Joy for my family and me to be with you all in these days. We are very thankful to you all for your kindness and your generosity to us and your great hospitality. You've spoiled us and taken such good care of us. And we certainly want to express our gratitude to you. It's our privilege again to turn publicly to the word of God. we ought never to grow tired of this privilege of having God's Word open and read in our own tongue. Let's stand together as we hear that Word read. We're going to turn in the New Testament Scriptures, New Covenant Scriptures, to John's Gospel, Chapter 10, and then to Psalm 23 for the Old Covenant reading and sermon text tonight. John's Gospel, Chapter 10, beginning with verse 11. Let's hear the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own. and my own know me just as the father knows me and I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep and I have other sheep that are not of this fold I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice so there will be one flock one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, He has a demon and is insane. Why listen to him? Others said, These are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? At that same time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the Father are one. And now to Psalm 23, a Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 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 mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. This is the word of the living God. Let's pray together. Oh Lord, our God, we are thankful for your holy word. And we ask again that tonight you would grant us ears to hear and eyes to see and hearts to believe. Lord Jesus, we ask that by your Holy Spirit, we would truly hear your voice. that distractions, the distractions of our age would be put aside, that our sins would be drowned out by the compelling and mighty and sweet voice of our good shepherd Jesus Christ. Draw our hearts to you, renew our wills, fill our minds with your loveliness and your glory. And we ask that in all things you, our triune God, would be glorified. And these things we ask in Jesus' name, amen. We're turning in the preaching of God's Word tonight, as we read a moment ago, to this well-known Psalm, Psalm 23. You know, the German reformer Martin Luther said that the Psalms are very much a little Bible, a microcosm of the entirety of the Scriptures. He said this, that the Psalms could be called a little Bible or even a miniature Bible because they portray Christ's death and resurrection in such a profound and key way. And I think we could even be more specific and say that Psalm 23 is itself a miniature of the entirety of the Bible, a microcosm even of the whole of the revelation that we have in the Scriptures. That here even in this psalm we have these well-known words, these well-known words of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ in His shepherding care of our souls. And no doubt for the vast majority of you, these words are eminently familiar. You've heard them time and time again. But let our familiarity with these words not breed contempt in our souls. May the Lord, by His grace tonight, work in our hearts that we would recognize that these words are perennially useful, and even as we begin a new year, and we seek to begin this new year with the Lord, that these words would galvanize our confidence in our Good Shepherd, that we would put fear and anxiety away, and that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of our Good Shepherd. These words, as you well know, are known for their profound beauty. and the deep comfort that they have brought to the people of God for millennia. This psalm has been sung by the church, confessed by the church, memorized by the church. It's in her consciousness eminently, and this ought to be. Tonight we again draw comfort and hope for even a new year from these familiar words. As we have lifted up before us our true and our chief shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. In approaching the text, I wanna ask a few simple questions, very simple tonight. I want to begin by asking who particularly is the good shepherd? And unashamedly, we're going to understand Psalm 23 and the full contours of the scriptures, the light and glory of the new covenant. And we'll see that the Lord Jesus Christ himself is our good shepherd. And then secondly, we're going to see, we're going to understand something of how he shepherds our souls, how the Lord Jesus Christ goes about shepherding your soul and mine. And then finally, we'll understand the blessed results. We'll ask the question, what are the blessed results of the shepherding care of our Lord Jesus Christ? Who is our good shepherd? What does he do? And what are the blessed results of his care in our lives? So we begin with, again, looking to the Lord Jesus Christ as himself the great shepherd of the sheep, himself the good shepherd. And I want you to understand as we study Psalm 23, I want you to understand something of the flow of the Psalms, that your Psalter, it's not a random collection. There's a divine intention in the way the Psalter itself is ordered. Particularly, I want you to understand that that these Psalms 20 through 24 are known as kingship Psalms. Psalms that lifted up David as the king of God's people Israel, but beyond David to his greater son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the true king, the one who would sit on David's throne and rule over his people. And then even more narrowly, Psalms 22 through 24 form something of what I like to call a trilogy understanding the trilogy and the drama of redemption. Psalm 22 is about the king who suffers, the king who suffers unspeakable agonies to bring us to himself, the one who on the cross of Calvary in this clear prophecy of the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 22, verse one, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer him by night, but I find no rest. Words that draw us to the profound sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King who suffered. And then, moving ahead, skipping to Psalm 24, the end of the trilogy, we have the victorious King, the victor, the one who conquered sin and death, and those ancient gates of heaven fling open as the victor returned from his conquest enters glory. He does what we in our sinful nature are completely unable to do for ourselves. He secures our redemption and those ancient gates fling open and he ascends the king of glory, the Lord strong and mighty in battle. that Psalm 24 is a Psalm of the Ascension. And now, particularly in Psalm 23, we have an answer to the question, what is our Lord Jesus Christ doing now? How does He exercise His present rule and ministry in our hearts? Between His suffering of unspeakable agony and torment to bring us to Himself. Suffering the full wrath and curse that you and I ought to have suffered. And His glorious ascension and unfading power and majesty. What is He doing now? Psalm 23 is very much a psalm of the current shepherding care of our King. The way He gently and so tenderly yet firmly leads us. That's what Psalm 23 is all about. And it's a psalm that is eminently about the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. The Lord, the one who is full of majesty and glory, the Lord who sits on his throne, the one who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, who is also our shepherd, who comes down, who condescends, who is willing, as it were, to get his hands dirty with us in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who took on our flesh. Shepherds in the Old Covenant were not looked on with favor. They were among the lowest of society. Another reason why, it was the shepherds in Bethlehem who came to the lowly birth to worship our Savior. shepherds were not highly thought of. They had dirty work and caring for the sheep, wandering and smelly creatures. And don't miss, even as these words are beautiful and they're profound, there's also a matchless condescension here. of Jehovah, who in his Son comes in close to us. The Lord of Majesty takes on our flesh in the incarnation and shepherds our souls. And because the Lord Jesus Christ has done this, our confession is, I shall not want. I will not lack or need anything. And this is really the whole psalm in a verse. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. This is everything. Our God has taken to himself our humanity. He has come to bring us his redemption, to bring back our wandering hearts, to redeem us from our sins. This is the gospel. The Lord is my shepherd, and therefore I shall not want. A massive understatement. of the goodness and the grace of our God to us and condescending to us to bring us life and redemption. This is a picture that the Old Testament frequently uses. You likely know, running from Genesis all the way through the prophets, the scriptures frequently bring us back to this glorious picture of a shepherd with his sheep, and that the Lord himself would be the shepherd of his people. Perhaps most poignantly, We find that God's people, Israel, had bad shepherds, false under-shepherds. And the Lord Himself in Ezekiel 34 promises Himself to come and to shepherd His people. Again, another prophecy of the coming work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the face of false shepherds, false priests and prophets who led the people astray. who padded their own pockets, who fleeced the sheep for themselves, who left the sheep wandering and frail, and were only concerned about their own prestige and their own ease. And in the face of those false shepherds, the Lord declares in Ezekiel 34, verse 11, I Myself will search for My sheep and will seek them out. And in verse 15 of the same chapter, I Myself will be the shepherd of My sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down. I will seek the lost, I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak." And this is what the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, His birth and His coming is all about. the Lord coming to shepherd his sheep, to replace the false hired hands who cared nothing for the people of God, to win and redeem the wandering sheep. And so as we turn to the New Covenant, we're not surprised to hear our Lord Jesus, or at least we shouldn't be surprised to hear our Lord Jesus proclaim about himself I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who brings back wanderers, who came to seek and to save the lost, the one who was willing to leave the ninety and nine and to seek the one lost one, the one who binds up the brokenhearted, who redeems the lost, who does everything necessary to secure your salvation and mine. And in the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, you and I can confess the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." And how, particularly, does our Lord Jesus Christ shepherd our soul? Certainly, we look to His grand work of redemption. We understand that He Himself is the great I Am Himself, the one who comes to shepherd us. But our psalm gives us more details as to how He does this good work. Verses two and three, such beautiful and profound poetry. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. And David draws so deeply, doesn't he, on his own experience as a shepherd of dealing with the wandering sheep and the way that the shepherd patiently and steadfastly cares for the sheep. This is precisely how Jehovah deals with us. If you know anything, and this is a fitting analogy, fitting illustration, because if you know anything about sheep, despite the beautiful and profound poetry before us in Psalm 23, sheep are not pleasant creatures. They are foolish. They are very unwise. They're quick to wander. They are smelly. They're difficult. They're often defenseless. and needy. I grew up on a small farm in Alabama. We had mostly goats. We did have one sheep, and shortly after that sheep was sheared by my dad and my uncle, the sheep disappeared, never to be seen again. Shepherding is difficult work. But the Old Testament proclaims the truth that Jehovah is up to the task, that the Lord is able to shepherd His people. And you see this so profoundly, don't you, in the account of the people of God, the sheep, as it were, of God. in the wilderness wandering, the faithfulness of God as the shepherd, and the unfaithfulness, and the wandering, the incessant wandering of the sheep. Sheep who were brought out of Egypt by God's mighty hand and His outstretched arm. You would think that that would have been enough to see the Red Sea parted, brought through, the people brought through on dry land, to see that central act of redemption in the Old Covenant. All of God's mercy and grace for His people there, you would think that would have been enough. But what do these people do? As sheep typically do, they wander and they fail in unbelief. They doubt the provision of the shepherd. They complain and the Lord kindly and graciously gives them manna. They need water, and He brings them water out of the rock. They commit that great sin, that sordid sin of idolatry with the golden calf, but yet even in the midst of judgment, the Lord remembers His mercy, and He shows His steadfast love to them. Time and time again, we learn in the Old Testament that though the people of God are wandering sheep, that He is up to the task. of shepherding us, of bringing His promises home to our hearts, and again, in the Lord Jesus Christ, doing everything necessary to secure our redemption, to make us, to make us lie down in green pastures and walk beside the still waters, to restore our souls, and even to lead us in the paths of righteousness for His own namesake. Perhaps a question that you're asking, you might be thinking this very question, how particularly does the Lord Jesus restore my soul? How does he make me lie down in green pastures? How does he lead me beside the still waters? I accept the fact that He is the Good Shepherd in the full light and glory of what we read in John's Gospel, Chapter 10. I accept the fact that the Lord Jesus Himself is the Good Shepherd. But how particularly does He shepherd my soul now? He's ascended, as I've already indicated, from Psalm 24. He's the King of unfading glory at the right hand of the Father. How does He shepherd your soul and mine? and saving us was long ago and far away, around the globe, 2,000 years ago. How does He continue to shepherd our souls today? And He does so, brothers and sisters, through the simple and ordinary means of grace. How is it that the Lord restores your soul and mind? How is it that He leads us in paths of righteousness? He gives us the simple means of grace by which he continues to faithfully shepherd our souls week in and week out. He does that primarily through the word as it's proclaimed. You hear the voice of your shepherd even tonight calling you back to himself. You hear his assurance of pardon through the word every Lord's Day morning and every Lord's Day evening as you're reminded of your sinfulness and even your wandering as a sheep. You, through the ministry of the Word, you're reminded of the care of your Good Shepherd, His forgiving mercy, His tenderness toward you, His disposition of mercy and grace even to you in the midst of your wandering. He corrects you by His Word, even His, as we see in verse 4, even His rod and His staff, those instruments of discipline, they bring comfort to you, even in the hard things, even in the warnings of Scripture. Even in the rebukes of Scripture, even as those are proclaimed, the Lord Jesus actively brings you back to Himself. He feeds you. He builds you up. He removes from you the distractions of the world. And even here, as I prayed a few moments ago, He drowns out our sin and our rebellion and the voices that we hear all week long, and He speaks clearly to us in His Word and by the Holy Spirit. You can also think about the sacraments, the way that the word proclaimed becomes visible in the signs and seals of the covenants, the bread and the wine and the holy supper and the waters of baptism. It's there that the Lord Jesus continues to shepherd his flock. You think of the work that your elders do in calling you to follow Christ. And it's significant that the elders of the church are under shepherds, serving. in the same pattern as the chief shepherd, as the great shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ, that the elders are called to care for your souls, to watch over you as those who will give an account for the sheep. It's in these ways that the Lord Jesus Christ, though you cannot see him with your physical eyes, yet he comes in close, he comes near to you, he restores your soul, he brings you back from your wandering, and he's faithful to you. But there's even more that we can say about the work that our Lord Jesus does as our Good Shepherd. He's with us in the regular weekend, week out of the means of grace, but He's also with us in the darkness. He's with us in the valley of the shadow of death. You see, you may receive that faithful weekly shepherding of the Word and sacrament and the work that your elders do. You may accept all that. But then, our psalm changes from these beautiful, profound picture of green pastures and still waters, changes to the hard place, the difficult place, the valley of the shadow of death. And perhaps it's there, well it is there, that our faith can be tested and our faith could even be shaken. And we wonder, is the Lord Jesus with me there? And certainly it's particularly there. that He meets us, that He restores us, and He comforts us. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Even your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Our Lord Jesus ministers to us faithfully in all of our life, but particularly and the deepest trials of our souls. The Lord promises to continue that faithful work. And even, could we even put it this way, He comes in closer, displaying His presence to His people even there in the hour of our greatest distress. We can be assured He is. not leave us or forsake us. And this is so much more than the pious cliches that the world might try to give us, the semi-pious things that people try to say, the words of encouragement that we receive from others. These are not just happy things that we try to say to take the edge off our suffering. Understand that the comfort that your Good Shepherd brings you, it's rooted in what He's already done. Understand again, and perhaps you're there tonight, perhaps there's a deep trial of soul, perhaps it's the loss of a loved one, or a child in distress, or a marriage in difficulty, or sickness, and physical pain and calamity, but whatever your situation, understand this, that the Lord Jesus is not merely giving you a pious platitude or words of encouragement, but He, by His very Word and Spirit, comes in close to shepherd your soul in the valley of the shadow. Again, we go back to what I said earlier regarding Psalm 23 and its place in this altar. These privileges, and particularly this privilege of a shepherd who is with us the whole way, it comes from one who knows the valley of the shadow of death himself. It comes from a savior who hung naked and bleeding on a cross, crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far to help me? The Lord Jesus is with you in the valley of the shadow of death because He has gone through the same valley, even death itself. And for Him, there was not this consolation and encouragement. Because of our sin and the mystery of the cross work that He accomplished for us, the Father, as it were, turned His face away, laying the full weight of our sin and our curse on His shoulders. He drank the bitter cup, foaming full of God's wrath against our sin. He bore our penalty and our curse. He suffered profound physical and spiritual torment. He faced down death himself and emerged victorious. And so in our valley of the shadow, He is yet with us. and He brings His promises to bear. He shepherds our souls, and He will never leave us or forsake us. He's with us the whole way. What a comfort for you and me, even as we think about death. Perhaps even some of you, death terrifies you. You can't bear to think about it. You love to think about life, and at the beginning of a new year, you focus your thoughts on life, but you have the, perhaps even for some of you, there's the increasing awareness that your life is fleeting by before your eyes, and you know that it's appointed unto us once to die, and after that, the judgment, barring the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. And you wonder how you could face death. understand that our Lord Jesus has taken our curse, He's taken our death Himself, and He is with us even in the valley of the shadow. And there He comforts us, there He will be with us, and He, through the power of His resurrection, will bring us through. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ shepherds His church. And then finally, these blessed results of the shepherding care of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. How do we end up? Well, we end up at a table and at home. Verses 5 and 6. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. First, The Lord seats us at a table, and a table there even in the presence of our enemies. You see, the Lord Jesus does so much more than the average shepherd in Israel. The average shepherd in Israel long ago would have thought nothing of spreading a table before the sheep, of feeding them in the presence of wolves, in the presence of their enemies. But the Lord Jesus says, I who have shepherded you through the valley of the shadow of death, even in the presence of your enemies, I will set a table before you. the food and the drink will be abundant. I'll anoint your head with oil, a symbol of generosity and the kindness of the Lord, and I'll make your cup overflow. He who drank down that cup, foaming full of the wrath of God against our sin, hands us not an empty cup, but a cup that's overflowing, that's filled with every spiritual blessing in himself. He seats us at His table. We're reminded of this, aren't we, every time we come to the Lord's Supper, of the table that our Good Shepherd sets before us. And again, as I said a few moments ago, it's there that He shepherds our souls. And this is a blessed result of this table. even that we celebrate frequently here and now points us to a coming table, to a better feast, the feast of the marriage supper of the Lamb, that last great day when our shepherd will take the place of the host at the table of the Lord in glory and seat us at his guests, there free from all of our enemies, there to enjoy endless communion with him. A table and a home. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." We long for home. We long to truly be at home as the wandering sheep, and our Good Shepherd promises to bring us all the way. All the way through the ups and downs of this life. All the way, particularly, through the valley of the shadow of death as we face down our sins and our miseries, and to bring us home to be with Him. And at the end of the book, at the end of the Scriptures, we read of the Lamb of God who Himself shepherds our souls and brings us to the house of the Lord forever. There we read in the revelation of John, of those saints who are before the throne of God, who serve him every day and night in his temple. There, they shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore. The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water. and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. This is what our good shepherd will do one day. He who is himself the Lamb of God slain for our sins will shepherd our souls, will bring us to the house of the Lord, will wipe away all of our tears. All that's evil and wrong will be put down, and he will seed us at home with the Father, himself by the Spirit. This is the promise of the gospel. This is the home that we long for. So I challenge you tonight, even in the face of a new year and embracing these promises of your good shepherd, do you think about the end of all things? Do you think of the end or the goal of all of this shepherding care? Do you think about your eternal home and glory? How much time do you spend meditating on heaven, on the heavenly life? John Calvin, a reformer that you all hold dear, and I do as well, wrote much on our need to meditate on the heavenly life, to think much of that new Jerusalem, of our eternal home, and the way that our affections are sharpened for that better day. Not to diminish our earthly usefulness, but actually to sharpen that earthly usefulness, to cause us to think with more urgency and potency about that coming day, that this life is not all that there is, that we confess that we believe in the life of the world to come. How much time do you spend meditating on heaven? Do you think about that endless and eternal communion that you will enjoy with the Triune God and with all of his people? Do you worship now with a view to worship then? Do you understand that worship every Lord's Day morning and evening is preparation and practice, if you will, for worship then, as you're brought to the house of the Lord forever? Do you find an increasing hunger and anticipation in your heart for glory? and in the face of your remaining sin, in the face of a world that hates the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the face of a devil who seeks to do everything he can to oppose Christ's crown and covenant, do you hunger for that last great day when we will stand with Christ in glory? May the Lord, by His Word and Spirit, feed that longing. And then one more thing, back to Really, the psalm in a nutshell, that verse one, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. There's one more word in that confession that I call your attention to. The Lord is not simply our shepherd, the Lord is my shepherd. Can you say that tonight? That the Lord is my shepherd. Have you heard the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ calling you to himself? For so many of you, you've embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. You love him. Even as you hear his word again tonight, embrace him with greater fervency and faith. Love him and serve him and follow him with all that you are and all that you have. And perhaps there's someone here who you've actually never confessed this. You do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your shepherd. You're wandering, you're running. Come to Him. He delights, He delights to receive lost sheep, and to receive you into His kingdom, and to give you not only these benefits of His shepherding, but to give you Himself, to make you His sheep, to tend and to care for you, and to draw you to Himself. Don't try to do that on your own. You're a wandering sheep. You're lost and dead apart from Jesus Christ. Repent of your sin. Repent even of your good works to try to save yourself and come to the Lord Jesus Christ. Confess Him as your shepherd. He loves to receive such. He welcomes you into His presence so that you can confess, the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want. Let us pray.