Psalm 23 Week 4

He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul.

SONG: Come to the Water

Game:

LESSON:

Read Psalm 23:1-3

Psalm 23:1–3 NIV

1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Now you may be thinking, holy cow Ben, this is the 4th lesson we’ve had on Psalm 23 and we’ve only covered 2 verses.

True…

But in the book there are 12 chapters total and tonight we are covering chapters 4 and 5, so take heart we are halfway finished.

Tonight we are focusing “He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul.”

So let’s begin with water tonight and let me ask:

What is the difference between a good source of water and a bad source of water?

Discuss…

Now, in a moment I’m going to show you a video that is kind of disturbing ok.

If you have a weak stomach, I suggest you not watch as when I myself watched earlier, I found myself gagging.

In the early 2000s, there was this show that came on TV called “Man vs. Wild.”

Now the premise of the show was around this retired British special forces soldier named Bear Grylls.

He could do it all.

Except he couldn’t.

Turns out, a lot of what Bear Grylls did on camera was just that… for the camera.

However, one thing that always brought lots of views to the show involved water.

Bear Grylls always had a way to show creative ways to hydrate your body.

Most of that though, disturbingly involved him drinking urine.

Gross…

However, nothing could top this episode and the source of water he drank from.

Again, before I show this, this is horrible ok.

If you get easily nauseated from gross things, just close your eyes, but other wise, enjoy this next 60 seconds of your life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R25Eflr0oJ8&ab_channel=bartman316

Elephant poop guys…

He drank the water (if you can call it that) from elephant poop.

Now, a lot of what that man did was dishonest at best and flat out lies at worst.

But there was no denying that our man drank poop juice.

Disgusting.

You know what the worst part of that is?

We now know, they always had clean water on set.

They had access to good water from the camera men and others who filmed the show alongside Bear.

So for him to drink that was completely unnecessary. IT was purely for the camera.

Why would this man trade good, clean, pure water for that nastiest water I’ve ever seen?

money, fame, clicks, views. That’s why.

As disturbing as that is, may I suggest to us that we also are drinking from contaminated water sources quite often?

The good Shepherd can take us to the good, still waters, but that doesn’t mean we will drink it.

The good Shepherd can do all the work to provide pure water that nourishes and refreshes our soul, but he can’t and won’t force you to drink it.

But isn’t that crazy to think we wouldn’t drink it?

If someone has done the work for us to provide pure water, why would I settle for less?

Why would I drink poop-filled, contaminated water, over the refreshing waters full of nutrients that would refresh my soul?

“HE LEADS ME BESIDE STILL WATERS”

St. Augustine said, ““O God! Thou has made us for Thyself, and our souls are restless, searching, ‘til they find their rest in Thee.”

Sheep:

restless if they are thirsty.

Like we talked about 2 weeks ago with hunger, Sheep will not rest if they have hunger or thirst pains.

in their desire, they will drink from any water source they can find with no regard for the condition of the water.

However, if sheep drink from polluted water sources, this will only lead to bigger problems such as parasites in their gut that will potentially kill them.

Thus, it is of significant importance for the Shepherd to ensure that he is keeping good clean water available for his sheep so that they do not drink from polluted sources.

Isn’t this so much like us?

We are restless in this life.

We are always drinking and tasting different experiences in life.

This isn’t always bad, but it is important to note that even the good experiences leave us with a desire for more, not a satisfaction that we are complete.

I remember in my teens years I loved roller coasters.

Every time i rode one, I wanted it to be the biggest, fastest, most aggressive roller coaster I’d ever ridden.

But you know what, each time I would ride one that I thought was the best I’d ever ridden, I’d always find a bigger one I’d love to ride more.

This is just how we are.

Even with good things that are just fun, we are never satisfied, we desire more.

With sinful things this is especially nefarious.

Pornography, sex, lies about your body image, social media pressures, academic pressures, team pressures, you know what all of these things have in common?

They are telling you you need to be perfect.

You need to perform, and in your performance, you need to be perfect.

What a poisonous well that is if we drink from that.

When we try to find satisfaction in these places, it’s like being a sheep, seeing the good clean water we can drink from that our shepherd has led us too, but instead we stop on the path, and we drink from the poop water.

Why would we do that?

I’m sure our answers to that question would vary.

But go back to Augustine’s quote for a moment, “our souls are restless, searching, till they find their rest in thee.”

Maybe the reason you would seek after poisonous water sources is because your soul hasn’t found rest in Jesus.

In the book, Keller talks about how sometimes, a water source in the middle east would be a cavern of sorts.

The Shepherd would lead the sheep there, and he would have to get in the water and bail out many buckets full of water for his sheep to all drink and be satisfied.

For the Shepherd this was hot, exhaustive work, that would leave himself quite thirsty.

Sometimes on the way to that cavern or even when a sheep is walking along a path headed towards a stream of water.

The sheep can hear the water, but rather than wait, they stop and drink from polluted pools on the path.

The good water is right there, don’t settle for less.

John 4:14 “14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.””

Are we satisfied with the water of the Good Shepherd?

Secondly this evening I want to talk about the next sentence in Psalm 23.

“He restores my soul.”

Psalm 42:11 “11 Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

Psalm 42:11 is a very specific verse that would speak to a Shepherd.

If sheep lay down and they are too fat or if they lay even on a soft spot in the grass, sheep can accidently flip onto their back and then are unable to stand up.

If a sheep ends up on its back, this is called “casting”

A Cast sheep has 2 things against it, blood will stop flowing to their legs and gas will begin to build up in their bodies.

On a hot day, a cast sheep can die within a few hours.

In cool weather, a sheep can live for a couple days in this condition.

However, this situation gets worse.

If a sheep is on its back, casting, this is also a clear signal to predators that a meal is easy and free for the taking.

Keller also says this about casting sheep.

“It is not easy to convey on paper the sense of this ever-present danger. Often I would go out early and merely cast my eye across the sky. If I saw the black-winged buzzards circling overhead in their long slow spirals, anxiety would grip me. Leaving everything else, I would immediately go out into the rough wild pastures and count the flock to make sure every one was well and fit and able to be on its feet.”

If he found a sheep that was cast, he would slowly roll the sheep upright and allow the gasses to settle.

Then the Shepherd would help the sheep stand as he rubbed and messaged the legs of the sheep to allow blood flow to return to his legs.

Keller also mentioned he would speak gently and quietly to the sheep to try and calm their anxiety and fears from what would have been certain death without their shepherd.

On page 56, Keller says this:

“many people have the idea that when a child of God falls, when he is frustrated and helpless in a spiritual dilemma, God becomes disgusted, fed-up, and even furious with him… This simply is not so.”

The Good Shepherd sees a cast sheep and he is filled with concern and compassion.

Isn’t this the heart of Jesus?

How many spiritually depleted people does Jesus go to in the gospels?

People who have nothing to give Him, they are empty souls.

And Jesus meets the … cast… down person and restores their soul.

Psalm 56:13 “13 For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of life.”

This is Jesus.

Looking at all of us in all of our life struggles and he comes to us with concern and compassion and delivers us.

He gently restores our legs and challenges us to walk with Him in life.

I would like to apply this today in two ways.

APPLICATION:

1. Part of drinking from the waters of Jesus is not just that it fills us,

but it also flows out of us.

John 4:14 “14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.””

John 7:38 “38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.””

It’s not just that we possess the water, but the water also flows out of us for others to drink from.

This is what Jesus does in and through us.

We are so satisfied in Jesus that not only do we find rest in Him, but we can also bring others to a place of rest at the living waters of Jesus.

Are the living waters of Christ not only flowing in your life, but flowing out of your life to others?

I would challenge you this week to ask God to use your life to flow into others.

2. Perhaps the biggest threat of us becoming a cast sheep is comfort.

That missionary to China we talked about a few weeks ago, Hudson Taylor, He said this in chapter 3 of his autobiography.

“I soon found that I could live upon very much less than I had previously thought possible… my experience was that the less I spent on myself and the more I gave away, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become. Unspeakable joy all the day long, and every day, was my happy experience.”

He then references 2 Timothy 2:13 “13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”

Part of what would make a sheep become cast is that they had too much wool.

Their wool coat would become a heavy burden that could cause they to be too heavy when they lay down.

If I could challenge all of us here that life is again not about acquiring stuff.

The newer car, the bigger house, the thousands of new followers, the self-made-man, the desire to be perfect and show the world that we are perfect people who have it all together…

These are not blessings.

Here’s something you can put on your be real feed today.

“When we are most sure of ourselves and what we have built for ourselves, we are most prone to fall flat on our faces and end up as a cast sheep…”

What the world views as success guys is not what we should measure as success.

Ask the Laodicean church in Revelation 3.

How do I measure my blessings.

Here’s a simple way

“If you have acquired something in life that makes you feel more self-sufficient or will distract you from being dependent on Jesus, then that is not a blessing.”

A cast sheep might be cast because he is living a life that is too comfortable.

But a comforted sheep that is blessed, recognizes the good Shepherd flipping her over, messaging her legs to get the blood flowing, and reminding her gently “Hey, I’m here, everything is going to be ok.”

There can be nothing more damaging to the soul than to never have the good Shepherd close, tending to us.

There can be nothing more comforting to the soul than to feel the good Shepherd come alongside us and help us get back on our two feet.

We need to be careful what we view as blessings.

Maybe the greatest blessings in your life will come from the times you were at your lowest and most desperate.

But either way, There is a good Shepherd who is there for us to be filled with living water and who is there comforting us, meeting our needs.

Are we trusting the Good Shepherd today?