The Reality Of Restoration Series

Circle which one describes your life now:

As an off-road experience

As a crossroads experience

As a newly paved road experience

No matter what your experiences in life, God is always ready and willing to restore of lives.Someone has well said…“God composts life’s sour fruit! He restores withered and worn-out human hearts with His out pouring Spirit!”

With a grateful heart you can sense David’s restoration has affected him in a powerful way - along with his outlook on life!

1. When We Fall, God Lifts Us To The Place Of Restoration.

“He restores my soul my soul”

Literally: “He brings my soul back”, which tells me that there is no place God can’t bring us to begin His restoring process on us!

There are 2 dangers sheep face:

A. Becoming Cast.

Psalm 42:11 “Why are you down cast, O my soul?” And why are you disquieted within me?”

A Shepherd would understand this phrase well. Cast down is an old English term referring to sheep that lay down and can’t get up. This is one of the saddest sights, when sheep have laid down in such a way that it has rolled over on its back and their feet are straight up in the air and they can’t get out of that position!

Sheep are built in such a way that the center of gravity won’t let them aright themselves at this point! Panic sets in of being eaten!

Then gases build up in their stomach and it gets very hard because of the pressure created. Then they get where they can’t breath. Blood stops circulating properly and the legs go numb. Within 2 hours if the shepherd doesn’t rescue them, they will die!

When the shepherd comes along – what He does not do is kick the sheep and say, “look at the mess your in.” He tenderly messages the stomach, then slowly rolls it over and prepares to lift it up, and then begins to massage its little leg to get the circulation going down to the legs.

That’s a tremendous picture of what our Shepherd is willing to do for every one of us! If you’ve had your soul cast down, been on your back spiritually, emotionally or financially, God is ready to massage you and lift you back up to the position of being restored.

God says, “I want to restore your confidence, courage and hope, even your joy!”

A soul can be cast down by:

• Guilt over sinful ways

• Grief over a loss

• Tragedy over a friendship

• Sickness in our body

In this condition you’re a prime candidate for – 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you,for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

In 1929 Georgia Tech played USC in the Rose Bowl. During the game a player recovered a fumble, but became confused and ran the wrong way. A teammate tackled him before he would have scored the wrong team! At half time all the players were in the locker room sitting and waiting for the response of the coach. The young player that ran the wrong way sat all by himself with a towel on his head and just cried!

The coach came into the locker room and says nothing of the stupid play. Then the coach stuns everyone when he says that all the same players are starting the second half! All the players leave accept the young man and says, “Coach, I am not going back out on the field ever! I’ve embarrassed the team, and I can’t face the crowd!”

Then the coach did the most amazing thing, he put his hand on the player’s shoulder and said, “Get up and go back on the field, the game is only half over.” What a coach! How many times does God gently tell us, “Life is only half over, get back out there, I’ll be with you!”

B. Becoming Lost.

When sheep are out grazing, they never look up; they are totally focused on the tender grass and will keep moving away until they become lost, quickly!

They don’t know how to get back to the fold. There is no I.Q. test on sheep – there’s nothing to test!

Every night as a Shepherd ends his day he does 2 things:

• He calls his sheep

• He counts his sheep.

If you are on your back in life, or you’ve lost your way in life, God will restore your life, there is still hope. His restoring is not like restoring a piece of antique furniture! God goes deep into our person to restore the deepest wounds in our lives!

2. When We Falter, God Leads us to The Path of Righteousness.

Let me share with you something interesting about sheep…Sheep can only see about 10 yards in front of them! They are worse then the man…Mr. Magoo