A Transition Word The good shepherd knows how to revive you when you falter. He can revive you through a time of rest. He can revive you through a fresh glimpse of His gracious promise and he can revive you by a bracing challenge or even a rebuke. He can revive you through the ministry of a friend. God knows how to restore you when you falter. He can do it and he will Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smyth I’m David Pick and Colin, I think we can all relate to the feeling that we faltered. What are the ways that believers can falter? Oh there’s all kinds of examples but we’ll look at five from the scriptures today. For example, if you’ve gone through a terrible injustice well, then you really are going to find yourself drained and depleted by that. Where do you go from here? I mean that’s the question. Or if you have found yourself in a prolonged conflict I mean, that really takes the energy and the life out of you. It’s terribly depleting. Or perhaps you’ve just faced big disappointment in your life. You had great hopes and expectations suddenly everything has come crashing to the ground. But there are all kinds of examples. Demands that are placed upon us. Suffering that we endured. And here’s the question. How is it that God restores our soul? How does he bring us back when we’re depleted by these things? We’re going to look at some specific examples from the Bible of how God does this. And he does it in different ways. One of the wonderful things to me is that God uses a variety of means to get his work done. And when you see something of the means that he uses. It can be encouraging because then you are able to detect oh, maybe this is what God is doing to help me right now. And I didn’t realise that this was actually him at work. We will look at that in much more detail now as we open our Bibles together. We’re in Psalm 23. And we’re continuing the message he restores me. Here’s Colin. 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. 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. When he looked at that his own faith began to falter. Now, maybe you know what this is like? 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 and 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 hears a godly man and he’s utterly convinced that he has no future usefulness. You ever been there? Third example Faith can falter when we are disappointed by outcomes. Now this, I think, was the story of the believers in Galatia. Paul writes to them and says, let us not grow weary of doing good. 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 and they grew weary and their faith began to falter. Fourth example, faith can falter when we are disheartened by suffering. This was the story of those who are addressed in the book of Hebrews. We read of these believers that after they were enlightened, that means after they were converted, they came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they endured a hard struggle with sufferings. I mean, their experience was just one difficulty after another, and it was the sustained nature of it that really got to them. They’d been publicly shamed. They’d had their property plundered. Their lives have become, well, a hard struggle with suffering. Some of you will be able to latch on to that description. You’ll say that’s me. My life is a hard struggle with sufferings. And it’s actually been like this for a very long time. And that begins to have its effect. You see, the Hebrew believers were able at first to embrace what came to them with great joy and with great faith. Most of us are able to endure a fair bit of difficulty, at least for a reasonable period of time. The problem is that over time it takes its toll. Pain saps your strength. Losing someone you love drains your energy. And maybe this is your situation, you say, It’s just the ongoing difficulties of life that are disheartening to me. I lose heart and faith begins to falter. Fifth example. Faith can begin to falter when we are depleted by demands. This I think was the apostle Paul’s story. Remember as an apostle, he carried an enormous weight of responsibility, not simply for one church, but for all the churches. And he says, who is sufficient for these things? And there will be some in this congregation this morning, and there is a great weight of responsibility on you. And you know what it is to say. Who’s got what it takes for this? Now, here’s the reality of Christian experience in its different forms. Asaph, Elijah, Galatians, Hebrews, the apostle Paul. They all faltered. Here’s the good news. They were all wonderfully restored. And here’s the question that has just fascinated me. Is there, then, any pattern to the way in which God restored them? And I think the answer is this. All of them clearly were restored by a fresh encounter with God. But what is very striking is that God dealt with each of them in a unique and individual way. God’s restoration is never one size fits all. Think about it. God restored Esau in the normal course of his work. He says in Psalm 73, When I thought about this, that’s the problem of injustice, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the Sanctuary of God, and then I discerned their end. Now, what’s the significance of that? The sanctuary? Well, the sanctuary was the place where he worked. He was the worship leader of the people of God. He worked in the Sanctuary. So what he’s telling us very clearly here is that he pressed on in the work that God had called him to do. And as he pressed on in what God had called him to do, he found very wonderfully that God came alongside him in the course of doing it and helped him and restored him. I’ve known that in my own experience. As I’m sure many of you have too pressing on in the face of difficulty and yet finding that God comes alongside and helps in the very course of persevering. But it was different with Elijah. God restored Elijah after a time of rest. Here was a case where a man needed to step back from what he was He lay down and slept under a broom tree And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat! Restoration for Elijah began with him taking a step back with him having a period of recuperation. God knows how to restore in every situation. It’s not one size fits all. He’s the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He knows what you need. God restored the Galatians through a wonderful promise. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked, whatever one sows that he will also reap. The one who sows to the Spirit from the Spirit will reap eternal life. That’s the word to the discouraged Galatians. They’re disappointed by the outcome but God says to them, right there, you’re only looking at part of the picture. You’re disappointed by the outcome, you haven’t seen the full outcome yet. Here’s the full outcome, you are going to reap eternal life, so in the light of that, don’t grow weary in doing good for in due season you will reap if you do not give up. That’s the most wonderful encouragement and I’ve known in my own experiences, you will know in yours, a time when God comes alongside with a promise of Scripture and it just lifts you and it strengthens you and it encourages you, but again it’s not always like that. It was very different for the Hebrews. God restored the Hebrews not through a wonderful promise but through a robust challenge and I’ve known this in my own life as well. Here were people who had endured many difficulties that are described at the end of Hebrews Chapter 10. Now, what comes after that? Well, Hebrews Chapter 11 is the honor role of faith in which God is saying to them, Here’s what heroes of faith do. Here’s what a journey of real faith looks like and after recording the exploits of the heroes of faith through the Old Testament in chapter 11, it goes on into chapter 12 where we have the supreme example of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, 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. And then the writer to Hebrews says consider him and what he endured from sinners so that you may not grow weary and faint hearted and therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees. Now I would describe that as a pretty robust challenge. It’s like where is your faith? You look at what these heroes of faith had to put up with. You look at what the Lord Jesus endured on the cross. This is the path you’re called to follow. Get up, man. Press forward. What are you doing? And I’ve known times in my own life where I’ve made it that kind of rebuke. And it has been God’s means of restoration and of bringing strength. And then what about the apostle Paul? The Lord restored the apostle Paul through the gift of a faithful friend. He says in 2 Corinthians Chapter 7 and Verse 5, When we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest. He’s the apostle. And he said, I can’t rest. Why couldn’t he rest? Well, he says we were afflicted at every turn. There was fighting without and fear within. You recognize that you look out the world. It’s all fighting. You look inside and you see way too many fears. Well, that’s where the apostle Paul was. Now, how did God restore him then? Well, the very next verse says this But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. The coming of Titus. And Paul says the report that Titus brought that the apostle was dearly loved by the people of God. That lifted him. That was the means that God used. Now, do you see the big picture here? The good shepherd knows how to revive you when you falter. And it may be different from the way in which he operates in the life of someone else. Because each situation is unique. He can revive you as you persevere in the course of your own work. And he will come alongside you in it and sustain you and help you through. He can revive you through a time of rest. He can revive you through a fresh glimpse of his gracious promise. And he can revive you by a bracing challenge or even a rebuke. He can revive you through the ministry of a friend. And through a new discovery of just how much you are loved. God knows how to restore you when you falter. He can do it. And he will. What a great point to pause briefly that God can and will restore you. You are listening to Open the Bible with pastor Colin Smith and the message today, He Restores Me. It’s part of our series, The Lord is my Shepherd based on the very well known Psalm 23. And if you’ve missed any of the series or if you’d like to go back and listen again, you can do that by coming online to our website You can also find us as a podcast. There’s a link on the website but also you can just go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. Back to the message, now we’re in Psalm 23 as I said. And here’s Colin. And then there’s one more thing here in these last minutes. And it’s this. We seen the Good Shepherd retrieves us when we wander, he revives us when we falter. I wanted us to see lastly that the Good Shepherd restores us himself. He… Restores my soul. We read from Luke 15 this morning that it is the Good Shepherd himself who goes out to restore the wandering and the faltering sheep and to bring it home. It’s that personal. That image of Philip Keller’s the shepherd rubbing the limbs of the sheep that’s become numb and needs to be restored. It’s that intimate, it’s that personal. God himself will restore you. Oh yes, he has all kinds of different means of doing it. But what is always in common is that God’s restoration of his people involves God himself coming alongside in a fresh and a wonderful way. For Asaph in the sanctuary in the course of his work God came alongside and gave him an assurance that there will be ultimate justice. For Elijah after a time of rest, God came alongside him and showed to him that the truth was not lost in the nation. There were thousands who had not the need to bail that there was a new general of leaders rising and that his job was to prepare his successor. For the Galatians God came alongside in his word with a glorious promise. For the Hebrews it was God who through his word came alongside in a word of rebuke and of bracing challenge. For the Apostle Paul it is God himself who comes alongside in a friend who is an expression of the very love of the father to him and a rediscovery of the love of God’s people leads him to a fresh realization of the love of God. The Lord is my shepherd. He restores my soul. Friends, we can’t restore ourselves. We could no more restore ourselves than we could have saved ourselves in the first place. It’s God who restores. He does it himself. He does it through a great variety of means. But he always does it by drawing near himself. And you know what? When you’re in need of restoration, you will never really quite know how it will be that God will come alongside you and help you. A man by the name of William Cowper suffered long periods of depression for extended stretches in his life. It was a great affliction to him. He was a poet and he wrote some remarkable hymns out of his experience and then one of them he has these two lines that are very striking. Sometimes, a light surprises the Christian while he sings. It is the Lord who rises with healing in his wings. Now I’m saying to you today that God may surprise you. By how he comes alongside you and lifts you. You look back on your own experience. You will find that this is true. You were not able to predict how it was that he would help you. He has an infinite variety of means of doing so. What you can count on is this. When the Lord is your shepherd, he will restore your soul. It may not be instantaneous. May take a while. But what you can be confident of is this, he will do it. The Lord restores my soul, he can do it. You may say, oh, I don’t know how I could ever get back to a place of spiritual strength again. Listen, it was God who gave new life to your soul, and the God who gave new life to your soul is certainly able to restore that life in your soul. And he’ll do it with great joy. You know, it’s the shepherd himself, as we saw, who goes after the sheep that’s wandered away, brings it back, puts it on its shoulders. And what does Jesus say? He brings the lost sheep home, rejoicing, rejoicing. So you see, when this shepherd finds you, he doesn’t rebuke you. He’s come looking for you. He’s come to restore you, is reaching out to you, even now in the proclamation of his word. And it is God’s joy to restore the wondering and the faltering sheep. Think about this in this last moment this morning. How is it your brother or sister that after all that you have endured in your life, you are still a Christian today? How come? I mean, seriously, with all the injustice that is around you, with all the conflict that you have endured, with all the disappointments that you have encountered, all the pain that you have suffered, all the demands that weigh constantly upon you. How in the world is it that you are still a believer today? I say there’s only one explanation and it’s this. He restores your soul. God’s restoration explains your continuing in the faith. And God’s restoration guarantees you a rival in glory. You’ve been listening to Pastor Colin Smith on Open the Bible and today’s message He Restores Me. It’s part of our series The Lord is my Shepherd based on Psalm 23 and if you’ve missed any of the series or if you’d like to go back and listen again do that by coming online to our website OpenTheBible.org.uk You can also find us as a podcast just look for the link on our website or go to your favorite search for OpenTheBible.uk and subscribe to receive regular updates. While you’re on the website or searching for Open the Bible UK on the podcast site have a look at Open the Bible Daily That’s a series of short two to three minute reflections a new one everyday based on Pastor Colin Smith’s teaching and read in the UK by Sue MacLeish. Open the Bible is supported entirely by the generous gifts of our listeners and if that’s something you’ve been considering to do then we have an offer for you this month. if you’re able to begin supporting Open the Bible with a new donation of five pounds per month or more we’d love to thank you by sending you a new devotional by Pastor Colin Smith called Green Pastures, Still Waters. Like today’s message it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin this devotional comes from a sermon series that you preached a while back and as you prepared for the series what was the main thing you took away from it? Oh that single word encouragement I mean I can’t think of any better place to go when a person feels down or jaded or generally exhausted. if you need encouragement Psalm 23 is the place to go and Go has been using the Psalm to encourage his people for three thousand years and I reckon that’s probably the reason why this is one of the best known and best loved chapters in all of the Bible that in Christ you have a shepherd and that in the shepherd you have everything that you need that is the greatest joy and that will renew your strength so I am absolutely delighted that we are able to make this available as a devotional you can read it over 31 days and it will renew your strength it will refresh your soul Psalm 23 one of the best known and best loved chapters in the Bible We’d love to send you a copy of Green Pastures, Still Waters if you were able to begin supporting the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of five pounds per month or more Full details on our website For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith I’m David Pick and I hope you’ll join us again next time Everyone knows what it is like to experience a time of darkness when you find yourself in a dark valley Psalm 23 is definitely for you Find out why next time on Open the Bible