"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."

Many of us have read Psalm 23 before. But the problem is that most times this Psalm may not go any further than the paper it was written on. Many Christians read Psalm 23:6 and mentally, and intellectually accept that it is truth. But we do not apply it to our lives.

In verse 6 we can find the Hebrew word 'radaph'. The Hebrew word　'radaph'　means 'run after', 'pursuing', or 'chasing'. What David is trying to tell us is that God is always running after, God is always pursuing, and God is always chasing us with His goodness. As a Christian you can be sure that God's goodness is forever following after you.

But remember this; God is always pursuing, and God is always chasing us not to condemn you, not to find out how good, or bad you've been. God is always following you so that He can show you His goodness through His grace, His mercy, His compassion, and most of all His love.

But do you truly believe that God's goodness and love will follow you all the days of your life? Do you truly believe that God's goodness and love will follow you not only even in the days of green pastures but also in the days of the darkest valley?

I don't know exactly when did king David write this psalm, but I can guess the time of writing this psalm when I read verse 4...

"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."

According to what David said in this psalm, maybe he written this psalm in the days of the darkest valley of his early life and these days of darkest valley means many bad things happened in his early days. So if we look at the life of David and the trials and troubles that followed him it is really amazing that he could even write such a Psalm. Why did David see God as being so good?

It's because he already experienced God many times. So he could know what God is like. By the way, Experience is very important to all of us. For example, in our country more than 7 millions people investing their money to stock. if you are beginner at trading stock, you will be very sensitive to the falling and rising point of the stock price. So you will sell at the small rising point and you will buy at the small falling point and if you follow this rhythm several times you will lose all money you have. This is happened because they are worry of losing money. And furthermore they have no knowledge about stock. But after experiencing these cases and learning to read several stock chart and learning how to analysis those chart and other many elements together in the market, then you can wait for the proper chance of selling and buying the stock even though weather it is the time of rapidly rising or rapidly falling point.

At this point what I emphasize is that having experience and having knowledge is very important. David already had experiencing God and knowing God at the point of writing this psalm. To him God have been good always. 20 years ago God was good. 10 years ago God was good. Even 1 year ago God was good. Then how God is now and how God will be to David? Yes! God is good and God will be good. You know? As apostle Peter said in his book, God is same always yesterday, today, and even tomorrow. So even in the days of the darkest valley when the trials and troubles that followed David, he was not afraid and said God was always good. And see what was happened to his life after passing his days of the darkest valley. He defeated all his enemies and he became the second king of Israel. It is easy to say 'God is good' after seeing what happened to us. After earning much money you can say 'God is good'. After selling your house at good price you can say 'God is good'. But it is almost impossible to say 'God is good' for a person who did not experience God in the days of difficulties. So to become a David you have to learn and experience God. And to learn and experience God, trust God in small things at the beginning and then continually increase your trusting God. Through these courses you can learn and experience how God is like.

From this point I would like to ask you. Do you believe that God is always following you so that you can share his goodness and his love with you? And have you ever really tasted His amazing goodness? You may say, I'm a Christian but I'm not worthy to receive that kind of goodness.　Well, guess what? No one here today is worthy to receive anything from God if they look at themselves.

If you are Christians, then you can be sure that because of Jesus Christ your Savior, God is chasing after you with His goodness. If you didn't love God you probably wouldn't be here today praising and worshiping Him. Therefore accept and allow God as a God that chases and follows after you with His unending goodness and blessings no matter what may be going on in your life. You know God is a good God. Let us pray together.

[Prayer]

Heavenly Father, We thank you for Your love and goodness. Heavenly Father, We thank you again for that You are always pursuing and chasing us with Your goodness. This time we ask you that we may believe You are always following us so that we can taste Your amazing goodness in our lives. Thank you again for everything you have done for us through last week. I pray in Jesus' name. A-men.