The Lord Is My Shepherd: His Promise
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD: HIS PROMISE Trinity
Psalm 23:5,6 1 Sept 2019
Psalm 23 begins “The Lord is my shepherd”. From where we stand, we know it is all about Jesus, “the good shepherd”.
- Can the Lord Jesus Christ be known not just remotely, but personally and up close? Yes, “the Lord is MY shepherd”.
- Will he provide all I truly need? Yes, “I shall not lack anything”.
- Can he be trusted to take me through life in the way that is best? Yes, “he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake”.
- Even when I am in valleys of dark shadows? Even then “I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff are my comfort”.
There is more. In verse 5, David says
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
The first 5 verses all describe what happens in our life here and now. In fact that’s the first of my two points this morning:
- LIFE HERE AND NOW
Yahweh is our shepherd now. He is providing for us now. He is leading us now. His road and staff are our comfort now.
The table, the oil and the cup are all now.
We’ve seen enough movies to know what it’s like to be on the run from enemy troops, from the posse or the police. Some nights you don’t get to stop for sleep. Cooking a good meal, and then being able to sit down long enough to eat it, is out of the question.
When David was on the run from his son Absalom who had grabbed his throne, he came one day to the town of Mahanaim. He had friends there who saw that David and his loyal soldiers were “weary and thirsty in the wilderness” (v29) and so brought “beds, basins, wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, honey and curds and sheep and cheese” (2 Samuel 17:28) If ever there was a full table, it was there. Is that the table David is thinking of here? Maybe.
Over here, his enemies wanting to kill him; but here “a table before me in the presence of my enemies”.
There is more – the Good Shepherd anoints his head with oil. What does that mean?
When a guy comes to your door trying to sign you up for solar panels, you’re unlikely to invite him in to dinner. He is a stranger.
What if the man at the door is someone whom you know and love? If he arrives sweaty after a long, hot drive, and dirty, having had to change 2 flat tyres along the way, you’ll invite him to take a good hot shower. That’s probably our equivalent of “anointing his head with oil”.
When it’s time to eat, you serve someone you know and honour more than a tiny drink with crackers and cheese. You’ll make sure the table is spread, and that his “cup overflows”.
The full table, the oil and the overflowing cup are David’s way of saying that the Good Shepherd loves him deeply. Not as a stranger, but as a precious friend whom he honours abundantly.
David had his share of enemies. From Goliath and the Philistines through to King Saul and even his own son.
While they mock and deride him, the Good Shepherd says “I love and honour you”. They want to steal from him and kill him; the Good Shepherd wants to bless and honour him. He says “Come on in, take a hot shower; sit at my table, and eat and drink until you can’t fit another thing in.”
Isaiah 62:5 is quoted in the article in today’s handout …“as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” Greg Morse writes there: God “delights in you. He smiles at you – and not because he sees someone smarter, taller, better looking, or holier standing just behind you. He looks each redeemed child in the eye and tells him of his love for him in his Son. This is who our God is towards us. Not because of our worth but because of Christ’s.”
Of course that is what God does, because in Jesus he has chosen them, and bound himself to them in covenant love. That’s the word David uses in verse 6 – not simply “mercy”, but “covenant love”.
Of course David shall know goodness every day of his life. Because God has set his eternal, covenant love on him.
He raises the stakes when he says “Surely goodness and, sovereign, covenant love) shall PURSUE me.” It’s the same words that is used of Pharaoh chasing Moses out of Egypt. Not just following, but running hard after.
Which days is Jesus on duty to chase you with God’s good and covenant love? When you feel like it does? When your sin is kept low? When the shadows are fewer? David says “all the days of my life”.
Can you let all this settle on your heads and hearts for a moment? Over here are the people whose approval and love you crave. Out of faithfulness to Jesus, you say or do something they do not like, and they write you off, and blacken your name. In some parts of the world, they’ll cut your throat.
Over here, though is the Good Shepherd. The one who said come on in, hot shower, eat until your stonkered. For you are dearly loved, and greatly honoured, because you are the object of my Father’s love, and it is for you that I have laid down my life.
Which verdict counts for anything, do you think? Doesn’t this one mean that the other one is worthless? So don’t lose any sleep over what the others are saying, and be sure not to change anything simply to win them as friends.
More than that: if you are the recipient of God’s best promises, then why would you ever think that you are missing something that matters? Why discontent? Why complaining?
Spurgeon told of the lady who was poor that she had nothing to eat but bread and water. Her comment? “What? All this and Jesus too?” He was so big to her, that missing something else was not a big deal.
When the opinion others have of me is too big, and what I have each day too small … it is almost always because I have forgotten that “Surely his goodness and his mercy chase me all my days”.
This is the story for every child of God. Here and now. Fed. Led. Restored. Comforted. Honoured. Deeply, deeply loved with eternal covenant love. “All the days of this life”.
In this Psalm, however, there is more than life here and now. There is also:
- LIFE AFTER NOW
Someone reading this Psalm or listening to these sermons might say “You and Jesus … how nice and neat for you. But what about this world with its tragedies and injustices and evils?”
Yes, there are valleys of dark shadows, and there are enemies. Maybe the shadows are dark right through to the end, and the enemies win right through to the end. What can we say about them?
What can we say about people who hate and murder? Rulers who steal and destroy? Law-makers who worry only about their personal agendas? People who trash families and others who ignore the plight of those who have no one to speak up for them?
When David says “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” they are personal words, but they are more than personal.
Some things are “is”, now, and some things are “shall”, future – a time when things are going to be radically different from what they are now. A time when the sheep of the Good Shepherd shall be physically with him.
We read from Revelation 22 this morning. It tells us what it will be like on that day. When Jesus has returned, and brought in the new heavens and the new earth.
John describes it as a city, with walls which keep things safe on the inside, and keep some things on the outside. Inside is “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (v1) “nothing that is accursed”, but“his servants” (v3) will be there. “And outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who practises falsehood” (v15).
Where is outside? Where are those who are accountable for the dark shadows? The enemies to the children of God? The people who have pretended this is their world?
Jesus says that on the day that he returns, to bring in the new heaven and the new earth he will come “bringing recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done” (v12).
You want justice? Evil to be dealt with? Rejection of Jesus to be exposed as the evil it really is? It’s not likely to be here and now. But it most certainly will be then. Perfectly and fully, on that day.
Yes, Psalm 23 says there is abundant grace and high honour for the children of God now, here and now, but it isn’t blind to evil and hatred and injustice, and all the shadows they bring. Those things are not finally put right until life after now.
Where shall the sheep of Jesus be on that day? “They shall see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night shall be no more. They will need no lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (vv4,5)
Forever? Without any fear of ever being tossed out? Yes. “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
And until that day? As we return to work tomorrow? As we learn the results of the medical test? As we have to pick up the pieces after a tragedy? As we just have to get through the humdrum of another day when the pastures are not green, and the waters are not still, and the table seems empty?
Panic? Fear? Finding ways to pay back enemies? Swamped by the weight of tragedies? Partying and pretending so that the shadows don’t seem so dark?
No, for all the days between now and that Revelation 22 day are run by the prospect of that day, still to come. The man who has been put into prison on false charges, who has a lawyer working hard for him on a certain release, lives now in the light of that day coming.
Yes, there will be a day when the whole universe will ring to the praise of God’s justice … when every evil deed not already paid for by Jesus, will be thoroughly paid for … when every here and now tragedy will be seen to be good.
When you are 10 or 20 it seems that life here and now is forever but it isn’t. It is life then that is forever.
While I swim in the honour of being a child of God here and now, loved and kept, in our culture which is ONLY here and now, I need much more to luxuriate in the prospect of dwelling in the house of the Good Shepherd. You do too, don’t you?
A pastor wrote to us on Friday:
Last Sunday … around 6pm, a phone call came from one of our ladies in the church, crying, calling for help because there was a car accident with our beloved ones from church. They were hit behind by a drunken driver … and caused to cross to the opposite side of the road where a bus was coming. They crashed and all five of them whom we dearly loved were killed. There was 4 month pregnant Decery, Jake(her husband), their son Jickoy, Ezil, her sister, and Lina, her mother. … The accident happened at the front of their house on their way home. Their deaths were very tragic; bodies were broken and deformed. I was there with the family, as their bodies were taken from the road. There are deaths that are easy to accept, but this kind of death is really heart-breaking.
I miss them so much, they were faithful servants of the Lord Jesus, very vocal to their faith in Jesus and living in the gospel. I should be strong for my wife who was mourning too, and to the families affected.
How was this man able to preach in front of those coffins each night this past week at the wake? Or at the funeral yesterday? What he wrote on Friday was right:
We minister to all by the Word of God, His Sovereignty and His loving care for His children. May we all see God’s goodness despite the bad circumstances, God’s love despite the tears, and God’s finished work of salvation despite the crashed bodies.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
He gives and He takes away.
Praise His Name forever!
Has Jesus lost his love for those people? Allowed mindless tragedy to overtake them? Or was it his strange but sure goodness which pursued them to him with whom they shall dwell forever.
A man who lives only in the here and now has nothing to say, but the Psalm 23 man or woman, girl or boy, who knows the Good Shepherd, and who knows that they “shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever”, alone has hope. He or she alone has something to say in a sad, broken world.