Psalm 23: Part V – Blessing Upon Blessing Psalm 23:5b-6

Take out something to write with and a piece of paper.  Number your paper 1-10.  Place a title at the top that reads “Ten Blessings From Yesterday.”  This is an exercise that I have challenged our youth, last year’s confirmation class, and the congregation (through the newsletter) last year at some point.  It is also part of my devotional journaling that I do most mornings every week.  What I would like you to do, right now, is take a few minutes and write down ten ways that God blessed you yesterday.  If you need to add numbers because you can come up with more than ten, please do so.  If you are having trouble thinking of ten, let me offer this.  What if you think of everything you did yesterday and everything you used yesterday, and if you woke up tomorrow and it was gone or you couldn’t do it any more, you would feel the loss.  Or as someone put it to me one time, “what if you only have tomorrow what you were thanked God for today?”  Still need some help?  It can be something as simple (that I start my list with each day), “waking up.”  It can be a special meal—like breakfast at Biscuitville, or any food you ate.  It can be a conversation you had with a good friend, a sibling, a spouse, or a child.  It could be an accomplishment, like completing a project or walking a 5K.  It could be seeing a rainbow, holding a baby, or celebrating a birthday.  It could have been a dream that the preacher would let you out before noon.  Take a moment more.  How many have finished?

The Lord is my shepherd.  I shall not want.  God provides for us all that we need.  It may not be all that we want.  It may not be all that we ask for.  It may not even be what we think we need when we need it.  Yet the truth is, and I’ve learned it the hard way sometimes, if we are patient, and wait on the Lord’s timing, we will find that we truly have received all that we need, and have received it when it was needed the most.  We trust also that if we ask for an egg, God won’t give us a scorpion, or if we ask for bread that He won’t give us a rock.  It is also learning to bring our will and desires into line with God’s will and desires by learning to seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness before we ever begin petitioning God.

He maketh the me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.  He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  God brings us to places of rest and places of renewal—whether our green pastures and still waters are literally the place, or whether it is by a waterfall in the mountains, or along the beach with the crashing waves, they are places were God brings us to stop…be with Him…and be renewed.  God calls us to take a Sabbath break to spend time with him, with our family, and simply be still.  God invites us to cast our burdens upon Him and leave them there, that we might find peace.  Then rested, he sends us out on missions of his saving justice, seeking to bring restoration to His Creation.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.  Those righteous paths will, at times, take us through valleys of the shadow of death…there will be times in our lives where it seems so dark that that death itself has hold of us.  The Psalmist calls us to remember, though, that we do not enter that valley alone.  God is with us, God never deserts us in the face of those times.  His rod signifies the fact that God will protect us from our enemies, that nothing will be able to ever destroy us, that God and God alone has the ultimate word in our lives.  God’s staff signifies. His guiding presence in our lives and his efforts to draw us closer to Himself and to the rest of the flock, that, again, we are not alone in the valley.  We are also called to remember that the dark places are not our final destination, that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.  We don’t stop there, we don’t reside there, we walk through there, until we come out on the other side.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.  God declares the victory before the battle is ever fought.  If we have aligned ourselves with God, then we will find that we have assurance, regardless of the conflict, that we have the victory…and every time we gather at this table, as we did last Sunday, we celebrate the victory that we know God has promised over whatever battle may be before us.

That brings us to today.  Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

We are the anointed children of God.  With the waters of our baptism, we have recognized that God has poured out His Holy Spirit and anointed us. God has marked us and set us apart.  God has claimed us as His sons and daughters.  And just as Jesus recognized that that claim signified that He was set aside “to preach the gospel to the poor…heal the broken hearted…preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, [and] to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,” it signifies to us that God has set those same tasks before us…as the living Body of Christ, the work and mission of Christ, becomes the work and mission of us, together.

How do we do this? It is through the blessings God has poured out upon us.  The Psalmist said, my cup runneth over.  God pours blessings into our lives, every day.  We began this morning by making a list of ten or more of the blessings that we experienced just yesterday…and each day God pours blessing after blessing into our lives.  The Psalmist realized, and we need to realize, if we haven’t, that those blessings are so many that they can’t be contained in just our lives.  Just as a cup filled past capacity overflows and the contents spread out all around, God intends for the blessings we named, and the blessings He pours into our lives every day, touch more lives that just our own.

When we realize just how much God is blessing us…God doesn’t intend for us to go out and get a bigger cup so that we can contain and hold all the blessings.  He doesn’t want us to, like the farmer of Jesus’ parable, go out and build bigger barns.  He doesn’t intend for us to place our hand over the cup and say, “that’s enough Lord, no more blessings, my cup is full.”  God’s intent is to pour blessing upon blessing out upon us so that those blessings may flow from us into the lives of those around us.  The cup over flows, not to make a mess (though it can make a mess of our comfortable clean lives), but in order that not only our thirst might be quenched, but also the thirst of those around us.

We began this series acknowledging how God provides what we need, all that we truly need.  The beginning of the 23^rd Psalm was about us.  The end is about everyone else…filling our cup to overflowing is not about us, it is about God blessings others through us, meeting their needs through our blessings, through our lives.

However God has blessed us, God’s intent is not for us to hoard it, but for us to share it…and share it not only with those who already have a relationship with Him, but primarily with those who don’t, that they might come to know Him.  What does the overflowing cup look like?  Maybe God has blessed us with wealth.  It doesn’t mean that we go around dropping money wherever we walk.  It means when we see ministries or needs before us, that we let those funds flow from us in ways that help meet those needs, whether it is supporting a homeless shelter, providing food for the hungry, or financing repairs on a home destroyed by a flood or hurricane.  It means if we have been blessed with extra free time, that we let that time flow from us as we look for ways we can touch the lives of those around us who need help, or just need someone to sit by them through difficult times.  It means if we have been given any gifts or talents or abilities that we let our used of them flow into the lives of those around us.

If there was any question about it, those questions are answered by the beginning of the next verse, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”. Note those words…it is not “Surely goodness and mercy shall lead me…”. It is not “Surely goodness and mercy shall surround me…”. It is not “Surely goodness and mercy shall be poured out upon me….”. It is “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me….”. If we are living with the Lord as our Shepherd and if we are letting God’s blessings overflow from us into the lives of others, then we will leave a trail of goodness and mercy behind us.  People will see where we have been because the path behind us will be marked by acts of goodness and mercy.  The folks who encounter us will find their lives changed for the better because we have been there.  It means when we pass by folks who are in the midst of their dark valleys, we come alongside them and walk with them the rest of the way through the valley—that they might encounter and experience goodness and mercy flowing from God and through us.

If we leave pain, brokenness, and hate in our wake, then we are not following the shepherd. If folks feel judged and condemned after encountering us, then we are not living with Lord as our guiding shepherd.   If we walk by where there is a need and the need is still there, then we have to question whether or not we are following the shepherd. 

In the coming days, weeks, months, perhaps even years, we will have the opportunity with the people of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, the Bahamas, and especially Haiti to leave a trail of God’s mercy and grace in their lives as we come to them and seek to lift them from the devastation left behind by Hurricane Matthew.  Where riverbanks and seawalls have allowed water to overflow into streets, homes, and businesses---where it has brought destruction, loss, and even death, we are called to allow the cup of our blessings of our lives to overflow with mercy and goodness into their lives.

Wherever we go we must let our cup overflow, we must let mercy and grace trail behind us…we must let our blessings multiply into the blessing of others.  For it is when folks feel like they have been welcomed, embraced, forgiven, healed, loved…if they experience mercy and grace in their encounters with us…then we know we are living with the Lord as our shepherd and that we will live in His house forever.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.