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APRIL 27, 2008
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.
Psalm 23:2
Today, we will focus on the second of the six verses of Psalm 23.
A pastor was taking a group of parishioners on a tour of the Holy Land. He had just read them the story of the Good Shepherd and was explaining to them that, as they continued their tour, they would see shepherds on the hillsides just as in Jesus' day.
He wanted to impress the group, so he told them what every good pastor tells his people about shepherds. He described how, in the Holy Land, shepherds always lead their sheep, always walking in front to face dangers, always protecting the sheep by going ahead of them.
He barely got the last word out when, sure enough, they rounded a corner and saw a man and his sheep on the hillside.
There was only one problem: the man wasn't leading the sheep as the good pastor had said. No, he was behind the sheep and seemed to be chasing them. The pastor turned red.
Flabbergasted, he ran over to the fence and said, “I always thought shepherds in this region led their sheep — out in front. And I told my people that a good shepherd never chases his sheep.” The man replied, “That's absolutely true ... you're absolutely right ... but I'm not the shepherd, I'm the butcher!”1
That makes me wonder: Did this soon–to–be–butchered flock have a real shepherd? Or was he only a hireling, i.e., a hired hand who only managed the flock until his contract was up?
You may remember that Jesus had something to say about money–grubbing hirelings. He said, “The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”2 Let me repeat: “[He] cares nothing for the sheep.”
But the LORD who is our Shepherd loves his sheep, feeds them, protects them, and is willing to die for them. Jesus says in John 10, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” So, when you see the blood dripping from his body, the anguish on his face, and his limp body hanging from the cross, what ultimately do you see? Do you see him only as a man who was executed unjustly? Or do you see your Good Shepherd who bleeds and suffers and dies in your place? Is it because his love for you is greater than your sins? Is it greater than your greed and temper? Is it greater than your straying heart? Yes, yes, and unconditionally yes!
So we see that we have been bought with a price.3 It is a staggering price, for he redeemed us “not with gold or silver, but with his holy precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death.”4
Given this, what will the Good Shepherd not do for his sheep? In the 2nd verse of Psalm 23, we see two facets of what he graciously gives us sheep. What are our two greatest bodily needs? Food and water of course! Now, King David, writing as a sheep, says of his LORD and Shepherd, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters” (NKJV). That is to say, the Good Shepherd takes his sheep where they can eat their fill and drink from still waters. Still waters are a necessity because sheep are afraid of running water. They will drink only from a quiet pool.
Let’s focus on the food of green pastures. Phillip Keller, the author of the popular book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, makes many insightful observations. One of the most interesting is that sheep cannot not lie down and be content unless four requirements are met.
Even if they have bountiful grazing pasture, the sheep will not eat unless things are tranquil and they are free of anxiety. And nothing so quiets and reassures the sheep as the presence of their shepherd. Keller notes, “The presence of their master and owner and protector, puts them at ease as nothing else could do, and this applies day and night.”6
And, to us, nothing is more comforting than the presence of the Good Shepherd. We know that he will be gracious to us because he has already paid the ultimate price for us sheep. But now that he has ascended into heaven, he comes to us today in the Gospel and in the Sacraments. How comforting it is for us to know that when we read, study, hear, or meditate upon the Gospel, Christ is truly present with us in his Word. He is also present in Holy Baptism, for he wraps the infant or catechumen with the robe of his righteousness. In the Lord’s Supper, Christ comes to us hidden in bread and wine and gives us to eat and drink of his body and blood. The presence of the Good Shepherd in these gifts is a great comfort to us, for he gives us rest for our souls.
But there is a danger. The danger is twofold.
The first is this, that since Word, water, bread, and wine appear to us as such insignificant things, we can find it hard to accept them for what they are, viz., as the “saving chariots” through which our Savior comes to us with his gifts.
The second danger may be worse than the first. God, indeed, calls pastors to preach and teach his Word and administer the Sacraments in accord with Christ’s words of institution. Every pastor, it is true, has his strengths and weaknesses. But it is also true that, according to Scripture, every pastor must be able to faithfully preach and teach the Word of God in its truth and purity to the Good Shepherd’s sheep.7
Pastors who don’t preach and teach the Word, but who fill their 20 minutes with fluff and nice stories offer their people hardly any nutrition. Keller tells of a tenant shepherd whose pasture was next to his. This man was a hireling who didn’t care for his sheep. His stock were always thin, weak, and riddled with disease or parasites. Again and again they would come and stand at the fence staring blankly through the woven wire at the lush green pastures which my sheep enjoyed. Keller remarks, “Had they been able to speak I am sure they would have said, ‘Oh, to be set free from this awful owner.’”8
But pastors who preach and teach fluff and not the real stuff are often praised by their parishioners for making their sermons interesting and pleasant to the ear. St. Paul warned his assistant Timothy about these kinds of people. He said to him:
Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.9
Even worse than fluffy preachers are pastors who feed their people with poison, the poison of false doctrine. If a flock of natural sheep were to graze on toxic grass or to drink from polluted water, they would surely become sick. They may even die.
Likewise, toxic pastors spew forth false doctrines. If I may speak forthrightly, one such man is Joel Osteen, the pastor of Houston’s Lakewood Church, the largest church in the country. He is sincere and means well, but he teaches the prosperity Gospel, viz., that God wants to make you healthy, wealthy, and happy. He rarely speaks of sin and salvation and almost always says that your best life is about to come. His focus is on making people happy in this life rather than in the life which is to come.
Michael Horton, a seminary professor, says of Osteen’s theology, “Cotton candy won’t kill you if you eat it a couple of times a year, but if you make it the only thing in your diet it will kill you.”10
Another preacher, a former LCMS member, claims she lost her salvation in our church body. Today, Joyce Meyer presides over a teaching/preaching ministry that is one of the most successful in the world. But she, microphone in hand, says to a national audience, “All I was ever taught to say was ‘I, a poor, miserable sinner.’ I am not poor, I am not miserable and I am not a sinner. That is a lie from the pit of hell. That is what I was and if I still am then Jesus died in vain.”11
“I am not a sinner,” she says. She says this because she believes that, as a Christian, she is a new creation in Christ. And that is true! Every Christian is a new creation.12 But she wrongly believes that, as a new creation, God has removed her sinful nature from her. In her mind, she is, thus, free of sin.
Behold how the devil preaches through such people. And such false doctrine is spiritual poison. As such, it has the potential to destroy saving faith. And let us not be naive and suppose that our own church body cannot fall into error and heterodox doctrine. That is why the Scriptures exhort God’s people of every age “to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”13
But to return briefly to our text, we learn that the Good Shepherd leads us beside still waters. Sheep cannot find water on their own. Their shepherd must lead them to it. And, beloved, our Good Shepherd gives us “living waters” not only in baptism, but through his Word. “Living waters give life — not earthly life, but spiritual life. Do you remember what Jesus said to the woman at the well? He said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”14 Yes, the water that Jesus gives bestows spiritual life here and now; a life that shall blossom into eternal life hereafter!
We have the Good Shepherd as our shepherd. He guards, protects us, and keeps us from the butchers who would rip saving faith from our hearts. Indeed, the Good Shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us to life–giving waters. This being the case, we can all say with King David, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” (Psalm 23:6).
In Jesus’ saving name. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Endnotes
1 Taken a sermon from Rev. Keenan Kelsey at http://www.wfa.org/newsletter/archive/2003/0320_030516/0320_030516.html.
2 See John 10:12–13, NIV.
3 See 1 Corinthians 6:20.
4 From Martin Luther’s explanation of the 2nd Article of the Apostles’ Creed. For more of Luther’s Small Catechism, see http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?2617&collectionID=711&contentID=4333&shortcutID=2076#creed.
5 Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), p. 35. Available from Amazon.com. See http://www.amazon.com/Shepherd-Looks-Psalm-23/dp/0310274419/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209102666&sr=1-1.
6 Ibid, p37.
7 Emphasis mine. It is important to note that preaching is subsumed under the office of pastor/teacher. When the pastor preaches, Scripture teaches that teaching is what the pastor is to do when he preaches. To preach, therefore, is to teach. The Greek word for “able to teach” is didaktikos. This word carries with it the thought that the pastor is to be “skillful” or “apt” to teach. So BDAG, Thayer, and Friberg, to name only three. As for preaching and teaching, St. Paul writes, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching, (2 Timothy 4:2). He also writes, “Now the overseer [pastor] must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able (didaktikos) to teach ...” (1 Timothy 3:2).
8 Keller, pp. 21-22.
9 See 2 Timothy 4:2-4.
10 For a critique of Osteen’s theology, see http://www.ministrywatch.com/mw2.1/pdf/Article_031805_Olsteen.pdf.
11 Joyce Meyer, audio. See http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/joyce_meyer.htm and http://heresyhunter.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-youre-not-poor-miserable-sinner.html.
12 In 2 Corinthians 5:17, St. Paul writes, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” But Paul also teaches that we remain sinners until we get to heaven. He says of himself, I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:18-19). Paul, here, is writing to the Romans at least 20 years after his conversion on the Damascus road. Those who wish to say that Paul is speaking of his life before he came to know Christ, must consider that in Romans 7, the apostle is writing in the present tense.
13 See Jude 1:3.
14 See John 4:14.
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