Honoring the God We Know By Name

I'm a pastor. I can't get back to the church, and I'm just gonna preach to you all. And they, I thought they would be like, all right, you know, because they were also trying to get a flight back to Birmingham, but they didn't seem really excited. But instead of us watching it on video, you do have to have me in present, you know, before you. It was good to be, to be away.

I missed last week, but it's great to be back and open up God's word together. We're gonna continue our study on the 10 Commandments. And I hope you see by now that the 10 Commandments are more than, they're more than just a list of rules. That's not really what they are at all. This list of rules that kinda make your life miserable.

They're actually a call to living a new and a better life. They're telling you how you can live in this new freedom that we have in Christ. And throughout the Old Testament, this is why you have the law being described in terms like it's a light unto our feet. It's a delight. It's sweeter than honey.

The law is our very life. We've been opening up a lot of our times together by reading from Psalm 119. And the entire Psalm is nothing about the joyful privilege we have of having God's law. The Israelites certainly never saw it as a list. They saw it as their very life.

And this was in stark contrast, actually, to all of the other pagan religions around them, in which they had to guess what their gods wanted them to do. And so, if something bad happened, maybe there was a famine or whatever, they were always trying various things to appease the gods. But they didn't know what their gods were like, or what their gods liked. And so when Yahweh gave His law to his people, it was a tremendous grace to them. They knew who he was and they knew how to please him.

And so it was a joy to their hearts. And I hope you've been able to see this as we have been going through these Ten Commandments. Now before we read the 3rd commandments that we're gonna look at today, I would like us to say all the Ten Commandments again together. So if you would, if these come up on the screen, read these with me. You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make any graven images. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Honor your father and mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. And now Exodus 20 verse 7.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. And then number 622. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his sons saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you.

The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So they shall put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them. This is the word of the Lord. Yes, amen.

You would pray with me. Father, we pray that you would bless us with your presence. That your spirit would guide us in worship. That He would open up our hearts and minds to receive what you would have from us from your law. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.

But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So at first, when you heard this commandment being read to you, you thought, okay, I get it. This is one of those commandments that actually needs, you know, little explanation, because it's one that I'm familiar with.

I was actually taught as a child. I mean, most of you, you were probably taught how to obey this commandment as a kid. Right? You're not supposed to swear. You can't say, you know, the words like, you know, o m g, g d. You can't say Jesus, and say his name like it's a swear word. I mean, growing up, everyone knew you weren't supposed to do that. Even kids side of a church knew that you weren't supposed to say those things. Do any of you remember turtle's records? Anyone?

None of y'all had a happy childhood. Like none none of you. How about coconut music? Any a few hands. My goodness. We have just, I have dated myself. Alright. That's where you used to be able to go and buy these things called CDs or these round little things, like, you know, you put in a car. Alright. So, you would go and you would buy some some CDs or even tapes at the time.

I would get turtle bucks or medallions in my stockings for Christmas that I would go and trade in for the latest Petra CD. And so, but you would go into those stores and they would have an explicit section. You remember that? No, you don't, obviously. But certain CDs were deemed explicit.

And if you were, if you were under 16, you couldn't buy it. A matter of fact, they actually had locks on them to where you couldn't open them. And one of the ways that you would be sure to like get an explicit CD or a CD labeled as explicit was if you took the Lord's name in vain. I I mean, the rest of the world knew this. This is what made something wrong, what made it explicit.

You're not allowed to do that. Now we've come a long way, haven't we, since then? I mean now you can pretty much download anything with what we would call explicit lyrics or taking the Lord's name in vain. It's, these words are all over us. You can't escape them.

A matter of fact, early on in the pandemic, we were trying to have my kids. 1 of them went to a socially distanced birthday party. It was our youngest. And, and because Netflix had been raising her for about, you know, a month or 2 at this point, and you're just so inundated with this, at the party, and this was a straight laced Christian family at this birthday party, my daughter meant to say something like, what in the world? But instead, she goes, what in the hell?

Preacher's kid right there just lets it out. Everybody's just shocked and is looking at her. By the way, I get permission before I ever share this from my kids. So I'm gonna So they allowed me to say this. Thank you. And so she was just mortified as she said this. So she gets in the car, she's going home, and she's telling her mom, I admit to say what in the world, but I said, what in the hell? And her older sister says, you cannot say that. It's what the hell? It's not what in the hell.

And at this point, we know we have failed miserably as parents. Like, you are not alone. Okay? We we have failed miserably. Like, it's all out there. You can't escape it. You can't. Now I know that most of you in this room, you're good little Christians. So you don't you don't say any things like that. You have your substitutes. That's what you have. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. And God's like, you Oh, you fooled me. I thought you were about to say it.

And you're like, jeez, God. I wouldn't say that. You know? So so we come up with these little substitutes as a way of not taking the Lord's name in vain. If that is your solution to not violating the 3rd commandment, know that, it's a dumb solution, but you're also not alone.

It's, it's one that people have done throughout history. Actually, medieval scribes, they did something very similar as a way of protecting the name of God. They invented another name that you could use instead of saying the name Yahweh. And it's probably in some of your bibles. It's the name Jehovah.

The name Jehovah is a made up word. It's a made up name. It's actually not in any of the original Hebrew texts for the Old Testament. What they did was they combined the consonants of Yahweh, and they put them together with the vowels of Adonai, which means Lord, and they mushed those 2 together, and it was Yehoa in Latin, or Jehovah to us. And it was a way of like, well, we need to make sure we don't use God's name wrongly.

Let's just invent a new word. And that way we never take his name in vain. Is that what we're supposed to do? Is that what this commandment is all about? Not swearing?

Not saying his name irreverently? If so, well, then it seems pretty straightforward, and it also seems like it's one of the easiest commands for us to obey. I mean, granted, some of you are gonna have to get used to this. It's gonna take some training on your part, but, but it's doable, isn't it? But that's actually not at all what this commandment is about.

It it might surprise you to know that far from being one of the more narrow and easy to obey commandments, this commandment is really large. It is much broader and deeper than you probably ever imagined. We have seen this commandment so many times, we actually haven't listened to what it's saying. For instance, where in this commandment does it say anything about speech? Where?

You shall not take the name of the Lord in vain. There's not one word in that sentence that indicates speech. It does not say we are not to speak the Lord's name in vain. It says that we are to not take it. And now this commandment, it got associated with speech because some people believe that God was using a little bit of shorthand here.

When he said you shall not take, that was shorthand for you shall not take on your lips. And so, that's how that kinda got started. That this is mostly about speech. But that is not how this word is used elsewhere in scripture. The word take elsewhere in the Bible means what you would think it means, to carry or to bear.

This commandment also got associated with speech because speech can certainly be part of how we carry something. For instance, we talk about taking an oath. We take an oath. And when we take an oath, of course, this does involve speech. You do say words, but it's way more than that.

When you take an oath, what's happening is you are attaching yourself to something. You're attaching yourself maybe to the truth, or you are binding yourself to another person. Taking the name of the Lord is similar. We're not just saying his name. We are binding ourselves to him.

We're taking on his name. You see Yahweh, the Lord Yahweh, he did not reveal his name to everyone. He revealed his name to Moses. You know, in Exodus 3, Moses asked, what's your name? And he says, I am Yahweh, or meaning I am who I am. He gives his name to Yahweh. He gives his name to the people. And when he did so, he was marking his people as his. He attached himself to them. And they attached themselves to him.

They've taken on his name. Something similar to this that we have in our culture is marriage. When a man and a woman, they marry together, the wife usually takes on the name of her husband. And when she does so, she is telling the whole world that she belongs to him, and that he belongs to her. So when Lauren and I got married, her name changed from Lauren Caswell, which was her maiden name, to Lauren Brooks.

And now when people meet her, and Lauren Brooks, oh, you're Joel Brooks' wife. Y'all belong together. We've taken on the name of the Lord. We belong to him. I think a a good biblical example of what taking a name, looks like is found just a few chapters later in Exodus 28.

And this is when Aaron, who was the high priest of Israel, God told him to make a priestly vest. And on this vest, he was to have a couple of stones. And on the stones were to be engraved all 12 of the names of the tribes of Israel. So he wore their names. And we read this in Exodus 2829.

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel and the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the holy place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord. Aaron bears the names. It's the same word as takes. He he takes the name. It's the exact same phrase as the third commandment there.

He takes the names of Israel upon them, and then he bears them to the Lord. He represents them to the Lord. Aaron is now acting as their representative. Similarly, later, Aaron is gonna be told to put the name of the Lord upon his head. He'll have a gold plate with the name Yahweh on it.

And now Aaron is gonna take the name of the Lord and represent the Lord to the people. That's what he does as a high priest. He takes on the names of the people and he represents them to the Lord. He takes on the name of the Lord and he represents the Lord to the people. He's functioning as a priest.

And we essentially are to function as priests. That's what Israel was being called to do here. Israel was called to be a nation of priests. Represent who I am to the world. Represent who I am to the world.

I think another way we see beautifully what it means to take on or to take the name of Yahweh is found in one of the most famous benedictions we have in scripture. We just read it at number 6. You hear it read, often at at church services, at weddings. Let me read these words again. And instead of saying the Lord, I'm gonna say Yahweh, which is the actual word, his name.

Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to Aaron and his sons saying, thus you shall bless the people of Israel. You shall say to them, Yahweh bless you and keep you. Yahweh, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

I've heard this blessing described as a verbal branding. Doesn't it feel that way? I mean, 3 times you have it. Yahweh bless you and keep you. Yahweh make his face to shine upon you. Yahweh lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So you shall put my name upon them and I will bless them. I mean it's beautiful here. The name of Yahweh is branded on us and the result is blessing. It's a blessing.

We now bear his name and we are blessed. If that doesn't resonate with you, if you're still having a hard time figuring out this out, because we're in the south, I'll use a different image. It's like God has put his monogram on us. God's put his monogram on us. I mean, you If you were to go down into the nursery right now, half of the kids are wearing a monogram, that matches with the diaper bag that you are now carrying up here.

You know, with the the monogram on it. But we monogram everything. I mean, last night when I'm waiting for our luggage to finally come, what am I looking for? Our monogram. We monogram luggage, ties, underwear, every pillow, you know, purses.

If you were to actually go to our house and you know, look at some of the 10 pillows on our bed, you would you would notice that they're monogrammed. Like, we must be very possessive people. But if you were to take one of my pillows, I would know because it has our mark on it. Yahweh has left his mark on us. He's monogrammed us. He's claimed us as his own. Hope you see that in this blessing. It makes this blessing beautiful. I've put my name on you. Put my name on you.

I've marked you as mine. And now you are to carry my name to the ends of the earth. You're to represent who I am to the world. I am blessing you with my name. And now you are to take that blessing to others. That was the call of Abraham. I am blessing you and then you will be a blessing. We are to now be as representatives to the world. So I hope you see that this commandment, you're starting to see, is is a whole lot bigger than not saying o m g. It's it's it's a lot bigger than this.

Taking the name of the Lord or the name Yahweh is recognizing that he has made a claim on us. And he has blessed us. And since we now bear his name, we must represent him rightly to the world. And this means that we need to live a life that reflects who God is. We reflect his love, his kindness, his faithfulness, his truthfulness, his forgiveness.

We reflect all of those characteristics. As Christians, we bear the name Christ. We represent Christ in the world. When the world wants to know who is Christ, well, where are they gonna look? They're gonna look towards Christians.

We bear his name. And so we need to live our lives in such a way that reflects who Jesus is. So they need to see from us in the way that we do our jobs, the way we love our neighbors, the way we, we are faithful to our spouses, the way we tell the truth, the way that we are generous with our resources, the way we walk humbly before others and before God, they need to see all these things because we bear the name of Christ. That's what this commandment is about. So that's what it means to take the name of the Lord.

What does it mean to take it in vain? Well the phrase in vain means exactly what you would think it means. Means empty. It means ineffective. So to take the name of the Lord in vain means that God has branded us with His name. He's blessed us with His name. And He has released us to the world. But the fact that we bear his name and we've been marked by him has produced no effect. It's been empty. We are ineffective.

We misrepresent him to the world, even though we carry his name. So for us to take the Lord's name in vain is to claim to be a Christian. We profess the name in Christ. But really, it's an empty gesture. Nothing in our lives really reflects who he is.

I mean, we hope in all the same things that the world hopes in. I mean, we place our hope in the economy, our 401 ks, a certain political party, our education, our health, our status. We choose right or wrong based on whichever way the cultural winds are blowing. We don't keep the commandments of god. If you profess Christ, call yourself a Christian, and you do those things, you are taking the name of the Lord in vain.

And just, you know, especially over the last few weeks, as it's been in the news so much, think how much Christians have brought shame to the name of Christ. How many churches have? The churches that have covered up or even enabled sexual abuse. Preachers who have preached the health, wealth, prosperity crap to their to their congregation. Robbing the poor through their words?

Think of the way that churches have elevated politicians to almost a messiah like level. Think of the churches out there that no longer see the Bible's ultimate authority as to what is right or wrong. These are all examples as to churches or Christians that bear the name of Christ that have taken on his name, but it's in vain. This is exactly what the Israelites were doing. They took on the name of the Lord and yet it was empty.

Through their idolatry, their Sabbath breaking, their greed, their sexual immorality. They misrepresented Yahweh to the world. They were supposed to be married together. They bore the Lord's name and yet they kept going to other lovers. And the rest of the world's like, wait, I thought I thought you were married to him.

But I see you trying to satisfy your soul by going to this and to this and to this and to this. They they took on his name. It was an empty gesture though. Haven't we done the same thing? Now that you understand what this commandment means and you see the enormity of it, let me ask, how are you measuring up in this moment?

This is not as easy to obey as you initially thought. So where is our hope in this? Well, as always, and I hope I sound like a broken record, our hope is in Jesus. All of these commandments lead us to Jesus. They show us our need for Jesus, and they show us how Jesus has fulfilled all these things.

You know, when Jesus was born, God did not leave the naming of his son to Joseph and Mary. You notice that? I mean, his son is born, you know, to Joseph and Mary. But he's like, you no. You will not name them. I name my child. His name will be called Jesus, Yeshua. The name Jesus means, the Lord saves. God's son would bear His name. Yahweh saves.

And Jesus would not bear that name in vain. Yahweh would indeed save through him. When Jesus was older, remember when the disciples went to him, they, they saw him praying. They're like, Jesus, would you teach us to pray? And he said, yes, I'll teach you how to pray.

First, this is to whom you pray, our father who art in heaven. And then the very first thing you ask for, hallowed be thy name. That's our very first petition. As when we come to the father in prayer, the very first thing on our hearts is may your name be hallowed, not taken in vain. Jesus knew that the Israelites have been taking the Lord's name in vain ever since Mount Sinai.

And so his heart's desire was that it would be hallowed instead. You wanna know how to pray? Pray that we would hallow the name of God. That's why Jesus came to earth, to hallow the name that the Israelites have been profaning. He was he came to this world to rightly represent who God was to us because he had been falsely represented by the Israelites.

He did what you and I were supposed to do. He succeeded where we have failed. He accomplished what we can never do. Once again, Jesus did not take on the Lord's name in vain. He fully represented God to us.

But this is even more glorious. He did not just fully represent God to us, because He is fully human. He also, not just took on the Lord's name, He also took on our name, and fully represents us to His Father. Jesus carries our name to the Father. He carries both his Father's name to us and he carries our name to the Father.

He acts as our representative. Basically, he functions the same way that Aaron did as the high priest. He represented Yahweh to the people and he represented the people to Yahweh. But Jesus carries our name. One of the places that we most beautifully see this in scripture is Isaiah 4916, where Jesus he says, I don't wear a vest with your name on it before the father.

You know what I do? I have engraved you in the palm of my hands. In the palm of my hands, I have engraved you. And so when the father looks at my sin, Jesus says, look at me. I come representing Joel. Look. I've engraved his name on my hands. Jesus represents the father to us. Then he represents us to the father. You can have no greater advocate.

There is a famous passage in Ezekiel 36 that points to the future and explains to us why Jesus was to come. It describes what Jesus was to accomplish. And the context is this. Yahweh had given his name to the Israelites, but they took it in vain. It was an empty. It produced no effect. Instead of hallowing it, they were profaning it to the world. And now the world was looking at the Israelites from like, that's your god? That's who god is? And finally God said, enough.

I will not allow my name to keep being profaned. For my sake and the glory of my name, I'm gonna act. And we read these words in I in Ezekiel 36. Therefore, say to the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord God.

It is not for your sake that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations in which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. And then he describes how he's gonna do this and he describes the new covenant. I will take you from the nations and I will gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.

I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart. And a new spirit will I put in you.

I'm gonna remove the heart of stone from your flesh. And I'm gonna give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my very spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and to be careful to obey my rules. You will dwell in the land I gave to your fathers, and you will be my people, and I will be your God. The new covenant is all about the greatness of God's name and how he will not allow it to be taken in vain.

Jesus went to the cross because we had profaned the name of the Lord. And it was there on the cross that Jesus provided forgiveness. And when he rose, rose from the dead and he ascended on high, he has offered us the gift of his spirit to come and to wreak havoc in our souls. Good havoc. Rips out the heart of stone.

Gives us a new heart. Gives us one that will hallow his name. One that will obey his commandments. And that's the good news that we come to celebrate this morning. Our father, we confess here that we have all profane your name.

We have taken it in vain, But Lord Jesus, you have hallowed it. Through your blood, you have hallowed it. And now you offer us forgiveness and new life and we get to walk in a new freedom. We have a new engine in our souls, a new heart that will enable us enable us to really follow you God and to glorify your name. I pray that you make this happen in this place. Thank you for your work on the cross. Thank you for your love for us, Jesus. We pray this in your name. Amen.