Songs We Sing | The Lord Will Provide

Look at the flowers and all of their beauty Don't have to wonder, you know what you're to do So why would I worry at all when you're faithful to self-love? Everything I need, everything I need, my father has it My father has it, every single time the Lord will provide My father has it, my father has it I've got the sparrow, lacking for nothing Knowing of tomorrow, what it will bring If I have you, I have enough Your love will satisfy Everything I need, everything I need, my father has it Every single time the Lord will provide I know my father has it, my father has it I know you have it To seek first the kingdom and its treasures Everything else that will be added All that I'm needed I know the Lord will provide Cause I know my God's not empty handed He gives us blessings upon blessings I'm still believing I know the Lord will provide To seek first the kingdom and its treasures Everything else that will be added All that I'm needed I know the Lord will provide Cause I know my God's not empty handed He gives us blessings upon blessings I'm still believing I know the Lord will provide Everything I need, everything I need, my father has it Every single time the Lord will provide I know my father has it, my father has it Everything I need, everything I need, my father has it Every single time the Lord will provide I know my father has it To seek first the kingdom and its treasures Everything else that will be added All that I'm needed I know the Lord will provide I know my God's not empty handed He gives us blessings upon blessings I'm still believing I know the Lord will provide. I know, I know the Lord will provide. I know, I know the Lord will provide. These are more than just songs that we sing. They're spiritual truths, theological precedents, foundational beliefs, wrapped in a melody, shrouded in sound. Declarations and affirmations. Anthems of praise that reverberate from generation to generation. With one voice we echo the promises of our God. These are the songs that we sing.

Welcome today to Canvas Church. We are in the second part of a series that we call Songs We Sing. Here's the reason we're calling it that. Old Testament Psalm 33. Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord. It is fitting for the pure to praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre. Make music for him on the ten-stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him. Play skillfully on the harp and sing with joy. Then in the New Testament, Ephesians 5. Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything. Any excuse for a song to God the Father. In the name of our master Jesus Christ. As I shared with you last week, wherever you go in both the Old and the New Testament, when the Bible speaks to us about singing, we are not just being suggested to sing in the scriptures. We are being instructed by God. We don't sing songs to God in church because somewhere along the way Christians thought it would be a great idea. Or somewhere along the thousands of years that the church would gather, some programmer thought it would add something meaningful to the service. The Bible commands us as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. What God knew is that when we would sing the Bible, when we would sing the truth, when we sing the scriptures, it would constantly remind us of not only how awesome and amazing our God actually is, but that we can actually put our full trust in God. So if you're with us for the first time, again welcome to Canvas and our annual summer series songs we sing all the month of July. We are taking a deeper dive into the scriptural foundations of some of our favorite worship songs. Last week we unpacked Evidence by Josh Baldwin. Today we just sang it. We're going to come back and sing it again in a moment. Today we're going to look at The Lord Will Provide written by The Worship Initiative. Love the words of this song. Everything I need, everything I need, my father indeed has it. He has it every single time. He is faithful. The Lord will provide, praise God. My father has it, my father has it. I love the bridge. He said, seek first the kingdom of God and its treasures. Everything else, it'll be added. All that I'm needing, I know the Lord will provide and I know my God is not empty handed, praise the Lord. He gives us blessings upon blessings. All that I'm needing, the Lord will provide. Now there's many scriptures that are the foundation of this song. For example, Psalm 23 says the Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need. Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19 says that my God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory which are by Christ Jesus. Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 and 34, seek righteousness and his kingdom first and all of these things will be added unto you. And many more that make up the scriptural precedent of this song. But I want to say this to you. As I prayed and as I began to prepare today to preach the scriptural foundation of this song, I felt oddly directed by the Holy Spirit, I want to say that, I felt specifically directed by the Holy Spirit to tackle a very subtle but important tension that the song actually reveals. Because I want to draw your attention to notice that what it says is,

everything I need, the Lord will provide, not everything I want. Everything I need, the Lord will provide, not everything I want. That is a very important distinction to make because we live in a world that has clearly conditioned us to live in a constant state of discontent. In fact, it's not just a state of discontent. For many in this world, it is the anthem of their life. Let me share some lyrics. It's from another song that you may recognize, written by that great theologian Keith Richards. Ha, ha, ha. On May 7th, 1965, Keith Richards woke up in the middle of the night at the Gulf Motel in Clearwater, Florida, and began writing what would become one of the most iconic songs the Rolling Stones would ever record. Maybe you recognize the words. If you do, help me out. When I'm driving in my car, a man comes on the radio. He's telling me more and more about some useless information supposed to drive my imagination, but I can't get no, ha, ha, there you go. I can't get no satisfaction, I love that. Because I try, he said, and I try, and I try, but I can't get no, hey, hey, there we go. Hey, hey, hey, don't miss the hey's, baby. You gotta have the hey's in there. Again, this is the anthem of the world. We live in a world that has infected us. I read behind one guy last week, and I love what he said.

He said we have been infected with, and I quote, chronic covetousness. The world has done a great job, the enemy has done a great job of making us believe that fulfillment, that true satisfaction, is something that can be driven. It's something that can be lived in. It's something that can be eaten. It's something that can be sprayed on. It's something that can be worn. And we buy into it, man. We buy into it lock, stock, and barrel, sometimes at 18% interest. We get it because we think it's the next thing that's gonna make us happy, and we tread water in an ocean of ridiculous debt. Somebody well said there are three types of people in this world, the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not paid for what they have. But it's deeper than that. It really is deeper than that because it creates in us something that I call the when and then syndrome, and we've all dealt with it. It goes like this. When I get that, then I'll feel this. When I get there, then I'll feel this, but it never stinking delivers. When I get a better salary, then I'll finally be happy. When I get a better house, then I'll be satisfied.

When I get a nicer ride, I'll be happy. When I get a better man, a better woman, I'll really be fulfilled, fill in the blank, whatever that is, but you and I both know if you've lived any length of time that it never works out. We strive, we work, and we get those things, and the line just moves again, and we're right back at the wheel starting the search all over again for this elusive holy grail of happiness. It never is enough, and it will never be enough if we don't understand what the word of God says, and we end up chasing our tails at an unsustainable pace. Now, let me just bring some balance here because I want you to understand that this desire for fulfillment, this desire that we all share for happiness and satisfaction, the world didn't create that, and the devil didn't create that. That actually was born into us and given to us by God. We are born with a spiritual thing in us that seeks peace, that passes understanding, that seeks fulfillment. The only question that we have to answer is who are we going to let tell us what that is? Who are we going to allow to speak into our life and dictate for us how that question is answered, what is going to fulfill us?

Because if it's the world and the devil, we're gonna end up chasing our tails the rest of our life, but if it's the word of God that settles it once and for all for us, we can be truly fulfilled. And we are gonna live today in Philippians chapter four. We're gonna dissect this thing like a frog in biology class because inside of it, there is a secret to satisfaction. Let's start right here. Philippians chapter four, written by the apostle Paul. For I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. Focus on this word. I'm gonna talk about it for a minute. I know how to live on almost nothing. Paul said, I know how to live with almost everything. I have learned the secret. He calls it a secret. A secret to satisfaction. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. It is incredible. Now, there's two things that I wanna say about Philippians four, 11 and 12. The first thing that we need to identify here is how do we properly define contentment because some people don't know how to properly define biblical contentment. Biblical contentment is not apathy.

It is not laziness. It is not slothfulness. It is not complacency. You cannot not have a job, do nothing, and expect everyone else to always take care of you and then claim that you're content. You're not. You're lazy. You're selfish and you're mooching off everybody else. In Genesis chapter two in verse 15, the very first thing that God ever gave to man as a gift was not a woman, it was work. It wasn't a woman, it was work. When God breathed the breath of life into Adam and he became an animated soul, he opens his eyes, looks into the face of his creator, and God said, garden, go to work. First thing. It wasn't punishment. Work is not punishment. Work is a gift from God. We are called to work. God expects us to work. God expects us to set goals. God expects us to strive. God expects us to dream dreams. God expects us to live our life with purpose every single day. I remember a couple of men of honor sessions ago, I had a 27-year-old dude in our church

that I knew was still living at home, didn't have a job. His parents were taking care of everything, and he catches me in the lobby, and he says, hey, pastor, would you pray for me? I really need a big break. I need God to get me just a big break so that I can get where I need to be in life. And I looked at him and I said, do you know I love you? And he said, yes, you're my pastor. And I said, do you know I care for you and I wanna help you out here? I wanna speak truth to you. Yes, give it to me. I said, bro, you do not need a big break. What you need is a big pile of applications. That's what you need. And you need to fill out every one of them that you can, and the first person that calls you back, I don't care if it's McDonald's, you say yes and get going. God cannot bless what you're not doing. He only blesses you in flight. Your big break will come when you just get off the couch and start actually obeying the Lord and doing what God has called you to do. Your mom and dad can't pay for everything. He expects you to get up and go to work. Let me give you biblical contentment. Biblical contentment is finding fulfillment in where you are while in passionate pursuit

of where God wants you to be. It is finding fulfillment right where you are in whatever state you're in, in whatever position you find yourself, while you are in passionate pursuit of the will of God for your life and where he would have you to be. So what I'm saying is have goals. Yes, dream dreams for sure. Strive for something meaningful in your life. Bible tells us this. But don't let those goals drive you to make bad decisions or take costly short guts or to compromise your relationship with God. Let me show you the second thing in Philippians 4 that is really gonna launch us into the meat of the message that is the crux of the whole message. Here we go. For I have learned, watch it. Paul said I've learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing. I know how to live with everything. He says it again. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Paul makes it clear that this type of biblical contentment does not come natural to us, does not come nature to us.

It's learned behavior. You have to learn it as a product of a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a product of something we discover and learn. It will not come easy or natural to us. What we're born with is actually the opposite of this. What we're born with is a desire to get what we want without ever having to wait. That's what we're born with. We want it, and we want it now, dude. We want it, and we want it now. We don't wanna wait. We don't wanna work for it. We don't want delayed gratification, but that kind of a lack of discipline, that kind of a lack of restraint is often the reason that we have so many problems in our lives. So let's launch from here. The Bible says that it's learned, biblical contentment is learned. So how do we learn contentment? How does that work? Where do we start? I wanna share with you today four things that the Bible teaches us that we better learn if we are gonna walk out and flesh out biblical contentment in our life. Here's the first one. You gotta learn to avoid comparison.

You better learn to avoid comparison. The number one source of all discontent is comparison. It starts right here. You need to settle and accept and embrace now there is always gonna be somebody who makes more money than you. There's always gonna be somebody that lives in a nicer house than you. They're gonna drive a nicer car than you. They're gonna have fewer problems than you. That is just the way it is. I sincerely say, good for them, but what's that got to do with me? That ain't got nothing to do with me. Watch what Paul said in 2 Corinthians. He said we don't look around at what we see right now, the troubles all around us. We look forward to the joys God has prepared for us in the future. Troubles of the day will soon be over, but the joys that are to come will last forever. Now I know there's multiple spiritual implications to that verse, but for the sake of what we're talking about today in biblical contentment, look at what Paul said. Paul said, I don't waste my time looking around, because if I spend too much time looking around, I won't be looking up, and I'll focus on what everybody else is doing, what everybody else has got, and what I don't have.

Whenever we spend too much time looking around at other people and where they are, what they're doing, and what they have, it creates unhealthy comparison. What Paul is saying, fix your focus on God. Learn to fix your. Eyes on God and on your relationship with God and his purpose for your life. When you do this, it ignites the soul and creates contentment. Because it's not that you and I don't want to progress. We all want to progress. Right, I do, you do, we all do. But focusing on God allows you to remember that progress is a process. And you can be okay with where you are while God is moving you where he eventually wants you to be. Just accept and settle now. There are just gonna be some people farther ahead of you. Listen, if I, it's not just, dude, it's preachers too. All right, let me flatten the floor, dude. So many of my friends pastor giga churches. We're a mega church, 2,000 or bigger. A giga church is 10,000 or bigger. I got friends pastoring, 35,000 people. If I compared what we're doing to what they're doing, I would go, we're doing nothing. But we are doing something. I can't worry about what God's doing in their churches and in their cities.

Praise God for that. What I know is that God is using Canvas to change a lot to a county and surrounding counties. Souls are being saved, lives are being changed, marriages are being restored. Praise God for what he's doing over there. But I celebrate more what God's doing right here. Thank God for what he's doing in and through our church. So it's everybody, man. Comparison can be everywhere. And we gotta be really, really, really careful. God has a will for them, just like God has a will for you. Learn to be okay with your journey. There is nothing wrong with celebrating and admiring what God is doing in somebody else, but don't see their journey as better or more blessed than your journey, it's not. God has a purpose for you. You have been created on purpose, with a purpose, for a purpose. Celebrate that, man. You can still admire people from a distance, but rejoice in what God is doing in and through you. Whenever we spend too much time comparing ourselves with others, we allow what they have to keep us from absolutely enjoying and being grateful for what we have through God's grace right now. It's a brutal cycle, and it robs us of joy and peace and understanding.

So we gotta learn, number one, to avoid comparisons. Celebrate them, thank God for them. Ain't got nothing to do with you. Number two, you gotta learn to adjust well to change. Life is full of turns. Now you know this. If you lived any length of time, there's good turns, brothers, bad turns, I get it. There's ups, there's downs, it's just the way it is. I shared this with you before, but I'm over the whole God of the mountain, God of the valley stuff. I know we write songs about it, we sing about it, but I'm over that because I don't really look at life that way anymore. I look at life as a railroad track. There's two rails running through my life at any one time. There's always a rail that there's something I can complain about and whine about. There's always something going wrong in my life on this rail, but right next to it's another rail that I can always find something to rejoice, praise God about, and see the good of God in my life about, and I get to choose which rail I'm gonna ride on. And I refuse to live my life pessimistic, waiting for the other shoe to drop, dude. I refuse to live my life fearful and anxious and fretful. I choose to believe with all of my heart that because he's our good father, the best is yet to come.

You get to choose, but I will tell you, there's no doubt that change in life is inevitable. It is constant. There are gonna be emotional changes. Oh, bro, there's gonna be physical change. I just turned 54. Let me tell you something about your 50s. That check engine soon light comes on, big dog. I was working out. Y'all know this. I was working out a couple months ago. I wasn't doing anything crazy. I wasn't trying to lift the house or nothing, and popped a tendon in my bicep and had to have surgery. I mean, my body just said, hey, big dog, you can't do that no more. You see these right here? I used to never have to wear these things. You know what my body's telling me? You're dying, cat. You're dying. You're decaying. You're going down. Now, here's the deal. You can either be resentful about that or you can embrace it. You can either let it make you angry or you can resist change or you can roll with it. There's changes coming to your life. Physically, hey, there's changes coming

to your life mentally. Some of y'all are in the middle of it. I'll read your posts on Facebook, bro. Some of y'all need to get some help. I mean, I'm telling you, there's people that'll meet with you and talk with you about some of your stuff. There's changes coming financially. Brothers, listen, change is coming. So my question is this. How do you react to change? How do you react to change? Does it make you fretful? Does it depress you? Does it make you angry, resentful, or uptight? Paul is saying to us here in the Scriptures that one of the true secrets to being in biblical contentment is to find joy in. Flexibility, to learn to adjust, to learn high adaptability to the ever-vacillating things and changes of life. Learn how to roll with it, man. People who handle and adapt to change are the ones who live the most content and the happiest lives. They don't take everything so hard. Let me show it to you again. Let's go back to it. Philippians 4, for I've learned how to be content with whatever I got, bro.

I know how to live on almost nothing. I know how to live with everything. Watch the last line. I've learned the secret of being content. Any and every situation. Any and every situation. Any and every, when it's good, I'm good. When it's bad, I'm all right. When it's going the way I want it, all right. When it's not going the way I want it, it's okay, man. I have seen something bigger. I have found my joy in my relationship with God. And listen, nobody, a lot of people don't do good with it. People, miserable people always resist change. When you get across a miserable person, they always resist change. And don't think they don't come to church, because they do. Listen, we've grown from 18, over 18 years, to almost 3,000. You know there has been tons of changes in our church, and not everybody has done well with it. You should read some of the emails that I've gotten over these last 18 years. They are some of the most vitriol, venomous, nasty things you've ever read in your entire life. People loved us at 500, hated our guts at 1,000. Loved us at 1,000, hated our guts at 2,000. I mean, there's just changes coming. And what Paul is saying here is that

I'm not going to allow my outside circumstances to mandate or dictate my internal joy. Things are gonna happen around me I can't control. But what I can control is that I'm gonna make sure that my true joy is rooted deeply in my relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm not gonna surrender, Paul said, the fullness of my joy to my finances, because often he was destitute. He said, I'm not gonna allow my peace to be determined by the loyalty of others to me, because many people betrayed him on his missionary journeys. He said, I'm not even gonna allow my fulfillment to be mandated by my personal freedom, because much of his Christian life was spent behind bars in prison. He said, I'm not going to be a victim to my circumstances. I am going to not allow what is happening to me to get in me. I find my joy in the Lord. Learn to avoid comparing, learn high adaptability. Number three, he said in Philippians, learn to lean on the supernatural power of Christ. What I'm saying is, Paul did not recommend when challenging and difficult circumstances happen, just put yourself up by the bootstraps and try harder. That is not the message of the Bible. The message of the Bible is not, come on, you can do better. Come on, you should do better.

You need to be stronger. You just need more willpower to stay calm and content. What we actually need, he said, is the power of Christ who gives us strength. Watch what he said, verse 13. For I have learned how to be content with whatever I have, know how to live on almost nothing or everything. I've learned the secret of being content in every situation for I can do all things. Everybody say all. Guess what that Greek word means. Yeah, that's right. I'm quick like that. You gotta watch me, Brad. That Greek word, and it is a Greek word, but it literally means, it means encompassing, enveloping. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I like one translation better. It said there is nothing that I cannot master through the power of Christ. There is nothing I cannot master through the power of Christ. So let me ask you, what in your life is out of control that you need to master? Is it your emotions? Is it your mouth? Don't look at anybody right now. I see some of you cutting your eyes. Is it your attitude? Is it your lust? Is it your out of control finance?

Is it some addiction that has controlled you forever? The message is not you can do better, try harder. The message is surrender all of you to all of him. You can master anything through the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit working in and through your life. There is a great misconception sometimes that coming to Christ and becoming a believer somehow means that we should now be exempt from the problems of life, not a chance. Jesus told us that in this world we were gonna have tribulation, we were gonna have trouble. We still have to live in a jacked up world even though we're saved. A broken world even though we've been delivered that produces trouble and pain at every turn. Let me tell you what it does mean. When Jesus comes into your life, Jesus in you does not mean the subtraction of problems from life. Jesus in you means the addition of spiritual power to meet those problems head on and overcome them. Not by might nor by power but by his spirit. Paul's confidence was not in himself. He didn't have great strength in his own ability. He didn't have great confidence in his own talent or his own education. He realized that the secret to his power, Good to his ability to overcome, rested in the depth of his relationship with Christ and how he leaned upon him.

Number four and finally, we gotta learn to trust that God is truly faithful, he truly is, he's sovereign, and he will truly meet all of our needs. The ultimate way that we learn to be content and to enjoy biblical contentment is to find that place where we truly, utterly trust in God to provide. Doesn't mean we don't work hard, doesn't mean we don't dream dreams, doesn't mean we don't do our due diligence, doesn't mean we don't obey the scriptures, doesn't mean we don't find discipline in God's word, but ultimately, control is an illusion and we have to trust in the power of God and in the goodness of God to provide. In fact, if you really wanna define what worry is, at its root cause, worry is simply the fear deep in our hearts that we don't know if even God is going to come through. It's this fear that says, I don't know if this situation is even bigger than God. Can God even handle this one? That's where worry comes from, which is ridiculous because we know that he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think and Paul drills down on this in verse 19 of Philippians 4. Here's what he says. And this same God who takes care of me

will supply all of your needs from his glorious riches which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. Like many of you, I have different insurance policies for several things. When I bought these insurance policies for my vehicles, for my home, I read through these things carefully to make sure I knew what was covered in the policy. Once I read what was covered, I no longer worry about those things. Why should I worry about those things? They are covered. In the eventuality of the worst case scenario, I will be made whole again. Those things can be replaced. Listen, the Bible is God's insurance policy to us through the 6,000 promises that God makes to us in his word. 6,000 promises, not suggestions. They are not just pledges. They are promises of God. This is why you need to read your Bible because if you don't know what's covered, you're gonna constantly be fretful. If you don't know what's covered by God, you're gonna constantly be worried. But if you know what's covered by God, why would you ever worry again? God's got this. Everything is going to be okay. When you begin to realize that God's got you covered,

you will realize there is no reason to be anxious. There is no reason to be fretful. There is no reason to be fearful. But I wanna land this plane by really sharing with you the ultimate reason that people live with discontent in this world, no matter who they are, where they come from. The real reason that so many people live in ultimate discontent is because, and unsatisfied and unfulfilled, is because Jesus Christ is not at the center of their lives. It's because Jesus is not at the center of their lives. They are looking for fulfillment in things that will never satisfy them, and God ordained it to be that way. There is no amount of money that will satisfy you. There is no relationship that will fully satisfy you. There is no amount of sex you can have that will satisfy you. There is no amount of food that you can eat that will satisfy you. All of those have appetites. You will experience those things, and then you'll get hungry again, and you'll want more again. There is only one thing that he promised that would satisfy finally and fully. I went to Yellowstone a couple years ago. If you've ever been to Yellowstone, it's massive. People told me I had to go see Old Faithful.

Biggest disappointment of the entire trip. I hate to be that guy. But Old Faithful is the most anticlimactic thing ever, and I don't want to ruin it for you, okay? If you go, just go see it, but don't expect some massive geyser. That ain't it, all right? You're gonna sit there, wait and wait and wait, and after you drove three hours, and it's gonna go pfft, pfft, pfft, and you're gonna go, bro, I got gypped. I want my money back, bro, all right? Again, it's a whole other sermon for another time. But when you drive into Yellowstone, everywhere you go, man, you're gonna see this everywhere. Don't feed the bears. Don't feed the bears. Don't feed the bears. Don't feed the stinking bears, okay? Everywhere you go, don't feed the bears. And a lot of people ignore it. They just, they don't do it. They feed the stupid bears. And a lot of people believe that the only reason those signs were there, to theirs for the safety of the public. And of course, that's partly true, but it's only partly true. I read this a couple years ago. The other huge side of it was revealed

in an article written by the chief wildlife officer of Yellowstone. He wrote an article for the local paper so that people could see why they're so adamant about not feeding the bears. In his article, what he highlighted was the fact that through the years, as the park was becoming increasingly populated with tourists, and people were increasingly ignoring the signs to feed the bears, they were finding more and more dead bears throughout the park. And they didn't know what was happening. They were like, dude, do we have a virus? Is there an outbreak? Is it some type of hemorrhagic disease? What's going on? And so they did this study. They were trying to figure out why all these bears were dying. And what they eventually discovered after a few years of investigation is that the bears were actually getting so used to being fed by the vast amounts of tourists that come every week, that they had actually lost their own ability to fend for themselves and survive on what nature had provided. They got so used to living on handouts that when the handout was no longer there,

they just died. I said that to say this. Bro, our enemy loves to give us handouts. He loves to feed us things and get us things that are cheap substitutes for the real thing, and to get us dependent on everything and anything, but Jesus and God, for our fulfillment, he gives us a thrill here, an amusement there, a pleasure here, and he trains us by his best to get us dependent on these cheap substitutes that will provide momentary fulfillment and momentary satisfaction. And he keeps feeding it to us, and we keep eating it, and we think this is gonna be the one that finally fulfills me. And then one day, when he stops giving us handouts, we lose the thrill. We lose the joy. We lose the relationship. We lose our way, and we die emotionally and spiritually. He got us so used to depending on everything and anything, but Christ for our ultimate fulfillment that when it's gone, we feel helpless and hopeless. But the true secret to satisfaction

for the soul, every soul on this planet is always the same and will always be the same. And David uncovered it in the first line of his famous psalm. The Lord is my shepherd. I have all that I need. Listen, this is not a statement of provision that God will provide. This is a statement of sufficiency. Listen to it. He's not saying because the Lord is my shepherd, when problems come up in my life and when needs come up in my life, God is gonna meet those needs. We do know that's true. That's not what David is saying here. He is saying because the Lord is my shepherd, I'm all good, bro. Because he's my shepherd, I don't need nothing else. Because of my relationship with the shepherd, it's all good in my soul. I have peace that passes understanding, and anything else that comes into my life is gravy because I got the shepherd. I got everything that I've ever needed. It wasn't what he gives. It's he himself that is the gift and provision. See, the Lord will provide.

The song's great. And there's so many great lines in the song, but for me, it's always been verse two. It's always been verse two. If I have you, I have enough. If I have you, I have enough. Your love will satisfy everything I need. Everything I need, my God has it. My God has it. This is what Jesus meant. In John chapter six, he just fed a bunch of people with a couple of biscuits and some sardines, right? And then he looks at him and he goes, I know you enjoyed that meal, but let me go ahead and tell you, in about four hours, you're gonna want another one. But what I wanna tell you about me is that I am the bread of life. If you eat me, you will never hunger again. I am that stream of living water. And if you drink of me, you will never thirst again. I am the only thing in this world that will ever fully fulfill you and satisfy you. And to try to find it in anything else is futile. Chasing your tail, you'll never get there. Christ is not the means of provision. He's not the means of sufficiency. He is the provision. Christ is the gift. Christ is the sufficiency.

When you settle in your soul, that it is well in your soul with him, now you find the level of fulfillment that allows you to pursue the things in this life in a healthy way and enjoy them properly. Without the center. being Jesus you will chase and run and fret and worry and burn the candle at both ends and constantly stay in a state of discontent and you'll get to the end of your life and wonder what it was all about but when you settle in your soul it's him man it's him man he's the drink he's the bread of life he is the secret to satisfaction and sufficiency you settle that in your soul now you truly know what it means to say I have peace that passes understanding because I have settled in my soul that it is well with my soul in Christ father I thank you for the Word of the Lord