Sunday message · Psalm 23 series
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Message Summary
In the first message of the Psalm 23 series, Pastor Phillip Santillan spends the whole morning on five words: “The Lord is my shepherd.” Even people with little church background know this psalm, which surfaces everywhere from a Grateful Dead song to the movie Titanic to Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise.” After reading the psalm together, he asks what it means to let the Lord be our shepherd.
Phil admits he struggles to let others care for him, which he sees as a brokenness in the human heart: believing that everything we need to thrive and survive can be obtained without anyone else. When we cannot produce the happiness or wholeness we want, we have only ourselves to blame, and needing help feels like proof we are not good enough. So we self-diagnose and self-medicate our restless hearts. Some turn to self-indulgence; Phil jokes that he reaches for food when he feels out of control. Others self-deprecate, deciding they are too far gone to contribute anything.
Against the idea that we are masters of our own fate, Psalm 23 makes a simple statement. The Bible, Phil reminds listeners, is for us but not about us; it reveals who God is, and only then can we ask who we are and how to live. He draws two observations. First, the psalm begins with Yahweh, the Lord, the covenant God who promised to care for his people and revealed himself as full of love, compassion, patience, faithfulness and forgiveness. Believing God exists is different from trusting him as Lord. Satan knew God was real, yet believed he deserved the throne himself (Isaiah 14). When we insist that we alone must supply what we need, Phil warns, we look less like Jesus and more like the evil one.
Second, God cares for you personally. Phil quotes Charles Spurgeon on the sweetness of the little word “my”: the Lord is not only the world’s shepherd but mine. In John 10, Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, knows his own, and has other sheep to bring in so there will be one flock. God’s care for us, Phil says, cannot be separated from his care for others.
The Lord cannot shepherd sheep who don’t recognize they are sheep, and it is okay to admit we have been living like sheep without a shepherd, facing bills, parenting and family as if we did not need God. Phil encourages the church to practice, a little more each day, laying everything before the Lord, praying “be the Lord of my finances” before trying to fix them, and turning to Scripture before blogs, books or tools like the Enneagram. Yet our inability to live under his care does not change his resolve to be our shepherd. In Mark 6, Jesus saw a large crowd and had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Phil suggests reading Psalm 23 every day this week, praying that each person can say the Lord is their shepherd and they have everything they need.
Questions about Psalm 23
It means the covenant God, Yahweh, personally cares for you the way a shepherd cares for his sheep. “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1) begins with God’s covenant name, the God who promised to care for his people. Pastor Phil, quoting Charles Spurgeon, points to the little word “my”: the Lord is not only the world’s shepherd but yours.
Psalm 23 is about trusting the Lord as your shepherd, the God who provides, guides, protects and stays with you. In six verses he leads us to green pastures and quiet waters, restores the soul, walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and promises goodness and mercy all our days (Psalm 23:1–6). Pastor Phil prays that each reader can say the Lord is their shepherd and they have everything they need.
David did; the psalm’s heading reads, “A Psalm of David.” Before he became king, David tended his father’s sheep and protected them from lions and bears (1 Samuel 16:11; 17:34–35), so he wrote as a shepherd describing what the Lord does for him: providing, leading, restoring and protecting (Psalm 23:1–4). Yet, as Pastor Phil notes, the psalm begins with Yahweh, the covenant God, not with David.
Because he called himself that and proved it: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11). He knows his own and they know him, and he has other sheep to bring in so there will be one flock (10:14–16). Pastor Phil connects it to Psalm 23: God’s care for you can’t be separated from his care for others.
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