The Lord is my Shepherd, I Shall not be in Want

The Lord is my Shepherd

The Lord is my Shepherd, I Shall not be in Want

Psalm 95:6-7 6 Oh come, let us bow down in worship Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. 7 For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the flock of His care.

The problem with most of us is that we have no clear picture of the God we long to worship. Our image of Him is clouded by the memory of cold cathedrals, bitter religions, by pastors or priests who put the fear of God into us, or by all that we suffered as children from fathers who were absent, emotionally detached, brutal, or weak. All of us have inexact notions of God. So, the question is God Himself: who is He? This is the question to which all other questions lead- the question that God Himself put into our hearts. And if He put it into our hearts there must be an answer in His heart waiting to be revealed. David gives us a comforting and compelling answer. “THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD.” “Yahweh is my shepherd” are the words David actually wrote, using the name that God gave Himself. The term Yahweh, sometimes shortened to Yeh in the Old Testament, comes from a form of the Hebrew verb to be and suggests self-sufficient God. But the explanation is not very comfortable for me. I prefer David’s description: Yahweh is my shepherd. Shepherd is a modest metaphor, yet one that is substantial with meaning. Part of the comparison is the portrayal of a shepherd and his sheep; the other is David’s experience and ours. David paints a picture and puts us into it. This is the genius of the Psalm: It belongs to us; we can use David’s words as our own. David’s opening statement, “The Lord is my shepherd”, Introduces the comforting image that appears throughout the poem. Each line elaborates the symbol, filling out the picture, showing us how our Shepard, God, leads us to that place where we shall no longer want.

The Meaning of the Metaphor:

David himself was a shepherd. He spent much of his youth tending his “few sheep in the desert”. (1 Samuel 17:28). The desert is one of the best places in the world to learn. There are few detractions, and there is little that can be used. In such a place we’re more inclined to think about the meaning of things, rather than about what those things may provide. One day as David was watching his sheep the idea came to him that God is like a shepherd. He thought of the incessant care that sheep require, their helplessness and defenselessness. He recalled their foolish straying from safe paths, their constant need for guidance. He thought of the time and the patience it took for them to trust him before they would follow. He remembered the time when he led them through danger and they huddled close at his heels. He pondered the fact that he must think for his sheep. Fight for them, guard them, and find their pasture and quiet pools for them to eat, drink and rest. He remembered their bruises and scratches that he bound up, and he marveled at how frequently he had to rescue them from harm. Yet not one of his sheep was aware of how well it was cared for or watched over. Yes he mused, that God is very much like a good shepherd. Ancient shepherds knew their sheep by name. They were acquainted with their ways, their particularities. Their characteristic marks, their tendencies, their idiosyncrasies. Back then Shepherds didn’t drive their sheep, they led them. At the Shepherd’s morning call, a distinctive guttural sound, each flock would rise and follow his master to the feeding grounds. Even if two shepherds called their flocks at the same time and the sheep were intermingled, they never followed the wrong shepherd. All day long the sheep followed their own shepherd as he searched the wilderness looking for grassy meadows and sheltered pools where they could feed and drink in peace. At certain times of the year it became necessary to move the flocks deeper into the wilderness. A desolate waste land where predators lurked. But the sheep were always guarded. Shepherds carried a “rod” (a club) on their belts and a staff in their hands. The shepherd’s staff had a crook that was used to remove the sheep from perilous places or to restrain them from wandering off. The club was a weapon to ward of beasts. David said, when a lion or a bear attacked and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.

(1 Samuel 17:34-35)

Throughout the day each shepherd stayed close to his sheep, watching them carefully and protecting them from the slightest of harms. When one sheep strayed, the shepherd searched for it until it was found. Then he laid it across his shoulders and brought it back to the herd. At the end of the day, each shepherd led his flock to the safety of the fold and slept across the gate to protect them. A good shepherd never left his sheep alone. They would have been lost without him. His presence was their assurance. It’s the good shepherd that David envisioned as he composed each line of his song.

Jacob:

The patriarch Jacob was a shepherd and the first person in the Bible to make use of the shepherd metaphor for God. As he lay dying, he looked back over his life and summed it up with these words. “God has been my shepherd all my life.” (Gen 48:15).

Jacob was born with a difficult disposition. Gripping his twin brother’s heel at birth, he continued throughout his life to try to trip him up and get ahead of him. In fact Jacobs’s whole life was characterized by wheeling, double dealing, and grasping, grabbing and jerking people around to gain selfish advantage. Yet God was not ashamed to be called the “God of Jacob”. And to be his shepherd every day of his life. Jacob is reminiscent of those who come into life with a pervasive tendency to go wrong, who inhabit inherited hells. Saddled from birth with insecurities, insanities. And sinful predictions, who are addicted to food, sex, alcohol, drugs, spending, gambling or working, who have disturbed and difficult personality’s, who as one man said “a hard machine to drive”. God knows our tiresome stories. He understands the latent forces and all the sources and possibilities of evil in our nature. He sees the hurt and heartbreak that others cannot see and which cannot be explained, even to our closest friends.

He’s aware of the reasons for our moodiness, our temper tantrums, and our selfish indulgences. Others may be put off by our dispositions, but God never turns away. He sees beyond the prickliness to the broken heart. His understanding is infinite. How damaged we are as how far wrong we’ve gone are matters of indifference to Him. Our vileness does not alter His character. He is eternal love, the same yesterday, the same today, the same forever. We are not what He wants us to be, but we are not unwanted. If we will have Him, He will be our Shepherd. I really marvel at God to welcome “lame brains, and misfits and nit pickers and holier thn thou’s and stuffed shirts and odd ducks and egomaniacs and etc., etc., etc. But that’s the way He is. Whatever we are, wherever we are, His heart is open to us, love surrounds us, seeking the smallest crack by which it may rush in.

Isaiah:

Isaiah envisions a stellar shepherd who each night calls out his star flock by name.

(Isa 40:26). It’s not by chance that the stars have their assigned orbit and place in the universe. They do not rise at random, nor do they wander haphazardly through space. They rise at God’s beck and call. He brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name. Not one is forgotten, not one is overlooked, and not one is left behind. It’s a terrible thing to be unknown. We live in fear that we will never be known enough, that others will never know who we really are, what our dreams are and where our thoughts are taking us. Yet we have nothing to fear. God knows every one of his sheep by name, He’s ware of each personality and peculiarity There are the little ones that have to be carried, the cripples that can’t keep up, the nursing ewes that don’t want to be hurried, the old sheep that can barely get along. There are the bellwethers that always want to be out front, the bullies that butt and push to get their way, the timed ones (the sheepish) that are afraid to follow the black sheep that are always the exception. There are those who graze their way into becoming lost and there are others more deliberately on the lam. The good Shepherd knows us all. (Isa 40:10-11).

God knows our pace. He knows when grief, pain, and loneliness overwhelm us, when the full realization comes home to us. When we are shamed and broken and unable to go on. God does not drive His sheep; He gently leads them. He allows for hesitation and trepidation. He gives credit for decisions and resolutions that are strongly tested. He understands courage that falters in the face if of terrible odds. He can accommodate a faith that flames out under stress. He takes into account the hidden reasons for failure; he feels the full weight of our disasters’. He knows our pain as no one else knows it. Our bleating reaches His ears, He hears even our inarticulate cries. When we lag behind, he does not scold us. Rather he gathers us up, encircles us with His strong arm and carries us next to His heart. The essence, the central core of Gods character lies here. He has the heart of a tender Shepherd. Great is the gentleness of our Lord.

Jeremiah 50:6-19

The prophet Jeremiah saw a flock of ruined sheep. We readily forget that our God is to be our “resting place”. And we wander away, yet He pursues us wherever we go. With no complaints of the darkness, the cold, the wind, the heavy burden, the steep hill, or the thorny path over which He must pass to rescue one lost sheep. His love does not count time, energy, suffering, or even life itself. His pursuit is not a reward for our goodness, but the result of His decision to love. He is driven by love, not by our beauty. He is drawn to us when we have done nothing right and when we have done everything wrong (especially when we have done everything wrong). (Matthew 18:12-14) Lost sheep are not doomed, they are the ones He came to find.

Ezekiel 34:6-16

Ezekiel announced the birth of the Good Shepherd long before He was born. He said that when He came He would tend God’s flock with tender loving care. It was Ezekiel’s task to care for scattered exiles far from home. He described them as sheep that were scattered, “because there was no shepherd, and no one searched or looked for them”. Israel’s disbanding was their own fault, the result of years of in difference and resistance to God. They had looked to their idols, shed blood, defiled their neighbor’s wives, and done other abominable things. (Eze. 33:26). That’s why they were estranged. Yet God says, I will search for the last and bring back the strays. Good Shepherd’s don’t look down upon lost sheep, they look for them. Sheep don’t have to go looking for their Shepherd. It’s the other way around, He’s out looking for them. Even if the sheep aren’t thinking about the Shepherd, He pursues them to the ends of the earth. There is in fact no way to escape Him except by running back into His arms. Though we are stiff necked and stubborn, He is equally stiff necked and stubborn. He will never give up His pursuit. He cannot get us off His mind. Furthermore Ezekiel says, when the good Shepherd finds his sheep he looks after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered sheep when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. “Look after” suggests careful examination of each animal. Our Shepherd God is a Good Shepherd. He knows well the condition of His flock, He sees the marks of sorrows on each face. He knows every cut and bruise, every ache and pain. He recognizes the signs of misuse and abuse the wounds of others have given us and the residue of our own resistance. He promises to do what other Shepherds cannot or will not do. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. He has compassion on the afflicted and the handicapped, on those wounded by their own sin. He understands sorrow, misfortune, broken homes, and shattered ambitions. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Ps. 147:3) He applies the balm that makes the wounded whole. That’s the comfort of God on our beleaguered hearts. But there is more. Another Good Shepherd was on the way, one who would be one with the Father in pastoral compassion (Eze. 34:23,24). Another Good Shepherd who would lay down His life for the sheep (John 10:11).

The Great Shepherd of the Sheep

Some six hundred years later Jesus stood near the place where David composed his shepherd song. (John 10:11-15, (Heb. 13:20, (Mat. 18:12-14). But there’s more, The Good Shepherd blood would flow out- a life for a life. What irony: Now the Shepherd gives His life for His lamb. (Isa 53:5,6)

The Shepherd calls out to us and listens for the slightest of sounds of life’ He hears the slightest of cries. If He hears nothing at all, He will not give up or go away. He lets us wander away, hoping that weariness and despair will turn us around. Our discomfort is Gods doing. He hounds us, He hems us in, He thwarts our dreams. He foils our best laid plans, He frustrates our hopes, He waits until we know that nothing will ease our pain, nothing will make life worth living except His presence. And when we turn to Him, he is there to greet us. He has been there the all along. (Ps. 145:5:18).

laid down His life for the sheep. The Father issued the decree (Zec 13:7). Since the beginning of time religions have decreed that a lamb should give up its life for the shepherd. The shepherd would bring his lamb to the sanctuary, lean with all his weight on the lambs head, and confess his sins. The lamb would be slain and its

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD

Shepherd: the word carries with it thoughts of tenderness, security, and provision. Yet it means nothing as long as I cannot say, The Lord is my Shepherd. What a difference those monosyllabic words make. All the difference in the world. It means that I can have all of God’s attention, all of the time, just as though I’m the only one in the flock. I may be part of the flock, but I am one of a kind. It’s one thing to say, The Lord is a Shepherd, it’s quite another to say “The Lord is my Shepherd”. Every morning the shepherd calls his sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes’ on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. (John 10;3-4) This morning as you awakened, between sleep and wakened, His eyes swept over you. He called you by name and said, come follow me. It’s a once for all thing; it’s an everyday thing.

Psalm 23 New King James Version (NKJV)

The Lord the Shepherd of His People

A Psalm of David.

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. 3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. 6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever.