Well, it is good to be with you once again. I'm just trying to think, there must be some response that we can make to the pastor's generator breaking down. Whether he needs a new generator or a regenerator, I don't know. But we'll find the right response or joke to tell about it. If you have a copy of the Bible, let me invite you to turn with me. First of all, I'd like to read in the 10th chapter of John's Gospel. John's Gospel and the 10th chapter. And I want to read the first 18 verses. John chapter 10, reading from verse 1. Our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them. And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself, I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. Now we'll turn to the 23rd Psalm in a few minutes' time. But I've been asked to preach on Christ as the shepherd of his people. And I want to do that from the familiar picture that we will look at in the 23rd Psalm. But before we look at that I first of all want to make some statements about the book of Psalms in general. They are unique in Scripture in so many ways because they are not the product of intense study and they're not the conclusions of some kind of well-thought-out doctrinal dissertation. The Psalms are the hard cry of men who have been passing through acute spiritual experiences. And these men are writing about how God has blessed them and how he has been to them a God of grace and of faithfulness. So in that sense, the text which best describes the whole of the Psalter is to be found in Psalm 66 and verse 16 which says, Come and hear all you who fear God and I will declare what he has done for my soul. And if you want the message of the whole of the book of the Psalms it's found in the opening statement of Psalm 1. Blessed is the man. And that whole blessedness is to be found in the Psalms. And it's stressing at the very outset of the book of Psalms the possibility of a life of true joy and peace in the midst of the gathering darkness, especially in an age that has lost God. Another key verse of the Psalter is found in Psalm 91. He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. Now it's not surprising that in so many scriptural passages you have pastoral scenes and pastoral metaphors being used. The whole of the Bible is set in the midst of a pastoral community and a pastoral way of life. And so much of its teaching about God and about the relationship between God and His people is seen in the metaphor of a shepherd in his relationship to the sheep. Now the 23rd Psalm is perhaps the most familiar passage where that is seen. But you find the same note in Isaiah chapter 40 which describes how God cares for his people in such a tender way like a shepherd caring for his sheep. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young. Ezekiel tells us how the Lord describes the shepherd-sheep relationship concerning his people, referring to his people as my sheep. And he says in chapter 34 of Ezekiel that God is furious with the unfaithful shepherds. And I don't know whether you have ever thought just how many of God's great leaders were shepherds. Abraham and Jacob both had to do with sheep. Moses became a shepherd. He was keeping the sheep when the Lord appeared to him. When Samuel is looking for a future king, the king was a young lad who was keeping the sheep. Amos the prophet was a shepherd. Jeremiah seems to have been a shepherd as well. There are a number of passages which refer to the leaders of God's people as shepherds. You find that especially in Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34 where there were those unfaithful to their charge and they are severely rebuked. Now when you come into the New Testament, there are three statements or three occasions where our Lord Jesus Christ is referred to as a shepherd. And in each case, the word shepherd is preceded by a different adjective. So that here in John chapter 10 and verse 11, Jesus is called the Good Shepherd. I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep. And the emphasis is upon the voluntary and the vicarious death of the Shepherd. Then in Hebrews 13 at verse 20, Jesus is called the Great Shepherd. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will and so on. And the emphasis there is upon his resurrection. He is the Great Shepherd and it's speaking about His resurrection. The third passage in the New Testament is found in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 4. When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that does not fade away. And that passage is referring or stressing Christ's second coming. to reward all those who have served him as under-shepherds. And each of those passages emphasizes different focal points in the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, before we come to the 23rd Psalm, let me just focus for a moment on what our Lord is saying here in John chapter 10. As he is describing himself as the Good Shepherd, and he's simply focusing upon one aspect of his person and work. Now, these words, as distinct from the other two references in the New Testament, are not spoken by an apostle. In Hebrews and in 1 Peter, they are the words of an apostle. These are the words spoken by the Lord Jesus himself. They're not words that have been spoken about him by some Old Testament prophet or priest or king. They're spoken by the one who is the prophet, priest, and king to his people. So that's what makes this John 10 passage so very interesting. And many people who speak about themselves can quickly become very boring and unbearable. But you don't find that with the Lord Jesus Christ. And here you have the words of the Lord himself in which he is speaking about himself. It's one of those very rare passages in the New Testament where you have our Lord's self-consciousness being revealed to you as he is expressing the truth about himself. And of all his words, the sweetest surely are the ones in which he speaks about himself, because there is so much that we really do want to know about him. And what greater theme can you have than to think about what Jesus says about himself? And who else can speak about Jesus with such knowledge and insight and accuracy as the Lord Jesus Christ himself? He alone knows himself. He understands himself. So really, he is the one who is best suited to reveal himself. and so he is speaking to false shepherds and he's showing them what it means to be a true shepherd. Now these words in John 10 are very, very special because they come from the mind of Christ himself and the many hours we could use debating and discussing and getting no further than a matter of conjecture What does Jesus think about himself, about this and so on? Well, we're not at a loss here as to what he thinks about himself. He's telling us clearly and beautifully and in terms that we can understand and in terms that convey so much truth about him. Now, he's obviously taking up those Old Testament passages about the false shepherds and he is using them in dealing with these harsh Pharisees who were false shepherds. And in doing that, he is going to reveal himself as the good shepherd in contrast to those who were the false shepherds. So he is speaking to false shepherds, showing them and showing us what it means to be a true shepherd of the people of God. Now he doesn't verbally direct his messages at them by name. He's not saying to them, you, you and you, you're false shepherds. What he is doing here in John 10 is simply holding up the picture before them of what they ought to have been. It's not always the best thing to be like Nathan in the Old Testament and say, you're the man. Sometimes it's more effective simply to hold up a mirror in front of them and let them see themselves as they really are. Now that is what Christ is doing here. The kings in Israel were described as the shepherds of Israel. And now all of those Old Testament elements appear. as Christ is now looking at these people and describing himself as the perfectly good shepherd. And he knew what was involved in being a shepherd. And so he's now taking that occupation and he is glorifying that occupation by taking it to himself. Now, you will have noticed, I'm sure, that sometimes in his teachings our Lord Jesus Christ uses pictures to convey truth, and sometimes he uses realities. And sometimes he mingles images with reality. So if you look at verse 15 of chapter 10 of John, you will notice what he says, I lay down my life for the sheep. Now the sheep is imagery, it's a picture. But I lay down my life is fact, it is a reality. So he is saying that as the good shepherd, he is the one who owns the sheep, he knows the sheep, he cares for the sheep, he keeps the sheep, he guards the sheep, he owns them as a result of creation, in that he made all things and he owns all things by virtue of the fact of his own creative act. He also owns them as a result of redemption. I lay down my life for the sheep. He also owns them as a result of donation. He tells us they have been given to Him as a love gift by His Father. And consequently, He knows each one, and they know Him, and they know His voice, and they follow Him, and those sheep are eternally safe, and they are eternally secure. So these are what Christ is saying concern himself as the good shepherd and his people who are his sheep. Now let's turn to Psalm 23. If you have a Bible let me invite you to turn with me to the 23rd Psalm. We've been singing a paraphrase of it already. Listen to what it says, the 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 namesake. 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. We're going to look a little bit at the 23rd Psalm. I could be here for another three months and probably not do justice to it. I recommend, if you have not read it or don't have it, there is a small book by a man named Douglas Macmillan, who used to be a professor in the Free Church College in Edinburgh, and it's entitled The Lord Our Shepherd. Douglas Macmillan, before he was a minister of the gospel, was a shepherd in the highlands of Scotland. They are a transcript of sermons that he gave to the Aberystwyth Conference many years ago and I would highly recommend them. I wish I had a pound or a dollar for every time I had recommended it but if you haven't got it I would recommend it highly. He does great justice to the 23rd Psalm. Now when you read that 23rd Psalm In the light of what we've just been reading in John chapter 10, you have to bear in mind that the shepherd of the 23rd Psalm is none other than the Good Shepherd of John chapter 10. And Psalm 23 is known by countless numbers of ordinary people throughout the whole world. And yet its very familiarity is apt to conceal from us the real message and the real meaning of its teaching. I can remember in my early ministry and for a greater part of my ministry, at almost every wedding and every funeral, the 23rd Psalm would be the first choice to sing praise unto God. It was a generation where most Christian people would be able to recite the entire psalm from memory. And in those weddings and funerals, almost the whole congregation could sing it without looking at the hymnal. Not today, sad to say. That is no longer the situation. Even many Christians don't even know the 23rd Psalm by memory. And the first thing we need to recognize is that it is not a prayer. It is a statement of faith. It is an affirmation of personal testimony. And in the psalm we are being presented with a series of pictures. And some of the commentators mention three. They say there is the picture of the sheep, the shepherd, and the pilgrim and his guide, and the host and his guest. Others say that there are only two pictures, and that is the picture of the host sitting, preparing a table and so on, and the shepherd. And others say, no, there's only one picture all the way through. It is a picture of the shepherd. Now, whatever view you take, you will discover that the illustrations are constantly changing, like the patterns and the colors of a kaleidoscope. And on any interpretation, there is no doubt that the ideas of rest and of peace and of satisfaction are the most prominent and the most dominant throughout the psalm. And you will notice how complete is the provision that God makes for his people. As the Good Shepherd, it embraces almost every sphere of our lives. It embraces our need for physical rest, our emotional needs, our need at times for spiritual restoration. It provides us with moral guidance. And another thing that we need to remember is that this is the second of three Psalms which belong together. 22, 23 and 24, which can be described truly as Messianic Psalms because they are precisely picturing for us and predicting for us the coming of Christ, his life, his death and so on. And there's also a real sense in which they are Messianic Psalms for another reason. Whereas the Gospel records in the New Testament give you the biography of Christ, the Messianic Psalms are giving you the autobiography of Christ. So in Psalm 21, 22 and 23, they're each portraying Christ as the shepherd of his people. So in Psalm 22, you have Christ as the good shepherd giving his life for his sheep. And you will all be familiar with the fact that Psalm 22 pictures the experience of Christ in his death on the cross. They contain those awesome words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it is because of that experience that all true believers can say, the Lord is my shepherd. If Christ hadn't died, you would not be able to say that. Then in Psalm 24, you have the portrayal of Christ as the chief shepherd who is going to come in glory for his sheep. And so Psalm 24 is speaking about the ascension of Christ after his death and resurrection. And Psalm 23 is between the two. And it's the picture of the great shepherd leading and guiding and guarding his sheep. So the three Psalms have been described as portraying the cross of the shepherd, the crook of the shepherd, and the crown of the shepherd. Now let me say this to those of you, and I can't take anything for granted, those of you who are not Christians this evening. This picture in Psalm 23 of blessedness and fullness of life follows the picture of the cross. It is because of the one that the other can become real and true in your experience. It is on the other side of the cross that you discover the sweetness and the satisfaction of the green pastures and the still waters. It's only when the message of the cross touches your life that you can have that relationship where you can say, the Lord is my shepherd. And until that happens, you cannot identify with what David is saying here in Psalm 23. And you may, as an unbeliever or a non-converted person, you may say, oh, I love the 23rd Psalm, but you really don't understand it and don't appreciate it and you don't experience it until you have come to know the shepherd of the psalm. Now for those of you who are Christians, the 23rd Psalm really forms your simple creed. That is what you believe. It also forms your great comfort throughout the whole of your life. And nothing, I believe, can show forth the winsomeness and the attractiveness of the Gospel and the Christian life more clearly than Psalm 23. In almost every phrase it is speaking peace to the deep cravings, the anxious restlessness of our modern distracted age. Now the author is given to you in the heading of the Psalm. It is none other than David. I was sitting here last night listening to Paco preach. I don't know whether you've had an experience like this. And I'm saying to myself, you know, if he hadn't said that, I would have said it. And you listen to somebody saying something and you're saying, if they hadn't said that, I could say that. Or if they hadn't written that, I could have written that. And there are countless numbers of people throughout the whole of the world who feel like that about the 23rd Psalm. Well, if David hadn't written it, I could have written it. If David hadn't said it, I could have said it. David is just one of millions of people in every age who can testify to what David is saying in this psalm. And there is often occasions where you find common ground between David and yourself. You may not have identical experiences, But the pattern is there. You look at some of the Psalms, not just of David's, and you see things that go on in your life. That's the great virtue of the whole of the Psalter, because as a believer you can extract general principles for your living. And you can apply those principles to the concrete situation in which you are living, as the psalmist did himself. So you apply the principles to your own personal situations, knowing that the grace and the faith that came to David will come to you also. But there is obviously a real sense in which David's life, in a very special way, you see the activity and the providence of God, wonderfully etched out. But it's etched out so that we may look at it, learn from it, and great comfort from it. Now, there's a great variety and remarkable evidence of God's guidance and government in this man. and never forget that he is the man who is called the man after God's own heart. And there is no part of David's life or history where you do not meet up with God. So David is standing before us in Scripture nearly a thousand years after Abraham and a thousand years before Christ. And yet from that distance he is able to look forward by faith and to behold from afar the kingly glory of the Messiah. And so you get the thoughts of Christ saturating the Psalms of David, a man who is rich in gifts and character. Now he was actually a shepherd that God made the king over his people. And it is as a shepherd, as a warrior, as a king, as a poet, that he is shining forth on the pages of Scripture. And you discover his winsomeness, his skill, his brilliant exploits, all of these would have been in vain were it not for his trust in the Lord as his God. Now there is some discussion among the commentators concerning when did David write the 23rd Psalm? When did he write it? Was it when he was a shepherd boy in the hills near Bethlehem? Or did he write it when he went into the palace of King Saul and he had to sing or play for King Saul to kind of calm his moods of temper? Or did he write it when he was ruling and reigning as the king of Israel? Now those people who think that he wrote it early on in his young life, they point out that grammatically the psalm begins in that opening statement in the present tense. The Lord is my shepherd. And from then on, all the verbs are in the future tense. And so they conclude from that observation that David was a young man, perhaps even still a boy, keeping his father's sheep when he wrote it. He now recognizes God and he's looking to the future. and he will do this and he will do that and when this happens and so on. Others feel that there is a strength and a depth of maturity about it that indicate that it was written after a whole lifetime of experience, that it was a product of his later life. And it certainly comes across as a statement of faith from a man who has seen a great deal of life and someone who's known a great deal of different experiences in his life. This is the same man who wrote, I have been young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed begging bread. Well, that's how I like to feel about him. You can have your opinion about when he wrote it. I picture him as an old believer giving us his testimony concerning the Lord and his goodness. and he's sitting down and he's going to write to us about it. Now how does he do it? Well, he does it in the first place by giving you a clear statement of faith in verse 1. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Don't worry, I'm not going to go through the whole psalm and expound every verse. I'm just going to stick with this first verse. You will get home before midnight. So when you read that first statement, immediately you can recognize that the man who is writing it is not an atheist. He is not an agnostic. The man who is writing this is a man who knows that he belongs to somebody. God is neither an abstraction or a superstition or a philosophical concept, this man has a concrete, firm, settled belief in Almighty God. And all that he wants to say about his own life, and about his own experiences, and about the world around him, all that he wishes to recall concerning the things that have happened to him in the past, and the things that he is experiencing in the present, and all that he anticipates in the future, they're all centered upon and can only be understood in relation to this fact, the Lord is my shepherd. And so every verse in the psalm is relating what God means to him. Now, you will notice that the words the LORD are given to you in capital letters. And whenever that is done, it is done in order to convey how wonderful and awesome the word Jehovah was. And so much did the Jews stand in awe of that name that they substituted these letters whenever it occurred in the public reading of Scripture. It was only pronounced fully on one day in the year and that was on the great day of atonement and it was spoken by the high priest alone in the holy place. So in making this statement, David is stating quite clearly that he is referring, when he says the Lord is my shepherd, he is referring to the eternal God, Jehovah, who is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the God of creation. He is the God of history. He is the God of providence. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of redemption. He is the God of salvation. And David says, this God is my God. So it's not some kind of indefinite idea or impression. He is speaking about the sovereign God of grace and glory. And then he goes further and he tells us that he has come into a personal relationship with this God. He says Jehovah is his shepherd. Now I don't know whether you've had this said to you People you meet, maybe on holiday or somewhere else, and they say, which church do you attend? And you tell them, which church do you attend? Or they may say, who is your pastor? And you probably would say, well, Pastor Mercer is my pastor. Well, if David was asked that question, he would say, Jehovah is my pastor. Jehovah is my pastor. I shall lack nothing. because that's who he is. Now, if you are a true believer, you also are able to say, Christ is my pastor. He is the great shepherd or pastor of his sheep. Pastor Mercer and others like him are under shepherds, but Christ is your pastor. And as you think of what David is saying here, use your imagination, your God-given sanctified imagination, and travel to the land of Palestine. and think of an oriental shepherd because here in the Western world there have been so many changes in pastoral life over the centuries. They shepherd sheep in Scotland now with drones. You know, the shepherd controls the drones. Well, in Palestine, things have remained almost the same as they were when David was a shepherd. And I'm sure some of you have visited Israel, and you could well find a shepherd in Israel doing the very same things as David was doing. And if you examined closely what he did, you would understand a little more fully of what David is speaking about in this psalm. Now, there are various aspects of the psalm that need to be understood in that Eastern, Oriental, pastoral way of life. Now, having drawn our attention to God, and having given his basic assertion concerning God, you will see that David then goes on to reveal something personal to himself. The Lord is my shepherd. Spurgeon says this, the sweetest word of the whole psalm is that monosyllable, my. He does not say that the Lord is the shepherd of the world at large, but the Lord is my shepherd. In effect, David is saying this, if he were a shepherd to nobody else, he is a shepherd to me. He cares for me, he watches over me. Martin Luther said that the heart of religion lies in the personal pronouns, the I's and the my's and the me's and the mine. He says they are like hooks of steel that bind us to God. Now that's one of the glories of the spiritual life, that you and I, when we become Christians, we have finished caring for ourselves. And when you begin to grasp that truth, it will bring immense relief and comfort to you. You are no longer governed by sin. You are no longer governed by Satan. When you became a Christian, you surrendered yourself, like David, to the great shepherd of the sheep, and you are his now, and you are only his. And I don't know whether you had in advance what I was going to preach on, but when I announced it you may have said, oh, he's on the 23rd Psalm. We all know the 23rd Psalm. Well, do we? Do you know the first two words? Do you know the Lord? as your shepherd, because the whole of the Christian life is to be found in those two words. And it is vital that you not only know the psalm, but you know the Lord of the psalm. This is life eternal, said Jesus, that they might know you and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. This is what it means to be a Christian, not just to know about him, but to know him. Abraham never said anything like that about himself, that life eternal is to know me. Moses never said that. Isaiah never said that. Jesus said, this is life eternal, that you know me. So ask yourself the question, do you know him? Now do you remember that day up near Caesarea Philippi? when Jesus stressed this. And he did it in a very human way. And he said to his disciples, who do men say that I am? Well, in one sense he didn't need to ask. He already knew who he was. But it was a very human way of asking. In effect, he was saying, Peter, James, John, what are people saying about me? What's the talk on the streets? What are they saying in the shops about me? When you visit people in their homes, who are they saying that I am? What are the people making of my claims? He probably knew that people wouldn't come up to him and tell him. Not many of you would have come up to me at that door last night and said to me, that was a terrible sermon. I thought it was a load of nonsense. You would never, but you might go and say it to somebody else. And they would say it to somebody else. So this is what our Lord is saying. They'll say it to one another. And Peter, the spokesman for them all, he comes to him and says, well, some are saying that you're Elijah. And some are saying that you're Jeremiah. Some are saying that you're John the Baptist who's come back from the dead. And then this great question comes to Peter. Who do you say that I am? And Peter, for all his faults and failings, comes out with it. You are the Christ. You are the Son of the living God. And we'll never know what joy must have swept through the heart of Christ at that moment. That somebody understood. That somebody recognized that he was more than a man. And Peter had seen into him. Oh, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. Flesh and blood does not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. Peter, you know me. And in that knowledge, you will be blessed forevermore. And I'm sure Peter's heart must have throbbed in that moment, in the consciousness of eternal life. Now that is how David is speaking in Old Testament terms. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And that statement sets the agenda for everything that follows in the psalm because the remainder of the psalm is a development of that first statement, the Lord is my shepherd. Now, we can expand on that statement. We can say, yes, the Lord is my shepherd, the Lord is my brother, the Lord is my friend, the Lord is my prophet, the Lord is my priest, the Lord is my king, the Lord is my husband, the Lord is my bride, is my life, my way, my end. He is my life. Isn't it the hymn writer who says, join all the glorious names? of wisdom, love, and power that mortals ever knew, that angels ever bore, all are too mean to speak his worth, too mean to set my Savior forth. This is what David is saying about Christ the Lord. Now that description of the Lord as a shepherd is not something that originated with David. You remember that dying Jacob, when he is blessing his son Joseph, he is speaking about the Lord, the God who has fed me, or literally, the God who has shepherded me all my life long to this day. That Lord who has shepherded me, says Jacob, bless these lads. I mentioned earlier that it's the figure which the Lord himself uses in Isaiah 40. He will feed his flock like a shepherd. In Ezekiel 34, after the terrible denunciations of the false shepherds, God speaks of himself as the faithful shepherd. I indeed myself will search for my sheep and seek them out as a shepherd seeks out his flock. Then when you travel down the years, you meet with the one who in all tenderness and authority takes up those words. And in comparison to the false shepherds, he says, I am the good shepherd. And so he tells a parable about lost sheep and the good shepherd. He is the good shepherd who will never lose one of his sheep. He is the ideal shepherd. He has power, he has love, he shows kindness and mercy. He is the ideal shepherd because he can meet every need of his people, whether it is physical, emotional or spiritual. But then there is much more concerning him in this regard. because he came to fulfill the words of Zechariah the prophet. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord of hosts, and smite the shepherd. And he is the one who has redeemed his sheep by laying down his life for them. and we belong to him because of our redemption. So all of that is embraced within us as we make this same declaration of David, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I am looked after, I am cared for, I am provided for. Now that is a basic logical conclusion. The Lord is my shepherd, so I shall not want. Now, the Bible was not written to teach logic, but you can't escape the clear example of logic that you find within the pages of Scripture, and this statement is one of them. It is simply the logical conclusion from a basic assertion. You find many others in Scripture. Fear not, I have redeemed you. Because I live, you shall live also. It's clear logic. If God is for us, who can be against us? It's clear logic. So here is David, this logical conclusion is from the Lord being his shepherd. Now in any country, it is always the shepherd who keeps the sheep and not the sheep the shepherd. And I'm not insulting your intelligence. But don't let the familiarity with the words dim the fact that it is a radical thing to be a sheep of Christ's flock. It is contrary to the whole thinking of this world, because what are you doing when you become a Christian? You are handing yourself over entirely to someone else, just as you are, so that you will be owned utterly by him. Now that is contrary to the thinking of the world. And for that to happen, a man or a woman or a young person has to be born again. By nature, if we were honest, we would all say that we feel more like pigs than sheep. We need the nature and the disposition to be a sheep of Christ's flock. And the wonderful thing about the gospel is that Christ gives us that nature. It is the very first of those wants that he must supply. You want a new nature. You need a new nature. And he gives you that when you come to him and when you believe on him. And with that new nature, you receive new instincts. and new affections and you embrace new habits. You have the desire to pray. You can discern the shepherd's voice in Holy Scripture. You know his voice. You follow him because he is now your shepherd and it all becomes second nature to you. But what does all that come down to? This knowing God personally as my shepherd, well, it comes down to mean everything. That means everything to you as a Christian. And you will see how David expands it. He gives you the implications of that statement. I shall not want. That is an inference from the first statement, and you can paraphrase it in this way. I might want if the Lord was not my shepherd, but the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And if those words are true, then if you're a Christian, don't ignore what they're saying. Listen to what they're saying. Look at the life of many unconverted people. Their life is a whole bundle of wants. Mothers raising their children, children who are constantly wanting something. They want feeding, they want dressing, they want this. Probably the first words that most mothers hear in the morning is, I want this, or can I have that, give me this, I need this. And she hears that refrain from morning to evening throughout the whole of the day. How many men trying to provide for their wife and children in keeping home, how often do they find themselves in want? And some people go grey before their time, their shoulders are stooping, their nerves are wrecked, their brain is worn and weary. Some of them even try to take themselves out of the world because of the wants. Why? Because they're trying to carry burdens that God never intended for us to carry on our own. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. He knows that we need Him. Well, here is a man saying to the whole of the world, I used to be like that, but now the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Now, I know it's a very simple statement, and it is easily said, but don't make the mistake of thinking that a simple thing is nothing. A flower is a very simple thing, but no man on earth can create it. Here today, it's gone tomorrow. This statement is profound in its implications. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And he's able to base that affirmation upon his own knowledge of God and upon his own personal experience of God. And the two things are not the same. Knowledge of God is one thing, experience of God is something else. David makes this affirmation based upon his knowledge of God. He is declaring his understanding, his comprehension of God. And there are various ways in which he came into the knowledge of God. He could see God as the God of creation and the God of providence. And you read that in so many of his psalms when he extols the power and the wisdom of God in creation. The heavens are declaring the glory of God. How excellent is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. When I consider the heavens, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you should be mindful of him? He knew that God had made all things in the beginning, and he knew that God was upholding that creation. By his providence he is governing everything, and it is on the basis of that fact he says, I shall not want. because this God is my shepherd. And that is the testimony of every true Christian. We don't believe in evolutionary theories. We believe in a God of creation, a God of order and of design and of beauty and of power and of majesty and of wonder. We believe that we live in a moral universe. If you did not believe in a moral universe, that at the end of the day there is going to be a judgment, then life is not worth living. It's just futility, it's despair. But because we believe in a God like this, we can make these affirmations. If the cattle on a thousand hills belongs to Him, and if every mine in the earth belongs to Him, and if He has entered into a covenant to be a shepherd to me, then how can I possibly want? That's how David knew God. He knew God because God was the God of his fathers. He was the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. He could remember that when Lot departed from Abraham, do you remember? And Abraham was left in the arid desert and God was with him and God provided for him and blessed him. And Abraham proved that a little that the righteous man has is better than the wealth of fools. And do you remember when the king of Sodom offered Abraham all the spoils of war and Abraham refused them rather than compromise his faith in God? And immediately he had refused all of that. The Lord came to him and said, Abraham, I am your shield and I am your exceeding great reward. And the whole of Abraham's life proves that Abraham knew the Lord as his God, as his guide, as his provider. And how many of the Lord's people can say the same thing? The Lord is my shepherd. Remember Jacob? Jacob makes the vow at Bethel, if God will be with me and keep me in this way that I'm going and give me bread to eat and clothing to put on so that I come back to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. David would know about that. David would also know years later Jacob was able to say, I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which you've shown your servant. I crossed over this Jordan with this staff and now I have become two companies. David could recall the words of Moses in the great song in Deuteronomy 32, I'm not going to read it. But David had a knowledge of these things. He could be sure in his own affirmations because the Lord was their shepherd, they were never in want, this God is now my shepherd, I shall not be in want. Now that is a lesson to each of us this evening concerning the great benefit of reading and studying and memorizing Holy Scripture. Because the Scriptures are there so that you may see clearly how God is a shepherd to his people. And not only looking at people in Scripture, Because some of you have parents and you have grandparents, either biological or spiritual, and you can look at their lives and you can see their testimony. You can go over church history and look at the lives of the great men and women in church history. You're thinking about the great reformers. And you're seeing what God has done in the past, and on the basis of that, you can exercise faith yourself. And of course, we have a greater knowledge of these things than David. We have the life of David himself. We can see the providence of God in the life of Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah and Daniel and Ezekiel and Peter and so on. We have the very teachings of the Lord Jesus himself as the shepherd of his people. And you remember on the Sermon on the Mount where our Lord is speaking about being anxious about daily necessities. He's speaking about the Christian clothing his family, providing food and shelter for his family. And he says, with regard to treasures or abundance of material possessions, he says, you as my followers are to be without covetousness. Don't envy the rich and don't envy the famous. With regard to daily food, you are to be without anxiety. And the key statement in that sermon is this, your heavenly Father knows. So why have this sinful anxiety? It is needless, it is senseless, and it is useless. It's needless to be anxious. Is not the life more important and valuable than the food which sustains it? Isn't your body more important than the clothes that you put on it? And so Christ is saying, recognize your intrinsic value and worth in the eyes of your heavenly Father who is your shepherd. The sheep is more important and means more to the shepherd than the grass that it eats. Anxiety is needless, it is senseless. Sinful anxiety is a failure to understand the worth of the body in comparison to other created things. Look at the birds of the air. Don't just give a casual glance. It's nice to see the birds feeding on the bird feeder. Look at them. What are they doing? How do they do it? How does God provide for them? How hard they work. Isn't it John Stott says that the Christian should engage in orny theology. Study the birds, study the plants. Look at the birds, they're here today, they're gone tomorrow. If a bird was killed by a plane taking off in Greenville tomorrow, how many people would be bothered about it? It wouldn't be in the news. Shrug your shoulders, it's a dead bird. In contrast to them, says Jesus, you are the children of your heavenly Father. And if He cares for them, how much more will He care for you? Sinful anxiety is needless, it is senseless, it is useless. You cannot, He said, add one inch to your height by worrying. I have a son who has restricted growth. He's only four foot tall. And we were concerned about him. Should we put him through very painful surgery to increase his height? Well, we might have been able to do that. But it would have given him maybe one inch, two inches. Was it worth doing that? Which of you by taking anxious thoughts can add one cubit to your stature? By worrying, how can you add even one hour to your life? It is needless, it is senseless, it is useless, but it is also faithless. Oh, you of little faith. What is he saying? You have forgotten that the Lord is your shepherd. That's the New Testament equivalent of what David is saying in the 23rd Psalm. If Christ is your shepherd, you shall not want. Now the tense of the verb in verse 1 is in the future tense and it is important for you to notice that. Whatever happens in the future, you shall not want. God will provide for you. God will take care of you. God will watch over you. And that's the knowledge that David had of God. He also had his own experience of God. He had proved God again and again in his life. The Lord protected, he delivered me from the lion and from the bear. The Lord has been with me, sheltering me, guiding me. Now, that is what a shepherd is there to do. If you look at those eastern shepherds, in the drought of summer, the shepherd will have to go long distances to find places where he can find pasture for the sheep. maybe by the margins, the edge of the river where the grass can still be found. The prudent shepherd, as soon as he finds that winter is going to come, he's already thinking about where he is going to shelter his flock. where grass can still be seen. When the spring returns he'll guide them to the places where the young grass is beginning to grow. So the shepherd is always thinking of the welfare of his sheep. So in the springtime he's thinking of the autumn, in the autumn he's thinking of the winter, in the winter he's thinking again of the springtime. He's got to be thinking about these things all the time. But while he's thinking about these things all the time, the sheep never think about them at any time. They simply rely upon the shepherd. Now you hear a great deal about the silliness of sheep, but they're not silly in this regard. They have more sense than men and women. They simply allow the shepherd to do the planning. We have a shepherd who cares for us, provides, we rely upon him. Now David is saying to you and to me, just as that eastern shepherd provides for his sheep, the Lord will provide for us. And he looks back over his own experience, and God has delivered him, anointed him, blessed him, protected him, restored him when he sinned greatly. In the encounter with Goliath, God was with him. blessed in providing a friend in Jonathan, all of this time God was faithful to him. Even when Absalom rebelled against him, God was faithful unto David. And so at the end of the psalm he says, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And Douglas Macmillan refers to the old Scottish shepherd with the two sheepdogs named goodness and mercy. And when the sheep go off the track, mercy goes round this way and brings it back. And when another sheep goes off the track, goodness goes that way. And goodness and mercy are bringing the sheep home. And that's what David is saying. Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life. Follow the theme through. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Verse 2, I shall not want nourishment, rest or refreshment. Verse 3, I shall not want restoration, guidance or protection. Verse 4, I shall not want for fellowship or for comfort. Verse 5, I shall not want for provision, for healing, for satisfaction. Verse 6, I shall not want for goodness, for mercy or for eternal glory. Well, do a study yourself or get your pastor to do a study in it when he's got his generator renewed. It's the New Testament equivalent of Philippians 4.19. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Physical needs, emotional needs, material needs, spiritual needs. And your biggest wants are not the biggest wants of the body. They are the wants of the soul. And when you come to the end of your life, and you're extremely ill, and the doctor has given up hope and says to you or to your loved ones, they only have hours to live. Could you imagine somebody coming into the room and saying, cheer up, here's a check for $100,000. What would that check mean at that point? It would be an offense for somebody to do that. When you reach the point, as many people do, when you turn your face to the wall, about to die, maybe go into the fetal position, everything else is not there. It's you and God. And in that moment, riches won't help you, family won't help you, your pastor won't help you. It's you and God. What is it that you need most at that moment? You need the Lord as your shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd, and I'm going through the valley of the shadow, but he's with me. and I fear no evil, and I will dwell in his house forever and ever, and I shall see him face to face, and I shall be changed into his likeness. And my eye hasn't yet seen, nor my ear heard. It hasn't even entered into my heart the things that God has prepared for them that love him. And it's all because Christ is your shepherd. So don't become too familiar with it, that you're robbed of the glorious truth of that simple statement, I am the good shepherd, I lay down my life for my sheep, and they shall not, they shall not want. Well, may the Lord bless His word to us. Thank you. Hearts together, in a word of prayer, we do thank the Lord's servant for bringing this word to our hearts tonight. Father, we thank thee for our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank thee for the good shepherd, the chief shepherd, the great shepherd. We thank thee for his love for us, and we thank thee for the giving of his life for us. And our Father, we thank thee tonight that with such a shepherd, nothing shall we lack. not in time or eternity, but in life or in death. We thank thee tonight for our Lord Jesus. Bless thy word. Bless thy word to thy people tonight. Lord, we pray that we would not be anxious or careful. We might, with praise and thanksgiving, make a request known unto thee. For Lord, thou art well able to meet us at the point of our need. If there are any who are unsaved tonight, have mercy upon them. We thank thee for a glorious shepherd, a glorious savior. We ask, Lord, that we'll bless thy word to every heart. Bless us as we go our way tonight and leave thy house. We pray, Lord, that will go with us. Bring us back tomorrow on thy day. We thank thee for the Sabbath. Make it a blessing to us. Tomorrow, we pray. We ask, Lord, that we'll meet with us again then. We pray these things in our savior's name and for his sake. Amen.