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Chapelstreet Church

Mill Creek | 11/16/25 – Psalm 23

·36 min·3 clips
A pastor admits he's never preached a full sermon on the 23rd Psalm, asking listeners to set aside their familiarity.
The episode opens with the pastor expressing gratitude for baptisms and connection lunches, then transitions to seasonal reflections on Advent and holiday movies like White Christmas. He introduces the sermon topic by noting how overfamiliarity can dull our engagement with well-known texts like Psalm 23. The pastor admits he has never preached an expository sermon on this psalm despite nearly 30 years in ministry. He invites listeners to approach it afresh, imagining they are hearing it for the first time. The sermon is structured around three aspects of the shepherd: care, leading, and abundance. For care, the pastor discusses David's declaration 'The Lord is my shepherd, I have what I need,' using analogies like shepherding grass in his backyard and insights from W. Philip Keller's book about sheep's inability to rest. For leading, he compares God's guidance to GPS navigation, emphasizing that the path includes dark valleys where God's presence, not avoidance, is promised. For abundance, he shifts the metaphor to God as host preparing a table amid enemies, linking it to Jesus' meals with outcasts. The pastor concludes by connecting Psalm 23 to Jesus as the good shepherd in John 10. The episode ends with announcements about a Thanksgiving connection lunch, a Christmas concert, and adjusted Christmas Eve service times, followed by a benediction.

As heard by us

Psalm 23 becomes a pastoral study of why anxious sheep, and anxious people, need stillness before rest.

Psalm 23 is heard here from close to the ground, through the fretful life of a sheep. The sermon starts inside a busy church morning, with baptisms, a connection lunch, and Genevieve's testimony, then moves by way of a neighbor putting up Christmas lights toward Advent and the…

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Why you'd press play

A Psalm 23 message for days when rest feels out of reach and anxiousness keeps you on edge.

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