The Heart Of A Shepherd - A Man After God's Own Heart Series

ILLUS: I have personally experienced this kind of protection in some very REAL ways.

In the first church I served, a man had left his wife for another woman… but he wanted to keep coming back home for the comforts of his family. Now the husband was a trucker – a BIG man with a reputation for being tough.

The wife asked for my advice, but they’d never covered anything like this in Bible College, so I sought out the advice of some counselors in Ft. Wayne. They asked what we would do if a man were sinning like this within the church (her husband was not a Christian) and I said “well, we’d excommunicate him. We wouldn’t eat with him or associate with him.” They advised that she should shun him. If he wanted the other woman… he could do that… but the wife and daughters would have nothing to do with him.

It told the wife about this and she said she could do it - but she wanted me there when she told him about her decision. We prayed about it and then set the date for the confrontation.

The day arrived and they were standing in the kitchen talking as I stood back leaning against the wall at the doorway to the hall, listening with my hands in my pockets.

When she told him her decision he literally blew up. Realizing I had been the source of her decision, he turned on me with fury in his eyes. His fists were clenched and his veins were bulging from his face. Did I mention, I had my hands in my pockets? All he had to do was land one good punch and I was finished. Even with my hands OUT of my pockets I couldn’t have defended myself very well… so I did what all religious people would do in a situation like that: I said a silent prayer.

Even in that dangerous setting, a calm settled over me. I began to very quietly talk to the man and, in time, he calmed down backed off and left the house.

God had literally taken me through the valley of the shadow of death. And tho’ I felt some fear, I was strangely at ease talking him out of his anger.

You see, when we TAKE God with us – when we pray to Him and seek His guidance, our enemies become powerless. They can threaten us. They can make our lives difficult and complicated, BUT they can never really damage us. Why? Because God has promised to prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies... and to lead us EVEN Thru the valley of the shadow of death.

So this is a song about life

And a song about a life filled with confidence

And it’s also:

III. A song ABOUT A LIFE filled with value and meaningfulness

ILLUS: I was with some friends last Saturday at a “card party.” We played euchre and would switch partners throughout the evening so that we could get acquainted with each other. At one point I sat down across from a woman who had lost a few games and was down on herself. She held her hand up beside her forehead and formed an “L” shape with the thumb and forefinger and laughingly said “Loser!”

As I researched this psalm I read numerous sermons and commentators to see if I could discover any insights to share this morning it seemed that this was how many of them saw the sheep in this psalm. Losers! They would describe sheep as being: