Psalm 23: The Lord is My Shepherd

Call to Worship

Psalm 95:1–2 “Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!”

Psalm 95:6–7 “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.”

Sermon

This morning, as we finish our time together, I’d like to walk us through one more Psalm. This Psalm may be the most well known Psalm in the entire book of Psalms, and it is for a reason. In only six verses this Psalm brings both hope and comfort in a way that very few other passages do. The Psalm, is Psalm number 23, and I’ll invite you to read it with me.

Psalm 23 ESV

A Psalm of David. 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.

This Psalm is a beautiful picture of what it means to be a follower of God. A picture of what it means to be a part of his family, and what joys, hopes, comforts, and benefits come from belonging to Him.

The Psalm starts with this beautiful picture, of contentment.

Psalm 23:1 ESV

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Or in another translation.

Psalm 23:1 NLT

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need.

I heard a quote a few days ago and it said: “Jesus plus anything else equals nothing. Jesus plus nothing nothing else eqauls everything.” And that’s entirely true, our shepherd Jesus, is the only one we need. We don’t need money, or popularity, or even good health. It’s like the quote from the song I read the other week. “If I have you I can lose everything, and still consider it gain.” When we have Jesus, we have all that we need.

It can be really tempting to only put part of our trust in Jesus, and then to also put our trust in other things, sometimes even ourselves, as well. We put our trust in Jesus, when things are really good, or when they’re really bad. But when everything is normal, we try to figure it all out on our own. We think that we can handle things, we can handle our finances, and our housing. We can ensure that we have good health. We can take care of the emotional needs of ourselves and our families… But the truth is we can’t do any of that on our own. When we try and do it on our own, we become like sheep without a shepherd, we wander off on our own. And we get lost.

If we picture a sheep, wandering off on it’s own, we can imagine that it would get lost pretty quickly, it would think that it saw a way to take care of itself, maybe it found some good food, down a ravine, or in a steep ditch, or somewhere, and so it goes down. But then it realizes after a while that it can’t get back up, that it’s become stuck, and the food that it thought it had has run out, and now he’s lost and maybe a little bit scared, and alone. And as night comes there’s predators, and it realizes that it was no longer safe, that in order to be safe and protected, it should have stayed with it’s shepherd.

The same analogy applies to us. When we, or people that we know, or even ones we don’t, wander off on our own and try to forge our own way, and provide for our own needs, we’re making the claim that we are not content with what ur shepherd has provided, and like that sheep, we get lost and stuck, and it starts to get dark, and we’re alone and without help, and we become more aware of the dangers around us. And it’s then that we realize that we need our shepherd to come and save us. When we’ve come to the end of our rope we know that we need a good shepherd to take care of us. But what if we didn’t have to learn the hard way, what if we could teach our children and grandchildren that they didn’t have to learn the hard way. That when they stop and they think about it, they can realize that God has provided them with all that they need. They don’t need to try and forge their own path, they don’t need to go and see what it’s like away from the shepherd, when we show them how blessed we are, and how all of our needs are met by the good shepherd, than they will start to see the same thing, and maybe they do wander off on their own. That’s ok they aren’t beyond reach because Jesus is a good shepherd, and what does he do, it’s like he says in the parable. He goes and saves the one that wanders off, and so we can be at rest knowing that our loved ones that have wandered away aren’t too far gone, Jesus can still save them.

And for those that follow him and are part of his flock, this is what happens to them.

Psalm 23:2–3 ESV

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.

He brings us to places of peace, he restores our souls, he leads us towards righteousness. And we are blessed because of it. We can trust that in Him we will have what is best for us, we don’t need to worry about filling our own needs, God will provide for us. He’ll provide us with everything that we need. For a sheep a green pasture is wonderful food, and still waters are what they need for their nourishment. And Jesus says this as a comparison between the rest of creation and humanity.

Matthew 6:25–34 ESV

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Jesus provides for us, He takes care of us. We don’t need to worry or be anxious about our needs, or the needs of our family members. God already knows them and He’s already taking care of them. Now, that’s not to say that we are to be lazy or apathetic. We also need to be serving God and others, and taking care of ourselves and those around us. But we don’t need to worry about the outcome, we give our best to God, and He uses that and provides more than enough. We don’t need to worry if our efforts are going to be good enough, He promises that He will take care of us, and He’s good on His promises.

As the Psalm continues, we also hear the promise that He’ll take care of us even in the hardest of times.

Psalm 23:4 ESV

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.

The valley of the shadow of death is a metaphor. Sometimes people will talk about it as literally passing through to death, and although it’s true that God is with us when we pass into death, and that when we follow Him He’ll bring us into eternal life. But this phrase is better understood in its context as a metaphor, some translations. Say the darkest valley. And the point is that even when we wander off, and we get lost, and the darkness starts to overwhelm us, even there God is with us.

If we go back to the idea of a sheep, when it wanders off on it’s own, when it chooses to run away, and not heed the shpherd’s instuctions, it’s not doing what it’s supposed to.

And the same is true for people, since the beginning. Adam and Eve wandered away from God’s plan, they chose their own way over the better way of their creator and shepherd. And each of us since then have done the same. But Jesus, our good shepherd came down to earth to take our place and to rescue us from this darkness.

The prophet Isaiah says it like this. Isaiah 53:6-12

Isaiah 53:6–12 ESV

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

All of us like, sheep wandered away, into darkness, into sin, we turned away from God. But God sent Jesus, His only son, to come and to die for us. To take our place. He was like the spotless lamb that the Israelites killed and placed on their doorposts and the angel of death passed over. Jesus’s blood covered us, and He made it so that the punishment, for sin, eternal death passes over us. And through His sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection, we are brought with Him to glory. He intercedes for us before the Father, taking away our sin, putting it onto himself, and we are seen as perfect in the Father’s eyes becaue of Jesus. We didn’t earn it, but we are invited to come and be with Him in glory because of us perfect sacrifice.

And we can’t earn our way to heaven, it’s a gift. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take some effort on our part. The comforting thought for us, is that Jesus our good shepherd came into the darkest valley, and He gave us life to get us out of the darkest valley. But watch the rest of that verse.

Psalm 23:4 ESV

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.

Your rod and your staff comfort me. Back in the time of David, who’s writing this Psalm, Shepherds used both rods and staffs. And the rod was used to fend off wild animals that might try to kill the sheep, but the staff was to guide the sheep, if the sheep was wandering away, the shepherd would use the crook, the curved part of the staff to yank the sheep back.

And if you watch the parallel, a good shepherd didn’t hurt it’s sheep, it didn’t use the rod on the sheep, it used the rod on those trying to hurt the sheep. A good shepherd, however, did use the staff on the sheep, to drag it back, and it’s not abusive to the sheep, but I’m sure that at time the staff was also painful, even though it was for the sheep’s protection and overall good.

Similarly, some people think that God is angry and spiteful, and like a bad shepherd, and like a bad shepherd he’ll berate and abuse people and just hit them and smite them. But as we saw in our Character of God series, God is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. God doesn’t abuse people, but sometimes He does allow them to experience a bit of discomfort in order to call them back home, and make them into new creations. God doesn’t use the rod on the sheep but He does use the staff.

There’s a series called the Chronicles of Narnia, you may heave read it before. And in the series, there’s a story about a boy named Eustace. And Eustace was a stuckup, greedy, kind of boy, who thought that he knew best and that he could figure things out on his own, and in the story, he ends up picking up this enchanted gold, and no matter how hard he tries he can’t seem to turn himself back into a boy, and he gets to a point where everything is miserable and he’s in pain, and he can’t seem to become a boy again no matter how hard he tries. And he tries to rip his dragon scales off on his own, but nothing seems to work, no matter how hard he tries. Until he’s met by the lion Aslan, who throughout the series represents Jesus. And Aslan is able to tear his scales off and turn him back into a boy, and for a moment it hurts, and it’s painful. But after he is completely changed, and restored, and the temporary discomfort was for his good.

No matter how hard he tried, Eustace couldn’t fix his nature, he couldn’t ease his pain. He needed the lion Aslan to do it. And in this story, this picture shows perfectly the idea, that no matter how hard we try we can’t save ourselves, like the sheep we started with, we can’t get ourselves up out of the ravine or the ditch, we’re lost and afraid, and alone and in pain, until Jesus comes and saves us and changes us and gives us a new nature. And like a shepherd using a staff, sometimes it’s going to be uncomfortable, but it will only be for a moment. Because as Jesus corrects us and changes us and transforms us, it’s not always going to be comforing immediately, but in the end it will be the thing that brings us the most comfort, because it’s the thing that saves us.

And when Jesus saves us, He doesn’t just save us from something, He saves us and brings us to something better.

And that’s where the rest of the Psalm goes.

Psalm 23:5–6 ESV

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.

Jesus saves us from the darkest valley, and He uses His stern and firm, but simultaneously loving and tender correction to save us. And once we’re saved He brings us to the best place we could be, to be a part of His family. To sit at the table with Him. And David says He annoints my head with oil. And in the bible, when David was annointed with oil it was a symbol that he was becoming the king. In our case, this is symbolic, when Jesus saves us, He brings us into His family, and adopts us as sons and daughters of the king. We are treated like royalty, and not because we deserve to be, but because God is amazing, and He chooses to give us far beyond what we could ever deserve.

And finally, we are promised that in this life all we will have will be goodness and mercy, and in the end we will live with God, as a part of His family, in His home, in Heaven forever.

It’s the best gift we could ever possibly be given, and He makes us free for us.

That is the incredible news of the gospel, that we didn’t deserve it, but Jesus came into our darkest valley, He rescued us from our own sin, by giving up His life for us, and He brings us into His family, and He take cares of us, and like a perfect shepherd, He guides us, and protects us, and corrects us, and comforts us, and takes care of every need that we have.

We have only trust Him, and turn to Him and ask Him for forgiveness for our sins, and He will take care of the rest. And we can rest, trusting Him, and knowing that He is a good good God, a good shepherd, a perfect saviour. And our response can be to bask in His majesty and glory, and to fall down in reverence, and surrender our control and allow our good shepherd to guide us, because what He has for us is far better than what we could ever plan for ourselves. His way is better, and I emplore each of you to continue to turn to Him and surrender to Him, and to rest and trust and know that He will always take care of you and provide for you, and it won’t always be easy as He changes us and restores us, but it will always be in the end for our good. And we can rest knowing that He is in control, and we can let go, and let Him lead.

Let’s pray.

Benediction

Jude 24–25 ESV

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.