I am not a fan of Psalm 23. In fact, I’d go as far to say that I don’t like it. At all. For me, it’s way too lovely and well known, as well as being an odd number. Give me Psalm 24, or 148 any day, but “The lord is my shepherd,” meh, lucky us. I’ve heard that so many times that I don’t want to hear it any more. But in reality, so often, that is what I do need to hear.

But just because I know the words with my head – does that mean I don’t need to know them as a message for my heart?

Psalm 23 contains so many promises that God has given us. It provides a more than adequate description of who we are, and who God is to us. But with every time we hear this Psalm and all it’s metaphorical glory, it’s another time that we let the awesome promises of God fade into every day repetition.

So when I realised that this was what God wanted me to talk about today, I had to dig deep to find the patience to listen to God as he taught me not to just dismiss something I have heard a few thousand times, but to really take the words from my head to my heart and know them as his message to me.

Promise 1: the lord is my shepherd

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Line one could almost be a summary for the rest of the Psalm. And sadly today I’m probably going to let it. There just isn’t enough time to talk in detail about every line of this psalm, so bare with me as I try to take just a few and really discover what God has for us.

Dictionary.com defines a shepherd as “one who herds, guards, tends and guides sheep”. And if that’s what the Lord does for me, then really, I don’t need anything.

In this life, God is looking after me. Just as king David would have looked after his sheep when he was a youth, God wants to look after me. He wants to take us all, in our flock, to the green meadows by the streams where we can rest and renew our strength for his glory. I don’t need to worry about where I’m going, or who is coming. I don’t need to consider that there might not be enough food for us all there, or even stress about where everyone will be sleeping. Jesus says (Matt 6) don’t worry about your clothes, don’t worry about your food. “Look at the birds, the father feeds them, and aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” God is herding us to safety. Trust him and there is a lot less to worry about.

The Lord, my shepherd is also guarding me from danger. Even though I am walking somewhere new, somewhere I might not know, even somewhere dark that makes me scared for my life, God is there. The truth is that we are all walking thought a dark valley like this. The world is full of sin and we are living here. Thankfully God is our shepherd and is guiding us so we don’t fall. When we continually rely on our shepherd to guide us, falling is much harder.

The lord our shepherd is not only guiding us to safety, protecting us from danger and making sure we stick to the path, but he is also filling our lives with blessings. Our cups are overflowing with the wine he is pouring us. He is anointing our heads with oil. This is so significant for a shepherd because oil keeps the sheep safe from bugs which are deterred by the smell, as well as cleaning the wounds sustained in the days travel. God really is looking after us!

More than that, anointing with oil is used continually through the bible. Saul and David are both anointed as kings, Jesus the Christ or Messiah in Jewish or Greek translates as the Anointed one. In Acts the apostles anoint people when they appoint them places of responsibility and honour caring for the rest of the flock. 1st Peter calls us to live like anointed people of God.

What an honour it is to know that God, our shepherd is guiding us, keeping us safe, taking our fears and worries away and then on top of that anointing us as an honour! He loves us so much that he wants to bend down and anoint us as part of his flock!

The key to all of these promises found in only the first line of this Psalm, is that we need to believe it. We can all repeat the line “the Lord is my Shepherd” as much as we like, but taking it from knowledge in our head to a belief in our heart is another matter.

It says in Luke 12: “Don’t be concerned about what to eat and drink, your father already knows your needs.” God already knows our needs and he is providing for us more than is adequate. Because God is our shepherd, the one who is there to look after us and see we make it home safely we don’t need to worry, we don’t need to fear, we have all we need.

Promise 2: God’s love pursues us

I’d like to share with you now something I learnt when I was in Japan. This was probably about September of 2004 and I would have been in Japan for about 7 or so months. My best friend was a girl called Haruka who used to catch the train with me every day.

As well as catching the train with me everyday she was in my class, so we spent quiet a lot of time together. When I got stressed out about not understanding or assignments, she would be the one who would help me out.

One day she was feeling sick, so to say "thanks for putting up with me and i hope you feel better" after school, I went to the shops and got her a hair tie, and the I went to the train station, and I waited at the entrance that I thought she would come in by.

Now, as I was standing there in the cold, waiting, I had all these doubts nagging at me; "what if she felt so sick she went home early and I’m waiting for a person who will never come?" "What if she uses a different entrance?" "What if I didn’t see her come round?" Train stations in Japan are huge, and any one of these things could have happened.

And it occurred to me that that’s what Jesus was probably like, waiting for me to come round, to realise that He was the only way and all I needed.

He had Satan going "She’s not coming, I’ve managed to trick her to go the other way with some chocolate" "She's not coming, she’s already gotten on the train going in the other direction."

And it was tough for Him to stand there, waiting for me, as all the busy people brushed passed Him, nocked Him down, stood on Him and ripped His clothes, He stood there anyway because He believed I would come. He knew I would eventually come and He loved me enough to wait for me to come - no matter how many detours I took - no matter how late I was.

When I read Psalm 23, and the last verse, it reminded me of this story. Of how much Jesus went through to wait for me, but also how much love he had to have for me to do it. But, that last verse has much more than Jesus waiting for us. He’s not just standing around knowing that eventually we will come by.

The line reads: “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.”

The final passage of this Psalm is probably the one we cling to most. God’s love will follow us. But actually, the word follow has a better interpretation. The original Hebrew word translates better to the English word pursue.

Put that in the phrase and re-read it. “Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life…” Jesus is not just waiting around for us, he is not just following us, he is pursuing us. He is chasing us down with everything he has. He wants so much to bring us home to him. God doesn’t want to see any of us fall away, he wants us so much for us to be the sons and daughters he created us to be.

God wants us to live in his house forever, where we belong. Luke 12 says: “don’t be afraid little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom.” That is the inheritance that God has planned for us – his kingdom, it’s where he wants to us to be and like a shepherd with his sheep, he is going to guide us, tend to us, protect us, and pursue us with his love, so that we can be there with him.

I have 2 questions for you today: are you going to believe the promises of Psalm 23 or will they just stay as ones you know in your head but don’t take to heart?

Is the Lord your shepherd?