“What God gets out of your life is the person you become.”
1. Crossway Pond Sermon Podcast focuses on Psalm 23:3 and the phrase “He restores my soul.”
2. Dave Ripper, lead pastor of Crossway Christian Church in southern New Hampshire, preaches and connects the text to the church’s “experienced” reading of Psalm 23.
3. The episode asks what restoration means when God is a shepherd and the soul feels tired, broken, or off course.
4. Ripper says Psalm 23 matters not just as words people know, but as a reality they are called to experience.
5. He ties “I lack nothing” to Ephesians 3:19 and the idea of being “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
6. Ripper shifts to Psalm 23:3 and separates it into two parts: “He restores my soul” and “He leads me on paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
7. He defines the soul as the non-material, spiritual aspect of a person that unites the inner life.
8. Ripper repeatedly asks, “How is it with your soul?” and says only the person and the Lord can fully see what is happening inside.
9. He says David’s line about restoration describes being made whole after feeling pulled apart or fragmented.
10. Ripper uses Philip Keller’s book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 to explain the sheep that is “cast down” and unable to stand back up.
11. He says a cast-down sheep can lose circulation and die in a few hours in hot weather.
12. Ripper identifies the first cause of collapse as seeking too much comfort, then applies that warning to a Christian faith that wants life to be too easy.
13. He says God cares more about character than comfort and compares spiritual growth to the resistance needed in a weight room.
14. The second cause is wool that becomes matted or muddy, which Keller uses to picture the old self that needs to be removed.
15. Ripper cites 2 Corinthians 5:17 and says God does not want to make the old life better; he wants a new kind of life.
16. The third cause is excess weight, and Ripper links that to exhaustion, hurry, and the ministry of Alan Fadling’s Unhurried Living.
17. Ripper describes the lead of a good shepherd as going ahead on “paths of righteousness,” not leaving sheep to wander wherever they want.
18. He quotes Dallas Willard saying, “What God gets out of your life is the person you become,” and says that freed him from pressure about career choices.
19. The tone is pastoral, reflective, and exhortational, with outdoor preaching, repeated rhetorical questions, and a long teaching section.
20. Listeners who want Psalm 23, spiritual formation, or shepherd imagery will likely engage; listeners seeking a brief, light sermon may not.
