Shadows Don’t Bite | Psalm 23:4a

Have you ever seen something and thought it looked like something else?

There’s a picture that’s been floating around on the world-wide interweb recently of the shadow of a tree on the garage door of a house.

The picture is often tagged with a question like this:

Do you see Rambo on this garage door?

Rambo has been a recurring movie role played by actor Sylvester Stallone…I think they are filming Rambo 18 now.

If you put a picture of Rambo next to the picture of the shadow on the garage you can kind of easily see the likeness. 

But some people say the shadow looks like other celebrities and some even say it looks like a dancing bear playing a flute. 

I tell you, if I had a dollar for every time I thought something looked like a dancing bear playing a flute, I would be living uptown…in a van down by the river.

But what if you saw the picture of the shadow of the tree on the garage and no famous person or dancing bear was mentioned?

You might not see anything but the shadow of a tree on a garage, right?

I was reading an article this week promoting that what could really be happening with Rambo’s garage is something called “confirmation bias”.

The idea is that we tend to agree with information that supports what we were already thinking or maybe even what we believe.

So, if you ask me if I see Rambo on the garage I immediately have a picture in my mind that I’m looking for. 

The problem with confirmation bias is that it can often leave us as someone has noted:

Mike Rothschild

Unable to un-see things.

In other words:

If I do see Rambo, I may never be able to see the dancing bear playing the flute…and that would be a crying shame.

I have a shadow I want you to look at.

I’m not going to tell you what to look for in this shadow.

Why?

Because you already see something in this shadow.

In fact, there’s really only two ways to look at this shadow.

So, one of two things is about to happen:

• Your confirmation bias is going to be confirmed
• Your confirmation bias is going to be challenged

So, what do you already see in this shadow?

Let’s find out.

Listen to Psalm 23, verse 4:

1 The LORD is my shepherd…4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

The shadow I was talking about is the shadow of death.

What do you see in the shadow of death?

Do you see death?

Or do you see a shadow?

Am I just playing with words?

Am I just messing with your mind?

No.

Chew on this question:

Can the shadow of a dog bite you?

C.H. Spurgeon

The shadow of a dog cannot bite; the shadow of a sword cannot kill; the shadow of death cannot destroy us.

The shadow of death cannot destroy us. 

What does that mean?

Well, first we have to deal with that pronoun – “us”.

The shadow of death cannot destroy someone who is believing in and trusting in and relying on and clinging to Jesus Christ as their first and only and ultimate source of salvation and hope.

So, are you doing that?

Are you believing in Jesus more than just on Sundays for an hour or two?

Are you believing in Jesus right smack dab in the middle of the healthy days and the sick days and the fantastic days and the frustrating days and the wonderfully terrific days and the brutally terrible days?

Or are you mostly only believing in Jesus in the middle of church?

Or maybe you don’t believe anything about Jesus and don’t care about the shadow of death and feel like you only go around once and then you just die and there’s nothing after that.

I was born at University Hospital in Augusta, Georgia, to Patricia Andrews Welsh and Josey Dow Welsh, Sr.

When I was 30 years old, I walked all over the main lobby of Crestwood Elementary School in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and started telling people that they needed to remember to read the whole ballot when they voted because that was my job as a poll worker that day.

When I was 33, I lived on Tinsley Drive outside the city limits of Anderson, South Carolina.

Those are 3 basic facts about my life that can be confirmed by many people and some faithful documentation.

But there are lot more facts that could be shared about my life that would give you a better picture of who I am.

Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem to a young woman named Mary and her husband Joseph.

When he was 30 years old, he started going around telling people that they needed to repent and turn to God.

When he was 33, he was crucified outside of Jerusalem. 

Those are 3 basic facts about Jesus that have been confirmed even by many non-Christians and faithful documentation.

A casual look at those facts could lead a person to dismiss Jesus as a nice teacher who occasionally talked crazy and one day his crazy talk got him in trouble and it cost him his life.

The problem, though, is that there are a lot more facts that can be shared about the life of Jesus that would give you a better picture of who he is. 

And those facts include some pretty bold things that he claimed.

And I graciously submit that those bold things make it at the very least difficult and at most dangerous to simply ignore and casually believe that this life is all there is.

The often-quoted words of C.S. Lewis are consistently helpful:

C.S. Lewis

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.

C.S. Lewis

You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a mad man or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.

C.S. Lewis

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about him being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

Jesus was clear about who he was and who he is and the Bible gives faithful documentation of his life and claims.

The latest statistics show that 1 out of every 1 person will die.

So, like it or not, the shadow of death is hanging over you.

But what do you see in that shadow?

And what does Jesus have to do with what you see?

Last Sunday we looked at how the voice of Jesus is filled with this amazing music of salvation and joy. 

That voice never stops and the background music Jesus plays behind the shadow of death is powerful.

Paul writes the lyrics of the song like this:

Colossians 2:13

When you were dead in your transgressions…He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

How did Jesus take care of our transgressions?

Colossians 2:14

having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us;

You think the federal budget deficit is bad!

The debt we owe for our sin isn’t just bad, it is fatally hostile!

Why is it so hostile?

In his letter to the church at Galatia, Paul wrote:

Galatians 3:10

Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.

Paul is quoting the words of Deuteronomy 27 here.

He is saying to the Galatians and to us:

“Look, this is not my opinion.”

“This is the command that Moses gave to the people because God gave it to him.”

“If you don’t perfectly and continually keep God’s law, you fall short of the glory of God.”

“If you don’t perfectly and continually keep God’s law, you fall under the curse that comes from breaking the law.”

So, show of hands:

Anyone perfectly and continually kept God’s law every minute of every day just this past week?

Now before you start thinking:

“Well, I don’t think I did anything wrong this week.”

C.H. Spurgeon

If a man does nothing wrong, yet if he fails to do that which is right, he is guilty…He misses the mark who shoots beyond it or falls short of it.

You might be thinking:

“Well, thanks a lot for letting me know that I’m going to fail and mess up either way!”

You are so welcome!

Why would I not graciously tell you that failure to perfectly and continually keep God’s law puts a person under the curse?

And that curse is the horror of everlasting death and separation from God that you never quit experiencing.

Without Christ:

• We are dead in our sins
• We are deeper than deep in hostile spiritual debt
• We are without God
• We are without hope in this world

But with Christ our hostile certificate of death gets cancelled. 

• Wiped away
• Wiped out

The debt of our sin is cancelled and instead of everlasting death we get to live off the interest of God’s grace for all of eternity.

But our debt doesn’t just get cancelled!

Colossians 2:14

and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Of all the amazing and astonishing events surrounding the cross of Jesus Christ, the most amazing is that through His blood the debt of our sin is paid and it can never be presented against us again.

It can never be presented against us again!

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul!

All of that is the background music to the shadow of death.

Can you hear it?

If so, then that changes what you see in the shadow of death.

Why?

A believer lives in the shadow of the cross knowing that the debt of sin has been paid through Jesus.

The cross, though, was not a shadow to Jesus.

Octavious Winslow

Christ suffered death as the Substitutionary Offering of His Church; consequently, death was to Him not what it is to us, (a covenant blessing), but an unrepealed, unmitigated curse.

Octavious Winslow

He met, not the shadow, but the substance of death; not the phantom, but the reality – suffering countless million deaths in one!

Believing in and trusting in and relying on and clinging to Jesus by faith means that we get the shadow but not the substance. 

Does that mean we won’t feel the natural, physical pains of death and that we will be magically whisked away in a golden chariot?

No.

English pastor Samuel Lavington wrote this about death:

Samuel Lavington

I may be afraid of the agonies of dying [however] The venom of his sting is taken away. The point of his arrow is blunted, so that it can pierce no deeper than the body.

My death may be:

• Peaceful
• Painful
• A result of tragedy
• A result of old age

But my death will not be permanent. 

Why?

Because I’m some foolish wishful thinker banking my life on:

• A noble lucky charm?
• A nice religious crutch?
• A spiritual coping mechanism?
• A scrapbook full of good deeds?
• A shiny Southern Baptist attendance pin on my jacket?

No.

I’m banking my life on the amazing and compelling truth that Jesus was not a poached egg, but was and is the precious, only-begotten Son of God – and he voluntarily died on a cross to cancel out the hostile debt of my sin and he came back from the dead to proclaim his power and authority to the world and to proclaim and affirm and confirm to my heart and my mind and my soul that death will only be a shadow for me.

Every promise that has ever been connected to Jesus Christ has been kept, so I have a minimum of about 6,000 years of evidence to encourage me to believe this promise, too:

John 14:3

I will…receive you to Myself…that where I am, there you may be also.

Again, you may be thinking:

“I’m sure glad I came to church today.”

“Thanks for the sermon of death.”

“I’ll be sure I tell someone to read Psalm 23 at my funeral.”

Here’s the thing, though: 

This really isn’t a funeral Psalm.

This isn’t really a Psalm about dying.

It’s a Psalm about living. 

At camp this week, our students heard the camp speaker Jay Hardwick say that they need to own their faith in Christ and live out their faith in Christ. 

David is owning and living out his faith in Psalm 23.

There is no indication that he is actually dying. 

He writes about being in the valley of the shadow of death.

He’s in the middle of some kind of difficult or dangerous situation and he feels hedged in and surrounded by stress or strain or trials or troubles and the presence of his enemies is feeling pretty strong.

Ever been there?

Ever felt that way?

Are you feeling that way today?

Are you in some kind of valley right now?

A couple of images cross my mind here:

The marshal is riding his horse through the middle of town in the old west and the outlaw is standing down at the far end of the middle of town waiting for him and spread out on the rooftops of all the buildings are the outlaw’s buddies sitting up there with their rifles all pointed at the marshal.

He was riding through a valley of dangerous rifles.

It also reminds me of my college cheerleading and mascoting days when we would be coming in and out of the main tunnels at away games. 

The visiting fans would be hanging over the rails above your head and they weren’t always shouting out their Sunday School memory verses for the week.

You were sometimes walking through a valley of creatively angry fans.

Life is full of valleys.

Some of those valleys are sweet places with a rustling creek and a cool breeze blowing down from over the mountains.

But some of those valleys are tough and the dark shadows of the mountains feel discouraging or dangerous or deadly.

A believer has the promise that in a sense all the valleys of life are only a shadow because of the promises of Christ.

I was reading last week about the survival story of a Korean War veteran named Marvin Schmidt.

He was critically wounded and could not walk and was stuck behind enemy lines hiding in the bushes praying for the miracle of being rescued.

Marvin Schmidt

I wasn’t afraid even though I was sure I wouldn’t survive. The phrase that hit closest to home was about being in the valley of the shadow of death. That’s where I literally was, but even in this valley the Lord was with me.

The miracle came and he was rescued.

But if he did not survive, he was confident that his Shepherd was in the valley with him. 

Live or die, death was a shadow to him that day.

So, what does David sing to himself and to us about his valley? 

4 Even though

That is another way of saying that, yes, we will all go through valleys with the shadows of death will hang over us in life.

And how should we go through those valleys?

4 I walk

• He’s not fast-walking
• He’s not jogging
• He’s not sprinting

He’s just walking. 

The shadow does not cause him to panic.

Listen:

• I panic
• You panic
• We all panic

We all have our moments.

I think what David provides us by memorizing and remembering and enjoying and embracing the 23^rd is the confidence to know that we do not need to be known for panicking.

That we can be known for our faith not our fear. 

That people would see more praise than panic in our lives. 

And what gives him the confidence to walk in this valley of deadly shadows?

4 through

Robert Morgan

For Christians, problems are always temporary and blessings always eternal (as opposed to non-Christians, whose blessings are temporal and whose problems are eternal).

Which one are you living like today?

The Christian or the non-Christian?

Singer Steven Curtis Chapman has walked through a valley.

In fact, it is a valley he is still walking through.

He and his wife adopted their daughter Maria from China.

A few days after her birthday, she was running out in the driveway to meet her teenage brother, Will, who was driving up after having an audition at school.

Will didn’t see her.

Maria was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. 

She was five years old. 

Chapman has a newly released autobiography titled:

“Between Heaven and the Real World”

In an interview this week, he spoke of his daughter’s death:

Steven Curtis Chapman

It's what I call the ultimate unfixable…

Do you have something unfixable in your life?

Or maybe you would say that you have something that feels unfixable in your life?

Steven Curtis Chapman

…the places that I'd want to avoid at all costs, the places I would have scripted very differently in my life…have been the places where I have actually encountered God in…the deepest ways.

Steven Curtis Chapman

What I would go back and undo in any way if I could was the loss of our daughter. But I have had to acknowledge and see how God has revealed himself…even through the valley of the shadow of death.

Steven Curtis Chapman

Having to hold onto the promise that the story's not over yet is the key. That's the thing that continues to give us hope to walk through it, not run from it and to keep pushing back at the darkness.

Steven Curtis Chapman

We really believe...he is going to make all things new and work all these things together for our good and his glory. That day is coming and that's how we can keep showing up in a world full of unfixable things.

The world is full of unfixables.

The world is full of valleys.

The world is full of dark shadows.

And death is real.

But we can keep pushing back at the darkness. 

Because in Christ, we will walk through the darkness. 

And because of Christ, we will walk through death. 

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh, my soul!

Dow Welsh | June 25, 2017

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Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Significant weekly help from Bruce Hurt at http://www.preceptaustin.org/