Jesus in the Old Testament is a sermon series on finding Jesus in the whole Bible. The Shepherd of Israel — The ancient king, David, saw God as his shepherd: One who leads us along the right paths. One who feeds and restores us. One who walks with us through the darkest valley. Jesus is the good shepherd — the true and ultimate shepherd of Israel. Recorded on June 20, 2021, on Psalm 23, by Pastor David Parks.

Sermon Transcript

So all year, meaning, from July 1st 2020, smack in the middle of Covid, until now, we’ve been focusing on the Person and Work of Jesus. And I have to say, with everything going on in the world over the past year, it hasn’t always been easy to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. But the Lord was gracious to us. He helped us and carried us (and maybe dragged us at times) through it all. And for the last few weeks, we’ve been working through our last sermon series on the person/work of Jesus called Jesus in the Old Testament. And in this series, we’ve said that the three-in-one nature of God — this peculiar teaching that God is a perfect, loving community of Father, Son, and Spirit — that would become clearer by the time of the NT in the Bible, but even in the OT, we see certain people/places/things that prefigure/foreshadow the person/work of Jesus. Not only is God clearly at work in the OT, but he does so in such a way that’s like a big sign pointing forward to the coming of Christ. And that’s what this series is all about: finding Jesus in the OT. If you missed any of the messages of this series (or any series), you can always go back to watch on YouTube or listen to the audio podcast. But today, I get to preach on one of the most famous passages in the Bible, that is, Psalm 23. And in Psalm 23, King David says that the Lord is our shepherd, which gives us great insight into the person/work of Jesus. If you have a Bible/app, please open it to Ps 23.

Psalm 23, “1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Psalm 23 was written by David, who was the most famous/powerful king of ancient Israel. David lived about 1000 years before the birth of Jesus, or about 3000 years ago. David was a mighty warrior but he was also a prolific songwriter, responsible for almost half the psalms or songs in the Bible. Let’s jump back to v. 1 and work through this together.

Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” For David, the vocation of a shepherd was one that he understood well. Even though he was the king, when God called him to be the future king, when Samuel anointed him as a young man to be the next king of ancient Israel, David was a shepherd himself, watching the flocks of his father, Jesse. David knew what a good shepherd did and he likely knew what an incompetent/lazy shepherd did. For David, he saw the Lord, Yahweh God, and his person/work, through the lens of a shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd; I am a sheep in his flock. And if that’s the case — if the Lord is my shepherd, then what? I lack nothing; I shall not want. What good thing will I be denied? The Lord is a good shepherd; the sheep of his pasture flourish because of his work. And truthfully, the psalm could end here. Because the rest of Ps 23 simply unpacks what it means for the Lord to be David’s shepherd. If we simply meditated on this verse,