"a Matter Of Life And Death"

“A Matter of Life and Death"

Psalm 23:1-6

When we set out for Thanksgiving with our children it was 73 degrees here in Florida but as I flew to Memphis and then traveled to St Louis all in one day the temperature had dropped to 13 degrees. Clearly that’s why most of us love Florida. Then as we drove back after Thanksgiving a severe ice storm--- started the day after we left and the temperature dropped to zero as sheets of ice began to form on the road. Fortunately we missed the whole thing. Again that is why we live in Florida. It’s a great place. And we attract a lot of senior adults each year. Many come to Florida to stay, to retire. I don’t blame them. But one of the things that happen that is not so positive is that many of these people come to Florida and they never get into a church. They may have attended church for years but they drop that commitment when they get here and they exchange their commitment to the Lord for a life of leisure and their commitment to God suddenly takes a back seat.

Since we moved here in 1995 the local funeral homes have contacted me and asked me to conduct funerals for many of them because they simply did not have a pastor. And so I preach about 30 funerals a year like that and I am committed to it because one of the things I firmly believe is that every family needs and deserves to be comforted at the time of the death of a loved one. I do not know how people who are not in church, who are not believers, handle the death of a loved one.

So, in preparing for these services I will ask the question, do you have a scripture passage in mind that you would like for me to read or do you simply want me to select one? And over 90% of the time they will say yes, “Psalm 23.” I preached a funeral yesterday and I ask the family this question and they said yes we have one in mind but we don’t know where it is…. but it says something about the “valley of the shadow of death.” This passage is clearly the most quoted scripture in the Bible. And the reason I believe this scripture is so popular is that it speaks to us in the most difficult situation we ever face in life… and that is death….our own death or the death of someone we love and care for.

Now the verse I want to focus on this morning is Psalm 23:4. “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.” I don’t know about you but when I think of the valley of the shadow of death I picture sitting in a funeral home. That’s why we go there. To grieve. When we started this church 13 years ago we started by meeting in a funeral home. The first message I preached was titled “burying your past.” We met there for 6 months but I recall that during that time, numerous people who we would invite would say “I want to come to your church but not until you get in a different building. We don’t want to attend church in a funeral home.” You see we are simply afraid of death and we don’t know how to handle that fear. You see fear and death seem to go hand in hand. We are afraid for a variety of reasons.

First of all, we simply have too many unanswered questions about death. You see it’s an area where there really are no experts we can talk to about it. Because we don’t know anyone who has been through it and has come back to answer our questions. I did have a fellow recently (true story) who told me he had died and that he went to heaven and that while he was there he met Elvis and that he came back and now he IS Elvis. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask him any more questions. The only experts I know of in the NT are Lazarus and Jesus. They’re the only ones that have been to the other side and have come back to tell us about it.

Now here is a truth…we fear things that we lack knowledge of. Here are ten things that are on most of our lists….

1 Fear of public speaking

2 Fear of death

3 Fear of spiders

4 Fear of darkness

5 Fear of heights

6 Fear of people or social situations

7 Fear of flying