My Experience in Psalms 23

Yesterday we concluded our study of Psalms 23 with verse 6 – “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house the Lord forever”. Here’s the sermon skeleton:

Topic: I’m Living This Life To Live Again
Text: Psalms 23:6

Thesis Statement: I’m living this life just to live again!

Let’s look at the three (3) key components of living now just to live again:

I. The Certainty in this Life to Live Again – “Surely…”

A. The Certainty in this life is that God Is God
B. The Certainty in this life is that things will change – Psalms 30:1-11
C. The Certainty in this life is a reason to celebrate – Psalms 30:12

II. The Qualities of this Life to Live Again – “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my Life”

A. The Power of Goodness and Mercy – Goodness provides our daily needs and mercy pardons our sins
B. The Person of Goodness and Mercy – God looks out for our best interest
C. The People of Goodness and Mercy – What kind of legacy will you live behind?

III. The Perspective in this Life to Live Again – “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”.

A. The Commitment to Live Again - Remember, this is not God speaking has a promise but David speaking with a perspective that this world is not his home.

B. The Security of Living Again - We will never want for anything throughout eternity.


Preaching through this Psalms was enriching, challenging. Inspiring, wonderful, and a great study for me personally.

Throughout my study of this Psalms, I tried my best to look at the scripture with fresh eyes by ignoring all sermons, illustrations, Sunday school lessons, and some advice of others to really discover what this Psalms means to me. For the most part I think did a decent job. And I have grown as personally in my relationship with God and as a preacher in hanging in there when my study got tough.

There is one thing I have learned from this Psalms is that it’s more than a funeral Psalms. Often times, this Psalms is used to comfort a bereaving family during a funeral service. Even when researching for additional material most of the material found focused much of it’s attention on verse 4: Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. For You are with me. You rod and staff they comfort me. Many of my commentaries explain in detail verse 4 but verse 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 are explained in brief. This made it a little difficult to validate my interpretation of the text was accurate. Thank God for studying grace…

This Psalms does not just speak to us in dying times but it speaks to all of life’s realities with the ultimate purpose of leading the reader into a deeper and intimate relationship with God. Here’s what I mean, this Psalms to speaks to the reality of life that says:

- Life gets hard sometimes: While this Psalms is filled confident assurance that God will take care of us. It does not promise that us that we will not experience hard times. The opening verses says: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” What’s on the other side of satisfaction – discontentment, frustration, unhappiness, and disappointment.

What’s on the other side of peaceful rest – chaos, pandemonium, confusion, and

David speaks in confident assurance that God is provider and protector. However, life has a way putting us on our backs when we are lacking the basic necessities to survive in daily living. When we don’t have any peace at night from the nightmares of a hard day of trying to make it from day to day. When we experience poverty, bad health, placed in dangerous situations, and loose our joy. The reality of life is that life is hard. People are dying due to senseless violence because of the color of their skin or where they live or the color of their clothes. Life is hard. When health care cost is rising, job loss increasing, unemployment benefits are no longer beneficial, suicide statistics plummeting in percentages unknown in our life time. Our savings account is no longer a savings but needed funds to survive from day to day. Life is hard sometimes when you don’t know how bills are going to get paid and where your next meal is coming from.

But in the midst of the harsh reality of life, this Psalms comforts us. It does not say we won’t experience the hardship but reading this Psalms does help us to make it during life’s harsh realities.

- Life is fill with dangers, seen and unseen: Verse 4 says; “Yea, tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and staff they comfort me”. May I suggest that living life seems to become more and more dangerous every day? I was watching a video post the other day of man posing as a robber with a stocking over his face. He would walk into a store or restaurant to get the reactions of customers and workers in the facility. Each place he went people ran for cover, others fell to the ground and rolled under desk, counters, or whatever they could find for safety. Others started pleading their case to live longer and to not be hurt. Ask I watch this video clipping, of course, my first reaction was to laugh because it was funny seeing people’s reaction. But, then I began to think that while I’m laughing at what is to be a practical joke the reality is that people are scared to death now of what potential danger is out there that could harm them, their children, and family. Some dangers we see coming like a bad doctor’s report and then there are others we don’t see coming like a drive by shooting or a drunk driver.

But in the midst of dangers (seen and unseen), we have this assurance, God is with us!

- I have on more reality of life that this Psalms seeks to provide comfort for us, here it is, I’m still here! You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of me life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I will experience hard times (no, I have experienced hard times, life is filled with dangers (seen and unseen) but the final analysis is I’M STILL HERE! I’m still standing, I’m still breathing, I’m still walking and talking, I’m still living!