Psalm 23 A psalm of David.
1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 4 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. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Introduction
Divination
A reporter investigating the citrus industry went into an area where he found a man sorting oranges. The oranges came down a conveyer belt, and the man would put the large ones in the large holes, and the small in the small holes, and the bad ones in another hole. After watching this man perform this painfully boring job for a while, finally the reporter said, “How can you stand this job? Just putting oranges in holes all day long day after day?” The guy answered, ‘You don’t know the half of it. From the time I clock in till the time I leave it’s nothing but decisions, decisions, decisions!” Some jobs require more difficult decisions than others, every one of us makes decisions every moment, and those decisions — even the little ones, determine our future.
I remember back in 2000 a man made a decision to go to McDonalds in Boulder, and that decision cost him his life. A car crashed into the McDonald’s and killed him. You see, it’s not just our decisions that determine what will happen in the future, it is our decisions combined with the other unforeseen events that will take place. So how do you make decisions that will have good outcomes when you don’t know what unforeseen things the future holds?
That is a question that has captivated mankind for centuries, which is why there has always been divination. Divination is the attempt to find out what will happen in the future, so you will know how to make decisions. Leo Oppenheimer, in the department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago has studied ancient cuneiform writings of Sumaria, Assyria and Babylon, and he says that about 90% of all the writings found — secular and religious — have to do with divination. If you can just get a little bit of inside information about what is going to happen in the future, if you can somehow find out that a car will crash into the McDonald’s, you can choose Burger King that day. If Jeff and Lauri would have known to just take a different exit last Wednesday, their car wouldn’t look like a crushed pop can right now and Lauri wouldn’t have a broken ankle. And so throughout history people have been listening to astrologists, reading tea leaves or tarot cards, palm reading, Ouija boards, crystal balls, fortune tellers, channeling, psychics, – whatever they can do to somehow get some guidance so they can get a leg up on the unknown. All of that is divination, and divination is strictly forbidden in Scripture.
Deuteronomy 18:10 Let no one be found among you who . . . practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD
Even in our culture, where we pride ourselves on being scientific and rational, these things abound. And they always will. People will always be involved in divination, because our decisions, combined with the other things that we can’t foresee that will happen in the future, determine our destiny.
All of this gives rise to one of the most powerful appetites of the human soul – the desire for guidance. We learn very quickly in life that our decisions matter, and wrong decisions can have lifelong consequences. But we can’t see even one second into the future, we don’t know what other factors will arise, we cannot possibly gather all the relevant data for every decision, and so we are always in desperate need of guidance from God.
Review
We are in the midst of a study through the 23rd Psalm, which is a description of several of the benefits that come from having a shepherd/sheep kind of relationship with God. If the Lord is your shepherd, you will lack nothing that you need to do His will. He will supply everything you need. And the first thing you need is rest – so He will make you lie down in green pastures. The next thing you need is nourishment and satisfaction of your deepest appetites and cravings – so He will provide spiritual food and drink. He gives you renewal and restoration for your soul when it runs dry. That is where we left off last time – at the beginning of verse 3. The next benefit is that thing all human beings are so desperate for – guidance.
He Guides Me
Sheep Need Guidance
3 … He guides me…
Unlike most animals, sheep have no idea how to find food and drink for themselves. Other animals have an ability to sense where watering holes are and make their way to them. Sheep can’t do that. Nor can they find pastures. Sheep are actually fairly intelligent animals, but they don’t have any sense of direction. The sheep is the only animal in the world that can be totally lost within a few miles of home. Lost sheep will walk around usually in circles, baaing in agitation and sometime panic. And they are especially vulnerable to being led astray, because they have an instinct to follow a leader. And the leader is not necessarily the smartest or oldest or wisest sheep. Just whatever sheep starts moving first, they all follow – even if he has no idea where he’s going. So sheep are very easily misled. They will follow any sheep that looks like he knows where he’s going.
That’s us. We don’t know where to go. We don’t know what is best for us. We don’t know which decisions we could make that will result in us having the things we’re going to need in the future. And we are very easily led astray. We are in desperate need of a shepherd to lead us through life. God created a world where navigation is absolutely impossible for a human being without divine guidance. People who do not have a shepherd/sheep kind of relationship with God just have to wander blindly through life. They can never know for sure if they are where they are supposed to be. For all they know they might be living in the wrong place, working the wrong job, married to the wrong person – they don’t know where they are going or how they are supposed to get there. They are flying blind through life. But if the Lord is your shepherd, He will give you rest, feed you, restore you, and He will guide you.
Why God Guides: For His Name
And if you doubt that, just peek ahead to the end of the verse to see what God’s motivation is.
3 … He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Name, here, refers to reputation. For the sake of His reputation and renown, God will lead you into paths of righteousness. God will make sure to guide you because His reputation is on the line.
Everything Is for His Glory
That is actually why God does everything He does. The biggest favor God could ever do for us is to put His glory on display for us to see. Nothing benefits us more than that, nothing brings us greater joy and happiness, nothing is healthier, nothing profits us more than seeing His glory. And not only is it the best thing that can happen to us, but it is the best thing that can happen period. There are evil things, there are neutral things, there are good things, there are really, really good things – but the best possible thing is for God to be honored and glorified. And so God’s highest priority is always His own glory. If God were to put anything ahead of His own glory He would be guilty of idolatry. And so as you read through Scripture you see this phrase again and again explaining God’s actions – “for My name’s sake.” And that is exactly what we see here. Why does God bother to guide us through life? What does it matter if a little microbe like me – a nobody - a speck of dust of dust in the universe gets guidance on what decisions to make in life? It matters because God has promised to tend His sheep, and so if He doesn’t, His reputation is tarnished and His glory is diminished, which would be the worst possible thing that could happen in the universe.
Good News for You!
Now, if you grew up in the self-esteem church culture, where God saves you because of how important you are, this might be a disappointment for you (to find out that God is concerned first and foremost with His own glory). But it really ought to be a huge encouragement to us, because when God tied our wellbeing to His name, that just elevated our wellbeing to the absolute top of God’s priority list and made it absolutely certain. If doing something good for you meant God had to take a break from putting His own glory on display – if showing kindness to you were in competition with His own name, then doing good for you would be way, way down the list of His priorities. But if the way God glorifies His name is by providing you with everything you need, so that your best interests and His glory are tied together, then you can bank on the fact that God will always do good for you forever and ever.
That is great news for me because it means that God functioning as a good shepherd is not dependent upon me functioning as a good sheep. In fact, the whole reason I need Him to be a good shepherd is because I am so often such a lousy lamb. I need someone who can restore a wandering sheep, because … I wander. I need to be protected from all the dangers I subject myself to. I need someone to make me lie down and rest when I am so uptight that I can’t rest on my own. He remains a good shepherd even when I am a bad sheep because His good shepherding is for the sake of His name and renown.
Make His Guidance Famous
So, if He guides us for the sake of His fame, let’s make His guidance famous. Let’s talk about it – a lot. What a crime against God’s name it would be if God guided me and it did not result in His name being praised. If I shut my mouth and fail to speak excitedly and joyfully around other people about how He has faithfully guided me, what reason would there be for Him to continue guiding me (since the whole point of the guiding is for His name’s sake)? So let’s make His guiding hand famous. The other day Rudy made an appointment with me and drove to the church just so he could tell me two stories about how God guided him. One was through an amazing business success, and the other was through a business disaster. Both of them were incredibly encouraging stories of God’s guiding hand. It was one of the most profitable hours I spent all week, because at the end, God was more glorious and beautiful in my eyes. If God guides us for the sake of His reputation, then shouldn’t we be telling lots of stories about how God guided us? Otherwise, how will it have any impact on His reputation?
Where God Guides
So, David tells us that God guides us, then he tells us why God guides us, but there’s one more thing we need to know – where God guides us. If you walk up to someone and say, “Guide me!” – that person will say, “Guide you to where? Where is it you want to go?” Do you need to be guided to the Pepsi Center? Or do you want guidance on the best stocks to invest in right now? Or guidance on how to impress a girl? Guidance only has meaning if there is a particular goal in mind.
The next time you ask God for guidance – “God, give me guidance here,” if a voice came back from heaven and said, “Guidance where? What is your goal?” – What would you say? If you are trying to decide, “Should I buy this house or that house?” or “Should I take this job or that job?” and you pray for guidance – what outcome are you hoping the guidance will bring you to? Is your goal to pick the option that will net you the most money? Or the option that will involve the least amount of trouble? Or the option that will make you the most comfortable? Most of the time when we pray for guidance we don’t explicitly identify what our goal actually is. We do not give any conscious thought to that, but if you really drilled down in your heart to see what it is you want, you might find that very often it boils down to either comfort or money.
“God, guide me into the decision that will result in the most pleasant outcome, or the most financially favorable outcome.”
If that is you, and you have been wondering, “Why doesn’t God answer my prayers for guidance?” it may be because God never promised to guide you into paths of money. Or guide you into paths of comfort and ease. What kind of guidance does God promise here?
Paths of Righteousness
3 … He guides me in paths of righteousness
Righteousness refers to right living. Living in a way that pleases God and that showcases His glory. Doing His will by obeying His commands. Loving your wife. Honoring your husband. Obeying your parents. Serving the saints of God. Enduring suffering or persecution or injustice without getting angry. Considering others more important than yourself. Humility, patience, kindness, peace, joy, faithfulness, truthfulness, self-control, faith, purity, godly speech, generosity, humility, wisdom – those are the paths of righteousness. That is where God will guide you, and that is the only kind of guidance He has promised. He has not promised to guide you into the best financial situation, or the best option for your health, or the most comfortable outcome.
Divination vs. Guidance
That is why the world prefers divination over guidance from God. Divination promises to show me what will happen in the future, so that I can make the best decision for making my agenda work. Guidance from God does not show me the future at all. It just points me in the direction of God’s agenda for me. And if I take that direction, it may or may not match up with my agenda.
If you say, “God, which job should I take?” that should mean, “Which job will give me greater opportunity to bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ? Guide me into that job – even if it’s the harder one.” If you are trying to decide where to live and you pray for guidance, that prayer should mean: “God, of these two housing options, guide me to the one that would result in more righteousness.” If you ask God to lead you to the right spouse, what are you asking? Are you asking for the spouse who will serve you and love you the best? Or are you asking for the spouse that will result in the most righteousness? What if God says, “Ok, here – here’s the spouse that will give you lots of opportunities for patience and longsuffering and selfless love and you’ll get tons of practice at forgiveness and humility”?
He guides us in paths of righteousness. God has not promised to guide us anywhere else. The only prayer for guidance that He has promised to answer is the prayer, “Lord, guide me into greater righteousness.”
You Never Have to Sin
This is a marvelous truth, because it means we never have to sin. There is never a moment when our only options are all sinful ones. You never have to pick the lesser of two evils in that sense. That is important information for some of you who are prone to self-condemnation. Because your tendency is to just assume pretty much everything you ever do is sin. You are constantly apologizing for everything, and you think God is just disappointed with you 24/7. But if someone pins you down and says, “What else could you have done? What would have been a better option than the one you chose?” you can’t think of one. Any other option would have been wrong, but you assume what you did choose, even though it was the best option available, was also kind of sinful. You need to understand, God never, ever puts us into that position. He leads us in paths of righteousness. That means the best path available to you right now is a righteous path. There is never a moment when all you have before you are paths of unrighteousness – never.
1 Corinthians 10:13 … God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
God never puts a believer into a position where he has to sin.
How God Guides
So we have seen that God guides us, why God guides us, and where God guides us. But most of us have one more burning question about God’s guidance: how does God guide us? How do you know which way God is pointing? You have a hard decision, you pray, “God, please guide me here. Show me the best path to take” – how do you know when God has answered that prayer? It is important that we answer this question of how God guides us because the way some Christians go about it is really just a Christianized form of superstition. Instead of using a crystal ball or astrology an Ouija board, they do things like randomly flop their Bible open and take whatever verse pops up as a sign from God about whatever decision they are making.
“Should I go skiing this weekend or stay home? I don’t know. I turn to the Bible for guidance.”
Flop the Bible open, point to random verse, “Oh, Job 38:22 Have you seen the storehouses of snow? Ah ha – God is telling me to go skiing.” They turn the Bible into a book of magic and use God’s own Word in a way that is detestable to God.
In other cases they do not even pretend to use the Bible. They just interpret mental impressions as the voice of God. A thought comes to your mind and you assume it must be God speaking to you.
Another popular method is to use peace as evidence of God’s guidance.
“I know this is the right decision because I feel a sense of peace about it.”
But that really amounts to superstition because there is no promise in the Bible that a feeling of peace is an indication of God’s guidance. In fact, many times it is exactly the opposite. When Jonah was running from God, going the opposite direction God told him to go, and he had such a deep, inner peace that he was dead asleep in the middle of a storm that was sinking the ship. Meanwhile Jesus, the night before He was crucified, was as dead center in God’s will as anyone has ever been, and yet He was so agitated on the inside that He was sweating blood.
Another method has been to “put out a fleece.” They say, “God, if you do this, that means You are telling me to take option A. But if you do that, then it’s option B.” People who do that will point to Gideon in Judges 6. The problem with that is it ignores the context of Judges 6. Gideon was verifying God’s voice by asking for some miracles. God told him to do something, and He said, “God, if that’s really You talking, do these miracles so I know for sure.” So saying, “God, if it rains tomorrow that means You want me to do this” – that is not a fleece. A fleece would be like saying, “God, if this is really Your voice I just heard, make it so the sun rises in the west tomorrow.”
If we want to hear from God, we are not in a position of dictating to Him how He must guide us. We need to accept whatever form of guidance He gives. Does God sometimes speak in some unusual ways? Is God capable of speaking to you with an audible voice? Of course – He is capable of anything. He could send you an email if He wanted to. God once spoke through a donkey. But does that means we should head down to the barnyard whenever we need guidance? No, because the issue is not what God can do; the issue is what God has promised to do. If we really want to be guided by God we will seek His guidance the way He taught us to seek it.
The Bible has a great deal to say about how to receive guidance from God. And I am not going to take the time to do a whole biblical theology on that. But let’s see what we can figure out from this one principle in Psalm 23 – when God guides you, it is always down paths of righteousness. That is always the most fundamental key to receiving guidance from God.
So if you have to choose between a sinful option and a righteous option, God’s guidance is always in the direction of the righteous option.
“But what about those decisions that don’t involve any sinful options?”
Should I go to this Bible college or that Bible college? Should I go to that church with the really good teaching, or the other church with the really good fellowship? I have done a whole sermon series on that, titled “How to Make Wise Decisions,” so I won’t repeat all of that now. For now let’s just focus on this principle in Psalm 23 – paths of righteousness.
Stay on the Righteous Path
The ordinary way that God guides us in day-to-day decisions is through preferring paths of righteousness. Over and over and over you say, “Oh, that’s the righteous path; I’ll take that. There is the way of holiness, I’ll go that way.” And when there is a pattern of doing that, God’s will in the non-moral issues becomes more clear. So seeking guidance from God is not mainly a quest for messages, but a quest for holiness. It is not so much, “God, give me the answer,” as much as, “God, keep me on the path where I’ll be able to see the answer.” Paths of righteousness are the best vantage point from which to spot the wisest option. When we drop down into the lowlands of sin, our vision gets clouded. Most of the time guidance is the product not of ecstatic visions but of spiritual discernment. So the more we take righteous paths, the more God will give us alertness to circumstances, and spiritual sensitivity to the implications of God's character and purposes for our current situation. In other words, walking in righteousness makes things clear
Turning on the Lights
This is a great statement on how God guides us.
Isaiah 42:16 I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.
That is how God guides us - by turning the darkness into light before us. He guides us, not by saying, “Choose this option or that option,” but rather by just turning on the lights, so we can see the best option. And He does that through His Word – properly interpreted.
Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
God speaks through His Word - especially the wisdom books, like Proverbs, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. The more you internalize those wisdom principles, the more the Holy Spirit will use them to show you the right path.
Proverbs 6:20 Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they will guide you;’ when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you.
So you are faced with a really hard decision, you don’t have any idea what the wise course is, and so you ask God to guide you. The normal way God answers that prayer is by turning on the lights, so you can see the wise course. You study the Bible, you get advice from wise people, you do your research, and finally, there it is – you can see which option is wisest. When that happens, that is the work of the Holy Spirit leading you. In Romans 14, the children of God are referred to as those who are led by the Spirit of God.
Sin Shuts off the Lights
So when I resist the Spirit in some area of my life, I have less guidance in all areas. The more time I spend off the path of righteousness, the less ability I will have to discern God’s guidance. So the tempter comes along and says, “Spend a few seconds enjoying this lustful thought – or this angry thought, or this selfish thought, or this greedy fantasy. Yes, technically it’s forbidden, but it’s no big deal. What harm is it going to do? It will just be for a few seconds, then you can put it out of your mind and pat yourself on the back for how quickly you threw it off this time. Come on – just a few seconds.” So I give in, and as soon as I do, all it takes is a few seconds for me to totally lose sight of the beauty and goodness of the right path. I can still see the right path, but suddenly it does not look all that attractive. My brain is informing me that it is the best way, but my heart is not interested. And so I take a few more steps on this sinful path, and then a few more, and the longer I do that, the darker my spiritual eyesight gets, so that when I am faced with a real hard decision, I just cannot see the wise path at all.
Even if I only step off the good path for a few seconds and then step right back on – every time I do that I train my heart to prefer a path of sin over the path of righteousness, and I do harm to my ability to follow the shepherd in times of temptation. The more I allow my flesh control over decisions, the harder it will be for me to be guided by God.
A really skilled hunter can spot a deer where others see only leaves and branches. If you think of the deer as God’s way, God guides us not so much by making the deer more obvious, but by training our vision to be able to spot it. He trains your eyes to spot a narrow path where others see only dead ends. But each time we choose to step off the path of righteousness, we cloud that vision.
Use Wisdom and Then Trust God
Now, some of you are seeing a major problem with what I am saying. If God just guides us by opening our eyes to wisdom, that does not necessarily protect us from fluky, unlikely things. Wisdom might keep you from going out driving during a blizzard. But what about those times when you go out in perfectly good conditions and you wear your seat belt and a helmet and you take every precaution, and you still get T-boned by a drunk driver running a red light? Living by wisdom can make that sort of thing less likely, but it won’t always save you from those fluky, unlikely things that just come out of the blue.
You see, what I need is protection from two things. I need protection from the foolish, dumb path, and wisdom can help me there. But I also need protection from the crazy, unpredictable stuff that not even wisdom can see coming. That is why people want divination. If you can just look into a crystal ball and see that drunk driver speeding through that intersection at that moment, you could just avoid it. So why does God forbid divination? Because He wants us to just trust Him with the unforeseen things. Live by wisdom – that will save you from unnecessary trouble. But then trust God for the rest.
What if you could see the future – then what? What if you could look into a crystal ball and see that drunk driver? How could you know for sure that it is not best for you to get into an accident today? You can’t. Maybe that is exactly what you need in your life right now. Only God knows if it’s best for you to get into an accident or not. Sometimes the best place for you is to travel through the valley of the shadow of death, and so that is where the shepherd leads you. If you lived by a crystal ball, how would you ever know that it’s time to go down into that valley? So if we simply live by the wisdom principles in His Word and trust Him with the rest, then we can rest assured that everything that happens to us is His perfect plan for us and is for our greatest good.
God Directs Your Path
And that includes little things and big things. God cares about every detail of your life. Even seemingly random things are under His control.
Proverbs 16:33 The lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from Yahweh.
Aren’t you glad He is your shepherd?
Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but Yahweh determines his steps.
Proverbs 19:21 Many are the plans of a man’s heart, but it is Yahweh’s purpose that prevails.
You live by wisdom the best you can, and then God uses your wise decisions, your not-so-wise decisions, your downright foolish decisions, and all the fluky, unforeseen surprises and upsets in life to direct your path right where He wants it to go for your greatest good and His greatest glory.
Think about it. Just look back over the last 10 or 20 years of your life. How did you get here? You were making decisions along the way by your own free will, but did you determine that path? Who can understand his own way? When I got out of high school I didn’t say, “I think I’ll go to college in California, run out of money after one year, go the next year to Colorado Christian, then Chicago, get a youth pastor job there, get fired after two years, then Minnesota, then Colorado Springs, then Canon City, then Florence, then seminary, then Hillsdale, OK, then Louisville, then Erie – fired three times in a row, spiritual train wreck at my last ministry, painful recovery, then some more seminary, then Agape.” That was not my plan. I made decisions along the way, but Someone else was master-planning the whole thing. I would have preferred to go right from high school to this job. But that would have never worked. I needed every one of those twists and turns to be able to do what God has me doing now. So today, as you encounter all the zigs and zags of God’s providence in your life (the red lights, the disrupted plans, the unexpected changes), realize that you are experiencing the outworking of the infinite, perfect mind of your shepherd who is guiding you through life. It is your shepherd who brought you here, and it is your shepherd who will take you to the next place you need to be.
No Second Guessing
Aren’t you glad the Lord is your shepherd? It eliminates second-guessing. People who don’t have God as their shepherd, once they see how things shake out, are plagued with wishing they had taken another course.
“I took the wrong career path.” Or, “I married the wrong person.”
And in their case, maybe they are right. But if the Lord is your shepherd, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You did not marry the wrong person; you did not take the wrong career path. You might have made foolish decisions so that the path ended up being a lot bumpier than if you had made wise decisions, but bumpy or smooth, either way, if the Lord is your Shepherd you can rest assured that He has been guiding you all along and will continue to guide you so that you end up in exactly the place He wants you.
Conclusion
Suppose Jesus Christ walked through that door and came up to you and said, "Hello, My name is Jesus, I am the Son of God and I came into the world to save sinners and give them complete happiness and everlasting life. By My death and resurrection I have paid the penalty for your sin. And by my wisdom and knowledge I can show you how to make choices that will bring you the greatest life and joy. Will you trust me?" – what would your answer be? Would it be, “I’ll take the forgiveness and eternal life, but I don’t know if I can trust You to lead me into the path of the greatest joy”? If we can trust Him with our eternal wellbeing, can we not trust Him to guide us in the very best path every moment of every day?
Benediction: 1 Kings 8:56-61 Praise be to the LORD, who has given rest to his people …57 May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers… 58 May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways… 60 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.
Application Questions (James 1:25)
1) Do you have a story about a time when God guided your life toward the path of righteousness that you can share with the group for God’s fame?
2) Has there been a time in your life when you sought guidance for the most pleasant outcome rather than the path of righteousness, and it backfired?
