What do you do when the graph plummets
Yeah though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death thy rod and thy staff they comfort me still……………………………………………………………………………………………..
You can’t have a shadow without light – Melany Sheat –
We all have bad hair days – we all have I am walking through the shadow of death feelings.
I was reading about someone who was 18 this is what they said of a sequence of graph dropping experiences
I had saved up just barely enough money for a week trip to the Carribean to go scuba diving and I was jazzed!
Going to the airport I suddenly hit an 2 hour long traffic jam caused by an accident just a bit ahead of me causing me to miss the flight...
After standing in crowded line for a few more hours I found that all flights were booked until the next day.
Returning to the airport the next day I found that I had picked up the sniffels a bit, but I wasn't going to cancel my plans! I was determined to have a fun time on an island.
(I wouldn't call it a bad luck streak, but I ALWAYS get the full security check going through airport security, guess I look like a bomber or something, that day was no different)
So I successfully make it to the island and try to get checked in, despite having called the hotel the previous day to let them know I wasn't checking in till today they completely canceled the reservation and were now booked.
Eventually finding a rubbish hole in the wall place for an exhoribitant price late in the evening, I was just ready to go to sleep and go scuba diving the next day...
The next day, although my sniffels had gotten worse I decided to tough it out and go explore the sea, if you have gone scuba diving you know you have to equalize pressure on the way down by pinching your nose and blowing a little, I was having some trouble due to the cold so I just decided to blow a little bit harder then usual to get past the stuffyness... Well, I guess I overdid it a bit... I successfully blew out my eardrum.
Oh the pain!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Of course I couldn't immediately surface either, I had to wait (for what felt like forever) in the middle of the ocean so as not to get the bends.
Can you guess where didn't have a doctor? That's right! This tiny island where I was! The only doctor for miles was out treating someone at the other side of the island.
Oh, the next day I did get to see him, pretty much only to be told, tough luck... no going in the water for you! Oh, and no flying back immediately either to avoid more ear damage.
a week of miserable days in pain waiting to get back home.
Hey! I made it home, thank goodness it's over! Or so I thought... on the way home I get T-boned by a mini-van while I am going through a green light... totals my car, permanently scars my face (surprised I lived) and since I am unable to get to work for about a month, my boss decides to fire me.
We all have situations like these – not always life threatening but difficult enough to realise that things are tough right now.
Joseph was like that when Potiphars wife betrayed him.
Joseph had been the favoured son of his Father Jacob. But then his brothers had betrayed him – nearly killed him and sold him to traders into slavery. He was sold in Egypt and eventually scored a great job but his bosses wife betrayed him even though he had been loyal to his boss – the result was that he was thrown into a prison for a very long time. David too knew hard times he had been incredibly loyal to saul but Saul repeatedly tried to kill him and almos succeeded narrowly missing David with spears on at least two occasions.
David knew what it was to have the graph on his life happiness scale plummet to the lowest levals.
We can all have hard luck stories. I remember a friend of mine Don when I was a young man getting terminal cancer. Don had everything going for him. He was a successful worker in an insurance company had a newish car and had been on a rugby trip to Fiji as a young man all before he was 21. I remember visiting him in hospital just before he died I was about 19 and wondering what to say or do in such a difficult situation I remember commenting on the weather – Not a bad day I said – Don’s answer was – Not a bad day to die on. His Father and someone else looked on helpless.
Sometimes the graph will do that plummet to the lowest leval but you know what Don could have got healed and carried on lived an amazingly successful life and then because he didn’t know Jesus go to a lost eternity – Hell and that would not have been good.
Instead don gave his heart to jesus got completel;y converted as far as I was told and went to heaven.
Did Don’s graph really plummet let’s look at the passage today and review what David is really saying here.
Psalm 23
The Message (MSG)
A David Psalm
23 1-3 GOD, my shepherd!
I don’t need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.
4 Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
makes me feel secure.
5 You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.
6 Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of GOD
for the rest of my life.
4 Even when the way goes through
Death Valley,
I’m not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd’s crook
makes me feel secure.
First point in this sermon is when you understand the character of God you can walk through death valley.
The analogy of a shepherd leading his sheep is a precious thing. The shepherd leads the sheep through places where they can feed, drink, and rest in safety. He leads them to places where they can grow and be content. But, as they journey from one place of peace and safety to another, they are forced sometimes to pass through places where the shadows grow long and the way grows hard.
To the extent that we know the shepherd is with us we are able to be reassured because we know that our lives are in God’s hands.
What do we know about Stephen well not a lot but we do know this – He was highly regarded as a man of faith in fact we read in Acts chapter 6
5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit
8 Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Stephen already knew Jesus he was full of faith and of the Holy spirit and he performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Stephen knew the Shepherd.
The starting line of the 23rd Psalm is the Lord is my Shepherd.
So let us put this line in front of todays passage
The Lord is my shepherd even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death thy rod and thy staff will comfort me still.
What does this suggest – Before the graph of life plummets get to know Jesus. Not only do you get to know him but work in the same spirit that Jesus worked with – The Holy spirit.
Not all Christians survive hard times some perish.
The great Christians who have survived persecution have got to not only know Jesus intimately first but have learned to walk in his way.
A couple of examples are.
Bessie ten Boom who died in Ravensbruk camp during world war 2 lived as a brave and courageous Christian – hiding jews in a secret hiding place to protect them.
"Barracks 8 was in the quarantine compound. Next to us--perhaps as a deliberate warning to newcomers--were located the punishment barracks. From there, all day long and often into the night, came the sounds of hell itself. They were not the sounds of anger, or of any human emotion, but of a cruelty altogether detached: blows landing in regular rhythm, screams keeping pace. We would stand in our ten-deep ranks with our hands trembling at our sides, longing to jam them against our ears, to make the sounds stop.
"It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy.
"But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of health and hope.
"Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the Word of God.
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."
"I would look about us as Betsie read, watching the light leap from face to face. More than conquerors...It was not a wish. It was a fact.
"We knew it, we experienced it minute by minute--poor, hated, hungry. We are more than conquerors. Not "we shall be." We are!
"Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.
"Sometimes I would slip the Bible from its little (sack) with hands that shook, so mysterious had it become to me. It was new; it had just been written. I marveled sometimes that the ink was dry...I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus' arrest--how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices.
Bessie ten Boom had grown to love the shepherd so she could die for him when she faced deaths dark vale.
Before he suffered Sadhu Sundar Singh had learned to love jesus - Impressed with his evidential witnessing life for Christ, Bishop Lefroy of Lahore sent him to St. John�s College of Divinity in 1907 that he might ordain Sundar as a pastor after his theological studies. However, Sadhu Sundar Singh could not accustom himself in the college and quit in about 8 months. He said, I learnt many useful things, no doubt, but they were not of much spiritual profit.ï There were discussions about sects, about Jesus Christ, and many other interesting things, but I found the reality, the spirit of all these things, only at the Masters feet. When I spent hours at his feet in prayer, then I found enlightenment, and God had taught me so many things that I cannot express even in my own language. Sit at the masters feet in prayer. It is the greatest theological college in the world.
After his short-term college life, he resumed his independent preaching extensively through out the northern part of India. God blessed his ministry and made it fruitful.Many Hindu scholars who heard his speech publicly claimed that Jesus was the true God. He had a great desire to take the Gospel to Tibet, which was closed to Christianity. The law of this country did not permit preaching of Christ in any form. But Sadhu started visiting Tibet from the year 1912. His adventurous, perilous journeys and the miraculous deliverance of the Lord are sources of inspiration that would have great influence on any ordinary person to perform extraordinary exploits for the Living Christ.
Sadhu Singh and Bessie ten Boom knew Jesus in such an intimate and personal way that they were ready for the valley of the shadow and all the experiences that life can throw at us.
Now the suggestion here is learn to grow a relationship with the shepherd before times of testing come. It doesn’t matter if your life is ordinary, God will still use you as you grow close to Jesus.
Who was Bessie ten Boom – she was the daughter of a watchmaker – unmarried living in a Christian home – How could she have guessed that God would take her on such an extraordinary journey.
How do you know what lies ahead – you don’t, get ready – get close to the Shepherd.
John 16:33, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
James 4 verse 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Sometimes we have to be careful of how we are living – When we come to the valley of the shadow of death we want to come there by way of our Christian life not our non Christian life. In the bible the woman at the well has a furrowed brow not because she is suffering for Christ but because she has chosen to live a life apart from God’s wise counsel – Her valley of the shadow of death comes by way of her sin not by way of her obedience and there is a world of difference between the two.
Proverbs says “He who walks with wise men will be wise, But the companion of fools will suffer harm.” (Proverbs 13:20).
Stephen was careful about how he lived so when he suffers he suffers for Christ. I met a man in prison once – he had done some terrible things and was rightly in prison. He complained to me I need’nt be here, if only people had kept quiet about what I was doing. Another man caught in terrible sin continued to complain about the people responsible for sorting out the mess he had created rather than taking personal responsibility.
So if we are careful how we live if something bad should befall us we will know that we are indeed suffering for Christ. I met a Christian friend in New Delhi – he seemed desperate for us to look at his photos of Christians – friends of his who had been martyred for Christ in Orissa. There was no Questions as these people suffered terribly that they had dones o as a result of being faithful to Jesus. He told me that when the persecuters come they would flee into the jungle. But the brave pastor stayed back to protect the church. His Mother stayed with him and they both died. That is what it means to walk through deaths dark vale.
The world is angry with God’s truth and will fight it o the end but if you are carful who you walk with – that is jesus and if you are careful how you live in the path of the shepherd – Jesus then you will be comforted.
Here is a story from the life of Sadhu Sundar Singh that should encourage your sould and introduce our final point. He underwent innumerable persecutions, all of them would have caused sure death of our Sadhu, but the miracle working God of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego delivered him out of them all.Here is one such incident narrated by Sadhu Sundar Singh himself.
I often remember that day when, for preaching the Gospel in Tibet, I was thrown into a deep well. For three days I was in that well without food and water. The door was locked and it was quite dark.There was nothing, but dead bodies and bones in that well. It was like hell. There I was tempted:Is your Christ going to save you, now you have been put into this prison? But I remember a wonderful peace and joy came to me in those hours of persecution, when my arm was broken, and there was such a bad smell. That hell seemed like heaven. I felt the presence of Living Christ. He is always with us as he has promised. I never thought that I could have any Cross with this kind of peace, but there I had that experience.After that was a wonderful thing, I was thinking that my time had come and I would be called to Heaven, when somebody opened the door. I could see no one. Then I knew what a wonderful power had delivered me. Perhaps someone will think that this was a dream, or that somebody set me free from that well, but the Man who made me free, who touched my arm- it was all right in a few minutes- was no human being. A human being could not do that, only the power of God. Now I preach, not because I know Christ through what is written about him, but because I known him from my own experience.He is the Living Savior.If Jesus Christ were not the Living Christ, I would not be preaching the gospel.
Sadhu
Triumph over adversity makes one stronger. The proof of faith to oneself, the gift you are able to make to Christ, the growth in one's own dedication; all make for a spiritually stronger disciple (Romans 5:3,4; James 1:2-4).
Furthermore, we become more closely identified with Christ who suffered for us (Romans 8:28,29). God is much more concerned about your character than your comfort, though He is concerned about both. Sometimes, suffering reminds us of important matters that we may tend to lose sight of in times of ease (Hebrews 12:10,11).
But that is not the end of the story. The end will come when we are delivered from this realm. In heaven, there will be no more tears.
The third point is really when we are in relation ship with Jesus the Shepherd when we are walking in the way of the shepherd then we can depend on the protection of the shepherd.
God will protect us.
For Stephen that protection takes the shape of encouraging him as he enters into Heaven itself
Acts chapter 7
51 “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— 53 you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
The Stoning of Stephen
54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
The Lord took the sheep in this case onto the home farm – heaven itself.
At other times God does extraordinary things like the story that we read of Sundar Singh.
There is a sequel to the story.
Arrived at the top of the well the lid was drawn over again and locked. When he looked round his deliverer was nowhere to be seen, but the pain in his arm was gone, and the clean air filled him with new life. All that the Sadhu felt able to do was to praise God for his wonderful deliverance, and when morning came he struggled back to the town, where he rested in the serai [a fortified or walled village] until he was able to start preaching again. His return to the city and his old work was cause for a great commotion. The news was quickly taken to the Lama that the man they all thought dead was well and preaching again.
The Sadhu was again arrested and brought to the judgment seat of the Lama, and being questioned as to what had happened he told the story of his marvelous escape. The Lama was greatly angered, declaring that someone must have secured the key and gone to his rescue, but when search was made for the key and it was found on his own girdle, he was speechless with amazement and fear. He then ordered Sundar to leave the city and get away as far as possible, lest his powerful God should bring sonic untold disaster upon himself and his people. Thus was Sundar delivered from a fearful death, and praised God for interposing on his behalf.
What do you do when your life graph plummets?
1. Have a pre crisis relationship with Jesus.
If you don’t get one quickly!!!
2. Be careful that you are living righteously
If you are not repent.
3. Relying on the protection of Jesus the Shepherd
You can trust him with the outcome.
