This morning, we are going to deal with what may very well be the most common sin among Christians. And I think you might be surprised when we find out what that sin is. See if you can identify that sin from these verses. As I read them, keep in mind that the verbs in every single one of these verses are commands. And would you agree with me that violating a command in the Bible is a sin?
fear not, for I am with you;
be not dismayed, for I am your God;
(Isaiah 41:10 ESV)
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
(Matthew 6:34 ESV)
And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say…
(Mark 13:11 ESV)
“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do.
(Luke 12:4 ESV)
And he said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.
(Luke 12:22 ESV)
And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified…
(Luke 21:9 ESV)
do not be anxious about anything…
(Philippians 4:6 ESV)
So what is the sin that is common to all these verses?
[Wait for answers]
A common sin among Christians: WORRY
After reading those passages, would you all agree that worry is a sin? And the reason that I think that this may very well be the most common sin among Christians is that there is a lot to worry about in this world, isn’t there? And there is no shortage of people out there, even those who claim to be Christians, who are happy to contribute to that worry.
A while ago I was listening to a radio talk show host who claims to be a Christian and I was struck by the fact that every company that was sponsoring his show was making their money by preying on our worries. The host was promoting buying gold and long-range food storage as means to counter our financial worries, alarm systems and safes to protect against fire and burglaries, guns to protect our families against people who would want to harm us, and identity theft protection to safeguard our credit cards and bank accounts.
Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those products. In fact, it might be very prudent for some of us to use one or more of them. But we ought not to do that out of a sense of fear, anxiety and worry. And the truth be told, in the long run, none of those products will really do anything to eliminate our worry because they are only dealing with the symptoms, and not the root cause of our worry.
This morning, I don’t want to in any way join in with all the people who are adding to your worries. There are far too many of them already. Instead, I want to share with you the Biblical antidote to worry – an antidote that gets to the very heart of our worry. We find that antidote in a passage that we read earlier this morning – Psalm 23.
For some reason it seems that the most of the time we hear this passage is at a funeral or memorial service. I know that when I’m asked to lead one of those events, the family almost always asks for that Psalm to be included and the words of that Psalm are often printed on the memorial folder that is given to those attending.
But as we study this beloved Psalm for the next 6 weeks, we are going to find that this is not a Psalm about death – it is a song about life – the kind of abundant, fulfilling, joyful, and worry-free life that can only be found by making Jesus our Shepherd.
It’s interesting that out of all the pictures that David could have chosen to describe his relationship with God that he chose that of a sheep and his shepherd. Certainly that was a familiar relationship for David, who had spent much of his youth as a shepherd, caring for his family’s flocks. But this Psalm is not written from the perspective of the shepherd. Instead, David imagines himself as one of the sheep and describes what it is like to be under the care of a competent, loving shepherd.
We don’t know exactly when David wrote this Psalm. It seems most likely that it was written at some later point in his life when he was being pursued by his enemies – perhaps when Saul was searching for him to try and kill him or maybe even when His own son Absalom had taken the throne by force and led his army against David. So there was no doubt that David had a lot he could have worried about. But as he looked back over his life, he recognized that God had cared for him in the same way he had lovingly cared for his sheep earlier in his life. So he begins the Psalm with these words:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
(Psalm 23:1 ESV)
This first verse provides us with the theme of the entire Psalm and the rest of the Psalm describes various aspects of what it means to have the Lord as his shepherd. This first verse also provides us with the antidote to our worry, which we can summarize like this:
If Jesus is my Shepherd
I have everything I need
Before we look at the words of this first verse in detail, I need to first comment on is the whole concept of sheep and shepherds. My guess is that most of you are like me – you don’t have a whole lot of personal experience that would help you to understand the nature of the relationship between the shepherd and his sheep.
That is why I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks doing some research about sheep and shepherds. One great resource I’ve been using is a book by Phillip Keller titled A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. As a young man, Keller spent 8 years making his livelihood as a sheep owner and rancher in east Africa so he provides some tremendous insight into the nature of the relationship between a shepherd and his sheep and I’ll be sharing some of that with you over the next 6 weeks.
The idea of God as Shepherd and us as His sheep is actually found throughout Scripture and Keller makes this comment about why that picture is so appropriate:
It is no accident that God has chosen to call us sheep. The behavior of sheep and human beings is similar in many ways…Our mass mind (or mob instincts), our fears and timidity, our stubbornness and stupidity, our perverse habits are all parallels of profound importance.
So with that picture in mind, let’s look at this first verse in some detail.
Let me first draw your attention to the word “shepherd”. In the underlying Hebrew, it is actually a verb, and not a noun. The form of the Hebrew verb does cause it to operate as a “verbal noun”, so our English translations that treat it as a noun are not inappropriate or inaccurate at all, but a more literal translation would be something like:
The Lord is the One shepherding me…
I like that way of translating this verse because it reveals that Shepherd is more than just a title for God. The idea that God is the One who is shepherding me reveals that He is actively involved in my life. As we’ll see in the coming weeks, He feeds me, He provides rest and restoration for me, He protects me, He guides me and corrects me when I need it, among the other things He does in my life. God is not just my Shepherd; He is shepherding me.
Perhaps the most important word in this entire Psalm is the little two letter word “my”. To David, the Lord is not just “a shepherd” or even “the shepherd” – He is David’s personal shepherd. If you want to live a life that is free from worry, then it is not enough for Jesus just to be “a shepherd” or even “the shepherd”. It’s not enough if He is just your parent’s shepherd or your pastor’s shepherd. He must be your personal shepherd.
So in just a moment I’m going to share with you some very practical ways that you can make sure that is the case in your life.
Before I do that, however, let’s spend a moment looking at the last phrase in verse 1:
I shall not want.
The verb that David uses there means “to be lacking or deficient”. And without Jesus as my shepherd, my life is certain characterized by my deficiencies. And the result is that I will experience loneliness, discouragement, disappointment, failure, hopelessness, confusion and chaos.
But, in the other hand, if Jesus is my Shepherd, then He has promised me that in Him I will have everything that I need. Obviously, that does not mean that He will simply give me everything that I want. That would make Him merely an idol – a God of my own making. What He does instead is to invite me to join Him in His purposes, plans and way and then He provides whatever I am lacking so that I can accomplish what He desires. Or, as I put it earlier:
If Jesus is my Shepherd
I have everything I need
And if I have everything I need to do whatever Jesus has called me to do, then what do I have to worry about?
So obviously the only effective, lasting antidote to my worry is to make sure that Jesus is my personal shepherd – to make sure that I can say along with David “The Lord is my shepherd.” So let’s close by looking at some practical things we can do to make sure that true for us.
HOW TO MAKE SURE JESUS IS MY SHEPHERD
1. Know Him personally
I want to encourage you to read Psalm 23 in its entirety several times each week throughout this series. And as you do that this week I want you to pay close attention to all the pronouns that are used.
If I counted correctly when I did that, the pronouns “me”, “my” and “I” are used 17 times in the 113 words of this Psalm. The pronouns “he” or “his” are used 5 times in just the first three verses to refer to God. Then in verse 4 David changes from talking about God to talking to God and from verse 4 through the end of the Psalm, he uses the pronouns “you” and “your” 5 more times when referring to God.
This is an intensely personal Psalm. It is not a Psalm about religion. It is a Psalm about a relationship. Religion cannot help you deal with your worry. Only a personal relationship with Jesus can do that. When our Monday morning Bible study looked at this passage several weeks ago somebody commented that God does not have grandchildren. Think about that for a moment. You can never have a relationship with God based on someone else’s relationship with Him. It doesn’t matter if your parents or your siblings or your friends or the people of this church or your pastor have a personal relationship with Jesus. You have to personally choose to do that yourself.
And I’m not talking about the kind of relationship that is merely a matter of reciting the words to a prayer or even becoming a church member. I’m speaking of a relationship in which you desire to get to personally know Jesus through His Word, prayer and the operation of the Holy Spirit in your life. Listen to Jesus’ own words regarding this matter:
I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
(John 10:14 ESV)
Notice what Jesus says here. Those who are His sheep “know” him. And the verb “know” that Jesus uses there is a verb that means “to come to know by experience”. The idea here is that knowing Jesus personally involves more than just knowing about Him. The kind of knowledge that Jesus speaks of here only comes by living our lives day-by-day in His presence, being obedient to His Word and carrying out His purposes, plans and ways in our lives.
Can I share with you a simple test that will help you determine whether you have that kind of relationship with Jesus? The next time that you start to worry about something – your finances, your marriage, your job, your safety – where do you go first to look for solutions to those worries? If you truly have a personal relationship with Jesus – if He is your Shepherd - then the first thing you will do is take those problems to Him.
But if your relationship with Him isn’t genuine, then you may say that you’re taking your problems to Jesus, but the first thing you’ll do is to turn to Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman for your financial problems or Jim Dobson or Dr. Phil for your relationship problems or John Maxwell or Warren Buffet or Steven Covey for your work issues or Smith and Wesson for your safety concerns.
It’s certainly possible that Jesus will lead you to utilize some of those very same resources in dealing with your worries, but the difference between having a genuine relationship with Jesus and just saying that you do will be reflected in where you turn first. If you really know Jesus, then you will trust that as your Shepherd, He knows what you need best so your first inclination will be to spend time in His Word and in prayer, seeking the solution to your problems.
If Jesus is my Shepherd
I have everything I need
And the first thing I must do if I want to make sure Jesus is my Shepherd is to know Him personally.
2. Give Him control of my life
The Lord can’t be your Shepherd until the Shepherd is your Lord. The two go hand in hand. You can’t ask Jesus to be your Shepherd without first asking Him to be your Lord. Making Jesus your Lord is something we talk about a lot but what does it really look like? How do I do that?
Let’s think about the sheep/shepherd relationship for a moment. In that relationship the shepherd is in complete control. He makes all the decisions about what is best for the sheep. As we’ll see in the rest of the Psalm, he is the one who must decide where the sheep eat and rest. He is the one who decides which paths they will take. He is the one who watches over and protects them. And when he does that well, the sheep don’t worry one bit.
When facing an obstacle, the shepherd doesn’t gather all the sheep together and have them vote on whether to go through that situation or go around it. He unilaterally decides what is best for the sheep.
Making Jesus my Lord means that I give up control of my life and I let Jesus call all the shots. I trust Him to determine which difficult situations that I need to go through for my own good and which ones I should bypass. I trust Him to determine what I need in my life in order to follow His purposes, plans and ways for me and I trust Him to provide whatever is needed in order for me to do that.
Let me suggest two tests that you can use to help determine whether Jesus is Lord in your life, whether He is in control.
Here is the first one. Whenever some crisis comes into our lives, whenever we are faced with some fear, whenever we start to worry about something, we can do one of two things – we can either panic or we can pray.
• When our checkbook balance is down to zero and we have bills coming due, we can either immediately run down to Title Max for a loan or we can pray.
• When we have some difficulties in our marriage, we can either immediately turn to a divorce lawyer or we can pray.
• When there is a terror attack or a school shooting, we can either go buy a gun and a bunch of ammunition or we can pray.
• When we have a presidential election in which we are forced to choose between two ungodly candidates, we can throw up our hands in despair or we can pray.
If Jesus is genuinely my Lord, then prayer will be my first response, not my last resort.
Here is the second test. Do you regularly spend time in God’s Word, both on your own and with others? If you really desire to make Jesus the Lord of your life, then spending time in His Word will be your greatest joy, not a burdensome task. That’s because the Bible is the primary instrument that Jesus uses to guide our lives. Although the Holy Spirit dwells permanently in our lives and guides us and Jesus also guides us as we spend time in prayer, as I just mentioned, the Bible remains the standard with which we must evaluate any other guidance that we believe is from Jesus since Jesus will never lead us to violate His written Word.
At its foundation, all worry is a control issue. Worry is nothing more than trying to control the uncontrollable. That is why giving up control of my life and putting Jesus in charge of everything in my life is the only true antidote to worry.
If Jesus is my Shepherd
I have everything I need
Since the Lord can’t be my Shepherd until the Shepherd is my Lord, that means I need to give control of my life to Jesus.
3. Be satisfied with His provision
David could write “I shall not want” because his confidence was not in his own abilities and resources but rather in those of the Shepherd. He understood that as the Good Shepherd, God has committed Himself to our highest welfare and that He will provide us with everything we need to experience the kind of abundant, fulfilling, joyful, worry-free life that He desires for us. And that obviously includes far more than just our material needs. It also includes our emotional and, most importantly, our spiritual needs.
Roughly 1,000 years after David wrote those words, the apostle Paul expressed that same confidence in God’s ability to supply his every need:
And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
(Philippians 4:19 ESV)
How many of our needs will God meet according to that verse? That’s right – He promises to meet every need. And every means every. There is not one true need that you have that God won’t provide for you through Jesus.
And since that is true, the implication is that I need to be completely satisfied with the Shepherd’s management of my life and what He has provided for me. But if the truth be told, we don’t always live like that do we? Far too often, we decide that what Jesus has provided just isn’t enough and we stray far from the path that He has set before us in the pursuit of all kinds of things that the Shepherd hasn’t provided because He knows that we really don’t need them. And when we do eventually attain those things, how many times do we find that the reason Jesus didn’t provide them in the first place is because He knew all along that wasn’t what was in our best interest?
Once again, let me share you with a simple test to see if you are really satisfied with the provision that the Shepherd has already made in your life. When you pray, do you spend more time thanking God for what He has already provided or asking God for something that you want? If you recognize that every good thing you have comes from the Shepherd and you find your satisfaction in that, then your natural reaction is going to be to acknowledge that and constantly give thanks to God for supplying your every need.
On the other hand, if you are not satisfied with what the Shepherd has provided, you will view God as some genie in the sky who is there to do your bidding and you will constantly be asking Him for things that He has not provided. Or even worse, you’ll skip asking God for those things altogether and you’ll just go after them on your own.
Obviously, I am not in any way saying that we should not present our requests to God in prayer. But what I am saying is that if all we’re doing is constantly asking God for what we don’t have without first thanking Him for what he has provided, that’s a pretty good indication that we probably aren’t very satisfied with His provision.
If Jesus is my Shepherd
I have everything I need
And when I have everything I need, then there is no need to worry about what I don’t have.
What are you worried about this morning? Are you worried about your finances, your relationships, your job, your safety, or maybe something else? Are you worried because you worry about those things? The good news for all of us this morning is that God had provided us with a 100% effective antidote to our worries. He has promised that if we make Jesus our personal Shepherd, we will have everything we need. And when we have everything we need, there is no need to worry.
[Prayer]
Before we close this morning, I’m going to challenge all of us to take one practical step to help us remember and apply what we’ll be learning in our 6-week study of Psalm 23. I want to encourage you to memorize Psalm 23. Maybe memorizing Scripture isn’t something you have done much. Maybe you find it difficult. But I’m pretty sure all of us here, including the children who are with us, can memorize the 113 words in this Psalm.
So each week, we’ll simply memorize one additional verse and add it to what we’ve already learned. We’ll begin with verse 1:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Let’s begin by just reading it out loud.
Next, let’s meditate on that verse by saying it out loud again several times, each time emphasizing a different word:
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Now let’s see if we can recite it without reading it.
