Psalm 23: The Good Shepherd (3- Peace)

Well, good morning again.

It is so good to see you.

Glad to be here.

First off, if you're new with us, let me just welcome you and say a special hello to you.

I hope I want to direct your attention to that worship guide that you got when you came in Inside there.

We've got a connect card and if you'll just give us a little bit of information about yourself, it's a way for us to connect with you and invite you back again.

Also, if you're joining us for the first time on our live stream, make sure you post in the comments.

We're happy to have you and we're thankful for the technology to be able to connect with you that way as well.

So let me introduce myself to you.

If I've never seen you before, I haven't met you.

My name is Brandon Gillum.

Yes, not to be confused with Pastor Brandon.

I'm a Bowling Green native, been here my whole life.

I love it and I'm humbled and I'm honored to be a part of the teaching team here at RLC.

So again, my name is Brandon and that's not to be confused with Pastor Brandon.

However, should I say anything that offends you today or I say something that you don't like, you still need to direct your emails to Pastor Brandon, okay, and he'll get those over to me.

I'm just kidding, I'm not going to do that.

But it's Super Bowl Sunday, right?

All right, yes, who's a Chiefs fan?

Yes, any Eagles fans I haven't seen.

Okay, okay, a couple there.

I just hope it's a good game.

That's what I'm thinking of.

Super Bowl Sunday is great, but here's the thing too.

I want to make something real quick, depending on what part of the United States you're from, if you're not from Kentucky, this can confuse some people, okay, but Super Bowl Sunday sometimes gets a little confused with spring weather, and we don't do that here in Kentucky, okay.

So if that's what you're expecting, I've got something for you, just to make sure that we're all on the same page here.

Let's see.

Let me get this on.

This is actually the season we're in right now.

Ok, this is the full spring.

That's why it was 70 yesterday and it's going to be 40 today, ok, and then, after this, comes the second winter and then we'll have a spring of deception and then a third winter.

Then there'll be a muddy, rainy season and then sometime in April, maybe mid-April, it might warm up a little bit and that's the real spring.

But that's what Kentucky's like, and so if you've been here, you're aware of that, but if you're new here, I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page and we're, all you know, dressing appropriately for church when you come on Sunday, and I want you to be stuck out in the cold because winter weather is coming again next week.

It's amazing, praise God.

Okay, all right.

So now that we're through the announcements and we're all on the same page, let's prepare to get into God's Word together.

If you remember, we're in a series right now called the Good Shepherd, and this series that we're going over is the book of Psalms 23.

Psalms 23.

And we're basing this on a book by Philip Keller called A Shepherd's Look at Psalm 23.

And if you don't have a copy of that book I don't have it up here with me, but it looks a little bit like well, it looks exactly like this.

That's exactly what it is.

That's the cover of it.

But if you didn't have a copy of that book, we have a copy for you out in the Welcome Center on the way out.

Make sure you grab that.

It's an amazing book and, as Pastor Brandon said last week, our hope for this series, as we look through Psalms 23, which is a song that King David wrote, is that you can get a deeper connection with knowing the heart of God.

And Philip Keller goes through this and he's a modern-day shepherd, and he looks at how that applies to Psalm 23 in a way that most of us though it's one of the most popular psalms and most of us have read it in many times of our life it's a different way to look at it and he explains it to that in the book.

It's the way the good shepherd cares for us Us meaning his sheep or his flock, as Pastor Brandon mentioned last week.

Again, our hope in looking at this psalm together is that you read it a little bit differently.

Okay, now I'm going to read you Psalm 23, but I'm going to read from the NLT, so you may have a little bit different version and I love to just read it straight out of the book.

Okay, so Psalm 23.

Also, headset mic went out, so I'm using the handheld mic.

We're going old school today, it's all right.

We're going to make it work.

A lot of times I don't know what to do with my hands anyways, so this is perfect, all right.

Psalm 23.

If you've got your Bibles with you and you want to open them up and follow along.

We're going to read this together and I'm going to give you some notes today that I'd love for you to write down and keep with you.

Psalm 23 is a psalm of David.

It's written by King David.

It goes like this.

It says the Lord is my shepherd.

I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows.

He leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength.

He leads me beside peaceful streams.

He renews my strength.

He guides me along the right path, bringing honor to his name.

And even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me, and you prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies and you honor me by anointing my head with oil and my cup overflows with blessings.

That's Psalm 23.

Amazing, it's one of the most popular Psalms in the entire Bible, and one of the things that I love about reading through the Psalms, and this one in particular, is, if you know anything about the life of David, it's the second king of Israel.

Consider the greatest king of Israel Just done these amazing things with his life.

Unbelievable king.

But the truth is is that he's no short.

He's not short on any screw ups either.

He messed a lot of things up he really did.

But when you read these Psalms you really begin to see the relationship that he has with God and the love and the grace that God gives to him as he makes this plan with his life.

And it really is.

It's poetry and it's a love letter, because David knows I've messed up before and I'm not here on my own.

I've messed up before and I'm not here on my own and God has come and given me his peace and he's stilled the waters.

And that kind of relationship that you take away from reading the life of David.

That's the relationship that God wants with every single one of us.

It's not reserved for the people that we read about in the Bible, it's not reserved for people that work in the church or people that do the most works.

It's reserved for each and every one of us and it's God's greatest desire for this world that we would realize that relationship and seek it out.

So that's Psalm 23.

And last week Pastor Brandon taught on the first part of verse two, the first part where it says you lay me down in green pastures.

And today what we're going to focus on is the second part of verse two, and last week the lesson was on contentment.

That was what the green pastures were about Contentment in your life.

And today we're going to focus on the peace that God provides, the still waters that he's talking about, that he leads us by.

Now, contentment and peace.

Here's what I want you to know about them.

They can almost be confused for the same thing.

At certain times.

They go hand in hand.

They often strengthen each other.

But when it comes to Psalm 23 in particular, they're two very different things, and this is kind of how I remember them.

And if you're taking notes and you want to write this down, if you're a note taker in the margins of your Bible, this is a perfect one.

This is what I wrote down in mine.

All right, it says I remember it like this Contentment comes from a confidence in the shepherd.

Pastor Brandon talked about that last week.

What I want to talk about is the peace that comes from confidence in the shepherd's plan, because you've seen it unfold in your life before.

Okay, so I'll say it like this.

And if you want to write it down.

Contentment comes when you allow God to be in control, but peace comes when you can accept the outcome of his plan either way.

That's what peace is and that's what we're going to talk about today.

If I were to give today's message some sort of a title, it would be this.

It would be there's peace in the water, but you got to be thirsty enough.

You got to be thirsty enough to take a drink.

We all want that peace that God provides, but a lot of times we're unwilling to take the steps that it takes to get there and experience that we get comfortable.

And it says there's peace in the water, but you have to be thirsty enough.

Now here's what I want you to know about water.

A few facts about water.

Okay, if you didn't know this, if you've been alive long enough, you probably do know this but water is the single most essential key to biological life.

It is the reason that you are alive.

Outside of air, outside of God's hand in creation, water keeps you alive.

It's so important, actually, that the surface of the earth is covered in 70% water.

Now, this is God's creation and he covered the surface of it in 70% water.

And on top of that, 60 to 70% of your body is made up completely of water.

That's how important it is made up completely of water.

That's how important it is.

Here's what I find interesting.

Recent studies show that the human body can go about 70 to 75 days without food before you begin to slip away, which is absolutely amazing to me, because it is everything I got just to skip breakfast, everything.

I cannot imagine going 70 days fasting.

I'm not a good faster.

I'm trying to get better about it.

But here's the interesting thing Even though you can go 70 to 75 days without food, you can only go roughly five to seven days without water.

That's how important it is.

That's how important God made it to the human body.

That's how important he made it to living.

And you know how important water is due to the number of times the Bible refers to it and specifically how Jesus refers to the living water being the peace of the Holy Spirit.

John 7, 37 through 38 says it like this, and this is Jesus speaking.

And Jesus says anyone who is thirsty, and I love that.

I love that he says anyone.

Anyone who is thirsty, not the most righteous, not the one who does the most work, not the one who does the most good deeds, not the one who seems to be worthy, but anyone who is just thirsty and believes in me.

Meaning the answer is anyone who will just seek it out.

Just come and find it.

Anyone who is thirsty and believes in me may come and may drink, for the scriptures declare rivers of living water will flow from his heart.

That's amazing to me, but Psalm 23, when it talks about the still waters that the shepherd leads us by, is talking about a very specific type of water.

Water is essential in furthering life, it's essential in flourishing the earth, it's of utmost importance to the living body.

But the fact is that water can also be detrimental.

There's plenty of people that drown in rough waters all the time.

Rough waters make waves, waves make swells, swells make storms, storms make hurricanes, tsunamis hit land, and it's detrimental.

And if you remember, god created water for life, but he also used water, which is very powerful, to flush and cleanse the earth at one time as well.

So the right kind of water that you drink keeps you alive, but the wrong kind can absolutely kill you.

And in Psalm 23, it says you lead me beside quiet streams, or some versions say, still waters, or peaceful streams, depending on whatever translation that you're used to.

And these still waters that David speak of, the still waters that he's writing about in the Psalms, that's the peace of God.

It's a peace that transcends any other thing that you've got going on, and it's those still waters that are able to quench that thirst that can't seem to be quenched with anything else.

And these are the waters that are good for us, and these are the waters that are clean to drink and they well up inside of you, that river that the scripture is talking about, and it gives you that undeniable peace in your soul.

So how do we get there?

How do we get to that peace?

I am so glad you asked.

Let me tell you, in Philip Keller's book A Shepherd's Look at Psalm 23, he talks about three main water sources of a sheep, and these three sources are the only places that a sheep will drink water.

And then I want to correlate that, if you want to write down the notes today, to three ways that we can also experience peace.

And it's the peace that David's talking about, it's the peace of the Holy Spirit.

It's a peace that stills the waters of this world when it's chaos around you.

And the first place that Philip Keller talks about as a water source for sheep is the morning dew on the grass.

Keller talks about as a water source for sheep is the morning dew on the grass, condensation early in the morning and a sheep will get up and when their thirst is bad enough, they'll get up at the early hours of the day when the condensation is on the grass and the dew is around and they begin to eat the vegetation.

And even when they're not hungry, they eat the vegetation anyways because it has the dew on it and that quenches a thirst that they have and this is a natural source of water and hydration for the sheep.

But the truth is is that to do this at the early hours in the morning, it doesn't come without sacrifice for the sheep.

They got to get up when they wouldn't normally get up and they got to make sure that they know when the rainy season is, when the condensation and the dew is around, and they got to be up before the sun is up and they got to get as much dew and vegetation as they can before the sun comes up and the winds dry the grass.

It takes some sacrifice for them.

It takes some sacrifice for them, for us.

I closely or most closely relate this to knowing God through his word.

We have got to be in the word of God, and if you want to experience the peace of the Holy Spirit, the first thing you need to do to still those inner waters is you have to know.

The first thing you need to do to still those inner waters is you have to know the shepherd.

And you cannot know the shepherd and you cannot hear his voice if you're not willing to read the directions that he left for you Every single day.

If you're in the word, the voice of God, the voice of the shepherd that leads you, becomes louder and it becomes louder and it becomes easier to recognize and you're able to face the things of life, because you're familiar with the promises of God that come in the scripture.

And it works because it reveals the shepherd's heart to you and it reveals his plan to you.

And as you begin to trust him, then you begin to trust his plan and because, even though his plan doesn't always seem like the same plan that we have, we know that his direction is always good and always the best source for us.

So you've got to be in his word, because that's how you know how to get to know God, how to know the good shepherd.

But the truth is, like the sheep, getting in the word for us doesn't come without sacrifice.

It is a bit of a sacrifice for you and your life and our different situations.

It may mean that you have to get up in the early hours of the morning and you have to find that quiet time with God at the early hours of the morning.

It may mean you have to stay up a little bit later at night.

It may mean you have to take your lunch break to get into the word.

For some of us it may mean we need to get off Facebook.

We need to delete Instagram.

Quit wasting your time on TikTok.

Get in the word of God and get to know the shepherd.

If you'd like some help with that, pastor Brandon goes through the Bible every single day and if you want to be a part of that, you can text RLCBIBLE to 94000.

And it's a great way to get started with that.

You'll get a text message every morning of the chapters that we're reading that day, and Pastor Brandon's got a YouTube channel that he breaks it down.

Or you can listen to the podcast as well, or you can find it on Facebook.

But the word of God is so important to knowing who he is.

First, peter says it like this oh, here's what I want you to know about that.

It like this oh, here's what I want you to know about that.

This is what the Lord spoke to me about this, because it's a sacrifice.

If you aren't willing to sacrifice for the peace that you want in your life by reading his word, then the peace that you want, it will become your sacrifice.

You won't get it without his word.

First, peter, 1, 23 through 25, says it like this.

It says for I have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the living and enduring word of God.

For people are like the grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord, that is what endures forever and that is the word that was given to you.

If you aren't willing to sacrifice for peace, peace will become the sacrifice for you.

The second thing that I think is important To do to experience the peace of the Holy Spirit Is this you must resist the world.

You've got to resist the world and you've got to keep God first.

It's probably one of the more difficult things that we deal with.

We're broken, we're sinners, you know we sin, we fall into the same things over and over again, but it's about the attempt to resist the world and make sure that you're keeping God first in your life.

Turn your back on the things that you know are from the world and they're not from God.

They're not from the shepherd In biblical times, the areas where these shepherds would graze the sheep.

It's interesting to me Judean sheep pastures and things.

They're not these flat grounds that we think of here.

They're actually most of the time mountains or they're on hillsides, and the greenest grass is at the top of the hills or the top of the mountains, where the ground becomes the flattest and it gets the most sun, and that's where the best nourishment is, and so the shepherds will lead their sheep on the top of this mountain.

But unfortunately, the best waters for the sheep are at the base of the mountain, where there are streams running through the hills, and those are the cleanest waters.

Those are the safest waters for the sheep to drink.

But it was very important for a shepherd to keep the sheep safe and it was never the best idea just to take the sheep straight down the mountain, the quickest direct route to the water.

So what they would do is they would take the sheep and if it was a hill, they would begin to circle the hill slowly, going down all the way down, and it would take a little bit longer, but it was the safest path.

And if it was a steeper mountain that they were on, they would go across the face of the mountain to the left, and then back to the right and back to the left and all the way down, and that would be how they would guide the sheep down to these valleys.

And eventually there would be these paths that were worn in the mountains or these paths that were worn all the way around the hill, and the shepherd knew that these were the best routes for the sheep.

This was the safest way to go and the sheep would become accustomed to these paths and they would know hey, this is the way that we always go, this is the way that the shepherd is directing me.

Those were the safe routes, but the shepherd would run into most of the time is directing me.

Those were the safe routes, but the shepherd would run into, most of the time, two problems, two different types of problem sheep that you get when you're a shepherd.

The first is the overzealous sheep.

The overzealous sheep would want to make their own path.

The thirst in their mouth would be so great that they would think I know a better way.

I'm just going to head straight for the water and the overzealous sheep would get off the path that he knew was safe and he would make a beeline for the water and oftentimes that sheep would end up hurt or injured because he didn't stay on the path that the shepherd had for him.

This is a problem that we all have from time to time.

We're all overzealous sheep from time to time.

I know that's me.

I know the direction, I know what route is safest, I know the direction that God has for me, I can see where he's going and I know what God is doing.

But a lot of the times I have trouble accepting his timing.

If that makes sense, I think his timing doesn't really fit my schedule.

You know, let me try and speed things along.

Let me try and take things into my own hands here.

Let me try and make this thing work, even when I know it's not working, let me try and force it.

And here's what always happens when I have that mentality.

I can look back on the times in my life that I've done that, when I can't make myself slow down enough to make sure that I'm consulting God, to make sure that I'm still following his plan.

And oftentimes what happens when you get an overzealous sheep like that is you miss what God's trying to teach you along the way, and so, yes, you may make it to the water quicker, but when you get there, it's always filled with anxiety and worry.

Why is this not working?

And it's because you missed what God was trying to teach you on the way, because you got off the path.

Resist the world that tells you there's a better way.

Resist the world that tells you there's a safer path than the shepherd has for you.

Resist the world that will tell you I can do it myself.

Resist the world that will tell you you don't need any help.

Resist the world that will tell you you don't need this, you don't need this community, you don't need to be a part of this flock.

Resist the world that will tell you that the shepherd isn't calling your name.

Resist the world simply because the world is broken.

It's broken, that's no secret.

The world is made of sin, and that's no secret.

The world is made of sin.

The second problem that a shepherd deals with is sort of on the opposite end of the overzealous sheep.

Okay, and this is the sheep that will begin to focus so much on his thirst, so much on his problem, that the sheep will begin to overthink and overworry and it'll settle for the quickest thing that comes that will quench that thirst in the moment.

On the way down the mountain, oftentimes the flock will come across puddles or stagnant pools of water, places where other animals have walked through, mud puddles, where things are dirty, and the urge for the sheep is to say you know what?

This is good enough, this will fix it right here, I'm just going to go ahead and settle for what's right now, not for what's right.

And then what happens is the muddy puddles are full of parasites and the sheep will get parasites and nematodes and become sick, and then the shepherd has to nurse them back to health.

And that is the exact same thing that you and I do with the sins of this world, thing that you and I do with the sins of this world.

How often in life, do we settle for what's right here and right now when we know it's not good for us?

When we know that it's not right, how often do we find ourselves saying man, why can't I break free from this?

Why do I keep doing this same exact thing over and over again that I know I don't want to do?

I know I've said to myself how did I get myself here?

I don't even remember going this way, and it's because we stop listening for the voice of the shepherd.

Stop listening for the voice of the shepherd, and that leads to a life of living life as good enough, living a life of good enough.

And what I want you to know is that living the life of good enough, that's not the same thing as contentment.

That's not what Pastor Brandon was talking about last week.

That's not contentment.

Life of good enough is not contentment.

Contentment is settling into what God has provided for you, Not what the world has offered up.

And here's what I want you to remember the shepherd God.

He offers contentment.

It's the world that offers containment.

Containment is what you get when you settle for good enough, for the right now instead of the right.

That's not contentment, that's containment, that's prison.

That's how addictions are born, that's where anxiety and depression is born, that's where trauma comes from, and we put ourselves in that cycle over and over again, simply because we think right now is better than what's right, than what's good for us and what makes us sick.

Resist the world, stay the path, do what is right.

The last thing that you need to experience the peace that God wants for you is this continuous prayer, continuous, there's no other way to put it.

Every day, pray Every day.

Finally, after the shepherd is done, gathering the flock and keeping them on track and getting the sheep that have strayed eventually they will make it down the mountain and it sheep that have strayed.

Eventually they will make it down the mountain and it's a long way down, but they will reach the bottom.

And then they come to the third source of water, and these are the peaceful streams that run through the valleys.

These are the peaceful waters at the base of the mountains and there's plenty of room for the shepherd to observe the entire flock.

And these are the cleanest waters for the sheep to drink from, because they're continuously flowing, they're continuously filtered and this is where the sheep can find rest and this is where they will drink themselves to fulfillment.

And this is the shepherd's plan for his flock, and they trust the plan because they have a relationship with him, because they know his voice.

Every single relationship is strengthened with good lines of communication, every single one.

You have to have communication and we, as Christians, cannot expect a strong relationship with God if we're not willing to seek out and meet with him.

You must be in continuous prayer, and I would even say continuous prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving, because it is medically known that gratitude and anxiousness and worry cannot operate in the brain at the same time.

That is fact.

So if you can continually pray with gratitude and thanksgiving every single day, then you begin to seek God in every single decision that you make.

And here is what I love about the transcending peace of God.

This is what I love about it the peace of the Holy Spirit for me.

It is most evident to me and it is most evident to me, and it is always strongest when I'm right in the middle of it, right in the middle of a storm.

That's when I feel it most.

And I have a piece of God in other times in my life, but I get complacent, but when it's in the middle of the storm, when I know I'm going through it, when I truly need him, tell him I said what's up.

When you need him in the storm.

That is when you will feel his peace the strongest.

It's like being in the eye of a tornado.

Strongest it's like being in the eye of a tornado.

They say the calmest part of the tornado is right in the center of it, right in the eye, and everything gets quiet and the winds settle down and you can actually hear somebody talking to you in the eye of the storm.

Other storm.

The waters that he leads you to are, and I will be exalted all over the world.

But how often do we pray that?

How often do we truly do that?

How often do we get quiet and we listen and we say, god, I'm listening, speak to me, and then we just stop and get quiet and listen.

This is something I've tried to do more and more in my prayer time recently.

Sure, take your requests to God.

That's important, that's regular prayer.

But sometimes we simply don't hear because we're not willing to take the time it takes to listen for him.

You got to get quiet enough to hear his voice.

1 Kings 19, 11 through 13 describes what the voice of God sounds like.

It says it like this.

It says a great and powerful wind tore through the mountains and it tore them apart and it shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind.

And then it goes on to say after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake there was a fire and the Lord was not found in the fire.

But after the fire there was a gentle whisper and that was the Lord's voice and that is when Elijah heard him.

God is mighty, god is strong, but his voice and his heart is a gentle whisper to you.

And you have to quiet the waters and you've got to be still and you've got to find peace to be able to hear it.

And it's not always audible, but it always will bring peace.

And that's how you know it's the voice of God.

That's how you feel it, that's how you recognize it.

And when you begin to recognize it, what happens is this Is it begins to matter less and less to you what the outcome of the storm is.

It doesn't matter, because you know the shepherd and you know the plans he has for you and you know that he's good.

And if you want peace the peace that the Bible speaks about, the living water that flows and wells up inside of you you need to get to know the shepherd through his word every day Me too and you need to know his plan by listening for his voice, because you give prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving Me too, voice because you give a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving me too and you resist the world because it's important to you to keep him.

First, get to know the shepherd, get to know his plan.

The shepherd and his plan.

Contentment and peace.

That's the plan he has for you.

And if you take peace and you take commitment, contentment, and you were to package them together and you were to roll them up in a ball and you get them both, you know what that is.

That's faith.

That's faith.

It doesn't matter the outcome, it doesn't matter if you don't know what's next, what's coming, because you know the shepherd, you know God, you know his heart, you know God, you know his heart, you know the path that he has for you.

It makes me think a lot about when I was studying for this, about Moses leading the Israelites in the desert to the promised land.

Forty years they spent in the desert.

I can't imagine Forty years they spent in the desert.

I can't imagine 40 years they spent in the desert.

And you know what?

Many of them got overzealous, many of them got anxious for the promised land that God had promised them and they would miss what God was trying to teach them along the way.

And many of them got so caught up in their situation and themselves that they thought you know what?

It would be just best to go back to Egypt into slavery, because at least that was a misery that I knew, at least that was something that I became comfortable with.

That's the life of good enough.

Forty years in the desert, yes, it's a long time.

But how many of them thought man, 40 years in the presence of God, forty years in His presence?

Can you imagine the things that they learned?

Can you imagine the strength of the faith that was built 40 years in the direct presence of the creator?

I can't imagine what that would be like.

But when I think about it, you know, the more and more that I think about it, the less and less I become focused on the outcome, the less and less I become focused on what I think the blessing is where the promised land is, that's great.

But if it means I sacrifice my presence with him, keep it.

Keep it.

Presence, relationship with God, that's what he wants.

Desert, promised land, the trenches on the mountains, it doesn't matter.

It's about the presence and the peace that he has to offer.

But you gotta be willing to drink, you gotta let the waters be still and you gotta be thirsty enough.

Let's pray together this morning.

Father God, it's amazing to be in your house this morning.

We're humbled to be just in your presence this day.

Glory to you, lord, for another day and another breath of life.

Lord, when life is difficult, I know that you walk with me, and if I'm not where I need to be, correct me, change me, guide me and lead me, and if I'm wrong, stop me.

Please, if I'm lost, find me and, lord, if I start to give up, fill me with your strength, fill my heart with your word, help me not to overthink, help me not to worry, help me to find rest in the shepherd.

We're humbled to be called your children.

Father, I thank you so much for the forgiveness of your sins.

We give you all the praise and glory and we're sorry for the ways that we fall short of it.

Father, help us to remember what a good shepherd you are and that your path is best for us.

It's in your name we pray, amen.

I want to close out real quick.

In a minute we're going to sing a closing worship song together, but I heard an analogy sometime recently and I can't remember who said it, but it was.

It really spoke to me and I want to share it with you and it kind of went if you can imagine that your heart is your house and you live in your house and you're comfortable there house and you're comfortable there and you know what it's like to be home.

And imagine you're living in your house and there are times when it becomes a mess and it becomes filthy and dirty, and then there's a man that walks down the path of your house and he knocks on your door, but you're not willing to answer the door because you don't know this man.

Why would you let anybody into your house that you don't know?

So instead he knocks at your door and he leaves you a book and you grab the book and you begin to flip through the pages and you begin to read the book and you realize that this is not a biography of the man and this is a really, really good man that's changing the world, that has done all of these great things for all of these people.

And you become, you begin to know this man through the pages of this book.

And he comes to your house again one day and he's knocking at your door.

Only now, even though you know the man, you don't want to open the door because he'll see the mess in your house and you don't want him to see what your house looks like.

So instead, we, as Christians, will crack the door.

We'll crack the door and we'll whisper in things that we need, things that we think will fix our life, that will clean up our house and some of those things he gives us.

But he continues to knock and he continues to say, hey, I really need to come in to help.

And eventually your house becomes such a mess and you become so overwhelmed and so anxious and so depressed that you think I don't know what to do anymore and I don't care.

And so the next time the man comes knocking, you just throw open the door, you just let him in and you begin to apologize for the mess.

And that's what the man says to you I don't care about the mess.

I'm here to fix the house I built for you.

I'm here about the heart that lives here and so many of us are just cracking the door.

We're right in the fence, as I used to say, as I used to do it One foot on this side and one foot on the side of the world, and I'll just stay on that fence, and we give it all to God, because I like some of the things of the world.

So I'll just stay right here on this fence.

But what you don't realize is it's that the world built the fence in the first place and if you're riding the fence, it belongs to the world.

And for some of us, we've reached a point that the mess has become so much that we just need to throw open the door once and for all.

And we just need to throw open the door once and for all and we just need to invite that peace in, to experience what it sounds like to have those still waters.

And if you want to throw that door wide open today, I encourage you to do that.

And you can go back to our prayer table in the back.

You can come up to the front as we sing this worship song, but if your rivers have been rough and your streams have been loud and you can't hear anymore, this is the only way to get them still again, and I encourage you please, beg you, throw the door open and spend this time with God.

Let's stand together.