TRUST YOUR SHEPHERD

Psalm 23

Sunday, May 7, 2006

It’s my favorite story to tell on another pastor. We were visiting family in the Houston, Texas area and attended their church—a very large, suburban congregation. The pastor was preaching on Psalm 23 in a more expository fashion—meaning he was going verse by verse, making applications and explanations where he felt appropriate.

He came to the verse where David writes, “Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” He started to explain how if you visualize the rod and the staff a shepherd uses; you could form a cross and be reminded how Jesus defeated our enemies of sin, death and the devil with His cross. Then, he switched metaphors and began to speak of the staff members there at that congregation and how all of those people there were servants of the Gospel, ready to comfort the members in their times of need.

He didn’t warn us that he was switching back to the text. We didn’t know he wasn’t still talking about the staff at the church—although, I’m sure he thought we’d made the move with him—when he said, “And, at the head of every staff, there’s a crook.”

You laughed. Did you laugh because there’s some truth here? We’ve heard stories of pastors who were crooks. There are stories of pastors who couldn’t be trusted.

In fact, when Jesus speaks the words John records as our Gospel lesson today, He’s referring back to some pastors who were known to be crooks. Behind John 10 is most likely Ezekiel 34, in which the prophet speaks God’s judgment upon those pastors and priests of God’s people who were wicked and evil and who mistreated and misled God’s people. Jesus’ words are about trust.

Trust is something you and I don’t do easily. Remember, I came of age in a generation—the late 1960’s and early 1970’s—which had as it’s motto, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Lots of people seek our trust—from politicians to teachers to members of our families—but something inside asks, “Who can you trust?” David has an answer.

In Psalm 23, so familiar and comforting, David addresses this question. His answer is simple: He trusts his Shepherd God with his very life today, tomorrow and forever. His invitation to you today is to follow his example. Trust your Shepherd with your very life today, tomorrow and forever.

To David’s invitation we might well respond with a question born of the experience of living in this world: “why trust anyone?”

Trust takes a risk. To trust means to make yourself vulnerable. When you put yourself in someone else’s hands, you take the risk that they might hurt you. When you trust, you might be betrayed or disappointed. When you take the risk to trust, there’s a relationship understood and then, there’s a commitment. With a commitment, there’s surrender—not my way by myself, but our way together. So, why would anyone trust anyone?

There’s something in us that seeks relationship. Whether it comes in the terms of mutuality—that we each get something—or in terms of dependence, we need to reach out beyond ourselves. We need to trust others because you and I can’t do everything—whether it’s repairing your appliance or running the national government, there are skills you and I don’t have. We need to trust.

We need to trust because we don’t know the way. Sometimes, you and I need to stop and ask directions—we count on someone to know the way through an unfamiliar neighborhood or through a difficult time of life. We trust someone to know the way because we can’t see the whole picture. We focus on what’s before now and, depending on involved we become with the NOW, we don’t see what’s ahead. We trust because we must. We trust because we love.

Trust is still not something easily granted. How long do you drive around before you ask directions? If it’s hard to trust people, how much harder is it to trust God? In this post-modern culture of ours where absolutes are doubted and nothing seems certain, how much more difficult is it to trust God? Trusting people we can see and hear is a risk, what about God, whom we can neither see nor hear in the same way as our neighbor?

David has an answer for that question. He writes it in Psalm 23.

Because we all know a little of David’s story, it’s tempting to imagine that he wrote the words of this psalm while he was a youth, watching over his father’s flocks near Bethlehem. Certainly those memories helped shape his choice of words, but David probably wrote this psalm at a time in his life that was anything but safe.

Are you acquainted with David’s story? He was the youngest son of Jesse, the runt. Samuel, the prophet and Judge of Israel, was instructed by the Holy Spirit to go to Jesse’s house to anoint the king of Israel. God didn’t tell Samuel which son, just go and trust, the Spirit said.

So, Jesse assembles his sons before the prophet. Samuel looks them over, waiting for God’s approval on one of them. It doesn’t come. Are there any other sons? Jesse explains about the runt out in the pastures, but surely God can’t mean that one. He does, the prophet explains. So, David is anointed king and has the promise of God that he will rule.

However, there’s a problem. Saul is king. Saul doesn’t say, “Oh, David. God has chosen you? Oh, my, let me get out of your way.” Rather, he falls into a jealous rage and hunts David down to kill him. David probably writes Psalm 23 hiding in a cave in the wilderness, his life in jeopardy. He has these promises of God, but those promises are far from fulfillment. Why does David trust God?

He saw God keep His Word. He could trust God with tomorrow because he had seen God keep His promises in the past. Goliath was David’s proof that God could be trusted. David knew it wasn’t his slingshot and good aim that felled the giant. He knew that God had acted.

God had shown David that He had it in His hands to accomplish what He’d promised. As Goliath fell, God showed David He had it in His hands to keep His promises. David could trust his God. David relied on the image of the shepherd to talk about his God. David counted on his Shepherd God to know the way—both to the promise of being king and beyond. David could trust Him with his life—Goliath proved that—and with his forever. David trusted his Shepherd to see the whole picture and fit everything together according to that plan.

That’s fine for David, what about you and me? Why should you or I trust God? What guidance do words written almost three thousand years have for us today? David’s invitation would be to trust your Shepherd with your life today, tomorrow and forever.

We, too, have a promise from our Shepherd God. We just celebrated that promise in all of its fullness this past Easter. We have the promise that Jesus is with us to the ends of the earth, that our sins are forgiven—that nothing can separate us from God’s love, and, that heaven is our home. But, like David in the cave in the wilderness, when you and I look around, those promises can seem far from fulfillment. So, why trust God?

We can trust Him for the same reason David did. He’s shown Himself trustworthy.

Jesus has what He needs to keep His promises in His nail-scarred hands. Those hands show us what He’s done—that He defeated our enemies. Like Goliath before, Jesus defeated sin’s power over us, the devil’s claim on us and the grave’s grasp. His death on the cross paid the price required for our redemption—in His death, we receive life. His death also paid the devil the ransom for our lives—we are free from his rule and brought into the promise of heaven as our home and destination.

Having gone through death into resurrection, Jesus knows the way, so He can be trusted to lead us. We trust Him as He leads to the quiet waters and green pastures and, especially, through the dark valleys. He’s been through death and hell—He knows the way. He can be trusted to lead. His resurrection shows that He knows how the journey goes.

So, you and I can trust our Shepherd.

Put yourself in those nail-scarred hands. Yes, that means we confess we can’t do everything by our reason or strength. Yes that means we make ourselves vulnerable—but without risk. He loves you and me. He’s shown that, so we can trust Him with our lives and count on Him to keep His promises.

He’s already kept the promise about forgiveness. Even those sins that still accuse your conscience, even those ones you and I do continually, even those He has already forgiven. Their power over you is gone—nailed to the cross. He has indeed restored your soul as He spoke the very words of forgiveness to you and your heart. So He’s shown Himself trustworthy in forgiveness.

Trust Him with the rest. Let go and let Him lead. Trust your Shepherd God the way David did, to see the whole picture. Trust Him to lead even through the dark valleys—He calls you by name. He knows all about you and loves you and calls you to follow. Trust Him to lead you today, tomorrow and all the way home, forever.