Go with me, if you would now,
to Psalm 23. Psalm 23. I want to bring a message
on something that I have known for a long time. I believe I
can say that I've known this for a long time. but it was an
epiphany to me while I was studying yesterday, studying for tonight's
message. I felt like the Lord really let
me understand this and I pray that the Lord will really let
us understand this and enter into this. It's gonna take me
just a minute to build up to what I wanna say. But I sincerely
believe this will be a help to us. This was a real help to me. This was just a real blessing
to me, a real encouragement to me. And I believe it will be
to all of us. I pray it will be. But our text
is going to come from verse six, Psalm 23, verse six. It says, surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life for a child of God, for
a chosen Child of God, goodness and mercy will follow that child
all the days of their life. The entire life of one of God's
own is surrounded by goodness and mercy. The word goodness
means grace. It means graciousness. grace
and mercy throughout all the days of God's people. Their entire life is hedged about
on both sides by God's grace and mercy to them. They, and
thank God, they cannot get away from it. They cannot get away
from it. It follows them. It follows them
everywhere they go. It is the controlling force of
our life before God's people were ever born. They were ordained
to it, grace and mercy. All right. Before they were ever
born in God's good time, after they were born, they were confronted
by it. Grace and mercy up until then
it's all works, but there comes a point when they're confronted
with grace and mercy. And then for all the days of
their life, grace and mercy keeps them pointed to Christ. It follows them pointing them
to Christ. Now turn with me to Exodus 33
and let's see exactly what God's grace and mercy is. Exodus 33. This is Moses speaking to the
Lord. Exodus 33 verse 18, and Moses
said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And the Lord said,
I will make all my goodness, surely goodness. I will make
all my goodness pass before thee. And I will proclaim the name
of the Lord before thee and will be gracious to whom I will be
gracious. and will show mercy on whom I
will show mercy. And he said, thou canst not see
my face for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord
said, behold, there is a place by me and thou shalt stand upon
a rock and it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by that
I will put thee in a cliff of the rock and will cover thee
with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away mine hand
and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen."
Moses said to the Lord, show me your glory. And the Lord said,
my glory is my grace and mercy. I will be gracious to you by
giving you a hiding place. in my rock, in this cliff of
the rock, I'm going to show grace. Grace is receiving something
that we don't deserve. And we did not deserve a hiding
place from the judgment of God. We did not deserve it at all.
When he put us in the rock, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, When
he gave us a hiding place in Christ, our rock, the glory of
his grace was given to us. He gave us something in that
moment that we did not deserve. We deserved to bear the judgment
openly before God on our own. That's what we deserved. But
in grace, he gave us a hiding place. And then in mercy, he
poured out his judgment on our hiding place. Grace is getting what we don't
deserve. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve. We deserved
for that judgment of God to come down directly on us. But in mercy,
the judgment came down on our rock, our hiding place, Christ,
instead of us. That is the grace and the mercy
that we were ordained to. chosen to, and then in time,
that's the grace and mercy that the spirit of God confronts us
with. Turn with me over to Romans chapter nine. Romans chapter nine. Verse 13, Romans 9, 13 says, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, we just
read it. I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy. And I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will, he hardens. That's what
we're confronted with in time. Man thinks salvation is in his
hands, according to his decision. At his time, he can just make
the choice and decide, okay, I'm ready to be saved. And then
God's people are confronted with, that's not how it works. It's
in his hands to do when he wants to do on whomever he wants to
do. It's his grace to give whoever
he's pleased to give it to. It's not by our works It's by
his grace, by his mercy and grace. Look at Romans 11 verse five. Even so then, at this present
time also, there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. And if by grace, then it is no
more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work."
What this is saying is salvation, being saved from the judgment
of God, is of God. It's up God. He gives His mercy
and grace to whoever He's pleased to give it to, totally according
to His will, totally at His hand, and He totally gets all the glory
for it. All the glory. It is to the praise of the glory
of His grace, His goodness and mercy to us. All right, so that's
what we were ordained to. That's what we were confronted
with. That's what all of God's people are caused to bow to and
believe. Okay. That makes sense so far. We were ordained to it. He confronts
us with it, changes our mind from works to grace. out with our works, in with His
mercy. We were ordained to Christ before
we were ever even born, knew anything of Him. All of a sudden
we know Him. We believe on Him. With all that being said now,
let me set up here what I want to say tonight. This knowledge
of God's grace and mercy to his people. It is given to them by
God's Holy Spirit through his word. All right, without God's
Holy Spirit, men and women can read this word cover to cover
over and over again. And they will never come to a
knowledge of the grace and mercy of God that is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. It is of God's Holy Spirit. Christ is the grace and mercy
of God. And it takes the Holy Spirit
to reveal that to a person. God's spirit applies this word
to whoever God chooses to apply it to. And it has pleased God
to use this means of preaching to apply it. All right, that's why we do this. Do you ever wonder, does it ever
occur to you, why do we do this? Why do we come in here and sit
like this and one person stands and faces that way and everybody
sits and faces this way? Why do we do this? It's because
this is the means that God ordained for his spirit to apply his word
to the hearts of his people. That's why we do this. But, all right, but before God's
people ever hear the preaching of the truth, before they ever
do, God is the one who moves on his people. He moves on their
circumstances of life. And he causes them to be brought
to the preaching of his gospel. At different points in your life,
you can look back on things and say, well, that's why things
went the way they did. I had, there were three or four
times in my life when I had plans and they didn't work out. And
now I see why. All right, that's why things
went that way. God in graciousness brings his
people to grace. God's grace brings his people
to grace, and we call it grace before grace. I don't know if
you've ever heard anybody say that, but grace before grace,
okay? He may use a conversation with
somebody. He may use the reading of his
word to spark something in his people to make them want to go
seek out the truth. And when God causes his people
to want to know the truth and to seek out the truth, they find
it. But God is the one bringing them to his truth. God is the
one doing it. His grace leads them to his grace. David said, Lord, when you said,
seek ye my face, my heart cried, thy face Lord will I seek. You
did it. You brought me to you, you called
me and I came. So God leads his people to Christ,
okay? The father draws, the spirit
calls, Christ receives. He says, come and he receives. The point I'm trying to make
is, God actively works in the lives and the hearts of his people. I've told you this before, but
when I was young, because I knew that God was so sovereign, and
I knew that He changes not, and I knew He's the same yesterday,
today, and forever, I always envisioned Him like the Lincoln
Memorial. He just, like a concrete, He just sat there. It's not how,
our God is a living God. And He actively moves on the
lives and the circumstances and the hearts of His people. Actively. And it is his goodness and his
mercy to them that he would do that. Predestinating hedging,
causing them to be brought to his goodness and mercy grace
before grace. He's given us grace and mercy
in Christ and, um, structured our lives to bring us to Christ.
Okay. Grace before grace. Now, here's
the point. And I know I'm drawing it out,
but I'm trying to really set it up. I want it to be clear. For all of God's people, there
is grace after grace. For all of God's people, there
is mercy after mercy. His grace before grace brought
us to Christ. And His grace after grace is
what keeps us with Christ all the days of our life. If we belong
to Him, He will actively move our lives. He's not the Lincoln
Memorial. He will actively work in. I really don't know
how to say this, but He will have His hand on, move, control,
do whatever needs to be done to keep us in His goodness and
mercy. This is how He said He would
do it. This is what I'm about to show
us. He has told us how He's gonna do that. And this was the epiphany. This is what I already knew,
but this was the epiphany, all right? Go with me to Romans 8. Romans eight, verse 16, it says,
the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we
suffer with him. That we may be also glorified
together. If we suffer with him, don't
turn over there. But first Peter five, verse 10
says the God of all grace, goodness, the God of all grace who have
called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus. After that, you have suffered
a while. make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, settle you after you've suffered a while. In John
16, our Lord said to his people, in this world, you are going
to suffer tribulation. Go into, suffering is going to
come. Why is that? Here's the answer. Grace after grace. Mercy after mercy trials, afflictions,
sorrows, sufferings are going to come to us in this life. And the whole reason is goodness
and mercy. That's the whole reason our God
will see to it. that His goodness and mercy to
us follows us all the days of our life. Now, you know this
is so. If you belong to Him, you know
this is so. In our sinfulness, all we do
is leave Him. We are gomer. That's all we do. Daily, hourly, momently. I don't think that's a word,
but you know what I mean. All we do is leave him. In our sinful flesh, all that
we do is neglect him. How much priority does he take
in our minds and hearts throughout the day? All we do is turn our back on
him. All we do is forget about him. All we do is fail to acknowledge
him. If we could leave him, we would,
you know how we think, well, I'm a believer and buddy, I'll
be a believer till the day I die. If we could leave him, we would
thank God. We can't because we're being
kept by the power of God. But if we could leave him, we
would. And because we are so prone to
wander away from him. In His kindness and in His faithfulness
to us, He has ordered our steps in such a way that we have no
choice but to turn back to Him and to cry out for Him, cry out
to Him for help. Cry out to Him for goodness and
mercy. And He has told us that that
ordained way is trials and suffering. His goodness and mercy will put
us in a position in life. And again, I'm telling you this
because I've gone through this life saying over and over again,
Oh, I hope trials and suffering don't come. I hope, you know,
we steer clear of. He is going, His goodness and
mercy is going to put us in a position where we exhaust every avenue
we think we have for help and have no choice but to turn to
Him and cry out to Him for help. He is going to do that to us,
for us. It is His goodness and it is
His mercy. Expect trials to come. Expect them to come. Why? They are his grace after grace. They are his mercy after mercy
to us. When we are not in a position
of desperation, we have no need of his goodness and mercy. And it's a sad truth. It really
is. This is a sad truth. But we'd have no need of His
goodness and mercy when we're not in a state of desperation.
Therefore, in His goodness and mercy, He's going to continually
put us in a state of desperate need. Continually. You know the illustration of
a glass of water. All right. Is this glass Half
empty or half full? And what that question is asking
is, how do you look at things in a positive way or a negative
way? Yesterday, this hit me. I believe this message came about
from me wallowing in my misery. I think somebody called me and
said, what are you doing? I said, wallowing in my misery? How am I gonna look at this?
How are we gonna look at these things? Don't we always say, oh, I'm
so ready for this trial to be over. I just, I wish it'd just
be over. Can't it just be over? When these trials and sufferings
come, rather than saying, how miserable. How miserable, I'm
just ready to be done with this. Maybe we ought to say, what goodness
and mercy it is from God to us that he would put me in a place
where I am so, so distraught And in such need, every unprofitable
and ridiculous thing in this world has gone from my mind.
And all I can do is turn to Him and cry out to my God and Savior,
for Him to reach down His hand to help me. I'm so distraught,
all I can do right now is have absolute, pure, real communication
with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's just how distraught I
am. If we would see our trials and
our sufferings that way, we probably wouldn't see them to be trials
and sufferings anymore. I really am talking to myself
on this. James said, we can count all
of our trials and our temptations to be joy because of what they
bring us to. They bring us to Christ every
time. They bring us to Him and Him
to us every single time. Peter said, our trials are more
precious than gold. That's what he said. Our trials are more precious,
more valuable than gold because they bring us back to him. Paul said, we just read it for
our scripture reading, our light afflictions, which are, but for
a moment work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight
of glory. He said in Romans five, just
turn back two pages to Romans five. I'm done. Romans five,
verse three. Not only so, but we glory in
tribulations also. Knowing that tribulation worketh
patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope
maketh not a shame because the love of God is shed abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. For when
we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even
dare to die. But God commended His love toward
us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more than being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved
from wrath through Him." He said, it's our tribulations that bring
us back to our hope in the God who died for ungodly sinners. It's our tribulations that do
that. Examine yourselves. Go into your
hearts. Would you rather be on easy street
with no regard for God at all, or in absolute despair, looking
only to Him, crying out to Him, begging Him for goodness and
mercy? Which would you rather be? Which
one sounds more like goodness and mercy from Him? Because He
loves us, He's going to keep us. He's going to keep us. And he's going to use the trying
of our faith to accomplish it. His goodness and mercy will stay
with us and will follow us all the days of our life on this
earth. And then after that, his goodness and mercy will receive
us to glory. He'll keep us. and then he'll
receive us to glory. And that's what our text said.
Go back and we'll close. Psalm 23. Psalm 23, verse six says, surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever, forever. He's going to receive us to himself
and then we're going to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
He's going to keep us, use these things, and we're going to dwell
with him forever. So let's consider all these afflictions. all these trials to be nothing
more than His avenue of bringing us to Him. That's what it is. It's His goodness and mercy.
The Lord is our shepherd. We shall not want. He'll make us to lie down in
green pastures of rest. Just wait. He'll restore our
soul. He'll protect us. He'll provide
for us. Let's just trust that what He's
doing is bringing us to Him. Everything that happens.