Now in Psalms 23, we'll read
our scripture. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk in the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with
me, thy rod and thy staff that comfort me. Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou anointest
my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy
shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house
of the Lord forever. Our message this morning is from
Psalms 23 and in the first verse where the psalmist says, the
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And for my friends
in Central America, El Senor is me pastor, neither me faltera. The Lord is my shepherd. Psalms 23 is undoubtedly one
of the best known passages in all the Bible. Most of us learn
this passage of scripture, this psalm, as small children. We have found it to be not only
for children, but such a comfort to all of us. Maybe at a time
of losing a loved one, we find such great comfort in these words. David was a shepherd and some
3,000 years ago. He wrote these words It applies
to not only David and being in his occupation But it had to
be that David is speaking to us this morning from his heart
that the Lord Jesus Christ is David speaks to us and you may
in the first reading think that he's just talking about being
a shepherd of sheep. But David looks upon this in
a completely a different manner. It's not that David is shepherding
sheep. He's talking about his Lord shepherding
him. David puts himself in a unique
position as each one of us have done in the past. We are the
sheep of our Lord's pastor. And that's what this psalm is
all about this morning. Unfortunately, we live in a society
where tending sheep is not an ordinary occupation. In fact,
I dare say that any of us have ever even known a shepherd and
know the life of a shepherd and what his life is like. And I
would like to say to you this morning that if we look at this
verse of scripture and we begin to think about what David is
saying to us, I believe there's a message, a great and dear message
to the hearts of all of God's people. David was a shepherd
and he was known as the shepherd king of Israel. But the passage
of scripture, David speaks of Jehovah, Jehovah God, the Lord
God of Israel as his great shepherd. He speaks in the psalm as if
he was one of the flock, one of the sheep. When I read this
verse of scripture, my mind is not taken really to a field,
not taken as sheep wandering to and fro, getting caught in
thickets. I'm thinking about my great shepherd,
my great Lord shepherd, my good shepherd that covers me, protects
me, takes care of me in all of my ways. Look at what David is
saying. It is though he is saying, look
who my shepherd is, my owner, my manager, look who my Lord
is. This is the testimony of all
of those who know our Lord Jesus Christ. We live within this world
and we have managers that are over us. We have family that
we care for. But there is one person in all
the world that we look to more than all the managers and presidents
and senators and representatives and all of those that we are
under in this society. We look to our Lord, the great
shepherd of our souls this morning. Because after all, he is he. is the first experience of our
life being a Christian. When our Lord Jesus Christ spoke
to us for the very first time, we became a part of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He became our shepherd, our great
shepherd. God's people sometimes feel that
we are outside of God's camp and troubled on every side. I
am here this morning to reassure you that the protection of God's
people has nothing to do with your ability. God's, the protection
of God's people has nothing to do with who is the head of our
government of the United States, but the protection that God's
people have has to do with the very hand of God who stretches
out and takes us into his bosom and cares for our living soul
this morning. It is from this point I wish
to speak to you this morning, the loving care of the Good Shepherd. I have five points this morning
to share with you concerning this passage. And within these
five points, I want to present the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The first one that I'd like to
share with you today is the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ has
chose us as his sheep. One of the most familiar passages
is upon your heart at this time when I talk about Christ choosing
us to be his sheep. Our minds go to Ephesians one
in verse number four, when the scripture says, according as
he have chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him and love. But I also, my mind runs to John
15 and verse 16 when the The apostle says, you have not
chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you
should go forth and bring forth fruit, that your fruit should
remain and whatsoever you shall ask in my father, he may give
it to you. We are the sheep of our Lord's
pastor. From the beginning to the very
end, it is the love of God in Christ that brings us into this
wonderful fold, into this wonderful pastor where our Lord cares for
us. The second thing that I'd like
to say to you this morning is this, he bought us as his sheep. buying us has a familiar sound
to it. In the Jewish society, when a
young man came to an age that he wanted to take a wife, He
just didn't go out and put a ring on a girl's finger and make her
his wife. There was a society that he dealt
with. The first thing he had to do,
he had to go to that family and he had to make arrangements with
the family. He literally bought that wife. He had to pay a ransom for his
wife. We use the expression, examples
in the Old Testament where one patriarch went and worked for
seven years for a wife, find out it was not the right one,
turned around, worked another seven years to pay for the one
that God had appointed him to have. That's what I call devotion. I wish we had such devotion in
this day and time. My point in making is this, our
Lord has literally bought us as his own. He has paid the price. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 20. For ye are bought with a price,
therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which
are God's. The effect of Christ's death
for us is that we are redeemed from slavery, prison, and the
right of our possession is with Christ. All that we have, all
that we ever shall have is in this one person of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is the purchase that has brought
us into this union. It's not that I evolved my ability,
that I have decided to walk a different road or to take a different turn
in my life. or I've decided to do better,
or I have resolved that I will never, I will never do that again. But the truth is that we are
brought into a relationship with God because He has bought us
into this relationship. It has nothing to do with my
ability again. It has nothing to do with my
decision again. It is the love of God that has
captivated my heart and soul and has ushered me into the glory
of knowing Jesus Christ. as my Lord and Savior. I remember a conversation that
I had with someone I have so much respect for and the person
said, to know that you are of the Lord, that you have the Spirit
of Christ within you, that you have this love and mercy within
you, is something I'll never forget when he said that. And
what it meant to me that of all the things that we can say and
all the things that we preach, it never gets any deeper than
that personal relationship with Almighty God. It's something
that I cannot convey to you. It's something that I cannot
explain to you that happens when a person comes to know the Lord
Jesus Christ, when God Almighty makes himself known unto his
child. I think about raising children
and how so important it is that families, that that young one,
As soon as that child is born, as soon as it's possible, they'll
bring that child to its mother and that mother holds that child. That child will identify with
mother. That child will never lose that
identity with the one who brought him into this world. It's necessary. It's vital. But I remember personal
illustration. I remember when my son had his
first son. And I told him, son, as soon
as all possible, as soon as it's humanly possible, you take that
boy and you hold that boy on your chest. As your wife held
that child to hers, you also take that child and hold that
child to your chest too. That that child will also identify
with you. This identity that I'm talking
about this morning is not anything that a mother and father can
convey to a child. This relationship, this identity
that comes with knowing God and having a shepherd over us and
receiving the protection of Almighty God, it's something that is not
conveyed by blood. in this life, not in inheritance. It is a possession that God gives
His people. It is the fact that Christ has
bought us. We have been brought into this
great relationship with Almighty God. Now the next thing that
I want to say to you about this verse in Psalms 23 is this. He calls us by our name, he calls
us by name as his sheep. This is a vital part of what
we're talking about this morning. In Isaiah 43 in verse one and
two, but now, thus saith the Lord, who created you, O Jacob,
and he who formed you, O Israel, fear not, For I have redeemed
you. I have called you by your name. You are mine. Does that make
you want to shout this morning? That Almighty God loved you enough
to call you by your name and call you for whatever your first
name is this morning. He spoke into your heart and
soul and awoke you from a sleep of damnation and brought you
into a state of eternal rest. Rest in this life and eternal
rest that will go on throughout all eternity. This relationship
that he has caused, that he has spoken to you, continues throughout
all times, throughout this life and in the life to come. Isaiah
43, 1 and 2. Psalms 23 is the most loved passage in all the scripture
because it comforts us with the image of the good shepherd caring
for his helpless and mindless sheep. Can't you just picture
the sheep as they are walking, grazing within the field with
their shepherd? And at the giving time, the shepherd
may rise up And the shepherd begins to walk. And the shepherd
speaks to the sheep. And all at once, the sheep's
heads pop up. because they have heard the voice
of the shepherd. And as the shepherd makes a move
and he begins to walk, the sheep by instinct follows after him. This is a wonderful picture this
morning of what God does for all of his sheep. When the Spirit
of God speaks your name and calls you by your name, you hear the
voice of God. You hear it for the very first
time. and by instinct, not human instinct,
but by special revelation of God. As the Lord was resurrected
by the Spirit of God, that same Spirit that resurrected Christ
is the same Spirit that woke you and brought you awake and
brought you into the grace of God. brought you to the knowledge
of God, brought you into the desire, the inclination to follow
our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he is saying. This
is what David is saying within this psalm. Jesus said of the
good shepherd, the sheep hear his voice and he call it his
sheep by name and lead them out. Then he told the disciples, I
am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and I am known
of mine. This week, there was something
said of a person. A person had been calling and
asking questions about spiritual things. And finally, the person
was invited just come and to hear the word of God. But for
some reason, the person says, well, I don't want to do that. And my reaction was this. It
was a secondhand conversation. And I said, that's a bad sign.
When a person's in trouble, when a person has trouble within his
heart and soul, what he is looking for is to hear the voice of God. It is the house of God. It is
the preaching of the word of God that comforts and builds
us up and strengthens us, but strengthen our hearts and souls.
It's not that we shy away from God's word. We run. to God's
Word as those sheep, when they hear the voice of our Lord, the
voice of the good shepherd, their heads come up and they begin
to make the move toward the shepherd and follow after him. This is
a wonderful picture of how God works in our heart. I'm thinking
this morning, what a fellowship, what a fellowship it is to know
Christ and to be a part his flock to be following after our Lord
Jesus Christ and I thought of a prayer let me hear let me hear
the voice tenderly calling and and find security in knowing
that I am yours and you are mine This is my prayer this morning,
that this voice will guide and strengthen me and lead me on
toward the things of God and the knowledge of God. Because
if I'm following after him, I need nothing else. Now, the next thing
he makes us his sheep, he makes us his own sheep. The Lord, know
ye that the Lord, he is God, it is he that have made us and
not ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pastor. Psalms 100 and verse number three. It is that the Lord has called
us into this flock. It is the Lord that guides us
and protects us. It is the Lord that regenerates
us and brings us into life. It is the Lord that has made
us honorable before God. It is the Lord that has raised
us from a low estate to a high estate, from being a beggar on
the dunghill to sit among the princes, yea, made kings and
priests unto God by Him. Now, what you've been waiting
for this whole time, and it's my last point, it's my fifth
point, this is what I've got to say to you. He delights in
taking care of his sheep. He delights in taking care of
his sheep. This was not something that was
not thought out. Before the foundation of the
world, he had you in mind. It was the flock of God that
has brought about everything that has happened. It was the
love of Almighty God for His people that we were brought into
what we call the decree of God, that we were purposed to be His
children, His sheep of His fold. It was the all planned of God
to bring us safely into the fold. This morning, I started by reading
to you the 23rd Psalm and the first verse. The international
version, which some of you carry here in the church, renders this
verse like this. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not like anything. I shall not like anything. But do you remember I quoted
you just a little line of Spanish this morning from my friends
in Central America? And the part of that verse that
I quoted you was not a me faltera not a me faltera in the spanish
bible that verse the lord is my shepherd and then the last
of it is rendered like this nothing me missing nothing me missing
nothing in this life We are missing a part from what we have in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The worst thing in the world
is ingratitude. And as Christians, we're guilty
sometimes of ingratitude, of complaining and grumbling of
what this life is all about, and what this has happened to
me, and this has happened to me, forgetting. That we have
more than all the rest put together because we have the love of Almighty
God. We are the protection of Almighty
God. Nothing me missing. I like that rendering from the
Spanish Bible. I have an illustration this morning. There was a Sunday school teacher
that stood before our class and she asked this question, is there
anyone here this morning that can stand and quote the entire
Psalms 23? And several people of her class
raised their hand. And there was a small child,
about five years old, a little girl, and she raised her hand.
The teacher was kind of astonished and she called upon her and said,
can you really quote the whole 23rd Psalm? And the little girl
stood up and walked to the podium. And she looked at her class and
she bowed. And this is what she said. She
said, the Lord is my shepherd. That's all I want. And then she
bowed again and went back to her seat. She might've missed
a few verses, but this is what I'm saying to you. She captured
the entire Psalm. She captured the entire Psalm
in her own little words. And when she says, that's all
I want. If you have him, that's all you
want in this life. There's many things that you
may acquire in this life. You may acquire great homes.
You may acquire great lands. You may acquire great titles
and positions in this life. You may have letters before your
name and after your name. But there's one thing in life
that tops all of the achievements of this life. All of those achievements
is not what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. She said, that's
all I want. In this verse this morning, I
believe that that Paul sums it all up in one verse. And that
one verse is this in Philippians four and verse 19 when he said,
and My God shall supply all your need according to His riches
in glory in Christ Jesus. This is David's Psalm. This is not just a person talking
about some sheep grazing on the side of a hill. This is not just
a shepherd who spends all of his days, 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, out living in the wilderness with a bunch of sheep,
caring for them. I forgot to tell you one other
thing about a shepherd. A shepherd, he might find a sheep
in a thicket. he might find a sheep maybe with
a broken leg. A shepherd will take a sheep
and he'll take that lamb and he'll set that leg and he'll
pour maybe oil and wine into the wound and he'll bind it up.
Instead of binding it up and say, there you are, the shepherd
is said to take that lamb and put that lamb on his back and
carry the lamb until the Lamb is able to walk again on its
own. It's not that our Lord finds
us in ridiculous and silly and stupid places in life, but our
Lord finds us and He heals us and He carries us until we can
walk again in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Nada me falter,
nothing me missing. May the Lord bless you.