Sermon Tone Analysis

! Through the Valley

! by Ken Ulmer

!

/Text:/ Psalm 23

/Topic:/ Why we should persevere through difficulty

/Big Idea:* */When we are in the valley, God is preparing a blessing for us on the other side.

/Keywords: /Adversity; Circumstances and Faith; Difficulty; Disappointments; Endurance; Enemies; Experiencing God; Faith and Feelings; God, faithfulness of; God, goodness of; God, trustworthiness of; Ministers; Ministry; Perseverance; Protection; Rest; Trust

 

*Introduction:*

·        David walked with the Lord while caring for a flock of sheep.

·        Pastors face the dilemma of being both sheep and shepherd.

*The Lord sometimes has to make us rest*

·        God is so committed to blessing me that he will force me to lie down.

·        My obsession with being a shepherd causes me to forget I'm a sheep.

!

When you are in a valley, remember a mountaintop is ahead

·        A valley means I left one mountaintop and I'm on my way to another.

·        The key is to walk through the valley because the journey is not complete.

! God blesses us even in the valley

·        In the midst of depression, failure, and challenges, God moves.

·        He prepares a table /before/ me is a preposition of location or an adverb of time.

·        /Illustration:/ Benihana's restaurant prepares the food in front of you.

·        Sometimes God positions you to see that he is up to something.

·        /Illustration:/ The shepherd would put his sheep down for the night and then prepare a place for them to eat the next day.

·        We must learn to follow, even if we don't see where God is leading us.

! God blesses us as the enemy is watching.

·        The enemy can see us, but cannot get to us because of the shepherd is there.

! God protects us on every side.

·        The devil and hell cannot stop you from receiving what God has ordained if you'll walk on by faith and not by sight.

·        /Illustration:/ Ulmer describes all the protections offered by the shepherd.

! Praise God as he leads you out of the valley.

·        Illustration: In cowboy movies, when the bad guys are surrounded they must come out with their hands up.

·        God surrounds you, so come out of that problem with your hands up.

*Conclusion:*

·        God is so committed to you that he'll meet you in your valleys.

\\  

! Through the Valley

! by Ken Ulmer

 

It was near the twilight of his life, and quite possibly he sat on one of the curvaceous slopes of the hills of Judea, looked out into one of the valleys, and saw a common site of the times.

David had walked with the Lord for many years, and maybe in a time of reflection and contemplation he saw a flock of sheep being led through the valley by a faithful and loving shepherd.

Flashbacks in his mind took David to his days as a young lad serving in his dad's household.

He began to reflect upon his walk with God, and as his eyes were captured by the sight in front of him, maybe it dawned on him, /As// that shepherd is to those sheep, so has the Lord been to me./

David said, "The Lord is my shepherd," and for a moment David was caught in the tension of the call of God on his life.

Maybe David realized he was one who walked in two roles.

It is such a walk, a walk of duality, that you and I share today.

It is the shepherd's dilemma that hovers and covers our lives.

For, as David, we are called to be both shepherd and sheep.

You are God's shepherd, and yet you are God's sheep.

What a duality of roles.

What a tension in our existence.

The shepherd's dilemma.

*The Lord sometimes has to make us rest*

David said, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" (kjv).

He is the Lord Jehovah Ra'ah.

He is the God of gods, and he is my shepherd.

David said, "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

Ah, that's my dilemma.

As shepherd I lead God's people, and yet I'm following God as a sheep.

He makes me lie down.

There's something challenging about that phrase.

David says God is such a shepherd that he maketh me to lie down.

God knows there is a sheep in me, and there's something about my sheepness that would cause me to trot right on through the green pastures.

God is so committed to blessing me with the blessing in the pasture that when he has to, he'll make me lie down.

He knows my sheepness comes out unexpectedly, and if I'm not careful, I'll trot right on past my blessing.

There's something about my sheepness that is uncontrollable.

There's something about the sheep in me that even though I try to lead God's people as shepherd, my sheepness causes God sometimes to make me lie down.

He'll force me to lie down if he has to.

He will not risk me trotting through the blessing he has planted in the green pastures.

There's something in my sheepness that comes out sometimes unexpectedly.

/Baaaa./

There's something in my sheepness that will cause me /baaaa /to miss the blessing God has for me.

/Baaaa./

There's something about me that if God is not careful /baaaa/ I'll run right past the blessing /baaaa/ he has for me.

And /baaaa/ there's something about the sheepness in me that God will have to sometimes /baaaa/ make me lie down.

I'm so driven sometimes.

I'm so obsessed with being a shepherd that I forget I'm a sheep.

It's a part of my dilemma.

As a sheep God often makes me to lie down.

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures…he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death."

It's not death.

It's the shadow of death.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and he allows me sometimes to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

It's those times when I experience things in my life that seem to overwhelm me.

It's when the burden and the weight and the challenge and the chore of leading God's people have me feeling I'm about to be consumed.

It's when the weight of leadership and the responsibilities of guiding God's people weigh me down to the point that I feel I'm in the very shadow of death.

!

When you are in a valley, remember a mountaintop is ahead

But notice what God says.

It's "through the /valley /of the shadow."

God has to remind me of the definition of a valley.

He must let me understand the topological concept of a valley, for you can never be in a valley unless you are positioned between two mountains.

Whenever I realize I'm in a valley, it by definition means I just left some mountaintop and I'm on my way to the next mountain.

In between there is a valley that often seems to consume me.

It often seems to weigh me down.

It's that valley of discouragement.

It's that valley of weight and load.

It's the valley that has me struggling and wondering why am I here.

It's the valley where I tend to reexamine and reanalyze and reinvestigate the call of shepherd on my life, the challenge that has me wondering, /How// did I get here?/

The catch is, you can't stop in the valley.

"Yea, though I walk /through./"

Yea, though I walk /in/—not what he said.

"Yea, though I walk/ through,/" which means you came in one side; if you keep on walking, you're coming out the other side.

God has brought you here to tell you this journey is not complete.