Sunday, September 27 · Fellowship Church
Vision Series: The Valley
The valley of suffering and loss is not outside the Christian life but inside it, and what holds a person there is not an answer to every why but the presence of God, shown most clearly in Jesus, who entered the valley himself. God does not waste the valley; he uses it to make his people more like Christ and to mend broken things into something beautiful.
The passages
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.
Psalms 23:4
You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity. I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.” Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
Lamentations 3:17–20
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
Isaiah 53:3
Jesus wept.
John 11:35
About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
Psalms 22:1
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted on the earth.”
Psalms 46:10
…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death,…
Philippians 3:10
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
Psalms 84:5–7
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:28–29
The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.
Proverbs 17:3
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”
Revelation 21:5
The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels. When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says Yahweh. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:1–6
Go deeper
If God is with me, why does the valley still feel like this?
David says he will not fear in the darkest valley, and the reason he gives is not that the valley got shallower. It is that the shepherd is in it with him. Jeremiah said his soul had forgotten happiness and his hope in the Lord had perished, and he said it inside the Bible.
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.
Psalms 23:4
You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity. I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from Yahweh.” Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness. My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.
Lamentations 3:17–20
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
Psalms 22:1
Why does suffering shake what I thought I believed?
In the valley the things a person leaned on without knowing it come loose: control, a good season, the sense that obedience should exempt them. The psalmist in the valley of Baca does not pretend the tears are not there; he says the ground itself can turn to springs. The valley shows what was underneath.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on a pilgrimage. Passing through the valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs. Yes, the autumn rain covers it with blessings. They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion.
Psalms 84:5–7
The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.
Proverbs 17:3
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:28–29
Does God actually care that it hurts this much?
At Lazarus's grave Jesus wept, knowing he would raise him minutes later. Isaiah called him a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and the cross is the length God went to in entering the world's pain. That is the answer the sermon gives to the question underneath the valley.
Jesus wept.
John 11:35
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
Isaiah 53:3
About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted on the earth.”
Psalms 46:10
Can anything good come out of a season I would never have chosen?
God does not waste the valley: he mends broken things rather than discarding them, and he promises to make all things new rather than start over from nothing. Jeremiah watched a spoiled pot reworked into another vessel, and the potter did not throw the clay away.
The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, saying, “Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and behold, he was making something on the wheels. When the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Then Yahweh’s word came to me, saying, “House of Israel, can’t I do with you as this potter?” says Yahweh. “Behold, as the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, house of Israel.
Jeremiah 18:1–6
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”
Revelation 21:5
…that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death,…
Philippians 3:10