Sermon Central
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Satisfaction Guaranteed - Psalm 23:2b-3a Series
Contributed by Darrell Ferguson on May 5, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: God frequently compares himself to food and drink in Scripture (he is like water, wine, milk, bread, a banquet, richest of food, etc.) But what does it mean, in real, practical terms, to eat or drink him?
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Psalm 23 A psalm of David. 1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Introduction
What would it take for you to be really happy? What would have to change in your life? The way you answer that question – the honest answer in your soul – is right now determining the direction of your life. We have a big, tall plant in our house that always grows toward light. No matter where we put that thing, it will bend toward the nearest window. Your soul is like that. It will bend and grow in the direction of whatever it thinks will bring it satisfaction and fulfillment.
He Nourishes and Satisfies
The 23rd Psalm is a list of wonderful benefits that come from having a shepherd/sheep kind of relationship with God. And the first two benefits are in verse 2. One of them is rest, and the other is food and drink. He makes us lie down in a resting place, and He provides green pastures and quiet waters – food and drink. Last week we talked about how God brings you spiritual rest, and how that is needed for you to do God’s will in your life. The second thing you need is spiritual food and drink. What is that? What is spiritual food and drink? Spiritual food and drink is something that does the same thing for your soul that physical food and drink does for your body. What is that? Why do we consume physical food and drink? Two reasons:
1) Nourishment
2) Satisfaction
We eat and drink in order to hydrate and strengthen and fuel our bodies, but we also eat and drink to satisfy cravings and desires. God’s design is for those two to be connected to each other. He built us with appetites so that we would eat and drink enough to nourish and fuel our bodies. If you never got thirsty, you wouldn’t remember to drink enough and you would die. So God gave us thirst and hunger – appetites that motivate us to eat and drink. So the process that God designed is very simple: First your body gets low on nutrition or water. Then you start to feel sensations we call hunger and thirst - unpleasant feelings that drive us to find food and water. So then, driven by those appetites, we go ahead and eat and drink just to feel better, and the result is the nutritional needs inside our body are met.
God designed us in exactly the same way spiritually. In your inner man, you get low on something you need for life. You get low on joy or hope or security or confidence or motivation or strength. So if they could run a spiritual blood test on your soul, they would find dangerously low levels of some of those things. God designed us that way – just like He designed our bodies to continually get low on calories and vitamins and minerals and proteins and water. No matter how healthy you are, your body keeps getting low on those things and needs to be refueled. And it’s the same way with your spirit. God designed your spirit so it would keep getting low on motivation, and keep getting low on strength, and keep getting depleted of joy, and all the various other things you need for life. Your inner man gets low on those things, it creates unpleasant feelings (things like sadness, lack of motivation, emptiness, apathy, depression, anxiety). All those things are the hunger and thirst of the soul designed to drive you to find some spiritual food and drink so you will feel better.
Soul Renewal
That is the idea behind the next phrase in verse 3 - He restores my soul. That phrase means to take an empty, depleted soul and return it to normal so it functions like it’s supposed to. When you get low on strength or hope or joy, and God refills your empty cup; that is what it means to restore your soul.
In our frailty and weakness we are constantly running out of everything.
