Followed By Goodness and Mercy
PPT 1 Message title
PPT 2 Video Young girl reciting Psalm 23
PPT 3 Text
Psalms 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
This morning we are going to jump ahead in Psalm 23 and look at verse 6, then next week we will back track. I felt like we needed this text this week.
To recap last week we showed the correlation between Psalm 22 & Psalm 23, Psalm 22 is a prophetic foretelling of Jesus on the cross, and the things Jesus suffered are the opposite of what David was claiming in Psalm 23. So Jesus suffered the loss of things that David claimed to be enjoying. His loss = our gain.
We noted for example:
Psalms 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
Psalms 22:1 MY GOD, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
Psalms 23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.
Psalms 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but You answer not; and by night I am not silent or find no rest.
So we observed that because of Jesus suffering the blessings of heaven were made available for us.
Once we've made the Lord our shepherd, then we can count on four things to be true in our lives?
The Lord will provide for our needs;
The Lord will restore our souls;
The Lord will protect us from our enemies;
And the Lord's goodness and mercy will follow us all of our days, and beyond.
So let's dig into verse 6 a little bit.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me, there are several different ways to understand that text.
The first way that goodness and mercy will follow us, is in tokens from God that we leave behind in the lives of others.
Let me illustrate what I mean from another passage in the book of Psalms:
PPT 4 text & Pic
Psalms 84:5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
Psalms 84:6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
The falls in the pic are Multnomah Falls in Oregon
The text describes people who trust in God, and says that as they pass through life, they make desolate places come alive like the way a desert comes alive with rain and water.
So the idea is that as we go through life we bring refreshment and blessing to dry places. Goodness and mercy follow in our wake as we walk out our lives.
Illus: Recently I was at the hospital for a blood test. When they called my name some cash fell out of my pocket, and I didn't know it. A young lady (obvious cancer patient because of hair loss) found it and tracked me down. She gave it to my wife who was with me. My wife told me a description of the young lady and said she felt like we should give the money to her. ($17). We did, mercy and goodness followed us. (If you are reading this message say a prayer for this unnamed woman, I had my congregation do so when I preached this message. You never know what God will do!)
That is an example of goodness following us. What about mercy, how does mercy follow us?
PPT 5 text & Pic prisoner in chains
John 20:23 "If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained."
Illus: The Lord challenged me recently to let go of IOU's. As in people who in my opinion might owe me an apology. Or who may have driven recklessly near me. Mercy says I release you of your iou to me without precondition. If we hold iou's they weigh us down. I don't have to wait for you to apologize. I don't have to have you say I'm sorry. If you have to wait for an apology that is not mercy, mercy is not based on their behavior but on the givers compassion. When did Jesus forgive us? Before we said we were sorry. Hebrews 12 talks about weights that hinder us, iou's are a hindrance.
How about this week we ask God to give us some opportunities to have goodness and mercy follow in our wake?
So again the first way we can understand this text is that goodness and mercy follow in our wake.
A second way we can look at them is as a tail God put on us.
PPT 6 police car
God knew I needed watching so he put a tail on me. Not to get me arrested, not to find me doing wrong, but to pull me out of the mess when he finds me doing wrong.
Illus: Goodness rebukes, mercy consoles.
Mercy reminds us if you don't forgive others....
Are goodness and mercy combatants? No they are the oil and the wine of healing. Mercy, covers, goodness transforms.
There is an interesting word in our text that English doesn't give us the proper understanding of, it is follow.
When we think of follow we understand it to mean walk behind or near to another. But the Hebrew word we translate follow is a much stronger word.
The Hebrew is rawdaf and it means:
Pursue, chase and dog someone.
Here are a couple other verses and you can see better how it is used and meant:
PPT 7 text
Genesis 14:14 And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued <07291> them unto Dan.
Exodus 14:8 And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued <07291> after the children of Israel: and the children of Israel went out with an high hand.
So rawdaf means: "to pursue or chase down." In other words, God's goodness and mercy are not passively hanging around behind us. They are actively pursuing us. They are chasing us down.
The 6th verse begins with the word, "Surely."
This is not maybe.
It is not probably.
There are no doubts.
It is an absolute certainty.
Turn to your neighbor and say goodness and mercy are chasing me.
The first way we understand goodness and mercy following us is refreshment follows in our wake.
The second way we understand them following us, is they actively pursue us to keep us Christ like.
The third way we can understand goodness and mercy following us, is simply blessings from God are on my life, and they follow me.
Because the Lord is my shepherd goodness and mercy follow hard after me.
Isn't that a wonderful thought that God put a patrol car with a souped up hemi engine in it to pursue you?
Goodness and mercy are the officers in the car and they are not there to bust you but to bless you.
Look at this verse:
PPT 9 text
Psalms 31:19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear, revere, and worship You, goodness which You have wrought for those who trust and take refuge in You before the sons of men!
Psalms 31:20 In the secret place of Your presence You hide them from the plots of men; You keep them secretly in Your pavilion from the strife of tongues.
David was so convinced of the fact of God's goodness and mercy following him, he ended his Psalm this way:
"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
Goodness and mercy don't just follow us for a little while, they follow us forever!
PPT 10 text
John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
John 10:29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father' hand.
Close: Do you need to let go of some IOU's?
Do you need to allow God's mercy to wipe our you IOU's
Will you commit to showing mercy to others this week?
