called it yonder standing up. But I know that you can sing it sitting down because I sing that in my truck and it sounds so good. I've told you I'm Pravarati when I'm in my truck. The singing is really good. Psalm 23. Turn with me to Psalm 23. Is my mic on? Psalm 23. We'll read the whole psalm, but we're just going to focus on just one little phrase in the psalm. Very familiar portion of scripture. Portion. Probably the vast majority of you know by heart. But let's read the song together. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I wanna focus your attention just to that first phrase of verse number three. He restoreth. my soul. That's what we'll be considering tonight. Well, let's seek the Lord in prayer and we'll come to this little phrase. Let's pray. Our father, we thank you for the promise and the encouragement of scripture of restoration. We thank you that you don't leave us to ourselves, but as the good shepherd, we're told in the new Testament would leave the 90 and nine to go and search for the one. We thank you that at one time we were that one that you found and you brought us to yourself. And we pray that you would use your word and our hearts tonight to keep us from being that one again that would wander off. But may we be tightly knit to the fold and in the center of your will for us. on that path that you have ordained. May you help us tonight, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Several years ago, there was a popular television show on the History Channel called American Restoration. I don't know if any of you ever saw it, but the show was about a guy named Rick, who lived in Las Vegas, who had a company called Rick's Restoration. And people would bring him all sorts of things and he would restore them back to their original condition. One of these reality type kind of TV shows. Most of the items that were brought were some kind of family heirloom, you know, something found in an attic, something bought at a yard sale. sometimes quite expensive collector's items that somehow had been broken or damaged or, you know, rusted or whatever the deal was. Sometimes it would just look like a, you know, pile of bolts and you think, how in the world could this ever be a thing again? And the show was about him you know, fixing these things back up and then the big dramatic reveal at the end of this, you know, shiny new restored thing. Good television. But I was always fascinated because he would end up making the thing look like it was brand new. It was more than just, you know, paint stickers and, you know, getting it that way, but he would actually fix broken parts, mechanical things that had rusted or seized You know, a little WD-40, a little this and that, and he gets all the parts back working again, and it's functional. It's like brand new, out of the box kind of restoration. Amazing to watch these transformations. In the most famous of the Psalms, and maybe John 3.16 might give it a run for its money, but maybe the most famous passage in the whole Bible David tells us about a good shepherd that is able to restore the soul. Our good shepherd is able to take all the broken pieces of life and restore it back to what it's supposed to be. He's able to lift you out of backsliding and waywardness. He's able to lift you out of weariness and discouragement, and able to restore you back to full fellowship with Himself. And so that's what I wanna preach to you about this evening, is this little phrase in verse number three, He restoreth my soul. I just wanna ask three questions. And so as we go along, we'll just look at these three questions along the way. The first question is, who needs restoration? Who are we talking about? Well, David here, obviously in this psalm is talking about himself. Commentators are divided as to when David wrote this a lot. view this Psalm compared to the others. You know, we don't have dates. Some of them in the title give us some point of history and you can kind of put a thumbtack on a timeline of David's life of, you know, when a certain thing was going on and when he wrote this. And we know a little bit more about the circumstances, but a lot of people view Psalm 23 as one that was written toward the end of David's life. because of the kind of the nature of the reflection that's here, the tenderness of it. A man who has experienced life and he's come more toward the end of it, looking back on the experience that he's had with the Lord and this one that is the shepherd. We don't know exactly the time. It makes sense to me. But David here obviously is talking about himself. He restoreth my soul. And we'll see in a moment some times in David's life. But when we look at this question, who needs restoration? When we look at this subject just from a bigger picture, it's really two categories. The first one would be the backslider. The wandering Christian is that one that needs restoration. Maybe that's you. Maybe you know that your walk with the Lord is not what it used to be. You can look back at times in your own life when there was a greater desire, a deeper joy in serving the Lord. You sense that you don't have the communion with God that you once had. And you realize that, your eyes are open to it. You realize, I'm not where I need to be. Now, none of us are where we need to be, but you're not where you used to be. You're backwards from where you used to be. And if that's you, well then you need to be restored. You need to know that joy of your salvation brought back. The other category of people is the tired, the weary, the discouraged Christian that needs restoration. Now, Grant, and I hope you understand, we're looking at restoration kind of from two different perspectives in that. You're worn out, discouraged by the overwhelming nature of the circumstances of this life. You're down. It's not that you're unspiritual. It's not that you don't love the Lord like you used to. You're just exhausted. You're just discouraged. So much going on. You're weary and well doing. I preached not too long ago about being overwhelmed. Maybe you still you still feel that overwhelmed by all of just life. and you need the Lord to come and restore you back. Now, we have to be careful in both of those circumstances here to understand we're talking about restoration, not regeneration. Those are two different things. Unbelievers need to be regenerated, not restored. They need to be brought to Christ for the first time. They need to be regenerated by faith, the saving faith to come to Christ. You can't be restored back to something that you never were. Pardon the illustration, but on that television show, I remember distinctly one of them was a barber's chair. My dad is a barber. He's been a barber for years and years and years. There was this antique barber chair, and the seats were all ripped, and the stuffing poking out, and rusted and everything else. When he got finished with that, it was beautiful. Something you'd want to sit in and get your haircut in. Then a Coke machine. All rusted up. One of those old Coke machines with the little side window that opened and you pulled the bottles out. Well, he didn't turn the barber chair into a Coke machine. He didn't turn the Coke machine into a barber chair. You can't make something that it's not. You can only restore what was. So if you've never come to Christ, you've never been converted, you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you need regeneration, not restoration. But what David is talking about here is restoration. And you begin to think about the life of David. And if there was ever a writer of scripture who understood what he was talking about, well, it was David. Maybe his closest rival would be Peter. We see Peter writing some things in 1 and 2 Peter that when you read what he writes there, Remembering his denying of the Lord three times, you're like, wow. Peter, you really got it. You understood what the Lord was doing. But David, when David writes this, he restoreth my soul, especially if we take it David writing toward the end of his life, looking back on the life of a man after God's own heart. Well, there were many times in David's experience, that he knew that restoring work of the Lord. You take perhaps the biggest episode we all know of David's sin with Bathsheba. And what a fall, a man who was a man after God's own heart. But yet how far astray did he wander in that episode? But we have two Psalms, 32 and 51. We'll look at some of that in a moment. But we have those two Psalms where David is pouring out his heart to the Lord, longing for this restoration to be brought back to that fellowship and communion that he once knew. David's sinned and numbering the people. And the prophet was sent to call him out and to challenge him on that sin of unbelief, not trusting the Lord, but instead, you know, numbering the people and hedging his bets and all these things that God had told David specifically, don't do this. Even Joab said, Hey David, you're, you're, you're doing wrong here. Don't do this. And he did it anyway. Well, in the aftermath of that, David was punished by the Lord, but again, restoration brought. You go through the Psalms and you see over and over, not so much sin in David's life, but David's so discouraged. At the end of his rope, he's got Saul trying to kill him. Later, he's got his own son Absalom trying to kill him. And David's so often in the slough of despond, just dejected and so discouraged. But yet you come to the end of those Psalms And David goes from the valley to the mountaintop. He knew what it was to be restored in his soul. And so who needs this? Well, from time to time, we all do. Whether you're backslid from the Lord, whether you're discouraged just with life, you need restored. And here we have this sure word of scripture a word that we were just singing earlier, a word that cannot be broken. This God that David speaks of is a God who is still able to restore. But let's look at a second question here, and that is, why do you need restoration? Why do you need to be restored? Well, if we take these two categories again and look at it from that perspective, you need to be restored because of your own sin. If you're backslidden, wandering from the Lord, if that's where you are tonight, then you have to come to realize it's your own fault. If any of us ever wander from Christ, if we ever wander in a relationship from the Lord, it's our own fault. Nobody makes you backslide. You can blame bad friends, maybe. Maybe you do have people around you that are a bad influence, but you chose to remain among them. It's your fault. You're the one that turned the radio on and listened to that music. You pressed the button. You're the one that clicked that link to that website. Nobody clicked it for you. You clicked the mouse. You're the one that did it. You're the one that changed the channel on the television to that show, to that movie, to that thing. You're the one who continued to entertain the thought and weren't careful to take every thought captive by the word of God to not be careful to renew your mind, it's your fault. It's my fault. It's your fault if you're in sin. Backsliding doesn't happen overnight. It's a gradual process. You don't wake up tomorrow morning and you're all of a sudden all the way down the road. It's a slow, gradual thing. You lose an excitement and joy for the things of the Lord. Nobody sets out really to start sinning. Like that's not your plan, right? But it happens over a process of time. And it's one excuse after another excuse. And it gradually becomes easier and easier and easier. And maybe you're with friends, and these friends are doing things that you know are not right, you know your parents don't approve of. And your conscience is pricked by that, and you know this is wrong. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be involved in this. I shouldn't be doing this. But you don't want to rock the boat. You don't want people to make fun of you. And so you stay. Well, the next time, it's not quite so bad. It's a little easier. The next time, easier again. Until now, it doesn't even bother you anymore. And now you're part of it. It's a gradual process. I think most of you have heard Pastor Kimbrough's testimony. He's, I don't remember since we've been here since 2011, he's, today I want to give you my testimony. I don't think he's done that, but Pastor Kimbrough has mentioned some things along the way in sermons here or there, but most of you, I think, will remember him talking about the time that he went out to his car after a service And he didn't feel convicted. And he sat in his car, and he realized, I don't feel convicted. And he says it scared him. Because he knew at the time, I believe he traces that to when he was, well, he went to his car, so he was at least 16, but about 16. And he remembered sitting through the service and through the invitations of the service and conviction in his heart for things that he was doing. And that one day he went out to his car and he wasn't convicted. And it scared him. And the Lord used that to cause him to realize an understanding and understand, I'm not where I need to be. He was saved, but away from the Lord. But the Lord used that to bring him back to himself. If you're a young person, can your parents reprimand you for something and it doesn't bother you anymore? It used to. You used to feel bad, guilty, convicted. What word do you want to use? But it doesn't anymore. You can sit under the preaching of the word week by week, but you're not moved, it doesn't affect you. When the preacher mentions this sin or that sin or this point of holiness or this point that you need to pursue, you just, you don't even care anymore. You need to be restored because of that sinfulness. You need to be brought back to the Lord. It's too easy to get lazy in the things of God. This morning, one of the things that we were looking at, the evidences of true conversion, was a desire to follow after those that have gone before. And a zeal to follow Christ and to be among God's people and the fellowship of that and the growing in the things of the Lord. Well, it's easy to get in the habit of following bad examples. All this cool stuff on Instagram, and you want to be like that. And so you begin to dress that way. You begin to act that way. You begin to listen to that kind of music. You begin to do that kind of stuff and act that kind of way and have that kind of attitude that you see in pictures. It's amazing how you can see the attitude of a person by their face, by a picture that's posted on the internet. And you can see, sometimes you can see these pictures that are posted and you just see the pictures like, that's bad news bears, man, you stay away from that person. They're just bad news. You can tell by looking at them so often. It's too easy to get in the habit of following after those bad examples of being influenced that way so strongly. Well, if that's you, you're truly born again. You need to be restored. You need to come back to the Lord. But a second reason why you need to be restored could be. That you need to be restored because you've been overwhelmed by the weariness of the flesh, and I put this in a different category than sin. There may be a level of sin involved in your discouragement, not trusting the Lord. But it's just different from the backslider. This is different from that person whose heart has just grown cold to the things of the Lord. This is the person whose heart is not necessarily cold to the things of the Lord. You're just overwhelmed. And you need to be restored. Turn with me to Mark 6. Turn over to Mark chapter 6. I want to show you a episode in the life of Christ in his ministry with his disciples that kind of illustrates this point and. Really highlights Christ's tender care for the need of his disciples, understanding and even foreseeing and anticipating the weariness of the flesh that can come upon us as believers. Mark 6 look at verse 7. So Jesus called unto him the 12 and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits and commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only, no script, no bread, no money in their purse, but be shod with sandals and not put on two coats. Skip down to verse number 12. And they went out So the disciples sent out two by two. They went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, anointed with oil, many that were sick, and healed them. And what you have next in Mark is the story of the murder of John the Baptist. John the Baptist is slain. John the Baptist's disciples come take, bury his body. And then you look at verse number 30. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And so they come back and they give a report. Jesus had sent them out. He had commissioned them for a specific task to go for a time and to preach and this and that place and what they were to do. And so they come back and they give a report to the Lord. All the things that they had done and what they had taught. And Jesus, verse 31, Jesus said unto them, come you yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. And so here Christ, understanding, knowing, anticipating the weariness that his disciples were in, the trouble that they had had, he says, come apart. There was all the hustle and bustle, even so much, you see the end of verse 31, so much stuff going on, they didn't even have leisures to take a break just to get a meal. Everything was just so chaotic. And the Lord says, come apart for a while. And they go apart to this desert place. Now, in the aftermath of that, a whole crowd of people follow and then you have the feeding of the 5,000. But the Lord, before that, calls his disciples and he says, you need to rest. Come apart and rest a while. The compassion that he has to restore, to strength the weariness of the flesh. Maybe that's you. I think we can understand, we all can understand and relate to what it is to be recharged. 25 years ago, none of us plugged anything in to charge back up. But now, basically all of us, before we go to bed, we plug in all kinds of stuff for it to charge overnight. On my nightstand, I got like four things going. I got my phone. I've got my watch. I got earbuds, all this stuff. You plug all this stuff, it's got to recharge, because during the day, the batteries are gone. They drain out. And so you gotta charge it back up, get it going. And you yourself, you lay down to recharge. Well, we have times that what we really need to do is just shut out the world, shut out the stuff, and come apart with the Lord and recharge. I'm guilty of being a meme scroller. I don't have Instagram, so I don't scroll reels so much, but I like a good funny meme, right? And I don't mean this in a silly way, but I mean it for you to think on. The Bible says, he restoreth my soul. The Bible does not say that Facebook and Instagram restore your soul. It just doesn't say that. If anything, those are the things that are contributing to you being torn down in the first place. The Lord is the one that restores the soul. And this God that David was speaking of, this good shepherd that David's speaking of in Psalm 23, that David said he restores my soul, Well, he's well able to restore your soul if you need that tonight. But I want to finish with one last question, and that is, what is the effect of this restoration? What happens when the Lord restores your soul? Well, just as David knew his need to be restored, David also communicates to us in the scriptures the benefits of that restoration. He shows us, if you will, what it looks like to be restored. I'll just read two verses for you. You can turn just a couple pages over, Psalm 51, 12. In that psalm of confession, really, he's pouring out his heart before the Lord, that confession of his sin with Bathsheba. He says in verse 12, he asks the Lord, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit. Well, David received an answer to that request. Well, what's he asking for? Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. David had not become unsaved. But he had become unjoyful in his walk with the Lord. And he says, Lord, restore that. I want that back. I used to have that. And I know because of my sin, it's gone. But I want it back. And then Psalm 32, another of David's Psalms specifically linked to that sin with Bathsheba. He opens with of an evidence, I believe, of knowing that joy. Blessed, and so that really is the word happy. It's also a word that has the idea of one who is in an enviable position. You look at that guy, you're like, wow, I wish I had that. That's the idea of the word. It's the Psalm 1 word. Blessed is the man, but blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. And here, David, in the aftermath of this sin with Bathsheba, knew a peace in his own heart that his sins had been forgiven. It had been covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. and in whose spirit there is no guile. So here David is telling us in this Psalm the joy of his own heart that he understands and he knows and he's rejoicing in the fact he's been brought back to a right fellowship with God. He knows his sins are forgiven. He knows the Lord has not imputed his sin to him. He's not holding it to his account. It's been gone. It's been dealt with ultimately by Christ. Sin is that obstacle that breaks fellowship. Sin is that wall that builds the barrier between you and the Lord, and it has to be removed. And the Lord, by His Spirit, deals with our sinfulness. He restores the backsliding heart to Himself. He restores the one that's so discouraged to Himself. Look more at Psalm 23 and verse 3. We're looking at this first little phrase, but you finish out the verse, he restores my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Now, There's part of this that goes together. This word path in the Hebrew is a word that's for a trench. There's another place that it's used where Saul is hiding in a path. Well, it's not a road. There's another Hebrew word for just like a walkway, a path. That was the easiest word in my Hebrew class for me to remember. It's the Hebrew word derek. I got that one. I had a mnemonic device I could put with that one. I got A plus on that vocabulary test. Derek, way, I could remember it. Other words, maybe I had more trouble with. But this is a different word. It's not just a road. It's more the idea of a trench. It's also used, some of the imagery would be where a wagon has gone. and it has cut furrows where the wheels would have been. It's something that is purposeful. It's something that is marked out. It's not an accident, this path, this trench, this place. The Lord has a path for each one of us. There's a sense in which you take Pilgrim's Progress, for example, that allegory. There's a sense in which we're all on the same path. We're all the celestial city. Keep that light in your eye and off you go. We're all on that same path to glory. There's another sense in which the Lord has a different road for each of us. Some have easier roads than others. Some paths that the Lord would have you on would be riddled with disappointments, cancer, heartache, the tragedies of life. You look back, and man, the path is just scattered with just chaos that's behind you. But the Lord has brought you through all that, and here you are now. And there's more ahead, but you're on this path. Others, in the Lord's grace, His sovereignty, His providence, has a path that's easier. We here in the United States, we have an easier path than our brothers and sisters in Iran, Cambodia, Iraq, where to raise the banner for Christ could literally get you beheaded. We don't live there. Praise the Lord. We don't live there. We live here. It's too easy to be a Christian here. But we have a path. The Lord has what he has for you. And we each of us walk that ordained. Marked out journey. But if there's times we get off the path. We get out of the way. We don't like the path. We get discouraged on the path. We think surely this can't be the way the Lord would have me go. And we fight against the path. We rebel against the path. We run away from the path, but yet this is what the Lord has. Well, we need restored back to the joy of that, being in the center of the will of God and where he would have you go. The Shorter Catechism deals with this question from a little bit different perspective. So the question is, what are the effects of this restoration? Well, if you're familiar with the catechism, you know that question 32 asks, what are the benefits of those that are effectually called? Well, those that the Lord has called to himself, those that hear his voice, that come to Christ in saving faith, they receive the benefit of justification, adoption, and sanctification. Well, then question 36 asks the question, well, what benefits are there to those that are justified, adopted, and sanctified? And the answer really collects our thoughts into the effects of what it is to be restored and to have a right walk in fellowship with God. And so our catechism would tell us that the effects are five, the benefits are five. First, it's assurance of the love of God. Now when you're off the path from the Lord, when you're away from the Lord, that's when Satan can really plant the seeds of doubt. Can God love you if this is what you're up to? If your heart's here, can God really love you for doing that? And you begin to lose that assurance of the love of God. But when you're restored back to the Lord, you're brought into that full assurance that God loves me. And in the end of Romans 8, nothing is able to separate me from that love. And so that's one of the effects of a restored walk with the Lord, a restored fellowship is assurance of God's love. Peace of conscience is mentioned next, where You know in your heart, you lay your head on your pillow at night, and it's well with your soul. You don't have all these things bombarding your mind of all the sins of the past, all the things that are going on. No, the Lord has given you that peace of conscience. Your sins are forgiven. You're in a fellowship with the God of heaven. There's nothing against you anymore. and your conscience is clear before God. You're a sinner, of course, and you know you're a sinner and you're vile and wretched and awful human being, but you're forgiven and your conscience is clear and you can lay your head on your pillow and you fall right to sleep. He gives us beloved sleep and rest. There's joy in the Holy Ghost. You're excited about the things of the Lord. You're excited about serving the Lord. What we were talking about this morning of that diligent zeal to display and to put on display a full assurance of hope. There's a joy in that you love Jesus and you want everybody to know you love Jesus. Because you're in your in fellowship with him, you're in a restored walk with God. And there's that joy in the Holy Ghost. There's an increase of grace. It's not necessarily that the, I mean, we know it's not, it's not that God is more gracious. God cannot be more gracious than he already is. But there's an increase of grace in the sense, from our perspective, we recognize the grace of God. We're in tune with the grace of God. We anticipate the grace of God. And so we see it all around us. Where one who's out of fellowship with the Lord, he's not thinking about how the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. He goes out and the thoughts of his mind are not geared toward the things of the Lord. But that one that's restored, he sees the evidence of grace all around him because you're walking with God and you're recognizing and you're enjoying that fellowship. and then perseverance therein to the end. That's the last benefit that the catechism talks of. Perseverance therein to the end. This restored right fellowship with God, you're walking as it were hand in hand with the Lord. And you're in the palm of his hand. And the Lord will keep you by his power to the very end, to your dying day, full assurance of hope to the end. We saw in Hebrews this morning. Well, where do we get these things? Well, we get it from following our good shepherd, that one who is able to restore our soul, to bring us back, to put us in right fellowship with him. And may we follow the Lord all our days. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you for very simple truths from scripture. We thank you that what you have communicated to us in your word is not complicated. You've dealt with us in a way that is so straightforward, so simple and direct. We pray that you would forgive us for in our own sinfulness making things harder than it needs to be. And we pray that we would have that simple, Childlike faith to trust and follow you. To remain on the pathway. To heed the warnings that you've given us in the scripture of ever straying from that pathway. But we thank you that. Even in such a place. We can rest on that one who restores our soul. And we pray that we would know that restoration work in our own hearts. And may we stay in the center of your will. For that, we pray for this week that's before us. We pray that you'd help us with the different responsibilities that we have in this life. And even as we come this week to the 4th of July and celebrate what we look at as the birth of a nation, and have our minds to the freedoms that we know and that we enjoy in this country. We do pray for our leaders. We would say with Isaiah, we live among an unclean people. And we confess ourselves to be unclean in the mix of it all. But we pray for our leaders. Pray for our nation that you would preserve it. We pray that you would help us to be salt and light even in a wicked culture, that you would give us wisdom and skill in responding to those around us with love and grace, and that we would reflect your glory and your love. And so we pray for help in it all. pray for strength, and we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.