

you to think that you have to fix you before you can get with

God, which takes the gospel and rips it of its power because we

are made right because God sent his son to make us right so we

could be right with him. But if you think that you have

to get you fix before you can get right with God, that means

that somehow you are your own savior.

That's from Satan. Satan wants to deny you of the

ability to access the cross, and he wants to rob you of the

ability to see the power of the cross.

And so he gets you to say, maybe next week he gets you to say,

one of these days. The problem with one of these

days I'll get right with God is sometimes one of those days

never actually comes. One of these days of your life

is snatched from you. Life changes in an instant.

There's some of you you're going.

I want to get right with God. I just kind of like sinning and

listen, I get that. I've never had a bad time

sinning. Sinning's not like broccoli like

I guess I got to go sin today. Nope, it's it's not like that

Sin is fun. I've never been in the middle of

my sin and been like, this is the worst.

Not once. All of it feels good in the

moment. It feels good to win in an

argument. And you Can you imagine being

married to me? I mean, you guys comp on me that

I can put some words together. Can you imagine me in an

argument? I'm great.

And I'm like, well, that was wicked.

That was good. That was some wordsmithing.

It rhymed. And then afterwards you're like,

nobody wants to be around me. It's the after sitting that's

tough. It's what happens after I choose

to step into sin because the invitation to sin is always

good. It just never leads to good

places. And so some of you are going, I

kind of like God's forgiveness and I kind of like sin, which

means you don't really like Jesus.

You want to be close enough to the fire to get warm, but not

close enough to get changed. You don't actually fully regret

who you are outside of him and don't realize who you can be in

him. So David writes, the Lord is as

Tony Evans says, we have a right now God.

You know why that's good news. That means that right now I have

access to salvation. Not in the future, not in the

past. Right now means I have right now

access to hope, right now access to peace, and right now access

to power. It means that right now I am no

longer my responsibility. I am my shepherd's

responsibility because the Lord is my shepherd, which makes me

his sheep. But is he your Shepherd?

We're moving to a time of decision.

To those of you who are in the room or watching online,

everything we just talked about lacking nothing, restoring

souls, being guided, directed, experiencing His presence, His

power and His protection in the valley are there for the taking.

And we spent so much time talking about the Lord is that

we didn't spend nearly enough time in the sermon talking about

the next two letter word, which is equally important.

My, my shepherd. It doesn't matter if your friend

can say it, if your mom can say it, if your grandma said it, if

your grandpa said it. The question is, can you say it?

Can you say, Jehovah Rohi, the Lord is my shepherd?

And if today you haven't started that relationship with him, I

got really good news for you. Today's a good day to start.

And in just a few moments, all around this room, they're going

to be people who are going to stand up and they're going to

sing and worship, and there's going to be other people who are

going to come to the steps and pray.

And while they are doing that, you can walk right over there

underneath that screen next to the baptistry and you can talk

to somebody. If you don't want to do that,

look across the room and go, I know somebody here and go and

talk to that somebody about how you can start that.

So you can say this sentence, the Lord is my shepherd because

if he is your shepherd, He will lead you wherever he is going to

be. And the Bible says that he is

with the Father. And if you want to be with the

Father when you die, you better make sure you have a shepherd

right now to the rest of you in the room, to those of you who

already know who Jesus is. Since Jesus is a shepherd,

Shepherds tell shepherds stories, and one of his favorite

and most famous shepherd stories is found in Luke chapter 15,

Luke 15:3–7

verses 3 through 7. Many of you have heard it.

Then Jesus told them this story. Suppose one of you has 100 sheep

and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the

open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his

shoulders? This is where we get the Hobby

Lobby pictures, right here. So he picks it up when I watch

joyfully. What do you think about God?

Not only does he look for you, but when he shows up, he is not

showing up with condemnation. He is joyfully putting you on

his shoulders to take you home. And then he calls his friends

and his neighbors, and he gathers them together, and

that's what he says. Rejoice with me.

I have found my lost sheep. That's the kind of shepherd he

is. Maybe you've been wandering off

from him. He came looking for you.

Verse 7. Then he explains it.

I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in

heaven over 1 Sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons

who do not think they need to repent.

One of the things is if He is your shepherd and He is come

looking for you and He has found you in your sin, He has found

you in your wandering, maybe today what you need to do is you

need to repent. You need to start a party in

heaven. There's a sin that you've been

carrying for way too long. There's a thing you can't seem

to let go. There's an area where you're not

trusting Him. There's a sin you're clinging to

heaven that throws a party when God's people repent others of

you. You've been wandering for a long

time, and for some reason you find yourself here today.

That was God searching for you. Will you allow Him to put you on

His shoulders and take you to the throne room of God?

Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, help us to be

about your mission of finding the lost sheep.

Help us to trust you and silence the voice of Satan in our lives

and in our spirits so we can follow your voice.

God, help us to trust you more and more each day.

Grow our faith and our dependence in you and God.

Right now, all across this region, you know what every

single person is navigating, what every single person is

struggling. You know exactly what it is that

they need to do. And y'all, we're asking in

faith. And not only would you show us

what we're supposed to do, but give us the faith to do it.

Your name, I pray. Amen.