I Am The Good Shepherd

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Introduction

Speaking of Souly Business, we are going to transition now into some time in the Word and I want to start this off by just sharing a little of what God has been doing in me over the past few months leading into this retreat.

God has really been dealing with me in the area of shepherding and not so much of how well or not well that I have been pastoring this church, but more so along the line of how God is shepherding me. And to be specific, God has been both disciplining me and comforting me in the midst of a very trying time.

As many of you know, I transitioned to only pastoring a few months back and it has been a transition. I’m still learning and still growing into this and my hope is that you are seeing a difference in me. I know personally, I am experiencing a lot less anxiety and a lot more peace. When you do what God is asking you to do, that tends to be the case. He was trying to lead me into this place, but the more I fought him, the more anxiety I felt.

God is a good shepherd who tries to lead us into good places. They may be hard, there will likely be difficulties, but its always good. He wants good for me and for you. Now, the more we fight against that, the less peace, joy, happiness and contentment we will experience.

Today, we are continuing our series entitled “I Am” and we are going to focus on this idea of shepherding today. Now, I’m going to do something a little different today. I’m going to first read our base text, which is found in the gospel of John, chapter 10 where Jesus declares himself to be the good shepherd, but then we are going to transition to the text which I think best explains this idea. Let’s first read from John.

John 10:11–15 ESV

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

The idea behind this series, “I Am” is that Jesus is revealing pieces of his identity to his disciples and to us today. In today’s text, He is revealing himself as the Good Shepherd. So the most natural questions that spring forward are, who are shepherds and what do they do? And the simplest answer I have for you is this -Shepherds care for and provide for the sheep.

Now this text is pretty straightforward, and Jesus is really drawing on ideas that he presented in our previous sermon in this text where Jesus declares “I am the door.” Now in that sermon, I discussed the fact that Jesus starts his idea by comparing a shepherd to a thief. The thief or robber doesn’t enter by the door, but climbs in another way. The Sheep don’t follow the robber because they know the voice of the Shepherd. That kind of puts a lot of emphasis on knowing the voice of our master, doesn’t it?

So moving on, Jesus reiterates twice in this passage that He is the Good Shepherd. He’s not the thief, he’s not the robber, he’s not the enemy. He’s not a hireling either. He isn’t in this to just gather a following until hard times hit. He is our ultimate provider. And just like I said before, God knows we will go through hard times. In fact, if you are a Christian, you can expect that. You can expect to go through valleys and climb mountaintops. That’s normal.

And that leads me to where I felt like the Lord wanted us to go this morning, which is arguably one of the most well known passages of Scripture in the Bible. Psalm 23. And speaking of hard times, one of the reasons why this passage is so well known is because it is one of the most common passages used at funerals. This passage has offered solace to millions of people grieving through loss. Today though, I’d like to look at it with fresh eyes to see what God may be speaking to us today.

Can we read this together? The words are on the screen.

Psalm 23 (ESV)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 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. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The first verse of this Psalm really sets the tone for the entire Psalm. The Psalmist starts off by declaring the God is his shepherd. He is my shepherd insinuating that you could be shepherded by others, but He is choosing the Lord.

This leads me to my main point this morning, which is this...

When The Lord Is Your Shepherd, You Are Content

Contentment means that you don’t have want for anything! You are content. You have everything you need. You don’t desire that which you don’t have, but instead you are grateful for what you do have. When God is your Shepherd, you have everything you need.

If you look it up in the Oxford dictionary, it defines contentment as the state of happiness and satisfaction. Now, this might be a revolutionary thought for you, but I’m convinced that God isn’t concerned about whether you are successful or not. You may concerned about that. Your definition of success may be driving you to do all types of things, but I don’t think God is overly concerned about your personal success, how much wealth you achieve, how big your house is, how many cars you own.

Here’s one of the things that I do believe the Lord is concerned about - Are you content with just Him? Are you finding contentment, your joy, your happiness, your satisfaction in Him, or are you finding it somewhere else? I believe this is one of his top concerns for you.

We live in a culture that is overly concerned with whether you are successful or not. What have you done to make a mark in this world? When did you earn your first million? How is your career benefiting society? What do you offer this world? What do you offer, period?

And most of us have bought into this lie. Which is why if you ask parents, what do you want for their children? “I want them to be successful.” Is one of the top answers. And if you ask someone about their grown kids, what is the response? It typically revolves around how successful they are.

Oh my! What an indictment against the church! Our desire is for our kids to be successful? Really? Not that they would walk with Jesus? Not that they would give away everything they own to follow him? Not that they would be willing to sacrifice their success to reach a nation of people who have never heard the name of Jesus? Are you serious? Your kid doesn’t go to church, doesn’t pray, doesn’t know Jesus, but he’s a great lawyer and you think that is successful?

The time of success is a time of danger to the Christian soul.

J. C. Ryle

In other words, success is not the legacy we should be laying down for our children. Our heart and our goal should be to instill in our kids this idea that true success is only found in our satisfaction with God. He is our Shepherd. We shall not want. True success is found in faithfulness, not in worldly wealth.

Watch where Jesus went. The one dominant note in his life was to do his Father’s will. His is not the way of wisdom or of success, but the way of faithfulness.

Oswald Chambers

Chambers is talking about wordly wisdom and wordly success there. Jesus was successful but it wasn’t by wordly standards. After all, the world killed him. Worldly wealth and prosperity is not the kind of thing we should be promoting to our children.

But, It’s also not found in morality. The goal is not that our kids would be good moral adults, but rather that they would be godly men and women of God who seek him first. That’s the point. God wants us content in where he leads us.

This is the entire theme of this passage. And this passage is cutting to me. It goes against my sensibilities. Look at verse 2, he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters. In the Hebrew, that is literally waters of rest. Rest. You know you have to be content to rest. You can’t rest when you are busy.

Busyness is a sign of our discontentment.

Busyness is a sign that our satisfaction is found apart from God

Most of us are busy because we refuse to let got lead us into places of contentment with Him. We would rather fill our schedule to the brim rather than allowing for Him to dictate our schedule. This is why some of us have trouble having a quiet time or doing devotionals or having a time of prayer.

Think about what the Psalmist is saying, God wants to lead you to places of rest. He wants you to have a place to lie down and find your contentment in Him. That’s the point.

Now. I don’t want you to confuse contentment and rest with apathy. Some of us struggle with apathy. Apathy says I don’t care, I’m lazy, I’m not motivated. Apathy is the ditch on the other side of the road. You aren’t content with the Father, you are a lazy servant who has sat down in a field of thorns rather than letting the Father lead you to green pastures. In other words, contentment in what you have, where you are, what you own is what I’m talking about, not contentment in where you are spiritually. I like the way Tozer puts this.

Contentment with earthly goods is the mark of a saint; contentment with our spiritual state is a mark of inward blindness.

A. W. Tozer

So don’t confuse the two. The Lord is trying to lead you to contentment in Him when it comes to where you are in life, not apathy in your spiritual state. I think this is emphasized in the next verse. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness.

Rest And Restoration Go Hand In Hand

On the outside this looks like an impossibility…how can I rest while he is leading me down paths? If I’m going somewhere, if I’m doing something with Him, how am I resting by still waters? Great question. The Psalmist connects this to the restoration of our souls. Our souls, because of being born into sin, living a life apart from Jesus, are broken. They are in need of restoration.

Our restoration comes as we find contentment in Him. As we find our rest, our satisfaction in Jesus, we become more content and what happens is our souls are healed of the brokenness that we carry within us. Rest is found in walking with Him. The lack of rest, or trouble is found when refuse to walk with Him. Walking with Him is not troubling, it’s restful. And it’s in this place of rest that our souls are restored.

You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.

Augustine of Hippo

This is why we can walk through the valley of deep darkness in verse 4. Older saints called this the dark night of the soul. We can walk through a place where death literally casts it shadow upon us and we can find contentment, satisfaction because He is with us. The Shepherd of our souls walks with us in that dark place. He doesn’t leave us.

You are with me declares David! You comfort and protect me. Your rod, your discipline comforts me. Notice the change in pronouns here. It went from He makes me lie down, He leads me, to You are with me, Your rod and staff, You prepare a table, you anoint my head with oil.

This leads me to my next point...

Contentment is the birthplace of intimacy

If you want intimacy with God, you won’t get it by chasing after the cares of this world. If your life is marked by busyness with worldly pursuits, you won’t have time for intimacy with God. In order to produce that sort of intimacy in your life, you must first learn the lesson of contentment. As the Psalmist lie there in the green pasture, something changed in Him. When he found contentment, he found intimacy.

Do you want to grow closer to Jesus? Then find contentment with where God has you and what he has given you.

Oh how I long to know you better Lord! Oh how I want to grow closer to you Lord. Help me to find my satisfaction in you. Help me to find my satisfaction in where you have placed me. Thank you for providing those things.

The Psalmist then continues in verse 5. Your prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. When you are walking with Jesus, you will most certainly find that you have some enemies. (Reminder Jesus tells us to love our enemies).

When you find yourself with enemies, look for God. He is still providing for you, like a good shepherd. He will put out a banquet for you even though you are surrounded by your enemies. King David saw God do this for him time and time again. Whether it was Saul or Absalom, David had made some enemies, but God always provided for David. David was described as a man after God’s own heart. David had learned that true satisfaction comes from chasing after God’s heart, intimacy with Him, rather than chasing after his own kingdom or anything else.

As you walk in intimacy and contentment, your cup will overflow. The Psalmist describes it as an anointing. When they would anoint you, they would use oil. Typically it would be poured out of a ram’s horn onto the top of your head. Not typically the forehead type of thing we see in modern churches today. This anointing started at the crown of your head and it would flow down your head all the way down to your beard (Psalm 133). It wasn’t just a little dab. It was poured out. This is the allusion David is drawing here, it’s a cup that runs over. It’s so full, it can’t contain anymore. It’s just pouring out of it. That’s what contentment breeds. It produces a cup that runs over with the blessings from God.

Those blessings are called goodness and mercy. So as the Psalmist has received this contentment from God and has found his satisfaction and happiness in Him, the path behind him is filled with goodness. In other words, if we were a boat, the wake we’d leave behind us is goodness and mercy.

Now, I know a lot of people who if you are following behind them, what you find is not goodness and mercy, but anger, strife, division, pain, brokenness and so on. If that’s you, that’s a sign that you aren’t following God. You are following someone else, perhaps you are just following you, but you are not following the Great Shepherd. He leads us to contentment and the trail behind us is good things, like grace and peace. And the key to understanding this is simple. If we are following Jesus, the wake behind Jesus is goodness and mercy, so naturally, the closer we are to him and his path, the same things will follow us.

The final promise of the Psalmist is the ultimate promise. In this life, we will experience tribulation, but when we follow Jesus, the promise is that our eternal life will be found with him. Heaven is our reward, but it’s also our ultimate place of contentment and rest. That’s where Jesus is ultimately shepherding us to, to heaven with Him to live forever in his house. Amen.

Enemies of Contentment

Enemies of Contentment -

Envy

Greed

Lust

Fame

Power

Keys to Contentment

Keys to Contentment

Gratefulness

Faith

Love

Obscurity

Humility

Closing

Today I want to give you some time to respond to this message, this call to contentment in your life. This is a call to end busyness and to put your trust in Jesus. So whether you are dealing with fear, anxiety, greed, lust, whatever it is. God wants to take that from you today. You have to lay it down. You have to give it to Him. So today, as David sings, I am going to open the altar for anyone that would like prayer or just a place to prophetically lay down this discontentment you have in your heart. Let’s pray.