Psalm 23, verse one. The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth
me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil. For thou art with me, thy rod
and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before
me in the presence of mine enemies. Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. Amen. May God be pleased to bless
to us this reading from his word. The Lord Jesus Christ calls himself
in the Gospels the Good Shepherd. And David says, the Lord is my
shepherd. It's a beautiful and endearing
title that our Saviour has taken to himself and revealed of himself
to his people. There's something lovely about
the name that he takes. It speaks of tenderness. It speaks
of provision. It speaks of protection and of
guidance. And in what is often a cold and
a hard and impersonal world, we have one who has revealed
himself as a good shepherd to his people, a good shepherd to
his flock. one who lovingly leads us, who
protects and provides for us, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And nor is our thoughts on this
matter merely some fanciful notion, something devised by people that
don't have the strength or the wherewithal or the mental capacity
to get themselves through their lives and therefore need some
sort of superstitious help. We know that we have a good shepherd. who helps us, who leads and directs
us, who supports and encourages, who comforts us, who feeds us,
who leads us beside the still waters. We know because we have
proved Him. We know because He has testified
that of Himself and revealed Him in this way. And we know
because He has promised that He will continually be with us. Our faithful Saviour has proved
Himself so often, and we can look back in our lives and we
can say, He was there, and He was there, and He was there in
this experience and in that situation. And we have proved him to be
faithful. We have proved him to be a good
shepherd because he has taken care of his flock. And we shall
lie down in safety and we shall rise up in peace. We shall eat
and we shall drink and we shall be provided for all the days
of our life, because he is the shepherd of our souls. And when
we are tried, we shall be supported. And when we encounter the difficulties
of this life, we will be comforted. And we will be restored in our
troubles. and all the ways of our walk
and our talk and our hearts' desires, they will be hedged
in by Him. And we will be catered for, we
will be provided for, we will be loved and nurtured by the
Good Shepherd who seeks our well-being. Our precious Saviour has committed
Himself to the eternal care of his people. He has undertaken
in covenant offices to stand forth as the saviour and defender
of his people. We have been committed into his
care. We have been entrusted into his
hands. and he has promised the protection
of his little flock. He tells his disciples in Luke
12, fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure
to give you his kingdom. God's kingdom, Christ's kingdom,
is certain and it is sure. He has purposed and he has promised
to give his people all the privileges of that kingdom and all the pleasures
of that kingdom and all the riches of that kingdom which is his.
And he calls upon us to trust him, to follow him, to allow
him to guide us as a shepherd guides his flock, and in our
trust, not to be concerned, not to be afraid, because he has
all of these things in control. We are heirs of the vast and
glorious inheritance that he has set aside for his people. And we are blessed forever in
that. Blessed indeed amongst all the
people of this world as his little flock. We shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. Well does the psalmist say, my
cup runneth over. What is the world to offer that
is in any way comparable to having the Lord as our shepherd? What
does the world have to give us? What does the world have to say
to us that in any way is comparable with the loveliness of the care
and the provision that has been made by our Saviour Jesus Christ. Why should we worry? Why should
we fret? Why should we be anxious about
these things when the Lord himself has promised and declares that
he will give us the kingdom? It is ours. The psalmist's hymn here in Psalm
23 is a hymn of praise and gratitude for God's goodness. We've read
it together and as I was thinking about it, it seemed to me that
the psalmist reaches a peak. He reaches the summit of his
adoration, his gratitude, his thanksgiving, his worship. when
he gets to the conclusion of the psalm. And I wondered about
how a person might verbalise, how a person might describe or
explain these feelings of personal confidence and assurance that
David had in his shepherd, in his saviour, in his Lord. How a person might explain that
in words that could improve upon the final verse of this psalm? I don't know if there's a better
way to explain what the psalmist has to say here. a better way
to bear witness to the glory of God's salvation in Christ
than these few simple words. He 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. By all means, Try to find an
improvement upon that. By all means, search the scriptures
and see if you can find a verse that will improve upon these
sentiments. Or see if you can emulate or
exceed it with your own words. And yet here in this little phrase
is a simple yet a soaring testimony to God's grace and to the Lord
Jesus Christ, his saviour and his friend. Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever. You know, there's hardly a word
in that whole verse that's more than a syllable. It couldn't
be simpler. It couldn't be more straightforward. And yet it couldn't be penned
by a man who hadn't experienced something of the salvation of
God and communion with God and Holy Spirit inspiration. What I want to do this evening
is just take a few minutes to try to savour and enjoy and nourish
our souls with a few reflections upon these words. David has a
beautiful insight here into God's mercies. And perhaps we can also
see this as a statement of his own personal faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. The verse begins with, surely,
surely. And that's a word of confidence.
It's a word of assurance. Now, we often use that word today,
incredulously, so much for one-syllable words, but we often use it by
saying, surely not. And it's basically saying I can
hardly believe it. That can't be right. That's surely not possible. We use it to mean surprise. And we may well be surprised
that God should love a sinner like me. We may well be surprised
that God should be gracious to one who doesn't merit in any
way his goodness or his mercy. The holy transcendent majesty
who is our God has called us his people, has spoken of his
love towards us, has manifested that love in sending his own
dear son into this world in order to take the sins of his people
and pay the price of their deliverance and redemption and salvation. And therefore, when that same
God speaks words of tender affection towards us, let us not say, surely
not, but let us say, surely. Surely the God who has sent his
Son into this world, to die the death of the cross. Surely the
God who has demonstrated his love to such a degree and such
an extent must be faithful, must be true, must be so full of affection
towards us that all he says to us is dependable. Our God has stood in eternity
to come into this world to speak to the hearts of sinners like
you and like me. And that is such a wonderful
privilege and blessing to possess. The psalmist says, surely, assuredly,
absolutely, undoubtedly, certainly, definitely, unquestionably, even
unconditionally. And all of that is bound up in
this one little word, surely. God is not a man, Moses says
in Numbers 23, that he should lie. neither the son of man that
he should repent. Hath he said and shall he not
do it? Hath he spoken and shall he not
make it good? In a later psalm, David will
declare, God hath spoken in his holiness. I will rejoice. God hath spoken in his holiness. I will rejoice. Surely, surely,
it is certain. Shame on me when I doubt the
word of God. You know, people say, I believe
everything that's written in the Bible. Let me, in case I'm perceived
as being rude here, Let me turn this around and speak of myself. I say I believe everything that
is written in this book. And I'm a liar. I'm a liar. I'm deceiving myself and I'm
deceiving the people that I speak to when I say it. It will take
me every day of my life to believe the things that are written in
this book. I want to believe it. I long to believe it. I wish I believed it. But I am
so full of faithlessness and doubt and incredulity. I am so prone to the assaults
from the outside that when I read these words, the Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. I don't believe it. Because every
time I go into a new problem or a new trial or a new situation
or circumstance that seems to overwhelm me, I find that that
belief just flees away. Listen, we need to be honest
when we approach spiritual things. wearing our belief on our shoulder
as some sort of badge or rosette to say that we are evangelicals
or to say that we've got a more fundamentalist view of scripture
than these liberals out there may serve a purpose of putting
us in a particular camp or allowing us to identify with a particular
group, but that's not what faith is about. Faith is about how
we react in the quietness of our own hearts when the devil
comes and says, that's not true. When Satan says, how dare you? When Satan says, who do you think
you are? What makes you think that this
is for you? What makes you think that you're
going to be helped? What makes you think that the
Lord has taken you and brought you into this place? And when
those doubts arise, when we're honest with ourself,
And we say, like that man with the boy whose son was so much burdened by the demon, Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief. That's the believer that I want
to spend time with. Not the one who's got it all
sorted. Not the one who's got everything in place. Not the
one who doesn't have any questions or doesn't have any doubts, has
all the answers. Let them get on with their own
pilgrim walk. Let them get on with their own
way. But let me commune. Let me spend time. Let me be
in the presence of those who know what it is to struggle in
the Christian life. because they're the ones that
have got something in common with me and that I've got something
in common with them. The goodness and the mercy of
God is certain and it is sure. His love towards us His love
that flows unconditionally from eternity into the hearts of men
and women in time. His free grace which is given,
though unmerited, undeservedly, but bounteously
and full. Let me lay hold upon that. Let
me deepen my understanding of that. Let me test my faith upon
that. Let me hold on to these truths
of Scripture in the face of whatever trouble and trial might come
upon me. And then let me be able to say,
I believe the Word of God because I have tested it and found it
to be true. His favour towards us in all
the provision that he makes for our needs, his mercies in the
presence of our enemies at times of confusion and doubt and trouble. And when we fail and when we
fall and when we sin, And when we reflect upon the things that
we've said and the things that we've done and we've seen them
to have fallen far short of a standard that we would have wanted for
ourselves, far less the gloriously high standard of God himself. And then if God's grace comes
to me, let me flee to Christ and find him to be my all in
all. He is the faithful and true. He says, I will be with you always. He says, I will never leave you
nor forsake you. He says, I have redeemed you. You are mine. He says, though
you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, You will
fear no evil, for I will be with you. You will be comforted. You will know my strength. You will lean upon my staff. You will discover my authority,
my power, my resoluteness in your defence and in your help. These are eternal goodnesses
from God. These flow, these eternal goodnesses
flow to us in temporal manifestations. The Lord says he loves us from
all eternity. The Lord has proven that love
by sending his Son from eternity into time. And these have marks
of temporal goodness, which come to the Lord's people day by day. Our blessings are daily blessings. And we are so slow to mark and
to note and to understand these blessed provisions that we have
in Christ. We take so much for granted.
We consider it commonplace. Yet even with a little bit of
thought and reflection, we ought to realize that these are good
and gracious and merciful gifts from our God to us every day. Now, it is true that there is
a sense in which the Lord is merciful to all his creatures. But the sun rises upon this earth
for the sake of the elect. The rain falls upon this world
for the sake of the elect. It is for you that this world
is fertile. that the earth gives forth its
fruitfulness. It's for you that the birds sing
and the roses give forth their scent. It's for the Lord's people
that these gifts are given. And if the world benefits from
these things along the way, then so be it. But these things are
ours. They are made for us. A couple
of days ago, I made a transatlantic flight on an aeroplane. A couple
of generations ago, that would have been inconceivable. But
we can do that now. Why can we do that? Why is this
world so open? For you. All those other people fly in
the plane. so that I don't have to make
the fare, the price of the whole plane for myself. But it's there for you and for
me so that we can come together and share fellowship in the things
of the Lord thousands of miles away. These things are the Lord's
people's. And whether it's the rain or
the sunshine or whether it's the fertility of the earth, all
the glories of creation exist for his little flock. And we do him a disservice, both
by failing to recognise that and for failing to thank him
for it. Even our hardships are blessings. John Gill is a great favourite
of mine when it comes to his commentary and his thoughts. And it's rare that I would get
into the pulpit without first making sure what Dr Gill had
to say on the passage. Here's what he says on this verse. The words may be rendered only
goodness and mercy. So what we have translated as
surely goodness and mercy can be translated only goodness and
mercy. Nothing but mere, he goes on,
nothing but mere mercy and kindness. For though afflictions do attend
the children of God, yet these are in mercy and love. There is no fury in the Lord
against them. There is nothing comes in wrath
to them throughout the whole course of their lives. Nothing comes in wrath to them
throughout the whole course of their lives. It's a wonderful thing to reflect
upon the fact that long before we ever knew anything about Christ,
Christ knew about us. Long before we ever had any thought
about him, he thought about us. He has watched over us, he has
Nurtured us. We call it provenient grace,
or some people do. It's the fact that he was there
being gracious to us long before he ever manifested his saving
grace in our lives. He was steering us. He was guarding
us. He was protecting us. You know,
it goes even further than that. You can take this back to your
daddy or your granddaddy or whatever it is. Everything in this world
and the whole of history has been so ordained, so predestinated
to bring you to this moment in your life's experience with all
the things that have happened, all the amazing major things
like the outcome of a world war, or the little things like whether
or not the bus stopped at a particular place at a certain time and you
get on it, or whatever the consequences of apparently random events where
are so designed to bring you to this place that everything
is fully in the control of God and exactly according to how
he wants it to be. And that's his goodness and his
mercy towards us. I was thinking about this passage
and I wondered why it was that the psalmist wrote, goodness
and mercy follows us all the days of our life. Why follow? Why not say it precedes us? Why does he not say that it's
there for us just to step into, as it were, if you think linearly
about our pilgrim way? Why does he say it follows us
rather than it stands before us? Well, it would certainly make
life an awful lot easier if we could see the goodness and the
mercy of God in every situation into which we were brought. And
I don't want to make too much of this because it may well be
that the idea behind the word is that it is constantly present
with us. But equally, I think that there
is always a sense in scripture that the Lord looks for trust
in his people. And I am absolutely certain that's
why he brings us into difficult situations. because he wants
to test that trust. Not test it to shame us, not
test it to embarrass us or show us how inadequate it is, but
like exercise, like at the gym. I was reading a little bit earlier
today that some group of scientists had done some 3D scans on ancient
bones that had been dug up from the Stone Age, the Neolithic,
and the Bronze Age. And he discovered, or they discovered,
that the bones of these ladies, the arm bones and the leg bones
of these ladies, are as strong, if not stronger, than the finest
athletes, finest women athletes in the world today. So what does
that mean? Okay, it means this, that those
women had to work hard in days gone by because their strength
was drawn from the demands and the hardness of the life that
they had. And that's where our strength
comes from too, from the demands and the hardness of the life
that we live. And as we are brought into harder
and harder experiences, so our strength, not our strength, but
our trust in Christ, His strength proves to be all the greater,
proves to be all the more dependable. And we can rest in Him. Would
you like to know how strong Christ's love for you is? Would you like
to know how strong Christ's passion for you is? Well, it might be a very hard
experience in order to know how deep that love is. It might be
a very bitter experience that will be required to be had in
order to know how deep that love is. And yet he teaches us gently
as he leads us, as he directs us and guides us, he brings us
on along the way. If we saw the good in every situation
into which we were brought, Our decisions, in a sense, would
be meaningless. And our duties and our responsibilities
would be worthless. but it's as we take him at his
word and trust him, as we look at the apparently multitude of
permutations of the future that we face and wonder what path
should we take, what road should we walk, what is going to happen,
where will this lead, what are the consequences? It is then
that we trust the Lord because we test him and he tests us. And we find his strength to be
our portion. Our God has promised that everything
works together for our good. And we find that very difficult
to believe because we are always grumbling. But here's the thing. Goodness
follows those who love the Lord. Even our mistakes are taken up
and sanctified for Christ's sake. I don't know about you, but how
often do we leave a situation thinking, I said the wrong thing. I said the wrong thing, I did
the wrong thing, I got that wrong. And we worry about the outcomes
of that, don't we? We worry about the repercussions
of that. Now this is not to say, don't
get me wrong here, this is not to say that there is reason or
excuse for careless talk or for thoughtless actions or behavior. And James, talks about the tongue
being wild and unruly and poisonous. He says, the tongue is a fire,
a world of iniquity. So is the tongue among our members
that it defileth the whole body and seteth on fire the course
of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. The tongue can be a
very potent and damaging thing. And yet here's the amazing thing. that goodness follows the people
of God. That even when I said it wrong,
and even when I got it wrong, the Lord in some way has made
that work for good. The Lord has taken my mistakes,
he's taken my wrongdoing, he's taken my sins, and he has made
them good. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. And the Lord takes that
which we give to him. He takes our works, he takes
our words, he takes our actions and he sanctifies those things. And he works them together and
he brings them out for good. And I don't know how that works.
It's too much for me, too big for me, but it's a glorious thing
to hold on to. We have regrets, we've done things
wrong, we've made mistakes, they've had their consequences. but the Lord has worked them
for good. Even those deepest, darkest moments
have been worked together for good and God has sanctified the
actions of his people and he sanctifies the work of his church
and he uses it for his glory in this world. So let us not
fear to do something for the Lord for fear that it will turn
out wrong. because he's promised that he'll
make it good, that goodness follows his people. Mercy finds opportunity
in the wake of the church in its pilgrim walk. Peter says,
sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. And be ready always to
give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope
that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience,
that whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers, they may
be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life. What a privilege we have to know
that both every day until this day and every day until the end
of our life, the goodness and the mercy of
God has been our portion. Friends, be encouraged. Be comforted in these truths. For the Lord Jesus Christ has
so designed his providential workings in this world that you
as his little flock, you as his beloved brothers and sisters,
have been given everything that is needful. Everything that is
desirable for your good is your portion in Him. The mercies of
God are new every morning and they continue till every night. The goodness of God is working
constantly for our well-being. There is not a day passes, but
that it is manifested in this world. And every event in history,
every action throughout the whole world, inconsequential as it
may appear, has this predestinated purpose of God doing his people
good. I don't know how many elect there
are in the world. I don't know what that number
is. I trust that the Lord has given us a few here tonight.
But this is what the world is all about. You and me. and this time that we spend together
worshipping God. The angels don't look down and
wonder about what they see happening in the White House. The angels
don't look down and wonder about what they see happening in industry
and in commerce or the great feats of manufacturing or invention
that are going on in this world. The angels look down into this
little building here and they say, look, there's a dozen of
them there. There's a dozen of that flock. There's a dozen of
those for whom the Lord died. There's a dozen of those sinners
that have been redeemed by the blood of our God. And there they're
worshiping together and they're praising his name and they're
fellowshipping in these matters of heavenly truth. This is what
causes the angels to wonder. Why do we grumble and why do
we groan? Why do we find these things so
hard to believe? Why do we not rejoice in all
things when we know that they are for our good? Why do we wrongly
construe so much of this world to be annoying and irritating? When God has said that it is
for our temporal good that all these things are working together. And it is for our everlasting
benefit. We find it so easy to get angry,
don't we? The Lord says to Jonah, does
thou well to be angry? Does thou well to be angry? The
psalmist says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. What does he mean by the house
of the Lord? The house of the Lord can mean the church, building
that we gather in. It would have been the temple
in David's day of what he aspired for the temple, the place of
worship where the Lord's people gather faithfully. Or it can
mean the people of God. It can mean the heavenly mansions. that are being prepared for our
eternal home, being prepared at this very moment for the Lord's
little ones whom he will take to himself. Let us, whatever that meaning
is, let us value dwelling in the place of worship. It's good
to see you here tonight. It's good that we can gather
together to worship the Lord. There really ought to be very
little detains us from meeting with the Lord's people to worship
and praise our Saviour's name. It is here that the Lord promises
to meet his people. And it's a shame on us if we
let familiarity or we let indifference rob us from that blessing that
he has promised where we meet. It's all very well saying we
can listen to it later. We'll listen to it on sermon
audio or we can get it somewhere else on some recording or we
can hear it on a tape. That doesn't cut it. That's not
what it's about. It's here. It's being part of
the experience. It's being in the presence of
the Lord. It's being in the company of
the saints. David says, I'll dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. I don't want ever to leave this
place. I would be happy if I could be
here every day, all the time. This is where my love lies. This is where my passion dwells. This is what I want to be. This is what I want to do. I
want to be in the presence of the Lord's people. And there
are many, many of the Lord's people who don't have the opportunity
to worship with brothers and sisters in Christ. And for them
it may be that some of these other means are all that they
have, but that's That's not a substitute for personal worship together
and the union that we have in our mutual fellowship in the
gospel. Shame on us if we let these things,
anything, come in the way of our coming together. Let us not
be lukewarm in this matter. Let us have a passion for the
presence of our presence in the house of God, in the place of
worship. Sometimes we say that we want
our neighbours and our loved ones to come to church, to come to a service, to come
and hear the gospel. Well, let's make sure we're there. The house of the Lord can also
mean the gathered people. The church is the Lord's work. He is the one who calls them
out of the world. He is the one who calls them
together. He calls them to life, to be
living stones that he builds up in that temple, in that church,
which is his body. And that church has walls and
it has beauty and it is a building that is fit for purpose. And
once called those stones, those individuals that comprise the temple of the Lord that comprise
this dwelling place of worship, the house of the Lord, they're
eternally secure. We are His workmanship. therefore
David rightly says, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. For having been called into his
family we will never be dismantled and we will never be lost. Christ's
blood has made it so. Where I used to live in England,
they had a habit in days gone by of building what we call dry
stone dikes. I don't know whether you've ever
seen these or pictures of them, but they're stones that are built
together without any cement, without anything to hold them
together, apart from their own gravity and the complexity of
the workmanship that puts them together. And they stand They
stand for years, hundreds of years, these walls. And they're
not joined together by anything. They're just so well built. And the beauty is that the wind
can blow through them. and the rain can wash through
them without ever making them fall. And it tends to be it's
only as either silly sheep or trespassers clamber over them
that any damage is done to them. A cemented wall equally is durable. But these people, these living
stones, they have been bound together by the blood of Jesus
Christ. And that is immovable, and that
is eternal. I will dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. And our eternal home is meant
also. Let us be more passionate about
going to glory than about holding on to this world. Let us say with Paul, I am in
a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be
with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the
flesh is more needful for you. If the Lord keeps us in this
world, it is to do good for the Church of Jesus Christ. That's
all. That's all. It's not for our
personal satisfaction. It's not for us to enjoy a full
and happy life, though the fullest and happiest life is to be experienced
as we spend it in our Saviour's service for His glory. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
God's goodness and mercy are our enduring portion. They are our blessed inheritance. and our constant companions in
this life. They follow us because God's
goodness and God's mercy is ours in the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And as he sticks closer to us
than a brother, so we have the mercy of God manifested to us. We have the goodness of God revealed
before us. for we see Jesus. Let us dwell
in him with the certain promise that we will dwell with him for
all eternity by his grace towards us. Amen.