The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Lack Nothing | Psalm 23:1-6

Show Notes

Episode 802: 
In this episode, we dive into the rich themes of God's promises, specifically focusing on His provision as illustrated in the beloved Psalm 23. We highlight the promise that "I have all that I need," emphasizing God's abundant provision. We delve into the metaphor of the shepherd's cup, which symbolizes overflowing blessings rather than scarcity. This leads to a discussion on contentment, drawing parallels between David's assurance in God's provision and Paul's teachings in Philippians about finding contentment regardless of circumstances.

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You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible guys. It's good to be here. It is. It's very good, Jeff. In fact, it's so good that I wish I were nowhere. Else, only here, only here, only here, with with all of our listeners, and with all of our listeners stright just riding along in their car with the Lord. Yes. Oh, how do you know they're in the car? I don't know. I don't know. Uh, sitting on the couch. Do you think most people listen in the morning. I don't know. You have no idea? I have? You know where to track that? Yeah? There is. I can look it up. You keep talking and all you can look it up right now? Look it up right now? Wow. I wonder if anybody's curious? Yeah? Are they more like? Why are you wasting our time? Thirty seconds I could have gotten back from my life. Did you ever watch something and say I just wasted three minutes of my life. Yes, so I've listened to podcasts before, But. Up there it is. Let's see right while you're doing that, keep going. Let me just go ahead and say we're in a theme. This week we're talking about God's promises, and this week we're focusing God's provision. And today we're gonna go ahead and talk about Psalm twenty three, which is a very very very famous passage of scripture. Yes, a lot of people have this memorized. And before we do, we have a segment called Who's most Likely? Okay, all right, so it's Who's most likely and we're supposed to read it and then decide whether it's Chris or Jeff. Excellent. Yeah, so here you go. Look at Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it looks like they watch us mostly mostly in the evenings. Holy Christmas, you see that. Yeah, after lunch people are watching us. In the middle of the day at work. It looks like. We're at home at Thursday at home people. Wow. Yeah, yeah, isn't that amazing? No, is there any more? Graft is a slide. Let me see how it goes? No, that's it, huh yeah, but it goes all the way to like at the end there. Yeah. So wow. So you know, we have a lot of evening people after six pm, but we've got a bunch of two, three and four o'clockers too. Yeah, Friday, and then we've got a ton of just regular morning people Friday mornings. Huh, there's more people that watch us in the mornings. We have lots of So the episodes come out at like six am, right, sure, isn't it when they come out, and so we have a lot in the morning. But it's surprising how dense it is right there in that four five o'clock people are listening to us on the way home from work. Five six, seven. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Man. Well, well, then, good afternoon, good afternoon. Yes, that's funny. Do you ever see Spirited with Will Ferrell? And yes, Ryan and he says, good afternoon, good afternoon. He says, oh that was that was a doozy back in the day. Okay, So who's most likely here go Jeff number one? Okay, who's most likely to start a story and forget how it ends halfway through? Not me? I do it regularly. You're a story guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I'm a storyteller. But I get I get in the as on all the details and then forget where I was going. That's so funny. Yeah, I agree you, I don't. I usually now, I'd done that with jokes before, where I'll started joking I said, oh, I remember this joke, and then then I'll start, Hey, there was this guy, and then I said, I go, wait a minute, let me stop here, let me let me make sure I got this right. I did that the other day. I've done that with jokes before. All right, Number two. Who's most likely to text someone while standing right next to them? I did it in DLT when I was talking to Dave Wilson. I was going to say, I think it's you. Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, yeah, you You are very dialed into your phone. You're on your phone too much all the time, and very much. And by the way, do you do you're connected to text text immediately. I'm going to give you props on this. So, so you are very polite to me when you probably could probably tell me, hey, listen, I need you to put your phone down. You're very tolerant, very polite, because I do. I abuse it meetings sometimes and and I should just put it away. So and it's not that I have good manners or anything. It's just I hate having a leash. Yeah, and I feel like texting is a little bit of a leash listen to me right now, as opposed to, Hey, when you're done doing what you're doing, would you give me some attention just instead, it's everybody has this insistence that you apply right now. So I just don't ever for anybody make a promise I'm going to reply to a text right away, and so I get to it when it's my next time. But I also just put my phone down if I'm in a meeting. I don't always be I'm not always up there. Yeah, several hours before you even pick it up. Yeah, I just avoid not paying attention to it. So okay, it's just because that leash, all right. So that's me number three. Who's most likely to say you too to a waiter who says, enjoy your meal. I've done it. I kid you not. This just happened. This just happened to me. I went to the airport and I was getting Chick fil A breakfast, oh huh. And I went through the line and she gave me the bag and she said, enjoy your food. I said you doo. Yeah, And I said I mean thank you, and I walked away. Yeah, that's funny. Brian Reagan has that you. Yes, you do enjoy your movie. You too the next time you see a movie. If you're read to have a chance too. It was most likely to open the fridge, star inside, and then close it with no plan. That is me, just did it, Just did it? Just did it? Yep. Open the frigerator and I'm standing there and it dawns me. I don't know why I'm looking in the fridge. I just was walking past and they open the fridge looking. Yeah, well you have a fancy fridge where you can see what's inside. Yeah, on my phone right now. Yeah, I can see what's on my fridge right now. In your fridge. Yeah. And by the way, just to be clear, you inherited that fridge. Yeah, when we bought the house, it came with it. Yeah. So you didn't seek this feature. This, this feature fell upon you. No. But now that I have it, I. Don't understand why anybody would need ye. I don't know why anybody other than other than hey. I'm at Kroger. Do we have milk? That's what happens sometimes, is that then. Sometimes you have containers or you can't see really yeah, you're like it looks like we have milk, but I didn't know that. We can't just tell that it's half an inch of milk. Yeah, you can. Look at fridge. Yeah, so right now my fridge is telling me that the door is closed, which is really good, and then I can turn it up and down. Yeah. See, there's everything in my fridge. So I got some salad there that needs to be fixed. We have some it's in there. There's some hot dogs down there. I can't believe we're got eggs. I can't believe we're using people's minutes for the it's but it's fascinating. I can't I can't turn away. I can't look at it. What's having the look? You know we could we could do a live cam from our listeners. Yeah, just so they can watch what's in my fridge all day every day and then you see how many times the doors go open. Okay, number five here and this is the last. Okay, Okay, who's most likely to leave the house and realize halfway they forgot their keys again? Yeah? I do it, do you? Yeah? I'm a forgetful person. Yeah, I do forget things. But by the way, keys, I only have car keys. I don't have any other keys. So I can't forget my keys because I can't start my car without my keys, right, I don't have keys for anything else. Yeah, so I forget stuff all the time. Yeah, I do forget things. So there's plenty of times where I'll be like bye, guys, and I'll leave, and then three minutes later, the door opens and they don't even ask, they don't say, hey, Dad, is that you. They're just like, oh, you forgot something, right, run in and grab something, and then go back out. So I went out to my truck. This just just happened. When out my truck, same thing. I can't start my truck without my keys. Yeah. I go out and it's really really bright, and I have light colored eyes, right, so bluish eyes. So and then I had some trouble a number of years ago, and some really affected by outdoor light. Bright outdoor light. So walk out and I'm squinting. I'm get my sunglasses and so I jump up in the truck. See my sunglasses. They're not there. And then I realized, oh, I don't have my keys. So I run in the house. I run all the way upstairs, all the way down the hallway to our bedroom. I run in, I grab my sunglasses, run all the way back down and get back in the truck, go to start the truck. Don't have my keys. I just told myself I need to get my key right, and then they said I had to run all the way back upstairs. So it just happened. That's double level. This just happened. Yeah, that's a new level there. Yeah, so I think you win me that one for sure. Okay, Well, hey, that's just a little bit about us, that's it in case you were curious. Yes, yes, yes, so talking about curious, I don't know. I don't have anything something about me. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. Uh, you know, the only thing more fascinating than what's in your fridge? What's that saw? I'm twenty three? No, well it is bad transition. Oh that's a terrible transition. Yeah. That's what we're always trying to do is have the worst possible transition. Oh how about this one? How about this one? Okay, there's only six verses, and so I'm twenty three, and each one of them stand on their own like different ingredients, just like in. Your in my fridge. Yeah yeah, okay, that was worse. Yeah, that was terrible. It was terrible. Hey, can I tell you about something? I guess you're just just had some people over at our house the other day, you know, Yes, And I decided to grill for them. Yes, And I was going to I've got you've been in my office. In my house, I have yeah, forty fifty cookbooks that just weird, so I like reading recipes. I could not find what I wanted to make for them, and I was I kept thinking in my mind, I want to make something for fall. Yeah, I couldn't think of anything, couldn't think anything. All of a sudden, I had this brain explosion and I'm all excited, and I decided I was going to make and I didn't have a recipe for it. I was going to make a cider, a cider braised or what's marinated? A cider marinated chicken breasts. And then I started digging in. I finally come up with this recipe for cider and sage and all this stuff is really really good. And then I went to sleep, and I was really proud of myself. And while I was sleeping, I thought, you know what I should do. I should smoke those on a cedar plank. So they were smoked cider and sage chicken. Breast chicken bread. They were so good, yes, very much. Fall. I wouldn't want it in the spring, but it was so good for fall, and those things were in my fridge. So that's what was in there. Full circle, here we go. Let's get the song. Twenty three. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Psalm twenty three is probably, as far as chapters go, the most famous chapter and one of them. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many favorites, but Psalm twenty three is probably most famous chapter in the Bible, don't you think. I definitely think so. Yeah, yeah, because it's a whole chapter. It's only six verses, and people have heard it mostly at funerals. Yeah, that's right, and most people have heard it King James, that's right, right, yep. So in the King James it says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters, He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. And yea, though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the midst of in the presence of mine enemies. Now annoying is my head with oil my cup runneth over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So that's the King, James. So, I was so fascinated by Psalm twenty three that I read this book called Shepherd's Guide or Shepherd's View whatever it's called Psalm twenty three, and the whole book broke down every verse. Oh. I had somebody give me that book. Yeah. Yeah, it was a small book. Yeah, And I was so fascinated with it that it says, oh, every shepherd knows this, Every shepherd knows this, Every shepherd knows this. And I left to myself, do they though, because I'm a skeptic and so uh, And I was fascinated with the applications of all these things. I mean, they're they're so insightful that every time I mentioned them, even reference mentioned them, people go no way, right, And so, but then when I was in Israel, we were driving from the north to the south. We're coming from Nazareth down to Jerusalem, and then there's like a stretch there where it's like it's it starts to get more barren. Right, So there's like it's it's it's it's greener up north northern Israel, it is greener, and then as you come down it gets it gets more barren, which means you have to go down into the valleys to get the grass. Right. And so anyway, so I'm walking riding down this road and I see a shepherd and I said, pull over, pull over. So they pulled over. We flagged this guy down, convinced them that we weren't going to harm him. And then I just said, hey, here's a Bible. And I said, I don't know if you're a Christian or not, but I said, let me just show you Psalomon. He said, I'm familiar with this. And I said, I just have a question. I said, does every shepherd have a rod, a staff, and a cup? And he showed me everything. He said, here's here's the rod, here's the staff. And he had a bag on his on his like a satchel thing, and he opened the bag and he had actually it was like a you know, in my mind it's a goblet. It's the it's the Riders of the Arc goblet. Right. But but he had a he had a flip cup like this, right, hit a cup and it's made for medicine. Did you know that? Oh? So, so every shepherd when they when they take there, some of some of them will if the herd's big enough, what they'll do is they can only graze in a spot long enough, right, So they if they can't overgraze on a spot. And if you overgraze a spot, that spot will be dead for a year. Yeah, because sheep grab and pull up by the roots. Yes, cow's bite grass off at the top, but the sheep will pull it up by the roots. If you overgraze, it won't ever grow back. So what happens is a person with a big, huge herd, what they'll do is they'll actually go on a journey. And and if it's a big enough you know, herd, and it's a big enough journey and it's scarce enough, they can go on a year's journey. They'll they'll literally go away from their home and they'll take care of the sheep and they'll be in different sectors before they make their way all the way back home. And so what happens is every shepherd, if they go, you know, just for a week or a month or whatever, they try to take just enough medicine with them on the journey. And then what ends up happening is when a sheep does need something and a sheep is sick, or oil or whatever it is for their head or whatever, they pull out and they try to think to themselves, I wonder how many sheep are going to get sick. So what they do is they always apply in scarcity. It's always minimum amount, always because they say, I don't know, I don't know what I don't know what this journey is going to bring, so I'm gonna I'm not going to overuse. I'm gonna give just enough. So the idea of a cup that a shepherd has is always minimum provision. Always. And so when David, who grew up as a shepherd, says, yeah, I get emotional thinking about it. He says, my cup overflows. In other words, there's no minimum, there's nothing held back, right because the Lord is my shepherd. Got everything I need from all that. I need, I have all that I want and so and so so each one, each of these verses carries this huge shepherd truth and it's like, wow, we don't we don't because we didn't you know, we don't raise as shepherds. So so we don't understand how rich this is. And there's only a few I mean, you think about it. You know, God carries the theme of clay in the potter's hand right all the way from the Old Testament Jeremiah all the way to Romans right, So it's a theme that goes throughout the Bible. And of course you know the comparisons are just deep and rich and wide, right, and then and then I would say, this is the other strong theme. We're we're shepherds. Jesus says, I'm the gate, I'm the shepherd. They know my voice. You know. The Pastords called a shepherd, right, the sheep or the flock. I mean, it's a rich comparison. And uh and it's and it's a great comparison. So what is the job of the sheep? The job of the sheep, Well, the job of the sheep is to live and be taken care of and then provide wool I guess, right, but to give back to the shepherd, right. Produce produce purpose that either you're going to produce wool or food milk, right, So yeah, but that the job of the sheep is to produce. So the shepherd's job is to provide the environment to be able to help the sheep produce everything that needs to be produced. So leading, protecting, feeding, all those things, those are tasks. They're not the purpose of the shepherd. They're the tasks of the shepherd because his purpose is to help the sheep produce for the king, right, And that's our job as pastors. A lot of people think, you know, they they think of their pastor as like their personal family. Chaplain right, you know, I need you to lead me and needs you to feed me. I need you to protect me spiritually. I need you to take care of me. And those are tasks that we have. But our primary purpose is to help the sheep in the church produce for God's kingdom. That's great, right for the king. So anyways, this the Lord is my shepherd, right, and I have nothing that I need. The promise is that that's the promise. Is I have all that I need? That's right? Now? Hey, check it out this book. It started out with that sentence, and it said, you know who owns the sheep based on the quality of sheep. So this shepherd talked about like like they all know this. If they see a scrawny sheep filled with thistles and and all these kinds of things, they're like, oh, that belongs. To that guy, right, because he doesn't take every he. Didn't take care of sheep. And sometimes there's a brand on a sheep, and so they'll know sometimes there's a tag, and if the tag is a certain color, right, And but technically the book talked about how you can know, oh, if a sheep is well taken care of, groomed properly, they're healthy, they behave and they all stay together and there and they're so there's his model sheep. He is Every shepherd can think to themselves, oh, that sheep belongs to either that guy or that guy or that family or that family, right, right. And so when he says the Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need. What David is really saying is my brand is the Lord, right, And so everybody knows that if God's my shepherd, I'm. Taking care of that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the direct. So I love this. You know, in the last one yesterday when we were reading in the Philippians, Paul says the context, you know, he's going to provide everything you need. He's talking first of all, from a place of contentment. Yeah, and provision. Right, I'm content. Doesn't matter that I'm in prison, doesn't matter all these things. I'm content. God's gonna take care of me. God's gonna take care of you too. And I can do all things through christis strength is me. And then today two times right, the Lord is my shepherd. I have all I need. And then, as you mentioned, my cup overflows. Yes, right, yes, because more than enough, because that's God giving. Right. And I've been reading this book. It's sitting on my table and my office called the Gap in the Game. I don't know if you've seen it. So the premise we met, I mentioned it in this week's message, just briefly, one of the points. But so, most people don't feel content in Western society. There's a lack of contentment. Part of that is we're so unbelievably rich. We have the opportunity to contemplate and the time to contemplate. Am I really content? Most people are scrambling for food and for life in most of the rest of the world, and so contentment's not even an option. It's just right survival. But here's the thing. So in our system in the US, Thomas Jefferson wrote that you know, in our founding documents life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So most of human history people have been been striving for life, and most of human history people have been striving for liberty. Right, those two things are important. But the idea of the pursuit of happiness, not happiness, the pursuit of it. We have it so baked into our culture that we genuinely believe happiness is out there. And then we have an entire social media system that tells us everybody we know is happier than we are. Right, everybody you scroll through and all your friends are on vacation in the Bahamas. They're only eating lobster, they're only laughing, they're only wear the fanciest clothes. They all just got a brand new purse, they all just got a new thing, and they only ever go to parties. And your life stinks. All you have is laundry, is screaming kids, Right, right, that's all you got. So somebody once said that social media, everybody posts the highlight reels, not they're blueper reels. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so we've got this desire for pursuit of happiness. And so there's two ways to live your life. And I think Paul teaches us this, and I think that David, because of his walk with God, is picking up on this. If you have an ideal that you're trying to live up to, this pursuit of happiness thing, you're always measuring it by your reality and there's a gap between your reality and your ideal, and so you spend most of your time not content. You're not really thrilled. Things should be better. Oh, I know other people who have more. It's why as wealthy as we are, you know, Americans on average, just the average American is in the top two percent wealthiest people in the history of the world, not just the world, the history of the world, right, right, that's what I say, in the history of the world. And so we're right now there's eight billion, but there were more billions before us. But we are fat, blessly wealthy, and yet we're not very content, right, And it's because we're living in the gap between our reality and some ideal of the pursuit of happiness. We have this weird idea that there's something more for us out there that's going to be more happy. Finally, all my wildest dreams have come true. As opposed to the gain drives me to this idea of look how much, Look how far we came, and especially from a shepherd's perspective, right, looking back, Well, we've come a long way. Right, we started at that end of the valley, or we started a way over there, and look how far we've come. When you start measuring how far you've come, you can be very content, saying, God, you have really blessed me right where I started, in poverty, where I started, in struggle, where I started all these things. Look how far you brought me? God, Right, look how far he's brought our nation. We don't have a perfect nation, but we've come a long way. Right, look at what he's done to just bring in how far humanity has come. And so we have some opportunities to improve. So I'm inspired to continue to improve. But God, I am very content because you brought me so far. And so it's interesting with Paul. He goes, it doesn't matter whether I'm in chains or whether I'm free, whether I have a lot or a little bit. Yesterday, He's like, God's brought me a long way. And I think it's the same thing. You've got a shepherd talking about the good shepherd who continues You lead me. Besides still waters, you make me rest right, all those things, you guide me along the right path. And so he's really seeing the journey is where I'm finding my satisfaction. There's a lot of contentment knowing, Hey, we're going somewhere. The Shepherd's taking me the right place. Now I can have contentment knowing he's taking me to the right place rather than some fake ideal that I think I'm supposed to live up to because all my friends are doing it, yeah, and they're not satisfied. And I don't have time to regurgitate this whole book that I read. But I just want to say one statement, which is, each of these together is the journey, right, just like you said. But at the same time, each verse is also a very detailed and meaningful picture of God's provision and protection all in the way right. So in other words, in other words, it's always God giving, right, So so if you think about the six verses, it sort of it sort of lines up by David saying, Okay, God's my shepherd. I have everything I need and let me tell you how. And he says he does this for me. He does this for me. Yeah. Yeah, And that has to do with protection because sheep can't swim, so so you know, I mean there again, there's there's nuggets in here, right, we don't have time to talk about it, but like what the heck I brought it up. A sheep won't go near running water because it's definitely afraid. So the shepherd will always I mean always maybe. But what he'll do is, in order to drink, you used the end of the crook of his staff, and he'll make like a stack so that they so it says, he leaves me beside still waters. It's a form of provision, right, so so it's think it's about still God getting. He'll make a uh uh, he'll pull water out of the moving stream, that's right, create a soft pool or a gentle pool. And what's so funny as we hear this at funerals a lot because it says, and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever. Right, and it's also a beautiful postcard scene, you know, like still waters and green. Meadows, even though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death. We have we have that piece too, Yeah, we have that piece right, right, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. But but the idea is is that each step of the journey for the sheep is God giving and God providing, which is why the promise that we're focusing on today is verse number one. I have all that I need, So that's our time for sure. That's fantastic. Yes, good stuff, all. Right, So hey, hopefully we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,