- If you'll take out your message notes. I wanna welcome those of you
at all of our 18 campuses who are watching right now, and those of you who are
joining us online live. Today, we continue in
our series of Psalm 23, the most important, or most famous chapter in the entire Bible. It's only six verses, but
it gives us a dozen pictures of the goodness of God. Now, you know, as I've been
teaching this psalm to you, I've studied all the scholars, I've read all the commentaries, and a lot of commentaries,
Biblical commentaries, actually get this psalm wrong. They say this is a psalm
of David's confidence and David's faith. Absolutely not, they're
all wrong about that. It's not even about David. It's not about a shepherd,
David being a shepherd, it's not about sheep, it's
about the goodness of God. It's all about God. You know, a lot of times, we talk about you being committed to Jesus, or you being committed to God. This psalm turns that upside-down. This psalm is not about
your commitment to God. It's about God's
commitment to you, to you. And in this psalm, God says, "I'm gonna do 12 things for you." They're metaphors and
you have to explain 'em, but He says, "I'm gonna
do these 12 things for you "'cause I'm a good God, and I love you, "and these are the things
I've committed to do for you." It's 100% about God. Now, we're drawing, now,
toward the end of this series. I want us to read the
whole psalm again together, it's only six verses, but I want you to read it aloud with me and I want you to emphasize the 12 times it talks about God, 'cause
this psalm is not about you. It's about what God does for you. So, up here on the screen,
let's read this together. "The Lord is my shepherd. "I have everything I need. "He makes me lie down in green pastures. "He leads me beside still waters. "He restores my soul. "He leads me in the right
paths for His name's sake. "Even when I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, "I will fear no evil,
for you are with me." And then he says, maybe. (congregation laughing) Thank you. "Your rod and your staff comfort me. "You prepare a banquet for
me in front of my enemies. "You anoint my head with
oil and my cup overflows. "Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me "all the days of my life, "and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever." Now, I want you to notice,
first, that this psalm begins and ends with the Lord. "The Lord is my shepherd," and it ends with, "And I
will dwell in the house "of the Lord forever." This psalm is all about God. It's all about His goodness to you. If you missed any in this series, I wanna encourage you to go back and listen to the 12
things that God has said He wants to do for you
because He is a good God. Now, today, we look at this last verse. "Surely, goodness and mercy "will follow me all the days of my life." That's a promise. "And I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever." That's heaven, that's future. Now, any time you start worrying, you need to remember the
last verse of Psalm 23. If you have difficulty with the future, you tend to get anxious about the future, you get fearful about the future, you get worried about the future, you feel anxiety welling up
within you over the future, you need to remember this last verse, because this last verse
tells us the three reasons you never need to fear the future if you're a believer. You never need to fear the future because of the three
things that it tells us in this last verse. Now, if you're takin' notes,
you might just write this down. Here's the first reason. I don't need to fear the future because God's goodness
is watching over me. I don't need to fear the
future because God's goodness is watching over me. The Bible says, "Surely,
goodness will follow me "all the days of my life." Do you know that God, in His goodness, is always paying attention to you? Did you know that you've never
had a second of your life God was not watching you? God is always paying attention to you. Why, because He created you to love you, and He's a good God. So how in the world can
God be interested in me? There's 7-1/2 billion people in the world. The God who created trillions of stars can surely care about seven billion people all at the same time. You don't understand how big God is if you don't understand that God can pay 100% attention to you while paying 100% attention
to everybody else too. He's God. There has never been a moment in your life God was not watching. He knows every detail of your life. He knows when you get acid indigestion, (congregation laughing) and when you get a few other
things in your stomach. There has never been a moment. He knows the highs and lows,
the goods and the bads, the ups and downs. He's paying attention to you right now. In fact, God knows you better than you know yourself. God knows the details of
your life, every one of 'em. He knows more details
about you than you do. Why, He is a good God, and the goodness of God is following me all the days of my life. Psalm 145:20 says this: "The Lord watches over "all who love Him." God's goodness is watching over. He doesn't miss any details. And not only does He watch over you, He actually protects you. You are protected from thousands of things you don't even know you missed, accidents that you could have gotten into, problems that you could have created, decisions that you made, and God said, "No, we're not gonna let the consequences "of that one happen right now." How does God watch over you? How does God protect you? Well, one of the ways, this
may shock you, is angels. The Bible says God created
angels to watch over you. You say, "Wait a minute, are angels real?" Oh, yes, they're very real,
the Bible tells us that. Now, let me say this. I don't have time to teach
a whole message on it. I will some time, we'll
come back and cover angels. But there's a lot of phony
baloney about angels out there. There's a lot of myths,
there's a lot of lies, there's a lot of misconceptions, there's a lot of things that
people think about angels that just aren't true, and so, we'll have to
come back and study that. But let me just say a couple things. When you die, you're not
gonna become an angel. When you die, when you go to heaven, you're gonna be a person. You're not gonna have any
wings, hate to tell you that. You're not gonna have any wings. In the first place,
angels don't have bodies, they don't have human physical bodies. So, they are the spiritual beings. You don't talk to them. I have walked with the
Lord now for over 50 years. I've never had personal
contact with an angel, never, except Kay. (congregation laughing) Thought I'd throw that in there. (congregation laughing and applauding) Okay. But they don't have physical
bodies, you don't talk to 'em. You'll probably never have any interaction with 'em in your life, but they're out there watching over you. They are protecting you. They are actually created by
God to encourage circumstances that encourage you. The Bible says, in Psalm 91:11: "God orders His angels to protect you "wherever you go." So they're like invisible helpers. And there are many ways they do this, but one of the ways is
they create circumstances that you don't even know, how
in the world did that happen? Well, an angel was in action. I could give you thousands
of examples of this that I've seen over the years. Let me just give you one. Several years ago, a young
woman, who was pregnant, came to me for counsel,
came to the church office, and she had discovered that
she was carrying a Downs child, a Down syndrome child. And she was debating, "Am I
gonna terminate this pregnancy, "get an abortion, or am
I going to keep the baby? "Am I gonna give it up for adoption, "will I raise the child?" She was very, very fearful,
as is understandable. And I showed her some
Scripture, like Psalm 139, that says God planned
you before you were born. God planned every day of your life when you were in your mother's womb. Abortion short-circuits the will of God. God wanted you made. You were a person 'cause He
created you and thought you up from the moment He thought you up. And she made the decision
she was gonna keep the baby. So she went home and I
decided I would just write her a little note of encouragement. So I took out a postcard,
wrote some Bible verses on it, wrote a little prayer and just a couple words of encouragement, some of the stuff I'd shared with her, and I mailed that postcard
to encourage that woman. The post office sent it
to the wrong address, so she didn't get it. But the woman who did get it read it and decided that she would hand deliver it to that other woman. So, she goes, she looks up the address, it's obviously on the postcard, and she goes to the woman's
house, knocks on the door, and said, "Your pastor wrote
you a word of encouragement, "but it came to me. "And I'm gonna give it to you right now, "but I want you to know I
have a Down syndrome child, "and I'm gonna help you." - [Woman In Congregation] Yes! (congregation applauding) - Now, I think an angel
rerouted that postcard, okay, because that kinda stuff
just doesn't happen. What's the logic, how rare
a Down syndrome child is, that card went to somebody
else who could help her? You don't even know how many
times you've been helped by the goodness of God. But God says, "My mercy and my goodness "will be with you always." Now, it says, "Surely,
goodness will follow me "all the days of my life." What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean
that only good things will happen to you. Obviously, that's not true. A lot of bad things happen, a
lot of disappointments happen. David had bad things happen to
him, the guy who wrote this. Doesn't mean only good
things will happen to me. When the Bible says,
"Surely, God's goodness "will follow me every day of my life," it means that God will ensure that good will come out of everything that happens
to me, even the bad stuff. That's the promise. Not everything that
happens to you is good, but surely, goodness will follow me means God will bring good, even
out of the bad stuff, the evil stuff, that happens to you. You cannot control what
happens to you in life, but you can be sure of this: If the Lord is your shepherd, God will always bring
good, always, out of bad. Anybody can bring good out of good. God specializes in
bringing good out of bad, and that's the great
promise of Romans 8:28, which says this: "We know that all that happens to us "is working for our good." Doesn't say it's all good. It says it's working for our good. "If," this is a promise, "if we love God and are
fitting into His plans." All things do not work together
for good for everybody. If you're goin' in the
opposite direction of God, if you're ignoring God's
plan for your life, if you're not trying
to live in God's love, all things are not working for good, they're all working for bad in your life. But this is a promise
that those who love God, that those who really wanna go God's way, who wanna follow God's purpose, He says, "Okay, if you really want
my will in your life, "even the bad stuff that happens to you, "I will bring good even out of that." Now, of course, when you're
going through a bad time, you never, never see
the good in the moment. When my son, Matthew, my youngest one, took his life, from mental
illness, four years ago, in the moment of that, I could
not see any good out of it. It was a bad thing,
it's still a bad thing. It's still a bad thing, but
has God brought good out of it? I couldn't tell you all the good that God has brought out of it, and how it's helped other people, and how God has used Kay,
used me, and used our family to help other people
through crises and problems. But in the situation,
you don't see any good, but God is working. Why, because His goodness
follows me every day of my life. Now, the second reason that you never need to fear the future, no
matter what happens, first, because God's
goodness is watching over me. The second reason is because
God's grace is working in me. God's grace is working in me. While goodness is working around me, and it's watching out for me, God's grace is working
in me at that moment. The Bible says, "Surely,
not just goodness, but mercy "will follow me all the days of my life." What is mercy? Mercy is grace in action,
that's what it is. And so, when I say God's
grace is working in me, I'm talkin' about His
mercy, it's grace in action. Isaiah 60:10 says this: "I will have mercy on
you through my grace." Now, let me explain this. When God says goodness and
mercy are gonna follow you all the days of your life, what's the difference
between God's goodness and God's mercy? Well, you might write this down. Here, it's up here on the screen. In the first place, God's goodness is when God gives me what I don't deserve. That's goodness. God's goodness, that's His grace. God gives me what I don't deserve. I don't deserve all the
blessings I have in life, and you don't either. The air you just breathed,
did you deserve that? The fact that your heart just took a beat, do you deserve that? The fact that you live in a free country, do you deserve that? Most of the things in your
life are simply gracious gifts, and everything you have in
your life is a gift from God. Grace is when God gives
me what I don't deserve. What's mercy? It's the exact opposite. Mercy is when God doesn't
give me what I do deserve, when God doesn't give
me what I do deserve. All the stuff, all the ways
I've been mean, I've been wrong, I've sinned, I've failed, I've flubbed up, I've made mistakes,
I've been self-centered, I deserve punishment for that. I deserve discipline for that. I deserve retribution for that. If God gave me everything I deserved, I wouldn't be standing
before you right now. If God gave you everything you deserved, you wouldn't take your next breath. So, grace and mercy,
or goodness and mercy, goodness, God gives me
what I don't deserve, mercy, God doesn't give me what I do deserve. And He says both of
these are gonna follow me because God is a good God. I can expect both His
provision and His pardon. His provision, He gives me all
kinds of good things in life. His pardon, He forgives all
kinds of bad things in my life. Forgiveness, that's the
mercy, the mercy part. And because God is good,
I can expect those. Now, why do you need mercy? (laughs) Why do I need mercy? 'Cause we're all imperfect. We all make mistakes, we all sin, we're all in a broken world. We don't always do the right thing, and we even know that when we don't always do the right thing. So, I need forgiveness all the time. You need forgiveness all the time. You need God's mercy all the time. Aren't you glad that
it says God's goodness and God's mercy will
follow me all my life? It doesn't say God's justice
will follow me all my life. 'Cause if you got what you deserved, you wouldn't be sitting
where you are right now. You wouldn't take another breath. God doesn't follow you with His justice. He follows you with His mercy. He is a good God. Psalm 103 lists a number of ways that God shows His mercy. And as I read this, I want
you to circle the verbs. And there's, I don't know, 10
or so things in this passage that are examples or definitions
of God's mercy to you. Here's what it says, Psalm 103:2-11. "I will not forget the glorious
things that God does for me. "He forgives," you might circle that. "He forgives all my sins. "He heals me," that's mercy. "He ransoms me from hell," that's mercy. "He surrounds me with loving
kindness," that's mercy. "He fills my life with good things. "He is merciful and tender "toward those who don't
deserve it," that's mercy. "He's slow to get angry." I'm glad for that, that's mercy. "He never bears a grudge." Aren't you glad for that one? Some of you don't believe that. You think that something
you did a long time ago, God's still trying to
get even with you for it. Anything bad happens to you, you're like, "Well, God's gettin' even with me." God, it says, does not carry a grudge. How many times have you heard me say God is not mad at you, He's mad about you. No man will ever love
you like Jesus Christ. No woman will ever love
you like Jesus Christ. Any human love is minuscule in comparison to the creator who created you, and He made you simply to love you. And so, He follows your
life with goodness, giving you the things you don't deserve, and mercy, not giving you the
things that you do deserve. And He's following you these two things. "He never bears a grudge. "He has not punished us as
we deserve for our sins, "for His mercy," there's the word, "is as great as the height of the heavens. "He's like a father to
us, tender and sympathetic "to those who reverence Him." Now because God's mercy is following you every day of your life, it means you can come
to God with any problem, any screw-up, any mess-up, any fault, any failure, any sin, God has a 24-hour drop-in service, because His mercy is
constantly following you. There's never a moment He's
not showing mercy to you. And so, you can always come to Him, no matter what you're going through. That takes away your fear. The Bible says this, Hebrews
11, I mean, excuse me, 4:16: "We can come before God's throne," this is talking about in prayer, "where we can receive mercy
and grace," mercy and goodness, "to help us when we need it, "when we need it." You know, sometimes, you
have sins in your life that are habitual, and
we've all got these. I've got 'em, you've got 'em. It's areas that you continually
stumble over and over. If you have a problem with anger, you tend to lose your
temper over and over, or you tend to clam up and swallow it over and over and over. Or you may have a problem with lust, or you may have a problem with jealousy, or you may have a problem with your mouth, you can't keep your mouth shut. (congregation laughing) And you gossip all the time,
and you criticize all the time, and you say mean things, and
you go, "Why did I say that?" If you have an area of habitual sin, sometimes, you start
feelin' a little guilty that you keep coming back
to God for the same sins, like, "Oh, I'm gonna
bring this one to Him." And you think you're
gonna come to God and say, "God, I did this again." God's gonna go, "Oh, come
on, can't you come up "with a new sin? (congregation laughing) "You're gonna give me the same old one? "I've already forgiven
that one 5,000 times. "Come on, I'm so bored with that sin. "Give me somethin', really,
to work on, to chew on here." And sometimes, you're embarrassed. You go, "You know, God, five minutes ago, "I just confessed this, and guess what, "I just did it again." (congregation laughing) And you think God is getting tired. God never gets tired of forgiving
you, never, never, never! So don't hold back 'cause
His mercy follows you every day of your life. It is God's nature to be merciful. He loves to show His mercy. He doesn't get tired of it,
He doesn't get bored with it, He doesn't get frustrated
that you keep coming back. God loves showing mercy. So you don't have to come embarrassed. Let me read that verse again,
look there on your outline. "We can come before God's throne, "where we can receive
mercy and grace to help us "when we need it." Now, this phrase, mercy will follow me all the days of my life, it says goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I think of two pictures
that, kind of, are metaphors. The first, this is the
Lord is my shepherd, I told you, in a previous message, that you drive cattle, but you lead sheep. When cattle are driven on a cattle drive, the cowboys drive the cattle from behind. They push them forward. And the horses are behind,
and they're pushin' forward. But with sheep, you lead sheep. The shepherd is out in front of the sheep, and he's walking with his rod and staff, and they're following the shepherd. But at the back of the flock
are a couple of sheep dogs, and those little sheep dogs
are nipping at the heels of the sheep, making sure they don't run off into the ravine, and these two sheep dogs keep you on track following the shepherd. The sheep dogs in your
life are God's goodness and God's mercy. Let me introduce you to your sheep dogs. (congregation laughing) One's called Mercy, one
doggy's called Mercy, and one doggy's called Goodness. And God's goodness and God's mercy are following you as you
follow Jesus, the shepherd. Does that make sense? God's goodness and God's
mercy are the sheep dogs that keep you moving
in the right direction. They're the sheep dogs in your life. Another picture I think of when I think of God's goodness and mercy will follow me is a mother of a toddler. And any mother of a toddler knows how many messes a toddler,
who's just learned to walk, can make in 45 minutes. And if you go to the house
of a mother of a toddler, she is walking behind that
child, picking up all the messes, picking up all the messes
that they're making. You have no idea how many
messes you created in life that God cleaned up, because God's goodness and
God's mercy were following you. And you made a flippant decision, and it was a stupid
decision, but you made it, and you went, goin' on,
not realizing the chaos you left behind, and
God's goodness and mercy are right behind, pickin' up your messes. God has picked up more messes in your life than you could possibly even imagine. Why, because He's good and He's merciful. He gives you what you need
and He doesn't give you what you deserve. Mercy will follow me
all the days of my life. If you're taking notes,
circle that word, all, because God's goodness and God's mercy is not just some days. God doesn't say, "Okay, on
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, "we'll have goodness, and
on Tuesday and Thursday, "we'll have, you know, mercy, "and on Saturday and
Sunday, you're on your own." (congregation laughing) No. He is always merciful,
every moment of every day. He is always good to you,
every moment of every day. And when you fully
understand that God is never not good to me, and God is
never not merciful to me, when you face your
future, all of a sudden, your fear level goes down. You go, "So what?" You don't know what's
gonna happen next week, much less next year, or
in the next 10 years, but I do know this: God's goodness will be with me, and He'll be bringing the good
even out of the bad stuff. And I know God's mercy will be with me. He is gonna be forgiving
me, no condemnation with all the bad stuff, so what are you worried about? What are you afraid of? Fear comes when you fear punishment, or fear comes when you fear
you won't have what you need when you get there, you don't have, you know,
all the resources you need. God's goodness and God's
mercy will be with me all the days of my life. It says all of the days. Now, you say, well, I don't always feel God's goodness in my life. I don't always feel God's
mercy every day of my life. Who said anything about feelings? Feelings are unreliable. Feelings come and go. God is not a feeling. God is always good to you,
whether you feel it or not. And God is always merciful to you, whether you feel it or not. It's based on who He is, not how you feel. Now, here's the third
reason you don't need to fear the future. God's goodness is watching over me. God's grace is working in me. Here's a big one. God's glory is waiting for me. God's glory is waiting for me, and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. That's heaven. Now, if you're taking notes,
circle that little word, and. Goodness and mercy will follow
me all the days of my life, and I'll dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. That's the little word that
connects today with tomorrow. Even after you've lived a life
of blessing here on Earth, it's not the end. Friends, this psalm is
building to a crescendo. I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever! That's a big ending. That's a big ending. That means I don't have to fear death, and that's the number
one fear people have, 'cause death is not the
end, it's a transition, it's a transfer. We're going to heaven. God saves the best for last. If you love and know Jesus,
if the Lord is your shepherd, it just gets better and better. 'Cause even if I have a
tough life here on Earth, I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever, where there is no more
sorrow, no more suffering, no more sin, no more
sickness, no more sadness, no more problems, no more
pain, no more pressure. It's unbelievable. With Jesus, it keeps
getting better and better. The best is yet to come. Now, this is so important. Next weekend, I'm gonna
spend an entire message just on this, on heaven, and I'm gonna answer all of
the most common questions, 'cause just like with angels, there's a lot of myths about heaven, misconceptions, lies, legends,
that just aren't true. Now, I just, this weekend,
wanna ask one question, and it's this: What makes heaven heaven? Why is it so different? What makes heaven heaven? Well, there are a lot of
things that are different about heaven, but the biggest one of all is this: It's the home to God's full glory, the home to God's full glory, and God's glory is all the good
things that He does for you. It's His character,
it's based on who He is. Now, we can see a glimpse, a
little glimpse, of God's glory right now. When you look at the heavens, the Bible says the heavens
declare the glory of God, look at all the stars. Whoa, God is pretty big,
God's pretty powerful. You look at the sun and the moon. When you look at all of
the tens of thousands of plant varieties, and animals, and the varieties of animals
and species that God created, you see the glory of God,
that God is a creative God. When you see the beauty
of a sunrise and a sunset, and a waterfall, you see the glory of God. The glory of God, we see a
small glimpse of it here, even on a broken planet. There's a lot of beautiful
stuff on this planet. And the Bible says that I
can see God's glory in you, just a glimpse, 'cause
you carry the image, the image of God, in you. It's broken, but you carry that image. You could see God's glory in me. But the Bible says one day,
when you get to heaven, ooh, now you're gonna see the full glory, the full goodness, the full greatness, the full beauty of God. You don't see it now. You just see a speck. We see through the glass darkly. So we're gonna look at that in detail, but let me just show you a couple verses. The Bible says this, in Isaiah 63:15: "Lord, look upon us from heaven, "where you live in your
holiness and glory." God's complete glory is in
heaven, unhindered by anything. And then the Bible tells us
that, in Acts, chapter 7, Stephen was the first guy
who was killed for his faith, for following Christ. He was the first Christian martyr. And as they were stoning
him, throwing stones at him, and he was dying in Jerusalem, it says as Stephen was dying, "He looked up toward heaven,"
he got a vision as he's dying, in his final moments,
and he "saw God's glory." Why, because God's glory
is complete in heaven. The Bible tells us that
when Jesus was resurrected, it says this: "Jesus returned to His glory in heaven." One day, you will too. You're gonna see God's glory. Now, we cannot even imagine
the details of heaven. I can share some of the stuff. We get little glimpses,
we get little sneak peeks, of what heaven is like in the Bible, but the truth is none of
us can even understand how cool heaven is because we don't have the brain capacity for it. We live in a three-dimensional world. Einstein proved there
are many other dimensions we don't even know about, that we're not even aware of, besides the three dimensions we live in. And for you to understand
how great, how glorious, how beautiful, how incredible heaven is would be like an ant trying
to understand the internet. You don't have the brain capacity. In every description, pearly gates, streets of gold, those are so far inferior as to what heaven's gonna be
like, they're just metaphors. They're just metaphors. It's not gonna be white with clouds. You think of the greatest,
most beautiful scene you've ever seen on Earth, and multiply it by a trillion times, where there's no sin, no
sadness, no sorrow, no suffering, that's heaven. We cannot imagine all
the details of heaven, but we do know this, it will be glorious. Why, because God's glory will be there in its full completion. Here's what the Bible
says, look on the screen. 1 Corinthians 2:9: "No eye has ever seen, "no ear has heard, "no mind has ever imagined,"
you can't even imagine, "what God has prepared "for those who love Him." But surely, I will dwell in
the house of the Lord forever. What in the world are you afraid of? Why are you afraid of death? You're gonna be in a better place if the Lord is your shepherd. Now, we don't get a full picture of what heaven's gonna be like, but God does give us some little secrets, and they're scattered through the Bible. If you read the Bible,
they're not secrets, but He does give us some hints. And one of the things God tells us is that because He is a good God, and He is a merciful God, and because He made you to love you, that His plan for you, this is for you, God's plan for you began at
the very beginning of time. Before He even created the
universe, God thought you up. He wanted children. And it's God's plan for you, and He prepared this in advance, is that He's going to share His glory with His children. Whoa. That's just too hard for me to comprehend. Me, an imperfect, frail sinner, God's gonna share His glory with me? Yep, and you too. We're gonna cover this in depth in next week's message, so you don't wanna miss that message. Romans 9:23 says this: "God wanted to reveal His abundant glory." God wanted to show how loving, how good, how kind, how merciful He is. God wanted to show it. And so, He wanted to
show His abundant glory, "which was poured out on
us," that's you, that's me, "who are the objects of His mercy." You, my friend, are an
object of God's mercy. As a woman, or as a man, you
are an object of God's mercy. He doesn't give you what you deserve. "God wanted to reveal His abundant glory, "which was poured out on us "who are the objects of His mercy, "and whom He has prepared in advance," He's prepared you in advance. He's already prepared this. This is talkin' about you. "Whom He has prepared in
advance to receive His glory." One day, you're gonna do that. This is a terrible, terrible, poor, inferior example of it, but what does it mean for
you to share God's glory? Imagine a giant screen
in front of a theater that says, you know, this movie's playing, starring this person and
co-starring this person. In heaven, imagine a
giant screen that says, "Now playing For Eternity, "starring Jesus Christ, "co-starring, your name." Whoa. That's what God has prepared because of His goodness and His mercy, and His love and His grace. That's what He wants to do. Now, what are the implications
of these three truths, I mean, for you right now? Between now and when you go to heaven, what does all this mean? What does it mean that God's
goodness is watching over you, and that God's grace is working in you, and that God's glory is waiting for you? What does that really
mean for Monday morning? Well, what I just shared with you are the antidotes to your
three greatest fears. And if you understand
them, if you fully grasp what I'm trying to teach you this morning, you will be fearless. You'll have a new level of
confidence in your life. You certainly won't be
anxious about the future because God's goodness and grace and glory are all involved in your future. If you get anxious about the
future, if you have a problem, you get nervous thinkin' about
what's gonna happen tomorrow, you need to take notes right now as if your life depends
on it, 'cause it does. It does. Let me give you the three implications. How should I live,
knowing what God is like, knowing God's goodness and
grace, and His mercy in my life? You wanna write these three things down. This is how you live fully, and this is how you live fearlessly. Number one: I must stay grateful and generous because God is so good to me. God is generous with me, and God expects me to be
grateful and generous with others the rest of my life. My first response to God's goodness, my first response to God's
mercy should be gratitude, and my second response
should be generosity. Let me show you some verses. Psalm 118:29: "Give thanks continually to our Lord "because He is so good, "and because His mercy
will never run out." There's goodness and mercy right there. His goodness is good, and
His mercy will never run out. Continual mercy deserves continual thanks. You need to develop, for
the rest of your life, an attitude of gratitude. Now, in one of the past
messages in this series, I told you that there have
been scientific studies, many, many, many, many scientific studies, that show that gratitude is
the healthiest human emotion, more than any other thing, that if you develop the
attitude of gratitude, if you walk around with
gratefulness in your heart all the time, you're gonna live longer. Studies have proven this. You're gonna be healthier,
studies have proven this. You're going to be happier,
studies have proven this. Grateful people tend to
be more successful in life than ungrateful people. There are many, many, many benefits of the attitude of gratitude, and most of all, gratitude
is an antidote to fear. Do you have panic attacks? Do you have fear? Do you have anxiety in your life? Do you have fears about the future? You cannot be grateful and
fearful at the same time. It's impossible. You just can't. So when you're fearful, at that moment, you're not being grateful. And when your life is
filled with grateful, you can't be fearful, 'cause they oppose each other. Why? 'Cause fear, when I'm
fearful, I'm focused on me. When I'm grateful, I'm
focused on others and God, what they've done for me,
what God has done for me. You get the focus off yourself, the fear and the anxiety will go down. Gratitude is one of the four antidotes to fearfulness in your life. The Bible says this, Hebrews 12:28: "We have been given possession
of an unshakable kingdom." This is the kingdom of God. Okay, unshakable means, yeah,
I need to be afraid of this. I can't lose this. You can't lost your salvation. Okay, it's unshakable. Therefore, let us be, therefore, "Be grateful and use our
gratitude to worship God "the way that pleases Him
with reverence and awe." So you need to just develop a
daily habit of being grateful for everything and anything
and all things around you. Now, the second response, and this is also an antidote to fear, is not gratitude, but it's generosity. And God says, "I want
you to pass on to others "the same kinda goodness. "I'm good to you. "I want you to be good to others. "I'm generous with you, "I want you to be generous with others. "I give to you, I want
you to give to others." The Bible says this, Matthew 10:8: "You have been treated
generously," by God, "so live generously. "Give as freely as you have received." Now, this is interesting
'cause scientific studies have also shown that the
more generous you are, the less fearful you are. The more giving you are, the more at peace you are,
the more confident you are, the less anxious, the
less fearful you are. And the Bible actually confirms this, that generosity is
another antidote to fear. Because you get generosity,
you get the focus off yourself and on helping other people. Here's a good example, Psalm 112:5-9. "Good will come to him,"
let me stop right there. Everybody who's listening to me right now, do you want good or bad
to come to you in life? Well, I want good to come to me. Okay, here's how you
have good come to you. "Good will come to him who is generous. "Such people lend freely." In other words, hey, you need my car? Take my car. You need a place to stay tonight? Stay at my place. Need some money for food? Here, here's some money for food. You need a babysitter? Let me babysit for ya. What do you need? You need me to drive you to the doctor? Let me take you to the doctor. Need me to bring over a meal,
your family's sick tonight? Generosity, in every area,
of your time, your talents, your treasure, your
money, your motivations, generous with your praise,
not stingy with praise, generous with compliments,
not stingy with compliments. "Good will come to him who is generous. "Such people lend freely, "they conduct their affairs honestly. "They will never be shaken. "They don't fear bad news "because they trust the
Lord to care for them. "They are confident and fearless." You wanna be confident and fearless? Become more generous. "They are confident and fearless "in facing their opposition." You have opposition in your life. There's some people that don't like you. There's somebody who's
gunning for your job. There's somebody who just doesn't like you 'cause of what you believe. There's some people
who just, they're mean. They're opponents. You have competitors. These people, generous people, are confident and fearless
in facing their opposition. "Because they give
generously to the needy, "they will have influence and honor." I want you to hear a testimony of how, instead of choosing worry and complaining, you choose generosity and
gratitude in your life. And what it does, these are
miracle-working attitudes. Give a warm welcome to Phil
right now, Phil Sanchez. (audience applauding) Watch this. - Hello, Saddleback Church! (congregation murmuring in greeting) My name is Phil Sanchez, and
I have the honor and privilege of serving at Newport Mesa
as the worship pastor, and I'd like to share my
story about God's goodness and the power of gratitude. Like many other couples
in our church family, for several years after we were married, my wife, Connie, and
I tried unsuccessfully to start our family. We really wanted to have a
baby, but it just didn't happen. We prayed, we waited on the Lord, and we tried, literally, everything. With each year passing,
we became more frustrated and discouraged. Well, we knew the promises of God, but our experiences seemed
to contradict those promises. You know, truthfully, there were many days and sleepless nights
where we felt hopeless, and really, just wanted to give up. I wanna tell you, if you're
currently in this situation, wanting to have kids
but not seeing any way that it might happen, Connie
and I understand your pain. And by the way, our church
family offers support groups for couples who are
struggling with infertility. Well, as the childless
months turned into years, we could have easily given
in to Satan's temptation, to become bitter and to
just throw in the towel, to give up believing in
God's goodness and mercy and just walk away from
running the race with Jesus. But we didn't do that. We did not give up believing
in the goodness of God, and we chose to take specific steps that demonstrated our faith in God, in our trust in His perfect timing. First, we began just
to simplify our lives, both spiritually and financially, to prepare ourselves for the
hope of becoming parents. We wanted to remove just
any hindrances or barriers that could prevent us
from keeping our lives solely focused on Jesus,
regardless of what happened. One of the things that we decided to do was to have Connie stop
working at her job. This would lower her stress, but it also was a visible
demonstration of faith. Second, we decided to sell our house, it was a big decision, and
move into something smaller so we could afford to live off one income while paying for the very
expensive infertility treatments. We would do whatever we could do, while trusting God with
what only He could do. You know, I stand here today, honestly, I wrestled with the feeling that we were moving backwards financially in order to move forward towards our dream of starting a family. But during this time of
trusting and waiting, God led me to a verse in
the Bible, as He often does, about praising God and being
grateful for the good things that God had already given to us. Isaiah 25:1 is a bold statement, both of gratitude and faith, and it's where the Lord directed us. It says, "Lord, you are my God. "I will exalt you and praise your name, "for in perfect faithfulness,
you have done wonderful "and good things, "things planned long ago." This verse really is the exact opposite of complaining and worrying and being frustrated about the
things that you don't have. Instead, it taps into
the power of gratitude. Well, this verse became our anchor. We would be grateful
for all the good things God had already given to us, and in faith, we would express
our gratitude in advance for the good things that we believed God would provide for us in the future. In other words, we would
trust the goodness of God, and we would keep telling God how grateful and how thankful we were. It was our faith in the goodness of God that gave us the courage to
put up our house on the market. Well, two months later, our house sold, and we moved into a teeny
tiny one-bedroom condo. And it was at that very moment
that my wife surprised me with the best news ever,
that we were finally pregnant with our first child. Our beautiful baby, Roz, was
born this year on January 13th in that little condo, and my hands were the
first hands to hold her. So, I want to testify that God
is good, and God is faithful. (congregation cheering and applauding) And if you look up on the
screen, this is from last month. This is Connie and I's first Mother's Day. Obviously, you could see that I outputted my coverage with my wife. She's beautiful. God gave her temporary
blindness to marry me. She's a gift from the Lord. (congregation laughing) But looking back, we can
now see all the lessons we learned through all the
days of waiting and delays. We often wanted to give up, but our trust in the goodness
of God kept us going, and also kept us growing and
becoming more like Christ. Faith, like a muscle, only grows when it is
tested and stretched. But I also wanna be clear that
even if we had not received our miracle baby, we would still believe in God's goodness, and we would still be grateful
because everything we have is a gift from God's goodness. You know, God has not guaranteed that we will get
everything we want in life, but God has guaranteed
that He knows and wants what is best for us, and everything He does for us is good. In closing, I wanna urge
you to practice the power of daily gratitude in
thanking God for His goodness. As Pastor Rick teaches, gratitude to God has the power to change everything. It releases miracles, it
can break through barriers, it can make the impossible possible. So, I urge you to develop the daily habit of being grateful for
God's goodness to you, and when you feel like something
you really, really want will never happen, I challenge
you to decrease your doubting and increase your thankfulness for all of the good things that God has already done for you. Then, watch what happens. God bless you, Saddleback Church family. This is a good place. Connie and I are grateful for
you and we love you dearly. Thank you. (congregation applauding) - You know, another study that I read shows that if the first
thing you do in the morning is you just mentally go through a list of things you're grateful for, you know, make a list of 10 or 12 things, and you get up, you sit
on the side of your bed, and you thank God for these things, that actually, starting
your day with gratitude actually changes your brain chemistry. It actually transforms
your mind for the better. You'll think clearer during the day if you will start your
day, not with complaining, not with bad news, but with things you could be grateful for. So, let's do a little experiment, okay? I dare you to do this. How 'bout for the next 30 days we make a commitment together that we're not gonna
complain about anything? You catch yourself complaining,
you just cut yourself off. We're not gonna complain about anything, and we're not gonna worry about anything. Instead, we're gonna be grateful and we're gonna be generous. You think you'd be any better in 30 days? Hello? Hello. Now, here's the problem. When I say, you know,
get up in the morning and make a list of things
you're grateful for, sometimes, you're a little blurry-eyed and you can't even think about
what you're grateful for. You go, "I thank God for my doggy, (congregation laughing) "that I woke up. "Okay, thank God for sun
and moon and breakfast, "and my spouse," yeah, yeah. What about all the spiritual
blessings that you forget God does for you, all of His
goodness and mercy every day? So, I've made a tool for you to use, inside your program, I
want you to pull it out. I made this just for you. It's called My Daily Gratitude Reminder. And if you're watchin' online, or you're listenin' on Daily Hope, you can go to the Daily
Hope website and get this, or you can email me at
the Daily Hope website, Pastor Rick, the Daily Hope,
and we'll send this to ya. My Daily Gratitude Reminder is a list of God's
goodness to me from A to Z. I just went through the alphabet. And what I want you to do, I
filled in the spiritual side, I want you to fill in the
material and relational. There are spiritual
blessings in your life, there are material blessings, and there are relational blessings. So, for instance, A to Z. You, Lord, spiritual blessings, you, A, you're always with me. Thank you for that. You anoint me with your grace. Thank you for that. You, B, you bring good
out of the bad things that happen to me. You bless me with abilities. C, you care about my problems. You calm my worries and fears. You call me your friend. D, you designed my life for
your great plan and purpose. Thank you, God. E, you empower me with your spirit. You empathize with what I feel. F, you forgive and forget my sins. You free me from shame. You fill my life with meaning. G, you give me what I need. You guide me in the right way. You guarantee my salvation. Thank you, God. H, you hear my prayers. You heal my hurts. You help me grow every day. Thank you, God. I, you inspire me with ideas,
and I need some today, Lord. You invite me to depend on you. You include me in your family. Thank you, God. J, you justify me. Justify means just as if I'd never sinned. So, you say there's no condemnation in my life because of Jesus. Thank you, God. K, you know what's best for me. You keep your promises. You keep me saved and secure. Thank you. L, you love me unconditionally. You lift me up when I'm down. M, you made me to be loved by you, and you meet all my needs. N, you notice what I don't see. You nourish my soul. Thank you, God, that O, you open doors of opportunity for me. You overflow my life with blessings. P, you protect me when I'm
attacked and I'm overwhelmed, and you're patient with my doubts. Thanks. Q, you quiet my mind and
my heart when I trust you. R, you remain faithful to me even when I'm unfaithful to you. R, you renew me when I'm tired. S, you sacrificed your son for me. You show me your mercy. You set me free from myself, not just my habits (mumbles) and hang-ups, but the biggest enemy of you is you. T, you teach me your
truth through your word. You transform my life
with loving discipline. U, you understand my pain. You use it to help others. You uphold me when I want to give up. V, you valued me enough
to send a savior for me. Thank you, God. W, you wait for the right
timing to answer my prayers. Thanks. You warn me of traps. Thank you, God. X, you express your favor
over me as your child. Y, you yearn for fellowship with me. You want to spend time with me. Whoa, thank you. And Z, you zoom in on
every detail of my life. You miss nothing. You can use this. You can use this. Now, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take this, and then, over here, in the material, you can just put A, B, C, D. Give something you're grateful for, a material, physical thing. A, thank you, God, for air. Have you ever thanked God for air? You wouldn't go very far without it. B, you could put a Bible. Thank you, God, for the Bible. Thank you, God, for all
the beauty in the world. Thank you, God, for books, and
all the things I've learned. Thank you for my eyes and ears. Just gave you some examples. Over under T, I have thank
you, God, for taste buds. (congregation laughing) What if God hadn't given you taste buds? Everything would taste lake oatmeal. (congregation laughing) Have you ever thanked
God for your taste buds? Say, "Thank you, God, that
you created taste buds, "and then you made Cinnabon." (congregation laughing) Okay, and so, where I live, you know, just make a list. And then, over under relational, I've given you a couple of categories. Thank you, God, for your church. Under P, I put thank God for pastors, 'cause I want you thankin' God for me. (congregation laughing) Thank God for S, my small group, but you can just go down the list, put family members, friends. A, thank you, God, for Amy, my daughter. Thank you, God, for B,
Bobbie, my mother-in-law. Thank you, God, for Claire,
and Cole, and Cassie, three of my grandkids, and
you can write 'em all down. Write that down, put it by your bedside in the next 30 days,
before you get out of bed. You develop the attitude of gratitude. It will blow your mind. It will change your life. It will reform your brain. It will do all kinds of health, mental, physical, and spiritual benefits, if you develop the attitude of gratitude, because God's goodness
and mercy are following me every day of my life. You can do that, you can do that. Now, let me be quick on the
other two things you need to do in light of these three commitments. I have to be grateful and generous because God is good and generous with me. Now, here's the next thing. Second thing, after I stay
grateful and generous, I have to be gracious to everyone. Write that down. I have to be gracious to everyone because God is so gracious to me. And the more gracious you
are with other people, the less fearful you're gonna be in life. Grace and fear don't
reside in the same brain. God wants you to pass on the good things. Here's what the Bible
says, Ephesians 4:32. "Be gracious and merciful to everyone." Why, 'cause God's gracious
and merciful to you. "Be gracious and merciful to everyone, "and forgive others, "just as God has forgiven
you because of Christ." God cut you a bunch of slack. Who are you still holding on the hook? Who do you refuse to forgive? Who do you refuse to let off the hook? Who do you refuse to let go? Who do you refuse to just wipe the slate clean, say, "Okay, you're off the hook." God was gracious to me,
God has forgiven me. I'm gonna be gracious to you
and I'm gonna forgive you. You know what being gracious is? It's another name for love. The more gracious you are, when you're gracious to
somebody, you're loving to them. And love, the Bible tells
us, is an antidote to fear. Next verse, 1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love. "Instead, perfect love drives out all fear "because fear has to do with punishment." I don't think God will
be merciful or graceful. He's gonna punish me. Fear has to do with punishment. "The one who fears has
not matured in love." Every time you invite God's love in the front door of your life,
fear goes out the back door. And every time you invite fear into the front door of your life, love goes out the back door. Why, 'cause fear is focused on you, and love is focused on God and others. It's gracious. Now, how do you know when somebody doesn't understand the grace of God? They're not gracious to anybody else. Ungracious people are ungraced people. They don't realize how
much they've been forgiven, so they wanna hold it over everybody else. If I don't feel forgiven, if I feel guilty, and I feel ashamed, I certainly want you feelin' it too, 'cause I don't want you
feelin' better than me. But if I remember how
much God has forgiven me, and I remember how much
God has wiped out my guilt, wiped out my shame, I can
be pretty gentle with you. I can be pretty gracious. I can let you off the hook,
I can cut you some slack. Any time you see somebody
who's ungracious, know they're walkin'
around with a ton of guilt. You may have a mother, or a mother-in-law, or a father, a father-in-law,
or a friend, or a neighbor, or brother, sister, and they
can't let anybody off the hook, it's 'cause they feel guilty. And as long as they don't feel grace, they're not gonna be gracious. But the more grace you feel, the more you know you've been forgiven, the more gracious you're
gonna be with other people. So I gotta stay grateful and
generous 'cause God is so good. And I've gotta stay gracious to everyone because God is gracious to me. Here's a third one. Finally, to live fearlessly,
to live fully and fearlessly, I need to live my life for God's glory, because He's gonna share
His glory with me some day. Right now, you live for the glory of God, and one day, you will
receive the glory of God forever and ever and ever. He says He's gonna share
it with you in heaven. Now, how do you do that? How do I live for God's glory at work? How do I live for God's glory at school? How do I live for God's
glory in the neighborhood? How do I live for God's
glory with my family? Matthew 5:16, Jesus says this: "Let your light shine before others "so that they may see your good works," that's the key, the good works, "and give glory to your
father who is in heaven." You just try to do your
best livin' for God, and he says that brings glory to God. What happens when you do that? What happens when you
live for God's glory? It opens up your life to
more of God's goodness, to more of God's mercy, to more of God's grace, to more oF God's glory in your own life. The Bible says this, 1 Peter
1, last verse on your outline, verse 3, "God, "in His divine power, "has given us everything we need "for living a godly life." Because of His goodness and mercy, He gives you everything you need. You got it all to live a godly life. Now, "This power is given to us "through knowing Jesus. "And," the benefit, "He
has called us to share "in His own goodness and glory." One day, you will share in
God's goodness and God's glory. Now, let me wrap this up. When you think about the future, when you think about the next six months, the next year, the next 10 years, the rest of your life, how do you see it? Is your mind filled with doubt, confusion, anxiety, fear, worry? It means you're not focused
on the last verse of Psalm 23. "Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me "all the days of my life "and I'll dwell in the
house of the Lord forever." It's the antidote to
the three biggest fears about the future. You see, really, you have a choice. You don't get to choose
what's gonna happen to you the rest of your life, you don't, but you do get to choose how you respond. You can face the future as a cynic, as a critic, as a pessimist, as a doubter. You can face the future
experiencing the worst, and expecting the worst. You can face it being ungrateful. You can face it being stingy. You can face your future being
ungracious to other people, and you can live for
the glory of yourself. Or you can face the future with gratitude, and generosity, and graciousness, and the glory of God. Which one do you think
will make you happier? Which one do you think will
make you more successful? Which one do you think
will bring the smile of God and the reward of heaven? You know, it's amazingly how
different you feel about life when you begin to live
in the goodness of God, and you begin to live
for the goodness of God. As I said, there's
gonna be a lot of events that happen in your
life you can't explain, but you could face 'em confidently because you know, surely,
goodness and mercy are gonna follow me, and God'll bring good,
even out of the bad. No matter what, the loss of a loved one, God'll bring good out of the bad. Surely, goodness and mercy, and I may screw up in
the future, big time, but God is merciful. And I may be facing all
kinds of problems in my life, but ultimately, I win because I will dwell in the house
of the Lord forever, and I'm gonna share in
God's glory one day. Me, why? 'Cause I deserve it? No, because He loves me. Now, in Psalm 23, you need to hear all these messages if you haven't, 12 expressions of God's goodness for you, but they're not for everybody. All of these things only happen, goodness and mercy don't follow everybody. They only follow the person who could say, "The Lord is my shepherd." So who's your shepherd? That's the question of the hour. Who's your shepherd? Are you your own shepherd? Who's runnin' your life? Who's managing your life? Who's the boss of your life? Who is your shepherd? If you're sayin', "I'm my shepherd," goodness and mercy aren't following you, and you will not dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. This is for people who
say, "I'm in the flock. "I'm a sheep in God's family. "The Lord is my shepherd." And when you can say that, you
can say it with confidence, "And I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever." Let's bow our heads. Some of you have been
attending Saddleback Church for months, weeks, maybe even years. You've been listening online, but you've never stepped
across the line, spiritually. You need to do so right now. You need to say, "I want
the Lord to be my shepherd." I'm gonna ask everybody
who's already done that to be praying right now for everybody else who hasn't done that. And if you've never made that decision, say right now, in your heart, thank God for His
goodness and mercy to you. Say, "Dear, God, "thank you that you give me "what I don't deserve. "You give me good things. "You are a good God. "And God, thank you that you don't give me "what I do deserve. "You give me mercy." And then say, "Jesus Christ,
I want you to be my shepherd, "and I want you to be my savior. "I wanna follow you the rest of my life, "with your sheep dogs, Goodness and Mercy, "comin' up from behind,
keepin' me on the right path." And say, "God, I humbly ask you "to reserve a home for me in heaven, "because Jesus died to
make that possible." As much as I know how, I ask you, Christ, to come into my life and transform me. And I wanna be a person who's grateful, and generous, and gracious, and lives for your glory, because you are so good to me, and you're so generous with me, and you're so gracious to me, and you're gonna share
your glory with me one day. That is amazing. Thank you. In your name I pray, amen. - Thanks for checking out this
week's message on YouTube. We would love to get you connected
with our online community There's three easy ways
to get you involved. First, learn about belonging
to our church family by taking Class 101 online. Second, you can join an online small group or a local home group in your area. And third, check out our Facebook group to engage with our online
community throughout the week. To take these next steps,
visit Saddleback.com/online, or shoot me an email at
online@saddleback.com. I hope to hear from you soon. (upbeat music)
