Just how does “thy rod and thy staff” comfort us? You may be surprised! 

<p>Just how does “thy rod and thy staff” comfort us? You may be surprised! </p>

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Ouachita Hills College

Scott Burgess

The Good Shepherd

Well, good morning everyone, and welcome to morning worship. Before we begin, let's open with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, I pray that you will guide here, that you'll make everything very simple and give us something precious to consider throughout the day. And the rest of this week, use us for your sake, I pray. Amen. All right. Today we're going to look at the word God. In the Bible. You may know that the Hebrew word for God is Elohim. There is also a shorter version that's simply L. Now, in Hebrew, that two litter word is another two litter word. It's olive plus laed. The olive would give you the ass sound. The lamed would give you the L sound. So what significance is that to us? Well, in ancient Hebrew, each letter was represented by a picture, sort of like Egyptian hieroglyphics. The letter olive is a bull's head and it can designate a bull, or by extension it can represent whoever's in charge. The letter lamed is shaped like this. And what am I showing here? This is a shepherd's staff. And so when you put those two letters together, a picture of a bull's head and a shepherd's staff, then you can conclude that the word L, what we normally think of as God, really shows God to be the lead shepherd. Now, the Bible actually confirms this Turn with me to one Peter five, verse four, if you would. First Peter five, verse four. And there we read. And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fade, if not away. Now, who is it talking about here? Well, of course this is Jesus. Jesus is indeed the chief shepherd. And ah, that matches with our conclusion. We know Jesus is God. He's the chief shepherd. Alright, moving on. Notice in a very familiar passage to us, John chapter 10, what it says about Jesus and the idea of being a shepherd. In verse 11, he says, I am the good shepherd. And how good is he? Well, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, he is the lead shepherd. That does not mean that he lords it over everyone else. Rather, he's the one in charge of them. He's the one who cares for them. He is the one who's responsible for them, responsible to the point that he would even give his life for them. And in verse 14, he says, I am the good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. Now, what is the most famous passage in all the Bible that depicts God as a shepherd? Anybody? It's Psalm 23 of, of course, yes. Psalm 23. Let's turn there for just a moment. Psalm 23. Now you all know this, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. And in verse two, he makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the stillwaters. He's caring for his sheep. He restores my soul. Verse three, he lead with me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. But please notice, I would like to direct our attention, especially to verse four. Yay. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And the reason given is for thou art with me. The rod and the staff, they comfort me. Hmm, that's very interesting. The idea of him being with us and his rod and staff comfort me. They seem to be parallel ideas. I wonder how parallel they are and why would the shepherd's rod and the shepherd's staff comfort him? Well, you realize the shepherd's staff has two ends to it. Now, the one end that you normally picture sort of walking on the ground, that's the the sharp hard end. And if, if need be, he could beat off say a wolf that might come to attack the sheep. But the other hand, the other end that has the, the crook in it, this is the one so that if the sheep goes astray, maybe it, maybe it tumbles over a, a small cliff or gets stuck in briars or a bush or something, he can hook that around the shepherd's neck, the sheep's neck, and draw it forth. And so you can see how oh yes, the she, the shepherd's staff would indeed comfort al sheep. But David, as he is writing this, this is more of a metaphor, but what does he mean there? Well, I think we can understand it when we realized again that remember there were two Hebrew letters for the word God. The second one was the laed. That's the one that's the shepherd staff. But it turns out not only is there a letter in the Hebrew alphabet that is laed and it's pictured by a shepherd staff, there is also a word in Hebrew that uses the same characters. It's Lama, but it doesn't mean a shepherd staff. Anybody know what it means? Those of you in the Hebrew class, don't give it away. Lama is the Hebrew word that means to teach. Hmm. Now that's interesting. Have you ever thought of teaching as being particularly comforting? Notice here, mark 6 34, it says that God, Jesus looked upon the people they were as sheep not having a shepherd. And the very next words are, and he began to teach them many things. His compassion for them was to teach them. Hmm. So apparently the idea of a shepherd and teaching do go together just as suggested by the Hebrew word l hmm. He's the chief shepherd and he comforts people, but apparently he comforts them with his teaching. So question is, are you allowing God to comfort you by his teachings? Or on the flip side, if you have to teach sabba school or give a sermon, or you're called upon to teach whether in a religious setting or maybe out in a completely secular setting, does your teaching, does it really instruct people on how to do something to share knowledge with them? Or does it comfort? If you wanna be like Jesus, our teaching is to comfort. Let's take it the last step here. Jesus said they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things. Now, today, Jesus is not with us. How does He teach us today what we find out in John chapter 14, in John chapter 14, in verse 26, please notice what it says, but the comforter, ah, comforter, which is the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send to my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever. I've said to you, well, the comforter is the Holy Spirit that Jesus sends in his place. And that word comforter there as <unk> parak. Now you might ask, is that the same word back in Psalm 23, 4? If we were to look there in the the Greek version, in fact, it is when it says the, they comfort me. Well in Greek it says they <unk>. They comfort me. So Jesus will teach us all things by his Holy Spirit whom he calls the comforter. Just as his staff and his rod, they comfort us. Have you ever considered the idea that perhaps Jesus, rod and his staff for us living at the end verse history is in fact his Holy Spirit? That will be what comforts us when we need promises brought back to our memory. It's the Holy Spirit. Who does it when we are facing grave Periled, who will comfort us? The Holy Spirit. Why? That's the shepherds staff. Hmm? He's the one that's going to write the law in our hearts, and we're going to need that on our hearts to be faithful to him. Also, notice something else. In John 14, we looked at verse 26, go back 10 verses to verse 16. Jesus says, I will pray the Father and he will give you another comforter, another comforter of the same variety. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the comforter. It said in verse 26, Jesus himself is the other comforter. It says so explicitly in first John, it says that he, he there is the parato. And so that's if you're curious, that's one John two, one. There they translate the word as advocate, but it's the same word. He is the comforter. The Holy Spirit is the other comforter. Hmm. <unk> We could look at one as Jesus. One is the Holy Spirit. They're in perfect harmony here. Second Corinthians one verse three through five says, blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and the God of all. Par is again the God of all comfort, who comfort te in all our tribulation will have plenty of that coming up very soon that we may be able to comfort them, which are in any trouble by the comfort we're with, we ourselves are comforted of God for as the sufferings of Christ abound in us. So our consolation also abound if by Christ, second Corinthians one versus three through five. Now, did you count how many times you heard the word comfort? Comfort death there? Well, it turns out there were five instances. The God of all comfort, who comfort death us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them by the comfort wherewith, we ourselves are comforted of God. And in fact, in verse five, there is actually a sixth instance when it said, so are consolation also abounded by Christ? That word translation as consolation, that word there is also parak. So we have six instances of paratas paralysis. They're all the same root. God is interested in comforting you. Do you believe that God the Father, is interested in comforting you, that he sent Jesus as our comforter, and that Jesus has in turn sent the Holy Spirit as our comforter in his place? Do you accept that Jesus is our good shepherd and that his staff is there to comfort you by way of the Holy Spirit? And are you willing to ask him to use you to comfort those who need comforting themselves? They may be going through far greater trials than you, but if you've had an experience with the Lord and you've come to experience this truth, not just intellectually, but by experience, you will in turn be able to comfort them. And God wants us as his representatives. He wants us to comfort just as He comforts us. With that, I ask that we bow our heads for a closing word of prayer. Father in heaven, I thank you for this beautiful truth that you are God. You are L. You are the chief shepherd, and the shepherd is there not only to lead the sheep, but to comfort them. I thank you for that. I thank you that you have sent Jesus as our comforter, that he has in turns, and the Holy Spirit is our comforter, and that it is your great joy to comfort us and we have the enormous privilege. We cannot be you, but we can be your representatives and just as you have comforted us, so you will in turn use us to comfort others. We are your instruments. We are as a word, your staff in some limited sense to be used of you, to comfort others who are in great need. May we keep that in mind today. May we prove faithful. May we stay faithful until Jesus coming, and may we win many souls for your glory we pray in Jesus name may Amen. This media was brought to you by Audio verse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon, audio, and much more. If you would like to know more about Audio verse or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audio verse.org.

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The Good Shepherd

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Sound Doctrine