Psalm 23

Get everything that I have thought. I won't take the long route getting there. I'll start this way when I was there. I think 7th grade. It's snowed in a town. Where did it usually snow Olympia Washington and me and my buddy were throwing snowballs and we had this, not very bright idea. I wonder if we could hit a car because there was this 30 mile-an-hour road that we were standing by. So yeah, we wound up and we each let one fling and Snowball, get scar. Then screeching tires. Door opens up big dude, jumps out, and he's running for us. You don't know how fast you can run until somebody is chasing you who's angry at you. So we ran and we were in pretty good shape and we got away. This is an illustration of a kind of a flaw in John's personality which is a bit of ACT first and figure it out later which I'm still working on all these years later. So, but that's not what I'm wanting to illustrate to you. What I'm wanting to evoke in you is your experience of being chased. Have you ever been chased Buy a dog. Buy a person. How about a bill collector? I've been chased by bill collector. How about a overly aggressive salesperson? How about in especially eager homeless person. How about an assailant, an attacker? Have you ever have you ever literally been chased by someone who intended to do you harm and had waited for you and who is now pursuing you usually, if you're being chased, it's a bad thing. And what I want to talk about for a few minutes inspired by Bob and his story and this baptism. Today I'm going to talk to you about the fact that there's the kind of being chased that is beautiful and will change your life forever. And the place I want to go to explore that is in this very familiar, little poem from the Bible. It's in the book of Psalms Psalm 23. Here's how it goes. The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in Green Pastures, he leads me, he leads me beside Quiet Waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his namesake. Even though I walk through the darkest Valley, 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. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. We're just going to let that sit up there on the screen for a little bit. I want to focus on that last verse. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will do my Hustler forever except I want to get even narrower to this. Surely your goodness and love will follow me. I want to tell you this story of that little word follow The story starts in the fact that the Old Testament of the Bible is not originally written in English. It's originally written in Hebrew. It was written by the of Ryder different people from among the people of Israel, they spoke Hebrew they Hebrew, they wrote in Hebrew. So the Old Testament of the Bible, which is the part written up through about five hundred years or so, before Jesus, that's all written in Hebrew. Just in time, talking about it, the New Testament of the Bible, which is about Jesus. The story of Jesus, the son of God, who was spoken of in the Old Testament, the story, the New Testament, the story of Jesus, and everything that follows from him. It's written in Greek because Greek was the worldwide language of the New Testament era, B Old Testament Hebrew, which means the word follow on our screen. Isn't in the original Psalm 23. It's somebody's translation of the original sound 2300. What's the original word that's transmitted as follow here? It's robbed off. If you were going to use English letters you would spell it r a d, a f rod. The thing for you to know about Rod off is it's the wrong word to put with goodness and love. It's not supposed to go with words, like goodness and love it occurs 133 times in the Old Testament. And there's only one of those times when it gets paired up with these words. So, it's a verb right off as a verb, and goodness and love are nouns. This is little English class time. They're the subjects of the noun. Surely goodness and Love Will Follow Me. Robbed off which also can be translated Chase or pursue usually goes with the experience of enemies. Somebody bad chasing you because that's usually what's happening. If we're getting chased, we're getting chased by somebody who intends to do us harm, that's how this word is. Usually you just let me give you two examples. The first one is Exodus 14 verse 23, the Egyptians pursued them and I'll pharaohs horses and chariots, and Horsemen, follow them into the sea, the Egyptians pursued them, that's that same word. Rod off used, as it normally gets used, the Egyptians are the enemy, and they were pursuing the Israelites wanting to kill them. Here's another example.

2nd Kings 20:5 verse 5, but the Babylonian Army, pursued the king and overtook him in the plains of Jericho. All its soldiers were separated from him and scattered. This is the story of the overthrow of the city of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The Babylonians are the enemy and the king of Jerusalem is captured in the story and what follows after it is some pretty gruesome details about how the the Babylonian Empire treated this King whom they had captured That's how chasing occurs in the Old Testament of the Bible, that's how that verb rubbed off is used. So it's the wrong word. To pair with goodness and love. Surely goodness and love will chase me all the days of my life and why would you intentionally use the wrong word in a poem? Like Psalm 23. The answer is it's called irony. So now. Okay, English English class time to learn a couple things irony. This is a dictionary definition of the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite typically for humorous or in phatic effect Someone Psalm 23, it's for emphasis, it's for, it's it's for emphatic effect. But another example of irony would be, let's say, I'll because I like my sibling. I got in a really bad bicycle crash and I'm in the hospital. And I got a big fat lip, and I got scratches all over my face, and I got a broken arm and I look really bad. But you come to visit me. And you look at me and you say, You look great.

That's not the right word. It's an intentional use of the opposite word. Or humor maybe for it's it's kind. It's a kind use of irony. You might be familiar with another word. Sarcasm, what sarcasm sarcasm is irony, but it's the use of irony to mock or to convey contempt. So let's think of a different example, you're a foreman and you have a team and one of your team members shows up a half hour, late for work, the fifth time in a row and you say thanks for being on time Jones. That's irony, it's the wrong word, right? He's not playing again, but that's your point. It's just that sarcasm is intended to have a sting. Irony is a more neutral about whether it stinks or not. You can use irony as like in Courage meant sort of thing. So let's go back to, I think the next slide is back to verse 6 in my right yet. Surely your goodness and love will pursue me all the days of my life. It's ironic use of the wrong word to make a point that God chases you But not for your harm, rather for your good. All the days of your life. And I was inspired to think about this because of listening to Bob. So let me just do a quick review of what I heard. Bob say some of this is what I heard. Bob say, when we had coffee together and talked about this, some of this, he said this morning, but I thinking maybe his 30s. He he was aware that he strayed away from God, and there were some painful consequences that flowed out of that. And then sometimes later there was God saying, I, I pictured it at about 8:40, but now, based on what Bob said this morning, maybe it was a little later. God said something like Bob, you need to straighten up your act and Bob, straightened up his act And then I asked him when he told me the story. Well that was then and this is now and there's a pretty sizable space in between the VIN and the now. So why why did why why why all this time in between Sun? You should straighten up your act and Bob comes to church at rice at church and Bob's answer was I guess I just doubted my faith, I doubt it, I wasn't sure. And so now, this isn't what Bob said, but this is just where I went with what God Said, where I go with what Bob said, is all the times in my life. When Satan has been poking me with a stick and all of the times when I have hesitated to take action because I doubted maybe what Bob was doubting was will the people in church? Welcome me.

Me being who I am or maybe what Bob was asking was just God really loved me or did God just say, son straighten up your act. And I straighten up my ACT, but that doesn't mean you like, he just, it just means I did what he told me to do. Maybe God doesn't really like me. I don't know. But I, I recognized in my own self. Failure to act because I'm doubting the, the goodness of God. And up. So here's the story. Here's the Bob story. That's exciting to me. God doesn't stop chasing you. when you're in those kinds of moments, So Bob was chasing God was chasing Bob when he said, you need to straighten up your act son and God was chasing Bob a long time later. When another Bob stood, zain's party store to get his Sunday morning coffee on the way to church and invites. This Bob to church, I mean that's just God chasing Bob. And then Bob comes to church. And the first question is, will they receive me? Even though. I am not very perfect. And the answer is, yes. And then but that wasn't it. That wasn't all then about six weeks in or thereabouts whenever it was Bob comes to the realization it's this church is done. I'm coming to this church thing has a connection and it's connected to do this denomination called the Christian Reformed. Well what does that matter to anybody? It matters to Bob because I think when If you come to a group of strangers and they meet you, yeah, they might very well welcome you and they're not going to, they're not going to be resistant to welcoming you. But if you go back to your family, especially if you feel like you sir, to let your family down in some way, will they welcome you back? That's a different matter. So I think. The reason it's significant to Bob that rise up Church turns out to be a Christian Reformed connected church is because that's the church that he used to go to and that's God. God did and just bring them back to any church. Any church would have been great but God didn't do that. God brought him back to this church. That was the true he had been apart of and this was God, chasing him with goodness and love all the way. That's how God rolls. He chases you with goodness and love all the way. That's what I wanted to. Have us just reflect on and celebrate this morning and I wanted to connect it to some 23 because this isn't maybe maybe two years ago that I was reading and relaxing. I always wondered about that. Your goodness and mercy will follow me and and did some homework and saw this amazing word. That's like the Bible often is better than you. Thought it was, you go back into it and you dig some more and you're just surprised some more. All right, I have two questions for you. Question number one is. How is God chasing you?

Maybe.

Maybe Bob's chasing you like I'm sorry you just anybody Rob. Maybe God is chasing you like he chased Bob and saying you need to straighten up son or daughter. But very possibly Gods just chasing you to say today. Hey, I love you. My experience is a couple times a week God surprises me. But only if my antennae are up and I'm looking for the surprises of God. So I could two times this week. God absolutely surprised. Me. And I, and I said together, are you really? Are you doing that? God is doing that. So I'm just that's for you. How is God chasing you right now? And my second question is, if God has caught you, Who might he be calling you to Chase? So God caught Bob willemstein and I was talking about the other day, this Bob. And this Bob said, I often pray that God will show me who he wants me to talk to you. So, Bob Williams, son got caught by God and now in the love of God, God recruits Bob to be on his team and to help God communicate goodness and love to somebody else. How has God's Got You? Who might he be calling you to chase? I I just wonder if there is a face. That would come to your mind about that.

And now to keep my promise, I will stop talking. Because we're going to sing a song that I think is really the best way to end. So, let me pray and then that's it.

Thank you, Lord. Jesus for today when we could celebrate, you chasing Bob dirty. And not stopping. But we're celebrating it because it's true for every one of us in this room. You are chasing each person here. And you are not stopping. You'll never stop. We love you and we praise you, help us to lean into it to receive it. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

I requested that we would sing this song at the end because it has this line that I loved the line is, your goodness is running after me. So if you don't know this song, We won't blame you for not throwing your head back and belting it out, but if you know the song, when we get to the your goodness is running after me. So are you head back and belt it out? Here we go. You may stand.

I love you.

Derogatory.

Midnight last night.

I would say.

As pretty good.

Receive a blessing.

May the Lord bless you. And keep you.

May the Lord. Make his face shine.

You try it again, may the Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you.

May the Lord. Turn his face toward you. And give you peace. Nobody said, amen.

I'll stay up here and cry for a while. I'm good. Satan being here.