First Baptist Church
August 13, 2006
Psalm 23
Is there anything you want? Of course there is —
Maybe you want a new car . . . or a new house . . . or new friends . . . to lose weight . . . to become taller . . . you want a better job . . . you want financial success . . . you want new clothes . . . you want to get out of debt . . . you want more toys or gadgets . . . you want peace in your life . . . you want rest for your weary soul and body . . . you want someone to care about you . . . you want love and romance . . . you want self-confidence . . . you want health . . . you want to believe that God loves you . . . we want and we want and we can fill in the never ending blanks.
We can make a list that will never end of the things we want in our lives. Nobody is exempt from wanting. If you say you have no wants, you aren’t telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Even if you say you have no needs, you really aren’t telling the whole story. We all have needs, it just may be that we don’t like to admit them.
Two weeks ago we started to take a look at Psalm 23 through the eyes of a shepherd. We caught a glimpse of what a shepherd’s life is like. Today and for the next few weeks we’re going to take a detailed look at what the most famous of psalms says to our hearts that yearn for the Good Shepherd. There are going to be times where I am going to take passages as a whole and other times, like today, where I am going to take verses word by word, just so we can really understand why this psalm touches our hearts so much.
So, let’s get into verse 1, what does “The Lord is my Shepherd” really mean?
Let’s start our with the name of God. Why is God called Lord? What did David mean by that and how does that help us in our lives?
In Hebrew, if we call God, by the name Elohim, which is the basic name of God, it implies an impersonal, but mighty God. But this psalm is all about relationship. If we call God Adonai, or Master, it implies slaves to serve. But we are sheep to be cared for by the Lord. If we call God — King, Rock, Fortress, Almighty, or Holy One, those can also be impersonal phrases.
The word LORD speaks of a personal relationship. David is referring to the personal God, a God who knows you and a God who you know. It is the way God introduced Himself to Moses when Moses asked for God’s name. God told Moses, I AM WHO I AM. In Hebrew, it’s Yahweh. We translate it LORD. And you will notice it is the only name of God which is entirely capitalized. Look in any Bible and when you see God’s name referred to as LORD, it is always, always capitalized. Psalm 110:1 is a great example, as David says, “The LORD says to me Lord.”
So, we learn that the name LORD means God is a personal God, He seeks to have a personal relationship with us. This is important for us because we want God to be personal, we don’t want an impersonal and distant God, we want and in fact, we need Him to be personal. When Jesus refers to the disciples as friends, it demonstrates the personal relationship we can experience.
In Revelation 3, when Jesus said, 20 “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” This invitation is not from an impersonal God, but from a God who seeks a relationship with you and I.
Now, we’re going to get really picky, and this is important for us. This is really what makes Psalm 23 come alive for us.
What does the word “IS” imply?
I know, I know, you’re thinking I’ve been studying too much about this psalm. But work with me for a moment.
Some people will only testify to past experiences with God, that is, they say, “The Lord was my Shepherd.” Or some only plan to get close to the Shepherd in the future, they say, “the Lord will be my Shepherd. Or we can speak about a benign Shepherd, when we say, ‘the Lord can be a Shepherd.’ But whose Shepherd is He? He IS my Shepherd.
And that is the significance of the verb “IS.” There are 2 points —
1.) It means RIGHT NOW . . . today . . . the Lord is my Shepherd. He will care and protect you, today.
2.) It also means He is RIGHT HERE. You don’t have to go some place else to get into the Shepherd’s care.
Now we look at the word MY. It tells us whose Shepherd He is. He is MY Shepherd
What would it mean if the pronoun MY were left out?
We might then say, “The Lord is a shepherd.”
That means He is only one among many possible shepherds. Who, then becomes your shepherd? Yourself? Your job? Your family? Your retirement fund? Your kids?
You see the Lord IS MY Shepherd. Yet, He is not only mine, He is also yours. He is a personal God, who seeks an intimate relationship with each of us.
Why are we called sheep?
Well, we tend to stray. Isaiah wrote, “we are all like sheep who have gone astray” (53:6).
Jesus said in Luke 15:4, “What man having 100 sheep, if he loses just 1 will not go and look for that which was lost.”
Sheep have no instinct to warn them of snakes, wolves, bears, parasites. In some ways they are oblivious to danger. Sheep are defenseless. They have no weapons to defend themselves, no claws, teeth, fangs, etc. That’s why in John 10:12, Jesus said, “The wolf catches the sheep.”
And we must always remember we are the target of the enemy, satan. Again, the Bible reminds us of that in Acts 20:29, “Grievous wolves shall enter, not sparing the flock.”
And He is a Shepherd because He leads us. He gives His life for us. When He calls out to us, we hear His voice and we respond, just as a sheep does. The Shepherd also loves His sheep, Matthew tells us, “Jesus was moved with compassion, because they were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). Now we have a shepherd, He is named Jesus.
And Jesus was willing to sacrifice His life for His sheep. Because ‘a good shepherd gives His life for the sheep’ (John 10:10).
So, what does all of this mean for us? The Lord is our Shepherd, He calls out to me and you, but do we hear His voice? Do we know His voice when He calls out to us? Or is our life so scattered that we cannot hear the voice of the Shepherd because there are too many other voices and sounds that are filtering in?
In fact the question that even comes before us is ~ ‘do you want the Lord to be your Shepherd? Because if you do, then you must give your life to Him, you must allow Him to lead and guide. That is the only way this psalm can work. We must be willing to give ourselves over to the One who is the Great Shepherd.
Isn’t it amazing we are still in verse 1. Now comes an amazing statement from David. We now understand the LORD IS MY SHEPHERD. And now we learn “I SHALL NOT WANT.”
What in the world can that mean? After all, at the beginning of this message I listed scads of wants that we have in our lives.
When David spoke of Yahweh as his shepherd, he thought of Him not only as his provider and protector but also as his king. Because God was David’s shepherd, he lacked (wanted) nothing. A good shepherd is all a sheep needs since a good shepherd, by his very nature will always supply all of the sheep’s needs. In a similar way, a good parent will provide for every need of their child.
Since the Lord was David’s Shepherd, David had no other wants; he was lacking nothing. I cannot overemphasize this statement. Throughout the ages satan has attempted to portray God as a begrudging giver who only provides when He must. Satan’s greatest weapon and desire is to deceive us. He wants us to believe we’re deprived of the good things in life. This is the picture satan tried to paint for Adam and Eve. Suggesting God withheld the fruit of every tree of the garden from Adam and Eve. God is also portrayed as holding out to Jesus when He was being tempted in the desert.
You see, the mentality behind David’s words are completely opposed to the Madison Avenue propaganda where we’re constantly being told that we have many needs, all of which can be met when we buy some new product. We need “sex appeal” so we buy a new toothpaste, a new kind of mouthwash and a new brand of soap. We need self-confidence and a better self-image, therefore we must wear stylish clothing. Our whole mode of thinking is “want-centered.” David tells us that to have God as our shepherd is indeed to have everything we want.
In his book, I Shall Not Want, Robert Ketchum tells about a Sunday school teacher who asked her class if any of them could quote Psalm 23. A little 4½ year-old girl raised her hand. A bit skeptical, the teacher asked if she could really quote the entire psalm. The little girl came to the podium, faced the class and said: "The Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want." She then bowed and sat down. She may have overlooked a few verses, but I think that little girl captured David’s heart in Psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want; that’s all I need.
EXTRA - see below for extra not used in message.↓↓
The idea throughout the psalm is that we are utterly content in the shepherd’s care and there is nothing else that we desire. Notice that our Lord supplies our every need, not our every want. As Paul told the Philippians, "And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus..." (Philippians 4:19). The same one who sustained the children of Israel, the one who fed Elijah by the brook, the one who provided the needs of the disciples sent out without staff or shoes, has promised to provide our needs both physical and spiritual.
