Sunday Sermons – Pace Campus

So we’ve got Moses all grown up, a husband, father, a dad, settling into to (apparently)

the family business. And we read what happens one day while minding his own

business at work. He’s just out their watching the flock...

So last week we saw the beginnings of God’s plan to set Israel free from Egypt, and it

started with the birth of a child and a rescue of that child. We fast-forward through the

years of the child growing up as we read Exodus 2:11-25

We pick back up from where we left off last week. The growing population of the

Hebrew people inside Egypt is becoming a growing concern for the king of Egypt. So

Pharaoh’s plan of overworking the Hebrew men was not slowing down the population

growth. So he improvised a new plan...

Moses is credited for writing the first five books of the Old Testament, and the mass

quantity of these five make up 1/7 of the Old Testament. Genesis bleeds right over int

Exodus. Genesis starts with Creation, including the man and woman who don’t take

long to fall into sin. Sin was the problem then, and it’s the problem now. God let’s the

man and woman know that He has a solution to the sin problem in the same chapter as

the Fall.

There has been a continuous emphasis upon the attentiveness and the hardworking

ethic of the Good Shepherd throughout this Psalm. It is evident that the sheep doesn’t

have a chance of surviving much less thriving without the effort of a diligent shepherd.

These sheep have the blessing of belonging to the Good Shepherd as opposed to the

poor sheep on the other side of the fence to a negligent shepherd. They enjoyed the

benefits of a shepherd who overwhelmingly showed great care and love for them

(guidance, protection, and provision) He was a great owner/manager. What sheep

wouldn’t want to be in the presence of this shepherd?

The LORD is my Shepherd, I shall not want. There is so much in that little statement that we have already covered. Perhaps something different stood out to each of us as we are in different seasons of life. Maybe it is boasting that God himself is my shepherd, and therefore I'm good, no matter what. Or it's just belonging to him because we have the basic need of belonging. This week we look deeper into what He truly means when he makes us lie down in green pastures & how he leads us to still waters.

In studying this psalm it must always be remembered that it is a sheep in the Good

Shepherd’s care who is speaking. Basically, it is a Christian’s claim of belonging in the

family of God. As a sheep, the Psalmist boasts of the advantages of this relationship.

One might ask, “If the sheep is in a relationship with the shepherd...if a person is in

relationship with God, then why do they need to be restored? How is that a thing?

Certainly, it would be assumed that anyone in the Good Shepherd’s care could never

become so distressed in soul as to need restoration.

We learned last week how important it is to belong to a good shepherd. We really can

navigate the trials and tribulations in this journey called life, if we belong to the Good

Shepherd. There are some things we can learn from this whole shepherd/sheep

relationship that help in our walk as believers, and hopefully bring others into the fold.

How can I know that God really loves me? How can I get that through my head so that it transforms my life so I can live for Him? How can I live for Jesus in a world that is constantly nipping away at my faith? Our hope for this series is not that we all memorize Psalm 23 but rather that we know the Lord, our Good Shepherd, in such a way that it is transformational.