Sermon Series: He Calls
His Own Sheep By Name
I Shall Not Be in Want
John 10:14-18; Psalm 23:4-5
Dr. Larry D. Thorson
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Ps 23:4
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 45 I
will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your
staff, they comfort me.
Today we continue our study of sheep and their shepherds in the twenty third Psalm as we look at what it means to fear no evil while going through something called “the valley of the shadow of death”. That’s one of the most powerful words in all of literature. Roy Campanella, the famous former Dodger baseball player, was in a bad accident years ago that left him a semi-invalid. In his autobiography he talks about the many nights he cried himself to sleep, as a result of the pain that racked his body and the deep depression that clawed at his mind. He writes, “All my life whenever I was in trouble, I had turned to God for help. I remembered my Bible and asked the nurse to get the one from the drawer in the night table. I opened it to the 23rd Psalm. Verse 4 leapt out at me: ‘Yes, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me.' From that moment on," he continues, "I was on my way back. I knew I was going to make it!"
You may feel like you’ve walked through some sort of valley in the shadow of death. When someone is anxious about something I like to ask the question “what are you afraid is going to happen?” Fear can paralyze us. Fear keeps people from going out of the house. Fear keeps people from shaking hands. Fear keeps people from doing healthy things. Fear keeps churches locked into their safe past instead of stepping out into the dangerous world of faith.
What I want to understand is how it’s possible to walk through the valley when you scared and everything in your being is telling you to turn around. When we understand the background to this verse four we will be able to do that.
I’ve been saying each week that
David wrote this Psalm as if he was one of his sheep out in the field. This past Christmas one of our friends sent
us her family’s Christmas letter. What
was unusual about her letter was that she wrote it from the perspective of
their family dog. It was clever and it caught my interest.
That’s what David was doing in this
Psalm, writing from the perspective of his sheep. Up to this point in the psalm, the sheep seems
to be bragging to his neighbor sheep about the kind of flock he lives in. “The Lord is my shepherd and in our flock
we’re not in want.” “Our shepherd takes
such care of our needs. He leads us to
green pastures where we can relax, lie down and rest. But now in verse 4, the
psalm seems to take a turn, when it seems that the sheep begins talking to his
shepherd: Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, 45 I will fear no evil, for
you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
The reason he’s no longer talking to
sheep in the neighboring pen is most likely that his shepherd has begun to move
them from home base to their spring and summer pastures. Philip Keller in A Shepherd Looks a Psalm 23 says it’s
normal for the good shepherds to move their sheep to higher ranges during the
summer where they can get more lush grass.[1]
It’s there in
the mountains that a shepherd and his sheep become intimate. They talk to their sheep just like you talk
to your dog or your cat. They’re
together 24/7. They go through
thunderstorms and floods together.
Sometimes there’s sleet, even snow.
There are cold, dangerous rivers to cross. Of course the eyes of their predators are on
them at all times.
Tradition tells us that there is a real place called the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It's a valley, or a mountain pass, that gets its name from shepherds because of its steep sides and sheer rock walls. But it’s a pass that enables the shepherds to lead their sheep from one mountain pasture to another.
But it’s a terrifying place for skittish, defenseless, fearful sheep. In the steep cliffs on both sides of the valley there are innumerable caves and rocks and crevices that are perfect hiding places for predators - both animal and human. Sounds echo and amplify in the valley, making it all the more creepy for the terrified sheep.
The actual word for death that
David used isn’t what the Hebrew he spoke in says there. Instead it means walking
through a valley of deep gloom. Death may be included; death may be feared; but
it’s broader than that. It includes daily problems, trials, difficulties,
frustrations, fears, and temptations that come upon us. If you think about it the things that we’re
afraid of is the death of what we really like.
If a mugger attacks us we’re afraid that our health will die. If our boss is not happy we’re afraid that
our livelihood and our lifestyle will die.
If cancer strikes we also fear the death of our health and the lifestyle
we’ve come to treasure. It’s anything
that causes us to fear.
I’m
reading a book right now entitled An American Hostage by Micah Garen and
Marie-Helene Carleton. It’s the story of
the kidnapping by Iraqi terrorists of Garen, an American photo journalist in
Shadows
symbolize things that we fear. We want to go through the bad areas of town in
the daylight, if we want to go through them at all. If it’s getting into dark,
we make sure that we dash from streetlight to streetlight so that we don’t get
into any area where there might be something fearful lurking. We avoid those
things.
I want you to understand this,
David’s sheep couldn’t avoid the steep canyon because their shepherd led them
through it. In other words if they were
in danger it was because they followed their shepherd.
Last summer I followed my shepherd,
the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ to
But the canyon got darker and darker
the further into it I went. First it was
the loss of Amy Stolte working with our children’s education. I admire her work and her decision to step
down when she did was the right one.
Then it was the departure of the Aherns as youth directors. I also admire their work and their decision
to step down is also the right thing to do.
I had to ask myself over and over “what am I fearing?” I feared failure; that is not being able to
see this church reach its mountaintop.
Then the realization hit me, that
I’m not the shepherd who led you here, I am the border collie fed by the
shepherd to help move his sheep to higher ground. A good shepherd always provides everything
that his sheep need when they need it.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” That is at the exact time, not a minute too
soon the shepherd who knows what’s ahead will provide what we need to get
through this valley.
The week that we were announcing the
Aherns resignation Dick and Janet Gall came to see me. They told me that a young college student
whom I had met named Melody Drumm assisted by her high school sister Harmony
were willing and set to begin a junior choir for children at the 9:00 hour paid
for through the Growth Through Music scholarship program. Now you have to grasp the timing of all
this. God has placed the vision for a
program for children in this church as a feeder program into our new junior
high ministry. When it looked its
darkest and scariest the Good Shepherd pulled out his instrument and sang a
Melody with Harmony.
Remember you don’t become intimate
with God by being airlifted into His presence. You become intimate with God by
walking with your Shepherd all the way to the top! The Shepherd Jesus Christ
will be there every step of the way. "I will fear no evil for You are with
me." That’s the key to the sheep’s confidence: that somehow or other he is
going to be able to make it into that close, personal, and intimate
relationship with God despite the periods of disappointment, discouragement,
and dead end streets, the dilemmas, the difficult days, the working foes, and
the fears that we have to surmount on the way there.
When the engineers laid out the
roads across the
There is great spiritual purpose
behind this. It would be so easy if we could get into that close relationship
with God by avoiding those things and skip our way through life, ignorant of
all the dangers that are around us; but that is not the way it is. God wants
you and me to be aware of the shadowed areas. He wants you to know that even
though you go through them, He is holding your hand the whole time. He understands
the difficulty. It is absolutely necessary that we go through those periods
with Him holding our hands or with Him that close to us. We are aware for
ourselves of His presence through those difficulties.
There is a second reason why it is
necessary one must reach the top by going through the valleys of dark gloom,
and that is that even as the valleys are where the roads and paths are most
likely to follow, they are also where there is going to be water. Water means
life. Water means refreshment. That is where the streams are going to run. The
snow is going to melt from the high hills. It is going to seep its way into
lower levels, and it is going to do that by going through the valley.
Water is a strengthener and
refresher. What God is saying here is that it is through the valleys of dark
gloom, it is through those periods of disappointment, dilemmas, testing,
trials, and frustrations that those things are going to prove to be a source of
life and refreshment for you. Can you imagine that trials, testing, and fear
are going to be productive? That is what is going to produce the fruit, in
company with the Spirit of God.
Fruit is something of which other
people eat. Pretend that you are a tree. Does a tree benefit from its fruit? It
does only when the fruit falls on the ground and rots and becomes fertilizer.
By and large, the great majority of the productivity of a tree is for those who
pluck the fruit.
Going through the valley of dark
gloom is going to produce fruit that is going to be of benefit to others,
because you are going to become a king and a priest. Along the way, you are
going to be fellowshipping with a lot of other people who have not yet gone
through the kinds of things you have already experienced in the hand of the
Shepherd. You are going to be able to give them the benefit of your experience
of walking through those difficulties and trials of life with Him.
Then you will be able to give
comfort; then you will be able to give encouragement; then you will be able to
give hope; and then you will be able to give instruction. You can say without
bragging, "I was there before. I did it. I experienced it. Here is what
happened. Let me try to buck up your faith. Let me try to help you and
encourage you."
If you
never had any experience in that, how could you relate in any way, shape, or
form with that through which others are going? The fruit of your experience
could very well mean the salvation of some other person.
The
implication of moving to higher ground is moving into a closer, personal, more
intimate relationship with God. This verse is describing how one gets into a
personal, intimate, and close relationship with God. Many of us have the idea
that somehow or other we can be airlifted by helicopter from home base up into
the high range lands where we are really close to God.
I read an illustration, the source of which is lost. It was from a woman who was standing in front of the bathroom sink brushing her hair when she noticed a clear shadow of her arm on the shower curtain beside her. Suddenly, one of those spiritual WOW moments came! As she looked at that shadow she realized that though the image was certainly recognizable as her arm, it wasn’t her arm. It was only a shadow! And God seemed to whisper in her heart in that instant, “and when the light changes, the shadow will disappear!” Jesus is called the light of the world. When we allow the Light of the World, our Savior Jesus Christ to fully illuminate a situation in our lives, the shadows and unknowns are replaced with hope and the fulfillment of his plan for us. You’ve got to remember that the “shadow of death”, whatever that may be for you in any situation, is merely that … a shadow. But how many times have you caught something out of the corner of your eye and been truly frightened or at least startled until you realized it was just a shadow? The one to fear, honor and respect is Jesus Christ. If you haven’t yet accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior do so this morning by opening your heart and inviting him to come into your life. Say “Lord Jesus I want you to be my savior, I acknowledge my sins and accept your forgiveness. Come into my life and save me.” If you know that Jesus is your Savior, in our time of reflection this morning I want you to ask yourself this question “What do I fear today?” Make your list of those fears, take a deep breathe and let out those fears because no matter what you’ve done and how far you’ve strayed the only one to fear is your Shepherd Jesus Christ and he’s willing to accept your confession and your repentance because he loves you and wants the best for you. I think we eventually learn that we cannot avoid them all. There are times when we are going to get into very shadowed areas?those periods of disappointment, frustration, and discouragement?and there is no way around them. We have to go through them if we are going to get to the top.
Even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, 45 I will
fear no evil, for you
are with me; your
rod and your staff, they
comfort me.
“Walking through the valley of the
shadow of death” reminds me of a call I got one day while I was at a printing
company. It was from my mom who had
tracked me down at work to tell me that my dad had had a stroke and he had been
taken to O’Connor Hospital in
Think about it in a practical
application. You are in an area that has many high mountains around it. Does
not every road that leads to the top go through the valleys? Does not every
road that leads to the top cut through the defiles in order to get up there?
Take, for example,
And then yesterday morning, after I had been praying and reflecting again about the phrase from the Psalm, Satan would have us live in that same state of fear or unrest as we walk through the valley on our way to the next mountain top. We catch something out of the corner of our spirit’s eye that we think is surely death and become afraid, depressed or despair in our circumstances. Satan chuckles and says, “Yeah, gotcha!” Now comes the time for the rest of the verse. Believe that the Father is with us and will provide all that we need to be comforted in this time. Not merely provided for, but comforted! Who are we going to believe and let determine our behavior as we complete our travel through the valley? The Enemy who is casting shadows of death before us, or the Light of the World who promises life and victory to the overcoming Saint? The choice is always ours. Which will you choose? The shepherd's staff has two functions. The first is shown
by the word rod which is translated from the Hebrew shebet {pronounced
shay'-bet} [strongs number 7626] meaning rod, staff, branch, offshoot, club,
sceptre, tribe club (of shepherd's implement) truncheon, sceptre (mark of
authority) This is when the staff of the shepherd is used as a weapon to fight
off predators, would be thieves and anything that would bother the sheep under
His care.
The word staff is translated from the Hebrew mish`enah
{pronounced mish-ay-naw'} [strongs number 4938]and means support (of every
kind), staff. This word shows the other function of the shepherd's staff. It is
more than a weapon and much more than a mere walking stick. The shepherd also
uses it to guide the sheep in the direction that He wants them to go, keeping
them away from hazards that they themselves are usually not even aware of.
Because we know who our shepherd is, and that He is always
with us, we can take comfort and rest in the fact that He is watching over us
and is more than equipped to deal with anything that comes after us.
In all this there are two things that are overlooked most
of the time. First, the name of this place of fear and dread is "Valley of
the Shadow of Death", NOT the "
Second, we are not staying in this place. This is a place
that we are passing through. We are not moving in and setting up housekeeping
in a place of fear, dread and worry. Our destination is the kingdom of the
shepherd. We just have to remember that along the way we encounter places like
this valley and trust our shepherd to safely guide us through each one as we
come to it.
We come to valleys like this from time to time in our
lives. It is true that they are dark and can be very hard to get through. It is
also true that because of the mountains on either side that make it the only
passable way there is no choice but to go through the valley . It is steep and
difficult going, and we encounter a lot of things that scare us and make us
worry. As long as we trust in and follow the shepherd, we will get through
these darkest and scariest times in our lives without any of the fearful things
harming us.
Earlier
in the Psalm we heard:
The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates this verse as "the darkest valley" as opposed to "the valley of the shadow of death" which is the way the King James Version has always stated it.
Life is often described as a journey. On this journey we
pass through many places in our lives. Verse four calls one of the places that
we sometimes find ourselves going through "the valley of the shadow of
death". A pretty scary sounding name for a place that we find ourselves
walking though many times in our lives.
The word valley is translated from the Hebrew gay'
{pronounced gah'-ee} [strongs number 1516] and describes a valley, a steep
valley, narrow gorge
'shadow of death' is translated from the Hebrew tsalmaveth
{pronounced tsal-maw'-veth} [strongs number 6757] and means death-shadow, deep
shadow, deep darkness, shadow of death (of distress, extreme danger),
death-shadow (of place of the dead)
These two Hebrew words describe a place that is dark and
difficult to travel. The shadows in this place harbor distress (fear, worry,
stress, Etc.) and threats of extreme danger. Yet we are not afraid and have no
concern. The distress of this dark valley in our lives does not touch us
because our shepherd is always with us and we rely on Him for protection.