Psalms Week 5 • Psalm 23

Hi, and welcome to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

This is where you can find audio for our current and past sermons.

We hope that you enjoy this week's installment, and be sure to check back next week to hear

the latest message.

Thanks for listening.

Well, good morning.

Glad that you guys are here with us.

Before we get into this, I want to remind everybody, hopefully you saw it as you came in, we will

be taking part in the Lord's Supper today, and so if you didn't grab one of the communion

cups on your way in, they're right back here, Pastor Dave and Patrick, I believe y'all got

those back there.

If you can head back there, if you don't want to get up and move, they'll bring them to you.

Just throw your hand up.

They'll think you're just still in worship, and we'll bring them to you and have them there.

But we will do the Lord's Supper together at the end of the service.

I want to echo what Moses said, and if you're a first-time guest, thank you so much for being

here.

At the end of the service, I will be back here with my wife, Erin, at the welcome station

back here.

We'd love to meet you.

We'd love to shake your hand.

We'd love to thank you for being here and worshiping with us.

And if you have any questions about who we are as a church, we'd love to get those answered

for you.

So again, I want to echo what Moses said.

Thank you so much for being here for our first-time guest and worshiping with us today.

Also, on November the 21st, we've been talking about this for a couple weeks, we're going

to have a night of missions and prayer.

And so on that evening, that Sunday evening at 4 o'clock, I want to invite you to join us.

It's going to be a wonderful time.

I have a missionary who's going to be here with us and share what it's like for life on

the mission field.

We'll go ahead and share that night.

We will not be live streaming anything as the place and the context where this missionary

has served and looks to serve again.

It's not something that we can make public through things like the internet, but he will

be here along with his wife to share about all that God has done there.

And then it'll be a time also for us that night as we pray for our different missions

partners.

And so I want to encourage everyone to be there.

One of the things we've been doing as a church for a long time now is teaching all

through the generations of the importance and the value of missions.

And so this is going to be a night where we're going to have our nursery open, but then everyone

else is going to be in here together for our kids to be able to hear, our middle school

students, our high school students, and our adults.

And so I'm excited about that night and all that the Lord is going to do.

And then I got a prayer request for you for this week.

After church is over today, there will be a group of men.

I'm going to be a part of this team that we are headed up to Black Mountain, North Carolina,

the Black Mountain Children's Home to serve for the better part of this week.

And so I just ask for your prayers as we are there doing construction and helping out the

Black Mountain Children's Home so they can continue to serve the many children that God has brought

to them and allow us the privilege to do that.

I'm really excited about this team that's going.

In my experience of doing mission trips, this is the first time that I've been on a men's only mission trip.

And so that'll be a little bit different.

But I want to be honest with you, what excites me the most about this trip is more than half of the men

who were going on the mission trip, this will be their very first mission trip.

And if you've ever been on a mission trip, you know how God uses those times to not only,

as we look to serve others, and we all do this, I do this as well, we all think of a mission trip

and what kind of a blessing that we can be and how God is going to use us.

But the truth of the matter is, time and time again, God reveals himself to us.

And we, as the ones who were going, are even more blessed.

And so we're just excited about that opportunity to be able to go and be a part of this trip together.

Well, we're going to continue on in our series in the Psalms.

So if you've got your Bibles, open them up to the 23rd Psalm is where we're going to be this morning.

So as Berger and I have worked together on this sermon series, he sent me a list of different Psalms

that kind of fit with some Psalms, the songs that he and the band could begin working on.

And I said, man, like, it doesn't matter to me as you feel like the Lord's leading all of it's God's Word,

and I'll be excited to preach from it.

And I'll be honest with you, over the last several weeks, I would sit down on Monday

and begin to read through the Psalm and go, whew, God, you're going to stretch me this week, right?

This isn't one that I would necessarily found myself going toward.

This isn't one of those that's easy.

There's got to be a little bit more work that I've got to do.

And so God in his goodness and God in his faithfulness has stretched me in a very difficult way over these last several weeks.

And then when I got to this one and I saw it on Planning Center, which is what we use to schedule and to coordinate,

I was like the 23rd Psalm, whew, finally, right?

Like the 23rd Psalm, I know this one.

I've taught this one.

Every funeral, this is the Psalm.

This is the passage that you're going to hear.

And then God said, well, watch this.

Watch this.

And over the course of the last week, and this is just a beautiful picture of what God does

and as God grants us humility, as we think we know, and then God says, well, watch this is what he does.

Because the truth is for you, you might even be sitting there today and you're like, man, man, Psalm 23, like I've heard this a thousand times.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet whether you're a believer or not, if you've attended a Christian funeral, right?

Like everyone has heard this passage.

Everyone has a reference and a context of the 23rd Psalm because of funerals.

But what is ironic and what is powerful, and as we look at this, is that this passage is not about death at all.

And this passage is about life.

This passage is about the understanding of this is what the life looks like when it lives in the connection of community,

and the power of relationship with God, and what this can be in ours.

You know, the 23rd Psalm is written by David.

It's not written by David the shepherd.

It's not written by young King David.

In fact, the 23rd Psalm, even though it's earlier on in how the Psalms are listed,

most believe that the 23rd Psalm is actually written by David at the end of his life.

And as he looks back on his life and thinks through his highs and his lows,

his victories and his defeats, his sinful failings and his righteous moments,

all balled up into this one experience of life.

And he, through the leading of the Spirit of God, imparts this.

If you've ever been with someone who knows that death is approaching,

and you have those moments of God giving you the grace to be able to communicate those things,

you hear the perspective of a life lived.

I remember close to the end of my grandfather's life,

before he lost the ability to speak.

And it was at his, the assisted living place where he was, where he was living at the time.

And I went up there and just sat there and had a conversation with him.

And he talked about life.

He talked about a service in the military.

He talked about marriage.

He talked about God's faithfulness.

And as we read the 23rd Psalm this morning,

I want you to kind of take that moment if God's graced you with one of those opportunities

and allow that to be the heaviness of the context.

It's not some young pastor who thinks they've got it figured out.

It's a seasoned man who's gone through life,

who's experienced the highs and the lows,

who's gone through the battle,

has seen his failings and understands God's grace,

who's lived through the goodness of God and seen all of this.

And he looks back and he says,

as life brings the seasons.

And you guys know this, right?

In South Carolina, we experience all four in the same day, right?

And sometimes that's the way it feels like in the emotional,

the physical, and the spiritual seasons of life as well.

The seasons change.

But God's faithfulness doesn't, right?

In spite of what we're feeling,

in spite of what we're experiencing, God is faithful.

And that's what David writes about.

And the beauty of this, the hope of this,

the reminder of this,

is God's faithfulness isn't just reserved for people like King David, right?

God's faithfulness is also for me and for you and for all of his children.

So as David writes about this,

may it soak into us the faithfulness of the Lord.

So let's start reading in chapter 23, verse 1.

David writes, he says,

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 name's sake.

In the first three verses, David describes the season of life.

A season of life that he had experienced and a season of life that you and I will experience.

And we're going to draw from the wordplay that he's given us here and call this the season of the pasture.

And what we see about God in this is in the season of the pasture,

we will find out and understand the everyday provider of who God is.

God with us in the day in and day out.

And David uses a beautiful illustration that continues to flow through all of Psalm 23, but starts it off here.

David here says that God is the shepherd and we are the sheep.

And this is going to be an illustration that's used all throughout Scripture and especially in the teachings of Christ.

And David draws this for us.

So I want to talk a little bit about the relationship between the sheep and the shepherd this morning

and understand what it means that every single day that God is our provider.

Well, sheep, number one, sheep are always dependent on the shepherd.

There's not a moment in time in their life if they are going to live that they are not dependent on the shepherd.

You know, it's not good in normal days to be considered a sheep.

Sheep really can't do things for themselves.

Sheep are careless.

Sheep are defenseless.

Sheep are prone to getting lost.

Sheep need constant care.

They cannot find food on their own or water by themselves.

But what sheep know that you and I often forget is that in every moment of every day of who we are,

that sheep know that their lives are in the hand of the shepherd and that he will provide.

And so when David in his goodness says,

the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

Why?

Because in every single day, he knows of the provision.

And so he can be dependent on the shepherd.

The next thing I want us to understand about the sheep,

and I think this is important, is that the sheep are obedient to the shepherd.

This is interesting.

I didn't know this and study in a little bit this week about what it means to be a shepherd

and the dynamic of sheep is that, did you know that sheep cannot be driven?

Right?

I don't have much context for what it means to drive animals, right?

I don't live in that world.

I don't do those things.

But I remember all the way back to, I believe, 1989 in the movie City Slickers, right?

Do you remember that movie?

Right?

If you don't, you're younger and go watch it, right?

Wonderful movie.

Billy Crystal is in the movie.

But you get the picture of them, and they're moving the cattle, and they're driving them.

And they're behind them, and they're pushing them, and they're pressing them,

and they're guiding them on this path.

But it's in this mixture of beside them, behind them, beside them, behind them.

And if they get out in front, the cows aren't going to follow.

So they've got to drive them.

They've got to push them.

But that's not what sheep do.

Sheep don't do that at all.

In fact, if you're the shepherd, and you're leading the sheep,

the sheep obey because they follow behind, right?

So it's a different role.

It's a different responsibility.

It's a different relationship.

In fact, the shepherd will move from the front to the side.

Because if a sheep comes to wonder what the shepherd would do

when the sheep begins to get out of line,

when a sheep, remember, they're careless, they're prone to getting lost,

the shepherd would continue to glance behind as he would leave,

and he would kind of drift back and get alongside and bump into them

and bump into them and rub up against them to remind them

of where they needed to be.

so that they could go.

But we begin to get the picture and understand

that if we are the sheep and what it means to be led by the shepherd,

not are we only dependent on the shepherd,

but we're obedient to the shepherd.

Right?

The dynamic of the truth of life.

But then also, sheep are known by the shepherd.

In John chapter 10, Jesus says that he is the good shepherd

John 10 · chapter mention

and that his sheep know his voice and he calls them by name.

Now, for years, I thought that this was just a spiritual implication of what Jesus was given,

but through reading and doing some research this week,

I found that that's not the case at all.

That ancient eastern shepherds, I didn't know this, makes me feel better about what we do with our pets, right?

They named their sheep.

So when Jesus says that, he's speaking to a practicality of life, of what they would have known.

You know how shepherds name their sheep?

I know my sheep's name, and they know my voice, and they respond when I call them.

And I thought this was interesting that here's why they named their sheep.

So that they can call them, so that they can listen to them,

because of the great value that the shepherd has for the sheep.

Because you see, they weren't used for food, but they were used for milk and for wool.

And so the beauty of that is they knew them, just as God knows us and desires for us to know him.

No, it's the beauty of this.

So why are these sheep this committed to the shepherd?

Why is it?

Because they know he will provide.

And it's what we continually see in Scripture.

Genesis 22, verse 14, it says,

Genesis 22:14

So Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide.

As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

The context of Genesis 22, 14 is found in the story of Abraham and Isaac.

Abraham, the man chosen by God through the great nation would come from, of God's people.

And it only is going to happen, and it is only going to come through his lineage,

in the way that God said it would happen and take place.

And there's a lot of back story.

If you don't know it, stop afterwards.

We'll have the conversation.

But after many, many years, God grants to Abraham and his wife,

finally a son, a son that they had longed for,

a son that they knew that was the fulfillment of God's promise with them

for God to continue to do.

But then God does something that is crazy.

God does something that is out there.

God looks at Abraham, and he says,

You take your son, whom you love.

You take your son, whom I've promised,

and you go and you sacrifice him.

And Abraham says, Okay.

Because he's led by God.

Because he's obedient to God.

But because he's dependent on God.

And because Abraham realizes and knows that God's the provider.

And so in Genesis 22, verse 5,

Genesis 22:5

they're on their journey to where he will take and he will sacrifice his son.

He'll kill him.

And they stop.

And there's a group of men, of workers that are there,

workers for Abraham, servants of Abraham.

And it's a beautiful verse.

Abraham looks at them.

And as they're getting ready to go with Abraham and Isaac,

Abraham looks at them and says,

No, no, no, y'all stay here.

We are going to provide and offer the sacrifice.

And we will return.

You see what Abraham's doing.

In full obedience to the Lord,

but in knowing in the character of who God is,

of what God will do and his promises that God will provide.

And they go up onto the mount, scripture tells us.

And he lays his son down to sacrifice him.

And at that time, the angel of the Lord said,

Do not touch him.

And he looked over and God provided a ram.

And so we see verse 14.

So Abraham called the name of that place.

The Lord will provide, as it is said to this day,

on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

I call it the season of the pasture because it's just every day.

Every day, in spite of what was going on,

the shepherd would take the sheep to the pasture.

Some days in the pasture were easy.

Some days in the pasture were difficult.

Some days in the pasture were common.

Some days in the pasture were unexpected.

But when we walk in obedience,

trusting God and depending on him,

as Abraham did, as David did,

we can look on it and know that he knows us

and we can know that he will be our provider

of every single day.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want.

Look at verse 4.

Begins to see a different season.

David says,

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.

I want to call this season of what David talks about

as the season of the valley.

To remind us that God is with us in the darkness.

That in the pasture, there's also the valley.

And in the valley,

there become some dark and difficult days

that we face.

Life is filled with difficulties.

Life is filled with dark moments.

This is common to us all.

We walk through these.

We experience through these.

There are seasons in time

where we feel like we're never going to get

out of the valley.

And in this,

what you and I,

I know this about myself,

we have the tendency

from time to time

to not listen to

and understand that God is with us

in the valley,

but to listen to Satan

as he speaks lies in the valley.

Lies that I've experienced.

Lies that I've seen.

Lies that I've heard myself

as I walk through the dark days.

Number one

is that God doesn't care.

You ever heard that?

You ever felt that

when you're walking through?

Well, if God loved me,

then this wouldn't happen.

And so he must not care.

And then the second lie

that Satan uses in these moments.

Well, you're alone.

You're by yourself.

No one is there

and God has abandoned you.

There's been these seasons

of my life

where I've walked through this.

There'll be seasons of life

where as I'm facing the difficulties,

as I begin to feel

that it's too much to bear,

as I continue to battle

with the flesh

that exists within me,

and what I begin to hear,

what I begin to feel,

and what I begin to experience

is,

Bo,

God doesn't really care about you.

And Bo,

you're facing this

all on your own.

And the truth is,

while I hear those things,

the truth is,

while I feel those things,

and you do as well,

those aren't from the Lord.

That's not God.

It's Satan attacking

when we're weak

and when we're vulnerable.

When the difficulty

of the darkness of the valley

begins to consume us.

And so David reminds us

that we will walk through these.

We will.

You're going to go through the valley.

You might be in the valley.

You might look back

and remember the valley.

It is going to happen.

But when it does,

we can face it without fear.

And David says,

the reason for that,

the reason why we have this

is because,

God,

you are with me,

but you give me something.

You give me something

in this moment.

You give me your rod

and you give me your staff.

And from both of these,

they bring me great comfort.

Right?

So what is the shepherd's rod?

What is the shepherd's staff?

It's two different instruments.

We're thinking of the rod.

The rod is like a large club.

It's tall so that it can be swung,

but at the end,

it's heavier than it is at the bottom.

And that if something comes

to attack the sheep,

if a wolf begins to seek out,

what the shepherd can do

is the shepherd can grab the rod

and grab it from the bottom

and use the force

that he can generate through that

to swing at the wolf

and to attack the wolf

so that the sheep would be safe.

So that standing in between

what brings comfort to the sheep

is knowing that the shepherd

is fighting for them.

And the beauty of that for us

is we know that not only

is God fighting for us now,

spiritual warfare is real

of what we experience

and what we go through.

And not only is God fighting for us,

but most importantly

of what we're going to recognize

with this today

of what we just sang

is that God has fought already for us

and won the victory.

And the rod of the cross of Calvary

when the world thought it was defeated,

but God said, watch this.

But the shepherd also uses the staff.

And the staff is what you and I

most commonly think of.

We're getting into the season, right,

where we're putting out

our nativity scenes

and we'll have our shepherd

that's there

and you'll see the shepherd

in most nativity scenes

that will hold the long staff

then with a hook on the end.

And the beauty of that was this.

When a sheep began to wander off,

when a sheep began to say,

now this is too much,

when the sheep began to feel

in the darkness

that I've lost my path

and I've lost my way,

what the shepherd would do

is would use its staff

to reach out around the neck

of the sheep

and just pull it on back.

Pull it on back

where it needed to be.

Maybe a little rough sometimes, right?

We've had to feel that.

Maybe sometimes

it jerks you a little bit.

But you feel the drawing back

of the Spirit of God

in our lives.

When the valley's so dark

that we can't see in front of us.

When the valley's so dark

that depression and anxiety

begin to weigh in.

When the valley's so dark

that non-realistic things

begin to be spoken into us.

And we begin to agree

that God doesn't love us.

We begin to agree

with Satan

that God has abandoned us

and the shepherd

just pulls us back in.

Now I'm here.

I'm here.

I'm here.

And what I love about this

is can the shepherd

do that from a distance?

Can the shepherd do that

at the top of the mountain

while the sheep

are in the valley?

No.

In order for the shepherd

to do that

for the sheep in the valley,

where does the shepherd

have to be?

In the valley.

with us.

You know,

we're about to go into

a season

where we celebrate that.

Matthew 1.23 says,

Behold,

the virgin shall conceive

and bear a son

and they shall call

his name Emmanuel.

Emmanuel,

God

with

us.

Can we think about

Christmas differently?

Celebrating Christmas

isn't just about

celebrating the birth

of Jesus.

You're like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

what are you doing?

Right?

It is.

It is.

But it's not just about

celebrating

a historical event

in time.

It's not just about

celebrating one night.

It's about celebrating

the very presence

of God

with us

every day.

In every moment

of the reminder

that he is

Emmanuel,

God

with us.

So when you're

walking through that valley,

praise the Lord

that he's Emmanuel,

God with us.

When you feel

that staff

pulling you back in,

praise the Lord,

Emmanuel,

God

with us.

But always remember

this.

As we look back

and we begin

to understand

our obedience,

our dependence,

all of these things,

the closer the sheep

are to the shepherd,

the more effective

the staff

and the more

effective the rod.

So as he draws

us to himself

and as we

press into him,

we begin to experience

the depth

of this relationship.

Verse 5

of Psalm 23,

David says,

You prepare a table

before me

in the presence

of my enemies.

You anoint

my head

with oil

my cup overflows.

We'll talk about

the season of the battle.

All right?

The season of the battle

where God gives us rest.

The season of the battle

where God gives us rest.

Now,

when we read

verse 5,

right,

because we love

the word table,

right,

and we associate table

with what?

With food,

you know?

Like that's it.

Dinner table.

But here,

the context

is with the shepherd

and his sheep

and not with our home.

And so what I want you

to think of the table,

the table would be

the flat place

in the mountains

where the shepherd

would lead the sheep

at night

so that they could rest.

And even though

what surrounded them

were their enemies,

the shepherd made a way

on the table

to provide for them

to give them rest.

because out there

it would still

be vulnerable.

So the shepherd

needs to protect.

So what the shepherd

would do

is he would prepare

the table

for the sheep.

And how he would prepare

was he would get

large stones

and he would build

a circular wall

with an opening,

with one little

small opening

so that at night

when the sheep

couldn't see,

at night when the sheep

needed to rest,

at night

when they were

the most vulnerable,

the shepherd

would get there

by what he had

prepared for them

on the table

and he'd call

their names

and they would

come to him

and they would go

right inside this wall

and as they would

go on the wall

he would inspect

them for briars,

he'd inspect them

for cuts

and when he found

them there

he'd get the oil,

he'd get the ointment

and he'd clean them

and he'd make them,

he'd make them right

and he'd restore

them to where

they needed to be

so that they

would be healed

and then he would

allow them

to rest

within the wall

and once they

were there

this is where

they could

find rest

for their souls

was inside

of what was

done

by the shepherd

but remember

there's an opening

an opening

where they would

come in

so what would

happen there

if the opening

isn't closed

then the wolves

could enter

if the opening

isn't closed

then the sheep

could wander away

so what does God

do to close

the opening

check out the screen

in John 10

John 10:7

verse 7

Jesus says this

so Jesus again

said to them

truly truly

I say to you

I am the door

of the sheep

all who came

before me

are thieves

and robbers

but the sheep

did not listen

to them

Jesus says

again I am

the door

if anyone

enters by me

he will be

saved

and will go

in and out

and find

pasture

so go back

to you're the

shepherd now

with your sheep

in the wall

where does the

door come from

the shepherd

is the door

and so what

the shepherd

would do

at night

so the sheep

could not leave

is the shepherd

would lay

himself down

in the doorway

the shepherd

would prop

himself up

in a position

that nothing

could go

in

and nothing

could go

out

unless it

went through

the shepherd

I don't know

about you

but so many

times I find

in my life

that the battle

is there

and that I need

rest

I need rest

and I search

for it from

so many

different places

and Jesus

reminds me

that not only

is where he