The Lord Is My Shepherd
PSALM 23
November 5, 2006
S-746
Psalm 23 is often referred to as the “Shepherd’s Psalm”.
This Psalm is used more often in hospitals, prison cells, or among the bereaved or the depressed than any other passage.
SLIDE: READ PSALM 23.
Most of us don’t know much about sheep—or about shepherds either.
If David were writing this today he might very well begin this psalm with the words,
SLIDE: “The Lord is my Babysitter.”
Roxanne Kapferer: puppets, surprise gifts, candy; tents made of sheets over the table: had more fun with Roxanne than with us.
Bronwyn loved Todd Follett, Glen’s brother-in-law. He was the only one Bronwyn would let pull her baby teeth.
My children were in good hands—good shepherds—they felt safe and secure—and they were.
Bad babysitter: Emergency trip to Dallas; sweet college student offered to watch our kids for three days while we were out of town. She stole Julie’s wedding rings to buy drugs and left town after dumping the kids at a neighbor’s.
Imagine the fear and distress of our children with that woman! Bad sitter—bad shepherd—what the bible calls a “hireling.”
Ever baby sat your own children. Sure you have. Do it most all day, some days.
Even One morning about 3:00 a.m. I heard Julie cry for help from the nursery—it was one of those cries that you knew needed immediate attention: Roger, Heeeeelllllllp. She was standing with Brie under one arm and poop sliding down Julie’s leg and she was stuck with a hand full—unable to move without spilling it all over the rug below.
I did the only appropriate thing: I started laughing at the sight.
She was not pleased.
SLIDE: We all have our poopy baby stories.
So does Jesus. Jesus is the Good Shepherd—the divine baby sitter—who picks us up even when our diapers are filled with poop!
Psalm 23 is one of the best-loved passages of the Bible—but perhaps not the best understood.
Two thoughts to make it come alive:
SLIDE: 1. This psalm is written from the viewpoint of a sheep—not a shepherd.
It’s as if David gets down on all fours and views life from the perspective of the sheep looking at the shepherd—not the other way around. Keep this in mind and the psalm will open up with new vistas of understanding.
SLIDE: 2. The first verse states the theme of all six verses:
Because the Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need. This theme is woven throughout the entire psalm.
SLIDE: THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT.
John Lynn ministered to children. Once he asked from the pulpit, “Do any of you children want to quote for us the 23rd Psalm?” One eight-year-old girl’s arm almost went out of the socket:
She began: “The Lord is my Shepherd, He’s all I want…” And then she sat down. That was all she knew. That was enough.
SLIDE: I have always been intrigued that in the Bible God calls us sheep.
He never says we are wise as owls—or cunning as a fox. Or as regal as a lion. He calls us sheep.
And I guess that hurts a bit because sheep are such unintelligent creatures.
How often have you seen a group of sheep in a circus doing tricks. No one trains sheep because they’re such dumb, unpredictable creatures. Train a whale or a dolphin… dog…monkey, birds, lions and tigers… but you don’t train sheep.
God sees us as sheep.
We need a shepherd who transcends time, place, and limitation. We need the Lord for our shepherd.
SLIDE: HE MAKES ME LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES,
Always thought the emphasis here was on the green pasture, but it’s not.
Hebrew suggests that the emphasis is on the verb “He makes me lie down.”
Picture a sheep in your mind. Sheep are rather defenseless animals. Top-heavy wool coat about to topple over on those spindly legs! No strong, sharp claws but those awkward hooves. No fast speed to race away from some treacherous animal.
This makes them rather fearful – Unusual voice will cause them to run in awkward directions without knowing where they’re going.
It is the responsibility of the shepherd to take that sheep by the tender back of the ear and to force it to head down to the green pastures, and the sheep will stop, and it will bring order out of chaos.
In our rapid, hurried, pace it’s easy for people of any age to race out of control and occasionally the Lord grabs us by the ears and shows us that the most fertile grass is at our feet.
Some of the best things happen when God makes us lie down.
Paul writes: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 2 Timothy
Man shipwrecked on deserted island: fire burns out of control. “Worst day of my life.”
“Ahoy, we saw your smoke signal and we have come to rescue you.”
HE LEADS ME BESIDE QUIET WATERS,
Sheep don’t like fast current or splashing water. They fear drowning among many things. Heavy coat like a sponge, and they’re poor swimmers and drowning is not unusual.
A kind shepherd will pull rocks from the bank into a little area and dam up part of the stream to allow the sheep to come and to drink in a calm setting.
Has the Lord done that recently for you? Has He slowed you down and quieted the waters? God is a master at that! He has a way of damming up just the right area and of slowing our pace so that we will drink from his fountain.
How fast is your pace?
Court reporters relate that people talk 40 to 60 words faster per minute than they die 50 years ago.
The average American sleeps 2.5 hours less today than 100 years ago.
Before electricity people slept 9.5 hours per night: By 1950, 8 hours; By 1990, 7 hours.
28% of people admit to falling asleep while driving last year.
The average desk worker has 36 hours of work on their desks all the time.
54% of Americans say they are more exhausted after a vacation than when they left.
Ablation: Looking forward to the rest: No body can bother me for 3 to 4 hours.
“We have the technological capacity to make ourselves available at a level that we may not have the physical capacity to service.”
Jesus never had a cell phone to interrupt His reverie.
Never in a hurry. “My time has not yet come.” Walked everywhere He went.
SLIDE: HE RESTORES MY SOUL.
What does that mean? Does that mean that He encourages me when I am down? Lifts me up when I’m discouraged? I am certain that that’s part of it!!
But original word “restored” means “to turn back” or “to turn around, so as to rearrange” the life.
He repents my soul.
Alas, there are stubborn lambs. There are sheep who delight to go their own way … quote Isaiah 53:6 – “All we like sheep have gone our own way.”
This says, “He restores my soul…” So, it’s an inward bent He changes.
Little lambs often are so stubborn. Instead of staying with the flock, independent ones often eat their way into a thicket or by a very dangerous precipice. After they’re trapped they’ll begin to bleat loudly. Shepherd hears bleating and with crook of staff pulls that lamb to safety.
If the same lamb continues to wander, the shepherd will pick up that lamb and with his rod, strike the leg of the lamb and break it! Then he’ll splint the leg and carry the little lamb in his arms.
Remember the lovely solo in Handel’s Messiah about the shepherd carrying the little lamb in His arms. “What a lovely picture!”
Well, I want you to know that the lamb isn’t thinking that at that moment. That lamb often has a splinted leg. He’s had a broken leg because he needs his soul restored. He needs to be turned back toward his shepherd – and after a while when the lamb is able to hobble along the shepherd puts him down and that little lamb stays glued to the side of that shepherd.
If I could speak quite freely, there are some splints now in this congregation.
SLIDE: Some of you have been wayward: “The way of the transgressor is hard.”
You took the hard way and finally He’s broken your leg.
You look at your life and the results of some of your choices and you are wounded and hurting and you don’t know what is going on? Maybe your answer is right here.
It would be interesting to earmark the lambs who have once worn that splint and to check on their obedience in later years. I have a feeling that lambs who have had their souls restored tend to stick closer to the shepherd than do others.
SLIDE: HE GUIDES ME IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE.
Hebrew says, “He guides me in the right tracks.”
Julie, Brie and Wanda on Amtrack: In Dallas; Brie with ear Infection; can’t fly.
Take train: Dallas, Austin, Houston, San Antonio (off from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.); San Angelo; El Paso; Las Cruces; Lordsburg Tucson.
Wrong tracks: 56 Hours
Wanda Pneumonia, Brie about to die.
Just described some of your lives. You are on your own wrong tracks. God has the right tracks in mind.
Why? For the sheep? No! It’s “for His name’s sake.”
“It is not about me.”
SLIDE: The purpose of sheep is to make a profit for the Shepherd: food and wool.
When the shepherd goes from A to B with all of his sheep, he makes a profit… and our shepherd does not lose his sheep. His name is at stake!
Does this take the pressure off of life or what! How many of us live constantly worrying about the outcome. If we relax in the Holy Spirit our livrs will be an obedient and profitable life.
Will it be easy? The tone of the psalm changes in verse 4.
SLIDE: YEA, THOUGH I WILL WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL,
In the winter months the shepherd moves his sheep to the warmer, lowland areas. As summer comes he leads his sheep upward to new green grass. The journey upward is often treacherous. New ravines and unsure footing bring fear and danger on the way to new pastures.
I know of no passage where the Bible teaches that the Christian life is easy. God never promises that as a Christian all problems will cease. He doesn’t promise a heaven on earth experience.
It is often a life of deep shadows—of heartaches and loneliness and treachery—surrounded by enemies—but a life in which the sheep can walk in confidence knowing that the Shepherd has yet not make His first mistake—and he never will.
Let’s set the record straight. It doesn’t say “might”, it says “even though”.
SLIDE: The Christian can still lose his job–terminal cancer…lose closest friend…have automobile accident…face incredible number of problems…
and never once need to doubt: “Is the Shepherd in this?” You see, the shepherd leads along right tracks.
The next several phrases are all tied to walking through the shadows of death.
SLIDE: FOR YOU ARE WITH ME; YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF, THEY COMFORT ME.
We understand the staff (Long, crooked stick), pulls me out of dangerous ravine.
The Rod is an oak club about two feet long into which shepherd has pounded pieces of bone or metal. It’s a club for use against savage animals. He could use it as a club but he could also hurl it like a missile over the heads of his sheep to a wolf lurking in the distance.
Think of that! Here we are enjoying the green pasture and whirl, whirl, whirl… here goes this club in front of our faces. That’s the shepherd at work!
He guards us. There’s no savage wolf strong enough to take the shepherd.
SLIDE: YOU PREPARE A TABLE BEFORE ME IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES.
One of the sheep’s enemies is the little brown adder, which delights, when disturbed by a munching sheep, to jump quickly from his hole and to bite the sheep on the nose or on the face!
A wise shepherd prepares the table. Holds the sheep back, and with his staff he moves through the grass looking for these holes. He pours the pungent oil all around the hole. The snake is repulsed by the odor and refrains from coming out to bite the sheep.
SLIDE: YOU ANOINT MY HEAD WITH OIL;
Refers to protection from a Nasal Fly, which deposits eggs in damp, moist, mucous membranes of the sheep’s nose. Hatch in a few days to form small, slender worm-like larvae. Burrow into flesh and cause severe irritation and inflammation.
Often cause sheep to deliberately beat and rub head against ground, rocks, post, etc. Extreme cases can kill itself in frenzied endeavor for relief.
Homemade remedy of mixture of linseed oil, sulfur and tar which are smeared all over the sheep’s forehead as protection. Flies leave and sheep settle down immediately.
MY CUP OVERFLOWS.
This is a little stone cup, common in Palestine – Sheep can’t drink out of a well. The faithful shepherd draws the water and fills these little stone cups to overflowing. Why, it may take two to three hours just to water the sheep! That’s the Lord!
This is the overwhelming attitude we have in the midst of the difficulties of life.
John 7:37: Closing the gap.
Triumphant living of Philippians 4.
Now, with pardonable imagination, every flock needs some sheepdogs. They are named “goodness” and “mercy”.
SLIDE: SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY WILL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,
If ever live in a large spread, love a couple of border collies – name them “Goodness” and Mercy”.
“Here, Mercy!” What great names! What marvelous reminders – not “Wrath” and “Judgment,” but “Goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life!”
Surely and Goody herd our family on walks.
SLIDE: AND I WILL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.
Funerals: always close Christian funerals with this.
Of course, some don’t make it home! Too many of us want to be our own shepherd. We want to make our own paths… draw our own water… fight our own battles… call our own shots… build our own business… choose our own life’s partner… and then let Him somehow come and bless it… Tragedy.
But the rest of us can take much comfort in this Psalm, for He is indeed our shepherd.
Never too late to invite Him to be your shepherd.
APPLICATIONS
SLIDE: 1. Live close to the Shepherd. Why would you want to live any where else?
SLIDE: 2. If the Lord is your only shepherd, you don’t have enough shepherds.
Genesis 2: “It is not good for man to be alone.”
SLIDE: 3. Those who have plumbed the depths of their own inadequacies are the ones that God invariable calls to shepherd others.
SLIDE: Jesus sufferings from rejection in Nazareth, to illegitimate child, etc…..
SLIDE: Peter and boasts…failed…Feed My Sheep.
SLIDE: Pour in acceptance, etc.