This sermon is from the series WHAT FAITH KNOW ABOUT GOD and was preached at Cornerstone Baptist church in Cherry Log, Georgia on February 23, 2013 by Pastor Paul Mims. You can hear this sermon at www.csbccl.org

Psalm 23:6Several years ago, a lady who visited our church for the first time said, “I came to Sunday School and the lesson was on “The Good Shepherd.” In the worship service the music was “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” Your sermon was “The Good Life” based on the twenty third Psalm. When I got into my car in the parking lot to leave I looked at the license plate of the car in front of me. It read BAA!” We will have devoted seven sermons to this favorite Psalm before we are finished. We all may be saying “BAA” by then.

Today, we are going to consider, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life…” I believe than in this statement David is stating his philosophy of life. There are five major concepts that go into a philosophy of life in these few words. To enjoy life we all have to have a proper philosophy of life.

I. I AM ASSURED BY GOD’S CONSTANCY. “Surely…”
Earlier in the Psalm he said, “The Lord is…” Not “has been” or “will be” but now in the present! He is bursting with assurance that God is active with him in the here and now. He is the same he was with Abraham and Moses. “Now he is with me,” David is saying. We can say the same but extend it out on a much longer perspective than David had. We can say, “As he was with David, Daniel, Peter and Paul, Surely, he is with me today.” God always wants us to see him in the present. We cannot live on the great spiritual experiences of the past. My relationship to God always has to be in the here and the now. In the past, I have received rest from him in the green pastures, restoration when I have sinned, guidance when I needed it, and courage to walk through the valley of the shadow, but these are just as much a part of my future as they were of my past. God’s constancy of being who he was in my past and will be in my future gives me the assurance that his goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life. In the past few weeks, PBS has been showing a program on the voyage of Ernest Shackleton to the antarctic. I read the book SHACKLETON’S JOURNEY. It is an amazing story of human triumph with God’s help.

Soon after they arrived in the antarctic their ship was frozen in the ice and they had to abandon it. What was left was three lifeboats. They made their way to Elephant Island. He left the major part of the crew there with two lifeboats. Then he took a crew of three men and one of the lifeboats and sailed a thousand miles across the most treacherous ocean in the world to get help to rescue his crew. That voyage in itself is one of the great epochs of man. They sailed to an island named South Georgia and landed on the wrong side of the island. They knew that there was a whaling station there where they could get help. But they had to make their way across a mountain range towering 6000 feet high covered with snow and ice. When they got to the top of the mountain, they saw the whaling station down in the distance. And Shackleton made a decision like he had never made before. He knew that if they stayed on the tops of the mountain during the night they would freeze to death. They were not mountain climbers the were seamen. So he made a decision to slide down the mountain. They coiled their ropes and sat in the coils which they tied to each other and slid 6000 feet down the mountain of ice and snow. Arriving safely at the bottom Shackleton in his typical British understatement said, “This is not the kind of thing that you would like to do very often.” Writing of this later he said, “I felt that there was a fourth man with us.” The other two men said the same thing. “The fourth presence with us was so strong all through the voyage and down the mountain.”

In such a great life struggle they could say with David, “Thou art with me!”

II. I AM PURSUED BY GOD’S LOVE.
The word translated “follow” is better translated “pursue.” The idea is that good and mercy pursue me with the intention of overtaking me. God is pursuing me. He does not just allow the twin angels of Goodness and Mercy to follow in the distance to overtake me on those days when I need his goodness and mercy.

All of us know how God pursued us to bring us to Christ. He worked in our hearts little by little to bring us to him. We know how he met our needs in the heat of the day. He pursues us now with the intent of blessing us. I don’t know if there are actually angels named “Goodness and Mercy” or not, but I do believe that he sends his angels to bless his flock and to keep watch over us.

III. MY NEEDS ARE MET BY GOD’S GOODNESS.
The Apostle Paul learned this truth well and he said to the Philippians, “My God shall supply all your needs.” From both David and Paul the idea is that there is a constant flow of God’s goodness into our lives. Have you experienced this stream of goodness into your life? You say, “I don’t sense that. I am having difficulties at home or in my work or within myself. Where is God’s constant stream of goodness to me?”
This does not mean that God takes away from us all struggle, difficulty, or heartache – it means that he meets our needs when we go through these situations that are a part of our human existence. Look at the story of Joseph who was sold by his brothers into slavery in Egypt. He had heartache, pain and many days of misery. But through it all, God’s goodness was pursuing him. He rose to be the second most powerful man in Egypt. He held a ceremony to forgive them and said, “You meant this to me for evil, but God meant it for GOOD.” Paul said, “God is now working all thing together for GOOD… The Psalmist said, “I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” The wonderful thing is that we can pass this on to others. It was Tennyson who said, “The good that men do lives after them.” It follows them. What follows where you go? Some people leave a trail of hurt and turmoil after them. The scripture says, “Jesus went about doing good.”

Years after the death of President Calvin Coolidge, this story came to light. In the early days of his presidency, Coolidge awoke one morning in his hotel room to find a cat burglar going through his pockets. Coolidge spoke up, asking the burglar not to take his watch chain because it contained an engraved charm he wanted to keep. Coolidge then engaged the thief in quiet conversation and discovered he was a college student who had no money to pay his hotel bill or buy a ticket back to campus. Coolidge counted $32 out of his wallet — which he had also persuaded the dazed young man to give back! — declared it to be a loan, and advised the young man to leave the way he had come so as to avoid the Secret Service! (Yes, the loan was paid back.) Today in the Word, October 8, 1992.

IV. I AM CONTINUALLY OFFERED MERCY.
We need mercy to cancel our sin. Always there is mercy coming to us. This is made real to us when we hear of prisoners on death row facing execution in the various states. As the execution date nears there are always appeals for mercy. “Yes, I murdered, I did wrong – but now give me mercy!” And mercy is not forthcoming in every case. But do you realize that our sin is a capital offence against God just like the men on death row? Before I came to Christ I was on death row. “The wages of sin is death.” You were on death row too. Some of you may be on death row now. Apart from Christ – that is where you are. But I obtained mercy and my sentence of eternal death is averted.

Martin Luther was so caught up in conviction of his sin that he cried out, “Oh, my sin, my sin” wondering what to do with his sin. There are medical cases of psychological and physical illnesses that people can never get over unless they find the mercy of God. It was like the doctor said of Lady MacBeth, “More she needs the Divine Physician for this disease is beyond my practice…” The disease that you and I have called sin is beyond the practice of any human being to cure. And so we obtain mercy which continues to pursue us.

There is a play written to portray how God relates to his people through the eyes of an old Negro minister. It is entitled “Green Pastures.” The play begins with the statement that God created the earth and made it very beautiful. Man rebelled against God and spoiled the earth. God is angry with man and asks, “What shall I do with man? Shall I let him loose to destroy himself?” And then there comes the picture of the Prophet Hosea, whose wife committed adultery and yet Hosea loved his wife and forgave her. Hosea then says to the people, “That is what God will do for you.” Then, in the last scene, there is a cross and God’s great mercy is shown to man. That is the place where I obtained mercy.

“A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. “But I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained. “I plead for mercy.” “But your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied. “Sir,” the woman cried, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for.” “Well, then,” the emperor said, “I will have mercy.” And he spared the woman’s son. Luis Palau, Experiencing God’s Forgiveness, Multnomah Press, 1984.

V. GOODNESS AND MERCY ARE OFFERED TO ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.
This fifth part of a healthy philosophy of life is most blessed. In Him I have received strength for my daily walk and will continue to do so all of my days. Compare your philosophy of life to that of David. Are you assured by God’s constancy? Are you afraid of certain stages of life where God may not help you as much? In every stage of life his goodness and mercy will not lessen. Are you pursued by God’s goodness and mercy? I remember as a child on the farm loving to walk in the woods. I would walk down to the creek and over the fields. But being just a little afraid I would keep looking back to see if anyone was following. Now as an adult Christian I can look back and sense the presence of those two angels following. Look! There comes goodness. And there is Mercy! They are pursuing us with the intent of blessing us.

Do you have that kind of philosophy of life? Do you believe that God provides your needs? Do you know that your life in Christ is protected by God’s mercy? Would you agree that this is a good philosophy of life? It is an Old Testament Philosophy and a New Testament Philosophy.

Exodus 34:6-7
Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

Ephesians 2:4
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us”

Psalm 86:5
“For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon Thee”

Titus 3:5
“He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit”

Luke 6:36
“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

PRAISE BE TO HIS NAME!