In Psalm 23, the message centers on the lord is my shepherd. Explore Psalm 23 and rediscover God as Shepherd, Provider, Guide, Protector, and faithful presence through every season of life. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The message presses toward an active response to the gospel. Faith is presented as something that reshapes priorities, decisions, character, and obedience, not simply something we affirm intellectually. Listeners are challenged to examine whether their lives are increasingly aligned with what they say they believe and to respond to God's grace with courage, humility, and faithful action.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Psalm 23, the lord is my shepherd, faithful presence every season of, shepherd. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Psalm 23 teach about the lord is my shepherd? It also considers how should the lord is my shepherd shape the way Christians live?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Psalm 23 teach about the lord is my shepherd? | How should the lord is my shepherd shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Psalm 23 in everyday life?
Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, faithful presence every season of
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Psalm 23. That's where we're going to be at today. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Psalm 23. And some of y'all are already going like, "Oh, maybe maybe you know this verse. You know, it's all over your grandma's toilets and stuff like Psalm 23." You know, it's it's when when when you think of Psalm 23, you know, that's that's what you think of um think of think of your grandma. And that's okay. That's okay. All right. But there's there's so much in this verse and it's been preached by so many. Uh I've preached this passage many times, but it's it's powerful. And when we can lock in today on what the Lord wants to speak to us, I'm telling you, God's going to do amazing things. Don't approach this message as, "Oh, I've heard this before." Okay? God wants to show something new to us today. Amen. >> All right. I'm actually going to have you guys read this with me. Is that okay? Can we all read this together? We're going to put it up on the on the screen. Do I need to move out of the way? Can you see it? Okay. Yeah. I'm really tall. Let's go. Let's read this together. 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 name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, and 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. >> Forever. Amen. >> Let's pray. God, would you bless this word? Would you open up our our hearts today to what you want to speak to us, Lord, let us not look at this as some familiar passage or some familiar story, but God, open up our our eyes, open up our hearts. would you give us decisions, invitations to make decisions to continue to follow you even more than before. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [sighs and gasps] >> I got my shepherd's crook out here. >> I'm very excited about it. I I I told I told Haven before service when I got this on the installation day, I'm just I'm just a bad dad. The first thing I did was I grabbed my son's foot and just yanked it. Um but that's what you do with a shepherd's crook, right? That's what it's for, right? I'm going to I'm going to get the chairs. Lean this on. No, I got it. You're good. No, I'm really excited to get into this. Um, but I've got we've got two more Psalms coming up and it's going to be it's going to be powerful. All right, stay right there. Don't don't do anything weird. All right, praise God. Let's go. Before David was a king and before he was a warrior, he was a shepherd, right? That little shepherd boy out in the field. And the the the relationship between a sheep and a shepherd is one of trust and dependence where where the shepherd provides guidance, care and protection while the sheep follow their shepherd's lead. Sheep rely on shepherds for necessities like their food, water, safety from predators while shepherds are responsible for leading them to fertile pastures and keeping them secure. Sheep need guidance, right? They are heard animals and so they need a shepherd. They need a protector. They will follow the voice of their shepherd and they will also follow the lead of their shepherd. And God designed it this way, right? Without a shepherd, the sheep are at risk. Sheep can be isolated if they run off. And sheep can be at risk of disaster or drowning or being attacked by predators when they're alone. Now, does anybody here in this house or in in this church today have sheep? Anybody? Anybody? Is there any shepherds in the house? Okay. I know I know a couple years ago, uh, Paul Barber, he had a bunch of goats and we went over to his house and that was a lot of fun. He had he had he had goats. I don't know if that's the same thing as a sheep. I don't think it is. No. Thank you. All right. Cool. Shows how much I know about sheep, guys. All right. Now, here's the thing. Being a sheep is also kind of a derogatory word. Like if somebody calls you a sheep, that's an insult, right? It's like, oh, you're a sheep. You just do whatever the politicians tell you to do, right? >> Oh, we're not being political today. All right. But it can be seen as a derogatory term, especially in America because I'm an individual. Like, I'm not a sheep. I'm a sheep dog, you know? Like, I'm special. Like, I'm different, right? It's it's not fun to put ourselves in this group, right? I was talking to I was talking to somebody this last week. Um, I was actually teaching in our uh Tennessee School of Ministry yesterday and one of the things that I was talking about was how as people we're always looking for a reason to distinguish ourselves or make ourselves be the exception, especially in America because like, oh, I'm not like all those other Republicans, you know, like I'm I'm different. I don't believe that or I don't I'm not like all those other Democrats, right? I I I'm different in this way. Everybody likes to be different, right? >> Come on. >> Yeah. Reed is different. Come on. Praise God. Hallelujah. In a good way. But here's the thing. Another another great parallel is the relationship between you and a good dog. How many of you have a good dog? Anybody in the house? No. Put your hand down, Dad. Your dog your dog is not good. [laughter] My dog's name is Cooper. He's a He's a golden doodle. And uh he's a little wild. He's a little crazy as doodles are. Um, we got him about six months after I got the the no more kids procedure. Um, and my wife wanted the fifth child and I was like, "Let's get a dog first and then let's see how you feel." And we only have four children now, just so you know. Um, this dog really only listens to me. This is a problem. Um, he's a good dog. Uh, he knows my voice. He knows my routines. Like literally, I'll be sitting in the evening, everyone's gone to bed, and I'm I'm studying or I'm reading or something, and he's sitting on the couch next to me, and he knows the moment I get up off the couch, he just knows to go and sit in his little kennel space. I don't even have to lock him up. He just goes and locks himself up. That's a good That's a good dog right there. Come on. When I when I come home, it's very similar to those videos when like a a a soldier comes home from war and the dog like freaks out. This is every day for me. I come home and he's just losing his mind. Look, you've been gone for so long. Like, it's so good to see you. Like, this is this is my dog, okay? He's awesome. And and and the funny part is I mean, he's still kind of a puppy. I mean, he's like 2 years old, but he gets so excited to see me sometimes that he'll just pee a little. Do you ever pee a little? Have you ever peed a little? When you get into the presence of God, you get so excited like, "No." Okay. No. All right. Maybe that's just me. All right. That's why I wear a diaper on Sundays. I love it. >> Yeah. Yeah, I know, right? [laughter] If he does something wrong and he gets in trouble, he knows he's in trouble, but he still wags his tail, right? He still loves me. We're He still comes right back. And this is a major contrast to the relationship between humans and a cat. >> Yeah. Cats don't care about you. Okay. They don't. No, they don't. Betty, I was hoping you'd be here today. [laughter] Cats don't come when when they're called. Um, they're not usually happy to see you. Um, they look at you like they're planning to kill you in your sleep, but they know they know that they can't because they're too small. Um, >> yeah, they'll kill me. Yeah. So, dogs are better. Amen. Amen. All right. Moving on. Moving on. David's writing in this psalm, uh, the Lord is our shepherd. If he's our shepherd, then we are his sheep, right? So, let's pretend to be sheep today. and take the role of a follower of the good shepherd. So, can everybody say bad? >> Thank you. All right. All right. I'll stop being silly now. As humans, we know that this parallel is not quite the same. Why? Because we talk back to God. We have opinions. But basically, what David is saying here is we are to be like sheep to our shepherd. Amen. We are to be guided. We're to be led. We are to be loved and cared for by our good shepherd. David's showing that we are to follow God's voice and to trust him. Like I went looking for stories online of like groups of sheep rallying against their shepherd and like taking over. It doesn't happen, right? Like it's not all like the sheep are all talking to each other like let's get them today. Like today's the day we're going to be free. Doesn't happen. In fact, as I I read a bunch of different Reddits on this, if there's ever a sheep that rises up against the shepherd, you know what happens to them? They get slaughtered. They become lunch. Not to say that that's the analogy here, but just follow me. All right? There's something about God being our good shepherd and leading us. And Jesus said in in John 10, he says, "I am the good shepherd." Right? And so what's so cool when he says this, everybody in the audience has listened and heard this verse in Psalm 23 saying that the Lord is my good shepherd. And so for Jesus to say that, that's like heresy, right? All the Jewish people like there's no you're not the good shepherd. He's the good shepherd, right? If we want to be shepherded well by God, scripture tells us that we need to be close to Jesus. We need to know his voice when he speaks to us and when he guides us. Jesus is saying, "I'm taking the role of shepherd in your life. Everything I say is for your good. Everything I lead you in is for your good. How I direct you is for your good." A good shepherd is not an abusive shepherd. He's not a manipulative shepherd. He's not a nagging shepherd. He's a good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. A good shepherd is a is a good leader. And in Psalm 23, it was written during this time of the old covenant. And then Jesus, he he adopted it and used it in his language and ministry. And then it's been adopted now into church language. I look at this passage personally as a model of how to shepherd this church and how to pastor this church. The actual like word pastor comes from shephering a pastor, right? pastor, pastor, a flock of people. So, you are the sheep of this church and I get to be your shepherd, which is fun. But how many of you know that I'm not the good shepherd? You can lift your hands. It's okay. I'm not the good shepherd. [laughter] Jesus gets that title. I just work for him. I'm I'm I'm I'm the second chair shepherd. Right? That's me. Like people ask, "How's your pastor?" Your response should be, "Man, he's not as good as Jesus." Right? That should be your response if anybody asks about our church or about me. In fact, the theological word we say pastors are undersheperds. >> Underspherds. We're under the good shepherd. Jesus, he's the pastor of this church. He's my boss. He's the guy that I'm answering to. He's the pastor. He's the good shepherd because this is his church. Amen. >> Hallelujah. We want to make sure that his sheep are cared for. If you're taking notes today, uh I want you to write this down. Number one, our shepherd leads us. One of the issues that we see right now in culture is we don't have a lot of good leadership. There's a difference between leading voices and leadership. Okay? We have a ton of leading voices in this world. We have a ton of people who are posing themselves as good leaders and they've got all of this stuff to say because everybody can have a platform now. Everybody h can have a Facebook or a YouTube or or Tik Tok or whatever it is. We all have access to the platform and we can become a leading voice now, right? But there's a huge difference between leading voices and leadership. Here's the difference. Leading voices will lead you to them, to their message, to their good. They they'll lead you to all of the the problems and all of the issues and all the frustrations and all of the outrages. Leading voices are really good at making themselves seem superior or like they're in the know. That they know all the the secrets and they know what's really going on, right? And to follow them means now you're on the inside, too. That they're better than all of the other leaders. I saw a pastor um post this last week just bashing other pastors for not speaking out on a specific thing that that he wasn't afraid to speak out on, but it ended up causing way more division than unity. Right? Listen, godly leadership should lead you to your good and to your peace. Can somebody say amen? Godly leadership will lead you to become who Jesus saved you to be and lead you to live a life worthy of the calling of your that God has for you. A good leader will lead you to repentance with the Holy Spirit. And Jesus addresses it like this where a bunch of Jewish people came and he he told them about the slaughter of all the Jews on the altar. We read about this in our parable series. There were some there were in Luke 13. There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. Here's what that's here's what that means. The Roman soldiers came into the temple and killed a bunch of Jewish people around the altar and their blood got onto the altar and they're and they're really trying to come to Jesus and say, "Doesn't this make you mad? Doesn't this rally you up? Shouldn't we do something about this? Like what kind of leader are you? I thought you were come to to conquer and do all these different things." He's like they're trying to to get after Jesus's motives in this. And Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way?" Just completely dodges the question. Really saying, "What do you want from me?" He says, "No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." He said, 'Yeah, this is a horrible thing that happened, but I'm not going to use violence to come against this violence. I'm going to point you to the cross. I'm going to point you to to salvation. I'm going to point you to repent because yeah, what happened is is is awful and it's out of our control. But you know what's so much worse in eternity in hell? >> You know what's worse in eternity? in separation from your savior. A good leader is more concerned about your relationship with the good shepherd than trying to stir you up in trouble. He's not trying to gain anything from you. He's trying to get you to the good shepherd. Look at verse one. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. Listen, how is a green pasture good for the shepherd? Right? Shepherds don't eat grass. The sheep do. Right? The she the good shepherd puts us in a place for our provision, not his own. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. That's still waters. When when sheep get into running water, what happens? The water weighs down their wool and they drown. And so if the water is moving, they're at risk. So again, it's important that we even see this that a good shepherd leads you by still waters because he knows you can handle this. He doesn't want you to end up drowning. He doesn't want you to be weighed down. He wants you to be nourished. Leading voices will put you by dangerous waters and say, "Come on, get in on this drama, right? Let's get riled up together. Let's get really angry and then not do anything." Is that too soapboxy for y'all today? Is that too much? Sorry. I I' I've just been watching like too many leaders acting more like newscasters than pastors. >> We know that the world is is going to hell in a hand basket, right? But are we leading people to Christ >> in the process? Like I I have fought with with pastors who want to use their platform to mobilize people in all these different ways really to their own destruction. They're a bunch of keyboard warriors that do nothing but type their cathartic opinions. Too much. I got I I I I'm going to push a little bit here because you want to know why there's a Muslim mayor in New York City? You want to know why Charlie Kirk got shot? You want to know why there's growing anti-semitism in America? It's because we stopped reaching the lost. >> You want to know who elected >> a Muslim mayor? Lost people. Who shot Charlie? Lost people. Who celebrated his death? Lost people. >> Who who who is all against Israel and against the Jewish people? It's Christians who are far from God. >> We're called to reach the lost and lead them to the good shepherd. And that's not just my job. That's our job as a church. Cuz you can get on your keyboard and you can voice YOUR OPINION ALL YOU WANT, BUT it does nothing. But but get a little pat on your back and validate your feelings. >> I'm telling you, >> stop stop talking and do something. >> Don't sit back and bleet like a sheep. The world is so bad. >> Do something about it. Share Jesus with people. Be a missionary to this city. Yeah, >> Franklin's not saved. >> Only 40% of people within this city actually attend church. >> That means there's 60% 60% of the people that aren't following Jesus. >> This is not a saved city. I don't care how many churches are on all these different corners. God has called us to be missionaries to this place. >> Stop talking. Do something. My job as a pastor is to lead God's people to places of peace and provision and restoration for their souls. And that's what God will do for you. That's what God will do for us. Everybody, you got to ask the question, if you're riled up and you're stirred up, has it been God's voice who's led you there? Or have there been leading voices and influences like we talked about last week that have got you to that place? Everybody say this. Say, "God is my shepherd." >> God actually cares about you. You might think God only loves the pastor because obviously I'm his favorite. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Come on. Thank Thank you, Rita. Or God only loves the really disciplined followers of Jesus. Right. >> Let me just say that is evil religious thinking. >> That's moralism. David was a emotional headcase at times. Okay. Some psychologists have actually studied David based off his Psalms, based off the chronicles and and all all these different stories of his life and they actually think that he might have bipolar disorder or maybe he has like PTSD from from all the the fighting and the wars and some head trauma. Okay? Because literally his emotional highs are really high and his emotional lows are really low. But David said, "God is my shepherd. He's my good shepherd." God is not withholding his shephering because you're not always a good sheep. >> Right? >> He's actually leaning in more when you're a bad sheep. Bad sheep. When a sheep gets away in Luke 15, Jesus says, "A good shepherd does what?" He leaves the 99 to go after the one. He doesn't say like, "Let the wolves have that one. I'm tired of it." Like, "I've gone after this one so much, like maybe I'm just going to stick with the 99." That's not what he does. In fact, when we stray, the shepherd has to work harder and use different methods to get a hold of us. >> Scholars have even said that in that day, whenever a sheep is constantly straying and running from the shepherd, you know what the shepherd will do? break one of its legs. I won't hit it that hard. The the shepherd will break one of the legs of the sheep, so it has to stay close. It can't just run off and go in whatever direction that it wants to. And and especially for smaller sheep, the shepherd would have to hold it over its shoulders. And you know what it's doing in that moment? is talking to it so that the sheep begins to know his voice even better and better. Some of y'all maybe have seen that picture of Jesus with a lamb over his shoulders, right? I always laugh when I see it because that that that lamb's leg is broken because there's no way that lamb is just sitting there all gentle without freaking out. It's the job of the shepherd to carry that sheep. Again, the purpose of that is to constantly be talking to the sheep. Listen, some of you might be walking through brokenness right now and God's going, "I'm just trying to get your attention. I'm I'm just trying to speak to you so that you know my voice again." You you you may feel like you're you're you're lost or you're you're you're weighing you're not sure the direction of your life and God is trying to bring you close so he can just speak to you and you can know his voice again. Come on. How many you want to know his voice? >> Your life may be slow. You may be disappointed. God is so good to you that he's going, I'm going to use this for your good. That's what he does. Look what he says. He says he will make us lie down in green pastures. Now, this is a fun word. Make. This is where the sheep imagery really hits different for us because God can't make me do nothing. Nobody's gonna make me do nothing, right? Can I turn the southern on for a second? You can't tell me what to do. What? You can't make me do anything, whether it's for my good or for my bad. We don't want anything to do with being made to do anything. In fact, people will throw hands. They'll fight the church over this kind of stuff. You know, I don't like what they're doing at that church. They're making me go to team night on November 19th. We would love for you to be there. It's going to be great. I'm making you go. You have to be there. Okay. They're making me do next steps and growth track. They're making me serve in church. Hey, we need more uh kids team members in the back. If you if you feel called to that, like if you don't feel called to it, we would love for you to serve with our kids and raising up the next generation. Come on. Here's the deal. At at this church, we are never going to ask you to do anything that's not a green pasture for you. >> We're not going to ask you to do something that's not helping you become more like Jesus. Moving on to the verse, he restores my soul. God desires to be very involved in your life, in your provision, in your restoration, in the direction of your life, in your soul care because he cares about you. He cares about what you're going through. He wants to be part of making you whole and your wholeness. Why? Because he's a good shepherd. Like again, we have to ask ourselves even from last week, are you centered in God? Do you sense the presence of the good shepherd in your life? Because if you're wondering, has God led me here? We need to ask ourselves, are your needs being met? Are you at peace? Is your soul okay? And once you answer those questions, you need to ask yourself, what voices have you been listening to? Was it a leading voice, or was it the voice of the good shepherd that brought me to this place? because all he has for us is good. And again, we talked last week, are we being influenced by God or other voices? As he leads us, our soul is restored. Why? Because we're forgiven [clears throat] and we're at peace. Because he is the prince of peace. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Again, our world says, "Do whatever makes you happy, right?" Culture says be you boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boooo you do what you want right all roads lead to heaven but Jesus says narrow is the way and hard is the path that leads to righteousness and some of us hate the path that God is taking us down right now or maybe there's been a season in your life where you hate that God is making you deal with this or that he's led you to this place but when it's a path for for your provision and your peace and for your righteousness is for your good, right? Like nobody else is going this way, God. NOBODY ELSE IS PRAYING AND FASTING every single day. Nobody else is coming to church 52 weeks a year. Nobody else is serving at church in this way. Your path may look different compared to others around you, but again, the path of righteousness, it makes his name look good in your life. It makes God look good. Again, a good way to evaluate if you're in step with the shepherd is, do you sense his presence in your life? Do we sense the peace of God and his direction? We talked about this in small groups this last week. We're in Psalm 139. Where can I go to escape your presence, God? At the highest heights or in the depths of shiel, in the depths of hell, there you are. Are we acknowledging the shepherd in our lives? Because scripture tells us that he's always with us. Like I app I I'm all about the manifest presence of God, right? When we can feel his presence and we know that he's here. But what about the moments where you feel nothing? Do you still acknowledge that God is with you? >> Do you still acknowledge that he's he's leading you? That he's your good shepherd? Because it says, "EVEN THOUGH I WALK through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Why? For you, God, are with me. He's with us. It doesn't matter what you're feeling. YOU MAY BE SURROUNDED BY FEAR, but he's with you. >> Again, there's stories of of David in the valleys fighting off lions and bears. David knew his valley as a as a young anointed soon to be king when he was being hunted down by King Saul, who wanted him dead. David understood the the valley of the shadow of death as a warrior and a leader of Israel's armies who saw death in battle, who was a brutal warrior. Many of us feel uneasy or maybe we're in fear about the future. We've gone through difficult seasons and we don't want to go through them again. We've faced pains. We fought battles that could have easily taken us out in life and we don't want to face that again. And so we many of us we play it safe. But look at David's attitude. This is so this is so awesome. Let's we need to get this today. He didn't say God you'll take me out of the valley of the shadow of death. What does it say? He says, "Even though, even though I walk through it, I won't fear because you're with me." Knowing that the shepherd is with us is what keeps us from living in fear. >> None of us should be living in fear because our good shepherd is with us. This is this is this is killer. Paul had this attitude. He said in Romans 14:8, "Whether I live or die, I live for Christ. If I live, I'm gonna live with Christ. If I die, I'm going to be with Christ. YOU KNOW WHAT HE'S SAYING? I've got nothing to lose because God is with me. >> I I don't have to fear anything. Not even death scares me because I get to be with Jesus. He's with me now and he's going to be with me then. So, why not step out? Why not risk it? Why not start sharing the gospel with people in your life? Well, I don't want to mess up that relationship. You want them to go to hell. life and death is is in the balance here. [clears throat] >> Your comfort or or their salvation, >> man. How do you how do you scare someone with that mentality? >> Who is so fearless just knowing, "Yeah, God's with me. God's with me." Number two, our shepherd protects and directs us. Look what Psalm 23 says. says, "Your rod and your staff comfort me." [clears throat] And and no sheep likes to be disciplined. Does anybody here like to be disciplined? No. So when a pastor brings correction or when God brings correction, church people can feel some type of way. >> But it says that it says here in scripture, it says the rod is comforting. What? That doesn't make any sense. But it says in Proverbs 3:11, "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke because the Lord because the Lord disciplines those he loves." If you're being disciplined, guess what? It's because he loves you, >> right? We we we we say it often, you know, you you spare the rod and you spoil the child. The scripture actually says that if you spare the rod, you hate your child. And so, we have to walk and be disciplined. We have to understand that we might have blind spots and the Holy Spirit comes and speaks and says, "Hey, there's something you got to change. Something is off right now and we need to address it. There may be people in your life." Has anyone ever been in an intervention before? You probably shouldn't raise your hand. No, no, no. But it's like every everyone coming together and coming around you and saying, "Hey, something needs to change. Something needs to happen." And it's but it's that discipline that takes place because you're loved. It's supposed to bring us close to the shepherd again, the shepherd's crook here. This is the the crook, the curve at the top. This is this is the staff part. Okay. And like I said earlier, I tripped my son with this. He was running and I just went. It was awesome. He's okay. All right. He's fine. Just a little Dane Bramage. Okay. >> Thank you. Yeah. I totally stole that from somebody else. Okay. But this is I'm not going to do this to you, Randy, but this is I'm not going to do it. But you're close enough that I could if I wanted to. But this is for hooking onto the neck of the sheep to help pull them where they need to go. Hey, you're going to the wrong direction. Come here. Like, quit running away. Come here. Let and and this is kind of wild and and this is going to be weird on video, but like one of the ways I've actually watched a video of of a of a shepherd doing this, the sheep was just going wild and finally he just went right under it and pulled it straight up to where he couldn't move anymore and just waited until he stopped struggling. He didn't like black out or pass out or anything weird like that, but he's just like, "Hey, I need you to know that this is to guide you. I need you to know that I've got you here. You're not going anywhere, so follow my lead. Now, the fun part is the the rod I call I think it's the fun part because it's kind of like a baseball bat. It's for hitting sheep on the butt. The sheep that have been sitting down and they don't want to go anywhere, right? The sheep that are more comfortable just sitting in the space that they've been even though God has a green pasture for them somewhere else. I'm tired of traveling. I'm tired of having to go this way and go that way and all. I've got really good plans for you. Go. Where you are right now, it's not where I've called you. This comfort that you're enjoying right now, it's they're going to fade. It's not going to last. Move. Right? But here's the thing. If the shepherd didn't care about the sheep, he would have no use for this. Right. >> Do whatever you want, sheep. Go die. If God didn't love you or if I didn't care, you would never be challenged. Here's what's fun for you. Okay? I can't make you do anything. All God's called me to do is to continue to put out an invitation for us to make a decision that we're going to change. Because disciplehip only happens when we make a decision. I can't I I can't disciple you if you're not going to decide to follow Jesus. >> Unless we're willing to submit to the shepherd. Again, the rod end is the is the blunt end to move the sheep, but it's also to fight off the wolves. That's part of my job, too. I'm going to tell this story and and dad can correct me later, but this is one of my favorite things. Like you, some of you, you have you have amazing fathers, but for me, I have a story in my mind that I love to remember about my dad just being the baddest dude ever. Okay, this is the story. I love you so much. This is going to be great. All right, here we go. Some of you may remember this, but years ago, there was a guy with his little family that that came to church and he started going around giving prophetic words to people without telling the pastor of the church that he was doing this. Some of you may remember this. He started going around and he's like, "Oh, I'm just I'm just here to love. I'm here to help." And he cleaned the church and did all this different stuff and it was it was great. It was cool. But I remember one day I I I was was in this sanctuary and he and he came to me and he said, "Hey, I just want you to know that that girl that you're falling in love with who is now my wife. She's going to ruin your life. The Lord told me that he's going to ruin your life or she's going to ruin your life." Which she did. She ruined my life in a really good way. We just celebrated 11 years on on Friday. Like, come on. It's great. So, he was right about that. But in that moment, it just brought fear into my heart. I was discouraged. I
