He Makes Me Lie Down
Tom Shrader expounds on Psalm 23:2, 'He makes me lie down in green pastures,' focusing on the four conditions a sheep requires for rest—freedom from fear, friction, pests, and hunger—and applying each to the restlessness of modern human life. Drawing on Philip Keller's work and several New Testament passages, Shrader argues that only the Good Shepherd can supply the peace, reconciliation, and sustenance that enable genuine rest. The sermon closes with a call to cast all anxiety on Christ from 1 Peter 5:7, grounded in the confidence that He cares personally for each believer.
“The only way to avoid failure is to do nothing, which is the greatest failure of all.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Psalm 23
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 53 min
Themes: rest, peace, anxiety, fear, trust, shepherding, provision, worry, struggling with anxiety, feeling restless, overwhelmed by life, new believer, searching for peace, dealing with fear, young adult, exhausted and burned out
Scripture: Psalm 23, Psalm 23:2, John 10:27, Psalm 27:8, Psalm 42:1-2, Deuteronomy 4:29, James 4:8, Psalm 63:1, Psalm 46:10, Isaiah 55:2, Jeremiah 15:16, 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 15, 2 Timothy 4, Matthew 6, Matthew 11:28-30, John 6:35, Isaiah 26:3, Psalm 119, 1 Peter 5:6-7, Hebrews 13:20
Theological Themes: pastoral care, soteriology, reconciliation, divine providence, sanctification, the good shepherd, casting anxiety on christ, spiritual rest
Full Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
On the insert, you'll see that there are some forty-four people who just completed a membership class, and we want to welcome you. These are always spread out through the course of the day. If anybody here in this room or on video over in the conference center is on this list — new members to the church — we'd ask you to stand so we can recognize you. Welcome. We're glad you're here. And again, a special welcome to those of you who are joining us for the first time.
Let me invite you to open your Bibles to Psalm 23. If you don't have a Bible with you, there should be a pew Bible nearby — that is page 401 — and we are working our way through the Twenty-Third Psalm. Psalm 23 is a passage of Scripture very familiar to many of you, even if you haven't been around church a lot. It is almost always associated with funerals. You'll go to a memorial service and someone will read the Twenty-Third Psalm, or you'll receive one of those cards with the person's information, and it'll be pre-printed on the other side: Psalm 23. But this is not a Psalm about dying. This is instruction for living.
Each and every time we gather together, we want to read this Psalm and be reminded of that truth. I encourage you through the week to hang with this Twenty-Third Psalm — take notes, meditate on it, and ask God to open your eyes to see what He has for you here.
The Text: Psalm 23
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I 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 have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
The Lord Is My Shepherd
It is important for us to keep in mind the very truth we looked at in week one, at the very beginning of this series. The Lord is my shepherd — the Lord, Yahweh, the God who created the earth, the planet, the universe, the God who not only creates but sustains, the all-knowing, all-powerful God. That God could easily be some sort of distant force, but He isn't, is He? The psalmist says He can be my shepherd — a personal pronoun. I can have a personal relationship with this Creator God. The God who creates the universe and sustains it is my shepherd.
That becomes the metaphor David uses here in Psalm 23 — the metaphor of sheep and shepherd. We have learned, and need to be reminded, that sheep have some characteristics, and they are not always very handsome and becoming characteristics. Sheep are not too bright. Sheep are essentially defenseless. Sheep are virtually incapable of caring for themselves. They are vulnerable to disease. They will wander around literally not knowing enough to come in out of the rain. David says: here is the metaphor. That is us. That is us. And God is the shepherd.
In that sheep-and-shepherd relationship, the shepherd is the one who provides for all the needs. It is the shepherd in whom the sheep find provision and security, safety and food and protection. Apart from that shepherd, there is no chance at all for the sheep to survive. The Lord is my shepherd.
Because the Lord Is My Shepherd
Last week we looked at the second part of verse 1: because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Because the Lord is my shepherd, all of these things are then true. He will make me to lie down in green pastures. He will lead me beside quiet waters. He will restore my soul. He will guide me and lead me through the valley of the shadow of death, and I have no reason to fear. Why? Because the Lord is my shepherd. He will provide the rod and the staff when necessary. He will discipline me. He will prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies — a picture of hope. He will anoint my head with oil — there is consecration. And because the Lord is our shepherd, our cup is overflowing. Goodness and lovingkindness follow us all the days of our life. Because the Lord is our shepherd, we will dwell in His house, and that relationship is eternal.
What David is communicating in "I shall not want" is not that there may never be times when we want or desire something. The essence of what he is saying is that because the Lord is our shepherd, we will not want any other shepherd. We will not try to be our own shepherd. We will not disregard the Lord as our shepherd in favor of some substitute. Because the Lord is my shepherd, I will have no desire for any other shepherd. It is in Him and Him alone that I will find my fulfillment. That is where I will turn for meaning and comfort — for rest and refreshment, healing and guidance, purpose and protection. I will find all of those from my shepherd and nowhere else.
We read this sentence last week from Max Lucado: "If your happiness comes from something you deposit, drink, drive, or digest, then face it, you're in a prison of want." That is an endless treadmill. We will never get off of it. We will never find satisfaction there. And so the point we made last week is that God — your shepherd — is greater than what you don't have.
The Shepherd Is Greater Than What You Have and Don't Have
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In that context, the shepherd is greater than what I don't have — greater than that promotion, greater than success, greater than whatever it is I may want. But I want to add something to this. Not only is the shepherd greater than what you don't have, the shepherd is greater than what you do have. The shepherd is greater than the cancer. The shepherd is greater than the broken relationship. The shepherd is greater than the rebellious child or the business challenge.
Here is the premise on which all of Psalm 23 builds: the shepherd knows each sheep individually and specifically. The shepherd knows exactly what you need to be safe and secure. The shepherd knows exactly what you as a sheep need to glorify Him in every situation, and the shepherd will meet that need. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He Makes Me Lie Down in Green Pastures
Verse 2: "He makes me lie down in green pastures." The picture here is not of a sheep grazing and drinking, but of a sheep at rest. Literally, He makes me stretch out in green pastures.
I confess that I don't know a thing about sheep. All I know is what I have read, and I have done a great deal of reading and research. It is remarkable that nearly every source discussing the 23rd Psalm raises almost all the same points.
One of those points is that frequently the best areas for raising sheep are in a dry, arid climate, like you might find in Palestine and the Middle East. There are fewer hazards of health or parasites in that dry climate. The problem, of course, is that green pastures do not naturally grow in a dry climate.
It is the shepherd who must go and find those areas, prepare the soil, plant the seed, nurture that seed, irrigate the land, and bring along the crop. It is the shepherd who must endure and perform tedious tasks with extraordinary skill that are incredibly time-consuming. Once those green pastures have been developed and identified, the pattern of a shepherd with his flock is to start the day in the most barren terrain and begin grazing there, taking the sheep to ever richer pastures so that by the heat of the day they are in as cool and shady an environment as they can possibly find. It is there that they will find their rest.
The Shepherd Is the Initiator
See it in verses 2 and 3: He makes me lie down. He leads me. He restores me. He guides me. Who is the "He"? God. It is significantly the role of the shepherd to prepare the pasture, to call the sheep, to cause them to lie down, and to lead them. He is the initiator.
John chapter 10, verse 27: "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand." All of this is the work of the shepherd. He is the one who seeks.
In Psalm 27, verse 8, God says, "Seek My face," and David responds, "I will seek Your face, O Lord." Psalm 42: "As a deer pants for the water brook, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?" There is this deep desire to seek God, and yet there is an irony in that. As I seek God and find God, what Scripture tells me is that all along it was Him who was seeking me. He is the hound of heaven who relentlessly pursues His sheep. He is the one who initiates relationship.
Cultivating a Relationship with God
A.W. Tozer writes this: "God is a person, and as such can be cultivated as any person can. God is a person, and in the depths of His mighty nature, He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as other people may. God is a person and can be known in increasing degrees of intimacy as we prepare our hearts for the wonder of Him."
Begin to think about a relationship with God in terms of a human relationship. Think about that person with whom you have a good, solid, deep, intimate relationship. How did you cultivate and nourish that relationship? You spent time with them. You communicated with them. You were open and honest with them.
So what does it mean for us? God communicates to us through nature — we can look around and see that there is a God — but God's principal way of communicating to us is through His Word. For us to seek God means to spend time in this Word. Deuteronomy 4:29: "If you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him. If you look for Him with all your heart and all your soul, you will find Him." James 4:8: "Come near to God, and He will come near to you." Psalm 63:1: "O God, You are my God, I earnestly seek You."
The Noise That Keeps Us from Hearing
Augustine asks the question: in a crowd, it is difficult to see God. At some point, I have to get away from the noise.
Susan and I were watching college football on Saturday. I love college football — I love the band, I love the crowd, I love everything that goes with it. But I kept saying to her, "Can you hear the announcer? I cannot hear him." It seemed to me that whoever was mixing the broadcast was bringing in so much of the band, so much of the crowd, so much of the ambient sound, that the announcer was completely lost in it. And then the same thing happened again on Sunday.
The Noise That Drowns Out God
Sometimes I can have so much going on in my life that God can be speaking and I cannot hear Him because I have all this other noise mixed in. God is right there. God is communicating through His Word, through His Spirit, through other people, through circumstances. But I have so much going on in my life that I am distracted and I cannot hear Him.
Scripture says, "Seek me. Come after me. Study, read, ask, pray. Spend time with me. Spend time with my people. I want to have relationship with you. Seek me and you will find me." That is the promise He gives. "Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest fare. Give ear and come to me. Hear me that your soul may live" — Isaiah 55:2. And Jeremiah 15:16: "When your words came to me" — what a great picture — "I ate them." I devoured this Word.
Here is God's command in Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God."
He Makes Me Lie Down
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures." Again, this is not a picture of grazing and feeding, but literally He allows me to stretch out, to relax. This is about rest.
My suspicion is that you and I live in perhaps the most restless culture at any time in the entire history of the world. Consider these statistics. There is something that afflicts 70 million Americans and has been faulted for 38,000 deaths each year. Its annual cost in U.S. productivity is $70 billion. Teens suffer from it — studies show 64% of teens blame it for poor school performance. Middle-agers face it — research says the most severe cases occur between ages 30 and 40. Senior citizens are afflicted by it — some studies suggest the condition impacts 50% of all people over age 65. Treatments involve anything from mouthguards to herbal teas to medicine. We are talking about insomnia.
Somebody has calculated that 30,000 tons of aspirin, sleeping pills, and tranquilizers are consumed every day. We cannot rest. Max Lucado offers this: were we to invite an alien to solve our problem, he would suggest a simple solution — everybody go to sleep. We would laugh at him. He does not understand the way we work. Literally, he does not understand the way we work. We work hard. There is money to be made, degrees to be earned, ladders to climb. In our book, busyness is next to godliness.
We idolize Thomas Edison, who claimed to live on 15-minute naps, and somehow forget to mention Albert Einstein, who averaged 11 hours of sleep a night. In 1910, the average American slept nine hours a night. Today we sleep seven, and we are proud of it. But because of it, we are tired. Our minds are tired. Our bodies are tired. And most importantly, our souls are tired.
Before the first service this morning, I was over in the conference center and there was a little girl there. I asked how old she was and she said 12 or 13. I asked how she was doing and she said she was tired — having no idea what I was going to talk about. I decided not to use her as an illustration during the first service when she was here, but now we can. She said she had a class that required her to be at school every morning at 6:30. We see it all over, don't we? Whether it is work, school, climbing, scratching, clawing — always more.
The One Creature That Cannot Rest
Interestingly enough, there is only one other creature on the planet besides humans that has trouble resting. Not dogs, not bears, not cats. Most animals know how to rest. There is only one exception. These are woolly creatures, simple-minded and slow — not husbands on Saturdays, but sheep.
Sheep cannot sleep unless everything is absolutely right. It is impossible for a sheep to lie down and rest unless all conditions are met. Philip Keller, in his book *A Shepherd Looks at the Twenty-Third Psalm* — which I would recommend to you, and there are three or four classics on the subject, including a work on the Twenty-Third Psalm by Max Lucado as well — outlines four things, four requirements that must be met for a sheep to rest. Interestingly enough, there is great application to your life and mine.
Let me give you the four and then we will come back and break them apart. First, there must be a total freedom from fear — sheep are very timid animals. Second, there must be freedom from friction with others of their own kind, a social rest among the flock. Third, there must be freedom from pests — flies and parasites. Fourth, there must be freedom from hunger. For a sheep to lie down and rest, there must be freedom from fear, from tension, from aggravation, and from hunger.
Sheep — and I will say humans too — seem to be almost perpetually, chronically discontent, agitated, and disturbed. And as it is with sheep, so it is with us: only the shepherd can provide these freedoms. We can try to provide them on our own, but we cannot. Let us break them apart.
Freedom from Fear
First is freedom from fear. Sheep are easily spooked. A flock of sheep can be sent right into a stampede simply by a rabbit sprinting across the path of one of them. The slightest suspicion — the presence of a dog or a wolf or any sort of enemy — and the sheep simply cannot relax. The only solution is the presence of the shepherd. Philip Keller, who was a shepherd himself —
Freedom from Fear
Phillip Keller writes about a time when his sheep were being attacked by rustlers and wild animals. Here is what he writes about one particular incident: "From then on I slept with a rifle and a flashlight by my bed. And at the slightest sound of the flock being disturbed, I would leap from bed and, calling my faithful collie, dash out into the night, rifle in hand, ready to protect my sheep." He then makes this observation: "In the course of time, I came to realize that nothing so quieted and reassured the sheep as to see me in the field. The presence of their master and owner and protector put them at ease as nothing else could do. And this applied both day and night."
For you and me, there needs to be the steady reminder that the Shepherd is present in our life. That presence is the foundation of freedom from fear. So we must ask the question: what are you afraid of?
What Are You Afraid Of?
Over the course of the last two decades, I have had dozens and dozens of opportunities in small group settings to have this discussion. I will open it up, ask what people are afraid of, and it is amazing to me — I hear exactly the same six or seven things every time.
The first thing I always hear stunned me when I first encountered it. About ten years ago, the Champions Tour was in town, and I was leading the Bible study. There was a fellow there who was an incredible golfer — he had won a whole bunch of majors. I asked what people were afraid of, and sitting next to him, his wife answered. Another wife said the same thing: rejection. "I am afraid of rejection. I am afraid of loneliness."
Some of you would identify yourselves as people pleasers. You won't deal with the tough things in life. You won't tell somebody the hard truth, and you don't want to hear it either, because you don't want to experience rejection. So you put on a facade and play a game, and there is no rest for you because you are always pretending.
This fear of rejection manifests itself in a variety of ways. Some people become quiet and passive — but it is really passive aggressive. And some of the men I know who carry the biggest swagger, who try to project an air of total self-sufficiency, are in fact nothing more than frightened boys hiding behind that facade. But here is the truth of it: every human with whom you have a relationship will, ultimately and eventually, in some way — deliberately or not — disappoint you. That is simply part of being a person. But the Shepherd won't. The Good Shepherd won't. The Lord is my Shepherd. "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you."
Facing Our Fears One by One
Someone will say, "I am afraid of death." Jesus died — why did He die? To put an end to the agony of death. Others will say, "I am afraid of financial difficulties." We looked at this last week in Matthew chapter 6: do not worry about what you are going to eat, what you are going to wear, or where you are going to live. Why? Because God will take care of that. This is not a call to be ambivalent, and it is not a license to stop working. It is a call to trust that God will take care of those things, freeing you to give your attention to bigger things. What are those bigger things? "Seek first His kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you."
Some people are paralyzed by failure. One of the things I have learned to accept in my own life — and to understand as an inevitable part of living — is failure. I have discovered that the only way to avoid failure is to do nothing, and doing nothing is the greatest failure of all.
I remember listening to John Wooden one night after a game where UCLA had dominated a team they were expected to beat by twenty points — and beat them by twenty. A reporter asked Coach Wooden for his thoughts on the game. He said, "We didn't have enough turnovers." That seems like an odd comment, but what he meant was this: they didn't have any turnovers because they were never truly trying anything. They knew they could win, went out, and never really played the game. Thomas Aquinas said it this way: "If the main objective of the captain is the safety of the ship, he'll never take it out of the harbor." I am not talking about recklessness — I am talking about calculated, understanding risk. Failure is never fatal and never final.
The Usefulness of the One Who Failed
Second Timothy chapter 4 finds Paul dying, aware that death is near. He writes to Timothy: "Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark, bring Mark with you, for he is useful to me for service." Why is that significant? This is the same Mark who was at the center of a controversy between Barnabas and Paul. Barnabas wanted to bring Mark on the second missionary journey, but Mark had bailed out on the first one, and Paul said he did not want him along. These two wonderful friends actually separated over this young man. Yet at the end of his life, Paul says, "Bring him here" — because he is useful for service. Do not be afraid of failure.
Here is something else I have observed, and it may sound particularly male, though I think it is deeply human: a fear of insignificance — the fear that at the end of your life, it simply will not have mattered that you lived. Peter writes, "Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will exalt you at just the right time." For us to truly rest, there must be a freedom from fear.
The Shepherd's Most Frequent Command
What are we afraid of? All of those things — but in broad terms, we are afraid of surprises, the unexpected, the unknown. The most frequent prohibition Jesus gives us in the New Testament — what He tells us not to do more than anything else — is this: do not be afraid. And it is a scary world.
I got in the car Thursday morning to drive up to PL, and the six o'clock news came on. The very first story was —
He Makes Me Lie Down
There is no shortage of reasons to feel afraid. One morning I heard three news stories back to back. The first was about a man infected with highly contagious tuberculosis who had made 76 trips from Mexico into the country and back. The minute I heard it, I thought, I can feel it — I know I have it. The second story was that Iran is developing nuclear capability, and the president suggested it could lead to World War III. The third story was that Georgia is running out of water.
Now, I tend — and I am not happy with this about me — I tend to be a guy who sees the cup as half empty. Those are three very good stories that, when you put them together, give you every reason to drive back home and go back to bed. Then that night I was watching the news, and they were talking about schools in the state of Maine giving birth control to 11-year-old girls. This is absolutely insane. And more alarming than the policy itself was that they were interviewing what seemed to be relatively normal people who saw no problem with it, under the argument that an 11-year-old is going to have sex anyway.
When you hear these things, I know how Christians tend to think — your flinch is to run from that culture. Do not run from that culture. Engage that culture. Some of you need to be running for school boards and state legislatures. Those of you who are students and parents need to be engaged in schools and at every level. There are all sorts of reasons, humanly speaking, to be fearful, but here is what I know: whatever those things are, the Shepherd has them under control. The Shepherd will handle that. I can rest. That is the freedom from fear.
Social Behavior in the Flock
Here is the second thing that keeps sheep from lying down: social behavior. Chickens have a pecking order, cattle have what is called a horning order, and sheep have what is called a budding order. In virtually every flock there will be one — and one author describes her this way — an arrogant, cunning, domineering old ewe that will boss any of the others around. Keller, writing of his own flock, puts it this way: "Because of this rivalry, tension, and competition for status and self-assertion, there is friction in the flock. The sheep cannot lie down and rest in contentment. Always they must stand up and defend their rights and contest the challenge of the intruder."
He goes on: "Hundreds and hundreds of times I have watched an old ewe walk up to a younger one, which may have been feeding contentedly or resting quietly in some sheltered spot. She will arch her neck, tilt her head, dilate her eyes, and approach the other with a stiff-legged gait — all of this saying in unmistakable terms, move over, get out of my way, give ground or else. And if the other ewe does not immediately leap to her feet in self-defense, she will be butted unmercifully." That produces continual friction within the flock. The sheep become edgy and discontent, they grow irritable, they lose weight, and they will not rest.
The antidote is the presence of the shepherd. They say that the minute the shepherd arrives, the sheep begin to relax and the friction goes away. It is not hard to apply that to our own lives. Turf wars. Competition. Jealousy — I want what you have. Envy — I am sick that you have it. We are driven by competition, and we seem to be incessantly competitive over the slightest things.
One of the most frustrating experiences in my world is playing cards with Susan. Here is why: she does not care who wins. This is incomprehensible to me. I cannot imagine why we would even get the cards out of the deck. We are smart enough now that we are never partners, because I simply cannot handle it. She will make a move and I will say, "Sweetheart, I just want you to understand..." and she will say, "Oh, it doesn't really matter." Oh, it matters. That is my point — it matters. But why does it matter?
Let me tell one of my favorite stories about Susan, because Susan is like this little saint and I always come out as the bad end of it. It was the kids' first swim meet. Haley was five, Sarah was probably seven. We were driving over, and all the way there Susan was saying to me, "This doesn't really matter. It's not about winning. This is just for fun." I said, "Okay, got it — doesn't really matter." So we are sitting there at the lakes, and Haley is up first in the minnow heat. The starter says, "Swim to your box. Get set. Go." Haley hits the water, and right next to me Susan leaps to her feet screaming, "Come on! Come on! Let's go! Hurry up! Go! Go! Go!" And I am thinking — well, it doesn't really matter. It's not competitive. There were about eight girls swimming, and Haley finished fifth, but the official gave her sixth. Susan said, "No — she was fifth." And I said, "Susan, it doesn't matter."
Isn't that funny? We tend to want our own way. That is why when God describes love in 1 Corinthians 13, the core of the whole thing is that love does not seek its own. And as Paul writes in Romans 15, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with one another. Usually at the core of our failure to do that is pride.
The Flies, the Ticks, and the Oil of the Spirit
Here is the third thing that keeps sheep from resting: sheep will not lie down if there are flies, fleas, and ticks around. These pests make it nearly impossible for them to settle down, and the only cure is diligent, meticulous care from the shepherd — a great deal of time, careful work, and expensive oils and chemicals applied to the flock. Now, the moment I mention oil, the picture that comes to mind is that of the Holy Spirit. One author writes: "This is one of the main functions of the gracious Holy Spirit. In Scripture we often see Him symbolized by oil — by that which
The Holy Spirit as Our Comforter
The gracious Holy Spirit makes real in me the very presence of Christ, and He brings quietness and serenity and strength and calmness in the face of frustration and futility. He brings healing and comfort and relief from the harsh and abrasive aspects of life. Jesus said, "I am going to leave you another, a helper, a comforter."
The Small Agitations That Steal Our Rest
When I read about fleas and flies and ticks, I applied that to my life, and here is what I determined: I handle the big things pretty well. When I was in the hospital being prepped, the nurse came in and said her hands were cold. I said I didn't care if they were cold, and she began asking me question after question — are you allergic to this, are you allergic to that — and I told her the only thing I have ever responded violently to is a rapid succession of endless questions.
She asked me what my pain tolerance was, so I turned to Susan, who said she would put it in the middle. I told her I wanted to think about that question, because I think pain tolerance is determined by the type of pain it is. The nurse said I was overthinking it and to just give her a number from one to ten.
As I was working through this lesson, I found myself asking: what is my aggravation tolerance? I think I do really well with the big things. I think I handle the cancer diagnosis and those major challenges well. But I do not do so well with the flies and fleas and ticks — I do not do so well with a red light, or a broken pool pump, or a barking dog, or when you go to Sonic and order a double cheeseburger with ketchup only, and when you get home they have given you one cheeseburger with everything on it, including onions that have now polluted the whole sandwich.
As long as there are those agitations in the sheep's life — and again, they are bugs and parasites — the sheep will never rest. As long as they are present in our lives, we will not rest either. The only way for the sheep to find relief, or for us to find relief, is in the shepherd. I am almost embarrassed by the fact that I have to turn over something as small as stopping at red lights to God, but I do. I have to say, I need perspective desperately on this red light, on this pool pump.
The Shepherd Provides for Our Hunger
Here is the fourth thing: sheep will not rest if they are hungry. Experts say that a sheep will put on a hundred pounds of weight in a hundred days in the right environment — as long as they are not hungry, as long as there is a pasture, as long as there is food. Again, it is God who comes along and says, "I will be your shepherd, and I will provide for you all that you need in life."
John 6:35 — Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall not hunger. He who believes in Me shall not thirst." You drink of ordinary water, as Jesus told the woman at the well, and you will thirst again. But you drink of Him, and you will never thirst again. We are just like the sheep — we are never going to find rest if there is fear in our life, or friction, or annoyance, or hunger.
Keeping Our Minds Fixed on God
Isaiah 26:3 says, "You will keep him in perfect peace, he whose mind stays on you." Now there is an appropriate fear to have — a fear of the Lord, a reverential awe of God and who He is. But for us, that fear is not a cowering in a corner. It is an understanding of God and who He is. That is why the psalmist says in Psalm 119 that he will meditate on God's Word day and night as he begins to live life.
I do not want to in any way minimize what we go through. Life is scary, and there are a lot of unknowns and unexpected turns and agendas that get flipped upside down. What I need in those moments is to immediately refocus.
Come to Me: Rest Found in Christ
Let me take you through a couple of passages of Scripture. Come to Matthew chapter 11 — if you have a pew Bible, when you reach the New Testament the page numbering restarts, and Matthew 11 is on page 9. Jesus is speaking in verse 28: "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
At the core of this passage is the idea of a person internally striving to please God, and it encompasses both salvation and the ongoing life of following Him. Here is the distinction that matters: you have biblical Christianity, and then everything else — and I do not care what it is — goes in one box, and that box is religion. Religion is simply me trying and trying and trying on my own to somehow please and satisfy a holy, righteous God as a way of making sacrifice for my sin, and that is impossible to do.
"Come to Me, all who are weary" — that word weary is internal. It is the idea of working to the point of exhaustion. I am utterly spent trying to please God on my own. The second phrase, "heavy laden," indicates something being placed on me from outside, a load that is dumped on top of me. That is the picture of religion — internally, me striving to please God; externally, some system of religion coming along and throwing one thing after another on top of me. Do this. Don't do that. If you do this, then do that. Jesus says in the face of all of that: come to Me.
Finding Rest in Christ
If you are here today and did not take communion because you would honestly say you are not a follower of Christ, the one place and only place you are going to find rest is if you come to Him in repentance and faith. It simply means to acknowledge that you have sinned — and that should be easy to do, and my suspicion is we can find all sorts of empirical data to support that — to admit that you have sinned and that your sin has separated you from God. The only solution to that is Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Christ died for a specific purpose. He came for this reason: to save His people from their sins.
If you and I will come in repentance and faith, confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved. What does it mean to be saved? To be rescued or delivered. Delivered from what? The consequence of our sin. To remain in that state means we will be separated from God, not only through this life, but in eternal life as well.
Biblical Christianity is the only true solution to man's sin problem. Everything else — say it again — all the others, take them together, put a rope around them, tie them together — that is all other religions, and they are all the same. It is some version of you trying to please God, or you trying to bear up under some load that has been dropped on you by some religion. But Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." It is a picture of submission to Him — be connected to Him.
Casting Your Anxiety on Him
So I am working my way through life. I have a lot of tension and aggravation. What do I do with that? Turn to 1 Peter — if you have a pew Bible, it is on page 183. My Sunday goes like this: I try to get in here about five or five-fifteen, and by then the lesson is together and I am pulling it together and moving it around. I had the radio on, and they were doing a story today on the news — a series of stories — and one of them was on how to calm down under pressure. They were talking about anxiety relief: what do I do with the anxiety in my life?
Well, 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 6 says, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time." Verse 7: "Casting all your anxiety on Him." The word casting carries the idea of throwing something onto something else or someone else. So here is what Peter is saying: throw something. What is it? Anxiety. Let me read you what that word means. That word means and includes discontentment, discouragement, despair, questioning, pain, suffering, and whatever other trials you encounter.
Now get that picture — this is incredible. Take all of this anxiety. Take all of your discontentment, discouragement, despair, questioning, pain, suffering, and all these other things. Take it all and throw it on someone else. Cast all of your anxiety on Him, on Jesus. You do not have to bear them alone. You are but a sheep. He is the Shepherd. He bears those burdens. The rest of verse 7 tells us why: "Because He cares for you." I can take all that comes into my life — all of the fears, all the annoyances, all the disturbances, all the friction, all the people problems, all the physical needs, all the discouragement, all the discontentment, the despair, the questioning, the pain, the suffering — I can take them all and throw them on Him, place them on Him. Why? Because He cares. The Lord is my Shepherd. He cares for me. I have a relationship with Him.
Good News and a Little Bad News
Here is the good news and a little bad news — it always goes that way. The good news is you can cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. The bad news is that is going to stay entirely theoretical until you have anxieties to cast upon Him. Right now these are just words on a page until I begin to take them into my life. It is like a science class that has both a classroom and a laboratory.
Now here is the good news again. For some of you, you can get right at this right now because you have a whole bunch — let me read the list again — discontentment, discouragement, despair, questioning, pain, suffering right now, and you can turn them to Him. And I hear it when somebody says, "Just give it over to Him." What does that mean? It means I am trusting Him to deal with the situation. I am not looking to myself for a solution. I am not trying to bear up and be something superhuman — I cannot do that. I am resting in Him and Him alone.
Real Anxieties, Real People
You have it, and it is a whole variation of things. Some of you right now are paralyzed by some sort of job situation. I am meeting people all the time who, in many instances, have been out of work for three, four, five, six, seven months — a year. That is tough. It is very difficult. I met someone just this morning who said, "Can you pray for me?" — in the process of going through a divorce, abandoned by a spouse. You do not even get any deeper rejection than that. There you are. You have said better or worse, richer or poorer, forever — and here is this person who may know you better than anybody on earth, and they say, "I do not want to be with you anymore." That is rejection.
There may also be a rebellious child. Somebody has said — and it is so true — that once you have a child, it is like there is a little piece of your heart that is outside you walking around for the rest of your life. At any point in that relationship, you are vulnerable to hurt and pain. This does not mean that you and I are robots who somehow navigate our way through life and never experience any anxiety. It simply says that when anxiety comes, I cast it upon Him.
I think I have used this with you before: one of the meanings of that word casting is to deposit. And I have tried to say to God, I want to direct deposit —
Casting Our Anxieties on Him
Humble yourselves before Him under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you. For some of you — perhaps most of you — spending time this week in 1 Peter 5:7 might be exactly what you need. You can take all of those anxieties, all those things we've talked about, and place them on Him, because He cares.
You might be sitting here today saying, "Nobody cares." God does. "Nobody loves me." God does. "I'm all alone." You are not alone — not unless you choose to be. God loves you and cares for you.
The Shepherd's Rest
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures." This is a picture of rest that comes into our lives only as a result — not of what we as sheep can do, but only as a result of what the Shepherd does in our lives. Isn't that a great truth? So practical.
This does not mean an end to anxiety in our lives. It does not mean everything is going to be smooth — we know that is not the case. It means that in the midst of our trials and difficulties, God will not abandon us. He is there with us, He will give us the strength to endure, and beyond that, He will use those trials in a mighty and powerful way.
Benediction
Throughout this series we have ended each time together with a benediction, so I invite you to stand as we read from Hebrews chapter 13, verse 20.
"Now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus Christ our Lord, may He equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."