The solution to the proud resistance to the leading of the Shepherd, Psa 23:3-4

Ps 23:1-3

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

 

Prov 14:12

There is a way which seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death.

 

Prov 16:25

There is a way which seems right to a man,

But its end is the way of death.

 

Maybe Solomon forgot that he wrote that the first time, or maybe he, more than most people, understood the destructive power of rejecting the plan of God for your life.

 

In great contrast to the independent, self-destructive lifestyle is the life that Christ came into the world to give.

 

In our main passage in John 10:

 

John 10:10

"The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.

 

Our sin natures continue to resist this following Christ and His plan and we struggle, even though we feel convinced that Christ’s way is the only way and it is full of prosperity, and we must recognize that our flesh will never like it or give in to it.

 

Your flesh, OSN, will always be with you and it will never submit to God, but it has been crucified. Confess your sins and pick up your own cross and follow Christ.

 

There has to be a set or priorities. And although we sing songs in church and we profess to others that Christ is our #1 priority, we have to be honest with ourselves.

 

There has to be a set of priorities.

 

The person of Christ is the preeminent One whether the world, or you, acknowledges it or not.

 

Col1:15-18

And He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities —  all things have been created by Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; so that He Himself might come to have first place in everything.

 

Therefore our number one priority has to be Christ.

 

Included in this top priority are the commands of Christ. No one has ever kept all the commands. Even the greatest believers have broken many.

 

But to follow Christ as your Shepherd requires some things that cannot be broken. None of them are isolated sins, but rather are the commands of lifestyle.

 

BD must be perceived daily.

 

ROM 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

 

Sins must be confessed as soon as possible.

 

EPH 4:30

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

 

1 Thess 5:16-19

Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Do not quench the Spirit;

 

Be filled with the Spirit - EPH 5:18.

 

Pray daily and give thanks daily.

 

Secondly, our next priority should be people other than ourselves.

 

Phil 2:1-5

If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,

 

Our third priority should be the laws of divine establishment.

 

Standing up for the institutions of marriage, the family, the nation, and individual freedom.

 

This does not mean that Christians should get active socially in any attempt to clean up the devils world.

 

Christianity has suffered a lot of harm from idiots who have attempted to bring Christianity into social justice. These uneducated knuckleheads thrive on crusader arrogance and are not ambassadors for Christ.

 

A believer simply believes in the efficacy of God’s natural laws and follows authority, does not impede on human freedom, loves his nation and knows that the family is the building block of any nation.

 

If these priorities are put out of order in the believer’s soul then he is headed for disaster. If enough believers in a nation have these priorities out of order than that nation is headed for disaster.

 

Notice that in this short list of priorities I have not put the believer himself. That is because you are the Shepherd’s priority.

 

As the Shepherd’s priority we are to allow Him to take care of us and prosper us and we are to have limitless faith that He will do so.

 

A sheep cannot care for itself. Only the Shepherd can care for the sheep.

 

The maturing believer knows that he can put the details and circumstances of his own life in to the loving hands of his good shepherd.

 

Ps 23:1-3

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

 

He will do so because His very own reputation is on the line.

 

Ps 23:1-4

23 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

 

In verse 4 the subject changes from the Shepherd, “He,” to the sheep, “I.”

 

And the sheep are now walking through a death shadowed valley. However, they are not alone, the Shepherd is close by, like He always is.

 

In the beginning of the summer good shepherds would take their flocks on long treks in the mountains where the receding snows revealed lush mountain meadows.

 

Bad shepherds would care less about doing this. The shepherd would have to lead them up and up, past the timber line to where they could feed all summer on the sweet fauna of the hill country.

 

During this time the flock was entirely alone with the shepherd. They would be in intimate contact with him and under his personal attention day and night.

 

And so we have this very personal first person language starting in verse 4. I walk and He is with me.

 

It is beautiful language of that ginosko love in John 10. It is the intimate relationship of those He knows and the sheep that know Him.

 

He loves us knowing everything about us. We love Him when we gain enough knowledge of Him. This intimate time in the mountains with Him will increase that knowledge and thus strengthen that love with the result being a closer relationship.

 

David knew all about this. When Samuel was sent by God to anoint him as king over Israel, he wasn’t at home with his brothers, but he was up in the hills tending to his father Jesse’s flocks.

 

We will see that this all refers to the difficulties and adversities that we will all face as believers in which only the Lord can help us.

 

And the Lord doesn’t come down from the right hand of God and pat you on the head, or give you a big hug and ruffle your hair, and say, “Come on now champ, you can do it.”

 

The Lord helps us with His word and His Spirit. Together they bring to us His methods, His ways, His power, and the reminder that He as well as the Father and the Spirit indwell our bodies.

 

Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

 

Satan, the KOD, and the world system will be allowed to test us and try us. They will be allowed to bring adversity and trouble. This trouble will come in the form of people testing, disaster testing, thought testing, and system testing.

 

All will want to make your flesh freak out and run to past defense mechanisms for escape. But the word and the Spirit (remember - priorities) will remind you that the Lord will deliver you while you are in the valley.

 

Loser believers are always looking for a crutch. They look to people for help, a shoulder to cry on, the government for help, substances to dull the pain, the world system for distraction from the difficulty, and they are losers all the way.

 

The winner/winning/advancing believer understands that he is a believer priest and as such can solve his own problems with the filling of the Spirit and the word of God.

 

Now when the shepherd took the flocks up into the hills there were all kinds of dangers along the way as well as delightful things.

 

Since the good shepherd always did this he knew the terrain, he knew the dangers and never would he take his flock somewhere that he hadn’t already gone before.

 

All the dangers of rampaging rivers in flood; avalanches; rock slides; poinsonous plants; the ravages of predators that raid the flock or the awesome storms of sleet and hail and snow were familiar to him.

 

Nothing took him by surprise; He’d seen it all before. He was fully prepared to safeguard his flock and tend to them with skill under every circumstance.

 

All this is brought out by David when he says, “I shall not fear, for Thou art with me.”

 

There is no heartache, temptation, difficulty, disaster, disappointment, or dilemma that the Lord has not Himself experienced.