“Go in Peace: Security for the Way”
P. 23:6
Pastor Mark Mitchell once reflected on running a marathon. He said he trained hard to be as prepared as possible, but “there's a part of a marathon that's always hard to prepare for. A marathon is just a little over 26 miles, but experts tell you not to run over 20 miles in your training. That means the last six miles of a marathon are "no man's land." You don't know what you're getting yourself into. You may hit a wall. You may have cramps. You only know that it's going to be tough. But you also try to believe that if you train hard enough, you will be ready and will be able to cross that glorious finish line.” In some ways, the Christian life has the same dynamic; we try our best to follow Jesus, but there is a “no man’s land” of uncertainty that we will all go through before he finish line. How do we know we’re ready for the end? What’s to say we won’t get to the end and find it all untrue? Can we be sure we’ll cross the finish line? What security do we have that we’re on the right path and will make it safely home?
David concludes his Psalm by addressing our security: “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” We have assurance because of the rear forces and future focus of our lives. David points first to THE REAR FORCES. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life…” It was common for shepherds to have 2 sheep dogs that would follow the flock; they were the rear guard to protect the flock and to keep an eye out for wandering sheep. Goodness and love, inseparable twins of grace, are our sheep dogs. In Psalm 86:15 David wrote “But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” and in Ps. 103:8 “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love.” The rear forces of goodness and love.
Consider GOD’S GOODNESS. Goodness refers to all the benefits of God’s presence. Just ask yourself, “What advantage is there in having God around?” We could compile a lengthy list in response to the question, but perhaps the simplest answer is to review what David has already laid out in Psalm 23 – The Lord who rules the world is our shepherd, so we are not in want. He refreshes, renews and restores us; He guides us along right paths that will lead us home; He is with us even in the darkest valleys where He comforts us; He celebrates our victory even in the presence of our enemies; He anoints us and fills our lives with abundant blessings. In other words IN ALL THINGS GOD WORKS FOR OUR GOOD. As with a recipe that combines unlikely ingredients for a tasty final result, so God takes all the events of our lives and works them together for the good.
Consider John 9. As Jesus and his disciples were journeying they passed by a man blind from birth. The disciples tried to get at the cause of his blindness; but Jesus responded, “... this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” It had to do with God’s goodness. Remember also Paul’s memorable words (Rom. 8:28), “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who live him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Rev. William Goulooze, an RCA pastor who wonderfully chronicled his battle with the cancer which ultimately claimed his life, wrote: “The balance sheet of life does not always seem to tally right. We are face to face with some impossible realities and we cannot add them up to profit and blessing. We see some ridiculous experiences in the back yard of our own lives and we see them daily in the lives of others. We just cannot figure things out according to the arithmetic of earth. Problems, more problems, and greater calamities befall us. Like Job, one messenger after another brings us bad tidings. Crestfallen and downbeaten by the machinery of affliction, we are very low in spirit. We just cannot see rhyme or reason in our affliction. ‘Good in the end’ means that when the final tally is made, and when all the scores are in, the net result of affliction, yea of all of life is good in the sight of God, because He made the experience to result in the good He planned from the beginning.” Whatever comes, whatever happens, the goodness of God kicks in. God’s goodness is always a rear forces in our lives.
The same can be said for GOD’S LOVE. The word used here is actually MERCY. This is the essential quality of God. If God was a tyrant, or was self-centered or unforgiving, his goodness would be an entirely different color. But God acts with mercy. ALL THE GOOD GOD DOES IS DONE WITH MERCY.
And what is mercy? Psalm 136 is instructive. It begins (verse 1) with “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.” Then note the congregation’s response: “His love (mercy) endures forever.” The rest of the Psalm lists the contents of his mercy by summarizing all the acts of God in the life of Israel. After every act, the people respond, “His love (mercy) endures forever.” The Psalmist is pointing out how faithful God has been in Israel’s life. MERCY IS GOD’S STEADFAST LOVE AND KINDNESS expressed through His ongoing forgiveness, deliverance, provision, and patience. As their shepherd God is faithful in restoring and renewing His people. Goodness and love – the rear forces of our lives.
And David wrote that these forces FOLLOW US. As God’s presence followed Israel through their wilderness wanderings, as He was then their rear guard, so He follows us throughout all of life. Mark Galli wrote of a time he and his wife were having a marital "moral discourse," and he was becoming increasingly agitated. In his fury, he yelled at her and aimed his fist at a section of the dining room wall. As he put it, “Unfortunately, the Holy Spirit failed to guide my hand between the studs, as he usually had done, and instead I hit a stud right on. I broke a knuckle. A deathly silence settled in the room. While I came from a family in which nothing got done until someone yelled, Barb came from a family in which yelling brought things to a standstill. She was not going to speak to me for weeks. As I writhed in physical pain, I also writhed in emotional pain. I was a moral failure of a husband. … As I tried awkwardly, with one hand, to sweep up the bits of sheetrock strewn on the floor, I felt a hand on my arm. I turned around, and it was Barb. She said something apologetic. I said something apologetic. And then she embraced me for a long time. She had every right to pronounce a grand moral imperative, condemn my behavior, and distance herself from me. That surely would have taught me a lesson. Instead, she embraced the angry sinner, and rather than teaching me a lesson, she helped heal me.” Similarly God’s goodness and love follow us all the days of our lives.
But the beauty of the word David uses for ‘follows’ is that is literally interpreted “pursue.” And there’s a difference. To follow is to tag along, to stay close behind. To pursue is to run breathlessly after with the intent to catch. The same word, “pursue”, is used elsewhere in the Bible. Exodus 14:8 mentions that the chariots of Pharaoh pursued the Israelites to the sea. In Ps. 18:37 David sings, “I pursued my enemies and overtook them.” The prophet in Lam. 4:19 laments, “Our pursuers were swifter than the vultures; ... they chased us on the mountains. They lay in wait for us in the wilderness.” In that same spirit God’s GOD PURSUES US TO CATCH US, SO THAT HE CAN SHOWER US WITH GOODNESS AND MERCY.
So David wrote, “Surely goodness and love will (pursue) me...” “Surely” is the same word Paul used when he wrote, “I am convinced that neither death nor life not anything else in all creation shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It’s a word that means “This is for sure! This will happen!” Today we would say, “Yes! Count on it!” The shepherds care of verses 1-5 will happen! Yes! When we concentrate not on the single ingredients of our lives but on the final product, we too will say “Yes! Count on it!”
Is it any wonder that Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd? GOD SENT JESUS TO PURSUE US. He came to seek those who are lost, to heal the sick, to bind up the broken, to set free the captives. He is always pursuing us. Even, according to John 10:17-18, TO THE POINT OF DYING FOR US: “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again." So Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day He rose from the dead – and goodness and love gushed forth from the tomb and took off in hot pursuit. He ascended to heaven and SENT HIS HOLY SPIRIT to fill His followers with his life, and told them to go and pursue others even to the ends of the earth. Goodness and love – our rear forces. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life.”
Yet our assurance comes also from OUR FUTURE FOCUS. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” At the end of the cycle of the year the sheep would be led back to the home base or ranch. It’s a return to the fields, corrals, and shelters of the owner’s home. David knows he will likewise, at the end of the cycle of his life, arrive at the owner’s home. David was confident that THERE IS MORE TO COME AFTER LIFE ON EARTH IS DONE. Psalm 16:9-11: “Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” David, in fact, believed that God would personally take him home. Psalm 49:15 “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself.” Psalm 73:23-24 “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.”
Remember what Jesus, our Good Shepherd said? "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” HE IS THE ONE WHO WILL COME AND TAKE US HOME.
The late Peter Marshall shared an experience from his ministry. “In a home of which I know, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him and played with him hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctor’s diagnosis…the little boy was sure to die. But as the weeks went on he gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window. Small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the term – “death”, and he too knew was to die. One day his mother had been reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table…and about the last glorious battle where so many fair knights met their death. She closed the book and her son sat silent for a moment, deeply stirred. Then he asked his question – “Mama, what is it like to die? Mama, does it hurt?” Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she hurried to the kitchen, supposedly to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance and that it must be answered satisfactorily. She paused for a moment and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before her son and that she would be able to give him an answer. The Lord gave her inspiration. She returned to her son and said, “Kenneth, do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you were too tired even to undress and you’d tumble into my bed and fall asleep? That was not your bed; it was not where you belonged. You would only stay there a little while, and much to your surprise you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone who loved you had taken care of you. Your father had come with big strong arms and carried you away. Kenneth, darling, death is just like that. We just wake up one morning to find ourselves in the other room – our room where we belong, because the Lord Jesus loves us enough to die for us.” The boy’s shining face looking up into hers told her that the point had been made. Kenneth never questioned again. Several weeks later he fell asleep just as she had said and the Father’s big, strong arms carried him to his own room.” “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever… I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Jesus’ nailed scarred hands will take us home.
And so we will live with Him in all of His glory. Heaven is our home – it’s where we’re always welcome, embraced, included, and belong. It’s where work is finished, projects are done, and healing is complete. No more sorrow, no more dying, no more pain, no more tears. As Albert Lewis put it, the Lord will surround us as the womb surrounds an infant. C. S. Lewis’ heaven-struck unicorn, as he stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground, shouted “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life…”
There is a “no man’s land” of uncertainty that we will all go through before he finish line. How do we know we’re ready for the end? What’s to say we won’t get to the end and find it all untrue? Can we be sure we’ll cross the finish line? What security do we have that we’re on the right path and will make it safely home? “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want…Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever…"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” We have assurance because of the rear forces and future focus of our lives.
In Lewis Carroll’s classic story Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “Which way do I want to go? Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where” says Alice. “Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,” replied the Cat. Do you want to cross the finish line? Do you want to make it home where you belong? Then there is only one way to go. Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved…I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Then Jesus died, was buried, and rose again. Come to Him today. He is your security for the way. I invite you to enter the gate to that will get you home where you belong. Then when you leave here this morning you can “Go in Peace!”
