God The Shepherd // The Amazing Names of God, Part 8

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

There’s something beautiful about the picture of a shepherd. The man who cares for his flock – feeds them, waters them, guides them, protects them. Funny – but that’s a picture used over and over and over again in God’s Word the Bible – of God Himself. What’s He trying to tell us I wonder?

Quite a few years ago now when I was an officer in the Australian army I was stationed at a remote facility where we stored lots and lots of ammunition. I mean lots of ammunition. If one of those warehouses had blown up it would have been an unbelievably huge bang.

And being in Australia I'd often be driving on one of those dirt tracks from one of the warehouses to the other. I mean they were a fair way apart just in case, you know. And you'd often have kangaroos bounding alongside the Landrover that I was driving. They'd effortlessly keep up and then accelerate and take off.

They never once were stupid enough to jump out onto the road in front of the vehicle, they were too smart for that. So I never worried too much about kangaroos as I was driving along. But we also had sheep on this ammunition depot. Farmers grazed their livestock on the depot because there was grass there. Helped keep the grass down and brought in a bit of revenue for the government.

Sheep were an entirely different story. Back then I thought of them as stupid animals. They'd be running along beside the vehicle and without warning they'd dart straight in front of you. Now I learned pretty quickly when there were sheep anywhere nearby you had to slow down otherwise it would be lamb chops for dinner. Sheep appeared to me to be stupid animals but as it turns out they're anything but. So why would they run in front of a vehicle?

It turns out that sheep aren't so much stupid as they are short sighted. They can't see much more than 15 feet ahead of them. And the other thing that they're not very good at is navigating. They don't have a sense of direction. So whilst on the one hand if you take them back to the paddock where they were born they'll know exactly where in that paddock they were born.

On the other hand if you take them out of that paddock, down the road, around the corner, over the hill, they simply can't find their way back. Add that lack of sense of direction to their short sightedness and you can kind of understand why these otherwise quite clever animals would, without explanation, run straight in front of my vehicle on that ammunition depot.

Over the last week and a half we've been exploring the names of God. There are over 20 different names used throughout the Bible for Him which seems a little bit odd. After all you and I, well we're perfectly happy with just the one name. But the different names of God are there for a purpose because they reveal God to us. They tell us who He is.

So far we've looked at:

Adonai – The Lord Almighty. Elohim – The all powerful creator. El Roi – The God who sees us. El Shaddai – The all sufficient one. Immanuel – God who is with us. Jehovah – I am. The God who is forever and ever and ever. Jehovah Rapha – The God who heals.

Today on the program we're going to explore another name that God uses – Jehovah Rohi – the Lord who is my shepherd. Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me by still waters. He restores my soul and He leads me in right paths for His name's sake.

When the Old Testament and the New Testament talk about sheep and shepherds, the people of God it was talking to way back then, well they knew a whole bunch more about sheep and shepherding than perhaps you and I do these days. So it made a lot more sense to them.

But to be a shepherd was a calling. To be a shepherd was like, well you laid down your life for your sheep to protect them from the wild animals and the thieves. A shepherd back then knew his sheep. Mostly he had names for each of them like pets. Where they all looked the same to you and me, he could pick them apart.

And he knew that as well as it being his job to find them grazing lands and water, he had to protect them. Most often he'd walk ahead of his sheep and they'd follow behind him in a line. That way no-one, being short sighted, would get lost. But every now and then a sheep would go astray. Isaiah chapter 53, verse 6:

All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way.

So what does a shepherd do when one of the sheep went astray? Did he ignore it? Did he find it and punish it? What happened? Have a listen to Jesus telling a story about Jehovah Rohi, the Lord who is my shepherd and yours. Luke chapter 15, beginning at verse 4:

Which one of you having 100 sheep and losing one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices and when he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbours saying, 'rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Just so I tell you there'll be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the 99 righteous people who need no repentance.

Isn't that fabulous? The heart of the shepherd is to go out there and to find the sheep. Because, wait for this, this is the really important bit that you and I can easily miss, because the shepherd knows that once the sheep is lost it has no way, no way at all to find it's way back because it's short sighted and because it lacks any sense of direction.

So the shepherd goes out to find the lost sheep. And he rejoices so greatly when he finds it. You see, what Jesus is saying is, this is what God is like. The Lord is my shepherd, He's your shepherd. When Gods people, Israel, were labouring under the yoke of Babylonian oppression and slavery He said this to them through the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 40, beginning at verse 10:

See, the Lord God comes with might and His arm rules for Him, His reward is with Him and His recompense is before Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in His arms and carry them in His bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.

See this beautiful picture of God. Do you see what God is saying to you and to me about who He is for us here and now? Not some distant despot. Not some God like a grumpy old man with a big stick. A God with a heart like a shepherd. A God who comes after us because we have no way of getting back to Him. It was for this reason that Jesus said in John chapter 10, beginning at verse 11. He said:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The hired hand who is not the shepherd, he doesn't own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because he's a hired hand and he doesn't care for the sheep. But I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me.

Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay my life down for my sheep.

And He did. He was and is the true shepherd. There are times in life when we wake up and feel a bit, well like we know we've gone astray. And in that feeling of panic, "How do I get back to God?" The answer is through Jesus. The answer is, Jesus is coming after you just as any shepherd would.

And perhaps He's doing that right now in your life as you hear His word. "I am the good shepherd, the true shepherd for I lay down my life for my sheep". My friend, we all, like sheep, have strayed. We all have fallen short of the glory of God but God is Jehovah Rohi, the Lord who is my shepherd and yours.

And right now He's gathering those stray sheep to Him. He will feed His flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs into His arms and carry them in His bosom. Why? Because that's who God is, He just is.