The Shepherd’s Psalm

Pastor Miles taught a few weeks back on Psalm 23. He took 6 weeks to teach on it and since it is 6 verses long, it equated to about a verse a week. It was a great study of one of the most recognizable passages in the Bible. We learned a great deal about the significance of the Lord as the believers Shepherd.

There are so many great ways a shepherd cares for his sheep and the ways that the sheep trust their master. That is why God uses that analogy to show His care for us, His sheep. I am so thankful that this dumb sheep has the Lord of the universe watching over me, loving me, and caring for my every need for my good.

At the end of this study, Pastor Earl summed it all up for us. Below is a summary of all those weeks of teaching in an amplified paraphrase of this Psalm. I thought I understood this passage before, but this has magnified for me the wonderful truths of all that my Good Shepherd is for me. I hope this is helpful to you too.

We could paraphrase these verses this way in light of what we've seen: The "Great I Am" who is all I could ever need and more than my soul could ever desire is my Shepherd, my Feeder and Caregiver; I will not lack anything that is necessary for my good and His glory in every situation and at every moment of my life. (1) He causes me by His sovereign goodness to relax and rest from fear, conflict, disturbance and hunger and find nourishment for my soul in feasting on His word in the midst of my present carefully chosen circumstances; He carefully and intently and continually leads me to places in life where I can drink deeply from His goodness and be refreshed. (2) He turns me away from empty idols and back to Himself as the Fountain of Living Waters, putting me back on my feet and renewing my peace and joy and courage; He goes before me like a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night - in faithfulness to His promises – to keep me in the wagon tracks of how He has worked in the lives of those who have gone before me so that I might become more like Him to the glory of His name in my heart and through my life. (3) Even though I am led further up and further in to the higher, richer meadowlands through the dangerous and difficult valley of death shade – with its threatening storms, rock slides, rampaging rivers, poisonous plants and hidden predators, I have no reason to be afraid of ultimate evil or harm, because You, my great and good Shepherd, are with me, ready to use Your rod of protection and correction and Your staff of guidance and rescue, both of which bring me the comfort of profound security in You. (4) You, my Shepherd, set in front of me a table full of feasting foods in the sight of all who are hostile toward me and even through their hostility; You cause my head to be fat with fatness – full of happiness in Your welcoming hospitality, set apart for Your worship and service; my wine cup of blessing is saturated to the full, spilling out on others. (5) Without a doubt, only good things for my welfare, prosperity and happiness flowing from a good Shepherd's heart of tender affection and kindness will chase me down with a relentless, violent passion for my good and His glory, driving me into the waiting arms of the Shepherd and securing my place in and enhancing my enjoyment of the family of God now and without end of days. (6) - Earl Miles

Finding Joy in God

Our youth group at Coast has been studying how to grow in Godliness this year. This month, the topic was on joy. Our lay youth pastor, Dan Rupprecht, shared with them truths from God's word on finding true joy. These are some of the thoughts he shared with them. I hope this benefits them and you as much as it has me.

We all want joy. In fact, the desire of everyone is to find joy (Ecclesiastes 8:15). We look for it everywhere, but most of the time we are looking in the wrong places and at the wrong things. This "cheap" joy, as Dan put it, is everywhere, but it never lasts, and only leads to death. Our sinful hearts cheapen and diminish even the joy we seek from the right source, God.

God designed mankind to find our satisfaction (joy) in Him. It is God who is the source of all true pleasure. Seeking pleasure is not a sin. Seeking pleasure in everything else apart from God is. God tells us in his Word that is idolatry.

Real joy comes only from God through Christ Jesus. Christ came as the ultimate demonstration of God's steadfast love. This manifestation of His lovingkindness is to make us glad and rejoice now, and one day, completely in God's presence (Psalms 90:14).

Most of the time we deceive ourselves into thinking that we know better how to find joy for ourselves than God does. This is just not true. God, through Jesus, wants us to be happy a million times more than we do. In John 15:11 He tells us that He wants us to be full of His joy. Meditate on that thought for a while. Jesus wants us to have His joy in us, and for that joy to be full, complete; that we would be completely filled with His joy. (Can I get an amen, or Hallelujah?)

Our joy will never be perfect while we are here on this earth. It is limited in this life by sin, but it can be expanded through obedient faith. Real joy is also not determined by our immediate circumstances, but by the reality of God and all that He promises us in Christ. Even the reproach of Christ in our lives is greater riches than the treasures of the world (Hebrews 11:25-26; 12:2).

He ended with a list of 10 ways to expand your joy in God. I will leave you with these.

1. Confess your sin of looking to everything but God for happiness (Psalm. 32:3-11)
   
2. Look to Christ for all that you truly need (John. 16:24)
   
3. Pray for joyful obedience (Psalm. 51:12; 61:2)
   
4. Kill the two-headed pride monster: boasting and self-pity (1 Cor. 1:26-29; Mt. 5:11-12)
   
5. Get passionate about your obedience to God and service to others (Romans 12:9-15)
   
6. Study to become an expert about what God has promised you (2 Peter 1:4, 10-11)
   
7. Take inventory of your circumstances and express thanks to God (Habakkuk 3:17-18)
   
8. Take the long-range view of life (1 Peter 1:6-9)
   
9. Sing about the lovingkindness of God (Psalm. 90:14)
   
10. Do hard things and gladly accept the outcome (James.1:2-4)

Marrying Young – I Do, or I Do Not Yet

There has been much discussion lately over the topic of marriage, and when is the right time to marry. This recent discussion revolves around an article published in Christianity Today by Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas. He lays a case against modern American society that says people should prepare first and build a financial foundation before embarking on marital unions. Specifically, Evangelical Churches should pull away from such thinking and promote the marriage covenant more aggressively, and encourage our youth to start much earlier than current statistics show. I agree with him that the church should not embrace such worldviews, and should promote marriage as the gift God made it to be. However, he started the article by laying a foundation that is just another worldly argument that directly violates God's word. And because he started there, it was hard for me to get past that and see the effective rebuttals he made against those who propose postponing marriage until later in life. I suggest that believers should look first to the Bible to see what God says, and with that foundation we can make choices where God has given freedom.

This foundation I struggled with was an argument for promoting earlier marriage based on sexual statistics of young people. By his statistics, over 90% of young adults have sex outside of marriage, and among evangelicals, 80% who are in a relationship have some form of sex outside of marriage. He says these stats show that teaching abstinence to them just isn't working. All it does is make them feel guilty. Regnerus says when we ask our youth to remain pure "few evangelicals accomplish what their pastors and parents wanted them to." He also says "I'm suggesting that in the domain of sex, most of them don't and won't" abstain. He goes on to say "when people wait until their mid-to-late 20's to marry, it is unreasonable to expect them to refrain from sex." According to him, the church is losing the battle for purity because we are putting unreasonable pressure on them in this present culture.

Now I understand why he says he has encountered such resistance to his view on marrying young. These attacks on the fabric of Biblical principles make it hard to keep listening. I know it did for me. Everything else he said was tainted by the conclusion he made from the data collected. Am I wrong? Should we also conclude that since almost everyone is doing it, we are unfair to expect young Christians to stay pure until marriage?

It is important here to remember that the church is not making unbearable demands on us, but we are teaching what God wants and expects us all to do. God's word is clear about whether it is ok to have sex outside of marriage. 1Thessalonians 4 tells us that God's will for our sanctification is that we abstain from sexual immorality (1 Thess.4:3). And, we are not to act with the passionate lusts of unbelievers, but with knowledge how to have self control of our bodies (1 Thess. 4:4-5). The church may need to examine itself in this area, to see if it has adequately trained young people how to know how to control his/her urges. I am sure this is lacking in the church. We are quick to tell them (and us) how immorality is wrong, but then not prepare them with the right weapons to fight the temptations.

The passage continues, though, to exhort us not to wrong each other with sexual sin, and warns us of the consequences before God for those that do (1 Thess. 4:6). God has called us to be holy, and not impure (1 Thess. 4:7). And finally, a stern warning comes to anyone who rejects this, because they are rejecting God (1 Thess. 4:8). After all, The Lord did not leave us all alone, but He gave us the Holy Spirit. We need to be careful not to ever give a message that abstinence is an unreasonable teaching. This passage and many more tell us that it is God's message. (Romans 13:13; 1 Corinthians 5:1, 6:9, 18; 2 Corinthians 12:21; Galatians 5:19; Ephesians 5:3; etc…)

The argument made to marry as a solution to strong sexual desires is addressed in I Corinthians 7, and Regnerus does use that passage toward the end of the article. Yes, it is a valid reason for marriage, but if it is the only reason, then the person is making a grave mistake. That passage alone spends a great deal of time addressing this topic from many different angles. It would take many blog entries to really look at this issue and try to come to conclusions. This passage, by itself, gives us a good idea how complex the answers to this subject can be. The truth is, when a person should get married can only be determined individually. It would be wrong for us to argue a "one size fits all" model for when a person should marry.

Regnerus does say that the church should promote marriage, and I agree. Hebrews 13:4 tells us to hold marriage in honor, and that God will judge those who defile it. And we have an example of marriage in Ephesians 5 that illustrates the beautiful relationship of Christ and His church. It is important for us to revere, honor, and encourage marriage as the good gift from God it is. There are good examples of those who got married young, and there are good examples of those who get married later. So much of that depends on the maturity and calling of each individual.

I want to make it clear I am not against Regnerus. He did a good job of refuting the arguments for getting married later. If you did not read the article, please do, it will make you think. You can find it here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/august/16.22.html