Introduction.

Psalm 23 is probably the best known passage in the Old Testament. Certainly more people could recite Psalm 23 than the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20. Due to its usage Psalm 23 has also become known as the ‘Funeral Psalm.' There can be no doubt that Psalm 23 is full of comfort and hope. Believers hearing the Psalm read during times of trouble receive deep assurance of God's great grace, loving kindness and tender mercy. This is a Psalm to carry in our hearts everyday of our lives, rather than turn to it only in times of sadness. This morning I want to look at this Psalm as a whole so that the message of the Psalm motivates us to enjoy God.

1. Praise God for your glorious Shepherd.

1. Praising God is an extremely important aspect of living the Christian life. Our English word ‘praise' comes from the Latin word ‘pretium' which means price or value. Praise generally speaking is an ascription of value and worth. When you praise someone you tell him of his worth to you or the team. Australian sports commentators lavish praise on players and are very quick to declare them the very best players in the world. This praise may be sincere, but it is very subjective and biased.  When God is the object of our praise we declare how much we love, adore, appreciate and value him. When God is the object of our praise it is not a subjective evaluation of God's worth, but a declaration of the truth. The angels in heaven proclaim the truth when in Revelation 4:11 and 5:11, they say, "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created" and "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing!" God's value and worth are so great and glorious that we can never flatter God. Our language does not have the vocabulary or the concepts to declare his true greatness.
   
   
2. In Psalm 23 God is praised for who he is and what he has done. David wrote this Psalm when he was a teenager working as a shepherd watching over his father's sheep. David was obviously taken up by the fact that the sheep he cared for were totally dependant on him. Sheep cannot exist without a shepherd. Sheep without a shepherd soon end up being mutton. David grasped with joyful wonder the fact that he was like one of his sheep who received total care from LORD his Shepherd. Jesus in John 10:11 identifies himself as the good shepherd saying, ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.'  Psalm 23 is a song of praise to the Lord Jesus Christ.
   
   
3. It is important to note that in Psalm 23:1 David uses the sacred name of God. David's shepherd was not some vague, distant, nameless and impersonal divine being but the God who revealed himself to Moses and told him that his name is ‘I AM WHO I AM'. Yahweh is my shepherd. It is perfectly correct to say, the LORD is my shepherd, and have your mind race to think on the Lord Jesus Christ. As a Christian you do no violence to the Scripture if you translate Psalm 23:1 as "The LORD Jesus is my shepherd I shall not want." You know your shepherd in person, you have and enjoy a personal relationship with him, you speak to him and he speaks to you through his Word. He is with you every moment of your life; you have your shepherd with you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Jesus is my shepherd and he is always with me, this fact ought to fill you with inexpressible joy. Your heart should rejoice and feel glad, your soul and spirit be moved to singing, and your mind filled with thoughts of the Saviour's total care. All of my inner-being ought to respond in exuberance and jubilation to the fact that Jesus is my loving Shepherd.
   
   
4. When we give praise to the LORD our hearts, souls, and minds ought to naturally turn to the wonder of Redeeming love. My Saviour's redeeming love ought to grip my loftiest thoughts and deepest feelings and spontaneously rejoice in wonder love and praise. Praise is more of a social thing than a private matter of the heart. Those saved by the grace of the Saviour desire and long to praise the Lord with others. Listen to: Psalm 40:10, ‘I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your loving-kindness and Your truth from the great assembly.' Psalm 34:3 ‘Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together.' Psalm 66:16, ‘Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul.' When praise comes from the heart it longs for others to join the praise.
   
   
5. Praise is a joyful duty imposed on us by the Lord. We are given this duty to refresh and restore our souls. It is a duty that every believer ought to do with pure delight and passion. My love and adoration for Jesus ought to make my face glow with unbridled joy. Listen to Psalm 50:23 ‘Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God." When we give ourselves to fulfil the duty of praise with heart, mind, soul, and strength we enjoy and glorify God as we ought. Knowing that Jesus is your personal good Shepherd ought to make the duty of praise a great pleasure. David in Psalm 23 is filled with a sense of complete confidence in the Shepherd. He expresses this confidence by saying, ‘I shall not want.' The argument is very simple if the LORD is your Shepherd and he cares for you, then you cannot want for anything you need. Jesus the Good Shepherd meets the needs of his people abundantly. When we praise Jesus the Good Shepherd by proclaiming that our every need is met in him, we testify to others the greatness and total adequacy of the Saviour. Listen to David repeating this thought of having no lack because the LORD takes care of us in Psalm 34:9-10, ‘Oh, fear the Lord, you His saints! There is no want to those who fear Him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger; but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.'  If only we would take this truth and make it a ruling reality in our hearts and minds. We loose a great deal of peace and joy because we know this truth in theory, but not in reality.
   
   
6. When David says, ‘He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake' he focuses on God's action in his life. The LORD gives him rest and satisfies him. Only sheep that are well fed, watered and contently secure lie down. Sheep are naturally skittish and therefore need a great sense of security before they lie down. Rest given by the Lord is restorative. While his sheep rest their Good Shepherd revives, strengthens, encourages, and sanctifies them. Praise Jesus because he gives you perfect rest. Jesus leads his sheep; they are not left to ‘do their own thing'. The Son of God always leads his people on the paths of righteousness. The paths of righteousness are the ways of obedience. The Saviour encourages you to obey by leading you into the paths of righteousness, so that his name would be praised and exalted. David is urging us to praise God because he is always active in our lives dealing with us in loving kindness. We need to deliberately stop and take note of God's goodness towards us everyday. We ought grieve and lament the fact that we do not spontaneously praise God at the beginning and the end of each day. You have spent the whole day in his presence and he has cared for you every moment surely praise ought to come as a natural delight? Sadly the sin that dwells within us causes us to start the day by looking at how busy we are going to be in the day, and then end the day stressed by what we have not accomplished. Deliberately reflect on your day and praise God for his wonderful goodness towards you. The Lord Jesus Christ is your Good Shepherd therefore rejoice and be extremely glad for his total care of you.

2. Rejoicing in the benefits of having the Good Shepherd care for you.

1. It is important that we take note that in verse 4 David switches focus from what the Lord has done and is doing, to the great benefits by having the Good Shepherd take total care of you. You and I like all other men and women will pass through experiences which are best described as ‘walking through the valley of the shadow of death.' The believer has the comfort of knowing that the Good Shepherd is always protecting him. Listen to Satan complaining about the protection the Lord gave to Job, Satan answered the Lord and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.  (Job 1:9-10) Satan and the forces of evil are not free to deal with you as they please; you are constantly protected by the Lord. David urges us to grasp the fact that we should not fear evil. Listen to a promise the Lord makes about protecting you: Psalm 121:5-8 says, ‘The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is  your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.' The Good Shepherd is your personal protector, he watches over you day and night. If this is true then absolutely nothing can happen to you expect by the will and power of God. Every Christian lives totally protected by the Lord, this is true even when you don't think so or feel the security of the Lord's presence. You are as protected as Daniel was when he was thrown into the lions den or Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego were when they were cast into the fiery furnace. No matter how grim or terrible the experience, God's hand of protection is always upon those who believe.
    
2. Jesus the Good Shepherd protects you because you are very precious to him. You were given to Jesus by the Father in an eternal covenant before the foundation of the world. Jesus loved you and became a man and offered himself as an atoning sacrifice to secure your forgiveness of sins. He gave his body to be broken, blood to be shed and laid down his life so that you would be reconciled to God. Jesus bought you with his own blood. Will the Saviour who paid such a great price for you not protect you and make sure that you spend eternity with him? The Good Shepherd will not loose one of those whom he died to save. The fact that you are constantly protected by the Saviour ought to fill you with praise.
    
3. I do not think we should use the allegorical method to determine what the shepherd's rod and staff represent. Using the allegorical method we miss the point that the shepherd used all the resources available to him to protect his sheep. The Good Shepherd who protects us sits at God's right hand and all power and authority are given to him. Jesus who counts his people precious is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent and protects them by his mighty hand. Once more I think that we grasp the concept of this truth very well, but find it very difficult to live with the reality of this truth. Knowing that the LORD protects his sheep ought to be of great comfort. The word comfort means to give strength or to encourage. If God is for you who can stand against you? The fact that all believers are under God's total protection should move them to joyful praise. If you are under the LORD'S continual protection you should rejoice in your safety.

3. Rejoice in the Good Shepherd's great provision for you.

1. David recognised that sheep are constantly under threat, they are surrounded by enemies and it is the shepherd's duty not only to protect, but also to provide for his sheep. The mention of food and the anointing of the head with oil suggest that David had the pleasures of an oriental banquet in mind. Listen to Samuel Burder, ‘In the East the people frequently anoint their visitors with some very fragrant perfume; and give them a cup or glass of some choice wine, which they are careful to fill till it runs over. The first was designed to show their love and respect; the latter to imply that while they remained there, they should have an abundance of everything. To something of this kind the Psalmist probably alludes in this passage.' The enemies watch, but are not able to disturb those that eat the feast provided by the Lord. The LORD certainly does not lack the means or the power to have his people feast on all he provides from the storehouses of his love. Every believer looking back on his life can testify to the great provision of the Lord. God's provisions are visible tokens of his love for us. We need to recognise these love tokens from the LORD and respond with praise and thanksgiving.
    
2. The final verse of Psalm 23 is full of comfort and encouragement. David says, ‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.' David looks back over his life and sees that he has been pursued by the Lord's goodness and mercy. Why does the Shepherd pursue you and me with goodness and mercy? What is the Shepherd's motive behind all his provision? The primary motive behind the work of the Good Shepherd is the glory of God. Our Shepherd has that goal in mind in all that he does for us and to us. Nothing will display the glory of God more than the overflow of his goodness and mercy towards needy sinners like you and me. God's great plan of salvation and sanctification is to display his honour, character, sufficiency and love. If this is God's purpose and if it is clearly visible in the past, then we ought to have great confidence that the future will also be lavished with his goodness and mercy. It is to God's glory that he deals with us according to his grace rather than according to what we deserve. The New Testament equivalent to saying ‘surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life' is ‘and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.' Every believer ought to know the joy of God's hand at work for his good in all the experiences of life. As a child of God you may not understand it, but everything that happens to you is for your good according to the wisdom of God. As a believer you should be able to say with confidence, ‘My God is always with me, always at work for my good.' This truth is declared in the Scripture as a unshakeable fact. Once more we deprive ourselves of a great deal of peace and rest because we grasp the concept as a theory and not as reality. We fail to enjoy God as we ought because we do not live according to the realities declared in the word.
   
   
3. When David says, ‘and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever' he may mean two things:
   
   
1. He may be looking forward to the day when he goes to be with the Lord to occupy the room Jesus has prepared especially for him. Jesus strengthen his disciples by telling them, "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.'(John 14:1-2). It is wonderful to know with confidence that you will be face to face with the Lord forever and hear his voice. Living in the Father's Mansion will be more glorious than you and I could ever imagine.
    
2. David might well have used the phrase dwell in the house of the Lord forever to convey the idea of God's presence. Those who have Jesus as the Good Shepherd live with his personal presence with them. This is not the presence that flows out of the fact that God is omnipresent, but the Lord's presence as a loving companion who protects, helps, leads, guides, strengthens, encourages and keeps those he loves. David I believe was rejoicing in the fact that the Lord would be with him all the days of this life and then forever in eternity. The thought of Jesus binding himself to you as your companion in life ought to fill you with great praise.

Conclusion.

Psalm 23 urges us to lift up our hearts in praise to Jesus the Good Shepherd of the sheep. The concept of Almighty God being your Shepherd is full of assurance and encouragement, but it is yours only if you can say from your heart with deepest conviction, The LORD is my Shepherd. I belong to him and he belongs to me; I hear his voice and follow him. All the comfort of this Psalm belongs only to those who have a personal living relationship with Jesus. May God in his grace and mercy call each one of us to follow him.