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 paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walked 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. Let us pray. Jesus, I pray now that you would come, even as a shepherd, and lead us, that you would come by your spirit and open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death, that you would be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In your name we pray. Amen. I promise you, this is the last sermon on Psalm 23. I know I started out saying there's only going to be one. However, they were needful. You see, because actually this Psalm 23 is a sermon series. It's been three long, if you're visiting. It's really just an ex-cursus on 1 Timothy because you remember we're actually preaching through 1 Timothy. And the reason we're preaching through 1 Timothy is because our church is heading towards something called organization, right? What that means is you are sort of proclaimed a real live church. And 1 Timothy, in a sense, is the New Testament's book of church order. It tells us how you ought to organize a church. Remember Paul tells Timothy, I've written these things to you so that one may know how to conduct himself in the household of God. And in the 1st chapter, what does a church need to know? Well, in the 1st chapter of 1 Timothy, they need to know the gospel. And so Paul lays out the substance of the gospel. He lays out our need of the mercy of Jesus in on one hand. And on the other hand, he lays out the fact that the mercy of Jesus has been given to us abundantly. So he says on one hand, word, in desperate need of the gospel. On the other hand, Jesus has forgiven us, which leads us from the substance of the gospel, to the scope of the gospel. Who is this for, then? Who is this message of salvation through Christ for? And Paul says in chapter 2, it's for everybody, right? It is to be preached to all people. You should be praying for all people, for all nations. And then he goes from that to actually how the church itself ought to be organized. And that's in chapter 3, he begins to talk about the qualifications for the office of elder. And the problem with looking at the qualifications for the office of elder is that most people, especially in our day and age, have no idea what an elder should be in the first place. They don't know the job description of an elder. And if you say, okay, well, an elder is supposed to be a shepherd, right? You know what that means, right? How many people have seen a sheep? Very few. And so, in order to understand what an elder does, we must understand what a shepherd does. And in order to understand what a shepherd does, it only made sense that we would look at the shepherd's psalm, Psalm 23. And so that's what we've done for the past two weeks. And today will be the last week. And if you remember, in the shepherd's psalm, really what you have is a sheep who is looking at his shepherd. And the sheep is describing the shepherd to us. And you remember David in the 23rd psalm actually structures the psalm geographically, because the sheep's shepherd would take their sheep through a yearly cycle of being in the lowlands in the winter and in the highlands in the summer. But you couldn't get from the lowlands to the highlands without passing through the valley of shadows, right? So every year they would go from low through the valley to the highlands. And you remember the principle I gave you last week is that no Christian gets from the lowlands. God's first initiative to the highlands home, if you will, without passing through the valley of shadows, right? You don't get from Egypt to the promise land without passing through the wilderness. And you remember in the beginning and the lowlands versus one through three in the psalm, David says that you give me rest and you feed me and you take care of me. And then last week we looked at David, as he says, as I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Why? Because you're with me. The shepherd is present with me. And not only that, but the shepherd, David was convinced, protected him from enemies on one hand and protected him from himself on the other hand. Remember, he says, thy rod for predators and thy staff for me comforts me. So David has comfort in the valley. And today he continues with this sort of geographical metaphor, but there's really a big twist at the end of this psalm. I mean, it's an incredibly counterintuitive twist at the end of the psalm. You see, because in the first part of the psalm and the second part of the psalm, David refers to God as a shepherd in himself as a sheep. And at the end of the psalm, David makes a big twist that you can miss if you just sort of read this sentimentally because what he does is he, God remains a shepherd at the end of this psalm versus five and six, but David's not a sheep anymore. David is transitioned in his own understanding of his relationship with God from being a sheep, from being a sheep to actually being a son. He refers to himself not in terms of a sheep who is foolish and who God is sort of having pity on and who God is protecting from himself, but as an honored guest and as a son, David has made a huge transition here. And so today, we're going to see God is still a shepherd, but David's position has actually changed by the end of this psalm. And so we're going to look at, again, the shepherd, three things, the shepherd basically invites the shepherd serves and the shepherd never stops pursuing. So let's look at what David says today about his shepherd in verse five. We see the shepherd's invite. David says, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Let me stop there. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. On one hand, that is very sheepish, right? Because the member of the shepherd's who would call the highlands, they were maces and they would actually call them tables. When they got to the highlands, there would be these big flat spots that they would call tables and probably the shepherds would go ahead of the sheep and prepare the table for them. They would pull out any poisonous weeds that the sheep might eat or they might drive away any predators or anything like that. So on one hand, there's a table, but David's not probably talking about that. We know because the language is the language of a party, right? You annoy my heck with oil, my cuff overflows. What David is talking about is the shepherd, the sheep shepherd, and the shepherd's tent. You see, according to Bedouin etiquette or shepherd etiquette, that if a shepherd, a sheep shepherd, brought you into his tent, it meant certain things. For one, he had to bring you into his tent. He may or may not. But if you were a traveler and he brought you into his tent, what that meant was that as long as you stayed in his tent, you were treated not only as if you were one of the family, but actually as if you were better than the family. Everything that I have is yours on one hand, and on the other hand, you're guaranteed immunity from any and all enemies that might be after you now, right? So you might be on the lamb, if you will, pardon the pun, from your enemies, and if a bedouin shepherd took you into his tent, he would say no one gets to you without first coming through me. And that's what David's talking about. He says, you prepare a banquet. It's hailed before me and the presence of my enemies. You have actually invited me in to your tent. And because I've been invited into your tent, I don't need to worry about the enemies around me. In other words, I'm heading toward home. I'm on this pilgrimage home. But since you've invited me into my tent, I actually get all of the comforts of home as if I were there, even though I'm surrounded by enemies. And that's exactly what Jesus was talking about when he spoke in John chapter 3 about eternal life. Verse 5 in the 23rd Psalm is a very good and complete description of what the Bible means when it talks about eternal life. Remember John 3, 16, you're very familiar with it. At least you're familiar with the guy with the rainbow afro and the sign behind the goalposts. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believed in him shall not perish, but have what? Eternal life. And most of us somehow have gotten into our heads to think that eternal life means heaven. It just means heaven, right? If you trust Jesus, you'll go to heaven someday. Life's going to be rotten now, but someday you can look forward to going to heaven, right? Frankly, for me, there's not much appeal in that because I got to deal with things now. You know the beauty of the gospel is that's when Jesus said you'll have eternal life, that's exactly what he was saying. Because the Greek says you will have Eonus, Zoe. Zoe is life. Eonus, Eon, the age to come. He says, if you trust me, you will have now the life of the age to come, right? In other words, you'll go to heaven, sure, but you'll live now as if you were in heaven. That right now, you begin to have the life of the age to come. That right now, I prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies. Right now, there's all this stuff going on around you, but if you trust me, you'll be invited into my tent. And what that means is you have everything that I have is yours, but not only that, anything that touches you must come through me first, right? The life of the age to come. That's exactly what David is saying. He says, you prepared table before me in the presence of my enemies. I have the life now of the age to come. I'm on my way home, but even now as I speak, I'm enjoying those comforts. It's the comfort of being invited in by the shepherd. How do you own problem is you got to go in, right? You only get the life of the age to come by trusting Jesus. And the question is, how do you trust him? Do you trust him, right? Do you trust him or not? You see, because the shepherd not only invites people in, but he also serves the sheep. That's a big problem with the sheep, or at least with guests. That's where he goes next. You see, he says on one hand, you've prepared table before me in the presence of my enemies, but then he says, you anoint my head with oil, right? The shepherd serves the guest. Why does the shepherd need to serve the guest? Why does the shepherd need to anoint his head with oil? The answer's pretty simple. You see, because the shepherd not only invites the guest into the house, but he makes him acceptable within the house. Why would the shepherd need to make the person acceptable in the house? The answer's actually pretty simple. It's because travelers in the ancient Near East stunk, they smell bad. So, if you're going to come into the house, someone had better clean you up. And what they would do, generally speaking, is the head chief shepherd would assign one of his servants to clean up the guest and anoint them with precious oil, so they would smell fragrant. That the shepherd makes the guest acceptable. And yet there's an odd twist here, because David doesn't say, you as the shepherd send one of your servants to anoint my head with oil. Chairman, when I was in college and taking religion courses, they would teach, you know, there's a mean God in the Old Testament and a very nice God in the New Testament. God of hatred and wrath in the Old Testament. God of love in the New Testament. And that might seem that way, except when you look at the 23rd Psalm, because what does David say? He didn't say one of your servants in anoints my head with oil. He says, you, you the chief shepherd, you the better one, has given up all of your dignity and come and you have it made me acceptable. The shepherd has you have prepared me and made me this way. You see, the problem, the reason that causes us to dissonance, because most people when they think of the call to the gospel, like if you're not a Christian, you think what it means to be called to the call of the gospel, is that if I become a Christian, what that means is I'm deciding to serve Jesus. And most Christians think what it means to be a Christian is to serve Jesus. And both of them are wrong, right? Being a Christian has very little to do with serving Jesus because the call of the gospel is not about serving Jesus. The call of the gospel is about letting Jesus serve you. And most of us are too prideful and arrogant to let him do that. Right? John Piper says, woe to him who will not like God, who tries to serve God. Right? Throw up a whole gospel. Jesus says what the call is, is let me serve you. Remember what happened with Peter at the last supper? Jesus got up and no one knew what he was doing. Here's the master and he wraps the towel around his waist and he picks up a bucket and he begins to go around and watching disciples feed. And then he gets the Peter and Peter says, no way, you'll not watch my feet. And what does Jesus say? Peter, unless I wash your feet, you have no part of me. Unless you let me serve you, you have no part of me. And then of course, Peter equally as bold says, and watch everything. Jesus says, I don't need to do everything. It's already been done. Trust me. Right? What it means to be a Christian is to let Jesus serve you and he serves you, among other things, by making you acceptable in his house. How does he make you acceptable in his house? Right? You and I walk into God's house and we're filthy and we're guilty and we're wretched. And what does Jesus do? He takes all of our filth and wretchedness and he replaces it with goodness and righteousness. And he does it through the blood of his cross, right? He goes to the cross and at the cross, all of our stench, if he will, is imputed to him or given to him and all of his goodness, all of his pleasantness is given to us. He makes us acceptable in God's house. And it never ends. You see, that's what it's hard for Christians to get. It never ends. Like just because you let him serve you and saving you, he expects you to let him serve you even now. That's why we pray. Right? What does God say? He says, you have not because you asked not. He says, test me in this. I want to serve you. All you have to do is sort of ask. And yet we don't. And we also think, gosh, if I haven't served God well enough, what's going to happen at the end of time? Right? What's going to happen when he comes back at the rapture, whatever you believe about that kind of stuff? And he comes back and he catches me, not serving him. What's going to happen? Jesus says what's going to happen. And it's pretty interesting. Listen to what Jesus says. It's going to be like at the end of time. He's telling this parable in Luke 12. He says, be dressed in in readiness and keep your lamps lit. Right? Because I'm coming back. He says, be like men who are waiting for the master when he returns from the wedding feast so that they may immediately open the door to him. And when he comes and knocks. And then he says, blessed are those slaves who when they open the door, they start serving the master and they grovel and let him know how bad they feel about all the things they've done their whole life. Oh, I'm sorry. It says something quite different. He says, blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes. Truly, I'd say to you that he, the master, will gird himself to serve and have them recline at the table and will come up and wait on them. Whether he comes in the second watch or even the third and finds them so blessed are those slaves. You see, most of us walk through our lives wondering if at the end of time, God is sure we're going to kick us out because we haven't served enough. What he says is at the end of time, you better be ready. And as soon as I knock, you better open the door because when I open the door, I'm going to barge in there and I'm going to put the towel on again. And I'm going to serve you and you will recline at the table, right? That's a problem for Christians. We don't, we don't want to let Jesus serve us. Why? Because we want to make sure we do it ourselves. Because if you do it yourself, you're going to be all right. You know you're served. And Jesus just trust me. And he not only serves the shepherd, the shepherd not only serves his guests, but he also provides for them more than they could abundantly ask for, right? He says, my cup runs over. David knows the seriousness of the shepherd's commitment to him because of what he's done with this cup. You see, again, according to Bedouin or shepherd etiquette, if you went into a chief Bedouin's house and he would give you a cup, you would hope to God that he filled that cup up and not that he filled it up, but that he would fill it up until it ran over. Why? Because it was a symbol from the chief shepherd. He would take your cup and he would pour it until it ran over until it was actually wasteful. And by that, he would be telling you there's nothing that I have that isn't yours. There's nothing that I have that's not given that I will not be willing to give to you. And there's nothing that you need that you will be in want of ever. And so, David, when he says my cup runs over, what he's saying is the God, the chief shepherd, has poured out this cup and he has shown me that it's running over. And because it's running over, I know that he'll promise me anything else I need. And the New Testament says that's how you and I are supposed to look at the cross. That should be our perspective on the cross. We looked and see not our cup running over, but we see the cup of God's wrath running over and it being poured out upon Jesus. In Paul says this, he says in Romans 8, he says, what shall we say of these things as you consider Jesus's bearing of our wrath? He says, what shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all. How will he not also with him freely give us all things? Do you hear what he's saying? See the problem, the biggest problem in the church. Besides anger, most people in church have some amount of anger they carry around with them. It's because we all think we deserve something at some level. The other big problem in the church is complaining, right? It's complaining. You remember the Apostle Paul? The only time the Apostle Paul even comes close to telling people they might not even be Christians is when they won't quit complaining. They can screw up sexually, they can screw up financially, they can screw up no matter what, but when they won't cease to complain, he says you might not get it. The reason we complain is because at the end of the day we really don't believe that God is proactively out to do us good. We don't believe that God is proactively, that he cares about us, that he didn't spare his son, well he not also freely give us all things. I'm not sure about that. I trusted you and I'm in the kingdom, but I'm not sure you're going to provide for me what I need. When I don't get it, then I will complain. If you complain against people, if you complain against your pastor, if you complain against your leaders, my exertation to you would be to talk to Jesus because at the end of the day, that's probably your issue. Your problem is Jesus. Do you really believe he's proactively out to do you good? David did. That's where David ended up in the psalm. He says, not only does the shepherd invite, not only does the shepherd serve, but the shepherd does something that is unheard of. The shepherd never stops pursuing. He never stops. Listen to what David says at verse six. He says, 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. Now this is very interesting in verse six because this is a very sort of sentimental psalm. And if you're sentimental about it, you can sort of miss it because in the Hebrew it's not sentimental at all. In fact, it's sort of violent. He says goodness and loving kindness or goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. The Hebrew word there is read off. In in almost every other context, it's used in the context of warfare. In in almost every other context, it's used in the context of hunting or stalking or ambushing. And so what is David saying here? He's using it positively, but David who was pursued by his enemies, David who was pursued by King Saul, David who was pursued by the Philistines, David who was hunted by his very own son, says now because you are my shepherd because you have invited me into your house and you have served me goodness and mercy hunt me down. Before I was hunted by my enemies and now I am hunted down by grace. Before I was stalked by my gilth and my shame and my anger now, I am stalked by grace. Now I know that I will live in the house of the Lord forever. Why? Because I can't get away. I can't get away from you. My confidence that I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever is based completely and utterly on the fact that I trust that I will not be ever be able to get away from you. That grace and mercy will stalk me from now and into the rest of my life. And that friend is one of the biggest problems that Christians have as well. See, it's one thing to say, okay, Jesus has forgiven me of my sin. It's another thing completely to know that God is proactively out to do you good. And that grace and mercy and loving kindness and all of these things will stalk you. There's no way you can get around them. There's no way you can get away from them. You can't hide from them. And the reason that they're so frightening is because if they're true, that means you forget to face up to all of the crap in your life, right? If you know that God's mercy and goodness and grace stalks you and hunts you down, then at some point, if it catches you, which it will, you've got to face up to everything in your heart and in your life. On one hand, that's hurtful. On the other hand, it's great. Remember the Apostle Paul says that I was chosen for this reason so that people would know that I was the perfect example of patience of Jesus for a sinner. You see, once we understand that grace and mercy hunt us, that they stalk us, that they pursue us, then you understand what it means to live in the house as a son. Most of us live as orphans, right? How does an orphan live? An orphan comes into the house and they're not sure that they're going to be able to stay there forever and so what they do is they're selfish, they're greedy, they're watch out for themselves all the time. What David says is because of your pursuit, I know this that I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and what that means is now I can face up to who I am, now I can pursue other people, now I can pursue the job I want. Most of us, we don't move to the left or the right or forward or back, we just stand still because we're afraid if we move forward, we're going to somehow leave the comfort that we have. What David says is no matter where I go, front left, backwards or forwards, grace, a mercy will stop me, I can't get away from it and so because of that I'm assured I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Remember all the stories I told about mercy last week? I went home from church and it was funny because we're in our kitchen and many of you know we have one of the maybe the laziest dog ever to have existed, Sophie, yellow dog and Mercy and Sophie are best friends and the two older girls were basically saying how they wanted to have a new dog. They wanted a dog that moves. They were saying we want a puppy, we want a puppy and they were going back and forth about puppy and all of a sudden Mercy realized that they were talking about how getting a puppy and if they got a puppy that meant that yellow dog might have to leave. And so Mercy went and dove on yellow dog and hugged her around the neck and said, Daddy, you're not going to get rid of yellow dog, are you? And I said why? She said, because I know you'll never get rid of me and it was almost as if because she's hugging yellow dog, he's not going to leave the house and that's what David's saying. God's never going to get rid of me and because of that I have great comfort. To the extent that you understand that is the extent to which you'll be happy. To the extent that you understand that is the extent that you'll be able to serve others. To the extent that you understand that is to the extent you'll be able to pursue your vocation. To the extent that you understand that is the extent to which you can love and forgive and do all of these things but it all comes back to whether or not you not only believe that God is your shepherd that he cares for you but that God is also your shepherd in that he considers you a son or a daughter never to be kicked out of the house. To the extent you understand that is the extent to which you will be happy. Let me pray for it. Father, I thank you for what you have seen fit to do in our lives. I thank you that you pursued us and you never stopped pursuing us. That you not only become our shepherd but you don't cease to be our shepherd. That you pursue us and you love us and you are proactively out to do us good. I pray that you have made grace with congregation in which understand that. That we would constantly be grappling with you and with your gospel. Will you let us go or will you not? The answer keeps coming back to you and I pray that you grant us repentance where we are angry at you and where we complain against you because you have promised only good for us and your name we pray. Amen. Amen.