Yahweh is my Shepherd

Well, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, turn to Psalm 23. We started a
summer series in the book of Psalms a few weeks ago. We started by looking at the
longest Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 119. Then we looked at the shortest Psalm in the
Bible, Psalm 117. We stopped at Psalm 73 and this morning, and over the next three
weeks, we're going to look at what is probably the best -known and most beloved
Psalm in the Bible, Psalm 23. Martin Luther called it a little Bible,
and Spurgeon called it the pearl of the Psalms. It's actually the middle Psalm in a
three -S Psalm trilogy. I don't know if you realized this before, but Psalm 22,
23, and 24 actually fit together. Psalm 22 portrays the Messiah as the suffering
servant of God who comes to pay the price for our sin, Psalm 23 portrays the
Messiah as the shepherd who leads the flock, and Psalm 24 portrays the Messiah as
the King of Glory. Who is this King of Glory? So it's three pictures of the coming
Messiah that are put together. But this Psalm is so beloved because of the comfort
that it provides. There's a lot of speculation about when David might have written
this song. Some people, of course, David was a shepherd, and so some picture him as
a teenager, out with the sheep, with his lyre, or his whatever instrument he had
with him, out writing songs, and he's thinking, "God is my shepherd, like I'm a
shepherd for these sheep." And so maybe as a young boy, he wrote that, I don't
think so. So my This is that this psalm was written by a man who had experienced
hardship in life, and he is writing this psalm not as a poetic ideal,
but he's writing this psalm as a reflection of how he needs to counsel his own
soul in the midst of the hardship of life. Think about David's life. He grew up
not appreciated by or respected by his brothers. When Samuel came to David's house
and said, "I'm here to see who might be the next king," and they went through the
brothers and they said, "Well, that's it," and they said, "Nobody else?" "Well,
there's David. He's out with the sheep." Of course, David comes in and that's who
Samuel anoints as the next king, and the brothers are kind of like him, the runt.
I mean, they just didn't have much regard for him. He was first loved and then
hated by King Saul, who sought to do harm to him, eventually sought to kill him.
He lost his best friend who died in battle. He lost a child in childbirth.
He sinned greatly with Bathsheba and then had her husband murdered. He had one of
his sons murder another son, one of his sons rape the daughter, one of his sons
tried to usurp the throne. David had a rough biography.
David had a rough biography, one of his sons tried to usurp the throne. David had
a rough biography.
to remind his soul that this is true. And maybe I believe that 'cause that's how
this Psalm works in my life. Because as I read this Psalm, as I reflect on this
Psalm, I'm recalibrating my own thinking about what's true about God. This Psalm is
loaded. Every line in this Psalm is worthy of reflection and meditation.
We're gonna spend three weeks we will skate across the surface in the three weeks
that we will spend. In fact, I'm going to challenge you to memorize this Psalm over
the next two weeks. So we're starting today, we'll end in two weeks. That gives you
two weeks to memorize this Psalm. And I'm challenging you to do it because having
this Psalm hidden in your heart will serve you well. You know,
David says, "Thy word have have I hidden my heart that I might not sin against
you? Having Psalm 23 in your heart, you'll be amazed at how many times that Psalm,
God will bring it to your heart and to your mind. So what we're going to do in
just a minute is we're going to stand together, we're going to read Psalm 23
together, I'll read a line and then you're going to read it back to me. We're
going to do a call and response on Psalm 23. And I would challenge you to do that
every day for the next two weeks as a family or just you,
maybe a group of friends, but I would challenge you to read it out loud back and
forth to one another or back and forth to the mirror if you're by yourself, but
reading it out loud and reading it slowly, you will find that's one way that it
will start to plant itself in your soul. So we're gonna start that this morning and
we'll see how it goes for you. All right Before we read this verse, again, I want
to pray, Lord, we need Your Spirit to be our guide and our teacher as we spend
time in Your Word this morning. Lord, give us ears to hear, hearts to obey,
and may we be doers of Your Word and not just hearers. Speak,
O Lord.
We pray in Your name. Amen. Amen. I Oh man,
right? Okay. All right Let's stand together This is the word of God for the people
of God. This is Psalm 23. I'll read the line you read it back to me The Lord is
my shepherd.
I Shall not want
He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me besides 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."
Amen. May God bless this reading of His Word. You may be seated. The grass withers,
the flower fades. The Word of our God will last forever. When I plotted this out,
I had planned that we would try to get through verse three this morning. We're not
going to get there We're only gonna get to verse one So bear with me We're gonna
start with an overview So that'll take some time to give you the big picture of
the psalm will fly over at 30 ,000 feet And then once we do the overview, we're
gonna look at the same question three different ways So the question is what does
it mean God is my shepherd. We're going to look at it first. What does it mean
that God is my shepherd? Then we're going to look at what does it mean that God
is my shepherd? Then we're going to say what does it mean that God is my shepherd?
So that's our outline for this morning. Let's start with the overview. And the
structure of this psalm is pretty simple. Verse 1 is where David makes his
declarative thesis statement. It's actually just the first five words. "The Lord is
my shepherd. That's the thesis of this psalm. Everything else is the implications of
that. Everything else is the blessing that comes with that. The Lord, David says,
using the covenant name of God, Yahweh, Yahweh is my shepherd.
And we'll come back to look at that statement, but the implications of that one
statement are just staggering as I trust we'll see. That's what this Psalm is all
about. If you read Psalm 23 in the living Bible paraphrase,
it reads like this, "Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need."
That's where David is saying, "The Lord is my shepherd." Yes, and because of that,
I have no wants. I have everything I need. And then verses 2 through 6 are where
David explains just how God, the shepherd, meets his needs. And verses 2 and 3 he
describes how the shepherd cares for him in the normal routine of life, how he
walks through the good days with him. And then verse 4 describes how the shepherd
cares for him in the hard times of life as a comforting companion. And And finally
in verses five and six, he describes the shepherd as a host who provides with
abundance for his guests who come to his table. And I want you to look at the
verbs in this Psalm because they tell us what David is pointing out that God is
doing in this Psalm. So he says that the shepherd, first of all, verse two, he
makes me lie down. Then in verse three, he leads me, excuse me,
verse 2 still, he leads me. Verse 3, he restores my soul. Verse 3,
he leads me again. And then there's a switch in the middle of this Psalm where he
goes from talking about Yahweh in the third person to talking about Yahweh in the
second person. He goes from talking about what he does for me to what you do for
me. He personalizes it. And verse 4, Yahweh is with me. You are with me.
Yahweh comforts me. You comfort me." Verse 5, "He prepares a table for me." And
verse 5, "He anoints my head with oil." David in the psalm is celebrating all that
God, the good shepherd, does for his sheep. And the summary statement is, "Because
God is my shepherd, I want for nothing. I have no lack. I have no need." Now That
statement at the end of verse one, "I shall not want," is one reason I think that
David is writing this to counsel his own heart. Anybody here this morning who would
say, "You know what, I'm good. I got everything I need. I don't need a thing. It's
all good for me." Can you say that with true integrity, or is there some wanting
going on inside of you? Are there things you are wanting for? Are there things you
feel like you lack? Things you feel like you need? We are, as human beings, chronic
wanters. We want, and we want, and we want. And we are dissatisfied with how things
are. Some of you are more perpetually dissatisfied than others. But that
dissatisfaction is chronic wanting. And there's part of each one of us,
even those who would go, "Oh, I'm good, I'm satisfied." There's still a little voice
and you go, "But that'll be nice." I'd still like that. There's still a little want
in you. John D. Rockefeller, you know that name, the famous oil tycoon. That's where
he made his money back 100 plus years ago. He started Standard Oil Company.
It was estimated that at the height of his wealth, he had what in today's dollars
would be, well Well, in $13, it was $900 million.
It would be $29 billion today. That's how much Rockefeller was worth. And famously,
somebody came to him once and said, Mr. Rockefeller, how much money is enough? And
his answer was just a little more. He's worth $29 billion, and he'd like just a
little more. We're wanters. We always think it'd just be nice to have that one
other thing, that one little
Now, you may look at your own life and think, you know, I'm okay, I'm fine, but
there's part of you that would like just a little more. Think about money. I mean,
we're talking about money here, but when David says, because Yahweh is my shepherd,
I want for nothing, he's not just talking about financial provision. He's talking
about spiritual provision primarily, because David recognizes that ultimately, financial
provision is a small part of what we really need. The things we really want for
are the spiritual needs in our lives. I need peace. I need joy.
I need friends. I need a job. I need influence.
I need respect. I mean, we can just go through the list of those things our soul
is longing for, those things we need. And what David is expressing here when he
says, "Because the Lord is my shepherd, "I have what I need," he's saying the same
thing that Paul says in Philippians 4 when Paul says, "I have learned the secret of
what? Contentment. I've learned how to be content. I've been in plenty. I've been in
need. I've been low and I've been abounding," Paul says. "I've had hunger and I've
had abundance and I've learned how to be content in whatever circumstance God gives
me. The Lord is my shepherd, whatever He gives me is what I need. That's what Paul
says, and that's what David is reminding himself of here. I have everything I need,
why? Because I have Jesus. If I have Jesus, that's ultimately all I need.
You don't need food today. You need Jesus. If you need food,
God will provide food for you. Lock this in. You have everything you need if you
have Jesus, because at the end of the day, Jesus is what you ultimately need. Who
knows best what the sheep need, the sheep or the shepherd? Who knows best what your
kids need? Your kids are you.
Because our shepherd is the omniscient, omnipotent, all loving, all merciful,
all just and righteous, God of the universe. And he has said, "I'm going to be
your caretaker." He has bound himself to overseeing for all of your needs and giving
you exactly what you need. Now listen, that does not mean that your job is just to
be passive and sit back and go, "Well, okay, I don't have to do anything." No,
that's not what the Bible teaches. He provides for you, you need money, but you're
supposed to go earn it. You say, I have bills, but I guess the Lord's supposed to,
yeah, but you go work. If you don't work, you don't eat, the Bible says. And you
say, well, I don't have any friends, I guess, God will send, no, you go meet
people, right? So you're involved in all of this, but in the process of being
involved, then you are content with what God supplies. That's what Paul tells the
Philippians in Philippians 4 he says, "I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me. He will supply all your needs according to your riches or to his
riches in glory." But we're getting ahead of ourselves here so let me back up. This
Psalm, in this Psalm the thing that David says God provides for him are ultimately
the things that David comes to recognize are his greatest needs. So if you want to
know what you really need, Psalm 23 tells you what you need. David says, "I need
rest." He makes me lie down because I need rest.
I need to be led. I need guidance. I need my soul restored.
I need to be with the Lord. I need comfort from him.
I need to be provided for by him. I need him to anoint me.
And David says at the end of the day, what God does for me is just what I need.
He gives rest, direction, renewal, his presence, his comfort, his provision. He gives
me what I need because he knows what I need more than I know what I need. And
then that's what God does. There are three things in the Psalm that David says,
here's what I do. The first thing he says is, I don't want. I shall not want.
I choose not to want.
Then he says in verse four, I will not fear.
And then in verse six he says, I will dwell with him forever. So while God's doing
all of this for us, our three responses are, I'm not going to want, I'm not going
to fear, I'm going to dwell with him.
Okay, we could say, amen, that's enough, you could take that home with you today.
That's pretty good, but there's a lot more here. In fact, I want us to say those
three things. Go back to that. I want us to say those things out loud. I want you
to say, I shall not want, I will not fear, I will dwell with him forever, because
I want you to start telling yourself these things. So let's say I shall not want,
I will not fear, I will dwell with him forever. David is not saying,
I don't, I don't, he's not saying I don't really have any needs. He's saying I
know when I feel a need. I'm going to counsel my own soul and say God knows what
I need more than I know what I need. It's not that David's saying oh I'm carefree,
But he's saying, I bring my cares to him. I cast my cares on him. David's not
saying, I never fear anything. He's saying, when I am afraid, I'll trust in him. I
will choose not to fear. I will counsel my own soul not to fear. I will cast my
cares on him again. And he's not saying, I will never wander from God. He's saying,
when I do wander, God will draw me back. He will dwell with me.
And David did wonder, as we know, and God did find him and bring him back.
Think about the parable Jesus tells in Luke 15 about the shepherd who had 99 sheep
and one of them got lost. What does he do? He leaves the 99, goes finds the one
who's lost. That's what shepherds do. Finally notice this overview in this.
While this psalm is one we often turned to in the middle of darkness and distress
because of verse 4, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." Most
of this psalm is about the normal activity of life, not the valley of the shadow
of death. It's about every day, and it's about God's provision and care and
abundance every day, not just in the valley of the shadow of death. Can you say
this morning, "Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need. You can.
You just have to choose to. Look at how Jesus addresses this in the Sermon on the
Mount, in Matthew chapter 6. If you have your Bible, turn over to Matthew chapter
6. In the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, let's see how Jesus says this.
He's talking about being anxious. And here's what he says. He says, verse 25,
"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. He 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 much more value than they? And which of you,
by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life? 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. I think
that's a commentary on the Lord is your shepherd. You don't have anything to worry
about You don't have any needs. God will take care of your needs
If you are in want this morning If you find yourself thinking I'm burdened by the
needs I have because I got bills to pay or I've got stuff to do Or I'm
overwhelmed if you are burdened by that I think you can say with confidence based
on what the Bible says, "I may not know how things are going to work out for me
right now, and I know my circumstances may look bleak or difficult, but God says I
have everything I need, so I will trust in Him. I will not want. I will be
confident, and I'll be content with what He gives to me." You can say with
confidence, you can make this your prayer, "God, help me to get there. Help me to
see that you're all I need, and that you provide for your own, lead me, and
comfort me, and restore me. I was working through this Psalm studying it, and I
couldn't help but think about Christia Cunha. And some of you know Christi, and I
just texted her and said, "Anything new on the job front?" She was laid off a
couple of weeks ago, single mom raising a son, trying to figure out how she's going
to do all of that. And I just said, "I'm thinking about you, as I'm thinking the
Lord is your shepherd, you have all you want, and I know you're looking to go, it
doesn't look like it. How do you make sense of that? She wrote me back and she
said, it's a whole lot easier for me to say that this week than it was last week.
She said, to say I have everything I needed, it was hard. Oh, here's what she
said. She said, it's tremendously difficult to walk this journey because it's an
unknown journey, but I'm continually seeing and feeling God all around me. You've had
that experience in the middle of the valleys where God's with you and you know it,
even though it's hard.
I thought of what my friend Nancy DeMoss Walgomuth often says. She says, "Anything
that causes you to need God more is a good thing in your life." You look at it
and go make it go away. I want to be on my own. No, if you need God more, it's
a good thing in your life. Of course, I thought about Debbie Friesen. I thought
about the future she's facing. All of us are thinking about the Friesens this day.
And I thought, can she this morning say I shall not want in the midst of the
landscape of her life, which appears like it's going to change dramatically?
You say it by faith, not by sight. You say it clinging to and trusting in God to
get you through the hardest days of your life. Thank you.
one says, "The Lord is my shepherd." Now here are a few things we should understand
about that statement. God is a shepherd. Why does David pick that? What does he
mean? Well, a few things. First of all, to understand what it means to be a
shepherd, you have to understand a little bit about sheep. And there are some things
that are true about sheep that's just good to know. Sheep are highly dependent
creatures. They cannot fend for themselves.
Without aid, sheep will perish. That's the primary significance of the metaphor when
he says, "God is my shepherd." He's saying, "I am a dependent creature like a
sheep. Without God's care, without His provision, I will die. The Lord is my
shepherd. I must depend on Him to survive." Sheep are followers.
They don't lead anything or anybody. They are followers or they are wanderers was a
story that came out CBS News website dateline July 8th 2005 it's from Istanbul,
Turkey First one sheep jumped to its death. Do we have this put this up?
I think we've got yeah Here's the news story you can read along first one sheep
jumped to its death Then stunned Turkish shepherds who had left the herd to graze
while they had breakfast watched as nearly 1500 others followed each sheep leafing
off the same cliff. Turkish media reported. At the end, 450 dead animals lay on top
of one another in a billowy white pile. The Ask M newspaper reported, "Those who
jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and was more cushioned." There's
nothing we can do. It's all wasted. Navet Bayam, a member of one of the 26
families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying,
"Estimated loss, $100 ,000 to these sheep, families and livelihoods, depending on the
sheep, were ruined." And it's all because the shepherds were off having breakfast and
one of the sheep walked over the hill and the others said, "Oh, I guess that's
what we're supposed to do," and walked over the hill. Kids, you've heard your mom
say, if somebody else jumped off the bridge, would you jump off the bridge, right?
Well, the sheep do. That's who they are, they're followers. They need a leader or
they will go astray. Isaiah 53 .6, all we, like sheep,
have gone astray, each one to his own way. Sheep are wanderers,
They need a leader and someone to guide them. And when a sheep wanders off, a
sheep does not come back on his own. If your dog wanders off, the dog finds his
way home. You've all seen "Incredible Journey," the Disney movie, right? With the
dogs that get lost and they come home. Dogs and cats find their way home. Sheep do
not. They're just out somewhere else and go, "Huh, wonder where everyone went." They
keep grazing, that's what they do. and they are highly vulnerable to predators.
Sheep are not, there are no attacked sheep, okay? They can't run very fast.
They're not very strong. A wolf comes up and they're like, there's a wolf. I guess
I'm gonna get eaten now, yeah.
And sheep, if sheep fall over, they can't get back up again.
This is how needy they are. It's called a cast sheep. When a sheep is cast they
fall over onto their back. If one sheep accidentally rolls over on its back and its
feet lose touch with the ground like this, that sheep is permanently stuck. He can't
write himself again. He's totally helpless by himself. And when this happens,
Gas starts to build up in the first stomach of the sheep, what's called the rumen.
That's called ruminating, so the sheep is, and that gas builds up and that will
ultimately kill the sheep. If it's a hot day, he'll die in hours. If it's a cold
or a rainy day, it might take a couple of days. But unless somebody comes and gets
him back on his feet, he's stuck there.
Interestingly, Shepherd's report, it's the healthiest of the sheep who wind up being
cast the most often. Why? Because they're fat and they're loaded down with wool and
when they roll over they can't do anything. So I think there's a little spiritual
principle in another sermon, but don't get too fat, sheep.
You need, and I'm not talking about being physically fat, I'm talking about being
spiritually fat. When you get spiritually fat and complacent, it's easy for you to
forget your surroundings and roll over on your back can go, whoop, how did I get
here? All right. I don't want to belabor the point about sheep. But to understand
what a shepherd does, you have to first understand what sheep are like and what
they need. I'm sure, one more thing, I'm sure you've seen videos like this one
floating around on the internet, but I couldn't resist showing this little TikTok
video that, or I guess I got off YouTube because I don't do TikTok. Here's the
video of a sheep being all respawned. The intelligent Intangent shepherd.
Getting that sheep out of the ditch.
You know where it's going, yeah, right?
Can
you relate? Have you been there yourself Or you get out of the ditch and you just
find yourself back in it again. The key point David is making when he says, "The
Lord is my shepherd," is you're not going to make it on your own. You won't
survive, you will shrivel up and die spiritually. We are dependent and God himself
has taken on the role of caring for our needy, dependent selves.
And while We might think first about material provision and material needs, the
bigger need, as I've said, is our spiritual needs. We need a shepherd who leads us.
We need a shepherd who feeds us. We need a shepherd who guards us spiritually.
We are vulnerable to error. We can be easily led astray. The world, by the way,
is trying to lead you astray every day, and they're and hard, and you need a
shepherd who will protect you and turn you away from error and evil. And we need a
shepherd to rescue us when we go astray. We need a shepherd to save us from
ourselves, to save us from death and hell. A shepherd who, when he says,
"Follow me," leads us back to the sheepfold where we're safe. And we need a
shepherd who will defend us spiritually from those who would seek to harm us, from
the evil one who would seek to destroy us. So you need a shepherd for all those
reasons. And David says, "The Lord is my shepherd." And here's the point for all of
us. If you're a child of God, you have a shepherd who has pledged himself to
constant care who has unlimited resources for your care. God is not like the Turkish
shepherds who go off and have breakfast and don't pay any attention to the sheep
and they wander off the hill. God is constantly. His eye is on the sparrow. And I
know he watches me. God is a good shepherd. In fact, one more scripture we ought
to look at. Turn to John 10 in your Bible. Just a few chapters over John 10.
Jesus describes himself. One of the "I am" statements he makes in John's Gospel is
he describes himself as the good shepherd. He's the gate and the good shepherd. Look
at verse 11 in John 10. "I am the good shepherd," Jesus says.
"The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand is
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's
a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd. I know my
own. They know me. Just as the father knows me and I know the father, I will lay
down my life for the sheep. If you are in Christ, you are in good hands, you are
in the best hands, you are safe, you are secure, you're cared for, you're protected,
you have everything you need because you have him and he is everything you need.
So the Lord is your shepherd. But let's back it up. It's the Lord who is your
shepherd. It is Yahweh who is your shepherd If you if there's just one takeaway
from this morning one thing to reflect on one thing to meditate on it's this Yahweh
is my shepherd.
That's mind -blowing We're talking about the Yahweh it's a covenant name of God the
I am that I am. It's a name he gave Moses from the burning bush when Moses said,
"I'm supposed to go to Pharaoh and say what?" And he says, "Who should I say?
Well, send me." He said, "Say I am that I am." And David Gibson,
who's written a wonderful book on the 23rd Psalm, says, "The identity of the
shepherd is no small thing." And he's right. The name God gives to himself here.
Yahweh is designed to make this point. Yahweh is eternal.
He is self -sufficient. He is self -existent. He's incomprehensible. You can't figure
him out.
The name Yahweh tells us, the one who is our shepherd is one who we will never
fully understand.
Yahweh is higher than you. His ways are higher than yours. He is God,
you are not. And it's a personal name. He doesn't say when when Moses says what
should I say sent me he doesn't say it is what it is. He says I am who I am.
It's a he's a person and he's personal with his own. R .C. Sproul says this.
He says in that name, Yahweh, he reveals manifold things about the excellency of his
being, the perfections of his character, and that's why the saints of old,
if we ask, tell us everything you know about God would say, finally, Yahweh, I am
who I am. That's the encompassing statement. That's who God is. It's all of him. So
when we read the first five words of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd. It should
cause you to reflect with awe, amazement, wonder, reverence, gratitude.
Yahweh is your caretaker, your shepherd. Mary Ann and I are headed this afternoon to
Tulsa. We're going to go over her mom turns 96 years old on Tuesday. You want to
see? Here's a picture of her 96 -year -old mom. I know, amazing, right? That's last
Sunday, that picture was taken. So we're going over, she lives independently, she's
amazing, but she has the kinds of challenges that 96 -year -old people have. She's
got macular degeneration, her eyes are bad, her hearing's bad, she doesn't get around
like she used to get around. She uses a walker or a cane when she needs to get
around. She still goes upstairs to her bedroom at night so she can get up and down
the stairs But she's living by herself, but she doesn't always see the mold on the
food or remember to take the meds And so we're gonna meet on tomorrow afternoon
with a company that provides in -home not medical care But just in -home help
somebody come do the laundry someone change the bedding Someone take you out run
errands Go to the grocery store for you, that kind of thing, because she needs a
caretaker. She needs someone to come in to shepherd her, to keep an eye on her, to
watch out for her, to make sure that she is doing all right. And of course, we're
looking for someone who can come alongside that she'll get along with, somebody who's
caring, someone who's kind, who has the resources necessary to do the job. And there
are many things that this caretaker we'll be able to do, but in the contract there
are a number of things they say. Now this caretaker can't do this and can't do
that, can't do this. They can only do these list of things. Psalm 23 is telling us
that Yahweh is your caretaker and he can do whatever you need and he knows what
you need better than you do because he's Yahweh. He's God above all things.
If Yahweh is your caretaker, what do you need to be worried about?
David Gibson, I mentioned him earlier, the author of the book, The Lord of Psalm
23. He notes that we are people who always want practical religion. We want
effective habits, or daily disciplines, or lifestyle fixes, and he says all of those
can be wonderful if they are full of gospel grace. But he says the foundation from
which these things must flow, is God Himself. It's not what God does, it's who God
is. He says whoever you are, and whatever you're experiencing today as you read
these lines, there is nothing better to know in all the world than that the
shepherd you belong to is the Lord of the burning bush who revealed his name to
Moses.
That point is so rich, he says, we should just take time to linger there. Let me
ask you this simple question. If Yahweh is your shepherd, your caretaker, your
overseer, is there anything you might need that he would say,
"Oh, sorry, I can't do that." Is there any need you might have where he'd go,
"Yeah, I can't help you with that one."
With visiting angels in your home, they will say, "Yeah, we can't do that. There's
nothing Yahweh cannot do to help you.
The Lord is your shepherd. It's the Lord who is your shepherd. Final thing, the
Lord is your shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Let's look at that. When Jesus
talks about being the good shepherd in John 10, he goes on to say that he is the
shepherd for a particular flock.
So here's what you have to recognize. This Psalm, the Lord is my shepherd, is for
a subset of all human beings. It's not for every human being that can say the Lord
is my shepherd. You have to be in the fold. Jesus in John 10 says you don't
believe, he's talking the Pharisees, you don't believe because you're not among my
sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them
eternal life. They'll never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. I'm
caring for these sheep who are hearing my voice, not for you. The relationship
between the shepherd and the sheep works this way. The shepherd is given a flock to
care for. The sheep learn the voice of the shepherd and they follow him.
Now how does a sheep become a part of the shepherd's fold? How does he come into
the shepherd's fold? Colin Smith, who's a pastor in Chicago, says there are two ways
a shepherd becomes a shepherd over sheep. He either buys the sheep Or the sheep is
born into the fold and for us as believers both have to be true in order for us
to be in the Lord's Fold we have to be bought and we have to be born again We
have to be redeemed with a price to come in and we have to be born a second time
and
Then once you are in the fold your job is to follow the shepherd pretty simple
learn his voice follow him.
So can you say like David, "The Lord is my shepherd.
He's my shepherd."
Again I'll quote David Gibson one more time. He says, "My calling as a pastor is
always to ask people where they are with this shepherd. The members of my
congregation are asked all the time by others about their status in relationship or
something or someone. What's their vaccine status, what's their relationship status,
what's their employment status. He says, "But the pastor's job is to ask about the
flock status. Are you a sheep who knows the shepherd?" As we continue to work our
way through this psalm, we're going to see the beauty and the benefits and the
promises God makes to his sheep. But this morning we've been talking about how Jesus
is our shepherd, and if you've been thinking, "Ben, I wish I had a shepherd who
loves me and cares for me." Jesus is calling you and saying, "I'm that shepherd.
Come follow me." If you hear his voice, you respond to his voice.
You say, "Lord Jesus, I need a shepherd. I want you to be my shepherd. When I
don't have a shepherd, I go astray. I make a mess of things. My life's a mess
without you. I need you, Lord. I know I'm a sinner. I know you came, offered
yourself as the sacrificial lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and
then you rose again so that my sins can be forgiven and I can have new life.
Lord, I need that. Please forgive my sins and please give me new life today.
You pray a prayer like that, and Jesus promises when you pray that, you pray that
prayer in faith. He will hear that prayer, he'll respond to that prayer, he'll bring
you into the fold, and then you follow him all the days of your life.
I'm going to close with this quote from John Newton, the great hymn writer who
wrote Amazing Grace. As we've seen this morning, Psalm 23 says, "Because the Lord is
my shepherd, I have everything I need." John Newton says, "In him I have an
offering, an altar, a temple, a priest, a son,
a shield, a savior, a shepherd, a hiding place, a resting place, food,
medicine, riches, honor, wisdom, righteousness, holiness, in short, everything.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
Let's pray.
Father, we confess these things are true and at the same time we confess how feeble
we are and how easily we can be in want, how easy it is for us to become
discontented, for us to be envious, for us to think we need more than we do.
Lord, help us to say by faith today that you are our shepherd and we do have
everything we need because we have you. Lord, for any here this morning who don't
know you, who are not following you, who have not heard your voice, who have not
laid down their lives for you, I pray that you would speak to them,
draw them
Close to yourself. I pray that today would be the day that they would hear your
voice and cry out and say Lord Jesus I need you
we thank you Lord that you're with us that you love us and That you care for us
and that because you love us we have everything we need We pray in your name