Sermon
He Leadeth Me In Paths Of Righteousness
September 22, 2002
Pastor Donald Sheley

Our subject today is a continuation in the 23rd Psalm. It's such a rich Psalm and we sometimes read it so rapidly. We read it through the eyes of city folks. We're not farmers. But this was written by a poet, by a shepherd, who understood sheep. In order to understand the depth of the meaning which the shepherd was writing, shepherd David, it's really necessary that we see the Psalm through the eyes of the shepherd.

So many years ago a man by the name of Dr. Philip Keller, he's a scientist by trade, but he went to South Africa and he lived there for eight years and he purchased for himself a flock of sheep. For eight years he lived amongst those sheep and he watched their characteristics. He kept a diary and a journal as to their characteristics, and then what he did is he took the 23rd Psalm and interpreted it for us through the eyes of a shepherd. And as the result, the great truths that are here we often do not see as city folks, so what I decided we would just take it phrase by phrase and see the phrase as it is written before us through the eyes of the shepherd.

I'll read it first. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
Yea; though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 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 anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

I begin our message by suggesting that the Psalms that we've been studying during the last few weeks come from the Psalter. That's the hymnbook of the Old Testament worshipers. It's the Psalms that we read today which were the words of the songs sung in the ancient synagogue, and still to this day many of them are still sung. The Psalter is the book of song that gives to the dumb spirit speech fit for the presence of God. I put that there because there are times in all of our lives when we come to really deep experiences and sometimes the anguish in our prayer life, the searching, the efforts to express ourselves, our human words seems so inadequate. Sometimes we hurt so deep and we just can't say the proper words.

If you're like me, I go to the Psalms because it's in those Psalms that David says what I want to say, but he says it in such a beautiful way. So what I do is I find that Psalm that expresses the emotion or whatever is going on in my life and I read -- such as times when I'm greatly depressed and discourage. I go to Psalm 42 and there David writes: Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God.

David realized that there are moments in life when you feel at the very bottom and it seems like heaven is brass and God is a million miles away. And as the result, you just don't know what to say. You just go to the Psalms and because they're so beautifully expressive of human feeling, they put words in our mouth that make us feel like we're excepted in the presence of God. So in crucial experiences of our lives, when the great deeps of our nature are plumbed, when we are overwhelmed by some tragic sorrow, or shaken by a passion of penitence in the presence of confessed inequity, or when we have passed through the swelling waters of affliction and from them have come forth to walk in the solemn loneliness of silent hills of God -- our sighs, our sorrows, our fears, our gladness, thanksgiving, and unshakable faith find their best expression in some great simple line from some Psalm that our mothers loved and taught us.

Now the Psalm that we've been studying the last few weeks has been in use for more than 2000 years. It's been a lamp with its light never extinguished which has cheered and guided through their mortal troubles countless multitudes of men and women in lands. I think of that in terms of some of the aspects of our Christian faith which are so familiar to almost everyone, whether they're Christians or not.

I think of the great hymn: Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And it's a hymn that seems to fit almost in every situation of life and in history. We went through 9/11 a year ago and it seemed that the hymn that all the nation was singing was amazing grace how sweet the sound. It's just a hymn that fits all the contours of life and all of its experiences. It's so true also in the Psalms; they're true and their power never loses its effect.

The king may have written it, but it has passed into the possession of millions of common people like ourselves. David was the king and he wrote it. It has become an expression of the experience, not of a solitary saint, but a countless multitude of saints.

This Psalm breathes throughout a spirit of the calmest and most assured trust in God. It speaks of a peace so deep, a serenity so profound, that even the thought of the shadow of death cannot trouble it. Now think with me for moment why the 23rd Psalm is so popular down through the centuries. It covers great thoughts such as rest, refreshment, restoration, guidance, comfort, entertainment, and permanence.

Just for a moment think -- we went a few weeks ago and talked about this subject of rest. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. Dr. Keller tells us that sheep will absolutely not lie down if there are four things that are troubling them. You can't get them to lie down: #1, if they are filled with fear of some possible danger surrounding them. #2, they will not lie down if they are frustrated, if there is frustration and discord in the flock. We learned why that was so. #3, they will not lie down if they are tormented by pests and parasites. And #4, they will not lie down if they're hungry or thirsty.

And thus, it shows the imperative responsibility of the shattered to guide these sheep so that they know that they are safe. That when he stands in their presence they have nothing to fear; and they don't. The amazing thing about sheep is once the shepherd enters the flock, all the fear is gone. But it's also the responsibility of the shepherd to feed them and satisfy their thirst. Now we took that into the spiritual and we said it's true of all mankind. There's a restlessness, there's fear that troubles us down our pathway of life. There's a hunger; there's a thirst and only Christ has the capacity to satisfy that -- only Christ, in Christ we find rest.

Secondly, the thought of refreshment. We learned that sheep, even though their need for water, because they get so much of their water from the dew in the morning because they're out early before the sun comes up, but they still need watering. So what happens -- in the land of Palestine and in many of the Eastern countries, if you've been there, there's no rainfall from April into October, and so as a result, over the years and the centuries, you'll find these large cisterns dug down deep into the bowels of the earth. And you'll find that during the rainy time these cisterns fill with the water, and that's their reservoir, that's their reserve for the hot summer days when there is no rain.

So what happens is there's a walkway or stairway down into the bottom of the cistern, and each shepherd has a leathern water bag to his side and he'll go down and get the water, and then they have troughs up around the edge the cistern and he fills those troughs with water, and from that the sheep find their thirst quenched. I suggest that in the spiritual we who believe, we draw water from the wells of salvation. Jesus said, if anyone thirsts let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me as the Scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And thus, Jesus said He's the only one that can quench the thirst of the human soul; that's our spiritual refreshment.

Now last Sunday we talked about this subject of restoration. In our Psalm it reads, he restoreth my soul. But Dr. Keller tells us that as a shepherd the thing he feared most was a cast sheep that needed restoration. A sheep, as it is growing its wool during the summertime, that large capacity of wool grows and when you see these sheep they're large with wool with four little legs that come out of that ball of wool.

I had a little boy come up to me last service, he said, Pastor you're my shepherd; and so he said, I went down and I got some wool. That's real wool; that came from a sheep, Pastor. He said, I made you a necklace from wool; God bless him.

But what happens is that wool just gets tremendously thick on this little body, and as a result, you see this great big ball of wool and you see these little legs; and what happens when the sheep wants to lay down, we learned, that if it lays over too far the center of gravity shifts in that little body and all of a sudden it's on its back and it's little legs are beating the air and he can't get up. It's impossible for him. And so what happens as he's beating the air gasses are building up in his rumen, in his stomach, and those gases then begin to cut off the circulation of blood in his body; and the first one are the extremities, his little legs.

So after a little while he loses all feeling in this legs. He's just beating the air, and he's frightened because he knows he can't do anything. And the shepherd knows that if it's a hot day it's not going to take very long for that little sheep to die in a cast position. He's known as a cast sheep. So we learned about what the shepherd does, as soon as he finds him, he tenderly takes that little sheep and brings it on its feet, but he knows it can't walk because it's like when you get up and your leg has gone to sleep -- you have no feeling in that legs. What he does is he puts the little sheep between his legs, so he holds him up, and then he starts massaging his little legs until he brings circulation back into the sheep's legs so it can join the flock again.

That's what the shepherd thinks of when he thinks of restoring my soul. Now we put that across into the spiritual lesson and we said that oft times life turns us upside down spiritually. We have these tragic moments, we have these experiences and it seems again that God has deserted us and doesn't want anything to do with us; and as a result, we just flail our little spiritual legs and getting nowhere. And oft times we learned that Satan comes to us and says God doesn't love us anymore and that's why He's departed. And we have this sense that when we've missed it spiritually and when we're cast, when were upside down spiritually, God doesn't care. But what we learned: that it's cast sheep that get the most attention from the shepherd. Because that's who is looking for all day long

That's why Jesus tells the story about the shepherd who leaves his ninety and nine and goes looking for the one, because he's concerned about the sheep that is cast or lost. And thus, in the Scriptures this beautiful, beautiful truth that God comes searching for those, those that are cast down, those that are spiritually not making it and are losing their way. The shepherd comes and he restores us.

Now we come to the one today. And I note there that we have now considered some of the themes of the Psalm, but today we want to dwell on the phrase, He leadeth me in paths of righteousness.

The shepherd tells us that sheep are notorious creatures of habit. If left to themselves, they will follow the same trails until they become ruts. They will graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes. They will pollute their own ground until it is corrupt with disease and parasites. Many of the world's finest sheep ranges have been ruined beyond repair by over-grazing, poor management and indifferent or ignorant sheep owners.

And a commonly held, but serious misconception about sheep is that they can get along anywhere. That's not true for no other class of livestock requires more careful handling, and more detailed direction, than do sheep. As a city boy I'm learning a lot about sheep from the shepherd. We're told that there's no other animal that requires so much attention as a sheep.

Because of the behavior of sheep and their preference for certain favored spots, these well-worn areas become quickly infested with parasites of all kinds. The shepherd tells us that after the sheep has eaten the foliage, they'll eat the stem. Once they've eaten the stem, they'll eat the root; and once they've eaten the root, they'll eat the dirt around the root. They'll absolutely destroy any possibility of any further vegetation from that site.

So he notes that the greatest single safeguard which a shepherd has in handling his flock is to keep them on the move. In a word-there must be a pre-determined plan of action, a deliberate, planned rotation from one grazing ground to another in line with right and proper principals of sound management. Now that is interesting.

That's why the psalmist says He leadeth me in the right paths, because if He doesn't lead us we are creatures of habit and we have a tendency to want to do the same thing. We dig our ruts, and as a result, over a period of time they lose all their spiritual nourishment for us.

Let's stop here for a moment because this truth really comes home to me as an under-shepherd, under Christ. One of the secrets to pasturing is to keep your flock on the move. Now that's interesting. So over the years I've found that as a pastor by must continually seek to find new paths and ministries that refresh and strengthen our flock. I'm constantly saying, God, is there a new ministry we can develop in the church, is there some segment of our community that we're not touching? Are there some new areas that can challenge us in ministry?

Because if you don't keep your flock on the move they get caught in a rut. And you know what a rut is -- it's a grave with both ends extended. And I feel that many, many times we have tendencies as even Christians, we want to go back to the same feeding ground, the same thing over and over again. People don't like change, neither do sheep. You've got to lead them out of the bad pastures.

So many times we've had to depart from patterns and programs that became ineffective, and many times, this has been disturbing to persons who dislike change. Over the years we've had to say, look at, this is not working. We've run this one into the ground. Let's go find something new. Let's find a new area of ministry. Let's research this. Let's find some new spiritual pastures. Let's keep moving on, but what I've found that oft times change is unacceptable by a lot of people in the congregation, or some in the congregation; and you make your change, and they want to go find where the rut is so they can stay in the same rut.

I talked with a Lady the other day. I said, I've been missing you and church. She said, yeah, I don't like your music. I said, I'm sorry. What you like? She said, just give me three hymns on the organ, that's all I want. And I was thinking about the sermon -- we're so much like that. We have a tendency to select certain patterns and we don't like change. This is true spiritually and we become stagnant, and in our stagnation we start to disintegrate spiritually, and ultimately our Christianity becomes not exciting at all. Isn't it interesting how much like sheep we really are.

But haven't done it this way before, Pastor, is frequently the response to a new direction in the ministry of our church. We're just like sheep. Let's keep feeding on the same old fields. Let's keep doing it the same old way is done in the 'good old days'. I think if we lived back in the 'good old days' we'd long for some 'good old days' before the 'good old days'. People are always referring to the 'good old days' -- we're in them.

Let's use as an example: the style of music. Just the good old hymns say some, none of this contemporaries stuff. And I make a confession here in my notes, music that made me uncomfortable a few years ago now blesses my heart with joy and I'm glad that we've ventured into some new pastures of music. If you were in church here ten years ago, we're an entirely different congregation in terms of music. You see, I'm an exceedingly square person, but God gave me a wonderful son, Leighton, and he stretches me. He knows I need to be stretched, because he knows as an older person you have a tendency to hang on to the old ways.

And God bless Leighton he's changed our music, and what used to almost scare me, now I'm beginning to enjoy it. What I'm suggesting is if we spiritually as individuals, as sheep, if we're not moving on, if we just got caught in a rut and we're just doing the same old thing day in and day out, we grow spiritually stagnant: and ultimately, spiritually ineffective. And the shepherd knows if I don't keep those sheep moving they haven't got the sense enough to move on themselves. And they'll eat the dirt around the roots and ultimately die of parasites.

When I read that line in Dr. Keller's book I thought, boy, that really says a lot to me. If are going to keep the church flourishing and the flock growing in their love for Christ and in their service in the kingdom of God, you've got to keep new pastures before them.

So, the other day I had some men come to me. I've been praying for years -- I said, God, here we've got these colleges; we've got Skyline up here, we've got San Francisco State, we've got CMS -- we're surrounded. Canada -- we're surrounded by colleges, and yet I look across my congregation and say, I've got few college kids in this congregation out of the hundreds and hundreds that come. So I say, God, help us create a new pasture of which college and university kids will find an answer to their searchings. But to do that God, You've got to send us some leadership. You've got to give us people who really understand the need of university kids.

Ten years ago we started working with David Ilyin who guided our Bible colleges in Siberia and Kieve. But David is home now because he's doing his Masters worker over at the University in administration. So David is a part of our team now. We sent Tuese to the Hawaiian Islands five years ago to work in the universities there, under YWAM, and now he's back a part of our team here. And Mark Cox who's been teaching high school over here in one of the high schools, a very favorite teacher, after many years just has fallen so much in love with Jesus, he stopped teaching some of his classes there and he's spending the rest of his time working here.

And now I've got Mark, and David, and Tuese, and Rick, and these guys understand the college mentality and they have a heart beat for these kids. They have put together a program. They said, Pastor, we'd like to take over Sunday night, the first and the third Sunday nights of the month. Well what are you going to do? Well we want to create a program that will really excite the college and university students. What are you going to do? Well you just let us do it. But I know these guys; they love Christ with all of their hearts, their spiritually mature guys, and I have enough confidence to say, it's yours.

So they created what they call 'Catch the 502'. At 5:02 on Sunday evening two weeks from now this is going to become a place, a new pasture for college and university students. The other day I came in here and they had things stretched all over the auditorium. I said, what are you doing? They said, we're getting ready for 502. We're changing the whole auditorium, Pastor. They said, also we're going to turn in the mall into a Starbucks cafe. Kids when they finish here on Sunday night they all go down to Starbucks anyway. We'll just put Starbucks right out here. We're going to make this the center for kids to sit and talk. I said, yeah, that's a good idea. You see, I'm stretching too -- getting out of some old ruts.

And I say this to tell you if our church is constantly on the move, seeking to find spiritual pastures for new parts of our community where we can minister, where we conserve as people, where we can see people come to Christ, the congregation will always be alive and vibrant. Remember the shepherd, to have a flourishing flock, must keep the flock on the move.

Now this is true spiritually, folks. Some of those have not grow spiritually because we've not ventured out into new avenues of service, we've not joined new Bible classes, new groups were we could grow spiritually, and as a result we get in a spiritual rut. And it doesn't take very long for Christianity to lose all of its excitement when you're in a rut. It's when you're growing, it's when you're on the move, it's when you're learning to serve Christ, and when you're growing in your knowledge of Him and when you're involved and you're a part of something that's touching the lives of others; then, Christianity is exciting and the flock is flourishing.

Now I want you to notice something. What he's saying to us, he leadeth me, if I'll let him, in paths of righteousness. Well what's righteousness? Righteousness is doing what is right before God and right with my fellow man. So if I stay close to the shepherd, he's going to give me a quality of life that brings joy to the heart of my shepherd and respect and love for those around me. That's the pathways of righteousness. Doing what's right consistently before God and before man. And I can only do that if I stay close to the shepherd.

Now look at what happens. If I stay close to the shepherd and I allow him to lead me in paths of righteousness, look at what happens: The righteous are surrounded with divine favor. For Thou Lord will bless the righteous with favor wilt Thou encompass him as with a shield. The righteous enjoy peace and quietness and assurance.

Isaiah says, and the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. The righteous are blessed with prosperity. Say to the righteous that it shall be well with him for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Isaiah 3.

The righteous experience deliverance from affliction. Psalm 34 says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth them out of them all. The righteous have enlightened minds and glad hearts. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart. And the righteous are never forgotten. It says the righteous shall be an everlasting remembrance. And the righteous are constantly guarded, the Bible says, for the eyes of the Lord our over the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers.

So if we're walking close to the shepherd, doing what is right in the sight of God and right with my fellow man, I'm going to have divine favor, I'm going to have peace, I'm going to have quietness, prosperity, deliverance from affliction, my mind is going to be enlightened, my heart is going to be happy, I'm not going to be forgotten, and God is always waiting to listen to what I've got to say in my prayers -- when I'm walking, following in the paths, of righteousness for His name's sake.

A good shepherd wants to make sure he gets all of his flock home, and our good shepherd wants to make sure he gets all of us home. So ladies and gentlemen, the only pathway that will get us to heaven is the pathway of righteousness -- doing what's right with God and right with my fellow man, and ultimately that pathway leads right into the presence of God. Amen?

Father, thank you for our time together. Thank you for this wonderful congregation, so attentive. And I pray that all of us will stay close to You, good shepherd. We have a tendency to want to go our own ways, they always lead us from You because of the very nature of our hearts, but we want to stay close to You. We want to walk close paths that are right, doing what pleases You dear God, and what honors our fellow man. And ultimately, we're going to walk right into Your presence because that's where You're going to lead us forever and ever and ever and ever. Amen. God bless you all.