Thursday the day of change

Psalm 23: A Psalm for the Living

One night back when our father was going through a tough time in his life he had me get a Bible and read this to verse to him. He then said don't you ever forget what you just read. Today years later I realize he knew more about this verse than I understood.

The 23rd psalm is the most beloved of the Psalms and is, perhaps, the most loved chapter in the entire Bible. It is a shame then, that we tend to only hear sermons on Psalm 23 at funerals. It is a shame because Psalm 23 is a psalm for the living--it is a psalm for you and I to apply every day of our life it's a psalm of recovery.

There is a danger, that when a biblical verse becomes particularly familiar to us, we begin to believe that we know all that there is to know about the text. When this happens we tend to overlook messages and applications that are quite obvious.

For instance, have you ever noticed how David changes the form of the psalm in verse 4? In the first three verses, David refers to God as "He": "The Lord is my Shepherd . . . He makes me lie down . . . He leads me . . . He restores my soul . . . He guides me." Then in verses 4 and 5, David refers to God as "You" or "Thou": "I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me . . . Thou dost prepare a table before me . . . Thou hast anointed my head with oil". Then, finally, in verse 6, he switches back to the third person: "I will dwell in the house of the Lord", hang in there and lets see what it has to offer each of us.

The lesson that we can learn from this form change is that we should not talk for very long about God without talking to God. The first lesson that this psalm can teach us all is that our study of God's word should always lead us to prayer.

What shall we say about the first line? "The Lord is my shepherd." A phrase so familiar that we probably are missing the magnitude of those words. David is saying that the eternal God of the Universe is his personal shepherd. David could have rightly said, 'Hear O Israel, the Lord is our shepherd', but he does not say this, he says, "The Lord is my shepherd". There is a personal relationship here.

This is a reminder that Christianity is not as much a religion as it is a relationship. Being a Christian means having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus calls Himself, "the good shepherd" in John 10, verse 11. The nature of Psalm 23 then, becomes even more personal. The Christian reads Psalm 23 this way, " (Jesus) is my shepherd, I shall not want," that makes us followers of Jesus.

What exactly does that mean? "I shall not want." The meaning here is not that we won't desire or want anything, the meaning is that we won't be left wanting, we will be satisfied. We are being told that the Lord's sheep are not lacking anything.

But how is this true? We don't even have to leave Psalm 23 to see that the Lord's sheep do indeed lack things. When we are told about walking through the dark valley it is safe to assume that the valley lacks light, and I presume it lacks the green pasture and the quiet waters at least that's how it sounds.

In what sense then, can it be said that the Christian shall not lack anything? I like John Piper's answer to this question, "what David means is that God's sheep never lack anything that the Shepherd thinks is good for them."

What this means is that God is all we need. What this means is that Jesus is enough. Whether we are in the green pasture or the dark valley, the Shepherd remains at our side and that is what we need. If we have Jesus, we lack no good thing.

While it is true that Jesus is all we need, this is not to say that Jesus is all we get. David reminds us that it is our Good Shepherd who "makes (us) lie down in green pastures," and "leads (us) beside quiet waters"(v.2).

Phillip Keller, a pastor and author who for eight years was himself a shepherd, writes, "It is almost impossible for (sheep) to lie down unless (certain) requirements are met." Keller explains that before sheep will lie down they need to be free of 4 things. Because of their timidity, sheep "refuse to lie down unless they are free of all fear . . . Sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with other (sheep within the flock). If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down . . . Lastly, sheep will not lie down as long as they feel in need of finding food"(Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, 35).

There must be freedom from fear, friction, flies, and famine before sheep will lie down. Translate this into our context, and we can hear David saying that the Lord often removes obstacles in our life for the purpose of giving us rest--and rest of a certain kind.

I have a real problem believing that the Bible is only a prosperity gospel, but I do believe it is a real faith gospel, but this is not to say that it gives us a prosper-less gospel. The green pastures and the quiet waters represent a type of prosperity that the Shepherd gives to His sheep. And the reason we are given this prosperity is stated in verse 3, it "restores (our) soul" and financial prosperity will never restore ones soul.

Check tomorrows blog for our completion of Psalms 23

SO TODAY WHY NOT GET FIRED UP AND GO FOR IT AND HELP US MAKE A DIFFERENCE BUILDING THE RANCH!!!!