Ps 23

The blessings of the good shepherd

(Psalm 23)

Jason Procopio

Last week we were in Psalm 19, which celebrates God’s revelation to his people in nature, and in Scripture. The fact that God reveals himself to his people—not to a select few, or to one specifically ordained prophet, but to all of us—is an incredible blessing. 

But his blessings don’t stop at revelation. In Psalm 23, David proclaims his thankfulness for several specific ways in which God interacts with him—not just speaking or listening, but actually getting involved in his life.

Most Christians know this psalm from an early age. This is the first passage of Scripture I ever memorized as a child; I can still recite it in the King James Version that my dad preferred at the time. And so we hear it as sweet and encouraging; it gives us nice, warm feelings when we hear it, calls us back to simpler times.

But it should actually be far more sobering, and far more comforting, than it is.

Blessings

1) Provision (v. 1)

This psalm begins with these very well-known words (v. 1):

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 

I grew up in the United States, and until recently, the “American Dream” was still going strong. It was taken as a given that in America, you could have and do whatever you wanted. You could make it. There would be opportunity. And if you worked hard and paid your dues, you could achieve whatever you want to achieve, and have (almost) anything you want to have. 

This psalm is the anti-American Dream.

For most people in today’s society, if we actually took the time to think about what David says here, this psalm is—or should be—horribly offensive. Because it has the temerity to suggest that we are not enough. We, on our own, are not sufficient to protect ourselves, to provide for ourselves, to do the right thing, and ultimately, to be happy. 

The only one who is big enough, powerful enough, or resourceful enough for that, is God himself. But in order to understand how his involvement in our lives for our good works, we need to put ourselves in a particular position; and the way David describes that relational position here is by comparing it to the relationship of a sheep to his shepherd.

This image of a shepherd caring for his sheep is an image that would have spoken immediately and clearly to the agrarian culture of Israel at the time of David. David himself was a shepherd, so he understood both the needs of sheep and the care of a shepherd. But now, when he writes this psalm, he’s king—he’s come to the highest point of power in the land, and he is a mighty warrior. 

And yet he says that the Lord is his shepherd, which of course implies that he is a sheep—not exactly a flattering image. But he gives this image for a reason: because he knows that he needs from God what a shepherd gives to his sheep. The shepherd lives with his flock—he is with them constantly—and serves every provisional need: he guides them, he cares for them when they are ill, he protects them from harm, he provides for their every need.

In our day and culture, it may be easier for us to grasp this idea if we use a different image. Think of a father or mother with their newborn baby. The care of which David speaks here is very similar to the care a parent will show to their own child. A newborn baby depends on his parents for everything; he is entirely helpless, dependent on someone else to keep him alive and well. And his parents provide for every need he has. They care for him. They watch over him. They give him everything he needs. If the Lord is our shepherd, we lack for nothing. We may not have everything we want, but we will have everything we need.

John Piper gives this illustration. Imagine you’re a parent, and your child asks you for a cookie. So you go to get your child a cookie, and find that the package was left open, and all the cookies are now stale and moldy. So you turn to your child and say, “I can’t give you a cookie; it’ll make you sick. Here’s an apple instead.” Now, the child will undoubtedly complain; he might even protest and say that you don’t love him. But your depriving him of his cookie is actually the most loving thing you could do for him—you can’t give him what he wants, because what he wants isn’t good for him. Piper said it this way: “God always gives us what we ask him in prayer; or, he gives us something better.”

Whatever our situation, wherever we find ourselves, we can rest assured that we have absolutely everything we need—we want for nothing. Charles Spurgeon said, “Old age with its feebleness will not bring me any lack, and even death with its gloom will not find me destitute. I have all things and abound; not because I have a good store of money in the bank, not because I have skill and wit with which to win my bread, but because The Lord is my Shepherd.”

2) Peace (v. 2)

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. 

I have an almost visceral thirst for what’s described here. Partly because I’m getting older, so I’m tired literally all the time; but mostly because (as some of you already know) for the last ten years or so I’ve suffered from chronic tinnitus in both ears. This is why when you come to speak to me after service sometimes I have to lean in really close—the ringing in my ears covers voices well, so I have a hard time making out what people are saying.

I don’t notice it most of the time now—you do get used to it—but it is exhausting, because for the last ten years I haven’t had a single moment of silence. Even in a completely quiet room, my ears are always ringing. I don’t even know what I would give for one minute of silence. 

Most of you know what I’m talking about—if you’ve taken a long trip on the highway, with the windows open, and you’ve had the noise of the car for hours, that moment when you finally arrive at your destination, and you turn off the car…and there’s nothing. Not a sound. 

Now take that idea, and apply it to everything. All of the busyness in our lives, all of the worry, all of the threats (whether they’re perceived or real)—imagine what it would be like to have them all removed, and to have nothing left but a calm meadow where you can sleep, next to a silent water source where you can drink and be satisfied. 

The Lord, the shepherd, places his people in absolute and perfect peace. He gives us his Word, and the promises we find there; and when we lean on those promises and remember the things that God tells us about himself, we remember that we need worry about nothing. God is never disturbed, never worried, never flustered; and those who rest in him can rest in his own lack of fear. His Word assures us of our peace, and the knowledge of his presence refreshes us. 

3) Restoration and Righteousness (v. 3) 

3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. 

When he says “paths of righteousness,” he’s talking about what life looks like for the child of God. When we are made his, he doesn’t just save us, but he leads us, and leads us in a certain way: he restores our souls to be able to follow him, and he leads us in paths of righteousness. The longer the Shepherd leads us, the more we look like him. And remember the context: we look like Christ and learn to obey him in green pastures, beside still waters. These “paths of righteousness” are not a burden, they are not a chore—sanctification (the process of being made more like Christ) is one of the sweetest gifts of salvation, one of the greatest pleasures we can imagine

How often do we look at what God calls us to do and think about how much we will lose if we become more like Christ? How seldom do we think about all we gain? Men, something strange happens when you become a father, particularly if you have a son. You start to look at yourself the way you imagine your son will look at you in ten or fifteen years. You want to be the kind of man your son can look up to and imitate. Our Father, our Shepherd, is the perfect Father, and he leads us to imitate his Son. He gives us his Spirit to restore us, that we can become more and more like him. It is a beautiful thing to resemble Christ; it is a wonderful thing to see our Father’s righteousness reflected in us.

But this reflection of God’s righteousness doesn’t happen so that we may draw attention to ourselves, that we may say to others, “Look how righteous I’ve become!” No—he leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Our ways are his ways, not our own. The righteousness that we cultivate in ourselves, the salvation we work out with fear and trembling, is his righteousness: it is for the glory of his name that we imitate him. Whatever progress we make draws our eyes and others’ to his perfect righteousness. What God does in us, he does for his glory, and it is our delight and pleasure and peace to glorify God through our lives.

4) No fear (v. 4)

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

This verse is incredibly important. Up until v. 4 we could imagine that the Christian under the Shepherd’s care has absolute immunity from any danger or harm or worry—and this is exactly what a lot of preachers say today: anyone who has faith in Christ, if that faith is strong enough, will see their problems disappear. This verse directly contradicts that: it does not say, “He leads in paths of righteousness, so I will not walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” It says, EVEN THOUGH I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. In other words, we will walk through this dark valley (“the valley of the shadow of death” can also be translated “the darkest valley”).

So what kind of protection is he talking about here? Clearly he’s not talking about protection from suffering or pain: David himself suffered great loss in his life, even when he was perfectly obedient to the Lord. And our experience tells us this is what life is like. 

When babies are teething, it’s hard to watch. They say that the pain babies go through while teething would be unbearable for an adult. And it’s difficult for a parent to watch their baby in that much pain for that long. But there’s not a parent on earth who would choose to take that process away from their children, because we want them to eat, and not spend the rest of their lives gumming their food to death. 

God does not protect us from all pain because he loves us. But even in the pain, he is still our Father; he is still our Shepherd. He is still protecting us. He is still with us—not just ahead of us, leading us, he is with us, next to us—as Kidner says, “escorting us.” We need not fear because we know that no matter how it seems, he won’t let anything come to us that is not for our greatest good and his greatest glory. We will walk through the dark valley, but we have no need to fear. He is with us.

We will be faced with shadows. But the confidence of the psalmist lies in this simple truth: shadows can’t do any ultimate, real damage to anyone. You can see shadows, they can surround you; but they can’t destroy you. God’s presence isn’t going to keep us from going through the valley; it will free us from the fear of the valley. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will FEAR no evil. As the psalmist said in Psalm 91.9-10, 

9 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—the Most High, who is my refuge—10 no evil shall be allowed to befall you, no plague come near your tent.

 In the hands of the Good Shepherd, whatever occurs will not be evil against you, but good—perhaps incomprehensible good, but good nonetheless. And the basis of that confidence is given in the second half of verse 4. 

…your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

The rod was a kind of club worn at the belt, and the staff was a walking stick: the rod was used to defend the sheep from wild animals, and the staff was used for control, to round up the flock and guide them where they needed to go. 

A while back I saw a news report of a family whose three-year-old boy was run over by a car driven by a friend from their church. Their grief is immense; the grief of that young driver is immense. So what do they know about God in that moment? They were able to look into the camera and say with complete confidence, “Our comfort is in knowing that God is a good God who ordained the number of days our son’s life. God has a plan, and we trust him, and we know we will see our son again.” They did not come out of this unscathed; they are hurting. But ultimately, they know are in the shepherd’s care. 

If you trust that what David says here is true, you know that God is standing next to you, fending off anything that can do you any ultimate harm, and guiding you where you need to go. Even death is not an ultimately fearful thing for the person who knows they belong to God, because that person knows that even in death, God is still with him, God still sets his affections on him, and God will not let him go. 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.

Now, as Derek Kidner says, “It is one thing to survive a threat, as in verse 4; quite another to turn it into a triumph.” This is exactly what happens in verse 5. David turns from the image of a shepherd with his sheep to that of a host setting a luxurious table for his guests.

5) Abundance (v. 5) 

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

Now, this is an image of a feast, so we understand a little better. But we can see that in this case, God goes much further than a mere feast. At the time of David, inviting someone to eat at one’s home was an extremely intimate act. Eating and drinking in someone’s home established a bond between the two people, a bond of loyalty which usually ended with a covenant between them. Do you remember the Last Supper that Jesus had with his disciples, when he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood (1 Corinthians 11.25)? That’s the image he’s presenting. Being invited to God’s table is an incredibly intimate exchange in which he serves us, and in which we are bound to him by the love he shows us: he covers us with his precious grace (that is what is expressed by this image, you anoint my head with oil),and he gives us not only what we need, but much more: our cup overflows. There are no half-measures with God. What he gives us, he gives us abundantly.

6) Security (v. 6)

And with that, the psalmist concludes, 

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

Verse 6 is a summary of everything that’s come before. Our salvation is so assured that we don’t need to pursue God’s goodness and mercy; they follow us. We have the promise that no matter what happens, no matter how frequently or deeply we live in the valley, every minute of our lives is goodness and mercy, and that will continue forever. We are secure in God’s goodness toward us, forever: he is our gracious host who will never stop pouring grace after grace on his children. We are secure in God’s mercy toward us, forever: no matter how undeserving we are of God’s grace, no matter how many times we need to run to his throne to receive forgiveness for sins, we’ll find that his mercy has actually preceded us there. We are secure in God’s adoption of us, forever: we will live in his house forever, not as guests in a hotel or even guests invited by a host, but as the dearly loved children of a good Father. 

And we are secure in all of these things because of the gracious life, death and resurrection of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. The provision he offers in v. 1 destroys our worry; the peace he gives in v. 2 kills our restlessness; the strength and righteousness he proposes in v. 3 fight our weakness and sin; the courage he gives us in v. 4 abolishes our fear; and the abundance of his grace in v. 5-6 puts our lukewarmness to death. In him we truly and eternally have all we will ever need.

The Good Shepherd

The main difficulty of this psalm is its familiarity. Even for people who didn’t grow up in church, it is likely they’ve at least heard the first verse (The Lord is my Shepherd) before. So the words of the psalm can tend to roll off us like water off a duck’s back. 

But when we actually begin to take the psalm seriously, and really think about what it says, we come across another difficulty—and that is knowing exactly what to do with it. It’s possible to read it, and to content ourselves with the nice, warm feeling it produces—but then again, commercials for Apple products can have the same effect, so I doubt that’s the only goal.

And our reactions can actually be stronger than that. There are a lot of examples I could give, but I’ll just stick with two for today.

The first would be to reject the psalm, because (as we saw before) we don’t want to be “sheep” in need of a shepherd. We don’t want to think of ourselves as helpless little babies. We want to be strong and self-sufficient, and this idea that we are so helpless as to need someone to provide for us and care for us this way is insulting.

But it wouldn’t be, if we were honest with ourselves. We control very little in our own lives, and even in those situations where we do have control, that control is largely an illusion—we can control the outcome of a situation only if ten other things we can’t control take place. Something as simple as going to the store to buy groceries depends on other people doing their jobs well. 

So we need to come to grips with the fact that we’re not as great as we think we are. We’re not in control. We’re not self-sufficient. Nearly every need we have is a need we cannot fill ourselves. We need help. We need protection and provision. 

And there’s a corresponding fact we need to consider: we’re not as great as we think we are…and the Shepherd is far better than we think he is.

In John chapter 10, Jesus takes up this image of his people as sheep in need of a shepherd, and he says (John 10.11): 

11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

We’re afraid to follow Christ because we’re afraid to relinquish control. But in reality, Jesus Christ is not a Shepherd who controls his sheep; he is a Shepherd who serves his sheep. Who sacrifices for them. Who lays down his life for them.

We’re afraid to follow Christ because we don’t want to give up our lives; but when we follow Christ, we find that he gives up his life for us. And the sacrifice he made—that of taking on a human nature, and living a perfect life for us, and suffering the punishment for our rebellion against God so we won’t have to—goes far beyond whatever sacrifice he asks of us. Because he is the Good Shepherd.

So do not reject the promise of this psalm because you don’t want to relinquish control. Accept the promise of this psalm because the one who has control is the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for you.

The second natural reaction to this psalm is even more difficult. We might be tempted to apply the promises of this psalm too quickly to ourselves. 

Here’s what I mean. This psalm conjures up images that are so peaceful, and so tender, that it’s easy to read it, say, “Oh, that was nice—thank you God, that’s for me”…and then go about our lives. We get a little boost from it, the same way we get a boost from a TV show that makes us cry for a moment (That was so touching!), and then we get on with our lives.

But we have to remember that the promise of this psalm is not general, but specific. The goal of this psalm is not to make us feel good. It is to celebrate the certainty we have of rest and protection and provision and peace, if we belong to God’s people. 

And the Bible is clear that there is one way to belong to God’s people, one way for this psalm to apply to us, and that is Jesus Christ.

Just a few verses after Jesus’s “Good Shepherd” teaching, Jesus was confronted by a question from the crowd about whether or not he is the promised Savior of God. His response is very clear. John 10.25-27:

25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

So you see, he makes a clear division here: there are some who are his sheep, and others who are not his sheep. And how do we know which group we belong to? 

His sheep believe in him, and his sheep follow him.

Many people take comfort from the psalm who shouldn’t; rather, they should be stricken by the realization that, at least for the moment, they are not a part of God’s people, because they don’t believe in the Good Shepherd, and they don’t follow the Good Shepherd. How terrible must it be to hear such wonderful promises and realize that they are not for you?

The good news is that it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can believe, and you can follow. The Bible calls us all to place our faith in Christ, to repent of our sins, and then to follow him with the help of his Holy Spirit. It’s an open invitation. Jesus said, All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out (John 6.37). 

So come. Place your faith in Christ, ask forgiveness for your sins, repent of those sins (that is, turn away from them), and follow Christ. Because if you do, this psalm is absolutely for you. You can say the same thing as David, with the same certainty as David, and take the same rest and comfort as David in its promises.

We’ll give you some time to do just that in a moment, during our time of Communion, but for the moment, let’s take a moment of silence and prayer, and then we’ll pray Psalm 23 together. 

Lord, you are our shepherd; we shall not want. You make us lie down in green pastures. You lead us beside still waters. You restore our souls. You lead us in paths of righteousness for your name’s sake. 

Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for you are with us; your rod and your staff, they comfort us. 

You prepare a table before in the presence of our enemies; you anoint our heads with oil; our cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in yoru house forever. 

Amen.