Ep 156 | Cover to Cover 35 | Pastor Chris Ryan | Aug 30, 2026

Hello, this is Pastor Ryan Clark.

You are listening to a message from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

Oh Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praises in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

A recent study of right around 30,000 parents found that parents who have three children under the ages of six, statistically speaking, get the least amount of sleep.

I'll tell you, based on my own personal research into this topic, that study seems to me to be 100% true considering my family features three children under the ages of six.

We got Nathan there, age five, Mr.

Cooper, age three, and little Lucy girl there, she just celebrated her first birthday.

Look at that pretty dress.

She is one-year-old.

And I'll tell you that rare is the occasion that I make it through a whole night with my sleep blissfully, peacefully uninterrupted.

More often than not, one or two or, well, all three of my children will cry out in the night needing something.

Sometimes they need simple assistance like a glass of water or something like that.

Sometimes they've had a nightmare and they're crying out terrified, and you can always tell the difference between those cries.

When they've had a nightmare it sounds of pure terror.

Maybe someone yells out, "Dad, where are you? Come in here, I need you now."

Sometimes it's more simple than that.

It's just, "Dad, Dad."

Sometimes it's the sad sounds of someone who's not quite ready to talk yet, but we know what she needs by the sounds that she's making.

And sometimes it's simply a wimper, because, yes, even the dog likes to get in on waking us up at night and we ignore her cries at our own peril.

Of course, we don't ignore the cries of any of our children, especially when it sounds like they're having a nightmare.

Because when they're having a nightmare, their room is a place of sheer terror for them.

Every shadow on the wall, it's another monster that's coming to get them.

And even though we're right there, we're right down the hall, their parents feel like they're a million miles away.

And so when they make those nightmarish sounds, no matter where that's coming from, no matter which room, I'll rush down there, I'll burst through the door.

I don't even turn on the lights or anything.

I run right to them.

I hold my trembling child in my arms, and I'll say things like, "Shh, I'm here.

You're safe.

I've got you.

It's all gonna be okay."

And in that moment, oh, it's so great, St.

John's family, they melt right into me.

You can feel their fears leaving their body.

And in that moment, they've experienced Psalm 22 turning into Psalm 23.

From feelings of pure terror and abandonment and loneliness to the blessed rescue of the Father.

It's something that we all get to experience as followers of Jesus, Psalm 22 turning into Psalm 23.

And I want us to understand better today what that process looks like and how and why we get it.

Because it is quite the process, and there is an absolute world of difference between what King David says in Psalm 22:1 and Psalm 23:1.

Psalms 22:1 Psalms 23:1

In Psalm 22, he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I find no rest."

Where are you, God, in my situation, David says And just a few verses later, all of a sudden he's saying those famous words of Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

Psalms 23:1

How do we go from, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" to, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want"? How do we go from that in just a matter of a few verses? Well, before we talk about the how and the why of this process, let's talk about the what, because the truth is we all experience Psalm 22 moments, those living nightmares.

King David, the psalmist here in Psalm 22, he certainly experiences those nightmarish moments.

We're gonna watch over the next couple weeks of our two-year Bible read-through as King David has an infant son that dies.

He has a daughter who gets brutally assaulted.

He experiences the killing of one of his sons by another one of his sons.

That same son then attempts a coup trying to take over the throne from David.

It's not really that hard to imagine a world in which King David would say, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Where are you in my situation right now, God?" And maybe you look at your own life and say, "It's not that hard for me to imagine a world where I would say those words."

And Jesus promised that we would experience the darkness and the nightmares of life sometimes.

In this sinful and fallen world, we will have trouble.

So maybe you've experienced the nightmare of a sickness, the nightmare of a job loss, of the death of a loved one, of rejection, of loneliness and isolation in this world.

And you say, "Yeah, I've felt that sometimes.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Where are you in my situation? I know you're here, it just doesn't feel like it at all."

And maybe you've felt bad for feeling that way.

If that's you, know that I think Psalm 22 is an absolutely amazing Psalm because God gives us permission in this Psalm to tell him how we truly feel when we're feeling that way.

To tell him, "Hey, I'm scared right now.

I feel alone right now.

Where are you? I am overwhelmed."

You can be honest with God.

He knows how you feel already anyways.

And by the way, He truly knows how you feel when you're saying those lines of Psalm 22, because in the flesh, He experienced those lines Himself on the cross.

From Matthew 27 it says, "From noon until 3:00 in the afternoon, darkness came over all the land.

About 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' which means, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?'" In the worst nightmare this world has ever seen, the perfect Son of God, sinless, Jesus, He goes to the cross where He experiences an absolute nightmare, dying on it just for you, just for me.

He has His own Psalm 22 moment, doesn't He? In fact, I don't know if you were listening closely to Psalm 22 earlier, but Jesus fulfills every single word of it.

Psalm 22:7, "All who see me mock me.

Psalms 22:7

They hurl insults, shaking their heads."

That's what Jesus experiences on the cross.

Psalm 22:14, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint."

Psalms 22:14

That is what the cross did to Jesus.

Psalm 22:16-18, "A pack of villains encircles me.

Psalms 22:16–18

They pierce my hands and my feet.

All my bones are on display.

People stare and gloat over me.

They divide my clothes among them, cast lots for my garments."

That's what Jesus experiences on the cross.

Nails piercing His hands, smashed through His feet.

People staring, gloating, mocking Him, the very people that He was dying for, casting lots for His clothing.

An unnatural darkness rolls into the land even though it's the middle of the afternoon.

And Jesus on that cross, He searches the sky for His Father but He doesn't see Him anywhere, and the Son of God cries out to the Father, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?" Except for the first time ever when Jesus cries out to his father, we know what the answer was.

Silence.

Nothing.

As the song says, the Father had turned his face away.

Of course, know that because Jesus experienced Psalm 22, we get Psalm 23.

Psalm 22, that is what our sins deserve.

In fact, in Isaiah 59:2 it says, "But your iniquities have separated you from your God.

Isaiah 59:2

Your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear."

Our sins separated us from our perfectly holy God, but Jesus separated Himself from God, paying the price that we owed on the cross so that we would never have to be separated from God ever again.

And how much must Jesus love you, yeah, you, just you, to die for you in that way? Oftentimes we talk about the physical toll of the cross and how brutal that was for Jesus, and what a terrible way to die.

But sometimes I think the even worse part of the cross for Jesus was the fact that He was separated from His Father for the first time ever.

How much must He love you to do that? And how much must God love you to willingly send His Son, His only Son, the Son that He loved, to the cross to do that? I'll tell you, if one of my kids was crying out in the middle of the night with a nightmare, it would take a straitjacket and a couple of really big, strong men holding me down to keep me away from getting to them to be of comfort to them.

But God the Father, He willingly looks the other way as God the Son goes to the cross to die just for you.

How much must He love you to do that? But because Jesus experienced Psalm 22, we get Psalm 23.

Because the Good Shepherd became the Lamb of God, we get to experience God's presence forever.

We get our Psalm 23 moments again and again, and boy, do we love Psalm 23, don't we? Now, just like in John 16:33 where Jesus promised that in this world we will have trouble, Psalm 23 does not promise that God will take away all of our nightmares in the moment.

John 16:33

Yeah, it does promise that we're gonna have His rod and staff that are gonna be of great comfort for us and protect us many times over.

But in this world, we will still go through that valley of the shadow of death, that darkest valley.

But we will fear no evil simply because God is with us.

The valley remains dark, but God's presence changes everything for us.

It's kinda like those nightmares for my kids.

Just because they experience my presence after a nightmare doesn't mean the darkness has gone away.

When they're crying out in the night with a nightmare, you know what I don't do? I don't run into their room and turn on every light and make sure there's no shadows, no darkness at all.

I don't show them under their bed and say, "Hey, look, see? There's no monster down there.

And even if there was, it's only about a foot of space.

It couldn't have been a very big monster."

That would be madman behavior, and besides, you don't wanna turn on the lights like that.

It will wake them up.

No, I don't explain to my kids that the monster isn't real or it isn't as bad as they think it is.

I simply run in there in the darkness, and I hold them, and in that moment, it makes everything better.

The room is still shrouded in shadow and darkness.

That nightmare might be lingering on the edges of their mind still, but everything is better simply because their father is there.

And isn't that how it is with God? And that's what my very important point is today.

God doesn't always turn on the lights for us and enlighten us to why we're going through a specific trial.

But we fear no evil in the valley of the shadow of death because God is with us, and knowing His character and love for us keeps our fears at bay.

We survive the night not because the dark disappears, but because He, because God the Father, is with us, and having experienced His goodness, His presence, it's good enough.

Once again, it's kinda like my kids with those nightmares.

When I go in there and hold them, my kids' fears, they melt away because I have a proven track record with them.

I'm the guy that has crushed yellow jackets and spiders on their behalf.

I'm the guy who's given them snacks when they have been starving to death.

I'm the guy who has put Band-Aids on their skinned knees.

And so even though I haven't done anything about the nightmare, anything about the darkness, they fear nothing anymore.

Because of my track record and me just holding them, they say, "Okay, everything is gonna be all right."

Now, I will point out that if a stranger came into the room and did all the same things as me, said all the same lines, held them in the same way, it would not be helpful.

In fact, they would probably be much more terrified.

And God says, "That's the same with Me."

In fact, Jesus says, "My sheep, they know my voice.

They take comfort in my voice.

They don't know the stranger's voice.

They run away from the stranger's voice.

But they know my voice, and they feel peace, my sheep do, at the voice of the Good Shepherd."

And we get to know Jesus' voice as we spend time with Him regularly in His Word, in worship, in prayer, as we remember all the great things that He's done for us, as we remember His proven track record of fighting on our behalf.

We love those Psalm 23 moments, don't we? Of course, as we get towards the end of this message, maybe it all begs this question.

Maybe you're thinking this right now.

You say, "Pastor Ryan, I get it.

I get what that Psalm 22 and 23 process is.

I've experienced it.

I get how we get it.

We get it because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

But why? Why does it even need to be a thing? I mean, why doesn't God just build a bridge over the valley of the shadow of death? He's all-powerful.

He loves me, so why doesn't He just allow me to avoid all of the dark things of this world?" That's a great question.

And I'll tell you that sometimes he does.

I don't think we know the half of how much God has had us avoid those dark trials over the course of our life simply through his rod and staff and building those bridges that we don't even know that he built.

Of course, sometimes when it comes to those dark trials, he doesn't build a bridge over the valley of the shadow of death.

Why? Well, in part I'm gonna tell you, I don't know.

I don't know why God didn't build a bridge over that dark trial that you've gone through or are going through, but there are some things that I absolutely do know.

I know that He is with you in that dark valley, even if it doesn't feel like it.

That's His promise to you, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

I know that He's using that dark trial for your good.

The Bible is clear on this over and over again.

I love the way that Romans 5 puts it.

It says, "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope.

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

He uses those valleys, those nightmares, to build up your perseverance and your character and your hope to make you a more complete person, to make you more mature, to make you more and more like His Son, Jesus.

God is with you in those dark valleys.

He's using your trials for your good, and He actually uses them for the good of others as well.

There's kind of this strange line in Psalm 23 that I don't think we think about too much.

"You prepare a table before me in the presence, in the midst of my enemies."

If we really thought about that, maybe you'd think, "Wow, you know, that's, that's great.

As I go through my darkest trials, my enemies get a nice front row seat to experience it all.

Isn't that amazing? Thank you, God."

But he's doing that very intentionally for your good and for their good as well.

You see, in the middle of our nightmares, we can show the enemies of God some of the benefits of being a follower of Jesus.

Our trials sometimes, they're gonna take place in front of people who don't know Jesus at all, and we get an incredible opportunity to show them the peace and the joy and the comfort we have as we go through nightmares that would destroy, that would crush most people.

There are gonna be people that watch you go through that valley, and they say, "Wow, I wouldn't even be able to get out of bed if that was me right now, but look, they're here, and they still have a smile on their face.

What is that all about?" As they watch you go through that dark trial, they might make them curious what is so different about you, what you have that they don't.

And in that moment, you get the opportunity to point them to their Good Shepherd, your Good Shepherd.

You say, "Hey, there's nothing different about me other than I know my Good Shepherd, and I know that he is with me right now, even in the darkest valley.

And oh, by the way, he's your Good Shepherd too.

He died just for you too."

What an incredible opportunity.

Of course, my prayer for you this week is that you don't get that opportunity.

I hope you're going through no dark trials at all right now.

But if you are, may you rest easy tonight knowing that God is with you.

Because Jesus experienced Psalm 22, we get Psalm 23.

Because the Good Shepherd became the Lamb of God, we experience God's presence now and forever, and he is using even your darkest moments for your good and the good of others because of Jesus, through Jesus, in Jesus' name, Amen.

You've been listening to a sermon from St.

John's Lutheran Church in Buffalo, Minnesota.

If you would like more information about St.

John's and any of our ministries to our community and beyond, you can go to our website, www.

stjohnsbuffalo.

org.

Thank you and God bless you.