76. What Dallas Willard Taught Us About Psalm 23 (w/Keith Matthews)

0:00Beppe Cummneu gets 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Orberg. So, become new. I'm here with my friend Keith Matthews. Keith, long time, pastor, academician, you were a professor of Christian Formational Leadership? Yes, at his New Certific at the Hagger School of Theology. Torn a lot with Dallas Willard. And so, we're at an undisclosed location of spiritual formation, which both tests and produces character, integrity, patience in that hand. I'm a what's called a pee on the Myers-Briggs, so I love spontaneity. And I thought, I'd love to have Keith talk a little bit about a psalm and Dallas Willard and get into that minute. Keith is, he likes to actually think about what he's going to say before he says it. And I have a little bit of structure to life, so I have prevailed on him.

1:04Thank you for joining me. You're welcome. It's a joy to be here in Santa Barbara. It is, and always a joy to get to talk together with you, particularly about spiritual formation and how it happens. And we were talking about the 23rd Psalm, which is worth revisiting a lot. And they had a particular resonance with Dallas Willard. And you taught what we're called, Doctor of Ministry classes with Dallas for many years. So, Keith, whatever you want to say about the 23rd Psalm, quote as much of it as you want to, and then about Dallas and what you learned there. And we're all going to learn today a little bit more about how to not only pray, but live in the reality of the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want this. Well, John, good to be with you in a beautiful place. When John asked me, not more than an hour or two ago about doing this, I said, sure, let's give it a try. Can we go with the 23rd Psalm? Because that was certainly one of Dallas's favorite Psalms.

2:06No question about it. He memorized that. He was big on memorizing big blocks of Scripture that were definitely meaningful and had them on hand for himself all the time. And he taught on his recent book Life Without Lack was on the 23rd Psalm. If you haven't read that, it's one of his newer books. It was a translation in the 80s, but so relevant. But just something to share with you about Dallas. I mean, I get to teach with him for 18 years at Fuller and kind of its infamous or famous demon class there. And I get to hear him all the time. And I think many of you have read him and you probably watch him on YouTube. And I want to say, I love Dallas's teaching. It changed my life forever, the trajectory of my life. But even more than his teaching and writing was Dallas the person. And every year I was with him, I became more and more impressed with him.

3:08His person, the way he, the way he shared with people, the way he interacted with people. He used to use a phrase, he had a prayer that he used a lot, which was at the very end he'd say, I pray that you would have a radiant life and a radiant death. And who else prays about the kind of death people will have? That's right. And that they want it to be radiant. Why did that language resonate? Well, that language was so real for Dallas because he believed that our radiance and Paul used a similar word, not radiance. He used aroma. So Paul and Dallas were in good company together. They saw that their life with God, which is born out of our spirit, goes ahead of us. I'm not trying to be weird here, John, but there's something that radiates from us. And over and over again, I saw that radiance in Dallas with meeting with other people. And heard stories over and over again as people walked up to him and asked questions.

4:08They just felt something different. And that's why I think you like the 23rd Psalm. I mean, the Lord is my shepherd. Therefore, I had everything I need. I've got it. And David had a lot of ups and downs, but that was a big part of his, you know, his upbringing out in the fields with sheep, talking to God. And he saw that God was sufficient. And I think that that Psalm is worth looking at over and over and over memorizing it. So Keith, I'm thinking about someone who's watching right now and you say, everything I need, I've got. But somebody said, no, I don't. I need a spouse or I need to get in the right path or I need more money or whatever. What do you say to people about, yeah, how do people make sense of that? If in their ordinary everyday life, it feels like, yes, they do lack. Well, we are Americans for sure, Western Americans. And it's really outward. We look outward. We need money.

5:08We need more things. I guess I would turn the question around and say this that, are you happy with the person you're becoming? And the 23rd Psalm is about the person we're becoming. And therefore, our life in God is a place where he's going to help us become what we need from the inside out. We want to be people that live out of a full cup, not an empty cup, not of outside sufficiency. So I think that God's really got a different idea in mind. Let's start inside and then we can worry about the outside. I've never thought about it this way before. But one way of thinking about that is to say, if I say whatever I think I need, I need blank in order to half blank. So I need money in order to pay this bill. Even I need food in order to survive. But if God is with me no matter what's happening and wants to give me a radiant life and a radiant death. If it's my time to die, he will give me what I need to have a radiant death. Yes.

6:08Yes. I think you said that very well, John. I love that. No, that's just true. I mean, we were talking about with Dallas. You know, when he would talk about that idea of radiance. Yes. He seemed to take it because energy is very real. Yes. And he was talking about a kind of spirit is personal energy. Very literal in a way. So Jesus at the Transfiguration, he glowed Moses when he was with God on the mountain top. You know, Paul talks about he put a veil over his face because he glowed. And Dallas would sometimes, it's a very bad pun. But he would say, that's why we call it glory. Yeah. Presented glory. Yeah. And there was with Dallas. And I would describe it as a physical light. But there was something that came from his boss and his face. That made you want to be with him. Absolutely. Can I tell you a story about this? Please. I met a young gal who had come to the cloud, the School of Kingdom living where I teach, who was a former student at SC.

7:08And she remembered the first day she was on the USC campus. And she was walking by the philosophy department. And she saw this man talking to this young student. And he was, and he, and Dallas would often talk with people and he kind of lean on in. His hands behind his back, lean on in and get close. Yes. And, and she watched the interaction between Dallas and this student. She knew nothing of him. She didn't know does. No, nothing of him. She was first down campus. She didn't know her major. And she, and she looked at him. And she goes, I don't know what, but I started crying. I just started crying. And, and she goes, I just need to go see who that guy is. And she, and the person left and he went, she went up to him. And she said, Sir, do you, are you from here? And he goes, yeah, I teach in the philosophy school. And I'm on my way to class. And she goes, could I, could I just go and sit in your class? And he said, sure, come on, come on. They became friends forever from that point on. And, and this, this young woman was forever changed by, by what she sensed from him,

8:11what she watched, we, our presence goes before us, friends. Oh, okay. Okay. It does. Yeah. And, and Dallas, believe that. And therefore, that's the kind of interactions he had. And I think the 23rd Psalm is a, is a beautiful Psalm about the sufficiency of God in every type of situation we're in. Man, so, I was so moving. I've never heard that story before. Yeah. But when you said it, it resonates like, yeah, there was something about him. That is, I picture him a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But do you think, now your presence goes before you, is it such that when a stranger looks at you, they're moved to tears. That's kind of a high bar. And then I think about, if Dallas was that good, and he wasn't even Jesus, what must it have been like? What will it be like to see that face and that body? Keith, thank you. This is just such a huge gift. You did be with you today, John. Good mix. You did.

9:11The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything that I need, that I need in order to, blank, in order to do what God's calling me to do. He is sufficient for that. And I'm going to take this with me. My presence goes before me. Your presence goes before you. Live today, interact with people in such a way that if a stranger looks at you, they will be moved to tears. Or at least, a little smile. There you go. Blessings, everybody. Bye-bye. I hope you realize wherever you're coming from today and whatever you're going into today, that your presence, your mere presence, can have more of an impact on people's lives than you think. That was my takeaway from today. What was your takeaway? We hope when you're watching these videos, we distribute them every weekday completely for free, by the way. We hope when you're watching them, you're not just listening to John or to his guest or whatever he's talking about that day,

10:16but that you're really paying attention, giving your attention to the Holy Spirit and listening for his still small voice in your heart. What might he have for you today? Only he knows exactly your circumstance situation, relationships, and can instruct your heart in the way you should go. So what was he saying to you? If you have a takeaway, drop it in the comments if you're watching on YouTube. Find out more, you can head over to becomenew.com. And one other note, we recently launched a Steps Master Class, produced by Become New. If you remember John wrote a book last year called Steps, there's a workbook coming out in October, and we filmed a Master Class One video for each step to walk anyone through that group's individuals that wants to walk through that. And so if you want to find out more about that, head over to stepsguide.com. That, those videos, that resource, that is completely available to you for free. You can watch those videos as they come out. So that's all I've got to say. You can find out more like I said at BecomeNew.com or JohnRover.com.

11:20I'm Tim, the channel host, and we'll see you next time.