 This morning, I want to look at Psalm 23. So if you guys open up your Bibles to Psalm 23, I'm going to be looking at the entire chapter which is just six verses. And I've entitled this message Satisfied, and it's Psalm 23. I'm going to go ahead and read it, and then we'll get into our Bible study. Psalm 23 verses 1 through 6. 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. Psalm 23 is the most quoted, most memorized, and in more cards than any of the 150 Psalms we have in the Bible. It's a very popular Psalm. It has brought comfort to millions of people, and even non-Christians have actually taken Psalm and they have actually applied it to their own personal lives. It's even in movies, I've seen movies where they actually quote Psalm 23. So there's like this universal feel with Psalm 23 that not only just Christians embrace it, but also non-Christians embrace Psalm 23. But I wonder, out of all the people that actually know Psalm 23, how many of those people actually know the heart behind these six verses and who the shepherd is when it comes to Psalm 23? Another thing about Psalm 23 is that Psalm 23 is also misunderstood and misapplied by many people. When do you usually hear Psalm 23 quoted? Funerals. That's right. You hear it at funerals. But did you know that Psalm 23 has more to do with life than death? Look at the last verse, Psalm 23.6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of what? My life. See, the focus of Psalm 23 is on this side of heaven, not on the other side. And the focus of this Psalm is our personal relationship with a good shepherd, the living God today. Now, not later on in heaven, although we look forward to spending eternity with God, this Psalm has a lot to do with us on this side of heaven. Now, to make a few observations of Psalm 23, I want you to notice in verse 1, Psalm 23 verse 1 speaks about the Lord in the third person. He is my shepherd. But then, in Psalm 23 verse 4, David speaks to the Lord as a personal friend. He says, for you are with me. So what we see here in Psalm 23, and I'm going to kind of give you an outline of this morning, what we're going to look at here in Psalm 23. We see God in three ways, and we see three locations. Now, here's the way we look at it. Verses 1, 2, and 3, the location is a field. We see God as a shepherd who gives direction. In verse 4, we see that the location is a valley, and we see God as a friend who protects us. And the third division is verses 5 and 6, the location is a tent or a house, and we see God as a host providing for us. So you have three locations. You have the field, you have a valley, and then you have a house. You're inside of a house. And you see God in three ways, as the one who gives direction, the one who gives protection, and the one who provides for us. So let's look at the first one. Let's go out into the field, and let's look at God as a shepherd directing us. He says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. David, when he uses the metaphor of the shepherd to describe God, he's not talking about just a designation or a name for the Lord, but the relationship between God and his children. It's a great affirmation. What David is actually saying is this, I believe in God, I believe God cares, and I believe that God cares for me or about me. The Lord is my shepherd. Now this recurring idea of God as a shepherd is not a foreign idea in the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament, you see God portrayed as a shepherd. Let me give you an example. Psalm 28, verse 9. The Psalmist says, save your people and bless your inheritance. Shepherd them also and bear them up forever. If you go to the last book of the Bible, Revelation 7, verse 17, it says, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. So this idea of God as a shepherd is not something that is just found in Psalm 23. It's found throughout the Bible. The Lord is the shepherd of the people as a whole, but he's also the shepherd to individual members. So a shepherd, it's interesting that shepherds can have as few as 10 sheep or as much as hundreds of them. And the cool thing about a good shepherd is that the shepherd actually knows each and every sheep in the flock, regardless how big his flock is, whether it's 10 or 100 or 200. Now, one thing about sheep that I want you to know is that sheep are not smart animals. If you already know that, you know what I mean. They're not smart animals. Sheep are defenseless and dependent, and they live by faith in the shepherd. Have you ever wondered why God calls us shepherd or sheep? I'm sorry? Why doesn't God call us tigers? What about cheetahs? You know, a lion. He doesn't call us that. He calls us sheep. And the reason why is because we, as human beings, resemble a lot of the characteristics of a sheep. One sheep are stubborn. I see the wives doing this to the husband. It's like, ah, no. Sheep are stubborn animals. They're very hard to move, to keep them going in a direction. Not only that, but sheep can get themselves involved in bad habits. Same with us. We can get involved in bad habits. God has to say, He wants to break us from these bad habits and say, get out of this. Quit doing this. This is not what you should be doing. But sheep are not smart animals. They need help living like we do. We are dependent on Jesus as they are dependent on their shepherd. Notice what he says, though. Not only is the Lord my shepherd. He says, I shall not want. The word want means to lack what one needs. What the psalmist is really saying here, because God is my shepherd, I have everything I need. Wow. That's pretty radical. I have everything I need is what he's actually saying. You know, we live in a world or in a society filled with discontent people, don't we? I mean, people are discontent. The scary thing is, is that you and I are conditioned to be discontent people. You guys remember the iPhone 3? A few of you are like turning it off right now. But do you remember the iPhone 3? From the 3 went to the 4, and then from the 4 went to the 5, and then from the 5 we have an iPhone 6 that's about this big, and it's like carrying a little TV in the back of your pocket. Now, I'm not against Apple products. I love Apple products, and I have an iPhone, but mine is at 4 right now. I'm too behind, and I'll stay that way. But you know, you buy one, and then in two years you've got to buy another one, and there's always that discontentment. It's like, I want more, I want more, I want more, I want more, I want more. Well, people in general could be not content with their jobs, with their house, with their cars, and even their lives in general. They're just not content. Many of us today are living at the corner of complaints and regrets. And those people will say, if I only had this, or if only this had not happened to me, and many could say, the Lord is my shepherd, but not many can say, I shall not want. We can probably say confidently, the Lord is my shepherd, but when it comes to the second part here, I have everything I really need. A lot of us kind of choke saying that, because some of us, if we were honest with ourselves, we have set expectations of what our lives should look like. I call those people, they have a supermarket mentality. They have a list of things in how their lives should be, and the way they want their lives to be, and they thought that God would give them that list, or at least when they wanted it. But it didn't happen that way. And life is not like that. I wish it was. I wish it was that easy. But God has promised us one thing, and you can hold on to this promise, and you can claim this promise, and that is in Philippians 419, my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Did you see that? My God shall supply all your needs. So there's a problem with this, because when non-Christians see Christians complaining or being discontent, see a non-Christian will say, I don't want to follow your shepherd. Your shepherd doesn't provide for you. You're always complaining. You're always discontent. I don't want to be a Christian, because if that's the way your shepherd is, I don't want anything to do with him. He doesn't take care of you. He's a bad shepherd. And that's kind of like what we give people when we complain, when we are discontent, and people that non-Christians see that, they're like, I don't want to follow your shepherd. This is an important thing, because in verse 4, he develops this in verse 2, rather. He says that he makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. These are peaceful places for rest and feeding. Now, green pastures here, the fields and even parts of the desert would actually be green during the winter and spring. In summer and fall, the sheep would actually be led to many places in search of food. And what he's actually trying to convey to us with this verse is this, is that God's care is not seasonal, but constant and abundant. That's what he's saying. I mean, right now we're kind of moving towards the Christmas season, right? I mean, I've gone into Lowe's. I've gone into Costco. And I've seen aisles already with Christmas stuff. We haven't even gone through Halloween and Thanksgiving, and we're already being conditioned to actually get ready for the Christmas season. But we know, we all like that, I like the Christmas season. I mean, we always look forward to that time of celebration, eggnog, Christmas trees, presents and debt, right? We always look for that, right? It's great. We're looking forward to a great season of Christmas, where we're running towards it, where it's ramping it up for us. And imagine if God's care for us was like that. Got two more minutes for God to care for me. I can't wait. Right now we're on the off season. He's not caring for me right now, but soon it'll be the season for God to care for me. See, David says, no, it's not like that. See, God cares for us no matter what season you're in. He cares for us, and this is what he's saying. His care is not seasonal. It's constant and abundant. Now the still waters that you see here, the shepherd will not allow their sheep to drink from running water, rivers, anything that is running, because sheep, while bending to drink, could fall in and die and drown basically. So what a good shepherd will do, he will actually draw water from the well and feed that water to the sheep. So he will not get them close to a river because they're dumb, they fall in. You know what I mean? And we see here, this is exactly what he's saying, but what he wants us to understand is this, is that we don't need to worry about our needs because God is aware of our needs. He's totally aware of our needs. Back in Matthew chapter six, verse 25 and 34, Jesus encourages us to not feel anxious about tomorrow. He says it four times, do not worry about what? Tomorrow. He says it four times. I feed the birds, I take care of the animals, you know what, you're more valuable than birds. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow. That's a promise because he is the God of our tomorrow. If you're worrying about tomorrow right now, stop. And I'd say it in love because Jesus said stop. You have to stop worrying about tomorrow because God will take care of your tomorrow. He will take care of your need. He's aware of your needs. God will take care of our genuine needs, not our wants. There's a problem with this because Christians will say, well, Robert, I've been praying and I'm not getting what I'm asking for. I'm gonna say, well, maybe you're guilty of James chapter four, verse three that says this, you ask and do not receive because you ask amiss that you may spend it on your pleasures. Well, the reason why you're not getting it maybe is because you're trying to just do something just for your own good. There's no benefit to God or to anybody else. It's a selfish desire to want this thing and God says, no, you're not gonna get it or it could harm you. Maybe you've been praying for that boy, for that girlfriend. I know, I will just, I'll save them Lord if you, and it's like, no, you're not. Missionary dating never works or usually doesn't work. I was a product of missionary dating but I would never say to somebody, go date a non-Christian and get him saved. I would never say that. In fact, me and my wife, Kareen, we knew each other before we were Christians. We're both pagans, you know, non-Christians and then she got saved and then I came right after her. But I would never say to a Christian, go and date somebody. Hey, go ahead and pray for them. Yeah, they look good. No, God says that's to spend on your own place. A lot of you guys are like, yeah, maybe you brought that person here. But anyways, uncomfortable, weird, right? So, he says he restores my soul. The revival, the refreshment of the soul, it's interesting to me that this indicates the returning of life. Sheep that fall on their back cannot get up. You know that? If they were to fall on their backs, they could die. They could really die. So the shepherd, actually what he does, he scans his flock constantly. And if he sees one of his sheep on its back, he immediately runs to that sheep and he picks it up and puts it back on its feet. That right there, he just restored their soul. He saved that sheep's life. And it's interesting that this is what we see, that a well-informed shepherd is very good at that. He's not going to allow his sheep to die. He restores their soul. Well, the same application can be made for us as Christians. Before you were a Christian, you were kind of like on your back, drowning in sin. You were dead, the Bible says, Ephesians 2-1. And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. So we see that God is the great restore of the soul. He's restored your soul. If you're a Christian here today, he's restored your soul. He's given you life. And not only that, but practically speaking, when you have failed the Lord, when you have, you know, basically just fumbled in your Christian life, God will still forgive you. He will still restore your soul. He will still renew a right spirit within you like he did with Peter, who denied him three times. God did not leave Peter on his own. He didn't leave Peter just to wallow up in his sadness and all the things that he was dealing with emotionally. Jesus went to Peter and he personally restored Peter. He didn't leave him alone. But not only that, in verse 3, notice, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. This speaks of the basic moral direction of God's children's lives towards an upright life. It's seen here as a blessing, not a burden. As a Christian, we are called to live upright lives. There shouldn't be any room for the old life. You know, we've just got saved out of that old life. So for us to continue in the old life is not biblical Christianity. For me to continue doing the things that I used to do when I was a non-Christian is actually violating Scripture and it's actually just basically just looking at the Scriptures as ineffective in my own life. But the Bible makes it clear that we are to live a holy life, a life that is upright. That's what he calls us to live. And this is what he's saying, it's this righteousness. And notice, though, it's for his name's sake. It's for his name's sake. What does that mean? Well, first of all, let me go back to the shepherd analogy. A shepherd with a bad reputation would be known throughout Israel. I mean, what kind of reputation would a shepherd have in Israel if everyone knew he was careless and irresponsible with his own sheep? It wouldn't be a good reputation. So what God is saying here, for his name's sake, that is in order for God to preserve his reputation for being true to his revealed character. What does this mean? Let me put this practically. God's name is on the line in your life. God's name is on the line in your life. You may be the only Bible that somebody's reading at work. Somebody's studying you. Because you know that the moment you say you're a Christian at your work, all eyes are going to be on you for the rest of the year, right, until you leave that job. Or a non-Christian in your family, a non-Christian that's a friend, when they find out you're a Christian, they're going to be watching you. They may not pick up a Bible, but you're going to be the Bible that they're actually going to be looking at and studying. So God's name is on the line in your life and in my life. So we are either giving Jesus a black eye or we're representing him well. You know where I see Jesus get a black eye a lot? And I hate this, this Facebook. I don't know why. I mean, people will claim to be Christians on Facebook, and in the same post, they're tearing somebody else down and calling them bad names. I'm like, can you delete that post, please? I wish I was that bold to do it, because then everybody gets on that thread and they attack you. But you find that a lot and you're like, serious? Please don't say you're a Christian. If you're going to use that language, if you're going to show people how drunk you got last night and post pictures, please don't say you're a Christian or remove that religion part that says Christian. Put confused or something, right? Something. Just put something else but that. Because I think that's right. I mean, I think most of the time people are confused. And that's what I see. When I see somebody doing stuff, I'm like, oh, they're confused. They don't really understand what it means to be a Christian. And we see here that God's name is on the line in our lives. We have to be very careful because God wants to show the world that he is faithful to provide for all our needs and to guide us in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. So what he's saying is show God off. Show Jesus off. Show him off to people. Represent Christ the way he should be represented. It's for his name's sake. David said this in Psalm 31. For you are my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for your name's sake, lead me and guide me. So we leave the field and now we go into the valley. Can you guys shut the lights up? I'm checking out. You'll see why I said that here in a moment. Now, one thing about this, and I want to read this here for you. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, life, when we talk about life, life is full of peaks and valleys, calm streams, and roaring rapids, right? Sometimes. I mean, Jesus made it clear in John 1633, in this world what? You will have what? Tribulation. That's a very hard verse to take because our own savior warned you and I that we are going to have tribulation in this world. The word tribulation means pressure. So Jesus is saying in this world you're going to have pressure and how many of you probably had a lot of pressure coming to church today? Maybe somebody didn't want you to come to church and that you got pressure or at work or last week you just, you were pressured and it's true. We will have pressure in this world. So life will not always be about green pastures, still waters. There will be valleys. I have never met a Christian that says I am praying for valleys today. I have never met a Christian that says I am praying for trials today. I can't wait. Lord, what is it? You know, there are songs that have these kinds of lyrics in them that I don't sing and I'm not trying to be unspiritual here. I'm being honest with you. I mean, there's a song by Mercy Me that my wife, Kareen, plays. She has played it and it's called something like Send Down the Rain. Something like that. Basically send out whatever trial you want to send on me. Do it for your glory. I don't sing that part. I have a hard time. I do. In fact, if I could get into that city, I would take that track out somehow because it's hard to say, oh, yes, you know, I mean, yeah, do I go through trials and vows? Absolutely, I do. But I don't want to ask for them. I'd rather have them come to me and then let the Lord deal with me during that time. But I'm not going to ask for them. You know, one person that comes to mind who had a very deep valley was Naomi. If you remember Ruth chapter, I think it was chapter one or two, you know, she lost her husband and then she lost her two children or two boys. She was literally just without any family. And she came back to her town, Bethlehem, and as she was heading towards her town, the Bible says that the people saw her come and there was something with her face because they said, is that you, Naomi? I'm sure they knew who she was, but there was something about her face. Something physically happened that she came and they said, is that you, Naomi? And what did she say to them? Don't call me Naomi, which means pleasant. Call me Mara, which means bitter. And then she gives it to them. He says, for the Lord has dealt very bitterly with me. Whoa. What do you do with that? I mean, could you imagine during this time of fellowship you're hanging out with another Christian, and you're like, hey, what's your name, brother? How are you doing? The Lord is dealing very bitterly with me. What do you do with that? Next. What are you doing? We're uncomfortable. You're like, how do I deal with that? You know one thing, I love Naomi because Naomi was real and raw. And I think it's okay to be real with us, you know, there are times that somebody will say to you, hey, how are you doing? While you're going through a trial and you say, doing great, praise the Lord. And God says, you're a liar. You're going through a hard time. Tell them, let them pray for you. See, Naomi was real and I think we should have more realness in church, don't you think? And I know that you're like, I don't know if I can do that. You know why? It's because there's a lot of judgment sometimes in church. Because if I share what I'm going through right now, what are they going to think about me? If I tell them that I'm having a little doubt, they're going to think I'm an atheist, not a Christian. I mean, seriously, this happens. So a lot of you hold back from, you know, being real with people. And I'm not saying pour out your heart to anybody. I mean, I'm just saying people that you trust, people that you know that are not going to judge you. Well, Naomi was like, I'm coming to my people. This is where I'm at. Here it is. I read recently that a survey recently that showed that most American adults are facing their future with doubt and fear. Not with a feeling of invincibility, but with a feeling of vulnerability. When I read that, I'm like, whoa, that's so true. And I start thinking about our world. I'm like, we live in a very chaotic world today, don't we? We live in a fallen world, a world that is falling apart. I mean, when you have ISIS making threats against the United States, that they want to come here and wipe us out. And then you hear that this person got beheaded. The head was chopped off. All of a sudden you're like, whoa, it's here. Wow, this is crazy. And now to add on top of those ISIS threats, now you have Ebola. Now you're freaking out because everybody, you're like, whoa, I'm not going to fly in a plane now. I'm not going to, you know, all of a sudden, things are getting a little bit more stressful. Then you have a mayor in Texas who said, I want all the pastor's sermons so I can review the sermons just to make sure that there's nothing here that's said about homosexuals, anything against them, or any type of gender stuff. I mean, you're like, are you serious? What is this world coming to? You want to just go into your room, shut the door, and wait for Jesus, and order Domino's Pizza or something. Never go out. You know what I'm saying? It's like, what do you do in a world like that? It's like, you're getting just cornered, ISIS, Ebola, and people trying to take my sermon notes. I mean, what is going on here? Well, we live in a very unstable world. We know that. But here, we're talking about a valley. You know, in the Middle East, being really hot, shepherds will move their sheep down into the ravines called the wadis. Sheep hate it. You know why? Because they can't see well. And as they take some down to this wadi, it gets dark. That's why I say turn off the lights. It's an illustration, but don't do it. It gets dark and dark. And as they go down, they can't see, and the sheep get restless. But they have to trust the shepherd that he knows what he's doing. And he takes them that far down into the darkness because at the bottom is where fresh water is. That's the good shepherd. That's what he wants to do. He wants to bring him to fresh water. So in applying this, we need to apply it in this way that in the darkest valleys of our lives are sometimes pathways to the greatest pastures, the greatest blessings sometimes. A good example of this is Joseph. You remember Joseph? When he was thrown in a pit, this dry well, he was thrown in there by his brothers, and he was left there. And then they sold him as a slave. And then he had a little break in his life because God began to use him in a very big way. Then his boss's wife came on to him and wanted to basically sleep with him. And Joseph said, no way. I'm not going to give into your perversion. He went the other way, and then she got upset. And then she said, it was him who came on to me. And then her husband says, oh, really? Then he's going to jail. And here is Joseph going through another valley from a pit to a slave, now in a dungeon. And then at the end of all these valleys, God worked something interesting. And he said this, and I quote, Genesis 50-20, speaking to his brothers, but as for you, human evil against me. But God meant it for good in order to bring it about. And it is this day to save many people alive. Isn't that awesome? You're like, no, it's not. I would want to go through all of that. But one of my point is this, is that God will take us through valleys because at the end of that valley, there's something more. There's something else that God is doing in our lives. You know, it's interesting here that he uses the word death. And he uses it figuratively, and it speaks of gloom. But I want you to notice something here that is very important that we miss. Notice it doesn't say the valley of death. What does it say? The valley of the shadow of death. Let me ask you this. Can a shadow hurt you? Can the shadow of a Doverman pincher bite you? Can the shadow of a knife cut you? No. Neither will the shadow of the valley of death. Death will not destroy you. And what he's talking about here is very important because he's telling us here basically that the valley of the shadow of death cannot destroy you. It's a shadow. She are feeling death, but it's just a shadow. There's nothing that you're going to get hurt by it. You're supposed to trust the shepherd. Another thing that I want you to notice that it says, though I walk, I wish it said though I run through the valley or though I hop over the valley, it says walk. Well, why would it say walk? Because see, listen, God will walk us through the valley. God is there in the midst of our valley. He's walking us through. He doesn't want you and I to run through our valley. He wants us to walk because there are lessons that we are taught through these valleys. You know, I love the story of Meshach, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's Daniel chapter three. You guys remember the whole story when you have Nebuchadnezzar, who was a weird king, erected this image and he sent out a decree for everybody to say, he said, every person now will need to worship this image. So at the sound of all these instruments, I want everybody to bow down to this image and worship it because it resembled him. Well, these three young Hebrews said, no, we're not. So when that happened, the time came, when all these instruments went out, that everybody bowed down to the image except for the three Hebrew men. Imagine how weird that must have looked. Everybody's on their faces and they're the only three going like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just standing up right here. Well, somebody saw it and they went up to King Nebuchadnezzar. King, remember that decree you sent out that said at the sound of all these instruments, everybody's to bow down and worship your image? Yeah. Well, guess what? There's three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, did not, they stayed up. They did not bow down. And he says, well, bring them to me. So he did. He brought them over. The three guys came up, young guys, and he said to them, hey, did you guys not bow down to my image? And you know what they said? They said, we didn't bow down to my interpretation. Yep. We didn't. Because we're not going to serve your gods. We're going to serve the God of heaven. We're going to serve him. He's the real God. And then he got all upset. The Bible says his countenance changed. You guys remember that Yosemite Sam? Remember when Bugs Bunny used to take them off and he would always get red and blow up? Remember that? I kind of picture Nebuchadnezzar doing one of those things. You know what I mean? Like, oh, what do you mean you didn't bow down? And he bound them and threw them into this fiery furnace. The weird thing is that he turned up the fire even more. I'm like, what is that going to do? They're burning already. That's not going to do anything to them. It just shows you when you're enraged, you do dumb things. You don't think right. So he throws them in to burn, to death, bound. And again, why would you bound them? It's not like they can come out of this hole. They're there, you're done. But then all of a sudden, Nebuchadnezzar had saw something very troubling. And he's like, hey, counselors, hey guys, can you guys come here for a minute? Could I throw in there three, King? Okay, there's four. And one looks like the Son of Man. God was in the midst of the fire with these three Hebrew men. And then he pulled them up and none of them were burned. Singed nothing. They didn't even smell like they were burned. And then that's when Nebuchadnezzar says, I'm going to worship your God. Okay, he's the right one. You're right. Let me tell you something. This morning, God is walking with you in your valley, whatever that valley is at this moment, God is walking with you. He's not going to leave you alone. He will be right there in the midst of the fire. That is why he says in verse four, I will fear no evil. David understood that, he understood this because he was under the shadow of death with Saul. Saul was running after his life. Saul wanted to kill him, but God had protected him. And he says, for you are with me. The evil that surrounded him was very scary, but when God was with him, there was no reason to fear evil. I love what Isaiah 54-17 says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Second Corinthians 4-8, Paul says, we are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair, he says. Now this doesn't mean that God will shield us from every harmful circumstance, because obviously you know that the three Hebrew guys went into the fire, they actually experienced this. But we got to understand one thing is that we should never fear evil in our valleys because God is the one in control. And not only that, but no one can knock him off his throne. God is stable, nor can anything or anyone remove you, remove me from the love of God. That is why Paul says in Romans chapter eight that you and I are more than conquerors because there's nothing on the face of this earth, under the earth or in heaven that can remove you and I from God's love. That makes us conquerors, amen? We have to understand that because when we understand this, then we can go through our valleys with a loving God. A God who loves me will protect me, he will give me direction and guidance, and nothing will smash me unless he allows it, of course. But he says there, though your rod and your staff comfort me. This is the equipment of a shepherd. A staff was used to direct the sheep, and a rod was a club that protected the sheep, and sometimes they would actually put nails at the end to actually fight off predators. But we see, though, that the shepherd here is seen here as a good shepherd, and Jesus himself said this in John chapter 10, verse nine. He says, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and we'll go in and out and find pastors. So God himself is our protector. He's our shield. Abram understood this. God said to Abram, Genesis 15-1, after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. In Psalm 3320, David said, our soul waits for the Lord. He is our help and our shield. So we go from the field and we go into a valley, and out of the valley, now we go into a house. A tent. And now he says here that God becomes our provider, our hosts. Notice what it says there in verse five and six. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup, he says, runs over. Hospitality was very important in the Middle East, and it still is today. Hospitality was huge. They were famous for it. Here we see God as a great host who would bring you into his house and he would provide for you. He would be the greatest host ever. And we see that there are some enemies here, and the enemies here are portrayed as powerless to prevent the enjoyment of God's generous hospitality. Now the anointing part of oil, it says there, let you anoint my head with oil. She would have this problem with insects and lice. There is a fly that would actually land on its nose, and because of the wool being so thick, they couldn't, you know, swat a fly off their nose. If the fly landed, it would actually lay eggs there, or if it landed close to the ear, it would lay eggs and it would embed itself into the head, and it would actually kill the sheep if the shepherd did not put oil on top of its head, because the oil would cause the slipperiness to be upon the head, so any insect that would land wouldn't have the effectiveness to lay eggs on it. It just would slide off. So the shepherd would actually protect the sheep from those enemies, and that's what God is saying to us. He will protect us from our enemies, and notice that it's a cup overflowing. That's how generous God is, that it's overflowing. And then he says this, and I love this part, verse 6, Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. God is consistently faithful, and there are two characteristics of God that I want you to know here that you can count on every single day, and that is that God is good and God is merciful. You can count on these two every single day. It's what he's saying here, and notice that it says they will follow me. It doesn't say that you're going to go after them. You don't wake up in the morning and say, but please open my eyes to see your goodness, where your goodness is. I want to follow it. No, he says, no, it's going to follow you. Just live in Christ. You're going to see my goodness come upon you and my mercy. When you fail, you ask God to forgive you. That's his mercy that he actually forgave you. You experience that every single day. This mercy and goodness is part of our relationship with Christ. It's our daily experience with Jesus. Goodness and mercy, his mercy, his goodness leads us to his mercy because God is willing to forgive us. God is willing to help us. So we find these two all the time. They follow us. You know, I'm on these social media. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, MySpace. No, I'm not on that anymore. And I always tell people, follow me. Follow me on Twitter. Follow me on Instagram. Follow me on Facebook. And as I read this, I'm like, no, I want this to follow me. I want God's goodness and mercy to follow me because I need his mercy. I need his goodness. I want it to follow me. And it's interesting that we see here this is exactly what he's doing. He's showing us the blessings that we have from our great shepherd. But I want to close with a few things here. Today, there are thousands of people each day waking up with burdens that they're bearing, anxiety. And my question to you is, are you one of these people? Are you one of these people that are bearing these secret burdens that you're not telling anybody? You're just trying to carry it on, carrying it all on your own. Let me encourage you, no matter what circumstances you're facing this morning, when you follow God, you are safe and sound because he cares for you. As one person put it, and I quote, though you may not know what will follow, you can know whom to follow. That's the promise that we have with our good shepherd. Another question that I want to ask you is this, do you know the Lord as a personal shepherd? Do you know him as the shepherd? Maybe you're here this morning, you were invited for the first time, or maybe the third time, and you don't know the shepherd personally. You don't know who this is, and you're being introduced to him, and that's Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Or maybe you do know the shepherd. You're like, I know the shepherd, you're a stray sheep. Maybe your life hasn't been all good, all bad, all right. Maybe you kind of left the sheep pen. Now you're kind of like the prodigal son, the prodigal daughter, whatever you want to call it. And now you've been messing around with the world, and you're like, and God is saying to you, you need to come back to my pen. You need to come back here. So either you don't know the shepherd personally, and I want to give you that opportunity tonight, today, or you do know the shepherd, you need to come back to the pen to Christ.