The Lord is My Shepherd | Psalm 23 (Family Weekend 2023)

Today we’re gonna talk about sheep.

What are some characteristics of sheep?

So the sheep species is largely what’s called a domesticated species, which basically means they’re hopeless… without us watching over them. Now sheep have been domesticated for as long as civilization has existed. They are a great source of food and their wool is great for clothing so humans have protected the species and bred them for many many years.

Someone who watches sheep is what we call a shepherd. Sheep rely heavily on the shepherd throughout their lifetime. The shepherd moves them to a new field when their current one is overgrazed, the shepherd protects them from predators, the shepherd keeps them groomed; he basically does everything for them. If a shepherd is a good shepherd, the sheep put their trust in him to keep them safe. They’re comforted when they see him... because they know they’re safe.

And that brings us to our scripture today. Turn to Psalm 23 in your bibles.

While you’re turning there, I want to provide some context. David was a shepherd before he was a king. He watched over sheep through most of his childhood, so he knew what it meant to shepherd sheep.

With that in mind, let’s read Psalm 23...

Psalm 23 NLT

A psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. 2 He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. 3 He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. 4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. 5 You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. 6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

So you’ve probably realized by now that I’ve called all of y’all sheep. But it’s alright cause I also called myself a sheep.

David here describes God as his shepherd. By now David was probably the king of Israel for many years. He has riches beyond anyone else, power over the entirety of the nation; a nation by the way that was a powerful empire, conquering those in opposition to it. And yet David describes himself as but a sheep. Not a king, not a military conqueror, not a wealthy man, not a powerful man… but a sheep.

As I thought about this, I couldn’t help but think about how I view myself. It’s so easy to get into the mindset of, “Well I’m still a human so I’m not necessarily good, but I go to church so I’m at least better than people who don’t do those things.” David was KING of God’s chosen people. Yet he still thought of himself as the lowest of the low.

We’re all still sheep, some of us just have the Lord as our Shepherd.

1. The Lord is our Provider (vv. 1-3)

I wanna tell y’all a story. There was a shepherd who did not tend to his flock well. The water was muddy, the land was swampy, the sheep weren’t groomed, the shepherd didn’t watch them at night to protect them from predators. So the sheep were matted, skinny, many died from wolves, and many were diseased. But the shepherd didn’t care, he didn’t want to take care of the sheep. In his mind, they were just bred for the slaughterhouse.

That’s a tragic thought. And the sad thing is this is exactly the state that sheep without God as their shepherd will face. They have no purpose except death. And they reject their only hope.

Now I want you to imagine that ranch with the neglected sheep and the terrible shepherd right beside a ranch with a shepherd who truly cares for his sheep. He prepared the land before bringing the sheep out there, he watches them, grooms them, cares for their needs, and the sheep are happy and healthy. Because of this, the neglected sheep often go to the fence between the two ranches and try to break through the fence. But they can’t. They are stuck just standing there and watching on as the healthy sheep graze the rich land on the other side.

Now lets read verses 1 through 3 again...

Psalm 23:1–3 NLT

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. 2 He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. 3 He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

I have all that I need… some translations translate that as “I shall not want”.

We graze green meadows. We drink at peaceful streams. We have everything we need, and more! So we shouldn’t want, because we have already been given the greatest reward we can be given. And we are continually given more.

Now before we move on I want to focus on the end of verse 3 for a minute. It says, “bringing honor to His name.”

Going back to the analogy, imagine someone walks by the ranch of the healthy sheep and stops and takes a minute to appreciate how healthy the sheep are. Do you think they praise the sheep for how healthy it looks? You think he looks at the sheep and thinks, “Man that’s a good sheep. I bet he worked so hard to look as healthy as he does. That sheep should be rewarded for how healthy it looks,”? No. The shepherd receives the praise for how healthy the sheep looks. Because the sheep would look terrible if it weren’t for the shepherd; just look at the ranch on the other side of the fence!

In the same way, God receives the glory when He provides for us. God receives the glory when we do anything good. Because He is the Provider.

2. The Lord is our Guide (v. 3)

Have y’all ever gotten hungry late at night so you walk into the kitchen, open the fridge, stare in there for about 3 minutes, and you don’t find anything so you go over to the pantry hoping something will be in there when in actuality you looked at the pantry earlier that day so you know there isn’t anything you want, stare for a few minutes, don’t find anything, then you go back to the fridge hoping something magically appeared in there between now and the last time you checked, then you finally settle for that thing that you didn’t really want, but it seems like the least worst thing in both the pantry and the fridge?

Our lives are full of decisions like this. Now the decisions we’re about to talk about are a little bit more important than what you’re able to find in your fridge at 10 o clock at night, but they’re still decisions.

How many conscious decisions do you think your brain makes in a day? And when I say conscious decisions, I don’t mean whether you should scratch your nose if it itches, your subconscious makes that decision for you. But decisions such as what should I say next or how long should I watch TV.

There’s a study that says that every day, humans make on average about 35,000 conscious decisions a day. What shoes do I wear, what do I eat, what chapter of the Bible do I read (cause I know y’all read your Bibles at home). There are 35,000 of those.

And many of these decisions don’t have to do with our heart and what we believe spiritually, but you can often tell who is following God based on the decisions they make.

Verse 3 says, “He guides me along right paths.” So we know if God is our guide, we’re gonna at least try to make right decisions. People can over-spiritualize this and say that God always gives you peace when you make a right decision or it just feels right. And that may be true sometimes. That was true for me when I moved to Athens. I felt at peace when I thought about moving up here, it just felt right. But that’s not always the case. There may be times where you’re faced with a decision where every answer seems like a bad answer and you’re just trying to pick the least worst decision. You may need to make a snap decision quickly where there’s no time to see which answer “feels” better. That’s why its important for us to remember that God has been making you into a new person as He has been working in and through you; He is making you into someone who thinks clearly, loves deeply, cares immensely, and this new person is much better at making decisions than you were before you were saved.

3. The Lord is our Comforter (v. 4)

I started last year unsure if I was truly called to ministry and ended last year leading the worship team at Connection Church Dublin while the worship pastor was on a seven week sabbatical. This time period was when I had some of the most anxiety and doubt about my future. Shortly after the year started, I felt the call to worship ministry. Prior to this, I had played guitar and sang very little. Yet for some reason, God was calling me to worship ministry. I had never experienced so much doubt in myself. I told the worship pastor at Connection Church Dublin over and over, “How am I supposed to do this when I am not even somewhat good at singing and guitar?” And over and over he would respond that God would equip me to do the work He has called me to do.

During that period, I felt God as my Comforter more than ever. I had never been able to sing on stage. But God called me to a ministry where I’d do it almost every week. As time passed, I trusted God more. I was more comfortable being uncomfortable. Because I had seen God provide when I stepped out on faith. Now I can’t imagine where I’d be if God hadn’t comforted me in that time period.

Let’s read verse 4 real quick...

Psalm 23:4 NLT

4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

Sheep are known to be very timid creatures. In verse 2, it says “He lets me rest in green meadows.” In other translations that reads, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” Its strange that David writes that God MAKES him lie down in the green pastures. Until you know more about sheep. You see sheep aren’t just timid, they are terrified all the time. They are so scared of predators, they have evolved to be able to sleep standing up in times when they need to show extra caution. So in verse 2, David is essentially saying God allows him to rest in what He has given him. When sheep have a good shepherd, they are comforted by His presence.

A defining characteristic of a shepherd is their staff. Its usually this long stick that is curved at the end. Even the sight of this staff comforts the sheep. So even if they are walking through the darkest valley, as long as the shepherd is there, they are comforted.

4. The Lord is our Protector (vv. 4)

Notice how at the end of verse 4, it says, “Your rod and Your staff PROTECT and comfort me.” So what does the staff have to do with protecting the flock?

Well in verse 4, it doesn’t just reference the staff of the shepherd, it also references the rod of the shepherd. It may seem like these are the same thing, but they aren’t. The rod here is the equivalent in biblical times of what a rifle would be today. The shepherd would throw the rod almost like a spear toward predators. So today when a shepherd goes out to the field, he has his staff and his rifle; ready to protect the flock from predators.

David follows up verse 4 with a bit of an odd statement. He writes, “You prepare a feast before me in the presence of my enemies.” That’s weird. I used to think this meant God sets the table and we walk up, sit down, and there’s Satan right beside me just chowing down. But the Hebrew word for “in the presence of”, Neghed, can also be interpreted, “opposite of”. So God prepares a feast for us while our enemy is opposite to us with nothing.

You see God does protect us, but often not in the way we think. The enemy is going to attack, he is going to seek to destroy you, but God doesn’t give you revenge, He gives you the ability to persevere. Remember in verse 3, it says, “He renews my strength.”

5. The Lord is our Preserver (vv. 5)

The third line of verse 5 says, “You honor me by anointing my head with oil.”

Does anyone know what it means to be anointed by God?

To be anointed by God usually means to be blessed by God to accomplish His mission. But anointing someone with oil has another meaning in the Bible.

Psalm 45:7 NLT

7 You love justice and hate evil. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you, pouring out the oil of joy on you more than on anyone else.

So oil also represents joy... It’s a difficult concept to think that God blesses us with joy. Especially during times where we experience trials. But joy isn’t happiness. That’s not to say you’ll never be happy. But happiness is not what sustains you. Joy is what sustains you. I found a definition of joy that I love. It said joy is a feeling of inward peace and contentment. That’s such a good definition because the best way I can define the joy of God is peace.

David closes verse 5 by writing, “My cup overflows with blessings.”

One of the reasons I wanted to share this Psalm with y’all is because this Psalm has beautiful imagery that is lost if you just gloss over it real quick.

David uses this imagery of a cup overflowing. I love to use this imagery with the worship team as we’re preparing to lead others in worship on Sunday morning because its so encouraging. As we live in relationship with God, He fills up our cup. And there becomes a time when the cup is so full that it overflows on to those around us. That’s when the Gospel powerfully works through us because we are able to show others the blessings that God has shown us through His Son.

That may have sounded gibberish to some of y’all, so let me explain. Psalm 23 spoke volumes to me before I prepared this sermon. And as I was preparing this sermon, I was so excited to share it with y’all because it was cutting through to my heart. I was feeling the weight of the Gospel as I was preparing to preach in this Psalm. I was being blessed by God with wisdom to be able to share with y’all. That’s the best way I can describe this imagery of the cup overflowing with blessings.

6. The Lord is our Pursuer (v. 6)

Psalm 23:6 NLT

6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

That’s the Gospel right there. God wasn’t content watching you fall to sin. He pursued you. His goodness and love pursued you and continues to pursue you every day. Jesus loved you so much, He came to this Earth to live a sinless life and die a brutal death so that you may spend eternity with Him in heaven. And in our condition we could never even accept Him as our Savior unless He pursues us first.

I wanna read from y’all in John. I’m telling y’all this had me in tears as I read this.

Jesus says...

John 10:11–16 NLT

11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. 12 A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. 13 The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15 just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

This is what Psalm 23 is about. It all points to Jesus. He is our shepherd. We are the flock of Jesus. And we are not a flock that is divided. We are united by the death and resurrection of Him. He is the Good Shepherd… He knows us. He knows we are sinners. He knows the darkest parts of our heart, yet chose to pursue us anyway... That is a shepherd I can get behind. He is our Provider, our Guide, our Comforter, our Protector, our Preserver, our Pursuer, our Shepherd.

I want you to see this. In the first 3 verses of Psalm 23 we see Jesus guiding us. So Jesus is in front of us, leading us, guiding us along right paths.

Then in verse 4 and 5 we see Him come alongside us as our Comforter and Protector. Protecting us when the enemy attacks and comforting us when we feel at our lowest.

Then in verse 6, He’s behind us. Pursuing us. His love that never fails pursues us each and every day. When we run away from Him and choose sin, He still pursues us. When we feel on top of the world and pride sets in and we think can do this all ourself without God, He pursues us. Even when we are down on the ground feeling like the world is stacked against us, He pursues us.

David closes Psalm 23 with such a beautiful response to God’s pursuing goodness and love. He writes, “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Let’s pray...