Please stand as we read the Word of the Lord together.
Ps 23 A Psalm of David. 
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet 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 Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast 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. 
Thus reads God’s Word. You may be seated.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. What a joy to consider this reality. We have a most simple yet all encompassing statement infused with the abundant assurance of our care by God. We know Who Our Shepherd is! We are not just in the hands of some lazy and casual person who is seasonally employed to deal with a flock of someone else's sheep. We belong to God! He has committed Himself to our care. 
We shall not want for lack of the One Who meets all our needs. He will be there to cover our every step with His Hand of Mercy and Healing and Grace. He will see that we lack for nothing from the vast storehouse of His Heavenly Treasury. He makes sure that we get the necessary care required when our physical bodies are suffering. He holds us in His arms to soothe our every fear. He has put His very own life on the line to protect each one of His flock. He manifests the compassionate reality of Who He is and all that He has done to bring us unto Himself. 
He is Our Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent Shepherd! In Him and through Him and by Him, we will never want for anything because He is Our Everything!
He makes me lie down in green pastures… He brings us to those places in which we have that ease from our long, difficult trek on this earth. These green pastures provide relief from the day's march through desert and hill and the dusty continual plodding on and on and on. These green pastures are places where we can stop and rest and find relief for our aching feet as well as sustenance for our hungry souls. 
We find respite for our hearts and minds as we are able to just settle down and enjoy the refreshing coolness of these pasture grasses which do not radiate the heat of the dusty trail. We are weary and we can fully unwind and have our beings soothed in the pleasant essence of His guidance into those times of gentle blessings. These are the softer surfaces of grass lined pastures relieving our weariness at the end of every strenuous day. Thank You Lord! 
He leads me beside quiet waters. Consider, for a moment, what this evokes in our hearts and minds. These quiet waters reflect the peace of God that He bestows upon His flock following Him. We see the fact that God is bringing refreshment into our beings through the use of still waters of serene fellowship with Himself. 
They are those times when we can just sit on the banks of fresh water, cooling our feet and satiating our intense thirst after more and more of Him. He leads us beside these waters, walking with us, pointing out the peaceful manner of how He deals with us. These calm waters hold no terror and no fear for us. Rather, we are pleasantly soothed and refreshed and gently washed over with the joy of The Lord taking such care for each of His own.
He restores my soul… When we go through those desert regions with all the fiery force of intense testing and trials and tribulations, we are radically changed. We see things which ensnare our focus and modify our behavior. Sometimes, these intense situations may even distort our entire view of life. 
Initially, we may become hardened in our hearts and in our minds and put up those mental barriers which try to prevent any deep looking into the core essence of our beings. We do not fathom the real motivations for why we act the way we act. We often refuse to admit that we are so much in need of help within our beings.
Through it all, as the Lord works, we recognize that we need Someone to save us from who we are in the sinful human nature with which we are born. We are not what God wants us to be until we are restored in Jesus Christ! 
As that reality is evidences, God is able to take us into the course of that intimate walk with Him that we have heretofore refused to consider. Every aspect of our self-defense and self-reliance and self-centeredness needs to be dealt with in order for our souls to be restored to the life to which God so chose to love us unto Himself. 
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him would not perish but have everlasting life. His Life is the course upon which we are restored through the death and resurrection and glorification of Jesus Christ. He so loved us that He gave up everything for us to restore our soul unto that which has always been God's plan and purpose for His humanity. 
He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake. We need to have the Lord examine our hearts, the deepest recesses of our hearts as to why we are even here on this earth at this time in our lives and in this course of His time. Is it for what we can make of it? Is it for the purposes of our satisfaction? Is it so that we can try to get the most that we can in the short time that we have? 
Or, is it all centered on the Lord God Almighty? Is it that He desired to have a creation with which He could express the complete splendor and fullness of His Love? Do we live today because He desires to show to the breadth and length of the entirety of His creation His absolute enjoyment in being in true and eternal fellowship with such as us? 
God has opened that means to fellowship, full and complete and eternal and perfect fellowship through the giving of His Only Begotten Son. In Jesus Christ, we are brought into the very family of God. 
We cannot be there if there is ANY unrighteousness in us! Anything of sin or unholiness will be instantaneously and intensely obliterated and unable to exist in the immediate presence of God!
Therefore, we are led, day by day, moment by moment in the paths of righteousness. The Holy Spirit works to reveal what is NOW true of us in Jesus Christ. 
Many of us think that this is for our sake and for our growth into maturity as men and women of God. The truth however is that we are so led for the sake of the glory of God's name. All that takes place works to reveal Who God is and What He has done to so manifestly bring this, His glorious and His eternal legacy into place.
Our lives reflect His praise and His honor and His glory to the worship of His Name by all of creation. We serve Him on the basis of how He reveals the beauty of Who He is in our lives. 
Yes, we grow. Yes, we mature. Yes, we enjoy the fullness of this relationship with all the splendor of God being evidenced in our lives and for our joy and peace and right-standing with Him. But the focal point must always be for His glory and for His praise and for His name's sake! 
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil... We walk through this valley every day. There are several realities which are part of this. 
The first is that we are walking on this earth where death is the daily truth of what we behold with our physical eyes. The curse of the fall is everywhere around us. There is decay and destruction as that curse is manifested in every area of our earthly experience.
Loved ones die; children die; patients in hospitals die; pets die; plants and animals and every creature dies and decays! The whole of this earth experiences that manner of physical reality of death and decay! From the moment of birth onward, the end of our physical lives is imminent! On this earth that shadow of death is the course of all that is born even in the springtime. That shadow looms heavy and ultimate within the entire course of nature!
Thank You Lord for our spiritual reality of eternal life which is evidenced in the new birth of Jesus Christ! In Him, though our physical bodies decay and die, there is that steadfast hope and that complete joy of His eternal life! 
The other aspect of this valley of the shadow of death is set in the spiritual truth that we go through death to self for the life of Christ to be more and more evident in the course of our walk on this physical earth, right here and right now! We experience those daily deaths to our selfishness and our self-centeredness in order for the selflessness of Jesus Christ to be manifested! This is in all our interactions with our selves, with other humans, but most especially with our Savior, Our God! 
As we are born again in Christ, that spiritual reality of Christ living His life in us is the walk upon which we go forward. This new life brings us into all the depths of knowing Him more and more in the greater knowledge of the triumphant power of His resurrection. Therefore we have no fear of any evil of this age with its threat of imminent death, because He has overcome the world! In Christ Jesus, we are now embedded into His Victory of life evermore! 
…for Thou art with me. What a true joy to consider, in the deepest recesses of our hearts! God is with us through all the valley of the shadow of death; through all the ups and downs of our lives on this earth; through all the times of hurt and suffering; through every moment of mourning and loss of loved ones; through every time that we are mistreated; through every longing moment of loneliness; through every time of strife and anguish; through every trial and tribulation and testing and temptation; through every stinging instance of being spurned and rejected; through every time of anger and unforgiveness and intense bitterness; through every abuse and physical torment and agony; through every sleepless night haunted with anxieties for our most beloved ones – through all this and so much more, He is with us! He is abiding in us! He is holding us! He is supporting us! He is protecting us! He is making every provision for us! He is guiding us! He is manifesting the selfless truth of Himself in us! He is there! We can count fully and supremely upon Him through it all!
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. It is rather simple in statement, but complex in the manner of how the Lord causes all things to work together for good in the lives of those who love Him and whom He loves so unconditionally. His rod is used for our discipline. His rod is used to defend us against all the wolves and lions and jackals of this age. His rod is used to make sure the path is solid and firm beneath our feet. His rod is used to sturdily keep us within those caves of safety and protection, guarding us against our wandering tendencies. 
Then to consider His staff with which He guides us; His staff which He uses to pull us gently in the way as we tend to start to stray off the path of His leading; His staff which gathers and spreads the hay of our sustenance so that all the sheep can have access as they so desire. His staff, along with His rod, serves to be the instruments by which He maintains our safe keeping and provide for our continual walk on the paths of growth and righteousness. Both are required and both are to be cherished in His loving care for you and for me. 
Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies… One aspect to this is the obvious one that God prepares a table for us. This is the table of both our physical as well as our spiritual sustenance. There will be that food which meets the need of bringing strength and vitality to our manifold lives. We will have the energy to meet the course of each day because there will be that food and water which serves to sustain our muscular and spiritual endeavors as the day proceeds. 
Of course, the inherent aspect is that He prepares the table. He provides the necessary food and refreshment; He lays it all out before us, and before our enemies. 
That brings in several details of this table set before us. He has not only invited us to come and dine, but He has opened that invitation to those whom we see as our enemies. 
These may actually be enemies, as in the means of God to set us at the peace table conferences of our lives. We are shown that we need to come to terms with those with whom we have struggles. It might be that God brings us face to face with those whom we count as our foes. In so doing, He shows His great love and provision for even those whom we may consider to be lost and horrendous in their actions and demeanor. That may well be the case until the point at which they turn their hearts over to the Lord for His so great salvation. 
This is the reason that we are told by Our Lord to pray for those who persecute us and those who abuse us. We are to pray for our enemies so that God then has the supreme freedom and the prepared means of even using our testimony of His love to win their hearts unto Himself. 
It is also the fact that, even in the presence of those who are so adamantly seeking to destroy us, we can find peace at the Lord's Table! We are secure in His provision of safety and well-being. In His supply of everything that we need, we can feast even in the immediate presence of those seeking to kill us! We partake in the peace and the power and the comfort and the abiding presence and the surety of the Word of the Salvation of God. There is so much to consider at the table He spreads before us in Himself! 
Thou hast anointed my head with oil… Consider what this represents in our lives. He anoints our head with oil. That means that He has chosen us for His plans and for His purposes. He has had us in His heart and He has brought us into the placement in which we are prepared as the Lord's ministers as the regal members of His very family. The anointing is upon us for the means of our being kings in the manner of our serving Him with all our hearts and minds and beings. 
We are kings in the every sense of manifesting the Sovereignty of God's Glory and His Grace and His Mercy. Everything within our spheres of influence makes us those living and kingly ambassadors on this earth of Who is really the Master of all creation! He works to the praise of His name's sake in the fact that we are anointed under the auspices of His Sovereign Mercy and Love. Thank you Lord for all that You do in anointing us with the oil of Your salvation! 
…My cup overflows. We gain a greater sense of this overflowing in increasing depth as the years roll on. When first we come to the Lord and revel in the so great Salvation with which we are blessed and anointed, we think that there is nothing more that we could experience. It is so marvelous and joyous and utterly filled with all the treasury of Heaven. 
Then consider how the Lord has prepared us for the life that we have on this earth. We see that He has more than fully lavished us with His hand upon our lives over and over again. As the Holy Spirit works in us through the Living Word which He makes the course of our daily walk, we experience His overflowing provision.
As well consider the manner in which He blesses our lives with our spouse and with children and with parents and with siblings. Additionally we are brought into relationship with the very members of His own family. To truly consider just these aspects, we must be overwhelmed with the fact that our cup overflows!
He meets every need! He provides every source of wisdom and grace and mercy and love, not just to the minimum necessary, but to the maximum depth that we could ever experience! So awesomely, our cup runs over and over and over again in Jesus Christ!
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life… What a tremendous promise from the Lord God Almighty! Surely, SURELY! Not possibly! Not maybe! Not with some mathematical probability! SURELY! Absolutely, positively, without any doubt, our lives will be engaged with and utterly enjoying God's anointing with all His Goodness and Lovingkindness! His mercy fills every void and disappointment of this age's lies and deceptions. Where there is loss, He will fill with Lovingkindness. Where there is sorrow, His goodness and His comfort will provide solace and relief.
We will never be without these bestowments of God's essential heart of Love to us. As Dad used to describe it, like little puppy dogs following us wherever we go, God's goodness and lovingkindness will be there bounding about us and settling on us without any let up and without any lack of energy. SURELY God will show Himself mighty in our hearts and minds all the days of our lives! 
…And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There is the obvious promise of the Lord of our eternal life in Jesus Christ. This is an awesome reality that we must never take for granted. Through the work of God, Alone, for His flock, His people, He has opened unto us His eternal life. 
Consider the following truth of this statement. It is no small thing for us to hold this in the depths of our minds. Our walk on this earth is hard and difficult. We are being led by the Lord through the Valley of the Shadow of Death every single day of our lives, from the time of our birth through to the end of our physical days. On this earth, dealing with the curse of the fall, we have pain and suffering and loss. We have aches and illness and brokenness all around us. 
Everything we touch is in decay. Every earthly hope is futility. Everything this age promises us is a lie! There is death and depression and vanity of vanities within and without us in the every sense!
Yet the truth is that in Christ Jesus, all of the perfection and manifest enjoyment of eternity lies before us! We live on this earth, physically for mere decades of time. Some live longer, some not as long. But even if we live to be more than one hundred years old, in the simple scale of the eternal ages that lie before us, this is not even a millisecond of comparison! The supreme and perfect and endless joy of Jesus Christ and the presence of His glory surrounding us for unfathomable eons of man's so limited reckoning await those whose trust and hope and salvation is found in Jesus Christ Alone!
Then, on another scale, even now, today, this very moment, we are already living in the House of the Lord. We are surrounded by our fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. We have absolutely unlimited access to the Throne of God by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are enabled to lay before Him our every concern and fear and doubt, knowing that He hears us and He responds to our every cry. 
As well, we are so blessed as to be enabled to bring before Him praise and honor and adoration for all that He has done to make this our reality in Jesus. His death and His resurrection and His glorification have brought us into the very family of God. We are God’s children! We have our glorious dwelling in His home right now, today and forevermore!
Let us together praise His Holy and Awesome Name now, right now! Let that praise fill all the ages upon ages upon ages of our forevermore! So be it! 
	The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet 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 Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast 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. Amen and amen!

This morning’s benediction is Rev 14:6+7. And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, "Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters." Amen.