LAW HOMILY: Speaking His Name Flippantly

The Third Commandment and the Call to Revere God’s Name

Every week we look at the law of God because we want to understand what God has to say to His people. We want to understand how we can obey His Word. Today we're going to be in the third commandment, which is this.

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Now, you and I have said the name of God many times this week. I just said it now.

But the problem is that most of those times, perhaps even all of those times, His name was not spoken in awe. There was no trembling. It wasn't like Moses when he hid his face before the angel of the Lord where the bush was literally set aflame in the Sinaitic wilderness.

It wasn't like Isaiah when he entered into the throne room of God.

And he screamed,.

Woe is me, for I'm being undone, for I'm a man of unclean lips. You and I, I would venture to say the majority of the time, have said the name above all names, the name to which every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, the name which the demons even tremble and shudder when it is spoken.

Have said that name this week both casually and without conviction. Dropped into sentences like spare change. God bless you, whatever that means. Used to emphasize our frustration. Yesterday, I was blessed to be at a golf clinic that's helping amateur players be more amateur.

And I was in a golf putting tournament and I was in the finals and my opponent missed his putt and literally said the name of God with the cuss word behind it. And I was like, well, he didn't make you miss the putt.

But the way we so flippantly, so many people so flippantly speak about the name of God, treat it like it's spare change or use it when they're frustrated as a curse word or to make their point stronger.

I promise to God. You ever heard someone try to elevate their promise just by slapping on the word God at the end? Maybe it's used to decorate the end of our prayers. But the terrifying part about all of this and the thing that I reflected upon this week is I've said God's name probably hundreds of times, maybe more this week, thoughtlessly.

I have actually said God's name in vain because I've treated it as though it's common. I've treated it as though it's normal and ordinary. My heart hasn't really set that word apart as special in most of my communications.

And as I was thinking about this passage for us today, I thought maybe all of us could repent of that and all of us could say, you know what? I haven't treated the name of God as special this week and maybe I need to repent too.

Repentance for Treating God’s Name as Common

So if you're like me, and I think we probably all are, let us pray and let us ask the Lord to help us treat his name as holy because he says my name shall be considered holy for I am holy. So let us pray.

Lord, I pray for me but also pray for us for two things. I pray, Lord, that you would forgive me and us for using your name as common. But Lord, I'd also like to pray for the thing underneath it that I have not intentionally, and I think maybe all of us have not intentionally set apart your name as holy so that when we speak it, we speak it with intentional reverence, with awe, with care, with devotion.

I remember learning that the Israelites, for all of their ups and downs and moments of idolatry, that the priests and the scribes, whenever they would translate or make copies of the word, that they would wash their hands before they wrote the word Yahweh and they would wash their hands afterwards.

And it was this way of setting apart the name of God as holy. Lord, whatever that looks like for us, Lord, would you help us to treat your name as holy? Because it is. It is the name above all names. It is the name to which every knee shall bow.

And Lord, I pray that you would protect my lips and our lips from ever speaking it flippantly. And Lord, I pray that you would forgive us when we fall short of these things, knowing that the one who bears that name is also the one who bears our sin.

So Lord, we thank you. We ask for your forgiveness. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.