GREAT STORIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT:
OUR CONFIDENCE IN GOD
(The Shepherds Psalm)
Psalm 23
We have been looking at some of the Great STORIES of the Old Testament, stories of people and their encounters with God, stories of how God worked in someone’s life. Today’s sermon, however, is not strictly a STORY. Rather it is a SONG. But in that song we find one of the most beautiful stories ever told. It is a story of God’s love and care for his children.
Psalm 23 is called the Shepherds Psalm, because it portrays God as a good Shepherd, who cares for and looks after this flock. The Psalm is attributed to King David. If anyone was qualified to describe God in this manner, David was. We know from the Bible that David had been a shepherd before he became a king. So David had a pretty good idea of what a shepherd is like. How often David must have gazed up at the heavens on those star-filled nights while he was out watching over his father’s sheep and pondered the very nature of God! There in the depths of his heart he must have pondered how much God was just like a shepherd. His years of shepherding had taught him a few things, and as he contemplated the shepherd’s work, he found there a fitting description of what God does for his people.
We love this Psalm because it speaks so tenderly about life. Of all the psalms in the Bible, this 23rd Psalm is the best-known, and best-loved, of all of them -- not to mention it is the most-memorized. It is read at funerals to comfort the sorrowing, and at hospital beds to encourage the suffering, and to those who have run aground on the discouragements of life. We read it because it is a song of confidence -- a song of confidence in God.
When we read this Psalm we find three great affirmations of confidence in God.
I.
First of all, Psalm 23 expresses confidence in A GOD WHO PROVIDES. David wrote: “The Lord is my Shepherd: I shall not want.”
David remembered well how important it was for the shepherd to watch out for the welfare of the sheep, to see that there was good pasturage. Sheep, by themselves, would not know where the best pasturage is. They need the shepherd to bring them to fields of green grass and fresh water, where they can lie down and rest and be nourished. Then their strength would be restored or renewed.
Rest... refreshment... and renewal... those are the primary tasks of the shepherd in keeping the sheep. For without that they become sickly or ill-fed. They put their trust in the shepherd to take care of them.
God cares for us in the same way. Just as the shepherd cares for the sheep, so God, in a spiritual sense, “makes us to lie down in green pastures, and leads us beside the still waters, and restores our soul.” What David is saying, is that we can trust God for our needs in life. When we rest in God’s love, feed upon God’s word, drink of his living water, our souls are restored. Psalm 23 is a psalm about God’s provision.
This is so important in this day when so much emphasis is put on what we can get in life. There are so many people today who are driven by materialism. They confuse their wants with their needs and are never satisfied.
Did you by any chance see the film Cool Runnings? It came out several years ago. It’s the story of the first Jamaican bobsled team to go to the Olympics. John Candy plays a former American gold medalist who becomes a coach for the Jamaican team. The players grow to like their American coach and affectionately call him “sled-god.”
Later in the story, however, the coach’s dark history comes out. The coach too had been an Olympic bobsled gold-medalist. But afterwards, it was discovered that he had broken the rules by weighting the U.S. sled, bringing disgrace on himself and his team.
One of the Jamaican bobsledders could not understand why anyone who had already won a gold medal would cheat. Finally, he nervously asked his coach to explain.
“I had to win,” he said. “I learned something. If you are not happy without a gold medal, you won’t be happy with it.” 1
This is what many people discover in their lives. They spend their lives trying to get more and more, trying to find happiness and contentment in life, but they discover that in the end they have not really found happiness. They have only found things.
Psalm 23 captures the secret to contentment in life. It is to trust in God, rather than in things to bring happiness.
Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount reminds us that God cares for us. Just as God clothes the grass and the lilies of the field and adorns them with beauty, so God provides for us the things we need. Just as God watches out for the tiny sparrow, in God’s eyes, we are infinitely of more value than the sparrow. Just as God has the very hairs of your head all numbered, so God is aware of the minutest concerns that touch your life.
So Jesus says that we are not to worry about what we will eat and what we will wear. God will take care of these things. Instead, he says, we are to “seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be added unto us.”
This is the secret the Apostle Paul discovered when he wrote, “I have learned in all situations to be content.” He knew what it was to be hungry and he knew what it was to be well-fed. He knew what it was to have plenty and he knew what it was to have nothing. He knew what it was to be warm, and knew what it was to be cold. And yet in the midst of it all, he learned to be content in God. There is a sense of peace and contentment that comes into our lives when we are not clamoring after the things we want, but rather trusting in God to provide for us the things we need.
My wife and I have discovered this principal at work in our own experience. We have had moments when things were difficult for us financially, but we have found that when things were at their tightest, when we didn’t have enough to get by on, somehow we would survive. And often times, out of the blue, would come some unexpected resource that would take care of our needs for the moment. In other words, we knew -- indeed, we know -- we can depend on God for the provisions of life.
Many of you have known this too. God is a God who provides, and like sheep trust the shepherd, we know that we can trust our God, and we will not want.
II.
Psalm 23 does not just expresses confidence in a God who provides -- it expresses confidence in A GOD WHO PROTECTS. This is the second great affirmation of confidence in God. David said: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
You see, David knew well the dangers the shepherd faced. It was not enough to provide for his sheep good pasturage. The shepherd would also have to provide protection for his sheep. You see, not everyone was honest. There were some who would just as soon steal another man’s sheep in order to get ahead. But it wasn’t just robbers and thieves he had to protect against. There were also wild animals that would prey upon the sheep.
Somewhere I read that sheep have a tendency not to watch where they are going. They just nibble along on the grass in front of them, going from one blade of grass to another, from one clump of grass to another, oblivious to where the other sheep were, until finally, they had nibbled themselves away from the flock and become lost. 2 It was the stray sheep that was most likely to be preyed upon by wild animals.
So the shepherd’s task was to protect the sheep. To guide them along the right path... the path of safety. With his rod and staff, he would gently prod the sheep back into the flock. Sometimes with the great crook of the staff he would need to pull a sheep back from a crevasse into which it might have fallen, or to stave off the attacks of wild animals. The shepherd’s rod and staff are tools, as well as a weapons of protection.
David knew all of this well. The Bible tells us that on one occasion David had to fight off a bear that was attacking the sheep he was shepherding. At another time, he had to defend against a lion. And so he wrote about God’s protection.
How meaningful this image of God’s protection must have been to David as he encountered his own enemies in life. As Saul sought to kill him, as he faced Goliath on the field of battle, as he waged war against the Philistines, as he dealt with treachery among his own family, David often knew what it was to trust in God to protect him. And so he declared boldly: “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!”
When we were in Israel back in 1993, our guide led us down the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Not the new, modern, paved road that goes down to Jericho... but the ancient road, the road that was there in Jesus’ time. It was a rough road... with perilous cliffs on one side, and huge boulders and great, jagged rocks everywhere. Nothing but desert. At one point, our guide had the bus driver pull the bus over and come to a stop. And then he had us look out the windows of the bus. What we saw was almost terrifying. There were only a few inches between the tires of our bus and the edge of the cliff. The rocks and the cliffs cast great shadows across the valley below. And then he said, “Behold! the valley of the shadow of death!”
Then he told us the history of this road. It was this same road Jesus told about in his parable of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by thieves and nearly killed. And had it not been for a kind Samaritan he surely would have died. In Jesus’ day, bands of robbers used to hide in the clefts of those rocks, waiting for unsuspecting travelers to come by, whom they would waylay and rob and leave for dead. The valley of the shadow of death is a frightening place.
Do you know what it is to fear? to be afraid? to be uncertain about tomorrow? to be worried about problems or situations or people? Of course you do. We all do. And yet the Bible is clear: we need not fear in the valley of the shadow of death!
Why? Because, as David declared: “For Thou art with me!”
You see that is the key to peace in the face of life’s dangers: to recognize that through it all, God is with us... to trust in God’s presence, and in his protection.
Psalm 23 contains a curious image at this point. David writes: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” At first glance this image seems strangely out of place. What does a feast have to do with God’s protection?
What it has to do is this: eating is a picture of peace. Have you ever tried to eat when you are worried, or sick at heart, or afraid? For some reason food loses its attraction when we are worried and afraid. Our stomachs are taut, our adrenaline is rushing. And the last things our bodies want to do when we are afraid, is to sit down and eat something. That’s why people lose their appetite when danger assails.
David is saying that even in the face of fearsome situations, we have a calm inside, a sense of tranquility and peace, that lets us enjoy the feast of God’s love. Someone has said that “peace is not the absence of trouble. Peace is the presence of God.”
III.
Finally, Psalm 23 expresses confidence in A GOD OF PROMISE. David exclaimed: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” God is more than a God who provides. He is more than a God who protects. He is a God who makes all of life -- both present and future -- a wonderful thing. He is a God of Promise.
Jesus spoke of us having an abundant life. “I have come,” he said, “that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” That’s what David was describing when he wrote: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” With God by our side, life is good. Our lives are fulfilled in ways we cannot even begin to imagine. Not the fullness of possessions, not the abundance of things, but the abundance of God: God’s love, God’s peace, God’s joy, God’s goodness. And I can guarantee you -- if you have these things and nothing else, you are infinitely more rich than if you had all the material prosperity in the world.
But there is more to this life than this present earthly existence. The Shepherd’s Psalm reminds us that God has prepared for us a marvelous future, an eternal security, a heavenly home.
Many people have only an uncertain hope of eternity. Ask them if they will go to heaven and often they answer with words such as, “I think so,” or “I hope so.” But these words of Psalm 23 are not a vague expression of uncertainty. They are a declaration of certainty -- a confidence that God has provided a glorious future and eternal home for us.
David does not say, “I hope to be there.” He says “I will be there.”
And in the New Testament the reason for our confidence is made clear. Paul said, “It is not by works, lest any man should boast.” It is “by the grace of God we are saved.” What is this grace of God? It is God who “loved the world so much that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.” It is through Christ’s death on the cross that our sins are forgiven. It is through his resurrection from the grave that we are given an assurance of eternal life. And it is through faith in what God has done in Jesus Christ that we receive his precious promises. And when we come to God in faith, trusting in his provision, depending on his protection, we know that we can rely upon his promise. And with the assurance of faith we can declare our confidence as well.
“I SHALL not want” ....
“I WILL not fear” ....
And “I WILL dwell in the house of the Lord... FOREVER!”
I want you to know that you can know the confidence of David this morning if you will open up your hearts to God and invite Christ into your life.
You don’t have to go through life searching for that which will make you happy, only to be disappointed and left empty by the material things of life. God will provide the things you need. And God will fulfill your lives in ways you can never dream of.
You don’t have to live worried and fearful lives because of the troubles and struggles and uncertainties of life. God will give to you an inner calm, a peace that surpasses all understanding.
You don’t have to live with the uncertainty of tomorrow. God will fill you with the assurance of an eternal hope.
But there is one thing you must do: and that is to let Christ come in. To open your hearts and say, “Oh, Jesus, I need you to forgive me and set me free, to fill my heart with your presence and your love. Come into my life, Lord Jesus.”
Won’t you pray with me?
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1 Rowell, Edward K., “Fresh Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching” (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997) p. 33
2 I believe this idea was expressed in a sermon by old time Methodist preacher, Ralph W. Sockman.
