You know, all my life I’ve heard, read, studied, quoted Psalm 23 Since I was a small child, it has been one of those chapters in the Bible which was most familiar to me.
Years ago, I even wrote a song Based on Psalm 23 titled shepherd of My Soul. You know, one of the things that always awes me with Scripture is how God will take a verse that is very familiar. And you think, man, I’ve studied this, I’ve looked at it, read it, and gotten so much from it. And then he will show you things that you’ve never seen before, give you revelation and insight. You think, wow, God’s word is truly multifaceted. It’s like a precious jewel, layer upon layer of wisdom, insight, revelation. I experienced this again recently with Psalm 23. I read an insight someone shared about God’s heart being revealed and one of the verses in this chapter.
And after looking at that verse, I decided to go back and read the whole chapter for context. And as I did, the Lord began to show me how this chapter was a picture of his relationship with us. And four things stood out to me as I was reading through this Psalm 23 again. And these four things are this. Number one, the Lord is our provider. Number two, the Lord is our protector. Number three, the Lord places and positions us. And number four, the Lord ardent pursues us.
King David, in a great expression of thought, imagery and creativity, crafted a description of God’s desire for a relationship with us. As I began to meditate on these insights, study these verses, I realized that this was probably a series that would likely be ongoing for several weeks to come. And so over the next few weeks, we are going to drill deeper into this chapter and what each of these verses speak to. I want us to discover who the Lord our shepherd is and how he wants to relate to us. So let’s get started. All right, today we’re going to begin by starting to see who the Lord our provider is. There was so much in these first three verses of Psalm 23. It will take us a few weeks to discover all God has for us there.
So let’s begin. Psalm 23, verses 1 through 3 says this. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. So who was the Lord our provider? Well let’s look at that.
The Hebrew word for Lord here in this verse is Jehovah. And there are five characteristics of Jehovah that define who he flesh, he is the Lord, Number one, He’s a self existent eternal one. Number two, he’s the God of all favor. Number three, the one begin or the one bringing into being, the life giver, the giver of existence, he is the Creator. Number four, he brings to pass, he is the performer of promises. And number five, the one ever coming into manifestation as the God of redemption. So let’s look at the meaning of the first characteristic here of the Lord, the self existent eternal one. And that means he is absolute, he is unchangeable.
He is ever living and self consistent or self sufficient self existence. Let’s start with that first quality there. The Lord is self existence, which means this God is uncaused. Now this is a word that is not used a lot in our current culture. But uncaused means no cause or effect brought about our God. This means he exists without an authority. There was no action or event which caused the Lord to be. He existed before all cause and effect came into play.
In fact, all cause and effect flowed out of him. Exodus 3:14 the Lord is talking to Moses, telling him how to introduce him to the children of Israel. And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. The word I am there in the Hebrew means to be, to exist. He said, I am the being, I am existing. I exist the self existent one. Isaiah 44:6 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts.
I am the first, I am the last. Beside me there is no God. What the LORD is saying here in Isaiah 44:6 and in Exodus 3:14 he is saying this. I exist as the first. I was here before anything, and I exist as the last. By my own power and might I will ever be. There is no other God, nor will there ever be another God. I am the One.
We see this again in Revelation. The Lord said to John in Revelation 1:8. And I’m reading this from the Amplified classic. Revelation 1:8 and the Amplified says, I am the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God, he who is and who was and who is to come. The Almighty, the Ruler of all. There are several things we see here, but one of them is this. He is always here with us. He has always been here and he will always be with us, never ending, never going away.
We have this promise in Deuteronomy 31. And the Lord, he is the one who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you, nor forsake you. So do not fear or be dismayed. It doesn’t matter where you are, what the circumstances are, what you’re facing. God is there. God is here, right now, in this moment.
Wherever you are right now, watching this. God is right there with you. He is the One who goes before you, preparing the way. He is one who is with you every moment, every day. And he promises us he will not leave us or forsake us. This is something we can be sure of, we can have confidence in. God is always with us. He is the Lord Jehovah, the eternal self, existent, your shepherd.
The Lord is independent of all things. For all things were created by him, and without him was nothing created. And we see this. The apostle John talks about this in the first chapter of John. John 1, verses 1 through 4. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him, nothing was made that was made. In him was life. And the life was the light of men. All life flowed from him, from the Word. The life of everything in the universe flowed out of him, whether it’s people, animals, plants, planets, stars, whatever it is, it came into being because of the life that flowed out of him, out of the Word. John confirms this again in chapter 5, chapter 5, verse 26 and epistle. John says, for as the Father has life in himself, so he is granted the Son to have life in himself. And so the Father and the Son, God and His Word are full of life and life.
In this verse in the Greek is the word zoe. This is what Jesus said. He came to bring us John 10:10. I’ve read this verse a lot. But in John 10:10 he said, I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. In the amplified, it says abundant life, life to the full, overflowing life. What this word zoe means here, it means the absolute fullness of life. That’s what Jesus came to give us, the absolute fullness of life.
Life that is real and genuine, life that is active, vigorous and blessed. And we know that word blessed means empowered to prosper, to increase and to excel. God wants your life to be blessed, to be prosperous. God wants you to increase, to excel. He is the Lord, your shepherd, your provider. Hallelujah God’s life, from which all things have their life and existence. So everything around us, all of us, we exist and have life because of the life of God that flowed out of him to create us. He is the life giver.
He is the I am the self existent one. He is the Lord shepherd. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. The second quality here we want to talk about about being the self existent one is he is the eternal one. He has no beginning and no end. Even though we see in Scripture that God says, I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end of all things. He Himself has no beginning or end.
You see, the Lord is not subject to time. God has no physical limit in space and time. He is infinite. He is timeless. He is everlasting. Psalm 90, verse 2 speaks to this. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. That word everlasting there means enduring forever, lasting or enduring forever.
From lasting or enduring to forever, to lasting or enduring forever, to being eternal, existing with no end, you are God. You know, back in the 90s, Disney came out with the movie Toy Story. And one of the characters in that movie was Buzz Lightyear. And Buzz’s key phrase in that movie was to infinity and beyond. He was a space guy. Buzz Lightyear was a guy astronaut. And so he would declare, to infinity and beyond. Well, my daughter loved that movie.
And so we had this routine at night. I would tuck her into bed, and she would say, daddy, I love you. And I’d say, I love you too, honey. She goes, I love you three. And she’d say, I love you four. And I’d say, I love you more. And she goes, I love you to infinity and beyond. And I would say, I love you beyond beyond.
And that’s what we’re talking about here. Beyond beyond. That’s where the Lord lives. You go beyond and then he’s beyond that. Isaiah 57:15 says this. For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. Let me stop right there. Who inhabits eternity? The Lord our shepherd, inhabits eternity.
That’s where he lives. And that word eternity there in the Hebrew, means perpetuity. He lives in perpetuity. He lives in forever. He lives in continuous existence. His promise to us in John 3, 15 and 16 is that we will live with him in eternity, in perpetuity, beyond beyond. If we believe on and receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and come into relationship with him and the Father and the Holy Spirit. Praise God.
We’re going to live in perpetuity with the Lord. When we received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we stepped into perpetuity. We stepped into forever. We stepped into eternity. We stepped into beyond, beyond. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He is our Lord, the Eternal One, our Shepherd, our Savior.
In him we have life eternal, life without end, a forever continuous existence that is beyond beyond. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He is the Eternal One. The third quality we see here is the Lord. Jehovah has immutability, and to be immutable means to be unchangeable. God is unchanging in his nature and his purpose. Hebrews 6, 17 and 18 says, Thus God determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
Now, I like the way it says it in Hebrews 16, 17 and 18 in the Amplified, and so we just read it from the new King James Version, but I want to read it to you in the amplified, but because it gives us a little more clarity here on this meeting. Accordingly, God also, in his desire to show more convincingly and beyond doubt to those who were to inherit the promise, the unchangeableness of his purpose and plan intervened and mediated with an oath. This was so that by two unchangeable things, his promise and his oath, and which it is impossible for God ever to prove false or deceive us. We who have fled to him for refuge might have mighty, indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope appointed for us and set before us. Hallelujah. Because of his immutability, his unchangeableness, we have mighty, indwelling strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope, the expectation appointed for us and set before us. Hallelujah. Praise God.
Look what the Lord has done. He has provided for us strength and strong encouragement to grasp and hold fast the hope he is set before us. The Lord our Shepherd, has done this for us. Another way to say this is found in Hebrews 13 that simply says this. Hebrews 13:8 simply says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is faithful to his word. What he has declared is good forever. He doesn’t change it.
He is the same for all eternity. He doesn’t come back to you and say, well, I know I promised this, but you know, the economy has taken a turn we didn’t anticipate. So I’m not sure that promise is going to work. Work or be good. He doesn’t come with any of those things. He doesn’t make excuses. He is who he said he is. He does what he says he will do, and he will be there always for you.
James 1:17 says this. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. God doesn’t change. He doesn’t shift. If he is promised, he will do it. If God said is done, it is done. The Lord is our immutable, unchangeable shepherd. We can count on him in every situation.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You can count on the Lord today. Then, the last quality that we want to talk about of Jehovah, that is in this first definition of who he is, is self sufficiency. God depends on nothing for his existence.
God does not need anyone or anything else. He is complete. God is not dependent on his creation. He is completely independent of it. He is more than enough. He has more than enough resources within himself for all he is and all he does, for all he will ever be and for all he will ever do, not only for Himself, but for us also. Acts 17, verse 24 and 25 God, who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he worshipped with men’s hands as though he needed anything, since he gives to all life, breath, and all things, everything comes from him, whether we realize it or not every day. All life, all breath, all things come from Him.
Everything we need to be who we were created to be came from Him. He put it within us. Everything we need he put in here. All sufficiency to be who we were created to be flows from his sufficiency out of his power, out of his supply. Hallelujah. He is the Lord, your shepherd, your provider in all things. That’s why the writer in Proverbs 3, 5, 6 talks about, don’t lean on your own understanding. Look to and be confident and trust in God’s understanding and recognize.
Know and acknowledge him in all your ways, and in doing so he will make your path plain and straight. Hallelujah. Praise God. Hallelujah. Colossians 1, 16 and 17 for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through through him and for Him. And he is before all things and in him all things consist.
All things exist through him and all things are held together in Him. That’s what consist means. It means to be held together. You remove the Lord from us, from our world and it all falls apart. We cannot exist and be held together without his presence being here. The Holy Spirit is here to help hold us together. Hallelujah. Philippians 4:13 in the Amplified says this I have strength for all things in Christ who imparts empowers me.
I am ready for anything and equal to anything through him who infuses inner strength into me. I am self sufficient in Christ sufficiency. I am self sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency. Again, our strength and sufficiency flows from His. We don’t realize how much the Lord our Shepherd is at work in our lives every day. You see, all we’ve talked about today affirms this first characteristic of the Lord Jehovah. He is self existent, he is eternal. He is unchanging.
He is self sufficient. He is the source of all life and depends on nothing outside of himself. He is the Lord our sustainer, the Lord our provider. He is the Lord our shepherd. Let’s bow our heads in prayer. Father, we thank you for this word today, this word of encouragement that tells us you are our everything. You are our Jehovah, you are the Lord our shepherd, you are our provider and you’ve provided everything we need to be all that you created us to be. You’ve provided everything we need to do all you’ve called us to do.
You’ve provided everything we need to be in relationship with you and to live with you throughout eternity. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you and Father God, for all of those who are listening, who may not have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I just pray right now and I ask you if you want to accept Jesus as your Lord and say you repeat this after me, Jesus, I believe you died for me. I believe you’ve forgiven me of all sin and I believe that you were raised from the dead dead that I might live and have life in you and experience the fullness of life now and throughout all eternity. I receive you Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Thank you for receiving me in Jesus name.
David [00:30:44 – 00:31:09]
Amen. Hallelujah. Take some time and read Psalm 23 this week. Start meditating on it next week. We’re going to look at. Not only is he our Lord, he’s our Shepherd. And what does that mean? Or before we go to shepherd, we’ll probably drill down into some of the other definitions of Jehovah. I forgot about that.
That. All right, so we look forward to seeing you here again next week. Pastor Kanye is coming with a closing thought and prayer. God bless you. Have a great week.
