Gracious Father, for your presence in the power of the Holy Spirit, for the joy of singing the praises of our Saviour Jesus, for the encouragement of one another's voices and presence, and for the gift of your Word and its power, and for the wonderful ministry of our Lord Jesus, who is our true and real preacher, We give you our thanks and praise. Pray as we come that by his spirit he will minister his word to us and take its riches like loaves of bread. and share them with us and multiply the power and grace of the truth that as each of us comes from different circumstances and histories and needs and futures, we pray we may afresh discover this marvel that you speak to each of us as well as all of us through your Word. So, look upon us, Lord, as we look to you for your blessing in Jesus Christ our Savior's name. Amen. Please be seated. Now we began last Lord's Day a little series on some of the Psalms and with a view to the installation service today of our officers we are turning in the series this morning to the 23rd Psalm, which you'll find in the Pew Bible on page 458. And for our children who have their children's Bible, you'll find the passage on page 680. Let us hear God's word. The 23rd Psalm, 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 still waters. He restores my soul. He leads 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 mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. I suspect that there are two quite different reactions in a congregation when the 23rd Psalm is read, just as I often suspect on public occasions as well as church occasions there are two different reactions when someone says, we will now sing Amazing Grace. Either you think, oh good, that's my favourite, Or you think, oh no, not the 23rd Psalm yet again. Not singing Amazing Grace again with people who don't seem to find that grace very amazing at all. I find myself for the first half of my life in the category of the oh noes. I'm not quite sure I'm yet in the category of the O yeses. That's my favorite. But I certainly am among those and was certainly among them for many years as a gospel minister. who thought of Psalm 23 as an, oh no, not that again. And so it took me a good number of years and probably many experiences to understand what Martin Luther meant when he said that the 23rd Psalm is a miniature Bible And since then, I think, to be honest, I have found that perhaps of all passages in the Old Testament Scriptures, the 23rd Psalm is a passage that fits everybody and it fits everywhere. And therefore, it shouldn't surprise us that it also fits in a service where officers of the church, elders and deacons are ordained and installed. Both of these offices, as those two passages that are added in the order of service are meant to underline, both of these offices have their origin and their great exemplar in our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, says Peter, is the great shepherd of the flock of God. And, says Paul in that little passage in Romans 15, although it's not brought out so clearly in our translation, the Lord Jesus Christ became a deacon. He became a servant of the circumcised, that is the Jewish people, in order that the blessing of God might come to the Gentiles. In His ministry, and if you're familiar with the Gospels, it's rather an obvious thing to say. In His ministry, Jesus fulfilled both the role of the shepherd of His little flock. He called His disciples His little flock. And He also fulfilled the ministry of a deacon to them. One person fulfilling both ministries. and one person fulfilling both ministries because they are actually one ministry. The New Testament makes it crystal clear that with one exception, that is, that elders have an aptitude to teach. With one exception, the characteristics of an elder and the characteristics of a deacon are absolutely identical. So, this is not a two-tier system in our church. This is not Presbyterians wishing they were Episcopalians and introducing a little hierarchy into the life of the church. This is a common ministry that elders and deacons share together with diverse responsibilities both equally needed in order to give expression in the life of the fellowship of who Jesus Christ is and how Jesus Christ ministers to us. And that is actually what the 23rd Psalm is about. The 23rd Psalm is a psalm that is fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. He made that crystal clear himself, didn't he, in John chapter 10. I am the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. So if we read the 23rd Psalm and all we learn about is how to look after sheep, we've really missed the point altogether. If we look at the 23rd Psalm and all we learn about is the vagaries of David's life, that may be a little better, but we have still missed the point. This is a psalm, ultimately, about the Lord Jesus and the ministry of the Lord Jesus. You remember how that's caught up at the end of Revelation chapter 7, where in that marvelous picture, John sees the lamb who had been standing at the throne of God as though he had been slain, and how that lamb becomes the shepherd of the flock. for whose salvation He has died upon the cross. And so here in the 23rd Psalm we have a wonderful exposition of the ministry of the Lord Jesus among His people. and therefore a wonderful exposition in its own way of what it means for elders and deacons to care for the flock, to be the eyes and ears and hands and feet of the Lord Jesus to minister to us. And actually, one might almost say the figure in the 23rd Psalm is both elder shepherd and deacon. In the first four verses, it's a picture of the spiritual nurture of God's people. In verse 5, it's a picture of Jesus as the deacon. He prepares a table for His sheep in the presence of His enemies. He anoints our heads with oil. Our cup overflows. Goodness and mercy pursue us all the days of our lives. So, what is this caring ministry of our Lord Jesus? Well, let me just walk you through the psalm, looking at it through these lenses of how the Lord Jesus shepherds us as His flock. and in what ways he might use those who are officers in our church as elders and deacons. And right at the very beginning of the psalm in verse 1, the principle thing is, isn't it, that the shepherd sees it as his responsibility to feed his flock. Now, most of us are city dwellers and we see all kinds of animals running around Columbia, but it's rare to see a sheep running around Columbia. And there's something that sheep depend on. They depend on good pasture land. Any of you ever of the good fortune to go to any of the islands on which I used to live way off the north coast of Scotland? Very barren places. And you could see it in the sheep. And many of the sheep were scrawny. You know what scrawny means? It's in Webster, so you know what scrawny means. It means exactly what it sounds like. There are sheep that can look like goats because they've never been well nourished on good pasture and they're weak. And actually, they're fairly ugly and unattractive. Of course, what is in view here is the Lord Jesus cares for His sheep. The Good Shepherd feeds His sheep. He makes them lie down in green pastures. He leads them beside quiet waters. My dear friends, if I am not mistaken, in the Western world, the Christian church is full of scrawny sheep, sometimes almost indistinguishable from goats, who have not been well nourished and fed on the Word of God. John Stott, who recently went to be with the Lord, used to speak about sermonettes producing Christianettes. It was a very polite Anglican way of putting it, wasn't it? Much more polite than scrawny sheep. Do you know, ministers find this in all kinds of ways. In other occasions, when we are elsewhere or sometimes even here on Wednesdays when visitors come and all we do is walk them through a passage of Scripture and visitors come and speak to us as though we'd produced a revelation, a supernatural revelation from heaven that morning. Of course, in a sense we have. But it makes you wonder. You mentally say to yourself, What are you being fed on if somebody simply explains what the words in the passage mean and you say, I've never heard this before? One of the most obvious ways in which this becomes evident in our world is the way in which professing Christian people are so easily taken in. And often how they are running about hither and yon in order to be nurtured and nourished. One of the things that's happened because of this is so many Christian people believe that the really important things that build them up are to be found somewhere outside of their own church. And so the great primary responsibility that our elders especially have is that we should be a well-fed and well-nourished people. It's one thing, my friends, for them to seek to provide us with the food. It's another and more challenging thing in many ways for them to encourage us to eat the food and to be satisfied and well-nourished. And this is our great need. Our great need is to be attractive sheep, clean sheep, well-fed sheep, who look as though the gospel has made a difference to us. And so, David speaks about the Lord feeding us. And then, thankfully, I'm so thankful that this follows immediately at the beginning of verse 3, that he also restores us. The 23rd Psalm is not yet another lecture in having good morals. It's the story of a Savior who comes and searches for lost sheep and restores them. It's one of the paradoxes of the way we read the 23rd Psalm that we think it's rather lovely to be sheep. We think it's a beautiful way of describing Christians. Well, in some senses it is. But if that's all you think, you've obviously never driven on a highland road in Scotland and sat beside your steering wheel on the only side of the road there probably is, fuming and fussing at these stupid sheep who simply don't seem to be able to follow their shepherd's commands. And they're all over the place. We're by definition spiritually stupid. There would be more polite ways of putting it, but that's the way the Bible puts it. And the strange thing is that, you know, if I were sitting where you're sitting and you were standing where I'm standing and you said to me, stupid Christian, I think I would feel, you know, what do you have for breakfast this morning? But we sing about it without giving it a second thought. I was a wandering sheep. until Jesus found me, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Souls of men, why will ye scatter like a crowd of frightened sheep? It's amazing what we are prepared to sing about as though it were true. But this psalm is saying that actually by nature we are spiritually stupid and we wonder. And the great thing is, this is, oh, if you could only get one thing out of this message and out of this, Sam, it's this. He restores wandering sheep. And He's willing to bring them home. And you can come to Him. You can trust Him. He knows, my friend, He knows absolutely everything about you. There's no point in trying to hide it. There's a point in trying to hide it from other people. I understand that because they don't know. But there's no point in trying to hide your sin, your failure, your need from the Lord Jesus. He already knows it. And He's willing to restore you. What a wonderful word this is. And actually, what a word this is to those who are officers in our church, that we should be more and more the kind of people to whom those who have messed up are willing to come. You don't want to go to a Pharisee when you've messed up, do you? You want to go to somebody who will open their heart to you, as Jesus would open his heart to you. So, he feeds us, he restores us, and then beautifully in the second half of verse 3, he does a third thing. He guides us. There's a whole discourse on guidance in this one text. If you want to know the essence of being guided by God, it's in this single text. Look at what he says. He says, He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Here are the two fundamental questions that I need to write over every decision that I take. every perplexity that I'm trying to see through and asking myself the question, Lord, what is your way for me here? Question number one, what's the right path according to God's Word? It's as simple as that. You'll not pluck it out of the air. You'll not find it written in the circumstances of your life. But He has set out for us in principles and illustrations and exhortations in His Word the right path to follow that enables us to take the truth of His Word and apply it to the situations of our life and to say, this is the Lord's path for me. That's actually why the feeding is so important. And learning to feed ourselves is so important. And that's why often ministers like me find themselves constantly being asked by people questions about guidance. Because we don't feed ourselves on God's Word that creates within us instincts to sense how this Word applies to this situation. And then the second question is this. If the first is, what is God's Word? Teach me. The second question is this. Is this going to glorify God? Is this more than anything else I can see I could possibly do? Is this the way to glorify God? And that's what the shepherd does. That's what the under shepherds are called to do. To keep bringing us back to the Word and keep lifting us up to the glory of God. I am just astonished how many times I find myself thinking, oh yes, it's the first answer in the Shorter Catechism. Again and again and again. My chief end is to glorify God, and when I glorify God, I know I'll enjoy Him forever and walk in His ways. And then of course, there's a fourth thing here. Because the God who comes in Christ to feed us and restore us and guide us is also the Savior who comes simply to be with us, and especially in times of darkness. Verse 4, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." If your eyesight's good enough and you can look down at that number three reference in the English Standard Version, you'll notice that these words, they're actually more prosaic than they are in our translations. David didn't actually say anything about the valley of the shadow of death. He spoke about the valley of deep darkness. And of course, for most of us, the valley of deepest darkness is the valley of the shadow that our death or someone else's death casts upon us. You know, I think this is one of the reasons why this passage is so often read at funerals, even even by unbelievers. There's a there's a lyrical comfort in the words. But, you know, most of us in this room live with this all of the time, don't we? Most of us in this room, whether the shadow is a few weeks long or a few years long or decades long, the shadow of death casts itself onto the light of our lives. And isn't it true, I wonder if you find this as well, that the longer you go on, the more surprised you are to discover the depths of the sore pain of losing those you have loved deeply. And the more you go on, It's almost as though the Lord says, I think this is what I feel He sometimes says to me, Sinclair, I've been keeping something back from you. I've been holding it in and you haven't noticed. And now I think perhaps you're able to bear it. The plug is taken away and all the deep, deep emotion of loss and sorrow comes like some volcano upon your emotions and you realize the whole of life is this. What's the solution? What's the solution? Well, He. He comes. That's it. That's all. There's no quick fix. There are no ten steps. Jesus comes. and he walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. I remember reading about the first British physician who died of AIDS. He had contracted it working as a doctor in an African country and he was a Christian man. As he lay dying he was incapable of speech but his wife knew he wanted to say something to her and she gave him a pad and he wrote the letter J. And she went through all the things that she thought began with J. Did he need juice? Or did he want jam on his bread? Or was it John? Or was it James? And then eventually she realized and she wrote down on his pad, Jesus. That was it. Jesus. I think of another friend who was a very senior and extraordinarily bright student when I was a very junior student, became a distinguished professor of mathematics in Scotland and he kept a friendship with me and years ago now, I think she was probably 17 or 18, his daughter died. And I'll never in all my life forget shaking hands with Him on that occasion and Him saying to me these memorable words, we know now that we have nothing left to fear. That's it, isn't it? Sorrow. He supports you. And then sometimes He allows you to feel the depths of it. But even though we walk through the valley of deep darkness, the valley of the shadow of death, we have nothing to fear because the Lord Jesus is with us. That's the thing we most need in our elders and deacons, incidentally. is that when you meet them, it's what we need in each other, isn't it? That when we meet them, we have a sense that Jesus is with them. Because He's everything. And then, says David, He not only is with us in the darkness, but He provides for us. And the scene changes a bit. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. And there you anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. It's actually the most mysterious statement in the psalm. Shepherds don't do this kind of thing. They don't do it in the Far East. This is not an idiosyncrasy of Far Eastern shepherds that they take their sheep into enemy occupied territory and then say, this is the place I've chosen for picnic. It's a picture of the sheer confidence that the Lord Jesus has that he is able to keep his sheep in any situation. So here the wolves are howling around us and he's spreading the tablecloth and saying, now, you're safe here. And this beautiful picture, think of that heat and the parching of the sun and he anoints the head with oil and he gives this marvelously refreshing drink. I think of Elisha, you remember that morning when his servant boy went out for the milk or whatever? He was in Dothan, and the hills are filled with the horsemen and the chariots of the Syrian army, and the wee boy runs back in panic, masturbating. You're lost! They're all over the place. And Elisha takes the boy out, and he says, O Lord, open the young man's eyes. And he sees the hosts of the Lord encircling the Syrian army. It's a fantastic picture. Do you remember what happens next? the Syrian army is blinded and they lead them into the city of Samaria and the king says let's chop their heads off, let's get rid of them, do you want us to kill them all, Elisha? Do you remember what Elisha says? This is a paraphrase. I think my tummy is rumbling. My servant boy went out to get milk and all these fellows, they've not had breakfast either. No, he says give them something to eat. the sheer poise of it all. My dear friends, Jesus is never ruffled. Jesus never loses His poise or His confidence in His ability to see you through. And in the midst of it all, O blessed experience, when in the midst of it all, when life is collapsing, when people seem to be against you, when you've struggled through dark valleys, you sense that in His presence you are safe from all of your enemies. And then in verse 6, He leads us all the way home. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord. Do you know what the basic task of an elder or a deacon is in our church? It's to make sure with all their powers that they do everything they can to get you into heaven. So that when you leave First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, you step straight into First Presbyterian Church in heaven. And it is a Presbyterian church. Revelation tells us there are elders round the throne. Let's never be ashamed to be Presbyterians. But that's our task. And we may fail in many things, but in this one thing, we never want to fail. My first boss when I was 23, a very young minister, and he was the age I now am. except he was mature and seemed to have it all together. And he loved this story. And I took it with a pinch of salt until I'd actually read it in more than one place about two English Christian gentlemen who came to the highlands of Scotland many years ago for their vacation. And as they were walking in the hills, they came across a little shepherd boy. As they spoke to him, they wanted to tell him about Jesus and he didn't know about Jesus. And so they thought they would use the 23rd Psalm. And so they explained how Jesus is the good shepherd and they taught him the words. And they said, now when you say the words, do it like this. The Lord is my shepherd. And if there's ever a day when you come to trust in the Lord Jesus, then say it this way. The Lord is my shepherd. They came back the next year, looked for the little boy, couldn't find him, discovered that he'd been caught in a snowstorm. and had died. They were sympathetic and the person who told them said, there was something very strange about him as he lay there that none of us could understand. He lay there holding his right forefinger in his left hand. The Lord is my shepherd. That's something else Martin Luther said. He said, you're not a Christian until you can use that personal pronoun yourself. Can you? The Lord is my shepherd. And it's also the end of the sermon. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for giving the Lord Jesus to us as our shepherd. Bless those who will shepherd us and make us a blessing to them, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.