Slide 1
“Suffering is never abstract, theoretical, or impersonal. Suffering is real, tangible, personal and specific. The Bible never presents suffering as an idea or a concept, but puts it before us in the blood-and-guts drama of real human experiences… Scripture never looks down on the sufferer, it never mocks his pain, it never turns a deaf ear to his cries, and it never condemns him for his struggle. It presents to the sufferer a God who understands, who cares, who invites us to come to him for help, and who promises one day to end all suffering of any kind once and forever…” Paul David Tripp, Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense

Slide 2
Psalm 23
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For you are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Slide 3
What we think:
If God is leading me, then I’ll avoid the valley.

Slide 4
What Psalm 23 says:
He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

Slide 5
tsalmavet – “shadow of death” – denotes the deepest darkness known to human experience – darkness so dense that it is identified with death itself. Scripture employs it both literally, of places where light is absent, and metaphorically, of conditions in which hope, order, and life are eclipsed (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)

Slide 6
Psalm 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Slide 7
In the green pastures, David talks about God. But in the valley, David talks to God. 
The grammar changes from third person (He leads, He restores), to speaking directly to God (You are with me; Your rod and Your staff comfort me.)

Slide 8
Biblical faith does not minimize the valley; it magnifies the Shepherd.

Slide 9
I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Slide 10
The rod is the Shepherd’s protection: defense against what threatens the sheep.
The staff is the Shepherd’s guidance and rescue: pulling, redirecting, steadying, keeping the sheep close.

Slide 11
“Suffering tends to kidnap our thoughts, and in doing so, has a powerful effect on our emotions and responses. The dynamic is clear – the more you meditate on a problem, the bigger, scarier, and more unsolvable it appears…What you think about most is vital. What you latch onto. When we meditate on who God has revealed Himself to be in Scripture, filling our minds with God’s Word, we are combating against the thing that wants to take over our minds and create more fear.  So, the spiritual tool we’ve been given to combat fear is meditating on God and remembering what He has done.” – Paul David Tripp 

Slide 12
Eastern meditation: Seeks quiet through detachment: emptying thoughts, desires, and the self.
Biblical meditation: Seeks peace through attachment: filling thoughts on God’s Word, character, presence, and promises.

Slide 13
Psalm 23:4 – “You are with me.”
Exodus 3:12 – “I will be with you.”
Joshua 1:9 – “The LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”
Isaiah 41:10 – “Fear not, for I am with you.”
Isaiah 43:2 – “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”
Matthew 1:23 – “Immanuel… God with us.”
Matthew 28:20 – “I am with you always.”
Hebrews 13:5 —-“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Slide 14
Revelation 21:3
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

Yes. So much of life is better when you are not doing it alone, when you’re doing it with someone, there’s a lot of research that backs that up, even in small ways. Think about working out. If you work out alone, you will not work out as well. Research says as if you work out with other people. Some of that is just the accountability. If I know that someone is expecting me to show up and I don’t show up there, there’s some amount of shame that goes with that. Some, some amount of, Hey, where were you? And so that encouragement causes me to show up. If I’m actually working out with someone, I will go harder and longer and do more. I will push myself beyond what I would normally by myself. Joys are experienced in a greater way when you are with other people, that you experience something wonderful and you’re high fiving people.

And there’s something about being around people that makes life better. And interestingly, studies have found that we experience pain differently when we do it in communion, when we’re in community with other people. And we go through challenging times when we go through suffering, that we experience that at a lesser level when we are with close people. That there’s an interesting study where when, when they do small amounts of pain and you are sitting next to a loved one and the closeness of that loved one, it doesn’t change the actual pain, but it does change the perception that we have of that pain. That’s what Psalm 23 at its heart is also trying to communicate that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, that we don’t need to do it alone. Suffering sadly, is a part of life that if you’ve never suffered before, at some point in this life, most likely you will suffer.

You will walk through a valley. And when we walk through that valley, what does life look like? Paul Tripp has a, an amazing book about suffering. It’s called Suffering Gospel Hope when life doesn’t make sense. This is what he writes in that book. Suffering is never abstract, theoretical or impersonal. Suffering is real, tangible, personal, and specific. The Bible never presents suffering as an idea or a concept, but puts it before us in the blood and guts drama of real human experiences. Scripture never looks down on the sufferer. It never mocks his pain. It never turns a death ear to his cries, and it never condemns him for his struggle. It presents to the sufferer a God who understands, who cares, who invites us to come to him for help, and who promises one day to end all suffering of any kind once and forever.

If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to Psalm 23. As we have each week in this sermon series, we’re gonna read all of Psalm 23 and then we’ll camp out today on verse four. Psalm 23 says this, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in passive righteousness for his name’s sake. Yay. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. You’ll rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Now, this is one of those psalms that, that oftentimes we, we read it at Memorial services or if you’ve gone to a funeral, that this is a very common psalm and and I think it applies there in a really beautiful and profound way. But that’s not the context of how David is writing it. David is riding this as likely a young man walking through life, walking through different challenges, walking through seasons where he’s got green pastures and also seasons where he’s in the middle of a valley, Jewish rabbis from a few thousand years ago. They think that he’s riding this while he’s in the middle of the valley, while he’s running away from Saul for his life. And here’s sometimes the challenge when we read a verse like that is it actually operates, or at least it presents the world as operating in a way that’s contrary to the way that we like to think that it off operates.

So here’s what we think. What we like to think is that if God is leading me, then I will avoid the valley. That there’s some part of me that that really likes the idea of karma. That if I’m a good person and do lots of good things, then life ends up good and bad. People have bad things happen to them, but good people shouldn’t have bad things happen to them ever. Like, like that’s what I like to think. But that’s not what Psalm 23 presents. What Psalm 23 actually says is it starts by saying, he leads me in path of righteousness for his namesake. And then this person who’s on the path of righteousness, it says, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. And now here’s what I wanna point out, that we focus on walking through the, the valley of the shadow of death.

But he describes someone who is on the path of righteousness. He describes someone who’s, who’s living life the right way, doing what God wants them to do. And that is the person that finds themselves in the valley of the shadow of death. So when we’re talking about the valley of the shadow of death, let’s let, let’s clarify a few things. The, the valley of the shadow of death scripturally is not talking about a bad day, man, I had a bad hair day. It’s like being in the valley of the shadow of death. It’s the worst ever. It’s not even talking about a bad week or a bad month. It’s talking about deep, deep despair. It’s also not talking about consequences for sin. There’s a difference there. There are real consequences that happen when we do wrong things. This is not teenage me saying, man, I got a ticket.

I’m in the valley of despair, man, walking to the valley of the shadow of death. No, you got the ticket because you were speeding. That’s, that’s not a valley. That’s a consequence. There’s a difference here. What David is talking about is the par the person that’s doing life the way that they think they’re supposed to do life. They’re doing life, right, they’re righteous, they’re falling after God, and that person is walking through a valley and that’s the part of it and life for us that just doesn’t make sense. You’re like, God, I don’t understand. I can’t comprehend that that Hebrew word that we end up translating is shadow of death. It’s an interesting Hebrew word. It’s hard to translate and it really has a, a bigger meaning than just shadow of death. So depending upon your translation, it’s got a lot of different ways that it, it might get translated.

But here’s what Strong’s exhaustive concordance, this is what it describes it as. That this word denotes the deepest darkness known to human experience, darkness so dense that it is identified with death itself. Scripture employs it both literally of places where light is absent and metaphorically of conditions in which hope order and life are eclipsed, that that likely, we know David experienced some really dark valleys, and we don’t know exactly when he wrote this, but I think it is likely that he wrote this when he was in one of those valleys where he is running away from Saul. Now. Now, just really quick cliff note version of David’s life. David is a shepherd. He’s, he’s kind of just the, the youngest kid that’s just thrown out there. Hey the older sons are, are doing war and you’re author is a shepherd. And then all of a sudden he enters into the limelight.

He defeats Goliath, he becomes the man. All of Israel knows his name. He goes and becomes a warrior that, that everybody’s chanting the name of David. He marries the daughter of the King Saul’s daughter. David marries her like life is good. He’s playing his harp in the throne room. But all of a sudden Saul gets angry, he gets jealous of David, and the Bible says that he picks up a spear and chunks it at David trying to kill him. Now, I, I don’t know what your relationship with your in-laws is like, maybe you’re out there and you’re like, I don’t like my in-laws. Like probably never got that bad. Probably they’ve never tried to kill you. And then what happens sometimes when you read scripture really quickly, you think of this season in David’s life where maybe it was a few months where Saul’s trying to kill him and he’s running away.

This season lasted for years, for multiple years. He goes from living in the palace or at least in close proximity to the palace, hanging out with the really important people to now he is running for his life, that people are trying to kill him every single day that that would be a valley, probably a moment in life where you’re asking questions like, God, why God, how God, God, why are you allowing these things to happen to me? We know that David was a man after God’s own heart. He was someone who loved God was on the path of righteousness. And yet in that moment, he’s walking through this valley, the darkest dark of night. Now, he was a shepherd too. So, so he knew that that shepherds oftentimes had to take their sheep from location to location. You see, when, when sheep, when they graze, they graze a lot.

And so if they are in a green field and there’s lots of grass and things for them to eat, if they just stay in that field, they can’t stay there forever because eventually they will eat up all the grass. So what a shepherd has to do is a shepherd has to be continually looking ahead and figuring out, okay, when this is used up, where do we go next? And so David would let his sheep graze and then he would take them to a new green pasture. But oftentimes in order to get to the new green pasture, they would have to go through a valley. And valleys are dark and valleys are dangerous. And as a shepherd, he probably had moments where his sheep are looking back at him like, what is going on? We were just in this really great place and I had lots of food and, and water, and now I’m going through this valley and it’s dark and it’s creepy and I’m scared.

And, and David, why are you taking me this direction? And in this same way, David, he’s saying, God’s my shepherd, but right now I’m in the middle of this dark valley and I don’t understand. Look what it says in verse four. Something profound happens in the change. It says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for now. Sometimes we say, okay, well we should have no fear. And and it’s because we think of ourselves as great as just need a man up and suck it up. But that’s not what David is saying. He’s saying the reason that even though he’s in the valley of the shadow of death, the reason he will have no fear is for, because he says, you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Now, if you’re a grammar nerd in the room today, something really profound happens in this verse that we see it in English, but it’s more profound in Hebrew.

But in green pastures, David talks about God. So you look at the first three verses, and, and David is talking about God, but in the valley, in verse four, David talks to God that the grammar changes from third person. He leads, he restores to speaking directly to God. You are with me, your rod and your staff, they come from me. Powerful transition happens that the beginning, God, God’s up there and hey, God, he and you. But, but all of a sudden when he’s in the middle of the valley, he’s talking directly to God and God becomes very, very personal. And do you know that God can use the valleys in our life to accomplish and do the exact same thing? Now, maybe right now in this room, you are in a valley, and there could be a lot of different reasons to be in the middle of a valley.

It could be that you’ve lost a loved one, that you had someone that you love and they passed away and you don’t understand. It could be that you yourself have some type of a diagnosis, some type of a health condition that is causing you to be in the valley and you don’t comprehend it or you don’t understand. It could be a relationship that broke up and maybe you even were doing everything the right way and you still experienced a divorce or you still experienced a parent that that turned their back on you or a child that’s turned their back on you. And so maybe because of whatever that is, you are in the middle of a valley. And here’s what I want you to understand, that Psalm 23 is trying to tell us Biblical faith does not minimize the valley. It’s not saying the valley doesn’t exist.

It’s not saying it’s no big deal. Instead, what biblical faith does is it magnifies the shepherd that when you are in the middle of the valley, the valley is real and the valley’s painful and the valley’s heart. And it’s okay to be frustrated. It’s okay to say God, I don’t comprehend and I don’t understand. But what scripture is trying to help us to understand is in that valley, that’s when God wants to be most magnified in our lives. If you know some of our story, my wife and I, or our whole family story you know, that nine years ago we lost a child. So we had a daughter. Her name was Lane, and she was born sick. And for four and a half months we were in the hospital. We were in the NICU and never left the hospital. And for four and a half months, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her.

And there was these emotional ups and down and emotional ups and downs. And for four and a half months, I prayed over and over and over again and I I basically have the same prayer. God heal her and don’t let her die. And then she died for four and a half months. I prayed, Hey, God, this is my one prayer, please don’t let her die. And then she died. And when we walked through that season, not just the four and a half months, not just the, the few months after she died, but I’m talking the last decade of our life when we walked through that season, there are moments in that when you shake your fist to God and you say, God, why God, I don’t understand. I don’t comprehend. And and we’ve done whole sermons on suffering and, and the theology behind suffering. But let me really briefly say this, that I do not believe for a second that God caused that to happen.

And yet I do believe that God could have stopped it. So he didn’t cause her to die, but he did allow her to die. ’cause God is sovereign. God is in control, that the reason suffering exists in this world is because of sin, that pain, suffering, brokenness, death. It’s because of sin in this world. And when we experience those things, it cuts us to our soul. And it makes us ask all the questions. And here’s what’s gonna happen in those moments, in those valleys. Either the valley will drive us away from God or it will draw us to God. It will cause me to say, God, I don’t understand. I don’t comprehend. And can I just tell you a decade removed? I still don’t understand. I still don’t comprehend. I still have lots of questions. But at some point, I either had to say, okay, I’m rejecting God, or despite the pain, despite the sorrow I’m going to embrace and I’m going to lean in.

Because here’s the thing about your pain and my pain, that although our pain, our suffering is a defining moment in our life, it is not the defining moment in our life, my pain losing our daughter. It is a defining moment. Our lives are forever changed because of what happened in that season. And yet my life is not defined by that pain. My life is defined by the shepherd. My life is defined by the cross. My life is defined by the fact that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, that he rose again, that he conquered death. That that is what defines me.

And so here’s my challenge for you today. So maybe you are in the valley or you have walked through a valley, and although it is a defining season, it doesn’t have to be the defining thing of your identity of who you are here. Here’s the thing about sorrow and suffering. We don’t really resonate with people’s successes. Like there’s no part of me that that looks at a professional athlete. I’m like, I know what that guy’s going through. Like I’ve second grade, I was the man in that little dribblers. So I can, I can pretty much relate to exactly what that is. I I don’t resonate with someone who’s just ultra, ultra wealthy. Like there’s not a part of that that’s like, yeah, man, I that’s you and me, bro. We’re in the same same struggles in life that you’re going through. But but here’s just the way that that God created us.

What we do resonate with is people’s pain that I can relate to someone’s pain. Now all pain is specific. It’s unique to that person. And yet there’s something about deep, deep sorrow and pain that we can resonate with, we can empathize with. We can say, Hey, your pain is, is different than my pain. And yet, when, when someone walks through that season, it reminds me of the season that I walk through and God is telling us, Hey, there’s a way to walk through that season. As crummy and terrible as it is, there’s a way to walk through that season that God can be glorified and bring you out the other side. I’ve got a good friend. His name is Scott McKee. Scott McKee is a pastor in Detroit at War Church. Scott has this huge personality, a comedian who became a pastor, which is a nice combo if you were a comedian that became a pastor.

So he, he jokes all the time. And about a decade ago he had, he had cancer, he beat cancer. And then about two years ago it came back. And so he’s been struggling with stomach cancer and he’s continued to be a senior pastor. He’s continued to get up and preach every week while he, he physically is just deteriorating in front of everybody. And last June, he sent a video message to his congregation where he was just giving a health update, a life update. And he did it in a way that I think just, just so captures what does it look like to suffer in the valley in a way that it’s also glorifying God? And I wanna share his video with you. Take a look.

This week I had my 12th chemo treatment. 12 is considered a full course of treatment, but in my case, I’m not able to discontinue chemo. My Mayo Clinic doctor told me that my cancer is aggressive, and if I were to ever stop chemo entirely, the cancer would likely overtake me. My Detroit doctor has been realistic as well and has consistently told me that there is no cure for the cancer that I have. The goal of treatment is to prolong my life. And there’s been no conversation yet about how much life I have left. The doctor says that all depends on how my body responds to treatment. Now, I know that many people in our congregation are, are believing God for a full miraculous healing for me. And I’m still very open to that. But I don’t need that to know that God is good and that God is good to me.

God is exceedingly good. Whatever happens to me, I’m gonna be okay. Whatever happens, I want God to be glorified. And I’ve spoken with God quite specifically about this. I want you to be glorified in this God. And wouldn’t it bring you glory to heal me completely. There are hundreds of people praying for me, a healing would be a great testimony and would, it would build the faith of the people. I do believe God would be glorified in my healing. But I also believe that God can be glorified through testimony of one of his children who lives faithfully through suffering and death. And lately I’ve been concerned that this could be God’s plan for me. Now I’ve got a record with God as recommending to God plan a miraculous healing. But whichever plan God chooses, God will be glorified. Whichever plan God chooses, I will be okay and you’ll be okay too.

About a week before Easter, a few months ago, Scott passed away and I have rarely seen someone in life that kept that smile and kept that personality and kept that joy even walking through a terrible, terrible valley. And maybe you are in the middle of a valley too. And, and here’s what I want you to know from scripture is that that is the moment that God wants to be the closest to us. It says, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff. They come from me. The, the the imagery of a rod and a staff in Psalm 23, 4 Shepherd is that the rod was used for defense. It protected the sheep that it was basically a, a short heavy club that could be used to, to fend off something that would try and eat the sheep. And then there is the shepherd staff.

This is a real shepherd staff. John Ortman is one of our elders. He grew up on a farm with sheep as a shepherd of sheep. And so this is a real shepherd staff that he used. And he, he, he kind of let me play around with it. And, and he explained it and it’s, it’s actually pretty heavy, much heavier than, than the the cheap biblical costume that you probably had in kids’ church a long time ago. But, but he talked about the reason that that, that exists on the end there is because that allows this shepherd staff to become an extension of your arm and all of a sudden you can reach in places that you couldn’t reach before. And so, so you can use that hook to literally hook sheep and pull them back where they’re supposed to. But more often than not, you’re just using it to guide sheep to the left and to the right or or to try and push them one direction or the other.

But here’s what’s fascinating about a shepherd staff. The shepherd staff only works. It’s only guiding. It’s only comforting if you’re close enough proximity to the shepherd for it to work. And so David is giving this imagery and saying that, that God is our shepherd. He’s, he’s wanting to, to use his shepherd stuff to guide us and to pull us closer and to help us. But as the sheep, we’ve gotta understand that, that the proximity to the shepherd matters. And so if you are in the middle of a valley, it’s easy and sounds kind of trite to say, Hey, you just need to be closer to the shepherd. You say, well, what does that mean? How do I do that? How do I allow this moment in my life to draw me closer to God? In that same book, Paul David trip, he writes about it. He writes this, he says, suffering tends to kidnap our thoughts.

And in doing so has a powerful effect on our emotions and responses. The dynamic is clear. The more you meditate on a problem, the bigger scarier and more unsolvable it appears. What you think about most is vital. What you latch onto when you meditate on who God has revealed himself to be in scripture, filling our minds with God’s word, we are combating against the thing that wants to take over our minds and create more fear. So the spiritual tool we’ve been given to combat, fear is meditating on God and remembering what he has done. And now meditation. When we think of meditation, people think of yoga and they think of eastern meditation. That’s actually the exact opposite of what biblical meditation is. So Eastern meditation is seeking quiet or seeking peace through detachment. So the the whole idea is that, is that I’m just trying to empty my thoughts, empty my desires, empty myself.

Biblical meditation is not actually emptying myself. It’s actually filling myself, but it’s filling myself with God. It seeks peace through attachment, not detachment, it’s attachment to God. I’m filling my thoughts on God’s word, on his character, on his presence, on his promises. I am focusing on him. And so if I’m in the middle of the valley, my natural thoughts are going to focus on the valley. It’s gonna focus on the dangers that the sheep that is walking through the darkness, it’s gonna look in every corner. It’s gonna look at all the imaginary fears that could be out there. And so that’s what it’s gonna naturally focus its mind on you and I. When we are walking through suffering, our mind focuses laser focused on the suffering. And the idea is not to, to say that it’s imaginary and not to say that that’s not real.

It is real. The suffering is real. But the way that I help combat it is closeness to God by focusing, meditating on him. And his word that we talked the first week, that the very center, the heart of Psalm 23 is this phrase that you are with me. This is a message that we see throughout all of scripture. Look what it says in Psalm 23, 4. You are with me then again in Exodus three 12. I will be with you in Joshua one, nine. The Lord, your God is with you wherever you go. Isaiah 41 10. Fear not for I am with you. Isaiah 43, 2, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. Matthew 1 23. What does Jesus’ name mean? Emmanuel, which means God with us. Matthew 28, 20, Jesus, before he sends into heaven, he says, I am with you always. Hebrews chapter 13 verse says, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

That the very center of the Psalm, the heart of the Psalm, is also a very central message of all of scripture. That the very beginning in Genesis, we see Adam and Eve walking in the presence of God, and then sin enters in and it messes that equation up. ’cause A holy God, a righteous God can’t have relationship with sinful people. And so all of scripture over and over and over again, we have this message of God saying, I wanna be with you. I wanna be close to you. And then the gospel. The gospel is God, the creator of the stepping out of heaven into human flesh. Why? In order to be close to us, in order to solve the problem that creates the distance, he dies in the cross four our sins. And at the very end of scripture, in Revelation chapter 21, verse three, this book in from Genesis to Revelation, it says this. It says, and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. We talked about it the first week that Jesus says that he is the good shepherd and the shepherd lays down his life for a sheep.