In a world that is constantly changing, it’s good to know that there are some things that we can always count on, because they are absolutely certain. Psalm 23:6 tells us of three great certainties that we can depend on all through life. Let’s look at them together.
First, we can always be CERTAIN OF GOD’S WORD. Look at the first word in this verse: The word is Surely. “Surely goodness and love will follow me….“ Maybe we haven’t really noticed this word before. But it’s a word that we need to pay attention to, because it contains a lot of meaning. Throughout Psalm 23, David, the writer, has described God’s wonderful care to those who follow Him. Coming to the close of the psalm, and looking back over his long and turbulent life, David is led by God’s Spirit to begin with the word “Surely“. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life….“ “Surely“ is a word we need to remember. It speaks to the very heart of the Christian’s faith in God and confidence in Him. You can find the word “surely“ in a variety of places in the Bible. The first place you find it is in the opening chapters of Genesis. That is where Satan launches his first attack on God’s people and against their confidence in God’s word. Satan zeroes in on the very word that God first spoke to Adam, “Surely.“ In Chapter 2, verse 17, God commanded Adam: Don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because when you eat of it you will surely die. But in Chapter 3, verse 4 it says that Satan approached Eve and enticed her to eat of the tree by saying, “You will not surely die!“ Did you catch that?
Satan tempted Eve to doubt the certainty, the “surely—ness“ of God’s Word. That has been Satan’s strategy all through the years, right down to today! He wants people to think that the Bible is no more than a collection of wise sayings and interesting stories. He wants us to think that the Bible no longer possesses any authority over our lives. Satan knows that if he can get us to doubt the truth and certainty of God’s Word, he can separate us from God and His promises, and even from the assurance of salvation itself. Maybe some of you are struggling with spiritual issues of this kind right now. Perhaps you have called upon Christ, you’ve asked Him to be your Savior and Lord, but you still have lingering doubts about His promise to hear you, forgive you and make you His son or daughter. Listen! That’s the devil whispering to you. He is tempting you to doubt God’s Word, which says very plainly, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness“ (1 John 1:9).
If doubts about the reliability of God’s Word are your problem, I urge you to say a loud NO to Satan’s temptation right now. Lift your face to God and say from your heart, “Surely, dear Lord, you are faithful and true, and I trust your Word. Wipe away my doubts and give me unshakeable faith in the truth and certainty of your Word.“
The second great certainty of Psalm 23 verse 6 is, CERTAINTY OF GOD’S GOODNESS AND LOVE. When we hear of “goodness“ we naturally ask the question, Who determines what is “good?“ By whose standards is goodness measured? The answer is, God defines what is good. He sets the standard. According to Scripture, something is good when it conforms to God’s will. That’s the way the world was at the beginning. After God had finished His creative work, the Bible says that He declared everything to be “good.“ Everything was the way He desired it to be. That made it good! But then Adam and Eve sinned, and things changed. They changed not only for Adam and Eve, but for their descendents too, and for the whole world. Bad things entered the picture———lies, hostilities, suffering and death. The good world God had made became polluted from one end to the other by sin and its consequences.
Yet God in His love did not give up on us human beings, nor on the world we inhabit. He launched a rescue plan, and He appointed a supreme Rescuer. We know His name: it’s Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s saving goodness. Nowhere do we see this revealed more fully than at Calvary, where God gave His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He wasn’t under any obligation to save us. Yet out of His goodness, out of His divine heart He reached down to save us. Our verse speaks of God’s goodness and love. The Hebrew word for love is so rich with meaning that over the years translators have rendered it in a number of ways. When I was a child, I memorized the 23rd psalm in the King James Version of the Bible, where it reads, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.“ Later, my parents gave me a Bible in the American Standard translation, which reads “Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life.“
Today we read from the New International Version, where the word is simply translated, Love. Personally, I prefer the way it’s expressed in still another version, called the Berkley Translation. There, verse 6 reads, “Surely goodness and unfailing love will follow me all the days of my life.“ I like that translation because it captures best the utter certainty, the complete reliability of God’s continual love toward His people. God has promised that He’ll love us, and He will never let us down. As a pastor, I perform a fair number of wedding ceremonies every year. The most moving moment in any wedding ceremony occurs when the bride and groom turn toward each other and exchange their wedding vows. These vows are sacred promises made to each other before God and the congregation. The traditional vows consist of promises to love one another unreservedly, “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death us do part.“
Those are bold and weighty promises! No husband or wife can keep them perfectly. But God can keep His promises without the slightest compromise, and He does! He never goes back on His vows one inch. In a world riddled with broken promises, God’s love alone never fails. His promises are never broken, and of this we can be certain. Remember that when you are going through a difficult time. When human love fails, when precious relationships break down, and you and others suffer the consequences, remember God’s unending love and care for you. Read the words written by the Apostle Paul in Romans, chapter 8: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall trial, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or sword? No they will not! For we are more than conquerors THROUGH HIM WHO LOVED US!“
“God’s goodness and unfailing love SHALL FOLLOW ME,“ says the verse, ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE. This is good news, especially for us who have strayed from God, or may stray at some later time, and wonder if God even notices that we’re missing. The Hebrew word for “follow,“ that David used when he wrote this psalm, literally means “pursue.“ God’s goodness and love are portrayed as “pursuers,“ like sheepdogs that shepherds depend on to find straying sheep and bring them back to the flock. I don’t know if David had sheepdogs when, as a boy, he tended his father’s herds of sheep. But if he did, he may have chosen this word, “pursue,“ with sheepdogs in mind. Sheepdogs are a herdsman’s indispensable helpers. They find their master’s sheep that are lost, they defend sheep against predators, and they keep the flock together.
God’s goodness and love are like that. They pursue us like sheepdogs. We may wander in strange and dangerous directions, but when through Christ we belong to God, His love and mercy will track us down. And not just when the weather is good and the day is bright, but “ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE.“ That’s what the verse says. Not simply “some of the days,“ or even “most of the days,“ but “all the days of my life.“ Years ago, in London, England, the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon was walking with a friend past a church building. They noticed that high above the church, atop the steeple, was a weathervane, and on the weathervane were the words, “God is love.“ Spurgeon’s friend commented that it would have been better to inscribe those words down on the cornerstone, because as he put it, “they are the foundation of the church.“ Spurgeon was quiet for a few minutes, and then he replied: “I think the weathervane is a good place for those words, because to me they say that God is love, no matter which way the wind blows.“ And so it is. No matter what, God’s goodness and love can be counted upon, whatever the weather may be.
“So blow it East, or blow it West, the wind that blows, that wind is best,“ because the sovereign Lord of winds and waves is none other than our Savior, Jesus Christ. Knowing Him, we can face any trial and endure any adversity. Now we come to the 3rd of the three great CERTAINTIES found in this verse at the end of Psalm 23. It’s the certainty of our ETERNAL HOME. “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.“
The imagery here is powerful. It points us to what the Bible calls the “household of God,“ His Church, His Family, and our Eternal Dwelling Place. In this world, every house we live in is impermanent. No household lasts forever. Children grow up and move out, parents get old and die. Inevitably, there comes a day when father’s familiar chair stands empty, and mother’s care and provision are ended. That’s all part of life on earth; everything is temporal. During my years in seminary, I served as an assistant in a large old city church. One day the pastor of the church received a phone call from a family that was having difficult moving an elderly mother, who was in her 90s, to a nursing home. She couldn’t stay in her house any longer, for she was feeble and needed professional care. But she resolutely refused to leave her house. Her story was this: She had literally lived in the same house all her life. She was born in that house, she spent her childhood in that house, her wedding took place in the living room, and in one of the upstairs bedrooms she had given birth to each one of her children. She’d spent nearly a century in that same house, and she didn’t want to leave it.
Her children didn’t want to force their mother to leave, and they didn’t know which way to turn. They knew that she loved and trusted the pastor of her church, so they phoned him and explained their dilemma. The same afternoon he went to visit the dear lady, and he invited me to go along. The two of them sat together on the sofa, and they talked for a long time about her memories, memories that seemed to hover like angels in every corner of the old house. She spoke of her childhood and her parents, her wedding day and her late husband, and the children she had given birth to in one of the upstairs bedrooms. For nearly a century, she’d lived within these four walls, and she wanted so badly to stay.
Then the pastor took out his Bible and read Psalm 23. When he came to the last verse, his pace slowed and he lingered on each word. “Surely, goodness and love shall follow me all the days of my life.“ Then his voice rose, and with a note of joy and anticipation he read, “And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!“ Then the two of them bowed their heads, and he prayed. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the dear saint had quietly put her hand into the hand of her pastor. He helped her to her feet, and together they walked out the front door. And she never looked back. So it should be with each of us. We may cling to things that are precious to us, but we can’t hold on to them forever. All houses on earth are temporary. They are like tents, which when the journey’s over, are folded up, and we move on.
But Psalm 23 verse 6 ends by pointing to a very different home, an eternal dwelling place, called “the house of the Lord.“ It’s the permanent home, the “forever“ home, for all who enter it. In this house, the Father never dies, the children do not leave, and there’s neither sickness nor death. Jesus called it His “Father’s house,“ and He said He was going there to prepare rooms for all who follow Him (John 14:2—4).
In closing, there’s one thing more that I want to make clear: This house has only one Door, and the Door is Jesus. There is no back door, no side door, no other door, except Jesus. And the Door is beckoning to you. With all certainty I declare to all who hear this message, that by grace you are invited to come. Repent from your sin and unbelief, trust Jesus as your Savior and Lord. And then when your journey on earth comes to a close, you will pass through the Door into the House of the Lord, and you will be there forever. Would you please pray with me?
Prayer
In a world that is constantly changing, it’s good to know that there are some things that we can always count on, because they are absolutely certain. Psalm 23:6 tells…’, ’, ’Father God, thank you for certainties about things we need most —— your goodness, faithfulness and love. Draw us to Jesus, remove our unbelief, and wash away our sins. Give us peace and confidence that by your grace we will dwell in your house forever. In Jesus name we pray, Amen
Scott Greenway
R. Scott Greenway was born in Mexico City in 1964, as the fourth child of missionary parents. He graduated from Calvin College in 1986, Calvin Theological Seminary in 1991, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 2002. He and his wife Kelly (De Jonge) have four children. He pastored the Irving Park Christian Reformed Church in Midland Park New Jersey, and currently pastors the Caledonia CRC in Michigan. He enjoys a variety of outdoor sports including hunting and fishing.
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