PKLM Sermons

October 26, 2025 - Gerald Griffin - Finding Calm When Life Gets Loud

• PKLM

Share episode

Gerald Griffin - Finding Calm When Life Gets Loud

00:00 Introduction: The Timid Nature of Sheep

00:44 David's Psalm: A Journey to Still Waters

01:46 A Personal Reflection on Psalm 23

01:59 Reading Psalm 23 Together

03:21 The Personal Nature of Psalm 23

04:44 David's Life: A Testament to Faith

08:29 The Battle with Goliath

11:44 David's Trials and Tribulations

14:58 Finding Calm in the Storms of Life

17:56 The Shepherd's Provision and Protection

18:31 Walking Through the Valleys

20:04 Feasting in the Presence of Enemies

22:40 Overflowing Blessings

23:34 Living with Forever in View

27:05 Conclusion: The Eternal Shepherd

28:11 Closing Prayer

[00:00:00] Introduction: The Timid Nature of Sheep

He did this in 1970, so it was an older book, and he said that sheep are so timid that they would rather go thirsty and do go thirsty rather than risk rushing water. Unless a shepherd makes a pool calm and safe, they will not drink written by a shepherd. They won't drink the water. It's gotta be still water.

So when David writes, he leads me, besides still waters, he's painting a vivid picture. David is think, uh, thanking God who's able to create stillness no matter what life looks like. He makes peace and gives safe water to drink, and that's what David is, is, excuse me, that's what this psalm is all about.

[00:00:44] David's Psalm: A Journey to Still Waters

This Psalm is about the journey from stormy waters that we can't drink from, we can't be refreshed from, we can't have peace in to a place of still water or as I called it in the text today, finding calm when life gets loud and life gets really loud. This morning I was, uh, sitting at the pastor's retreat.

I'm we're upstairs. I'm sitting out on the porch and I'm looking down on upon the pond or tank, if you want to call it that, and. For a moment, it was just like glass. And I've seen the lake like that. Just like glass. That's the fun time. Take a boat out. Jet ski. That's the fun time if you're gonna ski.

That's the fun time. And just in a moment, snap of a finger is not calm anymore. It's not me anymore. Just whatever the wind is doing, it happens so fast. Uh, you may have been caught out on the lake like my dad and I were at that time. And so life is the same way. 

[00:01:46] A Personal Reflection on Psalm 23

It is absolutely mirror calm until it's not.

We're all, we're absolutely okay until we're not. Life is great until it's not. I'm at peace until I'm not. 

[00:01:59] Reading Psalm 23 Together

That's the Psalm 23, so I want us to read this together. I think Sheila, we're gonna put it up right. Okay, we're gonna put this up and let's read it together. Now I have it in the ESV. Some of y'all memorized it in the King James, and you're welcome to not read it and to say it, but you're gonna do what I did one time when I was a teenager, when we sang, oh, come All You Faithful and We is so beautiful in the church.

And they dropped out the instruments and I put an extra O in there. Nobody else in the whole congregation. I went, oh. And I was like, oh gosh. You know, if you, if you wanna do that, go ahead, do it. Memorize. But here we are. Let's read. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in path of righteousness for his name's sake, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for you're with me. Your rod and your staff. They comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. 

[00:03:21] The Personal Nature of Psalm 23

The first thing we should notice about Psalm 23 is it is absolutely personal. When David writes this psalm, the first part, if you look at his pronouns, he is saying, my shepherd, I, you and he.

So in verses one through three, he's talking to God about God. And then in verses four, he really stops all the theology, talks straight to God. He shifts from theology to worship, from description of God to conversation with God. That's why Psalm 23 has been read probably more than any other scripture in hospital rooms, waiting rooms, grave sites for thousands of years because it's not abstract, it's real.

It's honest, it's personal. It is worship, it is testimony. It is also prayer. It is all of those things. David's storms were real. It's why these words carry so much weight. If anybody understood what it was like to have a life full of storms and to need a steel place still, waters peace. It was David. 

[00:04:44] David's Life: A Testament to Faith

Now let me prove that to you.

Let me remind you, when he was young, his brothers mocked him and belittled him. Now, I'm not gonna say I understand what David went through, but I had one brother. He had seven, but my one brother was six years older than me, and I do know what it's like to be mocked. I know what it is like to have jokes pulled on me.

I know what it's like to have my older brother with all his buddies in their bedroom and call me in specifically to laugh at me. I mean, yeah, big brother's, what they do, and if I'd had a little brother, I'd done the same thing to him. But see, I just, I just was on the receiving end of all that. Now, David, he had seven older brothers.

He was always hearing it from someone. In fact, in one Samuel 17, when he's still young. Elia, his oldest brother. It says in, uh, it says that the children of Israel went down to the valley of EE een, Elon, excuse me, to, to be able to watch, uh, to have a battle against the Philistines. That battle against the Philistines turned out to not be a battle against the Philistines because the king came out on the Philistine side and said, tell you what, let's do it this way.

You guys send out your greatest warrior, or will send out our greatest warrior. Now, I went to the Holy Land several years ago. Tammy and I went and we went with Mark and Judy, and half the people with us were from Mark's Church, Crosspoint, and half the people on that, on that bus, on that plane. Were from Preston Ridge, our church.

Well, mark has or had a assistant pastor there, one of his staff members. His name is David Mark, ever talk to you about David Jordan. David Jordan played, uh, basketball. I think at LSU he's about six foot nine. I'm not, and so when we went to Israel, and I know David, I love David. He's, he's fun. He's a great guy.

When went to Israel and they said, we're gonna go to the valley of Allah, we're gonna see where David and Goliath fought. I had an immediate idea in which I did not tell David my idea. I just, Hey David, let's get a picture together here. And so I said, come on, somebody. And I had not asked to have a picture with him yet, so the valley's behind us and I'm over here and I can't put my arm really around him, right?

So I just got my arm like this, and he's standing here, six foot 10 or so, and I'm standing here five foot nine or 10, and he's smiling. He says, I know exactly what you're doing and how are you gonna use this anyway. But yeah, so I, I understand that. I want you to understand that when El. Oldest brother for David is talking to David and he's, he's, he's mocking him and ridiculing him and he says, why did you come down here?

With whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? He's belittling what he does. I know how conceited you are, how wicked your heart is. You came down only to watch the battle, to which I would say to Elia if I was there, what battle? They stood there for 40 days. If you want to put it in terms, it it, what's today?

October 25? Yeah. Six. I'm always behind. Okay. We're talking not November 26th. We're talking about the end of November. We're talking about almost December. They stood there day in, day out, which is why David takes food to them from the family because they're out here waiting. Nobody's coming forward.

That's the way in which he belittled his brother David understood that. 

[00:08:29] The Battle with Goliath

Then of course there was the battle one Samuel 17. David's words to Goliath after Goliath has mocked me. David says, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you down, cut off your head that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel. Those words are not delivered with great stillness of heart. So I went to AI and I asked it some questions 'cause I already knew that Goliath is understood to be about 10 feet tall.

And I also knew that the tip of the spear that Goliath carried was 15 pounds. And so I asked, uh, Mr. Aai, I said, would you please extrapolate for me what a, what a spear length would be for a man that tall, based upon a guy that's probably five foot tall. You know this, this is, these are the ancient Israelites and Philistines.

The others are tiny. So you're five foot tall. How tall would your spear be? You're 10 feet. How long would that spear be? And they, it came back and said, 15 feet. A spear of 15 feet. Now a spear's different than a javelin. The javelin is something, you know, we have missiles named that. The javelin is something that goes through the air.

The javelin would've been on his back. It's a smaller spear, uh, spear. It's, it's thinner and very sharp, and he would take that off his back and throw it. It, but not a spear. A spear is something you would hold out in front of you, and if you held it at the butt of the spear, I said, now gimme some more information.

If it's 15 feet long and it's talked about how thick it is, how much would the weight be that Goliath would've felt like he was carrying in the sphere? It's at 350 pounds. That is torque. That is, uh, all the mechanics that go into that. That is leverage 350. I want you to think for a moment about having something out in front of you, 15 feet in front of you that weighed 35 pounds.

That's it, just 35. And say how well you would do with that. This is a big guy. This is a guy that would instill absolute fear. David went to him in the power of the Lord. After that success came like a wave. So much so that the women sang one one to another as they celebrated. Saul has struck his thousands and Davids his tens of thousands, and I started thinking about that as a husband.

And thought, man, we've got my wife here today. We've got Tammy, we've got her friend Julie right here. And David, I want you to figure for just a moment, Tammy and Julie and the other ladies in here are singing a big song about somebody, not us. David. Love that too. I wanna say that's not still water either, because overnight celebrity is a wild wave of success.

David is hearing that it can be just as dangerous. 

[00:11:44] David's Trials and Tribulations

And then success turned to jealousy. These are all the wild, crazy moments that have no calm in them. One Samuel 18 says, Saul was very angry at this saying about what the people were singing, the ladies were singing about, and it displeased him. He said, they have ascribed to David tens of thousands, and to me, they've ascribed thousands.

What more can he have except my kingdom? Well, first of all, David killed one, not tens of thousands at this point, but that's the exaggeration. And this storm of jealousy put David's life in danger. He went from hero to fugitive. Then David was hunt like an animal. First Samuel 19 says that Saul hurl to spear him his own sphere to pin him to the wall.

And David fled. Can you imagine ducking spears in the palace? One moment to living in caves in the next and listening for footsteps, never sleeping deeply. He knew the storm of ridicule and worship. Uh, the one of Saul's daughters was given to him in marriage. Her name was Michael, and it says that when David, uh, danced before the Lord in in two Samuel six 16, she says she despised him in her heart.

So he's mocked because of the way he loves the Lord. He also knew failure, lust, adultery, deception, and murder. He did all that. He did all that, and he was caught for all that. Nathan, the prophet said to David, you are the man thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. I appointed you king over Israel. I delivered you outta the hand of Saul.

I gave you the master's house and the master's wives, and I gave you the House of Israel and of Judah. If that were too little, I would add to you much more. Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? He knew what it was like to do wrong, be caught for doing wrong and to fall hard.

And then his family unraveled. His sons turned on one another one violated his half sister. Then another son killed that brother. The house was torn apart, and then after that, his son Absm betrayed him. And second Samuel, it says that a master came to David saying the hearts of the men of Israel have gone after Absalom.

Then David said to his servants, who are with him in Jerusalem, we have to get outta here. Arise. We must flee. Or there'll be no escape from my son, ABSM. Then when Absalom died, David's grief was overwhelming. Second Samuel 18 says the king was deeply moved, went up to the chamber over the gate and wept, and he said, oh, my son, Absalom, my son Absalom, would I have died instead of you?

This is David's life. Storms, waves, crashes. Dark weather and David still said, the Lord is my shepherd. And he still talked about still waters. Okay, so his life wasn't a cakewalk. His life wasn't easy. His life was tough. From the very beginning it was difficult. So how did he find calm? And how do we find calm?

[00:14:58] Finding Calm in the Storms of Life

When Stormy weather is about, well, first of all, by making the shepherd yours. That's what Psalm 23 1 through three says. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in passive righteousness. David begins with that theology, but he moves it to the point to saying, God is mine and I am his.

Now, lemme tell you something. Sheep without a shepherd, scatter sheep without a shepherd starve. Sheep without a shepherd die. The shepherd makes a difference always in our lives when we don't have a shepherd, when scatter in our lives, when we don't have a shepherd. We go thirsty in our lives. When we don't have a shepherd, we die.

But when we have the shepherd, it makes all the difference. That's why making the shepherd yours is the beginning of all the great calm in our lives. That comes, of course, from accepting Christ as your substitute for your sin. I said a moment ago talking about my dad, where he was smiling at me. He was trying to pull and put courage into me.

He was trying to transfer something He didn't really even feel into me. But that's not the greatest transfer I've ever experienced. And this last week when our daughter, Brittany, sent us a picture of, uh, our 3-year-old grandson, uh, Finn. He is at a petting area 'cause it's, you know, they brought in the petting, uh, park for them for, for Halloween fall festival.

And, and it's one of those live pictures. We, Tammy and I didn't realize it was live at first, we just saw a picture and he's smiling and then we put our finger on it and he looks around and there's two little piglets in there and he turns with absolute joy. He says, piggies. And I look at that and my, I feel my heart just, ugh.

You know what I'm talking about. He's pouring that. It's a transfer. But the greatest transfer of all reality is the transfer of my sin upon the man who went to the cross. The greatest transfer of all is the the man on the cross. Jesus Christ, the son of God, the living savior poured, transferred his innocence, his for his, his, his guilt into me.

That's the greatest transfer, and that is what makes God our shepherd. When we understand that our sin cannot be taken away and we cannot pay for it, and we cannot do anything about it except to hand it to God by saying, Lord, I know I'm a sinner. This is who I am, and I ask for forgiveness through Jesus.

I need his life on my life. That's how you make the shepherd yours. And once you do that. 

[00:17:56] The Shepherd's Provision and Protection

You can begin to rest in his provision instead of trying to always chase what you think you need. There have been so many things in my life that I thought I needed and I chased after, and honestly, it's really a grace of God.

I didn't get it. Jesus is the provision I need, and so we seek his peace. When we're restless, we turn off the noise or the phone sometimes and just spend time in prayer in scripture because that's where the peace comes from. And, and of course we find calm when we walk with him through the valleys. 

[00:18:31] Walking Through the Valleys

Psalm 20 23, 4 says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you or with me.

You're Rod and your staff. They comfort me even though I walk. Not if I happen to walk. You will walk through the valley. We all do it. Valleys are not optional. Life has valleys. Valleys like sickness or divorce or depression or grief. Valleys like fear, but they're temporary. We walk through them, the scripture says through them, and he says, I will fear no evil for you're with me.

The language shifts, it becomes you. Uh, g uh, Paul. David becomes very intimate here with God. Evil is real, but the presence of God is greater. When he says your staff, uh, your rod and your staff comforted me. A shepherd's rod was like a club. To strike at predators and the staff was something to guide with, to nudge, to, to rescue God's correction is comfort, not cruelty.

And that means we remember that the valleys are temporary. I don't know, maybe there's something right now that's really feels like it's just kicking your soul, but it's temporary. You go through these things. Even this life, as Doc mentioned a moment ago in our prayer, it's temporary things that we go through.

They're temporary. Just wi and, and at those moments we can whisper to ourselves. It's not forever. It's gonna be okay. And as times like that, we can also say, God, you're with me because your staff and your rod, you are protecting me. You're nudging me. 

[00:20:04] Feasting in the Presence of Enemies

You are guiding me, and you'll find calm when you find his feast in hostile places.

One of the most amazing things about this text that strikes me says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Not away from them, but while they're looking on, I'm gonna have a feast while my enemies are looking on, you might say, well, how in the world can you do that? 'cause the feast is not alone.

I'm sitting with Jesus. I can sit down with Jesus and have a feast and look at his smiling face and listen to his laughter no matter who's around me saying what? And so God says, I don't need to bring you out of this to be able to give you a feast. I don't need to bring you to a place where you can't see them anymore.

I want them to see you with me enjoying the provision that only I can give. And then it says, you anoint my head with oil in my cup overflows. Um, we remember the story of the Good Samaritan. And you and I both know that when Jesus talked about the Good Samaritan, that probably there was a universal, all altogether unified gasp.

We called a Samaritan good, uh, because this Samaritan that the Jews didn't like took care of a Jew. A Jew that had been beaten up, a Jew that was beaten up so much that he was robbed and left for dead. And it is the Samaritan that comes to take care of him is the Samaritan that one of the things he does is he pours oil onto this wounded man.

Well, oil was a way in which to clean cleanse the wound. It was, it was in some ways very medicinal. But oil is not just that in scripture. It is also used as honor. It is also used to set someone apart. And what I wanna focus on is the word honor, because the world may dishonor you. And it may be because they don't like you.

For some reason, it may be they don't like us because we belong to Jesus. It doesn't matter. Whatever it may be, God does honor you. And I wanna say, I think one of the greatest lies, the traps that the enemy is put upon us is to get us to not believe who we really are. I just wanna remind you that if you have Jesus, you are a child of the king, the king of kings.

That you belong to him and that you are, you in his eyes are worth everything. Everything. So let the enemies gather because I'm finding a feast in hostile places. 

[00:22:40] Overflowing Blessings

And also when he says, my cup overflows, his blessings don't just fill, they spill back to the grandchildren. Thinking about. If those little boys sitting around the table and we fill up those little mugs that wish we would've had 'em, they can't spill.

But what can spill is me filling it to the top. Can you imagine for a moment his mom watching as I say, well, I love Finn and I love Jude so much. They want their milk. And I just start pouring and the milk gets higher and higher, gets to the top, and he just starts spilling over. And Brittany said, dad, what are you doing?

I got a mess to clean up, but I'll tell you what, that's the way God pours out blessings on us. They spill out. It's not just enough. It's more than we need. 

[00:23:34] Living with Forever in View

Finally, you'll have calm when you live with forever in view, and that's the last part of this. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I think this is why this is such a beloved psalm. For us at the end of days, the word surely used in this text matters because it's not. Maybe it's not. Maybe the blessings of the Lord, maybe the goodness of God will follow me. There's a good likelihood that God will keep taking care of me.

It is surely is no doubt about it, and it's not temporary. It is forever. Remember that Jesus said in John 14 in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would've told you I would've. In other words, when Jesus is saying that, he's saying, I would've let you know if there was no room for you. I mean, you do understand that I'm going to prepare your room.

I'm getting everything ready, and if there wasn't room and it wasn't a sure thing, I would let you know. It's not a sure thing, but it is. I go to prepare the place for you. I will come again. I'll take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. And so the application for us is simply this. We can live with confidence when the storms of life are going crazy, when everything seems to be unmoored, when you're sitting on the front of that little bass boat and you are just trying your best to get across the stormy water.

Understand this God is with you. His goodness does not end. Rest and mercy never quit. And when we live with heaven in view, it changes where we are right now. In 1969, I watched as a little boy, as a guy by the name of Neil Armstrong, bounced out onto the moon in that fluffy suit of his. He took a step and he made these words, which every preacher listens to words like this, and in like, how long have it taken, Mariah, that one, he said, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

As a kid, I was like, whoa, look at him. He's on the moon. And of course my little brain was like, man, I hope it doesn't get a hole in that suit. I mean, I just, it is the thought of this, but I wanna tell you when he made that statement, that is not the great leap or the giant leap for mankind. The giant leap for mankind is from a, a world that has fallen in a body that is sinful and a soul that has embraced sin to stepping with the savior into life in eternity.

We don't live with heaven in mind enough. When I was a young guy in ministry, I remember somebody telling me I heard it several times. Well, you gotta be careful that you're not so heavenly minded. You're no earthly good. Well, there's not a danger of that anymore. We're not heavenly minded. We're not thinking about it.

But everything about the next step is amazing. I think there's a reason we only can see certain pictures, little glimpses of heaven. I think if we saw it all right now we would run towards it like crazy. 

[00:27:05] Conclusion: The Eternal Shepherd

So conclusion is that Psalm 23 is not just for funerals, it's for today, it's for life. David storms were many.

There's shame, fear, jealousy, betrayal, grief. He had, he always said the Lord is my shepherd. And the same shepherd today. That was with David. The battle against Goliath is with you in whatever battle you have today. And you and I both can say the Lord is my shepherd. I'm not in want, I'm not in fear because he's leaving me besides still waters, even through this valley that I'm not gonna camp out in because it's gonna end and I know that for the rest of my life.

Come will come. What may? I am going to forever dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I know that's happening because he is mine. Will you let him lead you today from whatever crazy, stormy situation to even in the middle of that, enjoying the still waters? 

[00:28:11] Closing Prayer

Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, you are so good to us and you care about us so much, and we have no way of even being able to comprehend how great is your love, your concern, your care, and your joy in us.

You are not up in the heavens looking down at us and just shaking your head back and forth and regret saying, boy, I made a mistake with them. Instead, you're looking down upon us in love, and you're walking right beside us and you're living within us, and your Holy Spirit is guiding us. And you just keep saying, won't you calm down?

Won't you embrace what I have already handed to you? Will you just lift up your eyes and see how I am pouring mercy to where it is overflowing in your life and goodness. Won't you understand that this life is but a vapor. It appears for a short, wild, and vanishes away, and then life eternal love forever.

Peace, unending. We love you, Lord Jesus. We pray that you'll bless us as we go about our day to day, and we ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.