Shepherd (Psalm 23)
Summary
In this guest sermon, Pastor Patrick Joslyn opens one of the most familiar passages in Scripture and asks whether it's actually possible to live a Psalm 23 life: without lack, without fear, and from a place of rest. Drawing on his own long seasons of loneliness, chronic illness, and a cancer diagnosis, Patrick imagines David writing this psalm while hiding in a cave from King Saul. He shows that the psalm isn't wishful thinking but a worldview centered on the "with-God life." Contrasting the grind and escape of modern life with the restoration Jesus offers, Patrick reminds us that the life with God is not a life without valleys. It is a life where no valley is ever God-forsaken.
Questions for reflection
Patrick describes a "common cadence of loneliness" running through his life. Where have you felt that same cadence, and how has it shaped the way you relate to God and to others?
David writes "I lack nothing" while hiding in a cave from a king who wants him dead. What do you feel you lack right now? What would it look like to view that lack through a bigger, "with-God" worldview?
Patrick names three ways we approach life: grind, escape, or restoration. Which do you default to most often? What would it look like to practice real restoration this week?
"The life with God is not a life without valleys. It is a life where no valley is ever God-forsaken." Think of a dark valley you've walked through. Where, looking back, can you see that God was with you?
Patrick says Psalm 23 "isn't about what David is doing. It's about where David's attention is." What most often pulls your attention away from God's presence, and what's one practice that could help you return to it?
At the close of the sermon, Patrick asks, "What in this teaching do you want to be true?" How would you answer that question, and what would it look like to hand that desire to God in prayer?
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Patrick Joslyn:
My name is Patrick. I'm one of the pastors up at Presence Church in Ankeny. Me and your pastor have gotten to know each other through this really cool group of pastors that have been getting together at another church, just to get together and pray for one another, to be able to talk through kind of church—I don't want to say issues, but just the life of the church. And let me tell you, it is so cool to see what God is doing in the Des Moines metro area through pastors that have so much in common coming together to pray for one another, to seek the good of their churches and community together. It's very normal in the church world to have this competitive nature, and that seems to be less and less existent among churches here. So I was so excited when I was invited to come and share the word with you guys. It just feels like the continuation of that vision of the kingdom of heaven coming more and more to bear in the Des Moines metro area.Now, I do read a lot. I've always loved reading. I blame my parents, because I was homeschooled. Anyone else homeschooled in the room? There's just a couple of you. Congratulations. Yeah. It was great. There were lots of benefits to it. One of them was I got to read a lot of the classics early on, whether it was C. S. Lewis or Tolkien or Stan Lee. I didn't have as much time with friends, so I had a little bit of awkwardness into my teenage years. And I'll be honest with you, I spent a lot of time kind of lonely. Like, I really enjoyed my life, and I enjoyed the couple friends that I had, and I enjoyed time with my church and my youth group and things like that. But there was just this common cadence through my life of loneliness.
Then I graduated and I went to real school—no—to college. And I majored in a couple things before going into pastoral ministry. I majored in teaching for just a little bit. I majored in counseling for just a tad. But what I really spent a lot of my time doing is I majored in theater, which just drained all the awkwardness out of me. The inability to talk in front of people was just completely removed. But I really, really loved theater. Love, like, movies, love acting and stuff. But a part of what was hard about acting was I was constantly being other people and not myself. And so that common cadence that went through middle school to high school continued on into my college years—of knowing a lot of people, being really social, hanging out. When you're in theater, you get to know the other actors and the crew and stuff really well. But in some ways, we were all just wearing masks all of the time. And so that common cadence of loneliness continued.
I also, at 16, 17 years old, began to get diagnosed with some different autoimmune diseases. And if you've ever experienced that in your life, what that causes is there seems to be a layer—like a wall up, a transparent wall up—between you and other people that they can't see. And it causes this little bit of separation in your life. So through my 20s, I became more and more fatigued. And I ended up not being able to finish school. I had a hard time keeping jobs. I had a hard time hanging out with friends and stuff, because I was just tired all the time. I was pretty sick. And my friends couldn't quite understand. Other people couldn't quite understand. And so that common cadence continued—of just kind of loneliness, of sadness, of anxiety.
Now, God graced me with a beautiful wife, and she has been my rock. She's my best friend. But when I turned 30 years old, I ended up getting diagnosed with cancer. I had colon cancer. I ended up having to go and stay in the hospital and stuff. And that was an even lonelier time. It was like the cadence of loneliness continued on from high school into my 20s, to just a beating drum of being alone in my room, resting, hoping that I would feel better.
And it was during that time that one of the only things I could do was read books. It was watching TV or movies and stuff and reading books. One of my favorite writers talked about one of the things that he would do every morning: he would say Psalm 23 to himself in the morning. It was the first words when he woke up. And so I tried to begin to adopt that, because I couldn't do a lot. There were a lot of days I had a hard time even just getting out of bed. So I tried to begin adopting this posture of saying Psalm 23 as I woke up in the morning. And that served me well.
But like most things in life—until you walk through something, those kinds of scriptures, those kinds of experiences, those things you know in your head, don't leak down into your heart until you walk through something really hard. And so for me, when I eventually had to go and do a long stay in the hospital in order to have a surgery for my cancer, to have it removed, I remember that was kind of my deepest valley moment, because it was during COVID. So if you got to stay in the hospital during COVID, you know that everyone around you wore masks. You were allowed one visitor at a time, and no one could spend the night with you. And I got to share a room with a gentleman that was much sicker than I was, so I couldn't even feel bad for myself as I was there.
And man, it's funny now—not funny then—but he was sick enough that he barely slept, so he had the TV on constantly. So we would just listen to Blue Bloods, the news, and fishing shows on repeat for about a week. But I remember one night where the TV was eventually off for whatever reason. And I remember just being so full of anxiety, so full of loneliness. Wondering when I was going to be able to get home. Wondering how I could even just connect with another person—even my wife, who could barely spend time with me there. And the words of Psalm 23 came to my mind: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."
We all understand that experience in some way. We all have a dark valley that we walk through. We all have times where we feel lonely. We all have times where we feel like we lack. We all know loneliness—whether it's being alone relationally, whether it's feeling tired and you feel like you can't even walk through the day, whether you're just anxious about the world around you and you don't know what tomorrow is going to look like.
And then we read passages like John 14:27, where Jesus says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." But if we're really honest, sometimes we read those things and it does not feel true. John Mark Comer writes, "Many of us live with a low-grade fatigue and chronic anxiety that rarely, if ever, goes away."
So much of our city, whether it's Ankeny or Des Moines, is constantly trying to build our lives past these feelings—whether it's through success with work or with family, or it's building wealth, or just trying to enjoy the good life: go on as many vacations as possible and get as big a house as possible. But if we're honest, none of that really works. We still have that cadence of loneliness and anxiety that drives through our life.
One of my favorite things about Psalm 23 is David understands that feeling. And so the question we're going to ask today is: is it possible to live a Psalm 23 life? A life without lack—to live unafraid, to live unanxiously, to live a restful life? And what does this song of David have to teach us about it?
So, if you know, most of the Psalms are written by King David, right? Let's try to do a little bit of imagination, though. Let's try to imagine ourselves writing this psalm along with him. So if you know the story of David, David is a shepherd boy at first. Because during this time, Israel, who is supposed to be ruled by God—they're supposed to be this set-apart nation that doesn't have a king. In fact, they're just ruled over by God speaking to them. They decide they want to be like the other nations, and they begin to ask for a king. And so God, being a gracious God, says, "You know what? You've asked for it. I'm going to go ahead and give it to you." And so he gives them King Saul, who looks like every other king. That's what they wanted, right? He's strong. He's brave. He's intelligent. He's, like, the Chris Evans of kings.
But slowly but surely, he begins to turn away from God. And so God decides that he will pull the kingship, pull the throne, away from Saul. And he's going to call someone after his own heart. And that man is the then-boy David. A small shepherd boy that we know is also handsome, but maybe not as handsome. He's not strong. Maybe he's a little bit brave, but not in the same ways as Saul. In a lot of ways, he's the exact opposite.
And so when King Saul learns that he's going to lose his throne to David, he does what we all do when we learn we're going to lose position or influence. He goes after him with his armies, with his swords and his chariots. He begins to hunt David and his slowly growing band of followers down. And David, because he's a man after God's own heart, knows that he should not just kill a king. That would not be the way to start a new reign. And so the entire time that Saul is going after him, hunting him down, David is hiding in the wilderness. He's hiding in the caves, waiting for God to show up and deliver him.
And so I want you to imagine David in this place—in the wilderness, being pursued, betrayed, and uncertain about the future—where he begins to write this psalm, which begins with, "The Lord is my shepherd."
Let's take note that this is the primary way that David seems to relate to God. It's to relate to God as someone that leads, that cares for, that protects. That's what a shepherd does, right? He leads his sheep. He cares for his sheep. He stands and protects them when predators come. This is the picture that David has of God.
And it's not only David. I imagine David is getting this passed down through the Hebrew Scriptures. All throughout the Bible, we have this picture of God as a shepherd. For example, in Genesis, it says, "Then he blessed Joseph and said, 'May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day…'" Or we go forward to Isaiah, the prophet, and he writes about God like this. He says, "He tends his flock like a shepherd"—look at this imagery—"He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."
There's this picture that the Hebrew Scriptures have of God—not this, like, powerful storm king driving people this way and that, but a gentle shepherd, caring first and then guiding those along. Over and over again in the library of Scripture, God is called shepherd.
In fact, Jesus himself uses this language. There's a story where Jesus, after a long time of ministry with the disciples, looks at the disciples and says, "Guys, let's go and let's rest together." And so they get in a boat, and they're going to, like, a little vacation spot to rest and pray and do whatever else disciples did in their time off. But it says that Jesus looks at where they're going to go, and—surprise, surprise—the people had heard that he was going to be there. So there's these crowds of people. And how does Jesus respond? Jesus looks at them— [Scripture on screen not captured in the transcript.] Jesus says this about himself— [Scripture on screen not captured in the transcript.]
So not only does Jesus say the shepherd protects, cares for, and guides, but ultimately, the shepherd is willing to lay his life down for the sheep.
See, Psalm 23 is really about one core thing. It is showing us a new way of life. A life without lack. A life full of rest. A life without anxiety or fear. Psalm 23 is revealing the with-God life—what it looks like to really walk with God every day in his presence, knowing he's there.
The with-God life is the way that Dallas Willard talked about it. Thomas à Kempis called it a familiar friendship with Jesus. This is what the monk Brother Lawrence called practicing the presence of God. It is living life in constant communion with the Father—living life as if he is already active in every room you walk into. As if, when you're having a conversation, God is already in conversation in the midst of that. As if you have access to his resources and presence in every moment.
It is this that Jesus is talking about in John 15 when he says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." And so the rest of Psalm 23 really drives out of this idea that there is a life with God that we can have. So let's look at the different pieces.
The first is, "I lack nothing." Somehow, in the midst of the cave, being hunted by the king, David declares that he lacks nothing. And that's so funny, because as I was thinking about this sermon and trying to place myself in David's shoes, I don't know how he feels like he lacks nothing. I sit in a comfortable apartment with enough money, with enough time, with enough friendships and stuff, and I still feel like I lack.
How many of you today feel like maybe you lack a little bit of resources? Maybe you lack time. Maybe you lack relationship. Right now, my wife has been out of town for a while, and my six-month-old is doing sleep regression. I lack sleep. And so I sat praying this psalm this week and going, "The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing"? Sleep, God. I would really like sleep. But somehow, in the midst of the cave, David is able to say, "I lack nothing."
Here's the thing. David was not viewing just what was right in front of him. David saw a bigger picture. His worldview was bigger. He knew who was providing for him. It's like my daughter. My daughter is almost three. And there is never a day that my daughter comes to me worried that we lack goldfish. She comes to me and she asks for goldfish. She's never worried about it. And she's right. We always seem to have goldfish or milk or any other kind of snack. My daughter lives this life where she knows that I'm going to provide for her. And so she lives a life where she knows that she lacks nothing. And it's this kind of childlike innocence that David is saying in the psalm that we can also have.
And if we're honest, statements like this honestly make us uncomfortable, because they just don't always line up with our felt reality. But that's part of what makes this psalm special. You guys have been in a series in the Psalms for the last couple months, so you guys have heard a lot of different ones. A lot of different psalms are prayers, right? Some of them are songs of worship. Some of them are lament—like deep valley moments where people are complaining to God. Some of them are those weird psalms that have things that we would never say, like, "God, would you just, like, strike down my enemies?" I don't even have enemies. I'm reading those psalms and I'm going, I'm not quite sure what to do with this, God. I don't have anyone I want you to strike down, but, you know, whatever.
But Psalm 23 is special, because Psalm 23 isn't any of those. Psalm 23 is instead a worldview, okay? What is a worldview? Webster's Dictionary says a worldview is "a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint." All that's to say, your worldview is where you stand and how you view the world, right?
For example, okay: if you believe that there are secret lizard people running our government—I'm not making any judgment—but if you believe that, you are going to view the government in specific ways, right? If you believe that your favorite sports team loses all the time not because they're bad but because someone's paying off the refs, you're going to have a different experience watching it.
But worldview is really important because it's not only how you view the world—our worldview forms us into who we will become. A couple of examples. If you believe that the world is on your shoulders—the buck stops with you, you don't need others, you can't really trust people, you need to work as hard as you can to make the life that you want—that is going to form you into a kind of person. It's going to be an untrusting person, a driven person, but a person that is unable to grow close to others. You are always going to hold them off. If you believe that life is just one big party, that you're always going after the next fun thing, you're going to struggle growing close with others. You're going to struggle to heal from past wounds, because you're not going to be willing to confront the hard things in your life. Your worldview will form you into the person that you will become.
And there's lots of different worldviews out there. One of the main ones that we deal with in our time is secularism, right? Secularism is life inside a closed world. It's a world where just what is right in front of you is real. That the most important person is yourself, that you get to determine your own truth, and that every day is organized by yourself—that you have control of the reality that's right in front of you.
There's this quote I came across. It's from the book Why Liberalism Failed. Not worried about the politics, but listen to this. It's a description of the world we live in. And as I'm reading, I want you to compare that with Psalm 23: "Gratitude to the past and obligation to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification: culture, rather than imparting the wisdom and experience of the past so as to cultivate virtues of self-restraint and civility, becomes synonymous with hedonic titillation, visceral crudeness, and distraction, all oriented toward promoting consumption, appetite, and detachment."
This is what sociologists have come to call the immanent frame. The only thing that is real is what is in front of you. It is unable to see anything transcendent, anything spiritual, anything of God. We only see what's in our bank account. We only see what the news media puts in front of us, what our algorithms are curating for us. All that's real becomes what's right in front of you.
And here's why I bring that up—not to just talk about secularism, but that way of thinking is so opposite of the with-God life. It is unable to see God. It is unable to see the ways that he's providing for you. Without a with-God worldview, you will always lack.
But David has a different worldview. He believes that God is with him, that God is for him, that the resources of the kingdom of heaven are available to him. Over and over, David knows God has shown up for him again and again and again, and he knows that God will show up for him again and again and again. And it is because of this that David is able to write, "I lack nothing."
Verse 2: "He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul." The second picture is honestly one that I have to remind myself of over and over again: that ultimately, the way of the shepherd leads to rest.
Did you know there is only one place in the Gospels where Jesus talks about his inner disposition towards us? Like, his posture towards you—how he sits and looks at you. And it's this—it's one of my favorite verses, Matthew 11:28–29: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."
It is so easy to get so hurried and busy in our relationship with Jesus. It's easy to get so hurried and busy in our daily life. See, we can get busy in a relationship with Jesus where we're just trying to fill our life with activities and church stuff and Bible reading plans and small groups—all good things. But if they're pulling our attention away from God and we're getting more and more hurried, we begin to try to get our treasure from those things instead of God. Does that make sense?
There's other types of cultures that we can get involved in. There's, like, hustle culture, right? Where life is just—you are constantly trying, you're constantly pursuing, right? You're trying to get the good life on your own back. Don't rest; that's for the people that are weak. You are strong. Grind it out. The problem with that is that you begin to define your worth by your work—by the results of your life. And the real big problem with that is, at some point, you are going to break down. Your back will break, whether it's now or in the future.
But what Jesus has to offer—what God has to offer—is rest for your souls. If the way you are following Jesus is leaving you exhausted and at your end, then it is not what Jesus wants for you. He wants to lead you beside quiet waters. He wants you to be able to lie down and rest.
See, there's really three ways we approach life today. It's either grind, escape, or restoration. The grind says, work until the work is done, even if the work undoes you. You're just going to grind it. You're going to work as hard as you can until it's completely finished. Or escape, where you say, walk away from the work and pretend it no longer needs you. Or restoration, that says, lay the work down, let your soul be made new, then return with the strength to do what love asks of you. A quick word on each.
Do you know what the life under a grind looks like? It's anxious. It's hurried. It's chaotic, right? It's waking up at 5 a.m. and feeling like the to-do list starts right away. It's going and working out or getting your Bible study done, and then getting the kids together and then getting lunch together and making coffee and making sure everyone gets out the door okay. And then you work and you work and you work and you work until it's done. Maybe you get home in time for dinner, and then you work after dinner. And maybe you get to bed between 10 and 11, but you are exhausted. A full life is not the problem. The problem is the hurry that life leads you to.
Carl Jung said, "Hurry is not of the devil; it is the devil." Psychologists, health scientists have shown us that extreme hurry, extreme tiredness, more and more leads to short-term memory loss, forgetfulness, sleepy drowsiness at inopportune times. Have you ever been sitting down for a conversation with someone—or maybe, like, at work—and you feel yourself slowly falling asleep in front of them? Your relationships can begin to break down because you become a little more crabby, a little more irritable, a little more impatient. And I would say this is probably the biggest problem: you are unable to resist temptation. Whatever that is in your life that the devil leads you to, you find yourself less and less able to resist him.
In fact, hurriedness and tiredness—this idea of tiredness, of not resting—is what they use in war camps when they're interrogating people, right? If you were to go to North Korea or somewhere like that, where they had camps with prisoners and they're interrogating them, one of the interrogation techniques they would have is they would keep them from sleeping, to break them down. This is not life to the fullest. This is not what Jesus has on offer. From our great shepherd, what he has on offer is rest.
And escape? Escape is just as bad, right? It's the opposite. It's when you go home at the end of the day and you just need a break. It's when you're like, "Listen, I just need to go get a drink." "Listen, I just need to go ahead and find my best friend, couch." How many of you have couch as a best friend? Couch never judges you. Couch is always there for you. Couch is always inviting you. The best part about couch is couch will let you watch whatever you want. You want to watch The Office for four hours? Go for it. Couch isn't going to stop you.
But the more and more we lean into that—let me tell you, you will grow numb. You will grow apathetic. Have you ever binge-watched a TV show? Don't lie. Okay? I remember lots of times binge-watching through shows. I never feel motivated towards love after that. I'm numb. I'm apathetic. I may be a little bit happy, but I'm not the best version of myself. In fact, escape will leave you more and more depressed. Disappointed. You'll spend your time scrolling. If I really wanted to give you a wake-up call, I'd ask you to get your phone out and look at your screen time. How much time have you spent on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok? I have never felt motivated towards love after spending an hour on TikTok. Escape will leave you isolated, because escape [moves you] away from people, not towards people. This is not the life Christ has on offer.
Christ has restoration for you. See, my friends, you don't need a vacation. What you need is retreat with him. You don't need a day off. A day off is good—I love a day off—but what you really need is a Sabbath. Time where you really stop working, put the work away, put the electronics away, and you're able to just [spend] time with those that you love and enjoy your hobbies. To be really present with yourself and God and spend time in worship. That will be the best. The with-God life is a life lived from rest. You and I need to find a way of restful restoration with him that carries out through the rest of our life.
Which leads us to the next picture in the psalm: "He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake." The shepherd is not looking for you to just sit and rest. The idea is that life flows out of that. He is looking to then walk with you through your life. See, one of the fun pastor phrases I heard this week was, we need to stop having just with-God time; we need to have a with-God life.
But here's the part that I think we really do need to hear. David is not pretending that there is not a cave. As David is sitting and writing these things, he's not sitting there and saying, "Life is great, I lack nothing," and just pretending like he's not where he's at. He knows he's in the deepest valley, that there's evil in the world. He writes, "Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."
See, the goal in life is not to pretend that everything is okay. The goal is to know that even when everything is not okay, you are not alone. There is darkness in the world. There are really hard times in the world. There is evil in the world. There are going to be times where you do walk through the darkest valley. In fact, David, when he writes "the darkest valley"—the Hebrew idea behind this is, like, the deepest, darkest place you can go. It's the idea of the grave. You will walk through death itself. And David doesn't write, "I never enter the valley." He writes, "Even though I walk through it."
The life with God is not a life without valleys. It is a life where no valley is ever God-forsaken. David's confidence is not in the ability to understand the dark, to control the dark, or find a way out. His confidence is in these four words: "You are with me."
It's like in The Lord of the Rings—as all good sermons should go to. Frodo, the ring-bearer, is trying to continue on in his quest, and he's found himself separated from all of his friends, all of his allies. And he is in this deep, dark cave, hunted by a giant, beastly spider. And he remembers in his pocket he has this light that begins to glow. And he remembers the words: "May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out." These are the words of Jesus to you in that dark valley.
And maybe, honestly, you're in that today. Maybe you're on your way into the dark valley. And I want you to hear—whether it's for now or later—that he is with you. That his light shines brightest in the dark. When the diagnosis comes, when the relationships fall apart, when the addiction still won't seem to leave, when death takes someone you love, the shepherd is there. His presence does not always remove the darkness, but it means that the darkness does not get the final word.
And so David has given us this picture of the with-God life, and he continues on to talk about—sorry, my notes froze.
David now gives us a picture of what safety in the presence of God looks like, right? David writes that [God] places him at a table before his enemies, right? And that his cup overflows. The picture is that even when you're sitting before your enemies, God has created a place for you to be where you are perfectly safe. So not only are you in the deepest valley, but you are perfectly safe.
In fact, Dallas Willard wrote over and over again through his writings that the earth is a perfectly safe place to be. Things are going to happen. Heartbreak is going to happen. Bodies are going to break. But you are safe. He means that in the kingdom of heaven, nothing can ultimately separate us from the care of God. We can be wounded, but we cannot be abandoned. We can lose control, but we cannot fall outside of his care. We can even die, but death does not consume us. The presence of an enemy does not mean the absence of God.
Jesus is the perfect picture of all of this, right? Jesus is the perfect picture of this with-God life. It's like in Matthew 8, where Jesus and the disciples have gone out onto the sea in a boat, and it says that suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.
Just imagine that scene. How many of you have seen The Odyssey yet? How many of you have seen The Odyssey yet? A few of you. The Odyssey—was it extremely loud for you guys when you saw it? The theater was so loud. But there's this one scene—spoiler alert, but it's, like, thousands of years old, so I'm not too worried—where they're on a boat and it's storming. You can't see anything that's going on. It's pitch black, lightning, thunder. You can't hear anything. It is complete chaos. And just imagine that scene, and Jesus is in the corner, sleeping.
How? It's not because the storm is imaginary. It's not because the boat can't sink. It's not because Jesus has detached himself from reality. Jesus is deeply rooted in the Father's love. That's why, in the Sermon on the Mount—his teaching about discipleship in the kingdom of heaven—he says: do not worry about your life. Look at the birds of the air; your heavenly Father feeds them. See how the flowers of the field grow? Your heavenly Father knows that you need these things. Seek first his kingdom. Do not worry about tomorrow.
Look around you. It's Jesus saying, look around you. Look at the birds in the air. Look at the squirrels. Look at the trees. Look at nature itself. And it is constantly okay. It will always be there. And God loves you even more than those things. How much more is God going to take care of you? A life without constant fear that there will never be enough. A life no longer ruled by the need to control tomorrow. A life rooted in the love and care of God is what Jesus is inviting you to.
It's Paul describing the reality of this in Philippians: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Paul is not saying, try harder not to feel anxious. He is saying, bring your anxiety into the presence of God. Bring him the diagnosis. Bring him the unpaid bills. Bring him the broken relationships, the future you can't control. Again and again, return your attention to the with-God life. Jesus is not asking you to be brave. Jesus is not asking you to always be happy. Jesus is asking you to reorient your attention.
And because of this, David is able to write, "You prepare"—nope, nope. He writes, "Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." That last verse—that is what is on offer to you. A life full of his goodness, a life full of his grace.
And so the question I asked at the beginning was, is this really possible? And the answer is yes. The reality is, when you see that the sermon is going to be on Psalm 23, or you hear it's going to be Psalm 23—most of you know it. We know it mentally, but we have a hard time letting it drip down into our hearts, right? It's like when my wife—when we were dating and she would say, "I love you"—there's that, like, "Yay, she likes me." And then, like, you know it. But when you know deep down that your spouse loves you—man, there's such security in that.
So the question is, how do we begin to live into this with-God life? The answer is that we first have to change our minds about how we've been thinking about God. We have to do what Scripture calls repent. We have to begin to live a life where we're able to notice God. Because if we're honest, most of us are too hurried, too busy. We have too many screens in front of us to even acknowledge that God is there. Because see, Psalm 23 isn't about what David is doing. It's about where David's attention is.
So the question I would leave with you is, how are you going to reorient your life towards attention to God? Because God's going to give you those things. All of these things in Psalm 23—they are graces. You don't need to try to think you lack nothing. But as you begin to walk with God, you will begin to believe that you actually don't lack anything. The amount of time I spent in the hospital—I didn't spend the entire time going, "I fear nothing." But there was something about it: as I brought my attention back to God, that became more and more real.
And so this is ultimately what discipleship is. It's what apprenticeship to Jesus is. It's honestly what Christianity is: learning how to reorient our life back to being with God. And whether it's your pastor or friend or whoever—the church has had years of ways to be able to do this. Whether it's taking time in the morning for silence and solitude, or taking time in the morning for prayer, or whether it's holding Scripture and memorizing it. But it's slowly finding ways of reorienting your life to focus on the presence of God himself.
So this week—man, what a week to be preaching on Psalm 23, on being unanxious and feeling like I lack nothing and, like, just this with-God life. My wife travels for work, and I have two under two. So I had kind of a stressful week this week. And I would like to be able to tell you that I walked a Psalm 23 with-God life all week long. That in every moment I was so patient with my kids. That I was, like, on my knees with my daughter being like, "Listen, we don't hit. It's okay. Let me get you goldfish. It's all going to be okay." No. I had moments where I was so anxious. I had moments where I was so tired—where I was not my best self.
And then on Friday night, my wife was supposed to get home, and she called and let me know that her flight was canceled. And I was like, okay—preaching on Psalm 23. This makes sense. At least the kids go to daycare during the day, and I could get some rest. But man, Saturday was rough. And I had to, all through the day, really pay attention to: am I bringing myself back to being with God?
And in fact, this morning, my wife was supposed to be back, and she called to let me know her flight got canceled again. And so on my way here, I'm checking my heart. I'm going, God, do I lack nothing? God, am I, like, unanxious? Do I feel rested? And if it was without God, I would say no, right? I would say I am tired, right? Realistically—two under two. If you aren't tired from that, come on over to my house and babysit. But I am still in the process of learning to bring myself back to Psalm 23. To just saying those words over and over again: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He leads me beside pastures." And slowly those realities become true.
And so this week, sit with—how can I begin to bring my attention back to God this week? Let me pray.
Father, you are our shepherd. You're the one that guides. You're the one that cares. And you are the God that is closer than the air we breathe.
And guys, as we take a moment for prayer—before we move on to our next thing, I'm going to ask that we just take a moment to sit with Psalm 23. I want you to just sit with the sermon. It's a little bit off the cuff. But I want you to pay attention to something for me. What in this teaching do you want to be true? As you listen to this, about a life with no lack, or no anxiety, or not fearing the deepest, darkest valley—what is it that you desire to actually be true? Because the beginning of formation in our lives is desire.
And I want to invite you into just a moment of prayer for yourself. I want you to take that desire—what you want to be true—and I want you to hand it to God. And I want you to pray, "Father, I want to feel like I lack nothing." Or, "Father, I am tired, and I just do want rest." I want you to just take some time to hold that before the Father, and maybe listen for what he may have for you.