He Leads Me by Still Waters
Tom Shrader teaches from Psalm 23:2b, focusing on the six words 'He leads me beside quiet waters' as a picture of God's patient, personal provision for needy and dependent souls. Drawing on the imagery of sheep who fear moving water and must be led to still pools by their shepherd, Shrader shows that human beings instinctively seek satisfaction in false sources — broken cisterns — rather than in the living water found only in Christ. The teaching concludes with a corporate prayer and communion service, calling the congregation to active, humble dependence on God as the one true Shepherd who bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things on behalf of His people.
“The Shepherd is greater than what you don't have, but the Shepherd is greater than what you do have — He's greater than fractured relationships, greater than the cancer you have, greater than the rebellious child that's breaking your heart.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Psalm 23
Recorded: 2007 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 57 min
Themes: rest, dependence, provision, shepherding, living water, trust, communion, satisfaction, feeling spiritually dry, struggling with anxiety, seeking rest, new believer, burnt out pastor, recovering from illness, feeling lost, searching for satisfaction
Scripture: Psalm 23:1-6, Psalm 23:2, Isaiah 55:2-3, Jeremiah 15:16, Psalm 46:10, James 4:8, Psalm 63:1, James 1:2-4, Matthew 5:6, John 4:7-14, John 6:35, Revelation 3:14-20, Deuteronomy 4:29, Psalm 27:8, Psalm 42:1-2, Psalm 34:8, John 5:39, Jeremiah 2:13, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Proverbs 16:18, Hebrews 4:16, Philippians 4:6, Psalm 131, Psalm 86:11, 1 Corinthians 13:7, Matthew 18, Titus 3
Theological Themes: pastoral care, sanctification, living water, false idols, broken cisterns, divine provision, lord as shepherd, spiritual refreshment
Full Transcript
Opening Announcements and Prayer Request
I will not be here next Sunday, and I want to make sure you know that. I also want to encourage you through the day to be praying for those who are in Mexico — not just that they would have safe travel, though that is good and important, but also that God would use them in a significant way.
Psalm 23: Introduction
Psalm 23 is what we are studying, and I think God has us here in Psalm 23 at a wonderful time in our life. Let's read it together, and we are going to look at exactly six words today.
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures." Here are the words for today: "He leads me beside quiet waters" — or still waters. "He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths 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."
What the Psalm Provides
We said that the perfect Shepherd — the Lord, the Creator God — provides for us all that we see in this psalm. We should not want. We find supply, rest, refreshment, healing, and guidance. We find in verse 4 testing: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil." There is protection, for He is with me. There is faithfulness. He disciplines. There is hope. He consecrates us and sets us apart. Our cup runs over — there is abundance. There is goodness and mercy all the days of our life. He speaks of blessing, and He says we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There is security for all eternity.
As I read that, I am struck by the fact that He is the perfect Shepherd, and His desire is to take us — we who are sheep — and provide us all these things.
Human Shepherds and Their Limitations
Within the structure of the church there are also shepherds, but they are human shepherds. They are not the Lord, and therefore they make mistakes, errors in judgment, and sin — there is messiness. I want to take a moment and speak to last week and this week, if I can.
I have spent a great deal of time with staff this week in particular, soliciting not just their views and what they see, but really allowing them to help me understand what to communicate and how to communicate it today. Someone said there was a tsunami of confusion around last week, so I want to try to clarify that and put some context around it.
Clarifying Last Week: Gary's Status
It seems there were three huge areas of questioning. The first was: what is Gary's status at the church? Last week I think he spoke genuinely from his heart about the fact that he had resigned, and after some thought, prayer, and time with some leaders, decided to rescind that resignation and retain his position at least through the end of the year. During that important time he will take a sabbatical — to rest, refresh, and examine his and Robin's lives, to take whatever time they need, and at the end of that time the conclusion may be that this is where he needs to be, or that he needs to be somewhere else. It is a time where God can work, open eyes, and allow them to see things and answer questions about where he wants to be and what he wants to do. So Gary is on staff and continues to work on staff with that understanding. I think the Intel guys take a sabbatical every seven years — here you apparently get one every fourteen and a half years — so Gary takes his, unplanned.
Clarifying Last Week: Tom's Confession
The second area of huge confusion was: what sin was Tom confessing? I want to forgive him — but what has he done? If you are asking that question, then probably we are in an acceptable place. I say this not to trivialize it, but I've heard that I committed adultery and that I embezzled a million dollars. I don't want you to laugh and trivialize those things — I guarantee you that if it were something like that, this would be the last place they would allow me to be.
I felt in a pastoral moment that it was important — I was convicted — to come before you and share my heart and the struggles I have and continue to have. I want to share with you the things that are in my life: first, so you can be praying and working with me, but also in some sense of modeling. I want to tell you that God is working in my life, perhaps now as much as ever, and my intention and desire is to be more like Him. The huge struggle for me in that area is pride and humility — trying to find a self-reliant, humble heart.
I doubt it is a surprise to you that I could, in fact, often think too highly of myself. There is in my life a painful awareness of that temptation to be prideful, and I continue to battle with it. I am asking God to humble me, and I am asking the people around me to participate in that and to remind me continually. I have also learned a little this week about lessons — that we tend to be quick to judge behavioral sin but can minimize sins of the heart. While we may look at the outside, God looks at the inside, and that is what I am asking Him to do.
Serving, Giving, and Growing Together
On the receiving end of that harshness, I want to apologize to you, but also help you understand that this is an important process not just for me but for all of us. That is not to deflect responsibility from me, but to lead you through it. Perhaps the greatest question I have had is: what do you want me to do, and what do I do with all this that I am hearing?
Let me talk about a couple of things. I would love for you to understand that within the church, and church startup, and other things that are inevitably happening, there are going to be opportunities for you to serve. Maybe some of you are already serving, and you are going to see God present bigger opportunities — take them. Maybe you have sat on the sidelines for a while, and it is time to step up and serve. Someone in the staff meeting the other day said we used to talk a lot about come, learn, and serve, and we have not lately — so I am going to talk to you about that.
I would also ask you to examine your giving. You can see there are economic realities we want to deal with, and that is an important thing for you to look at — and again, oftentimes an indicator of your heart. Most importantly, I would ask you to join with me, and all of us really, as we ask God to deepen our love for Him and Christ's likeness in ourselves, that we would become and continue to be dependent upon Him, and that He would give us wisdom and discernment.
On Gossip and Division
If you hear things and rumors, I would ask you not to receive them, and even to rebuke those who are telling you such things. If you are someone who spreads gossip, rumors, and speculation, I would invite you to stop now, and I want to remind you of God's word on that — it is sin. It is interesting that in Matthew 18, God tells us that if a brother sins against us, we are to go to him, and there is a whole patient procedure outlined there. But in Titus 3, when He speaks about divisiveness, there is not nearly that same patience. He says to warn that person, and after that, it is finished — quick action is taken. That is not harshness. That is God saying, "I want to preserve the body."
Four Years of Change
I think it is important for you to understand this as we celebrated our sixteenth anniversary and I look back. For roughly twelve years, there were not many changes within the church. But about four years ago, we started looking at who we are, where we are, and perhaps what we want to be.
It really started as we began to look at worship styles — where we had said we would have one style and would not have others, and now we do. We also began to look at changes in church leadership: the role of elder and staff, the role of staff as we look to the future, and even a transition from me to the next generation of leadership. As we began to do that, these next words are really important. Godly men can disagree with all of that. They can disagree about how it ought to happen. That does not mean it is sinful. That does not mean it is sinister.
I think all the time of Barnabas and Paul, who looked at someone like John Mark and drew two very different conclusions, both based on their own perspective — and God used that different perspective in an incredible way. Godly men, elders, staff members, can look at the future, look at the present, look at change, and not like where things are or disagree about where we need to go or how we need to get there. That is not bad, and that is not sinful.
So as you look at the last four years and you have seen several men rotate off the elder board, seen resignations, and then this week Jim announcing he is resigning his position in children's ministry — you can try to connect dots and create something here that is more than is really here. I want you to hear this: there are godly men looking at the same things and arriving at different conclusions. That is my perspective. What can be sinful is our response to that, or our response to the response to that.
Love Bears, Believes, Hopes, and Endures
So I encourage you as we continue forward, because that question keeps coming — what do you want us to do? Let me read to you from 1 Corinthians chapter 13. You know that passage — it is the love chapter. Paul is dealing with the church at Corinth, and he is defining love. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous. It does not brag. It is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It does not keep score. But in verse 7, 1 Corinthians 13:7: "Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love endures all things."
I want to read you a paragraph on each one of those from John MacArthur's commentary, verbatim. On love bearing all things: basically it means to cover, to support, or to protect. Love bears all things by protecting others from exposure and ridicule and harm. Genuine love does not gossip or listen to gossip. Even when sin is certain, love tries to correct it with the least possible hurt or harm to guilty people. Love never protects sin but is anxious to protect the sinner.
When we were in a meeting this week, Jim Harper made a wonderful point. He said, "God, let us do what honors You most and hurts people least." What a great prayer. On love believing all things, MacArthur writes: in addition to bearing all things, love also believes all things. Love is not suspicious or cynical. When it throws its mantle over a wrong, it also believes the best outcome for the one who has done wrong — that the wrong will be confessed and forgiven and the loved one restored to righteousness. Love believes all things in another way as well: if there is doubt about a person's motive, love always opts for the most favorable interpretation.
Love Never Stops Loving
A loved one is accused of something wrong. Love will consider him innocent until proven guilty. If it turns out he is guilty, love will give credit to the best motive. Love trusts. Love has confidence. Love believes.
Love bears all things and believes all things. Love hopes all things. Even when belief in one's goodness or repentance is shattered, love still hopes. When it runs out of faith, it holds on to hope. As long as God's grace is operative, human failure is never final.
God will not take Israel's failure as final. Jesus would not take Peter's failure as final. Paul would not take the Corinthians' failure as final. There are more than enough promises in the Bible to make love hopeful.
Love bears all things, love believes all things, love hopes all things, and love endures all things. "Endures" is a military term used to describe an army holding a vital position at all costs. Every hardship and every suffering was to be endured in order to hold fast. Love holds fast to those it loves. It endures all things at all costs, stands against overwhelming opposition, and refuses to stop bearing or stop believing or stop hoping.
Listen to these five words — this is a great sentence: love never stops loving. When you are asking what you can do or how you should respond, there is your answer.
The Shepherd's Heart and Our Prayer
It is wonderful that God has us right in the middle of the Twenty-Third Psalm, where we learn about the great Shepherd and His love for us, and where we feel the weight of the responsibility we have as shepherds ourselves. With that in mind, let us pray as we dive into these six words.
Father, thank You that You are the perfect Shepherd, and as we fail, not only do we receive forgiveness, but we have love that bears and believes and endures and hopes. Remind us that true godly people can disagree and not be disagreeable or sinning. I pray for this church, and I pray that we would love it, but we will never love this church as much as You do.
Lord, like David, we cry: create in us a clean heart and a renewed, steadfast spirit. But do not take Your presence away from us — that wisdom that we receive from You. We anxiously wait as You restore the joy of our salvation and as You sustain us.
God, as we look at our life that is weak and frail and needy, may You turn us to You, the good Shepherd. Thank You that at this point in time You have us right here in Your Word. Where we might pursue other pastures, or try to find peace or answers somewhere else, or even restoration or healing somewhere else, remind us that we find it in You and You alone. We praise You and worship You in the name of Your Son, Jesus, the good and great Shepherd. In His name, Amen.
He Leads Me Beside Quiet Waters
We are going to look today at the six words that comprise the second half of verse 2: "He leads me beside quiet waters." We cannot look at those six words without first painting a context and a reminder.
The very first part of Psalm 23 declares that the Lord — the great God, Yahweh — is my Shepherd, a personal relationship. Because of that relationship, I can rest in Him, and everything else we talk about in this psalm is mine because of Him. And I am a sheep: needy and dependent.
Let me remind you of what we looked at in the first week. Sheep are not very bright — we used the word dumb. Sheep are defenseless and dirty and stubborn and always getting lost. They are prone to wander, and they are easily spooked, quickly falling into mob mentality.
Philip Keller tells of the day a visitor came to his flock with a chihuahua. Out came the dog, and it threw the entire flock into panic. That is us. We are needy, and God is not chastising us for our neediness. He is not angry because we are needy. He is angry only if we try to fulfill that need — satisfy that hunger and thirst — in anything other than Him.
We are lost and confused and helpless without a Shepherd, but the Shepherd provides all that we need. He knows exactly what we need and exactly the provision that will satisfy us in His way.
The Shepherd Is Greater Than Your Want
As we said in the first week, if your happiness comes from something you deposit, drink, drive, or digest, then you are a prisoner of want. But David says you do not need to want. Two statements stood out to me as wonderful: the Shepherd is greater than what you do not have, and the Shepherd is greater than what you do have.
He is greater than fractured relationships. He is greater than the cancer you have. He is greater than the rebellious child that is breaking your heart. He is greater than the father you never had, or the business challenge you face, or your job situation.
I do not know what it is in your life that you do not have, and I do not know what it is in your life that you do have. I do know this: the Shepherd knows each of you, and He wants to provide a safe and secure life for you — safe and secure in Him. That does not mean you will be without challenges, and it does not mean there will be no rough waters. Peace is not the absence of turmoil. It is God's presence in the midst of our life.
In the last two or three months, I do not know that I have ever heard of more sickness within the body — more cancers and kidney stones and all that goes with that. I am also hearing so much about an economy that is starting to get shaky, jobs that are tenuous, and incomes that are falling. Those are difficult places to be, yet as Larry Wright always said to me, he would never have chosen the arthritis or chosen the
The Shepherd Provides What We Cannot Find Ourselves
God uses hurt and weakness and pain so that He can overcome whatever it is in our life. Maybe it's that sense of self-sufficiency. Maybe you are not a proud, arrogant person by nature, but what you are is afraid. God allows these things to come into your life — the worst thing you can imagine becoming true — so that you can learn that you don't need to be afraid, because He's the Shepherd.
Because He's the Shepherd, and "I shall not want," verse 2 contains two things: He makes me lie down, and He leads me. The idea of lying down is to stretch out — to take nourishment, eat and drink and graze, in a peaceful setting that the Shepherd Himself provides. Sheep are by their nature timid, and if there is fear or friction within the flock, or pesty bugs and insects around them, or if they are hungry, they will never rest. They are a picture, a metaphor for us in our relationship with Him.
Listen to what God says: "Eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest fare. Give ear and come to me, hear that your soul may live." Isaiah 53, verses 2 and 3. Jeremiah 15:16 says, when Your words came, Jeremiah said, "I ate them" — that is where he found life, the bread of life. The overarching thought is Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God."
Active Waiting and Seeking the Shepherd
That stillness is not passive. We said last week that, at least for us corporately, we are going to set aside a time between now and Christmas to really go before the Lord and to seek His face. We said we are going to wait, and that waiting is not passive in its nature — it is an active waiting.
What does that mean? It means we are going to draw near to Him, and He will come near to you — James 4:8. Psalm 63:1 says, "O God, You are my God, and I will earnestly seek You." It is a time of seeking God and understanding that He is the Great Shepherd, and we are needy people. We shouldn't run from those needs, but thank God for those needs.
This is the idea I think James has in mind in James chapter 1 when he says, "Count it all joy when you encounter various trials." Why? Because the testing of your faith produces endurance. I am never going to have that spiritual endurance if I don't have that faith tested so that I can see God and who He is, and see Him work. We have said to you many times that those tests and trials are spiritual aerobics, where God tests us again and again so we can see Him and know of His faithfulness.
He Leads with Gentleness and Patience
Verse 2 contains two verbs — He makes us lie down, and He leads us — and both communicate a gentle, patient, persistent encouraging of those who hunger and thirst. There is a sense of slowness, a leisurely pace, tranquility, and satisfaction. He is not yelling at the sheep, "Get over here, come there." He is saying, "Watch out, be careful. I want to take you where I have been. I am there with you. I want to lead you."
He leads me, in verse 2, to lie down in green pastures, and He leads me beside still waters — quiet waters. One of the things I have read about sheep is that they are petrified, very timid of almost everything, but they are particularly afraid of moving water. A sheep standing next to a babbling brook will die of thirst. Out of fear, it will not drink that water. The shepherd leads them to still waters.
Remember, this is in a desert area like the area we live in. The sheep cannot find the pasture. The sheep cannot find the water. The sheep cannot find the satisfaction. We hunger and thirst, and Jesus says in Matthew 5, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst" — not because we will be satisfied in and of ourselves, or in the world, or humanly, but spiritually, in Christ. That is where we are satisfied.
So the shepherd not only knows where the green pasture is, but he can also take the living springs of water that scare the sheep as they move, and he will dig a trench or do whatever he needs to do to bring that moving water into a still, healthy, cool, refreshing pool where the sheep will drink.
The Living Water: John Chapter 4
In John chapter 4, there is the story of the Samaritan woman, and again the picture here is of thirst — Jesus using a physical truth to teach a spiritual truth. Verse 7: "A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink.'" The disciples had gone to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, since I am a Samaritan woman?" — for the Jews would have no dealings with Samaritans. Nor, we can add, would a man in this situation be talking to a woman at all. It is a very strange situation, and she responds to it accordingly.
Jesus said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." That phrase — living water — carried tremendous meaning. She said, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get this living water? You are not greater than Jacob, are you? He is the one who gave us this well."
The Living Water Jesus Offers
Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will thirst again, and whoever drinks the water that I give them will never thirst again. The water that I give them will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." When the woman at the well heard this, she said, "Sir, give me this water," and her life was transformed in that moment. Jesus also says in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not hunger, but he who believes in me will never thirst." That is what He is talking about when He speaks of hunger and thirst and accepting and drinking — an intimate, personal relationship with Him, that He is the Good Shepherd in your life and mine.
The metaphor of a physical sheep and a shepherd points to a spiritual truth in our lives. There is something that separates biblical Christianity from every other religion on earth, and it is this: biblical Christianity is about a holy God seeking His people. We see it in Genesis as early as the third chapter. The moment Adam sins, God cries out, "Where are you?" God begins to seek him. The hound of heaven is seen right there — pursuing, hunting His people, seeking you. God desires to be intricately involved in the life of His people individually and in the life of the church.
The Church at Laodicea
Turn from John all the way to the back of the book — Revelation, chapter 3. We are going to look at verse 14. This is in the context of Jesus addressing seven actual churches. There is a pattern: He identifies the recipient of the letter, then typically a strength of that church, then a weakness, then a call to action, and then closes with the idea of having ears to hear.
In the last church addressed — the church at Laodicea in Revelation 3:14 — that pattern is broken. There is no strength mentioned. Jesus seems to be particularly critical of this church. He says in verse 15, "I know your deeds that you were neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot, so because you're lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I'll spit you out of my mouth."
To understand that rebuke, you need to know the context of the city. Laodicea was a very rich city, known for banking, manufacturing, and an eye salve it produced to heal eyes physically. It was a medical center that trained doctors who would go all around the world. It was a master-planned community with one giant problem: it had no source of water within the city. Water had to come from as far away as six miles. There were hot springs and living springs in the area, but by the time the hot springs completed the journey and arrived at Laodicea, they were cool. The cold springs, by the time they traveled to Laodicea, were warm and tepid. The people were constantly spitting out their own water, and Jesus nails them and says, "You know how that water is — the water you don't like? That is how you are."
The Danger of Self-Sufficiency
The problem runs deeper than the water metaphor alone. Jesus says, "You are self-sufficient and self-deluded. You say you're rich and have become wealthy and don't need anything." That is the problem with pride, isn't it? Pride says, "God, I can do this on my own." That is everyone's temptation, especially if you have any level of giftedness at all.
Steve and Ingrid Davis were here during the first hour, and they have proven to be extraordinary in the way they counsel. One of the great temptations when you are good at counseling is that pretty soon you find yourself thinking, "God, I don't need You in the midst of this. I'll just counsel." Whatever the area of giftedness, the drift is the same: "I don't need anything." That is not where God wants you. God wants you to understand that you are like a sheep — needy and hurting, defenseless and prone to wander, easily deceived.
I have a gentleman who has become a good friend of mine, and his father is extraordinarily wealthy. Whatever the word "rich" means to you, multiply it by a great deal. We were talking one day, and I was marveling at how God had worked in my friend's life. I asked, "What does your dad think of all this?" He said to me, "My dad doesn't need anything. If he needs something, he can buy it or rent it or invent it. He's brilliant. He doesn't need anything." That is exactly where God does not want us.
Why does God allow hurt, pain, and trials? Why does He even allow us to deal with decisions we regret, with things we would do differently, with sin itself? Not to remind us that we are self-sufficient, but to remind us that we are totally dependent — that we need Him. Because when you say you are rich and wealthy and need nothing, you miss the truth. You do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
The Wretch the Song Is About
When I was at Cannon Beach doing a men's conference, I saw three t-shirts that I thought were incredible. I wrote them down on a piece of paper intending to share them with you, and I have since lost the paper. But one of those t-shirts said this: "I'm the wretch the song is about." That is a wonderful place to be — not to stay in that wretchedness, not to die there, but to understand that that is what God uses. Not those who say they are rich and wealthy and can figure it out on their own, but those who know their need.
He Leads Me by Still Waters
God is not looking for expertise, giftedness, or ability. He is looking for broken vessels. Revelation 3:20 says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me." The Greeks ate three meals a day: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Breakfast consisted of a piece of bread dunked in wine. Lunch was a snack eaten along the road — the way I think of it is like pulling into a drive-through window, ordering food that is gone before you can get back out into the street.
But dinner was the meal. It was the time when family and friends would sit together, talk, listen, and reminisce. They would dream about the future, pass along instruction, and wonder together. That is what Jesus has in mind in this verse. And He is speaking not in an evangelistic way — He is speaking to the church and the people within it. He is saying: I desire to be a part of your life. I want to be with you, to reminisce with you, to talk and listen and dream and instruct — but you have pushed Me out of your life.
Seeking God Actively
Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "If you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him. If you look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul, you will find Him." God seeks us, and yet we are not passive as we wait — we actively wait. Psalm 27 says, "My heart says of you, seek His face. Your face, O Lord, will I seek." Psalm 42, verses 1 and 2 says, "As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for the living God. Where can I go and meet God?" That is active waiting.
Psalm 63, verse 1 says, "O God, you are my God. I earnestly seek you." And Psalm 34, verse 8 says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." It comes again and again: be still, but know that I am God. Listen to Me. It is active waiting. And for us, it is a search for the Good Shepherd, Jesus.
In John 5:39, Jesus is speaking to the Bible students of His day — the Pharisees, the religious — and He says, "You study the Scriptures because you think in them they possess eternal life. No, these are Scriptures that testify of Me." We are sheep: needy, hungry, and thirsty. And the temptation is to find our own water.
The Muddy Pools We Stop At
What I have heard about sheep is that as the shepherd tries to move them toward the still water he has prepared, they will stop at muddy, contaminated pools and drink along the way. We do the same thing. We stop and try to find satisfaction for our hunger, thirst, and needs in things other than Him — in people, places, things, jobs, promotions, whatever they may be. And He says: no, those things are not wrong in themselves, but you are not going to find satisfaction there.
St. Augustine wrote these words: "O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our soul is restless, searching till we find You." As Phil Keller writes about Psalm 23 and the six words we are looking at today — "He leads me beside quiet waters" — he says that He alone knows where the still, quiet, deep, clean, pure water can be found that will satisfy His sheep and keep us fit.
I wrote this sentence the other day: that is the story of mankind — one of a never-ending search motivated by our inclinations and yearnings that cause us to pursue false gods and their inadequate and temporary happiness, as compared to the complete and eternal provision we find in the one true God. Seek God. You are His sheep. And sheep, by their very nature, are not very bright, are defenseless, and are needy. God says that is the perfect place to be — broken before Him, not proud, arrogant, and self-sufficient, but dependent upon Him. Wait and seek, but do not wait and seek passively.
Two Sins: Omission and Commission
Let me read a verse from the prophet Jeremiah and tie this together. He is delivering a message to the people of Israel, and he writes: "For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." That is Jeremiah 2:13. One commentator explains that the people of Israel made two mistakes — two sins.
The first is the sin of omission. They left out God. They forsook Him. We can so easily do the same — begin to prefer and choose false ways to fulfill our hunger and thirst. But their second sin is the sin of commission. It is not simply that they removed God and left a vacuum. Something has to fill that space, and they filled it with a false god.
The same commentator uses imagery that would have been clearly understood by the people of Judah. Jeremiah compared the nation's actions to someone who would abandon a spring of living, running water for broken cisterns — something no one in their right mind would do. The most reliable and refreshing source of water in Israel was her natural springs: dependable, clear, cool, and consistently satisfying. The contrast is the most unreliable water source imaginable — cisterns, large pits dug into rock and covered with plaster, used to collect rainwater. That rainwater was brackish and repulsive. If the rains fell below normal, the cisterns would run out altogether. And if the cistern cracked, it would not hold the water at all.
Here is the conclusion: to turn from a dependable, pure stream of running water to a broken, brackish cistern was idiotic — and yet that is exactly what the people did when they turned from God to idols. The Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
The Old Testament as Warning and Instruction
He leads me beside still waters. You and I are needy human beings — sheep who need a shepherd, and that shepherd is Jesus Himself. As I was putting this lesson together, there were all sorts of illustrations from the Old Testament, but the one from Jeremiah seemed to connect the most. Have you ever wondered why God gave us all this? Why did He give us the entire Old Testament? Why all these stories? There are a couple of reasons, but let us look at Paul's answer.
Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 1: "I do not want you to be unaware, brethren" — some of your translations may say "ignorant" — "that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and that rock was Christ." You do not have to wonder about the imagery here — that rock was Christ.
Here is the nation of Israel at a time of huge need, leaving Egypt and beginning to navigate their way toward the promised land, seeing God at work again and again. That is what Paul has in mind — all the things that God had done. Two million people began to wander and ask, "What are we going to eat? Where is the provision going to come from?" And God began to provide in miraculous ways. Manna came. Water came out of rocks. When they faced the Red Sea, God parted it. Again and again He worked in their lives. They were sheep in need of a shepherd, and the shepherd began to do His work — but they were prone to wander.
The Danger of Forgetting God's Provision
Look at verse 5: "Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness." That phrase "laid low" means to be strewn or spread over — there were corpses all over the wilderness. Again and again, after God would provide, after a short period of time they would forget His provision. They would become dissatisfied, and they would try to meet their own needs or turn to false gods.
Why did He give us all that? Verse 6: "Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved." We could be like that nation of Israel, moving through a desert land, prone to wander and vulnerable to false gods. Paul goes on: do not be idolaters as some of them were, turning religious ceremonies into a giant orgy and party. Do not act immorally as some did — God dealt with 23,000 in a single day. Do not test the Lord as some did and be destroyed by serpents. Do not grumble as some did and be destroyed by the destroyer.
"Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction." That word "instruction" carries more than the ordinary idea of teaching or disseminating information — it also means admonition and warning. These things are written for our warning. Verse 12: "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall." Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling."
The Danger of Self-Confidence
John MacArthur writes this: "Christians who have become self-confident become less dependent on God's Word, on God's Spirit, and become careless in their living. As carelessness increases, openness to temptation increases, and resistance to sin decreases. When we feel most secure in ourselves — when we think our spiritual life the strongest and our doctrine the soundest, our morals the purest — we should most be on guard and most dependent upon the Lord."
Paul is writing to the church at Corinth and saying, "I want you to learn from this. You are not immune." That is exactly what he says in the next verse, 1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man." There is a tendency to say, "Nobody has ever faced this before," and Paul says that is simply not the case. There is nothing new under the sun. That struggle in your life, whatever it is, there is nothing new there — it is common to man. That is part of why God allows you to go through it, so that you can be present in people's lives as they begin to process the same thing.
God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can endure. He will provide a way of escape. He is a good and great God. But the warning in the midst of all that is not to ignore the warning itself.
Pride Goes Before a Fall
I was listening to a message by Larry Wright the other day in which he was talking about counseling a man and his wife. This man had just had an affair. He was, by all accounts, a godly and spiritual man — very involved in church. And the man said to Larry that in his whole life he was pretty sure there were many things he could do, but he was very confident that there was no way he would ever have an affair. He was certain that would never happen to him. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling.
Grace for the Divided Mind
He leads me beside still waters. Most commentators, in discussing the ideas of green pastures and still waters, connect them to life and to worry. The word for "worry" in the Greek is a compound word meaning to have a divided mind. We need grace, and we find that grace in Christ — in Christ alone.
Hebrews 4:16: "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
Coming Boldly to the Throne of Grace
"Throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." That is from the New American Standard. Listen to the same verse from the New Living Translation: "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive mercy. We'll find grace to help us when we need it." Eugene Peterson paraphrases it this way: "Let us walk right up to Him and get what He is ready to give us, mercy and the help." Another paraphrase renders it: "Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy, and in His grace find help."
You and I are sheep — needy, confused, prone to wander. We get hungry and thirsty. We have a tendency to worry. And God says, don't do that. Stop it. Max Lucado writes this: "Here's the key. Meet today's problems with today's strengths. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You don't have tomorrow's strengths yet. You simply have enough for today."
Augustine's Hunger for God
We began by reading the words of Augustine: "O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our souls are restless and searching till they find rest in You." Augustine also writes, "I have tasted Thee. I have found You." But listen to his conclusion: "Now I'm hungry for You. I have an insatiable appetite for You. God, I can never get enough of You. You're what I need more than anything else."
He goes on to say that he will never understand God fully, completely, or entirely. We can learn from God's Word, but we must be careful even in that, because the Pharisees had become so proficient at studying Scripture that they thought there was life in the Scripture itself. Yet the life is in Christ — Christ who died for us — and it is the Spirit who lives in us who brings understanding and clarity and allows us to be still.
That is what David concludes in Psalm 131: "I have stilled and quieted my heart." Paul tells us in Philippians 4:6, "Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God."
The Lord Is Our Shepherd
This is what we want to be reminded of this morning — that the Lord is our shepherd, and because He is our shepherd, all of the things we have been talking about are present in our lives through Him. Rest and refreshment, supply and healing, guidance — it is all through Him. In life, self-sufficiency can easily creep in, or fear, and the answer to that so often is to humble ourselves before Him, and the way we do that is in prayer.
Why We Pray
Prayer is worship. Prayer is a wonderful picture of our dependence upon God. That is why we pray. We pray because God is in control, because He is all-powerful and all-knowing. We petition Him, and we acknowledge who He is. It is the old acronym ACTS — we Adore Him, we Confess our sin, we Thank Him, and we Ask Him to give us understanding and open our eyes to see things. For some of us, that means asking Him to take truths we already know in our heads and move them into our hearts.
Phil Keller offers this line: "Prayer also focuses and unites our fragmented hearts." David prays in Psalm 86:11, "Give me an undivided heart to serve Him" — God, and to serve others.
Corporate Prayer and Specific Needs
As we enter a time of corporate prayer this morning, we want to pray for all the things we have mentioned. Pray for the church. Pray for those dealing with illness. Rachel and Jeremy Ohm — many of you may know them here on staff — had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and there was that moment of rejoicing, followed by the shock of a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis. There are so many things, and as God brings them to your mind, pray about them.
Grab those persons near you and we will pray together, and then we will come right out of that time of prayer into a time of communion. Prayer reminds us of our dependence upon God, and no clearer provision exists than the provision we find in Christ and in who He is.
Moving into Communion
If you are with us today and you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, we invite you to join with us in this time of communion. We also recognize that so often people would love to have someone to pray with them personally. We will have men and women available at the front of the church for that purpose. That is not something we do on a regular basis, but it is something we need to be doing, so we want to make that available to you today.
Pray for whatever else God lays on your heart, and then we will enter into our time of communion together. The servers will come forward with the elements, and I would encourage you that if you would like someone from the leadership team to pray with you, they are here and ready to do that.