You are wondering why there’s a stage on top of our stage? It is not because I’m gonna walk up there, just if you’re really like, is he gonna, no vacation Bible school starts tomorrow. They have the big show in here, which is this cool giant production that kids will absolutely love. And so that will be there today. That will also be there next Sunday for them. And then that will come down. So, no, that is not for me. I’m gonna start with a question, a little bit of a pop quiz. Now. They do research on, on every demographic. And so if you think of life from, from childhood all the way up until you’re a hundred years old, answer this, what age group would you guess is the happiest? Like according to that research, when they’re looking at decades and they’re looking at, at this stage and this stage, what is the, the decade or or the group that you think a, that is the group that is the happiest? The answer, the highest average happiness comes when you are between the ages of 65 and 74. Shout out to all of you in the room right now that fall into that demographic.

So, so good news is if you’re in that demographic, you, this is the happiest you’re ever gonna be. Bad news also is that if you’re in this demographic and you’re not happy, then it’s only gonna get worse from here. So enjoy it while you are there. Now, now here’s the other interesting piece of that, that study, if you were to think of the lowest average happiness, it comes between the ages of 45 and 59. So if you are in that demographic, you’re like, yeah, I feel that right now. Felt that on my way in this morning. That, that, it’s interesting. There’s this u-shaped curve. So we tend to start life when we’re young as pretty happy. And then around late teenage years, that’s when your happiness starts to go down, and then it goes down, down, down, down, down, down until about 45. And that’s when it starts to make this curve and goes up.

And then it actually peaks from 65 to 74. Now, if you take a step back and just ask yourself why, okay? Why is it that at that stage of life you’re happier than the rest of your stage of life? It’s because of how you view life. Like let, let’s just use, for example, going on a family vacation. Think about how we approach vacations at different stages of life for, for your kids. If you are a child going on vacation’s, very easy. There’s no planning, there’s no prep. You just show up and you just go. And you only have really three priorities, or at least the kids in my family do. Priority number one is to have fun. Number two is hopefully there’s a hotel pool. And then number three is maybe there’s a waffle maker. And I know this because we went on a big family trip a handful of years ago when we back lived in Texas.

We went to Big Sierra Lodge. We drove from Texas to Missouri. We stayed one night in Arkansas at a hotel. Not a nice hotel, by the way, just, just a random hotel. We are only staying there because we didn’t want to drive straight. So it, it broke up the drive we get done with this vacation. We ask our kids, what was your favorite part? And their answer was the hotel in Arkansas, <laugh>. And I said, why? And they said, because it had a pool. And then one of ’em said, and there was a waffle maker. Now, probably as an adult, you don’t walk into a hotel and you’re like, Hey, do you guys, do you have a waffle maker? Is that, is that one of the things? But as a kid, there’s something about that that is just magical. And then you get a little bit older.

And so as a teenager, your priorities tend to change. Now you still wanna have fun, but all of a sudden there’s this expectation of, I want to look cool while I’m doing it. Like I wanna have fun, but not, not so much fun that I look awkward, like I care now when the people around me think. And, and then also I’m gonna pretend like I’m not having fun for my parents and for any other teenager that might be observing me. Then you become, we’re gonna skip way ahead to, to middle life, and you’re in middle life, and now you got all kinds of different priorities. You’re trying to afford a vacation because they’re so expensive. And then you’re trying to, to, to put this pressure on yourself that I want my kids to have a magical memory, like the greatest moment of their life is happening on this trip.

Then in addition to that, you’re trying not to lose a kid. That’s important. Hopefully there’s no er visit that happens. And then in addition to that, maybe, maybe I will have time to relax. I, I learned a long time ago, there’s a big difference between a family trip and a vacation. And a vacation is when there are no kids on the trip. Then, then you become 65 plus. I went on a vacation with my dad last summer, and, and he told me on that vacation, he, by the way, had a wonderful time. I did too because he paid for it. So it was great on both sides, <laugh>. And, and, and he told me on that trip, he said, I only care about two things when I go on a trip, I want to enjoy life and enjoy the company that I am with.

That when they look at the data of why is it at that 65 plus, why is that the happiest stage of life that you peel back the layers? And here’s the driving thing that earlier on in life, you care so much about other people. You care about their opinion. You care about achieving you, you care about what they think of you, and you’re trying to be a people pleaser and make everybody happy. And maybe I’ll do enough things where, where the world around me likes me. And then you get to an age where you’re done with it. You’re like, I just don’t care anymore. I don’t. That’s what, that’s what the data says. This is not Kurt. This is the data says that you get to a point in life where you become happier because you no longer are trapped by the opinions of others. The research comes from Stanford Center on Longevity. Here’s what the research talks about. It uses this term, it’s called the socioemotional selectivity theory. When people are younger and feel like

Life stretches

Endlessly

Ahead,

They tend to prioritize

Achievement,

Exploration,

Status, career

Building, and expanding options. But

As people age,

They often become more selective.

They

Invest more deeply in meaningful relationships, emotionally satisfying experiences,

Peace, gratitude,

And what truly matters. Now,

What if,

What if, instead of waiting until finally life gets

Us

To a point where we have

That perspective, what

If we didn’t have to wait until our seventies to live with

That type of freedom?

I know some of you are in your seventies,

And so, so hey, for you, that’s

Great, live in that. But, but

Here’s what

I think Psalm 23, if we can follow, if we can open our eyes to what

It’s really

Trying to tell us. Psalm 23 shows

Us the path to

Experience that

Type of a life right

Now,

That a life that is

Free from this

Striving

Free from feeling like I have to do more and more and more to

Appease or

To accomplish enough that I would

Be valued by other people. What would it look like if we really

Believed and lived inside of the truth of Psalm 23? If you’ve got

A Bible,

Psalm 23 each week, I wanna read through the whole thing and then we will unpack

Just a couple of verses. Here’s what

It says. Psalm 23, starting in verse one,

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.

Yay. 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 runs over.

Surely

Goodness and mercy

Shall

Follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house

Of the Lord forever.

There’s an Old Testament scholar named Dale

Ralph Davis,

And he takes Psalm 23 and he puts it into four different categories, looking at

The different categories of life

That we tend to walk through.

That

Psalm 23

Also reflects those

Four different categories of life.

That the first

Is the normal place that in this psalm it talks about the green pastures

Or the still waters. That’s

In the normal side of

Life. We, we all have a

Big stretch. The majority

Of our life

Is in this place called the normal place. We don’t have anything crazy going on. We’re not walking through the valley. We’re, we’re not in the presence of enemies. We’re just going through life. And today we’re gonna unpack

What does life look like,

Where, when we’re in the normal place then you also have the fearful place. Next week we will talk about that very famous phrase of walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Psalm 23 has, has some different instructions for when we are in that place. And all of us, at some point in life, we’ll walk through a valley, we will walk through a season when life just doesn’t seem right, we feel broken. It could be a health crisis, it could be a loss of a loved one. And so next week we will unpack that. In addition to that, there’s the dangerous place. David talks about being in the presence of his enemies. And then the psalm ends with the abiding place. It talks about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever. And what does it look like to live in a way that recognizes that that is the future that God has for us.

What does it look like to live like heaven here on earth? That the kingdom of heaven is at hand? What does that look like today? But with all of those, here’s what I want us to understand. Psalm 23 is not just about what the shepherd gives us. I think sometimes that’s what we think, okay, here, here are the things that the shepherd is going to give us as the sheep. But it’s also about where and how the shepherd leads us. There is this picture of God being our shepherd and we being the sheep, and we are following after the shepherd. Why? Because we trust the shepherd. And where’s the shepherd trying to take us? It tells us in Psalm 23, 2, it says, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. Now that word make in, in Hebrew, it is what that word says it is.

It’s not, it’s not forcing. But there is this intentional guiding and this intentional direction. And I, I think when I read it, I, I tend to think of maybe a parent that is making their child take a nap. Then the child doesn’t want take a nap and, and their, the parent is making them take a nap anyway. And that, that’s a piece of it. There’s a piece of it there. But there’s something bigger than that. So, so when we read that, we, we tend to think of rest. So the shepherd has taken the sheep and he’s helping the sheep to lie down and rest, and they resting with, with green pastures and still waters. But biblical rest is not just stopping. We live in a culture that loves busyness. We talk about busyness all the time. We, we wear busyness like a badge of honor.

Upwards of 80% of people. If you ask them how they’re doing, they will say that they’re busy. Why? Because we like being busy. It means that I’m important. It means that I’ve got a lot going on. How’s life right now for you? Busy, busy, busy. So many things. Even you, you see it when we talk to people, people will come up to us and and say, Hey, I, I’m sure you’re so busy. But because we live in a culture that is so busy that we read this passage and we think that what the passage means is to just stop. But biblical rest is not just resting, like taking a nap or stopping or being less busy. Biblical rest is the soul’s settled trust in God. And that in order for a sheep to lie down at rest, it means that the sheep fully trusts the shepherd, the sheep. It’s really less about the green pastures and the still water. It’s more about my shepherd has told me to stay still, and therefore, because I trust my shepherd, I will do it. So when the Bible talks about rest, it’s not doing nothing. It’s trusting someone.

O oftentimes you hear people, they, they say, okay, well, the solution to busyness is to stop being busy and have moments where you’re doing nothing. And so one of the things that you hear people say with that is, okay, I had a busy day at work, and so therefore what I need to do is I need to go home. I need to sit on my couch and I need to sit in my favorite chair and I need to watch television. This is me time. That’s, that’s what we like to call it. This is me time and rest. It’s good for me. And here’s the challenge with when we see that as rest, it doesn’t really do for the soul what Psalm 23 is trying to get us to do. They, they do this study on the enjoyment scale. So you have all these different activities in life and, and your enjoyment of those things kinda has this different scale.

So you enjoy certain things more than other things. Well, if you’re watching TV when when they study people watching tv, they typically rate it an eight on the enjoyment scale, which is very high. Now, the scale only goes to 10. So watching tv, the act of watching tv, we love watching tv. Some of you are, are, are sitting next to your parents and you’re like, Hey, see mom and dad, I should be watching more TV this summer. That’s what the pastor said. Here’s the bad news, yet there’s the big yet in there, even though it’s very enjoyable in the moment. Here’s what we know definitively study after study after study tells us that the people who watch the most TV are the least happy. Now, that might not be causation, but there’s definitely correlation. It could be that people who are already very unhappy end up watching a lot of tv.

But, but here’s what we know. Regardless. Either way, TV is clearly not solving the problem. If people are already unhappy and they watch TV in the moment, it’s an eight, but it doesn’t solve the root issue. And so, so here’s the problem is, is we end up in this season of life where we’re unhappy and we’re frustrated and we’re striving, we’re trying to make everybody around us happy. And we’re trying to, to, to be just enough for those people. We’re trying to win their approval, and then we feel exhausted. We feel anxious and we feel tired. And so we try to, to get rest by doing things like watching TV or just not being busy. But that type of rest is not going to restore our soul. There’s a heart issue. There’s a root issue here. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who is a theologian in Germany during World War ii, he, he helped fight against Hitler. He was a spy. He, he ended up dying got killed by Germany, but brilliant theologian. He writes

This, he says,

The primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things.

It

Is seeking to establish a sense of self

By

Making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship

To God.

And so the idea in Psalm 23

I is,

If we’re going to experience this

Rest

That God has for us,

That the

Thing that detracts us

Away

From that

Is

All the things that we think give us rest, that don’t actually give us rest.

The

Striving for

Other people’s

Approval. In Isaiah chapter

53, verse six, we

See this theme of of shepherds and sheep

Throughout all of scripture. Isaiah

Picks up on it and says, all

We like

Sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. He’s saying that we are like sheep and instead of trusting in the shepherd ’cause primarily that’s

Why a, a sheep will follow the tru, the the shepherd because of trust.

So instead of trusting the shepherd and following after the shepherd,

Instead of

Going after what God wants for my life,

I so easily start to

Trust and believe these

Other voices, these other

Opinions, these other paths. And then Jesus in the New Testament, he, he tries

To give us this

Different path in a world that

Is just

Constantly tired and constantly struggling. He says this in Matthew 1128. He says, come to me

All who labor

And are heavy laden and I will

Give you rest.

And now, now what he’s not saying is, Hey, I’m just gonna have you lay down and take a nap. That that’s not the picture of

What biblical rest is. Instead, it’s this, he says,

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you’ll find rest

For your souls.

From my yoke is

Easy

And my burden is

Light. It’s this idea that, that so early

On about that point in that, that you, when, when we start to

Get

Less and less and less happy, it’s

Because we start

To believe in the lie

That the way

That I’m gonna be the happiest

Is based off of everybody

Else’s opinion of me. And so I care so much what everybody else thinks. And so what that ends up being is this burden that I’m placing on my life where I’m striving and I’m trying to achieve. And I think that my worth and my value, my identity is wrapped up in how smart I am or how good looking I am, or how successful I am, or how athletic I am, or how many accomplishments I can have in life. And the problem with that is

That

As a burden that I can carry

That, that eventually it

Wears me down because I’ll never be enough. I’ll, I’ll

Always

Look to somebody else and say, well, but they are doing a better job than me. And so I need to do that as

Well. And Jesus is saying, what would it look

Like if you remove that burden? And, and instead,

Jesus says, I

Have

A yoke that is

Easy that, that I’ve come to give you

Rest.

That, that I’m, instead of getting so focused on what everybody else thinks, I’m trusting the voice of my shepherd. I’m saying I care more

About

Jesus’ path and

Jesus’s

Direction and, and Jesus and what he wants in my life. I’m gonna trust

That voice

More than all these other

Voices.

And no, I’m not saying that it means that

Every

Voice and every opinion of everybody in your life doesn’t matter at all. That’s, that’s not what I’m saying. ’cause That’s, that’s just not truthful.

There

Are opinions that matter. Your,

Your spouse’s

Opinion matters. If you’re in biblical community, the opinions of godly people in your life, they should matter. I wanna be submitting myself to

A spiritual authority that’s

Outside of myself so that if I

Have people, they,

They come to me in my life and they say,

Hey,

We’re calling you out because of sin, or We’re calling you out

Because of behavior.

That opinion, I shouldn’t just say, well, your opinion doesn’t matter. That opinion should matter.

The

Difference

Is

Those opinions, while they matter, they

Don’t carry

The same weight

As Jesus that he is the voice

That I’m listening to, that I’m falling after, that I am chasing.

So this picture of the sheep

Laying down in a

Restful place,

That that only happens if

The the sheep feel safe. There’s a great book called A Shepherd Looks

At Psalm 23, this’s guy by a guy named Philip Keller.

He is a

Shepherd, lifelong shepherd. And he had heard

A lot of

Pastors like me talk about shepherds and sheep and say, Hey, you’re getting it all wrong. Like, you’re, you’re missing the imagery.

So he writes this book, and in the book he talks about four

Specific things, requirements that sheep need in order for them to feel confident enough that they can lie down. So four things. The first

Is that they have to

Be free from all fear

That that fear. The

Sheep are naturally fearful. They’re constantly looking around. They’re looking for wolves, and they’re looking for danger, and they’re looking for just anything if there’s loud noises.

So they’re

Just constantly looking around. In order for them to lie down,

The fear

Has to be completely gone. That’s true in our life too. But sometimes we get so anxious and so

Caught up because we have all these fears of what if

And what’s gonna happen.

And

So we can get so wrapped up in the fear that the reason that we don’t experience rest

Is because of the fear that

We have in our life. And so

How do we get rid of fear? Well, it’s both really

Easy and really hard

That the way that I get rid of fear

Is the same way

That a sheep gets rid of fear.

That the sheep, the more it

Trusts the shepherd,

It

Believes

That even if there’s danger out there, if

The shepherd says that I can

Lie down, I trust my shepherd, therefore I can lie down in in the same way. If I can trust my shepherd, if I can trust God, the more I can trust him, the,

The less the

Fear defines me.

The, the

Less the fear owns me, the less the fear wrecks my life. And so it, it’s, on one hand, it’s very easy. The way that I remove fear in my life is by increasing my trust, my faith in my shepherd. So on one hand, the solution is easy, but practically, that’s really, really hard. What does it look like to grow in faith and in trusts in Jesus? It’s not a one-time decision, it’s a continual chasing after him. But I’m putting more and more faith, more and more trust in him. The the second thing he says that sheep need in order for them to lay down and arrest, is that they have to be free from friction with other sheep. That if they’re fighting with other sheep, that that doesn’t work. So the shepherd has to break it up so that they can finally calm down interest.

And that’s true in my life and your life as well, that so often the thing that keeps us up at night, that the thing that we are so concerned about is the opinions of other people. And so I get worried. I, I mean, I, I know people that, that they, they are replaying conversations they had 10 years ago in their life at night because they, they so care about that thing. So some of that is valuing my shepherd more than, than some of these other relationships. And then some of that is allowing the shepherd to heal those relationships. That, that if you are in a marriage and you both love Jesus and you chase after Jesus, there is hope regardless of how bad it feels or regardless of how uncomfortable it feels, that there is hope with the shepherd if you’re both headed in the same direction.

Same is true in any relationship that I have in life. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, there is hope, but those relationships, if it’s causing friction, that that can remove rest from my life. The third thing he says is that if sheep have pests and insects bugging them, distracting them, they’ll never rest. Now, fortunately, we live in the great state of Colorado. There’s very few insects and pests that we have to deal with when it comes to actual bugs. We live in a high desert, but we, we all have distractions that keep us away from the voice of our shepherd. Probably our biggest distraction is simply the thing that is in your pocket right now. Or for some of you, it’s in your hand right now watching YouTube. That thing, your, your cell phone is the distraction because we get so in tune to this device that it’s constantly distracting us away from being present in relationships and also being present with God.

And then the last thing is being free from hunger. And now what it’s talking about is basic needs met. And let, lemme tell you this, if, if you are in this room and there are some basic needs that, that you are struggling to meet in your life, that’s why we have manna. We have a food pantry. We want to help you meet those basic needs. It’s also why we have our manna resource center. We have a whole team that wants to walk alongside you, to, to help equip you and get the things that you need in order to make sure that those basic needs are met. I I don’t want to to skip past that as if that’s not that big of a deal. But for most of

Us,

Probably when we think of

Our

Basic needs met, that’s really not the issue. You’re not struggling to eat every

Day. What we start to struggle

With is just the hunger for more. Hey, it’s not about my basic needs. I I just need this and I need this and I need this and I need this, and then I’ll be happy. And so our hunger is really about

Our desire

Instead of just being basic needs met. But the problem with that is that’s never ending.

Sheep

Aren’t storing up bargain more. It’s just, Hey, my basic needs in this moment are met, therefore, I can rest and relax. They’re not worried about the next day or the next week or the next month. They

Can say, Hey, God, today

I can rest in you

Because

I have comfort and faith and trust in you. O oftentimes it’s

Those

Distractions. It’s those small things that can derail

Us away

From that trust in our shepherd’s voice.

There’s a crazy true story about

A guy in Japan fighting a cockroach. Now, I, I’m using a picture

Of a cockroach because

We don’t see them very often in Colorado. Now, I come from Houston, Texas, that’s where I was born and raised.

And the cockroach is the city state bird

Down there in Houston. Like

They’re everywhere.

And they fly. I know that they’re not a bird,

But they’re just, it’s

Like the mascot of

The city, it feels like. And so they, they’re just all over the

Place. My wife

Is deathly terrified of cockroaches,

Which I don’t quite understand because they don’t bite. They can’t attack you,

They can’t kill you.

But there’s something about them that just disgust

Her. If she had to

Choose between being alone in a room with a snake or being alone in a room with a cockroach, she would choose a snake. That’s how much she

Hates cockroaches, which is why she

Could very much

Relate to this true story

That happened in Japan. It was from December 11th, 2023. This is

A real

Headline from not, not a tabloid. This is a real newspaper. And it says this, A man blew up his apartment while trying to kill a single

Cockroach with

Way too much

Insecticide. Police say.

And it goes on to say, an explosion occurred at around 12 midnight on December 10th after a man sprayed insecticide in an apartment room in the city of Komoto, breaking a balcony window and causing him minor injuries. According to the Komoto police, a 54-year-old man spotted a cockroach inside his apartment and komoto true

O

Ward, and sprayed a large amount of insecticide to try and kill it. About one minute later, an explosion occurred. Notice the article does not say whether or not he got

The cockroach, so probably

He didn’t. And now, now here, here’s what I wanna put out, because if, if you’ve ever been in a room with a cockroach,

You actually can relate

To exactly what happened there. Like it’s midnight, he’s

Supposed to be asleep, he’s in

His bed, and instead of sleeping, he, he’s worried about that sound that he hears

Because if you’ve ever heard a

Cockroach at night, like it is a creepy noise. And so he’s hearing the sound, and probably he turns on the lights ’cause he, he tries to go sleep. He can’t go sleep. And he turns on the light, probably starts with a shoe like, I’m just gonna go smash it. And then that doesn’t work. Who knows how long he’s been trying to kill the cockroach. Eventually he gets to the last resort, which is the spray insecticide. You don’t wanna spray that in a small room, an apartment, but, but at this point, he’s so desperate to get rid of the thing. He’s like, I’m gonna do it. It says that he sprays it for a minute. Like I can just tell you, that’s a lot of insecticide. Typically just one thing, you’re good. It’s done. He’s so desperate at this point to get rid of the roach, that he sprays it for one whole minute, which ultimately causes an explosion, which causes damage to the apartment and to himself.

And, and what, what’s the point in all of that? So often in our lives, the exact same thing happens. We, we have this, this fear or this challenge, or this anxiety or this thing. And maybe you can pinpoint it right now. It’s the thing that last night when you were going to sleep, it’s the thing that you were thinking about. It’s the thing that’s hanging over your head. And, and here’s the crazy part about the story, is he tries to fix it. It it, and trying to fix it, it makes it so, so, so much worse than what it was to begin with. And the same thing happens when we are worried and fearful about things. It doesn’t actually cause us to solve the problem. It actually causes the problem to get worse in our lives. And so what’s the solution? The solution is trust.

Hey, I’m not saying that this problem isn’t real. I’m saying that our shepherd is bigger than that problem. And then there’s the promise that comes in verse three of Psalm 23. It says, he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. The the imagery, when it says he restores my soul the imagery of a shepherd with his sheep is the imagery of a cast sheep being restored. A cast sheep is a sheep that has fallen on its back and it can’t flip back over. So if you ever see a cast sheep, it means that a sheep, when it ends up on its back like that, it is incapable itself of just flipping itself back over. And other sheep are not smart enough to come over and help it flip itself back over. So a cash sheep really only has one hope for getting flipped back the shepherd.

So a shepherd goes up to a sheep like that, and it’s less common over here in the States, but it is, is quite common over in a Iraqi area like an Israel would be. And so a shepherd has to go take the cash sheep, flip the cash sheep over, and they can’t just flip it over and leave it like it gets too woozy. So they have to take the sheep, flip it over, and then hold it there for about a minute for the sheep to kind of get its bearings again, and then it can go. That’s the image of what God wants to do in your life and my life, that we are like this cast sheep that we’re flipped upside down and God, our shepherd wants to right size us, hold us there, and then put us on the right path. That Hebrew word or the Hebrew understanding for restore that carries the idea of returning or bringing back or reviving like a cash sheep.

That, that God created us to have relationship with him. Know we see that in the creation account, that God creates us to walk in his presence. And then because of sin, we’re, we’re flipped upside down. God wants to bring us back, redeem us back into right standing relationship with Him. And when it says that he restores our soul, I think sometimes in our contest we tend to think of soul. You ask the, the average American, what is the soul? And we, we think of a spirit or we think of a ghost, or we some think of something that’s not including our body, but that’s not the Hebrew understanding of soul. The Hebrew understanding of soul was the whole self. The literal meaning of it is breathing substance or being. It’s interesting. Breath is soul. And the Old Testament in Hebrew PMA is spirit in the New Testament, which also means breath.

But, but we can’t live physically without breath. So when it talks about God restoring our soul, it’s not just my inside, my inside feelings. It is my whole self. God wants to restore that whole self. But then notice the movement. He talks about restoring my soul and my whole self, and then he puts me on the right path. He wants to restore me and then put me on the righteous path for his name’s sake. There’s this interesting connection in Psalm 23 to Exodus 15. Exodus 15 is written by Moses. Moses was a shepherd as a profession for many years before he becomes the leader of the nation of Israel. And in Exodus 15, verse 13, Moses writes this. He says, you have led, that’s the same Hebrew word led as we see in verse three. He says, you have led in your steadfast love, the people whom you have redeemed, you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

That word abode in Hebrew is the same word that we see in Psalm 23. It gets translated as pasture. And now here’s what’s interesting about Exodus 15, that that what Moses is talking about is God has taken his people out of captivity in Egypt, is leading them towards the promised land. And he says, you’re leading us to your pasture, to your abode. But what we know in the context of the story is it’s not a straight line that they view all this zigzagging all over. And probably sometimes in our life we feel like, okay, I’m trying to fall after God’s path. I’m, I’m chasing after his path. But you’re like, God, why am I going all over like this? What, what is happening? Because probably some of the Israelites were saying the same thing. Hey, we’re, we’re trying to go over there. Why are we walking over there?

This makes no sense. What is the issue? What is the challenge? What is the problem? God, if you could just do it my way, this would be so much easier. But what we find in the context of the passage is God gives a reason as to why he does all the zigzags, because he was avoiding danger that the Philistines and other nations were, were trying to harm the Israelites. And so God and taking them on his path, even though it was zigzag, even though it was in a straight line, it was the safest, healthiest, best path because that’s what a shepherd does with their sheep. The the sheep don’t see the danger. The sheep see right here, what’s right in front of them. The shepherd has a view in a context. And if the sheep will just trust the shepherd, they say, Hey, I’ll go wherever you are asking me to go.

And the same is true for us. That sometimes the path we’re on where we’re chasing after, and it doesn’t make sense, we’re saying, God, why wouldn’t you answer this prayer? And why wouldn’t you answer that prayer? And in those moments, ultimately it comes down to a simple question. Do I trust my shepherd? Is my value, is my identity, is it connected to all these other things? Or is it connected to him? Every year, I ask the same question at least once in a sermon. And, and it’s this, that the studies have found that there’s one activity, that if you’ll do this one activity with your kids, it is a better predictor of long-term health, happiness, success than any other thing. So pause for a moment and think, what do you think that is? If you come, if you’ve been regularly attending, you probably know the answer because I, I, I try and bring this up all the time. But what we tend to think of is, okay, the wine activity, if I’m gonna do with my kids, it’s gonna make them future successful. It’s probably playing Mozart music at night when they’re asleep, like that’s gonna help ’em. Or maybe it’s getting a math tutor really early on in life, like that’s gonna be the thing. Or maybe it’s organized sports, because that’s what we think. We think, oh, hey, that’s the most important thing my kid can do. That’s why we do it nine nights a week.

But it’s none of those things. The answer, the single most important thing for you to do with kids to predict future happiness is simply this. It’s family dinner. That’s it. Now, ironically, the things that we think that we are doing to help our kids is actually taking away from the one thing family dinner that all the data says is the most important thing for our kids. Now, now, peel back the layers. Why do you think that family dinner is such a big deal? It’s because the studies tell us that family dinner helps a child connect and relate in a way that they identify their success, their wellbeing in relationship with mom and dad as opposed to all the other things. They, they get a healthier, grounded identity in self because of the relationship that they experience at family dinner. They’re talking to someone and they’re not trying to prove anything that the closest thing we have in this life to our relationship with God is if you are raised with a healthy mom and a healthy dad who love you unconditionally because a healthy mom and a healthy dad, they’ll love their kids unconditionally.

They say, Hey, you can’t do anything that’s gonna make me love you any more than I love you right now. And so you don’t have to fall into the lie, the trap of striving and accomplishing and doing, because just right now who you are, I love you and I want what’s best for you. And I want encourage you, and I want you to challenge you. And I I want you to do great things, but regardless of what you do, I want you to know that I love you. And the same is true with our relationship with God. If we could really trust our shepherd and believe that, that I can’t make him love me any more, then how much easier it is to rest And today and in right now, why is it that someone 65 plus is so much happier than somebody 45 because the 45-year-old is still buys into the lie that I’m gonna be happier once I can do these things.

And the 65-year-old says, Hey, I’ve been there. I’ve done that, and it’s not gonna do it for you. Instead, I’m gonna take captive each precious moment, I’m gonna pour into the things that matter. There’s this beautiful picture in the second and third verses in Psalm 23 where God is saying that he wants to give us a restored soul and a right path, and green pastures and still waters. That that’s the promise that’s available to us. And, and it’s not for the future, it’s for today. It’s for right now. It’s for whatever you’re going through. And the way that we experience that primarily is through trust. It’s trusting our shepherd’s voice above any and all other voices. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for just the power that comes from Psalm 23. God, I I just pray that today could be a day that some of us can, can turn a page and stop striving, stop trying to achieve, stop trying to, to make everybody around us happy, but instead truly begin to trust your voice, to believe in you. Believe in who you are calling us to be our identity, our value in you. God, I pray for anyone in this room that does not know you, that today can be the day if they’re flipped upside down like that. Sheep today can be the day that they put their faith, their hope, their trust in you for the very first time. It’s the name, Lord Jesus we pray. Amen.