The Lord Is with You

Well, good morning and happy Independence Day, Church on the Move. 250 years of God's goodness, faithfulness, blessing. So good. And maybe you didn't know, but this is a pretty significant weekend for us today. Today, literally today, marks 39 years for us as a church. Pretty amazing. I was there. I was there 39 years ago, I remember that weekend. We started in a Marriott, just about four miles away from here. My dad was telling us the story yesterday. Only had seven weeks of rental space available, but he felt like the Lord told him to start a church on July 4th, weekend of all weekends. And so on July 5th, we started Church on the Move, planted it here in the city with nothing more than seven weeks of availability at the Marriott, and truly, I just think it kind of warrants stopping and looking around and going, look at what God has done in 39 years. Pretty awesome. So it's a special weekend for us, to say the least, on so many different levels. And so I'm excited to teach the text that we're going to be looking at today. It's one that all of you will know well. We're looking at Psalm 23, and I want to invite you to stand. We've been doing this, at least on the weekends that I've been preaching during this series, where we stand for the reading of God's Word, and we're going to be reading Psalm 23. I know most of you, many of you probably have this memorized. That's great. We're going to put it up on the screen, and we're going to say this out loud together. So would you join me as we recite Psalm 23? Here we go. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His namesake. Even 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 overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the Word of the Lord, and we all said, thanks be to God, you may be seated. Well, I'm not sure there's a more memorable or beautiful or perhaps better known passage in all the Scripture than Psalm 23. People the world over, Christian and non-Christian alike, are familiar with these words. Many have part or all of this Psalm memorized. It's pretty staggering to think when you consider that the Bible, being the best known, best selling, most often quoted and read book in human history, if this chapter of David's Psalm 23 is the most well-known passage of the Bible, then it's very likely that it's the most well-known words ever put to paper by a human being in human history. Surpassing Shakespeare and all other titans of literature is David, a lowly shepherd boy, painting a beautiful picture in words of God's faithfulness to him and to his people. That's what poetry does. That's why I love the Psalms, the poetry of the Psalms. The Bible is a collection of 66 different books, and each of them is a little bit different genre of literature. There's some biography, that's the gospel accounts. There's some historical narrative. We find a lot of that in the Old Testament. There are letters, but there are also poetry, books of poetry, and Psalms being the most notable of that.

I love the poetry of the Psalms, though I'm not good at poetry, not good at reading it, and certainly not good at writing it, but I found the older I get, the more I need poetry and the more it means to me. The reason is because poetry activates a different part of who I am. The letters of Paul are wonderful and inspiring and thought provoking. They're really left brain kind of material. They cause me to think and to consider and to sort of weigh out the theological implications of what he's putting forward, but Psalms are different. They speak to a different part of me, another half of my brain that maybe much of life doesn't demand that I access. It speaks to the right half of my brain, the part that fires the imagination. In fact, we could go so far as to say the Psalms don't speak to the head, they speak to the heart. And there's a profound thing. about the language of the heart. It bypasses our defenses, it bypasses the logic filters and it just goes right into the very core of us. I think that's why these words are so enduring. You don't have to have a theological degree to understand what it means that the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want. It speaks to a place deep inside every human heart and that's why I love this chapter. It's such vivid language and in just a few words, 114 by my count in the ESV translation, David paints a picture that a three hour lecture could not. I love this quote from Alexander McClaren, he puts it this way, the world could spare many a large book better than this sunny little psalm. It has dried many tears and supplied the mold into which many hearts have poured their peaceful faith. Psalm 23 kind of stimulates our imagination, it speaks to our hearts in a deep and profound way and so rather than today trying to break it apart and get super technical with it and tell you what each word means or kind of go down into sort of this explanation of what ancient shepherds did, I think we ought to just take the psalm at face value and let it speak to us in the way that I think it desires to, to speak to the heart, to the feelings, to the emotions, to remind us of who our God is. And I think this weekend, of all weekends, it's absolutely appropriate, it's the perfect psalm for this weekend because it speaks to God's faithfulness

to his people. That's what we're going to meditate on, if you will, today. So let's think and consider the imagery, the pictures that we find here in Psalm 23. Verse 1, you know it well, we just said it together, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I mean maybe there's no more familiar words in all the scripture than Psalm 23.1, the Lord is my shepherd. What could be better news, quite frankly, if you're really honestly thinking about it, what could be better news than this? The Lord, you know, the one who spoke the universe into existence, the one who said, let there be light and there was light, the all-sufficient, all-knowing, all-powerful God, the great I Am, the Alpha, the Omega, that Lord, the Lord is your shepherd. What could be better news than this? I can think it's some pretty great news. There's occasionally the Powerball, I see the billboards for how much you could win. It'd be pretty awesome news to win that Powerball. Wouldn't it be a great call to get? But I've got to tell you, this is better news than that. Having the Lord as your shepherd is more lasting, more enduring, more eternal, and more meaningful than that. And as I was meditating on this idea this week, I was sort of struck by this one little word, it's easy to miss, easy to pass by, the Lord is, present tense, He is my shepherd. Not was, not will be, it's not that God isn't the God of the past and won't be the God of the future, He is and He was. But David here is speaking to the present tense nature of God's presence with us. The Lord is my shepherd. When I walk through a green pasture and beside still waters, the Lord is my shepherd. But also, when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the well-known verse, verse 4, He is with me. That's the promise, He is with me. And in fact, you could say this is really the point of the whole psalm. J.A. Mateer points out there are 26 words in Hebrew that come before this statement right here, for you are with me, and there are 26 after. Often in ancient literature, they would put the very point of what it is, they were trying to get it at the center, all roads leading to the truth they wanted you to point at. From the back and from the front, you are with me. And that's the message of Psalm 23, that the Lord is with you. I don't know what you're walking through today, I don't know what you're facing, I don't know what's in front of you. Maybe it's a time of green pastures and still waters, or maybe you're right smack in the middle of the valley of the shadow of death. Can I tell you, either way, the Lord is with you. He is your shepherd. And

pastorally speaking, I've got to be honest, like if I could get you to kind of grasp one thing, in fact when I talk to folks and I sort of hear the everyday cares and concerns and the anxieties and the things that plague them, this is often the truth that I want to drive home more than any other, is that the Lord is with you. So often we get our eyes fixated on the wrong things, we focus more on our circumstances than we do on the presence of the Lord with us. We try to sort of take control of our lives, and that burden is far too big. great for us to bear. So we're carrying things that we should not carry and it stresses us out and what I want to continually tell you as your pastor is that the Lord is with you. The more time you spend thinking about that and considering that, the easier and the lighter the burden of life will be. You will remember that you cannot control the future and there's nothing you can do about the past. All you can do is be obedient and faithful and present with the Lord in the here and now. That's what this psalm points us to. It reminds us that the Lord is your shepherd. When your three-year-old toddler is throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of a target and it feels like everybody's looking at you and judging you, even there the Lord is your shepherd. On the other side of your brokenness and all the consequences of your sin when it feels like your life and your marriage and everything are falling apart because of your stupidity, the Lord is your shepherd even there. When you're in the throes of secret temptation and it feels like you're the only one that knows what's going on in your heart and in your mind and what you're facing even in the midst of your sin, the Lord is even still there your shepherd. In the middle of that diagnosis when the future seems so uncertain or when you've just been laid off from your job and you don't know where you're going to turn to make ends meet, the Lord there. He is your shepherd. We have to remind ourselves of this again and again and again and again. No wonder David responds as he does, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. In other words, put in modern English, what else do I need? Indeed, if I have the Lord as my shepherd I have all I need. The question is do you believe it? The Lord is your shepherd. Then I'm encouraged by this

other little verse backing up one verse. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. What does it mean to be led in a path of righteousness? Righteousness, that's a church word for you. It's pretty much the only place we ever use it. Righteousness doesn't get used in everyday conversation. We often think of it as sort of like, I don't know, having a moral, spiritual kind of dimension to it and there's no doubt that's true. But righteousness here is more, it's communicating more than just the idea of making good moral decisions. The Bible is more than just a moral book. There are plenty of moral do's and don'ts. In fact, I would argue that all morality has its grounding and foundation in Scripture and in God, his character, and his laws. But there's more to life than just moral decisions and the word here, righteousness, is really more broad than that. In fact, another way to translate it would be, he leads me in paths of rightness. See, not every decision that you face is moral. Sometimes you need more than a moral filter to know which way you should go. This is why the Scripture has more than just moral commands in it. The Bible is more than just a book of do's and don'ts. It's also a book of wisdom. Wisdom, biblically speaking, is being good at life, knowing which way you should turn when both paths are equally morally acceptable. What then do I do there? How should I move forward? And what you need there is the wisdom of God. What you need is him to lead you in paths of rightness. Now this little idea, as I meditated on this this week and was thinking about it, this little idea that I want to share with you is profound because some of you feel like God doesn't lead you. You hear preachers talk about God leading them or speaking to them and it feels like maybe that happens for them, but the Lord is distant from you or never really says anything to you. I think it's because we're looking in the wrong place for his leading. Here, Psalm 23 verse 3 gives us a picture of what and how God, I think, most often leads. I got to tell you, this is how God has most often led me is through this little idea of rightness. What is rightness? Let me give you a word picture for it. It's like a key that unlocks a door. You understand how this works. Imagine a friend gives you a little set of keys. You're to go over to

their house and unlock a particular door and so there you are. You're not sure exactly which is the right key, so you begin attempting to fit keys in the lock and you've been there before. We all know what happens. You try to fit one key. It doesn't even begin to go into the lock. You know that key doesn't fit. You try another one. It goes in part way, but it doesn't go in all the way and neither will it turn. You know this key doesn't fit this door. You try a third key. Ever had this happen? The key goes all the way in and you think, ah, here it is, but then you go to turn in it. It doesn't turn, doesn't unlock the door, so you move on to the next key and not only does it go all the way... in, but ah, aha, it opens the door, the lock turns, that's the idea of rightness. And this is how the Lord often leads, it's how he's most often led me in my life is through this idea of rightness. In Acts, the apostles say it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to do such and such a thing, rightness. Another way to think about it, you know what it feels like to try on clothes, you go pick something out off the rack, you go into the dressing room there in the store, you put it on and immediately you can tell like this isn't going to fit, this is no good, you look in the mirror, nope, doesn't work. But when you find something, that rare occasion that you find something that's like, hey, I kind of look pretty good, I like this, what does that feel like? It's rightness, my dad used to describe it as like putting on a coat, it just fits, yeah, this feels good, that's the idea of rightness. And the Lord will often lead you in decisions of wisdom through rightness, leading you in paths of rightness, he's a shepherd who leads and guides. He cares about more than just the moral dimension of your life, he cares about the everyday of your life. Let me give you a couple of examples of how this has played out in my life. So I can remember a few years ago getting a call from Brian Joe, Brian is a pastor of operations here at Church on the Move and he called me to let me know that he had just had lunch with Ryan Isaac, Ryan was working at a church in West Tulsa called Solace, I

was familiar with the church, I knew a little bit of their background and their story, I knew that they'd been through some difficult times as a church, been through pastoral transition and now the new pastor that they had was moving on and they were gonna be entering into pastoral transition again and that's tough for a church. And so they were kind of wondering what their future was going to be, Brian was just relaying to me the nature of the conversation, quite frankly I don't remember how it all came up, I just remember us arriving at this idea, what if we ask them if they wanted to be adopted by Church on the Move? At the time we had a church in Broken Arrow, we had recently planted it, we had a church in South Tulsa in the Glenpool area but we could never really find a permanent facility and we weren't sure exactly what the future of that little congregation was going to be and so when we began talking about this idea, what if we adopted or asked Solace if they were interested in being adopted by Church on the Move, I can just tell you how it felt in the moment, it was like a key went into a door and turned, it just felt right. I just had this sense, this is gonna work. I didn't say that out loud, I didn't come out and say, thus saith the Lord, we are going to adopt Solace Church, I didn't say that, I certainly didn't say it to them, in fact what wisdom does is it vets these senses of rightness, you test it, is this really the Lord? So we did our due diligence, we met with their board, not once, not twice, multiple times, we sat down, we asked questions, we allowed them to ask questions but at every turn the key just kept turning, this is right, this is right, this is right, this is right. Finally we put it to a congregational vote and by an overwhelming, I mean a near 100% majority, Solace Church said yes, we want to be adopted by Church on the Move. Today, many years in, in fact what are we, five years in, we have a thriving church in West Tulsa, if you've never been there, it's amazing. There's a beautiful church there but I knew it was going to work because there was a sense of rightness, like a key that unlocks a door. I'll tell you another story, this whole new front door, in fact I was just standing out there in between the services and I was watching so many of you come in through the new front

door, it just gives me such joy to stand there and to see how much, how much better and more beautiful and more communal the front of the church is, there's just such a feeling of community here, something that I've wanted for a long time for Church on the Move. I can remember kind of the genesis of the idea of putting a whole new front on the church was way back in 2008, some of you were around then, we did a campaign called the It's Your Move campaign, needed to remodel a lot of the church and our intention then was to put a new lobby, kind of new front door space there but it didn't happen because just the funds kind of ended up going elsewhere, this auditorium, other places that needed to be touched first and so when it came time a few years ago to consider that project again, we resurrected that old design and I was excited about it, I'm looking forward to putting a new lobby on the front of the church, some of you remember that season a few years ago when I came in and presented this design, here's what we're going to do, we want to put a new front on the church and we had a weekend where I asked you to consider giving to this over a couple year period, kind of called it a pledge weekend, I was asking you what could you commit, would you pray, would you carefully... Consider before the Lord what would he have you give and I said this multiple times if the Lord says nothing don't give then don't give but if he asks you to give would you be faithful and Would you come forward and just say this is what we're gonna give and so there was a Sunday where it was like here's what? We're gonna give and so many precious Church on the movers came forward with a pledge card and said we're gonna give and we want To support this and we want to we want to see this thing built so after a couple of weeks of taking in pledge cards We had the total of the pledges in other words How much was going to be given and then we had the budget right for how much this? Design was going to cost and what we saw immediately was that there was a gap and it was a decent gap between what we had thought we were wanting and going to build and how much Had been pledged twenty to thirty percent something significant. I as pastor was faced then with the decision. What am I gonna do? It's not a moral decision. It's a wisdom decision. Do I come back to the church and Say I need you to give more and I need more of you to give as soon as I thought of that idea I just felt Like trying something on and it doesn't fit it felt like that. I don't want to do that. That doesn't feel right I don't feel like I need to go back to the church and try to beat a bigger drum and get more people to give

I couldn't wrap my mind around that so we were like well Lord What do we do Lord speak and then it occurred to me and I remember telling our our team this Maybe the Lord is speaking to us. Maybe he has spoken. He's spoken through the voice of the congregation Maybe the budget that we need to be operating within are the pledges that came in Let's use that but it means we're gonna have to go back and come up with a whole different design I remember going to our architects and saying guys we've got to reimagine this We've got to take what we were planning to do off the table and come up with a different plan That is going to cost X amount less and so they said, okay Here's what I found by the way, whenever you're doing anything creative is that constraints aren't your enemy? They're actually your friend if you've ever done creative work and there's a few of you in here who have One of the enemies of creative work is somebody just telling you just do whatever you want That's the worst thing in the world. You could tell an artist do whatever you want is not fun What I would rather have are constraints. We had some constraints and Constraints are the the mother of creativity invention. What do we say? We say what's the phrase is the necessity is the mother of invention. That's the idea. So I'm back to the architects I said, let's rethink about this. What if we came up with a different plan? So a few weeks go by They let their wheels spin they come up with different concepts and I remember showing up to the architects office We all sit down the architecture team comes in and the first guy He's got the first concept gets up there to make his presentation And I will not forget when that first image came up on the screen It was like a key went into a door and turned that is what we're supposed to build and guess what? That's what's out there right now not just on time check this out under Budget as well. We got it done for exactly what we'd hope in fact less than what we'd hope to get it done And it's serving the church Beautifully, what is that's like a key that unlocks the door. It's a path of rightness For his namesake now if you're honest with yourself a lot of your life is comprised of these types of decisions Not just is it right or is it wrong but both paths are right which way Do I go Lord what you have to learn to look for is that inward? Witness like a key that opens the door. That's the path that the Lord is choosing

That's the one that the Lord is blessing. Can we be honest with ourselves? How many times have we gotten ourselves into trouble in life? Because we have pressed beyond where the Lord is blessing just because we really wanted to we rushed We pushed harder instead of waiting and standing back and letting the Lord open the door. Yeah, that's right That's where we're to go. We got in a hurry and we got ourselves into trouble So what it means to allow the Lord to lead you in paths of rightness Even something as simple as buying a car in the last few weeks. I had to help my son Elliot get a new truck. He had Totaled his car hydroplane. He's okay. No, no nothing serious But when you're driving an old car, it doesn't take much to total it And so we had a total car and we were gonna have to find a new vehicle We wanted to get him a truck. And so I start scouring the wasteland of Facebook marketplace I don't know how much time you spend there. It's awful Just just doing something basic like I would like to buy your fill-in-the-blank is Fraught with madness and peril people don't respond to you. I'll never understand for the life of me why you idiot would put an ad on Facebook Marketplace and then not respond to me saying, I'd like to give you money for the thing that you're trying to sell. If you would just respond to me, I digress. You know what it feels like, it feels like, is there a real human being on the other end here? Anybody, anybody want to talk to me like a grown up? So I messaged I don't know how many people just trying to get information, just, just this truck, this truck, this truck, this truck, this truck, this truck, I mean we're trying to buy, it's a used truck, just trying to get somebody to respond, finally I get a response from a guy and immediately it's like this guy, something here, I like this guy, first of all he's just talking to me, wow. Then he's like I have 47 service records, ooh that feels good, I like the way the key turns in the door there, I tell him I'm a dad buying this, helping my son get a truck, he's like well from one dad to another, I would change out if you were to buy this truck, the front tires are good but the rear tires are going to need a little help, especially if he does any long distance travel, I'm like well he's going to be driving back and forth

from Tulsa to Phoenix, he's like well that's where we got the truck was in Phoenix and we have the shop there that did all the work, we could connect you with it, it was just like a key that opened a door, in fact so much so that this guy ended up rejecting a higher offer from somebody else just so he could sell the truck to me and my son because he wanted it to go to somebody who was going to be taking it back and forth to Phoenix where it had come from, that's just like a key, it's a path of rightness, God cares about even those things. If you're patient enough and quiet enough to listen, he will speak, he leads in paths of rightness for his namesake, what a faithful and good shepherd we have, here's the question I would love for you to wrestle with maybe this week is this, do you believe that you are the kind of person that God loves to speak to and guide? Oh he'll speak to Pastor Witt, he's a pastor, he's a preacher, he comes from a preacher's home, sure he speaks to him, he speaks to my grandma, she prayed all the time or that minister, that theologian, we can imagine that but we have a harder time imagining that God delights, he loves to speak to and lead and guide you but such is the promise of Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything that I need. Now halfway through the Psalm, the imagery begins to pivot, the Lord is now not described as a shepherd but as the host of a great and bountiful banquet, a feast, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. In the ancient world eating with someone was not just a sign of respect but it was an invitation to deeper relationship, in fact we see this in the life of Jesus, Jesus was accused, slanderously accused of being the friend of sinners, a label by the way which he still proudly wears to this day but he was called a friend of sinners in Luke 15 verses 1 and 2 gives us the explanation why, now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him and the Pharisees, the religious folks, grumbled saying this man receives sinners and eats with them. To eat with someone is a picture of respect, it's a picture of reception, it's an invitation to a deeper relationship and by the way if we're honest about it or if you think about it, it's still true. When you're wanting to get to know somebody a little bit better, what do we often do?

Hey, let's go to lunch, let's go to dinner, dinner is a little bit more formal, a little bit more significant, the most significant is to invite somebody over to your house to eat a meal that you have prepared for them at your table, that is reserved these days for even or only your closest relationships, your closest family and friends, why don't you come over, I'm going to cook for you but that's exactly what we see here in verse 5, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows, oil and the cup here or oil and wine are pictures of abundance, God's abundant blessing poured out upon his people. When I read this, I couldn't help but think of my wife Heather, so some of you know Heather and if you know her at all, you know that it's got to be... One of her like top three spiritual gifts is the gift of hospitality. Heather is just such a hospitable person. She loves serving others by hosting them. And if ever you are so fortunate and blessed to be invited to dine at Heather's table, count yourself lucky indeed. Because she's an amazing host, an amazing cook. I mean, I just, I think about the fried chicken right now. The mashed potatoes and gravy. The cream corn, the lamb chops, the lasagna. I mean, when Heather wants to feast, it's an occasion. And I'm looking over at Lee right now. Pastor Lee's been invited over to our house. He's been the recipient. He and your family have been the recipients of Heather's generosity and goodness and love poured out on the people she cares about through service. It's a very real thing. Some of us, some of you in this room,

that's how you love others in your life. You serve them. You love to serve them. You love to host them. It is your joy. In fact, I was asking Heather about it this week. I was like, tell me what you think about when you're hosting others. She just says, my thoughts are on them. I'm thinking about them. What have they been through this week? What have they been facing? Has it been a tough week, a long week? In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, my daughter Lucy was house-sitting. She was working and house-sitting, which meant she was rarely at home and she was at somebody else's house pretty much alone all week. It had just been a tough week and she was ready to come back home and Heather, just her kind of active service sort of brain and hosting gift, just thinks about, I'm gonna go back to her room and put clean sheets on her bed, make her bed, fluff her pillows, get a place of rest prepared for her. That's her way of serving her. She just loves to think about others. That's how our God thinks about us.

His thoughts are toward you. He desires to bless you, to pour his blessing out upon you. Such is our God, his thoughts are on you. He cares about you. Jesus, after all, himself said, I go to prepare a place for you. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Adam Clark put it like this, a magnificent banquet is provided by a most liberal and benevolent host who is not only the bounty to feed me, to provide for me, but the power to protect me. And though surrounded by enemies, I sit down to this table with confidence knowing that I shall feast in perfect security. The idea that God is thinking about you, the God of the universe thinking about you, who you are, what you're going through, and what you need, and that he delights to bless you and to serve you is a staggering thought. Psalm eight puts it like this. What is man? Who am I that you are mindful of me? The son of man that you care for me, and yet this is our Lord. He thinks about us, delights to serve us, delights to bless us when we walk with him. And then the psalm ends with those words that you know well, we just read them a few moments ago.

Verse six, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I love the Robert Alter, Robert Alter being a Hebrew scholar, his translation of this verse goes like this. Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. You ever have a dream where someone's chasing you? Surely I can't be the only one. From time to time, I have dreams where someone, I don't even know who, it's never the same, just someone chasing you. I'm trying to get away, and is it the same for you in your dream as it is for me? I can't hardly move, I'm trying to run, my legs don't work, I'm really tired, I can't get up off the ground, it's like all coordination has left me, I'm just made of jello, nothing works, I can't get away. It's a terrifying dream. You're trying to escape when you're being pursued. Being pursued, if you think about it, is generally not a good thing. They're pursuing me. You don't really want to be pursued most of the time. But here, David uses this picture in the positive. Let but goodness and kindness pursue me all the days of my life. Charles Spurgeon called the Lord the hound of heaven. Think about that for a second.

He's hunting you down, and if you're honest and you think about it, this is your experience with the Lord. Because the truth is, you did not find God. He came looking for you. In fact, the story of the Scriptures is not man searching for God like the ancient Greeks trying to find the gods on the tops of the mountains. The story of Scripture is not us searching for God, but God coming looking for us. That's the way it's been from the beginning. Where are you, Adam? Where are you, Eve? He goes looking for us. And this is the truth of your life as it is mine. The Lord has pursued me. He came looking for me. Makes me think about how I cornered Heather into marrying me. True story. I met Heather at a old movie theater, the one by Woodland Hills Mall. Old service merchandise. Some of you old school Tulsa people, you remember? We met there. It was just a brief introduction, but it was really a couple weeks later that kind of everything began. I was at another movie theater, the AMC 20. It had just opened, and everybody in town was anxious to go to the new mega, you know, movie theater, whatever. And so I'm in like bumper-to-bumper traffic, and all of a sudden, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There's this knock at my window. I look over, and there's Heather. I remembered her from meeting her a couple of weeks earlier. She's there, and she's got a big smile on her face. She waves at me, and I don't even know what to think about all of this. I'm like, later Heather would say that meant nothing, but for me it was everything. It was all I needed. Called Gabe. I'm like, I don't know what to do. He's like, you need to, you need to ask her out. Well, I didn't have the courage to ask her out, so here's my strategy. I'm just gonna follow her around. I'll just be where she is, and that's exactly what I did. She'd be at a basketball game. Oh, look, I'm sitting right near you. There's an after-party for students of ORU. I wasn't a student, but I'm there. It's her birthday party, and I'm not invited, but somehow I weasel my way in. There's a legal term for this. That's only if it doesn't work, though. It worked for me, and I tell her all the time. Well, actually she reminds me. You just, you cornered me. You, you cornered me. That's, I pursued her.

That's the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd pursues even the one. Isn't that what we hear? He leaves the 99 to go after the one. Who's that one? It's not your unrepentant neighbor. It's you. It's you. He's pursued me. His goodness and mercy have come after me. Even though I have not been faithful to Him, He's been faithful to me. Even though we have turned our back on Him and pursued other things, other gods, He has not turned His back on us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and this weekend, of all weekends, when we remember that our country is 250 years old, and though we are not perfect by any stretch, God has been faithful to us, though we do not deserve it. Thirty-nine years old as a church, and not perfect by any stretch, but God has been faithful, though we do not deserve it. We can remember that His goodness and His mercy follow me all the days of my life. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that somehow the only way that God can be good and bless you is if you're pretty good yourself. People get into that game all the time. We want to look and point out the failures of our country, the failures of institutions, the failures of other people. Here's what I would remind you of. You also are not perfect. You have a checkered past. Is God faithful to you? Yes. Then let's receive His faithfulness with blessing and gratitude, and that's how I want us to end today. Would you stand to your feet? We're just going to sing today a simple chorus as we close, and it comes right here from Psalm 23, verse 6. Surely love and mercy, the chorus goes, your peace and your kindness shall follow me. It's a declaration, a reminder of who our God is, and I think on this weekend, of all weekends, we ought to just sing this loud and proud. God has been good to us. It's a simple refrain. We sing it over and over and over again, but let's just remind ourselves of how good our God has been. So will you join me as we sing and worship in gratitude together today for our God's faithfulness and goodness toward us? Let's sing. Thank you so much for watching this message from Church of Christ. on the Move Tulsa, we really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches in northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor.

We love our Bibles, learning and community, and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com, or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here. ♪♪