“1 The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.”
The word ‘sheeple’ is a combination of the word ‘sheep’ and the word ‘people.’ It is a derogatory term used to describe our herd instinct. Don Freeman used it saying, “The sheeple only believe what the media tells them to believe.”
No one wants to be part of the sheeple. Some Republicans think all Democrats are sheeple. Some Democrats think all Republicans are sheeple. We tend to think that the other side, however you define the other side, is filled with sheeple who follow mindlessly.
The Bible is realistic about our sheep like nature, but it doesn’t use it as an insult. It describes it as a reality with which we must reckon. We are like sheep. We will follow. We will conform to some pattern. You might like to think that you are somehow different, but you must understand that there are forces far more powerful than you at work in this world. You will follow the leading God and know it is God or you will follow the leading of Satan like a sheep to the slaughter while you scoff at all the sheeple. That is your choice. You don’t have a choice of whether or not to be a sheep as the Bible defines it. You do have a choice regarding your shepherd. That is the claim of this sermon: You don’t have a choice of whether to be a sheep. You do have a choice regarding your shepherd.
We will see this in two points. First: the necessity of being shepherded. Second: the contentment of being shepherded.
First: the necessity of being shepherded. This Psalm famously begins with the words, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” This raises the question, ‘what is the situation of the man who is not shepherded by the Lord?’
The man who is not shepherded by the Lord is not his own man. He doesn’t thereby cease to be a sheep. He becomes in the words of the gospels helpless and harassed like a sheep without a shepherd.
Shepherd turned pastor Philip Keller writes about such sheep. He writes about the sheep that belonged to his neighbor. They didn’t lie down in green pastures. They were not led beside quiet waters. They were in want. “I can still see them standing at the fence,” writes Keller, “huddled sadly in little knots, staring wistfully through the wires at the rich pastures on [my side of the fence]. To all their distress, the heartless, selfish owner seemed utterly callous and indifferent. He simply didn’t care. What if his sheep did want green grass; fresh water; shade; safety or shelter from the storms? What if they did want relief from wounds, bruises, disease, and parasites? He ignored their needs; he couldn’t care less. Why should he? They were just sheep fit only for the slaughterhouse. I never looked at those poor sheep without an acute awareness that this was a precise picture of those wretched old taskmasters, sin and Satan, on their derelict ranch scoffing at the plight of those within their power.”
The man who cannot say, “the Lord is my shepherd,” is not his own man. He is in want. He stands in want of the shepherd’s care whether he can recognize that or not. Those sheep on that derelict ranch didn’t understand that they were owned by a heartless master. As far as they understood they were on their own. They were still owned, but they weren’t shepherded. They lacked the satisfaction that can only come by way of being shepherded.
There are any number of men and women who need to be shepherded and who want the benefits of being shepherded but are unwilling to come to the Lord who is the shepherd. They want green pastures. They want still waters, but they refuse to be shepherded. They refuse to be shepherded by the Lord because they don’t want to be sheeple, but they don’t recognize that we are all sheep and the only question that remains is, ‘who is our master?’
You must be humble enough to be shepherded by the Lord. Your pride will only lead you to the slaughter of Satan. “It should be observed,” wrote Calvin, “that God is a shepherd only to those who, touched with a sense of their own weakness and poverty, feel their need of His protection, and who willingly abide in His sheepfold, and surrender themselves to be governed by Him.”
I hope that you have a sense of your own weakness. I hope that you have a sense of your own need for protection. If you don’t, I beg you to recognize that you are deceiving yourself. You are heading for trouble that will end in destruction. Your desire to be your own person and to manage yourself will end in death.
Tell God that you know that you know that you need to be shepherded. Tell God that you know that you are weak and that you know that you are dealing with powers far beyond yourself and that you want to come under His power. That is your only chance for salvation from the power of sin and evil.
Now there are plenty of people who come regularly to worship who still try to live as their own master. There are plenty of people who use Christian terms bit still live as their own master. They want what God offers but they also want to be in charge of themselves.
They are like sheep that don’t want to stay with their shepherd. ‘I once owned a ewe whose conduct exactly typified this sort of person,’ writes Keller. ‘She was restless, discontented, a fence crawler… this one ewe produced more problems for me than almost all the rest of the flock combined. No matter what field or pasture the sheep were in, she would search all along the fences or shoreline ([for] we lived by the sea) looking for a loophole she could crawl through and start to feed on the other side. It was not that she lacked pasturage. My fields were my joy and delight. No sheep in the district had better grazing.
With [her, escaping] was an ingrained habit. She was simply never contented with things as they were. Often when she had forced her way through some such spot in a fence or found a way around the end of the wire at low tide on the beaches, she would end up feeding on bare, brown, burned-up pasturage of a most inferior sort. But she never learned her lesson and continued to fence crawl time after time. Now it would have been bad enough if she was the only one who did this. It was a sufficient problem to find her and bring her back. But the further point was that she taught her lambs the same tricks. They simply followed her example and soon were as skilled at escaping as their mother. Even worse, however, was the example she set the other sheep. In a short time she began to lead others through the same holes and over the same dangerous paths down by the sea.
After putting up with her perverseness for a summer I finally come to the conclusion that to save the rest of the flock from becoming unsettled, she would have to go. I could not allow one obstinate, discontented ewe to ruin the whole ranch operation. It was a difficult decision to make, for I loved her in the same way I loved the rest… but one morning I took the killing knife in hand and butchered her… it was the only solution to the dilemma. She was a sheep, who in spite of all that I had done to give her the very best care still wanted something else. She was not like the one who said, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”’
There are professing Christians who continually fence crawl. They are happy to be shepherded until they no longer want to be shepherded. Some are happy to claim Christ as their savior but not as their Lord. Some are like the seed that fell among the thorns. They spring up but are choked by the cares of this world and their desire for wealth. They are not unhappy with the shepherd. They simply wander away because they want something other than the shepherd’s care. Beware of fence crawling. You might be leading other people astray. If you keep at it, the good shepherd might have no choice by to make a difficult decision about you.
The sheep who love to be shepherded are content. You need to ask yourself if you know that contentment. That is our second point: the contentment of being shepherded.
You can be shepherded by God Himself. His guidance and care, His attentiveness and interest, His protection and provision are not merely for people in general. They can be for you. You can know that you are shepherded by God.
David knew that he was shepherded by God and this truth brought him great contentment. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.” David wrote that with full awareness of hardship. He knew what it was like to go without. He knew what it was like to live on the run. He knew what it was like to be hated. I wouldn’t want David’s life and if you know his biography, I imagine that you would never want to change places with him. Yet this is the same David who wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.”
David was content even in deprivation because he knew the Lord was shepherding him. David’s attitude was the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
David was fully aware of his trials just like you are of yours. David was also aware of the Lord’s continued care for him. That’s why he could say, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.” He was aware of his troubles. He was also aware of God’s care. You need to remember the Lord’s care like David did.
Years ago I found myself in a rather rough patch. I’ve had psychological troubles over the years and during this stretch I was unable to focus beyond my worries for more than five seconds at a time. I couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours on any given night for months. I had thoughts I couldn’t get out of my head. I turned to this verse over and over again, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”
When I found myself in want or in worry, I said to myself, ‘no, the Lord is your shepherd. You have no need to be in want.’ I said to myself, ‘you seem to be in hopeless want. That isn’t possible because the Lord is your shepherd.’ I asked myself, ‘what are you worried about again? Don’t. The Lord is your shepherd. That means you need not be in want.’ Any time that I found myself in worry, I reminded myself that this could not be the case because, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.”
God’s people have the remarkable ability to find contentment in the worst of circumstances because the Lord is our shepherd. “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances,” Paul told the Philippians. “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Paul could rest content in prison because the Lord gave him strength. Paul could rest content in prison because the Lord was his shepherd. You can do the same if the Lord is your shepherd.
Now if the Lord is not your shepherd, you will be unable to rest content even if everything is as you want it. Elton John had everything as he wanted it. He got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame during what Los Angeles named Elton John Week in October 1975. He writes, “the next day, I invited my family over to lunch at Tower Grove Drive. Like [my last album, my new album] went straight into the US album charts at Number One. No one had ever done that before—not Elvin, not the Beatles—and now I had done it twice, in the space of six months. I was twenty-eight years old and I was, for the moment, the biggest pop star in the world. I was about to play the most prestigious gigs of my career. My family and friends were there, happily sharing my success. And that was when I decided to try and commit suicide again… I suppose I was doing something dramatic to try and get attention. I realize that, on one level, it sounds nuts, given that I was living in a city that had declared it was Elton John Week, I was about to play in front of 110,000 people, and there was a [camera crew] in the process of making a documentary about me. How much more attention can a man need?”
The attention that man needed, and from what I can tell still needs, is the attention of the Good Shepherd. Elton still can’t say, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.” You can have everything going your way and still be in want enough to try to despair of life itself. You can have very little going your way and still be content because the Lord is your shepherd. You can’t control whether everything goes your way. You can control whether the Lord is your shepherd. You can control whether you are mindful of the fact that the Lord is your shepherd.
You must remain mindful of the Lord’s care because nothing is easier than forgetting it. Calvin is right, “Although God, by His benefits, gently allures us to Himself, as it were by a taste of His fatherly sweetness, yet there is nothing into which we more easily fall than into a forgetfulness of Him, when we are in the enjoyment of peace and comfort… there is scarcely a hundredth part of those who enjoy in abundance the good things of God, who keep themselves in His fear, and live in the exercise of humility and temperance, which would be so becoming.”
It is no great matter to call on God when life is trying. God is working to fashion a people who will revere Him when life is good. He is working to fashion a people who are more enamored with Him than they are with His gifts. You need to ask yourself if you are part of that people.
Are you in the process of coming to love God’s shepherding care? You will certainly have moments when you are forgetful of how good it is to belong to Him. You will certainly have moments when your flesh will cry out to be your shepherd. You will find yourself tempted by Satan’s promises. You will find yourself curious as to whether the world can satisfy more than Christ. All of these moments will be passing, however, if you are coming to love God’s shepherding care. If you are coming to love God’s shepherding care, you will come to your senses regarding how very good it is to belong to God.
The Catechism refers to this belonging as your only comfort in life and in death. “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.”
Ultimate comfort, ultimate contentment, is not found in belonging to yourself. It is found in belonging to Jesus. He invites you to belong. “Come to me,” he says, “all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The world can’t make that offer. Sin can’t make that offer. Satan can’t make that offer. Your loved ones can’t make that offer. You can’t make that offer. Only Jesus can make that offer.
Now perhaps you are thinking that this offer no longer applies to you or perhaps you are concerned that this offer no longer applies to someone you love. “What do you think?” asks Jesus. “If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”
The invitation to return to the shepherd is still open. It is open for you. You return by way of Jesus. “I am the gate for the sheep,” says Jesus, “whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture… I have come that [you] may have life and have it to the full.” If you have that life, you can say with assurance and conviction that, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.”
Now there is an assumption within this first verse that we have yet to examine and with it we close. It is a beautiful assumption. Verse 1 assumes that the Lord wants to be your shepherd. It is a remarkable assumption. The God before whom all will one day stand wants to shepherd you. He is willing to be attentive to your needs. He would be happy to guide you. He would love to provide for you the way a loving father loves to provide for his children. He wants you to be His. The question that remains is, ‘is this too good to be true? Is, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want,” too good to be true?’
Some people say, ‘yes. It is too good to be true.’ They read this verse and think it is nothing more than wish fulfillment at the most cosmic scale. They believe that there is no God and that if there were He would take no personal interest in any of us.
Now these people have rather strange views as to how everything, including themselves, came into being. They think it is unlikely that there is any God who pays attention to them when in reality they wouldn’t exist were it not for a God who pays such attention.
The Bible presents a rather different picture of the universe. The Bible tells us that there is a God who created us, and this God does pay attention. He pays such close attention that you would think that He would want nothing to do with us. We are selfish, egotistical people who, at times, do what is rather sleazy. We are people whom you would think that the Lord would choose not to shepherd because we are unruly. We are bristling with prejudices and pride. When you know who you are and what you have done, you will stand amazed that the Lord wants to be your shepherd.
Yet He does want to be your shepherd. He made that clear in His Son. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” To shepherd you, God must make you shepherdable and he did so by way of the cross. His Son laid down his life so that your life might be a shepherded life.
Jesus makes clear that the words, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want,” are not too good to be true. He made that clear by his blood. He stands unavoidable at the crossroads of history. God entered the world because He wants to be our shepherd.
The question that you must answer is, ‘are you His sheep?’ Remember, the question is not are you a sheep. You are a very small human in the midst of powers beyond your comprehension. You will follow a leading. It will either be that of God or that of Satan. Don’t pretend to be your own as you follow Satan to the slaughter. Belong to Jesus in life. Belong to Jesus in death. That is the only way that you will never stand in want. Amen.