How to Get Right with God and Stay Right with God | Part 1

What happens when we stop and ask God to help us find it?

Featuring timeless teaching and insights from Adrian Rogers. It is in a sheep's nature to wander away from the shepherd, but it is in the shepherd's nature to restore his sheep. Likewise, we can expect to fall out of fellowship with God, but by His grace we can learn how to get right with Him and stay right with Him. If you have your Bible, turn now to Psalm 23 and we'll look at verse 3.

Once again, here's Adrian Rogers. Take your Bibles today and turn with me please to Psalm 23 and today we're going to be looking primarily at verse 3. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

Now, while you have it open, look up here and I want to ask you a question. What do the following men have in common? Jacob? David? Samson? Simon Peter? John Mark?

And Adrian Rogers? Well, I'll tell you what they all have in common. They're all men of God who love God, who have gotten out of fellowship with God, who have been brought back into fellowship with God.

And you could add your name to that list too. It is the nature of a sheep to wander and to stray. It is the nature of a sheep sometimes to get away from the shepherd, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave. It is the nature of God I love, but it is the nature of the shepherd to restore his sheep. No wonder David exalted that David who got so far away from God.

No wonder he gloried to write Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He restoreth my soul. I want to talk to you today about how to get right with God and how to stay right with God. How to get right with God, if you're not right with God, how to get right with God, and if you are right with God, and when you do get right with God, how to stay right with God.

Now, if we're not right, we need to get right, and if we are right, we need to stay right. And that's what David is talking about in Psalm 23 and verse 3. He restoreth my soul.

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Now, many of us become what the Bible calls backsliders. Now, a backslider is not lost. A backslider is a saved person who's out of fellowship with God. He's somebody who's already been saved.

You have to go somewhere before you can slide back. But he's not lost. The Bible says God speaks of himself as being married to the backslider.

There is a bond there that cannot be broken. But while that relationship with God cannot be broken, that fellowship with God can be broken, and the joy can be lost, and therefore David prayed in Psalm 51, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He didn't say, Lord, restore thy salvation. He never lost a salvation.

He lost the joy of his salvation, and he wanted to be restored, and God did restore him, and David could say, he restoreth my soul. Now, I want to tell you how the Lord restores us. I want to give you three wonderful truths. I've thought about these things. I have studied about them, and I can tell you that the three truths that I want to tell you today from Psalm 23, verse 3 are three tremendous truths that will get you right and keep you right.

All right? The very first one I want to mention is what I'm going to call the ministry of the shepherd, the ministry of the shepherd. Now, David thought of himself as a sheep and the Lord as his good shepherd.

You know, Jesus is the good shepherd. Now, let me mention three things the Lord Jesus does when his sheep stray, and incidentally, there are three kinds of sheep that need to be restored. First of all, there's what we call the stubborn sheep. You know any stubborn sheep?

You might go home and look in the mirror, and you may see one. Stubborn sheep. Now, what are stubborn sheep? Stubborn sheep are sheep that just want their own way. Now, we think of sheep as being gentle and docile and easily led.

Not necessarily so. Sometimes sheep can be very stubborn. Sheep can be mule-ish. They want to give their own way.

Isn't that what the Bible says in Isaiah? Oh, we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way.

We want our way. We get very stubborn, and sometimes stubborn sheep need to be restored. Now, there's another kind of sheep that needs to be restored, not only stubborn sheep, but straying sheep. Now, these are sheep that don't just willfully go away.

They just weakly go away. They just carelessly go away, and many times they fall into pits, and they fall into crevices, and they get entangled in the thorns, and they get away from the shepherd. They get in precarious places, and they need to be restored, and they need to be brought back to the fold. Then there's a third kind of sheep that needs to be restored, and that's not the stubborn sheep, and not the straying sheep, but the sick sheep. Sheep can get sick. There are many enemies out there, and many diseases, and many things that might poison or ensnare or wound the sheep, and sick sheep need to be restored. Now, it is the ministry of the shepherd that restores these kind of sheep, and I want you to see how he does it. For example, how does the Lord, how does the good shepherd restore stubborn sheep? If you're a stubborn sheep, how will he restore you?

Well, he has three instruments, and I want to mention these three. First of all, he has a rod, then he has a staff, and then he has a bottle of oil, and he uses these to restore the sheep. Now, he restores the stubborn sheep with the rod. Now, what was the shepherd's rod? The shepherd would go out, and he would find a little sapling, and he would dig that sapling up by the root.

There would be the roots all sticking out from a knob, and the shepherd would cut the sapling off about that long, and then he would take his sharp knife and begin to cut away the roots from that knob. And finally, he would have a knob left on the end of that staff a little bigger than his fist, and he would work it until it was smooth and just right, and he would smooth that staff down. Then he would take that knob on the end, and he would begin to drive nails into it, or bits of metal, until it was heavy and weighted. And it became a very powerful club, a weapon in his hand. He would be out there on the hillsides for many, many weeks with nothing to do except watch the sheep and practice throwing that rod. He would throw it and throw it.

It became a deadly missile. He also knew how to wield it, how to use it as a club. And it was used to protect himself from the robbers. It was used to protect the sheep from the lions and the wolves and the wild dogs and the scavengers that would be there on the hillside. But sometimes he had to use the rod on the sheep himself, and the rod itself would become a form of correction to the sheep. Sometimes if there would be a sheep, a very stubborn sheep, the shepherd would do something very drastic, very severe.

He would take that rod and he would break one of the legs. of that sheep. Just break the leg of the sheep. And after he'd done that, then he would immediately bind it, put it in a splint. He would wrap up the leg of that sheep and try to heal the sheep. And he would carry the sheep often on his shoulders until the leg was mended. He would carry that sheep with a broken leg that he'd wounded around on his shoulders and nurture it and pour in the oil into the wound. And then finally when that leg was healed again, he would restore the sheep to its feet. And an interesting thing, an interesting thing, that sheep that had been broken and healed would stay very close to the shepherd. In the materials that I've studied, I've found out that that kind of a sheep would just stay right there by the shepherd's leg and just keep nuzzling the shepherd. Everywhere the shepherd went, that sheep would just want to be very close.

He would be the file leader who would lead the other sheep, the one who had been broken and then the one who had been restored. Hosea chapter 6 and verse 1, Come and let us return unto the Lord. Now he's speaking here of those who've been away from God. Come, let us return unto the Lord, for he hath torn and he will heal us.

He hath smitten and he will bind us up. The same God that breaks us is the one who had been broken and then the one who had been restored. It is the God that binds us in order that we might return to him. That's exactly what David who wrote this meant when he said, Before I was afflicted, I went astray. And then he said, It is good for me that I have been afflicted. Then I was thinking of that scripture over there in Hebrews where old Jacob, the patriarch, who was a shepherd himself, who got away from God. You remember how Jacob got away from God? He met God and had a wonderful experience with God and then he got away from God.

The Bible says that he wrestled with the Lord. Do you know what the Lord did? The Bible says the Lord put Jacob's thigh out of joint.

You remember that? He was crippled. The Lord himself wounded this man of God.

And he broke this man of God. And all of the rest of his life, Jacob would walk leaning on a staff. And the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11, when Jacob came to the end of his life, the Bible says, By faith Jacob worshipped. I think it's about verse 11. Hebrews 11 and verse 21, When he was dying, Jacob worshipped, leaning on his staff. Why did the Bible put that in there? To teach us a lesson.

Dear friends, sometimes we have to learn to lean. And all of his life he was crippled that he might be blessed. Now what God does sometimes, dear friend, is to chastise the sheep. Not because he doesn't love the sheep, but because he does love the sheep. Incidentally, let's turn to the New Testament passage on that. Let's turn to Hebrews chapter 12 in verse 5. And have ye forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children? My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

A scourge was a rod. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastening, chastisement were of all, that is, all true sons are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.

Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit that we might be made partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Now certainly it wasn't joyful when a sheep got its leg broken. But yet it brought peace and fruitfulness.

What was the fruit? Look, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of what?

Of what? Righteousness. He restoreth my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness. Now, when this kind of chastisement comes to you, if you've been a stubborn sheep, and this kind of chastisement comes to you, number one, that kind of chastening reveals that you are a son of God.

It reveals your sonship. Look in verse 6. The Bible says here, For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. It's not that God doesn't love you. It wasn't that the shepherd did not love that sheep when he applied the rod.

It was that he did love the sheep. Now this is a very severe case. And the word that is used here in Hebrews of scourgeth is scourging. It's not talking about a spanking.

It's something very, very severe. Sometimes it takes that. And, dear friend, it only reveals that you are a child of God, that he loves you. You say, Well, I dabble in sin.

I run with the world. I go my own way, and God doesn't chastise me. Well, down in verse 8, he says, If you were my child, I would have chastised you. You're not even my child. You're illegitimate. You're claiming to be a Christian, and you're not a Christian. If you're without chastisement, then you're illegitimate.

You're not truly mine. God says, If you were mine, I would chastise you. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. It reveals your sonship. I'll tell you something else it does, dear friend. It renews your worship. Look, if you will, in verse 9. Furthermore, we've had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence.

Have you ever noticed that? My old man, boy, he used to lay it on me. May kind of swell up with pride about that. And that's something. We give them reverence, because we know that they had a standard and we know that they loved them. I pity children who live in homes where the parents don't love them enough to correct them.

I pity children like this. Now, what does it do? It reveals our sonship. It renews our worship. Now, we gave our earthly fathers reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure. It doesn't mean they got fun out of it. It means by their own decision.

Now, underscore that. Listen to me, dear friend. God is not in business primarily to make you healthy or happy, but to make you holy. And God didn't even save you to take you to heaven.

That's just a fringe benefit. God saves you to make you holy like Him. And so what does it do? What does this chastening do when He restores the sheep? It reveals our sonship. It renews our worship. And I'll tell you what else it does, dear friend.

It restores our fellowship. Look, if you will, in verse 11. Now, no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Has God ever laid the rod on you?

Well, let me ask you a question. When you were a child and your dad had to punish you and spank you, did you say, Oh, this is so wonderful. I'm glad this is happening to me. Praise the Lord. Dad, you're a wonderful dad. Thank you, Dad. You're so wise and kind. No, we didn't do that.

No. No chastening for the present time seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. But afterward, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them that are not. Before I was afflicted, David said, I went astray. Oh, Jacob worshiped, leaning on his staff. And that sheep that had that broken leg never wanted to stray away from the shepherd again, because he had broken, but he had healed.

And he had wounded and torn, but he had bound up that wound. Thank God that the shepherd knows exactly what he is doing. When it comes, that's the first thing you can do. You can despise it. I'll tell you what else it does. You can despise it.

I'll tell you what else you might do when it comes. You can faint under it. Look again in Hebrews chapter 12 and verse 5. And the Bible says, And have ye forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children? My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. Don't despise it and don't faint under. Have you ever seen people faint when chastisement comes?

I have. They're stubborn and mulish. They get away from God. God brings chastisement and they just drop out. They just throw up their hands. They just quit. They become spiritual dropouts.

That's a terrible thing. God is not doing that to draw you away from Him, but to draw you back to Him. Now don't despise it and don't faint under it, but be exercised by it. Notice verse 11. The Bible says, We are exercised thereby.

God has a purpose. Now, how does the shepherd deal with the stubborn sheep? With the rod of chastisement. With the rod of chastisement. Now, what about the straying sheep?

How does the shepherd deal with the straying sheep? Well not only did the shepherd have a rod, verse 4 speaks of the shepherd's rod, but verse 4 also speaks of the shepherd's staff. Now the shepherd would get another long sapling and he would cut this one off above the root and it would be long and willowy and he would take that staff, that piece of sapling, and he would soak it in water while it was green and pliable.

Sometimes he would put it in boiling water till he could bend it and he would put a bend in the end of it and tie it and let it dry and season and at the end he had it shaped just right. There was a crook. We call it the shepherd's crook. That's what you often see about the shepherd.

He's holding a crook like that, called the shepherd's crook. It was just big enough to go around the chest of a little lamb and just big enough to go around the neck of a sheep. And with that staff he would guide the sheep. It became an instrument in his hand and he would guide the sheep and retrieve the sheep.

He knew how to use this. He would walk along and just touch the sheep with it. He'd put it around the neck of a sheep and pull the sheep in that's straying. When the sheep was walking along a narrow path that might fall off, he would take that staff and he would lay it on the sheep's shoulder and just guide the sheep. When the sheep would get down in the briars. Have you ever been in the briars?

I have. He would put that staff in there and pull that sheep out of the briars. When the sheep would get down in the mud, he would put that staff down there and lift that sheep, that lamb out of the mud. Do you remember what David said in Psalm 40? He had lifted me up from the miry clay. He had set my feet upon a rock and established my goings, leads me in the paths of righteousness.

He's talking about the same thing. He would take that staff and he would guide and guard and lift and retrieve that sheep to him. Sometimes a mother sheep, a ewe, would neglect her lamb. Sometimes she would get so concerned with the things that she wanted to do. Sometimes she wanted to feast here.

Sometimes she wanted to nibble here. Sometimes she wanted to browse here and she would forget her lamb. And the shepherd saw that and he would take his shepherd's crook and he would draw the lamb and draw the mother sheep back together because the shepherd knew that if that mother neglected that lamb for too long a time, after a while she would forget about it altogether. And that little lamb would miss what it needed most next to the shepherd's tender care, the care of that old ewe. And I thought, oh my God, how the shepherd needs to do that today, to draw these mamas and these babies back together. And this day when the devil is doing all that he can do to break up homes, the shepherd there is guiding with his staff. And when we fall, when we're weak, oh, we get away from God and we get in sin, we get in the briars, we get in the mud, we get into difficulty. And thank God he has that staff, that love, that grace that draws us back to him.

Then there's a third thing. Not only were there those stubborn sheep, and not only were there those straying sheep, but there were the sick sheep. You see, each night the shepherd would bring the sheep into the sheepfold. Inside that enclosure the sheep were safe, but at the door was the shepherd himself who would position his body across that opening and no one could come in or out without his permission. He said, I am the door of the sheep. I'm the one that lets them in. I'm the one that lets them out.

No one can get in except by my permission. And as they would come in each night, here's what the shepherd would do. Each night he would count them and he would call them by name. And not only would he call them by name, but he would caress them. He'd be looking for a bruise. He'd be looking for a scab. He'd be looking for a wounded place.

He'd be looking for a laceration. And when the shepherd would find that kind of a place, he had not only a rod and not only a staff, but he had a bottle of oil. And he would see a bruise on that sheep's head or a cut place, a place there on the nostril, and he would pour on the healing oil. He would anoint the head of that sheep with oil, and that oil was there to soothe and to medicate and to heal and to lubricate and to give comfort to a suffering sheep. Thank God for the oil of the Holy Spirit that protects us from the devil's flies. Thank God for that comfort when we've been bruised and hurt and when we're wounded and when we're limping, that the shepherd, he knows, he cares, he feels.

He calls those sheep by name. He knows them one by one, and he restores them and heals them and binds them and brings them back to himself. The same God that breaks us is the same God that binds us. Isn't that a great thought to take with us today? We'll hear part two of this message coming up on Monday. In the meantime, maybe you have a prayer request you'd like to share. At Love Worth Finding, it's one of our greatest honors to come alongside you and pray with you and for you. If you can, go to our website homepage, lwf.org slash radio, and scroll down to find our prayer wall. There you'll find the option to either submit a prayer request or pray for others. This resource is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another's needs.

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Are you a sheep wandering from the shepherd? Remember these powerful words from Adrian Rogers. We have to learn to lean and be broken that we might be blessed. Be sure to tune in next time for more truth that never changes right here on Love Worth Finding. You know, at Love Worth Finding, we're overjoyed about the new things that God is doing in and through this ministry, and we are blessed to share new free resources through our Love Worth Finding app. This app is free, it's easy to navigate, and you can find timeless messages and devotionals. The app also has exclusive content, including our brand new audio theater series, Voices of Easter. Hear the story of Jesus' final days on earth, his death, his resurrection through the eyes of those who witnessed it all. It features the creatively crafted testimonies of Peter, Pilate's wife, John the Beloved, and more. This series is a wonderful tool to refresh your understanding of the Easter story and share it with others. Search for Love Worth Finding in your app store to download it onto your mobile device, tablet, or TV. We look forward to connecting with you, and thank you for your continued support of Love Worth Finding.