By 
This sermon was preached for Capital Pres Fairfax on Palm Sunday, April 27, 2025, as a part of our sermon series “The Good Shepherd.” Jesus calls himself “The Good Shepherd.” Why is this good news? We long to be known and we need to be led. It is not a matter of if, but who or what, we are going to follow. We will consider what it truly looks like to belong to God as a beloved part of his flock, both as an individual and as a church community. This week we focused on Psalm 23:1-3. A recording of this sermon will be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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This Sunday we’re starting a five-week sermon series titled “The Good Shepherd” where we’ll unpack the theme of shepherding. By that, we mean the Bible’s vision of leadership—both the way that God leads us and the way he’s structured leadership in the church. Three quick reasons we’re exploring this theme of shepherding.
First, shepherding has everything to do with Scripture. The Bible is is full of shepherding language. We just finished a sermon series on the book of Exodus, and the Bible constantly talks about the exodus event with shepherding imagery. When Moses sings his praise to God after they cross through the Red Sea, he sings about God leading Israel like a shepherd leading his sheep (Ex 15:13). All through Israel’s history, when they talk about God’s deliverance, they describe him as a shepherd. Israel’s kings are called shepherds throughout the Old Testament’s history books. When our Lord Jesus shows up on the scene, he identifies himself as “the good shepherd,” and when Jesus commissions leaders for his church, he describes their work as “shepherding.” Here at Capital Pres Fairfax, we want to talk about what the Bible talks about, and shepherding is all over the place in the Bible.
Second, shepherding has everything to do with our church. It’s been less than a year since our church officially launched out on our own. In this first year, one of our main priorities is figuring out how to do shepherding. We’ve been blessed with great elders in this church and we want to make sure they and we understand what Jesus means when he tells elders to shepherd his sheep. This series will help us understand what that relationship looks like between members and elders.
Third, shepherding has everything to do with you. How you understand who God is and what it means to be a Christian; how you raise your children; how you approach conflict in your marriage; how you ask for help in a crisis—all these things are wrapped up in understanding shepherding and in knowing the Good Shepherd. You’ll see how if you stick with us.
That’s why we’re spending five weeks studying shepherding. There is no better place to start this series than Psalm 23, perhaps the most famous Psalm in the whole Bible. It’s so important we’ll be spending two weeks unpacking this psalm together. You might wonder “Patrick, this Psalm is only six verses. How are you gonna stretch this out to more than an hour’s worth of preaching?” You’ll see how each and every line of this Psalm is rich with gospel content. The famous German theologian Martin Luther once described every phrase in this psalm as “a little Bible.” I’ve found that to be true this past week as I prepared my sermon. This morning, we’re zooming in on the first three verses.
A Psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Alright, so three verses and three things for us to see.
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- The scandal of being a sheep
- The security of our shepherd
- The sake of his name
The scandal of being a sheep
This should be easy for us to understand here in the DC area, the capital of the most powerful country in the world for the past eighty years. All the leaders of our country meet downtown, and the president of the united stats lives just 13 miles away from us. if you were like our Pastor Rob and grew up in the mountains, that’s basically your next door neighbor! Many people move here to become a “leader” a mover-and-shaker, they want to be in the room where it happens.
If you’re a parent, you want that for your kids. You want to send your kid to a school which raises strong leaders, you want them to be the captain of their sports team or the first chair in the orchestra. Kids, you probably feel this for yourself. Do you want to be seen as the leader of your friend group, or a follower? The value of leadership, the pursuit of leadership, is deeply ingrained in our culture.
I want to press in to this a bit more. Think about it like this. When was the last time you heard a company marketing itself as “The #1 follower in the industry”? How many of you parents would send your kid to a school that promised to raise “the next generation of followers for the 21st century”? You know the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People? It’d probably be a lot less popular if it were How to be Won and Influenced by People. The fact of the matter is, nobody wants to be a follower.
It’s this mindset that makes the opening words of this Psalm incredibly jarring for us. Because in identifying the Lord as our shepherd, we are simultaneously identifying ourselves as sheep. Ew! That’s a bit of a dirty word today, isn’t it? But if we believe this Psalm and we’re faithful to Scripture, that’s our confession: we are sheep.
So here’s the scandal of being a sheep: We all need to be led, as much as we hate to admit it. The author of this Psalm knows exactly what he’s talking about. Look at our passage with me, even before we get to verse 1 we get the detail “A Psalm of David.” Remember who David was: Israel’s mighty warrior king, the most famous leader in the nation’s history. So of all people in the Bible, David understands us leader-oriented DC folk. On the spectrum of “follower” to “leader” David is as “leader” as they come. But before he wore his crown, he started out as a literal shepherd. David understands sheep, too.
It’s no small thing that of all people, David calls himself a sheep. He recognizes something in his own heart—something that’s in the heart of every human—that’s mirrored by his flock: we all need to be led. Sheep need to be led, they can’t find their way on their own. In a wilderness like the hills and valleys of Judah, sheep would be prone to wandering into a deep ravine they can’t escape from, or into a desert where they have no food or water. They totally depend on a good shepherd to lead them to places where they can find what they need to live. Friends, you and I aren’t so different.
All of us are facing threats in life, all of us are looking for direction. When you feel lost, when you feel like you’re in danger, where do you turn? Who is leading you? Who are you following? That’s a funny word, follower. We use that all the time when it comes to social media and influencers. Maybe that’s a good litmus test for you: who are you following? Who are you listening to and watching? Who is influencing you? Maybe it is an influencer, like a favorite YouTuber or Tiktoker or podcaster. Maybe it’s a politician or a doctor or a financial advisor. I don’t know who it is for you, I’ll let you answer that for yourself.
I do know this: more likely than not, it’s yourself. We think that if we can work hard enough and go to the right schools and get the right credentials, we can provide our own direction. But what happens when you reach the end of yourself? What happens when your credentials aren’t good enough, or you get laid off due to factors outside your control? What happens when you buckle under the pressure? Where will you turn then?
Here’s the scandal of being a sheep: We all need to be led, whether we admit it or not. King David sees that in his own heart, and he points us to the only one worthy to lead us.
The Security of our Shepherd
Let’s come back to our text and look at David’s Shepherd. In verses 1-3, the Shepherd is always the one in the active role. David is simply receiving from him. We have four verbs here to describe the Shepherd, and we’ll start by looking at the first three. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
It can be easy to jump past the metaphor straight into applying this to ourselves, but if we do that, we lose some of the richness of the poem. Remember that David is writing this from the perspective of a literal shepherd. These are farmers’ terms—very physical and literal verbs. That first verb “He makes me lie down”—another way you can translate that is “causes me to lie down” or “forces me to lie down.” Sheep are stubborn animals who don’t always know what’s best for them, and so a shepherd sometimes has to force their sheep to lie down. Think about when you’re training a puppy to “sit” and “lie down.” Sometimes you literally have to press down on the dog.
That second verb “He leads me.” What mental picture comes to mind? It’s not just like playing “follow the leader”, this is more involved. Again, think about walking a dog with a leash—another word for that is a “lead.” Shepherds use sticks to physically direct their sheep, to turn their heads in the right direction. David is saying “God does that with me.” David knows that God’s direction is not subtle, he is not always a willing sheep, but God is a good shepherd who lovingly takes charge to give the sheep what he needs. Now of course, David also knows the importance of being gentle and tender with the sheep. He’s not looking to hurt his flock. It’s the exact opposite. He is hands-on with the sheep in order to give them exactly what they need.
And see how each of these first three phrases pair with the most fundamental needs of the sheep. What are the three things every animal needs for survival? Food, water, and air. That’s exactly what we see the Shepherd provide in the psalm! For food, the Lord leads his sheep to “green pastures.” This phrase point to new, fresh grass probably in a place where it’s hard to find. For water, he leads to “still waters.” The most literal translation is “waters of rest,” calm water, not a roaring rapid but an easy brook or pond, easy for the sheep to drink. And for air, in Hebrew the word “soul” most literally means “breath,” so we could read this phrase as “he gives me a breather.” Imagine the sheep panting after a long journey up and down hills and valleys. The Good Shepherd gives his flock a break after climbing or walking for a long time.
Everything a sheep could need, this shepherd provides—and notice the quality here. It’s not just any old grass, it’s “new grass,” the best grass. It’s not just any water, it’s “waters of rest,” the ideal water to drink. His Shepherd has provided so abundantly that David can say with a full conscience “I shall not want,” or to update the English, “I will lack nothing.” His soul—again, in Hebrew that word literally means breath, but in the Bible it’s often used to represent the whole person; body, mind, heart, all of you—David says his soul is perfectly restored by the Lord. He has found wholeness in following his Good Shepherd.
Let’s apply this to ourselves. Think again to the people and things you’re following. Now ask yourself “Why am I following them?” Try to draw this out deeper than just “entertainment” or “information.” Our hearts are hungry, thirsty, and out of breath. How are the people or things you are following attempting to contribute to your pursuit of wholeness? What are you looking for them to provide? If the person you’re following is yourself, ask yourself “How do I suppose I can lead myself into wholeness? How am I supposed to restore my own soul?” Is the person or thing you’re following able to provide better than the Lord?
The Sake of his Name
So, the scandal of being a sheep: we all need to be led, as much as we hate to admit it. The security of our shepherd: the Lord leads us into wholeness. Let’s come to our last point: the sake of his name. Look with me at verse three “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” That phrase “for his name’s sake” can scare us, because we’ve all experienced leadership which ultimately operates for its own sake. That can be disastrous.
I recently watched a documentary about a woman who started a counseling practice with no credentials outside of her own charisma and quickly built up a cult following. She used a facade of religion and pop psychology to manipulate, exploit, and even abuse her clients—and the documentary showed just how dark and twisted it all became. Anyone who followed this woman either ended up wrecking their own lives or becoming just like her. That is the danger of having a bad shepherd: they will lead you off the path of righteousness, and their self-serving leadership will come at your own expense.
And let me just take a second to recognize the fact that for some of us, we have experienced that exact kind of abusive leadership in the church. If that’s you, I can only imagine how you’re feeling with this sermon series. You might be thinking. Before anything else, let me first just say I’m sorry. That’s not God’s vision for the church. The church is not supposed to be a place where people are hurt by their leaders, and Scripture saves its harshest condemnations for religious leaders who abuse their authority. One of our goals in this sermon series is to do our best to avoid some of those dangerous pitfalls, but before we can talk about our church leaders here at Capital Pres Fairfax are striving to be good shepherds, we first just need to see what it means for Jesus to be our shepherd.
When it comes to the Lord, he leads us in paths of righteousness, and the Lord’s self-sacrificial leadership brings your salvation. Friends, the reality is, none of us have stayed on the paths of righteousness. We’ve turned away from the Lord and gone to the wrong places to restore our souls. Isaiah 53:6 says “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” The New Testament tells us this “him” is the Lord Jesus, the one who calls himself “the Good Shepherd” who lays down his life for the sheep.
In Jesus we have a Shepherd who has gone off the path to find us and bring us back. His body was broken to give us spiritual food. His blood was shed so that you and I could drink deeply from waters of rest. He has restored our souls by facing death in our place. He pulls us out of the ditch of sin to set us on the path of righteousness. This is why it’s so beautiful that we’re told he leads us for his name’s sake. God considers your salvation his glory. Your redemption is his greatest praise and delight. Your restoration is for the sake of his name.
Look no further than Revelation 5. As angels sing their praise to Jesus, what do they praise him for? What makes Jesus worthy of worship? “Worthy are you…for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God” (Re 5:9). That is our Good Shepherd, that is why Jesus is the only one worth following.
Come back to your list of people you follow one more time. Two last reflection questions for you. “Am I being led in paths of righteousness?” And “Who benefits? Am I being led at my own expense or am I being led into the restoration of my soul?”
Conclusion
Let me close by speaking to some different people in the room. To the highly capable, highly educated, high-paid people: you are a sheep, you are reliant on a shepherd. You need to be led. To the weary, exhausted, afraid, weak: your shepherd is good, you will lack nothing. To the people who have been burned by bad shepherds in the past: Jesus is your Good Shepherd. We aren’t perfect here at church but we all start as sheep who have been rescued by the Lord. To all of us who so often orient our lives for the sake of our own names, and inevitably wander into the ditches of sin: Jesus has come to bring us back on the path for His name’s sake.
You cannot read this passage with pride. If you will not have the Lord as your shepherd, you will not find green pastures. You will not find waters of rest. Your soul will not be restored. You will not stay on paths of righteousness. If you can accept the fact that you are like a sheep, you can have the Lord as your shepherd. You shall not want. And the Lord finds his glory in restoring your soul.
Take Note Of This 