Psalm 23: Growing in Utter Contentment

As we enter fall, we'll begin a verse-by-verse study of Psalm 23.

So, Psalm 23, pretty popular psalm.

You may have it somewhere in your house sitting on some piece of artwork.

Maybe you have a bookmark in your Bible with Psalm 23, pretty popular psalm for us.

It answers some questions for us about the nature of God, about God's care for us.

Is it possible?

Could it possibly be true?

That you and I, as messy as we are, as discontent as we often are, or maybe all the time, as weary as we are, even like at the end of summer, how can I be this tired at the end of summer?

I thought I was supposed to be rested at the end of summer.

Or maybe just tired from life or something happened.

Is it possible that I am the object of God's affection?

Is it possible that God is fiercely committed to caring for me?

This summer I was away from my three daughters for one week.

And so during that week, maybe you've been away from loved ones for a little bit.

And the first couple days, if we're just all honest, the first couple days are wonderful, right?

Like you're just really selfish.

Like you eat what you want, you watch what you want, like you own the remote, you own your time, you're going to bed when you want, you wake up when you want, nobody's bothering you, nobody's, you know, you know, can have a sip of your Coke.

No, the whole Coke, all of it, is mine.

I'm not giving sips to anybody.

It's all mine.

But after a couple days, start to start to miss my people.

At the end of the week, I was waiting for them to join me, and I was in the airport, and all these people are coming down this escalator, and I'm sitting there waiting, all these people, and they're lovely people.

They're people like you and other people and all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors, all sorts of people watching other people hug, but they're not my people, right?

Not my people.

I'm waiting for my people.

And eventually, my wife and my three daughters come down the escalator, and my three girls, you know, just run at me and bulldoze me with hugs.

I hadn't seen them in a week, feel like forever, right?

Hold each one, each head.

I want to look at each one.

I want to look at them, I want to look them over.

I want to kiss them, I want to hold each one, right?

Like object of affection.

Maybe you've done that with a child or like a niece or a nephew, your golden retriever.

It's been two hours.

If you've been away from a golden retriever for two hours, it's like two years every time you come home.

Object of affection.

So we have Psalm 23, and David is writing this with this kind of foundation of fierce commitment and care of God to us.

And David in the Old Testament, this writer of this Psalm, he's been a shepherd, he's been poor, he's been oppressed, but he's also been powerful.

He becomes a king.

He's been powerful, he's had all provision taken care of.

And he's the guy who writes this.

And behind all kind of his points, as we go verse by verse through this in the coming weeks, is the foundation that your creator is amazingly fond of you and fiercely committed to you.

Not to a pain-free life.

So don't mistake that.

We can mistake that.

Not to a pain-free life, but to being for you and with you in a broken world.

So here's the first verse, Psalm 23, 1.

You may already know it.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

So point number one is this a few points to guide us.

The good shepherd owns and cares for his sheep.

The good shepherd owns and cares for his sheep.

We will all be owned by something or someone, and we will all have a shepherd.

None of us get out of that.

I always love this Henri Nowan quote about belonging.

We've read it before, it came to mind this week for me.

As long as we belong to this world, we will remain subject to its competitive ways and expect to be rewarded for all the good we do.

But when we belong to God, who loves us without conditions, we can live as He does.

The great conversion called for by Jesus is to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God.

So when David says, the Lord is my shepherd, he's saying, I belong to God.

I belong to the Lord.

Now, when we belong to the world, we create our identity and worth.

Maybe we're trying to earn forgiveness or earn our righteousness by our ability and to keep up the pace.

And it works for a while.

It really does.

It does work for a while.

We can all put together a few good years at a time.

All of us have put together a few good years.

Maybe you're in the middle of those years, but we will all come to the end of those years.

We all eventually come to the end of ourselves.

As the saying goes, the truth, many of us have discovered, is that God's office is at the end of our rope.

Because it's there that we finally see what is true, and that is we belong to God.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

The idea of Lord as shepherd is this idea of being surrendered and guided and allowing yourself, and to me this is the hardest part of it, allowing myself to be cared for by him.

I mean, for me to kind of verbalize and say, Oh, I'm surrendered to God, you know, oh, he guides me and attend church on Sunday, I can actually do that pretty well.

What's hard for me is to very functionally throughout the week from my heart to actually be cared for by him rather than the world.

Point number two is this the shepherd supplies abundantly all we need.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

The word want means to not lack for something you need.

So it doesn't mean the$1.2 billion lottery this week that I know half of us bought a ticket, including me, okay?

And I didn't win.

Breaker, and I'm guessing you didn't win.

I'm really thinking you wouldn't be here if you won.

Maybe you'd be here thinking God did it, and you'd be like here, like owing it back to God.

I didn't win.

1.2 billion.

It's not about like God's gonna do that.

Although you may come into provision, but you may not.

You may come into provision at certain parts of your life and then lose at other ports.

You might lose a lot and then come into a lot.

That's what David's saying.

Paul says it in Philippians.

Like, I've had a lot, I've had a little, but I've learned.

I've learned what it means to be content.

The word want means to not lack for something you need.

It's talking about something much deeper than$1.2 billion.

It's talking about the primary needs of your heart.

That we wouldn't lack the needs of our hearts.

And David says in the shepherd's care, in the shepherd's care, we can actually be utterly content.

So the question that hit me this week is who actually shepherds my heart?

That's not a guilting question.

I don't ask that to guilt you or shame you.

That's a question in grace for your heart's well-being, for deep contentment, as we possibly could know more lavishly the shepherd.

Am I shepherded by the 24-hour news cycle?

Is that what shepherds me day to day?

Am I shepherded by my bank account?

Really great.

Starting to be really good again, right?

It'll probably be really horrible again this week.

Most days I'm pretty sure that my fourth pair of Hoka running shoes would be the pair that's gonna finally put me at peace.

I have three pairs of Hoka running shoes.

I will confess that in front of you, but I'm pretty sure the fourth pair, I saw a guy wearing a pair at a coffee shop and the colors were great.

And I'm like, oh, that pair.

Like it's that pair.

The other three, for whatever reason, they didn't do it, but this pair, the fourth pair, will definitely finally bring me healing in my heart and everlasting peace.

I actually think these things, and so do you.

Am I realizing growing contentment, that quiet calm of heart?

Do I allow him to shepherd me, to care for me?

I read Anderson Cooper's new book on his family, the Vanderbelts, over the summer.

So the Vanderbelts, we all know the Vanderbelts were one of the wealthiest families.

They were the wealthiest family in our country at one point.

Now, what I didn't realize until I got into the book is that the wealth is all gone now.

There's no wealth left.

There's no Vanderbilt left that's actually wealthy because of the wealth.

It's all gone.

It's been diluted and wasted.

Several chapters are given to Elva Vanderbilt, who was a Southern woman in the 1800s.

Here she is, in the 1800s.

She was a Southern woman that married into the third generation of the Vanderbilt.

And in third generation, the Vanderbilts were doing very well.

They were all, this whole generation of the Vanderbilts, they were all the wealthiest people in our country.

They were mega rich.

Jeff Bezos type of wealth.

But they were new money.

And in New York at the time, new money was not old money, it wasn't European money.

So they had no social status.

And this drove Elva crazy.

And so Elva in the 1880s decided to throw a ball to overwhelm everybody with her wealth.

It became known as the party of the century.

It was a ball, one night, eight-course meal, food and drinks, every surface was covered with flowers and orchids and palms and roses and fountains.

They created the fountain, paper lanterns.

She spent, in the 1880s, she spent$250,000 on a party one night.

That is equal to spending on a party one night right now.

Today's money,$6.4 million in one night.

After the party, another socialite in New York said this.

Leaped boldly up to 10 millions, 50 millions, 100 million, and the necessities and luxuries followed suit.

So what's he saying?

Well, he's saying it's never enough.

It just keeps jumping up.

And they never are empowered to actually say what David said, what Paul said in Philippians 4.

And that is, whether I have plenty or I just I don't have any.

I have utter contentment of heart.

The following year, Elva finally got invited to Caroline Astor's Opera Ball.

I mean that's that's that is the party.

Like that that you have arrived if you are invited to Caroline's party, the opera ball.

So it worked.

It worked for Elva.

And it works for us to some degree.

Like we can put it together.

We can use some money for happiness for a little bit.

The problem is not that money can't buy happiness for a little bit.

We would all say, well, of course that works.

The problem is it just doesn't last.

It's just not solid.

It's not stable.

It's not quite enough for our hearts.

So the question for Elva would have been: did Elva know profound peace for her heart?

Not did she get invited to Caroline Astor's party.

Well, if you go online and you read about Elva's life, you read about, she did some great work for women.

It's all true.

Great work.

Even more articles about her wealth, just articles drooling over the wealth.

But what you don't read a lot about is her.

And the book was quite different in this regard because Cooper really paints a picture of a woman who never has enough to be enough.

Just always searching.

Never has quiet calm or deep peace or profound contentment.

This brings us back to that word.

I feel like for the last two years, keep revisiting this word, behold.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I'm beholding the Lord to pause, to take in, to relish.

David beheld the Lord.

There's a place out on the Kennesaw Trails.

I'm not going to tell you where because it's my place.

It's not yours.

I don't want to see you there.

And I round this corner, and it's right before the trail declines.

Some trees have fallen.

And it's just enough for the sun to break through the canopy of the forest.

And so grass grows up right in that little area.

It's just this beautiful little spot.

And every time I turn that corner, it kind of takes me.

I kind of pause.

I behold, right?

I relish it.

I take it in.

What I'm realizing is happening is not so much me beholding it as if I have power over it.

But actually, as I behold it, it takes power over me.

The Lord is my shepherd.

As I behold the Lord as shepherd, I actually become held.

Or more theologically correct, we realize we have always been held.

Lavishly cared for deep in our souls.

And will we allow Him to be that shepherd to us?

Point number three.

While circumstances can grant moments of contentment, even seasons, the good shepherd creates contentment of heart.

So let's just say it's a Thursday, it's lunchtime, you pull up to the Marietta Market for lunch, and your 1996 Toyota Camry, and you park it, and as you park it, you look over, and there's a shiny new Tesla with the doors that go like this, right?

Not this, these doors.

And you're in your 96 Camry and you look over and you think, oh man.

If I had that.

Everlasting peace.

Like that would be it.

Now, what's also true, we don't talk about it a lot a lot, is that maybe you pull up in the Tesla, you know, these doors, and you see the 1996 Toyota Cameron.

And you remember when you drove that in high school and you had the windows down, and you did have everlasting peace, and you're playing Dave Matthews Band, and you think to yourself, boy, I wish I was in that car.

Isn't that crazy how we do that?

Or you're walking up into the market and you look over, there's a 22-year-old beautiful human being over there, perfectly smooth skin, lush, brown hair.

It's all all brown.

That doesn't have all this silver that has started in the mind, this little gray, you got this little really this big gray thing right here.

Just a beautiful human being.

Their body probably never hurts.

And you think, man, to be beautiful like that again, that must be wonderful.

But you know, the 22-year-old's probably sitting there and sees me hobbling up there with all my brown and gray hair, and my muscles don't really show that much anymore.

And they see me with my three girls and my wife, and they think, oh, to build a family like that.

We just keep doing this to ourselves.

Like whatever we're in right now, today, present moment, the gifts we have now, we like trick ourselves that it's not enough.

That he's not enough in where we're at right now.

Single or married, family, no family.

We're torturing ourselves.

And this is where the Lord is my shepherd, can mean everything.

Because it rescues us from this sin, really, and this coping and these futile attempts to try to get contentment from things that will never love us back.

Or they're just total disillusionment.

Jesus says in John 10, 11, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

That's the kind of shepherd we have.

Unto death, the shepherd will love you.

The shepherd will spare nothing, not even himself, to provide contentment for you.

The cross is the place that we see ultimate love.

We'd say grace or one-way love.

Meaning that you are loved.

And a Tesla won't love you like this, and neither will a 96 Camry, neither one will.

That you are loved when you don't deserve it and you didn't earn it.

And there's nothing expected or required in response to it.

That's immaculate.

It's sufficient.

It's why a heart can know peace even when the heart is struggling or we're in a broken world.

That we can know that kind of lavish love and belonging and an inner validation.

How does this happen?

I ran into this quote this week.

Tim Keller on contentment says this.

If grace has really changed our hearts, we don't ultimately care if life goes the way we want it.

Now, I don't love that phrase, I'll just be honest.

It'll pause in the middle of that and I'll read it again, but I don't like it.

We don't ultimately care if life goes the way we want it, as long as we have him.

The joys of acclaim, wealth, and power are nothing compared to the eternal acclaim, wealth, and power we have in him.

A weaned child, talking about being weaned from the world, a weaned child is not just someone who knows this in principle, but who has worked gospel truths into his or her soul as spiritually sensed realities.

Internally, this quiets the soul into profound contentment and poise.

So, what does it mean to work gospel truths into our heart?

Well, let's just pretend like we're Elva Vanderbilt with a lot less money, apparently.

Well, yes, just true.

Or we're just floundering in unpeace.

All kind of swirly and tense.

I think working gospel truths into us can look like a bunch of things.

For me, it tends to look like just slowing down a bit to pray.

And a couple prayers here just for framework, not for ritual or repetition, but just for framework.

A first prayer could be something like a prayer of repentance in God's grace.

God's kindness leads us to repentance.

We know that, so we can pray something like Heavenly Father, reveal my heart's desire.

Reveal what my heart's doing.

That will never bring my heart peace.

That I might confess more and grow more astonished of your abundant supply for my heart.

Help me see what I'm doing.

That's so messed up or toxic or coping or unhelpful.

Help me see it so I can just confess it and help me to see how much you actually abundantly supply for my heart.

Moving into a second prayer, just following right up, is receiving God's grace.

Heavenly Father, remind me.

This is just kind of preaching the gospel to yourself, in Christ, help God remind me, in Christ I'm already forgiven.

I don't have to work for my forgiveness.

Remind me, in Christ, I'm already righteous.

I don't have to obsessively analyze my own righteousness report.

Heavenly Father, remind me, in Christ I'm already enough.

I don't have to earn enough or have enough or be enough.

In Christ, I already belong.

I don't have to find belonging in the world as to belong.

In Christ, I'm lavishly loved and I'm doted over by you.

That you want to be my shepherd.

And one of the wonderful things about church, and there are wonderful things about church, is the preached word over you and to you.

The reformers called it the normal means of grace.

The preached word and receiving communion.

That you come and we just need something from outside of ourselves.

Sometimes I pray and I leave the prayer and it's like I didn't even do anything, I just said words.

And sometimes I pray and it's like I feel amazingly relieved.

The wonderful thing about church is that you get to receive a word from outside of you.

And you get to receive it, and it gets to be spoken to you as truth.

And that's powerful.

That's a powerful practice.

And then you get to come forward with empty hands to receive communion as a reminder that we all come empty-handed before God.

And at the cross, empty-handed, we receive all the love we need, all the forgiveness we need, all the righteousness we need because of his word for us, not our work for him.

This is actually how God provides for us in the core of our hearts.

It changes everything when it comes to our worth, our forgiveness, our righteousness.

We have it all in Jesus.

It's the beginning of our contentment.

That He, the Lord, is my shepherd, is actually utter contentment for us.

Let's pray together.

God, I pray that you would grow us in this truth.

Not that we have arrived by any means, or that we will in this world arrive at utter contentment and everlasting peace, but help us to taste it more.

Help us to grow in grace.

Help us to grow in trust of how sufficient you are.

Help wean us from this world to the belonging we have in you that is powerful for our hearts and our souls.

That we wouldn't need the world to feel important.

We wouldn't need the world for us to feel like we have some peace, but actually we'd be free from it.

So we are at peace in the world.

God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus on the cross that takes all of our sin, all of our guilt and all of our shame for full forgiveness.

And we have your full righteousness given to us.

So we are forever yours.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.