Gateway Church's Podcast
The Hound of Heaven
The title of the message is the hound of heaven, the hound of heaven. Now, in this 23rd Psalm, all of us, most of us can quote the 23rd Psalm and it's one of the most famous passages in all of the Bible, but in verse 6, in my estimation, verse 6 of the 23rd Psalm sums up all of Scripture. So I'm not here very often and so I'm going to just preach the whole Bible to you today out of one passage. Seriously, I think Psalms 23-6 is the summation of all of Scripture. The idea of Scripture, the idea of God, is summed up in one verse in the 23rd Psalm. I don't want to read this to you. Verse 6, it says, "Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life." Some of your Bibles have all. How many of your Bibles have all? But it actually goes by "all." Now, I want you to see something in here right now. This is a redneck guide to understanding Scripture, okay? It's very, very simple. This is the way God has to speak to me. When you see surely, will, or owl in any Scripture, you should pay attention to it because it's a promise from God. It's a guarantee. And when you see surely, will, and owl in one Scripture, all three in one Scripture, that Scripture should especially jump off the page at you. And we see surely, will, and owl in this Scripture. Surely, goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. Now, let me ask you a serious question. Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that goodness and love follow you all the days of your life? What about on the day when you get the worst possible news that you can ever imagine? What about the day that you get the phone call that you'd always feared that you would get? What about the darkest, most difficult day of your life? Do you think goodness and love is following you on that day? Now, I've had some dark days this past year, really dark days. And I've wrestled with this idea. It does goodness and love really follow me all the days of my life. Now, in some days, it's obvious that goodness and love is following me. When the sun's shining down on me, my family's healthy, my marriage is good. It's obvious then that goodness and love is following us. What about on the darkest day of your life, the most difficult day of your life, when your house is repossessed, when your marriage falls apart, when you're sick, is goodness and love following you on that day? Now, David says, "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life." But he was human like the rest of us. Now, if you want to flip back in your Bible with Psalms 22 verse 1, it says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" David wrote that Psalm 2. He wrote Psalms 22-1. He wrote Psalms 23-6. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And look, we're all family. I know you, you know me. So let me ask you a question, let's just be honest. Quit being churchy and be honest, all right? But act like church people, be honest. How many of you have ever, I'm just joking. How many of you have really honestly ever felt that you were chasing God, but God wasn't pursuing you? Let's be honest. My hands up, I'm honest. I'll be the first one. That's true. And if you're honest with yourself, you know that there are times where you feel like you're doing all that you're supposed to do. You're praying, you're worshiping, you're tithing, you're attending church, you're loving people the best you know how, but it doesn't always feel like God is close. It doesn't always feel like he's right there with you. But the reality is there's not been one second, there's not been one instance, there's not been one occasion that God has not seen you, heard you, or had his eyes on us. That's a fact. And that's what David is saying. David is not saying that we walk around all the time in this perpetual presence of God that the presence of God just consumes us and overwhelms us every second of the day. That's not what he said. He said it's a fact because God promised that goodness and love is following us all the days of our life. Even though it doesn't feel like it, even though it doesn't seem like it, David said, listen, goodness and love is following me all the days of my life. Now I want to look at this passage of scripture because I think David was picking up on something that I think affects all of us and it's what I call spiritual fatigue. Spiritual fatigue is the idea that we're doing everything we're supposed to do. We're exhaustively chasing God, pursuing God, trying to be the best people we know how to be, but it doesn't seem like God catches up with us enough. And so we get into this idea of being spiritually fatigued, worn out, tired from the pursuit when all God really asks us to do is to believe and to trust and to rest. And God does expect us to pursue him. God does want us to chase. In fact, it says you draw near to me, I'll draw near to you. There is something that we're supposed to do, but the idea that goodness and love is following us all the days of our lives. Listen, if you catch this idea, if you will believe this idea, this one passage of scripture, you'll pray differently, you'll worship differently, you'll see God differently, you'll treat people differently if you believe what I'm saying today, what the Bible says today, that goodness and love is following you all the days of your life. It'll change everything about the way you worship, the way you serve God, the way you deal with other people. So let's look at this passage. This breaks it down into three different passages today. The first part of it says surely goodness and love. Now the word love, if you're reading out of the new King James, it says mercy, right? If you're reading out of the new American standard, it says loving kindness. The NIV, which I'm reading out of, says love. All three words, listen, I'm about to totally butcher this Hebrew word. But I'm going to make it Texan far. I'm not Hebrew. Do you notice that? Do I look Hebrew? So I'm doing the best I can. But this is the Texan way of saying it. It's not trying to get Jeff back in the green room to teach me how to really say this word, couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. It cannot come out of me. It's not possible for me to say this word correctly. So I'm going to say it the way I can say it. Has said, H-E-S-E-D is the Hebrew word. I said, and he'll say it better for us at some point. He laughed at me. That's the best I can do. But this word has said is one of the most complex words in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language is basically a pastoral language. It's for rural farming type people. It's very simple. It's not a very complex language at all. But this word in the Hebrew language especially is complex. In fact, there's about 26 different ways to interpret this word. But what it means in its essence is it's a covenantal idea of love between God and humanity. It really captures the idea of covenantal marriage, but especially between God and humanity. It references the idea that someone strong and powerful who has no need of a relationship reaches down to someone who's much weaker, who can offer nothing in return, and offers friendship, and offers love, even though that the weaker person has no right to claim the love, no reason to ask for the love, but the stronger person reaches down and asks and gives covenantal love. Do you realize how far God reached to get us? How far out of heaven he reached down to the depths of humanity and picked all of us, reached down, offered his hand. Not just friendship, but covenantal love. Love that's never ending. We don't have one thing that God doesn't have in heaven. We can't offer God anything that he doesn't already have, but he reaches down and says, "I want love with humanity. I want relationship with humanity. I want covenantal love with people." That's what I said. Now, I want you to look in the book of Hosea because nowhere in Scripture is the idea of Hosea spelled out that in the book of Hosea. And that's one of the minor prophets. So if you're in Psalms, go right. If you run into the red letters, you've gone too far and go back left. It's a minor prophet, Hosea, but he had a major message to speak to Israel. I don't know why they call them minor prophets. I don't think Hosea is that insecure about it. He did get a book in the Bible. But Hosea, turn there to chapter 2. Turn to chapter 2 of Hosea. Now, Hosea was a prophet in the time of Israel where Israel was totally overrun by sin. I mean, sin was rampant. Temple prostitutes. They turned their heart away from God. They weren't following the law. They were finding themselves in the worst possible place in their country. And Hosea was called by God to show the people of Israel how much he loved them. He told them that he was going to demonstrate the idea of Hosea right in front of them. So you know what God asked Hosea to do? Go find a prostitute and marry her. Bring her into your home. And so Hosea obeyed God, "When and found a woman named Gomer?" Apparently, please listen to me. If you name your daughter, Gomer, don't expect a great deal out of her, okay? Not a good thing. So he found a woman named Gomer. She was a prostitute. He bought her for 15 shekels of silver, brought her into his home, married her, and there were children that were born. Now, theology is not clear on if the children were Hosea's or what they were from other men that she had been with. Most people believe some were Hosea's, some were with other men, because in this story of Hosea, from time to time, Gomer would leave Hosea and go back into her lifestyle as a prostitute. And each time God would say, "Hosea, go and get her. Bring her back into your home. Embrace her. Love her. Nurture her, because I want them to see. That's the way I see them as a country. I'm their God. And no matter how many times they turn towards sin, no matter how many times they find themselves in the deepest pit of darkness, I am going to reach my hand down, love them, embrace them, nurture them. Hosea, every time Gomer turns her heart away from you and goes and finds her, you go find her. Now listen, you can imagine that Hosea probably had to go to the worst places in town and find his wife in the arms of another man. Take her. Love her. Bring her back into his home. Nurture her and care for her. That's a said. That's what I'm talking about. That's the covenantal love that God and David were trying to say in Scripture. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, even when I failed, even when I've done the most miserable rotten thing that I could possibly imagine, even when I know that I am in the deepest places of sin, Hosea will find me. Hosea will rescue me. God's covenant of love with me is not being broken. This is what Hosea was trying to demonstrate to the nation of Israel. You cannot run so far that God's love will not find you. You cannot run so far away that I will not chase you down and pursue you. You've not run so far away from me that I'm not going to stretch out my arm and snatch you out of darkness and bring you back into my heart close to me. That's Hosea chapter 2 verse 19. One of the most powerful promises in Scripture is written out for us and I want you to catch it today. This is a promise to you and your family. This is a promise to me and my family. In verse 19 it says, "I'll make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice. Unfailing, Hosea. There's the word again. Hosea, love, unfailing, covenantal love and in compassion and I'll be faithful to you and make you mine and you will finally know me as Lord." When David says, "Surely goodness and Hosea, surely goodness and love," he was talking about a covenantal love that is so powerful, so rich and so deep, so strong that we can never fully understand it. The moment you think you understand how much God loves you, you discover a whole new depth, you discover a whole new whip. The moment you think you've reached the deepest part of the waters of God's love for you, you fall off a cliff and it's much deeper than you ever imagined. It's a mystery. You'll never fully understand it. We can never comprehend the depth of God's love for us because the word has says, it is unsearching, unknowing. You'll never fully realize how deep and powerful God's love is for us. In the second phrase it says, "Surely goodness and love will follow me." Now, the word follow is way too passive in the English. Well, the word follow in the Hebrew literally means to chase down, to pursue, to capture you, to overtake you. It is a military term for when people are chasing their enemies, to capture them, pursue them, and to bring them under their control. It's a very aggressive word in the Hebrew. It's a military term and David will say, "And listen, cheerily goodness and love will pursue you, chase you down, overtake you, capture you, bring you under his control." Let me tell you a story, but young man, this is a true story, a young man, very brilliant growing up. You know, he's one of those young guys that when he grows up, he kind of is different than all of his peers and he's obviously brilliant and everyone talked about him growing up. There was something unique, something powerful, something about this young man that was different than any of his friends. Sure enough, when he got old enough to go to college, he got a scholarship to go to university in London, went there and everyone said, "When he goes to the university, when he comes back, it's going to be amazing to watch this young man and figure out what God's doing with him." But when he got to the university in London, he fell into an opium, he started using opium and ended up on the streets as a street vagrant, homeless, using drugs, just every day doing whatever it took to earn enough money or do whatever it took to get another shot of opium, finding himself alone, cold, living in the back alleys of London. His life was a mess. Here's this great young man, this man with all the ambition, all of the potential, living on the streets as an opium addict in London. But one day in a moment of sobriety, he wrote down a few lines of poetry and mailed it to a magazine that published poems there in London. And on the cover letter, he said, "Dear editor, I love your magazine. Here's some of my poems. I know you're going to hate them. Here's a return envelope. When you return them, send them to this address." I mean, he had no confidence. So he sends in these poems to this magazine. The editor opens it up, reads the poems, and he blows his mind. Wow, who is this young man? We never even heard of him. So he writes him back, returns the envelope to the address that was marked, and when he gets back to the post office, the post office says, "We don't know who this guy is. There's no address. This is a wrong address. We have no idea how to reach this young man." So the editor is just beside himself. He feels like he's found this young talent, but he can't find him. So he and his wife said, "You know what? Let's just publish the poems in our magazine. Maybe he'll read it. Maybe he'll contact us again." So they did. They published the poems. Two weeks later, the young man contacted this editor of the magazine and said, "Hey, I just read the magazine. I can't believe you published my poems." And the editor said, "Please, tell me where you are. We must meet. You have a talent from God, and I want to help you with it." And so they arranged for a meeting. So the editor of the magazine and his wife met this young man in London. And when they met him, it was obvious. He was a street vagrant. He was homeless, opium and addict. And this young, this man and his wife had such compassion on him. They pulled him in and said, "Listen, let us help you. We're going to pay for you to go to a clinic to get free from your addiction." And they paid for this young man to go to this clinic. So he's in a clinic getting dried out, riding poetry for the first time with a clear mind and a clear heart. This young editor and his wife introduced him to Christ. He accepted Christ. He's in the clinic. And he writes his most famous poem. And the title of it is, "The Hound of Heaven." That was the title of the sermon. Okay, we're starting over. Open your Bible to the 23rd Psalm. You got to stay with me here, okay? Play along. It's "The Hound of Heaven." It's one of the most famous poems ever written. This story didn't happen this past year. This story happened in the 19th century. And I want to read a couple of lines from this poem because Francis Thompson is writing about God's pursuit of the human soul. And it's a very rich and deep poem trying to express how God chased him down, pursued him, drew him and captured him while he was at his worst possible moment in life. Let me read this to you. It says, "I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years from those strong feet that followed, followed after, but with unhurring chase and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instantly. Francis Thompson is trying to describe in the best possible way how the Hound of Heaven captured him, pursued him, chased him down." Now listen, it may not make you feel very comfortable to think of a Hound, a hunting dog chasing you. But in 19th century England, the culture there understood it completely because they had a culture of hunting dogs. The hunting culture was very prevalent in England. And the idea of a Hound locking into the scent of its game and pursuing it with reckless abandon was an idea that the English people understood. And I grew up around hunting dogs, and I grew up around that culture myself. And I remember how a dog, when they captured the scent of a rabbit or a deer or whatever we were chasing, they would just lock on and they would chase it and run themselves literally to death until they could find their game. That's how passionate God is pursuing all of us. The Hound of Heaven is still very active today. And some of you have prodigal sons and daughters, some of you have friends and neighbors and loved ones that you've been praying for for years and years and years. Let me tell you something. The Hound of Heaven is pursuing the loss today. It is it is not over. The Hound of Heaven is locked into the scent of those people that you're praying for. Do not give up praying. I had an uncle that we prayed for years and years and years. Growing up, he would never go to church. He mocked church, didn't like church. And I remember at the end of his life, when he was eaten up with lung cancer, I remember him sitting in his living room with that little oxygen tube in his nose because he could barely breathe because of the cancer in his lungs. And I'll never forget this, he still smoked those cool cigarettes, those in the little green package. And he had the oxygen tank on, a lit cigarette, and I'm standing there in the living room, hoping that I leading to Christ before we both blow up and die. I knew I was going to Heaven. I just wanted to get him saved before he blew the house up. And we'd sit there on his couch talking about Christ. He was talking about Jesus, just like friends. He was one of my favorite uncles. He told me the worst jokes growing up. My mother was furious because of the jokes that he introduced me to. But I loved him. He was my favorite person. But I knew he didn't know Jesus. And he knew he didn't know Jesus. At the end of his life, a few weeks before he died, he prayed the most passionate prayer to accept Christ. And I remember praying for him. And the last few weeks of his life, he was reading his Bible, seeking God, the hound of Heaven, and God him, the very end. Now, two Sundays ago, when I preached this at New Life, there was a man who for 40 years had not been in church. For 40 years, grew up on the south side of Chicago in a very tough home, grew up seeing all the bad things about church, hated the church. And two Sunday mornings ago, he woke up into the surprise of his family, called him and said, "Hey, I want to go to New Life with you." Set out in the crowd. And I preached this message about the hound of Heaven. He had never heard that God loved him. He had never heard that God was pursuing him. He never fully understood the depth of God's love. And when I asked him to pray, I asked everybody to pray. And at the end, I said, "If you pray that prayer, come forward." He literally bolted out of his seat. Here's a man 75 years old. At the end of his life, his family had given up hope that he would ever even come to church, must less know Jesus. Bolts out of his share, runs forward, falls into the chest of one of my altar team, crying and weeping, asking God to come into his heart. Listen, I want to encourage you today, the hound of Heaven is pursuing the lost. The lost are coming. I'm telling you, we're about to go into an unprecedented season in the church of the lost coming to know Jesus. We're seeing it every week. People are getting saved over and over. We can preach on anything right now and people are getting saved because of the hound of Heaven. And that's very comforting for me. All the pressure is off. So he says, "Surely goodness and love will follow me, will chase me down, will pursue me, will capture me, will overtake me all the days of my life." Now that's the part that gets us hung up. We believe in goodness and love. And I think we can probably wrestle with the idea that God is pursuing us. We can come to that conclusion. It just doesn't seem like it's all the days of our life. Now I want to, you know, the story of the Prodigal Son is my favorite parable in all of the of Scripture. It's one of my favorite stories, if not the favorite story. And you know the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son takes his dad's inheritance, goes out and totally wasted on wild living. Finds himself in a recession economy. It's a drought. Can't find work, ends up in a pig pen feeding pigs. And for a young Jewish boy, that's the worst possible place you could be is in a pig pen feeding pigs. Thinking about eating the food of the pigs, because that's the only thing really available. Certainly wasn't going to eat the pig. And so he's in the pig pen thinking about his dad's home where there's plenty of food. And he said, "Even the servants in my dad's home eat better than I do right now. I'm going to go back to my dad. I'm going to turn right now and head back home. And I'm going to apologize to my dad and beg him to take me back in as a slave. Even if he doesn't even recognize me as his son, I'm okay with that. I deserve that. I deserve justice, but I'm going to beg for mercy. I want you to pick it up in Luke 15 verse 20. This is the idea that this young man is carrying as he heads back toward his dad. So he got up and went to his father. This is verse 20. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son. He threw his arms around him and kissed him. Now listen, you think the son, as he was walking back to his dad that day, what did he expect? He expected correction. He expected anger. He expected to be reprimanded, punished, and sent out to work like a slave. On this day, there's no way this young man expected goodness and love. There's no possible way this young man ever expected goodness and love on this day. He may have expected after a few years of hard work around his dad's farm to get goodness and love, but he had no possible way of imagining the goodness and love that he was about to get this day. He stumped. His clothes were terrible. He smelled like a pig pin. He was ashamed and embarrassed, humiliated. But on that day, he got something that he never expected. He got goodness and love on the worst day of his life. The most embarrassing day of his life, the most humiliating day of his life, he got goodness and love. He got more than goodness and love. Listen to what he said. He says, "Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, but the father said to his servants quick, bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. Bring the fat and cap and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they begin to celebrate. That's goodness and love following you, chasing you. And it's interesting to see in this passage. Now Jesus is telling this story because he's trying to capture the thought of Psalms 23.6. This is the recurring theme of the Bible. This is the central theme of the Bible. God's pursuit, God's pursuit of humanity is the central theme of the Bible. His covenant to love that he's been offering to all of us from day one is the central theme of the Bible. He says the father ran toward the son, fell on the son, hugged the son, kissed the son, prepared a feast for the son, put a ring on his finger, a robe on his back, sandals on his feet. That's the central theme of the Bible. Now there were days, I'm sure that this father was probably more proud of his son than other days. There were days where he was more excited about the choices that his son was making than other days. And listen, I have a nine year old son and a seven year old daughter and there are days where I'm more proud of them than others. There are days when I'm more excited about the choices that they're making than other days, but there's not one single day that my love goes down. There's not one single day that I love them less. I'm in covenantal love with my children. They can't do anything, not one possible thing, from not me not to love them. I may not be proud of them. I may not agree with them, but there's not one single day that I'll ever stop loving them. And you know that as parents, if you're a parent, you understand that idea. Some of your children have disappointed you. Some of your children are making bad choices right now, but your love from has never ended. Listen, let me tell you why God's pursuing you like a hound. He's trying to adopt you. He wants to adopt you. He's trying to make you sons and daughters. Now, you know, many of you may know this is one of you don't, but both of my kids are adopted. We got them both at birth. My nine year old Abram, seven year old Callie, are both adopted. And for nine years, we couldn't have children of our own and God gave us a miracle and we were able to adopt two children. And so we had not really talked about it, told them that when we moved to Colorado Springs, it was in all the media, the newspapers that picked up on it. And so it was talked about a lot in the media that we'd adopted two kids. And so we felt like we need to sit them down and tell them about being adopted because I didn't want them to hear it in the hallways of the church. And so we sat them down the first week we were at in Colorado Springs, and we said, Abram and Callie, we want to tell you a great story, a wonderful story, a miracle happened in your life, in our lives. And we told them the story of how they were adopted as much as they could understand at that age. We didn't tell them everything, but we told them enough. And they sat there and they asked a few questions and they were fine. We all hugged and prayed and they went on. And, you know, from time to time, they would ask a question or so, but it was not a big deal. They just thought it was cool. They thought they were special and they are for the story that God has in them. But a few weeks ago, I was praying for Abram and I've asked God to say, Lord, if there's anything going on in their hearts, I want to know about it. If they're wrestling with this, I want you to give me some insight so I know how I can deal with this, where I can help them and love them. So I'm praying for Abram a few weeks ago with my little boy, and I said, amen. I was about to leave the room and he goes, Dad? I said, yes, Abram. He said, thanks for adopting me. I said, well, Abram, you're welcome. And he said, well, Dad, if you hadn't adopted me, we wouldn't be buddies. So, well, Abram, I'm glad to be your buddy and I'm always going to be your buddy. So I closed the door and I'm out in the hall. I'm just, you know, I'm mess, you know. Good grief. You know, kids do that to you. They say things like that and some, I mean, I'm out in the hall. I'm real emotional. And I said, Lord, I've been asking you, is there something going on in Abram's heart that I need to know about? And he goes, no, Brady, that wasn't for Abram. That was for you. He said, if I hadn't adopted you, we wouldn't be buddies either. And listen, if you'll catch that, if that will become a part of who you are in Christ, it'll change everything about you. You see, a lot of you think that God just after you to redeem you to put another trophy on his trophy case, God's after you chasing you, pursuing you with goodness and love so that he can make you sons and daughters. He doesn't need any more trophies in heaven, but he needs a lot more sons and daughters. And when you get the idea, when you capture this, when you see grace, you're living with the law. Good luck. You're living with grace. It's a good life. This changes you. I'm telling you, when I, when I stand, when I fail, when I mess up, when I, when I struggle, when I know, when I see my own humanity, it's this idea that sets me free. It's not an excuse to sin. It actually makes me want to sin less the more I know how much God loves me. It makes me want to serve him more when I realize how much he's pursuing me, chasing me. How much goodness and love is trying to overtake me. It makes me want to sin less, love more, tear deeply, worship more passionately, pray more fervently. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life. Can I pray for you this morning?