“1 The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. 3 He restores my soul...”
The word “adulting” came into regular usage five to ten years ago. It refers to the difficulty of living as an adult. The word “adulting” refers to the fact that being an adult is hard. It brings responsibility. Adults pay bills. Adults go to work. If adults don’t clean the house, it won’t be clean. To be an adult is to realize that if you don’t do it, it won’t get done.
The word “adulting” came into regular usage because young adults recognized that there was no manual for being an adult. Children think that adults know everything. They believe that they will know everything when they grow up. “Adulting” refers to that recognition that you are now an adult with adult responsibilities, and you don’t know everything. The following picture portrays the difficulty of adulting.
Perhaps you feel like that dog. Millions of people feel like that dog. Psalm 23 is very good news for anyone who feels like that dog. You don’t need to live like that dog. You weren’t created to guide yourself. You were created to mature, but you weren’t created to bear the burden that picture portrays. You were created to be cared for. That is the claim of this sermon: you were created to be cared for.
We will see this in two points. First: ample provision. Second: the generous provider. First, we will think about ample provision. Second, we will think about the generous provider.
First: ample provision. People love Psalm 23 because it reminds us that someone is caring for us. The Lord is caring for us. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.”
My guess is that you tend to assume that it is up to you to shepherd yourself. Psalm 23 quietly listens to your exhaustion and responds, ‘I don’t know where you got the idea that you were in charge of everything. You aren’t leading yourself like that dog with his own leash. The Lord is your shepherd.’
The words, “the Lord is my shepherd,” are either an assurance or an invitation. If you belong body and soul in life and in death to your faithful savior Jesus Christ, those words are full of assurance. You can know that the Lord is shepherding you. You can know that the words, “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul,” apply to you.
If you don’t belong to Jesus, the words, “the Lord is my shepherd,” are an invitation. You too can be cared for. You can still be shepherded by the Lord. You haven’t sinned so badly as to put yourself outside the reach of His mercy. You can be shepherded tonight. Tell God what He already knows. Tell Him that you are a sinner who sins. Tell Him that are a sinner who needs forgiveness. Tell Him that you recognize that Jesus lived the life that you should have lived and that he died the death that you should have died. Tell Him that you want to be shepherded. You will come to know first-hand what it means to say, “the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want.”
David describes this shepherding in terms of ample provision. As he puts it, “[the Lord] makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.” Sheep do not lie down unless they have ample provision. Shepherd turned pastor Philip Keller explains, “The strange thing about sheep is that because of their very make-up it is almost impossible for them to be made to lie down unless [certain] requirements are met. Owing to their timidity they refuse to lie down unless they are free of all fear. Because of the social behavior within a flock sheep will not lie down unless they are free from friction with others of their kind. If tormented by flies or parasites, sheep will not lie down. Only when free of these pests can they relax. Lastly, sheep will not lie down as long as they feel in need of finding food.”
If you see a herd of sheep lying down, you can be certain that these requirements have been met. God is promising to meet the requirements necessary for you to rest content in His care. The sheep lie down because they know they have and will have more than enough. They have been amply provided for. The Christian can say the same. This is why we will sing after the sermon, “We may trust Him fully all for us to do; those who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.”
David speaks of this provision first in terms of food. “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” Green pastures were not common in Palestine. Due to rainfall and terrain, the grass was often thin and patchy. Finding a green pasture in which to lie would be like finding a sixty-degree day in Iowa in February. It would be a surprise. It would be a reason for rejoicing. It would seem like more than enough. David felt as if the Lord’s provision was more than enough. I wonder if you see His provision that way.
It is interesting that David makes clear that he is made to lie down in this ample provision. The Hebrew verb has a causative aspect to it as shown in the translation, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
We’ve seen that sheep will not lie down unless all the conditions are right and fulfilling these conditions could be what David had in mind by the phrase, “he makes me lie down.” There could also be a sense of compulsion. Perhaps David knew that he needed to be forced to rest in God’s ample provision.
In some ways, we humans are less intelligent than sheep. Sheep will lie down when they have enough. We humans continue to fret even when God has provided for all our needs. Jesus corrected this tendency saying, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
In so many ways, we have ample provision and yet we refuse to lay down. We are like sheep that would prefer to continue to scrounge rather than lie down in green pastures. I dare say that someone here tonight needs to be made to lie down in green pastures. God has provided for you. Enjoy it. A shepherd would be frustrated with a sheep who refused to lay down amid provision. Don’t be that sheep.
David referred to God’s ample provision as green pastures. He also referred to this provision in terms of quiet waters. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters.” Most likely this phrase “quiet waters” doesn’t refer to unmoving waters like a still pond but rather water sufficient enough to quiet the restless sheep. This is the equivalent of green pastures sufficient to allow the sheep to rest content. It is likely that this phrase is meant to refer to more than enough water.
Abundant water is relatively rare in Palestine. Sheep can go for months without drinking much beyond the heavy dew on the morning grass. What David pictures here in verse 2 is a scene of abundance.
David takes pains to picture God as an abundant Giver. Jesus did the same, saying “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!” I don’t know about you, but I often need my perspective on God corrected to see Him as generous as He is.
The abundance God provides restores the soul. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.” The word “soul” here doesn’t refer to merely the spiritual side of life; it refers to the totality of the person. Some versions translate this as, “He renews my life,” or, “He restores my strength.”
David’s experience is a reminder that God plans to restore us in our totality. It is only proper that the new creation is described in terms of the sort of abundance we’ve been studying. It is described in terms of a river of the water of life flowing down from God’s throne. It is described in terms of a tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” It is described in similar terms as Psalm 23. God loves to restore life.
Now in this life God will, at times, allow physical deprivation for the sake of sanctification, but His end goal is abundance. He is interested in spiritual growth but not exclusively any more than any good father is exclusively interested in the spiritual growth of his child. He is interested in the flourishing that David describes. He loves to provide abundance.
A good shepherd works to provide this very sort of well-being. “A hungry, ill-fed sheep is ever on its feet, on the move, searching for another scanty mouthful of forage to try and satisfy its gnawing hunger,” writes Keller. “Such sheep are not contended, they do not thrive, they are no use to themselves nor to their owners.”
Shepherds have a vested interested in providing for their sheep. God has a vested interest in providing for you. He wants you to flourish and to flourish you must be shepherded. Left to yourself, you will suffer. You see a rather humorous picture of this in Shrek the sheep. Please bring up the slide.
Shrek hated to be sheared and so he escaped. For six years he hid in caves on South Island, New Zealand. When his owner John Perriam found him, he could barely recognize him. Now that picture of Shrek is a bit repulsive. He is unkempt. He is uncared for. In this next picture, you see that he looks rather disgusting.
When he was again shepherded, he was cared for. In this next picture, you see that he was sheared.
In this next picture you see him again with John Perriam.
Shrek looks restored. The contrast is a visual of verse 3’s, “He restores my soul.”
Now we’ve considered what it means to come under the shepherd’s care for the first time, but perhaps you are already one of God’s people and you still feel a bit like Shrek before his shearing. You don’t feel all that restored. I don’t know the ins and outs of your situation, but perhaps you are, in fact, behaving like Shrek. He was still Perriam’s sheep in that first picture, but he was refusing to be shepherded. He refused to be made to lie down. Perhaps you are one of the Lord’s sheep , but you are refusing to lie down. You are refusing to be shepherded.
You can know this Psalm up and down and still not live it out. As I was working on this sermon, I found myself emotionally in a very different place than it describes. Even as I was studying the truths of Psalm 23, I was refusing to be made to lie down. I was intellectually considering the Lord as my shepherd without coming to the Lord as my shepherd. Perhaps that is where you find yourself this evening. You know the Lord is your shepherd, but you aren’t coming to Him to be shepherded. You can come. He will shepherd you.
We’ve been studying the ample provision provided by the good shepherd. Now we turn our attention to the shepherd himself in our second point: the generous provider.
Psalm 23 is not a promise that life is simply going to work out somehow. It is a word about how the Lord will make life work out for His people. None of the abundance of this Psalm occurs without the shepherd. It is He who makes me lie down in green pastures and who leads me beside quiet waters and who restores my soul. Take the Lord out of Psalm 23 and you have nothing other than a sheep in the valley of the shadow of death. As Keller puts it, it is the shepherd “who makes it possible for [the sheep] to lie down, to rest, to relax, to be content and quiet and flourishing.”
The peace of Psalm 23 is not possible without the shepherd of Psalm 23. Sheep without a shepherd live as Paul described, “ foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.” People outside of grace don’t plan on living that way. It is simply the natural state of unshepherded sheep. The only difference between the way of the world and the way of Psalm 23 is the shepherd.
It is He who makes the green pastures and abundant waters possible. “Green pastures did not just happen by chance [in Palestine],” writes Keller. “Green pastures were the product of tremendous labor, time, and skill in land use. Green pastures were the result of clearing rough, rocky land; of tearing out brush and roots and stumps; of deep plowing and careful soil preparation… all of this represented tremendous toil and skill and time for the careful shepherd.”
God invites us into abundance which He has worked to prepare. He did so at creation. The first six days describe the abundance He prepared for us to enjoy. Jesus told us that he is currently preparing abundance for us to enjoy. “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus was speaking of the new creation. In both creations we see a God who loves to give abundance. If anyone asks you to describe God, you can confidently say, “God is like a generous host who works hard to prepare more than enough and then invites people in to enjoy it.”
Sheep don’t simply happen to find green pastures in Palestine. Sheep don’t simply stumble upon more than enough water. They enjoy what they enjoy because, and only because, of the shepherd. I hope that you can recognize that the same is true for you. You enjoy what you enjoy because, and only because, the Lord is your shepherd. Please thank Him for what you do enjoy. Please be confident that He has more in store for you.
One reading of this Psalm instills such confidence in a particular way. It is possible to read verse 2 and 3 with a future tense. It then becomes a declaration of trust. “He will make me lie down in green pastures. He will lead me beside quiet waters. He will restore my soul.” It is possible that David wrote this imagining a sheep in the midst of a dry season declaring his trust in the shepherd. ‘We’ve been here before and I know that the shepherd will bring us to green pastures and ample waters.’
Now whether or not that is what David had in mind in these verses, such a reading is certainly true to the whole of Scripture. One of the reasons God inspired Scripture was to make clear that He is a God who can be trusted to provide more than enough. That is a word that is desperately needed in this world. People are aching for such security. They drown themselves in lusts and addictions hoping to fill the hole that only the shepherd can fill.
I hope that you can say Psalm 23 about yourself. I hope that you can say, “He will make me lie down in green pastures. He will lead me beside quiet waters. He will restore my soul.”
It is the shepherd himself whom you need most. Reflecting on the needs of his sheep, Keller writes, “I came to realize that nothing so quieted and reassured the sheep as to see me in the field. The presence of their master and owner and protector put them at ease as nothing else could do, and this applied day and night.”
What sheep most need is to know that their shepherd is with them and for them. The same goes for us. We love this Psalm because it reminds us that God is with us. It is the “He” of verses 2 and 3 that gives us comfort. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul.” The hope of Psalm 23 is a person. It is God with us.
Just as sheep are reassured when their shepherd is with them, so we are reassured when our God is with us. This is why Moses told God at Sinai, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.” Moses knew that he thrived when God was with him and he withered when he was far from God. He knew that was the case for God’s people. We would all do well to learn that lesson.
We too find security in knowing that the shepherd is with us. This is part of the beauty of the incarnation. As Isaiah put it, ‘“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).’ There is nothing that gives greater hope than the fact that God is with us. This is why there is nothing that can give greater hope than the good news of Jesus. He makes clear that God is with us. He makes clear that God is for us.
The presence of the shepherd gives hope to the sheep. It gives delight to the shepherd. “No sight so satisfie[s] the sheep owner,” writes Keller, “as to see his flock well and quietly fed to repletion on rich green forage, able to lie down to rest, ruminate, and gain.” Shepherds delight to see their sheep enjoying green pastures. Shepherds delight to see their sheep with more than enough to drink. John Perriam was happy to see Shrek the sheep restored.
I hope you see that Lord delights to guide you into green pastures and quiet waters. I hope that you recognize that no one, including you, is happier about your restored soul than God. Just as a mother sighs contentedly when all of her children well, so God sighs content. No one will be happier than God when all is made new.
He looks forward to that joy. He endured great cost for the sake of that joy. Hebrews describes this anticipation and cost saying, “for the joy set before him, [Christ] endured the cross, scorning its shame.” The good shepherd was looking forward to the joy of seeing his sheep, “quietly fed to repletion on rich green forage, able to lie down to rest, ruminate, and gain.” He suffered what he did to make that possible.
Now if the Son of God was willing to endure all of that for the sake of green pastures and quiet waters for us, then green pastures and quiet waters we will have. He will deliver what he has secured. If you belong to the Son of God, you will one day, and sooner than you think, enjoy uninterrupted green pastures, quiet waters, and a restored soul. Until then you are guided daily by the Lord who makes you lie down in green pastures, leads you beside quiet waters, and restores your soul. That is an enviable situation. If you are the Lord’s, you are in an enviable situation. Enjoy it. That is why He has provided it. Amen.