About this sermon
Psalm 23 has comforted countless believers in battle, prison, and at the point of death. The Lord is a shepherd who supplies every need, leads his sheep beside still waters, restores their souls, and guides them in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even in the valley of the shadow of death his people need not fear, because he is with them. He spreads a table before them in the presence of their enemies, and goodness and lovingkindness follow them all their days, because they stand in Christ, the good shepherd.
Sermon transcript
This evening we consider a very familiar passage of scripture, Psalm 23, as we continue our consideration of the book of Psalms. Psalm 23, hear the word of God. It is entitled, A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Please remain standing as we seek the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Our Lord and Father in heaven, once again, we ask that by your spirit you would cause our hearts to be good soil so that the seed of your word would indeed take deep root in our hearts and bear spiritual fruit unto holiness and sanctification in our lives. And once again, Lord, we ask that you would set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful and that which is timely and edifying to your people. Grant me the assistance of your spirit in doing so. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear what the spirit is speaking to us in this portion of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word.
In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said. Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. The title of my sermon on this Lord’s Day evening is The Lord Our Shepherd and Host. Well, dear friends, the passage from God’s Word that we are considering on this Lord’s Day evening is, of course, one of the most familiar as well as one of the most well-beloved portions of Holy Scripture. Along with passages like John 3.16, for example, Psalm 23 is a portion of God’s Word that even many who are otherwise unfamiliar with the Bible and its contents have heard and perhaps even memorized. Psalm 23 has brought great comfort and solace to many in times of darkness and distress. Only the final judgment day will disclose just how many soldiers going into the front lines of battle have found strength for the battle from this psalm, or how many prisoners in chains have been comforted by it, or how many on their deathbeds have had their faith fortified as they prepare to cross over to the other side.
Perhaps this familiar psalm has been a source of comfort and hope for you. And if so, there’s good reason for that. For it would seem that the Holy Spirit has given this precious psalm as a gift to God’s people to serve as a source of comfort, encouragement, and strength in the face of life’s many challenges and difficulties. King David himself, of course, if you know his history, if you know the history of his rise to the kingship in Israel and the tumults of his reign over Israel, you know that David himself faced many discouragements, many distresses, many enemies, and he found comfort in his good shepherd. Dr. Willem van Gammeren says of this psalm, and I quote him, he says, Psalm 23 is a psalm of trust and confidence. The psalm expresses confidence in God’s goodness in this life and in the life to come.
The personal way in which the psalmist speaks of God, the imagery of God’s soothing guidance, and the ensuing confidence in God have all been factors in making this one of the most charming and beloved of the psalms. He goes on to say, it is a psalm of God’s strength and grace for all ages. The teaching of our Lord that he is the good shepherd, and he refers us there to John 10, 11, who comes for both Jews and Gentiles, gives the Christian a sound reason to apply the benefits of God’s goodness to the ancient covenant people and to himself as a child of Abraham and fellow heir of Jesus Christ. Moreover, it causes us to hope in the glory of God, the glory that God has prepared for His own. Amen. The great reformer, Martin Luther, described Psalm 23 as, quote, a psalm of thanks in which a Christian heart praises and thanks God for teaching him and keeping him on the right way, comforting and protecting him in every danger through His holy word.
Dear ones, in this psalm which is ascribed to King David, David uses two metaphors to describe Yahweh, Israel’s faithful covenant God. Yahweh is first of all described as the divine shepherd of his sheep. And that is the focus of the first four verses, as God is presented as the divine shepherd of his people, his sheep. and Yahweh is also presented in verses 5 and 6 as the divine host of the Feast of Salvation. So in my sermon for this Lord’s Day evening, we’ll focus on what we can learn about our great God through these two descriptions of Yahweh as the divine shepherd of his sheep and Yahweh as the divine host of the feast of salvation. So as we turn our focus to the first four verses, the first section of Psalm 23, believer, take comfort in the Lord, your divine shepherd.
The Lord is your shepherd believer. This is the wording that David uses here. Notice in verse one, David begins this psalm by saying the Lord, that is Yahweh, the faithful covenant God of Israel. The Lord is, notice he doesn’t say the Lord is our shepherd, although that would certainly be true, but he says the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Yahweh, the Lord, Israel’s faithful covenant God, is the psalmist’s shepherd. Now, what comes to your mind when you think of a shepherd? Well, we tend to think of shepherds, and of course, shepherds tend to be in pastoral settings with their sheep. But when we think of a shepherd, we tend to think of a very lowly profession, a very lowly vocation. Someone who cares for dirty, messy, smelly, wandering sheep, right? But what is interesting here, beloved, is that we need to remember that in the ancient Near East, in the time of David, a king was often described as the shepherd of the people whom he governed.
And so while a shepherd indeed shepherds the sheep, the dirty, smelly, wandering sheep. The sheep that are exposed to predators, the sheep that are prone to get stuck and fall into ditches. There’s a funny, as an aside, there’s a funny video on YouTube of a sheep that has fallen into a ditch and the shepherd pulls it out and the sheep gets up and it runs down the road a little bit and falls right back into the ditch. That’s how we tend to be as God’s sheep. But in terms of what this tells us about the shepherd, we need to remember, beloved, that in the ancient world, the title shepherd was often ascribed to, or a king, a royalty was often spoken of as the shepherd of his people. And David was indeed the theocratic earthly shepherd of God’s people.
He was the theocratic king. But here David, David, the shepherd king of Israel, affirms that there is a shepherd higher than himself. He affirms that he himself, the shepherd of Israel, has a shepherd. And that shepherd is none other than Yahweh. David affirms that Yahweh is his shepherd king. And this, of course, points us forward to our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ, remember, Christ is great David’s greater son. For in the New Testament, Jesus reveals himself to be the good shepherd of God’s elect sheep. As we read earlier in the service from John chapter 10, in John 10 verse 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd does what? He lays down his life for the sheep. Jesus Christ laid down his life for you and for me, dear brother and sister in Christ.
So we need to keep this in mind. The Lord is my shepherd. Not in the sense of a lowly shepherd, but a royal shepherd. The royal shepherd king of his covenant people. The Lord is my shepherd. David personalizes it. And he recognizes that he’s not the ultimate shepherd over God’s people. Yahweh is. And then, what is the result of this? What are the implications of the fact that the Lord is his shepherd? He says, I shall not want It’s an old-fashioned way of saying that the Lord will provide for me. Yahweh, the Divine Shepherd, provides for the individual needs of His sheep, His covenant people. He doesn’t just provide for the needs of His church corporate, although again, He certainly does that. But you and I, brothers and sisters, we can take this psalm upon our lips and we can say, not only the Lord is our shepherd, the Lord is the one who provides for our needs, but the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want or be in want. And David certainly experienced the Lord as his provider, the one who provided for him protection, security, the one who raised him up to the throne and conquered all of his enemies. And then he goes on to say in verse two, David goes on to say of Yahweh, his shepherd, he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. The sheep love the green pastures, provides them with food, it provides them with tranquility. They love being led beside quiet waters, waters where they are protected from predators. Here we have painted for us in verse two a picture of tranquility, rest, and abundant provision. And as we read this imagery, as we consider and ponder this imagery, that David, under the Spirit’s inspiration, pens. Let us be reminded, brothers and sisters, that in Jesus Christ, our good shepherd, we have peace of conscience, we have rest for our souls, and we have abundant provision for all of our spiritual needs.
For Christ is the bread of life, he is the water of life, he is the one who feeds our souls by his word and spirit, and he quenches our spiritual thirst. as we draw upon Him, as we commune with Him in faith. Is this true of you, dear listener? Is Jesus Christ your Good Shepherd and Savior? Oh, rest in Him and draw nourishment and strength, comfort from Him. And then David goes on to say, as he continues to extol Yahweh, his shepherd king, David says of the Lord, he restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness. And why does he do it? For his namesake. God is glorified as our souls are restored, as we are guided in the paths of righteousness. God, his name is glorified. And this points us to the fact that the divine shepherd restores the vitality of life to his people.
Biblical history reveals to us numerous times in the history of Israel where the people needed to be restored and guided back into the paths of righteousness. Numerous times where they went astray. Numerous times where foreign aggressors, where predators preyed upon them. But the Lord is the one who restores the souls, the life of his people, the vitality of life and guides his people into the paths of righteousness. Our divine shepherd guides us along the straight and narrow pathway, the right way, and that right way is the road of salvation and righteousness. As we read verse 3 and read about the paths of righteousness, we should be reminded of what Jesus says, for example, in Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14. In the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, our Lord Jesus says this in Matthew 7, 13 and 14, Jesus says, enter through the narrow gate.
For the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life. And there are few who find it. And by the way, as an aside, I don’t think Jesus is saying that, well, the way to life is so incredibly hard that you cannot attain to it. Of course you cannot attain to it. I cannot attain to it because The requirement of salvation, if you rest on works, is perfect obedience. But the point here is that Jesus himself is that narrow gate. We only enter the gateway of salvation through faith in Christ and his righteousness alone. As we rest upon him and him alone for salvation, we are guided along that narrow path. that leads to life.
It is not of works. It is of grace and grace alone. And he does so again as we get back to our our passage. Psalm 23 verse three. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness again for his namesake. It’s about him and his glory. It’s not ultimately about us. Yahweh’s sheep, Yahweh’s people, you and I, brothers and sisters, we bear His holy name before a watching world. That name was sacramentally placed upon us in holy baptism, and we have confessed that name. We who are communicant members of the church, we’ve confessed that name. We bear His name before a watching world. May He guide us in the paths of righteousness. For His name’s sake, that His name might be glorified and honored. And then in verse four, David goes on to say, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.
Now let me pause there. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death. In the ancient world, if you walk through a valley that was dark and shadowy, you would not know what’s hiding in the shadows. perhaps bandits or robbers, perhaps vicious animals that threaten your life. But David’s confident. He uses this picture of fear to say, I will not fear. I fear no evil. Why? For you are with me. You, Yahweh, my divine shepherd king, you’re with me even through the valley of the shadow of death. Your rod and your staff They comfort me. The point here in this verse is that the Divine Shepherd’s presence, protection, and guidance drive out fear, even in the face of the dark valleys of life, and even indeed in the face of death itself. For if we are in Christ, if we are clothed in His perfect righteousness, if our sins have been washed away through His precious blood, we have no reason to fear death ultimately.
Now death is fearful because it’s uncertain. It’s something that we never face. We each have to face individually. We know it’s not uncertain in the ultimate sense because Jesus came back from death and God’s word reveals what happens after death. But if we are in Christ, we need not ultimately fear death because God is with us even in the valley of the shadow of death. And then what about this imagery? Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. What did the shepherd, what did a shepherd use a rod for? What did he use his staff for? Well, the shepherd would use his rod to fight off wild animals and predators that threatened the safety of his sheep. And so the rod is a picture of protection against predators. and the staff was used to direct the sheep.
If a sheep was starting to wander off, maybe wander off into a ditch, the shepherd would come along and poke the sheep with the staff, get it back onto the right way. And that’s what the Lord does for us. He protects us by his word and spirit. He protects us and by his staff, by his word and spirit, he guides us in the right way, the narrow way that leads unto life. Praise be to God that Jesus Christ, our good shepherd, protects us from all of his and our enemies, and that he directs our paths through his word. But not only is our Lord presented here as our divine shepherd, the one who protects and guides us, the one who comforts us by his rod and staff, but Christian rejoice in the Lord as the generous divine host of the feast of salvation.
He is presented in verse five and six as the divine host of the feast of salvation. Verse five, David writes, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In verse 5, we have a picture not only of spiritual abundance, but of victory in the face of our spiritual adversaries. Now, when David writes, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Again, hearkening back to the history of King David, you know that David had many enemies. As David was being raised up to the throne of Israel, David had to contend with Saul. King Saul, in burning jealousy against David, would seek David’s life time and time again.
And David would often have to run and flee from Saul in fear of his life. And of course, even after the Lord raised David up to the throne of Israel, there were still enemies to contend with, the Philistines and so forth. And here, what David is depicting is that his enemies have been subdued. The Lord has delivered, has saved him. And he is saying, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. So there is feasting, even in the presence of those who sought David’s downfall. They are the ones who are subdued. And David, by the blessing of the Lord, feasts at the Lord’s table of salvation in the presence of his enemies. And I think perhaps from an eschatological perspective, We should look forward to that day when we will feast at the marriage supper of the Lamb in the new heavens and the new earth.
When God will have finally and completely and consummatively, that’s a word, will have completely subdued all of his and our enemies. and what rejoicing there will be. And the Lord is the one who makes this possible. The Lord is the one who spreads the feast of salvation. We have but to, by his sovereign grace, accept the invitation to the feast. And then he says, you have anointed my head with oil. Indeed, the Lord anointed David As king over Israel, David is a type of Christ, and the word Christ or Messiah means anointed one. David was anointed by the Lord to serve as Israel’s theocratic king, and as a type of Christ, he points forward to Christ, the ultimate anointed one. And then he says, my cup overflows. Again, a picture of abundance, a picture of victory, a picture of security. a picture of ultimate salvation.
And then in verse six, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. For most of David’s life, he faced adversity. He faced hatred from his enemies. But now David Looking with the eyes of faith into the future, he looks with hope and he says, surely, he’s convinced of this, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. Why does he express this hope that things will be good for him, that the Lord will provide for his ultimate good? Well, he has confidence in this because he knows God’s covenant promise. And he trusts that God is faithful to keep his covenant promises. He’s not expressing this hope, this certainty, this confidence about the future because he has confidence in his own worthiness or his own merits that David, though he was a great saint of God, he was also a great sinner.
And the Lord showed great grace to King David. But his confidence is in Yahweh, his shepherd king. And so he says, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. But not only the days of his life. David also, at least at some level, understands that there is an eternal aspect to this salvation. He says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The house of the Lord. Now, the earthly house of the Lord at the time that David wrote this was the tabernacle. But that was a copy, a picture of the ultimate sanctuary, the heavenly sanctuary, the Lord’s dwelling place. David anticipated that he would dwell in that house forever. The ultimate hope is not only experiencing God’s presence in goodness and mercy in this present life.
Praise God, we do experience that. We experience that through faith in Christ and we experience God’s presence and we fellowship with God in the means of grace, in word and sacrament and in prayer and praise and worship. But not only do we experience God’s presence and goodness and mercy in the here and now, but dwelling in God’s house, in other words, his temple, the place where his saving presence dwells forever. That is too what is promised to us who are believers in Christ. Surely this is a picture or at least a pointer to the ultimate gift of everlasting life which God promises to all who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation from their sins. And so, dear listener, through Jesus Christ, God has spread the Feast of Salvation, and He welcomes all who would come to Him.
Come to the Feast of Salvation. And you say, well, pastor, you know, I came to the Lord many, many years ago. I’ve been a believer all my life. How is this relevant to me? Because the Feast of Salvation is not just spread once. The gospel is not just for unbelievers. The gospel is for Christians, too. I need the gospel day in and day out, week in and week out, because guess what? I’m still a sinner. I’m a maturing sinner. I’m a sinner who’s being sanctified by God’s grace. But I’m still a sinner, and so are you. We come to church not to show off how righteous we are. We come to church week in and week out, and we come to prayer and to the study of scripture in our private lives and in our family lives, not because doing so earns us merit with God.
We come to these things because we need more of Jesus. We need Jesus every day. We need his grace every day. We need his forgiveness and mercy each and every day. The gospel is for Christians too. Oftentimes, and this has been my experience in various churches I’ve had opportunity to worship in in the past at churches outside the OPC especially, but even in reform circles, there’s this idea that, you know, yeah, we need to give the gospel to unbelievers, but once they get saved, then we need to give them a lot of how-to instructions. You know, many sermons today, many Christian sermons today focus on Christian living, how to live a Christian life, how to sermons. And oftentimes what will happen is a lot of good advice and edifying advice often shared in such sermons.
And then they tack the gospel on at the end in case there’s any unbelievers in the audience. But the gospel again, the Feast of Salvation is spread for the unbeliever who is coming to faith in Christ by the sovereign grace of God. But the Feast of Salvation is spread for us as believers too, because we need more of Jesus every day. And His grace, His grace is abounding, super abundant. His mercies are new every morning. So Christian, You know, if you’re at that place where you’re thinking, wow, I’ve really messed up, and I keep messing up, and I keep going back to God, God must be really tired. God welcomes you. Now I’m not saying don’t take your sin seriously. Yes, you should take your sin seriously, and you should be repentant for that sin.
But the Lord is the good shepherd. And you can say of the Lord, even when you mess up, even when you backslide, The Lord is drawing you back and convicting you. You can say, the Lord is my shepherd. And you can say, you prepare before me in the presence of my enemies. Who is your greatest enemy? The world, the flesh, and the devil. And sometimes the greatest enemy is within, your own sin nature. But the Lord spreads the table of salvation even in the presence of that enemy. And so you can say with confidence as you confess your sins and continue to follow Christ in faith, surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life. And that is true in spite of your mess ups, in spite of your ongoing battle against sin, that is true.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, not because you’ve met a certain standard of holiness, but because Christ’s perfect, everlasting righteousness has been credited to you, and you stand in him and him alone, and he is the shepherd who laid down his life for you, and the one who has drawn you to himself will continue to shepherd you even through the valley of the shadow of death. So do not lose hope. Take comfort. and say, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we do thank you that you shepherd our souls unto salvation. And we thank you that the feast of salvation is spread for us to enjoy, not only at the beginning of our Christian journey, but it is spread for us to enjoy day in and day out, week in and week out.
We thank you that your mercies are new every morning and that you faithfully shepherd us through all of the seasons of life. We pray that we would take these truths to heart and that your spirit would build us up and comfort us and strengthen us through these truths. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, amen.
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