Am I on? Yes, I am. So wonderful to be with you. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here last month. I was out of town, but I did think of you because I was sitting in a room and all of a sudden popped up on my phone that I was preaching at Southwest Press. Oh, that's right. I told David, told David that they need to find a replacement. So I was thinking of you that night. So today, Well, today we, well, real quick, thank you so much for y'all's prayers and thank you, Ken, for your prayers tonight. Just so you know that a month, Rice is starting up in a month. And so this next month is when everything starts to happen. I start taking all my thoughts and plans and getting them ready. Students start coming in for orientation week. Orientation week begins. So if you think about it, we would love your prayers. I'm very excited about this school year starting up. And so just want to ask. You can always pray for the Cranes, and you can always pray for RUF Rice. Just want to let you know. We're going to be looking at Psalm 23. Psalm 23 is one of the most well-known passages of Scripture. Even when I was a young boy, we did not have any type of systematic Scripture memory in my family. We really didn't do that. But I could recite the first few verses of Psalm 23. It's very beloved. It's beautiful. It's a wonderful picture of what God is doing. And I think one of the reasons why it is so powerful is not just that it's beautiful, but When you really dig deep into what Psalm 23 is telling us, it is a transforming message. It is a message that changes the way that you look at your life, the way that you look at the Lord. And I'm ecstatic that we get to look at it together tonight. So let us read Psalm 23 together. Well, let me read it and you read along. Psalm 23, a Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. 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. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is God's Word. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your Word, that it is not just instructive, that it's not just beautiful, but it is also life-changing, and it communicates to us again and again and again how much the Lord of the universe loves His people. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Amen. Sheep. Now, I don't know how much sheep herding experience is in the room here. There might be some, but I'm not expecting a lot. But if you do have a lot of experience herding sheep, I would love to hear from you afterwards. But I have not had a lot of sheep herding experience. In fact, none. But whenever I hear people talk about sheep, Regular themes come up, such as sheep are not very smart. Sheep are very neurotic. Sheep are the most difficult animals to deal with. And it's the stories that you hear are usually very humorous. In fact, I remember hearing a story of, well, humorous, but also sad and tragic, I should say. I've heard stories of sheep that have drowned in the rain because they just keep looking up while it's raining. I was listening to a gentleman on the radio, actually a former professional athlete, who said when he was younger he had two sheep that he would keep tied up. And he had to keep an eye on them because he would keep them tied to a pole and they would just walk around the pole until it got so tight they couldn't breathe and then he would have to come and rescue them. I was reading a story about a pastor who put up on... he'd read a story in Turkey of 1,500 sheep who just walked over the side of a cliff. Their shepherds had stopped to have breakfast and they weren't paying attention, and they just walked over the side of the cliff. Thankfully, the last 1,100 survived because the first 400 who didn't make it served as a nice cushion for them to land on. You know, sheep are very desperate creatures, and in fact, you never hear stories about sheep out in the wild. Jack London never wrote stories about those wild sheep, because what happens to sheep in the wild? Well, they get eaten. That is it. Sheep are desperate. They are in need of a shepherd, just like those sheep who went off the cliff. And it really is humorous. We really could tell sheep stories all day, but if we stop and look at the text, What starts to become a little uncomfortable is when we realize that in the scriptures here and in other places, we are referred to as sheep. We are described as sheep in need of a shepherd. Which even though we don't like it, if we're honest, it probably fits us pretty well. Most of us, if we're honest, we realize that we are needy, desperate, and even foolish creatures. who are in desperate need of someone to look out for us. We're in need for a shepherd. And what's beautiful about this passage is it tells us not only do we have a shepherd, but it tells us that we have the shepherd. The Lord of the universe has set His love upon us and said for us, the wayward sheep and even His own personal flock, that He is our shepherd. As much as we could think about how we are sheep, this passage is really proclaiming the glories of the shepherd. And that's what I want to spend most of my time talking about today. In fact, the way I want to frame this sermon is this. Because the Lord is my shepherd, I can get out of bed in the morning, no matter how good or how bad things look. Because the Lord of the universe is my shepherd, I can get out of bed in the morning. And if you're honest with yourself like me, the reason that I think I can get out of my bed in the morning is because of me. It's because I can handle it. I have the power, the intellect, and the will to make it through the day. I guess I think of myself as some type of super sheep. But the truth is, is the scriptures tell us that you are just a sheep in need of a shepherd. And this passage tells us of the glories of our Shepherd. And so for the first part, we're going to break it up in two halves, but the first four verses focus on a picture of the Lord as shepherd, and the last two, verses five and six, focus on the Lord as the one who's prepared a feast for us. We're going to spend the majority of our time in those first four verses, but certainly those last two are important as well. So let's look at verse one. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. The Lord is my shepherd. Again, There are a lot of ways that you think of the Lord of the universe. You think of Him as the Creator, as God, as a Redeemer. And yet, He takes this name upon Himself. He takes upon Himself the name of Shepherd. And being a shepherd is not an easy job. Because of the nature of sheep, you've got to be on all the time. It's 24-7. It's difficult and hard work. In fact, it was not the type of work that you would aspire to. David was a shepherd because he was the youngest of eight children. Put him out there. In fact, I hope I got that right. I forgot if he had seven or eight children, seven or eight brothers. I apologize if I got the number wrong, but he was the youngest. And what do you do with the youngest? You put him with the sheep because none of us want to do this work. And so we have the Lord taking up a job that though we think of it as beautiful, it really is. And when he's saying this about himself, it's not the greatest title of honor, but it is something of honor to him because he loves us. He loves us. And we see that in this word where he says that the Lord is my shepherd, my Throughout the scriptures, when the Lord describes the people of God as sheep, He usually uses the term our, that we, that the Lord is our shepherd. But here, He wants to drive home the point, a very important point, that yes, God is the God of His people, but what you need to understand is that God cares individually about each and every one of you. So that when we read a psalm like this, He cares about what's going on the Lord of the universe the creator of all that is Once you and I to be able to claim him as our own that we can say he is my shepherd I think this is when we really think about it. This is Mind-boggling that the Lord of the universe would care for us in this way that he would take the time to look out for us when Abraham Lincoln was first beginning his term as president in the days leading up to the outbreak of war, and through the beginning of it, he was constantly beset by people who wanted to talk to him about jobs. Back before the days of the civil service, if you wanted a job, you could just line up outside the president's office and wait till he saw you. And Lincoln would let everybody come in. And his personal assistants would actually rebuke him regularly. Lincoln, good night. Our country is coming apart at the seams. Why are you wasting your time with these people? Let somebody else do this. And he said, no. He said, no. These are my people and these are the people whom I am just like. I have to hear from them. I have to take the time to be with them. When we hear something like that, a president taking time to be with just normal everyday folks, it amazes us. And yet, the Lord of the universe, who is not like us, wants to take the time to hear from us and set His love upon us. As He claims us as our own, it should fill us with joy that we are His. We should rejoice in this. One of my favorite scenes from the Chronicles of Narnia comes in the last book, the last battle. And it's after the climactic battle, and the people have moved into what Lewis wants to picture for Narnia as kind of their new heavens and new earth. And they're moving towards the place where Aslan is, where they're going to dwell forever. And the main characters are moving forward, and they come across A man named Emeth, he's a Calamine, and the Calamines are the sworn enemies of the Narnians. In fact, they've just got done fighting a battle in which the Calamines have basically decimated all the Narnians. But here, somehow, this enemy of the people of God has made it in. to this place, because what he truly longs for more than anything is a God like the God of that place, a God like Aslan, who will care for him and love him. And they encounter this man, and at first they're all a little nervous, but then he starts telling the story about how he encountered Aslan in that place and how it occurred. And as he's recounting the story to the Narnians, he said that in the story that Aslan called him his beloved. Emeth was his beloved. And he says, And this is the marvel of all marvel, that he called me beloved, me who am but as a dog. I, who am nothing, have great value and worth, because this One who is so great would claim me for His own. That is the joy of the Christian, that Christ has set His name upon us. And He has claimed you for His own, and that you are the Lord's beloved. It's a beautiful thing. And because of this, because the Lord is our shepherd, the passage says, it says, I shall not be in want. Now, this doesn't mean that I will never want anything or that all my desires have gone away. No, it means that I will never be lacking anything I need. The Lord will provide and care for me. And there is implications for this materially, and we're going to talk about that when we get to verse 2. But what the real point this is driving at, and which the rest of the psalm flows from here, is because we get God. We don't need anything else. We have everything that we need because He is ours. And that's what this passage wants us to wrestle with and chew on, because the Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing else I need. Yes, He cares about those little things. He cares about the big things. But that is the place of safety and security. In Ephesians chapter 1, it tells us that we should give praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. There is nothing lacking that we need if Christ is ours, if the Lord is our Shepherd. And therefore, whatever the world throws at us, Even when it's overwhelming, we can move forward. We can have hope. All right? I spent a lot of time on verse 1, but it really is arguably the most important of this psalm as it tries to communicate what is ours in Christ. Verse two, it starts verse two and three. It starts getting into both our physical and our spiritual needs. It says in verse two, it says he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. In order for sheep to lie down, they have to feel safe. There can't be anything that is scaring them, and they have to also They have to also not be bothered by flies or by friction with other sheep. Sheep have fights with each other and they won't lie down unless they're at peace with each other. And this picture is that the shepherd brings the sheep to a place of green pastures, verdant pastures, where they're not going to have to constantly be moved, but they're able to rest. And then he brings them beside quiet, still waters, not raging rapids where there might be fear of being swept in or swept away. but peaceful waters where they can drink. And this is a picture of the beauty of the Lord's providing for us. Yes, there are times in your life and in my life when we have felt truly in need, but if we reflect upon the vast majority of our life, we see the Lord providing for us again and again, and meeting our needs again and again. And to be honest, we need to thank Him for it. So often when I look at the way in which the Lord has provided for me, I don't thank Him for it. There will be things in my life that I've desperately wanted for months or even years, and all of a sudden, they're brought to me, and I forget to say thank you. Or the Lord has brought something into my life that I wasn't expecting, and I don't say thank you. has provided these things. We didn't earn them. I often think of myself as a very entitled person. I'm a good person. Good things should be given to me. But the truth is I don't deserve anything. And yet the Lord keeps His blessings upon us. For our provisions, our physical provisions, the Lord is the source of those things. And may we be people whose hearts are more and more grateful for them. It goes on in verse 3 to talk about restoring our soul and guiding us in paths of righteousness. When spoken of sheep, when you talk about restoring the sheep, it's those who have wandered off or those who are sick. And certainly, the Lord cares for our physical needs, but also for our spiritual needs. All of us remember from Luke 15 the story of the lost sheep, where one sheep is missing and so the shepherd goes after that one missing sheep and rejoices when he finds it. That's the story of all of us in the room who claim the name of Christ, that the shepherd has gone after us and brought us home. And for many of us, we know those times of doubt and discouragement and despair and even wandering away. And the Lord is there to seek us out and follow after us. And if you're in a place like that. No matter how great the doubt is or the discouragement is. Cry out to the Lord. He is seeking out after you if you are His child. And He will find you. Cry out to Him. And then it says that He leads them in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Regarding the sheep, these righteous paths are the right path. It's the best way to get to what they need. But for us, it's also a call to righteousness. It's a call to live our life in the way in which God says is the best way for us to live. Now, he brings before us what he thinks is best for us, and we are called to follow him. And for some of you in the room, I can't help but think, you think, ah, this is one of those Psalms where I thought we were all supposed to feel good about ourselves. But this is where the Lord starts saying, now I want you to do stuff. I want you to do what I say regardless of who you are, of what I want. But the thing is, is it's not like that. Because when the Lord takes us in these righteous paths, He's actually taking us to the place of life. He's taking us and pointing us to a way to live which is the best way for us to live. If you were teaching someone to drive in the United States and you told them that they should drive on the right side of the road, and they said, no, I want to drive on the left because that's what I really want to do, you would not say that is wise. You would say that is not the way to life. In fact, there's many rules like that about how fast you should go or where you should drive or what a one-way street really means. And to go against those rules is not to give you freedom, but actually to lead you to death. And therefore, when he leads us in these right paths, it's for our good. It's because he loves us. And it says he does this for his name's sake. You see, what we do reflects him. And so how we live and how we act does reflect the Lord. But one of the things that's beautiful about this is this isn't just about we should live a certain way so that the Lord will look good. No, the Lord cares about this because he really loves you. This isn't all simply about his reputation, but we are precious deer, flawed and hapless and helpless sheep. And he wants what is best for us. You see, if all it was was really about the Lord's reputation, he would not be pursuing us with goodness and love. He would be pursuing us with indignation and disappointment. He would not be using His rod and staff to protect us, but be using them to motivate us. The Lord, yes, we exist for His glory. We exist to bring glory to the Lord. And yet, that is not at odds with the Lord doing so. working so in our life because He loves us and cares for us and wants what is best for us. And then the passage in verse 4 moves on to when things get difficult. We've been talking about green pastures, still waters, just a wonderful place to be. And then in verse 4, things don't look so good. It says, 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 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. This is certainly talking about the point of death It is certainly talking about those points where you or a dear loved one Have come to the end and Christ Has promised to be with us through that Even though we walk in those places, the Lord is with us. But it's also talking about the difficulties of life, the things that really discourage us. I mean, you can hear that. I just love the way that this is phrased, even though, even though, even though things are extremely difficult at work, even though I am sick or someone that's very dear to me is sick and dying, even though My marriage is very hard. Or maybe even my spouse is leaving me, and it's my fault. Even though money is extremely tight, and I don't know where next month's rent is going to come from. Even though these things are happening, He is with me. Even though. That's what He's trying to say. Not just in the good times is the Lord with you, but even in the difficult and hard times, He is there. He is walking with you in the midst of those troubles. He is weeping for you and with you as you weep. He's caring for your needs. The Lord in the midst of those dark and difficult places is right there with you. That's the gospel. It's a beautiful, beautiful truth. And not only does the Lord bring us in those dark places. Well, I want to say it this way. Many times the Lord brings us in those dark places to give us Himself. Because it's there that we realize that He is with us in ways that we don't often understand. I had a chance to read The Praying Life, a book by I believe it's Paul Miller, and I love his comments on Psalm 23. It says, and he calls the valley of the shadow of death, he's referring to these desert times in our life, these difficult times in our life. He says, the best gift of the desert is God's presence. When we see this in Psalm 23, in the beginning of the psalm, the shepherd is in front of us. He leads me beside still waters. At the end, he is behind me. Goodness and love will pursue me. But in the middle, as I go through the valley of the shadow of death, he is next to me. I will fear no evil for you are with me. The Lord is with us despite what our circumstances say to us. It reminds me of the story of Elijah and his servant, who are being pursued by the armies of the Arameans. And they wake up one morning and walk outside, and they're surrounded. And Elijah's servant says, what are we going to do? We are in such trouble. And Elijah says, don't worry. You don't realize who is with us. And it says in 2 Kings 6 verse 17, it says, And then Elijah prayed, O Lord, open his eyes so that he may see. The Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elijah. Despite what initially they saw, what his servant didn't realize was who was with them in this very desperate and difficult situation. And may I say to you, if you are in that place, And it's so hard to believe. It is so hard to believe sometimes that the Lord is with you. But He is. But He is. And that is a truth. That is a reality, like I said, that enables you to get out of bed in the morning when your life is in those places, when you don't want to. But you have to know who is with you. The last two verses of Psalm 23 paint a new picture for us. Part of it, it certainly flows out of the first four, but it paints a picture of a banquet. It says, verse five, you have prepared a table before me and the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. A feast has been laid out before us. And think about this picture. There's an incredible irony here. If there's a feast to be thrown, whose honor do we typically throw it in? Don't we throw it in honor of the greater person? Of the person more deserving of honor? Yes. That's what we typically do. Who deserves the most honor? The Lord does. And yet, who is throwing this feast and who is He throwing it for? The Lord is throwing a feast for you and for me. And not just any feast. This is a picture of a covenant meal. When we look in Exodus 24, after the Lord has given the Israelites the law, He then calls the elders up on the mountain, on a mountain that no one is allowed to go up on because the presence of the Lord was there. And He welcomes them up, He does not destroy them, and then He eats with them. When the Lord brings forth the new covenant, what does He do it in? He does it in the midst of a meal. When he says the new covenant sign of the Lord's Supper, it's a meal we eat with the Lord. And this is a picture of that, that we are not just having dinner with a friend, but that we are part of a deep covenant relationship with the Lord, that we are his family. And he does this in the presence of our enemies. That those those people who are pursuing us, whether it's in the midst of those difficult times, the Lord is going to minister to our needs. Or perhaps this is a victory celebration which the defeated foes sit before us as the Lord honors us. And then it says after that, that surely goodness and love. God's steadfast love will follow us, but it's not simply follow us like something falling behind us. But the word actually means to pursue that his love will pursue us all the days of our life and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is certainly pointing to our hearts, longing and desire to be with the Lord. But it also is pointing to our ultimate destiny that we will be with Him forever. That when He comes again, that either when we die or when He comes again, we will be brought to Him in resurrection life. That we, with our new bodies, will be with Him forever. And we will rejoice and worship Him. And all things will be as they're meant to be. And this is our great joy. And yet, as we look at this psalm, as we look at Psalm 23, and we learn and read about the shepherd, we must look to Jesus Christ, who calls Himself, in John 14, the Good Shepherd, and who is referred to in Hebrews as the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. In fact, if we really want to know what the Lord as shepherd would look like. John 10 tells us that John, sorry, I'm getting my John's mixed up. John 14 tells us that we only need to look at Christ because in John 14, as he's trying to explain to his disciples what the Father looks like. He asked them if they know Him, if they know Jesus. Because if you've seen what Christ looks like, if you know Jesus, then you know the Father. You know what He looks like. And so, Jesus is identifying Himself with this Shepherd in Psalm 23. He is the Great Shepherd. He is the One who has gone to rescue the lost sheep of Israel, which is everyone who has the name of Christ set upon them. It's a wonderful thing. And the beauty and glory of this is that He gives us something that we do not deserve. You see, Jesus is the true sheep. He is the Lamb of God who was sacrificed on our behalf. All the blessings of the psalm are given to us because Christ took our place and took what we deserve, which was to have them withheld. He wasn't led by green pastures and still waters. Instead, He was taken into a desert. He did not have a feast set before him in the presence of his enemies. Instead, they brought him before a mock trial and humiliated him and beat him and shamed him. And when he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord deserted him as well as all his friends. And the reason that took place was because that is what we deserved. He took the shame we deserve, the pain we deserve, the guilt we deserve. And instead, He was sacrificed for us so that we would not have to die for our sins, but that He would die in our place. And this great sheep became the great shepherd. And because we are now in Him, all that is true of Him is true of us and He cares for us and He meets our needs and loves us infinitely. And so I say, if you are a Christian, take heart in this. Meditate on who it is that loves you and cares for you and has bought you at such a great price. If you feel as though you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and you feel as though He is not near, He is near. And you must claim this truth because it is true. Now, if you are not a Christian, if you are not someone who could say that the Lord is your shepherd, He seeks the lost still. And if it is your desire to know a God like this, to have a shepherd like this, to have a Savior like this, You only need to ask. Second Timothy tells us that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. If you were a sinner, which we all are, Christ offers forgiveness to you. Cry out to him in faith. Cry out to him. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you are the great shepherd of the sheep. We thank you that there are those in this room who know that. and who rejoice in it. For those who do not know that truth, we pray that they would. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.