New Year (Psalm 23) • Austin Clark

Around our church at the end of our service, you hear Austin Clark, our very peppy pastoral intern get up and do announcements in a very different way than I would do them, and it's been really great. So I'm very delighted to invite Austin to come and share this morning to preach, and we're gonna give our attention to God's word. Welcome, Austin.

So why don't we start with reading the scripture like we tend to always do. We'll read it together. It's Psalm 23. Hopefully it's behind me. And if not, then you'll just hear my voice saying it, which is fine. It's in the CSB, so maybe don't just close your eyes and go back to Sunday school where you memorized it in the King James. Here we go.

The Lord is my shepherd. I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even though I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, 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 overflows. Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live. — Psalm 23

Introduction

For those of you who don't know me, as Jeff said, my name is Austin. I'm an intern here. I'm the intern here. Depending on who you ask, I'm either the pastoral intern or the ministry intern, but you can just yell "intern" and I'll probably look your way.

I'm studying at Liberty University—go flames—getting my MDiv. In a year, I'll be graduated with my MDiv with a concentration in pastoral counseling and a few other things. I'm the oldest of five, with an eighteen-year age gap between me and my youngest brother. I've lived here in Raleigh my whole life, which I never knew was something special until these past couple years. So thank you to all of you who moved here from other places and made me feel like an endangered species just by doing nothing.

My MDiv is with a concentration in pastoral counseling. That's where I'm headed—pastoral counseling, biblical counseling specifically, working with people, young people and their families in the midst of some kind of identity tension. That's where I'm coming from this morning with this counseling lens, how I'm looking at the world and trying to move towards other people.

The Vision for This Message

Our vision is to go through Psalm 23 and to look at it in three different lights. The light of its original context—David the psalmist speaking. The light of the gospel and Jesus. And then the light of right here, right now, as we're on this cusp of the end of 2023 and about to launch into 2024.

When I was first offered the privilege of being here and preaching this passage, I started reading it over and over again. Same as you might have done. I began whispering these words to myself: shepherd, pastures, valley, comfort, goodness. I realized I was speaking them into all different situations—as I prepared for a second date, as I faced temptation at the gym, as I tried to hold my calm, as I worked with my youngest brother who is on the autism spectrum, and as I was fighting nerves to come and preach here.

I realized how badly I needed to be grabbed and pulled into the world of David. How much I needed to be brought into the pastures and beside the quiet waters and through the valley and to the feast. My hope this morning is that we're able to do that together. That we come into this world that David has painted for us where the presence of God, the presence of Jesus is in every single thing, and we're able to breathe deeply of our Savior.

I'm gonna pray, and we'll get underway.

Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for bringing every single one of these folks here today. Father, I ask that you would speak through me. Father, I am an empty cistern, but I ask that you would fill me and use me. Father, I ask that you would open the hearts and minds and ears and eyes of my brothers and sisters here, that we would all be able to bask in your glory and breathe deeply of your presence. Amen.

The Lord is my shepherd. I have what I need. He lets me lie down in green pastures. — Psalm 23:1-2

He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths for his name's sake. What we see here is a picture of God's presence in apparent peace and abundance. Green pastures, quiet waters.

What the original audience would have been keyed into at the very beginning is whose presence? The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord. If you have your Bibles and you're looking at it, Lord is capitalized, which is code for Yahweh. And so, what David is doing, what the psalmist is doing, is reminding his original audience that this is not just a god. This is not just one in the pantheon of their neighbors. They were surrounded by those who had lots of different gods. This is not just a god as my shepherd. This is the God. This is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses. This is the God who's been pursuing them for generation after generation, who led them through the sea, out of slavery, into the wilderness, and whose presence has continued to go with them.

So when David, who is also a shepherd king—right, he is king, he's shepherding his people—but when he's saying, "The Lord is my shepherd," he's reminding them that the presence of God is a familiar one. It's been with him. And that God is the true shepherd, the ultimate shepherd. That even though he's been given people to shepherd and he is king, God is the King and the Shepherd. The shepherd king is guiding us. He's guiding us down the right paths. But he's guiding us also for his name's sake and not for our name's sake.

The text doesn't really go into the nuances of what it would look like if we were being guided for our name's sake. But I'm sure you could imagine with me, if the shepherd was working off our whims and wills. If the sheep got to call the shots as far as where they were going, what they were doing, whatever was nice and smelled pretty in a moment. But that's not what David is saying. The shepherd king is guiding for his name's sake. The shepherd knows what is best. And the shepherd is guiding on the right paths.

Jesus as the Shepherd

As we move to looking at this in light of Christ, pretty low hanging fruit, right? Jesus saw himself as the shepherd to sheep in desperate need of life and life to the full.

Blessed are the poor in spirit — Matthew 5:3

But as I was reading this, and I was seeing the commentaries talking about how Jesus is the shepherd, the ultimate shepherd, I realized also that this is not something we can take for granted. Right? This Psalm 23 was not written to us. It was written to covenant Jews. And so if not for Christ, if not for Christ and Christ alone, we would be irresponsibly appropriating this text.

But because of Christ, our souls and our life right now by the means of grace, we can be renewed. We can be renewed. So we can come into this pasture. We can come into this pasture admitting the poverty of our souls, admitting that we're sheep, and we can be renewed. We can be brought to those pastures and to those quiet waters. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and that's exactly what we are as sheep. And that's exactly who we get to be because of Christ, who invites us into this story, invites us into this being our reality as well.

A Reflection on God's Provision

So where was your shepherd king in peace and provision this past year? I want to invite us into a time of reflection. We're here on the brink of a new year, and it's tempting in a world where we are always on full speed to not slow down. But please slow down with me and take a moment and consider where you have tasted green pastures this past year. Where have you listened to quiet waters? Where have you been lovingly corrected by the Father? Where has Jesus renewed your soul? Was it in a relationship, a passage of Scripture, a song, a beautiful landscape, a meal, a sick day that turned into a worship day?

A few months ago, I was on my way to my sister's house. She lives about an hour south of here, and my car broke down. It was the alternator. I didn't know that really at the time, though I did open the hood and I looked into the abyss and I scratched my chin. I was like, yes, something is wrong here. But I don't know much about cars, so I closed the hood again and called AAA.

As I got their recorded message telling me that it was going to be two hours, which turned into four hours, I got back in my car on the side of the highway and thought, all the things I could be doing right now. I'm in school, I'm a full-time student, I've got chapters to read, I've got papers to write, there's people I could be meeting with. So I get out my phone and I'm looking for a podcast to listen to so my time is not wasted. And it dawns on me, I guess from the Holy Spirit perhaps, that this is pretty unique, actually. For the first time in I can't even remember except being asleep, I'm being forced to stay in one place quietly. And so I turn off my phone. And for the next hour, two hours, I just sat in my car and prayed and sang.

I yelled a little bit because my car is broken. But that was a green pasture for me. Being forced to sit in one place, not be distracted, and just breathe in the presence of God, that I can be exactly where he wants me to be.

Even when I go through the darkest valley, I will fear no danger. You are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

We see here a picture of God's presence in tragedy and darkness. David was well familiar with tragedy. In fact, a lot of his life that we see in the Bible was spent in this limbo. He's anointed king. Well, even before that, he's like the cast off little brother, then he's anointed king, but then he's in limbo. He's the anointed king, he's God's chosen, but he is running for his life, and he's facing danger, and he's fighting battles because he's yet to be thrown. And so, not only that, but we see David suffers loss and death within his own family. His own son tries to take the throne from him at one time. He's well versed in tragedy and darkness and uncertainty. And this is God's anointed. This is the man after God's own heart, and he is not exempt from the dark valley. He is not exempt from suffering and tragedy. But he's not afraid. His fear has been cast out. But why?

What's the presence of the shepherd in the valley? It's a personal presence. I don't know if you noticed this, but the pronouns shifted. We've gone from "the Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need" to "even when I go through the valley, you are with me." I think David might be offering us a little sneak worship lesson of when we're in the dark valley, when there's nowhere to see, when we're having trouble coming to the place of worship and sensing the presence of God. We might have to start talking about God and then start talking to God. Start talking about who he is and what he's done and then who he is to us and what he's done for us and what he's doing.

The comfort of the shepherd's presence, the shepherd king's presence, is also in the rod and the staff. The rod is to beat off wild animals and wild people. The staff is to gently guide back onto the path. We see here a picture of Jesus' presence at the cost of his life. In tragedy and uncertainty, the cup of death and judgment, the rod of wrath fell upon Christ so that it would spare us.

As I was reading this, what hit me like with freight train energy was this difference. Reading this in light of Christ, in re-reading this in light of the gospel, that all we have is a shadow of death where Jesus walked in death itself. The worst that this world can offer and can throw at us is a shadow of death, not even death itself. Because of Christ, death is a lie. It's the next baptism into the next life, the fulfilled life. I hope we can rejoice in that, that even though we're in the darkest valley, that we can rejoice that it's a shadow.

What is the picture of Christ's presence in your valley? When did you feel the shadow of death? I do understand that it is often hardest to feel the presence of the shepherd king in the dark valley. It's a lot harder to sense his presence in the dark valley as opposed to the green pasture and the quiet waters.

What's of particular encouragement to me, and I hope to you as well, is that in the New Testament, in First John One, Jesus is offering himself as not only the presence in the darkest valley, but also the light in the valley. The Christ light is not synonymous with peace and tranquility, but truth and empowerment. We walk through the dark valley and through tragedy as we did in 2023, and we will again in 2024. But we're able to speak the Christ light into the dark valley, that he has defeated death, that he has defeated sin, that there's only a shadow, that he sits on the throne of the world. We're able to speak that truth into the darkness, and that is light.

What people and places and verses and songs and poems will proclaim that for you? What did it in 2023? What is going to do that again in 2024? And if you don't have those, I would encourage you to find them.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

We see here a picture of God's presence in the threat of attack. What kind of attack? Unclear. The text isn't super clear. But, again, knowing David's life, we can imagine what he's talking about. We ask again what kind of presence. Still personal. He's still using the personal pronouns. This is still extremely intimate. Notice, though, that the metaphor has shifted from shepherd king to host king. The language, though, continues with this personal imagery. We're being drawn into this world where God is welcoming us to sit at his table. He's spreading out food before us.

He's handing us his cup. He is anointing our head with oil. Not only that, but we're coming in out from the enemies with frazzled hair and probably stinky, and he's anointing us with oil. He's making us presentable and beautiful to sit with him at his table. We do nothing. We show up.

As we turn to Christ, we see here a picture of Jesus offering himself as the feast in the face of defeated enemies. In the New Testament, Jesus instructs his disciples and us by extension to take part in a different kind of feast, him. We receive overflowing grace at the cross, and we receive kingship. We're invited into his family. So through Christ, not only are we invited to come and sit at his table as a guest, but we're actually made part of the family. This anointing is anointing us also into royalty. Again, this picture of where we're sitting and what we're being invited into is also a picture of the identity transformation that Christ offers us.

That's what we're acting out every Sunday with the table. We come here to feast on the bread of life, the cup that overflows with living water bought with the blood, and right outside the door is our enemies. And Jesus isn't concerned. Jesus is ready to just throw a party right in the middle of enemy territory because their days are numbered, and ours are just beginning.

Where is Christ's presence in the face of attack both last year and anticipated attacks this upcoming year? Looking back at 2023, where did you experience Christ's feast in the presence of your enemies?

A few months ago, I was at Deerfoot, the summer camp that I work at in the summer, and I was really burdened with some sin I was struggling with. It was heavy on my mind, I was thinking about it a lot. It was heavy on my heart, it was making me feel. And one evening, my good friend David invited me to go on what we call a one-on-one. We go for a walk, just one of us. We kind of climb up a little mountain that's on property. And while we're walking, I just confess where I'm at. I confess that I'm struggling with this. And at the top of this mountain, he prays for me. And not only does he pray for victory and freedom from that sin, but he also just prays for my heart and for my soul and for my mind. And y'all, that was a feast in the presence of my enemies. That was such a feast in the presence of my enemies to have a brother put his hand on my shoulder and pray for me and pray with me.

In the year to come, how will you taste the banquet? Drink deeply of the living water flowing from the cross, smell the oil that anoints your head, and all in the presence of your enemies. What will carry over from 2023? What will be different in 2024?

God's Pursuing Presence

Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

We see here a picture of God pursuing his people at all costs. Now, no one lived in the temple. So what David is saying here is he wants us to see the presence of the temple. He wants God's presence to be following and with him everywhere, as if everywhere he goes is the temple.

And what I think this is, really, the crescendo of where David, without knowing it, is screaming at Christ to come, because that's exactly what we get with Jesus. We see in Christ's pursuit of his people that he stepped out of heaven and into flesh to walk among us and then to the cross. As I said in the first section, y'all, if not for Jesus, we would be appropriating this text. But because of Jesus, we get to grab it and hold on to it. We get to hold on to the presence of the Lord pursuing us and being with us.

God's goodness and faithful love pursued man right out of heaven into flesh and blood to stand beside him on earth. It sent God to the cross, and it now pursues each of us in our hearts through the helper, the Holy Spirit. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit's pursuing presence also lets us now run after other people with God's pursuing presence. We get to offer that to others. As Christ has pursued us, now we get to go pursue others.

Do you feel the presence of God pursuing you? Do you feel God's goodness and his love pursuing you, or does it feel like you were forgotten? It is hard, and God invites us into the discipline of remembering. All throughout the Old Testament into the New Testament, it is God saying, remember, remember, remember, remember. From the prayers you pray to the clothes you wear to the little box on your forehead in the Old Testament, remember that I'm pursuing you even when you can't feel it. I am pursuing you. Remember. Speak that truth over your life over and over again. Remember.

James Sutton once asked me, when I was first getting started with the internship here a year ago, to make a timeline of my journey with Jesus. And so I went home and I started thinking.

I pulled out my piece of paper. And the process of making this timeline from birth to my current age and to physically write out this process of Christ pursuing me and lining things up and leading me into relationship with people was pretty powerful. I had this document now showing God's pursuit of me. I would encourage you to try something like that in this New Year. Hang it up somewhere where you can look at it.

Do you long to be in the presence of God like David did? Are you hungering for these new experiences of God's presence? Are you looking for it in the pasture, in the tragedy, in the attack? Is it pursuing you? Do you know it? Do you really know it?

I would encourage you to join with me in taking these words and whispering them. Whispering them as you go about your chores, as you go out of this place and into your gatherings tonight or you stay home, as you spend time with your loved ones, as you're also frustrating and trying to hold on to your calm. And that you would breathe deeply of God's presence, his pursuing presence in your life.

Alright. I'll pray for us.

Father God, thank you. Thank you for pursuing us. Thank you for pursuing us when we feel it and when we don't. Father, in the light and in the pasture and in the darkness and when the enemies are around us. Lord, let us speak these words. Let us live in this world, but then let us also move towards others with these words as well, inviting them into your pastures and into your plenty and into the valley and into the table. In the name of Jesus, amen.