Welcome. I'd like to read a few verses
from God's Word in John chapter 17, if you'd like to turn there
with me in your Bibles, John 17. We've been asking the Lord to
meet with us this weekend, and I believe we have some Some great
encouragement here in the prayer that our Lord prayed on behalf
of his church in John chapter 17 verse one. These words spake
Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the
hours come glorify thy son that thy son also may glorify thee
as thou has given him power over all flesh. that he should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life
eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. Let's stand together and if you'll
look and find your spiral hymnal and turn with us to number 21,
Tom's gonna come and lead us, number 21. of the Father and the Son and
the Spirit, three in one. In eternal ages past, made a
covenant sure and fast, God my Father chose His own in the person
of His Son, and ordained that I should be ? One with Him eternally
? God the Son agreed to come ? In the flesh to bring me home
? He would keep God's holy law ? And retrieve me from the fall
Christ in love so willingly stood as my great surety. For my price he offered blood
to appease the wrath of God. ? God the spirit heavenly dove
? ? Promised to come down in love ? ? Bringing life and peace
and praise ? ? To the chosen purchased race ? ? He seeks the
lost, heals the lame ? ? And he brings us to the Lamb ? By
his mighty sovereign call ? God's elect are gathered all ? This
poor sinner is secure ? For God's covenant will endure ? It is
sealed by God's own word ? By his spirit and his blood ? Blessed
holy covenant God ? I am yours by ties of blood Ties of grace
and ties of love hold me to my God above. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to Exodus
chapter 33, Exodus 33. I want to welcome our guests,
those that have traveled from far to be here. We're very thankful
and thankful that the Lord has brought us together. Exodus chapter 33, we'll begin
reading in verse 13. Now, therefore, I pray thee,
Moses is praying for God to show forth his glory. That's our hope
this weekend, that the Lord would reveal his glory. If I have found
grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee,
that I may find grace in thy sight and consider that this
nation is thy people. And the Lord said to Moses, my
presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, if thy
presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein
shall it be known, here that I and thy people have found grace
in my sight? Is it not in that thou goest
with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the
people that are upon the face of the earth. And the Lord said
unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for
thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And
Moses said to the Lord, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And the Lord said to Moses in
verse 19, I will make all my goodness pass before thee. I
will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee and will be
gracious to thee. I will be gracious to whom I will
be gracious and will have mercy on whom I shall have mercy. Let's pray together. Our merciful heavenly Father,
thank you for putting it in our hearts to see thy glory. Thank you, Lord, for the promises
of your word to meet with us and to reveal your glory. Lord, how hopeful we are and
how blessed we are to have the promise of thy word, to have
the presence of thy spirit, to have men that you've gifted to
preach Christ. And Lord, we know that if we're
to see thy glory, it will be in the face of thy dear son,
our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. We ask that he would be lifted
up And as he's lifted up, Lord, that our hearts will be drawn
to him. Lord, give us ears to hear. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Tom is gonna come and have a
special before Sean. Sean Reynolds pastors church
in Lakeland, Florida, just down the road from here. And he's
been very gracious to come and preach for us. I don't see him
right off, but I know he's here. I saw him earlier. So Sean, you
come when Tom is finished, OK? Thank you, brother. Tom. Your word, O God, I love to read,
or hear the Bible read to me. Earth's greatest privilege, indeed,
to have the book declared to me. The word is like a fire to
melt My heart so cold and make me groan Its power is like a
hammer felt And breaks this stubborn heart of stone God speaks again,
his word reveals the substitute for sinners slain. Forgiveness by his blood it tells,
a balm to heal my heart's great pain. ? Spirit of God, my teacher
be ? ? Give eyes of faith always to see ? ? The Word's great truth
and mystery ? ? In every line show Christ to me ? Dear Lord,
my thanks I give to you for your inspired and holy word. My reverence and allegiance to
it claims the mighty word of God. So on. I was thinking and praying when
Greg asked me to preach a while back. I've been in much prayer
ever since and thinking about all the hard work and all the
labor and love that goes into making one of these conferences. And all the logistics and all
the plans, all the hopes that we have. And then we all get
here. You know, it all comes to this
time. And the Lord is really impressing upon me the one thing
we all need. We needed it the same time we
were making the plans. We needed it the time leading
up to now, and we need him, the faithful shepherd. As we come to worship, we have
many things upon our minds. We have many things in our families,
many things going on in the world. We need the faithful shepherd.
I'd like to begin tonight in John 10. I want to tell you a
few things about my faithful shepherd, your faithful shepherd,
things I pray that you know, things I hope he has proven to
you. I'd like to begin in verse four. And of course, these are the
words of Red, in red, so we know that the Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ said them. And I pray that he says them
to your soul tonight. And when he puteth forth his
own sheep, they're his. He bought them, he paid for them
with the price of his life and his blood. When he puts us forth
in this world, or wherever it is we go, he goes before them. The faithful shepherd always
goes before his sheep. There is nowhere that we will
tread, there's no situation that we will go in, that our Lord
has not went before us first. That's how faithful the shepherd
is. I sometimes chuckle when I'm going through something or
something is on the horizon for me and most of the people around
me will always try to comfort me with the fact they went through
it. Or something that they've seen
or learned from someone else going through it. That doesn't
give me much comfort. But when the Lord, my Savior
says to me, I've been there. And he's proved it here in the
word. That's where my rest is. To know that my Lord and Savior
has always gone before me. You know, I've said it many times. I've said it to the little flock
the Lord's given me over in Lakeland. I am not a public speaker. But
the Lord goes before me. And I thank God that he does.
He goes before them and the sheep follow him. because of him, because
of the path that he treads for us, because he is the faithful
shepherd, we will follow him in that path. We will not deviate
from that path because he is the faithful shepherd. He goes
to that path for us first, for they know his voice. The next
verse tells us that a stranger they will not follow. That's
very comforting to me. My life is filled with strangers.
There's a lot of people out there that say a lot of things that
make a lot of sense to me logically. But if I follow them, I get in
trouble. When the Lord, when I hear His voice, that still
small voice, that voice that always speaks according to His
word, that's where my peace and comfort is. That's my faithful
shepherd. If you go over here to verse
11, He says, I am the good shepherd. He's the good shepherd. The Bible
says he's the chief shepherd. He's the great shepherd. He is
the shepherd. That's what I said tonight. We
don't need a shepherd, we need the shepherd. And he's faithful
to go before us. In this hour, in this hour and
the hour to come, we need him to give us ears to hear. We need
him to take our minds and our hearts away from the things of
this world, away from ourselves. Because left to ourselves, that's
what we are, a self. We need him every hour. I hope
he's proved that to you. He is the good shepherd, and
the good shepherd, he gives his life for the sheep. You know,
I always, in my younger days, as I read that verse, I thought
that just meant him dying on the cross for me. No, dear ones,
he has given his life. That's the only way we have life.
He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the life in the
believer. It's His life infused in us. That's how we live. We live by
the faith of the Son of God. It's His faith. We love because
of the love of the Son of God. We have peace in our souls because
He is the Prince of Peace. We owe everything to Him. He
is our life. That's what he says. He says,
I give my life for the sheep. And then in 14, he says, once
again, I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep. That's that
vital union. We are in Christ. He knows us
by name. He knows, I am the good shepherd
and know my sheep and am known of mine. That's that personal
relationship. We're about to turn to Psalm
23. And you know how that starts. It's personal. The Lord is my
shepherd. I hope and pray for you tonight
that that's what he ministers to you. That's my Lord. He is
preaching my Lord, the faithful one. I am the good shepherd and
I know, know my sheep, and am known of mine. And look at 16.
He says, other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, them
also I must bring. You know, I know that that is
indicative of how the Lord finds his sheep. He knows where they're
at. He knows where to send the gospel to, whether it's over
the waves of sermon audio, whether he quickens someone to walk into
these halls that have never heard the gospel. He knows where they
are. He knows how to get them. But
dear ones, He brings us away from self. He brings us away
from the chaos that's in this world. This dry and thirsty land
that we live in. We're dependent. Sometimes when
I say that to people, they get very, very defensive. We be Abraham's
children. Dear ones, to me, that's music
to my ears. I am dependent. And I'm thankful
that I'm dependent. Because there's nothing he has
proved to me that my dependency also comes from him. that he
brought me to himself. Them also I must bring, and they
shall, those shalls, I love when Christ says them, because he
says them to my soul, and when he says them to my soul, I know
he's true. He is the truth, and he's proved
that to me. He's proved these scriptures
to me. And there shall be one fold and one shepherd. That's
the faithfulness of our Lord to always gather his, to hear
his word, to hear his voice. Now, with that backdrop, if you
will, turn with me to Psalm 23. Psalm 23, the Lord has used very
mightily in my life. When I have to go to the doctor,
I get very nervous. My blood pressure is always very
high. Anytime my blood pressure's being
taken, it's high. What does the Lord impress upon
me? Psalm 23. That's how he does it. He makes me to lie down. Because
see, that's what I love about Psalm 23. It's so full of dependency. It's
so full of his work. It's so full of what he's done.
And I can identify with that. When he empties me, I know that
I need to be filled. He's the filler. I realize that
this is a very well-known passage. I realize that it's spoken mostly
at funerals or on the bulletins in funerals and people know it
or people read it or even can recite it. But the first thing
I must say about Psalm 23, and I don't want you to laugh at
me or mock me when I say it, But I want to tell you something
very important about Psalm 23, and that is that it comes after
Psalm 22. I know you're sitting there thinking,
duh, it's true. But we, as the children of God,
must be brought to see the Psalm of the cross. We must be brought
to see what Christ has done for us. We can't know the shepherd
until we know how he bought you, how he bought us. and how we
became sheep. That's what Psalm 22 has in it.
It depicts the sufferings of Christ on the cross. Everything
in the full description of what took place at Calvary is there
in Psalm 22. That's how the Lord brings us
to Psalm 23. He must purchase his sheep before
he can say, I am their shepherd. And he did. He died in our place. And just saying that makes me
tremble. It makes me thankful. It does. But it makes me tremble. Because
I know I deserve to be there. He didn't. I am thankful that
he died in my place. As we come now to Psalm 23, we
see those five words. The first five words that you
could preach hours about. Talk hours about the Lord and
take every word. The Lord, the one true Lord,
the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, He is my shepherd. That little word, my, is that
ownership. He's my shepherd. He's proven
that to me. He owns me. He has proven to
me that when He went to the cross, I died with Him. He took me with
Him. When He rose from the grave,
He brought me with Him. He's done it all. The Lord is
my shepherd. We must be convinced of that.
You don't see, you don't hear any wavering in the psalmist. David, he's not saying, he is
a convinced child of God. The Lord is my shepherd. No man
can take that from me. You know, the church in Song
of Solomon 2.16 said, my beloved is mine and I am his. I also pray that for you in this
hour. The Lord is saying that to you right now. He is my shepherd. He is my beloved. And because he is my shepherd,
those words that come after that, because he is my all in all,
because he has done all things well, because he is my Joseph
that opens the storehouses to me, that everything is stored
in the son of God, that in him all things consist, because he
is my salvation, because he, I shall not want, I shall have
no lack, I shall have no worry about tomorrow, I shall have
plenty to feed upon, I shall have plenty fatness I will not
want for anything good because if he wasn't my shepherd I would
be in complete poverty I would be in poverty of sin I would
constantly be in poverty of fear and I would always be in poverty
of darkness but when the Lord the Shepherd shines his face
upon me and proves and shows me that he is the light That
light radiates in my heart and my mind and my soul to praise
God for sending His Son. To praise God that in eternity
there was a counsel and there was a plan of salvation. Sometimes
I sit and I just ponder and I think about that plan. Because my mind
is so fixed, it's so finite, I can't get to things. The immenseness
of God and His foreknowledge. And I often wonder why the Lord
would save ones like me. Because I know what goes on in
here and in here. And it's not pretty. And the Lord keeps impressing
upon me, Sean, it's not about you. See, I had to hear that
before I came up here tonight. I was sitting back there and
my knees were knocking. And as I said, I'm not much of a public
speaker. But then when I heard Brother Greg pray and reading
of the word, the Lord just flooded my soul. You'll be okay. Just speak about the one thing
needful. And he's that one thing needful. I have no lack in him. I can honestly tell you I have
nothing that I, you know, Paul asked this question in Romans
8, 32. He said, he that spared not his
own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? All things. And maybe some of you are in
the room thinking tonight, well, there's some things that I want
that I don't have. Well, I know this faithful shepherd,
and if you don't have them, it's because he doesn't believe you
need them. He's faithful. He always gives his people of
himself. We banquet upon him. Oh, yes,
the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not lack, I shall not
want. I often think of, too, what Paul
wrote in 1 Corinthians 1.30. but of Him are you in Christ
Jesus. That's the only way. It wasn't
no decision I made. It wasn't because of something
I did. It's because of Him I'm in Christ
Jesus. It's by His sovereign grace that
I've been put into Christ. Of Him are you in Christ Jesus
who of God is made unto us wisdom. Wisdom. All wisdom and knowledge,
everything is in Christ. He is my wisdom. I don't need
the world's wisdom. That's foolishness. He proves
to me that's foolishness to me. He has made unto me wisdom and
righteousness and holiness and sanctification and salvation
and redemption. And I ask you, what else do you
need? I come away from that verse saying,
I don't want. What else could I put in there?
My Lord has done all things for me. How can I even possibly look
elsewhere? But I am a dumb sheep. And I
am a dirty sheep. And it's because I wallow in
places I shouldn't be. I need this faithful shepherd.
And you'll hear a little bit later of how he'll bring me back
into the fold. because I do go wandering. Verse two is where we really
start to see our shepherd in action. As I said, I love this
psalm so much because it's just all of him. He's constantly working
through it. And I'm constantly at rest because
you don't see anything I'm doing. I'm just receiving. This is my
Lord performing all things for me. As David said, I cried unto
the Lord who performed all things for me. He makes me to lie down
in green pastures. And if you know anything, if
the Lord has taught you anything about yourself, you know that
that's an understatement. He makes me. I am a wandering
sheep. I need to be made to rest in
His green pastures, the green pastures of His finished work,
the green pastures of His Word, I need to be made to lay down
there. That's where I banquet, when
I see Him. And He makes me, that's the faithfulness
of my shepherd. He makes me, I'm willing in the
day of His power. Always in the day of His power. There's so much to eat here,
There's so much, this is where peace is. The Lord said in Matthew
11, 28, he said, come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. See, that's where our rest is.
He makes us to lie down in what he's finished for us. He makes
us to lie down in this word. As I say that about verse one,
I shall not lack You can't read these words and the Holy Ghost
apply them to you and you walk out of here needing anything.
That's how faithful he is. And that's how loving he is.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures and then he leads me
once again beside the still waters. In the word of God, trials are
many times pictured as deep waters, tumultuous waters, troubled waters. I think of the time the disciples
were at sea and the wind was blowing and the storm was going
and there's Jesus asleep in the boat. And I identify with them
when they cried out to the Lord and they said, Lord, don't you
care if we perish? I identify with that. Lord, don't
you care that I'm struggling? Martha said the same thing, you
know. Do you not care, Lord? You know, I'm cumbered about
all these things. Do you not care? Do you not care, Lord? And what did the Lord tell her?
Well, Mary's chosen the one thing needful. I need the one thing
needful. And here's the good news. He
makes me to lie down in the one thing needful. He leads me beside
the still waters. They're still now because of
Him. What did He say to those? What
did He say to the disciples? Peace, be still. That's it. That's what He says to our soul
and that's why I said back there, a bundle of nerves. I know I
was making my wife nervous. She's twice as nervous as I am
because I'm shaking over there. But He's the same faithful shepherd
to her. And I'm thankful. Yes. We see here he leads me beside
the still waters, which means we're being led, which means
we're walking. It's an active life. The child
of God has. That's what faith is. It's active. It's seeking Christ. It's desiring
the Lord. It's listening to the sound of
his voice and being enabled to follow him. That's the goodness
of the shepherd. He leads us through the trial,
then he leads us by the still waters, and then as he's calming
us, he brings us to remember that familiar text that I'm sure
most of us in here can probably quote, and that's Romans 8, 28. And we know, we know it because
he's proved it to us. We know it because he's written
it upon our hearts. It's the only way we've known
it is because he's revealed it to us. And we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God. And we only love
him because he loved us first. To them who are the called according
to his purpose. It's by his sovereign grace we're
called. He's working all things, He's
working all things for our good. I think of, I was disappointed
tonight because I didn't get to see my sister, Tricia, who's
not here. And then when I heard the news
of what happened to her, I thought, that's what the Lord quickened
to me. He's so much wiser than I am. But He's ministering to
her right now, because she too is a sheep. She doesn't have
to be in here. It's a faithful shepherd. That's
not it. I'm telling you, there's even
more. We go on, he restoreth my soul. I love that, restoreth. It's ongoing. I realize that
he restores my soul to life, for I'm dead in Adam. I understand
that, and the Lord has quickened me to life. I know he's quickened
you to life. I know that we were lost and
now we're found. But as I said, this is an ongoing
daily thing. He restores us daily. In fact,
he said, no man comes to the Father but by me. No man cometh
to the Father but by me. Well, I want to come to the Father.
I need to come to the Father every day. The Lord's impressed
upon me I need to be at the throne of grace to find help in time
of need. I'm needy. The Lord's made me
that way. It's interesting to me that as
you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, you become ever
more needy. You don't seem to ever get enough
of the Lord or it's like Paul said, I haven't arrived yet. You know, it's true. We constantly
need him. From the day that the Lord said,
I will born this child into the kingdom and the new birth took
place. We need him just as much now
today as when that time took place in our life. He restoreth
the soul. And how does he restore it? With
himself. With himself. What else could
we want? He is the way, the truth, and
the life. He also leads me. He leads me in the path of righteousness
for his namesake. He leads me in the path of righteousness
because I have a righteousness of my own that I need put down. I need put to death. I need to
be led away from. I need to be led to his righteousness. I need to see that he has clothed
me with himself. And he says here that I will
lead you in the path of righteousness, that's His righteousness, for
His name's sake. As I walk in His righteousness,
as we walk in His righteousness, we denounce our own righteousness.
That's what Paul said in Philippians 3, 9. He said, and be found in
Him. I desire to be found in Christ,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law. I hope He's
proved that to you. That anything you have that you
hold on to, any merit you think that you hold on to, any works
you have that you hold on to, that it's just dead righteousness. We need His righteousness. I
want to be found in Him not having mine own righteousness which
is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ. The righteousness which is of
God by faith. That's the righteousness I need.
The righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is faithful
to clothe us in it. And what a difference it makes
when we see things through faith as it just said. As Paul just
said, which is of God by faith. When by faith we see His righteousness. He reveals what our righteousness
looks like, and it is filthy rags. Oh, Lord, put that away
from us. Mortify us. He restores my soul. He leads
me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake, for His
glory. Then we come to something very
interesting, which mostly everyone that reads this applies it to
the day of death. And I understand it is true.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I know that at that moment I
won't fear death because he promises here that he is with me. I won't
fear no evil because he is with me. But David says, though I walk,
So that's an ongoing walk. And that valley of death is something
that we live in every day. Paul said, I was in death soft. Paul said, we have the sentence
of death in ourselves. And if you know what that means,
you'll shake your head, yes, I know exactly the sentence of
death is in me. Everything in self is death. Everything in this fallen world
is death. Everything outside of Christ
is death. And he tells us here, though
I walk, that our journey takes us through my life, my walk,
it's always in the valley of the shadow of death. We will
always walk here in the shadow. But why is it a shadow? This
is the blessedness of the gospel because it's a shadow because
he's removed the substance of death. You know, Hebrews 2 tells
us something very interesting. It tells us that all our lives,
We're subject to the fear of death. Subject to it. That means somewhere it's always
lurking in there. That's that specter. It's a fear
to us. The Lord tells us here that he
has removed the substance of death. He's removed the sting
of death. He did that when he came up out
of the grave. Up from the grave he arose. And
we rose with him. And that guarantees we will never
die. Believe us now this. Oh, we walked through the valley
of the shallow of death. But because of him, we won't
fear it. I have a dear sister that I've
never met in this life. I believe she lives in Tennessee.
My wife corresponds with her. Her name's Carla, Henson, Cody's
mom, who's suffering, who's been told she has terminal cancer.
And she corresponds with my wife almost daily. And the thing she
shares with me, to see the Lord's presence in her, not fearing
death, it's like we have to see the
proof because of that unbelief that's in us. We read these scriptures,
but then when we see it, when we see the Lord doing it, isn't
that what the disciples said? Then the disciples were glad
when they saw the Lord. When I see the Lord and my brethren,
when I see the Lord working as he's doing in her life, as he's
giving her joy. The world says she just has a
few days left. No complaining. And I complain
about things in my day. No, the Lord has taken her through
the valley of the shadow of death. And what she shares with us,
he has been everything to her. And she doesn't fear because
he's with her. He that believeth on me shall
never die. I don't need to be afraid. And
I don't need to fear evil. That's the evil within or the
evil without. Because he's with me. His presence
is with me. You know, I often think about
the child of God and the warring natures that we have. I do. I spend a lot of time thinking
about those warring natures. And it seems to me so much that
I spend so much time in the wrong nature. And I hate it. He's taught me to hate it. But
when I see a text like this, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me. That evilness that's within me,
because Christ is here, the hope of glory, I know He has won the
victory. I know that that will have no
hold on me. I know that when He calls me
to eternal life, to be with Him, That's not coming with me. And
that, my dear ones, makes me look forward to that day. I'm comforted. And he tells us,
he says, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. The rod is a
scepter. This is our king. He holds out
the scepter that we may approach unto him. The rod and the staff,
the staff is what we lean upon. We lean upon our Lord. But let's not forget that He
does chasten those whom He loves. And at the end of that staff,
there's a crook. And I thank God for that crook.
I thank God for that hook because when I start to wander, prone
to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the Lord I love. He takes that crook in that staff
and he brings me back into the way. He brings me back into the
truth and he brings me back into the life because he's the faithful
shepherd. I can't do that. I'm a wandering
dumb sheep, totally, totally dependent upon this Lord of these
scriptures. And I confess to you today, I'm
not ashamed of that. I'm thankful that he has made
me that way. Thou preparedest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. We have enemies within and we
have enemies without. The Lord told us, he said, they
hated me long before they hated you. We understand that. That in this life, as we walk
and we walk in his way, there will be people that don't like
us, that do hate us. But as I said, our enemies lie
within too. We all, that's one thing, when
the Lord impressed that upon me, it was, That and the fact
that I was such a self-righteous person. And when I say was, I
believe the Lord has done a great work there. I still have my self-righteousness. But I used to look and be critical
of people. They struggle, my brethren, everyone
in this room that is in Christ suffers and struggles with the
same enemies I do. The world, the wicked one, The
flesh, sin, how can they be critical of one another? Brethren, love
one another. In all of that, with all of those
enemies around, and with all of the enemies in and without,
in the midst of those enemies, He prepares a table. He brought
me to the banqueting table. Because His banner over me is
love. My Jehovah Nissi. My banner. My Lord. He brings me to that
table. In the midst of my enemies, I
banquet upon Christ. He feeds me in the midst of my
enemies. And that's the only way we can
overcome them. In our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thou preparedst a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil. Always when I read that oil,
I'm so thankful of the Holy Spirit, because He takes the things of
Christ and He reveals them to me. And I love that, the way
the psalmist said it, He anoints my head. My head's where I got
a big problem. I got a big problem in my heart,
but I got a big problem in my head. Some of the thoughts that
come in there, I need the spirit. I need to be anointed because
the Holy Spirit points me to Christ. The Holy Spirit tells
me I'm forgiven. The Holy Spirit leads me to the
cross. He leads me to the still waters. He leads me to this shepherd. Thou, my Lord, anoints my head
with oil, and because of that, my cup runs over. He reveals
to me His substitution. He reveals to me His satisfaction
in satisfying the justice of His Father that I could never
do. He reveals to me His justification that He has pronounced me not
guilty in Him, that I will stand in Him and the Father sees the
righteousness of His Son clothed upon me. I'm not guilty, even though I
feel like I am. Aren't you happy and glad that
your feelings and how you see yourself is not how the Lord
sees you? My cup runs over. My cup runs
over with His love, with His peace and His mercies. Those
mercies that are new each day. Spent the early part of this
day at the hospital. My dad's 81 years old and the
first time in his life he went to have surgery today. The Lord
was very merciful to me. Brought him through it, you know,
and was very a merciful shepherd to me. My wife and I talk about
it every morning. We start the day with a walk
and conversing in the scriptures together. And we're both desirous
to see what the Lord's mercies are every day, because they're
new. But I'll tell you one thing. They all come from Christ. They
all lead to Christ. And they all are Christ. He's
all we need. Surely, you know why he can say
surely? Because of his surety. We have
a surety that we're in the Lord Jesus Christ. And surely, those
two sheepdogs that come after the sheep to nip at our heels,
his goodness and his mercy. His goodness and his mercy. Yeah, we don't need to hear the
law beating down on us. It's the goodness of God that
leads us to repentance. We don't need man telling us
what we have to do and must do. Our gentle, loving, faithful
shepherd comes with goodness and mercy. And they're assured
because of our surety. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me, says shall again, all the days of my life. They
will follow and they have followed me all my days. And by his grace,
I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The house of
the Lord is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's the oneness
I need to experience. That's the oneness we all need
tonight. We need the faithful shepherd to show us that we're
in that number. If you just turn with me a couple
pages, I'll leave you tonight with these words that David said.
In Psalm 27, in verse four. One thing have I desired of the
Lord. To be brought there now, that's
brought away from self, that's brought away from this wicked
world, that's brought away from all the unbelief that easily
besets us. Just seeing Him, setting us in
that place to see Him, that's when we desire. That one
thing to be desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life
to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.
And I'll leave you with this question. Isn't he beautiful? May the Lord be pleased to reveal
to you and me this great and faithful shepherd. Let's stand together, we'll sing
hymn 212 in the hardbacked hymnals, number 212, and then Adam Cherin's
gonna bring special music.