The Lord is My Shepherd

Jeff Holcomb

Living Word

The Good Shepherd: Psalm 23 • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago • Presented 3 years ago • 42:00

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The Lord is MY Shepherd. Knowing God and relying on Him gives believers strength and confidence to face the day.

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This morning we are beginning a new series entitled the Good Shepherd where we will be looking at a chapter of the Bible that I know all of us are familiar with, Ps 23.

Psalm 23 was written by a shepherd, David. Yes, David was later a king, but he remembered his beginnings as a shepherd. In this psalm, he recounts God’s goodness, faithfulness, and kindness to him throughout his days. Let’ s start off with the entire thing and then we’ll walk through them a bit together piece by piece

Psalm 23:1–6 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.

There is so much goodness in here that I will admit to having a bit of trouble in deciding a theme or focus to begin with......there’s salvation, hope, provision, support, rest.....so many things or words . I went to the web and I looked for a word cloud of Psalm 23, and I’m going to show it to you.....looks good doesn’t it.....but I want to tell you that in my opinion, this misses probably the most important word in the text. MY

He is MY Shepherd

Psalm 23:1 (ESV)

The Lord is my shepherd;

“Probably the most important single word in this psalm is the little word my.

My is a very important word. You can know that the Lord is the Shepherd, and not know that He is your Shepherd. There’s a lot of God’s provision that works like that by the way....you can know that He is Jehovah Jireh, that translates out to ‘The Lord will provide’......but is He your provider. You can know of Jehovah Rapha......The Lord who heals and not have a healer........let me say it another way.....there are a LOT of demons out there who KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ is Lord, but are destined for Hell. Just because you know of someone or something does not make it yours. That’s why I think that this little word My is so important in understanding Ps 23..........This psalm comes from a place where David is fully trusting and reliant on God because he knows that not only is God a shepherd, but He is our Shepherd. David has trust in that personally.

It is only when you have come to place your confidence in Him personally that you can sing with David of old, ‘The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want’” (Haddon W. Robinson, Trusting the Shepherd: Insights from Psalm TwentyThree [Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 2002], 61). Everything that follows in the psalm hinges on this statement: God is your shepherd.

Just as the course of David’s life changed when God chose him through Samuel’s anointing (1 Samuel 16:1–13), so the path of the believer’s life changes when God becomes our shepherd. Through the salvation of the Lord, we find ourselves the great beneficiaries of God’s kindness, care, sustenance, and provision.

Psalm 23:1 ESV

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

God is our shepherd; we shall not want. Well, that sounds easier on paper than in reality, doesn’t it?

Clint Eastwood’s western film Pale Rider opens with Megan, a young girl, burying her dog after it was killed by crooked men bent on destroying the local prospectors’ camps and families. She prays Psalm 23, adding in what many of us have felt when our own hearts are broken and searching for answers. She prays, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want—but I do want. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul—but they killed my dog. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil—but I am afraid. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me—but I need a miracle. Thy loving kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life—if you exist. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever—but I’d like to get more of this life first” (directed by Clint Eastwood [Warner Brothers, 1985]).

Psalm 23 is often used during times of trial or sadness because for the believer it can bring comfort. To know the shepherd does not mean that we will live lives without hardship or grief, but it does mean that God does not abandon us. He will sustain us. He may not provide all our wants, but he will provide what we need. Through him we have reconciliation with God and the restoration of all things—many in this life and all in the life to come. Even when it feels like we are in want, we can trust in the Good Shepherd to see us through.

If The Lord is My Shepherd, then we are His........

Psalm 23:2 ESV

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

Make no mistake that David knew what it was to be a shepherd and he knew what it was to be a sheep. Sheep have a reputation for being notoriously foolish, vulnerable, and unintelligent. Urban Dictionary says the slang use of the term sheep refers to “a waste of flesh and brain cells.” Ouch! Watch any clip of America’s Funniest Home Videos and you might be convinced that humanity is quite ridiculous! Like sheep, we need something, someone, outside of ourselves to help us and guide us. Here in verse 2 we see this image of the sheep being led to green pastures and still waters (that is provision, comfort, and safety). I wondered about these images and I did some research....... do you know what a common theme in any movie TV show, or story about sheep.....that they wander off and get stuck in ugly places. Think about it....every show that has a shepherd tending sheep has the shepherd having to go off and rescue the sheep from some place he or she should not have been in the first place. That’s why verse 2 is so important here.....he make the me to lie down in green pastures. That means that God in His wisdom, knowing our tendency to get into trouble, will lead us to places of rest with green grass and no brambles and ditches......sometimes God will give us time where he saves us from ourselves. Then it talks about still water......sheep are timid....they will refuse to drink from water that is moving too quickly or too rough.....so the shepherd has to lead them to places of calm for them to receive what the need.Sheep are not always the brightest, but the shepherd cares for them.

The flip side to that is that recent studies have shown that “sheep are actually surprisingly intelligent, with impressive memory and recognition skills. They build friendships, stick up for one another in fights, and feel sad when their friends are sent to slaughter” They have the ability to remember and recognize, empathize and feel remorse, but are incapable of fully taking care of themselves. (Harriet Constable, “Sheep Are Not Stupid, and They Are Not Helpless Either,” BBC, April 19, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170418-sheep-are-not-stupid-and-they-arenot-helpless-either). This all seems to track with the humanity we know. Remember, we are His SHEEP.

We are keen, clever, resourceful, and relational—however, we are definitely in need of direction, sometimes incapable of making good choices. We can do many things all by ourselves in our own strength, but we are also helpless to overcome sin, to find sustained hope or joy, or to gain eternal life apart from our shepherd’s intervention.

The choice for the believer is whether or not to willingly become the shepherd’s sheep. Will we allow ourselves to give up control and follow the wisdom of a good and caring shepherd who can meet our every need? Can we truthfully say, “The LORD is my shepherd”? We do not always know what life will include when we submit ourselves to God’s authority. When Samuel showed up at David’s house, how could David have known all that was to come? Did David know that he would kill a giant? Did he know that he would be on the run because Saul wanted to kill him? Did he anticipate becoming a murderer? Did he know he would fail, yet be restored? Did he know that he would lose children to death and to rebellion? Of course he didn’t! Yet, through it all, David would remain an imperfect pillar of the faith and a man after God’s heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). Like David, we will face hardship, and we will enjoy triumph. This only emphasizes the truth of Psalm 23: that everything we are, everything we have, and everything we need is found in the Lord. Our Great Shepherd provides for us, restores us, leads us, protects us, comforts us, and sustains us, now and for eternity, as we dwell in his love and care. We don’t know what will happen, but like David, we can reflect and know we are in the care of the Good Shepherd, and that can give us peace to face the future, regardless of our circumstances.