Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you're here. Today we're continuing our series
Speaker 1: from Psalm twenty three called Living in the Goodness of God.
Speaker 1: It's all about how God's goodness meets you right where
Speaker 1: you are and brings hope even in difficult seasons. And
Speaker 1: let's join Rick right now for part one of a
Speaker 1: message called why you don't need to Fear the Future.
Speaker 2: Today we continue in our series a Psalm twenty three,
Speaker 2: the most important to our most famous chapter in the
Speaker 2: entire Bible. It's only six verses, but it's gives us
Speaker 2: a dozen pictures of the goodness of God. Now, you know,
Speaker 2: as I've been teaching this psalm to you, I've studied
Speaker 2: all the scholars, I've read all the commentaries, and a
Speaker 2: lot of commentaries Biblical commentaries actually get this psalm wrong wrong.
Speaker 2: They say this is a psalm of David's confidence and
Speaker 2: David's faith. Not They're all wrong about that. It's not
Speaker 2: even about David. It's not about a shepherd's David being
Speaker 2: a shepherd. It's not about sheep. It's about the goodness
Speaker 2: of God. It's about all about God. You know a
Speaker 2: lot of times we talk about you being committed to
Speaker 2: Jesus or you being committed to God. This psalm turns
Speaker 2: that upside down. This psalm is not about your commitment
Speaker 2: to God. It's about God's commitment to you to you,
Speaker 2: And in this psalm, God says I'm going to do
Speaker 2: twelve things for you. They're metaphors and you have to
Speaker 2: explain him, but he says, I'm going to do these
Speaker 2: twelve things to you because I'm a good God and
Speaker 2: I love you, and these are the things I've committed
Speaker 2: to do for you. It's one hundred percent about God.
Speaker 2: Now we're drawing now toward the end of this series,
Speaker 2: I want us to read the whole psalm again together.
Speaker 2: It's only six verses, but I want you to read
Speaker 2: it aloud with me, and I want you to emphasize
Speaker 2: the twelve times it talks about God, because this psalm
Speaker 2: is not about you. It's about what God does for you.
Speaker 2: So up here on the screen, let's read this together.
Speaker 2: The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need.
Speaker 2: He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads
Speaker 2: me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads
Speaker 2: me in the right paths for his namesake. Even when
Speaker 2: I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,
Speaker 2: I will fear no evil, for you are with me.
Speaker 2: And then he says, maybe, thank you, your rod and
Speaker 2: your staff comfort me. You prepare a banquet for me
Speaker 2: in front of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil,
Speaker 2: and my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy will follow
Speaker 2: me all the days of my life, and I will
Speaker 2: dwell well in the House of the Lord forever. Now
Speaker 2: I want you to notice versus. This psalm begins and
Speaker 2: ends with the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd, and
Speaker 2: it ends with and I will dwell in the House
Speaker 2: of the Lord forever. This psalm is all about God.
Speaker 2: It's all about his goodness to you. If you missed
Speaker 2: any in this series, I would encourage you to go
Speaker 2: back and listen to the twelve things that God has
Speaker 2: said he wants to do for you, because He is
Speaker 2: a good God. Now today we look at this last verse.
Speaker 2: Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days
Speaker 2: of my life. That's a promise. And I will dwell
Speaker 2: in the House of the Lord forever. That's heaven, that's future. Now,
Speaker 2: any time you start worrying, you need to remember the
Speaker 2: last verse of Psalm twenty three. Have difficulty with the future,
Speaker 2: you tend to get anxious about the future. You get
Speaker 2: fearful about the future. You get worried about the future.
Speaker 2: You feel anxiety welling up within you over the future.
Speaker 2: You need to remember this last verse because this last
Speaker 2: verse tells us the three reasons you never need to
Speaker 2: fear the future. If you're a believer, you never need
Speaker 2: to fear the future because of the three things that
Speaker 2: it tells us in this last verse. Now, if you're
Speaker 2: taking notes, you might just write this down. Here's the
Speaker 2: first reason. I don't need to fear the future because
Speaker 2: God's goodness is watching over me. I don't need to
Speaker 2: fear the future because God's goodness is watching over me.
Speaker 2: The Bible says, surely goodness will follow me all the
Speaker 2: days of my life. Do you know that God, in
Speaker 2: his goodness is always paying attention to you? Did you
Speaker 2: know that you've never had a second of your life
Speaker 2: God was not watching you. God is always paying attention
Speaker 2: to you. Why because He created you to love you
Speaker 2: and he's a good God. So how in the world
Speaker 2: can God be interested in me. There's seven and a
Speaker 2: half billion people in the world. The God who's created
Speaker 2: trillions of stars can surely care about seven billion people
Speaker 2: all at the same time. You don't understand how big
Speaker 2: God is if you don't understand that God can pay
Speaker 2: one hundred percent attention to you while paying one hundred
Speaker 2: percent attention to everybody else too. He's God. There has
Speaker 2: never been a moment in your life. God was not watching.
Speaker 2: He knows every detail of your life. He knows when
Speaker 2: you get asked indigestion and when you get a few
Speaker 2: other things in your stomach. He knows. There has never
Speaker 2: been a moment. He knows the highs and lows, the
Speaker 2: goods and the bads, the ups and downs. He's paying
Speaker 2: attention to you right now. In fact, God knows you
Speaker 2: better than you know yourself. God knows the details of
Speaker 2: your life, every one of them. He knows more details
Speaker 2: about you than you do. Why. He is a good God.
Speaker 2: And the goodness of God is following me all the
Speaker 2: days of my life. So one forty five, Verse twenty
Speaker 2: says this, The Lord watches over all who love him.
Speaker 2: God's goodness is watching over He doesn't miss any details,
Speaker 2: and not only does he watch over you, he actually
Speaker 2: protects you. You are protected from thousands of things you
Speaker 2: don't even know. You missed, accidents that you could have
Speaker 2: gotten into, problems that you could have created, decisions that
Speaker 2: you made, and God said, now we're not going to
Speaker 2: let the consequences of that one happen. Right now, How
Speaker 2: does God watch over you? How does God protect you? Well?
Speaker 2: One of the ways this may shock you is angels.
Speaker 2: The Bible as God created angels to watch over you. You said, witmen,
Speaker 2: are angels real? Oh? Yes, they're very real. The Bible
Speaker 2: tells us that. Now, let me say this. I don't
Speaker 2: have time to teach a whole message on it. I
Speaker 2: will sometimes I'll come back and cover angels. But there's
Speaker 2: a lot of phony bologna about angels out there. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of myths, there's a lot of lies, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of misconceptions. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 2: people think about angels that just aren't true. And so
Speaker 2: we'll have to come back and study that. But let
Speaker 2: me just say a couple of things. You don't when
Speaker 2: you die. You're not going to become an angel when
Speaker 2: you die, When you go to heaven, you're gonna be
Speaker 2: a person. You're not gonna have any wings. Say hate
Speaker 2: to tell you that you're not gonna have any wings
Speaker 2: in the first place. Angels don't have bodies. They don't
Speaker 2: have human physical bodies, so they are the spiritual beings.
Speaker 2: You don't talk to them. I have walked with the
Speaker 2: Lord now for over fifty years. I've never had personal
Speaker 2: contact with an angel. Never except kay thought i'd throw
Speaker 2: that in there. Okay, But they don't have physical bodies.
Speaker 2: You don't talk to them. You probably never have any
Speaker 2: interaction with him in your life. But they're out there
Speaker 2: watching over you. They are protecting you. They are actually
Speaker 2: created by God to encourage circumstances that encourage you. The
Speaker 2: Bible says in Psalm ninety one, verse eleven, God orders
Speaker 2: his angels to protect you wherever you go. So they're
Speaker 2: like invisible helpers. And there are many ways they do this,
Speaker 2: but one of the ways is they create circumstances that
Speaker 2: you don't even know how in the world did that happen. Well,
Speaker 2: an angel is in action. I could give you thousands
Speaker 2: of examples of this that I've seen over the years.
Speaker 2: Let me just give you one. Several years ago, a
Speaker 2: young woman who's pregnant came to me for counsel. Came
Speaker 2: to the church office, and she had discovered that she
Speaker 2: was carrying a DOWNS child, a Down syndrome child, and
Speaker 2: she was debating, am I going to terminate this pregnancy
Speaker 2: get an abortion, or am I going to keep the baby?
Speaker 2: Am I going to give it up for adoption? While
Speaker 2: I raised the child, she was very, very fearful, is understandable.
Speaker 2: And I showed her some scripture like Psalm one thirty
Speaker 2: nine that says God planned you before you were born.
Speaker 2: God planned every day of your life when you were
Speaker 2: in your mother's womb. Abortion circuits, the will of God.
Speaker 2: God wanted you, made you were a person because He
Speaker 2: created you and thought you up. And she made the
Speaker 2: decision she was going to keep the baby. So she
Speaker 2: went home, and I decided I would just write her
Speaker 2: a little note of encouragement. So I took out a postcard,
Speaker 2: I wrote some Bible verses on it, wrote a little
Speaker 2: prayer and just a couple words of encouragement some of
Speaker 2: the stuff I'd shared with her. And I mailed that
Speaker 2: postcard to encourage that woman. The post post office send
Speaker 2: it to the wrong address. And so she didn't get it.
Speaker 2: But the woman who did get it read it and
Speaker 2: decided that she would hand deliver it to that other woman.
Speaker 2: So she goes, she looks up the address it's on
Speaker 2: the obviously on the postcard, and she goes to the
Speaker 2: woman's house, knocks on the door and says, your pastor
Speaker 2: wrote you a word of encouragement, but it came to me,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to give it to you right now.
Speaker 2: But I want you to know I have a down
Speaker 2: syndrome child, and I'm going to help you. Now. I
Speaker 2: think an angel rerouted that postcard, okay, because that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff just doesn't happen. What's the logic of how
Speaker 2: rare a down syndrome child is of that card went
Speaker 2: to somebody else who could help her. You don't even
Speaker 2: know how many times you've been helped by the goodness
Speaker 2: of God. But God says, I my mercy and my
Speaker 2: goodness will be with you always. Now it says, surely
Speaker 2: goodness will follow me all the days of my life.
Speaker 2: What does that mean? Well, doesn't mean that only good
Speaker 2: things will happen to you. Obviously that's not true. A
Speaker 2: lot of bad things happen, a lot of disappointments happened.
Speaker 2: David had bad things happening. The guy who wrote this
Speaker 2: doesn't mean only good things will happen to me. When
Speaker 2: the Bible says surely goodness will God's goodness will follow
Speaker 2: me every day of my life, it means that God
Speaker 2: will ensure that good will come out of everything that
Speaker 2: happens to me, even the bad stuff. That's the promise.
Speaker 2: Not everything that happens to you is good, But surely
Speaker 2: goodness will follow me means God will bring good even
Speaker 2: out of the bad stuff, the evil stuff that happens
Speaker 2: to you. You cannot control what happens to you in life,
Speaker 2: but you can be sure this if you are if
Speaker 2: the Lord is your shepherd, God will always bring good,
Speaker 2: always out of bad. Anybody can bring good out of good.
Speaker 2: God specializes bringing good out of bad. And that's the
Speaker 2: great promise of Romans eight twenty eight, which says this,
Speaker 2: we know that all that happens to us is working
Speaker 2: for our good, doesn't say it's all good. It says
Speaker 2: it's working for our good. If this is a promise,
Speaker 2: if we love God and are fitting into his plans,
Speaker 2: all things do not work together for good. For everybody.
Speaker 2: If you're going in the opposite direction of God, if
Speaker 2: you're ignoring God's plan for your life, if you're not
Speaker 2: trying to live in God's love, all things are not
Speaker 2: working for good. They're all working for bad in your life.
Speaker 2: But this is a promise that those who love God,
Speaker 2: that those who really want to go God's way, who
Speaker 2: want to follow God's purpose. He says, Okay, if you
Speaker 2: really want my will in your life, even the bad
Speaker 2: stuff that happens to you, I will bring good even
Speaker 2: out of that. Now. Of course, when you're going through
Speaker 2: a bad time, you never never see the good. In
Speaker 2: the moment when my son, Matthew, my youngest one, took
Speaker 2: his life from mental illness, in the moment of that,
Speaker 2: I could not see any good out of it. It
Speaker 2: was a bad thing. It's still a bad thing. It's
Speaker 2: still a bad thing. But has God brought good out
Speaker 2: of it? I couldn't tell you all the good that
Speaker 2: God has brought out of how it's helped other people,
Speaker 2: and how God has used k used me, and used
Speaker 2: our family to help other people through crises and problems.
Speaker 2: But in the situation you don't see any good. But
Speaker 2: God is working Why Because his goodness follows me every
Speaker 2: day of my life. Now, the second reason that you
Speaker 2: never need to fear the future, no matter what happens. First,
Speaker 2: because God's goodness is watching over me. The second reason
Speaker 2: is because God's grace is working in me. God's grace
Speaker 2: is working in me, while goodness is working around me,
Speaker 2: and it's watching out for me. God's grace is working
Speaker 2: in me. At that moment, the Bible says, surely, not
Speaker 2: just goodness, but mercy will follow me all the days
Speaker 2: of my life. What is mercy? Mercy is grace and action.
Speaker 2: That's what it is. And so when I say God's
Speaker 2: grace is working in me, I'm talking about is mercy.
Speaker 2: It's grace in action. Isaiah sixty, verse ten says this,
Speaker 2: I will have mercy on you through my grace. Now,
Speaker 2: let me explain this. When God says grace, goodness and mercy,
Speaker 2: you're gonna follow you all the days of your life.
Speaker 2: What's the difference between God's goodness and God's mercy. Well,
Speaker 2: you might write this down here, it's up here on
Speaker 2: the screen. In the first place, God's goodness is when
Speaker 2: God gives me what I don't deserve. That's goodness. God's goodness.
Speaker 2: That's his grace. God gives me what I don't deserve.
Speaker 2: I don't deserve all the blessings I have in life,
Speaker 2: and you don't either. You don't the air you just breathed.
Speaker 2: Did you deserve that? The fact that your heart just
Speaker 2: took a beat? Do you deserve that? The fact that
Speaker 2: you live in a free country? Do you deserve that?
Speaker 2: Most of the things in your life are simply gracious gifts,
Speaker 2: and everything you have in your life is a gift
Speaker 2: from God. Grace is when God gives me what I
Speaker 2: don't deserve. What's mercy. It's the exact opposite. Mercy is
Speaker 2: when God doesn't give me what I do deserve, when
Speaker 2: God doesn't give me what I do deserve, all the stuff,
Speaker 2: all the ways I've been mean, I've been wrong, I've sinned,
Speaker 2: I've failed, I've flubbed up. I've made mistakes. I've been
Speaker 2: self centered. I deserve punishment for that. I deserve discipline
Speaker 2: for that. I deserve retribution for that. If God gave
Speaker 2: me everything I deserved, I wouldn't be standing before you
Speaker 2: right now. If God gave you everything you deserve, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't take your next breath so grace and mercy or
Speaker 2: goodness and mercy goodness, God gives me what I don't deserve, mercy,
Speaker 2: God doesn't give me what I do deserve. And he
Speaker 2: says both of these are going to follow me. Because
Speaker 2: God is a good God, I can inspect both his
Speaker 2: provision and his pardon. His provision, he gives me all
Speaker 2: kinds of good things in life. His pardon, He forgives
Speaker 2: all kinds of bad things in my life forgiveness. That's
Speaker 2: the mercy, the mercy part. And because God is good,
Speaker 2: I can expect the most. Now, why do you need mercy?
Speaker 2: Why do I need mercy? Because we're all imperfect, we
Speaker 2: all make mistakes, we all sin, we're all in a
Speaker 2: broken world. We don't always do the right thing. And
Speaker 2: we even know that when we don't always do the
Speaker 2: right thing. So I need forgiveness all the time. You
Speaker 2: need forgiveness all the time. You need God's mercy all
Speaker 2: the time. Aren't you glad that it says God's goodness
Speaker 2: and God's mercy will follow me all my life. He
Speaker 2: doesn't say God's justice will follow me all my life.
Speaker 2: Because if you got what you deserved, you wouldn't be
Speaker 2: sitting where you are right now, He wouldn't take another breath.
Speaker 2: God doesn't follow you with his justice, He follows you
Speaker 2: with his mercy. He is a good God. Psalm one O.
Speaker 2: Three lists a number of ways that God shows his mercy.
Speaker 2: And as I read this, I want you to circle
Speaker 2: the verbs. And there's I don't know ten or so
Speaker 2: things in this passage that are examples are definitions of
Speaker 2: God's mercy to you. Here's what it says, Psalm one
Speaker 2: O three, verse two to eleven. I will not forget
Speaker 2: the glorious things that God does for me. He forgives.
Speaker 2: He might circle that he forgives all my sins. He
Speaker 2: heals me, that's mercy. He ransoms me from hell, that's mercy.
Speaker 2: He surrounds me with loving kindness. That's mercy. He fills
Speaker 2: my life with good things. He is merciful, tender towards
Speaker 2: those who don't deserve it. That's mercy. He's slow to
Speaker 2: get angry. I'm glad for that. That's mercy. He never
Speaker 2: bears a grudge. Aren't you glad for that one? Some
Speaker 2: of you don't believe that. You think that something you
Speaker 2: did a long time ago. God's still trying to get
Speaker 2: even with you for it. Anything bad happens to your life,
Speaker 2: God's getting even with me. God, it says, does not
Speaker 2: carry a grudge. He's not getting wet. How many times
Speaker 2: have you heard me say God is not mad at you,
Speaker 2: He's mad about you. No man will ever love you
Speaker 2: like Jesus Christ. No woman will ever love you like
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. Any human love is minuscule in comparison to
Speaker 2: the creator who created you. And He made you simply
Speaker 2: to love you. And so he follows your life with goodness,
Speaker 2: giving you the things you don't deserve, and mercy don't
Speaker 2: not given you the things that you do deserve. And
Speaker 2: He's following you these two things. He never bears a grudge.
Speaker 2: He is not punished, just as we deserve for our sins.
Speaker 2: For his mercy, there's the word, is as great as
Speaker 2: the height of the heavens. He's like a father to us,
Speaker 2: tender and sympathetic to those who reverence him. Now, because
Speaker 2: God's mercy is following you every day of your life,
Speaker 2: it means you can come to God with any problem,
Speaker 2: any screw up, any mess up, any fault, any failure,
Speaker 2: any sin, and God has a twenty four hour dropping service,
Speaker 2: because his mercy is constantly following. There's never a moment
Speaker 2: he's not showing mercy to you, and so you can
Speaker 2: always come to him no matter what you're going through.
Speaker 2: That takes away your fear. The Bible says this Hebrews eleven,
Speaker 2: excuse me four sixteen. We can come before God's throne.
Speaker 2: This is talking about in prayer where we can receive
Speaker 2: mercy and grace, mercy and goodness to help us when
Speaker 2: we need it, when we need it. You know, sometimes
Speaker 2: you have sins in your life that are habitual, and
Speaker 2: we've all got these. I've got him, You've got them.
Speaker 2: It's areas that you continually stumble over and over. If
Speaker 2: you have a problem with anger, you tend to lose
Speaker 2: your temper over and over, or you tend to clam
Speaker 2: up and swallow it over and over and over. Or
Speaker 2: you may have a problem with lust, or you may
Speaker 2: have a problem with jealousy, or you may have a
Speaker 2: problem with your mouth. You can't keep your mouth shut,
Speaker 2: and you gossip all the time, and you criticize all
Speaker 2: the time, and you say mean things, and you go,
Speaker 2: why did I say that? If you have an area
Speaker 2: of habitual sin, Sometimes you start feeling a little guilty
Speaker 2: that you keep coming back to God for the same sins,
Speaker 2: like oh, I'm going to bring this one to him,
Speaker 2: And you think you're going to come to God and say, God,
Speaker 2: I did this again. God's going to go, oh, come on,
Speaker 2: can't you come up with a new sin? You're gonna
Speaker 2: give me the same old one. I've already forgiven that
Speaker 2: one five thousand times. Come on, I'm so bored with
Speaker 2: that sin. Give me something really to work on to
Speaker 2: chew on here. And sometimes you're embarrassed to go, you know, God,
Speaker 2: five minutes ago, I just confessed this, and guess what,
Speaker 2: I just did it again, And you think God is
Speaker 2: getting tired. God never gets tired of forgiving you, never, never, never,
Speaker 2: So don't hold back because His mercy follows you every
Speaker 2: day of your life. It is God's nature to be merciful.
Speaker 2: He loves to show his mercy. He doesn't get tired
Speaker 2: of it, he doesn't get bored with it. He doesn't
Speaker 2: get frustrated that you keep coming back. God loves showing mercy,
Speaker 2: so you don't have to come embarrassed. Let me read
Speaker 2: that verse again. Look there on your outline, we can
Speaker 2: come before God's thrown where we can receive mercy and
Speaker 2: grace to help us when we need it. Now, this
Speaker 2: phrase mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
Speaker 2: It says goodness and mercy to me all the days
Speaker 2: in my life. I think of two pictures that kind
Speaker 2: of are metaphors. The first this is the Lord is
Speaker 2: my shepherd. I told you in a previous message that
Speaker 2: you drive cattle, but you lead sheep. When cattle are
Speaker 2: driven on a cattle drive, the cowboys drive the cattle
Speaker 2: from behind. They push them forward, and the horses are
Speaker 2: behind and they're pushing them forward. But with sheep, you
Speaker 2: lead sheep. The shepherd is out in front of the
Speaker 2: sheep and he's walking with this roden staff, and they're
Speaker 2: following the shepherd. But at the back of the flock
Speaker 2: are a couple of little sheep dogs. And those little
Speaker 2: sheep dogs are nipping at the heels of the sheep
Speaker 2: making sure they don't run off into the ravine. And
Speaker 2: these two sheep dogs keep you on track following the shepherd.
Speaker 2: The sheep dogs in your life are God's goodness and
Speaker 2: God's mercy. Let me introduce you to your sheep dogs.
Speaker 2: You're at once called mercy, one dog is called mercy,
Speaker 2: and one dog is called goodness. And God's goodness and
Speaker 2: God's mercy are following you as you follow Jesus, the shepherd.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. So these are the God's Goodness in
Speaker 2: God's Mercy the sheep dog keep you moving in the
Speaker 2: right direction.
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