So great to see all the middle school students praising God in the snow. And this weekend, we're praising God in the snow. Amen. I'm thankful for the team that came early today to de-ice the parking lot. Can we give it up to that team that woke up early this morning? Jesus is our good shepherd, and Jesus is always full of love and full of truth. He's compassionate, he's wise, and he knows when to be tender and when to be tough. We need both. His timing is perfect. And as we've been walking through Psalm 23, we know Jesus is our good shepherd. David is the human author of Psalm 23. David was a shepherd. He knows sheep and he writes it from that perspective. But Psalm 23 helps us to focus on Jesus in all of the roles a shepherd plays. A shepherd is not a pushover, a shepherd protects. A shepherd nourishes, provides. We started by looking at different phrases like he leads us to still waters, emotional restoration. He makes us lie down in green pastures, nourishment and physical restoration. To the table, he invites us. It's relational with Jesus, with others, love God, love people, this is the table. And then also Jesus restores our souls. Today we're focusing on how the Good Shepherd guides us. And it's really a prayer. Guide me in your paths for your namesake. Guide me. We all need wisdom from God. God gives generously to anyone not finding fault. We ask for wisdom, we receive wisdom, and we wanna not doubt but trust Him and walk in wisdom. We make so many decisions every day. Experts estimate that we make about 30,000 decisions a day. We don't even realize all the decisions we're making. You already decided if you're gonna brush your teeth today. and how long you're going to brush your teeth for. You decide if you were going to floss or not and what technique you were going to use. Front row is getting convicted. They need to floss more often. The floss is fresh for me because my dentist is just showing me the perfect way to floss. And how you floss is important. The point is there are endless decisions that we're making. $30,000 a day, that would be over $10 million this year. As we start 2025, this year could go a lot of different directions. And all of those decisions shape the direction and listening to Jesus. Why? Because we are living in a noisy culture where everyone has a voice and a rant and a perspective and opinion. And sometimes we get distracted and we just forget to really lean in and listen to the Savior. There's so much false teaching right now. And when you turn on, let's say, the television or you're watching media, you don't even know what's their slant, what's their bias. You might have to fact check. How are they framing things? And then everyone online is posting things, and just because it goes viral and has a lot of likes doesn't mean it's necessarily true. Our culture right now is swimming in confusion, and we need the clarity of coming back to Jesus, our good shepherd, and saying, guide me in your paths, good paths, for your glory. That's the prayer today that we're gonna focus on, three parts of that prayer. The first one is guide me. Our first truth, be guideable as Jesus introduces you to both new and ancient paths. Be guideable, not gullible, but guideable. Guideable with Jesus. In America right now, what's popular with faith is to believe in Jesus and then live however I want. Believe in Jesus, eternal life insurance, and now I'm gonna do me and live how I want. When we're watching sports at our house, different athletes will speak up, share their faith. It's common today, it's inspiring. And my kids also watch their lives closely. So when there's an athlete who says, I love Jesus, sometimes the kids will say, and he walks it too. And other times they'll say, I love Jesus, and the kids will say, yeah, but he doesn't really walk it. There's a big distinction right now and it comes down to this prayer, guide me Lord in your paths for your namesake. Being guideable, it's hard to steer a parked car. You gotta be willing to go with the Lord, go forward with the Lord. Don't hang out in the valley of the shadow of death, walk through the valley of the shadow of death. As you're moving forward, you're being guideable, be steerable by God. Sometimes sheep are stubborn. David knew this, he worked with sheep. Sheep are very, very stubborn. Sheep can have a stiff neck. Sheep don't wanna be told where to go. Sheep wanna tell the shepherd where they should go and where he should go. But that's backwards. The good shepherd guides the sheep. He is the potter, we are the clay. Who are we to tell God where to go? We come back to being teachable, and it's really Isaiah chapter 30, this prophet looking ahead hundreds of years, Christ will come, but at every moment, the same truth, yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you, therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice, blessed are all who wait for him. People of Zion who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help. As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. When you open up the book of Isaiah, if you only read these three verses, you could rightly conclude that God is gracious and personal. He is trustworthy and that God communicates to us and guides us faithfully. Those are important foundational truths in our relationship with God. Spurgeon said, half of our fears arise from neglect of the Bible. As you look around the world right now and you look around our city, our nation, you can see what I call so many symptoms of wandering from God. And there's good discussions, there's good observations, there's good solutions, but so often we're trying to put out 20 fires and we don't really get to the cause. We're not abiding with Jesus, we're not in the word, the word is not in us, we're not trusting God's guidance and his path. And when you reject the word and you reject God's wisdom, now everyone does as they see fit in their own eyes, and now everyone's running their own direction. It doesn't align with heaven, and there's a lot of unnecessary headache and heartache. We listen close. God says, this is the way, walk in it. God's word is a gift. Every time you open up the Bible, God is speaking to you. You may never hear an audible voice. God is speaking clearly every time you open the word. And the word that is eternal, listen, our own bodies are gonna pass away. This earth will pass away. The word of God will never pass away. Immutable, so many things will change, but the word of God is unchanging. God has given us his word, God has given us his spirit, the Holy Spirit and the word of God are always together and we need to listen. If we're not teachable, if we're not leadable and guideable, we won't listen when God says, this is the way, walk in it. He's gracious, he is wise, he is able to see everything. And when he says this way, don't go that way. Say, but I wanna go that way, don't go that way. But everyone else is going that way, don't go that way. But I've gone that way many times, don't keep going that way. He says, this is the way, walk in it. God's path is always good, never bad. Always light, not darkness. Always pure, not sinful. The word versus the world. We're watching it played out before our eyes. We listen to God, he says, this is the way, walk in it, and then it takes a humble heart. Proverbs chapter three, starting in verse five, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. a heart of humility. Adam and Eve had pride, and because they didn't have a heart of humility, they said, let's do it my way instead of God's way. As they made that decision, sin and death entered the world, they ate the forbidden fruit, and then there was strife in their marriage. Instead of unity, now there's strife, and now they play the blame game. The blame game is still going strong today. Blaming your spouse as they blamed each other. Jesus flipped it upside down and said it this way, before you reach to try to take some log out of someone else's eye, remove the log in your own eye first so that you can take the speck out of someone else's eye. We like to blame, we like to point fingers, we like to say everyone else has a log and I have a speck, and what do we need to do? Come back to humility, apologize, confess, return to the Lord, remove the log out of our own eyes, repent. Instead of our way, let's go Christ's way. What does that look like? There's some key areas where it happens. I mentioned marriage. People say, I'm gonna do marriage my way. I'm doing it my way, my way, my way. How's that working out for you? Sometimes it's not till a pain point that we wanna learn. And we say, God, is there another way? What does your way look like in marriage? Starting with dating. God, what is your way look like? Everyone together is sleeping around right now before marriage in our culture. Very, very few people will say, God, let's date your way. And if you don't wanna date God's way, you think marriage is just gonna suddenly be God's way? No, honor the Lord. Honor the Lord in marriage. It's gonna bring unity and peace, shalom in your home. Well, what about money? We have a lot of motives with our money. We have a lot of things we learned, let's say from the culture. Our parents are just habits and we have things we wanna buy, materialistic culture and all of that. And sometimes it's not till we realize, why am I in so much debt? And what's the percentage on the debt? And how'd I ever get here? And that's why we have hundreds of people in our church go through financial peace. Financial peace, this class that helps you learn biblically how to steward money, because how you steward money is important. Jesus talked about money frequently. And money can be a mess until we say, God, what's your way? Money is a gift. God, money is from you. How do I steward this money? What about anxiety? and despair, overwhelmed, discouraged, mental health. We try to tackle it my way, my way, until we say, God, what's your way? What is this peace that passes all understanding? What does your word say about prayer and thanking you and giving you burdens? God, what is this way? I need that kind of restoration in my life. You see, we'll do things our way frequently until there's a pain point and we start to realize, is there a better way to do this? And part of the healing and the trusting Jesus is sometimes to go down the wrong way until we're finally teachable and guideable and say, okay, Lord, how would you guide me in this? Because now Jesus, my eyes are on you. Psalm 119 verse 105, we read your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path. We're all on a path, but we all have different amounts of light. If you're in the darkness, you stumble. It's easy to trip and fall. When I first wake up in the morning, no lights are on, and I'll bump into things. There's a difference. When the lights are on, I don't. I see it, and I know how to navigate. The amount of light that you have right now is directly linked to the amount of God's word that you have right now. Can't say it any clearer. If you want more light during the week, have more of God's word during the week. The quickest way to be able to spot a counterfeit is to know the truth. You're bombarded with way too much false teaching to be ignorant of God's word. Right now we have biblical illiteracy that's climbing and soaring and someone's got to say, stop this nonsense. Let's come back and listen to God. You have light when you have the Word. Have you looked at the research? People who are in the Word at least four times a week, it's a difference maker in your relationship with God. Spend time in the Word, let the Word get in you. Meditate, let the Word of God renew your mind. Let the Word of God, it'll be like a path. The more time you spend in the Word, like a dimmer switch. The light just keeps getting brighter. You're seeing things clearer. God's perspective, God's wisdom, God's discernment. The world looks different, people look different. Instead of just stumbling in relationships and kinda judging and kinda resenting and kinda being bitter, no, turn on the light and forgive people as Christ has forgiven you and walk in the light, walk in love, walk in truth. That's the word of God that we need. See, there's no shame in saying I need Jesus's guidance. There's no shame in saying my mind, I need the word of God. That's noble. That's when lives change. But a lot of people don't wanna get to that point. Pride blocks it. No, I've studied, I have education, I have experience, I've been to a lot of Bible studies, I've come this far, I can make it the rest of the way on my own. Oh no, we can't. Not the 30,000 decisions you're gonna make today, not the reactions, the tone, the words, the processing, what you're thinking about when no one sees it, all of that, we need God's presence, his word, we need the good shepherd. Let me ask you, as you think about God's Word being ancient, this Word was written over many authors, human authors, all the Holy Spirit through them over thousands of years. God's Word, the canon is closed. John in the book of Revelation was the final at the end of the first century. So it's been about 2,000 years since the final pen is written and we have God's Word here, it'll never, No one will ever add to God's Word. If you are in some religious group that says, well, the Bible's great, but here also is God's Word, and here also is extra God's Word. No, there's no extra. I got all 66 books right here. That's just telling me you're a cult if you're saying there's more than this. It has fresh application. It's an ancient book with new application. You're gonna read it, the Holy Spirit's gonna speak to you, and here's your application for today. So we abide with Jesus, we're full of God's word and full of hope and the peace that comes from God's word, but we need to be guideable. Let me ask you on a scale of zero to 10, how guideable are you? You might be thinking you're a three or maybe you're a nine. You might be thinking, well, this year in my life, I'm a nine, but over here, I'm actually a two. I'm actually a two. Identify those twos. They might be linked to past pain. They might be linked to a false view of God. They might be linked to just cultural patterns that have squeezed you into the mold of this culture, but we need to break free. Jesus sets us free. We need to be teachable. You won't grow faster than you're teachable. You won't grow deeper than your teachable. Same is true for me. Some people take 20 years to learn what other people learn in two months. And it all comes down to being teachable with the Savior. And think about how much of God's Word do you have in your life. For 2025, be intentional to be devoted to the Word of God. You will never regret God's presence, his path, his peace, you won't regret it. But you gotta be intentional, because no one else is gonna be telling you, your teachers in school aren't gonna, your boss isn't gonna tell you, sometimes family members won't tell you. Spend more time in God's word. They're not gonna say that, so you've got to kinda own that yourself and say, let's run with this, and let's do it as a family, let's do it as friends, let's join a life group. That's why we have so many life groups at our church. Let's get in the word together, let's get in community together. So when we say, guide us, Lord, guide us, Jesus, that prayer right there, God's gonna guide us with his word. Here's the second truth. Paths include both decisions and destinations. Along the path, as we say, lead us in these paths of righteousness, lead us in good paths. Paths include decisions and destinations. The decisions you make today are linked to your future. And there are windows. No one says at age 45, yeah, I think I wanna play pro sports. No, that one passed. That one's gone. When you're graduating from high school, you can't just say, yeah, I think I want to go to whatever college I want to. No, that started in ninth grade. When you started, you know, not turning in assignments, you know, that's going to open and close doors. And same as true relationship. A lot of people are going to say, I want to be really close with God. That's my destination. Well, what's your decision? I wanna have an awesome marriage. Well, what's your decision? Are you on that path? I wanna be really close with my kids. Well, how's that going? What decisions are you making? If you don't make the right decisions, you don't get to the right destination. And sometimes in life, we're making decisions that'll take us one place and those decisions will not take us to the destination God is trying to lead us toward. And we make those shifts. Isaiah chapter 55, poetic, the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 55, declares it this way. Seek the Lord while he may be found. That's your very best and most important decision. Every day, every week, seek the Lord. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on them and to our God for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. The good news is if you've been traveling down the wrong path, today is an incredible opportunity because God is merciful and gracious to say, God, I wanna come back to you and your path again. The restoration and the healing, come back. Also, as we walk down this path, God makes it very clear. There's his thoughts and then there's our thoughts. There's his ways and there's our ways. And they're not really similar. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are God's thoughts above our thoughts. Now, if you took the person this week in the room who had the very best thoughts all week long, and wouldn't it be kind of vulnerable and transparent if our thoughts were on a screen all week long and everyone could see them? So even if we took our top thoughts person of the week this week and said, wow, look at those thoughts, God's thoughts compared to those thoughts would be as high as the heaven is to the earth. That just tells you how much we need God. His paths are better. Will God say no sometimes? He absolutely will. He'll say no to terrible, destructive paths in sin. He'll say no to good paths that aren't the best path. And we'll look back later and say, thank you, God, for directing me with that career, with that job, with that friendship, with that dating relationship. Thank you, God, finances. Thank you, God, for what I didn't do and I thought I wanted. Sometimes we intentionally go down the wrong path because we're stubborn about sin, and we say yes to temptation, and we know it's wrong, but we do it anyways. Other times we just unintentionally go down the wrong path. We love God, we're trying to make sense, we kind of forget the word, we kind of forget to pray, and we're doing our best, we think, but look where we ended up. And then we see it from God's perspective, we're like, how did I end up there? And then God is gracious, says, come home. Come back to my path, come back to me and walk with me. Proverbs 14, 12, we read this, there's a way that appears to be right. Solomon wrote this, he asked God for wisdom, God gave it, here's one of the Proverbs. If you want wisdom, read the book of Proverbs. There's a way that appears to be right, but in the end, it leads to death. How many people have ever made a decision that really appeared to be right? And now if you could have that back over again, there is no chance you would make that same decision. See, God's no reminds us that he has vision beyond us. We see a little bit, God sees everything. And because his vision is great, his heart can be trusted. We don't lean on our own understanding. We don't have to figure every, life is too complex. There's too much chaos. There's confusion. There's all kinds of these things happening. What we need is clarity. What we need is the good shepherd. What we need is his guidance and to walk down that path. Proverbs chapter four, verse 11, Solomon added that God will instruct us in the way of wisdom and lead you along straight paths. It's saying yes to Jesus. He always has wisdom. How does Psalm 23 start? It starts with two words. Psalm 23, everything that follows hinges on these two words. Psalm 23 starts out with the Lord, the Lord. If you don't call Jesus as Lord, if you can't say the Lord, the Lord's who I follow, the Lord's who I trust, if you ignore the Lord, you just missed Psalm 23. But it's not saying those words or knowing correct doctrine, it's in our lives calling Jesus Lord. Be the Lord of my Sunday, the Lord of my Monday, the Lord of my Tuesday, the Lord of my heart, the Lord of my home, the Lord of my words, the Lord of my reactions, be the Lord of my money, be the Lord of my, and then everything else follows. The Lord, say yes to Jesus. Now, in making these decisions with paths, I wanna lay it out clearly again. What's common in our culture and then the path of Jesus is counter-cultural. What is sometimes intuitive for us and the path of Jesus is counter-intuitive. So let's look at what's common and then let's look at the path of Christ. What's common today is to fall in the trap of self-sufficiency. God didn't make any of us that way. What's wise, the path of Jesus, is prayer. If we really see Jesus for who He is as the Good Shepherd, we will be praying all the time. Praying all the time. The lie is self-sufficiency. You got everything figured out. No, the truth is we need the Lord. Well, what else? What about a perspective of church? Right now, the perspective a lot of people have of church is avoid it. Maybe the most devoted people go twice a month. Like it's kinda optional, it's not that important. That's not God's perspective. The church is not the building, it's the people of God, and we need each other. And he says the first of the week, and we love each other, serve each other, build each other up. A lot of people think church is to just watch. other people. No, church is to connect with other people and participate and use your gifts that are not just for you, but for others to see that perspective of church. That's a shift for most people. What else? Sexual immorality. You know how common pornography is right now? Do you know immoral thoughts? Jesus said, if you just start thinking about that person in an immoral way, that's lust, that's adultery. Do you know how rampant that is in our culture? We need a purity revolution. We need a purity revolution on our hearts, on our minds, on our phones, the way we date, marriage, devotion, faithfulness. We need a purity revolution. That's the path of Jesus. What else? Resentment, bitterness, grudges. That's just common in hearts, layers of that to carry that decay in our souls, to carry that around. No, forgive everyone fully. That's the path of Jesus. Silence, intimidated, fearful, retreating. That's not coming from God. God doesn't give us fear of timidity, but power and love. We share our faith. We share the good news of Jesus. We share a story, how he changed our lives. That's his path, isolation. There's a rugged individualism that's gone way too far in our culture. And there's so much isolation and loneliness. We need to rediscover the biblical passages on community and how we need God and we need each other and enter into community. What about playing it safe? The idol of being comfortable. That's common for a lot of Christians. Just be comfortable, play it safe. I don't read that anywhere in the Bible. Yes, safety is important. We pray for physical safety, protection from the evil one. But bold faith is what we see. Bold faith in the Bible. Greed is common. The Bible says generosity. What about strife, division, hatred? The Bible says we come together, unity. That's one thing I love about coming to this church. The generations, the nations, multi-ethnic, we come together as family. It's counter-cultural. We look forward to it. We enjoy each other. We open up our hearts and our homes and there's friendships. And then, when you open up social media, it's not hard to find mean, is it? It's not hard to find pride, is it? That's not coming from God. What do we see? Kindness, humility. What I'm trying to point out to you, and I'm preaching to myself, is that the path of Jesus is gonna look very radical in our culture right now. In Babylon, Daniel, Shadrach, Habeshach, Abednego looked very radical. And the darker the dark gets, the light will shine brighter. Jesus says, don't put your light under a bowl. It's time to shine the light of Jesus. Guide me, Jesus. I wanna abide with you. I wanna walk in your path. And if we don't make these shifts, the world will influence the church more than the church will influence the world. That'll be a trajectory, and God's gonna guide you. I guarantee you, it will not be boring. When you follow Jesus and say, be my Lord, there's gonna be healing, there's gonna be restoration, provision, guidance. It will not be boring. You're gonna end up doing things and going places you never thought. God's gonna use you in ways you couldn't even imagine. I never thought I'd be a pastor. I never thought I'd be in Seattle. I never heard of Grace Community Church. just following the Lord. And it's like, okay, 10 years later, here we are, you know? And it's wonderful. I wake up every day looking forward to what God's gonna do next. Just the best place to be is with Jesus, walking in His path, listening. He says, this is the way, walk in it, and then live it out and trust Him and go for it with all your heart. That's what God's calling all of us to do. The final truth, paths that are good for you also bring glory to God. See, if you've been taught God hates you, if God's in it, it's going to be terrible. It's not going to be fulfilling because God's not good. All those lies. Here's the truth. God's glory and you're good. It's for God's glory. Guide me, Lord, in paths of righteousness. Those are the first two parts of the prayer. for your name's sake, for your glory. This is the one people leave off. Guide me in paths, God, so you'll bless me, and then bless me, and then bless me, and then bless me. Well, that's not quite how it reads in Psalm 23. Guide me, Lord, in right paths for your glory. What's your motive? Psalm 23 checks motives. See, a lot of times our motives are, well, I'm gonna look good, I'm gonna feel good, it's gonna improve my bank account, I might get a promotion, like we've got all these motives, not all of them are bad, but what motive is your main motive? And I'll tell you what the most powerful motive in the world is that Jesus Christ has died for our sins and he's risen and I'll do it for him and with him. And it's not one of those paybacks. It's not like, well, Jesus did so much, I gotta try to pay him back. And it's not like, well, I'm gonna go the extra mile because I owe Jesus. No, it's with gratitude, Life is gonna be very, very difficult. And sometimes the right thing is gonna be the last thing that you wanna do. And people are gonna try to talk you out of it. The culture is gonna try to dupe you. And you're gonna come up with all this rationalization and all these different things. You're not gonna feel like doing it, but you're gonna do it. Why? Because of Jesus. And it's not just for Him and for His glory, it's also with Him. The path is relational. It's not just principles. God just doesn't download wisdom. It's like, okay, thank you for all the answers. No, He's gonna walk with us. The path is relational. but this path is narrow. Matthew chapter seven, Jesus gave this, it's realistic. In verse 13, enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it. Well, that will kind of change the way you view opinion polls. That'll kind of change the way of trying to please everybody all the time. Let's follow the Lord. Job 23, faithfulness was Job's decision. My feet have closely followed his steps. Job probably suffered more than almost everyone in this room. Well, what was he devoted? What did he decide in his heart? It wasn't just about the external, the internal. He said, my feet have closely followed his steps. I have kept to his way without turning aside. His goal is faithfulness. Psalm 16, verse 11, we hear about the blessings that come. as we wanna live for God's glory. You make known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. There's more of God's presence. There's more life. There's more joy when we choose to glorify God. As you open up your Bible, look this week, if you're reading, look at the different people that are inspiring and note what they're living for. Josiah was a king. He made a decision. He discovered God's word, started to read it, do it, and share it with other people. The nation changed. The nation was transformed as he started to read and do and share God's word. He was living for God's glory and calling his nation back to God. God moves through people who are in the word. He was living for God's glory. The jailer in the book of Acts was gonna take his life. There are people all around the sound this week who are either thinking or attempting to take their lives. until he trusts Jesus and he hears about Jesus. Now there's hope. Now there's restoration. He follows Jesus. He's baptized. His whole family, they turn to Jesus. There's shalom. It's an incredible turnaround. Why? Because one person decided to trust Jesus and live for his glory. We have Mary and Joseph who are convinced they're gonna get divorced. Do you know how many couples, married couples this week are talking about divorce, thinking about divorce? Well, what happened with Mary and Joseph? They didn't get divorced. What did they do? They came back to God and they said, God, what's your path? And God brought restoration. And now we have Mary and Joseph. We're so thankful. They're inspiring. Jesus, that was his parents. and they thought they would get divorced and God said no. They said yes to Jesus and they said yes to his glory. When we have Paul who's in prison and it's unfair and there's an injustice, he could have just complained, he could have had a pity party, but what did Paul do? He continued to thank God. This is what he wrote to the Philippians as he's in prison. He's saying, this is what I'm thinking about. Whatever's true, noble, and right, that's what I'm going to think about. Whatever's pure, lovely, admirable, that's what I'm thinking. Whatever's excellent or praiseworthy, that's what I'm going to think about. And Paul in prison just didn't sit there watching the clock wasting time. God used him to write the Bible while he's in prison. Prison doesn't have the final say. Our circumstances don't give him too much power. And then he's leading people in the prisons to Jesus, sharing his testimony. You see, these people inspire us because they're saying, God, guide me, abide with you. I wanna bring you glory. When Joshua stepped around Jericho, there's no way the army could bring the walls down. You might be looking at some impossible tasks, humanly speaking, but what does he do? Listen to God and walk around the walls one time. Do that for seven days, seventh day, do it seven times, give a shout of praise. Simple steps of obedience, God brings massive results. Simple steps of obedience. We want to glorify the Lord. God brings great victories. When you think about Job, he chose to worship God in his darkest moments. His wife told him, curse God. Maybe you have some family that have told you, God makes no sense. God isn't real. Stop following God. Job said, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I'm going to praise my God in times of bounty. I will praise him in times of scarcity, but I will worship God. And God brought restoration back to Job. Restoration. And then I think of Joanna in the Bible, her husband, Cusa, he was serving Herod. Herod had a lot of money. Cusa was the manager, the steward of the money. Herod pays Cusa and Joanna. Joanna would take that money and then give it to Jesus. Herod would be furious. firing, killing, if he knew where his money was going, here it, thanks for the paycheck, it's going to Jesus. Joanna was courageous, and what happened? God blessed her. First he healed her, and then she followed Jesus, and then when Jesus is resurrected from the grave, you know who's there? Joanna is right there. God knows who's devoted to Him and He will use them to bless them and bring Him glory. In that culture that sadly saw women as second rate, God chose women as the first ones at the tomb because God is writing the script, it's His path, it's His glory over and over again. As we walk down this year together, may we have that prayer. Guide us, Jesus, our good shepherd. Not gullible and duped by the world anymore, but guideable with Jesus. The only one who really knows you and loves you fully, the only one you can fully trust is Jesus. So guide us, Jesus, down paths of righteousness, good paths. and for your glory. When I think about our church living for God's glory, we have impact teams. There's 60 teams in our church, people serving, using their gifts, no payment. Why are they using their gifts? Because they wanna glorify God and serve the people in the room and serve the people who aren't in the room yet. That's the heart to glorify God. When I think about our life groups, why do we have so many life groups? Because alone, for embers, the flame goes out. But when the embers come together, there's a bonfire. And why do we have so many homes that are open all week long in different places and locations? And we're so thankful for every life group leader, every life group host. Why are we doing that? Because we're living for God's glory together. We can't do it alone. We're going to grow the most in community. When I think about last month, human trafficking, awareness and prevention, the month of January, we shared that. We shared the ministry. There's about 20 people in our church that stepped up and said, I want to be part of the solution. I want to make a difference for God's glory. We saw middle school camp and all the students that came. There was a handful of students that put their trust in Christ for the first time. Now they know Jesus. They're going to heaven. They're in God's family. It's for his glory. Some of you gave up your whole weekend to be there in the lead cabins, and it's for His glory. Guide us, Jesus, in passive righteousness for Your glory. Let's read Psalm 23 together. Let it sink in. And as we say these words, let's draw near to Jesus. Remember, this is a Psalm that's relational. It's more than just facts. Let it drop 12 inches from the head to the heart. Draw near to Jesus. Let's say this together. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right path for his namesake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, 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 your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Decisions and paths. Here's five decisions and paths that are every week at Grace. Texting the church phone number or going to the connecting center. I wanna follow Jesus for the first time. I wanna get baptized. I want this to be my church family. I wanna serve and use my gifts. I wanna get in a life group. You can make those decisions. Or maybe it's a different decision today. It's not one of those five. Let's, before we leave, let's take a minute right now, before we just run into the next thing, let's take a minute to slow down. We don't do that enough in our culture, to be honest. Let's take a minute to slow down. What is God saying to you today? What is the Good Shepherd, Jesus, communicating to you today? How about paths? Has it been revealed today, a path in your life that's not working? It's the wrong path? In this moment, Turn from that path, turn from sin. You don't have to be wayward. You can come right close to God. This is a place of grace. Grace means an undeserved gift. God has grace that's greater than our sin. And this is the time, if you wanna put your trust in Jesus, or if you wanna return to Jesus, or if there's a specific area of your life that the Holy Spirit has revealed to you, and you say, this is my area, I've been going that way. God, now I wanna go this way. I wanna go this way with you, Jesus. Make that decision right now. Maybe it's a specific relationship. Maybe it's your finances. Maybe it's your attitude. It's just been off. It doesn't honor the Lord. Maybe it's your thought life. What is it that God's doing in your life where you say, Jesus, my Lord, guide me in the right paths. for your glory. Maybe you haven't been living for God's glory. You're still trying to make your kingdom, your reputation. It's really still too much about you. Do you know how freeing it is? You will come alive when you say, God, I want to live for your glory. And the incredible part is for God's glory is also for our good. But when we put ourselves above God and above other people, it's not for His glory, it's for ourselves. This is a self-consumed culture. We gotta take some radical steps to break out of that. Today's the day. It's a new start. It's a new path. God wants to do new things. Jesus, thank you for this time to reflect. Guide us in the right paths for your glory. God, we'll continue to pray it this week, trusting your guidance, listening to your voice. Bring healing and restoration in our souls, in our homes, in our church. God, in this land, we need your healing, Jesus. And we commit ourselves to you today. Thank you for your saving grace, your kindness, your mercy, your peace. We pray in your name, Lord. Amen, amen. If you would like any personal prayer, our prayer team is now both sides of the room to make it real easy to just come over and say, I need prayer for this. We'll pray with you. Have a great day and a good week with the Good Shepherd.