Psalm 23 - Our Journey Home

Can you guess which Psalm we're in today? Psalm 23. In this series on favorite Psalms, we're talking this morning about the one that may be the most favorite, the most loved, the most quoted, one of the most quoted passages of all the scriptures is Psalm 23. Untold millions of people have found comfort and peace and hope from the words of David in Psalm 23. And yet our very familiarity with this Psalm may blind us to the significance of what it's saying. I think with many of us we may know it by heart but not know it in our hearts. And so I want us to take this morning a fresh look at the shepherd's Psalm, a fresh look at Psalm 23. Just a casual glance at the Psalm will reveal to you that there are no requests in this Psalm. No pleas, no petitions, only promises. God simply gives us a catalog of his mercies, of his rich blessings in this Psalm. As I restudied this Psalm this week, a fresh insight came to me that I don't think I'd ever seen before. And that is that the Psalm seems to be leading us on a journey, our journey home. There is a progression in this Psalm. And what we find is that in Psalm 23, God is revealing to us the catalog of mercies and blessings He provides for us all along the way in every phase, every stage of that journey home. He is with us to shepherd us through each stage. So I want to still look at those four stages of life's journey this morning and see the catalog of mercies that God has for us to avail ourselves up as we walk with him on this journey through life. Verse 1 begins by describing for us the beginning of the journey. Every journey must have a beginning. And verse 1 is the beginning of this journey. I would indeed even say to you that journey begins, life begins, real life, eternal life begins right here in verse 1. And in this beginning of the journey, God promises us two of His many blessings. The first one is that He promises to us relationship. And that's where the journey begins. I want to say it very clearly. Your journey in life, your journey toward that home in heaven begins with a relationship with God. That's where it must start. Notice how that relationship is described. The Lord is my shepherd. Now if you'll take a close look at the word Lord, I expect most of your Bibles, if not all of them, have the word Lord in all capital letters, all four letters are capital letters. Now whenever you find that in your Old Testament, that's a sign that this is a special word for God. The word Yahweh or Jehovah. This is in a sense the highest name for God. It's describing God as the eternal, self-existent, all-sufficient God of the universe. The one who spoke and worlds came into existence. This God, Jehovah God, the Creator God, is the God who wants to have a relationship with you. And notice that relationship is further described as being a shepherd kind of relationship, which emphasizes the personal nature. David could have said the Lord is my king for he is. David could have said the Lord is my deliverer for that he is. David could have said as he said in other Psalms comparing God to a shield or a rock or a fortress or something that would protect us, all of which he does. But this is the most intimate personal term that David could use of the relationship God wants to have with us. A shepherd lives with his sheep. A shepherd is everything to his sheep. He guides them. He protects them. He feeds them. So the most intimate and personal term that David could use for a relationship with God is that he is our shepherd. And then notice this relationship is made even more personal with the pronoun my. The Lord is my shepherd. It's not just that he is a shepherd. It's not just that he is Israel's shepherd. He is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. I have a personal relationship with Jehovah God. The God of the universe wants a personal relationship with you and with me. Now the Bible describes how that relationship is entered into. In fact, the New Testament identifies specifically who that shepherd is, who the Jehovah God is, who offers to be our shepherd. In John chapter 10, Jesus himself said, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come. Jesus said that they may have life and have it to the full. And then down in verse 14, he said, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. So Jesus is the shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep and who bids those sheep come into relationship with him. So how do we enter into our relationship with God? It is through his son, Jesus Christ. The one whom God the Father sent to be our savior, to take our place on the cross, to bear God's wrath and punishment for our sins. He is the shepherd who's laid down his life for the sheep and he bids us come into a personal relationship with him through faith in Jesus Christ. The Lord, Jehovah God, is my personal shepherd, guide, protector, defender. He is my shepherd and he gave himself for my sins on the cross. Now, if you've trusted Jesus as your savior, you can say the same thing. Very personally, you have entered into a personal relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ. Sometimes people wonder, what do you mean by trusting Christ as your personal savior? What does that term personal savior mean? It's exactly what David's talking about here. It's a recognition that Jesus didn't just die generically for the sins of the world. It's not just that Jesus died for all mankind or Jesus died for certain people. Jesus died for me. He is my shepherd. He died for my sins. It's entering into a personal recognition of the fact that he wants to love you and save you personally. Yes, he loves the whole world. He loves you personally. He wants to save you. God saves people one at a time. You come into a personal relationship with Christ through faith in Him. That's the relationship and that's where the journey begins. The journey through life, through real life, through eternal life begins with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But not only does he offer a relationship, he also offers contentment. In fact, I think it's the first blessing that the heart senses when we come into a personal relationship with Christ, that our search is over, our search for meaning, for significance, for peace, for fulfillment, for purpose in life, that's over. The restless heart is caused to rest, contented in Jesus Christ. That's what he says at the end of verse 1, I shall not be in want. Now the word want here does not deal with our desires, but it deals with a sense of a lack. We can use the word want in both ways. I want a brand new car you might say and you're talking about your desires. Or you might say, I have want of nothing. There's nothing I really want, which you're talking about. There's nothing you really lack. It's that second sense in which the word is used here. God is not promising that you will give us all of our desires because in our sinful nature sometimes we desire things that are outside the will of God that would not be good for us. Thankfully in His grace God doesn't give those things. But God does promise to meet all of our needs so that we will not lack anything that He knows we need. You can search for that kind of contentment in your possessions, in your own resources, in your job, in your money, in other relationships and you will end up being frustrated, dissatisfied, discontented and alone. But when your heart comes to rest in the Savior Jesus Christ, your heart is at once content because you have want of nothing. There is nothing that you need that He does not provide. An interesting phenomenon happened at the end of World War II. The Allied troops found that they were thrust into a situation where they needed to provide lodging and food for numerous orphans, children that had been orphaned because of the war in Europe. And so they did. They provided a place for them to stay. They fed them well, took care of them until suitable arrangements could be made for those children. But they noticed something very strange, although the children were well cared for and well fed, they would not sleep at night. They seemed to be worried and anxious and upset about what was going to happen to them the next day. And so a very wise psychologist decided, I think I understand what the problem is. I think these children have gone from day to day for so long, not knowing what they would have tomorrow. That even though they have been well taken care of today, they are worried about what is going to happen tomorrow. And so he said, I think we could maybe solve it if we do this. Let them each go to bed with a slice of bread, holding a slice of bread in their hands. Now they were well fed, but even if they ate that slice of bread, they would be given another one. The object was you're to hold onto that slice of bread, not eat it, just hold onto it, and fall asleep with that slice of bread in your hands. And something remarkable happened, the children started sleeping at night. You know why? Because having that slice of bread gave them some hope and security for tomorrow. They knew that if nothing else happened to them tomorrow, they would at least have that slice of bread. And that hope and security gave them peace and rest in their souls. Now my friend, when you find the living bread, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you take him into your life and your heart as your Savior, your heart will rest content, your heart which has searched in so many ways and in so many places for contentment and meaning and purpose and satisfaction in life, your heart will finally be at rest, your heart will be content, you will lack nothing that you really need because you have Christ. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Relationship and contentment are where the journey starts. But then David the Psalmist goes on to describe for us the road on the journey. The journey picks up from that point and continues on through the road of life. And along the road of the journey, God promises us at least these four things, these four blessings. He promises us first of all rest, verse two, He makes me lie down in green pastures. That is a picture of rest, isn't it? And the drama folks brought that out so well, green pastures, lush pastures, soft pastures, you can just imagine a sheep lying down in those green pastures, a serene setting, peaceful setting, a restful setting. And the idea is that God has promised us, rest for our souls in the midst of all of our frantic pace of life, in the midst of all of our deadlines and our stresses and pressures and the grind of daily life. In the midst of all of that, we can have rest in our soul. No matter what wins swirl around you, you can have rest in your soul. Jesus promises you that as you're shepherd. In fact, He Himself made a similar promise in Matthew chapter 11 when He said, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find here it is rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. He promises rest for our souls. He promises to give us a calmness deep down inside, to calm our fears, to calm our inner conflicts and our irritations with daily life. And to calm our worries about tomorrow, He promises to give us rest in our soul. It's one of the blessings that He promises you. Paul said it this way in Philippians chapter 4, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, here's the rest. The peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. He promises rest. Secondly, for the journey on the road, He promises refreshment. Look at the end of verse 2. He leads me beside quiet waters. Now that's a promise for refreshment. That you'll have an unending source of water, quiet water, calm waters to draw refreshment from. Now actually in the ancient Near East, in shepherding sheep, in that part of the world, there would be three sources of water for sheep. The first was very simple. It was the dew that was on the grass in the meadows every morning. And as sheep would early in the morning graze on the grass, they would get sufficient moisture from the dew to begin to prepare their bodies for the heat of the day. But then the shepherd up in the heat of the day would lead them to a place where they could find a pool of water or a stream of water, a constant supply of water. That's what's being pictured here. He leads me beside quiet waters, a smoothly flowing stream, a constant supply of water. Did you know my friend Jesus promises you that? A never-ending stream of water, if you know him as your Savior? Because he has promised you the Holy Spirit to be in you, to always be a stream of refreshing water, to refresh your soul. Jesus promised us this in John chapter 7. Look at what he said, whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him by this. He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. You see, Jesus promised us the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit came in this fashion in this way on the day of Pentecost when the church began. And ever since that time, all who believed in Jesus Christ have been the recipients of God's refreshing, never-ending stream of water, the Holy Spirit within us, to refresh us. But then there are times when you go through difficult times in your life, dry and air at desert places. There were times like that for sheep as well. And in those times, in those places, the shepherd would look for a well, the third source of water for the sheep. A deep well, wells were usually dug in air at dry, desert-tight places because you had to go deep to get to any water. There was not a refreshing stream nearby. There was not a pool of water. There would not be any dew on the grass because there was no grass. So at times, you drew water from a well to refresh your sheep. And you know the Bible tells us that we have the same opportunity to draw out of difficult, dry places in our lives, to go deep into what the Lord Jesus has promised us and draw up water out of the well. It's a wonderful verse in another favorite Psalm that we'll get to later in this series in Psalm 84. But let me just jump fast forward to that Psalm. I'll show you these verses. Blessed are those whose strength is in you who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. This was a Psalm that would be read while they were going to Jerusalem, had to travel through the desert. He says, as they pass through the valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs. The autumn rains also cover it with pools. The valley of Baka was a dry desert and arid place that some people who were traveling to Jerusalem had to go through. And he says it is possible when you go through those kinds of places in your life to make it a place of springs. If you draw deep from the well of God's sufficient, refreshing water that He promises you His own character, His strength, His power, then you will find fresh water even in difficult times in your life. So He promises refreshment for the journey. Promises rest. He promises refreshment. Thirdly, He promises restoration. First part of verse three, He restores my soul. Now the idea here can be one of two things. Some people think this means that He restores our soul in the sense that He gives us refreshment, kind of rejuvenation of life and that kind of thing. But there's another way to interpret this and I believe it fits better with the way this word used typically in the Old Testament. And that is talking about forgiveness, restoration to fellowship with God when we sin. You see the picture here is of a sheep that wonders from the fold, wonders from the flock, and falls into a pit or a hole and can't get out. And my understanding, I've never raised sheep, don't plan on buying any anytime soon. My understanding from what I read about sheep is that when a sheep falls into a pit like that often they'll roll over on their back, especially if their wool is heavy or they are fat, they'll roll over on their back and they'll kick and yelp and all kinds of things and they can't get themselves out of that. It takes the shepherd coming along, recognizing their plight, lifting them up out of that pit and putting them back on their feet and getting them back with the flock. That's what it takes to restore that sheep. There's a very beautiful picture there because just like sheep, we often wonder away from the fold, from the flock, get away from the shepherd and we end up getting into pits and messes and traps and all kinds of things of our own making, temptation and sin, despair and discouragement, whatever it may be, and we end up getting in a position that we can't get ourselves out of. I am so thankful that when the shepherd recognizes that, he does not cast us off. He does not get upset with us and say, you've done that one too many times, forget it, you will no longer be one of my sheep. I'm so thankful that he restores my soul, that he picks me up out of that pit and he puts me back on my feet and he says, I want you back with the flock, I want you back in my arms again, I want you back with me again and the Lord graciously brings us back to that place of repentance from our sin. Restoration he restores my soul. But the Bible also tells us this fourth promise. He gives us, he promises us, right paths, right paths, look at the end of verse three, he guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Now again, from what I read and understand about sheep, sheep are stubborn animals, they are creatures of habit, sheep will graze the same areas until they are ruined, sheep will walk the same trails until they become ruts. If they are not led to other pastors, sheep will pollute their own ground until it becomes infested with all kinds of parasites and gets eroded away. And I find a tragic picture of what we are like in that because we are sheep who have a tendency to wonder, who have a tendency to blindly and stubbornly make a mess of our lives, who have a tendency to walk in the same paths that have ruined other people's lives, and stubbornly we walk in the same rut that those have walked in and messed up their lives and we think it won't happen to me, can't happen to me, or I know how to handle this, I can take care of myself and we stubbornly, ignorantly follow in the same paths that other sheep have followed to their own destruction. And what the shepherd does when that is the case is he says that is not the right path for you. The path you need to be on is the path of righteousness. If you will follow me, I will lead you into righteous paths that will bless you and will also honor me. Notice, you see at the end of the verse, he guides me in paths of righteousness for his names sake. You see, when you stop walking the old paths that have been traveled by too many people, the paths of sin, the paths of the ruts of destruction. When you stop walking that and you start walking after the shepherd in the paths of righteousness, not only is it what's best for you, not only is it right paths for you, it is also that which best glorifies him and honors his name, and he leads us in those paths for his names sake, for his glory, not just so that we'll be happy and satisfied as for his glory that he leads us in those paths of righteousness. So he promises for the road on the journey. He promises you rest, refreshment, restoration, and right paths. But that's not the end. Verse 4 talks about the end of the journey. In verse 4, we have an interesting statement. David says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, you're rot in your staff. They comfort me. I think what David is talking about here is death. Now the expression, the valley of the shadow of death, the four words translated in the NIV, the shadow of death come from one Hebrew word. And that one Hebrew word is found 20 times in the Old Testament. Sometimes it refers to just a dark shadow. In fact, sometimes death is used as kind of a symbolic figure of speech for being the darkest kind of shadow. But there are occasions in the Old Testament, and I think this is one of them, where the valley of the shadow of death, that deep dark shadow is actually talking about death itself. It's not talking about dark trials in life that may be almost as bad as death. I think he's talking about death. I think he's talking about the end of the journey. And when we come to the end of the journey, when we come to death's door, when we come to that place in our life where the journey is over, and we are going to enter death. Even there, the shepherd does not abandon us. He does not leave us alone. He shepherds us through that too. He doesn't stop at death's door. But he goes through that door with us and takes us through death. I will never forget back in 1991, when my father had bypassed surgery. And I'd been with many families in hospitals prior to that time when their loved ones had surgery and would sit with them and pray with them and talk with them. But I never fully grasped what that feeling was like to see your loved one go through those doors where you can't go. Most hospitals will let the family go to the point where they go through the doors back into the surgery suite. And when you go through those doors, you watch your loved one be wheeled back and you can't go any further. You have to stop. And I always used to pray this with families, but it became very real to me in that experience. And I began to pray it with a new sense of earnestness with families after that. And that is beyond those doors where nobody else can go, the Lord goes with you. You can be assured that he will go with you through those doors. And when we can't go back into the prep room and the surgical suite with you, the Lord will go with you. Well, that's exactly the picture here. When we go through that door of death and nobody else can walk with you through that, they can walk you up to that door, but they can't walk with you through that door. The shepherd goes with you. Now I want you to see what he says. Two things he promises us when we get to the end of the journey. The first thing he promises is courage. First part of verse four, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. There's nothing to be feared. There is no evil that can befall us at that time. Are you listening to me? Do you realize that if you know Jesus as your Savior, when you get to the end of the journey and you're ready to walk through death's door, there is no evil that can befall you. There is nothing to be afraid of when you get to that point. As a Christian, there's no need to fear. Nothing to fear at that time. There's a very famous house in San Francisco called the Winchester House. Mrs. Winchester came from the family of the Winchester's who invented the Winchester rifle. Her husband and son had died leaving her alone. And the story is, I read it is that she was a very fearful woman and feared death. Someone told her that you can outwit death, death will become confused and will not claim anyone from the same house if you continue to build on to your house. And so with a truckload of money from the Winchester fortune, she decided to do just that. And so she continually was building onto that house. My understanding is you can still tour it today. And if you do, you will find a house that has 2,000 doors and 16,000 windows. How would you like to clean that, ladies? But you will also find hallways that go like a labyrinth through the house and end up at a brick wall. And you will find staircases that wind around and go nowhere but to a ceiling. You see, she just wanted to continually be building something. Just do something, add something, hoping she would outwit death. She was afraid of death. And of course it didn't work. She died. My understanding is that it took six weeks to remove her things from that house. Trucks pulling things out of that house all day long for six weeks. She did not escape death but she feared it. Now my friend what the Bible is telling us is there is no need to fear death when you come to death's door, when you come to the end of the journey. You know why he tells us, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Now there's something very precious about the way he says that. Up to this point in the psalm he's been saying he, when he talks about the Lord, he makes me lie down. He leads me. He restores. He guides. And now he changes to a more personal, person to person, pronoun, you are with me. For you see what happens at death's door is the shepherd is no longer in front of you leading the way through life. He moves to your side. And he walks with you through death's door. There's a verse in Isaiah that I think expresses this so well. It's become a favorite verse of mine in the last five years. Isaiah 41 and verse 13. It says, for I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand. And says to you, do not fear. I will help you. You see the shepherd is now with you side by side. It's not that he's leading me out front. It's that you're with me. You're taking my right hand. You're holding me through this experience. There is no need for me to fear because you've moved alongside me and you will carry me through death. That's the picture we have here in Psalm 23. Many Christians have found great comfort in the story by Mary Stevenson entitled Footprints in the Sand. It goes like this. One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonging to him and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of his life had flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it. You said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way, but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there's only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you the most, you would leave me. The Lord replied, my son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you. That's exactly what he's promising in Psalm 23. There's no need to fear death as a Christian because you are with me. He, hand in hand, carrying me through that experience we call death. He provides courage, but he also provides comfort at the end of the verse. You are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Now the rod and the staff were the only two pieces of equipment. A shepherd would carry with him, primary pieces of equipment. He might carry a sling, but the rod and the staff were the two primary pieces of equipment. The rod was kind of a club that he could hold by one end and the other end was a little larger and shepherds would practice throwing that club at things so that when a wild animal came near the flock or there was a snake in the path, they could deal a death blow to that wild animal, to that enemy. So the club, the rod was a defensive weapon to fend off the enemy. The staff, little different, the staff was a more narrow rod that had a crook at the end. The shepherd's crook, kind of like a hook. And with the staff, the shepherd would sometimes reach down. If he couldn't reach a sheep in a pit or a hole or something, he would reach down and pull the sheep up with that staff and cradle the sheep up next to him. Now do you see what he's saying here? When you get to death's door, there's nothing to fear because he's with us, but also his rod and his staff comfort us. When you get to death's door, Jesus wards off all enemies with his rod and he cradles you close to himself with his staff and he carries you through death's door. There is no enemy that can take you at death. Satan cannot take you. Fear cannot take you. The curse sin, nothing can take you. If you're a Christian at death because he defends you against all enemies and decadles you close to himself, you're a rod and you're staff, they comfort me. The writer of Hebrews said it this way in Hebrews chapter 2, since the children have flesh and blood he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death. That is the devil. That's the rod. He destroys the one who has the power of death. And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. That's the staff. He rescues us from the fear of death and the slavery that we were in, the pit that we were in because of fear of death. He comforts us when we come to death's door. The end of the journey. There is courage and there's comfort that he promises, but quickly that's not even the end versus five and six. Describe the destination of the journey. And I just want to quickly give you these five promises God makes to us. The destination he describes and by the way the figure of speech changes here from a shepherd to a host. The shepherd has taken us through life's journey and he has crossed death's river with us. But once we get to our destination he becomes a host and invites us to a banquet in verse 5 and a home in verse 6. And these five promises he gives us about those two things. Number one he promises victory. Verse 5, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. This banquet, this feast we're going to is a picture of a victory banquet sometimes in Bible times when you want a great military victory. Some of the captives, some of the conquered captives would actually be seated at the victory banquet with you as an evidence of the fact that you had conquered all your foes. I believe that when we get to heaven and we are seated at this banquet the idea is that we are now free from all of our enemies. All the enemies have been conquered, Satan, death, sin and the curse. They're all behind us and this is a great victory celebration that we are in heaven now. So it's a victory banquet. He promises us victory. Secondly he promises us joy. You anoint my head with oil. Perfumed oils would be put over the head in Bible times at very festive occasions. They were not every day, appointments. They were not every day the odorants and those kinds of things. They didn't use that. But on special festive occasions they would anoint themselves put on their head these festive oils. And so the picture here is of a joyous banquet, the kind of banquet that's described in Revelation 19 is the marriage feast of the Lamb, where we will sit with him at a table and be served by our Lord and we will with great joy worship him and adore him and love him as our Savior as he hosts this banquet for us. And then thirdly he promises provision. My cup overflows. At this banquet we will have everything we need and by the way this banquet lasts an eternity. There will be no lack of anything in heaven. Everything we need is provided. Our cup will overflow. Fourthly he provides for us reflection on the journey. Well I think this is so precious. I think in heaven we will look back and understand verse six a lot better than we can understand it from this side. Surely goodness and love you're used to seeing the word mercy. So the Hebrew word Kheset which means his steadfast covenant love. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. The word follow is the word to pursue. It's not just a lag behind and try to keep up with. It's to be a hot pursuit of what he's saying is God's goodness, his kindness, his support, his strength and his steadfast love, his commitment to us in love constantly pursues us in life and when we get to heaven and reflect back on our journey and see it all in the right perspective you know what we will see? We will see that every time we were walking with God God was anxious to bless us with his love and his kindness and his goodness and we will see that every time we got off the right path and started to walk away from God his love and his kindness pursued us with a zeal to bring us back to himself and we will understand that better when we reflect on our journey in heaven. We will see that every day of our lives his goodness and his love was pursuing us and our reflection on the journey will see it so much better. The final promise that he gives us here is the promise of home. This is home and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In the Old Testament the house of the Lord was the tabernacle or the temple the place that symbolized the presence of God but those places only symbolized God's presence. God's presence really abides, exists in heaven that's his home and to abide in his house forever means that we will be with the Lord in heaven and notice we're not just guest for a day. This is forever. This is what we were made for. This is our home. This is where we will finally be at rest and at peace. Our home in heaven. It's where we belong. Our home is not here like the old gospel song says this world is not your home you're just a passing through. Our home is heaven. Jesus prayed the night before he died in John chapter 17 and verse 24. He prayed this prayer. Father I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory. The glory you've given me because you love me before the creation of the world and that prayer is answered by our Father with a resounding yes we know so from His Word we know from Psalm 23 and other passages which tell us that prayer will be answered but my friend it will only be answered if you know Him personally as you're shepherd. If you have trusted Him as your Savior if you've put yourself under His protective care and if you have done that if you've come to know Jesus as your Savior then you can enjoy the blessings of the road the journey along life's road that He's promised you and I assure you when you come to the end you will find courage and comfort knowing that He joins you in that journey across the river of death and you will find your eternal home to be in heaven. He is a good shepherd. Would you pray with me? Father thank you for our shepherd thank you for the Lord Jesus who gave His life for the sheep who died for us so that we might be His people and follow Him and I thank you Lord for this rich catalog of your blessings you've promised us as your sheep may we rejoice in all you've provided for us all you've given us by your grace we thank you and Lord we pray today that if there's anyone here who's never trusted Christ as their Savior never become one of your sheep that today they would turn from their own efforts and turn to you in faith to be saved we pray in Jesus name amen