The Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8-11)
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Due to a technical error the last minute of the sermon was not recorded. What was recorded is posted below.
Transcript
My name is Spencer I'm one of the pastors here so we are in Exodus chapter 20 verses 8 through 11. uh we are in the fourth Commandment as we continue to walk through Exodus and we're walking week by week through the Ten Commandments so you can go ahead and follow along the text we'll also be on the screen uh have you ever approached something that should have been fairly simple but the more you got into it it was incredibly complicated like you got the mechanics and the details of it it was just super super complex and complicated I read this story from back in the fall that the city of San Francisco as a homeless.
Crisis and they one of the problems with the homeless crisis in downtown San Francisco is that there are a lot of homeless people that are using the bathroom and the streets this kind of created an unsanitary situation so someone had a very good idea they said let's build a bathroom specifically let's build one toilet all right this this can it's not going to solve the problem but let's it'll it'll help we're gonna build one toilet so the reason this became national news is.
Because the cost came back on building the one toilet 1.7 million dollars for one toilet and people went what what why how does it cost 1.7 million dollars to build one toilet and it's because there's a crazy amount of red tape and regulations that made something that was so good and so simple so complex there's like a 300 000 architectural uh and Engineering fee there was a hundred and fifty thousand dollar construction management fee for someone to oversee the building of one toilet and you add up all these fees and it's 1.7 million dollars and more to the point that was in 2022 the fall the construction completion date would be 2025.
Because of all of the Committees it would have to go through to build one toilet because of all of the red tape something such a good thing and yet became so complicated and that is how it feels when I approached the fourth Commandment that's how it feels when you get into the fourth Commandment and the call to Sabbath rest out of all of The Commandments this is by far the most difficult to understand as a Christian I just want to read it and say do it the band's going to come up that's just that's just.
But you can't it's not it's not that simple and we're going to see some of the complexities that is built into this and it gets added on to this that makes this not as simple and straightforward as just reading the fourth command and doing it and it's not going to be as practical today we we're not going to give a lot of practical application on how to rest we did that in a series called the hammer and the hammock I would encourage you to go back.
Listen to that but we're also Sabbath is going to come back up and Exodus 31. so we're going to spend some more time on the Practical uh parts of rest but today we need to get into the why so I want to walk through this and some of the complicated parts of this and then at the end as much as possible I want to simplify why and help us see why the Sabbath was made why it is good and why we should engage in Sabbath rest.
So why this sabbath was made why it's good and why we should engage in Sabbath rest so let me read it we'll pray and we'll want this together verse 8 remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God on it you shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter your male servant or your female servant or your livestock or the Sojourner who is within your Gates.
For in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy let me pray heavenly father I pray that you would help us understand your word that we would be able to listen that we'll be able to work through this and see something that is so good that you have given us and then live out your word in faith and live it out in Repentance and live it out and delighting in you through the rest that you provide we ask this in.
Jesus name amen all right so if I tasked you to take the Bible let's just say you've never read the Bible before start in Genesis read all the way through okay and I gave you the task of I want you to take note of when the word Sabbath is mentioned this idea of Sabbath rest I want you to take note of it I'm going to give you the quick kind of run through the Bible of what you would see you would.
See in Genesis 1 and 2 out right out the gate that God made the world in six days and he rested on the seventh the seventh and he gave us the Sabbath now that's not because God needed to rest God was not tired he didn't work make the universe in six days and went oh man I need this like our God is inexhaustible he is all powerful he did not need rest but he gave us the gift of Sabbath he modeled it and he invites us into it as you can.
See throughout the rest of the Scriptures so that's when Sabbath was made that you get two the fourth Commandment that's the next time that you see it and you see remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Sabbath day is literally just day of rest a day of rest and keep it holy means don't work on the Sabbath not just you but the whole nation not you not your son not your daughter not your male servant not your female servant now your livestock not the Sojourner who is within your Gates the whole nation is going to cease from work and rest.
And then you keep reading and you get to Exodus 31 when this shows back up again in the book of Exodus and then you'd hear this you shall keep the Sabbath because it is Holy for you everyone who profanes it shall be put to death whoever does any work on it that Soul shall be cut off from among his people and then you see how serious the Sabbath is that that if you don't do this the command is you put to death that shows up again in Exodus 35.
This capital punishment linked to the Sabbath and then you read The Book of Leviticus and Leviticus is going to have more things to say about the Sabbath and some of the nuances of different Sabbath days and that you get to the book of numbers and the Book of Numbers you hear a story about a man who went out on the Sabbath to gather sticks he's working by gathering sticks he is caught they take counsel together and then they obey Exodus 31 and 35 and they put him to death.
Then you read and the Book of Deuteronomy where this is taught and reinforced yet again and then you watch the nation of Israel as they throughout the rest of their history in Seasons where they are uh not loving the Lord their God with all their heart with other Souls other might when they're chasing after other Idols they one of the key markers of disobedience is they give up the Sabbath and they work and you'd see in the book of Nehemiah a call to repentance to Sabbath you'd.
See a celebration of Sabbath keeping in the book of Isaiah you'd see a call to repentance in the book of Jeremiah for Sabbath profaning you'd see a call of condemnation for Sabbath profaning and Sabbath breaking in the Book of Ezekiel and you see throughout the Old Testament a consistent call to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy do not profane this this is bad it's clear when you read the Old Testament the people of God were not practicing the Sabbath they didn't know how once they learned they strayed and they did not practice the Sabbath it's very clear.
When you're in the Old Testament that is what happens and then you'd read through the Old Testament and you'd get to the New Testament and the first time you'd see the Sabbath is in the Gospel of Matthew and you would start to notice a tone change in the Gospel of Matthew and everything that follows in Matthew 12 Jesus and his disciples are walking through a grain field and the disciples begin to pluck the heads of grain and the Pharisees who are watching these are the religious leaders they say you're breaking the Sabbath you're profaning the Sabbath I mean in The Book of Numbers the man was stoned.
For collecting sticks you're breaking the Sabbath by collecting grain and Jesus says wrong and then he starts to combat them from the Scriptures and then he says this in verse six I tell you something greater than the temple is here and if you had known what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice you would not have condemned the Guiltless for the son of man is Lord of the Sabbath and if you just read that the Old Testament and you read that story you might think uh was that.
Okay I mean the Sunday School answer is Jesus did it yes but is that okay like it I I don't know I just read a lot of things in the Old Testament like this is a really big deal but all of a sudden it's and then he doubles down on this and he starts healing people on the Sabbath intentionally in Luke 4 Luke 13 Luke 14 John 5 John 9 he starts intentionally healing people on the Sabbath to make a point about the Sabbath.
And then he fulfills the law perfectly and he dies on the cross for our sins and then he rises on Resurrection Sunday and ascends into heaven and the Church is left with okay what do we do with the fourth Commandment we just saw Jesus we we saw these teachings that he's done what do we do and if you read the rest of the New Testament there's only three really places that deal with this and the Book of Romans The Book of Romans is a letter that was written to a Church in Rome where there is clear Gentile and Jewish division and it shows up in a lot of different ways.
But one of them when you get to chapter 14 is you can see it's the Sabbath because Gentile Christians this would be Romans and Greeks and whomevers in the city who's not Jewish but they have no background in practicing the Sabbath that's the one thing that made Israel unique amongst all the nations everyone else worked every day that was that was normative the Sabbath was way different wait they take a whole day off and they don't work and then there's Jewish Christians in the Church of Rome who have Sabbath background and this is what Paul writes in Romans 14.
Verse 5 he says one person esteems one day and day there is Sabbath as better than another or another esteems all days alike each one should be fully convinced in his own mind the one who observes the day observes it in honor of the Lord and he says it's you should be convinced in your own mind is that a matter of conscience and then verse 10 you see some of the context here why do you pass judgment on your brother or you why do you despise your brother and it's clear from there that he's pushing on don't make this a matter of judgment or division amongst you don't do that.
And then in Colossians 2 he's writing to the Church Paul is writing a letter to the Church at colossae and he says therefore let no one pass judgment on you and questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon those are all Old Testament practices or a Sabbath huh and then he says these are a shadow of the things to come but the substance belongs to Christ and everything in the front end of that list makes a lot of sense we don't practice festivals anymore like these things that we don't those are part of the Old Testament law that was fulfilled.
But Sabbath too it's part of the Ten Commandments but is that that's a shadow of Christ who is to come and a shadow of the future rest that he offers and then you get what we read uh in our liturgy earlier you get Hebrews 3 and 4. and in Hebrews three and four the author of Hebrews is commenting and Expo and expositing psalm 95. and then as he's doing that he's pointing back to the nation of Israel of how they wandered in the wilderness.
For those 40 years after Exodus and that they are ultimately seeking to have rest in the promised land and that is a picture of the people of God that that are sojourners in this land waiting for the future rest that Jesus provides and that's it and if you look at the holy New Testament it's like if you're honest it feels a bit like whiplash that real seriously the Old Testament about this in the New Testament is a bit of a curve both and the question is why why does it feel like that that is the million dollar question in approaching the fourth Commandment as a new testament Christian why and are we still supposed to.
Do this as Christians I know we're not supposed to murder that's clear but are we still supposed to do this now there is a missing puzzle piece that we need and that missing puzzle piece is the period of time between when the Old Testament was written and when the New Testament is written and that is an essential puzzle piece that will help help us see why it feels a bit like Whiplash and it's during that period there are a lot of abuses that happened to the fourth Commandment.
So if you're going to understand why a single toilet took 1.7 million dollars to build like if you're going to understand and figure that out you got to go back through all everything that led to that all the red tape and regulations and everything that went into that that made such a good thing a headache and in the same way if you understand the fourth Commandment you got to see during this period of time between the old and the New Testament all of the red tape and regulations that got added on to the fourth Commandment that abused the fourth Commandment.
So that's what we need to see all right so where did all this red tape come from in this period this period is often called the inter-testamental period between the Old and New Testament it's also called second temple Judaism okay so the last of the Old Testament was written in the 6th Century BC and then you've got centuries that lead up to the coming of Christ and then uh when they receive when they in the sixth century as the temple is being rebuilt the people of.
God are realizing we we have made so many mistakes that led to the Judgment that God brought on the nation of Israel where the temple was destroyed and their centuries removed from when the law was given which when this when when Exodus is being written somewhere around 14th 13th BC Century BC so there's centuries that have passed and now they're looking at the law and they're they're seeing the the Old Testament now it says remember the Sabbath day and to keep it holy six days you shall work.
But in the seventh you shall rest they look at Exodus 31 and it says you shall keep the Sabbath everyone who profanes it shall be put to death and they react and listen I little bit understand their reaction I want to be a little bit cheered about the reaction like what we we uh my wife and I we've LED groups for years we've been in uh groups for years and the past seven years our groups have had lots of children like upwards of 22 children at one point.
If everyone came that's a lot of children and you try to lead discussion with a lot of children like we in our in our uh downstairs is where we'd have discussion right above us was the playroom where all the kids were and you'd hear I mean just think this uh every now and then I just have to go up there guys open the door just about y'all are being too loud you need to quiet down and shut the door now imagine.
If I opened the door back up and said you are being too loud and that this continues you're gonna die and then close the door I went back downstairs I just if I was a seven-year-old I'd have some questions I'm sorry what Define loud what activities are considered too loud like what is quiet can you can we have a hall monitor outside that can determine like what the the level of loudness were being too loud also they'll serve as the sacrifice.
When you come up to kill someone like I just I'd have some questions and I understand a little bit when they open up the law again and they see how serious it is to where they want to go Define rest Define work what activities are considered work can we have a whole monitor to determine what is work and what is rest I understand that reaction of what the religious leaders were doing but man oh man they took that and ran with it and the most legalistic and burdensome Direction they developed an entire set of extra laws called the melacon laws 39 different categories of work that would profane the Sabbath and those categories had subcategories.
Like you'd have the category of planting and then within that category you'd have planting and harvesting and all the things that went into that and those subcategories you'd have all these different rules so much so that like during that time period climbing a tree was considered profaning the Sabbath why because if you accidentally broke a branch off and that Branch had fruit on that Branch you just harvested and you profane the Sabbath and they had hundreds of those extra laws I mean someone said that this the the melkat laws that were established during this period of time between the sixth century and the coming of.
Jesus like that it's still God's Orthodox Jews today I mean you cannot in Orthodox Judaism you cannot open an umbrella you cannot tear off a piece of toilet paper apply lotion blow up a balloon on the Sabbath when I went to Jerusalem years ago we were staying at a hotel we were up on one of the higher floors you could not push a button on the elevator because that was considered preventing the Sabbath which meant that you got on the elevator and every floor opened and it closed opened and closed open and closed which was super annoying.
If you had to be somewhere and any like that still exists that right there is the context of the coming of Christ all these different rules and red tape that you had to follow you had to make sure that you had to do everything perfectly and the Pharisees and the Sadducees these religious leaders were the hall monitors and they're looking and they're saying are you are you preventing the Sabbath are you preventing the Sabbath and made everyone paranoid about the fourth Commandment to where it was not restful it was a burden.
Now here's where they went wrong when they opened up the law and they started taking the Sabbath seriously again they misunderstood the context of how the Sabbath was given they misunderstood it misunderstood the fact that God created the Sabbath as a gift Genesis 1 2 makes that so clear this sabbath is good it is a gift for the people of God so that we might not just continue to work and work and work and then the people of God for centuries were slaves and they did not Sabbath.
For hundreds of years they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked for Pharaoh and they did not rest all they did was work and then God redeems them as we saw earlier in Exodus and he is aggressively trying to get their attention you are not a Slave you are not the sum of your production you matter more than that you will not work anymore you will not endlessly work anymore this will not be the pattern you will work six days and on the seventh you will rest.
Because you are not a slave and you belong to me and you will rest in me they miss them they missed the the aggressiveness and the severity was help it was it was meant to call them back into not being slaves but being the people of God but unfortunately the religious leaders took that out of context and ran with it and added all types of red tape and burdensome regulations and centuries leading out to the coming of Christ the people were burdened by the Sabbath they were burdened by it.
So it's clear when you look at the Old Testament the Old Testament is written to a people that do not practice the Sabbath the New Testament is written to a people they were forced to practice the Sabbath and do it in very Unholy ways and for centuries leading up to Jesus the people were feeling the weight of this burden and then Jesus does the most punk rock thing ever I mean he just Kicks Down the door and says I am the.
Lord of the Sabbath I'm the captain now I am the Lord of this you know why because I wrote the Sabbath loss that's Jesus wrote the Sabbath laws he gave them to Moses because he is God he knows what they what the intended meaning was is some people call authorial intent the intent of the author because he wrote it like right now we in the Southern Baptist convention we're Southern Baptist uh and then the Southern Baptist convention there's a bit of a controversy right.
Now which I know will shock you um based on our history but there is and I'm not going to get the details of it but what's happening a little bit right now is we have something called the Baptist faith and message Baptist Faith Message in the 2000 version it's kind of a guiding bit of a confession for us a binding set of beliefs that we have as Baptist and there are some Churches and some pastors who are looking at one part of that bad mistake the message they're saying ah just I don't I don't know about that I don't think that's what that I don't think that was what was intended.
When it was written and they're starting to stray from the Baptist Faith the message you know what's great the man who wrote the Baptist Faith Message is still alive that's my former president my Seminary Al Mohler he wrote it on behalf of Baptist and he's saying y'all I wrote this for y'all like I I I'm the author I know what was intended when I wrote it because I wrote it for you like at the last year's annual meeting he walked up the mic and went hey guys I'm here and he started to say I know what I meant like he started to explain you're taking this in the wrong direction.
Jesus walks up to the mic and the New Testament and goes I'm the lord of the Sabbath I wrote all of this I know the heart of the Sabbath and what you are practicing is not the heart of the Sabbath at all and that is the missing puzzle piece that we need to understand why the Old Testament feels very different than the New Testament Jesus was reclaiming the Sabbath from the religious Hall monitors and also he's taking a spear and just like right at the heart of the Pharisees and their self-righteous religiosity like they just the Sabbath was their way of being holy and holier than thou and he's just destroying it with every teaching.
And when you understand that you understand what the Old Testament New Testament feel different but still The Logical question that follows is okay but are we still supposed to obey the fourth Commandment that's helpful I can understand now while the old New Testament feel a little bit different but are we still called to obey the fourth Commandment and boy oh boy is that not is that not the question I mean I I have wrestled with this for years and then Monday I got reacquainted with all the arguments again and I just I Monday was not fun I just was like oh my goodness I forgot how unbelievably difficult this is to understand.
Because y'all and listen there are different approaches to the fourth Commandment now and we're shaped by different traditions and those approaches like some of y'all some of you all love the fact that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday God's chicken they honor the Lord they do not work on Sunday because Sunday is the Sabbath it's the Lord's Day and it is the new Sabbath whereas the Jews had Friday to Saturday night we now have Sunday and that is the Sabbath where we don't work some of y'all have that background that understanding of the Sabbath and you understand that's shaped by a tradition called sabbatarianism lots of different donations to practice that bad this Presbyterians Methodist.
But the idea is is that Sunday is the new Sabbath and one day a week the people of God worship and we rest and we obey the fourth Commandment still because the fourth Commandment still has moral Force just as the other non have moral Force so does this one and then there are others that go well I'm actually a little annoyed that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sunday because I really love Chick-fil-A and I miss some Chick-fil-A sauce I I like for it to be open on Sunday and the reason why is.
Because I think sabbatarians are wrong I think that God calls us to rest one day of week but that I mean the New Testament kind of pushes on the legalism of this like we don't have to have it on Sunday you just need to rest obey the Sabbath principle still there's some moral Force there but we don't have to be so dogmatic or legalistic about which day it is you just need to make sure that you're resting sure Sunday is a good day to do it.
But any day will work and therefore Chick-fil-A could be open and then there are others to go no no Jesus fulfilled the law and and Romans and Colossians 2 in Hebrews and Jesus is teaching on the Sabbath show that the Sabbath has been fulfilled in Christ it was a shadow of Christ that is to come in the future rest that he offers and I mean we need to rest still that's still something we need to do but it is not bound by a calendar at all and you do not have to do it one day a week and how you practice a Sabbath is a matter of conscience all three of those views all three.
Of them have scriptural support all three of them you can make arguments from the Bible it is incredibly complicated to understand the fourth Commandment so I'm not going to resolve a theological dispute where thousands millions of brothers and sisters who deeply love Jesus and know their Bibles well have disagreed on this for centuries I'm not going to resolve that for us and to be honest with you even within our eldership there's differing opinion on this but I do believe that we can arrive at the same set of functional beliefs I do believe we need sun guard rails I do believe that on one side you need guardrails to keep you from the pitfall of legalism.
Pharisaisms of being a Pharisee and all the problems that they were bringing into the Sabbath I think you need guard rails to keep you from that Pitfall and I think you also need guard rails to keep you from the pitfall of never resting at all so I have a statement that I think will be a helpful kind of guardrails that keep us on the center line together and that is this the Sabbath is a good gift that God has given us it is not meant to be a measuring stick.
For righteousness nor a wedge for division amongst his people a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing let me read that again the Sabbath is a good gift that God has given us it is not meant to be a measuring stick for righteousness nor a wedge for division amongst his people a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing so let me work through that in some in a few different chunks the Sabbath is a good gift that.
God has given us I think we can all can agree on that it is so clear from Genesis 1 and 2 that the Sabbath is a gift it is good to rest with the Lord and to rest in him it is a good gift that God has given us I mean Jesus in his rebuke of the Pharisees in mark 2. as he said to them the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath and that not man for the Sabbath is what we focus a lot on.
Because he's taken a shot at the Pharisees and the religious leadership and he said Don't You Realize by all of your regulations by all of your red tape by all of everything that you've added on to this that we're serving the Sabbath you misunderstand this but don't miss the part where he says the Sabbath was made for men the Sabbath was made for man it is a good gift that God has given us and that is why Jesus rests over and over and over again.
Jesus is fully God and fully man and in his Humanity he needs rest you see this all over we have a few examples but you see it all over the gospels in Mark 1 verse 35 isn't Rising very early in the morning while it was still dark he Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place and there he prayed that Jesus regularly rests and gets away from the crowds in the midst of his ministry and praise you see in Mark 6 it says the apostles.
Verse 30 the apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught this is after their missionary journey their side I want to tell Jesus everything that we've done then Jesus pause and says hey verse 31 and he said to them come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while I want to hear all about it but y'all are tired and you need to rest he's teaching them to rest in Mark 6 46 he says and after uh it says and after he had taken leave of them he went on the mountain to pray this happens over and over and over and over and over again.
Jesus gets away to rest the God man gets away to rest so whether you believe that the Sabbath still has moral force and it should be on Sunday every Sunday or you believe that it has some moral Force but you kind of there's some some freedom in choosing wind to rest or whether you think it's a more matter of conscience it has been fulfilled it lacks moral Force but we still should rest in general we can all get in the same page it is a good gift that.
God has given us and we should take it we forget that sometimes like last Saturday we we had a baseball son had a baseball game and it got canceled because of the rain and my wife and I like we just had the whole morning and afternoon off we just we're just we're so happy we needed it it's like oh man we need this rest is a good gift that God has given us next part of the statement says it's not meant to be a measuring stick.
For righteousness it is abundantly clear when you look at the New Testament that it is not a measuring stick for righteousness and that the Pharisees the religious leaders they were doing that they were using it as a measuring stick and they were dogmatic that it had to be down like this you had to perfectly make sure you check all the boxes and make sure that it's done exactly right and some of you may be the kind of person that is dogmatic about your Sabbath rest and wants to make sure that you check all the boxes got to make sure that everything got to make sure that that obey this fourth Commandment.
Well and that I rest well and if that's you you're in danger of being just like the Pharisees you're like a like you're like a bride who was planned every single part of her wedding every single detail has to be just like this and then the wedding day comes and she doesn't enjoy it at all because everything had to be so perfect that she misses the most important part of the wedding the person the man that she is marrying and the moment that she has with him.
And if you get dogmatic and legalistic about your Sabbath you'll miss the moment that you have with Christ don't do that don't do that the Sabbath was made for man do not make it a measuring stick for your own righteousness nor the next part of the statement a wedge for division amongst his people it is not meant to be a wedge of division at all but it's so clear from the New Testament go back to Romans 14 it says one person that seems one day as better than the other.
While another esteems all days alike each one should be convinced in his own mind that it goes on to say why do you pass judgment on your brother it was clearly not meant to be a wedge a division and the people of God they were clearly of different approaches and they don't don't do that do not make this a wedge of division amongst the people of God so all of us should look at that on whatever wherever you land on your understanding of the fourth Commandment and you should come to that conclusion I will not make this a wedge of division I will not be a hall monitor to make sure that people are doing.
This right there will be differences of opinions in our own Church and we will not make that an issue of disunity lastly a lifestyle that dismisses this gift is a faithless and sinful rejection of God's good design for human flourishing you may be a sabbatarian and didn't know it and then you think no every every Sunday is the Lord's day and that is the day in which we will rest and you may see the moral Force the fourth Commandment still so I don't need to convince you of that statement right there the group I need to convince of that statement right there are those that view it more as a matter of conscience that the.
Sabbath has been fulfilled by Christ you're the one that's more in danger of never resting so let me talk directly to you if that is where you land if that's you I've got some questions do you believe that the design of God was for you to endlessly work it never rests so much so that in a calendar month you could work every single day of the month do you believe that was the design of God for you does your body show that how's your body holding up over working and working and working and working and working are you getting sick are you getting muscle pains and spasms stomach aches headaches how's your body holding up.
If you're rarely resting and always always always working like you've got a career that you are working so hard for that you work every single day what makes you any different than the the Israelite slaves who served Pharaoh and never rested that you are serving and living for a career and working and working and never resting and if Jesus needed rest if Jesus the God-man needed rest why don't you at a minimum the idea that you can work and work and work and work and work and never rest is a prideful view of self and a rejection of.
God to think that you can endlessly strive without resting it is a it is a prideful view of self and a rejection of God I've seen people physically burn out because they they work and they work and they work and they work and their body is breaking down and they're getting sick and then I've seen spiritual sickness arise to where they just get numb to God they don't spend time with him they don't rest in him and a lifestyle that works too much and does not rest is a sinful rejection of God's good design.
Listen I don't need the fourth Commandment to prove that I'll I need the first two I can point out the different Idols that you are serving and working the shows you need to rest in God you have elevated yourself too highly if that is you and you believe to yourself to be adequate and I want to say very clearly you are not you are not unexhaustible but I also want to tell you who is and that is the Lord the God is inexhaustible.
God is all-powerful God never sleeps and he never slumbers God is the only one who can do all things uphold all things God is the only one who is strong enough to Bear it all and that same.
Psalm 23 - Sabbath Rest
Transcript
You remember when you were in school and you had a summer vacation, like a summer break, so that you could kind of feel the school year drawing to an end and it was getting warmer, and then you had like some of those half days, and then you had summer, and there was just nothing that had to happen. Do you remember that? Can you just think back for a second and remember that? And some of you are still in that. You're in school. You are in summer right now.
Isn't it nice? Doesn't it just feel good? You at some point kind of grow out of that. But do you remember any of those times where you would just say, I'm bored. Oh, I'm so bored. There's nothing to do here.
And some of you, you know, you grew up in this area, and some of you grew up in like podunk nowhere. And so whenever you would hear someone from around here say, there's nothing to do. It's like, you don't even know what nothing to do looks like. You hadn't even come close to smelling nothing to do. Like, I can tell you what nothing to do. Like, but you know, like there was those moments where you just were like, oh, everything is stupid.
I have nothing to do. I'm bored. Do you remember that? Some of you have maybe maybe you have kids that are in that age, and maybe they've been saying this to you consistently throughout this whole summer. And you're sick of that phrase. But I can tell you that at some point in some point in life, most of us traded in bored for busy.
At some point, we began to make the shift from I'm bored to I'm busy. I'm just busy. I just have I have too much going on. Like, I don't even think we use the phrase bored anymore. Like you might say a movie was boring, but that's like that's it. You don't you might say sermon was really boring.
You might say phrases like that. If you ever visited another church, you might say something like that. But but you you don't we don't use that phrase anymore. Like I don't I don't use the phrase bored anymore. Like if I have a moment to be bored, it's delightful. Like I just sit there times where it's like it's it's like there's there's like a it's kind of like a lunar eclipse.
There's like three minutes after the kid goes to sleep before I'm too tired to stay awake that I just sit and it's like, oh, this is nice. I have nothing to do for most of us, though. We've traded in bored for busy and we don't really know how to get out of that. We're we're we're beyond busy. We've become restless. We actually don't know how to rest.
We don't know how to stop even in our downtime and the few amounts of time during the day that we could have had downtime. We pull our phones out. Some of us, that's our alarm clock. So we wake up with a screen in our face and we go straight from alarm clock mode to checking news feeds and Facebook and Twitter and random videos online. And like that's the beginning of our day and it does not stop. We move straight from that into a hectic, frantic.
Rest of our day until in the evening, sometime we crash. Usually after staring at a screen again for some amount of time and go back to sleep. And then we we live this life on this cycle of exhaustion and restlessness. And we feel as if we're always behind and there's something we got to catch up to and something we got to fix and something we got to work on. And so as we kind of look together at the Psalms this summer, what we've said is this is Psalms, a life of worship. And what we're trying to to do is figure out how to allow the Psalms to train us and how to follow God in a in a joy filled way.
How to how to know what it looks like to follow him in the normal parts of life. And so today we're going to spend some time talking about rest. And before we go to the place where we'll we'll spend the majority of our day, I want to show you a few other quotes from the Psalms that I think help us see some of the issue that we face. This is Psalm 127 verses one and two. It says, unless the Lord builds the house, those who labor, those who build it, labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain.
Vain means useless. It's a waste of time. It is vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil for he that's God gives to his beloved sleep. Keep that up for just a minute. Anxious toil. I think for far too many of us is an action is a good description of what life feels like.
Too much of the time. That it's anxious toil that we have stress and anxiety and all of life feels like toil. It's not work. It's not creation. It's not making things better. It's not ever getting to a place where you go high and you get to sit back and be satisfied with your work.
No, it's anxious toil. It's every day is a grind. And then we go to sleep and then we get to do it again. The next day is going to be a grind and we're going to be tired. But but we'll tell ourselves it's just for a season.
It's just for this amount of time. Like eventually it's going to go away. Eventually this weekend I'll rest. Well, next weekend I'll rest. Well, you know, the summer's coming. Well, after summer's over, because there's so many things to do in the summer in the fall, I'm going to wrestle.
It's football season and there's just too much. And then eventually God graciously lets us die. But that's what life feels like sometimes. It's like I keep postponing rest. I keep saying it's a season, but it actually hasn't stopped being this season. And life feels like anxious toil.
And what the psalmist is saying here is unless God is at work with you, unless he's helping you watch the city, unless he's helping you build the house, all of your work is going to feel like that. And the assumption in the text that he's making here, the point he's making here is that if God is with you, then building the house, all of your labor won't be a waste of time. And if God is helping you watch the city, then watching the city will not be a waste of time. And that God will remove anxious toil and let you actually rest. I want to show you Psalm 46 verse 10 says, be still and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth. So the God at this in this Psalm, it says, just sit still. Just sit for a second and know who I am. Just sit for a minute and know that I'm God. Rest in the fact that I am big and capable. And so what we're going to look at today, go ahead and grab your Bibles and go to Psalm 23.
It's going to be on page 261. If your Bible looks like this. That page number is wrong. That is not helpful. It's going to be 261 if your page looks like this. If your Bible looks like this.
And if you don't own a Bible, this is our gift to you. You can take this with you. What I did was I put the number of the Bible I was using, which is not this Bible. So just so you know, I'm pretty smart. Here's what we're looking at. We're going to read this Psalm.
It's a Psalm of David who was a king in Israel. And he's writing to tell us what God is like. What relating to God is like. What life with God is like. And here's here's our goal for the day. We're going to listen to David.
We're going to study what he says. And we're going to try to see what it looks like for us to have a life of rest, a life of peace as we follow God. Now, what I don't mean is laziness. What I don't mean is if you follow God, you don't have to have a job. If you've been around our church for a while, you probably know that we wouldn't say that we push for work and work is good. And we want you to be to be in a healthy way.
Busy, not busy, frantic, busy, but but creating and a part of God's good system. But so and honestly, not having a job does not remove the anxiety and the toil. So we've met, you know, people who are lazy and still restless. Still seem to be that the ability to rest is is gone from them. You know, people who work really hard and have enough money to go on two week vacations. But when they come back, it's not like they actually rested.
Their soul doesn't know how to. Maybe some of you have been on a week long vacation and you come back more exhausted. And it's because we don't know how to rest. But we also know people who have who are busy, who are at work, who are diligent and are at peace. And that's that's the picture we're going to get from David here is that there is a way to walk with God so that we actually are restful and at peace because of how big and how good he is. That we know how to be still and know that he is God.
That's what we're going to. That's our goal today. And our goal in some ways is fairly simple. We're trying to grow our faith this morning. We're trying to look at what the Bible says about God and actually have greater faith when we leave. Believe it a little more.
See, we're faith people. So we we take what's true about God and we believe it. And we're told that that goes to work on us. That goes to work in us. That that's the gospel is that we believe what Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. And that that belief changes us that through faith God gives us grace.
And that's our goal this morning is to study what Psalm 23 says about God. And grow our faith. Actually, just for a little while this morning, begin to believe this a little more. And in some ways, it's like you ever you ever had a friend who started dating someone and you hadn't met who they were dating yet. Or maybe you had a sibling and they had had someone they were dating and you you got they described to you the person before you met them. And so they kind of told you what to look for.
They said, oh, they're so funny. They have a laugh that's infectious. And like, I don't know if you're like me, I'm like, I will see if I get infected. Like, it's just like they're telling you kind of here's what you need to expect. Or they'll say maybe if they're bringing you to meet their parents or something, they'll say, hey, before we go in, just so you know, this is something I had to always do with my friends. Just so you know, my dad's going to say intense, awkward things to you that he finds very funny.
OK, let's go in. Like I just that was about all I'd give you is like, just so you know, he probably doesn't mean it, but he might. Who knows? Let's go. He may make a joke that makes you uncomfortable. Just deal with it.
That's kind of what we're going to get to do today. We're going to get to see what David says. This is what the relationship's like. This is what he does, and we're going to start looking for it in our own lives. We're going to begin to, as we leave here today, going, OK, David said this is what you're like. Infect me.
Let me see it. Let me enjoy it. Let me partake in it. Psalm 23. We're going to read the whole Psalm, and then we're going to walk back through it. Our goal is to grow in our faith.
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 paths of righteousness for his namesake.
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.
Look back at verse 1. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Okay, so the immediate picture that David gives us is that of a shepherd with sheep. And David is a king at this point, but he used to be a shepherd who had sheep. And so David's relating this to something he's very familiar with.
And what he's saying is, I'm a sheep. He's the shepherd. He's going to take care of everything. That's his first sentence. That's his proposition. That's kind of his thesis statement that everything else is going to flow out of.
He says he's the shepherd. I'm the sheep. And he'll take care of everything. That's what he means when he says, I shall not want. We use the word want to mean I desire, I would like. So I want a cookie.
He's using it here to mean lack. So if I looked at you and said, I am want for a cookie, it does not mean I lack a cookie. That's not what I would be communicating. I would be saying I want a cookie. But he's saying lack.
What he's saying is, because the Lord is my shepherd, I'm not going to lack anything. He doesn't mean because the Lord is my shepherd, all of my desires will be met. It's not the way he's using the term want there. And here's why this is actually very freeing. David's point for the rest of this Psalm is that if the Lord is your shepherd, and we're told as Christians that Jesus is the chief shepherd, he's the good shepherd, who's laid his life down for the sheep, that we belong to him like sheep belong to a shepherd. So we get to come with David and say the same thing if we're Christians, is that the Lord is my shepherd.
And what David is saying is if he's your shepherd, you'll have everything you need. He will be in charge of what you get and he will give you what you need. You won't actually lack any of the good things that you need. Now, that may be hurtful to hear because at times it seems so evident that we are lacking. But it's actually encouraging to know that the shepherd is good and will provide.
He will give you what you need. He will not have you lack any good thing. That's what David is saying here. He's saying that I will get exactly what the shepherd wants me to have. That's the point he's making throughout the rest of the Psalm is that since he's my shepherd, I'll have what I need. Now, that means at times that we'll feel a desire for something.
David can't mean we'll always have our desires met, but he does mean that that God, our shepherd or for us, Christ, our shepherd will give us everything that we need. We will not be lacking because he's good. And that's that's our hope. That's our faith that we would believe that that we would trust him enough to know that whatever I have, whatever he's given me, whatever he's blessed me with, whatever he's withheld from me is because he's good and I can trust him. So let's keep reading.
He says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want or I won't have any lack. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake.
So he starts off. He says he makes me lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside still waters. And I just want to say this encouragement to some of you who feel like I have to work. I have to be busy. I have to be diligent. That's what God wants from me.
I have to be active or he'll be disappointed in me. The first thing David says is he's my shepherd. He makes me lie down. Some of you need to picture Jesus pushing you down and saying, just stay, just stay for a second. You're like, but I've got so much to do for you. And he's like, lay down and stay like me with my two-year-old.
If you get out of that bed again, like that, because I want him to sleep, it's good for him. So maybe Jesus has a better attitude than I do. But he makes us lie down. He gives us rest. That if you come to this morning, if you think God wants cheap labor out of you, and he's some sort of a cattle driver, that's not what David starts off with. David says, no, he makes me lie down.
He gives me rest. My grandmother is one of these people that she can't sit still. She's busy all the time. And she's a godly lady. She was a missionary in Nigeria. And there's a, in the New Testament, Jesus arguing with some Pharisees about the Sabbath, which was their day off when they weren't supposed to do any work.
And he says, if your ox falls in a ditch, don't you get it out? And so my grandmother, whenever she was doing work on the Sabbath, on her Sunday, when she was supposed to not be doing work, would say, the ox is in the ditch. Which meant the ox is in the ditch. I got to get to work. And at some point, as I got to know her, I started thinking, I think you're pushing the ox in the ditch. So you have something to do.
Like, I think you, your ox is always in the ditch. Like, drive your ox better. Build a fence. And some of us, that's the case. It's like, we always feel like we have to be active. We have to be working.
And I just want you to see this. Jesus, the good shepherd, makes us lie down. Makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. I want you to see something else here. That David is saying that, like, he will provide.
I won't lack anything. He's going to give me green pastures. He's going to give me still waters. He's going to provide for my soul. He's going to provide for me. And I just want you to know that some of you who are feeling like, no, I'm lacking.
I am lacking right now. Trust. Trust that he is providing in ways maybe unseen, in ways maybe unlooked for. But that he will provide and that he does. And that you can continue to follow him. Verse 3, he restores my soul.
That is so encouraging to me. For two reasons. One, David's soul needed to be restored. I think we can fall in the trap of believing that if I follow Jesus, I'll never need soul restoration. I'll always be fine. That's not what David says.
David says, no, no, no. He's good. So he goes to work on me when I'm not fine at all. When my soul needs work, he restores it. That there are times in life when our soul needs restoration. It needs love.
It needs health. He needs to be mending us. And secondly, that we get to run to him. That he's the only one who can restore it. And we get to trust him that he will do this. It's like when my wife and I, at times our marriage has not been the funnest marriage to be in.
We weren't just laughing the whole time and skipping along rainbows. And it's like that where I knew in those moments when our marriage is really hard and we don't really like each other. And our house is not a joyous place filled with potpourri and giggling. Like it just wasn't nice. I knew the only way to fix it was not to draw away from her, but to draw close to her. The only way to mend our marriage was for us to continue to be in each other's face and each other's space and grinding against each other.
So that, so that, so that, hopefully we can edit that before it makes it to the internet. It's not bad advice, you guys. I'm just saying it's not what I meant. All right. So that we were knocking off all the rough places in each other's souls so that we would grow.
I'm going to repeat that last sentence as we regain our focus collectively. So that we were knocking off all the rough places in our souls so that we would grow together. That when, when we were hurting to draw near to each other was the best way for this to, to be mended. And that's the same thing he's saying here, that, that when his soul needs restoration, he doesn't run from God. He runs to him. He rests with him, that he draws near him.
He knows the only way for this to get fixed is to be next to God. Lord help us. All right. So I think the question for us as we come out of this section is what do you think you're missing out on? What is it that you consistently feel you are lacking? And do you believe that he's actually good enough that he knows that?
And he doesn't believe you're lacking and that he will provide what you need. He keeps going. He says he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. And I just want to say that he ultimately fulfills that for us who are Christians in the cross. That he leads us through paths of righteousness for his namesake, which means that he, he gets the glory from us being good, from us walking in righteousness.
And what we're told in the new Testament is that he was righteous for us, that he took our sin on himself, that he died for our sin and gave us his righteousness. And so that we are made right with God for his name. That it's actually Jesus that gets all the glory from the church being made righteous. Every once in a while, people will say things like, I don't like the church. Everybody in the church is messed up. I'm like, yes.
Isn't Jesus good? That he invites messed up people like that's, that's our church. We're the first people to raise our hands and say, I am a hot mess and I need Jesus. That's it. He makes us righteous for his glory. That is actually how messed up we are and how broken we are and how sinful we are and how far away from if all of us got together because of how good we were.
Who gets the glory? Whose name is lifted up? Ours. Because of how good we are. But when we gather together as people who can barely get along with each other.
Who have sin at work in our lives that we're fighting against, but we're trusting that Jesus is good and that he saves sinners. You know who gets the glory in whose name? Jesus is. That's what he's saying. He ultimately fulfills that for us that he brings us into righteousness for his name, for his glory, that Jesus gets all the glory as he works righteousness out in our lives. Verse four.
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. Then he goes on in verse five. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
It's interesting. In verses one through three, he says he. He does this. He does this. He does this. He hits verse four and he says you.
He says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you. And I think here's why. When life is good. When we're in the pasture by the still water, having our souls restored, we can talk about God. We can praise him. We can lift him up.
We can say, here's what he's like. And we actually get to enjoy all the good gifts he's given us in a way that that points us to him. We get to look at the green pastures. We get to look at the the the goodness of life. And we get to point to and say, this is how good he is. This is how glorious he is.
But when we're in the valley of the shadow of death, we start talking to God. We start praying. It's less of a place of praise and more of a place of prayer. That we begin to call out to him. And I want to show you something that I think is that I'm very encouraged by, because what we're looking at is David is showing us this is what life with God is like. That it's better off with him in charge that we're more free.
That's one of the things I think David's really trying to show us here is that true freedom and true rest and true hope comes not from our own autonomy, our own sovereignty, our being our own boss. But it actually comes from being utterly dependent on a good shepherd. Because that's what sheep are. They're dependent on a shepherd. And if the shepherd's good, then life is good. And if the shepherd's bad, life is bad.
And what David's saying is that real freedom and real joy comes from being dependent, not not autonomous, not sovereign over ourselves. To be under the king and not our own king. That's where real freedom comes. So David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. So David just got done in verse three says he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, it seems as if he's really tying those together in a way that is saying there are times where God leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. The good shepherd is actually walking with us through that. And I heard John Piper talking about this. And he said he spent some time thinking, why would God do that? What is the point of a shepherd taking sheep through the valley of the shadow of death? And he said the only answer he could come up with is there was something better on the other side of that valley.
That he had a place he had to get to that the only way to really get there was through the valley. And I'm inclined to agree with him. So he's saying that God does lead us and there are times where it seems dark and scary and painful. But here's what David says. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, even though fear would be all around me, even though hope would be lost, even though I would have no way to get myself through this, he says, I will fear no evil for you are with me. See, in verses one through three, David is talking about the comfort is the pasture.
The comfort is the water. And Jesus led him there. But the good stuff was the pasture. The good stuff was the water. Like he's enjoying this and he's just saying, you're great because you brought me here. It's like when somebody cooks a meal and you compliment the meal and you're kind of rolling that up and compliment to them, like in praise to them.
So my wife cooks something. I go, girl, this chicken. Like she knows I'm saying good Job with the chicken. And she takes it as a compliment to her. She's not like, why are you complimenting the chicken? Say something about me.
It's like, no, she gets it. That's what David is doing in verses one through three. He's saying the green grass, the pastures are good. He doesn't have anything to say is good. In verses four and five. What he has to say is in the middle of everything else being terrible, you're still good.
You comfort me. I won't fear anything because you're here. What he says is I can't see anything good. I don't see anything that I can look at and say thank you for right now. I can't. I'm sure there's stuff, but I can't see it.
Sometimes it bothers me. And I may be wrong about this when people are really hurting and it's like, well, you should find something to be thankful for. It's like just maybe not. What? That's really hard right now. I can't see anything to be thankful for.
But David says, you don't have to. He's good. Let him comfort you. Let the fact that he's still there be good. And I love what he says. He says, you.
I will fear no evil for you are with me. So he says, what's good is here is you. That's it. I got nothing else. You're good. And he says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
So a rod and a staff were shepherd's tools. A rod could be this long or as long as a staff. At the end of it, it had a knot. Some of them have little spikes. Some of them are just a knot. The rod was for hitting things.
Not the sheep. Bears, wolves. The rod was for outsiders. The staff was for the sheep. And that's the one you're used to that has a little crook. It looks like a candy cane.
Your nativity scene has it. That was for the sheep. And this is beautiful because you know what's terrifying about being in the valley of the shadow of death? There's two things absolutely terrifying about those moments in our lives. Specifically for Christians. For the sheep that belong to Jesus.
One is that what's in the valley is going to get you. That you're going to be attacked. You're going to be harmed. That you're not going to make it out because this assailed you. And secondly, that because you're in the valley of shadow, you're going to bolt and leave the shepherd. That's actually the thing I'm most afraid of.
Is that when I get in the valley, I'm going to cease to see that he's good and I'm just going to run. I'm just going to run away. And what he says is both your rod and your staff comfort me. One is to hook around my neck and keep me close to you. And one of them is for everything that comes in this valley and tries to get me. And here's what's so encouraging about this.
So this is David writing this. David was a shepherd. He used to write songs. Tend sheep. So he was kind of arty.
He wrote poems and songs. And he was a shepherd. And he comes to one of the main stories about him that you maybe have heard about is David and Goliath. This is the same David we're talking about. Goliath was a giant. He was defying the armies of Israel.
And David comes and he goes and talks to the king Saul. And he basically says, hey, I'll go kill Goliath for you. And the king's like, because he's just kind of a young guy and he's not in the army. Like he tends sheep. The king's like, this is probably not the best plan. But this is the first guy who said, I'll kill Goliath for you.
So Saul's going to hear him out. Because all the other guys were like, I think Goliath was going to kill all of us. And this was the first kid who was like, I'll kill him for you. And so Saul was like, well, let's talk. Tell me your plan. So Saul's talking to him and he says, you're just a boy.
Like he's been trained in military things his whole life. This is 1 Samuel 17, by the way, that I'm paraphrasing. David says, I've tended sheep. And when a bear came or a lion came and took one of the lambs, I would follow it. I would strike it and get the lamb out of its mouth. And then he says, and if it came at me, I would grab it by its beard and kill it.
I've killed bears and lions and I'm going to do the same thing to Goliath. He'll be like one of them. Isn't that, I could just imagine Saul being like, all right, let's go. And he's following him out and people are like, you're actually going to let him fight. He said, he said he's going to grab Goliath by his beard and hit him in the head with a stick. I'm going to watch this.
He said, that's what he's going to do. I want to see it. That's what David's saying is he had a rod. He would go to a bear. He would hit it and he would give that bear a chance to back up. David was being nice to the bear.
He's like, you give me the lamb. You can go. But he's like, if that bear bowed up to me, I killed it. Did the same thing with bears and lions. Next time I go to the zoo, I'm looking at him and I'm picturing David jumping on him, grabbing him by their beard and hitting them with a stick. What David says in this Psalm is when I'm in the valley and it's dark and death looms over us, I'm going to remember that you're the scariest thing in the valley and that if a lion comes or a bear comes, they need to be afraid.
David's like, I'm going to do my best to get their attention and go, you're going to want to go home. That's what David's saying is that in the valley, when it is dark, when it is dismal, I'm going to trust that you're going to keep me close to you. Your staff is a comfort to me and I'm going to trust that in your other hand is a rod and this whatever is in the valley will not win. That you are the biggest, most fearful thing in the valley. That's our hope as we trust Jesus. Not that we'll never enter the valley of the shadow of death.
Not that it will never loom over us. Not that there will never be a time in our life when we cannot name a good thing. We don't know where grass is. We can't remember the last time we sat by still water. We're not promised that. We're promised that when we go in there, there will be the most fearful being in all of creation that rules over creation.
He will be with us and be a comfort to us to both keep us and to guard us. That's the hope that David says he has as he walks with God. Verse 5. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. That is a crazy sentence.
Because when you actually get to sit at a table and enjoy a nice meal, that's when life's going pretty well. Like you don't even get to do that in the morning. And you're grabbing like a drink and a Nutri-Grain bar and hitting the door. Like you don't even have enemies there. You just, the alarm clock, like you lost to it that morning. Like what David is saying is, in the presence of my enemies, I'll be surrounded, but I'm going to still get to sit down and enjoy a meal that you've prepared for me.
That in the middle of all the things that should rob us of all joy and all comfort and all peace, God sets a table and says, have a seat. That his supply lines aren't cut off and that he can continue to fill us up. That's what David's saying. The way I see this so clearly in my own life is with my sin. So that at times I feel like I'm surrounded by my enemies and that's what my sin is.
That it's actively at work to destroy my soul, to rob me of joy, to keep me from having a good relationship with God and good relationship with others around me. That my sin and at times I feel so accused by it. Look at who you are. Look at what you do. Look at what you're thinking. Look at what you're, like it's overwhelming and it feels like it's hemming me in.
And all I can see is my sin. And then in the cross Jesus sets a table, says have a seat. I'm actually going to show my power and my glory and my magnificence and my rule over sin as you sit and enjoy life, surrounded by what should destroy you but that I've set you free from. The thing that should rob you of all joy, I'm going to stand next to you as a guard and you're going to actually get to enjoy. Because he forgives us in the middle of our sin and it does not destroy us. He says you anoint my head with oil.
My cup overflows. I think there's potential for two pictures here when he says you anoint my head with oil. That was something they would do as kind of a custom when they would share meals together and when they would come in, it was a way that you could smell nicer and it was a way to honor guests. And so he may just be simply saying you honor me as a guest. Like you prepare a table for me, you honor me as a guest and my cup overflows, meaning I'm more than provided for. But specifically because this is David writing this Psalm, we're told of the time that David was anointed with oil to be the king of Israel.
And so David may be trying to draw everybody's mind to, you set me aside for a purpose. I think so often one of the things that robs us of the ability to rest, that makes life anxious toil is this feeling like I have to find my purpose and I have to achieve my purpose in order to have value. David says, no, that's in the shepherd's hands too. That he has a purpose for you, that the shepherd decides what the sheep get to do, that he anoints your head with oil and he sets you aside for his purposes and his glory and his name. And you can trust him in that too. So that the amount of anxiety we wrap around, is my life going to be worth it?
He says, no, I've pushed that onto Jesus. Trust the shepherd to give you value and purpose. He says, my cup overflows. That God provides more than enough. So I think our question here that we ought to ask as we try to walk in this.
See, at first in verses 1 through 3, we need to ask, what is it that we think we're lacking? In verse 3, maybe we need to ask what it is we believe would restore our soul. What is it that we run to in those moments when we should tie ourselves to the shepherd? In verse 3, where he says, he leads me in paths of righteousness, maybe we ought to ask, what is it we believe actually makes us good? And is it Jesus? Are we resting in him?
Verse 4, he says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and he goes through there, what is it that we're afraid of? And what are we trusting to save us? All these things rob us of peace and of joy. Where he says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Maybe we ought to ask, what is it that we think gives us purpose and value? And do we have to consistently keep that up in order to be okay? Are we robbed of rest and robbed of joy because we can't let any relationship begin to seem even like it started to fall apart because we need people to love us to be okay? Is that where our value and our purpose comes from? Do we have to work unending hours in order to make enough money to have value and purpose? And we rob ourselves of joy because we won't trust that ultimately he holds all of that.
Verse 6, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David begins in verse 1, with the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He says, this is kind of how it's going to work. He's the shepherd, I'll be okay. And then he ends with this like proclamation of faith over the rest of his life. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
If you met a person and they looked at you and with genuine sincerity said, I will be happy my entire life. You'd be like, that's bold. I'm like, I'm proud of you. I hope that works out. But you don't know.
Maybe you wouldn't tell them. I'd probably tell them. I'd be like, well, we'll see. I don't know why I'd be rooting against their happiness, but I'd just be my natural reaction. They looked at you and said, all good things will come to me forever. He'd be like, boy, you sound like a fortune cookie.
David says this. And he got to write it down and it got to stay in the Bible. How does he get to say that? He gets to say that because of what he said in verse 1, which is the Lord is my shepherd, I won't lack anything. David gets to end with this bold statement of faith over the rest of his life that goodness and mercy will follow me and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And the reason he gets to say that is not because of what he's going to do, but because of who he belongs to.
That as Christians in Christ, we get to say the same thing. I want to read from John. This is Jesus speaking, so I just want you to sit and listen. This is what Jesus says about himself. I think this is helpful. John 10.
I'm the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And I come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. But I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay my life down for the sheep.
You see, we get to stand next to David and without blinking, without hesitating, say, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. If we belong to Jesus, he's laid his life down for us. He knows his sheep. He loves his sheep. He doesn't flee from our sin. He doesn't flee from our wickedness.
But he dies in order to redeem us. And we belong to him. That's who we have as a shepherd. And that we get to read Psalm 23 and believe it. That we won't lack anything. That he will provide.
That he will restore our souls, even though there will be times where it needs to be restored. There will be times when we can't see anything good but him, but he's still good. And that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life. You can rest. You can stop. You can trust.
He is good. He does love you. He does care for you. That you belong to him and he knows you and you know his voice. For all of us who've placed faith in Christ, that is true for us. And maybe, maybe we all need to read Psalm 23 every day for the next month until it seeps into us that this is real and this is who he is and this is what he's like.
That he begins to restore our souls even from these pages. When we read Psalms and pray them. That he begins to work in us that we would remember that this is who he is and this is what he's done and this is the hope that we have. But you can rest and you can trust because he is good and he does love you. He's not going to lose you. He holds a rod and a staff.
Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will if you belong to Jesus, dwell in his house forever. The band is going to come back up as we finish out this morning. We're going to spend in our community groups this week, we're actually going to talk about how. Practically, how do we make time? How do we rest? But today I just wanted us to try as we could to grow our faith that we could believe that we actually can.
That we believe why we can make time. Why we can rest because of how good he is. You see, freedom and rest come from dependence, not autonomy. That we get to trust that he handles this, that he will provide, that he is good, that we don't have to labor and toil in order to make things okay for ourselves. So as a church, we're about to take communion.
Communion. And communion is simply, we have bread, we use grape juice.