Carried By the Shepherd

Well, good morning. Appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Hey, good morning, Pride Creek family. I know Kyle just kind of gave an introduction, but for those who don't know me, my name is Matt and it's been my privilege to serve here at this campus for six years. I love what I get to do.

And honestly, the reason why I love what I get to do is because of you, the people of Pride Creek. Like you guys are so incredibly dear and near to my heart. And I'm so excited to be able to open up the word of God for us this morning. And so I want to start how many of us always start when we get up to preach. We'll start with prayer.

But what I want you to do, like this isn't your cue to just check out, to zone out. Like when I pray, I want you to pray along with me. I want you to pray specifically a couple of things. One, would you pray that the Lord would give you just eyes to see what He would have for you to see this morning.

Ears to hear what He would have for you to hear this morning. And also, would you pray that the Spirit would give you faith and the courage to follow through in obedience to whatever He might call you to do. And would you just pray for me selfishly, pray for me that the Lord would use me to speak clearly and accurately and passionately.

Would you join me in praying. Father, thank you so much for, God, this amazing moment that we have to open up our Bibles and to see what you have for us. Father, you are good.

No matter in hardships, no matter in suffering or when life is good, God, you are good. And we thank you. And we pray that your Spirit would be here, that your Spirit would lead us and guide us in His truth. Father, we love you. We thank you. We trust you. We ask these things in your name. Amen.

Amen. Well, several years back when I was in New Leewood about nine and a half years ago, my wife Kelly and I, we went and took a vacation back when we lived out west to Ouray, Colorado. Anybody ever been to Ouray, Colorado right in the heart of kind of the Rocky Mountains?

Man, it is beautiful. All right, so what you need to know about it, it's picturesque. Now to get there, you go from Silverton, Colorado to Ouray, Colorado. And it's a trek of highway that's called the Million Dollar Highway. I'm gonna throw up a picture right here. All right, you see it.

Okay. What you need to know is that the route itself is incredibly scenic. Like it is breathtakingly gorgeous. Like it's amazing. Like that's why thousands of people go there every year.

What you also need to know is you can kind of judge us by looking at that. It's pretty dangerous, right? The windy roads and what don't you see there? Guard rails. Now to me, y'all, that is incredibly unnerving.

So I am recently married and I have my lovely wife. And I'm thinking, why in the world are we going to this place where you have to drive this death road? I'm like, Lord, please get me through this. Like I'm a pretty cautious driver. I've never gotten a ticket, right?

I'll brag about that. 10 and two all the time. Eyes are on the road. But y'all, when I was in that car with my wife and my little puppy, I'm thinking, dear Jesus, please, please, please, please get us to our destination. Please just get us there. I was probably going like 10 miles an hour. We're on our way. But y'all, the unexpected happened. Blown tire, flat tire could not have happened at a more worse moment. So there we were picture with me on that curvy highway, million dollar highway. Didn't seem like it was million bucks right then.

We were hugging the side of a rock face on our right and on the left just chasm, abyss. And so I need to admit something if like this is like a safe space, going to be a little vulnerable. Again, this was nine years ago. I didn't know how to change a tire. I didn't. I just didn't. I didn't have to. I never had an opportunity to learn. It wasn't like, hey, I'm never going to learn.

I just didn't have to do it. And so I remember sitting there and my wife Kelly's like, what are you going to do? I'm like, what do you mean? Like, well, this is a we, like we're married. Like what are we going to do? And so I'm just like getting out and in her car, I don't know if this is like a thing nowadays, the spare tire is underneath.

Who does that? So not only do I not know how to change a tire, I don't even know how to access the stinking thing. So I get out there fumbling with the spare tire. I can't get it down. And I'm like, God, I don't know what to do.

You're going to have to do something amazing. And at just the right moment, help came. Help came in the form of an emergency tow truck driver.

He randomly, right, God's providence, but randomly came, drove up, parked, saw that we were in distress. He's like, hey, young man, do you need some help? I'm like, yeah, sure. Yeah, come on, come on. Hey, why don't you show me how you would do it? You know, cause I know how I would do it, right?

You know how to do it. And he so graciously changed our tire and got us on our way. You see, at just the right moment, at just the right time, the Lord brought what we needed. Brad Creek family, this morning, we're going to continue in our series of this verse changed my life. And I want to open up a text of scripture that the Lord brought to me at just the right moment at just the right time. And what was quite literally the darkest and most difficult moment in my life and my wife's life.

But more on that later. We're going to be in Psalm 28, Psalm 28. The title of my message is this carried by the shepherd.

Psalm 28. If you have that, give me a thumbs up. That's the former kid's passion for me coming out. Sorry, I can't suppress that. Thumbs up. Thank you, Kevin. Appreciate that.

All right. The word of the Lord says this to you. Oh Lord, I call my rock. Be not deaf to me, lest if you be silent, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy. When I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands towards your most holy sanctuary, do not drag me off with the wicked, with the workers of evil who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts. Give to them according to their work and according to the evil of their deeds. Give to them according to the work of their hands, render them their due reward because they do not regard the works of the Lord or the work of his hands.

He will tear them down and build them up no more for six. Blessed be the Lord for he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. The Lord, the Lord is my strength and my shield in him. My heart trusts and I am helped with my song. I give thanks to him. The Lord is the strength of his people. He is the saving refuge of his anointed. Oh, save your people and bless your heritage.

Be their shepherd and carry them forever. Bride Creek family, my hope for us this morning is this. I want you to see that through confidence in the Lord, that we can be strengthened to prayerfully and joyfully endure hardships in life knowing that our shepherd will carry us through. Now I'm not that old, but I'm old enough to know that there are three groups of people here this morning. Those who have just gotten out of a hardship, those who are currently in a hardship or those who are about to be in a hardship.

So hate to burst your bubble, don't want to be the bearer of bad news. That's the reality of living life in a broken and fallen world due to sin. Like you might be in a situation right now, right this very moment where it is producing in you such fear and anxiety and loneliness and depression. And so what do we do when we're in situations like this? How do we navigate this?

What do we do? Well, I'm glad you're asking because I think Psalm 28 gives us three things for us. Three things this morning. Number one is this, we must cry out to the Lord. We'll see this in verse one through five. We must cry out to the Lord.

Now I got to start here, man. I love the Psalms. Anybody else just love the Psalms?

Like I really like they get me, they speak to me like they're emotional, they're real and they're transparent, they're raw. And we're going to see a lot of these themes throughout this Psalm. And I love that about David. Also David, you're going to see that he is in a situation. He's in some sort of hardship. He's suffering. Some would say maybe he's going through an illness, but probably more likely than that is verse three and four, it gives us kind of a clue. He's suffering at the hands of evil doers, workers of evil, those who have evil in their hearts. So if you know the life of David, you know that David walked through a lot of suffering in his life. So then he takes a pen and starts to write out this Psalm.

So no, that's, that's the context. That's where David's at. Notice where does he start? He starts with the Lord. He acknowledges the Lord to you, O Lord, I call.

I love that this, this idea for call has behind it. It's, it's, it's prayer accompanied by a great cry. So David's not just kind of nonchalantly, kind of like kind of just praying silently.

No, he is with all of his might, with all of his guts. He's crying out to the Lord. He's crying out to the Lord, but then he names him. I love this powerful name. What does he petition the Lord as?

Look with me, my rock. I love that. David says, Hey, you're not some weakling God. You're not some unknown God that I don't know. You are my rock, which that was a common metaphor for protection. You are immovable. You are steadfast.

You are sure. And to you, Lord, I'm crying out. I'm petitioning to you as my rock. But what happens? We'll see David goes on to say, God, don't be silent. Don't be deaf because if you are silent, if you don't respond, what's going to happen?

I'm going to be like those who go down to the pit. What's David saying? He's been praying for quite some time.

How do we know that? Because he's saying, God, you're silent right now. I can't hear you. Where are you? God, if you don't answer right this moment, I'm done.

I'm finished. Ever been there? Where you're pleading and crying out to the Lord and it feels like it's falling on deaf ears. Yeah, I've been there too. Take comfort.

David's been there too. But let me ask, brother and sister, what do you do when God seems silent? Do you stop? Do you stop crying out? Yeah, I'm good.

I'm good. I'm done with this God thing. I think we can learn from David. What does David do? Look with me here in verse two. Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy. Guys, perceived silence from God does not stop David from petitioning him again and again for more mercy.

Why? Because David knows he's helpless. Knows that he's lost without God to intercede. And so he cries. He's desperate.

What about you? Are you desperate for the Lord? Are you crying for the Lord?

Cry out to him. Verse 3 through 5, I think we're going to get kind of a model for how we can shape our prayers as David does. Now, what I'm not necessarily saying is, hey, you need to go and learn your best imprecatory prayer and kind of pray it over all your enemies.

I'm not saying that, right? But what I think David is saying is, man, he's given us kind of free reign to pray, yes, hope-filled prayers, but also honest prayers. Like, I don't think you and I have to sugarcoat our prayers.

Like for me, if I'm in a situation, I've done this time and time again, and I don't know what to do, I feel desperate. I feel lost. I kind of feel like I have to clean up my prayers a little bit. I got to say the right thing in the right way. And then maybe then God will hear me.

You too? Yeah, I've been there. That's bad theology. What we see from David, how he models, approach the Lord with boldness, but approach Him honestly. For He knows your heart, brother and sister. He knows what you need.

So cry out to the Lord. I want to begin to tell you the story of what I alluded to earlier of what was the most difficult season in my life and in my wife's life as well. Four and a half years ago, Christmas of 2016, we flew out to Arizona.

That's where I'm from. And for Christmas that year, my parents were going to take us to Disneyland, right? Who doesn't want to go to the happiest place in the world? What you need to know is at the time we had my son Eli who was about two and a half and my wife Kelly was 26 weeks pregnant. And so we make our way to the happiest place in the world.

And first time we just do like downtown Disney, kind of do some shopping and kind of restaurants, get back to the hotel. And that night my wife Kelly began to have pretty severe contractions, which if you're pregnant that far along, that's kind of bad news. And so we knew it was evident, man, something's not right. And I just remember being so panicked, but running next door and pounding on my parents' hotel door saying, dad, you got to come help.

Kelly's, Kelly's in trouble. What do we do? I couldn't even think. Within minutes we're loaded up into his car and we were racing down the freeway. We make our way to Anaheim Regional Medical Center and about an hour later after running a battery of tests on my lovely wife, it's evident, the doctors come and say, hey, this, this baby has to come now. Like your wife has to have an emergency C-section.

Pause right there. Guys, I was terrified. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. I'm on vacation in the happiest place in the world.

Babies aren't supposed to be born at 26 weeks. And I just remember as they wheeled my wife off to prep her for surgery and I'm left in this room alone and I had to put on like a gown and scrubs over my clothes and I'm waiting. I'm waiting to go see my wife to hold her hand during her surgery.

And I just remember that moment is feeling completely helpless. Like God, what are you doing? Why this?

Why now? And just praying, God, if it's your will, please save my son. Please protect my wife. Well, on December 26th at 10.15 a.m. Pacific Standard Time, my son Caleb William Baker was born. Here's a picture of my little fella in all of his glory. Man, what a warrior. What a fighter.

Y'all, that was a scary, scary moment. We couldn't even hold him for the first couple of days. He's whisked a raid to the NICU.

He basically sleeps for the next three months in a little isolate by himself completely connected to all these machines that are tracking his every bodily function, keeping him alive. And one day the doctors say, hey, one of y'all get to hold your son. Well, I lost that fight. Mama, this is all you. Mama, you went through something crazy.

I get it. It's your turn. And I should remember the doctors carefully getting my son and handing him to my wife.

And I remember Kelly saying this one thing over and over again to my boy, to Caleb. You're so brave. You're so brave.

Church. I just remember feeling in that moment. I'm not. I don't feel very brave right now, God. Don't think I can do this.

Don't think I can do this. Cried out to him. He heard us. So wherever you are at, brother and sister, cry out to the Lord. Second thing is this we see from some 28.

Second truth is this. We must have confidence in the Lord. We'll pick this up in verse six. We must have confidence in the Lord. Blessed be the Lord for he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

Now, I don't know if you notice this, but there's been a drastic change in tone. Verse one through five. He's pleading for mercy, lamenting God, you feel distant. You feel silent.

Where are you? And now David, he's blessing. He's praising. Why?

Well, what gives was anything that David did. Why? For the Lord. For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

Brother and sister, this should be the most comforting, most refreshing news in the world. That when we pray, when we cry out, the Lord hears. It's not falling on deaf ears. He hears you. That should fill you up with such confidence and boldness to approach his throne room and to ask and to plead because he hears.

He hears you. Getting back into our Caleb story. The first week was just a blur. I don't know if it wasn't for the grace of God how we would have made it through.

About a week in, Kayla and I kind of got some daily rhythms. Kelly would go in the morning and spend all morning with Caleb in the NICU. And then we still had Eli who's two and a half. So I still had to be a dad.

Couldn't kind of just pause that for three months. And so what we ended up doing, me and Eli, we would like make the world tour of all the parks in like the greater Orange County area. We just had to do it. And so then Kelly would come back, we would switch, and then I would go in the afternoon. So definitely mama got the easy job because she gets like, hey, when Eli's napping, that's when you get to be the mom. Once you go nap with your son, that's great.

Anyways, so I'll go in the afternoon and spend hours with my son. Remember just looking at his eyes to let just, God, I can't do anything to help him. I'm not a doctor. I don't know what to do. Feeling so hopeless in the Lord, in His grace, brought me to this Psalm, to verse seven. And my prayer is, is that for maybe one person in this room, that verse seven would do for you what it has done for me, is doing for me right now. The Lord is my strength. He's my shield and Him my heart trusts and I'm helped. Guys, I remember sitting there looking at my son's isolate, repeating this over and over and over again, literally must have repeated it hundreds of times, hundreds of times, almost saying it before I even believed it.

Like I was willing myself to believe because I didn't, not at first. God, I'm so weak. I'm so defenseless.

What am I going to do? But church slowly but surely the Spirit of God began to embed this truth deep into my heart. I began to see that where I'm weak, Jesus is my strength, where I'm defenseless, where I'm vulnerable, Jesus is my shield. He did that for me, church, He can do that for you.

Look with me here. I love this clause right here, in Him my heart trusts. What does that mean? It's that trusting, knowing comes from knowing the Lord, having confidence in who He is. What is His nature? What is His character? How do we know what the nature and character of the Lord is?

Not a trick question. Comes from right here, comes from the Bible. I love how our sister, Jen Wilkin says this, she says, the heart can't love what the mind doesn't know. And I wonder, I wonder if there are some of us today who are walking through your own trial, your own hardship, your own suffering, completely unequipped because you don't know the truths and the promises that are here because you don't know the Bible. You have to saturate your mind with this truth. Maybe that's your takeaway.

Maybe that's your application point this morning. Get serious about your intake of the Bible. Ask somebody, hey, will you keep me accountable? Will you read scripture with me? I can promise you, it will change you. It will transform you.

The last thing here I want to point out is this. What's the result of our trusting in the Lord? What does it say? Look with me here. In Him, I'm helped. If we have confidence in the Lord, get this, if we have confidence in the Lord, He will help you. Now, it might not be how you would want it, might not be how you expected or anticipated or hoped for, but He will help you. And not only that, brothers and sisters, not only will He help you, He will make your heart exult. Your transition might say, my heart leaps for joy, with joy and thanksgiving.

Put it this way, in any circumstance, the believer in Christ may be equipped to walk with joy if our hearts are confident in the Lord. So what about you? Are you trusting in the Lord right now? That marriage issue? That parenting issue?

That unexpected job loss? Is your heart confident in who the Lord is? So we've seen, man, let's cry out to the Lord. Let's be bold in our prayers. Let's have confidence in the Lord. And lastly, we see this number three, we must call others to do the same. Verse eight and nine, we must call others to the same. Look what David says, there's another shift in tone here. The Lord is the strength of His people.

We see that? His people, save your people, bless your heritage, be their shepherd, carry them. You see, what started as an individual plea for mercy from David now shifts into a corporate exhortation, corporate encouragement, corporate prayer. It's as if David is saying, hey, look what God has done for me.

My people, look what He's done. I was walking through the valley, hopeless, desperate. He seemed silent, but then my strength, He showed up. He's my shield, trust in Him. Look to Him, rest in Him. David turns his attention from his own doubts, his own fears, and now he's blessing and reminding his people.

What about you? Who is the Lord calling you to help in their time of need? Like look, look around in this room, there are hurting people. As if a global pandemic wasn't enough, they're hurting people and they're going to need your faith. Like I'm going to need your faith.

Faith is contagious. And when I'm in need, when I'm hurting, I'm going to need you to fill me up, to point me to the Lord. But He also says this, I love this. We get another name of the Lord in verse nine, Lord be their shepherd, be their shepherd.

I love that. You see Psalm 28 is bookend in verse one and in verse nine with these amazing, powerful names of God. Verse one, He's the rock. In verse nine, He's our shepherd.

I think the point of that is this, is that every name, every attribute, every characters that we've seen so far in this Psalm basically is encapsulated perfectly in this idea of the Lord being our shepherd. Think with me, when you think of what a shepherd is, what a shepherd does, what comes to mind? Is it not someone who is strong? Someone who is mighty?

Someone who is as firm of a foundation as a rock that's a protector, a provider. That's what the Lord is and He is your shepherd. He's your shepherd and your shepherd will carry you.

So I don't know what you're walking through right now, Brad Creek family. I know for some it's probably a lot because I know, I know you, but no matter what it is, your shepherd will carry you. Jesus right now in this moment, He's calling to you.

He's saying, come to me. I will carry you. You can't do this on your own.

You can't. Come to me. Abide in me. I will carry you through.

It might seem dark. It might seem hopeless, but Jesus, your shepherd will carry you. And in my experience, what that has often looked like, the shepherd carrying me often looks and feels like the body of Christ carrying me. As I look back to our time in Anaheim and we were there three months, three months, my son fighting for his life. He's okay. He's a miracle. I want to show you a curtain picture of Kayla Baker.

I think we got that. There he is all smiles. This is a few weeks back. He's actually here right here. He wanted to hear daddy share his story. But y'all, when I look back at the faithfulness of God, I think back of these moments where I was being carried, carried by the shepherd.

I think back of even the summit leadership when they found out the phone calls, the texts, they said, Hey Matt, do not worry about a thing. You, you stay there. You're where you're needed. Be with your wife, be with your boys forever indebted to that. Many of you sent care packages, countless scores and scores of gift cards. Y'all we had, we had gift cards for like years following that. Like it was just, it was above and beyond.

So, so thank you. Even, even picking and choosing the right hospital, the shepherd was carrying us. We went to the only one in our vicinity there that night that had a NICU.

That's not random. That's Providence. That's the shepherd carrying me. The, the, the doctors who literally saved my boy's life. Dr. Montoura, Dr. Teo, Dr. Shah, Dr. Tan, the nurses, the nurses, they became like family.

Nurse Judy, nurse Suzanne, nurse Marie, nurse Amy, man. They encouraged us. They loved on us. They, they prayed for us. They wept with us. And if you're a nurse, thank you for what you do and what you do matters. It matters.

It really does. And remember this was pre COVID pre before someone online became kind of popping off. And so we didn't have a church home. And so we knew for three months, man, we got to get plugged into a church. So we got connected with the church at green Hills in La Habra, California, and pastor Jared and his wife, Tiffany, we were strangers to them, but they came around us. They loved on us. They invited us into their home. Again, we're strangers to them, brothers in Christ, but strangers, they cooked us meals. They knew that there wasn't a waking moment that either Keller or myself were not with Eli.

So talk about having a parent in the most stressful season of our lives. And they said, Hey, I know y'all don't really know us, but Hey, do y'all want a date night with yes. Take, take our son, take him for a night. We're out. And so they, they allowed us to go have dinner and we did.

We did. We just remember just being so overwhelmed at their kindness, at their mercy, at their love. We were being carried by the shepherd. Some family who is the Lord right now, calling you to help carry through their time of need. Is there someone in your small group? Is there someone in your serving team?

Can I just say, like, if you, if you don't know people, you have to get to know people. Christianity isn't an individual sport. It's a team sport. Like we need, like, I need you. Your church family needs you. But God's grace, Caleb, he's healthy. He's strong. He's the most amazing little kid ever. Besides my two other kids, I love them too. But Caleb is a miracle.

He really is. But you might be saying, all right, Matt, that's great for you, but my story doesn't end that way. I don't have the happy ending. And if that's you, I just want to lovingly just say, I hear that and I see that, but more importantly, the Lord hears, the Lord sees. And I think Psalm 20 has two lasting things, two last things for us by means of how do we apply this?

Number one is this verse seven again. Thank him. Thank him. Are you thankful for what the Lord has given you? Now I'm not saying, hey, thank him and bless him because of your circumstance. I'm saying thank him and bless him despite your circumstances. Cultivate cultivate this muscle of just giving thanks and giving praise to the Lord.

Thank him. Secondly is trust in him. My heart trusts. Are you trusting in the Lord to get you through or are you trusting in your own strength?

Use me as a, as a litmus test that doesn't end well. It's going to end badly if you're not relying on your shepherd to carry you trust in him. Please trust in him. I'm pleading with you.

He'll carry you. Lastly I just want to encourage us with the gospel. I know there might be some of this room that you're not, you're not yet a believer. Well, thank you for, for listening to this message. I hope that it stirs up within you questions.

I love how Sally Lloyd-Jones so beautifully puts it. Every story in the Bible whispers the name of Jesus. And I love that, but with all due respect, Sally, Psalm 28 does not whisper the name of Jesus. It shouts the name of Jesus.

Look with me, look with me here. Psalm 28. This is the gospel in Psalm 28 verse one on the night Jesus was betrayed. Jesus called out to his father in the garden.

Father, I need you. He did go down to the pit on our behalf. Verse three, Jesus was dragged away by the wicked. He was hung on the cross between two thieves. Verse four, instead of asking father, give to them what they deserve. He said, father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Verse seven, Jesus is our strength against sin.

Romans five says it this way. While we were weak, Christ saved us. He saved you. Jesus is our strength against sin.

Believe in that. He's our shield that protects you from the curse of sin. Jesus' shield is his very body and on the cross, his body absorbed blow after blow of the sins of the world and the wrath of God poured out on him.

This is the gospel. He's our saving refuge against the enemy of sin, against the power and the penalty of sin. Verse nine, Jesus is the good shepherd. He's the good shepherd that willingly lays down his life for the sheep that are in risk. He's the good shepherd that always hears when his sheep cry out to him. He's the good shepherd that died for you. So church family, believe in this good shepherd. Believe that he loves you. Believe that no matter what you're going through, he will carry you. Cry out to him.

Have confidence in him and call others to do the same. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your grace. Father, be with my brothers and sisters. Help them in their time of need, whether in need or out of need. God, would you please be with them, strengthen them, be their shield, be their rock, be their provider, be their protector right now. Father, we ask these in the name of Jesus. Amen.