It’s interesting that the 23rd Psalm is one of the most loved and familiar passages in the Bible and yet so many people live their lives as if the version that I just read is true rather than the one in the Bible. We can live with such a wonderful sense of denial about the things of God and the reality of life. The truth is that all of those statements can appear to be true in our lives and then be completely taken away in a matter of moments, or perhaps months.
I was talking with a friend of mine, he’s been very successful, he not only owns his own business but on the side does a lot of real estate investing. A few years back he bought a prime piece of land and built his families dream home on it. It was going to be the home that they raised their children in and retired in. His total investment in it was $1.5 million. Last year he sold it in a short sale and walked away with nothing from it. But he was still happy, you know why, because it was just a house. His family was still doing well, he still had his business, and most importantly, he still had God in his life.
We’re going to start this year off by spending the next six weeks looking that the truth and the meaning of the Psalm. You see I think that we can face anything, both in life and in death, when we understand that the Lord is our shepherd.
It is a line that has captivated people across the world for centuries. For those of us who grew up in the city there is more to the words then perhaps we are aware of. As we begin our study we’re going to look today just at that first verse, “The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want.” As we look at this verse today we need to start by looking at the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd.
Some of these concepts are going to seem so obvious but I want us to picture what they really mean, in nature and then what it means that God can say these things about us. The first concept is that the sheep belong to the shepherd. Now this is not always the case today, but it is the implication of the Psalm, it doesn’t say that the Lord is a shepherd, but my shepherd, it implies permanence.
The shepherd owns that sheep, not the other way around. Think about what it means that the shepherd owns the sheep. If you own something then you can do what you want with it. Because the shepherd owns the sheep, he controls their fate, all of it. Those sheep that he desires to keep for their wool, he keeps. Those sheep that he decides to make a stew out of, he does. The sheep belong to the shepherd and he will use them in the ways that he thinks are appropriate.
The flip side of this is that the sheep belong to the shepherd because he purchased them. In order to start his own flock a shepherd would go to the sheep pens and examine the sheep that are for sale. Not only is he going to have to spend his hard earned money on them but he is going to have to depend on them for his livelihood and card for them over a long period of time. So he’s going to pick his sheep carefully, they will literally become very important to him and emotionally become very important to him.
Even in the case of a son who inherited the flock from his father there was still a price that was paid. The son would be expected to work with the father to care for the flock. If his mother survived it would be his duty to care for his mother and the same with his sisters until they were married. Even though there would not be a cash purchase of the sheep there was still a price that was paid. The labor of the son for years working for the father as part of the family was required in order to inherit the sheep. The sheep belonged to the shepherd because the shepherd purchased the sheep.
There’s another side to this allegory however. So often we think about the shepherd but what about the sheep. Sheep are not exactly the most hardy of animals in the wild. Think about it. We read about or see on TV herds of deer, elk, buffalo, horses, gazelles and zebras in Africa. How come we never hear about a flock of wild sheep? Easy answer because sheep just don’t last long without a shepherd. They constantly need to be cared for. Everyday there were things that the shepherd needed to do for them or they just wouldn’t thrive.
Back then the sheep needed the shepherd to guide them to good grazing lands. The shepherd would not only care for the sheep but scout out and maintain a record of good places to graze and good times to graze them. Even today a shepherd must not only maintain the sheep but the fields that he raises them in so that they have good food in the summer and good hay in the winter.
Sheep also depended on the shepherd to find water where there was none. Think of the story about how Moses met his wife Zipporah when she was at a well pouring water for the sheep. No shepherdess in this case no water, sheep dead. How about at the beginning of summer if there’s no one to sheer them, it’s going to be almost as hot as it is here. Sheep depend on the shepherd and you will never find a flock that is healthier than its shepherd is.
In order to have a healthy flock the requirement is that the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. When it was freezing he would guide them to warmth rather than simply finding it for himself. He was constantly seeking to take them to green pastures, even when he was tired. When a pack of wolves would come looking for a snack the shepherd would put himself in front of the sheep, risking his life to save theirs. Everyday the shepherd laid his life down for the sheep by putting their needs ahead of his.
This is the diligence that Jesus referred to in John 10:11 when he said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” So many times we think about that was what Jesus did at Calvary, but when you stop to think about what it was to be a shepherd, about the responsibilities that went with it, you understand that it wasn’t just a one time act, but a day by day caring for the sheep, that is what a shepherd does.
With that in mind how amazing is it to then think of these words. The Lord is our shepherd. Look around you because everyone in here can make this claim. Even if you aren’t a Christian that is the invitation that is open to you. God didn’t just pick a few people to be His and exclude everyone else. He came for all of us if you will just accept him. Because of that we can say that the Lord is our shepherd.
What a great statement that is, that we belong to God, that we depend on Him, and that He in turn cares for us. It is a great statement because He is a great God. Look at who He is. Colossians 1:16-17 says that, “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Think about how amazing that is, that the one who not only made the universe but sustains it is the one who we can call shepherd. That he cares for us. Think about just how big the universe is. NASA estimates, estimate in this case is a fancy way of saying even they don’t know, but they estimate that the number of stars in the universe is 10 to the 21st power. That’s a 1 with 21 zero’s, you know it’s a big number when our government can’t even name it. The Bible says that God not only made them all, but He holds them all together and we can call Him our shepherd.
This verse also says that He is the one who created, “thrones, powers, rules, or authorities.” In other words everything that may have power over us on earth is because He put them there. Remember what He puts in place He can take away, he controls it all. The note for us as Christians then is that we need to spend more time praying for our leaders then we do complaining about our leaders because God is the one who put them their, whether we agree with them or not. That’s not to take the medieval mindset and say that since God put them there they are always right because no one is except God. That is to say that since God put them there He is the one who can both use them to accomplish His task, or if necessary He is the one who can remove them.
But we think about these things all the time. If you ever go out to the mountains and see the multitude of stars in the sky I don’t see how you can not think of God. The economy is making a lot of people think about God when it comes to our politicians. But there is one other place that I want us to think about. Think about this, He is the God of the expanse of Space, the Supernatural world and the Microscopic world.
See this is the one I think we take for granted but there’s a lot to be understood when we think about what that last one means. Here I have just an ordinary glass, it’s filled with ordinary dirt and when we look at it that’s all we see, dirt. But if we were to take a microscope we would see that there’s a lot more to it then just dirt. There’s an entire world of organisms that we can’t see. There’s fungi in here, bacteria and dentrivores, dentrivores are the what breaks down dead things and return the nutrients of the soil. When I was a kid in school they called them decomposers, which described what they do, now they have a fancy term, dentrivores. Just another excuse to give kids homework, no wonder no one can win on are you smarter than a 5th grader they keep changing the answers. But the point is that there’s all this stuff that is so small that we can’t see it. But its there, and the same God who is the author and sustainer of the universe is the same God who created and is holding all of them together as well. It’s a amazing their so small we can’t even see them but God can and He knows we need them so there they are.
Now think of this as tiny as they are to us, think of how big the universe is. You realize that number from NASA was only the number of suns in the universe, planets are too small and there’s too many of them to number. They’re too small and we’re on a tiny planet. Alpha Centauri is the star closest to us. It wasn’t until a few years ago that scientist thought they could maybe come up with a way to detect a planet of our size around that sun. Think about it, we are so small that we think maybe we could see a planet our size at our closest neighbor, why because given the vastness of space, our planet is barely even a speck. And on that planet that speck, here we are, barely a speck on a speck, and yet the God who created everything, who is holding those 10 to 21st power stars in His hand as they rotate around each other, that God we can call our shepherd. We’re not even a speck in space but we can call God our shepherd. You and me all of us. And even better we can personalize it like David did, the Lord is MY Shepherd. How amazing is that and like any shepherd He has hopes and dreams for me and you. He makes plans to provide for us now and in the future and to make us into the best people we can be, why because He is our shepherd and the shepherd wants what’s best for sheep, and everyday He is laying His life down for us. Think of the persistency of that. Earthly shepherds get tired, they sleep, they get sick, sometimes they get afraid, but the Lord is our shepherd and He does none of those things. Psalms 121:4 says, “He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Everyday and all the time our God, our shepherd is watching over us.
But there is one final thing to being a sheep who belongs to a shepherd. They bear the mark of the shepherd. The shepherd would buy the sheep and then take them by the ear and with a knife place his mark on them so that everyone would know that they were his. The same thing was true in the new testament of a household slave who chose to remain with the family he served. Slaves in Israel were often bound only for a certain period of time, but because they were to be treated as part of the family they served sometimes they would choose to remain with their master when their time was done. When that happened the master would take and awl and drive the point through the ear lobe of the slave to show that he now belonged to the master because he bore the masters mark.
Let me ask this question of us, do we bear the mark of our shepherd? See those processes of marking they were painful but unmistakable. What in your life clearly identifies you as someone who belongs to God? Before you answer think about this, too many times our answer deals with the things that we don’t do, the sins we don’t commit. But here’s one that I think we should all seek to have, are we kind and loving to those who aren’t kind and loving to us? Our shepherd cares for us, not because of who we are, we’re a speck, He cares for us because He loves us, that love then should mark our lives, not just to each other, but to everyone.
That is what we see in the phrase, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” But today we also have to deal with the next part, “I shall not want.” When we look at it on the surface it should be pretty easy, since the Lord in our Shepherd He will take care of everything and that is right. In fact the first implication is that we will lack for nothing that we need. But we need to understand that accepting this statement into our lives is a matter of faith and perspective.
It is a matter of faith when those times come that we are either at the end of our rope or we can see it, we can have faith that our shepherd will provide. But it’s also a matter of perspective about what we really need. Look at this verse Revelation 3:17, “You say, ‘I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” What is going on in that verse? Simply this, that God’s view of what we need is different from our view. We may know what we think we need but God knows what we really do need, and our shepherd will guide us to what our needs are.
The second implication is a little deeper, it’s that we will be content with the shepherd’s care and not desire anything else. I think that if everyone really grasped what that meant it would change a lot of lives. We have so many people around us and so many times we are the one who put so much effort into wanting things that we can’t have or working to get what we don’t have that we forget to appreciate what we do have. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have ambition and that we shouldn’t desire things, what I am saying is that we should also know how to be content with what God has given.
Which lead to the obvious question do we know how to be content? Years ago a man named Phillip Keller went from being a shepherd to a pastor, in his book on the 23rd Psalm he talks about one particular sheep that he had. Phillip took great pride in maintaining his fields, they were far greener than that of his neighbor, much better then the barren rocky ground on the other side of his fence, which lead to the sea. In fact he had perhaps the best fields around, all maintained to care for his sheep. As a result the sheep in his flock were plump and healthy.
But he had one particular ewe who didn’t know how to be content. She was a great sheep, strong and healthy with a good coat of wool, she produced strong healthy lambs, he loved this sheep, but she had one problem, she always wanted something else. She was always trying to find a low spot in the fence to jump over, or a hole in the fence to escape through. It didn’t matter if the place that she was going looked a lot worse then the place she was, she just always wanted to be someplace else. Because of this he named her “Miss Gad-about”.
She was more trouble then the rest of the flock combined but he kept her. Until he began to notice that her behavior was affecting the rest of the flock. She began to show other sheep how to jump over the fence. She began to take them down to the sea shore, where all sorts of dangers waited. She also began to do this with her lambs training them that this was the proper behavior. At that point Phillip, the shepherd, had no other choice, because she would not change her behavior, because she would not be content with what he provided as a shepherd, he brought the sheep in and that was the end of “Miss Gad-about”
Is it any different for our shepherd? When we will not be content should He not discipline us and teach us how to be. You see this verse is a promise and a warning. We have The Good Shepherd, the one who laid His life down for us, not just 2,000 years ago but every day. If we are not content with that what is He to do? The sheep belong to the shepherd, they depend on the shepherd and their fate is in His hands. Our God is the Good Shepherd, He loves us and desires the best for us. The return is that can we trust Him but we must trust Him. The paths He leads us on will not always be comfortable, but they will be worth it and they will benefit us in the long run because the shepherd wants what’s best for the sheep.
