Faithbase

A few years ago, Lifeway did a study, a survey of people who go to church and people who don't go to church regularly, and asked them, what Bible verses do you know? Basically, which Bible verses are most known in our culture? The first one was John 3.16, and I was happy to hear that because it's the gospel rolled up into one verse, Jesus talking to Nicodemus about why he came, God's love, his redemption of the world. The second one was Matthew chapter 7, judge lest ye not be judged, and we can get into that one later, and how people misunderstand that passage. But it's the third one I want us to actually spend a couple of weeks looking at, and it's Psalms 23, talking about the Lord as our shepherd. I got a buddy that works at a funeral home here in town, and whenever they're filling out that program, basically, at somebody's funeral, and the family doesn't have a particular scripture they want in that program, they'll put Psalms 23, because it's just one of those psalms that the Lord is my shepherd, that brings us ease. So before we get into it, I want to actually talk a little bit about it, just so we're aware of it, because it's written by a guy named David, who was a shepherd, and understood that beautiful relationship between a shepherd and his sheep. Now one of the misunderstandings of sheep is that a lot of times you hear people use the word stupid, that sheep are just stupid, they're dumb. It's not that they're dumb, it's that sheep are just extremely hard-headed, that they get this mindset of, I'm going this way because I'm hungry, I'm afraid, whatever emotion or feelings in them, and boom, they go. And a lot of times when they go and they're not with their shepherd, they get themselves in big trouble. So it's not that sheep are dumb, it's that sometimes they can become so overwhelmed by their emotions or the experience going on around them, that they become hard-headed. So David wrote this psalm about our great shepherd that loves us through our hard-headedness, that loves us through our needing to be laid down, our going through the valley of the shadows of death. And I want to encourage you this morning to get your Bible out, read Psalms 23, go ahead and read the whole thing, because we're gonna spend a few days really going through it kind of verse by verse to make sure that we can see the beauty of our great shepherd, that we have a God that loves us, we have a Savior that's there for us, we have a Holy Spirit that guides us in the midst of our most hard-headed times. So today when you have to admit, maybe I'm being a little bit hard-headed, know that there's a whole psalm about that, about our great shepherd that loves us in the midst of it, and he's going to guide us through it. So I want to encourage you today, get your Bible out, read Psalms 23, and then check back in over the next few days as we go through the Psalms 23 verse by verse. Listen, God bless. If I can do anything for you, shoot me a message, let me know. Have a great day.