These Strange old Days!
Driving home I approached the first traffic light - on red. And guess what? I stopped the car ten metres behind the car in front of me! (Then sheepishly crept forward.)
There are few certainties in a world like this, but that was true of our world before Coronavirus - it's just that we are presently more aware of the profound frailties and deep uncertainties of this passing life.
And we should pause to remember, in these days, that there are many folk around the world who live in far greater uncertainties than we presently do - every single day of their wretched lives. We're catching just a small glimpse of their every-day worlds. I can remember talking to one believer in an African country. His mother had cancer and without any sort of NHS, her treatment was bankrupting the whole of his family and he did not know how the future would pan out. What would you and I do? We'd also go without A, B all the way to Z, to pay for chemotherapy for a loved one.
A new look at an old Psalm
Over the next few days, we're going to take a look at Psalm 23, where we meet Someone who never changes and a Love that never ceases.
Let's go through this Psalm line by line. Here's our text for today:
"The LORD is my shepherd"
Three simple questions.
Why the Shepherd-sheep analogy? Some forty years ago at a Christian conference in Wales a preacher gave a series of talks about Psalm 23. Nothing strange you may say. No. But in this case the preacher had been a shepherd for 12 years, so he was able to draw on his considerable experience in leading sheep as he preached.
Not surprisingly the conference was spellbound and the talks became a book, which you can still buy: it's worth its weight in gold, and I shall lean on it in these blogs.
There are many good reasons why David, a shepherd himself for many years, took up the Shepherd-sheep analogy to describe the relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people, the church, you and I.
For one, we so easily go astray! "All we like sheep have gone astray..." (Isaiah 53:6). We need a shepherd to gently draw us back to the path.
For another, sheep, at least of the domesticated variety, depend wholly on the shepherd for life. Utterly vunerable on their own, they need a shepherd to feed them, lead them, protect them and keep them healthy. We are the same. Spiritually, we need feeding, leading and healing.
So we, the sheep, and the Lord Jesus, the all-wise Shepherd who loves and leads us, is a most apt analogy for the Christian life.
Who is the Shepherd?
We pass, without comment, the word "LORD" in capitals, because we have considered the meaning of this personal title in Devotion [6]. LORD, remember, translates the Hebrew word Yahweh or Jehovah, a name only God's people could use when they spoke to God.
How do we know that the Shepherd of Psalm 23 is Jesus? Well, Jesus himself says "I am the Good Shepherd" (John 10), the book of Hebrews calls Jesus "the Great Shepherd of the sheep" (13:20) and Peter refers to Jesus as the "Chief Shepherd" of the sheep (1 Peter 5:4).
Jesus is the Good, the Great and the Chief Shepherd of the sheep.
So when we hear David speaking about his Shepherd, we may translate to this, "The Lord Jesus is my Shepherd."
I am glad Jesus is the Shepherd, aren't you?
Why? Because he has lived in this world, and knows from the inside the joys as well as the sorrows of an ordinary earthly life. I would be fearful of a pampered king leading me! Someone who never had an hour of need, was privileged with the finest medical care, food, and so on. How could such a one have a clue about my ordinary life, and your ordinary life?
The wonderful thing about Jesus is that he was a poor man and an ordinary man and so there is no person in this whole wide world who can say "Jesus does not understand me."
Jesus, the Good Shepherd understands his sheep.
Who are the sheep?
Sad to say, there are many people in England, at least, who assume too quickly that they are God's sheep. They think that because they have gone to church, or been confirmed or christened, that they are, ipso facto Christians.
But we do not become a sheep of the Shepherd by being born in England. What does the Good Shepherd himself say in John 10?
"I know my sheep and my sheep know me" and later he says that his sheep "Listen to my voice", and "Follow me." A true sheep is tuned in to the voice of his shepherd and follows that shepherd, obeys that shepherd.
So, a true sheep is someone who both knows the Shepherd and who listens to his voice.
To know Jesus is to have come into a relationship with him by faith. Through faith we trust him as our Saviour and Lord, by faith we love him and by faith we have his life-giving Spirit living within us.
To listen to his voice is to be daily attentive, through his Word, the Scriptures, to his leading. Shepherd, how do you want me to live as a husband, wife, son, daughter? Shepherd, how do you want me to use my time? How my money? How my gifts? What do you want me to do with my life? And so on and so forth.
Sheep are tuned into the voice of the Shepherd.
So I close with a question and a comfort:
Do you know the Good Shepherd? Are you a true sheep? We become followers of Jesus when we hear his call, believe in his name and receive him as our Saviour, Master and Lord.
A comfort: if we are a true sheep, wherever we are in the world, whoever we are, known or unknown, great or small, the Good Shepherd cares for us. In these days of isolation, even if we are completely on our own, the Good Shepherd is with us, cares for us and loves us.
One day Douglas MacMillan was taking a train journey through the countryside. All of a sudden he passed a field of sheep. To you and I one sheep looks pretty much like the next. But not to a shepherd! Shepherds recognise their sheep, one by one. MacMillan recognised many of the sheep in that field, once his own but now sold on.
Our Good Shepherd will never sell us on, for he knows each one by name, gives them eternal life and promises that no-one can snatch them out of his hand.
Being in the flock of the Son of God is the safest place we can be.
A SONG FOR THE DAY
I believe the church should sing songs old and new. We should avoid monochrome worship at either end of the spectrum: worship that ignores the great words being written today, and worship that ignores the best songs of the past.
Today's song is an old one, but full of great words. (It's one of those songs the author can't take much credit for, because it's pretty much Psalm 23, through and through.)
It's sung by a congregation HERE
(If you sing along it will do you good!)
The King of love my shepherd is,
whose goodness faileth never.
I nothing lack if I am his,
and he is mine forever.
Where streams of living water flow,
my ransomed soul he leadeth;
and where the verdant pastures grow,
with food celestial feedeth.
Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed,
but yet in love he sought me;
and on his shoulder gently laid,
and home, rejoicing, brought me.
In death's dark vale I fear no ill,
with thee, dear Lord, beside me;
thy rod and staff my comfort still,
thy cross before to guide me.
Thou spreadst a table in my sight;
thy unction grace bestoweth;
and oh, what transport of delight
from thy pure chalice floweth!
And so through all the length of days,
thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise
within thy house forever.
H.W.Baker, 1868
A PRAYER FOR TODAY
Our Father in heaven,
We thank you that by faith we have become sheep of the Great Shepherd.
I thank you that I can say with certainty that he is "my" shepherd.
We thank you that our Good Shepherd laid down his life for the sheep, and through his death he bought us with his own blood.
Help us to listen to his voice today, and not only to hear his voice but to follow it, in the strength and mighty power that he supplies.
We ask this for your glory and for our good.
Amen
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