Amen! God is doing something so amazing, amen? God is in the house! Amen! Praise God! For you guys, I know a lot of us watch the news a lot and you see what's going on in the world. And you know, things aren’t necessarily going good in the world. You look and you see, even the other day I was watching the news and you looked and you saw the active shooter in Iowa or Illinois or one of those states I can't find on a map, like one of those Midwest states, right? And it's horrible because you see more and more of this stuff happening. Lately in the Academy, they’ve been training more and more how to handle these active shooter events, because they're becoming so much more popular and it’s happening so much more. You know there was a great program that I was looking at, and it's in Jackson, and they're doing something unique that I’ve never seen before: they are actually including children from the school system into some of their training. And what they do is they get some of the children from the drama club, like the actors, and they bring them into the school and the kids love it because they pretty much tell them, ‘look, cause chaos, go crazy’. Then the police go through and they act like there's an active shooter and the kids run around and there's chaos and they’re running up to the cops and asking them for help. Some of them lay on the ground, some of them, you know, run around and chase each other, and it’s just chaos in there as the officer is walking through trying to find this active shooter. The cops like it because they get to shoot each other with paintball guns, and the kids love it because they get to run around and act crazy. But as fun as it is and as much as it is in training, you kind of realize going through, ‘wow this is really kinda crazy, like this is serious,’ right? And they do it so that when, if you were ever faced with that event, you wouldn’t what - you wouldn't freeze up, right, you wouldn't stop. They actually have loudspeakers that they string throughout the school, and the whole time they're just playing super super loud gunshots. So you can imagine going through and seeing children and hearing the gunshots, and you’re going through it like, ‘wow this is crazy, this is impactful,’ right, and you're walking through you know trying to find the bad guy.

I saw that intensity and I started thinking about for myself, you know, for me if I was to walk in that situation, you know, I was kinda like role playing in my mind how I would go through and how I would handle that type of scenario. You know, it was funny because as I was playing it through my mind and saying, ‘what would I do?’, this verse kept playing over and over in my mind. And that verse was Psalm 23:4, and I know a lot of us know it, and that’s what we’re going to be reading today. You know usually I do a lot more than one verse, but today God just has me on this one verse, and it’s Psalm 23:4 and it says, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” And that verse was playing through my head, and as I was thinking about this situation and me going through it, that verse kept coming over and over in my mind. I started to think about that, and you know, I started to think about Jesus Christ coming to this earth. You know, when He started His ministry, it looked a lot like that school. It looked a lot like when you're walking through and you see all the craziness and the chaos going on. For He walked through this earth, and He saw His children perishing. He walked through and people were running up to Him, asking Him for help and asking Him how to be safe. He walked through, and like that officer, knows He has to do whatever it takes to help to stop this situation. Jesus Christ knew He had a mission: that He had to go and sacrifice His life and give it up, that He might rescue the people, amen?

Today we, people of God, we walk in a carnal world - we walk in a world of flesh and blood. When you look around and you look at what's going on, everything is perishing in this world, everything is leading to destruction. Why? Just because it’s the way that carnality is - carnality slowly decays. You look at the things that we hold so dear in life, whether it be our jobs, or our cars, or our homes, or our boats - the truth is that they are all rusting and passing away. Cars nowadays; what, they last like 10 years, right? And when you compare that to eternity with God, you realize that we are living in a dying world. We are living in the valley of the shadow of death that is slowly passing away. With God, He doesn't go by carnality - He is a Spiritual God; He is an eternal God; He is a God that is a God of ages, the Rock of ages that will go on forever; and He is the God that resurrects His people not into carnality, but into the Spiritual being with Him, amen? See, Jesus Christ, He walked in the valley of the shadow of death, but He was not subject to the death; He overcame the death. We serve a God who overcomes, we serve a God who came to this world and was surrounded by carnality, yet He overcame.

People of God, we are not meant to be carnal people; we are not meant to be stuck in the carnality of this world, but we are meant to enter into the Spirit - into the Spirit of God that lasts for eternity. You know, people in this world try to get into all sorts of spirituality. We see horoscopes, and karma, and even modern-day Christianity is kinda turning into this self-help book - you know, be with God but it really benefits you type of Christianity. And it's all in an attempt to gain some type of spirituality. But let me tell you, that type of spirituality is about you; it benefits you; it lifts you up; it makes the best life for you now; it makes it so you can get through this life better than you did yesterday; it's all about you. Jesus Christ and the Spirit of God is the only type of spirituality that isn't about you, but it makes you go outside of yourself; it makes you love your family; it makes you come into the church and worship; it makes you go forward and love and put yourself down and rise somebody else up. You see, we are a resurrected people. We are a people who are not stuck in carnality and the death that this world is passing away day after day, but we are a people who are heading to eternity. The Christian is a person who is living in the Spirit of God, and I'll tell you the Spirit of God is eternal.

So when I read this verse, and I hear about the valley of the shadow of death, today I want to talk about how we’re supposed to walk through this world; how we’re supposed to walk with God, because I tell you people, we can’t be a carnal people in the church of God, it doesn't work - we must be a spiritual people walking hand-in-hand with the Spirit of God through this valley. So the first thing I want to talk to you about today is how the verse says, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Many of us have probably heard this verse at funerals; maybe, you know, you're going through a hard time, you Google, you know ‘tough time verses,’ this one’s probably number one, you know it comes up all the time. But if you read the whole chapter, you'll find that it's not really about situations. Although David was going through a really tough time in this verse, it's really not about situations - it’s talking about the life that we live on this earth - the valley of the shadow of death is the carnal world that we live in that is slowly passing away. It’s temporary and it’s fleeting compared to eternity with Christ. You see, when God comes in and opens up your eyes to the truth, when He comes in and begins to resurrect you and begins to bring life to your spirit, you realize very fast that the world that we are surrounded with truly is dying. The Bible says that people are what: dead in their transgressions, right? Sin has held them down, and what does it hold them down to? It holds them down to the carnal world that is passing away. That's why God says the world is passing away; that's why God says people are dead in their transgressions; that's why people are dead and can’t be raised to life, because to be part of this carnal world means you are passing away just like the rest of the world. And that's not what God intended - God came to bring Spirit, God came to bring life, God came to breathe life to your innermost being.

When you start to see the world like that, you realize that people are like zombies walking around, they’re subject to their most basic desires of life. You look at a zombie and they’re kind of like those things that go, and they just want to survive, they want to eat and they’re just subject to the most basic instincts of life. And you find that in this world people are the same way: they’re subject to fear, and they do everything they can do to obey the fear; or they’re subject to wanting to be rich and they go and they try to be the best they can be, and they sacrifice their family and their surroundings, and it doesn't matter who has to perish beside them, but they will get their goal. People are like that that go through life subject to those most basic instincts of man. But God, that's not what God meant for the church, amen? You see, I think about the Walking Dead, and if you guys have ever seen like the movies or the shows on TV right - do the zombies know that they’re dead? No, right? The kids watch this skit all the time - it’s hilarious - where it’s like, ‘I’m a zombie, look out, I’m gonna eat you,’ - you guys know what I’m talking about -and the zombies don't know that they're dead, right? And it’s the same with people in this world - they don't know they're dead.

But let me tell you, you know if you're alive; you know if God has come down and touched your soul; you know if God has brought life to your innermost being. For your life is transformed, you can love and you can feel and you can connect with God and your family; your life becomes about thanksgiving to God; you can't live as you once did. Why? Because your heart is awakened, where you used to turn and say, ‘I’m gonna go to bar, I’m gonna go to the drugs, I’m gonna go to the girls or the guys,’ or whatever it might be, you can't do it anymore, you can't turn from God, because God has breathed life inside of you. When you're dead, you don't feel; when you’re dead, it doesn't matter what happens, you can cut it doesn't matter, you don't feel. But when you are alive, God has breathed life inside of you - He has brought life to your limbs; your nerves are awake, your heart is awake, and no longer can you turn to those dead things of the carnal world because you have been made alive in the Spirit. That's what God has meant it to be - that's what God intended for the church. But we have to walk through the valley - I look and I see and it says, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” - it doesn't say ‘though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death.’ You see, we have to be a people with eyes open to this world, knowing that we are in this world, but we are not of this world. We are walking through the valley with our eyes fixed on heaven this day. We are walking hand in hand with Him.

Last week, Pastor Janeth talked about being connected to the vine. You see, walking through the valley of the shadow of death: the key to it is being connected to the vine. If you go and you cut off a piece of fruit or a flower from the tree, what happens? It immediately starts to die. It immediately - the second you cut it - it cuts it off from it’s life source and it immediately starts to perish. See, walking through the valley of the shadow of death; not being part of carnality, the reason the world is passing away is because it's not connected to God. The Spirit of God is what comes alive inside of a man and connects it to God. Life begins to get pumped into us; nutrients begin to be pumped into us, and we become alive. Pastor Janeth said in the beginning that we’re going and every day we’re becoming more and more alive. That's the difference between the spirit man and the carnal man: the carnal man every day is moving more and more towards the decay and dying, but the spirit man every day is becoming more and more alive. Why? Because they are walking through the valley and they are walking to eternity with God. Every day we take a step and we become closer to God. Every prayer session, every time you open up your eyes and open up your mind to God, more and more life is being breathed into you. Why? Because every day we are moving closer and closer to eternity. The world is dying, the world is decaying, the world is heading to death, but the people of God are heading to eternity with Him, amen? There is confidence in that: to be a heavenly minded person today, there is confidence that you walk with God, there is confidence that every day I'm walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Things might happen, things might come, bad stuff might happen, but it's okay because God is holding me in His hand; because I'm alive today, although I was dead yesterday, although I couldn't love my family yesterday, although the bottle had me yesterday, today God has resurrected me and I am alive, amen!

We have to live with the purpose; live with the purpose knowing that God is alive inside of you. So many times I see people caught up in this world and caught up in the sports practices, in the homework, and the job, and all of this stuff - but let me tell you, we have to have eyes set on God. To say that, yeah, we have to work, yeah we have to do all these things, but it's all in the lens of saying, ‘I am on my way to eternity.’ What is this life compared to eternity with God? We have to have that purpose. I think about that school setting with there being so much fear and so much walking through; but you know what, when Jesus came down, He didn't just step over people and walk on as He's walking through - no, He came and He grabbed them by the hand and He lifted them up, and He breathed life into the people that were on the ground, amen? Praise God! Praise God that we are a church that believes in the power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! That resurrected power means you don't have to stay in carnality! It means you don't have to stay on the ground dead! It means that although you're laying there it's okay, because Jesus Christ is on His way and He’ll take you by the hand and breathe life into His people! I tell you, if you don't know your alive today; if you're still in the carnal world, Jesus Christ came to resurrect His people, He came to breathe life for those looking to be healed, for those looking to be forgiven from that sin that has weighed them down, for those tired of their lives leading them into death day after day, Jesus Christ came to resurrect!

Today is a day of resurrection! Today is a day that you should come into that power. God is calling us to live in the power of His resurrection, to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, not subject to the death, not subject to the valley, yet as you're walking picking those up that you are surrounded with, grabbing them by the hand and saying, ‘breathe, let the dry bones have breath, let the dry bones come alive, amen? We need to be those people - look, things are gonna happen in this life, things are gonna be hard, I’m not saying they’re not - Jesus Christ said in His Word, He said, “take heart, you’re going to have trouble in this world, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” We serve a God who overcomes; we serve a God who walks through the valley, but is not held down by the valley; we serve a God who breathes life into His people. There should be a resurrected power inside of you every day, with your eyes fixated on eternity, saying, ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, though I walk in this world of carnality, I am not carnal.’ The carnal world has a hold over the carnal man. But only God has authority over the spiritual man. Only God has authority over His Spirit, and if His Spirit is alive inside of us today, though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death, we don't walk in it, we walk through it, hand-in-hand with God walking into eternity, amen!

So we see that He walks us through the valley, and secondly, He walks us through the fear - through the fear. I mentioned before that David was going through a really hard time at this point as he wrote this Psalm. David, as he was penning Psalm 23, it was a really tough time in his life - and if you guys ever read in 2 Samuel, it’s an awesome awesome story - and it's about David being the king over Israel. He has his third son, his third son is named Absalom. And Absalom, the Bible said, is so handsome, he’s charismatic he's really somebody - kind of reminds me of Saul - that the people would want to lead. Absalom decides ‘I want to be king - I want, you know, my dad, he’s gotta go.’ So He kind of gets sly and kind of gets crafty, and you know what he does? He sits at the gates of the city - and in that time, people would come to the King to have their disputes settled and to bring problems, and he would judge over them - and he sits at it and people walk up, really heavy laden with their problems and really thinking the King is going to solve them for them, and he would stop them at the gate and say, ‘Oh I am so sorry, there's no one here to hear your complaints today there's no one, if I was king, this wouldn't happen, like this is really messed up, I know, I’m sorry, but if I was king, it wouldn't be like this.’ He would turn people away and they would get real salty, you can imagine. And the Bible says that he would go up to common people in the streets and he was a tall, handsome, charismatic, royalty - and he would go up to the commoner and he would hug them, and he would kiss them. It wasn't even a thing of his heart, like ‘aw that's really nice, he wanted to do that,’ no, it was deceit in his heart to overthrow David. Eventually he builds and flips enough of the leaders and enough of the people, he even builds his own army and he goes and actually chases David out of the city. And David grabs the Ark of the Covenant and he has to get out of there and go in hiding in the wilderness, because Absalom wanted to kill him.

You can imagine David at this point: it wasn't like a bad relationship - David loved his sons, and he loved them and his heart was broken. He's in the wilderness and hiding, knowing his own son overturned, betrayed him, and is now trying to kill him. He goes - if you read all Psalm 23 you can kinda get a picture of where he's at - and he began (and Pastor Jeff preached on it recently) and you can just see where he was at this point in his life where he was saying, ‘God I trust in you, God you are with me.’ There’s this part, and I love this part - I’m gonna read this one verse to you, it is my favorite in the whole story- he has the Ark and he turns to one of his leaders and he says, “take the Ark back into the city. If I find favor in the Lord's eyes, He will bring me back and let me see it, and His dwelling place again. But if He says I'm not pleased with you, then I am ready, let Him do whatever seems good to Him.” I read the story, and I read this verse, and I read the whole chapter; you see, David had such a relationship, such a bond that even though he was going through such travesty, even though he was going through something so hard, there was never a fear inside of him that his relationship with God was going to be broken. He turned to God and says, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” Even to the point where the Ark of the Covenant, the glory of God, the law of God that was Moses’ tablets were in there, the thing that represented God the most - he said, ‘send it back to my son, let it be in the city where it belongs; that’s not what my relationship with God is based off of, I know that God is with me, and even if I did something wrong I am trusting myself into the hands of God, that He has the best for whatever comes, I will trust myself unto Him.’ You see, there was never a fear of breaking the covenant; there was no fear of evil, because God was with him and God held him up. His mind was set that in the midst of all the turmoil and all the chaos, his mind was set and ensured that God is the God of heaven and of earth, that God was the one that had rescued him over and over, that God was the one that he had served, that God was the one that he had lowered himself to, that God was the one that he had bowed down to, and that he was held in the hands of God; he was sure of the character of God.

"...the relationship with God is built off of the high times and the low times."

Today we look at a country that really, if they even serve God, it's more like a relationship based off of ‘as long as You continue to do things for me, I'll continue to worship You; as long as You continue to answer my prayers, as long as You continue to show up, as long as I pray and You give it to me right away, we’re good and I'll continue to go to church and I'll continue to wake up early Sunday morning; but as soon as things start to go south, as soon as I don't get what I want, I’m gonna turn away from God and His guidance and His hand and to try to scramble to make things better for me.’ But David didn't show that - David showed the certainty in the relationship that he had with God. He knew the God that he served, and through thick and thin, highs or lows, he says, “God, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” See, that type of relationship - it's not built in a moment; it’s not built in a church service; it’s not built to show up and feel God and touch Him for a second and then go continue to live your life the way that you were doing - that type of relationship was based off of the day-in, day-out, days and weeks and years of him going before the throne of God and laying himself down and saying, ‘God search my heart and find any iniquity in me; God I'm lowering myself down to You; God I present myself to Your throne this day; search my heart and be with me every single day,’ trusting Him and asking Him and moving with Him. The relationships with God are so fickle today - they’re based off of circumstance and feeling and events and times that God touched real fast, but it doesn't transform someone on the inside that keeps them steadfast, day, to weeks, to years through highs and through lows. God is talking about a relationship: a relationship that you can turn to Him and say, ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me.’ That type of confidence comes from a man who lays themselves down at the throne of God every single day.

So often, we see a world that lives completely opposite of God, that doesn't want His Word, that doesn't want to change their actions, that wants to live how they want to live, but when things start to go bad they call out ‘God help me!’ But I tell you that's not how it's meant, that's not how it works. That type of confidence, that calling out to God comes from saying, ‘God I will lower myself down to You every single day.’ There is a confidence for the Christian who lays himself down to the throne of God every day. To say, ‘God it doesn't matter what circumstance comes, it doesn't matter what happens in this world, God I understand things are gonna be rough, I understand that things are gonna happen sometimes.’ We see people who have a death in their lives, or people have passed away, they have hardships, or they have events that were traumatic, and it carries through, they follow them their entire lives. And I tell you, I'm not saying hard times aren’t going to come, but what I am saying is that God will have you by your hand every single day, that you won’t be stuck in the valley, amen? You won’t be stuck in the valley, but you will be walking through the valley; that the relationship with God is built off of the high times and the low times; that the relationship with God is when you're in your closet every single day, saying, ‘God here I am.’ That's what David was in the field with the sheep, he was lowering himself saying, ‘God here I am, I worship You God, I love You God.’ And I'll tell you what brings confidence to the Christian that says, ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’

"When David was saying, 'Your rod and Your staff comfort me,' he is speaking about the authority of God that was over him."

See the fear of death - what does it say - it says “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” - why is it a shadow? Charles Spurgeon said, “the shadow of a dog cannot bite; the shadow of a sword cannot kill; the shadow of death cannot destroy us.” You see, we live in the valley of the shadow of death because Jesus Christ took the sting of death on the cross. We live in the valley of the shadow of death because we live in the shadow of what used to have dominion over man, that used to be over top of man that they could not break free. But today, we are still not meant to be in the graveyard. We’re not meant to be held down - we are meant to be a resurrected people. Remember that God reached down and pulled you from the grave; remember the time that you were in the grave and you could not get up, and yet God pulled you out and breathed life inside of you. We are not in the valley of that death, but we are walking through the shadow.

So we see that God is leading us through the valley, He's leading us through the fear, and finally He's leading us by and under His authority - His ultimate authority. I love - if you look at the end, it says, “for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” When he’s talking about the rod and the staff, he's talking about a shepherd's crook there. It was like a long pole - you guys have probably seen it - but it had a long hook on the top. It was first and foremost, it was a symbol of the authority of the shepherd. If you look in the Hebrew, the word for the rod and the staff is the same word as a scepter for a king. So as a scepter was a symbol of authority of the king - if a guy was holding a scepter and a crown, you knew he was king - the shepherd was the one who had the shepherd's crook, the rod and the staff. If you saw somebody leading a bunch of sheep away from a house, and he wasn't carrying that crook you said, ‘wow, that guys a thief; that guys trying to steal the sheep,’ because there's no mantle of authority over him, and he's not holding that shepherd's crook. When David was saying, “Your rod and Your staff comfort me,” he is speaking about the authority of God that was over him. He was referring to him as the great Shepherd. He’s acknowledging the authority that God had over David's life, he says, ‘for You are with me, Your authority is over me and it comforts me.’ The mantle of the authority of God is supposed to surround the believer: the Christian is surrounded by the authority of God. You can walk anywhere with confidence knowing that God's authority is over your head.

You know that Pastor Janeth talked about the baby being sick in the last few weeks. It was a super scary time, you know, for me and my wife and my parents. You look and you see him, and he’s sick and he’s coughing, and it was really scary. I did the worst thing you can possibly do in that moment - I went on Google and started googling, you know, like what was going on with him, right - worst thing you can do as a parent, unless it’s to find medical advice - but me, I was looking up like what could happen. So I’m looking, and I see all these statistics of all these babies every year that die from the same stuff he was going through. At that moment, I read that and my heart - there was such a fear came over me, like oh my God, Lord you know this could really happen; like Lord you know this could happen, it wouldn’t even make the newspapers, it would just be another statistic that happens in this country every single day. I looked and I said and I started to pray about it, and at some point I kinda stopped and God started to speak to me, and I said to him, ‘God you know what, this family serves You; this family is underneath You; God this is not just somebody. God, our family, we serve and we honor You, not just today because something is going on, but every day in the past.’ And as that moment came over I said, ‘you know what Lord, we have submitted to Your authority every single day, and I claim Your authority over this child, and I claim Your authority over this household, because God that is what you’re meant to do.’

You can call on the Name of God when His authority is over top of you; you can call on the One who created heaven and earth; you can call on the One that created man from the dust; you can call on the Alpha and Omega, the One that all nature bows down to. In times of need, you can call on the Name of God - and I'll tell you in that moment I thought, ‘God I don't know what I would do if I was just someone in the world and had no one to call on; God I can’t imagine what I would do if there was no one above me, no authority higher than myself to call on, God I don't know what I would do, but praise God that I have Your Name to call on this day.’ You see, the authority of God doesn't come just because it’s there; the authority of God comes because you have willingly submitted to it every single day. It doesn't just appear, it doesn't just show up when you need it - the authority of God is for the believer who has submitted themselves day in and day out to say, ‘God I am underneath Your authority; God I submit to you; God I might want to go left but Your authority is over top of me, and I will bow down to that authority.’ You see, that’s where the authority of God comes on top of a believer; that is the authority that you can call on, because He is the Good Shepherd that never loses one of the sheep. God is calling for that.

"The authority of God comes because you have willingly submitted to it every single day."

So it's a mantle - that hook - is a mantle of authority. But it's also something else: when you flip it over, besides it being a mantle of authority - it had two ends. And on the one end, it was a tall hook kind of, and it was meant to pull the sheep out of when they were in a bad spot - if they got caught in some bushes they’d lift them out with it; if they got into water or a mud pit and were drowning, they can lift them out and pull them out; if they started to veer off and started heading for a cliff, he would correct their path; and if they were disobedient and they constantly broke and weren’t listening, what do you think would happen? They get whacked with it too, right; it was a loving thing because the shepherd was protecting the sheep. But there was another side to that also: you see, when you flip that over all of a sudden it was a weapon; when you flipped it over, it wasn't about loving and correcting the sheep; it was meant to go against the enemies of the sheep - it was meant to go and be a weapon of destruction, to go against the wolves and protect them, to go in and kill and destroy, and that nothing would come near the sheep. It was a weapon that was turned against all the enemies that looked to kill and destroy. We need to understand today that the Word of God is a double-edged sword. The Word of God is a double-edged sword; for the Christian it’s supposed to be a thing of comfort, it’s supposed to be a thing of peace, it’s supposed to be God's authority that you come over every single day, it’s supposed to be the thing in a tight situation, He pulls you out. The Word of God is that thing, and His authority is that thing that when you start to veer off, He brings you and sets your path right. It’s supposed to be that thing of even discipline, about loving discipline, that corrects your path that you would not continue to stray towards the cliff. You see, the Word of God to the believer is the greatest thing in the world, because you're saying, ‘Your authority is over top of me, it is protecting me, it is leading me, and God though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and Your rod and Your staff comfort me.’ That's what it's meant to be.

But for the rest of the world, it's going to be what judges them. For those who turn away from His authority, the Bible says that ‘I know my sheep,’ the Great Shepherd has His sheep, and they are led by the hook, but the rest of the world will one day be judged by that very Word. By that very Word that is used for the sheep, it'll be the same judgment upon men. I pray today, you have to ask yourself: is the word of God, is it safety to me? Is it His goodness to me? Is it His protection? Is His authority something that I lay down to every day? Is it a shroud over my head that I come under? Is it the shadow of His wings that I go down to? Or do I turn away from it? Or do I look the other way? Because one day, that same Word that is protection to me, to another will be judgment. I pray today that you would look and see the goodness of God; the protection of God. That Word of God, that authority, should be comfort to your soul.

I know in the Academy we had a day where we had to go in the pool - and if you ever go to the pool, they have what’s called a shepherd's crook - and it's a long pole with a big hook on the end. And it was my turn to go in - and they like try to drown you and stuff and I was sick - I know it was not good. So I got in and I kinda went out before I went in, and everybody else just jumps right in, and I kind of went over to the thing like picked up the shepherd's crook, and I brought it over and put it right by the instructor's feet and I’m like, ‘look, I’m jumping in there, just, I don’t want you to have to look for it, there it is right there you know just so you have it, in case of emergency like...you know if I’m under the water for more than three seconds, grab the hook, you know, cause I can’t hold my breath very long.’ So I knew that thing was safety to me; I knew that thing was going to be what rescued me. That's the Word of God - it's meant to be the thing that you grab onto, and that you hold close to your heart, that you know that it will be what rescues you every single day. The rod and the staff, they were comfort to David in this time. They were comfort when his own son was trying to kill him, they were a comfort to him. That's what it's meant to be: bowing to God's authority; bowing to His authority. You see, worship of God is not conditional; it’s not based off of what He's done for you, and we see that so often where, ‘I’ll worship you because the things that you've done for me;’ no, that's not it. We don’t worship God because of what He's done for us; to worship God because He was there for us; we don’t worship God for any of those things. We worship God because He is the God of gods, He is the King of Kings, He is the Lord of lords, He is the Creator of heaven and earth, amen? We worship the authority of God. We worship God because He’s God. We worship God because He created the heavens and the earth. We worship God because we were dust and He breathed life into us. We worship God because of His authority. Everything else is just thanksgiving; everything else is just icing on the cake; everything else is just His goodness. His worship is not conditional; His authority is not conditional. We don’t worship Him based off of the week that we had. We don’t worship Him based off of how things are going in our homes. We worship Him because He is God - and I'll tell you that is bowing underneath God's authority. God's authority is over top of the believer. God's authority is over top of the believer because they have willingly submitted themselves to it every single day.

We hear so often in the world, ‘don't be a sheep’ - right - ‘don't be a sheep, don't follow blindly, make your own way, be unique, do what's best for you.’ But I'll tell you, being the sheep of God is the best thing that a man could ever receive. The best thing that a man can receive, because being a sheep of God means that crook is over you, and He is protecting you and He is leading you. There is a confidence in the authority of God, not just because he's God in heaven, but because you have submitted yourself to the authority of God every single day. I look at my son, and I look at everything he went through and I say praise God that I've come underneath His authority, because in those times that means I can call on His Name; that means I can turn to Him and say, ‘God things are going south right now, I really need You; God You have to be there, God I call on Your authority, God I pray your authority over this child, God I pray Your authority, because all sickness and death bow a knee to You, so God I pray that You would come over top of this child, and God that You would bring healing,’ it was because of His authority! Amen!

In youth group this week we talked about lawlessness. And you know, lawlessness is something we see so often in this society. And the law is one of two things to people - let’s just take traffic laws for example - you know for some, traffic laws are great, right? You leave your house and you don't have to be scared that someone’s going a hundred miles an hour down your road. Nobody creeps out looking all the way down, they know they only have to look to make sure there's no cars there. Laws are when you come to a stop light, you know you can go through the light when it's green and nobody’s gonna come the other way and hit you, nobody fears going through every single stoplight - except my wife who stops at every single stoplight whether it’s green or red - thanks Pastor Jerry, Pastor Jerry taught her that. To some, it's a confidence in knowing that it is protecting you, but to others it's not. To others, those laws are burdensome and tiresome, and they hold them down from doing what they really want to do, and they got to get somewhere real fast, and there’s always an excuse on why they couldn't follow the laws. The other day I was listening to the radio and this guy was talking about how he got five years in prison for eluding the police and I’m like, ‘oh,you know, that’s bad,’ and he’s like, ‘yeah but it wasn’t my fault because I was trying to save a baby bird,’ and he said he had a baby bird in the car and he was rushing it to the vet and that's why he eluded the police and got five years in prison. You know it's ridiculous, right? People always have an excuse of why they break the law. For the lawless, the law is burdensome and they say, ‘I don’t wanna follow, I want to get where I need to go, and I want to do what I want to do, and they shouldn’t tell me how to live my life, and I'm on my own man and I should be able to drive through traffic light if I want to.’ For others it's a protection, and it's good, and it's the thing that keeps them safe and gets them from point A to point B alive.

The truth is that the law of God for the law-abiding citizen of heaven is the greatest thing in the world. The law of God is exactly like those traffic laws to so many: to some it is the greatest thing, it’s protection, and safety, and it’s the authority of God that you can come over, and in times of need you can call on them, and in times of need, you know you're not to veer off the path and go over a cliff, because His rod and His staff are comforting you. And to others, the law of God is burdensome and it is tiresome and, ‘I don't want to have to follow it, I don’t want to have to do it, I should be able to live my life how I want, the authority of God doesn't have authority over me, I’m my own man,’ and they live their lives against the Word of God saying that it’s burdensome. We need to ask ourselves today: is the law of God a burden to you, or is it the greatest thing? Is it a comfort, and is it peace, and is it leading you every single day? You see, there is confidence in being a law-abiding citizen of heaven. There is a confidence in the law and in the authority of God. That in the times of need I can say, ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’ Why? ‘Because I spent every day, every week I've been with You God, Lord I've seen Your authority, I've seen Your goodness, and I’ve seen Your law and I've submitted myself underneath it every single day. Lord, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, Your authority and Your goodness, Your guidance and Your law God, they comfort me Jesus.