Her Strength Comes from the Lord
Psalm 23
St. John’s United Church of Christ
Greeley, Colorado
May 5, 2024
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes
In a story about some of the worst Mother’s Day gifts ever given, the Houston Chronicle reported a story about Jerry Maltz giving his wife an iron. He got the message when she gave him an ironing board for Father’s Day.
We expect much from our mothers. They are called to be doctors, social workers, social event coordinators, cooks, seamstresses, Uber drivers, spiritual guides, etc., all without the proper titles, but doing a variation of the work.
Where does a mother’s strength come from? Additionally, where do anyone go for strength and direction in life?
First and foremost, our strength comes from knowing the shepherd.
In one of the most beloved passages in the Bible, Psalm 23, we learn there are three implications of knowing the shepherd: Follow His path, seek His presence, and trust His promises.
We follow his path.
Verse 3:
He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
There is an interesting thing here in the Hebrew structure. We often attach “He restores my soul” with the previous grouping. It makes sense, “He makes me lie down in green pastures” and “He leads me beside still waters.”
But “restores my soul” is actually attached to the following phrase, “as He leads me in paths of righteousness; when I follow him in paths of righteousness, he restores my soul.” As I pursue and follow the good shepherd.
We can become indifferent and apathetic when we are not walking with the shepherd.
Oswald Chambers wrote:
“Continually restate to yourself what the purpose of your life is. The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness.”
What is holiness? It looks like the good shepherd; it looks like Jesus. So we stay in close proximity. As we walk with him, we know him, we know him through scripture, we’re in his word, we have a clear vision of who he is and we follow him in paths of righteousness. He is the righteous one who makes us righteous.
Someone said, “Aim for holiness and you get happiness, aim for happiness and you get neither.”
The way that our soul is restored out of spiritual apathy and indifference is to turn back to the shepherd; everything calibrates back to the shepherd. Our goal in life is not happiness.
The paradox of hedonism says that you will find happiness by pursuing happiness when in reality happiness ensues as a result of following after something or someone else. That is explicitly Christian: as we follow Jesus, happiness comes as we pursue holiness. The good shepherd embodies holiness. Therefore, we pursue him, his righteousness covers us and we become more and more like him, it is the process of sanctification. Walking beside the good shepherd. The sheep know the shepherd, they hear his voice and follow him.
We seek his presence.
Verse 4:
Even 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.
Even though I’m walking through the hardest moments of my life. By looking at some of your faces, and personally, by looking at the mirror, I know that we are going through some of the hardest moments of our lives.
Yesterday in our fellowship hall we hosted a memorial for a young mother. There is no loss like the loss of a mother, it leaves an emptiness within that is never filled.
Last week we prayed for a young man, a family friend who is involved in music ministry in his church. He struggled with diabetes and goes to dialysis three times a week. Several months the doctors amputated his leg, this week they amputated this other leg.
This week I spoke with a 96-year-old man who informed me that his son passed away and expressed how this was a great challenge to him and to other family members.
Friends, the people sitting around you are going through struggles and problems that you don’t know about. Every time we gather, we are all struggling. What are you feeling right now? What dark things are you facing today? Let the word of God encourage you.
Notice, David declares that he’s walking through… He is not walking around, he’s not walking under, he’s not walking over, he is walking through. Notice he is walking, not running, not crawling. There is a sense of one confidently walking. How can you be confident when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death? You are with the shepherd. You are holding on to the shepherd, even better, he is holding on to you.
Are you walking with him these days? Are you abiding with him? Are you walking with confidence with him because you are with the good shepherd?
If the good shepherd is with you, you are more than conqueror, irrespective of the circumstances in your life.
Acclaimed preacher, Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse, was the pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He was widowed at a fairly young age. The death of Dr. Barnhouse's wife left him and a six-year-old daughter in the home. He had real difficulty working through his own grief, but the hardest part was to comfort and explain the death to his daughter. He later recalled that all of his education and theological training left him at a loss.
One day he and the little girl were standing on a busy corner at a downtown intersection waiting for a light to change. Suddenly a very large truck sped by the corner, briefly blocking out the sun and frightening the little girl.
To comfort her, Dr. Barnhouse picked her up, and in a moment, the wisdom of God broke through and he was able to explain to his daughter: "When you saw the truck pass it scared you, but let me ask you, had you rather be struck by the truck or the shadow of the truck?" She replied, "Of course, the shadow."
He went on to explain that when "your mother died, she was only hit by the shadow of death because Jesus was hit by the truck (death)."
Therefore, death is the shadow, the entry to God’s glory and eternal rest.
My friends, death is the great enemy; no one can avoid it.
Especially for some of us younger folk, it will do us well to attend a funeral once a week to know that life is temporal and to be reminded that death will defeat you. Modern secularism has no answer for this, except, try to deny it.
We try to exercise every day, we try to eat well, but sooner or later death wins.
Pastor and author Tim Keller reflected, "Rather than living in fear of death, we should see death as spiritual smelling salts that will awaken us out of our false belief that we will live forever.... Everything in life is temporary except for His love. This is reality.”
Trust His Promises
Verses 5-6
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Are you daily trusting and expecting God’s goodness and mercy in your life?
Consider this fact: Life on Earth requires a lot of “fine tuning.” Our planet is just the right distance from the Sun to allow freezing and melting, and the planetary axis tilted just so for seasons. There is a moon for tides to circulate and cleanse shores and oceans, an atmosphere to distribute heat (otherwise the sun-side would cook as the night-side froze), and a magnetic field that contributes to our protection from harmful solar radiation.
That all these needs were met (and many more) is all a big (coincidence) for evolutionists – we just lucked out and got just what we needed.
But we didn’t need rainbows. And yet, as astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez recently noted, we’re on the only planet in the Solar System to get them. What’s needed for a rainbow is: Suspended water droplets in the atmosphere and the direct sunlight that results from the sun being between the horizon and 42 degrees’ altitude. This typically occurs just after a thunderstorm has passed and small droplets are still in the atmosphere, and the sky is clearing in front of the sun. Seems like a simple setup. This must be a common phenomenon in the cosmos, right?
But it isn’t so simple. Our moon doesn’t have the atmosphere. Mars doesn’t have the moisture. Venus has too thick an atmosphere and as we head further out, the other planets don’t have liquid water. So, the only planet to have rainbows is the only one with people on it to see them. To evolutionists that’s just one more (coincidence). To God’s people, just another example of his love and care. It’s as if someone has been trying to get our attention with a pretty shiny object writ large across the sky, saying, “Look here. ... This is important!” “I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth” (Gen. 9:13).
What rainbows are you seeing in the clouds of distress and despair? Let the Good Shepherd be your rock and your anchor and trust in Him. Stay close to the Good shepherd, follow His path, seek His presence, and trust His promises. This is the word of the Lord. Amen.