Providence is the gates of heaven. When the Lord is your shepherd, His love, surrounds you now and always. And the love of the Good Shepherd is a love that pursues that as it follows us, and it is the love that welcomes us into His own home. Welcome to open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. Some of us want to know a love like that. And that means that we need to know that the Lord is our shepherd. How can we get to know that shepherd? Well, let me answer that with the words of the Lord Jesus Himself in John 10, and verse 27 Jesus says this, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. So, you want to be one of the Good Shepherd’s sheep? Here’s the mark of one of his sheep. You hear his voice. Now that’s what we’re doing. As we open the Bible together, you’re listening to his voice, to his Word. You’re taking it in. You’re believing it. You’re applying it to yourself. And you’re following Him. This is a wonderful and open invitation from the Lord Jesus Christ. He speaks in scripture. And as we listen to his Word, as we believe his Word, and as we follow Him, that’s the mark that indeed we are his sheep. And then Jesus gives this wonderful promise to all of his sheep. He says, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. That’s a wonderful assurance for all who hear the Word of Christ, for all who follow Christ, for all who claim the Lord Jesus as our own shepherd. And I’m glad that you tuned in for this message today. We’re in Psalm 23, as we continue the message, he loves me. Here’s Collin. When the Lord is your shepherd, you are surrounded on all sides by the love of Christ behind me, before me, beside me, beneath me, above me, brothers and sisters, nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And this will be true of you all the days of your life when you belong to the Good Shepherd, there will never be a day, never be a circumstance where this is not true of you, Jerry Bridges says this so well, your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace and your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace, all the days of my life. Now we need this right now because these are days in which we are anxious. We are anxious about our world. We’re anxious about our country. We’re anxious about our jobs. We’re anxious about our families and we’re anxious about ourselves and who knows what the future holds. Well, actually you know what the future holds. You know that every day of your life, God’s goodness, God’s mercy will always be chasing after you. And this love that surrounds you and will always be with you is not only a love that pursues, it is a love that welcomes. And what a verse this is. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And as if that were not enough. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now these words can be understood in two ways. If you are using the ESV Bible that we use here in the church, you might see that there’s a footnote right at the end of the Psalm at the end of verse six that says that the last phrase can be translated for length of days. I will dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days. And you may recall that a little later in the Psalm, Psalm 27, David says, One thing I have asked of the Lord and this I will seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. What does he mean when he says that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life? Well, he means this, that because of God’s goodness, because of God’s mercy, because he is my shepherd, because he leads me and restores me and guards me and sustains me, because of his great love for me, I will walk with him, I will love him, I will serve him, I will worship him. I will trust him every day of my life. And that surely is a fitting response to everything that we have seen in this psalm. But I think that David is looking beyond the future days of his life in this world. I mean he has already said, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. And when he looks beyond the days of his life in this world, what does he see? He sees the joy of eternity in the immediate presence of the Lord. And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Now what will that be like? Well, the first thing to say is that it will be very different from your life in this world when you dwell in the house of the Lord. Your faith is going to be turned to sight. The one you have trusted sometimes with many questions and sometimes with great difficulty, you’re going to see Him face to face. Old battles are going to be over for you. Old wounds are going to be healed for you. And God Himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes. You’re going to see Christ in all of His glory and His kingdom will come. And death will be defeated, and evil will be overthrown. Heaven itself will come to earth, and God will dwell with His people in a world of love in which He Himself will make everything new. Dwelling in the house of the Lord will be incomparably better than the greatest joy as any of us have ever known in our lives in this world. Your experience in heaven will be very different from your life in this world, but your relationship with Jesus will be the same. Will be the same. And here’s why I say that. When John, the apostle John, in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, is given a glimpse of what it will be like when all of God’s redeemed people are gathered in his presence, he says, they are before the throne of God and then what it’s describing, what it will be like when we are before the throne of God, he says this, that the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living water. Do you see if he is your shepherd now, he will be your shepherd then. The relationship will be exactly the same. The relationship you have with Jesus Christ in this world will continue forever and notice who the shepherd is. It’s an extraordinary statement that John has in the book of Revelation. He says the lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd. Now, you see why is it that any of us will be in heaven? Well, there’s only one reason, it is that the good shepherd came to seek and to save the lost and what did that involve? What did that mean? Well, it meant that the good shepherd had to become one with his sheep. He took our flesh, he came into our world, he shared our life, he became the lame, the shepherd became the lame, he became the lame of God who takes away the sin of the world and he was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is silent so he opened not his mouth. His life was given as the sacrifice for our sins. But God raised him up and exalted him to the highest place and in the book of Revelation, John sees that the lamb who was slain is also the lion of the tribe of Judah and he reigns and he says, I give my sheep eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. The lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and he will guide them to springs of living water. You’re listening to Open the Bible with pastor Colin Smith and the message He Loves Me. It’s part of a series based on Psalm 23 called the Lord is my Shepherd. And if you’ve missed any of the series or if you want to go back and listen again, you can always do that by coming to our website it’s at openthebible.org.uk. You can also find us as a podcast if that’s a better way for you to keep up with pastor Colin’s teaching and that’s available on your regular podcasting site. Just search for Open the Bible UK and subscribe to receive regular updates. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. I wonder has the thought ever occurred to you, will eternity end up getting a little dull? I mean, forever and forever and forever. I mean, one boredom set in at some point. Let me tell you why you will never be bored and why heaven will never be dull. It’s right here in this verse. The good shepherd will always be leading you into something new. Heaven will be a world of fresh discoveries and new delights. And it will be Jesus himself who leads you into them. Heaven will not be a world in which you see Jesus and then kind of go off and do your own thing and the new creation for the rest of eternity. No, the whole point is that we are with him and he constantly leads us into new discoveries, new delights, life everlasting. He brings us to the springs of living water. The word springs conveys something that’s always bubbling up, something always fresh, something that is always new. This is what Jesus himself prayed for in John 17. He said, father, I desire that those who you have given to me will be with me. And when we are gathered in the presence of the Lord, the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ will be wonderfully answered, we’ll be with him, we’re going to see his glory and he will be our shepherd and he will lead us on and on and on into discoveries of fresh delight. Let me give you one or two quotations that have helped me just to try to begin to think about this. Thomas Boston speaks of how the glorified, that’s God’s people, when made perfect in the presence of Jesus, we will eternally see more and more of God. We’ll walk with him eternally, seeing more and more of God. And then he uses this analogy. They may bring their vessels to this ocean every moment and fill them with new waters. So you think of a little child at the beach with a bucket and spade and the child goes down to the ocean and fills the bucket. How many times can that bucket be filled? And the water in the bucket always be different from the water that was in the bucket before? I mean the vastness of the ocean that is out there. And you think of the infinity of God himself. You can never exhaust the knowledge of God. Always coming into new glimpses of His greatness and of His glory, and the Lamb of God Himself leading us into this knowledge. It’s beyond what we can begin to take in here and now, but it will be more wonderful than we can ever imagine. And not only will we have the knowledge of the creator into which the Lamb of God leads us, our Good Shepherd leads us, but the new creation itself will be full of new delights and discoveries to be made. Donald MacLeod says this of the Garden of Eden. It offered scope he said, for art, science and technology. I mean just think about it, what Adam and Eve could have enjoyed and developed if they had remained in the Garden of Eden? Well he says, it offered scope for art and science and technology and the same will doubtless be true of the world to come. Not only the creator but the creation too, that’s the new creation, will be an object of wonder to the redeemed. It will challenge our intellects, fire our imaginations and stimulate our industry. The scenario he says is a thrilling one, brilliant minds in powerful bodies in a transformed universe. If you like you could take a bit of that, I mean for your minds to be sharper than it ever was. For your body to be stronger than it ever was. For you to enjoy exploring the wonders of a redeemed universe in all of the perfection that God has brought it into and the Lamb of God himself showing you leading you into springs of living water, always fresh always new, never tired, never bored. And then this, that the joy that you will know in heaven is a joy that will go on increasing. I mean by way of analogy just to try and think about this, think about your own life here and now and your experience. The joys you experience in your life here in this world remain with you. I’ll be at a wedding here this afternoon and in coming to a wedding I will think about my own and the joy of it will come back to me. That’s the nature of our experience in this world. As you go through life you have an expanding pool of joys that you have not only experienced in the past but they remain with you and they’re still a joy to you. You go through a photograph album or whatever you say, oh yes we were there do you remember that, how wonderful that was? In some sense it lives with you. And as the years go on this pool of joys expands and expands and becomes a great reservoir. Now think about what that will be like in eternity when nothing ever becomes old but everything remains new, one joy will be added to another as the good shepherd leads you into springs of living water. And Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian points out therefore that the joys of heaven will accumulate one blessing on top of another. And he asks this question. So think about what this will be like when you have been there for a million, million ages. And to put what he then says simply, the more you know of God the more you will see of his beauty. And the more you see of his beauty the more you’re going to love him. And the more you love him the more happiness you will have in him. We are talking brothers and sisters about a life of exponentially increasing joy to all eternity. Now, we began this series with two aims. And I want to end where we began with the aims of encouraging and enticing. First, to encourage. The greatest blessing you can know in life is to be wholly owned by the son of God. When the Lord is your shepherd you will be able to say, he leads me, he restores me, he guards me, he sustains me. And that means that whatever happens in your work in your family with your health or with your money whatever happens in our beloved country if the Lord is your shepherd you will always be able to say goodness and mercy all my life will surely follow me and in God’s house forevermore my dwelling place shall be and so through all the length of days thy goodness faileth never good shepherd may I sing your praise within your house forever and then to entice simply this question what is your position if the Lord is not your shepherd? See, you live in a world where the culture is always saying to you that the best way you can live is to be your own shepherd, that you run your own life and all of this stuff. What is your position if you choose to be your own shepherd? You choose to be your own God. You choose to be the captain of your own ship, the master of your own soul. Well if that’s your choice, then this is your reality. I am my own shepherd and I will always want. Sin makes me restless. It keeps me from lying down in green pastures. It leads me beside troubled waters. It ruins my soul. Sin leads me in paths of unrighteousness which I pursue for my own sake, and when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will have great fear. For sin will be with me. It’s guilt and shame will haunt me. Sin prepares a table before me in the presence of my friends. It promises much but always disappoints and my cup is always empty. Surely judgment and condemnation shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the lost forever. Now, friends, honestly, who wants to say that? And if that’s your reality, that coming in here today, really the truth about you is, you’re your own shepherd, you’re running your own life, you don’t want to be wholly owned by the Son of God. I’m saying, why would you stay with that reality when there is a good shepherd who gave himself for you? And even today, through the Scriptures, invites you to follow him. The greatest blessing you can ever know in life is to be wholly owned by the Son of God because when you can say, the Lord is my shepherd, you’ll be able to say, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever. I hope that you are able to say that today, that the Lord is your good shepherd and that you’re receiving the many blessings that come from following him. Maybe while you’ve been listening to this, you’ve realised that you never have been able to say that the Lord is your shepherd. The fact is there’s really nothing stopping you from asking the Lord Jesus into your life, that is asking him to become your shepherd. You can do that in a simple prayer today or you might find it easier to go and talk with a trusted Christian friend or family member and pray with them to receive the blessing that comes from knowing Jesus Christ. If that’s your experience I hope you’ll take the time to let us know about it. You can find contact details on our website, openthebible.org.uk. You’ve been listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and our message, He Loves Me, part of the series, the Lord is my shepherd. And if you’ve missed any of the series or you want to go back and listen again, do that by coming online to our website, openthebible.org.uk. Open the Bible is supported entirely by the generous gifts of our listeners. And if that’s something you’ve been considering to do, then we have an offer for you this month. If you’re able to begin supporting Open the Bible with a new donation of £5 per month or more, we’d love to thank you by sending you a new devotional by pastor Colin Smith called Green Pastures Still Waters. Like today’s message it’s based on Psalm 23. Colin this devotional comes from a sermon series that you preached a while back. And as you prepared for the series, what was the main thing you took away from it? Oh, that single word encouragement. I mean, I can’t think of any better place to go when a person feels down or jaded or just generally exhausted. If you need encouragement, Psalm 23 is the place to go. And God has been using this Psalm to encourage his people for 3000 years. And I reckon that’s probably the reason why this is one of the best known and best loved chapters in all of the Bible. I mean, to know that in Christ, you have a shepherd and that in the shepherd, you have everything that you need. That is the greatest joy and that will renew your strength. So I’m absolutely delighted that we’re able to make this available as a devotional. You can read it over 31 days and it will renew your strength, that will refresh your soul, Psalm 23, one of the best known best loved chapters in the Bible. We’d love to send you a copy of Green Pastures, Still Waters, if you are able to begin supporting the work of Open the Bible this month in the amount of five pounds per month or more. Full details on our website. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I hope you’ll join us again next time. What is faith and what does it do in a person’s life? Find out next time on Open the Bible.