You love the Lord, you really do, but your heart wanders and your obedience falters you are a believer and yet sometimes your faith burns low and if your final salvation depended on the consistency of your following the Good Shepherd then you arrive safely home so thank God for this wonderful truth that we’re looking at today, he restores my soul. welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith I’m David Pick and Colin today we’ll be looking at the promise that the Lord restores us that’s a great message because I think for most of us our faith often wavers and our love and gratitude for Jesus and for all he’s done grows cold we feel discouraged God himself promises to restore us yes and if you are feeling that you’ve lost your peace or lost your joy and you have a sense of you know I can’t get back to where I was something that was vibrant about my walk with the Lord just seems to be flat now where do I go from here I’m just so grateful that you’re listening to the program today because we’re looking at Psalm 23 and this wonderful statement he restores my soul think about this who was it that gave you joy in the first place who was it that gave you peace in the first place who gave you new life in the first place you know it was the Lord himself who gave you these gifts and when the fires of your own love for him are burning low the wonderful truth that we’re looking at today is he is able to restore your soul he’s able to bring you back he’s able to give again what you have lost. And so I hope that today will be a real encouragement for you and that your eyes will be lifted up to the ability of the Lord Jesus Christ your shepherd to give to you what you do not have to restore your soul and to bring you back again to a place in which you will be able to walk closely and joyfully with him let’s look to see how this happens we’re in Psalm 23 so please join us if you can there as we begin on our new message he restores me. Here’s Colin. We’ve seen in this very wonderful Psalm that the greatest blessing that any of us can know is to be wholly owned by the Good Shepherd. To belong to his flock, to be bought, and to be born into the flock of God, and that is the greatest blessing that we can know. Because when you belong to the flock of God, there are certain things that the shepherd will always do for you. You can be sure of them because he is your shepherd. We saw the last time the first of these that the Good Shepherd will lead you, he will lead you to rest, and he will lead you into righteousness. And today we come to the second great gift that is yours when you belong to the shepherd. David says, The Lord is my shepherd, and here’s what flows from that. Verse 3, He restores my soul. Present tense. Restores. So this is not a one-time thing that happened when you became a Christian. David is testifying that God restored him many times in the past, and he anticipates that God will restore him many times in the future as well. He restores my soul. Now why is this important? Why do we need it? After all, if the shepherd leads the sheep surely that is all that we need. Why would we ever need restoring? Well surely the answer to that question is obvious. Though the shepherd leads us, we often go astray, and when we go astray we do not know how to find our way back. Remember back in the Old Testament when God’s people were in the wilderness, God led them. He made Himself visibly present. A pillar of cloud during the day, a pillar of fire during the night. All they had to do was follow. They didn’t do a very good job of it. You remember that they began to grumble, they began to complain. They wanted to go back to Egypt. When they got to the very verge of the Promised Land, their faith faltered and failed them. Here’s the problem. The Lord leads his people we don’t find it so easy to follow. Now, every Christian in the congregation this morning knows this from your own experience. You know this contradiction in your own life. You love the Lord, you really do, but your heart wanders and your obedience falters. You are a believer, and yet sometimes your faith burns low. And if your final salvation depended on the consistency of your following the Good Shepherd, then you would never arrive safely home. So thank God for this wonderful truth that we’re looking at today, He restores my soul. Now, the Good Shepherd restores us in two ways. First by retrieving us when we wander, and then by reviving us when we falter. First he retrieves us when we wander. He restores my soul. Now always remember that God uses the image of sheep to describe his own people. Believers wander. All we like sheep, Isaiah says, speaking to God’s people, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Believers wander, sheep bought and birthed into the flock of God wander away and then need to be brought back. There’s an old line from an old hymn that some of us might remember singing, prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Now, why in the world would we be prone to leave the God we love? Well, here’s why. While the Spirit has given us new life the new life we have been given is lived in the flesh. And that’s Galatians and chapter 2 and verse 20 that many of you know well. I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Now, right there in that one verse you have the twin realities of the Christian life. We live by faith in the Son of God, yes, but we live this life of faith in the flesh. And God’s saving work in you has begun, but it is not yet complete. None of us is yet what we one day will be. Only when we see Christ will we be fully like Him. Until then, we have this dual experience. Living by faith, living in the flesh. And David knew what that was like. He had a heart after God. He loved God, loved his law. And yet, there arose in David’s heart desires that pulled him away into self-destructive sins. And if it were not for the truth that we’re looking at today, he restores my soul, David’s self-destructive sins would have been the end of him. And if it wasn’t for the wonderful truth that we’re looking at today, your self-destructive sins in your Christian life would be the end of you, as well. But here we have good news. Here’s what the good Shepherd always does for his own. He restores my soul. Now what does it look like? What is it like for the Shepherd to retrieve us when we wander? Well, one example of this in the New Testament is in the book of Revelation. You remember that the risen Lord Jesus Christ there speaks to seven churches and the first of them is a congregation in a place called Ephesus. Let me describe these people, because I think among us here this morning there are many of the virtues that were there among them. These people were hard-working. We are a gathering of hard-working people beyond any question. Christ says to them, I know your works your toil and your patient endurance. Not only were they hard-working they were upright. They were people of integrity Christ says to them you cannot bear those who are evil. That’s a good description of us can’t bear evil. They were discerning. Thirdly you have tested those who call themselves Apostles and are not and you found them to be false. This is a very thoughtful and discerning congregation. Thank God for that and they were loyal. I know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my namesake, and you have not grown weary. So here are people very much like the marvelous congregation that is gathered here today. Believers who are hard-working, upright, discerning, and loyal. But Christ says to these believers, I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love that you had at first. Now do you see the significance of this? It is possible. It is possible to be a hard-working, upright, discerning, loyal believer, and to lose the love that you at first had for the Lord Jesus Christ. And here’s what’s so alarming. You see, when the sheep wanders away, it doesn’t know how to get back. And when you lose your first love for the Lord Jesus Christ, you don’t know how to get it back either. And David tells us this good news. The Good Shepherd restores my soul. How does he do it? Well, the Good Shepherd restores us when we wander by reminding us of what we have lost. That’s what you see in the message of Revelation, in Chapter 2. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen. Restoration begins here, with an honest recognition of what has been lost. That although you may be a hard-working and upright and discerning and loyal believer, your heart has not where you once were. You weren’t always like this. You’ve lost ground. You’ve gone backwards. Better things were once true of you than are true of you today, and better things can be true of you again. Now I’m praying that, in God’s kindness, this will happen for some of us today, that as you look at the wonderful words of Scripture that are before us, he restores my soul. You will say, that is exactly what I need, because I’m plowing on here dutifully, but I’ve lost something in my walk with the Lord. I’ve lost my peace. I’ve lost my joy. Oh yes, I’m hard-working, upright, discerning, and loyal, but I’ve lost my first love for the Lord Jesus Christ. And I don’t know how to get that back, so I need him to restore my soul. And I’m saying, that that is what the Good Shepherd does and therefore, you can ask him to do it for you. And you see, that’s what David did. He remembered the joy that he had once known. I’m not there now, he says, in effect, and so he comes to God and he says, restore to me the joy of my salvation. Now, that’s what the Good Shepherd does. He restores us and he restores us by retrieving us when we wander. You’re listening to Open The Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message He Restores Me. It’s part of our series on Psalm 23 called The Lord is My Shepherd and if you’ve missed any of the series so far or if you want to go back and listen again, come to our website. Its openthebible.org.uk There, you can hear any of the messages which have already gone out on air and you can find our messages as podcasts. Go to your favourite podcasts search for Open The Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. There are also links to the podcast on our website. We’re in Psalm 23 as I say, so join us there if you possibly can. And as we continue the message He Restores Me. Here’s Colin. Not only does the good Shepherd restore us by retrieving us when we wander, He revives us when we falter. You see sometimes in our lives we wander away and the root cause of our problem is just our own sin and folly, and we know it. But it’s not always like that. Sometimes the circumstances of our own lives take their toll and we find ourselves in need of restoration. Now there’s a very remarkable book that was written a number of years ago by a man called Philip Keller. He worked for many years as a shepherd. And out of his experience looking after sheep for many years he wrote a book called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. It’s still available and some of you might enjoy reading it. Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. And in that book, he describes a condition in which a sheep becomes what he calls cast. That’s C-A-S-T. And here’s what that is. It happens when a sheep’s fleece becomes long, and therefore heavy, or when a sheep is carrying lambs, especially in the advanced stage of pregnancy if it is carrying multiple lambs. Now you see what’s in common between these two things. Both of them involve carrying a great deal of weight. The extended wool, the pregnancy with multiple lambs. And here’s the problem that leads to a sheep being cast. The heavy sheep lies down on its side, and that’s just fine. But if it just tips itself over a little bit further, it can flip onto its back, and once it’s on its back, there is no way that a sheep can right itself again. It simply lies there with four feet kicking in the air. Philip Keller describes how gases then build in the rumen, the first stomach of the sheep, and circulation gets cut off to the limbs, numbness begins to set in, and it struggles and it struggles. It has no hope of righting itself whatsoever. And so the shepherd goes out into the field and he sees all of these sheep, and he sees all these sheep and here are some standing and here are some lying down and here’s one over on its back. And that’s the sheep that needs to be restored, the sheep that is cast. Let me read his description of how he does this. He says, I would have to lift her onto her feet and then straddle the sheep with my legs. I would hold her erect, so he’s holding the sheep up between his legs and then rub her limbs to restore the circulation to her legs. This, he said, often took quite a time. When the sheep started to walk again it often just stumbled and staggered and collapsed in a heap once more. But little by little the sheep would regain its equilibrium. Now do you see the image? The shepherd comes, the sheep between his legs and he’s got to start rubbing these limbs restoring the circulation and the sheep is stumbling until eventually, it begins to regain its strengths as it is restored by this ministry of the shepherd. That’s what’s being described here. Now there are many examples of faith faltering in Scripture and of the Lord himself wonderfully restoring. I want to give you just five. Here’s the first. You will find, I’m sure, that there’s at least one of these that you relate to. Our faith can falter when we are disoriented by injustice. Now, that I believe was Asaph’s story. Asaph was the worship leader of God’s people in the time of King David. He wrote several of the psalms and in one of them he tells us very honestly about a time when he as the worship leader almost lost his own faith. Psalm 73 in verse 2. My feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. Now take this in. This is a man in vocational ministry. He’s leading the people of God in worship. But his own faith at one point faltered and the reason for this was that he was disoriented by injustice. He tells us verse 3 of that psalm, I saw the prosperity of the wicked. See, he’s looking out at the world and he’s seeing that evil men prosper and God seems to let them get away with it. And he says, that’s not right, there’s too much injustice in the world. And when he looked at that, his own faith began to falter. Now, maybe you know what this is like. You’re a loyal, hardworking believer and you’re faithfully serving the Lord, but you are disoriented by injustice. You say this world is so far from what it should be. What in the world is God doing? And your faith begins to falter. Second example, our faith can falter when we are drained by conflict. This was Elijah’s story. Remember, he had engaged over many years in a sustained struggle and conflict that exhausted his strength. At one point, it seemed that the whole world was against him. The king, the queen, the prophets of Baal, the people of God who had given themselves over to idols. Only God himself stood with Elijah, and you remember, fire fell from heaven on Mount Carmel & then everyone knew that the Lord is God. But after this, after this long period of conflict that culminated on Mount Carmel, Elijah was utterly exhausted and we find him alone in the desert, and he’s under a broom tree. And here’s a godly man, and he is utterly convinced that he has no future usefulness. Ever been there? I don’t think there’s anything more that God could do with me. And he’s quite convinced in his own heart that the cause of truth has actually been lost in the nation. I, even I, only am left. He was drained by years of conflict and his faith began to falter. And some of you may know what that is like. You say, yeah, tell me about it. I’ve been struggling on in this conflicted situation for a long time and it’s sapped my strength. Third example. Faith can falter when we are disappointed by outcomes. This, I think, was the story of the believers in Galatia. Paul writes to them and says, Now why would he say that to them? Well, it appears that these people had been working very hard indeed, but they had been disappointed by the outcome. They had given themselves to a work that God had called them to do, and they had not seen the outcome that they had hoped for. They’re disappointed by the fruit. All that effort for this? And it drained their energy, they grew weary, and their faith began to falter. Pastor Colin Smith here on Open the Bible, looking at some of the reasons why our faith might falter. Next time, we’ll see how he revives our faith, so I hope you’ll be able to join us for that. Don’t forget, if you ever miss one of our broadcasts, you can always come to our website and catch up online. That’s at OpentheBible.net, or OpentheBible.org.uk. Or, look for us on your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive regular updates. Open the Bible depends on the generous support of our listeners and if supporting Open the Bible financially is something you’ve been thinking about, we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to set up a new donation to Open the Bible, in the amount of £5 per month, or more, we’d love to thank you, by sending you a new devotional by Pastor Colin Smith, it’s called, Green Pastures, Still Waters and like today’s message, it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin, why did you write this devotional? This goes back to the pandemic, and, in these dark days, I guess along with every other pastor, I was asking the question, what will help and encourage God’s people to get through these difficult days, and, I turned to Psalm 23, and just found such joy and help in mining the wonderful treasures that are in this marvellous chapter of the Bible. And my colleague Tim Augustine has now arranged that material in the form of a 31-day devotional, and I’m just delighted that we’re able to offer this. Looking at the Lord Jesus Christ through Psalm 23 will bring strength and encouragement and peace and joy. And to do that for 31 days, to meditate on one of the best-known and best-loved chapters in all of the Bible and to get our eyes fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you need some encouragement, Green Pastures, Still Waters is going to be a great help to you. Well, we’d love to send you a copy of Pastor Colin Smith’s devotional, Green Pastures, Still Waters, all about Psalm 23, to say thank you if you’re able to set up a new regular donation to the work of Open the Bible in the amount of £5 per month or more. Full details on our website. That’s openthebible.org.uk For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith. I am David Pig, and I hope you’ll join us again next time. The Good Shepherd is able to restore you when you falter. Find out how next time on Open the Bible.