Studies in Identity - God: The Names of God - Jehovah 03-03-24

Overview: Pastor Williams discusses the different names of God, specifically focusing on Jehovah and the meanings behind the names. He mentions names such as Jehovah-Jireh (provider), Jehovah-Rapha (healer), Jehovah-Nisi (banner), and Jehovah-Mikodishkim (sanctifier). He then delves into the story of Gideon and how Gideon experienced the peace of God, leading to the introduction of the name Jehovah Shalom (peace). He also introduces Jehovah Sabaoth (Lord of hosts), highlighting God's command over angel armies. Pastor Williams emphasizes the importance of knowing who God is and finding peace in His presence, power, and purpose. Transcription: Who is God? We began last week on the study of Jehovah. He is Jehovah. He is Yahweh, the self-existent One. And stemming from that name, we have several other names throughout Scripture that utilize that thought, that spring from that thought. Because He is the self-existent One, He is Jehovah-Jireh. He will provide. And because He is the self-existent One, He is Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord our Healer. Because He is the self-existent One, He is Jehovah-Nisi, the Lord is my banner. And because He is the self-existent One, He is Jehovah-Mikodishkim, the Lord who sanctifies. And this name is first introduced to us in Exodus 3, verses 13-15. So let's read that together again this week. Moses is in the wilderness, so to speak. He is tending the sheep and he's walking through there. And all of a sudden, he looks over and there's this bush that is on fire, but it is not consumed. And in Exodus 3, verse 13, it says, Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel, say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they say to me, what is His name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is My name forever and this is My memorial to all generations. The Lord. The Yahweh. The Jehovah. And so springing from that, I want to introduce to you this morning, or remind you if you have heard them before, five more Jehovah names that spring from this name that He gives Moses. The first being Jehovah Shalom. Jehovah Shalom. The Lord is peace. And it's used one time in Scripture. Judges 6.24. So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord is Peace. Now maybe you remember the story of Gideon, but Gideon was there inside the winepress, inside the building threshing wheat, separating the seed from the chafe, which if you know anything about that process from your Scripture studies, that is not usually done inside a building because you rely heavily on the wind to blow away the chafe while the seed falls down onto the blanket or whatever you have spread that you can gather it up. And so this is not a normal thing to do it inside a building, but he is doing it inside a building because Israel is being attacked from the Midianites and they are being persecuted and they're stealing all their crops. And so Gideon's like, man, I've got to save some to feed my family, so I'm going to run and hide. And then the Lord comes onto the scene and what does He call Gideon? Oh, you big coward, you big yellow-bellied chicken, what are you doing in this building? No, He says, hey you, you mighty man of valor. And He goes on with this conversation and tells Gideon what he is supposed to do. And Gideon says, look now, if the Lord's really going to be with me, I need you to wait here. Let me go prepare a meal. I'm going to bring it to you and we can talk some more. So Gideon goes, prepares a meal, brings it out to this angel. The angel says, set the meat and the bread on that rock right there. And then pour the broth over the top of it. Make sure it's good and juicy and wet. And then it was consumed by fire right there in front of Gideon. Right there on the rock. Showing to Gideon, proving to Gideon He was who He said He was. And it was in that moment that Gideon cries out and builds this altar and it says, the Lord is peace. In Judges 6, we will see that the Lord proves or shows why He is peace to Gideon because of His presence. If you want to turn there, Judges 6, for just a moment, we will look at that. Judges 6. We will see this interaction and show scripturally how God reveals or gives peace to Gideon. He is the Lord of peace in verse 12 when it says, and the angel of the Lord appeared to him. He is right there with him. Right in front of his face. He saw him. And in verse 16, the Lord said to him, surely I will be with you. And so He gave Gideon peace through His presence. He gave Gideon peace through His purpose when He was in verse 14. The Lord turned to him and said, go. He gave him a purpose. He said, go. And when He goes, I will be with you. Not a piece of His presence, but a piece of His purpose and the peace of His power. In verse 13, Gideon said to Him, O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all of this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And so you see Gideon kind of pushing back. I know who they claim for you to be. That you've done miracles. You've brought us out of Egypt. Let's get down to verse 17. Then he said to Him, if now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who walk with me. Prove to me You are who You say You are. And this is when that meat is consumed, that bread is consumed, that meal is consumed on that rock right in front of His face, and it proves the power of God. You see, peace is the application of knowing who God is. Because if we truly know who God is, if we truly understand His power, if we truly understand His presence with us, if we truly understand His promises to us and His purposes for us, then what in this world can overcome those things? If we really know who God is, if we really lean into the miracles that He's done, if we really lean into the power that He's displayed before us, God, I know I've heard about the miracles You've done. I know it was You that brought us out of Egypt. Think about that for a second. The contrast between Gideon and Israel in the wilderness. What did Israel do when Moses was up on the mountain a little bit too long? They built a golden calf. They built an idol out of their luxuries. They built an idol out of their prosperity. They built an idol out of the very things that they brought out of Egypt which God gave them through that process. They built an idol out of that and said, this is the God that brought us out of Egypt. This prosperity, this popularity, this thing that we built with our hands, this is what brought us out of the land of Egypt. And God said, nope, that's not. And then here we have Gideon who says, no, it wasn't that golden calf. It wasn't their own abilities. It wasn't their own possessions. It wasn't their own understanding. No, God, it was You who brought us up out of Egypt. It was You who was powerful enough to overcome the armies of Egypt. It was You who heard the cries of Your people. It was You who did the miracles in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. It was You who fed them the quail and the manna. It was You who did all these things. I know this. I understand that. But if it's You who goes with us, then show me. And in Your presence, in Your power, and in Your purpose, that's where I will find peace. The problem with us finding peace today is we look too much into our own abilities. God, I've got this. I understand who I am. I'm strong enough to handle this. And I look to the worldly ways to solve the problems that I have. And I very rarely, or I hesitate, or I wait too long to run to the presence of God, to run to the power of God, to run to the purposes of God in my life. I try to do it on my own, and I have no peace. The Lord is peace when I'm in His presence. The Lord is peace when I'm following His purposes. The Lord is peace when I have His power on my life. And I only do that when I know who He is and understand who I am in light of that. The Lord is peace. Jehovah Shalom. Secondly, we have Jehovah Sabaoth. The Lord of hosts. Here's what I find interesting about this name. Almost all of the other names are used once, maybe twice. This name, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts, is used 285 times. But what does that mean? The Lord of hosts. Now this is not like the hostess that works at Applebee's and sits you to your table, right? Not that kind of host. It's not the emcee at some kind of gala or some kind of event you might attend. They're hosting. It's not like the youth are going to host the fundraiser meal tonight. No, it's not that kind of host. We're just talking about heavenly hosts. He is the Lord of hosts. That's why Psalm 2410 says, who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. It speaks about angel armies. He is the King of angel armies. The Lord of angel armies. Matthew 26, 53. Jesus speaking about this when He says, do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father that He will provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? This is the God who commands the angels. Now, depending on who you read after, who you study after, that could mean anywhere from 72,000 to 288,000 angels. But let's go on the low side. 72,000 angels that God has command over. That this Lord could look down on you and say, there's my daughter, Patsy. She's in trouble. Angels, go get her. There's my son, J.D. Struggling right now. Angels, go help him. Hey, there's my son Lance over there who's having a hard time. Angels, go help him out. And the angels don't sit back and say, well, God, you know, he kind of brought that on himself. You know, he made some decisions in his life. God, maybe we should just let him struggle a little bit. He made his bed. He's got a lie in it. No, this army, even more so than our... How many of you served in the military? Let's see a raise of hands. We've got quite a few in here. When your commanding officer told you to do something, did you question him? Did you say, now, sir, wait a minute. Absolutely not. When that commanding officer spoke, you did it. You knew who was in charge. You knew who the authority was. This is the same idea that the centurion who came to Jesus and said, Jesus, my daughter's sick. He said, let me come right away. He said, no, I know. I'm in charge of men. I understand what authority's like. And I know the authority that you have. So all you have to do is speak from miles and miles away. You can speak and my daughter will be healed. I know that you have that authority. That's the authority that it's talking about here. That the Lord of hosts has charge over all the angels in heaven that they will act at His Word without hesitation, without speaking. That's the Lord of hosts. The angel armies that He has. But there are angel armies and there are mighty armies. Let's understand this. 2 Kings 19, verse 35, it says, and it came to pass on a certain night that the angel of the Lord... How many is that? It's one. The angel of the Lord went out and killed the camp of the Assyrians 185,000. One angel took out an army of 185,000. Jesus said, I'd call more than 12 legions, 72,000. What kind of power is that? 2 Kings 6, 16, and 17, so He answered, Do not fear for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Elisha's about to go into battle. He's about to go into war with someone who is bigger and badder than anything that he has. We continue the story of Gideon. And what does he go in? With a handful of people and defeats an army. Why? Because God is the Lord of hosts, the God of armies, the angel of mighty armies that He will call down and He will fight for you and He will battle for you. And we don't have to battle it on our own. Angel armies, mighty armies, spiritual armies. Ephesians 6, 12 says, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places. Well, it doesn't take us long looking around this culture and our time and our communion and understand that the battle that is raging around us is not necessarily just a physical battle. Yes, people are facing physical battles. Addictions and sicknesses and disease that show themselves in their physical bodies. Their mind is not physically working. Yes, we fight physical battles in this life. But at the root of it all is a spiritual battle. Sin has come into this life through Adam and Eve in the garden. And it has expounded upon itself. And the heart is deceitfully wicked above all else. Who can know? We are inventing ways to be evil. These are not my own words. This is what comes directly from the Scripture. This is what we are doing in this life. We are facing a spiritual battle. And beloved, we can come up with all the programs. We can come up with all the ideas that we can. And there are some great things out there. We have the Pregnancy Center that we work with on quite some time. And we've got them going to a fundraiser meal that they are having. We have a Celebrate Recovery that's going on in some of the churches in our area. And we've got homes. We've got homes with a heart. We've got all of these things that are great things. But beloved, if we don't deal with the root of the problem, then it will just continue to manifest, continue to grow, continue to sprout new roots in its place. And what is the problem? The problem is that we are fighting a spiritual battle. And we don't fight that with our own strength. We don't fight that with our own understanding. Beloved, we fight that on our knees crying out to the Lord of hosts Who has charge of countless numbers of angels that at His Word will come down into the hearts of men and women and deal with the root of sin in their heart and draw them to Himself that they might come to faith in Christ. And when they come to faith in Christ, He will sanctify them and justify them and make them righteous in His own eyes so that then they begin to fight that battle in their life and the life around them. We don't have to do it on our own because we serve the Lord of hosts. Jehovah Sabaoth. Next, Jehovah Roi. Probably one of the most known names of God. The Lord is my Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd. Psalm 23. I invite you to turn there. It's a beautiful psalm that unfortunately, most of the time, only gets read at funerals. This is a psalm of David. He says, the Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me. See that peace that comes from His presence? 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 anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And all of God's people should say, Amen. Amen. The Lord is my Shepherd. Have you ever paused for just a moment to consider what that means for the Lord to be your Shepherd? Ask yourself this question. What does a Shepherd do for His sheep? I've got a list of ten things. And that's not even all the list. That's just the list from this psalm. You see, a Shepherd feeds in verse 1. A Shepherd calms in verse 2. A Shepherd protects also in verse 2. In verse 3, a Shepherd restores and guides. In verse 4, a Shepherd strengthens and comforts. In verse 5, a Shepherd blesses and anoints. And in verse 6, a Shepherd companions His sheep. Think about that. Think about God doing all of those things for you. He feeds you. The food that's placed on your table, it's because God allowed it to be on your table. He feeds you physically, but He also feeds you spiritually. He has for us daily bread. I've used this before and I heard a man say this once and I thought this was really interesting. The Lord has for you daily bread. So the bread you eat today was not the bread that He had for you yesterday. It will not be the bread that He has for you tomorrow. It's daily bread. And so if you don't eat of the bread that He has for you today, then you've missed out on something He had for you. Eat of the bread He feeds you. He calms you. When the storms of this life get out of your control, and they often do, and if we're really honest with ourselves, they always are out of our control. I can face tomorrow. Why? Because He lives. He calms us. And I don't want to revisit those, but all these things that a Shepherd does. One of the things that's not in this list that I found very interesting in understanding what Shepherds do for sheep, sometimes He has to break them. If a Shepherd has a sheep that keeps wandering off, a little lamb, keeps going by the wayside, getting itself in trouble, separating from the fold, that Shepherd will go over and break the legs of that sheep. But you know what He does after He breaks it? He picks it up and carries it. And so the whole time that they are traveling, that He is leading these sheep, and that little lamb's legs are broken, He's carrying this sheep. And what He's doing is He's building a relationship with that sheep so that when it's healed, that sheep will be closer to Him than He was before the break. That that sheep will learn to follow Him and trust Him and know Him as the Shepherd. Beloved, maybe you have been broken in your life, but that's just proof of God's love for you. Because He wants to draw you closer to Him so that you will see Him to be and understand Him to be and trust Him to be your Shepherd. Two more, Jehovah Zedkenu, the Lord our Righteousness. This one's used twice. One of those times right here in Jeremiah 23.6. In His days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell safely. Now, this is His name by which He shall be called the Lord our Righteousness. We understand within the Scripture of Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 21 and 22, there's warnings about judgment coming. There's warnings. Judgment is coming. Judgment is coming. But in Jeremiah 23, verses 3-8, He gives them hope in judgment. He's saying judgment's coming, but there's coming a man. This is an Old Testament promise for the Messiah. This is an Old Testament promise. There's somebody coming from the house of David and that His kingdom will reign and He'll be set up. And you can go back and look at that context. This is God telling Israel that a Savior is coming. That even though judgment is here, we have hope. That's what we need to cling to today. It's the hope that we have in Christ. Listen, America has turned its back on God. History, not world history, U.S. history. God's history is this. When God's people... When I say America, I don't just mean the lost and dying culture. I mean the church. Turn their back on God. When God's people turn their back on Him, judgment comes. But there's always hope in judgment. Because what judgment from God is designed to do is to help us see our need for a Savior. To help us see His power. To help us see His righteousness. Because again, we can't do it on our own. There's nothing that I can do that can make me righteous in the eyes of a holy God. And so something has to happen. And that thing that happened is Jesus. And Jesus still saves. And He will save you this morning if you've never put your faith and trust in Him. And you feel like you've got judgment on your life right now. There's hope for you. And it's Jesus. If you've put your faith and trust in Him, and you have turned your back on Him, you have walked away, and you put Him on a shelf and say, Jesus, I love You. I know who You are. You're the God that's done all of these things, but you know what? I've got more important things in my life to do right now. I've got to chase that almighty dollar. I've got to chase that popularity. I've got to chase this. And you realize, man, I've messed up. I've failed. I've made some bad decisions. And you felt like judgment is in your life. There's hope. And His name is Jesus. Jehovah Tzidkenu. God the Lord our righteousness. And lastly, Jehovah Shammah. The Lord is there. Ezekiel 48 and 35, all the way around shall be 18,000 cumens. And the name of the city from that day shall be the Lord is there. Now think about that for a second. They're naming a city, the Lord is there. And again, we've got to understand the culture. Names meant a lot more then than they do now. Hey, Doug, where are you going this weekend? I'm going to the Lord is there. Where are you going on vacation this year? I'm going to the Lord is there. Where are you going to go sell all your... I'm going to go to the Lord is there. Every time they called the name of that city, those that were reminded of them is that the Lord is there. It was very important. Because this is where Israel is in the Babylonian captivity and spread all abroad. And they would hear this name. The Lord is there. The Lord is there. The encouragement, the hope that it would bring them the Lord is there. And it reminded them that He is everywhere. Psalm 139, verses 7-12, it says, where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hands shall lead me and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall follow me, even the night shall be light about me, indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to You. He's in the light. He's in the darkness. He's in the heavens. He's in the depths. He's in the sea. He's on the land. Where is God not? Nowhere. You say, that's not good English. I understand, but you get the point. God is there. Beloved, where are you this morning? Are you in the middle of a storm? God is there. Are you in the middle of a struggle? God is there. Are you on a mountaintop? Everything's going great? You're blessed? God is there. Are you in the valley? God is there. God is everywhere. And He is every time. Beloved, hear me this. He's an all-time God. He's not just a God for Israel. He's not just a God for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He's not just the God of the Jews or the God of the Gentiles. He is an all-time God. He is for the generations past. He is for the generations that are. And He will be for the generations to come because He is God. He's an all-time God. And He's an on-time God. God's timing's perfect. I know that storm may be seemingly to you lasting too long. That burden may seemingly to you be too heavy. That unknown may be carrying on a little longer than you wanted it to carry on. But God is there. And He's always, always on time. So where are you this morning? Who is God to you? Have you trusted Him for salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone? Are you living a life that shows that He is God? Beloved, I want you to know this. That God is still God. That He is still in control. That He is still sovereign. He is still holy. He is still righteous. He is still loving. He is still merciful. And He still wants a relationship with you. As Patsy comes to play for our time of invitation, who is God to you? What does your life say about who is God to you? We call this a time of invitation because what it is, it's a time where I am inviting you to come to this altar to bow before a holy God in what they used to say is do business with God. Whatever that business may be. Repentance. Thankfulness. Laying a prayer request at His feet. Whatever that business may be, it's between you and God. But here's what I can tell you. God is there. He'll meet with you. Wherever you're willing to meet with Him, He'll meet with you. Let's stand together. I'd love to be able to pray with you, pray for you about whatever is on your heart. I'll be down front. You come as Ms. Patsy plays this. Altar's open. You are invited to come do business with God.