In his sermon, Paul Carrington explores the second half of Psalm 23, focusing on the phrase 'For you are with me' and its significance in facing life's trials. He references various biblical and historical figures, such as David, Joseph, and Elizabeth Elliot, to illustrate how faith in God's presence can provide comfort and guidance. Carrington emphasizes that, like a shepherd with his sheep, God's rod and staff symbolize His authority and protection, which guide and correct believers. He challenges listeners, particularly young women, to deepen their relationship with God and transition from being recipients of His grace to dispensers of goodness and mercy to others. The sermon calls for an understanding of personal blessings as a means to serve and bless the broader community, highlighting that true fulfillment comes from a life centered on God's presence and promises.

Good morning. It's good to be gathered here this morning to worship God in these songs and to consider His Word as our brother said earlier. To find ourselves drawing from the treasury of the Word of God is one of the greatest blessings that we can ever have in this life. And this morning, we're going to be going through the back half of Psalm 23. And so if you could please open up your Bibles.

We're going to be reading together Psalm 23, verse 4, 5, and 6. You know, one of the comments that Scott Brown made last night, I thought was really profound. He said that we are either, we've just come through a trial, we are going through one, or there's one just around the corner. And how true that is in this life. That on earth we struggle, on earth we're gonna go through all sorts of different things, but to know who is with us is the most important thing for us to consider.

And so this morning I've titled this message, It's obviously the main title, The Heart of a Godly Woman, but for you are with me. And so we want to go through this song. I'm gonna read it here, verse four, five, and six. 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." And so, so far, if you look at verse one to three closely, the ones that we went through last night, even though Scott Brown, he spoke of various trials that he's gone through, I really was really touched with the one he shared of Kelly suffering on Iona and to see how the Psalms came to life and their trust in God. But when you look at verses one to three, you see kind of this picture of green grass and gentle streams. There's a lot of peace, there's rest on all sides.

But what do you do when the storm clouds begin to really gather round about you? And when the distant thunder is all of a sudden overhead, what kind of response do you have? Because you know A.W. Tozer, he made this statement, he says, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. Think about that.

Not the confession you subscribe to or the doctrines that you can explain or the verses that you can quote but deep inwardly in the heart what you think of God and nothing brings out what we truly think of God more than when we're brought close to difficult situations, when we're in a situation where we don't know what to do. And I've been in several of those as I know most of the of the fathers have been probably throughout the course of your life either as fathers or before that but in this life it's a guarantee that we're gonna have tribulation we're gonna have struggle and one of the things that I was amazed by you know when you look at Matthew chapter 7, the Sermon on the Mount, the most beautiful, the most powerful sermon ever preached. You know, the Lord ends that sermon by comparing two different types of men, the wise man and the foolish man. One who built his house on the solid rock of the Word of God, and then the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. But the interesting thing that it says is for both of them that when the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew about that house.

See the circumstances are the same for both, but where they find themselves, who is with them, or what foundation they're building on makes absolutely all the difference. And so this morning we're gonna venture out of the serene harbor of verses 1 to 3 out onto the open seas and to experience what it is to truly live for God and to have God as your God. To say you are with me makes all the difference. And I remember this was probably about 12 years ago I was in in Africa I was in the Great Rift Valley. It was before we actually ended up moving there and I was in a tiny tiny little village and the young man who was with me He wanted me to go and visit his parents who lived way up in the hills, just across the Rift Valley, basically, we had to cross.

And to go there, it's about a 20-mile walk one way. These guys walk miles and miles. It's amazing to see the ability for them to be able to do that. And so we left super early, we left at about five in the morning. And as we left, you know, the sun is still not up.

We got to a place, maybe about 10 miles in, I'm estimating, and we ended up going down into this valley. And as we went down into the valley, we got to a place where there was a river, right in the middle, obviously most rivers are cut with a valley, and we got to the river floor, and he put out his arm like this. I'm behind him, he put out his arm like this, and he put his finger to his mouth like this. And I said, what's the problem? And so he said in a whispered, he said, well in the morning the shepherds and the herdsmen bring their sheep and their cattle down to the river to drink.

And so lions also come down to the river because it's an easy meal. Nothing's easier than a cow or a lamb. And all of a sudden all the thoughts you can imagine coursing through my mind. I'm trying to figure out what and I wish I knew this before we left this morning. And so I reached into my pocket and I pulled out a knife, a three and a half inch blade, you know.

I pulled out and I lifted it up, hopefully hoping that he's gonna, you know, say, okay, we're fine. And he just looked at me, he said, you know, pursed his lips and that was it. And we waited for a few minutes and we crossed over across the other side. Nothing, thankfully, nothing happened. But the idea is when you go down into the valley of the shadow of death, spiritually speaking, you don't want to be going down with a three and a half inch blade.

You don't want to be going down leaning on the arm of flesh, Because the more that you rest on the arm of flesh is the less you're gonna see of God It just is a simple fact, you know And of course in my pride later on I I asked me, you know as we got out of the valley and we're now You know feel a little more confident as we're walking. I asked him I said, you know, wouldn't wouldn't this be sufficient? You know couldn't couldn't this do some some damage and he said isn't there any I asked him Is there any use he says the only thing that knife would be useful for was for a toothpick after the lion has finished with both of us. There's nothing that we'd be able to do in the face of a lion. And that is the way life is.

When you get taken down into a valley, into a situation, you look around you and you see the state of the world without God, and it is an absolutely horrid, horrid place. People get devoured all the time, walking dead, we call them. And so, before we go through the valley of the shadow of death, if you're a young person, a young lady, here this morning, and as Jason Doam said, we love you, make sure you go to the cross. Go to the cross of Jesus Christ, because that is our only hope. Nothing is more terrible in life than being Christless.

And so one of the questions, I remember I just finished reading several chapters in a book on George Whitefield and another lesser-known evangelist. His name is Daniel Rowland and these men, both of them were prolific, prolific preachers in their day and they'd been laboring in separate parts, you know, George Whitefield in England and here's Daniel Rowland in Wales and when they first met after years and years of knowing about each other the very first words out of George Whitfield's mouth to Daniel Rowland were this, do you know that your sins are forgiven? I thought that was such a prolific thing. Do you know? It's a question we don't ask, you know.

We can explain again doctrines, but do you know that your sins have been forgiven? Have you been to the cross of Jesus Christ? And so J.C. Riles says, never does a person see any beauty in Christ as Savior until they discover that they are a lost and ruined sinner. And even though you may be a young lady who knows the Lord, oftentimes, and I can say this as a father, as a man, our views of the Lord are often very, very small.

We have a very kind of minute view. It's something that I'm almost embarrassed about sometimes, the things that preoccupy and worry my mind. And so we get concerned, not realizing that it's Christ who's ruling and reigning over all things. And even right now as we sit in this room on a beautiful summer morning, do you know that right now the earth is currently spinning through the solar system at 67, 000 miles an hour as it's turning on its axis. We can't even fathom that, but we're spinning around the Sun at 67, 000 miles an hour and then the Sun is coursing with us through the Milky Way.

And you begin to kind of consider this that there are billions of stars in our galaxy. Think about that billions we can't even quantify that I was trying to come up with a way to explain that and you know you look at all this grass out here I don't know how many acres there are maybe a hundred acres out here before us. Do you know that there's more stars in the universe than all the stars on this lawn, on the grass on this lawn, every single blade? Not only that, do you know that there are more stars in the universe than all the blades of grass on the entire planet. And the Bible says in Isaiah 40 that he knows them all by name.

It's something to consider and each of those stars by the way are bigger than our son which is a somewhat small star And he sets all these things in order. He just spoke and he brought them into existence, says he made the stars also. And this is the God that we serve, but he's not only the God of big things, but he's a God who feeds us. He's a God who cares for us. He knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground.

And so you think of all these things. All nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted by him less than nothing and worthless. I like There's a song that we sing and one of the lines in the song say no angel in the sky Speaking of Christ can fully bear that sight but downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright But often the questions we have as people, especially I would say as young ladies, you know, in terms of what's going through your mind and the fears that kind of can beset you, there's usually a thousand different questions, you know, can God, will God, when will he do this, or when will he do that for me? In what condition will I live in the future? And then of course the big question, where is he, my future husband?

Will I have children? Where do I fit in? When you look around at all the various other young people? These are questions that rack our minds oftentimes deep within. What's my real value?

The world's constantly trying to assign you a value, but what is your real value? How about what does he or she or they think about me? And so we live in this kind of projecting way of life. We're trying to make sure that we put forth our best face. Another question is, Is God really paying attention to me?

I know all the stuff about the stars, and I've read what he did for the Hebrew boys, but what about me? Does he really care about me? And if so, why doesn't he do something? Why doesn't he come and help me with whatever I'm going through? And if you haven't gone through something now, as Scott Brown said last night, it's coming around the corner.

And daughters are in an interesting place because right now you're kind of shielded. Even when you do go through a trial as a family or whatever, there's a sense of your father or your mother are shielding you from the full brunt, but there is coming a day when that will no longer be there, and if God is not your God, if Christ is not with you, then you're going to be in a very difficult, terrible situation. But what we want to say today is this, Behold your God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He's not just a God afar off, but look at that. What you heard last night, he's my shepherd.

And then when we get into this verses today, you see a change in language from not you are my shepherd but you are with me. It's a different tone that he takes. And then I just want to before we get into the actual verse itself consider yourself. Consider who you are before God. We just spoke of how great God is, but think about you, who you are, and how you're described.

And when we look at the Bible, what we see is, oftentimes, just like in the psalm, we're described as sheep. And sheep, there's nothing more defenseless. There's nothing more prone to attack, easy pickings, than a sheep. You know, just last week Scott and I were out West and there was a man who had a few sheep, maybe a handful, maybe maybe eight or so sheep, and you know you you read up on what sheep are like. And do you know a sheep, even when it has a full fleece, if it falls down and there's no one to actually pick it up and write it, put it on its feet, it will literally just lie on the ground and die.

It cannot get up. That's the state of how we're described in Scripture. This is how absolutely helpless we are. And so what that does, it doesn't make us now throw up our hands, but it causes us to cast our gaze further and more deeply, more expectantly upon God to consider who we are because life is just too perilous and and your soul is too valuable. God is too great for us to go through life without this full knowledge of who he is and and you look at around at the world and the eyes of people who have been wrecked by sin It's an absolutely terrible thing.

You know, anxiety on every turn. You look at, you talk to other young people. I talk to people at work and the anxiety, that worry, that constant looming, knowing that another trial is coming but there's nothing and no one to go through it with me. We live in a country right now where the most acute problem is joylessness and unhappiness. The most prescribed drug in America are antidepressants.

Think about that. People are, we're more affluent than we've ever been at any time in the world and yet it doesn't, it doesn't fill the soul. And so people are driven to anxiety and worry and fear, desperation, suicide, all these different things. But to have God with us is awesome. The grass isn't greener on the other side, so look to God and find rest in Him.

And so if you look at this one psalm, this first verse, and we're going to spend probably the bulk of the time on this first verse because there's so much here. It says, Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And we remember who was writing the psalm. It's David who before he was a king was a shepherd. And so he was fully fully acquainted with what he's talking about here.

And you remember when Samuel went to go to his family, he went to, he went to Bethlehem and David was somewhere out in the Hills. What was he doing? He was caring for the sheep. That's what he was doing. He was really the first kind of shepherd king.

And one thing he knew is this, is that sheep cannot stay in one place. In order to actually prosper, in order to grow, in order to have a healthy fleece and to be a healthy flock, there's a constant need to move from pasture to pasture. And oftentimes, to get from one pasture to another, you've got to go through a difficult situation. You've got to go through a valley. And so when you go through these valleys, when you traverse these valleys, on either side what you find oftentimes are towering cliffs.

There's always the threat of mudslide, there's a threat of avalanche of rocks coming down. You've got animals, predators, that sit on perches looking down looking for prey. You've got all these different things looking for a strange sheep and so all these things are really the kind of texture of what it means to go through a valley in real life. And this is not necessarily, it says the valley of the shadow of death. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna die when you go through this valley.

I know personally I've been through I would say several situations where I would call it the valley of the shadow of death. And yet you come out on the other side. It doesn't mean that the end result of this valley right here is death, though it can be, and it often has been. But it's situations and circumstances in life that severely test you, physically and spiritually. And so One thing to think about is this, that the path that leads to life, when you think again of the Sermon on the Mount, and the paths of righteousness that we heard last night, the path that leads to life goes through the valley of the shadow of death.

That's something that we always need to remember. Remember when the Lord said that? He talks about the broad way, he talks about the narrow way. Well one of the things about the narrow way that he says is it's difficult. It's difficult and that can be defined in so many different ways throughout history.

But when we look at this here, we talked about the valley, but look at look what it says here, yay. And you know, when I read this, I had never seen this before. As Scott Brown said, I've memorized the psalm, but this particular word that just as We just came out of green grass, gentle waters, you know, lying down and being led on these paths. But just as things take a turn and we enter right to the very entrance of the valley of the shadow of death, What you see is a rising crescendo of yay. It's not my circumstances dictate my response.

Oftentimes that's how it is in the world. If I'm going through a difficult circumstance, my countenance will drop. But look what David does here. He says, yay, though I go through the valley of the shadow of death. And you know, when I came in this morning, James just mentioned to me, he says, he pointed to that wall, and on that wall, you've got the Book of Martyrs, and all these Hebrews 11, all these symbols, or all these pictures of what people actually used to do to each other because one would not deny the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Catholic Church and all these these inquisitors would do that. And you think of what men and women have suffered holding tightly to Christ singing as they went through the valley of the shadow of death. And so our body language will change oftentimes when we go through a depressing circumstance. Our body language, our voice will even change. But when we think of of who is with us, for you are with me, it makes absolutely all the difference.

And notice the change now. It no longer says the Lord. We're no longer speaking third person, but it says you are with me. As the waters rise, as the situation becomes more difficult, you get yay, but you also hear a deeper level of intimacy. If this was a personal psalm in verse 1, it becomes even more personal and desperate here in verse 4.

And this is an accidental because it's a it's kind of the response of the sheep you are with me you are with me and it's no longer just a reference to the Lord and notice that the Lord we just described this is amazing he goes through the valley with us this is sometimes something that's overlooked but he doesn't just you know stand at the entrance and say I wish you the best of luck, I hope it goes well, but he is going through the valley with us and it's the valley of the shadow of death. And so notice that embedded in the word through is the fact that there is an exit just like through a tunnel. Now that exit might be to glory as James was mentioning this morning with these people who suffered in history. Or it may be that you come out of a desperate trial of sickness or a loss or some sort of disappointment but guess what there's always an exit. Remember that when you see the word through.

And notice this, he is with me and so with me in every situation, in every dark trial, in every disappointment, he is the door, but he's also the way. And that means he's with us from beginning to end, so we take confidence in him. You know, and you look at this throughout Scripture and it becomes probably the most significant or most consistent thing that saints of old, including in the New Testament, have put their trust and confidence in. You remember way back in Exodus that the Lord himself would go with the Israelites as they went through the wilderness. He was with them as a pillar of cloud by day or he was with them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

His presence was constantly with them. I looked through just a variety of different circumstances. There's so many to go through. But you know, when Paul, the apostle Paul, he ended up going to Corinth, and you can read it in Acts chapter 18, this pagan metropolis full of idols, full of any sort of debauchery that you can imagine. You look around you say this is darkness.

There were other dark pagan cities but Corinth really was kind of one of the top pagan cities. And the Lord, it was one of the times where the Lord actually said to him to Paul, do not be afraid but speak and do not keep silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to hurt you for I have many people in this city his confidence for I am with you notice the four I am with you that is your only ammunition Just like for I am with you in this particular Psalm. And of course the evangelist's confidence when you read the last verse of Matthew. It says, and lo after he gives the Great Commission, and lo I am with you always. Even to the end of the age.

The very name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we read in Isaiah or we read it in Matthew, His name is Emmanuel. And what does that mean? God with us. This is the way he is. And even if, we talked about the importance of fathers, and you can talk about the importance of family, but look what it says in Psalm 27, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me.

Even if, now the most unlikely thing that will ever happen in this room is that your father will forsake you, but even if he did, the Lord will never forsake you, if you are in him. And so we have this confidence that he is with me. Is this sufficient for us? Is this realistic? Is it possible not to be wrapped up with fear?

I mean all of this can be theory. All of this can be, okay great you take some notes, But at the end of the day, is this your disposition towards who God is? Is this your confidence? I know this is a fight for me. It oftentimes, it's one of those things that you did not give way to fear, to not be slavishly overcome with fear, to not look at the circumstance and see it as bigger than God, you know, is one of the most difficult things.

And so Calvin says this, he says, David did not mean to say that he was devoid of all fear. That's not what he's saying, even though he says, I will fear no evil, but only that he would surmount it and go, so as to go without fear, wherever his shepherd would lead him. It wasn't that he had no fear in this kind of kind of almost otherworldly sense but he would subdue conquer surmount that fear by looking and gazing more upon Jesus Christ than he would upon the circumstance. And so we may face fear, fear of man, fear of rejection, but it's not to be yielded to. So many young people, they yield to fear.

We yield to fear even as men. I don't want people to think badly of me, so I'll compromise at work. Or you might want other young ladies to think well of you, so you'll do what you think will win them and their affections. But it's a terrible place to live. The best place to live is to know that Christ is with you, that your identity is secured in Him.

And so to trust in Him, this is the thing though, right now you look outside and you look at your current standing in life, just trust in him when the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming, the breeze is gently blowing. It's not that that difficult, but when you consider a young Hebrew boy like Joseph in Genesis, here he was, he hadn't really done anything all that wrong, but he was torn from his family and then he's sold as a slave. He's taken into an unknown culture, different language perhaps, into a different household, and he's taken at the bottom of the social ladder as a slave. I mean this is probably the worst situation. And then not only that he's falsely accused and he's sent to prison but you know probably the most encouraging phrase that you'll read and one of the shortest that you'll read all the way through, but God was with Joseph.

He's accused and sent to prison, but God was with Joseph. He was sold into slavery, but God was with Joseph. And the thing I'm really emphasizing for us today is who is with you? Is he with you? If he is, what is it that you cannot go through in this life?

And so you can be a summer soldier, if you've probably heard that phrase before, or you know a sunshine patriot when things are well, but when the weather changes, who we end up following is so critical. And the cultivation right now, the danger that you have as young people and I have as a man, is what are you cultivating? What is it right now? Are you cultivating just the outward adornment? Are you cultivating your relationships and everything else?

You know, friendships and all these things? Well, if so, what are you going to do when the time of trial does come upon you? It's so important to think about it. I want you to imagine, I'm going to tell you a real life scenario here. Imagine that you've moved to an undeveloped area in the jungles of South America.

And your main intention is to do good and to preach Jesus Christ. And your husband of just two years has gone missing in the jungle. And then you hear the news come over the radio. Your husband's been killed and the people he was trying to serve were the ones who killed him. Well that woman, her name is Elizabeth Elliott, and some of you guys have probably heard of her.

And this is what she says, she said, when I stood by my shortwave radio in the jungle of Ecuador in 1956 and heard that my husband was missing. God brought to my mind the words of the prophet Isaiah, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. You can imagine that my response was not terribly spiritual. I was saying, but Lord, you're with me all the time. What I want is Jim.

I want my husband. We'd been married 27 months after waiting five and a half years. Five days later, I knew that Jim was dead, And God's presence with me was not Jim's presence. That was a terrible fact. God's presence did not change the terrible fact that I was a widow.

Jim's absence thrust me, forced me, hurried me to God, my hope and my only refuge. And I learned in that experience who God is, who He is in a way that I could never have known otherwise. I came to understand that the secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances. And that is such a beautiful testimony of a woman who did pass literally through the valley of the shadow of death. By the way, not only did Jim Elliot die, but her second husband, he died of cancer.

She went through a lot of different scenarios and situations in life that thrust her and forced her to trust in the living God. And so the most difficult things oftentimes are not The best lessons that we will learn, they're not going to be through a textbook, but they're going to be through the great school of experience. And the greatest teacher is the Lord himself. Make sure He is your teacher carrying you through all of life's circumstances. The amazing thing about the shepherd here, Ye though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, is the fact that it says, for you are with me.

And I just mentioned that, But one of the amazing things about a Hebrew shepherd is this is not a nine to five job, right? This is something that when we were out West Just last week the man who he's a he's a herdsman But he also has some sheep and he had this kind of contraption on his property that even now when they take sheep up into the hills it's this contraption that the shepherd lives in. He goes with them. He doesn't punch the clock at five and head back down to the bottom of the valley, but he is with them. The Hebrew shepherd is constantly with them and not only that but he's exposed back then.

This guy has a shelter now, but back then they were exposed to the weather, the storms, the wild animals, you name it. And this is the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Imagine this, the one who created all things going through all things with us. And so, whereas a human shepherd might fall prey to a lion or bear or some other wild animal, we know what the Lord Jesus Christ has done. He's conquered.

He reigns supreme over all. I love what Jason Doane, he quoted that yesterday, where it talks about the Lord Himself in Colossians chapter 1 that in all things He may have the preeminence Amazing he is the firstborn of all creation goes through this just worshipful Litany of descriptions of who Christ is and that's who we're talking about today. He knows us, each one of us by the way, by name. Just like he knows all the stars, he knows each one of us by name. And Paul says this in Romans 8, yet in all these things, when we go through all these difficulties, Rather than crushing us and destroying us, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

And we talk about the rod and staff, you know, the rod and the staff. The rod is like a scepter. I have one actually at home that a shepherd gave me when we were overseas in Africa. This rod has this kind of slender handle and then on the top it's kind of like a ball. It's almost like a club that you can use to fend off, you can use it to throw if there's a predator coming or something like that or if it gets too close it's pretty weighty on the end.

It's got a good heft to it, and so the rod and the staff that we're going to be talking about here, it's really an extension of the shepherd's fighting arm to defend the sheep. And so it's also a sign of authority and you could refer to this here his rod as being his word not in the sense of him just feeding us but of him defending us and and if you look again out into the world so many times if you look at the nation of Israel what did they do they went down spiritually to Egypt They went out to find what are the other nations doing? Lord give us a king that we might be like the other nations. This is the temptation of the child of God to be discontent with who we are, our lot in life, who is with us. And we can oftentimes look over the wall and the rod, the Word of God, is something there to really help us to gain an understanding.

You know, a good question to ask yourself, are you attuned to the voice of your shepherd? Can you hear him in the sense of when you read his word and when you commune with him in prayer and you speak to him, is there something there that you find a sense of peace and rest because every other philosophy, mark it down, every other philosophy in life cannot carry you through. All the flights of fancy of this new age religion or you name it, they evaporate at the first sign of trouble. They can't carry you even for a moment. Last year my wife's brother died and we went up to Canada for the funeral.

And all the other people that were there, that you know, this person was new age, they were absolutely devastated, unable to cope. And we used it as an opportunity. It's like the clouds parted for a moment and people were looking for answers. They found that their actual religion, whatever that was, was so vain and and vapid. It just evaporated like dew.

And there was an opportunity to speak of the solidity and the truth of Jesus Christ and that's what you will find. Don't feed yourself on a steady diet of sawdust and sand. That's what the world will offer you. Something that cannot satisfy like we heard last night. It can't satisfy and that's all that the world will offer to you.

Don't trust in man whose breath is in his nostrils. It's all a mirage. You get there and there was nothing there after all. But if you have your trust and confidence in God, it makes absolutely all the difference. And so, there are going to be real dangers in life that you're going to come against, you're going to confront.

But to know who he is and to trust in his word, even though it looks difficult, even though it looks like, I don't know if this is really sufficient for my particular circumstance, trust in Him. His rod and His staff, they comfort you. But the rod is also a dual purpose, isn't it? It serves a dual purpose in the sense that it's also for correction. And when do you need correction most?

Oftentimes it's when you are going through a difficult situation where your mind is tossed and turned and you don't quite know how to think rightly and a brother or sister can come alongside you and offer you a word. A good question for you young ladies, a good question for me as a man is am I correctable? Am I a correctable person or at the moment of correction my back goes up and pride runs to the door to answer before humility has even got off off the couch. I know oftentimes that's my great battle. Am I correctable Or am I incorrigible?

That is gonna be a good indication as to who is your Lord, who is your master. Because oftentimes, you know, a shepherd, I was reading this about a shepherd himself, this was his experience, he says, if the shepherd saw a sheep wandering away on its own, or approaching poisonous weeds, or getting too close to danger of one sort or another, the club would go whistling through the air to send the wayward animal scurrying back to the bunch. And that's the the faithfulness of God to not let you go too far to the edge, or to go too far one way or the other to eat something that's not good for you. So don't insist when your parents or when you read something in the Word of God that goes against what you want. Humble yourself.

Allow the Word of God to be your guide. And the staff, of course, is more like a slender stick with a little hook on the end that the shepherd would use to draw sheep close. He would use that if they were in some sort of danger, not necessarily to beat them or to do anything other than to draw them close. Oftentimes he would just use it as they're walking down the path just to gently prod their side. You know, you don't have to to hammer them or anything like that.

He would just gently hit their side and they would know that, oh, they should be coming a little bit more to this direction or to that direction. It's like what we read in Isaiah, this is the way, that voice saying this is the way, walk in it. It's that gentle leading of our good shepherd. And so we have the word, the rod, but remember that it's again, it's not just a set of doctrines, right? It's not just a set of things we can subscribe to and say, yep, I believe that, yep, I believe that, yes, this makes sense, I can recite this, but it's an actual living faith that we have.

The Word of God is alive and it keeps us, it guides us and so it's a sign of His presence but it's not always felt but we trust that it's there and so nothing is more comforting as people in this world as we go through all these difficulties and knowing that we're cared for. It's the correction that's meant for us is meant for our good, for our eternal good. And it might be in the form of sickness. I look at even our elder, Elder Mike Danport, who's gone through some real difficult situations. But what it's done for him, it hasn't hurt him spiritually.

I look at what it's done for him just observing from the outside, I don't know his intimate family life details, but to see the fruit that it's brought as a result of that. It's really something to behold, to think that it's working out for his good and his attitude, his heart, all of that is really something to look at. And so if you look at all these things that God brings upon us, and you would have people in your own life, maybe a parent or someone else that you know that's going through a difficult situation, how they respond to that really does speak so loudly of who are they looking to, who are they leaning on. And so he says this, and this is one of the most beautiful verses, "'You prepare a table before me "'in the presence of my enemies. "'You anoint my head with oil.

"'My cup runs over.'" And this is when the devil is most apt to tempt you, right? When you're going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at the loving care that your shepherds just poured out upon you, almost in a mocking tone. Your chance of survival is better if you were just to go it alone. That's kind of the tone that you might hear kind of speaking or people might even say that like Job's wife, you know, curse God and die kind of thing.

This valley is too deep, forget it, life's over. But he says you speak as one of the foolish women. And he trusted and he leaned on God. And we see that here. And I look at this verse.

It says, you prepare a table for me. Think about that, we just, you think of who the God of the universe is. And not only is he with me, he's leading me, guiding me, but then it comes to a point where he spreads a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And you look at Luke 22 when his disciples were arguing, who is the greatest, you know? Who is the greatest?

He's on the brink of being crucified just before going into the garden. This is what they're going on about and this is what he says, for who is greater he who sits at the table or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as one who serves." He flips everything on its head and he demonstrates to us his great love in this particular verse here. And this is the one who made the stars, the one who before all the nations of the earth are less than nothing and worthless and he's preparing a table for me and and you think about this what has it cost them to prepare this table think of the garden and what happened when he's there sweating great drops of blood no one with him even his his most trusted disciples falling asleep You think of his interrogation at Pilate's Hall, and then the mockery, the soldiers plating the thorns, covering him with a robe and bowing down to him.

Hail King of the Jews and all of this mocking and beating him with the reed. You think of him taking that long walk up to Golgotha carrying the cross and then being nailed there and saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Does it dawn on you that what it cost him to prepare this table before you in the presence of your enemies? We've been going through 1 John as a church, and one of the verses, it says, behold what manner of love. Behold what manner of love.

It's an otherworldly love that the God of heaven has bestowed upon us here. And you think about this table that he spread. He spread it in the days of Exodus, just to kick off or inaugurate the Exodus with the Passover meal as a sign of what was to come. We see it in the Last Supper in the sense of the New Covenant being established. Question is, have you been regenerated and have you been baptized into this new covenant?

But not only did we see it in history, Exodus and the Last Supper, but each and every week as churches we get to to remember the Lord's table, to sit at this table. He prepares a table before me. Tomorrow if you are to partake of communion, think about this, what he has done. He's prepared a table, a place where you can commune with him. Even in the presence of the most dark circumstances, you know the Lord Jesus Christ, you know when when he was there in Matthew 26, it talks about the fact that the Pharisees and you got all these different, the Sanhedrin, all the scribes, the Herodians are meeting together, conspiring on how they might take the Lord, how they might get him and somehow kill him.

And that's kind of, you look at like a split screen, that's what's happening on one side of the screen. But then on the other side of the screen, you don't see the Lord with his disciples conspiring, okay, how are we gonna build a defense? What are we gonna do? You know what it says? And the Lord was at the house of Simon the leper.

In the presence of his enemies, as these men were conspiring, what is the Lord doing? He's at the house of Simon the leper, enjoying fellowship and carrying on his work and doing what he needed to do, what he was called to do. You look at this quietude in the midst of a siege. If you think of right now, if there were gunshots and all sorts of hammering on the front door here, would we all just be sitting here as though nothing were going on? Chances, that's not very likely.

Men would probably be getting up pretty quickly and reaching into their pockets or some other form, other device that they have to get something to defend us. And you look at this when the Assyrian hordes were banging on the gates of Jerusalem almost literally in the days of Hezekiah. This is what it says. Then he set military captains over the people, gathered them together to him in the open square of the city gate and gave them encouragement saying, Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him. For there are more with us than with him.

185, 000 trained, bloodthirsty men. And he says, there are more of us, more with us than with them. How can he say that? With him is the arm of flesh, but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles. And the people were strengthened by the words of Hezekiah the king.

And so in this life you are going to have enemies. If you live for God, mark it down, inscribe it in stone, you are going to have enemies. You may not have them right now because of the protection that you're under, but that is going to be a reality. Jesus himself said, woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers of the false prophets. And who is with you will override whatever else comes against you.

And he says this, you anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. And this is a picture of rest, of peace, of joy. This is a picture of feasting, even in the midst again of this siege taking place. Think of that, an entire city sieged with enemy hordes trying to get in, and here you are sitting at the table, enjoying a time of peace and rest. Is this possible?

Well, you see this in the lives of many saints throughout. You see it in the lives of someone like Elizabeth Elliot or some of the other people we read about, the men like Paul and Silas in a prison cell in Philippi singing hymns after being beaten and put in stocks. It's amazing. You see this all the way throughout history. And This is the thing, you will either worship the God-comfort with a little G when I say God, or the God of all comfort.

There's only two options, and we live in a world right now where even Christians, the thing we prize most, sad to say, is oftentimes our comfort. And I will go so far to serve God as long as it is comfortable. I will go here, I will say this, as long as it's within the zone of comfort that I've assigned for myself. And this is the tragedy so oftentimes, you know, that people worship in these kinds of formats, even ourselves, so often it's maybe something that you need to repent of, I need to repent of, the fear or desire just to be comfortable. Please don't impose too much on me.

But God is a God who's able, he's willing, and sometimes we cheat ourselves. We don't actually experience God in fullness because of the fact that we will not trust him more fully. And so all of these things happen and we become discontented. That's the thing, the God comfort with little g. He rules by fear and discontent.

And nothing is more common, as I said earlier, than discontentment in our modern age. But Spurgeon says this, the cup of the discontented is cracked and leaks no matter what you put in it it's going to flow right out of the bottom and so the God of all comfort this is what Paul says he comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. And so I'm gonna get right to verse six here. It says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." And this word surely just like when the Lord Jesus and King James he says he says verily verily right that's the seal he puts on it verily verily it cannot be otherwise that's what he's saying Surely there's no other way it can work out, but that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And that's the thing that is sure.

As a result of the overflow in verse 5, right, we see that, that my cup runs over, he anoints my head with oil, what do you get? We see goodness and mercy as kind of this, not just things that we derive benefit from, but it's the fruit and it's the evidence that we have been with Christ. As a result of coming through the valley of the shadow of death, as a result of how the Lord has cared for us through that trial and our testimony of his faithfulness all the way through. Goodness and mercy follows me all the way through as well. And one of the great tragedies is that we often think that when we read this verse, and I did this maybe for years, is I think this is yet more heaping up of blessings upon me.

But if you look at it, it could be interpreted in another way that it's not just for me. Did you think it was all about you? Did you think, you know, after all that God has done, a table in the presence of your enemies, He's with you, He's guiding you, that everything is just for our own personal consumption? Have you ever seen a tree eating its own fruit? No.

But a tree's greatest ambition is to spread its own kind as far and wide as it possibly can. The individual tree, it doesn't profit at all really. When it drops seed, there's no personal profit that tree derives, but it hopes for a forest. And so in the same way, we ourselves are not just to hoard up all the blessings that God has given to us. Think about that as young ladies.

You know, are you considering even how you treat your younger siblings or how can I serve my parents when you look at a young lady maybe with purple hair out on the street pierced with all sorts of, is there anything that goes out in your heart for her or is it just well look at her? Think about these things. Has the goodness and mercy stopped? Have you just been reveling in the table spread before you? You know, last week, just as we were out west, we went to Utah.

Salt Lake City is the capital or the major city of Utah. And it's called Salt Lake City for a reason, because the Great Salt Lake is right there, this massive lake. But you know the thing about the Great Salt Lake? There's three tributaries that run into this lake. But there's nothing that comes out on the other end.

The only way water gets out of the Salt Lake is through evaporation. And as a result of that, because of the fact that all it does is take in and doesn't send out, nothing lives there except what they call brine flies. These flies that just, you look at the shore and you think it's just black carpet because these things just populate and populate and that's all that lives there and something they call brine shrimp which I don't even think are edible. That's all that lives there. There's no fish.

There's no life. There's no vegetation and And you got to think about that as a person, as a Christian, a man or a woman, as a father or a daughter. Where is the goodness and mercy that God has shown to me overflowing? Like it says, my cup overflows in verse 5. Think about these things and consider, am I more like the Dead Sea over there in the Middle East or like in Utah?

Or is there a flow from God to me to others? We've been made stewards of the manifold grace of God. Stewards means we've been put in trust with it. And Isaiah 12 says that, he says, Therefore, for those of us who went through Isaiah, therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And in that day you will say praise the Lord.

Remember God was angry in verse 1 with you, in Isaiah 12 1, but now He's shown you mercy and His anger's turned away. As a result of that, you're rejoicing. But then look what it says, and in that day you will say now to other people, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his deeds among the peoples. And so the recipient of all the grace and the mercy of God now becomes the dispenser of the grace and the mercy of God. This is the wonders of serving the Lord.

And so I want to end with this. I mentioned Elizabeth Elliott earlier and her response to her husband's murders. You know she wrote a book called The Savage, My Kinsman. Here's an perfect example of a woman who suffered, who went through the valley of the shadow of death. And she could have called in the U.S.

Army or some sort of, you know, to come in and they could have lit up and destroyed these Alka Indians. But you know today, whereas when they were there in 1950s, there were only 250 aukas of this particular tribe. Because how did they solve their problems? By killing each other. You stepped on my toe, I'm going to spear you and you're done.

But you know today, there are over 2, 000 of these people and a large majority or at least I think over a third of them are actually believers in Jesus Christ because the love and mercy God showed her overflowed to this particular tribe of people and and she outlived her husband she just died last year by 59 years. But her whole life was an example of being poured out for the goodness and for the mercy of God. Think about Joseph and his response to his brothers. What you intended for evil, God meant for good. And they lived with him and he took care of them.

The goodness and mercy overflowed. I even think of Elder Mike Davenport's message last week. He was talking about family resemblance. Christ or Cain, we're in 1st John as I said, and he said that treatment of your brother reflects the state of your heart before God. Love is the distinguishing characteristic or mark of the believer.

It's a family trait. As the father is, look at who God is and you'll get a sense of who you ought to be in some small measure. And so think about these things. That word will follow me all the days of my life. God is is gonna make sure that you are safe all the way up until the very end.

And it's not random acts of kindness, but this is a consistent lifestyle that we're gonna be focused on in living. And so as a young lady, as a young person, one of the things you need to do is transition from being a recipient. And some of you have, which is wonderful to see, nothing is more beautiful than that. But to be a recipient, to transition now to a dispenser of good in the home, in the church, where can I serve mom? Where can I serve dad?

What do you need? Where can I affect my neighbors? Is that the way that we're thinking as young people and to dwell in the house of the Lord forever? This is the great ambition This is the last Part of it. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It's so wonderful to think that through. You know one of the sad things my wife was talking to a pastor's wife a couple years ago in Florida and the pastor's wife said I don't know what it is about the young people the young ladies specifically but their great ambition is to get married. And then once they've gotten married, there's not a lot of spiritual interest anymore. They're more interested in just kind of, you know, how many children they're going to have, and it's kind of the more carnal thing. And she was lamenting that their ceiling, what they aspired to, was not to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, but to simply get married, to sell themselves short, to miss the entire picture of what marriage represents because this was maybe how they were formed from the beginning or that was their great ambition as they were young.

But don't aim for that. Aim with the main intention of your heart to dwell with God forever, forever. It's the most beautiful thing. For a day in your courts, David says, is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

Death may deprive of dear friends, but it can't deprive us of this, our best friend. So even when we go through the worst, there's hope in this life that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever, but of course of the life to come. And so I want to end with this one verse Paul says in Romans, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Let's pray. Father, we come before you this morning. You are the great shepherd of the sheep. Lord, you have caused us to know you. Even when we were enemies without hope in the world, Lord, you saved us and brought us near by the blood of your Son.

Father, we pray this morning that you would open up our hearts and minds to trust in you more, to fear less, to look to you, O Lord, with hope and expectation and to shun the things of this world, Lord. We pray for our daughters that they would know you, that they would be able to say, for you are with me all the days of their lives that they may dwell with you, Lord. So we thank you and we praise you for your goodness. In Jesus' name, amen.