The Lord is a Shepherd: Ps. 23

August 9, 2020 · Ben Hoyer · 28:51

Coming out of the series on the church's culture and into an uncertain new school year amid the pandemic, this message turns to Psalm 23, the Lord as shepherd, opening with a personal memory of the psalm sung at the preacher's grandmother's funeral.

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Well, I'm glad that we get to be here together. So thanks for coming. I'm excited about really the last season that we just went through, which for me was like our season of Pentecost. The historic church does the season of Pentecost all through the summer. It kicks off with that high feast day, the celebration of the renewed presence or the spirit to humanity, where it's released among all the people.

That inaugurates the church, begins the age of the church in the world. This is now we can together carry the spirit of God. We can live under the rain established by Christ. We spent the last several weeks thinking about what are the core values of the culture that is developed under the rain of God. And that was really fun for me because I realized that as I've tried to imagine now just about 10 years living in Orlando,

as I've over those 10 years tried to imagine how am I faithfully the church in Orlando with a group of people. So much of it has been about how do I embody God's notion of justice, love, mercy. How do I embody God's notion of work, money, rest in the city with a group of people. And I think that I was doing that largely intuitively out of what I had learned from spending time in the spirit of scripture.

But those last several weeks was my first time to iterate the cultural values of the rain of God in any kind of explicit way. And I really enjoyed it. So I'm glad for the opportunity to do it. And I'd love any feedback you guys have on it. As I said last week, I feel like those cultural values are non-negotiables. If we will be the church, we will be characterized by these things. We will be cultivating those things together. But coming out of it, and I don't know about you, but my family is looking at coming out of the season of summer, going back into school year.

At a time when I thought we would really kind of be in a situation where we weren't wearing masks across our face and weren't questioning whether or not it was responsible to leave the house for this thing or that thing. I thought that we would be in a more familiar and comfortable place. I feel like we're starting back into a busier season of the year with a lot of questions hanging over us. And of course we're never in control of our future, but that feels really prominent in my experience of life right now, how unpredictable the future is.

And so as I thought about what might be helpful for us as the church to look at, this song came to mind. And I spent some time trying to figure out why it came to mind. It's Psalm 23, if you want to look there with me. It's a pretty famous song. Maybe you grew up in the church. It's one that maybe you memorized at one point or another. Psalm 23. It's interesting, this song, I had memorized it when I was a kid.

But I had one experience with it. Right after I graduated college, right before I went to seminary, my grandmother passed away, my mother's mother. And I would see my grandmother at least twice a year. This grandmother, I'd see her usually every year, twice a year. She lived in St. Charles right outside of St. Louis. We would go up there and spend a week at her house. It was an amazing house. It had a basement and two floors. It had a laundry chute that went from the top floor all the way down to the basement.

It had little closets in the second floor that turned into attics where you could explore. She had lived there for over 40 years. There was a little workshop in the unfinished basement park in the back where my grandpa had all his stools. There was little corners where we could hide and slide downstairs on pillowcases. It was a magic house for children. And it was all the way associated with my grandma. She wasn't working when we were a grand kid's age. My grandpa still works. So when we stayed there, we were with her all the time. And we thought she was super cool, right?

And they lived in this house from the time my mom was little. They were really involved in their church. And I found out as an adult that the church they went to, it was a Lutheran church, but it was very traditional. It looked almost like a Catholic church, right? It had high vaulted ceilings, the chandelier lights that hung down the middle, hues with the center aisle. And then a backdrop, like behind the altar, right? Where they had Jesus on the cross, out of wood painted, Moses on one side, Paul on the other, stained glass windows down the side.

You can imagine it. Big plaster, beautiful ceiling. And I found out later as I was a kid that that church that felt so traditional was where my grandmother grew up. She had been baptized at that altar. She had been confirmed. She had been married at that altar. She grew up with dairy farmers in the region. And the memory I have of this song is at her funeral, all stones in front of that altar. And she had been in the choir for a long time, and so the gentleman that led the choir had this piece where the choir and the congregation sang the song back and forth to each other,

and she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church.

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And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church.

And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And she was a great church in the church. And the first thing they start to do is shepherd animals. And build up a place for themselves in the world by taking care of animals. And what you learn pretty quickly is that as soon as Abram didn't have to do the shepherds, he didn't. If he had kids, he gave it to the kids.

If he had slaves, he gave it to the slaves. Go take care of the animals. It is not a prestigious position in the culture of Israel, either at the time of Abraham or David or Jesus. It is not a prestigious position to be a shepherd. And so when David, I think that maybe David wrote this song, when David writes the song that says that the God is in the shepherd, of course,

he's not the first one to do that. It pops up a couple other places in scripture, but it should give us pause for just a second because it would be much more understandable for David, the conquering king, to say, the Lord is my conquering king. He goes before me with battlements and war horses. He vanquishes an enemy powerfully and gives me the spoils of victory.

But in this famous song, there are places where God is described as a strong right hand who will vanquish your enemy. But in this famous song, Psalm 23, God is described as a shepherd, the God of the universe, who holds the whole thing together by the fourth of God's will. This God is described as the humble shepherd. And it's done so by David. I wanted to look real quickly and remind you a little bit about David. If you have the energy, you can go with me to the left in 1 Samuel.

All these books back here are clean in my Bible. I have no salt through my Bible, but not as much in 1 Samuel. I don't know what that says about me. We'll talk about it later. But I want to look at Psalm 1 Samuel 16. Samuel is a big deal. Samuel is this transitional person in the history of our people where we go from kind of where God is in charge of us and we have these cities.

And then he has a period of judges and then it's like we would really like a king like everyone else has. And God's destruction, you don't want a king. And we're like, yeah, but look, if we're going to be a powerful nation like you keep saying, we have got to have a king, man. That's how it works. Look at these other nations. They consolidate power in one person. They pay taxes to that one person. He's got all the money. He's got all the power, he's got all the soldiers.

He can protect. And God says, I can protect him. We say, yeah, we get that you can protect, but we also would like a king. And so, Samuel is this transitional person from the judges to the kings. And he anoints the first king, Saul. And what happens to Saul is what God tells us will happen to Saul. Power corrupts. Money corrupts. And so Saul, his kids won't inherit and Samuel is bummed that Saul went sideways.

And so in verse 16, our chapter 16 verse 1 of 1 Samuel, God is telling Samuel, hey man, get over the fact that Saul's not what you wanted him to be. So, the Lord said to Samuel, how long will you grieve over Saul since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn and go. He's like, I got, I picked one out. Who's going to be my next king? Fill your horn and go. And I will send you to Jesse the Bethel Knight, for I have provided myself a king among his sons.

One of Jesse, this dude Jesse, in Bethelheim, one of his sons will be the king. Oh, great, cool. Samuel's like, okay, I'll go find him. And Samuel did with the Lord commanded verse 4 and came to Bethelheim. The elders of the city came to meet him. They're like afraid of him because he comes from the king. And he said, consecrate yourselves and come out here and do the sacrifice with me. But what I want to look at is verse 6. And then Jesse starts to bring his sons out to meet Samuel because he told them to.

And he says, when they came he looked at Eliaab and thought, ha, ha, this guy looks like a king. Perfect. Surely the Lord's anointed is before me, but the Lord said to Samuel, hey, don't look at his appearance or on the height of his stature because I rejected him. I've rejected him. Okay, the one that looks like a king is not it. And then Jesse called out a binadab and made a pastor for Samuel. And neither has the Lord's horse. And then Jesse made Shamaa pass and he said, neither has the Lord's horse.

And this one then Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the Lord has not chosen these. Samuel is like, I mean, I know that he said one of your boys is it, but like I've seen all your boys. And what's interesting is that Samuel has enough kind of discernment to know who the Lord is, the direction of the Lord. They doesn't pick these obvious answers about who will lead him and he doesn't give up.

I think that, you know, I've been like me and the Lord have been friends for a number of years now. I think I would recognize when the Eliaab wasn't it, but I do get impatient. And so I can imagine after six or seven boys and not I'd be like, man, and I'm like, it's easy for me to doubt myself. And so I'd be like, man, I must have liked this must be the wrong Jesse. I must have heard wrong, like, because I know none of these guys are it, but what am I like? But Samuel, God bless him. And he said, are all your sons here, Jesse?

And I love this because Jesse has Samuel, the dude who anointed Saul. All the elders of the city are afraid of this guy. And he tells, hey, Jesse, bring me all your sons and Jesse runs them all out there. And David is out in the field, the youngest, the youngest that nobody's worried about. By the time we get inheritance gets down to him, there's not going to be hardly anything left. You better learn how to take care of sheep because he's the youngest and out in the field. He's so small and young that when Samuel, the great prophet of the king, says, bring your son,

Jesse doesn't even bother bringing David. Right? Are these all your sons? And then Jesse says, well, there remains the youngest, but behold, he's out there keeping the sheep, we give it to the youngest, of course. And Samuel said to Jesse, send him. And we're not going to sit down until he gets here. And of course, David comes, and that's it. Samuel anoints him.

I mean, there's a long road for David, which is a great story. But what I wanted to get to there is the shepherd, the idea that God will be the shepherd, means that he is lowly, like not in positions of obvious power or wealth. So if you and I would be led by the God of creation and life, the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob, the God of Christ in the church, this God comes, leads like a shepherd, like the youngest of the clan, away from where decisions are made and power is broken in the world. It does not look like the leadership of the world.

It is significant. It's not just like, oh, the shepherd who like cuddles the sheep in the field. It is the shepherd who is out in the field and forgotten about when all the rest of the family is created in front of the prophets of God. This is your shepherd. So I'm in a place where I could use ongoing direction, protection and leadership.

And the first thing I get from this psalm that is such a place of comfort for our people and our generations and for me personally, is that if I look for God, I ought not look in the places of power, money and prestige. Okay, next. I shall not want. The Lord is my shepherd.

I have all the riches of the world. The Lord is my shepherd. Every desire is fully met. He meets all my whims and desires. The hallmark of the shepherd of Israel is contentment. If I'm being led by the shepherd of Israel, I find contentment I am not in want.

This is one of the key problems of the kings, sol, Solomon, all the way down the line. They are led by the shepherd to the point of the, but then they do not continue following the lead of the shepherd until they follow the lead of money or power or the whims of their sexual desires or anything where they follow what their basis instincts want. And the problem with that is it's like a cliff that you keep falling on.

Money doesn't lead to contentment, it leads to more money. Power doesn't lead to contentment, it leads for the desire for more power. Vengeance doesn't lead to satisfaction at least in the desire for more vengeance. Escape doesn't lead to satisfaction at least in the desire for more escape. The following the way of the shepherd of Israel leads to contentment. Okay, I want to find this lowly leader that brings me to a place where I am not in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. This is what I'm looking for. I don't know about you. He leads me in path of righteousness for his namesake. Okay, the Lord is lowly, he's not what I've been looking for. When I find him, the spirit will tell me. And as I'm following him, I'll know with him because I am not in want.

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I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want. I'm in want.