The Shepherd Leads Us Home

If you have your Bible and I hope you do, turn to Psalm 23 and as you're turning
there, you should have received a note from me this week with the tales of the
celebration of life service that is going to be held here on Saturday at 2 o 'clock
for Tim Friesen. We're urging people if you're able to carpool.
That would be great to help provide. We expect that there will be standing room
only for this service and so we're trying to make sure that parking and we'll get
as many seats in here as we can. The service will also be online if you're not
able to be here and want to view it that way. Also on Friday, following the the
graveside service with the family, we are hosting here at the church a lunch for
the extended freezing family and if you would like to help provide a meal for that
a main dish or a side or a salad or a dessert. Laura White is coordinating all of
that she's back here wave your hand you can talk to Laura after the service you'll
get an email this afternoon that will have details on how you can sign up to do
that but we just want to bless the family and provide lunch for them as they
gather following the graveside service this week. As I've been thinking about the
memorial service and thinking about this this week about Tim I know like many of
you it's just been hard to press into the reality that I'll never be up here
preaching again on a Sunday and look over here and see Tim where he used to sit
standing and worshiping and maybe wiping a tear from his eye or nodding his head
Hard to comprehend and as hard as that is for me. It's so much harder for Debbie
who is facing a Very different future than the one that she had envisioned and
imagined for the kids and for the grandkids Hard for them to think about Their
future and wrap their minds around all of this and and I have thoughts about all
of that I'll save most of those for the celebration of life on Saturday, but I
want to note this. Psalm 116, verse 15 says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is
the death of his saints." And as I thought about that this week, I thought, what
does that verse really mean? What does that mean, precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints? And I read this from John Piper, and it was helpful.
He said, "This means that the death of every saint is a demonstration to all
creation that Christ's atoning death was gloriously successful. It was not in vain.
Therefore, the arrival of every saint in heaven is another trumpet
He must it seems to me take each one by the hand as it were and lead the saint
to the father and say look another trophy Another fruit of my travail another sinner
saved and soul made perfect. Oh father. Look what we have wrought is this not
precious
and that That vision that thought I I just,
I personalize that with Tim's homegoing and his arrival and that kind of a
celebration. Tim entered heaven this week as a trophy of God's grace and I have no
doubt that while we mourn his arrival in heaven was celebrated.
And the other thought I have related to this is tied to the passage that we're
going to look at this morning. Remember back in the month of May we wrapped up a
study, a long study, through the book of Revelation. And as we got to the end of
Revelation we were thinking okay what should we be doing next and so we started to
map out what we were going to be teaching on and preaching on and we did a series
back in May and early June about things Jesus said that are sometimes hard to wrap
your head around and then we did the series on the life of Noah in June and early
July, and then we had decided that we would take the later part of July and August
and we would go through some psalms. Now this was back in May. We said, let's go
through some psalms. And over the course of the summer, my wife said to me, what
psalms are you doing? And I said, well, we're gonna do 119 and then Kendall's gonna
do 117 and I'm thinking psalm 73. And she said, what about psalm 23? And I
thought, that's a great I mean, I always kind of figure that's that's what everybody
knows, but it would be good to go deep into Psalm 23 And so we said we'll do
three weeks in Psalm 23 and it as you know, it's turned into four weeks This is
our last week here, but I tell you all of that to say that it was by God's
providence
We hadn't planned this it was by God's providence that on the week before Tim died
we would be talking about the valley of the shadow of death and that this morning
we would be talking about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever because God
knew what we would need in this moment at this time to comfort our own hearts in
the midst of the sorrow that we've been feeling. It's a passage I've been meditating
on if you're a visitor here this morning and I'm just aware some of you are going,
who are you talking about, Tim Friesen? Tim and Debbie have been long time members
of our church. Tim was the chairman of our elders
and we have ministered to their children over the years and so most of us have had
to process this personally this week and if you don't know the reasons, you've still
had to process the loss or the death of someone you know, someone you love, this
is a part of the universal human condition. And it is in Psalm 23,
that Psalm is often connected to funerals and to death because of verse four, which
talks about the valley of the shadow of death. But as we've studied this Psalm,
we've seen it's actually much bigger than just a Psalm about death. It's a Psalm
about God's care. It's about God's provision. It's about what it's like you have
Yahweh, it starts with that covenant name of God, Yahweh, as your shepherd,
as your caretaker, as the one who oversees your life. This is the all -powerful,
all -wise God who created the heavens and the earth, who has pledged himself to take
care of you personally.
He will protect you, the Psalm says. He will provide for you. He will lead you. He
restores you when you get messed up. He keeps you on the right path. When you are
in darkness, he is right there at your side. He is always taking care of you. And
the security and the peace and the comfort that comes when you know that Yahweh,
Jehovah God, has pledged himself to your care. That's what Psalm 23 tells us is
true for all who have come into the fold and who are following the good shepherd
as The same way a sheep follows a shepherd for all who will follow this good
shepherd and Be a part of his fold. That's the care. He pledges to you And this
Psalm tells us when God is your shepherd you have everything you need You have no
need to fear and you will dwell with him forever. Those are the three promises we
see in this Psalm. He provides everything you need, you will not fear,
you have no need to fear, and you will dwell with him forever. I want us to read
this Psalm again this morning together. This is the last time we'll do this. Instead
of back and forth like we've done the last few weeks, I'm gonna have you stand and
we're just gonna read it in unison together, but let me pray before we stand and
do that Father we need your help as we come to your word so we ask that you
would be our teacher today and that your Holy Spirit who we've already rejoiced over
would be very near to us not just as our comforter but as the one who speaks
truth to us we ask it in your name. Amen. Now you can stand this is the word of
God for the people of God, Psalm 23, read along with me. "The Lord is my shepherd.
"I shall not want. "He makes me lie down in green pastures.
"He leads me beside still waters. "He restores my soul.
"He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with
me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies, my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall
dwell in the house of the Lord forever." You may be seated. May God add His
blessing to this reading of His Word. The grass withers and the flower fades. The
Word of our God will stand forever. Our focus is going to be on the last two
verses in this Psalm, verses 5 and 6 and I see in these verses three promises for
sheep. There is the promise of remarkable provision. There is the promise of
relentless pursuit. And I tried but I couldn't come up with another RP.
There is the promise of an eternal royal residence that is marked by eternal joy.
Those are the three promises that God will provide remarkably for us that he will
pursue us relentlessly and that we will eternally be in his presence and experience
joy eternally. So let's look at verse 5 and see the promise of remarkable provision.
"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head
with oil, my cup overflows." And we should note that the metaphor here has shifted.
We've been talking about a sheep and a shepherd. Here we're talking about a host
and a traveler. So preparing a table is not for the sheep, it's for someone who is
a weary traveler on a journey and he arrives here and and provision has been made.
A table has been set. The theme of the Psalm has not shifted.
It's still about God providing, taking care of, meeting our needs, knowing what we
need and providing for them. But the image has moved to traveler and host away from
sheep and shepherd. And it's a lavish provision that's being pictured here. The host
has prepared a table, not a snack, it's a table, not even just a meal.
This is a banqueting table. This is not, can I get you something to eat, or do
you want me to heat something up for you in the microwave? This is, I have a
table set up for you. And it makes me wonder, as I read this line where David
says, "You prepare for me a table in the presence of my enemies." I wonder if
David wrote this after the events that took place in his life that we read about
in 2 Samuel chapter 17. We can't know this, but it sure sounds like it.
In fact, turn there, turn to 2 Samuel. So if you're in Psalms, you're turned back
toward the beginning of your Bible. Turn to 2 Samuel, chapter 17.
And let me explain what's going on. This is at a point in David's life where he
is, one of his sons, Absalom, has decided to engineer a coup.
He wants to displace his father from the throne he wants to kill his father and he
wants to claim the throne for his own. And so it as we're looking here it's a
dark time in David's life and his soldiers are doing battle with his son's soldiers
and in 2nd Samuel 17 David is on the run he's being pursued by his son and they
come to a little village called mahanayum, and they are welcomed there by the tribal
leaders who welcome them into the city, and it says there are these three tribal
leaders in verse 28, read what it says, "brought beds, basins, and earthen vessels,
"wheat, barley, flour, parched grain, beans and lentils, "honey and curds and sheep
and cheese from the herd, "for David and the people with him to eat, for they said
the people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness. Now I have to wonder
if what David is describing in verse 5 of Psalm 23 when he says you prepare a
table for me in the wilderness is not David reflecting on just what God did for
him by providing this lavish feast in the middle of the wilderness when he was
being pursued by his enemies. In fact, if you look at the end of 2 Samuel 17,
at the end of verse 29, it says, "The people were hungry, they provided a table,
and weary, they provided oil, and thirsty, they provided a cup." So the same order
in Psalm 23 is what's described at the end of 2 Samuel 17. And I should just
mention here, we understand a table and a cup because we're used to eating and
drinking, we're not used to oil. And that's because we don't live in a dry, arid
climate where it's easy to be parched and where if you're out with animals riding
on your donkeys or whatever you're riding on all day, you stink. And if you come
into somebody's house, you not only have a pungent aroma about you,
but you also probably have some cracked dry skin, and the oil that would have been
used for anointing is probably a perfumed oil or lotion that is poured out in order
to soothe the skin and to take care. You've got cracked dry skin here, let me help
you with that, I'll anoint you with oil. It could refer, the oil could refer to
ceremonial anointing anointing because that was done when David was identified by
Samuel to be the king. The first thing that Samuel did was he took a horn of oil
and he anointed David with the oil. Priests were anointed before they began their
priestly service. But I think this is talking about this banqueting table. I don't
think it's a ceremony of anointing. I think it's anointing as a way of soothing and
providing respite and care for one who is weary and needs rest.
Two weeks ago when we looked at the shepherd leading his sheep into green pastures
and still waters, and I told you then that the poetic image that we have there can
be seen as addressing physical needs or even emotional needs, but we ought to focus
on the spiritual needs because that's what our deepest needs are and the shepherd
knows that. Well, when we get here to verse five and we hear about a table and we
hear about oil and we hear about water or a cup overflowing, it's easy for us to
think about our physical needs, eating and drinking and being soothed and think this
is, the psalmist is telling us that God will supply for our material needs,
our physical needs and abundance. And I think there's truth to that.
With the rest and refreshment and sustenance, David needed that for his men. It
could also be interpreted as applying to emotional needs, where God is providing the
resources we need to care for us when we're empty, we need to be filled when we're
dry, we need to be comforted when your soul aches, when your soul is thirsty, you
can interpret it all that way. And I think there's truth to that. But again, I go
to the spiritual needs, which are our deepest needs and I think what's being
pictured for us in Psalm 23 verse 5 is not so much about God meeting our physical
needs or even our emotional needs but our deepest spiritual needs. So he's saying
this table you've prepared for me, this oil you poured out for me, this is all to
meet the needs of my soul, my deepest needs. Remember what Jesus said in John
chapter 10? I'm thinking what he said in verse 48 he said a lot of things that
stirred up the crowd and excuse me John 6 Not John 10 John 6 He was saying things
that were causing the scribes in the Pharisees to become enraged against him One of
the things he said in verse 48 was I am the bread of life Your father's ate the
manna in the wilderness and they died This is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from
heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I
will give him for the life of the world is my flesh." Now,
obviously, Jesus is not talking physically there. He's talking at a spiritual level.
He's saying, "I am the source of life." That's what bread was.
"I am the source of life." And God has a feast for our souls,
nourishment and refreshment we need, and it's found in Jesus himself. The table
that's prepared for us in the presence of our enemies in Psalm 23 is Jesus.
He is the table. He is the feast. He is the one on whom we feed. He is the
source of our nourishment. He is the bread.
And the anointing with oil, What's that a picture of in the Bible? The pouring out
of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's often associated with being anointed with oil.
So Jesus is the feast we need. You are anointed with oil with the Holy Spirit and
the overflowing cup. Jesus, as again, said, I am the living water. Anyone who drinks
of me will never thirst again. So this picture In verse five,
the table and the oil and the cup, I think David is saying yes, God has always
cared for my physical needs and even my emotional needs, but he knows my deepest
need and my spiritual need and he's made provision for that in Christ, in himself.
He is the banquet, he is the anointing, he is the overflowing cup.
I think most of us are much more learned about our physical needs and our emotional
needs than we are about our spiritual needs.
We just tend to focus on that. We work to take care of our bodies. Please, some
of us do, right? We follow or can be overwhelmed by our emotions.
We're in tune with our emotions. We can obsess over what we're feeling today or how
we're doing emotionally. We think that's our deepest need. It's not. Your greatest
need is your need to be finding your life and your purpose and your meeting in
Christ. Your greatest need is to find your joy in Him, your peace in Him,
and your hope in Him. The deepest need of your soul is for your soul to be at
rest. It's why back when we started this Psalm, the first thing the shepherd does
is he makes them lie down in green pastures. You need to rest. Your soul needs
rest. Rest in me. Everything flows from that.
So as we read verse 5 about the table and the oil and the cup, it's prefiguring
Jesus and what he does to meet the needs of our soul. It's interesting.
There's another way to read this verse And some theologians see this pictured clearly
here that it's pointing to the final hours of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Because as Jesus was approaching Calvary, he had perfumed oil that was poured out on
him, anointing him, preparing him for burial. He sat at a banqueting table in the
presence of his enemies and enjoyed the feast, and he said in the garden,
Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass me by, but instead the cup of God's
wrath overflowed on the cross. And it's possible that without knowing it,
David in Psalm 23 is connecting verse five, actually connecting verse four,
the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and verse five with the death of Christ in
picturing the banqueting table, the oil, and the cup. And in that sense,
the table and the oil and the cup take a very different meaning. But I think as
we meditate on this, it's God making provision for the needs of our soul. And
that's the focus here. And the last thing I want to note about verse 5 is that
David says that this table is set in the presence of his enemies. Why is that
phrase included? Well, as I said, I think it relates to David's own experience in
Second Samuel 17, where he feasted while his enemies were outside the camp.
But I think it's also a reminder that we live in a world where we're gonna face
persecution and hostility, where we will have people who we will be at enmity with
simply because of our relationship with Christ and God will care for our needs and
the needs of our soul even if the world is opposed to us even if the world is
against us but I think it's also there because God wants our His enemies to see
the feast and know that they're invited.
This is not, I have a table on a feast and you're not welcome na na na na na
boo boo you know it's not that. This is, we're at this feast and you're welcome,
all you have to do is lay down your weapons and join us. Instead of fighting
against us and instead of being opposed to the work of God, come join the work of
God, come join the feast.
I just wonder if there's anybody here who's fighting against God this morning.
Anybody who is
opposing God's purposes and plan for his or her life. You're saying,
"I'm happy just running my own life. I don't want to come join your table. I'm
fine on my own." Jesus is saying, "Come join the feast. Come experience the
abundance that is here." Do you know you're welcome at this table? You can be
refreshed and you can have abundance and your cup can overflow. All you have to do
is surrender. Acknowledge that you've been living your life as a rebel. You've been
rejecting God's purposes and plan. You've been living life on your own terms,
living your own way.
This is what the Bible calls sin, by the way. The sinful things you do Come from
the sin that's in you we often think sin is the bad things we do the bad things
We do are the fruit of sin the sin is I'm gonna run my own life Then the sins
are the manifestations of what happens when you make that choice So when we talk
about your sins you're lying you're cheating you're stealing your whatever it is
You're doing we can go through the whole list of of sinful practices. That's just
the fruit of a heart that says, "I don't want to do what God says, I want to do
what I want to do." And to come to the table is to say,
"Okay, it's true. I have rebelled against God. I'm going to turn from that.
I'm going to follow the good shepherd. I'm going to come into his fold. I want to
be one of his. I want to come to the table and and experience the abundant life
that he promises. I wanna come to the feast, I wanna be in the flock, I wanna
come under his loving care. This banquet is not being held in the presence of the
enemies as a way to show superiority. It's being held there to say,
look what we have, you're welcome, come join us.
Have you come? Will you come? You can do it today. Let's move from verse 5 in the
feast to verse 6 and the promise of God's relentless pursuit Surely goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life first thing surely not hopefully not
maybe Surely You can count on this This is gonna happen Goodness and mercy are
going to follow you This psalm started with the shepherd leading his sheep and then
in verse four the shepherd was alongside his sheep in the midst of the darkness now
goodness and mercy are following David is saying God is before me God is with me
God is behind me I am surrounded by God God's goodness and mercy are following me
that word by the way follow in our language it should really be pursuing it's "It's
coming after, it's chasing me." God's goodness and mercy are not just in the rear
view mirror. They are coming up hard from behind. They are pursuing you aggressively,
chasing you down. David was used to being aggressively pursued by enemies who wanted
to destroy him. Now he says, "God has put goodness and mercy pursuing me to
overtake me, not to destroy me, but to bless me.
Goodness here is just another word for God's grace. God, goodness is when God gives
you stuff you don't deserve, which happens to all of us every day. The fact that
you got up this morning and the sun was up. We didn't deserve that. The goodness
of God is all around us. God's blessing.
David says, "God's goodness, his blessing is chasing after me. It's chasing me down."
Same is true for his mercy. His mercy is chasing me too. Mercy, this is the Hebrew
word, "Hesed," which we've heard about before. It's his loving kindness or his
steadfast love that's translated here, "His mercy." It's the word that is used in
the Old Testament more often than any other word to describe God's character. The
writers of the Old Testament were apparently struck by the fact that the God of the
universe manifested loving kindness toward his stubborn and rebellious children. They
were in awe of that truth. The Bible describes God's loving kindness as being
abundant and everlasting. He is abounding in loving kindness.
This was not a character quality of the pagan deities that the other nations
worshiped the idea that Yahweh the omnipotent creator God abounds in loving kindness
caused the Israelites to marvel it should cause us to marvel King David elsewhere
says your loving kindness is better than life Now
some have pictured goodness and mercy God's grace and God's mercy like two sheepdog
who are following the flock and keeping them hem dim keeping them from wandering off
surrounding them always going here and go in there so that they don't wander too
far and whenever I think about being pursued by goodness and mercy I think about
lame is a rob now I don't know if you've ever seen ever seen Les Misérables.
If you haven't seen it, you should go home and watch it on Amazon today or watch
the video. It's a moving musical. Who has seen Les Misérables?
Okay, most of you have seen Les Misérables. So you know the story. The story is
about a Frenchman who went to jail, went to prison because he stole some bread,
Jean Valjean. And he gets out of prison, but Inspector Javert pursues him throughout
his life, wanting to put him back in prison because he says you're a criminal,
that's all you'll ever be, this is where you belong. It's really grace and law that
are being pictured here. So Javert represents the law that is always trying to put
us back into prison.
And Jean -Beljean is living in grace, the grace of God, it's a beautiful,
it's a moving story, right? But if you know the name is, you know that Javer is
relentless in his pursuit. He will not stop. He will do anything to get Jean
Valjean back to prison because that's your identity, that's where you belong. That's
what it's like to have the law pursuing you or to have judgment pursuing you.
The Bible says that God's grace is what pursues us. It's the opposite. God's mercy
runs after you, not to put you in prison, but to set you free.
You become a recipient of God's grace and mercy when you become a Christian. God
extends his grace and mercy to you when he brings you into his family and then it
never quits. He keeps pursuing you with it. Because you never quit stumbling,
you never quit kneading his goodness and his mercy, and so he never quits supplying
it. It comes in abundance.
Some of you, as you read this, you would say, "I don't have goodness and mercy
following me, chasing after me. I have shame and condemnation following me all the
days of my life. That's what I feel like is overtaking me every day. Shame,
guilt, condemnation. And if you are not a child of God,
then that's right. You have Joveir following you. He wants to put you back in
prison because he knows who you are. You have shame and condemnation chasing you
down and you can't get away from it. You can't Just pretend it's not there, or
it's not real. It keeps creeping in. But the sheep who belong to the shepherd and
follow the shepherd, shame is replaced with goodness. Hear this, shame is replaced
with goodness. God says, I take away the shame, I put goodness in its place. I
take away the condemnation, I put mercy in its place. Folks that's glorious That
that the good shepherd would take away your shame and your condemnation and put
goodness and mercy in its place
Condemnation means you get what you deserve grace means you you get what you don't
deserve Mercy means you don't get what you do deserve And by the way,
these are covenantal nouns.
The promise from God for all who are his. Goodness and mercy will chase you down.
David Gibson in his book on Psalm 23 says this, "These words are another way of
saying "that the Lord Jesus himself is pursuing you. "They are his divine attributes,
yes, "but these words reveal the covenant Lord himself to us." These are not
concepts that are chasing you down. It's Jesus himself coming after you to extend
again his grace and his mercy. As David looks at his life, as he looks back at
the events of his past, he says, you know what I see when I look back at the
events of my past? I see God's goodness and mercy. They have been chasing me down
all the way. In the Valley of the shadow of death when I didn't know what was
going on in the green pastures and the still waters all that's happened to me in
life good and bad hard and easy it's been God's goodness and his mercy that's what
I see Bible commentators look at what David is saying here and they think this is
an astonishing confession being made by a man whose life was a mess Think about the
pain and sorrow of David's life. Think about the rejection from his brothers. Think
about being hunted down by King Saul who wanted to kill him. Think about his his
son dying in childbirth. Think about another son wanting to kill him and usurp the
throne. Think about his own sin with Bathsheba and the guilt of his conscience in
Uriah, the murder of Uriah. There's so many things we can add on here and David
looks back at all of that and says, "Goodness and mercy have been following me all
the days of my life."
He's not in denial. He's not a polyana pretending bad things haven't happened.
Instead, here's what he's doing. He's fixing his eyes on God's good plan even in
the midst of the darkness of his own life. He's choosing to see the goodness of
God in the darkness of his own life.
Colin Smith says this. Colin Smith's a pastor in in Chicago area. He says,
"Here's the great difference in our world. Sinners blame God for everything and thank
Him for nothing. Believers thank God for everything and blame Him for nothing." What
are you most likely to do? Thank or blame when it comes to God?
When you look at the events of your life. Do you thank or do you blame? Can you
look back at even the hard times of your life at the valley of deep darkness and
say, even there, God's goodness and mercy were running after me, chasing me down. He
didn't keep me from the hard times, but He was right there with me, and His
goodness and His mercy were right there as well. That's true about your past if
you're a child of God, and it's true about your future. Goodness and mercy will
take you all the way to the finish line, right to the very end. And then you move
in to a new address, the royal residence, your home. I shall dwell in the house of
the Lord forever. This, by the way, has been the destination all along. These sheep
have not just been wandering, it's not been aimless, but the shepherd has a
destination for the sheep. He is leading them home. He's taking them home. Our
destination is to go home. We go from green pastures through dark valleys.
The whole time there's a journey. The shepherd has a place where he's taking us. In
fact, David in Psalm 27, just a few Psalms over, has talked about the longing of
his own soul to dwell with God in his house. He says, "One thing, have I asked of
the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all
the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and inquire in His
temple." Now, he's talking about dwelling in God's presence during his earthly life,
but his longing is to be with God forever. In Psalm 84, the sons of Korah say,
"How lovely is your dwelling place, "O Lord of hosts, my soul longs, yes faints
"for the courts of the Lord, for a day in your courts "is better than a thousand
elsewhere." We saw this final home that we're longing for when we were studying
Revelation back in the spring and we saw the new heavens and the new earth which
will be our ultimate eternal dwelling place to be with the Lord. But what David has
in view here when he says I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever is not the
house but the Lord.
It's not that David's longing to move in to new digs, you know a swankier place
where I'll have a bigger bedroom and where stuff doesn't break. Now David is saying
I will dwell in the house of the Lord. I'm gonna dwell with him. The eternal
reward reward is not primarily about mansions or streets of gold or big giant pearly
gates. It's about who you spend eternity with. The psalm began with Yahweh,
the Lord is my shepherd, it ends with Yahweh, I will dwell in the house of the
Lord forever. It's the bookend of the psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I'll dwell in
his house forever. The Scottish pastor Alexander McLaren,
this is we're gonna go through this slowly because it's worth Just considering what
he says. He says this should be at once the crown of all our hopes for the future
and The one great lesson taught us by the vicissitudes of life The sorrows and the
joys the journeying and the rest the temporary repose and the frequent struggles,
all these should make us sure that there is an end which will interpret them all,
to which they all point, and for which they all prepare.
All that you're going through in life will one day be understood in the context of
what God is leading us to.
Dwelling in the house of the Lord forever. This is where Tim Friesen is today.
He's in the house of the Lord. He's moved in and if we could and I wish we could
somehow zoom in with him Do a zoom call and say tell us about where you are and
about what's going on and he would say oh my folks You can't imagine what it's
like to be here. I can't wait for you to be face to face with Jesus. It's
glorious being here, being with Jesus. And if we were to say to Tim,
"Tim, is there any way that you could just come back for a few days so we could
have one final meal and just tell you how much we love you?" And all of that he
would say, "You know what? I'll see you when you get here. I like it here.
I Love you all but I'm not leaving here because this is where I belong. The house
of the Lord is where God's people, his sheep, will be forever.
And I have no more important job as your pastor than to urge you this morning to
make sure that this is the end of the journey for your life. To make sure that
this is where you end up, that this is your eternal dwelling place to point you
here and say there is a shepherd who is calling you and leading you and will take
you through the dark valleys and bring you here. Follow him because any other path
you choose other than following him will take you to eternal deep darkness where
you'll never find rest for your soul and you'll deal with torment forever because
Life is short.
We don't know when we will take our last breath. It could be today. And I know
you're thinking, "Yeah, probably not." Okay, probably not, but it could be. You never
know. You don't know when it will be your last day. In that moment,
you will either be in the presence of the Lord dwelling with him forever, or you
will be under his Righteous wrath for the rest of eternity and there's no more
important Choice you make in life than whether you're gonna follow the shepherd Or
go your own way
You have it if the Lord is your shepherd you will have everything you need Hear
his voice follow him stay close and his goodness and mercy will follow you all the
days of your life and you will dwell with him forever. Let's pray.
Father, these are joyful and sobering thoughts simultaneously as we think about these
things.
We are grateful that you are a good shepherd and that you lead your sheep to a
glorious eternity,
that you chase us down with your goodness and your mercy, that you provide for the
needs of our soul in abundance,
and we're sobered by the fact that so many continue to go their own way and reject
you and follow their own passions, their own desires.
We're sobered by what that means for them now and forever
So Lord we we thank you and we worship you and we praise you for your goodness
and grace and how it follows after us And we pray for any including any here who
don't know you That they would say I want the life that the shepherd offers.
I want to know him and be in his house with him forever.
But they would acknowledge their sin and turn to you.
We ask all of this today in Jesus' name. Amen.