Before I get started, I wanted to emphasize the value of knowing the names of God with the following verse from Proverbs 18:10
Proverbs 18:10 (NASB95) The name of the LORD is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.
We should know the names of God, because we can call on Him, by His names, in any situation that we may want or need to call out to Him. We can call on the name of the Lord and run into it and be safe because He is our strong tower.
The name of God that I’m going to share with you today is Jehova Rohi.
What does the name Jehovah Rohi mean?
Jehovah (yeh-ho-vaw): 1. the Self-Existent or Eternal; 2. the Lord
Rohi; Raah (raw-aw): 1. to pasture, tend, graze, feed 2. to associate with, be a friend of 3. to be a special friend
Rohi is the Hebrew word for shepherd, in Greek it is poimen (poy-mane).
So this name of God means both the God who takes care of us, and the God who is our friend. He’s not just a friend that we can hang out with, but more like a guardian - someone who both wants to have a friendly, caring relationship with us and is willing to watch over us and take care of our needs. In fact, 1 Peter 2:25 says that Jesus is our shepherd and guardian.
1 Peter 2:25 (NASB95) For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
So, what does a shepherd do?
I found this from an online job description:
- make sure the flock has enough to eat
- guide them to new pastures when necessary
- keep a watchful eye out for poisonous plants
- travel and live with the flock
- protect them from predators - using fences, walls, guard dogs, and weapons if necessary
- protect their health
- administer medicine
- bandage wounds
- assist with birthing
- sheer them without cutting them
From other things I read
- earn their trust - have patience with them, and show care for them
- know them, their temperaments - which is old, which is young, which is pregnant, which is stubborn, which is aggressive, which is timid - and manage the flock so they can get along without hurting each other or themselves
- responsible for the sheep in public - merging with and separating from other flocks, finding lost sheep, adding to and removing from the flock, selling their wool, hiring and training assistants
Being a shepherd is not a glorious job. In fact, it means you will be living with the animals most of the time.
If being king is the highest position in society, then being a shepherd is one of the lowest.
A shepherd doesn’t have time to go to school or often even attend synagogue or church.
But one thing a shepherd does have is a close and personal relationship with his flock.
Now, what does the Bible say about God being our Shepherd?
Please turn to Psalm 23.
God is referred to as a shepherd in many places in the Bible. Probably one of the most well known is in Psalm 23 where David writes,
Psalm 23 (NASB20) The Lord is my shepherd, I will not be in need. He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For the sake of His name. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. Certainly goodness and faithfulness will follow me all the days of my life, And my dwelling will be in the house of the Lord forever.
Here’s a technical detail that I think is relevant, just bear with me.
I’m using the New American Standard Bible (NASB). The NASB translation strives to be the most literal English translation of the Bible. In order to accomplish that goal, they have to update it every couple of decades. The original language (Greek and Hebrew) doesn’t change, but the language being translated into (English) does change, so, in order to remain the most literal translation, they have to keep pace with the changing language.
In most translations Psalm 23 starts out with, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.” The NASB translators must have realized that the meaning of the words want and need have diverged because the NASB95 says “I shall not want”, but the 2020 version updated it to, “I will not need.”
Why? Maybe it’s because “want” has come to be associated with whatever we see on TV, or on Facebook, or whatever we can order from Amazon. But need is more significant - you need air, food, water.
How about faith? You need faith because you’re not getting into God’s kingdom without it.
How about purpose and direction? You need purpose and direction - from God - or else you’re just going to wander aimlessly through life - and God did not create us to do that.
The Lord is my shepherd, and He provides everything I NEED.
God is taking care of us. He knows our needs and He takes care of them. The Psalm goes on to say, “He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters.” He takes care of our physical needs.
It also says, “He restores my soul;” He gives us faith. “He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name.” He gives us the purpose and direction to follow Him - to love Him, and to serve and love each other.
Have you ever had a conversation with someone who’s a kindred spirit, and you talk for two hours and it seems like ten minutes, and you feel like you could talk to that person forever?
That’s what God is to us. If you spend time digging into His word, He speaks to you like nobody else can. When you dwell on a verse, or meditate on a passage and you start to really feel what God is saying through it. I’m telling you, “He restores my soul.”
God also protects us. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
Death is a part of life, but for many people it’s the scariest part of life. So it’s the strongest analogy we have to fear and dread. And even for those of us who believe in God, we have to go through that valley in order to get to God’s kingdom on the other side.
But God is with us, so we don’t have to fear any evil - either now, or in the valley, or on the other side of the valley. God is mighty to protect us, and to save us.
We are comforted by His rod and staff.
The rod, I imagine, is a smaller stick that a shepherd would use to guide the sheep by tapping on their side. If a sheep is stubborn, maybe they get a little whack with the rod, but nothing that’s going to do any real damage - just guidance.
And to us God’s rod is the Bible.
The staff, I imagine, is for the wolves. If they show up, the rod isn’t going to do much against them, but the staff can knock some teeth out and bruise some ribs.
And for us that’s God’s power. We are in God’s hands when it comes to the wolves.
And since we know that God uses His rod to guide us and His staff to protect us, we are comforted by them.
Is everyone getting a sense for how God is our Shepherd that guides us, takes care of us, protects us, and provides everything for us that we need? Amen?
Now we’re going to read a scripture in the New Testament that talks about Jesus as our shepherd. Everybody turn to John chapter 10.
John 10:1-21 records the parable of the Good Shepherd.
Jesus starts the parable, in verses 1-5, by talking about the difference between shepherds and thieves.
Shepherds enter by the door, but thieves climb over the wall. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice and follow him, but they won’t follow a stranger.
And, as with most parables, the people did not understand what He was talking about.
Then, in verses 7-10, He said more directly that He is the door of the sheep. This reminds me of when He said in Matthew 7:14 that the gate to life is narrow, and only a few will find it. He is that gate!
And, in between verse 10 and 11, I get the impression that He’s probably still getting blank stares, so He changes it up a little bit - and here is what He says:
John 10:11-16 (NASB20) “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
When Jesus was saying this He was among Jews and Pharisees. When He says He has “other sheep, which are not of this fold,” He’s talking about the gentiles. If you’re not Jewish, that’s us!
Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd, but instead of emphasizing how He fulfills all the different aspects that Psalm 23 talks about - his emphasis is on Him laying down His life for us.
Why did Jesus lay down His life for us? Why was that necessary? What does it mean? To answer that is to share the gospel.
So, I’m going start from the beginning.
God created everything, and created us in His image, for His glory. God deserves all glory because He did the work of creating everything that exists.
What is glory? Let’s say you play a sport. You train and practice. You play games against opponents. You put in your blood, sweat, and tears. And you go on to win the championship. Then the crowd cheers, someone hands you a trophy, you get hoisted up on shoulders. Confetti is in the air. They even have a parade for you.
What if, when you won the championship, as soon as the game ended, they picked some random person from the stands - maybe even a fan from the other team - and gave them the trophy and the cheers and the parade. Is that the glory you worked for? No.
God gets the glory because God did, and does, all the work. He made everything we have. He made us. We don’t get to claim glory for the things that He makes possible. We are supposed to give Him the glory.
When the serpent tempted Eve in the garden of Eden he said, “you will be like God.” She was already made in the image of God, so the temptation was for God’s glory. When we turn our back on God to seek our own glory, this is sin. And the penalty for sin is death. Either our own death, or the death of another. Those are the rules. We don’t get to make those rules any more than we get to make the rules that the founding fathers made for the United States. But we do have to live by the rules.
God gave the law to Moses in order to show us our sin. Can you disagree with the 10 commandments? Can you say that it’s OK to lie, kill, steal? No. The law is written on our hearts. So by agreeing with it, we are condemned by it.
Can you say that you have never lied, never stolen, never lusted, never hated? No. Can you honestly say that you’ll never do it again? NO. So, we can’t help but agree with the law, but we also can’t help but break the law.
God told Israel that they could atone for their sins by giving Him the life of an unblemished lamb, because if you pay for your sins with your own life then you are forever spent, and there is nothing you can do to ever be redeemed to God after that. It’s a permanent ending of the relationship. Your death effectively cancels both the sin and you. But if you substitute another life, then the sin gets cancelled, but you don’t.
Why does God want an unblemished lamb? Maybe because He doesn’t want just any life. He doesn’t want some raggedy old beat up sheep that’s going to die anyways. And maybe he wants a life that is helpless because if you tried to sacrifice a lion, well, you’d probably have fight for it and earn some glory from the achievement. But a lamb is helpless, even among sheep, and you don’t earn any glory by conquering it.
And maybe He doesn’t want something that you don’t value. To Israel, a nation of shepherds, their sheep were their wealth. And to remove an unblemished lamb from your flock actually cost you not only the lamb, but the generations that would have come from that lamb.
But did God require a lamb for every single sin, or even every single sinner? No. He allowed for one lamb to cover many sins of many people as long as they came together in agreement that they believe in God and repent of their sins.
Now let’s review, let’s hit the key points so far:
- God created everything - including us - and He deserves the glory for everything.
- We sinned by trying to take His glory for ourselves.
- God exposed our sin to us through the law.
- We cannot help but to agree with the law.
- And we cannot help but to break the law.
- The penalty for sin is death.
- If we pay with our own life we’re forever cut off from God, so He allows us to substitute a valuable, helpless, unblemished life in our place.
So that’s the system. That’s how God set it up, and that’s how He deals with sin.
But who gets the glory in that system? Is it you for raising the lamb, for sacrificing the lamb? Is it the lamb because the lamb died for you?
Now, remember, God, our shepherd, provides everything we NEED. And we need atonement - payment - for our sins, or else we will be cut off from Him forever.
So God provides even the lamb for us! Not by giving us a lifetime supply of unblemished lambs, but by becoming the lamb, once and for all.
Now who gets the glory? God, rightfully, gets the glory.
God descended from Heaven, through the Holy Spirit, and conceived Himself as a man in the virgin Mary. He became Jesus so that He could live life the way that He created us to live it - unblemished.
Jesus could have been the most powerful king to have ever ruled the earth - in the way that the Jews were expecting. He could have descended from heaven and still hovered right above all other men. But no, instead He came as a shepherd. A man of low social rank.
He could have defended Himself against the Pharisees and the Romans. But no, He became helpless, and gave up His life to pay for ours.
The Shepherd became the Lamb because the Shepherd provides everything we need. He is everything we need.
So, Jesus is the lamb that was sacrificed for our sins. He was unblemished. He was helpless. But, was He valuable?
The sacrifice only counts for you if He is valuable to you.
From Matthew 13:44-46
Matthew 13:44-46 (NASB20)“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells everything that he has, and buys that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it.
Is Jesus valuable to you!?!?
Do you believe in Him? Do you want to believe in Him?
John 3:16 (NASB20) For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Mark 16:16 (NASB20) Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
Treasure Him! Treasure your relationship with Him! Store up your treasure in heaven with Him!
Revelation 7:17 says, the lamb will shepherd us and lead us to living water, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
He leads me beside still waters. He makes me lie down in green pastures. His rod and staff comfort me. I will not be in need.
He provides everything I need. He IS everything I need.
The Shepherd became the Lamb. Think about the weakness and frailty of a lamb. If sheep are helpless, then the lamb is the most helpless.
If a shepherd is one of the lowest ranking members of society, then the lamb is the lowest ranking even among the shepherds.
Jesus didn’t just descend from heaven a little bit. He descended all the way down. He could have descended and stopped at the level of an earthly king - maybe even hovered just a little bit above since He would still be able to do miracles - and more-or-less just dipped His toe in the cesspool of humanity. But no, He didn’t just descend a little bit, but all the way down.
He said, the last will be first, and the first will be last - and He became the last among people. He even stooped down to wash the feet of His disciples.
Let the gravity of this sit with you. Our Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd - became the Lamb for us.
Though He was strong and mighty enough to provide for us, protect us, and guide us, and be everything we need - He became helpless, and fragile, vulnerable, and weak - even taking on ridicule and appearing foolish and deceitful to those who knew Him.
He went all the way to the bottom of human existence by being put to death by corrupt people for unjust reasons.
He didn’t just come down from heaven a little. He came all the way down.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He provides everything we need. He IS everything we need. We need Him, and He came down to give us what we need.
I leave you with this Benediction from Hebrews 13:20
Hebrews 13:20 (NASB20) Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.