A God Who Comforts— Behold God in your suffering, for He is with you

Sermon Question: In my pain, where is God?

Sermon Proposition: By recalling His past care and anticipating our faith turned to sight, His nearness in the present becomes unmistakable.

Fallen Condition Focus: Suffering is real, and it cuts deep. Pain can be so overwhelming that it distorts our perspective, anchoring us to the here and now. In those moments, hope feels distant, and we can begin to believe we are utterly alone.

Introduction:

If you have your Bibles, please open to one of the most famous passages in all of the Bible, Psalm 23.

The book of Psalms is massive, one of the larger books in all of Scripture. It’s a collection of prayers and songs, ultimately seeking to help God’s people learn to trust and obey in all of life’s circumstances. David is responsible for writing this 23rd chapter... We don’t know the exact circumstances of what led David to write this Psalm...but if you know anything about David’s life, so much of his life contained instances where he stood before the threshold of death.

Here in Psalm 23, David uses the image of the LORD as His shepherd, protecting and caring for him. Psalm 23 is very much a call to trust. If you have ever been to a funeral, there is a really good chance you have probably heard this Psalm read...and appropriately so. But what I want us to see this weekend is that Psalm 23 is not just for the sick and the dying...Psalm 23 is for people like you and me too.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment and ask the Lord to do what only he can do, speak to our hearts.

The parents of a boy in Scotland died when he was very young and, as he had no one to care for him, he went to live with his aged grandfather who was a shepherd. His grandfather lived near the Scottish Highlands with its rugged rocks and high hills. When the grandfather asked the boy to watch over his little flock of sheep, the boy would gaze at the rugged hills with admiration. This helped him to forget the sorrow he had felt when his parents died. His grandfather was a fine Christian man who told him many of the stories in the Bible, especially stories about shepherds; how both Moses and David had been shepherds. The young boy would sit in front of the fire at night and listen with great interest to these stories. The grandfather was careful to tell him about the best of all shepherds, the Lord Jesus, who is called the 'Good Shepherd' in the Bible. He told him how the Good Shepherd loved His sheep so much that He even died to save them. The Good Shepherd would never let anything harm them or take His sheep away from Him.

This boy had never learned to read, so the grandfather taught him in a simple way to remember five lovely words about the Good Shepherd from Psalm 23:1 "The Lord is my shepherd." He took the boy's left hand, and as he said each word he would point to a finger. Soon the boy could say the words himself, holding each finger as he did so. The grandfather noticed that the boy seemed to take special pleasure in the fourth word 'MY’, and held his fourth finger tightly. As the boy grew a little older, he was able to take the sheep by himself to the Highlands to find pasture.

Late one afternoon the old man became very worried. The weather was very cold and it had been snowing for some time, and now the sky was becoming darker and darker.

Then he saw the snow-storm was already turning into a blizzard. Quickly he put on his coat and hat and raced out of the house, and started towards the Highlands. However the fierce winds and blinding snow made it impossible. He would soon lose all sense of direction, and also his old and weary body was unable to go further.

With a heavy heart the old man returned to his little cottage and slumped down on the chair in front of the fire. Nothing could be done until the blizzard stopped. He prayed to God to watch over the boy and to care for him. He thought of the things he had tried to teach him, and hoped that he would not forget them. The old man spent a long and restless night sitting in his chair.

In our pain, where is God? Suffering—unlike everyday challenges that come and go— isn’t a simple problem we can solve and move on from.

It’s a weight that doesn’t lift easily.

It lingers.

It unsettles.

It’s wrapped in uncertainty and is beyond our control.

When your parents divorce…when a baby doesn’t survive…when an illness or injury completely alters your future…when your best friend’s life is tragically cut short…when the doctor says the cancer is terminal…when someone shatters your ability to trust again.

In our pain, where is God?

And as if the valley of suffering weren't already dark enough, it cuts even deeper when the people your life…the ones you believed would help to carry you through… quietly let you fall...

When no one in your life seems to understand… it becomes dangerously easy to convince yourself that nobody can relate to what you’re going through. You begin to feel utterly alone.

When your family disappoints you...when your pastor forsakes you...when your friends abandon you...you may begin to believe that no one is out there to protect you, care for you, or comfort you. You start to believe you're hopeless.

Am I alone? Am I hopeless?

In my pain, where are you, oh God?

Suffering can be one of the loneliest places that a person can experience. So when no one else truly understands what you’re going through, where do you turn? When your loved ones are unable to help, or even disappoint you, how do you find strength? And when it feels as though you’ve been forgotten, as if life for everyone else has moved on without you, where do you seek refuge?

In the midst of suffering, your heart— and maybe even Satan himself—will try to convince you that you are all alone…And that can be a very crushing place to be.

If that is where you are…Psalm 23 is for you.

And even if you haven’t faced suffering yet, if you live long enough... you most likely will. That’s why it’s wise to turn to what Scripture says before suffering comes—so that when it does, in one sense you’ll be better equipped to suffer well. You’ll have a theological framework that will safeguard you from lies, that will redirect your mind to what you know to be true, and will help you walk in faith.

But more than that, you will know that you are not alone. You are not hopeless. You will know the One who is with you and the One who is for you. You will know your Shepherd. And He becomes the balm for your pain and the source for endurance...because He will lead you through it.

Psalm 23 is a chiasm. This is a writing style…a writing technique…and it was a very familiar way of writing in Hebrew, where the focus is structurally in the center of the text. And so for tonight, we are going to work our way towards the middle of the chapter. We’ll consider the first half of the text, then we will consider the back half of the text…all to make our way to the center where tonight’s takeaway is what I believe is the main takeaway from Psalm 23.

Follow along with me, as I read our passage for this weekend:

Scripture Text:

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

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.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Homiletical Outline:

Look Back: His presence never left you

When we read Psalm 23, it's helpful to think about some important Bible stories—especially how often God is described as a shepherd and his people as sheep.

First, David didn’t just randomly choose this picture of a shepherd. As a kid, he was one! He took care of his family's sheep, protected them from wild animals, and knew what it meant to guide and provide for them. He’s using something from his real life to help us understand who God is.

But second, the image of a shepherd wasn't just personal for David—it meant a lot to all the Israelites. Many people in the Bible, like Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, were also shepherds. Taking care of sheep was a huge part of the Jew’s history. Even when God led his people through the Red Sea and saved them from slavery in Egypt, the Bible says in Psalm 77 that he guided them like a flock—with Moses and Aaron leading.

Psalm 23 uses some of the choicest words and phrases pertaining to shepherding because it was language all too frequently used to describe God’s faithfulness to his people in the past—particularly, the exodus.

You’re familiar with the exodus, right? It’s the incredible story of how God has rescued his people out of slavery from the hands of the Egyptians. He led them across the Red Sea, to Mt. Sinai, and through the wilderness to eventually lead them to the promised land.

And here in verse 1, David writes,

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

It’s not a statement of not having desires…we all have wants and desires…I want all the time…you should see my Amazon wish list….but rather it is a statement of having all our needs fulfilled by the LORD to the point where we lack nothing.

And the careful Israelite reader back in the day would have recognized that David here is using some of the same words Moses used in Deuteronomy when he reminded the people that God had always been with them during their journey:

These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.

The memory of God’s faithfulness in the wilderness—providing manna from the sky and water from a rock—would have been deeply etched in the Israelite minds…And the use of similar language in Psalm 23 was likely an intentional choice by David…why would he do that?…because he wanted to stir in the reader’s mind the remembrance of God’s earlier shepherding as their forefathers journeyed to the promised land.

As one scholar put it, this is an example of “the undertones of the Exodus” in Psalm 23.

2. There are other examples too! In Exodus 15, after God parted the Red Sea and rescued his people from Pharaoh’s army, they sang:

You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed; you have guided them by your strength to your holy abode.

The word for “abode” here is the same word as “pasture” used in Psalm 23:2 when David says,

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

Both verses are communicating the same idea, that God is leading his people to a safe, peaceful state of rest. And David is recalling to his original audience’s minds how the Lord has faithfully done this for his people during the exodus.

3. And when Psalm 23 talks about “still waters,” at the end of verse 2, it literally means beside “waters of rest.” That’s what God was leading the Israelites toward—a place to rest and be at peace. Numbers 10:33 talks about how they traveled with the Ark of the Covenant to find this resting place. It’s like David is saying: “That same peaceful rest God gave them? He offers it to me too.”

So they set out from the mount of the LORD three days’ journey. And the ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for them. Numbers 10:33

4. Even the line in verse 3, “for his name’s sake,” connects back to the Exodus. The Bible tells us that God saved and guided his people to show the world who he is—to reveal his power, keep his promises, and protect his name:

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power. Ps. 106:8

…who caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to make for himself an everlasting name. Isaiah 63:12

So why is this all important?

Because David is reminding himself, the Israelites—and us—that the same God who was with and helped his people in the past is the same God who with us today. When life gets hard and we feel alone or ask, “God, where are you?…Have you forgotten about me?…Have you abandoned me?” Psalm 23 tells us to look back and remember God’s faithfulness. Just like David did.

And so, the first point is this: Look back: His presence never left you

What Psalm 23 is exhorting us to do always, but especially in our suffering, is to look back and see that His presence has never left us. As one pastor puts it, when we don’t know what’s true about our lives and our suffering lingers on and on and on, we must be disciplined to map out God’s faithfulness in the past. The moments and times when it is abundantly clear to us that the Lord’s hand was involved in the situations and circumstances of our lives.

Like David, map out the times when God demonstrated his faithful presence and care in the lives of other believers.

This implies something for us. The only way we can see how God is working in the lives of other Christians is by being involved in the lives of other Christians. The exodus was an event that impacted the people of God, not just a person of God. All throughout the Bible, God calls his people to do life together. To follow Him, together. To worship, together. The Christian life is not a solo journey. He calls us to live in community. And it is when we walk alongside other believers and allow other believers to walk alongside us, that we more clearly see God’s loving presence in our lives—especially in times of suffering.

ILLUSTRATION HERE of Hannah Viens

!0 year old girl- diagnosed with brain cancer

On two separate occasions, the doctors told her that she had days, if not months, to live

Evidence of God’s faithful presence: her peace and confidence in the uncertainty of her circumstances

Hannah passed away at 15

When we take the time to consider the ways that God has cared for others—especially those who may have suffered—we are reminded of the truth that the Lord as shepherd will care for his flock. He is with his people. When we see such workings of God in other people’s lives, it gives us an upshot to keep the faith and to not give up our hope.

2. But also, map out the times when God demonstrated his faithfulness in your own life. David says in verse 1:

The LORD is my shepherd…

A good shepherd is one that not only cares for the whole flock and makes sure that the flock’s needs are being met as a whole…but a good shepherd is one that also cares personally for each and every individual lamb. Consider what Jesus says in the parable of the lost sheep:

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of the them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. Matthew 18:12-13

ILLUSTRATION HERE: Our journal

All of these entries in this journal serve to remind me of the big truth that yes, Jesus is Lord over all…but he is also my Lord. And therefore, by looking back in my life, I can be confident his presence has never left me. This amazing reality gives me great comfort in the midst of heartache and great disappointment.

Look Ahead: He will never leave you

Yet in the midst of suffering, it's not enough to simply look back—we must broaden our perspective even more by looking ahead. Which brings us to our second point for tonight:

Look Ahead: He Will Never Leave You

If we focus only on the past, the cynicism within our hearts may tempt us to believe that the glory days are behind us. By looking only to the past, we may even convince ourselves that, yes, God was with me then…but has He left me now? Consider what David writes…in the beginning of the Psalm, he uses language to recall God’s faithfulness in the past…and now at the end of the Psalm, he uses language to help him focus on the future, glorious reality for God’s sheep:

…and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

In verse 6, David is longing for Heaven. Hope matters…where there is no hope for the future there is no comfort for the moment. If you are a Christian, what is the hope of heaven to your life? In his book Remember Heaven, Matthew McCullough says:

Sadly, I’m convinced that we tend to view heaven the way we view our car insurance. We know we need to have it, but God forbid we ever have to use it. The best thing about having car insurance is the peace of mind it provides: you don’t have to think about it until the moment you need it. Meanwhile your focus stays fixed on the car itself—what style you like best, what features you need, how you want to use it, where you want to drive it. As the Bible describes heaven, it’s not at all like an insurance policy filed and forgotten. It is an inheritance you are sure to receive and, beyond that, an inheritance you can draw on right now.

What is the hope of heaven to your life? Is Heaven like an insurance policy to you?

As a kid growing up, most summers we typically spent one week as a family camping at Jellystone. And every year, leading up to that week of camping, the anticipation was real. I looked forward to…

Sleeping in the pop-up camper

The fires

The s’mores

The swimming

The ice cream

The mini-golf

The evening outdoor cartoon showings of Yogi Bear

Each passing year, the anticipation grew even more because I would build expectations around the memories based off of what I experienced the previous summer of camping with the people that I loved.

But we can’t really do that with Heaven, can we? If we’re being honest, we really don’t know what Heaven will be like…none of us have ever been there…so how can we long for it?

Yes, the Bible gives us details of what it is like…but none of us have experienced it…so how do we look ahead to a place that we’ve never been to and haven’t experienced yet? How do we think about Heaven in such a way that helps us in the right here and right now—especially in our grief and sorrow?

The answer, I believe, is found in Psalm 23. Notice…throughout the entire Psalm, who is David’s focus?… It’s the Lord! It’s his shepherd! And what does he say there in the final verse?

…and I shall dwell in the house of…who?… the LORD …

As you may know, in the Old Testament under the the Mosaic Covenant, God dwelt amongst his people first in the tabernacle…and then King David initiated the project to build the LORD a permanent dwelling place—that being the temple. But under the Old Covenant, not just anybody could waltz right into the tabernacle or the temple. You do such a thing and you would die. There were certain Israelites with particular roles, such as the Levitical priests, that were only allowed into the tabernacle or the temple, where God dwelt, while the rest of God’s people remained outside. And even within the temple, there were restrictions for the priests as to how close they could approach the holiness of God. There was a curtain that divided the space and created a special place called the Holy of Holies…and nobody was allowed to go beyond that curtain.

In verse 6, David is using temple language. It’s as if he is anticipating a day when all of God’s people—not just the Levitical priests— will dwell IN the house of the LORD with the LORD forever. You see where David is going with this? What brings comfort to him as he walks through the valley of the shadow of death is that he knows there will come a day where his faith is turned into sight. There is a day coming when David will enter the Holy of Holies, he will behold the very face of God himself…and unlike the days of the tabernacle, he will not die by entering a forbidden room…rather he…will…dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David is looking to the future and is delighting in the reality that he will see the complete fullness of his good Shepherd, and it will be for all of eternity. It’s the person, not necessarily the place, that brings comfort to David.

And this is exactly what we’re instructed to do in the New Testament. Paul says in Colossians 3:

Seek the things that are above, where Christ is…When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

It’s been said that:

The only way to long for a place you’ve never been is to long for the person whose presence make that place what it is to you.

What makes Heaven Heaven, is not what freedoms and blessings we will get to enjoy—though those things will be incredible. What makes Heaven Heaven is that the fullness of our Savior is there and we will get to stand beside him. Nothing here on earth will ever fully satisfy you so long as Christ is in Heaven. And because we aren’t fully with him here, we set our minds there, where he is. There will come a day when we stand before his face. And this isn’t a trip to Heaven like a summer camping trip in the summer…where we are there for a week and then have to come back home. Rather, David says…

…and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The only way to long for a place you’ve never been is to long for the person whose presence make that place what it is to you.

Do you long for Jesus, your shepherd?

The reality is…times of suffering reveal that something is missing in our lives. And what we see from David as he suffers is that he fills that void with the hope of Heaven, the destination where—yes, is free of dark valleys and enemies and suffering—but ultimately where we will dwell in peace and satisfaction with our Shepherd.

And so, long for Jesus! But long for him in the way that he wants you to long for him. May your longing for Jesus lead to action…may your longing lead to following Jesus, listening to His voice, and living your life delighting in Him as your good Shepherd.

(1) With Jesus as our Shepherd, we can look back in our lives to see that His presence never left us.

(2) We can look ahead to the promise that we will one day see his face and dwell in his house forever.

Look Here: He is with you

And when we do this…we find grace and mercy in the here and now…we find grace and mercy in the middle of our suffering… our perspective is reshaped…and we are no longer drowning in our hurt and pain and disappoint. His grace and mercy is keeping our heads above the water. Why?

Because as David puts it in this Psalm, by looking back and by looking ahead, we can look in the here and now and discover an amazing and comforting truth. We’ve looked at the beginning of Psalm 23, we’ve looked at the end of the Psalm…we’re working our way to the middle where we find the main point of Psalm 23. David says in verse four:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…

In the suspense…

In the unknown…

When you lose your job…

When your loved one is sick…

You need not fear…because He is with you.

In the beginning of tonight’s message, I was telling you about the boy who was lost in the blizzard.

The next morning, the snow had stopped and the sun began to shine… so the old man wasted no time. He knew the paths through the Highlands and thought that he knew where the boy might be sheltering. He forced his weary legs to go as fast as he could through the thick snow. At last he came to where he had often told the boy to shelter if he ever needed to. He called as loudly as he could, but there was no reply.

Suddenly, in the distance, he saw a mound in the snow. His heart sank as he raced towards it. Desperately he pushed the snow away and there he saw the little shepherd boy frozen to death. The old man wept sadly as he looked at the little body.

Finally, the old man continued to brush the snow away from the frozen body. Then he noticed that the boy’s hands were clasped in a strange way. His right hand was firmly gripping the fourth finger of the left hand. The old man remembered how he had taught the boy to say 'The Lord is my shepherd' holding a finger for each word. There was no doubt that the finger the boy was holding stood for the word 'MY'. The old grandfather lifted up his eyes and thanked God that this little shepherd boy had known that the "Good Shepherd" was his Shepherd.

If we were placed in a situation of danger and death, would we know the Lord and His word and be able to say, "The Lord is MY Shepherd?”

This boy understood a profound truth: because the Lord is his Shepherd, he didn’t need to be afraid—he knew his Shepherd was with him. Tomorrow, we’ll go deeper into why this brings such comfort, especially in the midst of suffering. Because wherever the Lord’s presence dwells, there is provision and there is hope.

But tonight, I invite you to reflect on this amazing truth: if the Lord is your Shepherd, he is with you. If the Lord is your Shepherd, you can look back and trace the unmistakable evidence of his presence in your life. You can look forward and see that dwelling with him is your ultimate destiny. And most of all, you can rest assured—he is with you right now.

Jesus himself says:

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me… (John 10:14)

Even if you must walk in a valley of deep darkness where there could be danger…where there could be pain…even where there could be death….do you know the Lord…do you know His word… and would you be able to say, “The Lord is MY Shepherd?”

——-

In this life, you might lose someone you love. You might lose your career. You might lose your wealth. You might lose your health. You might lose everything. But you won’t lose Him. You may lose everything, but Jesus your shepherd will still be beside you. And the comfort he offers…even in a circumstance such that…far outweighs and outlasts the comfort the whole world could offer to you. 

You can bear your suffering…you can bear your loss…you can bear anything…as long as you know who your shepherd is and that he is with you. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, he promises to lead and guide you through it. You can endure, but only if he leads the way. Do you know him? Do you know Jesus as your shepherd?