Rabbi Schneider — Yahweh Shalom
We're on a journey together through what I'm calling The Covenant Names of God. When we think of the word covenant, what does that mean? It means that we have a relationship with somebody, and there are terms to that relationship that protect the relationship.
In other words, we have made a promise to someone. We're in a covenant with somebody. And so Father God, in the Hebrew Bible, reveals himself as Savior. And in his saving relationship to his people, he gave us his personal name, Yahweh. And then he connected his holy name to the functioning activities that he's doing in and for his people because of his saving covenant with them.
I really want to encourage you, get this entire series because everything that I've talked about you can believe God to do for you. As I've been saying, some things we can pray about and we don't know for certain that some of the things that we're asking for God's gonna answer, because some of them are just, you know, they're our thoughts, they're out plans.
We hope God wants to do them, but we don't know. In other words, you're thinking about buying a certain property. You pray to God about it. Well maybe God's got a better property for you, right. I mean, there are some things that we're not quite sure about.
We bring all our requests to Father, but some of them we're not quite sure what his will is. But when we're looking at the covenant names of God, every time Father connected his name to a saving function that means his will absolutely and most certainly is to do that thing that he's connected his name to for you.
So I want to encourage you, get this entire series because it will really give you truth to sink your faith into. And when you incorporate this truth into your prayer life, Father God will most certainly bring to pass those things in your life that you're praying for. In other words, last week I talked about Yahweh Shalom, the Lord is peace.
When you make praying for peace a focus of your prayer life, you can be 100% certain God will strengthen you in his peace. With that introduction today, I want to continue on to the next sacred name of Yahweh today that we're gonna be looking at, Yahweh Rohi, listen now, the Lord our Shepherd.
You see, Father God has promised, listen now, to be the Shepherd of his people. What does that mean? The best place for us to see what it means, what we can trust in as we believe that Father's our Shepherd, is Psalm, number 23, right, the most famous Psalm in the entire Bible.
Let's look at Psalm, 23, together. We begin Psalm, 23, verse 1. It says, in the original, Yahweh is Rohi. The LORD is my Shepherd. I want you to think about that is. It's not that the Lord was your Shepherd. It's not that he will be your Shepherd. But right now, get it church, Yahweh is involved in your life and he's your Shepherd. He's alive. God is active.
In fact, God's sacred name, Yahweh, is actually a verb, continuous, unfinished action. He is present acting right now in your life and my life as our Shepherd as we are looking to him and saying yes to him. So we hear that the Lord's my Shepherd, but what does that actually mean? How can we sink our faith into understanding what Father God will do to us because he's our Shepherd as our Shepherd?
Well David spells all that out in Psalm, 23. I want you to believe. I want to ask you to believe this for yourself. Don't look at Psalm, 23, as just a pleasant poem. Don't look at it simply as something that you would read on a Christian greeting card or on a Jewish greeting card. But believe that God's the same yesterday, today and forever.
And what David said he did for him in Psalm, 23, beloved one, he will also truly, most definitely do for you and I today as we open our lives to him, and look to him, and give ourselves to him. So let's take a look, Psalm, 23. Yahweh is Rohi. Yahweh is my Shepherd. So the covenant name there, once again, Yahweh Rohi, meaning the Lord is my Shepherd.
Now what does this mean that the Lord's our Shepherd? Here we go: I shall not want. So the first thing that you can trust in is that everything that you need, he's gonna provide for you. Now as we said, it doesn't mean that everything we want he'll provide necessarily, even though God's a great God and he provides us so many things that we do want.
I mean he gives us so many presents, so many gifts. He's a good God. But what he's promised to do, beloved, is to provide for our real absolute needs. Jesus said, don't worry about what you're gonna eat tomorrow. Don't worry about having a roof over your head. Don't worry about having clothes. He said, your Father knows you have need of all these things.
So David said, I shall not want. Father will provide for me. At the end of the day, your job is something that has been assigned to you right now, if you have a job. You should do your best there, but you know what? If you lost your job, you'd still have food on your plate. Father God provides for the needs of his people. They shall not want.
Let's continue on. What does it mean that Father's our Shepherd? He makes me lie down in green pastures. This is what we looked at last week. Yahweh Shalom, he gives me peace. He leads me beside the quiet waters. This speaks of rest. Jesus said, come to me all you that are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. This is real. God's Spirit is rest. I want you to hear me now, beloved.
The Bible says those that are gonna have a relationship with God, in the Book of Hebrews, must number one, believe that he is, and that involves believing that he'll do what Psalm, 23, says he'll do.
So number one, if we're gonna walk with God and experience him, we must number one, believe that he is. And then secondly, we must know that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him.
So once again those who are gonna please God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. What I'm doing is I'm challenging you believe this truth that I'm sharing with you for yourself. Sink your teeth into it. Move into believing this for your life. Declare it over your life.
Let's continue on, verse 3: He restores my soul. Some of you are still really, and all of us to some degree, still need healing in our lives. We need healing in our soul, maybe healing in your body. Some of us have been through things even as, as babies, and young people. Maybe our parents got divorced. Maybe something happened to you when you were a child.
You know what? Jesus said, I'm your Shepherd and I will restore, hear me now, your soul. Some of you are still struggling with trust issues. You're having a hard time maintaining a marriage relationship because of trust issues. You were hurt or betrayed in the past.
You had people in your life that weren't faithful so now you're finding that your relationships keep on ending in brokenness. And a lot of it's because sometimes, church, our souls aren't restored because we don't have trust. And hear me when I say this, the world says that time heals all things. But the truth is, time doesn't always heal everything. But Jesus does. He said the Lord is your Shepherd, hear me now, and no matter what you've been through, maybe you were even sexually abused, the Lord can restore and will restore your soul.
I want you to know, there's some things that happen to us in life that we can't recuperate from apart from the supernatural. But, Hallelujah, and praise Jesus, because of him we will and we do recuperate. I want to encourage you to believe right now, believe in Father God to restore your soul.
Wherever there's brokenness, wherever the wounds are, at whatever period it happened in your life, I want to encourage you to focus on making this a matter of prayer in your walk with Father, asking him daily to restore your soul. And you're gonna find, beloved one, child of God, little by little, day by day, month by month, and year by year Father is gonna restore your soul.
One of the first things that Jesus said when he announced himself as the Messiah, he was in the temple, he said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And one of the things he said was this. He said, to restore the broken hearted. One of the biggest parts of Jesus's ministry to his sheep is restoring their broken heartedness. And so let's believe Jesus. I want you to know, Jesus loves you. He loves you. He's a friend like no other. He is the one that loves you more than any... There's no way to compare his love for you with anybody else because he created you for himself.