When Life Feels Steady 4: The Shepherd Who Leads

When I was going through school, I happened to be able to do quite well at school.

I was usually competing for marks at the top of the class.

And I then made an assumption that when I got out into the world, I would be able to do the same things I did at school and have the same results.

That I could apply my best thinking and my best energy to the challenges before me, and I would be able to accomplish whatever I set my hand to do and achieve the goals and dreams I had for myself.

Boy, did I get a rude awakening.

I found out life isn't like that at all.

It's not like school.

Anyway, for me.

And what I actually found was that the things that I set my hand to, the things that I really wanted to accomplish, and it didn't matter which realm it was in, whether it was in the area of finances or work or relationships, I would apply my best thinking and my best energies towards those goals that I had, those plans that I wanted to accomplish.

And I would be left with nothing but sawdust and ashes.

And on top of all that, what made it especially frustrating for me anyway is that at the same time all this was happening, there would be other things in my life where I applied no intention, no energy, no thinking, and they turned out to be incredible blessings.

So for example, I went to a dance, and during a break in the music, my future wife drops into my lap.

Or we go to uh a summer church camp with our family at a point in my life where I'm extremely frustrated with my role as an agent for fertilizer and fuel, and I get a nudge towards uh a type of work that's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life.

And then Susan and I spend our entire equity that we had in our acreage near old so that I could go back to school and we could, you know, have groceries during that time.

And when I get placed in Southwest Saskatchewan, we end up having another acreage.

And so clearly the way I approached life was not working, and I had to find another way to live.

Because what was going on was on the one hand, I was causing, I was causing difficult problems for myself, and on the other hand, enjoying great blessings that I did not cause or create.

And so the question that I'm asking all of you to think about with me this morning is how do we live an abundant life in a world that doesn't function as we would like?

And to help us as we do that, we're going to conclude our series today called Psalms for Grounded Living.

But we're going to do it with one of the most well-known and best loved passages in all of scripture, and that's Psalm 23.

So if you have a Bible or a Bible app nearby, I invite you to turn there now.

Psalm 23 was written by David, and that a fact alone is worth pausing on for a moment.

Before David was a king, before he was a warrior, he was a shepherd boy.

He spent his boyhood in the fields outside of Bethlehem tending his father's flocks, learning how to read the land so he could find the best pastures for his father's flocks.

He learned how to protect the sheep from wolves and other predators.

He knew from lived experience what it meant to care for creatures that could not care for themselves.

And then when the Spirit of God moved him to write this psalm, he reached for the most intimate image that he knew.

He did not write the Lord as my general.

He did not write the Lord as my architect or planner.

He wrote, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Now the word want here in this verse means to lack, to be without something essential.

Now, David's not saying that life would be painless or that every desire will be satisfied.

He is making a far bolder claim.

For what he is saying is that when the Lord is your shepherd, you will truly lack nothing that you really need.

Because the shepherd provides.

And what does the shepherd provide?

He provides green pastures, still waters, a restored soul, and paths of righteousness.

Now, Philip Teller, who actually worked as a shepherd, for writing an outstanding commentary on Psalm 23, points out that sheep do not find green pastures on their own.

If they were left to themselves, they would over-graze a patch of ground down to the bare dirt and then stand looking in it, bewildered, unable to move to the next field.

Because they would not know how to get there.

I too have raised sheep.

The shepherd has to lead them to the green pastures.

And so David wrote, He makes me lie down in green pastures.

You see, abundant nourishment and rest are not something that the sheep manufacture.

These are gifts from the shepherd as he provides for his sheep.

Now the still waters matter also.

See, sheep cannot drink from rushing streams.

A swift current terrifies them, and rightly so, because if they fall into the water, their wool will get waterlogged and they'll be swept away by the current and drug under the water.

They need a shepherd who will find the quiet pools of water where they can safely drink.

So David wrote, He leads me beside still waters.

And perhaps we could ask ourselves how many of us are trying to drink from the rushing stream of our own driven, anxious, overscheduled lives, and wondering why we are still thirsty.

David continues with these words, he restores my soul.

Now, the Hebrew word for restore carries the sense of bringing back something that was lost.

Something like a returning a wanderer or reviving what was depleted.

Now, this is not a minor tune-up that's being spoken of here.

This is resurrection language applied to daily life.

You see, the shepherd specializes in bringing back to us that which seems to us is gone.

We continue, he leads me, the shepherd leads us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Now, note carefully the wording here.

It's saying that the shepherd leads us in right paths, good paths, true paths, not because of good things we have done, but because of who he is.

You see, he loves us, the shepherd, and he only wants what is best for us.

So that's why he leads us on good paths.

And so the righteous direction of our lives is not originated or secured by our performance in any way, but by our shepherd's character.

And therefore, our path truly is safe because of who he is, not because of who we are.

Now, verse 4 is a point where the psalm takes a turn and it almost feels like a sharp bend in the road.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, David writes.

Now, notice the word in this sentence through.

It doesn't say that we will walk around or above the valley of the shadow of death, but through.

The valley does not get removed from the map.

But in no valley that we may ever, ever go through, whether that's grief or illness or failure or even the final darkness of death, we are never, ever, ever, ever, ever walking alone.

Because the shepherd is with us.

Your rod and they stuff, your staff, they comfort me.

Now the rod was the shepherd's weapon, a heavy club he would use to drive off predators and protect the flock.

And the staff was the long crook that he would use to guide sheep away from danger and even pull them back from the edge of a cliff when they had wandered too close.

You see, the shepherd is both protector and rescuer.

He is armed for our sake, and he is attentive to where we are at and what we need.

And then something astonishing happens in verse 5.

The imagery shifts.

And we read, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

And so we're no longer in a field with a flock, we are at a banquet.

And the sheep has become an honored guest, seated at the host's own table, anointed with oil as a mark of welcome and honor, with a cup that cannot hold all of the goodness being poured into it.

This is abundance in the middle of hostility.

A feast set right in front of your enemies, not after they are gone.

And then the final verse reaches even further still.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all of the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Now, the word follow here in Hebrew is uh Radaf, and it's the same word used of an army pursuing enemies in battle.

And so David is not saying that goodness and mercy will amble along behind him, you know, if he's doing things right, if he's lucky.

What he's saying here is that goodness and mercy are in hot pursuit of him, and every day of his life, God's goodness and mercy are running after him.

And where does all of this lead?

I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Not for a season, not until the next crisis, but forever.

And who is this shepherd?

Now, Psalm 23 describes him with incredible beauty, but does not give his name.

But Jesus does.

In John chapter 10, he says it plainly.

John 10 · chapter mention

He says, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

In the previous verse, he tells us why he has come.

He said, I have come that they, meaning us, may have life and have it to the full.

Life to the full.

Abundance.

And so here then is the answer to the question we raised in the beginning: how do we live an abundant life in a world that doesn't function as we would like?

It's not by working smarter, it's not by trying harder, it's by following the good shepherd who came to give us the very life we have been searching for.

But to be our shepherd, Jesus had to do something that no earthly shepherd would ever do.

He chose to walk into the darkest valley of them all.

Not alongside us, but for us.

The good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep.

On a cross outside of Jerusalem, Jesus took the full weight of everything that threatens us, our sin, our guilt, our mortality, our separation from God, and he absorbed it all.

And three days later, he walked out of that tomb.

He was placed in alive.

And this is the good news at the center of Psalm 23.

The shepherd, dear friends, has already been through our darkest valley for us.

He knows the way through because he's walked personally.

Death could not hold him, and because it could not hold him, it does not have the final word over those who belong to him.

And that includes each and every one of you.

And so, what does all of this mean for us right here and right now?

Maybe you've been doing what I have been trying to do for many years.

Trying to lead yourself.

Maybe you have a plan, a strategy, a set of goals, and you are driving hard towards them.

And yet something feels hollow.

Or something keeps going wrong.

And you cannot understand why.

It could be that the sheep has been trying to be its own shepherd.

And remember, Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

Not the life you or I have engineered, but the life that Jesus gives is the abundant life.

Maybe you are in a valley right now.

The diagnosis has come and the world went quiet.

The relationship you counted on has fractured.

Or maybe the grief is so heavy that getting through a single day feels like a victory.

And you cannot see a way through.

But the good shepherd, I want to assure you, is already with you in the depths of that dark valley.

And he's not watching from a safe distance, he's right there with you, with his rod in one hand and his staff extended in the other, walking the same dark ground you are in.

And he knows the way up.

Or maybe your life is going well and you find yourself like I did, quietly aware that some of the best things in your life are not things that you've planned or earned.

You received them.

Maybe it's a relationship, a calling, an unexpected grace that arrived without warning and changed everything for you.

That is the good shepherd at work in your life.

That is goodness and mercy and hot pursuit of you.

In every case, the invitation the shepherd is giving to us is this to stop trying to lead ourselves.

The sheep that insists on choosing its own path does not find green pastures.

It finds bare dirt and rushing water and the edge of cliffs.

You see, abundance is not self-degenerated, it's a gift received from the one who knows exactly where the still waters are, exactly which path is the right one, and exactly how to walk through every valley we will ever face.

And so I'm asking you to consider with me these questions.

Where in your life are you trying to be your own shepherd?

And what would it look like to hand that part of your life over to Jesus?

Corey Ten Boom was the daughter of a watchmaker in the Netherlands, and she lived during a time when the Netherlands was under Nazi occupation during World War II, and she and her family hid uh several Jewish people to save them from the Nazis.

In 1944, I believe it was, they were turned in by a neighbor and arrested, taken into custody.

Her father died within 10 days of his arrest.

And her sister, I believe her name is Betsy, died in a concentration camp where both she and Corey were sent.

And when Corey was a little girl, and she writes this about the story in her book, The Hiding Place, she had been reading a book about Christian martyrs.

And she ran to her father crying one day, and she said, I could never have.

Have the courage I would need to be willing to suffer or even perhaps die for my fate.

And her father wisely said to her, Cory, when we take the train to Amsterdam, when do I give you your ticket for the train?

She said, on the platform, just before we board the train.

And he goes, That's right.

And it's the same with God.

He doesn't give us the courage we need for the challenges we will face ahead of time.

But he will give us the courage we need for those challenges at exactly the right time when we need them.

And years later, when she was in the Ravensbrook concentration camp, and she saw and experienced horrors that are beyond what she could have ever imagined.

She found that her father's words were true.

That God did give her the courage she needed to face that challenge.

Right when she needed it.

And not only that, she was able to see God's grace at work then and later in her life.

And after World War II, she traveled the world talking about God's love and grace and forgiveness.

So, dear friends, the shepherd does not ask us to gather our courage in advance for valleys we have not yet entered.

He asks that when we get to the platform, the ticket we need will be there.

Jesus is the good shepherd.

He has walked the darkest valley and come out the other side.

His goodness and mercy are an active pursuit of you.

Not someday, but today.

And he has come to give you life and to give it to you in the full with abundance.

And so the action step that I'm setting before you today is this: to take one place in your life where you have been trying to lead yourself and give it to the Good Shepherd.

Perhaps you might, as you identify that one area of your life, pray Psalm 23 over it.

And be aware, this is not wishful thinking that we engage in as we follow Jesus, as we follow our Good Shepherd.

This is the promise of the one who laid down his life for the sheep and rose again to lead them home.

And so I want to encourage you to trust the Good Shepherd.

He knows the way through and he will lead you home.

Amen.

Let's pray.

We thank you, Jesus, for being our Good Shepherd, for coming into this world and laying down your life for us, and then rising again so that we could have life with you.

And that life with you is an abundant life because of you and your love and your grace and your mercy and your peace and your joy that you pour into us.

And so we pray that by your spirit you would help us to continue to follow you wherever you lead us, to enjoy the green pastures and the still waters you direct us toward, and to receive the restoration of our souls that you freely give to us.

In your precious name we ask this, and all God's people say.

Amen.

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