PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

We spend one last day meditating on the phrase: ‘He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake’. The benefit of following the Lord’s path, of being guided by the Holy Spirit of God rather than our own self-determined ways, is that we shall be led from one good pasture to another without trouble, without failure and without frustrations. A good Shepherd always endeavors to keep his sheep on the move, thus avoiding over-use of the land and enabling them to continually enjoy wholesome, fresh forage. Philip Keller says, in commenting on this point: ‘… whenever the shepherd opens a gate into fresh pasture, the sheep are filled with excitement. As they go through the gate even the staid old ewes will often kick up their heels and leap with delight at the prospect of finding fresh feed. How they enjoy being led on a new ground.’ kicking up our heels means having a lively and enjoyable time, or doing things you enjoy. Do you experience a similar excitement as the Good Shepherd leads you day by day to wholesome, fresh food? Are you someone who wants to continually feed on just one doctrine or truth, and never go over to enjoy the other pathways and pastures which God has for you in His Word? Be assured of this –God wants us to move with Him day by day and discover fresh revelation as He opens up to us new insights and understanding of His precious Word. Every Christian can meet the day with as much joy as a sheep that is being led into fresh new pasture. Spiritually we can kick up our heels and leap with delight at the prospect of finding fresh new food. Expect God to show you some new insight day by day. Faith is expectancy –according to your expectancy be it unto you.

We are seeing that our desire for self-determination has got be curbed, checked, controlled, if possible eradicated or else it will lead us into ruining ways that are not the Way. ‘One of the characteristics of a radiant Christian’, says J. Oswald Smith, ‘is willingness to put his personal life and affairs into the hands of our Lord Jesus Christ–without qualification and without reservation.’ This is a real challenge, a war of decision inside oneself but it is what I believe Lord Jesus is referring to in part when He talks about taking up the cross daily. It means being prepared day by day to put self-interest to death and to say: ‘No longer my will Lord, but Yours be done in my life O God my Lord.’ It is a difficult kind of life to live because you have got to fight with a lot of counter decisions inside of your heart or mind and unless you are an embodiment of the Lord’s Word and a strong decisive Christ believing person with a strong fear of the Lord in your heart otherwise self and an inclination to what the people will say, will miss lead you to enter in the wrong way, the carnal way! When the urge towards self-assertion, self-aggrandizement and self-pleasing or satisfaction gives way to the desire to please and satisfy God, much of the stress and strain goes out of life. Dr William Sadler, a Psychiatrist tells of a lady he once treated who said to him, ‘You know, I am a very sensitive person.’ ‘Yes’, said Dr Sadler, ‘I know you are a very selfish person.’ ‘But I didn’t say “selfish”’, protested the woman. ‘I did’, replied the doctor. She went away angry, but ten days later she came back, and confessed it was true she is selfish. Because she after pondering deeply on the Dr’s alleging selfishness on her she realized that it was her self-centredness that was the basis of her poor mental health. We need to be very careful with ourselves and how we evaluates ourselves so that self will not always miss lead us and one way to be such careful is to be guided by the word of God in all that we do in life! Many of us go to Church on Sundays, hear the word of God but we don’t make it a part of us and we don’t live it in our daily life, too bad; which is why we fall into diverse temptations and troubles! When we pray the prayer…lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil…, one way that our Lord Jesus does this for us is through and by His Word, so if you don’t know His word then how can you follow? The man who was the healthiest Person who ever lived on our planet earth, a Man who radiated health –only to touch Him was to be made whole –followed the way of His Father right to the very end. When confronted by the Cross, His own cross in life He was greatly tempted to follow His own desires, His own selfish desire different from what His Father desired and take the way that seemed best, easy and safe to Him, but He came through the struggle inside of Him to say: having quickly realized Himself, ‘Father …not as I will, but as You Will.’ God’s way is not just a way, or even the best way –it is the Way; the Only Way!

This is one of the reasons why I always talk of being an embodiment of the Word of God because being embodiment of God’s word is the only time you can speak as David did saying…Your law is within my heart; how many of us can proudly say that in reality in life? We are seeing that when we try to follow our own way instead of the way into which the divine Shepherd (our Lord our God) wants to lead us, we often finish up being self–defeated and self –disrupted with confusion and frustrations here and there but still we will not realize that it is because we are following our own way. As one writer puts it: ‘If you won’t live according to God’s way, you can’t even live with yourself.’ A cartoon I once saw shows a doctor taking the pulse of a very sick world. He shakes his head and says: ‘You are in a bad way –you are allergic to yourself.’ You see, if you insist on going your own way, and self-interest and self-concern become the driving force of your being, then you will eventually be driven into conflict with yourself. You will find yourself with all kinds of problems and complexes –you will be allergic to yourself; because you are not following the good Shepherd, the Owner of the universe Who only the orderly created things obeys and be in peace! Learn how to follow Him and you will not only find peace but you will be in peace. A woman once said to me: ‘I’ve insisted upon having my own way all my life, but now I am middle-aged it has caught up with me. I’m empty, incapable of accomplishing anything.’ You can get away with having your own way for a while, but in the end it will catch up with you –that which is whispered in the ear will be shouted from the housetops (Matt. 10:27, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered in the ear, proclaim upon the housetops”). A Christian who has never learned to go God’s way rather than his own way gets nowhere –and everybody can see it. Lord Jesus penetratingly said: ‘For whoever wants to save his life will lose it’ (Luke 9:24, “For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [from the penalty of eternal death]”). Notice, He did not say, ‘whoever saves his life will lose it’, but ‘whoever wants to save his life will lose it’. He wants to save it, but he loses it –it goes to pieces. Why? Because the law of the universe decrees it. Life will not back the person who refuses to take God’s way, for the person’s way is not the Way. The way is God’s Way!

This is the summary word for being carnal, being worldly in every aspect of life; when you are a person who like and love to always have his or her own way in doing things, not having the thought of allowing God to lead! We saw last week that although our divine Shepherd seeks to lead us in the paths that are right, we are so stubborn and self-centred that we often neglect to follow as He leads instead we prefer to do things our own way, which is why we always end up in disappointments and frustrations in life. We prefer our own way even though it may lead us straight into trouble and entanglement. When challenged about this issue of doing things our own way, many of us, of course, strongly deny it despite the fact that it is obvious. Yet in actual fact, comparatively there are still few of God’s people who follow continually in God’s path and in His leadings. It is always funny when we say: ‘I want to do God’s will and be led by His Spirit in all that I do’ –and then we promptly proceed to follow our own self-determined desires; then who are we in reality? We sing beautiful hymns, choruses and sing spiritual songs and praises that contain such words as: ‘The Lord knows the way through the wilderness, all I have to do is follow’ –then after which we turn around and take the path that we think is best for us; again I ask, who are we? This is an issue that we must come to grips with right now, for unless we learn how to give up our self-centredness, we will fall into diverse serious trouble –no matter how loving and concerned is our Shepherd because it is true that He is our Shepherd but He leads us and rules us not as robots but as human beings that have their own free will. I recognize that this is a difficult issue for many Christians, for society, reinforced by the media, teaches us self-interest and self actualization as the primary motivating force in life –‘every man for himself or herself and the devil take the hindmost’. Actually, if self-interest is primary, then the result is self-destruction, for the self-centred soon become the self-disrupted. Little did we know and realize that our trying to achieve many of these human designed principles like the pursuit of self-interest and self actualization, in doing so that we are making ourselves God, whereas we are not God and cannot be God, so the universe won’t back our way of life because the universe is created to back God’s way of life. Do you now see where human problems stem from? We human beings have so inherited disorderliness through our sins that we fail to realize that the garden earth is the Lord’s and the fullness there of… and according to our sermon last week, the universe around us is orderly because it obeys God and follows the Will of its Creator-it is a garden; so when we obey ourselves, rather than God, then we are a wild patch of disorderliness within that garden of orderliness, which is why whenever we act according to our will and desire we become like the ones we referred to last week –‘…so lonely, lonely like a wild patch within a garden’. So for any individual not to be a ‘wild patch within the garden’ earth of God, he or she must form the habit of actually and realistically allowing God to lead while he or she follows! This is the only way of life that will not lead to destruction or loneliness in living life on earth.

Having digested and fully considered ‘He restores my soul…’ in its diverse dimensions; today we focus now on the next phrase in David’s ‘hymn of praise to divine diligence’: ‘He guides me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.’ One translation puts it: ‘He leads me in the paths that are right.’ Another says: ‘He leads me in the right way.’ Once we follow the divine guidance and leadings of our Lord Jesus Christ in life, the fact remains that He leads us in good righteous way free of stumbles that perpetually keep us on the floor or ground due the fall of man! The Hebrew word for ‘paths’ means ‘well defined or clearly marked trails’. The stereotype of sheep is that they are stubborn and self –willed creatures. If left to themselves, they will almost invariably leave a well-defined trail and wander off in a direction of their own choosing. An experienced shepherd, of course, is well aware of all this, and tries to offset this tendency by going ahead of his sheep and making himself as visible as possible in terms of guidance so that they follow as He leads. We, too as humans especially Christians, at times are stubborn and self-willed creatures –we prefer to go our own way and do our own thing, just as the Scripture says: ‘6 All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all’ as seen in Isaiah 53:6. As Philip Keller said: ‘It is by no mere whim on God’s part that He has called us sheep. Our behavioral patterns and life habits or style are so much like those of a sheep that is well-nigh embarrassing.’ This desire that we have for self-determination, however has got to be checked or else the results will be disastrous. The Prophet Micah said: ‘O shepherd, guide thy people, thine own flock, so lonely, lonely like a wild patch within a garden’ (Micah 7:14. Moffatt). The universe around us is orderly because it obeys God and follows the will of its Creator –it is a garden. When we obey ourselves, rather than God, then we are a wild patch of disorderliness within that garden of orderliness.