HE RESTORES MY SOUL PSALM 23 Verse 3a. I. Soul Design II. Soul Damage III. Soul Delight

Transcription

1 HE RESTORES MY SOUL PSALM 23 Verse 3a I. Soul Design II. Soul Damage III. Soul Delight It s wonderful to be with all of you worshipping our God today. If you were here last week for Easter and it was one of your first times here and you ve come back today, we re so glad you ve come. Or maybe you weren t here for Easter but you ve come today for the first time, we want to say welcome. We love new people coming to our church and hope and pray you find us hospitable and that you enjoy your time here. My name is Duane, I m the preaching and vision pastor here at The Resolved. Every year on Easter we do a special Easter sermon but for most weeks here at our church, we simply go through the words of the Bible. The way we are doing that during this season of our church is going very slowly through the words of Psalm 23, which happens to be the most famous and well known chapter in all the Bible. We re about two months into this series and today we start the beginning of the third verse, with the words, He Restores My Soul. One of the things we like to normally do here before we get into the sermon is to regularly recognize and honor the Bible as the Word of God in our service by having an official reading of the sermon text. The way we do that is by standing up, reading it, declaring it as God s Word and then verbally thanking Him for it all together. So let s go ahead and do that right now. Psalm 23:1-3 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. Pastoral Declaration: This is the Word of the Lord. Congregational Response: Thanks Be To God. Pastoral Prayer Today, our sermon is on the soul. Those four words at the beginning of verse 3, He restores my soul. What we re going to walk through together today is what the soul is and how we know we have one, what has happened to our souls and why they need restoration and then what a restored soul looks like and how God does that. To get us initially thinking about this, the existence of the soul and the need for soul restoration I have a brief video clip for us to watch. It s part of an interview with a guy named Bam Margera, who was a professional skateboarder who went on to make a number of blockbuster movies and then had his own reality show on MTV for five seasons called Viva La Bam. I used to be pretty into skateboarding and he was one of the guys everybody looked up to and paid attention to. He made millions and millions of dollars and now finds himself in a pretty low place and is at a live in rehab facility. This clip of the interview gives us a keen insight into the state of his soul. Here it is: BAM MARGERA VIDEO Just about a year ago now, I was up at a church leaders conference in Reno, Nevada and during the first main session there were two guys named Rich Plass & Jim Coefield whose talk was on the soul. They began by reading these words of Jesus in the Bible from Matthew 16:26, What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? And they began to say that some of the pastors there we re seeking something for their life and their ministry at any cost and that they better be careful or they might lose their soul. Then they said there were other

2 pastors present who had gotten everything they wanted in their ministry having their vision fulfilled but in the process they forfeited their soul to get it. Then they re-read Matthew 16:26, What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? And it hit me like a ton of bricks and just out of nowhere I didn t now what was happening to me but I just starting shaking uncontrollably in my seat. Tears started streaming down my face. Pastor Dan was sitting next me and just put his arm around me. In that moment I felt completely undone, I couldn t contain myself. It was one of the lowest moments of my entire life. What was hitting me so hard was that after 18 years of pastoral ministry, I had reached a place where I felt like I got everything I wanted, but lost my soul in the process. I lost me. And I just felt dead and empty inside. That led to me going on a six-month sabbatical last year, which was both the best and most difficult thing I ve ever done in my life. I ve been back now here in my role as preaching pastor for about six months. And I m good, God has done a lot in me. What I experienced during that sabbatical was the slow process of God restoring my soul. So these words today from the Bible in Psalm 23 are precious to me. I didn t read anything from the Bible the first six months I was away except Psalm 23 and these four words, He restores my soul were all I had. I grabbed these words and held onto them as a promise and a prayer, asking and begging God to restore my soul because at the time I had no idea what had happened to it and why I was having a complete meltdown. What I want to say and present to you this morning is that it doesn t matter if you re a crazy drug fueled millionaire or a very passionate Christian or pastor, we are all in danger of losing our souls. There are some of you here today and you haven t realized it yet but the track you re on is the track of losing your soul. There are others of you here today and even already as I ve been talking, you know you know, your soul feels gone and dead. What you need, what we all need is the God who restores souls. We need Him who restores the soul. So here s our points for today, Soul Design, Soul Damage, and Soul Delight. Let s get into our first point for today, Soul Design. I. Soul Design With this first point what I want to try and do is convince you that you have a soul, that God created and designed you with one. For many the idea of souls, is like the idea of ghosts they don t really exist. John Searle, the famous atheist philosophy professor at Berkeley has admitted, The leading problem in the biological sciences is the problem of explaining how neurological processes cause conscious experience. You see, what he is saying is science and medical studies can see brain activity, neurons and synapses firing but what cannot be seen or tested is one s conscious self. When we talk about or use the word soul what we are talking about is a person s psyche, their inner person, one s identity, a human s mind, heart or personality. It is something which clearly exists but is by nature and by definition not something physical that can be tested through physical process and means. A person s identity or consciousness cannot be isolated to any part of a person s brain or body and yet it is there, this sense of self, the immediate understanding and awareness of a soul which belongs to each and every one of us. J. P. Moreland who was one of my professors in graduate school, wrote a pretty good book titled, The Soul: How We Know It's Real and Why It Matters. In it he cites four reasons as proof for the existence of the soul in us: 1. Our Basic Awareness of Self This is the basic sense we have of realizing and recognizing ourselves as a person.

3 2. The First Person Perspective This is where we cannot see or understand ourselves and the universe without using language such as I, me and my. 3. Personal Morality This is the universal human sense of ought and right and wrong. 4. Experiences of Disembodiment This is experiences of not being fully present, such as day dreaming or death bed sensations. Looking at these reasons together, what we recognize is it is not lunacy to believe that each of us have a nonphysical part of who we are called the soul. It is actually very reasonable to believe and very important to our identity and being. The existence and importance of the soul is something the Bible happens to universally claim and emphasize throughout it s pages. Right away, in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis 2:7 says, The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. So here we have the very first picture the Bible gives of a human being being one where man has a physical component, that He is made of substance from the ground and He has a non-physical component, the breath or spirit of life and that the two together make Him a living soul. Likewise, Jesus as the Son of God affirms this design or constitution of the human being. He says in Matthew 10:28, Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. There is the body and there is the soul and since the soul is by nature immaterial or non-physical, it can and will and does live on after physical death. The soul cannot be killed Jesus says. But it can be destroyed. You can destroy your soul, which can have eternal consequences in hell if it doesn t get restored by God. The soul is essential to the human person and the to Christian faith. In regard to the human person, the famous French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is. It is because it is so great of consequence that Christians throughout the centuries from the church Fathers, down through the medieval ages and the Reformation have emphasized the importance of the soul. In the Westminster Shorter Catechism, (which we have in our version in the bookstore called, R Kids Catechism ) made to help parents teach and raise children has three questions designed to address the significance of the soul. Q: What did God give Adam and Eve besides bodies? A: He gave them souls that could never die. 1 Corinthians 15:45 - It is written, The first man Adam became a living being ; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Q: Have you a soul as well as a body? A: Yes; I have a soul that can never die. Matthew 10:28 - And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Q: How do you know that you have a soul? A: Because the Bible tells me so. John 17:17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

4 It s great fun and good for your kids. Parents I encourage you to pick one up and start working with your kids on the catechism questions. I think what we see clearly in the Bible and clearly with reason is that part of the very nature of what makes a human being a human being is that we have a soul. God designed us that way. And our soul is extremely extremely important. It s important because in reality nearly all of our life is driven by our souls. Proverbs 4:23 in the Bible says it s out of the soul which flows all of life. Your very life has to do with the state of your soul. Our souls are precious. They are jewels to protected and cared for. That s why Jesus said it s so important to be careful of not losing our souls. Because in our pursuits and in our busyness and in all that we give ourselves to, there s a danger of losing our souls. J.P. Moreland s book on the soul isn t the easiest read. He s a high level professional philosopher. But he ends the book with what I think is a pretty profound statement. He says, Jesus cautioned about being cavalier regarding the forfeiting of one s soul. Perhaps the first step in in losing something is to stop believing it s real in the first place. Hear me today: You have a soul. God designed and created you that way. Your self, your soul is the most important part of who you are. You are more than just biological functions and instincts. You are a living soul and you are precious to God. Well, let s move on to our second point for today and talk about what happens when we do forfeit our souls. Let s talk Soul Damage. II. Soul Damage In Psalm 23 the guiding metaphor is one of sheep. People are pictured as sheep, who are walking through life being guided and cared for by God, the Shepherd. So when verse three says God restores the sheep there is a specific situation it is referring to. To help us understand it, let s look for a second at part of another Psalm, Psalm 42:5, Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Do you see those two words cast down? That s a sheep phrase. What can happen with sheep is they will sometimes lay down on their stomach and then shift their weight onto their side to rest. What can happen sometimes is when they shift onto their side, they will occasionally roll too far and they can fall over onto their back with their feet up in the air. When that happens it s said the sheep is cast down. Philip Keller, who I ve been using a bunch in this series to learn about sheep, says it s one of the most pathetic sights. The sheep will frantically flay it s legs and struggle in a panic to stand up without success. He says it s actually very dangerous because what happens its it causes gases to build up in the sheep s stomach that can t get out and it cuts off circulation to the sheep s extremities. He says on a hot day, if the shepherd doesn t find the sheep and stand it up on it s legs, a sheep can die in a matter of a few hours, which is one of the reasons shepherds constantly count the sheep to make sure all are there and standing upright. This is the picture the Bible gives us as to why we need soul restoration. Because our souls get cast down. It s where we ve fallen over onto our backs and cannot get up. This verse is telling though, even in the way it is poetically written isn t it? Psalm 42:5, Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Part of the problem is knowing the state of your soul. How do you know when your soul is in trouble? Sometimes we don t even realize it. Here s some indicators. Inner turmoil. This is where you just feel like something is not right. You feel lost and confused. Your stomach in knots.

5 Easily agitated. This is when you re on edge and are quick and reactive to people and situations that easily set you off triggering sharp emotions. Anger. This is when everything makes you mad or when you have an incident where you just go off on a person. Saddness. This is when you feel intense sorrow and you feel broken inside. Depression is a very clear sign of soul trouble. What Saint John of the Cross called The Dark Night of The Soul. Isolation. This is when you feel very alone and actually don t even want to be around other people. Lack of sleep. This is when you have a very hard time going to sleep and once you do get to sleep it s hard for you to stay asleep very long. Regret. This is when you regularly feel like a failure and like you can t do anything right. Vices. This is where you sense and know something is wrong and so you try and fix it or fill it by either binge eating or not eating, extreme exercise, or the abuse of alcohol or drugs. Lack of joy. This is when you just don t feel excited about life. Life just feel hard and like your against a wall everywhere you turn. And these are just a few of what I call low-level indicators that our souls may be in trouble. I know there s others. These are things we ve got to pay attention to, because if we don t pay attention to them it s easy over time to end up in a very bad place. Maybe you re hearing this and you re thinking okay, yeah, but how does this happen? The normal sort of Christian answer is to automatically say sin. Like, we damage our souls by doing bad things. And while that s true to an extent, I actually think there s more to it than that. Rich and Jim, who I told you about earlier who spoke at that conference I went to ended up being my sabbatical coaches and counselors. And side note, we re going to be having them come down three times a year, starting in May to work with all our leaders, elders, deacons, staff, ministry leaders and community group coaches which we are all so excited about. The first part of our church s ten year vision plan is to be a healthy church. Our vision is healthy church, mature church and great church. And I m so excited to have Rich and Jim come because I just know we re going to get so healthy! Anyway, Rich and Jim actually wrote a book together called The Relational Soul. In it they talk a lot about the soul and their thesis is that the soul is by nature relational. Here s what they write, We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others. Fundamentally, we are relational souls. We cannot not be relational. In fact, all of our knowing is interpersonal in that it emerges from a soul that is structured relationally We are structured by and for relationships. Our relationships determine whether we have and enjoy life. A deep participation in the life of another is the lifeblood of the soul. What they explain is basic to what it means to be human is that we have a soul and that soul is designed to be relational. The soul is designed to be in relationship first with God and then with others. What happens when there is soul damage is what another guy named Curt Thompson who wrote Anatomy of the Soul calls rupture in relationship. Soul distress happens when there is a relational strain or breech and the soul undergoes ruptures of various kinds. We see this rupture of relationship happen first in the garden of Eden with the first man and the first woman when they reject relationship with God, turning aside and end up falling on their backs feeling immense guilt and shame and they cannot get themselves up and out of it. So thinking about the soul and soul damage this way is not thinking so much of sin as doing bad things but a movement of the soul first away from God which causes ruptures and damage to ourselves. Interestingly, in the garden it was from listening to Satan the serpent, hence the phrase, selling your soul to the devil.

6 The second movement of the soul relationally is interpersonal between two or more human beings. This where we experience hurt in various forms from other people. Right away, after the movement away from God, the man and the woman turn against each other and there is blame and separation which has long lasting effects. So thinking about the soul and soul damage this way is not thinking so much of sin as doing bad things but when we experience wrongs done to us by other people. This causes ruptures and damages to souls. What Rich and Jim say in their books is that these relational breeches which damage the soul end up having long term effects in us, in the formation of our person, and when they go unaddressed and unaddressed and unaddressed we end up forming a false self. A false self is a person we think we are and present ourselves to others as but we never quite feel at home with that person. One Bible commentator on Psalm 23:3 said our souls need restoration because it s as if our true selves, our souls have flown away and they need to be recreated to be able to taste the essence of life they were made for. What I want to communicate on this here is that both, BOTH the things we ve done AND the things others have done to us have deep deep effects in our soul. What it really does is damage our psyche. Something about the core of who we are gets torn. And it hurts leaving wounds that don t go away. They re just there. Anything we do is just like a band-aid but it does nothing to heal it and anytime you take the band-aid off it s still just there. And this is an important point about soul damage. Soul damage is the kind of damage to our persons that we cannot fix ourselves. David Benner in his book Soulful Spirituality says, Our natural reaction to any crisis is to try and restore equilibrium, to do whatever possible to get ourselves back to where we were before things fell apart. But this won t work we have no alternative but fundamental change. This is what Jesus taught when he said that if we genuinely desire to save our life we must first be prepared to lose it (Mark 8:34-36). In order to save my life - that is, to really live - I must lost that which appears to be my life. Soul damage is such that it s the kind of thing we cannot fix ourselves. But before we can even begin to experience repair and restoration, we have to admit that it s there and that our soul are in trouble. So let me just ask today... What s your soul damage? Earlier I was talking about some of those low-level indicators: inner turmoil, easily agitated, anger, sadness, isolation, lack of sleep, regret, vices, lack of joy are you sensing some of those things? How have relationships effected your soul? Have you moved away from God and because of that there things you ve done you know have damaged you? Have there been things others have done to you that you know have left deep marks in you? My guess is there s two different groups of people in the room today. One, there s the group of people who are hearing this and you know it s like this sermon is speaking right to you and you just know there s a whole lot there. You know your soul is damaged. Then there s another group of people here who think ah, maybe I ve got some of that stuff but eh, for the most part I m okay. And of this group the person who thinks, well, I ve never really done anything that bad and nothing really that bad has ever happened to me, I m just kind of been a good person or good Christian my whole life then you re one of the people I m most concerned for. Because that s a sign that your soul has become numb and it might in fact even be dead.

7 Soul damage effects all of us. Every one of us are sheep who have fallen on our backs. Circulation has been cut off and life has been sucked out of us. And what we need, what we need is the shepherd, we need God the shepherd to come restore our souls. So let s transition into some good news and talk about how God does that in our third and final point for today, Soul Delight. III. Soul Delight With this last point for today what we are recognizing is that the soul is not meant to be damaged. The soul is meant for life and that life is meant to be enjoyed. God created life on earth. God created life. He created souls for life, that is their purpose and life is meant to be a good thing. What God s restoration does is brings a person to a place where they once again feel that life is worth living, that life is a good thing and that God gives life to us to be enjoyed. To see that, let s first return to the picture of the sheep up on it s back with it s feet up in the air. Our shepherd friend, Philip Keller says when a sheep was cast down like that he would come up to the sheep, gently roll it over onto it s side again, then he would pick the sheep up and stand it on it s legs, rubbing each one to restore circulation again. He said it would take awhile because often the sheep would take a few steps and then stumble again and need help but eventually it would be able to walk again and join the rest of the flock. This is what God does for us His sheep who have been cast down, as the committed and gentle shepherd He is, He rolls us over, stands us back up, regenerates our spiritual circulation and then rejoins us to His flock, the church. What s interesting form our verse today is this word restore. He restores my soul. The word in and of itself means to repair, renew or refresh. What it indicates is that this restoration of God involves Him reworking things in us, repair the disconnect we ve experienced and bringing us to a place where we feel refreshed in our spirits. It is both a physical and psychological spiritual renewal. It s a deep work of God. And the result is joy. A joy filled life, that comes from being restored to relationship with God and then with other people. Then the soul delights. Speaking of this restoration one Bible commentator saids, God restores the soul to its original purity. Black souls cannot be in green pastures so He restores its natural temper and affection in place of what had become distempered with violent passions. Turbulent spirits cannot be in still waters so He restores them to peace. He restores to life what had in a manner, grown quite dead. When we hear of the soul being restored, we should hear it and think, yes that s what I need. I think in this Psalm, where it says He restores my soul. It s not only a statement about what God has done, but really also a promise about what He will do. This Psalm is laid out before us as a picture of the journey of our lives. The reality is our souls will experience damage. Yet, in light of that God promises to restore our souls. Like I told you all at the beginning of this sermon, when I first read this verse when I began my sabbatical, all I knew is that I was something was broken deep inside me but I read this verse and it became a prayer like God if you are really there please, restore my soul. It didn t happen, right away but slowly through spending extended time in solitude with God, praying, reading this Psalm, through experiencing God s good gifts, like the mountains, the beach and surfing, through processing a lot of the hurts and soul damage I ve gone through God began to restore my soul. And I

8 remember a day about three months in where I started to experience that for the first time the darkness and the sadness began to lift and I had started to enjoy life again and I remember thinking, So it is you you are there you do care you do love me. And what I want to make super clear today about that is that God s restoration happens through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Here s how that light came shining in for me. Hebrews 12:2 says, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Do you see that line, despising the shame? Now of course that surely means the physical practical shame Jesus experienced, being stripped naked and crucified on a cross in front of a bunch of people. But here, in the context of this passage if you go there and read the verses before and after it, this shame also includes sin, the sins of others. Jesus, the sinless one, spiritually takes on both our personal sins and the sins done to us. So he takes on our relational movements away from God and the hurts other people we ve been in relationship with have inflicted on us. He dies for both of them. And what s the goal, why does He do it? For joy. His joy in pleasing the father in doing that for us and our joy in having our souls restored. The result is that we no longer need to feel the distance caused by guilt and shame but get to experience the closeness of God, His presence with us. That was and is the goal. His presence with us. This is Jesus promise to us. They are actually His final words in the book of Matthew. Matthew 28:20, Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. I AM WITH YOU. So here s the thing in light of that. What does soul health look like? How does the soul delight? Listen. Soul health. Soul delight happens through practicing the presence of God. Jesus died so that we might walk with God. Sheep walking along with the Shepherd. In His presence. Being counted by Him as one of His own. What we are restored to is to walking with God in whole relationship. Get the picture. We were sheep on our backs. So God became a sheep, put all our relational wrongs onto His back on the cross. Then Jesus got up, the only one to ever do it on His own. He rose so that He could come to us and pick up up restoring us to new life. This is what Jesus does for us and has promised to do for us who believe. And it doesn t matter how many times we fall down, He promises to pick us up every time. Charles Spurgeon, who they called the prince of preachers said it this way, When the soul grows sorrowful, He revives it. When it is sinful, He sanctifies it. And when it is weak He strengthens it. What is your soul in need of today? How do you need God to pick you up and restore your soul? Is your soul sorrowful and you need His joy? Is your soul angry and you need His peace? Is your soul dirty and you need His cleansing? Is your soul weak and you need His strength? Hear today church, God restores the soul! God restores the soul! God restores the soul! Look to Him and have Him pick you up with His gentle arms. He is the great shepherd of the sheep. You can entrust yourself to His loving care.

9 Let s conclude. As the band begins to play and we prepare to respond, let s do a little soul assessment and invite God to do some soul work in us. We conclude every service here by receiving what communion or the Lord s supper. It s where Jesus told us when gather to take a piece of bread and some wine as His body and blood in order to remember what He did for us and experience the grace He imparts through it to us. In doing this what we are saying is I have a soul, my soul s been damaged but Jesus died and rose to restore into the life and joy He means for us. So when you come today, come and spend some special time in the presence of God at His table. If you feel like your numb, acknowledge that and just say, God have no idea the state of my soul, help me. Hear God s gracious words, I do, I care, I love you and that s why I sent my Son for you. If there s a way your soul has been damaged, acknowledge that to God and hear Jesus words, I died and rose for that so you can be whole again. If you feel empty and down and need God to restore joy to you, just tell Him and then hear Jesus words, in me your joy will be made full once again. Friends, family, let s go to the God who restores, the only one who can restore us. Let s worship Him.