The Lord is my Shepherd

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I first met Psalm 23 at my grandmother’s funeral. I was seven years old and, coming from a non-Christian home, knew nothing about the Christian faith. In fact I’d only ever been to church once before – for a wedding. But I can still remember standing in that crematorium and hearing the words of ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’. And it’s no wonder that it remains the no.1 hymn chosen for funerals – because of those lines:

Yea, though I walk through death’s dark vale,Yet will I fear no ill;For Thou art with me; and Thy rodAnd staff me comfort still.

Which is lifted straight from Psalm 23. So would you turn in the Bible to Psalm 23, and once you’re there, would you look at v4:

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. (vv4-5)

And that shows that the background to Psalm 23 is real life – life that contains evil, enemies, death, and fear. And I start there because I’ve read and heard a fair bit on this Psalm which just seems to float above reality. And at first sight, that’s what verses 1 and 2 appear to do, isn’t it? Look at v1:

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures,he leads me beside quiet waters (vv1-2)

Which paints such an idyllic scene. And the way some books and sermons unpack those two verses has left me wanting to ask the writer or preacher, ‘Has nothing ever gone wrong in your life? Have you never been hurt or had your happiness threatened?’

But by contrast, verses 4 and 5 tell us that David was writing from inside real life to help us in real life. And his message in Psalm 23, to those of us trusting in Jesus, is simply this: God is totally committed to you and your good. And I take it the reason God gave us Psalm 23 is that that’s not always obvious. You can’t always read off circumstances the obvious conclusion that God is totally committed to you and your good. After all, just look back to Psalm 22, v1 – which shows that circumstances can leave you asking,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Psalm 22v1)

Because that’s how it can feel. But then look on to Psalm 23, v6, and the same person also says:

Surely goodness and love [that is, the Lord’s goodness and love] will follow me all the days of my life… (v6)

And Psalm 23 is saying, ‘That is what God is like – even when you can’t see it.’ And it begins:

A psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd (Title and v1)

So I take it this was written by David, king of God’s Old Testament (OT) people, Israel. And if you read his story elsewhere in the Bible, you find that he started life as a shepherd (see 1 Samuel 16v8-13, 19; 1 Samuel 17v34-37). So some people picture David either back in those days with his sheep, or reminiscing about them, and suddenly having this ‘eureka’ moment of thinking, ‘What a great picture of our relationship with God... The Lord is my shepherd’ – and reaching for his notebook. And his experience has certainly gone into this Psalm. But the picture of God as shepherd goes much further back. In fact it goes all the way back to the Exodus – since when Israel had thought of herself as God’s flock, and God as the shepherd who’d led her out of Egypt (see, e.g., Psalm 78v52). And if you’d asked an OT believer, ‘How do you know that God is your shepherd – that he’s totally committed to you and your good in that way?’, they’d have pointed you back to the Exodus and said, ‘Because he stepped in to rescue us from Egypt make us his own people.’ And if you were to ask a believer today the same question, they ought to point you back to the far greater rescue that the Exodus foreshadowed. They ought to say, ‘I know God is totally committed to me and my good – because he stepped in to rescue me from his own judgement on the cross, and make me one of his people.’ Isn’t that what the Lord Jesus said in John 10:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10v11)

So as we read Psalm 23, v1, if we’re New Testament (NT) believers, we can say to ourselves,

The Lord (Jesus) is my Shepherd (v1)

And the point is: you can’t always read off circumstances that God is like Psalm 23 says he is. But you can always read it off Jesus’ death and resurrection. So, v1 again:

The Lord (Jesus) is my Shepherd (v1)

And that’s because having died and risen again for me, he now sees me as belonging to him, and sees himself as responsible for my total care. And so as a consequence of that, v1 goes on,

I shall not be in want. (v1)

And that’s the first of three statements of faith that David makes in this Psalm and which he’s inviting us to echo:

First, ‘I SHALL NOT BE IN WANT’ (vv1-3)

And yet by nature, we’re anxious that we shall be in want.

And our most basic anxiety is about material resources. Eg, ‘Will I get a job? Will I keep my job? Will I have enough?’ And v2 says:

He makes me lie down in green pastures,he leads me beside quiet waters (v2)

So what are we to make of that when we can’t find work, or money runs out? Has David lost touch with reality? Well, let me remind you that the David who wrote this spent years on the run from his predecessor as king – Saul – who was trying to kill him. So David had to hide out in caves; at one time he was so desperate for food, he went to the tabernacle to beg, and all they had was the left-over ceremonial bread, so he took that. So it’s not that he always had plenty and never faced need. But it was his experience – even that time – that God provided, even if it was just a basic ‘enough’. And I take it that’s the picture in v2. It’s the picture of a shepherd who’s always thinking on our behalf, ‘What do they need?’ and ‘How am I going to provide it?’ We might wish he provided either much more, or more quickly. But maybe that’s because we’d rather have £20,000 in the bank to trust, than have to trust the Lord day by day, week by week, month by month.

But the point is: he knows what I need and will provide.

But then there’s our anxiety about spiritual resources. E.g., the question, ‘Will I keep going as a Christian? Or could I fall away?’ And the beginning of v3 says:

he restores my soul. (v3)

Now literal sheep don’t have souls. And that could just be translated, ‘he restores my life.’ Which a shepherd might do for a literal sheep many a time. E.g., a friend of mine, Simon, visited me here – and at the time he was working for his Dad, who was a sheep farmer. And we went for a walk and away in the distance, Simon spotted this sheep on its back – or ‘cast’, to use sheep jargon. It must have tried something stupid, lost its footing and ended up on its back. From where a sheep cannot get itself onto its feet again. And because of what goes on in an upside-down sheep stomach – I’ll spare you the details – it can die in hours. So we ran over to it and restored its life. Or rather, Simon did as I looked on and offered encouragement.

Sheep can foolishly, wilfully endanger themselves in any number of ways. And so can metaphorical ones. And if you’ve been a Christian any length of time, you’ll know your own deep capacity for moral foolishness and wilfulness. And you may be able to look back to a time when you were – to use that jargon – ‘cast’: spiritually belly-up and going nowhere. Maybe you were going out with a non-Christian who pulled you away from the Lord; or sleeping with a girl- or boy-friend; or overtaken by bitterness about something; or absorbed by all sorts of ambitions you now see as ungodly. And humanly speaking, those times could have been the end of you as a Christian. But the Lord restored your soul. He got you back on your feet. And maybe that’s what he’s trying to do with you right now – even speaking to you through this, tonight. Because as the Lord Jesus also says in John 10:

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10v27-28)

So it is possible, even if we’re genuinely his sheep, for us to be foolish and wilful and stop listening to him for a time. But it’s not possible, if we’re genuinely his, for us to fall away – because he won’t let us.

So the point is: he knows I’m weak and will keep me.

But our anxiety about spiritual resources isn’t just the question, ‘Will I actually keep going?’ It’s also the question, ‘Will I know the way to go?’ Life is decision-making, isn’t it? Decision after decision after decision. And since that’s another favourite source of anxiety for Christians, v3 goes on:

He guides me in paths of righteousness (v3)

Now that could just be translated ‘He guides me in right paths.’ And for literal sheep, that’s exactly what a shepherd does. We had a holiday this summer in a remote part of Scotland, where friends lent us their cottage. And in theory the garden was sheep-proof, but in practice it wasn’t. And getting sheep out of the garden again became a favourite activity of our three-year-olds Beth and Ellie, who were remarkably brave as they held hands and blocked one path while I opened a gate and shooed the misbehaving sheep down another path. And that’s a picture of one aspect of the Lord’s guidance – what you might call sovereign guidance. Because in his sovereignty – his over-arching control of all circumstances and decisions – he can open or close any door he wants to. And we need to trust his wisdom in that.

So, e.g., one doctor friend applied for what seemed to him the ideal job. He didn’t get it. And he confessed to me that it had made him question God’s goodness – until a few months later he met the person who did get that job, and who told him that it had, in fact, turned out to be a nightmare job, and that he was trying to get out of it as soon as he could.

So that’s God’s sovereign guidance. But look at v3 again:

He guides me in paths of righteousness (v3)

Which can also mean ‘paths of right behaviour.’ And David probably intended that double-meaning, because he knew that God doesn’t just guide his metaphorical sheep by sovereignly opening and closing doors. He also guides us about what’s right behaviour, through his Word – what you might call his Bible guidance. And in fact that side of guidance was probably uppermost in David’s mind, because of the end of v3:

He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (v3)

So if I’m known as Christ’s sheep, my behaviour either honours or dishonours his name. And that’s why he’s so keen to guide me in the sense of teach me through the Bible how to obey him. So we tend to think guidance is all about the ‘big’, ‘fork-in-the-road’ decisions like, ‘Shall I… go to this university or that one? Apply for this job or that one? Ask this person out? Ask this person to marry me?’ And God in the Bible does give us principles of wisdom for deciding about those. But actually, those ‘big’ decisions are relatively few and far between and the bulk of God’s guidance in the Bible is about how we live having made those decisions. E.g., it doesn’t really matter much which job you’re in; what matters is whether in that job you’re obeying what the Bible says about work so that you honour Jesus. And it’s also been well said that even in the big decisions, most guidance problems are in fact obedience problems. E.g., many a Christian bloke in a serious relationship has bogged himself down with questions like, ‘How do I feel about this?’ When the real question is the obedience question: ‘Am I prepared to be what the Bible says a husband should be, for this girl?’ (And it’s worth saying that not only are most guidance problems obedience problems, but also most obedience problems are trust problems. Think again, e.g., of the Christian bloke who’s wondering, ‘Am I prepared to be what the Bible says a husband should be, for this girl?’ He might worry that he’d feel ‘trapped’ in marriage. If he knows himself at all well, he should worry that he might be selfish and not love a wife as he should. And ultimately, the only answer to those worries is to trust God – to trust the goodness of his design of marriage; and to trust that he can supply the grace we need to love another person in marriage as we should.)
So that’s verses 1-3:

The Lord knows what I need and will provide.He knows I’m weak and will keep me.He knows I’m unwise and will guide me.

And David is saying, ‘Will you echo my statement of faith – ‘I shall not be in want’? Because God is totally committed to us and our good.’
But what calls that most into question for us is: suffering. And that’s what David thinks through next. Look on to v4:

Even though I walkthrough 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 mein the presence of my enemies.You anoint my head with oil;my cup overflows. (vv4-5)

So, enter the ‘enemies’ that David has already mentioned eleven times in the first twenty-two Psalms – enemies who are out to kill him. And in the face of evil, enemies, suffering, death, David makes the second of his three statements of faith, ‘I will fear no evil.’ So,

Secondly, ‘I WILL FEAR NO EVIL’ (vv4-5)

Now that doesn’t mean, ‘I’m confident that I won’t encounter any evil or suffering’ – as if he thinks the Lord will always shield him from it. It means, ‘I have no fear of it really harming me. It may be painful, but under the hand of a God who is totally committed to me and my good, it won’t be harmful.’ And above all, he says that about death.

Which takes me back to my grandmothers’ funeral. I still vividly remember Dad breaking the news of her death to me. And realising, in my 7-year-old way, that my Dad, who could do anything and answer any question, could not cope and had no answer in the face of death. But I then remember standing in that crematorium and hearing what sounded very different – v4:

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. (v4)

Now David believed in life after death – you only have to read Psalm 16 to see that (Psalm 16v9-11). Because he understood that if God makes a commitment to us, and if God is an eternal God who can’t break his commitments, then his commitment to us must be eternal – it must last beyond death, so we must last beyond death, as well. That’s the basis on which OT believers believed in life after death. But NT believers have an even stronger basis for believing in it – namely, Jesus’ death and resurrection. His resurrection shows us that that there is life beyond death. And his death for our sins – if we trust in it – removes all fear of what will happen to us there.

One atheist wrote, ‘My greatest fear is not that there is no God, but that there is one, after all.’ So he meant the fear of finally meeting God as your judge and finding yourself rejected because of your rejection of him. Whereas for the person who’s accepted God’s rightful place as ruler of their life, and who’s trusted in Jesus’ death to forgive them every way they’ve sinned against his rule, that meeting holds no fear. Which is why, although we naturally shrink from the process of dying and from the prospect of separation from those we love, we can say ‘I will fear no evil’ – even when the evil is death. And Jesus even transforms the process of dying, as well. Because it’s often been said from this verse that although family and friends can walk with us so far through it, the Lord Jesus can and will walk us all the way through it.

I’ve recommended before Mark Ashton’s booklet, On My Way To Heaven. Mark was my previous boss and died aged 63 from inoperable cancer. Let me quote again from what he wrote in his last months here:

Every one of us will face up to God to answer for our lives, and every one of us will hang our heads in shame… But even as my condemnation is announced, my Redeemer will rise at last (Job.19.25) and Jesus will present incontrovertible evidence that my sentence has been fully carried out when he died in my place on the cross. It is my relationship with him that can take me through death and which is the only hope we have of eternal life…So it is in terms of relating to Jesus that I must understand my death. Jesus will be the same – indeed, he will be more real and more true than he has ever been before. It will be his voice that will call me into his presence (1 Thessalonians 4.16). He will take me to be with him (John 14.3), so that I may be with him forever (1 Thessalonians 4.17). He is the first and the last (Revelation 1.17-18), the beginning and the end (Revelation 21.6). It has been said that for the believer, the end of the world is more a person than it is an event. That is certainly true of the end of my life. My death may be the event with which my physical life on earth ends, but it will also be the moment at which my relationship with Jesus becomes complete. That relationship is the only thing that has made sense of my life, and at my death it will be everything.(On My Way To Heaven, Mark Ashton – available as a booklet from 10 Publishing and online at http://e-n.org.uk/p-5014-On-my-way-to-heaven.htm )

And that’s why, to be as ready as Mark was, we need to discover and meditate on and take in what the Bible says about Jesus’ resurrection – and the guarantee it is of our resurrection. And then, as and when we know we’re dying, we need to preach those things to ourselves even more. And one thing I pray for Christian brothers and sisters nearing death – whether still conscious or not – is that they would be inwardly conscious of the Lord Jesus with them, in the way v4 describes.

Then verse 5 goes on:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (v5)

Which begs the question: is that talking about the future? Is it the classic Bible picture of heaven as a banquet, but with the added picture of a military victory feast in the presence of defeated and captured enemies – to symbolise that in heaven no evils or enemies or suffering will touch us? Or is it – as I think – still about the present, when we’re still literally in the presence of our ‘enemies’ (sin, suffering, opposition, death) and when it’s a real exercise of faith – maybe the hardest exercise we do – to say, ‘God is totally committed to me and my good.’ Because I think that’s what David is doing here: I think he’s saying, ‘I still believe you’re blessing me even in the presence of my enemies – and I can still see tokens of your blessing in my experience – even though my experience includes these enemies as well.’ And brothers and sisters here facing great trials of faith have said exactly that kind of thing to me recently.

Which brings us back to where we began: David is not saying in Psalm 23, ‘You can always read off circumstances that God is like this.’ He’s saying, ‘Will you join me in trusting that God is like this – even when you can’t see it?’ Will you trust that above all on the strength of Jesus’ death and resurrection for you? But also on the strength of all the tokens of his blessing that you have seen – even in the presence of your ‘enemies’?’ And so he ends by saying, ‘Will you look to the future and say verse 6 with me?’:

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. (v6)

And there’s his third statement of faith: ‘I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever’ (or literally, ‘for length of days’). So,

Thirdly, ‘I WILL ‘DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD’ FOREVER’ (v6)

Now ‘the house of the Lord’ was the tabernacle – which symbolised God’s presence and where David would have gone regularly to draw near to the Lord and pray and recover his sense of peace in God’s commitment and goodness to him. But in v6 he’s using ‘house of the Lord’ metaphorically. He’s not saying, ‘I’m going to ring Pickford’s and move in to the tabernacle for the rest of my life.’ He’s saying, ‘Day by day, I’m going to trust that I’m always in God’s presence – that he’s always with me and that my life and all I care about is in his hands.’ And when you do that in trust and prayer, the NT says,

The peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4v7)

So, e.g., one Christian friend wrote to me about the death of her husband, in his mid-forties. She said:

We feel shocked and numbed at the break-up of our family and our world being turned upside down… BUT we’ve experienced the reality of God’s presence drawing near and bringing deep peace that does not come from the imagination.

That was written two days after her husband died. And like me, many of you can testify to that peace that transcends – even defies – human understanding, given the circumstances. And like me, many of you will have been to visit a Christian brother or sister facing sudden very bad news or serious illness or (as far as you and they know) imminent death. And you’ve gone thinking, ‘What am I going to say or do to help them?’ And you’ve come away infinitely more helped by them – because God has been there before you and given them this sense of his presence and the peace that comes from being able to believe profoundly that he is still totally committed to them and their good.

So the Psalm ends, ‘I will ‘dwell in the house of the Lord’ forever.’ And at one level that’s a statement of intent – ‘That’s what I’m setting myself to do: I’m going to trust the Lord in every situation and consciously bring him into it by faith and prayer. But at another level, it’s actually a statement of reality, isn’t it? Because in reality, God is with us in every situation – being the kind of God Psalm 23 says he is – whether, by faith, we manage to be conscious of it or not. And one day, that situation will give way from being in this life to being in heaven – which is why although ‘forever’ could just mean ‘for all my life on earth’, it’s right that we also read into it ‘and for all my life in heaven, as well.’ And once we’re there in heaven, it won’t take any exercise of faith to see that God has been totally committed to us and our good. It will, finally, be totally obvious.

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