PREVIOUS SERMON  (sorted accordingly,starting from recent )

We have been seeing over the past few weeks that the shepherd’s rod and staff were used not to intimidate the sheep, but for their care, welfare, support and guidance: ‘Your rod and staff, they comfort me.’ I hesitated to use the shepherd’s staff as a ‘type’ of the Holy Spirit, but as I considered the caring and comforting ministry of the Good Shepherd our Lord, my mind ran immediately to the passage before us today. Listen to what Lord Jesus said in verse 16: ‘And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever–‘. Notice that Lord Jesus used the pronoun ‘He’, indicating that the Holy Spirit is not an influence or a feeling as many people try to explain, but a Person, a Real Person: He is a Person who counsels, comforts, guides, empowers, inspires and teaches –but most of all abides. An impersonal influence –an ‘it’ –doesn’t do that! Modern translations substitute for the word ‘comforter’ such words as ‘Helper’, ‘Counsellor’ or ‘Strengthener’. But the Greek word is parakaleo –para meaning ‘besides’, kaleo meaning ‘to call’, and put together, it means –One Who is called alongside us. Why is He called alongside? For counsel? Yes. For Strength? Yes. For everything? Yes. There isn’t a single thing needed for life that He in His Holy Spirit, the Comforter isn’t there to provide. Just as a shepherd walks alongside his sheep to care, comfort and to guide, so the Holy Spirit has come among us to bring the reality of Lord Jesus’ Word and Presence to our hearts. It is through Him that we are in touch with Lord Jesus, and with heaven, and it is through Him also that there steals over us the assurance that we are one with Him and that we ‘belong’. Oh, the security of being under His constant supervision and care is very important. Too good to be true? Too good not to be true? But the Holy Spirit is real and is true and this is the reason why we all should always work hard to have the Holy Spirit indwelling in our Heart and Mind by meeting up with the conditions of rightness and holiness with God! True Peace only comes through and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in an individual!

“I, even I, am He Who comforts you. Who are you, that you should be afraid of man, who shall die, and of a son of man, who shall be made [as destructible] as grass,” (v12) Oh can you see how our Almighty God compared Himself with us man bringing out how little and inferior we are compared to Him God? Having seen that the main purpose of a shepherd’s rod was to lovingly guide and discipline his sheep, we turn now to consider the next item of his equipment –the staff. ‘It is the staff’, says Philip Keller, ‘that identifies a shepherd as a shepherd. No one in any other profession carries a shepherd’s staff. It is uniquely an instrument used for the care and management of sheep and we humans are the sheep of our God Almighty. Staff will not do for cattle, horses or hogs. Staff is designed, shaped and adapted especially to the safety needs of sheep only.’ The staff was a slender pole with a little crook on the end or head, and was used for variety of purposes. It was used to gently lift a newborn lamb and bring it to its mother when it had become separated. It is very important to note that any time a newborn lamb is carried with a bare hand to an ewe she will sometimes reject her offspring if it has the smell of human hands upon it. So in other not to use the bare hand in lifting up a newborn lamb when need arises, the staff is used. The staff was used also to reach out and draw a sheep to the shepherd’s side for physical examination, as timid and nervous sheep tend to keep as much distance as possible between themselves and the shepherd. All of this explains God’s attitude in drawing us closer when our sin tends to make us keep distance with our God, it is important to realize and knowing that it is only in God’s Presence we have peace! The main use of an ancient shepherd’s staff, however, was to guide the sheep. The tip of the staff would be laid against the animal’s side, and the gentle pressure applied would guide the sheep in the way the shepherd wanted it to go. One observer of the ways of a shepherd with his sheep says, ‘Sometimes I have been fascinated to see how a shepherd will actually hold his staff against the side of a nervous or frightened sheep simply so that they are ‘in touch’. They the sheep will walk along the way almost as though they were ‘hand in hand’ with the shepherd. To be treated in this special way by the shepherd is to know comfort in a deep dimension and this is exactly what we humans enjoys in God’s hand of care.’ So let us always appreciate God’s care over us and know that we should give thanksgiving to Him in every situation that we find ourselves good or bad and also know that it is only in God’s Presence that we can find true Peace!

As we continue on the thought that God’s rod of instruction and guidance is designed, not to hurt, but to help us: just as we read in our Psalm, ‘Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.’ Rarely should we use the word ‘punishment’ in relation to the divine disciplines which God effects in our lives as Christians. Although generally there is a sense in which there is usually a consequence to sin in the life of a Christian as well as a non-Christian, but the thought uppermost in God’s mind when correcting anyone as concerning sin and its consequences is not mainly that retribution as a consequence for past misdeeds, but the development of our future spiritual and physical maturity? Bruce Narramore, a Christian psychologist, believed that the word ‘punishment’ should be reserved for non –Christians only because due to their unbelief and atheistic stand, their case becomes entirely different compared to that of an average true Christian. He says, speaking of the relationship that God has with His children, that ‘as Christ took our punishment on the cross, we are no longer sinners, but saints, true believers. Thereafter or as saints the focus of God’s dealings with us is not or no longer retributive, but remedial and correctional and when our case is remedied we then live correctly and thus long to become mature in Christ in all ramification. So from all of these explanations it becomes important as Christians that God’s dealings with us become very clear to us and from its clarity we come to a fuller understanding that as far as God’s dealings with us in corrective disciplines in life are concern we are not under punishment, but under discipline –and the difference is vital.’ I personally find it difficult to believe that God’s disciplines do not contain an element of punishment, but I see the point Bruce Narramore is making –namely, when we do wrong or wander from the divine pathway, God does not pounce upon us so as to even or balance the score: His disciplines follow a divine design that is calculated not merely to punish our wrongdoing, but to promote or advance our spiritual growth and maturity. How consoling this thought is –that when we disobey, God intervenes to correct us, not in anger, or with a desire to get even with us, but out of the deepest concern and interest for our spiritual development, growth and wellbeing. Let this divine understanding continue to move and spur us up to grow in the understanding of our God and in His dealings with us in all ramifications of life as we continue our life journey with Him! Bruce Narramore, Ph.D., is professor of Psychology at the Rosemead Graduate School of Professional Psychology and Theology in Los Angeles California and the author of numerous books, including Help! Bruce holds his M.A. from Pepperdine University Malibu, Los Angeles and his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky near Indiana and Ohio. Bruce Narramore and Dr. Timothy Friesen NCF helped found the Cornerstone Counseling Centre in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2004 to serve missionaries.

We have said it before and it is good that we keep hearing it until it become a part and parcel of our being that the reason why God disciplines us is because He loves us and do not want us to be ruined by our weaknesses and wrong ways of life, defective character, bad behavior and ungodly life style. Observing the way in which a shepherd in Old Testament days used his rod to discipline and guide his sheep to bring them back into the way, gives us a glimpse into the character of God and why He treats us the way He does. Many people, including Christians, have such a distorted view of God that they interpret His discipline, instruction and guidance as punishment, and fail to see that the reason why our heavenly Father intervenes in our lives is not because He is angry with us, but because He loves us and will not want us to be ruined or hurt in life. To understand God’s purpose in guiding us, it is necessary to observe the difference between two things – fear and respect. The Bible uses the word ‘fear’ in two ways: (1) as a form of anxiety, and (2) as a form of respect. As Christians, it is right that we have a deep respect for God which is called the fear of God, but we must see also that He does not want us to live out our days in anxiety, apprehension and dread which is the real fear of the unknown! Some parents attempt to influence and discipline their children through the use of fear and apprehension, but God does not deal with His children on that basis. One woman I heard of, wanting to teach her daughter the rules of the road, took her down to a busy crossroads and shouted to her as the cars approached: ‘Look out –here comes a car!’ The child soon learned how to keep out of the way of approaching cars, but she also developed a morbid fear of traffic. One of the goals of parenthood is to so train children that they develop respect without fear. Our text says: ‘The aim of the Christian discipline is the love that springs from a pure heart …’ The aim of God’s discipline, or correction, is not fear, but love that springs –and sings! This is a very difficult aspect of teaching, to teach a child how to respect without instigating fear into the child! One way is to let the child know that respect should be accorded out of love and that we should know that respecting God is another way of fearing Him because He is Almighty! In like manner you see someone who is superior to you as a mini-almighty and as such you respect and fear the person because he or she is not your equal in all ramification.

Having seen something of how the words, ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ relate to us as Christians, we move on now to consider the phrase: ‘Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me’. Today we lack discipline, good and Godly teaching, good instructions and divine guidance in our society which is why many things are going very wrong! Shepherds, in the Bible days, carried very little equipment with them when they tended their sheep, but invariably they carried a rod and a staff. The rod was a club which had a number of purposes, but was mainly used to drive off wild animals or catch the sheep’s attention. If a shepherd saw a sheep wandering from the right path or approaching a potentially dangerous situation –such as poisonous weeds or the edge of a precipice –he would hurl his rod slightly ahead of the sheep, thus startling it for a moment and causing it to scurry back to the safety of the flock. The rod therefore became an object of correction and guidance, not to hurt or injure the sheep, but to direct it back into the right way. Young shepherds would train for hours and compete with each other to see who could throw his rod with the greatest accuracy and across the greatest distance. The rod was what a shepherd relied on to protect both himself and his sheep whenever there was the threat of danger. How many of us, I wonder, can go through the Christian life day after day without the need for some discipline and guidance? I can’t –and I’m sure that is true of you also. Someone described the Christian life in this way: ‘Dependence plus discipline equals dependable disciples.’ Notice –dependence plus discipline –You can’t be a dependable disciple without discipline. No discipline –no disciple. It’s as simple as that! But the problem is how many of us as Christians are really ready to give themselves in for proper divine discipline and training? Divine discipline and training come from divine inspirations from the Holy Spirit and from the Bible, it can also come from true anointed people of God, it is then left for us to give ourselves sincerely in for disciplines and for training as to be true people of God!