[Troy Phelps] What do you think is the most famous of all the Psalms? Most famous of all the Psalms, what do you think? Psalm 23? Yup. That's what they said this morning also. It's considered the most famous of all the Psalms, you probably have it memorized, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want." You've probably read it hundreds of times, and like many of the Psalms or other scriptures that are so familiar, sometimes in that familiarity, we read over them without really sometimes diving into them as much as we could or getting the full meaning out of those scriptures. And this one has enormous depth to it and a lot of themes that maybe you're like me, you've never been a shepherd, and you've never raised a sheep, and maybe you don't know some of these things naturally like David did.

So, today, we're going to look at the 23rd Psalm. We're going to try to dive in and glean the meaning from the incredible depth that are in these words. To David, this was his life. These words sprang out of his bones. He was the son of a shepherd. That was the family business. He grew up knowing the ins and outs of being a shepherd from a young age. He knew firsthand the needs of a sheep, the concerns they had, their characteristics, and also the critical importance of having a good shepherd.

David didn't write this Psalm, though, from the perspective of being a good shepherd. He actually did the opposite of being one of those sheep in the fold, looking up at the loving shepherd that was leading him. And that's how he wants us to place ourselves in that mindset today, and so we're going to try to do that. I ask you to try to think of yourself as one of the sheep and think about what it would be like to have a shepherd over you.

Picture yourself today as one of those sheep in the dry climate over in Israel on the dry climate and the brown hillsides over there. Your eyes aren't put out front. As an animal, God didn't design you to have your eyes out front where you can see long down the road, far into the distance, into the future. But, instead, your eyes are placed on the sides so you can be in the moment, aware in the moment, looking around, being aware of dangers all around you. You're defenseless by design, you're even a little top-heavy, so you got to be slow and steady in your steps and really make sure you're taking your steps carefully. And your Lord God walks out in front of you as your Shepherd. He speaks in a calm voice and you follow where He guides and leads you. You follow because you know His voice. He's been your only shepherd since you were born a lamb, and you've built trust day after day of following Him and knowing that He looks out for your needs.

So, this Psalm starts with… and let's turn to Psalm 23 if you're not already there. We're going to go through a number of the scriptures here of this Psalm. And it starts out with, "The Lord is my shepherd." This seems like a rather simple statement, but not to David. This was a definitive statement about who the authority was over his life, who was the master of his life. And the fact is David knew that not all shepherds were created equal. Not all shepherds were good. You could have good shepherds and bad shepherds, and no matter which one you had, they were responsible for your life and the quality of that life. The quality of a sheep's life depends greatly on the quality of the shepherd. Is he strong? Is he gentle, kind, caring, intelligent, brave, selfless, or, on the other hand, is the shepherd lazy, brutal, fearful, selfish, neglectful? The quality of the shepherd had such a major impact onto whether the sheep was going to thrive, grow, develop, or whether the sheep would struggle, starve, or suffer unnecessary hardship.

We're familiar with a number of scriptures that I'm going to read or quote even today. John 10:11 is one of those. It says, "I am the good shepherd." Jesus Christ proclaimed about Himself that He was the Good Shepherd and that “the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” Now, this almost feels like an understatement, doesn't it? He's the Good Shepherd. But when we understand that word, Thayer's says the definition for that is excellent in its nature and characteristics, that it's genuine, praise-worthy, morally good, and conferring honor. Christ wasn't bragging. This was a simple fact. He was the Good Shepherd, and David knew it, too. David had seen good shepherds over his lifetime, he had seen bad shepherds over his lifetime, and he knew it took a lot of work to be a good shepherd.

And David, when he said these words, he spoke with a strong sense of pride, devotion, and admiration when he said, "The Lord is my shepherd." Now I think often, we all want to be able to say that, right? We want to say, "The Lord is my shepherd," but a lot of people haven't really submitted under the management of God and Jesus Christ, under Their direction. I think it's part of our natural nature to want to be able to say this. But then, on the other hand, to really kind of try to carve our own path, walk our own way to live and have what we think, you know, this world offers, I think it's part of our nature to want to enjoy the benefits of being under the tremendous care of the Good Shepherd without truly turning our lives fully over to His authority. What about us? Do we try to direct our own steps, go our own way, or do we truly turn over and place our lives into the hands of the Good Shepherd? Do we recognize and respond to His authority in our lives, and from that, do we get the peace, the contentment, and the fulfillment of that relationship?

So, David says because he knows without a doubt that this statement is true, that the Lord is his shepherd, because he knows the quality of that shepherd, he knows for a fact the next thing, that he shall not want. That he shall not want. And this word for want doesn't mean that you know, I want to go on a cruise, so, you know, "God, give me my tickets to the cruise," right? No. This word has the definition of to lack, be without, to have need. It's about real needs and our needs being taken care of. He said, "I shall not want," and David realized that as a sheep in God's flock, under His care, he would truly never have a need that would not be met.

And there's a neat connection found in this thought of I shall not want to the green pastures. And for my whole life, I had missed this connection and I had a wrong view of the green pastures from what the Bible actually says and from what David wanted us to glean here. In my whole life, I had envisioned these beautiful lush rolling hills of green, like, just hill after hill all this grass up to your waist that, as a sheep, we were planted and God promised that we would have these beautiful green hills. In fact, if you get out your phone or you go home and you google Psalm 23 green pastures, that's, in fact, the pictures you will see 99% of the time, these beautiful green rolling hills of tall grass, with some even with a rainbow over top just for the added beautifulness there.

So, you might actually then ask yourself, "Well, where are these green pastures in my life?" God's my shepherd, where are these green pastures? Now, what a lot of people don't realize, I didn't realize that the great sheep countries across the world are often in dry semi-arid areas. Most breeds of sheep flourish best in these kind of terrains. They're susceptible to fewer hazards, and health problems, and parasites when the climate is dry, and in those regions, it is not natural or common to find green pastures. So, if that's true, then what was David talking about?

Well, when we go and we look at this word for green, it is found 15 times in the Bible, and this is the only place it's translated green. Everywhere else, it's something different. It has nothing to do with color. What it has to do with is this word means tender shoots of tender new grass. So, it's the first shoot when a new piece of grass is starting to grow. So, it's early new shoots. In fact, the Hebrew has a different word for green and has a different word for mature grass. So, this is very specifically trying to have us envision tender new shoots of grass, some young vegetation.

So, not only does the color have nothing to do with, you know, mature grass, the word pasture doesn't, either. We often think of pastures as, again, luscious green hills of grass and the word for pasture is just habitation or dwelling place. And it's not that pasture isn't correct. It is because that's where the sheep are dwelling and habitating, but it's not in the sense of rolling hills of grass or, like, quantity or quality of food.

This word for pasture is also used in Psalm 65:12, and I won't turn there, but in that scripture, it talks about the pastures of the wilderness and connects that this dry, stony ground of this pastures of the wilderness, when it gets a little bit of rain, it rejoices. The little hill, it says, rejoices on every side. And the reason for that is and what David was getting at here is that in Israel, the ground is extremely fertile, but it doesn't get rain hardly at all. And, in fact, there's parts of Israel that they say haven't had any measurable amount of rain in thousands of years, maybe going all the way back to Jesus Christ's time that it hasn't had measurable amounts of rain.

Where it does get rain is way up in the hills, and even that rain only comes a few weeks of the year. And that rain comes roaring down all those hills and mountains and fills all the valleys and trenches there. And, in fact, a slight tangent here is when you start to read things in the Psalm when David talks about, like, getting stuck in the mire and the danger that he's in, this is often what he's talking about is the rain would be so far away that he wouldn't even know. Like, if you got stuck down there, you might be in serious peril even though there's not a storm cloud in the sky. And you can get stuck down in that deep thick mud that's been accumulating over a long period of time. But, anyway, that's a different message.

But it doesn't get to these hills. So, what happens is every night, a breeze blows from the west. And west of Israel is the Mediterranean Sea, and every night around sundown, this moist breeze blows in and it hits the rocks. And what it does is it pools on those rocks, and at night as it cools, it runs off and hits that very fertile ground. And in the morning, new shoots of tender new grass have sprung up all around these rocks, and the hills that were completely brown now have a kind of a greenish hue to them. And that's what David was getting at, much different than the waist-high grass that we often envision or that you would google where, you know, you got the rainbows over top again. It's not where sheep can just be planted down and eat, and eat, and eat, and eat.

So, why is this important, and what did David want us to learn about this? Why doesn't God park us down in fields of lush, green grass? The shepherd was responsible, not the sheep, the shepherd was responsible to know hillside by hillside where sheep could be taken and led where they could get just enough food for the moment. We as God's sheep should be following day after day where He leads us from one hillside to one hillside, getting a small mouthful of fresh new vegetation here, over here, a few more steps, another mouthful of food. And day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, our needs are met. We shall not want. We have just enough for right now. Our shepherd has once again led us and provided for us, and our needs are met. And as our lives play out over and over again and as our shepherd day by day provides for us, we build trust, and admiration, and adoration, and it's built and we can faithfully and proudly proclaim, "The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want.”

So, you might ask, is this consistent? Is this imagery… anyway, fill in the blank… consistent with what the Bible says in other places? So, keep your finger here in Psalm 23, and I'm going to go to Matthew 6:25 and I'm just going to kind of skim this story here. I'm going to read over it quickly without really diving deep. This is, again, one of those scriptures we know. And it says in Matthew 6:25, it says, "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

And then he goes in, he says, "Look at the birds… The Father feeds them… Look at the flowers, at the lily. They're clothed." Verse 30, then he goes on, he says, "Now if God clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek.” Meaning people that at this time God hasn't called and the only thing they can chase after is those things because they don't know any better, "For your heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things." Your shepherd knows you need all of these things, but notice verse 33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Our shepherd wants us to follow Him every day, every hour of every day. He doesn't want to us self-dependent, He wants us shepherd-dependent. Why? Let's turn to Deuteronomy 8, and we're going to read through 7 to 17. And we're going to still kind of move through it rather quickly to make the point, Deuteronomy 8:7. It says, "For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, the land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of the valleys and hills." Verse 8, "A land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey." This was the land of honey that everyone talks about in the Bible where the bees made honey from the flowers of the pomegranates, the figs, and the olive trees.

And verse 9, "A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing." Verse 10, "When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land He has given you." Verse 11, but notice, “Beware… Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, His statutes which I command you today, lest— when you have eaten and are full," and drop down to verse 14, "when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God…” verse 16, "who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know," and, finally, verse 17, "then you say in your heart, 'My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’"

Last year, I met a shepherd in the Knoxville congregation, only shepherd I've ever talked to, and he taught me something I didn't know here that said you can't put sheep in fields of waist-high grass. They will eat themselves to death. I thought that was interesting, and there's a spiritual lesson there, too. It's not healthy for us if God would sit us down with all the grass we can eat, all of the things we could ever want that it wouldn't be healthy for us, have all the wealth, all the possessions. You know, rarely can someone have the self-control to handle those things appropriately to keep their eyes fixed on God, to keep growing spiritually.

God knew that it was natural for us when we have our checking accounts full, our fridges have all the food we could want when our health is good, everything is going great, when the hills are full of tall grass, and rainbows, and unicorns, we tend to forget to follow the shepherd. And when sheep don't follow the shepherd, the sheep don't last long. Sheep are designed by God to need to be taken care of. The shepherd knows how to take care of them day by day, hillside by hillside, calm spring pool of water, this pool of water. And with our basic needs met, with the faith that our next mouthful of food will be provided when it's time, we can be calm. We can breathe easy, we can have peace, and we can even lie down and rest because we know at our core, we are under the watchful care of the Good Shepherd. And the promise is to those that follow the shepherd. Go a different path, choose a different way, well, good luck. Sheep don't do well on their own.

The second concept I want to cover here with “I shall not want” is just a simple one of contentment, content with what the shepherd has provided. The shepherd has a well-thought-out plan. He's developed a plan for his sheep to thrive. He set it up so that they grow and develop optimally. Contentment is about trusting that plan, trusting the Good Shepherd, trusting that in that plan that He has for us that we will be happy with what He has and we won't try and long for things that the shepherd didn't give me or want Him to take away things He didn't take away is trusting and being content with the plan that the shepherd has for us. So, I think all of us has to then ask and say, "Am I content? Do I trust that the shepherd is taking care of my life and leading me? Or do I want more than what He has, what He developed as His plan for me, feeling that somehow that grass is going to be greener on the other side of the fence, that even with my needs met that there's always something else that I desire, and then I'll be content, more than what the shepherd has provided?”

There's another familiar scripture to us, I imagine, in 1 Timothy 6:6, it says "Godliness with contentment is great gain." Godliness with contentment is great gain. Thayer's again talking about this word, contentment, says it means sufficiency of the necessities of life. Contentment is about having our necessities of life met. I like how the New Living Translation puts this. It says, "Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth." Contentment should be a characteristic that God's people have that have truly placed their lives into the hands of the shepherd, into the hands of the master.

Now, the next thing I want to go to is, "He makes me lie down." It's easy for someone like myself who has never raised sheep to read over, "He makes me lie down," and completely miss the depth that is here. David had been around sheep his whole life and knew it was virtually impossible to get a sheep to lie down unless certain conditions were met for that sheep. Phillip Keller in his book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, lays out these four requirements that must be met for a sheep to be able to lay down. And by understanding these conditions that must be met, it helps us to understand the conditions that our shepherd meets for us.

The first one of those is free of fear. Free of fear. Sheep are quick to be afraid. Phillip Keller tells about how if even one sheep in the group is startled, dozens of others will bolt in blind fear, not having any idea what they're running from, not waiting to find out what they're running from. And if there's even a slight suspicion of danger, they all stand on edge ready to go. Phillip Keller talks about how he came to realize that nothing so quieted and reassured the sheep as to see him out in the field, that the presence of their master, their owner, and their protector put them at ease as nothing else could night or day, he says.

The world that Satan rules here on earth is in a terrible state. From a human perspective, there is a lot that could worry us. Financial concerns about the world or our own, violence, riots, political unrest, plagues, famines. One person talked to me about old dams that are in such bad shape they're going to wipe out, you know, whole cities. There's job pressures, you name it. There's a lot that is uncertain in these times we're living in. If anything that we've learned probably from the last year and a half is that another month from now could change a whole lot.

You know, there's lots of reasons why we could be afraid, but we've probably read hundreds of times in 2 Timothy 1:7 where it says, "God has not given us the spirit of fear…” God hasn't given us the spirit of fear. He doesn't want His people living daily with a bunch of anxiety and fear. Instead, He has given us the power, His power, to grant us the freedom to choose a path and a mindset of peace and rest. And in the midst of these distressing times, we must choose to focus on the presence of the shepherd in our lives, that He is constantly there with us, and that He has everything under control, even when everything tells us that it's all out of control.

We can say, "I don't know how it's all going to play out, but the Lord is my shepherd, and I can be at peace and have rest knowing my shepherd is at watch and he's at hand." Another Psalm that David wrote is in Psalm 4:8. It says, "I will both lie down in peace and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." I'll read that again. "I will both lie down in peace and sleep, for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." Our faith is in our shepherd watching over our lives, and that should grant us a freedom from fear.

Second thing that sheep need in order to lie down is freedom from friction with others of their kind. Free of friction with others of their kind. There's a lot of competition even amongst sheep for the best grazing, the best sleeping spots, and the oldest and the strongest take it by headbutting. Continuous conflict and jealousy in a flock can cause them to be edgy, tense, and restless. They can lose weight and be irritable, and that makes sense to me, right? If I was constantly worried somebody's about to headbutt me, I'd probably be kind of on edge.

Sadly, we see friction in our human relationships, too. We can battle to be top sheep. We can be self-assertive and try to become top in all sorts of places like our jobs, our communities, any type of organization or group, and, sadly, even in families. Christ gave us many tools and teaching about how to work through frictions in our relationships, about how to go to our older brother, about being peacemakers, about esteeming others better than ourselves, and many more. And God gave us these tools, but they only work if we put them into action.

Let's go to Ezekiel 34. Ezekiel 34 is another really amazing chapter that deals all with this concept of shepherds and sheep, and it starts out in this chapter of talking about shepherds as being the leaders of God's people and taking them to task for being bad leaders. In the beginning of Ezekiel 34, it's saying that these irresponsible shepherds fed themselves well, but their sheep are not fed, their sheep are weak, and sick, and broken, and lost. And they're ruled with cruelty and allowed to be picked off, and how they wander about with no leadership. Christ says He will require His flock at their hand and, ultimately, how He will have to come Himself to feed them and strengthen them. Mr. Rangel quoted from Isaiah how Jesus Christ said He would have to come to bring this healing. In verse 15, it says, "I will feed My flock and I will make them," notice, "lie down." But then moving away from the poor leaders of Israel, he then talks about relationships between sheep to sheep.

Notice verse 18 of Ezekiel 34. Verse 18 says, "Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture— and to have drunk of the clear waters, that you must foul the residue with your feet? And as for My flock, they will eat what you have trampled with your feet, and they drink what you have fouled with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: 'Behold, I Myself will judge between the fat and the lean sheep. Because you have pushed with the side of your shoulder, butted all the weak ones with your horns, and scattered them abroad, therefore I will save My flock, and they shall no longer be a prey; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. I will establish one shepherd over them," looking to the future of the kingdom of God. "I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them— My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

But then as we continue to look at this, we see that God brings us into account for how we treat each other as His sheep. Through the Good Shepherd working in our lives, we should be able to work through challenges that come up in relationships. We should be able to have lives that are characterized by peace, and kindness, and long-suffering, and not have relationships that are full of foolish disputes, and selfishness, and envy, etc.

Verse 31 here, I didn't read that, but verse 31 said, "You are My flock, the flock of My pasture; you are men, and I am your God." The third requirement sheep need to lie down is to be free from torment of parasites and insects. Free of torment of parasites and insects. When sheep are being pestered by flies and other insects, it's almost impossible to get them to lie down. The sheep will shake their heads and stomp their feet trying to, you know, get rid of these parasites, and a good shepherd has to be alert. And they will actually go out and spend a great amount of time, and effort, and resources helping their sheep to get rid of these pests. And our shepherd is also aware of the things in our lives that are agitating us, annoying us, we use the term bugging us. Our shepherd desires to be intimately involved in even these ways.

1 Peter 5:7 tells us to cast all of our cares upon Him. "Cast all your cares," it says. Our shepherd isn't afraid to get His hands messy in dealing with the infestations that we may have in our lives. I find that it's actually me that tends to be the problem in this equation, right? I have all of these things that are bugging me, but I don't always think to take them to the shepherd right away. Sometimes, I try to stamp my feet and shake my head to get these things to go away to no avail, and then, finally, in my small sheep-sized brain, it finally dawns on me, you haven't even taken this to God yet. So, you take it to God, and God often works them out in amazing ways. He brings healing, and soothing, and effective treatments that often are much different than we would've imagined and often far better than what we deserve.

Moving on to the fourth requirement that a sheep needs to lie down is to be free of hunger. Now, I won't spend much time on this point because we've already talked about the importance of the shepherd leading the sheep to food in these dry semi-arid areas. A hungry sheep is always on its feet. It's always searching for food that will solve that gnawing hunger that it has. We read before that in Ezekiel 34:15, it said, "I will feed My flock," and He said, "I will make them lie down." He makes me lie down in tender new grass. With our loving shepherd by our side, we're able to have rest and peace under His direction, under His care, being fully confident of His oversight and His management of our lives. This peace and confidence is something that most people and not many get to truly enjoy, even among Christians.

The next section we'll cover is, "He leads me beside still waters." Like food, sheep need water. In the absence of good, clean, pure water sources, sheep will often end up drinking from polluted waterholes, picking up internal parasites and other dangerous bad organisms and germs. And, once again, it's where our Good Shepherd, it's Him that knows where to lead us to quench our thirst. Now, generally, a sheep can get water from three main sources, the first two probably aren't surprising. Springs and streams is the first one, we'll count those as one, and the second one is deep wells, but the third might surprise you. They can get enough water just from the dew on the grass.

And Phillip Keller in his book connects Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." He connects that idea to early-morning dew on grass, and he says this about… the connection is about Christians rising early to study God's Word. And he says “Most people are not aware that a sheep can go on for months on end without actually drinking if there is heavy dew on the grass each morning. Sheep by habit rise just before dawn and start to feed. Their early hours are when the vegetation is drenched with dew, and sheep can keep fit on the amount of water taken in with their forge when they graze.” And he says dew, of course, is clear, clean, pure source of water.

Often in a Christian's life, it's those who rise early to feed on God's Word are best prepared to handle all of life's complexities. Later, when the heat of the day comes, they're already satisfied knowing that they've got these fundamental needs already met before the intense part of the day comes. Have you ever found this to be true in your own life? I'm not saying it's the only way that you can do Bible study and get your spiritual nutrients met, but I know in my own personal life, if I put it off to later in the day thinking with good intention I'm going to come back and I'm going to get those nutrients that I need later, the day gets out of hand or gets away from me, and, often, that doesn't happen. If I don't drink God's Word in first thing in the day, it usually doesn't happen.

If you would go out and you would google how many people are chronically dehydrated physically, you'd find that to be about 75% of people they say are chronically dehydrated. And it made me question, I wonder how many people, Christians, are chronically, spiritually dehydrated. How many people, first of all, but how many even of Christians are spiritually dehydrated.

Most of mankind feels I believe, a nagging hole that is missing in their life. They feel the emptiness, and they often will try to get those needs met through careers, they'll seek it from things like alcohol. And they'll look at all the things that this world has to offer, entertainment, etc., trying to find satisfaction, trying to get that need met, that longing met, trying to find refreshment. They'll seek out all sorts of physical pursuits, and hobbies, and all sorts of things, yet, still, that emptiness is there, that hollowness is there. Sadly, most people don't have a clue where to even begin to look or for what they're even looking for, and they end up drinking from polluted water sources, spiritually speaking, often leaving them even worse than they were before. For us, our shepherd knows how to satisfy our thirst with clean, pure water. He provides us with this through His Spirit and daily through His Word. Do we follow the Shepherd?

Next, let's talk about, "He leadeth me." He leadeth me. The Good Shepherd has a plan. He knows the land, and He will lead us moment by moment where we need to go if we submit and follow. They've already scouted out all the hillsides. They know this one's good for grazing, this one has problems, this one has pitfalls that the sheep can step into. Some people refuse to let God lead them. They will insist on going their own way, running their own lives, choosing their own path. They don't want to be directed or led. They want to walk in their own way and drink from whatever sources that they find along the way.

I think all of us can struggle in this. I think all of us feel what Paul talked about as this constant struggle that is going on between our human nature and letting God lead us and following the shepherd. And I know in my own life, there are times I'm highly successful, and it's usually about then that I tell myself I'm being highly successful, and it's about then that I find myself face down on the mud again. Sometimes, I think we have that struggle to think that we know better. We can be wise enough to have our way, and I think that can be a problem, but I think one of the things that's probably more common is for us just simply to take our eyes off the Shepherd and forget to be following. Thankfully, unlike Israel's leader, their shepherds, we have a loving, great shepherd who seeks us passionately and comes after us.

Phillip Keller tells another story in his book. He says, "I recall so clearly standing under the blazing equatorial sun of Africa and watching the native herds being led to their owners' water wells. Some of these were enormous, hand-hewn caverns cut from the sandstone formations along the sandy rivers. They were like great runes chiseled out of rocks with ramps running down to the water trough at the bottom. The herd must be led down into these deep, dark cisterns where cool, clear water awaited them." He goes on, "In a Christian life, exactly the same applies. Many of the places we may be led into will appear to us dark, deep, dangerous, and somewhat disagreeable, but it simply must be remembered that our shepherd is with us in it. He is very much at work in the situation as He leads us. If it wasn't for our good, He wouldn't be leading us there.”

I think, often, we can relate to that, being led into some pretty dark, scary places and wondering, "Does the shepherd know where we're going?" How many of you can relate to that, in the dark places, some deep dark place thinking, "God, where are you taking me?" Psalm 23 says, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Of this shadow of death, Brown-Driver-Briggs says that these are about deep shadow, deep darkness, extreme danger. Did you know that sheep don't like the dark? They hate to be moved into darkness. Because of their eye placement and the way that they're designed, they have no depth perception in the dark, so shadows and dark areas make them very nervous and afraid.

None of us like dark areas of life, the shadowy areas of life, the times of illness, times of trials, crushing disappointments, deep heartache. And you personally know where those shadowy, dark areas of your life have been. We, like these sheep, we don't want to go into those deep, dark valleys. In those moments, we likely want to run the opposite direction, far from those places, but notice it says we walk through the valleys. We walkthrough.

In the Judean ravines, they get very dark in the late afternoon as the sun drops below the hillsides. And so, when going into these shadow or dark valleys, know what the shepherd does? Instead of being out in front leading, he actually pulls back and he comes right alongside them in their midst. He continues to talk in calm, reassuring tones. And with the shepherd near, still guiding them, still leading, even though they can't see well, the sheep remain calm that they will come through that darkness and back into the light, not because they have confidence in themselves of where they're going but “for You are with me.”

Never does our shepherd lead us where He doesn't already know where He's going. There are no greater times in our lives where we must learn to follow the Good Shepherd and trust in His ability to lead and watch over us than these deep, dark valleys. It's only in those moments step after step with the shepherd right there alongside of us, almost feeling tangibly that He's right there with us that we come through the darkness and back into the light. And over and over again as our shepherd proves His great love and concern for us, with each of these moments, our confidence grows not in ourselves but in our great, loving Good Shepherd.

The next thing, let's go to, "Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me." In Biblical times, a shepherd consistently used both a rod and a staff to tend and keep a flock, and they each had their own unique purpose. A rod was a typically… almost looked like an elongated snow cone in a sense that you had, like, a ball at the end that was wider and it would taper down. And the boys as they grew up would hand-carve these to be just perfectly fit for their hand, and they would spend time after time getting good at sending these things flying with amazing accuracy and speed so that they would become very deadly with these, and it would become his main weapon for defending his sheep from wild animals. It was also used to count sheep. It was also used to kind of prod one along that was willing to go but just kind of give him a slight nudge where they needed to go.

A staff was a much longer piece with the hook or the crook at the top of it, and shepherding sheep is the only place where that is used. It's unique to herding sheep. And that staff could be used for defense, but its main purpose was to guide sheep back to the right direction. And sheep, kind of like people, are known for endlessly wandering about seemingly without direction. When a sheep is getting too far off track, the shepherd would use his staff to gently but firmly pull the sheep back into the fold and, again, getting them moving in the right direction. You could also do this to save a sheep from harm that was getting too close to maybe an edge that would be dangerous for them. Or if they got themselves stuck in a situation like under a thorn bush where there was a mouthful of grass it was just trying to get to and it got itself stuck in there, they could get them back out of the jam that they got themselves in. The shepherd using a staff is able to get them out of a bad situation or out of a jam.

We even as Christians can be prone to wandering off track. In Isaiah 53:6, the prophet Isaiah says, "All we, like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one to his own way." All we, like sheep, have gone astray. Our shepherd may use a rod to gently prod us on or, at times, He may have to use His staff to more strongly and firmly pull us out of harm, or out of jam, or get us back on course. And I think that these rods and staffs can take many forms in our life. Sometimes, it's the person who comes alongside of us, that Barnabas-type person who, you know, just is encouraging us and saying, "Hey, you know, I've been there before. I'm here with you. We're going to keep heading this direction. This is the way we go toward God's kingdom," and they partner alongside of us. Other times, it's God's Word itself that corrects us. You know, we know from the scripture in 2 Timothy 3:16 where it reads, "All Scripture is given by inspiration for God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." We know it's God's word that often is giving us those gentle nudges and, sometimes, more firm nudges to get us back on the right path.

But how do we each individually then respond? Can God lead us with a gentle prodding in course correction, or are we more stubborn? Do we get ourselves stuck in jams in bushes where our self-will leads us away from the rest of the sheep where God has to more forcibly come and save us? Thankfully again, though, we have an exceedingly loving shepherd who uses that rod and staff to protect us, to guide us, and sometimes even save us from ourselves.

Next, "He restores my soul." The Hebrew for restores can mean return, turn back, refresh, or repair. And we know this isn't talking about a soul in the sense of some immortal soul. This is the word that probably everybody's familiar with, the nefesh, that living being. Not bean, being, I-N-G at the end. Being, it's hard to get that last G kind of on there. Literal translation of this passage is, "He causes my life to return." He causes my life to return. The New Living Translation says, "He renews my strength.”

When we are exhausted, when we're weary, when we're beaten down, when we're sad, when life and all of its difficulties, troubles anxieties, experiences have just flat out worn us out, we need help from our shepherd. And day by day, we get the strength we need for that moment, for that day, not for tomorrow. We don't get the grass when you want for tomorrow today. We get our needs met today. Israel didn't get the manna for tomorrow today except for preparing for the Sabbath, of course. We get the water we need today, we get the grass we need today, we get the refreshing we need today, and we're always dependent on the Shepherd. And in following Him, He leads us on a good path, a safe path, and a righteous path, spiritually speaking. And under His great care, we've received the encouragement we need, the resources we need today in the moment, the support we need right now, and it restores us to a state of hope, and joy, and energy that we need to keep going today.

The next section we'll go to, "He leadeth me in the path of righteousness for His namesake." For His namesake. Phillip Keller says, "Sheep are notorious creatures of habit. If left to themselves, they will follow the same trails until they become ruts, graze the same hillsides until they turn into desert waste, and pollute their own ground until it's corrupt with disease and parasites." We all get stuck sometimes due to our own self-destructive habits, too. We often think we know best, and if we were left alone, we would blindly, and habitually, and unwisely often follow and get stuck in the same ruts. And some of those ruts have ruined hearts and ruined lives so many times. Sheep will actually gnaw at the grass so much, won't even leave to go find other grass, will gnaw at the exact same spot until it's damaged the roots of that grass and it can no longer grow. The greatest single safeguard that a shepherd has in handling his flock is to keep them on the move.

God wants us to also keep moving forward and not get stuck in a rut. There are a lot of people stuck in this world. And as I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Exodus 14, and it came to mind. And it's that scene when the people have left Egypt, they've come out, the chariots are bearing down and they're standing at the Red Sea. And there's this great line in verse 13 there that says, you know, "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord," and there's this great moment. But Mr. Myers even brought out, I think, a couple weeks ago, well, what happens right after that in verse 15? And it says, "And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward.’" He told them to get moving, not stand still. Don't get stuck. Get moving.

God doesn't want us standing still. Like a great shepherd, He already has mapped out and has a great plan for our lives. He's worked out the grazing pattern ahead of time. He knows where He wants us to be day by day, hillside by hillside. He knows every step of the ground, every part of the land and its advantage, every pitfall and where it lies, and He knows where His sheep and His flock will thrive but also where they will struggle. And the reputation of the shepherd is tied to the condition and the welfare of his sheep. When sheep are flourishing, it's not because of how great the sheep or how amazing or smart that sheep is. No, it's because of how great the shepherd is. His name is honored, and He is brought glory when we are successful.

Brethren, in conclusion, the Lord is our shepherd. And within this powerful truth, this simple statement is the entirety of who that great Shepherd should be in our life and the hope, the peace, the rest, and the refreshment we can have. And while we may not be placed down in that field with a great lifetime of abundant food, we can surely proclaim, "I shall not want." He thoughtfully guides us through the pastures of our lives, taking care of our needs moment by moment, one small bite of food here, another bite of food here, and our Shepherd gives us what we need right now, sufficient for the day.

For our needs tomorrow, well, we trust the shepherd. And when life gets scary and dark, and when you can't tell exactly what's ahead, the Shepherd moves in right there close to you, right there close, and we just have to listen for His calming voice and trust His direction. We have to trust and yield to His authority and follow the Good Shepherd. And the Psalm ends beautifully. It says, "And, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."