The Shepherd's Song Pt. 1 (Psalm 23)
This morning, we start a two-week study on one of the most beloved passages of Scripture, Psalm 23. Many of you probably know this passage by memory.
It is an especially beautiful Psalm. It paints a portrait of God as a loving and caring shepherd. For this reason, it is a very encouraging and strengthening portion of Scripture. It is especially helpful for those undergoing trials and tribulations.
Matthew Henry said, “Many of David’s psalms are full of complaints, but this is full of comforts, and the expressions of delight in God’s great goodness and dependence upon him. It is a psalm which has been sung by good Christians, and will be while the world stands, with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction.”
Pastor Charles Spurgeon said of this Psalm, “There is here no din of arms, no noise of war; but there is a delicious hush, only broken by the gentle tinkling of the sheep-bell.”
It is a Psalm about God’s provision and protection of the people of His pasture.
There is something very unique and strange about this Psalm.
It is a strange passage in that it is one of the few portions of Scripture that seems to be an ever-present feature in modern popular culture.
Psalm 23 is quoted in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, Tru Git, and even in one of the more recent Terminator movies.
It is referenced in songs by Pink Floyd, U2, the heavy metal band Megadeath, and even in a rap by Jay-Z.
Now, the obvious reason for Psalm 23 ’s enduring popularity, even in non-Christian culture, is that it has been included in most English-speaking funeral liturgies since the 1920s.
How many you have been to a funeral where this Psalm was read? Me too.
This Psalm, at least in a modern American mindset, has come to be associated primarily with end of life or tragic events.
For example, it was cited in reference to the September 11th terrorist attacks in two notable ways. First, Todd Beamer, one of the passengers that help stop the weaponization of Flight 93, recited the Psalm over the phone before charging the terrorists. Second, President George W. Bush cited the Psalm in his address to the nation on the evening of September 11th.
Suffice it to say, people—Christian and non-Christian alike—are very familiar with this passage.
Now… it has been said that familiarity breeds contempt. And I think this can, in a way, be applied to this wonderful Psalm.
We are so familiar with it that we tend not to meditate and reflect on it. We almost assume that we get it. We have already squeezed all the juice from this berry.
I strongly doubt this to be the case.
Regardless, I aim to help you come to this passage with fresh eyes and soft hearts.
Many, if not most, of the things I will point out won’t be new ideas for most of you.
But I want to challenge you to ask if they are true of your life. How often are our professed beliefs greatly out-of-sync with our actual lives? Too often, right?
So, this week, we will consider Sheep’s Confession of Faith in verse 1, and next week, we will consider what it means to belong to the sheepfold of the Lord in the rest of the passage.
Now, let’s read the entire Psalm.
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
3 He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I 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 have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
What does it mean to confess that the “Lord is my shepherd?”
This is the river from which all the rest of the points in the passage cascade down from and, not surprisingly, it is the most overlooked point.
To understand this Psalm, we must understand these first five words. They are easy to quickly pass over, but they warrant meditation. So, I want us to sit on this amazing confession of David for a while.
Now, it isn’t surprising that David explains his relationship with God in pastoral terms. David himself was a shepherd, and he spent many days and nights with a flock of sheep in the fields.
Perhaps you remember the exchange 1 Samuel 17 between King Saul and David when the king learned that David desired to challenge the giant?
Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, 35 I went out after him and attacked him, and rescued it from his mouth; and when he rose up against me, I seized him by his beard and struck him and killed him. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, since he has taunted the armies of the living God.”
David knew what it meant to be a shepherd.
He knew how needy and vulnerable sheep were.
He knew what it meant to risk his life to protect them.
And there can be no doubt that this is partially what lies behind the beautiful confession of “The Lord is my Shepherd.”
But…there is much more to it than that. Psalm 23 is Scripture. Scripture comes from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
God used writers, according to 2 Peter, "who were born alone by the Holy Spirit." They were part of it. Carried along. Well, how could God write it and it be God's words and still David write it and it be David's words? Because God had made David into the man He wanted him to be.
God formed the personality of David. God ordained that he would be born to Jesse, and God controlled the environment in which David would grow up. It was through the providence of God that David was a shepherd. And God controlled David’s life to make him into the man He wanted him to be.
When David was exactly what God wanted him to be and what God intended him to be, God then directed and controlled his free and willing choice so that he wrote down God's very words. God made David into a man who would think the thoughts that God could use to express His truth.
God literally selected the words of David's life out of David's personality, words, vocabulary, and emotions.
The words were David's, but in reality, his whole life had been so framed by God that they were God's words. Listen to David’s words in 2 Samuel 23:2: "The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was in my tongue." He says it was me and it was my tongue, but it came out of God’s Word.
Now, this is what makes Scripture so amazing. God inspires different men from different cultures and from different times to write down His Word. So, while Scripture, in one sense, has many authors, the real author, the one who breathes it out, is God. That is why there is such a profound unity in Scripture.
40 authors, 66 books, and it all makes sense. Why? Because it is the work of God. There isn’t one word, thought, jot, or tittle except those which God intended to be there. It is divine. Everything that is in there is in there for a reason.
Which brings me back to Psalm 23.
It is true that God used David’s experience to inspire the words of our passage, but the sheep and shepherd theme doesn’t appear only in Psalm 23. No, rather, it is a constant and unifying theme that appears in both the Old and New Testaments.
God is often referred to as a shepherd.
Genesis 48:15 “He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day…”
Psalm 80:1 “Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!”
Psalm 100:3 “Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.”
God often refers to His appointed leaders, both good and bad, as shepherds.
Jeremiah 3:15 “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.
Ezekiel 34:2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?
In 1 Peter 5:2, Peter urges the elders to “shepherd the flock of God among you.”
That is why we refer to elders as pastors. Elder is the office. Pastor, that is shepherding, is the function.
Think of how many of God’s chosen leaders are shepherds. Righteous Abel was a shepherd. David was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd. This is by providence, not by accident.
Throughout scripture, man is referred to as sheep in need of a shepherd.
Numbers 27:17 “…who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.”
1 Kings 22:17 “So he said, “I saw all Israel Scattered on the mountains, Like sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said, ‘These have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace.’”
Isaiah 53:6 All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.
Zechariah 10:2 And the diviners see lying visions And tell false dreams; They comfort in vain. Therefore the people wander like sheep, They are afflicted, because there is no shepherd.
Matthew 9:36 Seeing the people, [Jesus] felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
1 Peter 2:25 For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
Time and time again, this theme comes up in Scripture.
It comes up because God loves us. He knows we are dense and stupid. He knows we need similes, metaphors, and illustrations to even begin to understand one billionth of one percent of His truth. And shepherd and sheep are something we can understand. It is a picture that makes sense.
Now, you may notice that I have skipped the most obvious and, perhaps, the most important example of the shepherd and sheep theme in Scripture, John 10.
I’ve done it on purpose. I’ve done it because all the mentions of shepherds and sheep all point and, in a way, find their ultimate fulfillment in John 10:11-18.
Listen to the words of our Lord:
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
What a beautiful passage! What a wonderful savior and shepherd we have in Christ!
Now, Psalm 23 can only be fully understood in the context of John 10. I know that might sound weird. There are nearly a thousand years between the writing of Psalm 23 and the incarnation of Christ. How is it then that John 10 is necessary to understand Psalm 23 fully?
Listen to these words, 1 Peter 1:10-12…
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.
And do you remember the conversation Christ had with the two men on the road to Emmaus?
They were sad because of the death of Jesus. Christ confronted and rebuked them.
…He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
David didn’t understand the full significance of what he was writing, but we have been blessed to be born after the first coming of Christ. We have the benefit of a complete and closed canon. We have access to all the books of Scripture. And since the Bible has one author, we can read a single passage of Scripture in light of the entirety of Scripture. Not only does it make sense, but it is illuminating.
This is what is called the analogy of faith.
The “analogy of faith” is a reformed interpretive principle that states that, since all scriptures are harmoniously united with no essential contradictions, every proposed interpretation of any passage must be compared with what the other parts of the bible teach. In other words, the “faith,” or body of doctrine, which the scriptures as a whole proclaim, will not be contradicted in any way by any passage. Moreover, each part of Scripture complements the other parts.
That is why John 10 can shed much light on what we are to do with Psalm 23.
That's why I’ve spent so much time tracing the shepherd and sheep theme through Scripture this morning.
(This is why you should have a systematic Bible reading plan.
This is why you should read commentaries and systematic theology.)
Now that we have a basic understanding of the theme of sheep and shepherd, particularly its fulfillment in John 10, let's again ask what it means to confess, “The Lord is my shepherd.”
Let’s break this down piece by piece.
“The Lord”
David says, “The Lord…” Who is his shepherd? The Lord.
Bob Dylan said, “Everyone is going to serve somebody.” Everyone is religious. No one is neutral. That is a myth. Everyone has a god or, as in most cases, an entire pantheon of gods. Everyone bows the knee to someone.
That is why we have the first two commandments of the Decalogue. Listen to Exodus 20:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Israel served many false gods, including Molech, Astheroth, Baal, and the animal deities of Egypt. We are no different from the Jews or the Greeks. We still have a pantheon of gods.
Pleasure, success, profit margin, status, wokeness, science, etc. We pursue and worship these things as if they can deliver us. As if they were shepherds who could guide us through life to green pastures and still waters. But they can’t. They make promises they never keep.
There is only one shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. All others are figments of our imagination or hirelings or wolves. They have no concern for the sheep except to make them into a meal. To use them.
David had one shepherd, one God, the Lord. There was no other for Him because there was no other.
Think about that. Think how wondrous it is that David has the Lord as his shepherd.
God is a spirit that is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. He is so far above us. So transcendent. He is perfect in wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, truth, and justice. He has no sin.
We are so small, so wicked, so lost. And yet, we can be His sheep, and He can be our shepherd.
Its amazing. In Psalm 8, David says:
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
That the one true God thinks of us—that He would send His Son to save us, to lay down His life, and to be our shepherd—is incredible. It is wonderful.
Unlike all the false gods of this world, the Lord has real power.
Listen to Psalm 115….
But our God is in the heavens;
He does whatever He pleases.
4 Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of man’s hands.
5 They have mouths, but they cannot speak;
They have eyes, but they cannot see;
6 They have ears, but they cannot hear;
They have noses, but they cannot smell;
7 They have hands, but they cannot feel;
They have feet, but they cannot walk;
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
8 Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them.
9 O Israel, trust in the Lord;
He is their help and their shield.
Cast down your powerless idols. Serve the Lord! Praise God for His mercy in making a way for us to serve Him.
“The Lord is…”
Is. This is present tense. Not was. Not will be. Not sometimes. The Lord IS David’s shepherd.
The Good Shepherd is always with His sheep. He is always caring for them, providing for them, and protecting them.
Hebrews 4:14-16 says:
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
We have constant access to the Good Shepherd. Jesus Himself said, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” He also said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”
The Lord is our shepherd. He is a present help, a present guide, and a present protector.
“The Lord is my…”
David doesn’t say the Lord is our shepherd, even though the Lord is the shepherd of Israel. He says, “The Lord is MY shepherd.”
This brings me back to the idea that this is a popular text in society. Non-believers are comfortable with it because it is uplifting and comforting; they think it applies to them. But it doesn’t.
The Lord isn’t everyone’s shepherd. Some people are goats. Some are wolves.
Not just anyone can say, “The Lord is MY shepherd.”
To make David’s confession in Psalm 23, you must believe Psalm 22. There is a reason for the canonical order of the Psalms.
Psalm 22, of course, is a messianic Psalm. It is all about the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. Christ quoted this Psalm on the cross when He said, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
Psalm 22 speaks of Jesus’ suffering on the cross—His hands and feet being pierced, the mocking of the Jews and pagans, and the displeasure of God.
The cross is the center of the gospel. Before you can get to the sweet Shepherd’s Psalm, you must pass through the Suffering Psalm.
Jesus in John 10 connects Psalm 22 and Psalm 23. He says, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”
Christ is the good shepherd (Psalm 23), and the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep (Psalm 22).
Elsewhere in John 10, Jesus says, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”
The only way to the green pastures of the Good Shepherd is to enter through the door drenched with the blood of the Lamb of God.
Jesus says, “I am the way.” Peter says there is no other name…
This Psalm is for believers. It is for the blood-drenched. It applies to no others.
Spurgeon says, “A sheep is an object of property, not a wild animal; its owner sets great store by it, and frequently it is bought at a great price.”
We have been purchased.
Do you want the Lord as your shepherd? Praise the Lord. Repent and believe the gospel; and if you already believe the gospel, praise Him. Praise Him for making a way. Praise Him for laying down His life. Praise Him for His blood that redeems us.
“The Lord is my shepherd.”
To say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to confess that you are a sheep.
And sheep can be foolish. They wander. They get lost. They go astray.
Sheep are vulnerable; they have no means to protect themselves. Wolves can easily tear them to pieces.
Do you see yourself as a sheep? Are you self-sufficient? Then you are a goat. Only wild goats don’t need a shepherd.
Matthew 25:31-33 says:
31 But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. You need a shepherd. You need a good shepherd. And we have one in Christ.
In conclusion, Jesus, the good shepherd, was also the lamb of God. And this give us confidence in this difficult trying world:
Peter says:
…knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you.
In the green pastures, by stills waters, on the mountain tops, and in the dark valley, in the presence of our enemies the Lord is our shepherd. He is your shepherd and he will guide, protect, and bring you home.