Psalm 23
My shepherd I’ll not want, he
makes me down to lie. In pasture’s green he leadeth me, the quiet waters fly. My soul he doth restore. with thee and thy rod, and steadly
comfort still. Thy table thou hast furnished. ♪ My foes ♪ ♪ I am outdone ♪ ♪
With all anoint ♪ ♪ And my cup overflows ♪ ♪ Goodness and mercy
all my life ♪ But let’s hear from God’s holy word together
as we read Psalm 23. It says, 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. Let’s pray together. Our Heavenly
Father, we pray that as we read this passage of scripture tonight,
that our hope would be in you, the God of heaven and earth.
We pray that our minds would be fixed on heaven where you
are leading us. We pray that in plenty and in
lean times, we would call on you, the God of the universe.
We would call on you as our great shepherd, that you would make
us rich in mercy and provisions, and we thank you that you’re
the God who seeks the one lost sheep, and we pray that we would
be those who seek the lost sheep of Israel as well, and be full
of compassion and kindness as we stand before your word tonight. Show us how we measure up. Show
us where we fall short. where we are wanting and show
us how to meet your standard by your grace and through Jesus
Christ, we pray in his name, amen. If I were to ask you, what is
your favorite hymn? You could probably give me a
list. Now if we went out into the community and said just randomly
at the mall or Walmart, what’s your favorite hymn? What’s a
very likely candidate you’ll hear? Amazing Grace. Amazing
Grace. OK, if you ask the same thing about a catechism, what’s
your favorite catechism question? Now maybe out of ignorance you
would answer. Everybody would say, what is the chief end of
man, because that’s as far as they ever got in Sunday school. Nobody
ever got to like 86 and 87, that kind of thing. you would answer
your favorite catechism, what is the chief end of man? Now,
if you were to ask somebody what is their favorite Bible verse,
probably one of the two things we’ve just read, either the Lord’s
Prayer or John 3.16 or Psalm 23. I can’t tell you how often
I’ve been in a deathbed or in a tender moment with a member
of the church and Psalm 23 is what they want to hear. I’ve
got a file of funeral services that I’ve done, say I’ve done,
I don’t know how many I’ve done, Ben was asking me yesterday how
many funerals I’ve done, and I just said, what’d I say, 100?
Okay, say it’s really 50. 25 of those have been from Psalm
23, or half of them, roughly, something like that. It’s a psalm
that we can quote from memory, it’s something that’s near and
dear to our hearts, and that’s because it’s tender, that’s because
it shows our trust in God, that’s because It’s a psalm of confidence. It’s a psalm of gratitude. It’s
a psalm where we can say that God personally cares for me. And one thing you’ll notice in
a lot of the psalms is it uses plural pronouns. God is our God. But what does it say here in
Psalm 23? The Lord is my shepherd. And so it moves from the covenant
community language of our shepherd to my shepherd. It’s very personal
and tender. I want us to look at this psalm
in three ways. One is the caregiver, the second
is the care given, and then the third way is covenantal care. Now there are a bunch of ways
you can slice the Psalm 23 pie. There’s a phenomenal commentary
written called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. and he looks at
it through the eyes of the shepherd, what does every little thing
mean? And that’s a good way to look at the psalm. It’s good
to see how a shepherd in the ancient Near East would have
cared for the sheep, and then apply that to how God cares for
us. Another way you could look at it is what you will never
lack if God is your shepherd. You’ll never lack food, you’ll
never lack shelter, you’ll never lack water, you’ll never lack
provision, care, Protection guidance, you’ll never lack all these things.
That’s another way to cut up the pie But I want us to look
at it through covenantal eyes because of this simply this It
says Yahweh is our Shepherd if you look at Psalm 23 at verse
1 it says the Lord in all caps or Yahweh is my Shepherd and
that’s a very specific title for God and so it tells us that
It tells us much about the nature of the care that we are given.
Now before we begin, let me say this. There are times when we
need refreshment. Go out and cut the grass and
it’s 98 degree weather, it’s muggy, you need water. For some
of you it’s a Pepsi or whatever. You need something to refresh
you, but you go through seasons of life too where life is just
rough. And you need someone to take care of you And this psalm
reminds me of how, as a pastor, sometimes you can get just flat
worn out. And it reminded me of encouragement
that we often receive from both of our parents. Our parents,
both being pastors, know what it’s like to go through hard
seasons and difficulties. And there are times where we’ll
go visit our families and they can just look at us and see if
we are dead tired. And there’s a sense where they
say, what do you need and how can we give it? And so there’s
babysitting, there’s meals out, there’s refreshment. There’s
not really the spa treatment, don’t get that picture. I don’t
get my toes done anyway. But there are times when we are
just flat, dead, tired. And when people refresh you and
encourage you, isn’t it a wonderful, refreshing thing? Now we get
that every week in the Lord’s house. We get that every week
in God’s house as we come and sit under his word. But we need
to be like that to others. Put your eye out for somebody
who’s tired and who’s weary. And maybe if you just take them
to eat, talk to them, give them a dose of hospitality and grace,
you will be a blessing to them. So with those things in mind,
let’s look at Psalm 23. Look at verse one. This speaks
of the caregiver. And the question you ask as you
look at verse one is, what is God like? And we have all these
views of God. He’s great and he’s high and
he’s holy and he’s majestic. He’s unapproachable. He’s full
of wrath and terror and hostility towards the sinners. But what
does verse one say? It says, God, the Lord, is my
shepherd. And so it speaks of the great
caregiver. Now this is a wondrous act of
condescension. God condescending or coming down,
he makes himself beneath himself to come. We say that in the person
and work of Jesus. Jesus condescended. He left the
riches of heaven and came to earth, born in a, how do we say
it, a mean and lowly stable. But he condescended. Well, it
is a condescension for Almighty God to become a shepherd. Why is that? Shepherds were outcasts. Shepherds were smelly. Shepherds
were not clean. Shepherds were not fit to enter
the presence in the temple of God. Shepherds lived outside
the cities. They slept under the stars. They
didn’t take baths. And you can go on and on. They
were not the cream of the crop. But God here describes himself. What am I like? I’m like a shepherd
who takes care of his sheep. and what a wonderful picture
that is. In fact, when Jesus tells a parable
about how great the shepherd is, he says he’s the shepherd
who when one sheep in his flock goes astray, he leaves the 99
and goes after the 100 and restores them. We had a little book when
the kids were little, I suppose we still have it, but it was
called, oh, y’all have to help me out, what was it called? Not
Sammy and His Shepherd, the one before that about the little
sheep that disappeared. He used to be, remember he- Zebedee.
Zebedee, yeah, Zebedee gets lost. He counts their names one by
one from Abigail to Zebedee. We used to have the whole rhyme
down pat. Lost lamb, little lost lamb, that’s right. But that’s
the nature of God. He goes after lost sheep. He
cares for us. So who is this caregiver? Well,
it’s Yahweh. It’s the covenant God. Remember
Moses in the wilderness? When he appears before the burning
bush and God says to him, you’re a shepherd. Notice in a little
theme there in the Bible, God calls shepherds. to shepherd
his people. He did that with David, he did
that with Moses, he does that even with his own son, Jesus.
But what does God say to Moses? Moses says, who shall I tell
Pharaoh has sent me? And he says, tell him that I
am. Tell him that Yahweh has sent you. This is the divine
covenant name of God. This is the God who is able to
provide and protect and care for his sheep. We have a picture of this shepherd,
carrying his rod and his staff. And you will not get care like
this from any other God. When you’re telling your friends
about the gods you serve, you can tell them all kinds of things,
but you can tell them you have a shepherd that does not sleep.
You can tell them you have a shepherd who is mighty to save and powerful
to protect. And they will never get care
like this from any other place. But God characterizes himself
as a shepherd. We’ll say more about this in
a minute, but if you follow the action of the shepherd through
Psalm 23, he makes the sheep lie down, he leads them, he restores
them, he is with them, he prepares for them land and food, he anoints
them, he is personally involved and ever watchful in their care. And that’s the character of Almighty
God we serve, our friends will stand us up, right? Our loved
ones will turn their backs on us, but God never ever will. He’s our shepherd who goes with
us. And so that’s the first thing we want to consider is the caregiver.
The second thing we want to look at, we find it in verses one
through four, is the care that is given, the care given. And
the three things you’ll find that the shepherd does in verses
one through four is he provides, he guides, and he protects. Notice,
he says, of the Lord being his shepherd, he says, 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. And 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. So this is a description of the
care given, I shall not want, I will fear no evil. One of the
things you’ll find as you read a shepherd’s look at Psalm 23,
and I believe if you read Sammy and His Shepherd, the little
book on Psalm 23 by Susan Hunt, one of the things you’ll read
is that there are three things that a sheep needs in order to
be comfortable. And it’s freedom from fear and
freedom from friction and freedom from flies. Fear from the wolves
and the predators, freedom from friction with one another. Sheep
are prone to be belligerent and fight with one another. And then
the flies that get in their nose and ears and other parts of the
body can drive them nuts. And so he says, I shall not be
in want, I will fear no evil, for his shepherd takes good care
of him and provides comfort. And then he goes on to say, you
make me to lie down in green pastures. A shepherd has to actively
lead his sheep from the farm, through the valleys, through
the tablelands, up the mountains, down the mountains, through the
valleys. And eventually back home again, a shepherd lived
a very nomadic life. They didn’t just put their sheep
out in the horse pasture and toss hay. They had to travel,
they had to move, they had to get around the countryside. And
if you know anything about the countryside of Israel, of Palestine,
it was a rocky, deserted place that was hard to find green things.
But the good shepherd takes his sheep to green pastures. We don’t
want to allegorize or make something out of Psalm 23 that it’s not.
But what might come to mind when we say that God leads us into
green pastures? We’re not grass-eating herbivores,
are we? I hope you’re not. Was it only
Nebuchadnezzar who grazed when he went mad, or one of those
Old Testament foreign kings? But God feeds us on his word.
And every week, he leads us out into the world He leads us out
into the valley of the shadow of death. He leads us into the
wilderness, into the ravines, but he always brings us home
every week and he feeds us from his word. And so that’s something
we ought to consider very well, that every week we want to be
in God’s house where he brings us to his feeding trough. But
he goes on to say that the caregiver is not just a lack of want or
evil and green pastures, but he leads me besides still waters,
quiet waters. This is a place of refreshment,
of nourishment. We know what it’s like to be
thirsty. We know what it’s like to be
dehydrated. We know what it’s like when our digestive system
gets off because we haven’t had enough food or drink. And so
this is a wonderful picture. God not only feeds us abundantly,
he gives us drink. abundantly. He provides for us
in the ways our bodies need as sheep, as spiritual sheep, but
as literal sheep. And then it goes on to say he
restores my soul. He gives renewal. One of the
things about a nomadic life, maybe you’ve traveled, you’ve
been living out of your suitcase more than your dresser drawer,
you can’t wait to get home. But a shepherd and sheep, live
life on the road, they live life on the run, they live life on
the pastoral way. And a shepherd has to know how
much his sheep can take. A shepherd has to know that they
need to lie down, that they need green pastures, that they need
waters. But one thing about sheep is this, they can become cast
down. They can literally get on their
backs and because they’re fat little animals with short little
legs and they get wooly and hairy, it gets to be impossible for
them to get up and there’s something is this shepherd who looks at
Psalm 23 tells us, there’s something about sheep and their bodies,
if they lie down for too long, gases build up in their body
and they will die. And so this picture is given
to us of one who is cast down. And you think about your own
life from time to time, you’re weighed down, you’re weary, you
don’t know if anyone loves you, cares for you, you start to get
depressed in mind feeble in heart, you forget the promises of God,
and what does the shepherd do? He comes and picks you up and
puts your feet on the ground and says, here you are again,
now live life. And that’s the picture of the
shepherd here. He lifts us up and sets our feet firmly back
on the ground, and then he leads us in paths of righteousness.
Not crooked paths, not paths of danger, but paths of righteousness
that will be of benefit to us. And he does it for his own namesake,
for his own glory, reputation. And then he speaks of hardship.
Even though we go through the valley of the shadow of death,
we go through uncertainty. What does God, what does Yahweh
promise Moses? I will be with you. So when we go through the valley
of the shadow of death, it says, fear no evil for you are with
me and your rod and your staff, they comfort me. What does a
rod and staff have? A rod can be used to fight somebody
off, to beat them off. It has a pokey end for jabbing. I remember David talked about
how he had killed bears and things with his own hands and with his
shepherd staff. But what does the hook do? It can protect. It can pull.
It can catch, it can stop someone or a sheep from falling off the
edge. And so the rod and staff, they
guide and they protect. So there’s the caregiver, Yahweh,
our shepherd. There’s the caregiver as he leads
us along the pastoral life. The third section, the last section,
verse five and six, we want to think of God’s covenantal care. We don’t want to look at a psalm
like this simply as, oh, here’s a shepherd taking care of sheep.
We wanna look at it as covenant, covenant God takes care of his
covenant lambs, and that’s us. What makes you feel better after
a hard journey? Well, a bath, that’s usually
a good feel. A meal. And then in this case,
he speaks of vindication before our enemies. Interesting that
he adds that in there but covenantally what does God provide for us?
Well, it says in verse 5 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 is a picture of God the host God, the one who sets the
table. This is a picture of God who
says, you will eat at the king’s table and your enemies will not. They’ll be peeking in the windows
and they’ll see you exalted and anointed while they are standing
outside. There are aspects of this that
are in this life. Your enemies will have to look
upon you and see God being gracious to you. But there are aspects
of also the life to come God says that in the New Jerusalem,
the gates are thick, the walls are high, and outside are the
evildoers. But inside are those whose names
are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And so what does God
do for His covenant people? He spreads a meal. He does that
on the Lord’s Day when we have the Lord’s Supper. He spreads
a meal. He is the host. He puts before
us a full table. This echoes back to green pastures. This echoes back to quiet waters. And so just a pause there to
think about how richly provided for you are. I think one of the
prayers of Thanksgiving tonight was thank you for the jobs we
do have. I can’t tell you how many times I hear somebody say
I hate my job. And I want to say to them in
this economy, you better love the job you hate because you’ll
hate it when you ain’t got a job because there are a lot of people
without jobs despite the bragging that goes on by our politician.
But we are very blessed people. And God is able to spread a tent
in the wilderness. He’s able to provide for us.
But what does it mean that he anoints our head with oil? Well,
in shepherd language, that’s putting bug repellent on. You anoint somebody’s head and
their ears and it keeps the flies away. It keeps them from going
nuts from those annoyances. But it’s also, refreshing. It’s also making clean. Remember
Psalm 33 about the oil poured down Aaron’s head. It runs down
his beards. How do we sing it at Presbyterian
Synod? Did of his garments go? It flowed
down his beard and all that. It’s refreshing. It’s like a
bath. It’s like being fit for being in the presence of company,
so to speak. But he anoints our head with
oil. He cleans us. He gets us smelling good. And
notice then the covenantal language, surely goodness and mercy, or
love, God’s covenant love, will follow us all the days of our
life. There’s two twin characteristics of God there, goodness and then
steadfast love is probably the best way you understand it from
maybe you’ve heard the Hebrew language before of his hesed,
his covenant love, his steadfast love, surely, those twin blessings
will follow you all the days of your life. Yes, hardships.
Yes, darkness. Yes, valleys. Yes, sin and weakness
and all those things. But notice where he leads you.
You will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now next week
when we look at Psalm 24, it’s gonna ask the question, who shall
come to the presence of God? Who can come to his holy hill?
Who can eat at this table, so to speak? And it’ll give us the
answer to that. But to be invited to the king’s
table is a great blessing. Notice the pilgrimage language
here. It’s not just shepherd language
of sheep being dragged from one field to the other, one creek
to the next. It’s not just being taken from one field to the next,
to the next, to the next, until you get back to the farm. But
there’s pilgrimage language we understand. The Christian life,
the life of following God, is not always easy. There are hills,
there’s valleys, there’s mountains, darkness, there’s light, there’s
wondrous things, there’s hard things. But notice where God
always takes us. He always leads us home. You can say in some sense he’s
taking us back to the farm. The sheep are gonna be happy
to see the old barn, to rub up against the fences, to smell
the other livestock. You can picture it. And that’s
a big blessing for those of us who feel like life is nomadic.
For those of us who feel like home is wherever the family is,
but we’d like to be settled in one place. This is a picture
of being settled. For a shepherd lives outside,
he lives in a tent. He’s a nomad, the sheep are the
same way. But this is like a final going
home. And so he must be speaking here
of heaven. He must be speaking here of being in the presence
of God. But how is it that you’ll be safely brought home? Well, it’s under the care of
the shepherd. It’s under the care of, as Hebrews
13 puts it, the great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ, the
one who seeks the lost, whose care is never ending. But how
does he care for you in this life? Well, he puts you under
under shepherds. That’s what we call the elders
of the church. They are exhorted, as Peter says in 1 Peter 5, shepherd
the flock of God. And so one of the ways Jesus
cares for us is he puts us under the shepherd’s care in the church. And that is how we’ll be led
safely home. So one of the things we like
to say as elders of the church is if you come and put yourselves
under our care, by God’s grace, the Lord’s help, we’re going
to try our best to land you safely on heaven’s shores. And so that’s
the picture we want to have in mind. God is our shepherd. He
shepherds us through under shepherds, but we all look to the great
shepherd, even Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together. Our God
and Savior, we thank you that you provide for us and that you
bless us through Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep,
who through the blood of the eternal covenant has has bought
us, has purchased us, and has protected us. And we can’t wait
for the day when we’re brought safely back home, where we will
eat at that table that has been spread for us, that we will be
vindicated in front of all our enemies, and that we will bow
before the great shepherd, the lamb slain before the foundation
of the world in worship and adoration of him. Land us safely by giving
us care through your church. We do pray in Jesus’ name, amen.