“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing



Psalm 23 The Lord is My Shepherd May 3, 2009

“The Lord is my shepherd.” The good shepherd meets all your needs. The Lord leads, guides and protects you through this life to the next. Your life will be a life free from wants. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.” Your soul will be restored. Your path will be righteousness. There is no need to fear death. Your enemies can threaten, but you’ll feast all the while as your shepherd blesses you body and soul. Your life is, and will be, filled with goodness, mercy. Is there anything more precious in life? Is there anything more comforting in death? The Lord is my shepherd.

The sun is hot, the earth is scorched. Animals and humans struggle with the elements. Thirsty sheep need help. They won’t find good water to drink. The shepherd calls to them, leads them and the sheep muster their energy to follow him. They don’t know the path ahead, but they know their shepherd. They’ll be okay as long as they follow their shepherd. “He leads me beside quiet waters.”

David, who wrote Psalm 23 knew sheep well. He was a shepherd, tending his father’s flock, when the Lord chose him to be the next king of Israel. It was good training for a king. Sheep are dumb, apt to stray, weak, fickle, unable to fend for themselves. We are sheep. The Lord is our shepherd. Shepherding sheep helped David be a good king for Israel. Shepherding sheep helped Moses when it was time to lead God’s people out of the promised land.

“The Lord is my shepherd.” If he was a shepherd for no one else, he would be my shepherd. If he was a shepherd for no one else, he would be your shepherd. If you were the only sinner he would have come just for you, or me. He cares for me, watches over you, he preserves me, he protects you.

As a shepherd leads his flock, he avoids treacherous rocks that could cause stumbling and hidden holes which could trap and break spindly little legs. He goes around thorns that reach out to cut. Finally they arrive in a beautiful valley, in the fall, or a beautiful mountaintop in the spring, where the grass is green and the waters are still. “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”

The Good Shepherd refreshes. His work is always fresh, always rich, and his scripture is never exhausted. His word is food fit for the soul. We can lie down, completely content. We don’t have all we wish for, but you and I have no wants. There is nothing we lack. As my Caleb has said repeatedly over the years, “Dad, I don’t need anything because I have Jesus.” What well cared for sheep.

All day long wild animals are present. Bears, lions, jackals. A sheep is no match for any predator. But the predators are kept at a distance. They can’t come any closer. The shepherd is there. If they come too close, the shepherd will kill it. So the wild animals keep their distance. They can only howl and roar. 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.

This is a valley of the shadow of death. Who’s afraid of a shadow. The shadow doesn’t hurt. The shadow of a dog doesn’t bite. The shadow of a sword doesn’t kill. So the shadow of death we will not fear. The storm breaks on the mountain but the valley is a place of quiet and peace. Many Christians have had more peace while dying than while living, because in Christ’s death the substance of death has been removed. We fear a death many times while healthy, but when in our last days, we walk confidently in Christ.

After a busy day of walking, eating and drinking, and being protected by predators, the sheep need even more help. The shepherd knows tzhis and calls to them. They head toward the fold, the pen, for the night. When they arrive, the shepherd anoints every sheep’s head with oil and gives each one of them water, and checks for scrapes and burrs. Before night closes in, the shepherd bars the door shut. The sheep can sleep in peace. How blessed are these sheep. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

The enemy is at the door, and God prepares for you a feast. There is no confusion, no hurry, no disturbance. The enemy, Satan and wicked human beings, are at the door, and you, Jesus’ little lamb sits down as if everything was in perfect peace.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Goodness and mercy, only goodness and mercy, goodness and mercy in dark days and in bright days, goodness and mercy in days of feasting and days of mourning. God’s goodness supplies all your needs and God’s mercy blots out all your sin.

What a shepherd Jesus is. “The Lord is my shepherd.” Jesus said that he, the Good Shepherd, “…goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:4) , I shall lack nothing. When Jesus conducted his ministry, he didn’t have an income and his disciples left their jobs to follow him. They gave up their fishing jobs, tax collecting jobs. One day they even said to Jesus: “We have left everything to follow you. What is in it for us?” There wasn’t a whole lot for them as Jesus didn’t even have a place to lay his head. He had support: a group of women from Galilee followed him and tended to his needs.

But before Jesus died he said to his Father, “Father I have not lost any of those you gave me.” He cared for his disciples and protected his disciples. They lacked nothing. One day he sent his disciples out to do some missionary work. He sent them without any money, without an extra bag, without a tunic, or anything else normally required for a journey. Later on he asked them, “When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered. (Matthew 22:35) Jesus was their shepherd, they lacked nothing. Jesus is your shepherd. You will lack nothing. God reminded the Israelites of their time in the desert. “These forty years the LORD your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything.” (Deut. 2:7)

Jesus is our Good Shepherd. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The hired man runs from the wolf. Not our Good Shepherd: he killed the wolf, and the bear, and the lion and the jackal. “I lay down my life for the sheep.” “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again…I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”

Jesus is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is not just a shepherd. He is not one among many shepherds. There is only ONE Shepherd and His name is Jesus. There are many sheep, but one Shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves His sheep: He lays down His life for the sheep. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, intimately knows His sheep and He knows us as intimately as the Father knows His Son (John 10:15). Jesus, the Good Shepherd, provides for His sheep. His responsibility for His sheep is to provide food, water, direction, protection, and healing.

When the OT Shepherd had a problem with a wayward sheep, he knew exactly what to do. If that sheep had blemishes or was deformed, but if it was from a good ram and good ewe, if it was perfect, except that it needed a little attitude adjustment, the shepherd knew what to do.

He took the wayward lamb, which refused to follow his voice, and gently laid its hoof on a big rock and held it so that it could not retract the leg. He then took his staff and gave that leg such a whack that the bone was broken! At that point the lamb could not even keep up with the flock, so our the Shepherd had to carry that little rascal on his own shoulders from pasture to water and back again. Every day.

Remember the pictures in Sunday School of "Jesus and the Lost Lamb"? He's probably on his way to (or from) breaking a leg. Because he loves that little rascal. And he wants it to follow him when they move around.

A shepherd was working on large ranch in the western U.S. A friend stopped to visit him and help shear the sheep. The shepherd told his friend to be careful as he sheared a particular ram. The friend noticed on the front leg a big knot and asked about it. The shepherd smiled and said, "That old rascal was such a headstrong little lamb when he was young. But his breeding was what I had been working toward for years. I had to break that leg three times before he would follow me when I called him. You be careful with him - he's my favorite ram in the whole world." Do you have some knots, and lumps, and scars?

A number of years ago I used to post my sermon theme in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. One day I called George, the ad man, and gave him my theme. “The Lord is My Shepherd.” I thought my words were clear and concise. “The Lord is My Shepherd. That’s Enough.”

On Saturday the ad was run and it said, “The Lord is My Shepherd. That’s Enough.” It wasn’t my theme, but I wasn’t upset because the extra two words really captured the essence of Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd. That’s Enough.” Amen.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download