Thank you. Well, it is good to
see you this morning. And thank you once again for
your warm welcome, for your kindness in so many ways. We do enjoy
coming to visit with you and it is always a delight to find
those who have an eagerness and an appetite for the Word of God
when we meet together in the fellowship of the Lord's people.
So you thank me for coming to visit you. I don't quite get
that because I count it a real privilege to be here amongst
you, so maybe it's good that we feel that there is that reciprocal
sense of obligation one to another, for surely our union, our joined
togetherness, is because we are all obligated, obliged to the
Savior who has done all things well. All the excellent things
which he's done. That was a lovely passage that
Angus read to us there. I'm here on my own this morning
because Jill's not feeling so well, so she apologizes that
she's not feeling well. But we'll see you again on another
occasion, I trust. Let's have a word of prayer. Our gracious God and loving Father,
we do thank Thee for Thy faithfulness to Thy people. Well has it been
said, great is Thy faithfulness, because we confess, O God, that
if it was not for Thy unconditional love, we would long ago have
forfeited any rights to Thy care and Thy attention upon us. And
yet, in thy faithfulness, and in thy love, and in thy mercy
extended to us, we rejoice this morning. For while we become
so distracted, wander in our thoughts, and our minds, and
our attention, and our words, and our works, our deeds, Thou
art strong, Thou art faithful, Thou art resolute, and Thou art
unchanging. And we rejoice that we can find
our way back to Thee this morning. And we rejoice that Thou hast
given us this hour in Thy presence, under the sound of Thy word,
in the company of Thy saints, engaged in the expression of
praise through these hymns that we sing together. not simply
to bind us in some sort of congregational melody, but to take these tunes,
these hymns, these songs of praise into the very courts of heaven
and there join them with the angelic host. It is our privilege,
our God, and we believe that as those angels look from heaven
this morning, they see this as a bright light upon this earth. For here the Lord's people meet.
Here the saints on earth do gather. Here is where the Lord Jesus
Christ is pleased to come and meet with his people. and undoubtedly
the angels follow his movements as they look upon earth and there
they see the risen Christ joined with his people in gospel fellowship. It is our privilege and we believe
that if more could understand how blessed we feel to be in
thy presence this morning, surely they would join with us. But
we thank thee that thou hast revealed these things to such
as it is good in thy sight, and we ask that thou wilt continue
to uphold us and bless us in the days that lie ahead as we
seek thy face in the gospel of the Saviour. May it be so for
thy name's sake. Amen. Turn with me, please, in your
Bibles to Psalm 23. Psalm 23. Here's a little passage
that you're all familiar with. And I guess in some respects
we say, is this not a cow that has been milked so often that
there's little left to be had? But, you know, the Lord is good. And like the pot that kept on
flowing, I trust that Psalm 23 will render something to us this
morning that will do our souls some good. So we're going to
read Psalm 23. And Psalm 23, we'll read it from
the opening verse, of course. The Lord is my shepherd. It's
a Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine 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 will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. I do trust that familiarity does
not breed contempt when we come to consider the word of God. And I'm going to perhaps be even
a little more adventurous this morning because I don't intend
to preach to you from the whole psalm. I've been selective and
I'm only going to take as my text the very first verse. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. The Lord Jesus Christ in the
days of his humiliation was a man just like us. Just like us. He got tired and weary in his
journeys and in his walking about. He knew what it was to be hungry
and thirsty. He knew what it was to have those
physical needs like we have. He knew what it was to be tried. He knew what it was to be tested,
and he knew what it was to be tempted and to be troubled, and
yet he was completely without sin. In all points, he was tested
and tempted like we are, yet without sin. And some people
might think that the sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ may
have saved him from the worst of those trials and temptations. But I'm not so sure about that.
I've thought about that quite a lot. I've thought about that
as I've been preparing my thoughts for this morning. And I think
rather that in this wicked world, in this body of flesh, that the
sinlessness of the Lord Jesus Christ rather aggravated those
troubles and trials and temptations that he felt. And I tried to think about, perhaps,
a way of explaining that. And I wondered if our thinking
about the way in which our immune system operates might give us
an insight into that picture. For surely it is that the absence
of an immune system intensifies the illness and the sickness
and the trouble that we have in our bodies. And yet our immune
system is only built when we come into contact with those
very same diseases. So the fact that the Lord was
sinless meant that when that sin attacked him, it was aggravated
to a much more extreme extent. Let us not think that the Lord
was in any way saved from the effects and the trials of his
walk here upon earth, during his walk here upon earth, of
the sinfulness of this world or the tempter's assaults upon
him. The Lord Jesus Christ knew what
it was to feel the trials of his time. What, for example,
must it have been like to know the heart and the thoughts of
every person that you spoke to through those 33 years of life
on this earth? I can look at you and I can say,
it's good to see you. And inside I'm thinking, oh no,
I'm going to have to spend the next half hour talking to this
boring person. but we put on a face, don't we? We engage with people. And yet
our minds and our thoughts are so often thinking antagonistic
things. And we smile on the outside when
we're frowning on the inside. How would you like to know about
all of those frowns as you were going through life? How would
you like to see the real nature of people constantly, every day,
every time you spoke to them and know that they're looking
into your eyes, smiling at your face and telling you downright
lies? Well, the Lord knew all of these
things and I suspect that the sinlessness of our Saviour was
an aggravation of the trials and the troubles that he had
to endure. The soul of our Lord Jesus Christ
was exposed and it was vulnerable and it was alone in this world. Look at Psalm 22, just flicking
over a page or back a page in your scriptures. Look at verse
11 in Psalm 22. It's very clear, we talk about
the Messianic Psalms sometimes, but it's very clear that the
Psalms are to be taken in a variety of ways, and not least of that,
I'm going to say most importantly, the Psalms ought to be read as
the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you read Psalm 22, it
is absolutely Unquestionable that this is a psalm that the
Lord Jesus Christ himself spoke. Look at the opening verse, My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from
helping me? Where did we hear that? We heard
that on the cross. Why did the Lord Jesus Christ
say those words on the cross? Was it because David had written
them? thousand years before? No, David wrote them a thousand
years before because the Lord Jesus Christ was going to say
them on the cross. And there the Lord Jesus Christ
expressed the reality of what he was experiencing in his soul. And these words of David, they
tell us what the Lord was thinking. They tell us what the Lord was
feeling. They tell us what the Lord was enduring. We hear the
words of the Lord. They are recorded for us in the
Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
the apostles, they wrote these things. They told us these things.
But the Holy Spirit gave us a light into the very soul of Christ
a thousand years before he came. so that the faithful of the Lord
identified him for who he was because of what the prophets
said concerning him. And there look at verse 11 in
Psalm 22. Be not far from me, for trouble
is near, for there is none to help. People take their lives in this
world when they feel like that. They feel abandoned. They feel
lost. They feel as if there is no one
that can help them. No one to listen to them. No one who will be able to give
them any succor or aid or comfort. And this is the testimony of
Christ. This is how the Lord Jesus Christ felt in his humanity. I say again, he was a man like
us. Let us never underestimate that. He was a man like us and he declared,
he says, be not far from me. To whom is he speaking? He's
speaking to his Father in heaven. Be not far from me for trouble
is near. There is none to help. And this
at the very least ought to remind us of how the Lord Jesus Christ
was sustained and helped in his humanity by God the Father. God the Holy Spirit also, we
discover, came from time to time in the Lord's experience and
upheld him and sustained him. There are key moments in the
Lord's life, for example, at his baptism or at the Transfiguration. or perhaps particularly at Gethsemane,
where we see the Lord being sustained, the Lord being helped, the Lord
being given glimpses of his Father's presence with him, in order to
uphold him and sustain him in that work which he was destined
to fulfil. There was a divine consolation
came to the Lord Jesus Christ through his earthly ministry.
And that came because he needed it. That came because it was
required for him to have it. Such were the trials and the
burdens and the temptations that he faced in his earthly life.
And I mention that because I want us to be aware of this point,
that the Psalms are primarily about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I don't deny that David was the author. We have it in
the introduction. This is a Psalm of David. I don't
deny that David was the author. I don't deny that there is great
spiritual comfort delivered and granted to a big number of people
down through the ages in these words. These words are beautiful
words. They couldn't be simpler words. The ideas within it couldn't
be more commonplace. And yet there is a profundity
about these words which give every successive generation in
this world throughout history comfort and encouragement when
they read these half a dozen simple verses. But let us remember that this
was the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The personalness, the intimacy
is in putting these words into Christ's mouth first and hearing
him say, the Lord is my shepherd. The very heart of this psalm
is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to his father. These speak of
Christ's words, Christ's feelings, in the days of his flesh, in
his mediatorial character, in that role that he played. The Lord Jesus Christ called
Jehovah his shepherd. So as we read the words, the
Lord is my shepherd, Let's try and take ourselves out of that
and think of the Lord Jesus himself saying, the Lord is my shepherd. And I believe it is our privilege
to place these words directly into the mouth of the Lord Jesus
Christ and to hear them from his lips and to have this psalm
applied to him in the first instance. As a child, the Lord Jesus, as
he was known, Jesus, the son of Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth,
the one we call our Lord, as a child, he would have learned
this psalm, and he would have learned to recite this psalm
at his mother's knee. It's a good thing for our children
to learn the Scriptures. The Lord's people for generations
have taught their children the Word of God wisely so because
they sustain these truths, sustain us as we grow into adulthood
and they carry with us. So let us take that on board
as a good principle. I'm sure that Mary taught the
Lord the 23rd Psalm of David. He would be taught it and yet
he amongst all those who ever have learned this psalm would
have realized its meaning and its significance. He is the one who opens its true
depth to us. And there is a fullness and there
is a glory discerned in this psalm, which the Lord Jesus Christ
would have understood even through his youthful trust in his father,
his shepherd. Our blessed Savior looked to
Jehovah as his own shepherd. And that opens a beautiful view
to our eyes if we think upon it, if we consider it to be so. For in every way in which we
get comfort from the idea that the Lord Jesus Christ is our
shepherd, so the Lord Jesus Christ First of all, drew that comfort
from the knowledge that the God Jehovah was his shepherd. His father was to him what we
gain from Christ. And we're going to touch upon
some of the practical aspects in later studies if the Lord
will allow and enable us to do that. But today what I want to
do is to think about how the Father was Christ's shepherd. Think about how it is that we
might say that. For it isn't a common way, I
confess, for us necessarily to think. In reading this psalm,
we wouldn't necessarily think about Jehovah being the shepherd
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, why not? Because isn't
the Lord Jesus Christ constantly referred to as the Lamb of God? the Lamb of God. John the Baptist
said it at Jordan, he said, behold the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. If he's the Lamb of God, then
who's the shepherd? And so we see that while we don't
necessarily think about God shepherding Christ, Yet we often think about
Christ as the Lamb of God. So there really isn't any reason
why we shouldn't draw these thoughts and ideas together. The elect
are God's flock. And the Lord Jesus Christ as
the God-man is so united to us as to be the spotless Lamb of
God, the chosen Lamb from amongst the flock. From amongst that
little flock, from amongst that flock of slaughter, the Lord
Jesus Christ was chosen out. Behold mine elect, the Father
said of the Son. Not of the people who are the
elect of God, but of the Son. Behold mine elect. And so the
Lord Jesus Christ was drawn from one as a representative for us. This is our union together with
him in his humanity through his incarnation. And these things
are ours with him. For the Lord Jesus Christ to
be the shepherd of his people, he first had to become a lamb
for his people. That speaks to us of this mediatorial
office, this coming of Christ to be the one mediator between
God and man. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
do His Father's will. He came to fulfil the obligations
that fell to Him under this mediatorial office, to follow His direction,
to act under His guidance, to fulfil His will and the requirements
that were set before Him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ,
He willingly subjugated himself, he willingly brought himself
under the Father's direction. Now those who gainsay the Christian
faith will often say, well, how can there be equality when the
Lord Jesus Christ frequently expresses the fact that there
is a superiority in the Father over Him? Well, we understand
that, don't we, in the context of the fact that he willingly
took upon himself this humiliation in order to enter into the world
to represent us as that one who would go to the cross for us. And so he became the Lamb of
God. Lord Jesus Christ came to be
a servant. He came to be a sacrifice. He came to be obedient to his
father's will. And right at the very beginning
of his, I was going to say his ministry, but we think of his
ministry beginning at the time when he was around 30. When he
was 12 years of age, he says to his mother, don't you know
that I've got to be about my father's business? This is the Father's will which
hath sent me. So in the covenant office, the
Lord Jesus Christ, as the elect representative, as the substitute,
as the sacrifice for sin, as the lamb slain from before the
foundation of the world, acknowledges that God is his shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. And we can think about that from
the context of the father's position. The father had a special property
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls him his own son. He says, you are my dearly beloved
son. He says, this is the only begotten
son. There is a special property that
the father has in the Lord Jesus Christ. So the son can call him
my shepherd. The lamb rightly says, the Lord
is my shepherd. Furthermore, the Father provided
Christ as the sacrifice, and the Father appointed Christ as
the sacrifice. He delivered Him up. And in that context, again, we
see the governorship, the rule of the Father in this matter.
So the Son, the Lamb, can rightly say, the Lord is my shepherd. It is the Father who declares
Christ as the Lamb to be without spot and blemish, an acceptable
sacrifice. It is the Father who is well
pleased in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. And thus the Lamb
can rightly say, the Lord is my shepherd. The Father distinguishes
him from all other lambs. He has given preference. He has
given a name which is above all names. He is recognized for his
excellency. not the very angels in glory
and all their majesty had a glory like Christ's. He was distinguished
in this world from every other lamb for there was not another
lamb could have been sacrificed except this one who was uniquely
the lamb of God. And so the lamb can rightly say,
the Lord is my shepherd. And the father enabled, provided
and sustained the lamb through all the years of his life, through
all of the trials that he faced, through all of the difficulties.
We drew attention to that in our introduction, how that through
all of these troubled times, the Lord was able to say, helped
me to be able to go to his father and pray for comfort when there
was none to help him. When everyone turned their back
and fled, the Lord Jesus Christ was able to say, the Lord is
my shepherd. In Isaiah 42 verse 1, we read
these verses. at this verse. Behold my servant
whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment
to the Gentiles. That's a beautiful picture there
of the sustaining comfort of the father, of the shepherd,
to his son and to his lamb. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ declares,
the Lord is my shepherd, whose will, whose shepherdly will,
the Lamb of God fulfills. And he looks to his Father to
supply all of his needs and everything that he requires to fulfill his
mediatorial redemptive purpose. But note too, that the lamb is
become the shepherd. So I don't want to, as it were,
steal away any of our comfort as the flock of God from this
verse also. Because it is because of our
union with the Lord Jesus Christ, who first declared, the Lord
is my shepherd, that we too now are entitled to say, the Lord
is my shepherd too. The Lord is my shepherd as well. He has become for us our good
shepherd, the good shepherd of the sheep, the good shepherd
of the flock of God's choice. Jehovah was God's, was Christ's
shepherd, and Christ has become our shepherd. We can only approach
Jehovah through the Lord Jesus Christ. We go to the Father through
the Son. We go to Christ's shepherd through
the one who has become the good shepherd for us. And all our
help and all our comfort is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, such
that all the help and comfort Christ found from his Father,
we now find from him, as it is conveyed and passed on down to
us. Turn with me in your Bibles to
Ezekiel chapter 34, if you will. I want to just read a few verses
from Ezekiel for you. It's Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations,
Ezekiel. If you get to Daniel, you've
gone too far. Ezekiel 34. Look at verse 22. Therefore will I save my flock,
and they shall no more be a prey, and I will judge between cattle
and cattle. That, let me just pause there
for a moment, that reference there of judging between cattle
and cattle, when we look at a herd of cattle, unless you're pretty
astute, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between all these
cows. One just looks much like another. If that's true for cattle, is
it not aggravated when you're looking at a flock of sheep?
They all just look the same. And yet what God is telling us
here is that he distinguishes between one and another. God
distinguishes between men. God distinguishes between people.
Not by distinguishing them from the outside, but by distinguishing
them in their hearts. We talk about the particularity
of grace. We talk about the fact that God
has a chosen people. This is the reference here, the
fact that he will judge between cattle and cattle. He knows them
that are his. So, verse 23, Ezekiel 34 again,
verse 23. And I will set up one shepherd
over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David. And he shall feed them, and he
shall be their shepherd. Now this isn't talking about
David the shepherd boy, nor indeed David the king, who ruled over
Israel. In that capacity, David was a
type, he was a picture. The antitype, the reality, the
fullness is the person of Christ, and that's who God is speaking
about here. This is the mediator Christ that
is the shepherd set up. And I, the Lord, will be their
God, and my servant David a prince among them. I, the Lord, have
spoken it. Now, I think in that little passage
there, there are many sweet and precious truths, privileges wrapped
up, and it's just perhaps all bound up together for us in David's
simple statement, the Lord is my shepherd. When we look at
what God has promised to do, when we look at this covenant
purpose, when we think about the eternal plan, when we think
about the way in which it all was set together and how one
was called out, One alone could be that representative. One alone
could be that Redeemer, that Deliverer, that Saviour. And
the Lord Jesus Christ came, the very God-Man, leaving heaven,
coming to earth, taking upon Himself our flesh, being identified
with us and going to the cross, laying down His life. When we
look at that, in all of its greatness, in all of its breadth, in all
of its wonder and majesty. It can be bound up together in
these few simple words. The Lord is my shepherd. So when we say that, we're saying
something extremely profound. We are enlarging in that little
summary all of the work of salvation, all of the eternal purpose of
God, because the Lord is my shepherd. We need to be aware that when
the Lord Jesus Christ came, there was that humility in him, there
was that reliance upon him. And yet we can see that the trust
which he had in his father and the confidence which he had in
his shepherd, these are things that we can now draw upon and
emulate and draw comfort from. These are derived blessings.
The Lord was the first one to experience them, and now we can
experience them in turn. They come to us through the Lord
Jesus Christ. And we can say the Lord is our
shepherd because the Lamb of God has come into the world to
save sinners such as us. Now this Psalm 23 has become
very popular and it has become very well known and it is said
very frequently. Indeed it is a common verse or
passage to be quoted at funerals, it is taught to children, it
is put in posters, it is hung up in religious places, and it
seems to almost have taken upon itself a chant, something that
we can merely recite with too much thought going into it, something
which we become very familiar with. But I hope that by the
end of our time here this morning, we have perhaps begun to think
about it somewhat afresh. Not all men are God's flock,
and not all men have the right to say, the Lord is my shepherd. The funeral familiar that This
psalm has become, in no way displays, the singer's honest heart. They may sing the Lord's My Shepherd,
but they don't know what it means. They can never know what it means.
Because the Lord distinguishes between cattle and cattle. The Lord distinguishes between
sheep and sheep. The Lord has a flock which are
his own. And these covenant benefits that
have been secured by the Lord Jesus Christ, they come upon
covenant children. And I'm not talking about infant
baptism. I'm talking about the election
of grace, for we are the children of promise. We are the covenant
children. We read these verses together
in Ezekiel 34. If you've still got your finger
in that place, look at verse 25. David, the Lord, has said in
verse 24, and I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant
David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken it,
and I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the
evil beasts to cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely
in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. and I will make them
and the places round about my hill a blessing, and I will cause
the shower to come down in his season, there shall be showers
of blessing. The shepherd is going to lead
us, lead us who are the flock of God, into these peaceful places. He is going to lead us to lie
down in comfort. He is going to sustain us with
refreshment. He is going to nourish us with
goodness. He is going to provide for us.
He is going to grant us these things. There will be a covenant
of peace. There will be a promise here.
The covenant requirements of which are fully satisfied by
our representative. Every demand having been made,
the evil beasts will cease, they will dwell safely, they will
sleep in the woods, and there will be blessing in that holy
hill. The church is sometimes called
Zion, and that Zion was a hill, and here are the blessings flowing
to Zion, the flock of God's choice. This is, as well, the more sure
word of prophecy that we have today. For this speaks of the
fact that we can say of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is my shepherd,
he who has declared, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd
lays down his life for the sheep. Now, I wouldn't presume at all
to teach Australians anything about keeping sheep. You guys
are the best when it comes to keeping sheep, I'm sure. But
let us just look at this phrase very briefly and draw some truths
from it. Firstly, the Lord is my shepherd. No one else. The Lord is my shepherd. There are false shepherds. There
are those who would say, come over this way. And others who
would say, no, no, come over this way. Let us go in this direction. Let us move in that direction.
Let us follow this pathway. But the Lord is my shepherd. Therefore, we will follow him. We will seek his footsteps. We will endeavor to follow after
his ways. The Lord is my shepherd. He is caring as a shepherd. He
is a careful guide to his people. He is our deliverer. He is our
protector. The privilege is ours to be able
to call him our shepherd, the Lord God, our shepherd. And he has given under shepherds.
It is so. Pastors after mine own heart,
they are called. Shepherds after my own heart. Why has the Lord done this? The
Lord has done that, though he continues to be the Lord our
shepherd, he has given us undershepherds so that we might have that tangible
help and support in the preaching of the gospel. That's what he
has given undershepherds for, these pastors and leaders in
our congregations. Jeremiah chapter 3 verse 15,
there spoken of, I will give you pastors according to mine
heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. Whose knowledge? Whose understanding? Their knowledge? Their understanding? No, the knowledge of the shepherd. Because the shepherd led the
sheep. The shepherd leads the way, and
the under-shepherds are there to guide the sheep along as they
follow after the shepherd. And so it is the Lord who is
our shepherd. But the Lord is our shepherd. Present tense. The Lord is my
shepherd. Now I don't say that the past
is unimportant because we've all come from somewhere and your
path has been different to my path and no two paths are the
same. The Lord has led us through a
variety of experiences and circumstances and trials and problems and ways
of life. But right now, here today, in
the confines of this little building in Nowra, New South Wales, at
25 to 12, can you say, the Lord is my shepherd
right now? Can you say that? Can you say
that? Do you know that to be the truth?
Because I really don't care what your face looks like, pretty
as they are, and I don't really care what age you are. The Lord looks in the heart,
and you can kid me, and you can kid these others, and you can
kid your best friend, or your parents, or whatever it might
be, but you can't kid the Lord. Can you say, the Lord is my shepherd? What comforts there are for the
soul that can say, the Lord is my shepherd. To know that he
is mine, to know that my sins are forgiven, to know that if
that end should come today, I would stand in the presence of God
with Christ my surety. Salvation is a living thing. It's a personal experience. It's a relationship from the
heart that we have with God day by day. It's the present tense. It's mine. It's not another's. And this shepherd is mine. The Lord is my shepherd. He's mine. He's mine. And I can
ask you the question, is he yours? But I want you to be asking that
question of yourself. The Lord is my shepherd. He's mine by predestination,
because he has chosen me out of this world. He is mine by
redemption, because he has purchased me by his own precious blood. He is mine because he has bought
me. I have bought thee, thou art
mine, and he is mine by promise. I will never leave thee nor forsake
thee. That's what the shepherd was
referring to in Ezekiel 34 verse 25 when he speaks about the covenant
of peace. This relationship into which
we have been brought to where we can say these great truths,
these great accomplishments, these great prizes of Christ's
work are mine. They're my possession. They're
my inheritance. They're my blessed state in this
world. Can you say the Lord is my shepherd? And he is a shepherd to us, is
he not? As a shepherd is a guardian,
as a shepherd is a provider, as a shepherd is a deliverer,
as a shepherd is a sustainer of his flock, so Christ is our
shepherd. And all of the qualities of a
good shepherd are found in Christ. All of the things that are needful
are found in him. He is the one who lays down his
life for the sheep. Is it a bear? Then the shepherd, he takes his
slingshot, not his 22, his slingshot, and he stands in front of those
sheep, and he puts his stone in his sling, and he slings it
around about his head, and he says, you'll not pass me. Or is it a lion? Then he takes
it by the beard of its chin, and he swings his club as hard
as he can down on that lion's head. And he said, you won't
have any of my sheep, not today. Not today. Not while I've still
got any energy left in this body. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
emulates every best quality that we can imagine in a faithful
good shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. John 18 verse 8, the Lord Jesus
Christ answers and said, I have told you that I am he. The Enemies of Christ had come in
the garden of Gethsemane. They had come to take him, arrest
him, and take him to be crucified. There in the darkness in the
night, the Lord Jesus Christ exemplified that shepherd boy
in the hillside. For as his disciples stood behind
him and the mob came before him, carrying their torches and their
swords and their spears, The Lord Jesus Christ looked at them
and said, what are you here for? Who do you seek? And they said,
we seek Jesus of Nazareth. And he said, I am he. I am he. I'm the one you're looking for.
But then he said, let these go their way. You're not looking
for any of these. I'm the one you're after. And
that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ does for us today.
You, you, you and me, we are stinking, disgraceful
sinners. And when the devil, the accuser
of the brethren, comes and looks at us, He says, there's the reason,
and there's the reason, and there's the reason, and there's the reason
why they're mine. And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
I've borne it all. I've taken it all. I've taken
every piece of guilt, every sin that's been committed, every
wrongdoing, every transgression, every iniquitous thought, everything
that can be possibly laid against their charge. There is therefore
now no condemnation. Why? Because I have borne it
all. I am He. I am He. Now let these go free. The Lord
is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. Do you
know, we've only got halfway through that first verse. I shall
not want. Maybe we leave this for another
day. What do you want? What do you want? Modern usage
has made us think about that word in the sense of to wish
for something or to desire after something or to demand something.
I want that. The old meaning is that you will
lack nothing. It has to do with wanting for
nothing because you have all you need, that there's nothing
missing, there's nothing that is outstanding. And when the
Lord is our shepherd, we shall want for nothing. Everything
is sorted. Providence, this life. Providence
means provided. We're provided with everything
that we need. God is in control of every element,
aspect of our life. And He is providing for all our
needs. Protection is ours because we
are underneath that hand which is all-powerful. Salvation and
everything that it contains. We could speak about justification,
sanctification, adoption. We could speak about reconciliation. We could speak about all of the
various elements and aspects of our relationship with God
that Christ has accomplished. But it's our salvation. That's
the big umbrella. and everything in our salvation
has been provided for. He will give grace and He will
give glory. Every grace that is required
in this world is ours and every glory of that eternal age will
be ours. You know, people tell us that
there's going to be degrees of reward in heaven. That we're
going to have some bright Christians and some dim Christians. We're
going to have some that are up at the front and others that
are away at the back. Some that have great big crowns
that they can hardly balance their heads. And some that are
just going to have one or two because they've not been so good
here on earth. The Lord shall supply all our
needs according to his riches in glory. I shall not want a
thing. I shall lack nothing. No one
will be better than me and no one will be worse than me because
the Lord has given us everything that we require. We want for
nothing, everything is sorted. It's just the way it is. And
whether it's immediately obvious to us or not, it's the way that
it is. I lack nothing. Right now, here
in this world, I lack nothing. I need nothing. You can be a King David sitting
in a royal throne, or you can be an Elijah the prophet starving
to death in the midst of a famine. And you know what? The very ravens
will come and feed you. You'll lack for nothing. Our
shepherd ensures that all his sheep are nourished along the
way. Now, I don't have a big house.
And I don't have a Lotus Elite. And I don't have a university
education. But I want for nothing because
I've got Christ. And he is my all in all. I have every confidence in him.
I trust him. I don't know what's going to
happen when I walk out that door today. I have no idea. You know,
if I tried to plan it, it would go so differently just to spite
me. but the Lord is in control of
the next hour, of the next month, of all the days of my life. And surely, goodness and mercy
will follow me all the days of my life. The father only has the best
for his children. Do you suffer? Do not think harshly
of your shepherd in the midst of your sufferings. Do you weep? Never imagine that your shepherd
does not know the cause of your tears. Do you struggle with trial
and temptation? These must needs come. Our troubles are not without
blessedness. In Isaiah chapter 30, we read
these words, the Lord waits to be gracious. His waiting to be
gracious is purposeful. It's purposeful to intensify
our dependence upon him. He is wisely allowing us to realize
that we are bankrupt in order that He might receive all the
glory for the good that He gives to His people. His strength is
perfected in our weakness. His grace is sufficient for our
need. We need need to know grace. Our best interests are served
when we have no grounds for boasting in ourselves and every reason
to fully rely upon the Lord Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. There
are multitudes who say, the Lord is my shepherd. And I fear that
many who do in their souls are ignorant of the great shepherd
of the sheep. It's my prayer today that all
who would voice these words would be brought in grace to understand
their full significance, their meaning, and to be able to trust
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself
our Good Shepherd. Amen.