Insights from the Life of David - Part 10:
"The Lord Is My Shepherd"
Psalm 23
Over the past ten weeks we’ve been studying the most intricate details of the man David’s life. We’ve looked at both the positive points and the failures along his journey and today we’re going to study one of the best-known passages in the entire Bible, a passage that isn’t just about David, but was actually written by David himself. Most of us learned it as children and it continues to be a comfort to those who are dying. It’s so well loved because it brings words of assurance to those who have lost a loved one and for that reason it is almost always used at a funeral service. And maybe it’s so well loved because it’s so personal and individual. It applies to us. Its words bring comfort and confidence to us in our struggles, in our trials, in our moments of despair. It’s the 23rd Psalm.
This morning as we wrap up our study of the life of David I want us to look at this Psalm as a roadmap if you will for our lives. You see, this Psalm points to a journey that each and everyone of us should be on; a journey which will lead us to the life Jesus promised us in John 10 when he said, “I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.”
The fact is most Christians believe that the ticket to eternity is Jesus Christ, and rightfully so. But what so many of us fail to realize is that Christ came not only to give us new life in heaven, but to give us abundant life on this earth as well. And what breaks my heart is the fact that I don’t need to go out into the community to find those who are not experiencing that abundant life. I don’t need to go out into the world to find those who have never experienced what David was talking about when he wrote the 23rd Psalm. It’s all around me in the church. There are those of us who have never really comprehended what this abundant life is all about, who even though we would call Jesus our shepherd are no different than those outside of the church. There are those of us who even though we claim Jesus Christ as the One who brought forgiveness to our lives live no differently than those who have never met Christ.
Most of you know me well enough by this point to know that my passion in life and ministry is to help others understand that there’s more to this life. There’s more than just living and dying or trying to make it through another day. There’s freedom, there’s wholeness, there’s completion, there’s peace, there’s healing and there’s joy that can only be gained through one person. Jesus put it this way, “I am the good shepherd…I am the gate for the sheep…Those who come in through me will be saved.”
The Good Shepherd? The Gate for the Sheep? To us those words don’t make an awful lot of sense because we live in a society where tending sheep is not your ordinary occupation. And while the words of the 23rd Psalm sound comforting, few people really understand what they mean.
This morning I want to take a look at the 23rd Psalm because I believe in it is a short biography if you will of the life of David. If you were to ask David to sum everything up in a few short sentences I think the 23rd Psalm would be the words he’d choose. They’re words that tell us how we can experience abundance and become, like David, men and women after God’s own heart.”
Let us pray…
In order to understand this passage we’ve got to have a basic understating of sheep and shepherds. From the research I did this week I discovered some very interesting things about the life of Middle Eastern Shepherds and their sheep. And what I discovered lead me to understand this piece of scripture in three different areas. You see a shepherd understood that sheep could not remain in the same location year round and expect to be healthy sheep. They had to be on the move. They had to do so not only for their own benefit but for the benefit of the land as well otherwise it would be exhausted of its minerals and nutrients. During the winter the sheep would stay on the ranch. But when spring came the shepherd would begin a journey with his sheep which would lead them through passes following the receding snow line toward higher ground. And for the summer months the sheep would enjoy the beauty and abundance of the mountaintops where vegetation was rich and the sheep would thrive until the time came for them to return to the ranch again for the following winter. You see a sheep’s life was a journey. It was a journey marked by change, by new direction, by uncertainty, by fear, by danger, and yet by great abundance.
It’s no wonder then that Jesus called us sheep. We too should be constantly on the move toward higher ground. When we stop changing, when we stop moving, when we become paralyzed by fear or laziness, when we stop aspiring to be better men and women, when we stop changing and moving and growing as a church, when we fail to reach for new heights in our relationships with God we become like sheep who feed in the same pastures season after season after season and never enjoy what they could experience on top of the mountain.
We’re going to be beginning a series next week entitled “Extraordinary Spirituality for Ordinary People” in which we’ll talk more about that journey and about things like prayer, and discerning God’s will, and experiencing God in everyday life, but for today I want to take look at three areas on the road map to abundance that are true not only in the lives of sheep but also in our own lives as well.
At Home on the Ranch…
This is where sheep are born. Or this is where sheep are brought for the first time to become a part of the shepherd’s flock. In a way this is where Christians are born as well. This is a good place to start. In fact it’s the only place to start. Here are the things that have to happen in this leg of our spiritual journey:
First of all, You have to determine your identity.
In his book “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23” Philip Keller tells of the day he bought his first thirty sheep and how his neighbor turned to him as they were admiring the choice, strong ewes that now belonged to him, and said, “Philip, they’re yours. Now you’ll have to put your mark on them.” Philip knew exactly what he meant. Each shepherd had his own distinctive earmark cut into the ears of the sheep which made it easy to determine to whom the sheep belonged.
In order to mark the ear of the ewe, each one had to be caught and her ear laid on a wooden block and the shepherd would take the razor-sharp edge of the knife and notch it deeply. While there was pain for both the shepherd and the ewe, from the mutual suffering came an indelible lifelong mark of ownership that could never be erased.
There’s an incredible parallel to this in the Old Testament. When a slave in any Hebrew household chose, of his own freewill, to become a lifetime member of that home, he was subjected to a certain ritual. His master and owner would take him to his door, put his ear lobe against the doorpost and with an awl puncture a hole through the ear. From then on he was a man marked for life as belonging to that house.
The first step to the life of abundance that Jesus promised us is claiming the name of Jesus Christ as our Savior, recognizing him as your shepherd, and bearing His mark, the cross, which Jesus said, we should take up daily.
The sad truth is many of us claim that “the Lord is my Shepherd,” but have never come under the direction or management of that Lord. We seem to hope that by merely admitting that He died for us we will enjoy the benefits of his salvation without having to pay the price of changing our lives. The truth is: we can’t have it both ways. Either we belong or we don’t belong. And belonging implies some other things.
We Must Determine to End our Search.
There’s this misconception not only among people outside of the church but among people inside the church as well that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Why not live it up now and get things right with God before I die? Why spoil all of my fun? Why not enjoy life instead of having to be bound by religion?
When we come into our faith with that type of attitude still engrained within us it germinates into discontentment and envy.
If you think that this faith stuff is binding, that’s it cramps your style - think again! When you experience the peace and the wholeness that Christ can bring you won’t want to go back.
Your search can be over. You can echo the words of David when he said, “I shall not want.” He’s not talking about material things. There’s some really bad teaching going on today that says, “Wealth is a sign of God’s blessing upon a person’s life.” Folks, that simply isn’t the case. Don’t forget Jesus’ words “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” The fact is just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you’ll be wealthy and prosperous.
What David’s talking about here is contentment in life? It’s about saying, I’m going to stop searching for happiness in all the wrong places and be content trusting that true happiness and fulfillment can only be found in one place: in Jesus Christ.
Let go of your anxieties. David says, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” There’s something very interesting about sheep: they won’t lie down unless four things are true – they’re free from fear, from tension, from aggravation, and from hunger. They simply won’t lie down unless all four of these needs have been met. They’re such timid animals that unless they’re free from every form of anxiety they’re constantly on the alert ready to run from any threat. A flock of sheep that are lying down at rest have been cared for and they know it.
I don’t know about you, but some times I like to worry. The two things I worry about the most in my life are if I’ve offended others and money. Either one of those things can get me stirring and I can’t rest until I know that things are ok.
Jesus said something extremely powerful, you may remember it: “Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or what you will wear…So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of it’s own.”
Folks, I believe we’ve all got to hear this from time to time: let go of your anxieties. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Let’s relax; it’s the only way to enjoy this life.
Fourth, quench your thirst daily…
Most people are not aware that sheep can go for months on end, especially if the weather is not too hot, without actually drinking, if there is heavy dew on the grass each morning. Sheep, by habit, rise just before dawn and start to feed. The early hours are when the vegetation is drenched with dew, and sheep can keep fit on the amount of water taken in with their forage when they graze just before and after dawn.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those who are often the most confident and able to cope with life’s complexities are those who rise early to study God’s Word and pray. The biographies of great men and women of faith repeatedly point out how the success in their spiritual life was attributed to the “quiet time” of each morning.”
As Christians we’ve got to be quenching our thirst on a daily basis. You can’t expect this one hour a week to fill you. It simply won’t do. You wouldn’t eat food once a week. Don’t starve yourself spiritually either. The biggest single thing you can do to change your life; to change your personality; to change your family, is to set your alarm clock back and begin a regular habit of getting in the Bible and praying every day: quench your thirst daily.
Relax! Let God Pick You Up…
When David said, “He restores my soul he had something in mind.” You see, even David knew what it was like to be cast down and dejected. He knew what it was like to feel depressed. He had tasted defeat in his own life and felt the frustration of having lost the battle to temptation. He knew what it felt like to be hopeless and without strength. That’s why he wrote the words in Psalm 42:11 “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?”
There’s a direct parallel to this in caring for sheep. The term “cast down” sheep is used to describe a sheep that has turned over on its back and can’t get up again by itself. A heavy, fat, or long fleeced sheep will lie down comfortably in some little hollow or depression in the ground and roll on its side slightly to stretch out or relax when suddenly the center of its gravity will shift and it will turn on its back far enough that the feet can no longer touch the ground. As it panics and begins to flay its legs things only get worse and it becomes impossible for it to regain its feet.
The only way for a “cast down” sheep to be rescued is for its shepherd to find it and pick it up.
One of the most frustrating things to me about my life is that even when I choose to follow Jesus Christ I still screw things up. I know I’m not perfect. But you’d think I’d learn. But I continue to make mistakes. And somehow, when I find myself in a mess more often than not I’ve created more of a mess before I ever stop to ask God to fix things. I try to fix things on my own, and in so doing I create more of a jam than I was in in the first place.
Part of this journey is relaxing and letting God pick us up when we fall.
Trust in His Direction…
The final leg of this stage of the journey is to trust in his direction. This is probably one of the biggest obstacles for most of us. We’d rather do things our way. We think we know how to control our lives and the truth is we don’t want to follow. We don’t want to be led. We want to do the leading.
David said, “He leads me in right paths…” In shepherding language, the idea is that sheep left to themselves will follow the same trails until they become ruts; graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes; pollute the same ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites. It’s the knowledge of the shepherd which leads the sheep in new right paths where that are good not only for the sheep but for the ground as well.
Church, at times I’ve got to say we’ve become an awful lot like stubborn sheep covering the same trails until they’ve become ruts. We’ve got to trust the direction of the shepherd to take us in a way that he knows is best for us. That doesn’t just apply to us personally either. I’m talking about us as a church. We can’t keep covering the same ground and expect to remain healthy. It’s not the way it works. Change, newness, freshness, is a necessity to health.
This is where most people tune out. They’re not willing to go in new directions. Personally it may mean a career move, or reconciling a relationship that went awry long ago. I don’t know what it means but most Christians stop right here because they’d rather control things on their own. If that’s you then let me give you a glimpse of what could be if you’d trust God with your future.
The Road to Higher Ground…
As the sheep set out to follow the shepherd at the end of the winter the shepherd has the higher ground in mind, in fact he’s already been they’re preparing things ahead of time. He’s got the course all set and he knows the way well, the only task ahead is to get the sheep to follow him there.
If you’ve decided to make that next step toward higher ground in your own life then the first thing you’ve got to do is…
Expect Valleys. You know the familiar words, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” The only way to get to the higher ground that the shepherd has in mind for the sheep is to go through these valleys. There the shepherd and sheep faced the dangers of rampaging rivers in flood; avalanches; rock slides; poisonous plants; predators that would raid the flock or the awesome storms of sleet and hail.
The truth was in order to get to the higher ground the sheep had to travel through the valleys. There was no other way.
We talk an awful lot in the Christian life about wanting to move on to higher ground, about living above the lowlands in life. We speak of mountaintop experiences, but we often get this mistaken idea about how it takes place. It’s as though we imagined that we would be “air-lifted” onto higher ground. That we would be miraculously catapulted to new heights in our lives. Folks that’s not reality! That’s not the Christian life. The only way to get to higher ground is by climbing through the valleys.
Every mountain has its valleys. It’s sides are scarred by deep ravines and gulches and draws. And the best route to the top is always through those valleys.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like those valleys. They hurt. They’re often filled with pain. But most of the time that pain is for my own good. Because it’s in the valleys that I learn the second lesson about this road to higher ground:
Trust in God’s Care.
The only reason that David could say “Even though I walk through the valley…I will fear no evil” is because he believed that not only was his shepherd with him but his rod and his staff brought comfort to him.
In Biblical times the shepherd would only carry to instruments with him for his time away with the sheep. His rod which was a club used to hurl at predators and his staff used to gently direct a sheep back into the flock. Those two instruments providing protection, and guidance, brought assurance to the sheep that they could make it through the valley.
The only way to make it through the valley is to believe and trust in God’s care; to trust that in the most difficult times of your life God is by your side protecting and guiding you and giving you the ability to keep on keeping on.
One of the passages which I read at every funeral I conduct is John 14 where Jesus says, “I go and prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
I can’t help but think of that passage when I read the next line in this Psalm: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…” I never understood this until this week. Remember the sheep are approaching the high mountain country of the summer ranges. The shepherd has already been there and prepared things for the journey. It’s interesting that these summer ranges are known as tablelands. So what David was referring to as a table was actually the entire high summer range where the sheep would graze. It was their reward for making the long trek through the valley.
Here’s the thing about this leg of our spiritual journey. When you’ve not only entered the family of God and taken the necessary steps to begin the journey; when you’ve traveled through the valleys of life…
Anticipate Abundance! That’s what Jesus promised us when he said, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly!”
Just as the sheep enjoyed a rich feast at the end of the long journey so too we can anticipate a life of abundance not only in this world but in the next as we draw closer to our Savior, as we surrender more of our lives and become more like him.
But don’t get too comfortable yet… Because when you start to enjoy the abundance of his blessings in your life; when you begin to discover the incredible power of prayer and you see God working in the little things of your every day walk you’ve got to do something else as well…
Allow the Holy Spirit to Free You from the Bugs of Life…
David says, “You anoint my head with oil.” Just when it appears that the sheep are safe and the shepherd can relax suddenly we find a “fly in the ointment” so to speak. During the summer, hordes of insects emerge posing serious problems for sheep. There are warble flies, bot flies, heel flies, nose flies, deer flies, black flies, mosquitoes, and gnats that torture sheep.
The only relief from this agonizing annoyance in the middle eastern world was to apply an antitode to their heads composed of linseed oil, sulphur and tar. The anointing with that oil would keep those insects away.
In my life it’s not the big things that end up doing me in, it’s all the little things. It’s all the little things that cause me stress.
It’s no coincidence that Jesus urged us in Luke 11:13 to ask for the Holy Spirit. Because it’s the Spirit alone that makes it possible for us to react to aggravations and annoyances with quietness and calmness.
The third thing to understand once you’re living on a spiritual mountaintop is that we are to
Leave a legacy of blessing. David put it this way, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” Philip Keller tells the story of how two friends had spent a few days in his home after which he had traveled with them to their next destination. After several days on the road one of the men missed his hat. He was sure he had left it at Philip’s home. He asked him to write his wife and ask her to find it and send it to him.
Her reply was this: “I have combed the house from top to bottom and can find no trace of the hat. The only thing those men left behind was a great blessing.”
Is that the way people feel about us? When our lives intersect with the lives of others do we leave a trail of sadness or gladness? Is our memory entwined with mercy and goodness or would they rather forget us all together? Make sure you’re a person who leaves behind a legacy of blessing.
Finally, Bask in God’s Presence. “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.” The only way to enjoy this kind of life, this kind of abundance, is to stay close to God. Stay in his presence daily. Be around people who are close to Him.
A famous actor was once the guest of honor at a social gathering where he received many requests to recite favorite excerpts from various literary works. An old preacher who happened to be there asked the actor to recite the twenty-third Psalm. The actor agreed on the condition that the preacher would also recite it. The actor’s recitation was beautifully intoned with great dramatic emphasis for which he received lengthy applause. The preacher’s voice was rough and broken from many years of preaching, and his diction was anything but polished. But when he finished there was not a dry eye in the room. When someone asked the actor what made the difference, he replied "I know the psalm, but he knows the Shepherd."
Do you KNOW the Shepher
