FBCWest 628 | He Makes and Leads Me
Recorded On: 10/13/2024
Bulletin
Hymn # 403 “What a Friend”
SCRIPTURE READING – John 15:12 - 17
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“This Is Amazing Grace”
“Your Promises”
“Egypt”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“He Makes and Leads Me”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“How Great Is Your Love”
"Look to the Son”
Sermon Notes
Psalm 23:2a The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures
Psalm 79:13 We are the sheep of His pasture
Ezekiel 34:14 & 15 God will feed His people and give them rest
Matthew 11:28 & 29 Come to Jesus and find rest
Psalm 23:2b The Lord leads beside quite waters
John 4:10 Jesus gives living waters
John 7:37 – 39 Thirsty – come to Jesus and from your inner most will flow rivers of living water
Revelation 7:17 The Lamb will guide us to springs of the water of life
Psalm 46:1 – 9 For with God is the fountains of life
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
We are taking a serious look at Psalm 23. The first verse the psalmist talked about that the Lord is His shepherd and hopefully He is our shepherd as well. But on the next three verses he's going to talk about the benefits of the Lord being His shepherd. We're going to take a look at the first verse of those three verses to see the provision that God has given us
And so if you have your Bibles and you should turn to Psalm 23, we're going to take a look at verse 2.
I picked this Psalm to take a look at, as I said last time,
that this Psalm is usually done during a funeral or a memorial service. And there's so much more about what this Psalm does and guarantees and talks about God's provision and protection that we tend to not pay attention to the rest.
And so I want us to pay attention to the rest. But similar to when Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, he told them that he wanted to know him, Jesus,
and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. Now, it's interesting, Paul was an apostle. Paul was writing the various churches. Paul was ministering to various churches. But he wanted to know God more. He wanted to understand the power of that resurrection more. And he wanted to, even though he experienced some fellowship of sufferings, he wanted to know it more. So my hope for you is that, as the first verse said, that the Lord is my shepherd. My hope and prayer for you is that the Lord is your shepherd or he will become your shepherd. So we're studying this so that we see that. So as the first verse says, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Now he's going to take some verses and talk about the benefits, the provisions and the protections that following this shepherd gives us. And so the first verse in verse two, I'm going to break it up. It says, he makes me lie down in green pastures. Notice, first it says, he makes me. He doesn't give me the opportunity. He makes me because he understands a couple of things about his sheep, you and I.
We tend to follow other sheep.
And so when other sheep start moving around, we have a tendency to move around.
So he tells them to, tells us that he makes us lie down in green pastures.
Now, you probably already offended if you're not a believer that God calls a sheep. That's a compliment.
And so I don't want to, but I'm going to give another analogy.
I'm not calling you this. I'm just wanting you to understand certain things.
My my son throughout the years has had a number of laboratory labs.
They love to go get things.
I have thrown them like a tennis ball.
They'll run as hard as they can, grab it, come back, drop it, and they can hardly wait for me to throw it again.
And I get tired throwing the ball more than they get tired putting it back and forth.
That's what they do. Now, my son there, master, if you will, who trained them would throw things like a ball, but make them stay and would not let them go until he said release or something that allows them to go. But they say, even though every fiber in their being wants to go get that tennis ball or whatever it was, because they're listening to their master, they stay. They don't want to, but they stay. In the same way, God has sent you need to lay down in this pasture, even though every fiber of your being wants to go, because we want to move around. We want to see if the grass is greener on the other side, even though he's having us lay down in green pastures.
There's a hymn that talks about may your grace Lord like a fetter bind my wandering heart to you because I'm prone to leave the God I love. That's who we are. Even we Christians, we tend to want to see what's out there, what's better and whatever. And so he makes us to lie down in green pastures, which is number one that talks about the green pastures means that it's enough that satisfies the need for food and whatever. It's green, it's pastures. You lay down because you're at safety, you're at rest.
Because if you're laying down and a wolf or a lion comes, you got to get up and then run and sheep tend to believe in safety and numbers. They figure the statistics is much less them dying if they're around a whole bunch of other sheep because you'll get the other sheep. But he's making the lambs lay down. So again, we are to rest in his provision and in his security. So he makes me to lie down in green pastures. But there's another reason that he makes us to lie down in green pastures, not only because he knows that we have this tendency to wander off, that we have this tendency to follow others in Psalms 73. It tells us this.
So we are the people of your pasture.
And we will give thanks to you forever, to all generations we will tell of your praise. You see, he has placed us and told us to lay down in green pastures because we are the people and sheep of his pasture. If we leave this pasture, we're going off God's pasture to another place. So that's why Jesus is saying you need to stay, you need to find rest in God's pasture.
Furthermore in Ezekiel, it tells us, "I will feed them in a good pasture and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There will be, they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pastures on the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock and I will lead them to rest," declares the Lord God. Ezekiel is reminding us that it is God who leads us to the green pastures. It is God who gives us that green pasture. It is God who provides for us.
That is why it is the Lord that is my shepherd because he is the one that leads me. He's the one that makes me lie down. He is the one who is providing me the benefit of his pasture. And I am called his people, his sheep.
We live in a culture that loves to group people.
If you're in this group or that group or this thing or that thing, the only group that I'm glad to be a part of is a family of God, to be called his child, to be chosen by him, to reap the benefits of that relationship.
I will feed my flock and I will lead them to rest.
Jesus tells us in Matthew, "Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul." Not only will we find rest for our physical being because we can trust them, but we find rest for our souls. There's no longer this panic of what happens when I meet God because I have rest in my soul because he has been my shepherd.
The second part of this verse is, "He leads me besides quiet water." He leads me beside still water.
Well, water is an essential part of any being, whether you're an animal or a person, that you can live longer without food than you can without water. We are needy to water. So he leads us besides quiet waters or still waters. Well, why does that matter? Well, for sheep it matters because sheep are reluctant to drink from a flowing river.
Why?
But if you think about it, you might understand because they have a bunch of wool.
And if they fall into a rushing river, they will probably drown because the wool will become so heavy that they can't manage and they will drown. So they would, even though you would say, "Well, it's more safe to drink from water that is flowing than water that is still," but a sheep goes, "I don't want to take the chance."
So it's quiet waters, it's still waters. And God is saying, "I'm leaving you where you can be safe, that you don't have to worry about it, that I'm going to drink my fill in safety and security because He has led me."
First He's made me lie down, but then He leads me to these quiet waters.
We are told what Jesus says in John chapter 4 when He meets the woman at the well and asks to get a drink.
And she responds, and then He responds, "If you knew who is speaking to you, you would ask Him for water." And so this is what Jesus says. And Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God and who is it who says to you, "Give me a drink," you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water." You see, Jesus doesn't give us water that causes us to survive for a day or two. He gives us living water, water that gives us life, water that continues life, water that is eternal in its… Jesus also said this, "Now on the last day of the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
He who believes in me, as the Scriptures said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water."
Because this He spoke of the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Jesus is saying, "I am going to give you the Spirit and by this innermost living water will flow from you."
It's amazing.
What God does is He causes us to have living waters.
Not living waters that have to go and find, but living waters that spring out from us.
Revelation.
I'm going to quote the end of the book.
"The Lamb of God is in the center of the throne and He will be their shepherd.
We will always have need of Jesus being our shepherd."
He isn't our shepherd today and then when we go to heaven, He stops being our shepherd.
Even in the book of Revelation, it calls Him "shepherd."
And He will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life.
And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
See, God loves us. And this love is not temporary.
This love is not because we do what is right and we don't do what is wrong. He loves us.
Now there is a song I recently heard that halfway through it I changed the channel because the Christian song talked about, "God loves me so much just the way I am." Well, yes, God loves me so much just the way I am, but He's not leaving me here.
He's making to me more like Jesus.
But this song seems that no matter what I did, that it was fine for me to just be the sinner of all who's been. No, no. He has called us to be sanctified so that we might be glorified.
He's bringing us this life to change us from what we were to what He will make us to be.
He will guide them. He leads us to living.
Isn't it amazing?
David, some thousands of years ago, wrote about the Lord being His shepherd, making Him lie down in green pastures. And the Scripture is talking about the script that the pastors, that we are the people in sheep of God in His pasture, and that Jesus in Revelation leads us to the springs of water of life. And David wrote that He leads me to quiet waters.
For those of you who have read the Bible once, you've missed so much because there's richness here.
And of the 66 books of the Bible, there are numerous authors, but in essence, there's one author, God.
But all those people who wrote the Scriptures before, God takes and puts a scarlet thread through them all, saying from Genesis to Revelations, "Here's my son. Listen to him. Let him be your shepherd."
The final is in Psalms 46, 1 through 9.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble.
Because He is our shepherd, He protects us so that we can find rest and safety in that protection.
As much as I may continue to want to protect my family, I can't be 24-7 around them. And even if I could, getting older and weaker and whatever, and I might be able to delay harm if I were there, but I may not be able to prevent harm. But my father protects us 24-7.
He has the power and the presence and the authority to do so. So He is a very present help and trouble.
For we will not fear, though the earth would change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.
Here in Southern California, that's always a possibility.
For decades, we've been talking about that Arizona is going to be oceanfront property.
But those of us who have lived here for a while are not that concerned because we've lived through earthquakes.
So even spiritually, even if physically Arizona becomes oceanfront property, it's okay. This ain't home.
I'm going to be with my shepherd.
Though its waters roar and fall, though the mountains quake at its well in pride, there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.
Even in Psalms, they're looking forward to our final destination, heaven, the holy dwelling place of the Most High.
As I've over the years come to realize, and I've shared this before, when I was younger, you know, one, you think you're going to live forever and all that other stuff. But when I would hear about heaven, it sounded really boring. I want to be honest, it just did. They talked about streets of gold, so what?
You know, when you get the picture of angels playing harps, I can't even play guitar, you know, cloud nine and it just sounded boring. So I honestly kind of thought, well, heaven sounds boring, but I don't want to go to hell. So the alternative was not a good place, but the good place sounded boring.
So I got to know more and more about God and how much He loves me and how much He provides for me and how much He's there always.
And then I understood, as the scripture says, I love Him because He first loved me.
And so now heaven could be Death Valley.
But if God's there, it's heaven.
It's not the place we're going.
It's the person we're going to.
That's why it bothers me when people say, well, Libby went to a better place. I don't care about the place. I've been to a lot of good places.
One of our favorite places that we went to was St. Lucia, who we would have loved to have gone back.
We've gone to Monte Carlo.
A lot of rich people live there and I used to love to watch the Formula One races there.
Pretty nice place.
Heaven isn't a nice place without God, but with God it is the place because it is the holy dwelling place of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawn.
The nations made an uproar and the kingdoms tottered. He raised his voice. The earth melted.
The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold.
Come behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolation in the earth.
He makes wars to cease to end to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear into. He burns the chariot and fire.
Our God, as we just sang, leads us out of Egypt into the Promised Land.
And nothing and no one can stop Him.
He will be victorious. And because He is victorious, we will be victorious.
So why would I not want to make Him my shepherd?
Because He loved me so much that He laid down His life for me. That He takes me and places me in a place of rest and safety and comfort with great provision of both pasture and water, but not just in the physical realm, but also in the spiritual realm.
May you say with me, "The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures and He leads me beside quiet water."