046. The Lord is My Shepherd

Grade 4.  Miss Kerlin (Chinese lady – teacher) -  23rd Psalm.  In the days when Bible wasn’t ‘banned’ in schools as it is in some places today.

Thanks to Miss Kerlin and others re 23rd Psalm etc.

Well, the 23rd Psalm tells me that I am not my shepherd.  The devil is not my shepherd.  But…

pp         The Lord is My Shepherd

While sheep have not been a very important part of my life, sheep are one of the few livestock animals that are found virtually everywhere in the world. There are few places where sheep are not raised. 

We may own and wear some woollen clothing as well. Wool is an amazing product. It can be woven to be worn in all seasons—it can be for summer clothes or for winter clothes. Woollen clothing is generally more expensive than just about anything else. They tell me that wool, in terms of weight to value, is one of the most expensive commodities purchased and sold and exchanged around the world.

Now whether we knew any of those things or not, we probably know something about the sheep song, because Psalm 23 is one of the most familiar and loved pieces of literature in all of history.  I've heard it at weddings, where it is read with a sense of celebration, excitement, and anticipation, and at funerals (Delphine and Annie), where it is given as a source of comfort in the midst of deep and terrible grief. It is spoken by people in all different languages. Young children memorize it easily and seem to understand what it has to say.

Even the oldest of the old quote it and gather from it a perspective on life and a comfort for life's realities that few other poems can ever give.

The psalm is so familiar that I may not even need to ask you to look in your Bible to see what it has to say. 

But let’s turn to it.  Psalm 23.  Page 631.

When you get to it, you’ll see that it says, “A psalm of David.”  When David was young, he was a shepherd.  He knew a lot about sheep.  But in this 23rd Psalm, David is saying that “The Lord is My Shepherd.”   ----      You and I may be a shepherd to our kids and grandkids, or our little brother or sister and so on, but we need a shepherd to care for us too.  Let’s see what we can find in this 23rd Psalm.  Let’s read it together.

1  “The Lord is my shepherd;  

      I shall not want.

2    He makes me to lie down in     green pastures;

      He leads me beside the still      waters.

3    He restores my soul;

      He leads me in the paths of      righteousness

      For His name’s sake.

4    Yea, tho 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.

5     You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

       You anoint my head with oil;

       My cup runs over.

6     Surely goodness and mercy    shall follow me

       All the days of my life;

       And I will dwell in the house of    the Lord

       Forever.

Such simple words—such familiar words—such profound words. 

We’re going to look at three simple points in this psalm.  

pp     

1.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is an expression of dependence.

2.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is a statement of ownership.

3.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is an admittance of a personal   relationship.

(add one by one)

So if we really believe in the Bible, instead of believing what we think or what Satan wants us to think, then, when we say, “The Lord is our shepherd”, we are saying that  1.  we are dependent on Him,  2. we are owned by Him, and  3,  we have a personal relationship with Him.

So, number 1,

pp    

1.   “The Lord is my shepherd”  is an expression of dependence.

(beside Jesus photo)

We often miss the depth of meaning because we think we know what those words have to say. Let's not miss out on understanding what we are really saying when we pray or speak, "The Lord is my shepherd."   With those words, we are not making a declaration of independence, but a declaration of dependence.  We like to be independent!   We don't like other people to control us. We resent it when other people make decisions on our behalf. We prefer to be in the position of strength where others may be dependent upon us but not us upon them.

I think of a man who has done a very interesting thing. He has lived frugally and saved sacrificially in order to have more money in his bank account than his yearly salary.  When he had finally accumulated more money than a year's pay, he took his bank statement and showed it to his boss. He explained to his boss that this was his ‘good-bye-to-you account’. He wasn't quitting his job; he was just saying if ever the boss doesn't treat him right or if things ever go wrong, he's not dependent upon the boss. He has this money, and he can say goodbye. He has independence. ----

People in our society have difficulty with authority, and all the psychological explanations are given. Just ask someone in a perceived position of authority—a political figure, a school principal, a church pastor, a police officer, or the boss of a company. They'll tell you that those who have difficulty with authority bristle even if those leaders are not authoritarian leaders.   Some people feel that anyone in a position of authority will try to control others or make others dependent. We like our independence. We don't want someone else deciding for us. As do animals, we prefer to be wild, make our own choices, and run wherever we please. We certainly don't like the idea of being domesticated and becoming someone else's pet. Because of all of this, it is a strange thing for us to say, …

Pp    (picture of Jesus)  

The Lord is my shepherd.

That is a voluntary declaration of dependence on God.

David, who wrote these words, was once a shepherd himself. He knew what every shepherd knows. Sheep come in two categories: wild and domestic.  A highly domesticated sheep is highly dependent upon the shepherd.  I'm told that of all the livestock, sheep can be counted among the most dependent. Sheep are dependent upon the shepherd for food, direction, protection, and treatment in terms of disease.  ------

When we say another is our shepherd, we are saying we-need-help. When we say the Lord is our shepherd, we are saying no one is better able to help us than God himself. We are saying we are basically foolish, and He is wise. We are saying that we are quite ignorant, and He knows everything. We are weak, and He is strong.  Most of all, we are saying that God is absolutely trustworthy, and we can depend upon Him. He 

has never been known to harm one of His sheep. He's never lost a single one of His sheep. This great Lord is so committed and dedicated that He is even willing to put His life on the line for one single lamb.  --------

Philip Keller was once a shepherd and he wrote a book titled  A Shepherd Looks at Psalm Twenty-Three.

He tells about his experience as a shepherd in east Africa.  The land adjacent to his was rented out to a tenant shepherd who didn't take very good care of his sheep:  his land was overgrazed, eaten down to the ground; the sheep were thin, diseased by parasites, and attacked by wild animals. Philip Keller especially remembered how the neighbour's sheep would line up at the fence and blankly stare in the direction of his green grass and his healthy sheep, almost as if they yearned to be delivered from their abusive shepherd. They longed to come to the other side of the fence and belong to him.  --------   Christians understand that the identity of the shepherd is everything. It is wonderful to be able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd." ---------

So now our second point …

pp   (picture of Jesus)   

2.  “The Lord is my shepherd” is a statement of ownership.

In these five words, “The Lord is my shepherd”, this declaration of dependence becomes an admission of ownership.  A shepherd owns the sheep and marks them. In some cases, sheep are branded. Although some sheep are branded, that's really not a popular thing because it damages the wool. Even if the brand is placed through the wool and into the hide of the lamb, the wool can overgrow it so the brand won't be seen and you can’t easily work out who owns each sheep.   Today the ears are pierced with identification tags, but that's a fairly modern invention. For thousands of years, shepherds around the world marked the ears of their sheep by notching their ears with a sharp knife. Each shepherd had his own distinctive notch for the ear of his sheep. If the sheep gather in a group, he can see even from a distance which ones are his.   (quieter)    I think all of this is a lot like being a Christian.  Why?    Because if we are genuine Christians we admit to being owned and marked by Jesus Christ— sometimes marked painfully through suffering and difficulty. It must be painful for Jesus Christ to allow those marks to be burned, pierced, and notched into our lives.

An interesting verse in the New Testament describes Christians as those who bear crosses, almost as if we are marked by the cross of Jesus Christ who can look at a gathering of people and instantly tell which ones are His and which ones are not. Those who bear His mark are His own. All this sounds rather gruesome except for the person who says, "The Lord is my shepherd."  Belonging to the shepherd is worth the pain, even if the mark must be carried for a lifetime.  It's a privilege and a badge of honor to be identified as a Christian, as one of God's own sheep, who knows that God has every right to own us. He created us. We get mixed up sometimes on that. We sometimes think God exists for our benefit. We need to clearly understand that God created us for His benefit. We exist for His pleasure rather than the other way around.

In the beginning, God wanted to make a creature who could be loved by Him. In doing that, God didn't want robots, who would be forced to love Him back, who had no choice. So God took a terrible gamble. God is an amazing risk taker. He gave to His human creatures the freedom to choose whether to love Him or not.  There's a verse in the Old Testament written by Isaiah that tells the result of God's gamble, …

pp    Isaiah 53:6: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." 

Yes, although God has a right to own us because He created us, He still gave us the option of freedom to choose, and we all left Him. We chose sin and did not love Him as he wanted to be loved. In response, He chose to send out His own Son to look for us, to find us and then redeem us at a terrible cost—the cost of His own life.

A shepherd notches the ear of a lamb born to his flock and the shepherd has rightful ownership. But that lamb deliberately walks away. The shepherd searches near and far to get that lamb back. A long time later, he finds not a baby lamb but a grown sheep for sale at an animal auction.

The shepherd recognizes his mark on that sheep's ear. He goes to the auctioneer and says, "I can see the mark. That sheep is mine."  The auctioneer says, "Listen, you must bid and pay just like anybody else." The shepherd bids and pays an outrageous price, far above any reasonable market value in order to get his lamb back. He now has a double right to own this sheep: from birth, and from redemption. God has a right to own us firstly as Creator, and secondly because He has paid with the blood of his own Son—an outrageous price far above our market value—in order to redeem us back again.

pp      (picture)  

“The Lord is my shepherd.” 

We as Christians are reluctant to let others know that we're not our own because we're bought with a price. Sometimes we're embarrassed to be Christians. We shouldn't be. Actually, it is the most wonderful admission of all to admit that we are owned by God, that we bear the mark, that we're able to say, "The Lord is my shepherd." --------

Now point number 3.

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3.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is an admittance of a personal relationship         

We miss the point if we think that all this talk about ownership is religious jargon if we miss the warmth and the intimate confidence of the words "the Lord is my shepherd."   I've heard people say that it is an arrogant thing to be convinced that one is a Christian, that we should never say it with certainty because we can't be sure. But what child should ever be criticized for saying, "That's my mom" or "There goes my dad"? ----  If there's anything you ought to be certain about, it's that kind of definite relationship. There's nothing at all strange for a person to say "He's my Lord" or "He's my Saviour" or "He's my Shepherd."   If I genuinely and proudly count Him as mine, I am a Christian.

Regularly I hear a story that goes something like this:  People say they grew up in a church.   They say, "My parents made me do it.  I learned Psalm 23, the Lord's Prayer, and a few other verses in the Bible.  But I didn't realize until I was an adult that I could have a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And it was only when I went to a Bible study or some friend talked to me about it and explained to me that I had to make a personal choice for Christ in order to become a Christian that I began to understand that." --------

Friends, let's be sure we understand this.  None of the things I’m going to list now makes a person a Christian.  Reading the Bible or going to church or giving an offering or learning a psalm or a prayer or lots of Bible verses—none of that makes a person a Christian. To be a Christian is to choose Jesus Christ as Saviour and Shepherd. To be a Christian is a deliberate decision to become one of God's own sheep, to have a 

personal relationship with Him.

pp     (picture)  

“The Lord is my shepherd.”

I want to tell you the story about a little boy who was desperately ill. His parents recognized that soon he would probably die. They sent for the local pastor. He came at night to visit the child, who was semiconscious. He was unable to speak.   The pastor was alone in the child's upstairs room and left late at night. He returned early the next morning after the boy had died. He did his best to comfort the parents. He prayed with them. He grieved with them.

Later, the parents asked the pastor if he had any explanation for something that had happened. They told the pastor that in the hours before their son died and at the time of his death, he was holding the ring finger of his left hand with his other hand. He died in that position. It was then that the pastor explained what he had said that night in the child's room.

He had wanted to explain to that child on the edge of eternity not only the importance of being a Christian, but in a simple child's language how-to-become one. He said he had taken their son's hand and first held his thumb and had said, "The—because, we're talking about one of a kind." Then he held his next finger and said, "Lord." For the next finger, he said God Himself "is" right here. The next finger: "my," a personal commitment and relationship. For the last finger: "shepherd," the one who owns, who died, who cares and loves—Jesus.

While the child had not spoken, he must have heard. Before he died, he put his hand around the finger to say, "The Lord is my shepherd."

If we own the Lord as our shepherd, we won’t finish up in jail for doing wrong things.  If we have the Lord as our shepherd, we won’t finish up in prisons of our own making either.  We need the Lord!  We want the Lord!  We can have the Lord!

Is the Lord your shepherd? In just a moment, we're going to pray. I'd like to suggest that if you claim the Lord as your shepherd, that as we pray, you take your hand and hold that fourth finger. By that you say, for you and God alone to see, that you are expressing a declaration. …

pp     

1.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is an expression of dependence.

 2.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is a statement of ownership.

3.   “The Lord is my shepherd” is an admittance of a personal   relationship    (with God through Jesus Christ)

Don't do it lightly, for we talk here about a life-changing, eternal life decision, not something to be done casually, but very seriously.   

Let’s bow our heads and pray.     “Our Shepherd, our Lord, our Father, would you look at our hands?  Lord, would you listen to our hearts?  For some of us, it is a choice that was made when we were much younger—a commitment to You Lord, a confession of our sin, and our acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Saviour and our Shepherd. ---  For others of us, it is a moment's decision right now.   It is at this moment that we give ourselves to You and You alone.   With our hearts, and now with our hands, we say, ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’,  Amen”

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