The Generous Shepherd

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First, to recapitulate our subject, we’re thinking about God’s generosity on these Tuesdays in January and early February. We spent 4 Tuesdays on it and in some ways I wish we could have the rest of the year on it because it’s such a tremendous theme. My problem has been to know what to select, what to leave out. I’ve decided to look at a Bible testimony today as to the generosity of God that a certain man discovered and found in his experience and and told others about. And then next Tuesday, to go to another subject, I’m going to look at the generosity of God in giving to his church certain gifts to equip them to do their work in the world, another illustration of the remarkable generosity of God.

Then we turn to a new series on the heroes of faith in 3 weeks’ time. Psalm 23 then, the Lord is my shepherd. Now I think I’ll save a moment or two by not reading it. If you would glance at it, I’m sure you know it very, very well. The details are, um, almost known by heart by people even if they don’t go to church, because when they do go to church, they almost certainly hear this sung in one way or read in another.

The details are so rich that 1,000 books have been written on them, and it seems that new things can still be said about these details. I’m not actually going to go into the details of Psalm 23 at all today. I’ve looked at this psalm as a whole and I’ve tried to say to myself and ask the question, what are the principles which underlie this great psalm, this testimony of King David, as almost certainly towards the end of his life he looks back and testifies to the faithfulness of God? I wanted to get, if you like, at the genius of the psalm, at its root, at its heart, and ask what it has to say to us as a picture of the life of a believer, and of course for us now a Christian believer, since the shepherd is no longer simply Jehovah but Jesus as well. He is the Good Shepherd, as he himself said.

And there are a number of simple propositions that I want to make to you that I think put together are remarkably striking. I do this not just to remind those of you who are Christians how generous your God is, but I do it specifically to try to um, whet the appetite of those of you who are here today who are not really believers and trusters in our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to show you what you’re missing. I want to put before you a picture of what it means to be a believer, the testimony that you would be able to have at the end of your life if you put your trust in Jesus Christ. Now the first thing that I would say of this psalm as a whole is that it is intensely personal.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And it is most significant as you read through the psalm to see that the flock which the shepherd presumably had, if the picture is a correct one, is not mentioned at all. This sheep is taken up simply with his own personal knowledge and relationship to the shepherd. Now we are told sometimes almost too much about our relationship to the church and to the world as Christians today. We are told not to be pietistic, not to think too much of our own devotional walk with Jesus but to realise that we’ve got to be relevant and practical and get out into the world and show our faith.

That’s all of course right but if at the heart of it all there isn’t a personal knowledge of God, if I can’t say the Lord is my shepherd, then the witness that I shall make to the world and the membership that I shall offer to the church will be a very hollow thing. Right at the heart of all life-changing Christianity and church-changing Christianity and society-changing Christianity is the testimony of a man or woman or young person who can say, the Lord is mine and I am his. Without that we haven’t got the secret. It was this that I’d missed until my mid-teens. I’d known of the church as an institution, of the Christian ethics, of Christian social responsibility, but no one had ever said to me that this could be personal, that I could know God, that he could know me, that he could reveal himself to my heart, that I could honestly say, the Lord is my shepherd and therefore I won’t want.

Now that is the testimony of every great believer and every humble believer in the Bible. There’s that remarkable, um, list of religious Uh, things that Paul possessed, you remember in Philippians 3, rather like medals on his breast. He was a Hebrew of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, he was orthodox. He could go along all these great religious things and just tick them off and say, I had all those things. Par excellence I was a religious man.

And then he says, I count all of them as loss for the sake of knowing Christ Jesus. My Lord.

I love that my. I think it was Luther who said the personal pronouns are the very essence of real Christianity. Paul could say, to know Christ as my Lord was much more worthwhile than all these signs of religious orthodoxy, that put against those things, this personal knowledge was the heart of the matter which had changed his life. And in the gospels you get this so often, don’t you? The Lord speaks to a vast crowd, you turn over the page and And you find him sitting during the lunch hour with one woman, giving his whole attention to one person.

Mary, Mary, he says to somebody. Simon, Simon, as he calls somebody back from wandering. He’s interested in the individual. The Christian faith is personal, it reaches the individual heart and so my first question is simply this: Do you have a Christianity like that? Is it more than formal?

Is it more precious than simply a membership of a Christian church? Is it personal?

The second principle that stood out to me as I looked at this psalm again in the last week is that it is utterly realistic. I think it’s possible to wrap this psalm in cotton wool, to make it a rather sentimental ode for invalids, as though this is what you read at a funeral and this is what you read at times when you’re down, and it sort of pictures Somebody who’s got out of the rail race of life and escaped into green pastures and is sitting there and is letting the race go by. I remember standing by the bookstore some months ago when I saw an American book for young people with the extraordinary title God Is for Real. I’m not sure that I’m very keen on these new methods of grammar and titles of books, But having thought about it, it’s really rather a good title, isn’t it? You see, the author knew very well that many teenagers and people in their early 20s, when they think of Christian books, say, well, that’s not for real life.

The man who wrote that book simply doesn’t know how my girlfriend thinks or what it’s like to work in my office or what it’s like at home with my parents or what it’s like to try to earn a living. God is for real. And we can never say, if the authorship of this psalm is, is from David, as we believe it is, we can never say that David knew nothing of real life. He was king in the most turbulent times in Israelite history and he knew not only good but also bad and evil and afflictions. And it is, I think, extraordinarily interesting that this psalm, in the middle of its comfort and strength, mentions affliction like in verse 4, the shadow of death, the shadow of gloom.

Robert Hoth was saying yesterday, I think it was in our staff meeting, that he wanted us to pray for one or two people in the congregation who’ve been going through times of depression. Yes, Christians can know that, the shadow of darkness. And then again you’ll see the enemy who pops his head up at a rather inappropriate moment at the beginning of verse 5 when a table is being prepared for us and we want to sit down and rest and there is the enemy suddenly.

The presence of God in Christ can bring great comfort and marvellous strength according to this psalm, but it is— does not give immunity from suffering.

The width of this psalm has struck me very much. It’s about life and it’s about death, it’s about death and it’s about life. Sometimes it’s difficult to know which is hardest to face, and there are some remarkable contrasts in the psalm which I haven’t time to go into now. Not only an out-of-doors picture in verse 2 and an indoors picture in verse 5, but a picture of peace in verse 2, which is very beautiful, the still waters and the green pastures, and then the perils of verse 4 when the Lord is laying about him to protect us with rod and staff and so on. So my second principle is this, that Psalm 23 is a picture of what it means to trust Lord, to trust the Lord, is utterly realistic.

The faith of the Bible is not for Sundays only, it’s not for invalids only, it’s not for the dying only.

Like the cynic who went into church and found it only filled, or not filled rather, only a few elderly people and came out to report that there were just a few people swatting for their finals, a rather unkind statement.

Whereas when we become Christians we begin to realise, don’t we, that if we don’t know Christianity we don’t know how to live, let alone how to die.

Thirdly, the third thing that struck me very much about this psalm taken as a whole is that it is a testimony to divine achievement. Now it may be that you’re young in church this morning and you’re dreaming of great success in your life, and when you finish your life you’re looking forward to writing your autobiography in 3 volumes. Autobiographers tend to be very self-centered, don’t they? You know, my 45 pictures— myself aged 3, myself at school, myself winning whatever it was, myself as prime minister. And so I look at this psalm, this testimony of David, and I say, is it full of pictures of David and what he did in the Lord’s strength?

Testimony is often very self-centered, isn’t it? And the striking thing in the Hebrew, so the experts say, is that the first and the last word in the psalm is the Lord.

And what we can all recognise from any version is that it’s made up of some very simple but pregnant sentences all beginning with he, with God as the subject. It’s a psalm not about man but about God. He makes me to lie down, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul, he leads me, thou art with me. Thou preparest a table, thou anointest my head. 7 sentences all about God and what he does for us.

Now that is a sign that what we’re dealing with is authentic biblical literature. You can always tell whether you’re dealing with something that comes from the Bible or not because in the Bible the whole storey is about God from start to finish. It begins, in the beginning God, and it finishes with God. It doesn’t start by saying, as modern liberal religious education starts, in the beginning man thought that he couldn’t get on in this hard world without a god to worship and so he conjured up ideas of a heavenly father in the unknown. Doesn’t start like that.

Now the Bible says, in the beginning God, and tells the marvellous storey of his divine purposes that can never be overthrown right through to the end of eternity, if there is an end of eternity, and then it looks down, so to speak, in the world and says, don’t you want to be caught up in that? Don’t you want to be caught up? Here you are, little insignificant you, as feeble as that watch and strap. Don’t you want to be caught up into those purposes?

Now here’s the testimony of somebody who was caught up, you see. When he comes to write his storey, he says, he did this. As I look back, he led me. I used to get into the most awful tizzies. I’m sure King David would say this about guidance.

I didn’t know where to go when Saul was chasing me. I didn’t know what to do when I was king, faced with massive responsibilities. I often used to say, is it left or right? How do I get guidance?

But as I look back towards the end of my life, I can just say he led me.

Often I was right down and he restored me. That’s the testimony. It’s what he did. He, this God, if we may say it with reverence, is the creative genius of Now I met a creative genius in a tiny way on Saturday evening in Annie, uh, Valentin, who’s illustrated Good News for Modern Man, this great discovery the British and Foreign Bible Society made a few years ago when they were searching desperately for an illustrator for their modern translations. They found this remarkable French woman who can draw these beautiful line drawings, just a few lines in the middle of the text, conjuring up the whole feeling of the storey.

They are really works of genius. And she happened to come here, brought by Vijay on Sehuda to this church, and very kindly left behind a Good News for Modern Man for me with a little drawing that she sketched. Rather than a signature and a word from her, she’s drawn me a little drawing all to myself.

And if you look at this drawing, just as all the other drawings in the book, it’s Brilliantly done. Just a few lines sketched with a pen, pen in her hand.

Now here is a woman who can take a few lines such as you doodle on your blotting paper in the office, in which the cleaner just wonders if there are signs of psychiatric maladjustment.

And this woman can take just a few lines from her barrow and make something that the British and Foreign Bible Society or any publisher would go 1,000 miles to find.

And I think what this psalm is saying is that God has this supreme creative genius, for he is the Creator. And therefore he looks down into St. Helen’s congregation and he sees old Bob or Mary or Jill or whatever your name is, and he’s able to take that life and make it to lie down in green pastures, to restore that soul, to lead it in paths of righteousness, to stand with that person in evil so that they fear not. To anoint their head, to follow them with goodness and mercy. In other words, to make a shape of that life which will mean at the end that I can honestly say that weak and feeble as my life is, it has done something in God’s hand. Now wouldn’t you want to be able to say that?

That’s the Christian’s privilege. You can’t have that privilege if you’re not a Christian.

You can’t have that privilege if you’re not a Christian. Remember the storey of Billy Graham going to visit Winston Churchill at the end of his life and I think one of the reasons that God has used Billy so much is that he’s so faithful. He says the truth and he asked Sir Winston Churchill if he would become a Christian, if he’d put his trust in Jesus Christ and the old man looked at him very sadly apparently and said, it’s too late for me to think of these things.

Now humanly you can do great things and your history can be blazoned abroad but if your hand, life is not in the hands of God ultimately, there’s no storey worth telling. When this world is folded up and eternity has come, what we need to know is that God has led us.

Fourthly, it’s a confession of faith. What a remarkable confession of faith it is. Here’s a man who’s learned to trust. Another book I saw in the bookstore by Elizabeth Galesmith, the wife of Martin Galesmith, These two were missionaries in the Far East and certainly knew what it was like to meet every kind of problem. And she wrote a charming little bit of, um, description of this life together and said on the title, God Can Be Trusted.

And what David is saying to us here is this: God can be trusted. The Lord’s my shepherd, I shan’t want, because as I look back, I found that he can be trusted. Let me show you one illustration of this which is delightful, I think, in the light of David’s experience. Verse 6: I happen to have been reading these last few mornings the storey in 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel of David being pursued by Saul. He was really a fugitive.

He knew what it was to be followed by an implacable enemy.

But when he’s giving the testimony of his life, he doesn’t say, I’ve been followed by problems and difficulties all my life. He says that 2 things have followed him, and the word actually means pursued him all his life. They are goodness and mercy. That’s his testimony. He can look back to very dry times and in those times of drought, verse 2, he says that God has led him into green pastures when it looked as though there were none.

He can look back to times of great testing when he faced illness and maybe death and say that those times of affliction were in some ways the most blessed of all, for thou art with me.

I wonder how often we are taught, as we ought to be, at conventions, that the way to know the Lord’s blessing is to go through it a bit. When the 3 children, the 3 friends of Daniel, are in the fiery furnace, what does the pagan king see? He sees the figure of a 4th man standing alongside them like the Son of God. Often it isn’t until in a tiny way we’re in the fiery furnace that we can honestly say, I fear no evil for thou art with me.

Now my time is nearly gone. Fifthly and lastly, it’s a plain statement of divine generosity. Look at verse 5, look at it, look at this picture which is so famous throughout the Bible: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Here is the great God and he has spread a feast before us and his guests are welcomed and honoured with oil. Their cup overflows, they have a rich banquet.

You know, when you meet unbelievers they often ask you this question. The problem that seems to worry them is this: How can I explain the evil in the world? Now I don’t want to be glib about that, that’s a difficult problem and a difficult question. I can only say that when I meet believers, when I meet Christians who’ve been Christians for many years, I find that the problem that they face is this: How can I explain the of God’s goodness to me.

It’s the problem of pleasure, not evil. It’s how can it be that when I fail God so often, he’s been so generous to me. That’s the problem of the older Christian, a plain statement of divine generosity throughout life. Well, now I can’t leave it quite like that because you may think that this kind of a Christian experience is is almost too good to be true. And you may say that you don’t see it in the lives of very many people, and you certainly haven’t experienced it yourself.

So let me lead you back at the end to the first sentence, and let me tell you what one of those words means, which is often misunderstood— the word shepherd.

That’s not a sentimentalism.

The word shepherd in Old Testament history means the king, the ruler.

The sovereign of the people was called the shepherd of the people. So what King David is saying is very telling. He’s saying, the Lord is my king. Everybody in Israel bows the knee to me but I’m able to be their ruler because I have turned to another king and bowed the knee to him. I can honestly say as I look back through my life, the Lord is my king.

I have learned to bow my proud neck. Under the sovereignty of God. And you will know that David was a very human person and had many warts and many problems and some failures, some very big ones. But in his life he learned to call God King.

If you want Psalm 23 in any tiny measure to be true of you, then you’ve got to make Jesus King, and today is the time to start doing it. Let’s pray.

Lord, these words are far beyond my capacity to explain. We’re conscious of the beauty of this picture of a Christian believing, trusting life. We’re thankful for this testimony from David that great is thy faithfulness, and we pray that it may be our testimony too at the end of time. We ask it for Christ’s sake. Amen.