Equip Online | Psalm 23 : Part 1

What's going on, Celebration Orlando, and family abroad?

I want to welcome you to Equip Online.

Our heart's desire is to have places like this where we can engage God's word and slowly walk through what it is we believe God is speaking to us.

I'm excited about um our session that we're gonna have over the next four segments, where we're gonna unpack some some detailed things that are found in Psalms 23, one of my favorite um passages of scripture in the Bible.

Let's let's read it together and let's unpack this um slowly.

Um Psalm 23, verse number one through six says this The Lord is my shepherd, I have what I need.

He lets me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he renews my life, he leads me along the right paths for his name's sake.

And even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are 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.

Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I shall live.

This is a beautiful, poetic, but theologically rich passage of Scripture that is written by King David.

I want to unpack this a little bit.

You know, when we are brought into this world, we have utter dependence upon our parents and our caregivers.

We we rely on them for everything.

And so the only thing that we can use to communicate what we need is our emotions.

When we're when we're hungry as children, we cry.

When we when we wet ourselves, we we we cry.

Those emotions are the only things we can really use to communicate that we're in need of something else.

We have utter dependence upon our loved ones.

But then we begin to get a little bit older and we're able to articulate our needs.

We're able to be more specific, and that's just part of the maturing process.

But a time comes when that small child begins to grow and now they're in other environments.

Um they start going to schools instead of depending on their parents exclusively, we begin to depend on teachers to to communicate and to teach us.

We depend on bus drivers to get us to schools safely.

We we depend on um the world, so to speak, to provide safety in the context of police officers and other things.

We begin to broaden our dependency.

And then we begin to hit that next stage where all of our parents understand us, that stage of independence.

That stage where we no longer need mom and dad for everything.

We actually can now look to others to fulfill our needs.

And that's a beautiful thing.

But the truth of the matter is we never really outgrow being dependent upon something.

We never outgrow being dependent on someone.

The truth of the matter is independence is our ability to choose what we're going to be dependent upon.

And so for some of us, as we get older, we begin to depend on our bosses and our places of work to provide for us.

We we depend on the colleges we go to to educate us.

We depend on uh the world system and the laws to protect us.

We can depend on the president to make decisions that's gonna help um to see the things that are on our heart come to fruition.

We can even depend on pastors and churches to build us up spiritually.

So the idea of us getting away from um being dependent is not something that we're really striving to do.

However, what I'll tell you is this passage is meant to help us usher ourselves into a place where we place that dependency on God.

Unfortunately, when we become independent in our household, we place our dependencies on people that can never fulfill it.

What God's desire is for us, is for us to place our dependency on Him.

That's really what Psalms 23 is really all about.

And I want to spend the next couple of minutes just unpacking what the first verse said.

Let's let's read it again.

The Lord is my shepherd, I have what I need.

Let's let's unpack this.

The word shepherd is often used in the Old Testament and it's referred to talking about God.

In fact, you can look in Psalm 80, verse 1, where God is addressing the Israelites, and he's saying that I am going to shepherd my people like David's flock of Joseph.

Psalms 80:1

You can also look at Genesis chapter 49, um, verse 24, as well as Ezekiel 34, 11.

Genesis 49 · chapter mention

We also see in in the Bible that Israel's kings were often referred to as shepherds.

And God says that after he deals with the false shepherds that led his people astray, that he himself is going to establish a shepherd over the people that's going to feed them and that's going to make sure that they're lacking nothing.

You can look at Jeremiah 23, 4 as well as Ezekiel 34, 2, and this.

And then to take this to its total fulfillment, we see that Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd.

We see this in John chapter 10, verse number 11.

John 10 · chapter mention

This messianic king, his goodness and his godliness giving life for his sheep.

So when David is saying that God is his shepherd, to acknowledge God as King, as his savior, and as the one who ultimately is going to meet every single one of his needs.

This is a direct inference when we confess that the Lord is our shepherd that we shall not want.

It means that God himself is going to provide every single thing that we need.

We we need to take moments where we understand and acknowledge that the Lord being our shepherd means that he's going to provide everything that we need.

Now, let's look at that word Lord for a moment, because that word Lord, and when we see it in this passage, is the personal name of God.

It's the word Yahweh, and it literally means the personal name of God.

It's almost like the same way that my first name is Keith, Yahweh is the personal name of God.

And what we get a chance to see when we unpack the varying usages of that name, we get a chance to get a robust understanding of who Yahweh is.

We see his name attached to so many powerful things.

Not only do we see it in the Old Testament with statements such as Jehovah Jirah, again, that that idea of God, my provider, we get to see him as Jehovah Rafi, God my healer, uh Jehovah Shalom, this God who brings me peace, we get a chance to see that inside of the name of God is also the provision, the power, the presence of God.

So when David is saying that the Lord is my shepherd, I have what I need, what he's saying is everything that God is, I have access to.

And because there are moments when I need peace, because the Lord is my shepherd, I have exactly what I need.

There are times when I'm going to need provision, I have exactly what I need.

There's going to be times where I need healing, I have exactly what I need.

Just because the Lord is my shepherd.

So how do we put this into practice?

Make it personal.

You know, the thing that I love that David writes here is that the Lord is my shepherd.

You see the ownership that he's taking on this journey?

He's not saying that the Lord is a shepherd.

He's not saying that the Lord is their shepherd.

He's saying that the Lord is my shepherd, that there's a moment where David is acknowledging the Lordship of God and he's making it personal.

Every single one of us have an opportunity to make it personal.

Maybe you know God as the God of your mother.

Maybe you know God as the God of your father, maybe the God of your grandmother.

But I believe when we really begin to benefit from the goodness that exists within God, it's when we make it personal.

The Lord is my shepherd.

My encouragement, my challenge for you is to evaluate whether or not you have truly made the Lord your shepherd.

Because in order for the Lord to be the shepherd and for us to get everything the shepherd has for us, is we have to be sheep.

We have to be willing to position ourselves and to listen and to follow the shepherd's lead.

Maybe that's your next step.

Maybe your next step is to evaluate the areas of your life where yes, the Lord is my shepherd in some areas, but I follow my own path in other areas.

But if the Lord has everything we need, maybe if we can position all of our needs and our dependencies upon him and allow him to shepherd us, that he's gonna lead us exactly where he needs to go.

Let me close this out with a prayer.

God, I pray that we can begin to recognize that you are truly our shepherd, and that in you we have everything that we need.

We recognize Jesus, the Messiah, as our shepherd, and he's going to lead us through the environments and the terrain and provide us with safety.

But God, I pray that we can keep our eyes upon you and trust the steps that you are ordering us with.

In Jesus' name, amen.