A Comforting Song

Have you ever listened to a song that was comforting to you? This was a song that gave you relief in affliction, a song that brought you to a state of ease and satisfaction. It was a song that consoled you and brought you reassurance that everything would be alright. It was a comforting song that made you turn up the volume, because as you listened to the lyrics, you felt supported and encouraged. This song gave you moral and emotional strength and a feeling of freedom from worry and disappointment.

Some of us hadn’t always been in the church, and so we found comfort in some songs of the world. What worldly song was it that comforted you? Let me start with the older people and work my way down. Was it “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You,” by Marvin Gaye, which assured that woman, that she was the only woman in his world? Was it “I Believe in You (You Believe in Me),” by Johnnie Taylor, where he eased his woman’s mind by letting her know, that although everybody wants to see us apart, we’re going to stay together because I believe in and you believe in me.

If you’re around my age maybe it was “Forever My Lady,” by Jodeci, where his woman found comfort in knowing that he would never leave her no matter what situations they would face. And young people with all the crazy lyrics ya’ll listen to I don’t even know what song would give ya’ll comfort, maybe “Umbrella,” by Rhianna and Chris Brown where they assure one another that they can stand under each other’s umbrella.

But there isn’t a comforting song that can compare to those songs whose lyrics are inspired by God that comforts a child of God. What about “Blessed Assurance,” a comforting song that assures a believer that Jesus is theirs, and in Him you can have a foretaste of glory divine. What about “Amazing Grace,” a song that puts you in a state of ease because you once were lost, but now you’re found, was blind, but because of God’s amazing grace, now you see.

• It’s through musical writers and artist that God inspires to give a word to those that need comforting and it is through those lyrics that we receive relief in affliction, encouragement, strength, support, and reassurance that everything will be alright. In other words when God inspires someone with words of comfort, they’re actually words from God. Paul told Timothy that all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God, and it is in our text that God inspires David to write a comforting song.

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We know David, this is the David we were taught about in Sunday School who stood up against Goliath, and with one smooth stone from his sling, he killed Goliath and caused the Philistine army to flee. This is the David who was the youngest son of Jesse, who was out tending to sheep when Samuel called for him, and anointed him to be the next King of Israel. This is the same David, who had made many mistakes in his life, but yet he walked with God in such a way that God called him a man after His own heart.

David was inspired by God to write what we know as the 23rd Psalm. And it isn’t clear at what point in David’s life he wrote this psalm, but that doesn’t take away from the spiritual impact of it. The Book of Psalm is a collection of Hebrew songs and poems, and we will discover this afternoon that Psalm 23 is a comforting song.

We all need comforting sometimes. There are times we need some reassurance, and there are times we need to be encouraged. Words of comfort strengthen us, and at other times it erases disappointment, but what makes Psalm 23 a comforting song?

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This is a comforting song because we first discover with the Lord we have everything we need. David begins this song by saying, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” The word “shepherd” is frequently found in Scripture, and it is how the Lord chose to show His relationship to His people. If the Lord is our shepherd, then that makes us His sheep.

• In Psalm 100 it tells us that we are the sheep of His pasture. As sheep we should be inoffensive, meek, and quiet, silent before the shearers and before the butcher too, useful and sociable; we must know the shepherd’s voice, and follow Him. David understood the qualities of a shepherd and sheep, because as a young boy he too was a shepherd, but in this psalm David is speaking as a sheep.

David said the Lord is my shepherd. We can’t be ashamed to claim the Lord as our God. Jesus said that whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this sinful world, I’ll be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. But because the Lord is our shepherd we shall not want for anything. This doesn’t mean women you can have every pair of shoes you lay your eyes on, and men this doesn’t mean the Lord is going to give you all the sports cars you desire, but it does mean that anything that is necessary and good for me, the Lord will provide it.