Good Works Advance the Name of Christ

Please turn your copy of the scriptures to Romans chapter 1. We'll be looking at verse 5 today.

I will read verses 1 through 7 for context. That could be found on page 939 if you're using the pew

Bible in front of you. When you have Romans chapter 1, please stand for the reading of God's Word.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets and the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was descended from David, according to the flesh, as he was declared to be the

Son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our

Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would open our minds, you would open our eyes and ears to receive your

Word, that we would understand the truth here, even in this introduction of Romans, that Paul's grace and apostleship were given to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ's name among the nations.

We ask that we would eagerly, we would eagerly render the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ's name among all the nations.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we have been going through this series on motivations for good works and particularly in this segment, motivations that have to do with the advancement of the kingdom of heaven, how good works improve the kingdom of heaven.

Here in this passage, we come to the notion of the name of Jesus Christ. All Christians know that they are to obey the

Lord, that they are to follow in his law, that they often lack much zeal in doing so because they do not know the reasons that they ought to beyond the fact they are commanded to.

But there are many benefits, there are many blessings. One of those is the name of Christ.

It is through obedience, it is through the obedience of faith that the name of Christ is honored among all the nations.

It is important to honor good names. Christ's name is an incredibly good name, so it is important to honor his name above all names.

Then moreover, his name is a name that we bear and in bearing his name, we ourselves are benefited from the advancement of Christ's name in all the nations.

You have a name for yourself, a reputation, and you are eager for that to be a higher name.

You're eager for any kind of slanderous statements to be taken away, to have your name cleared.

Well, ultimately, you should be most concerned not about your private name, but Christ's name because it is in bearing his name that you can have the greatest honors.

Not through your own name privately, but through his name that you share with brothers and sisters.

Paul speaks here, writing to the church in Rome, the most prominent of all the places on earth at that time, pretty much the capital of the world.

These people, representing the nations themselves, says, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, to all the nations, including you, you people of Rome.

But then moreover, being in Rome, they are surrounded by many different nations. So there's a special way that they are to heed these words, being one of the nations themselves, but then likewise being surrounded by nations, being centered at the capital of the world.

As you consider us here in this area, Silicon Valley, a lot of times

I refer to this area as the capital of the world. There's really no other place that has the similar qualities like Rome would have.

You might think of capitals being primarily in terms of political power, but really it's just in terms of power in general.

And where are most of the world's decisions made? Is it not the case that by and large, many of the world's decisions are made right here?

Is it not the case that we are surrounded by many nations and we, not being Jews, are of the nations ourselves and so are to honor the name of Christ?

You should heed this as every Christian should, but I believe there is a special way that we should regard ourselves as having a particular duty to heed

Paul's words. So we live in modern day Rome. Just walking through this passage, we have received grace and apostleship.

Now, you might wonder, what is this grace that he speaks of? Well, the apostleship is him being sent by Jesus Christ.

Some people have taken that grace to refer to the grace of salvation. So he's received the grace of salvation, which is common to all.

But then particularly, he's received apostleship. Now, I don't believe that particularly fits here.

I believe he is talking about the particular grace that he has received to be an apostle.

This is known as hindiatus, when things are conjoined together with a conjunction like and, but they really refer to the same thing.

So if I said, well, it seems nice and warm today, I'm not really telling you two different things.

I'm not saying it's nice and that it's also warm. I'm describing the warmth of this being a nice warmth.

Similarly, Paul, when he speaks of the grace of apostleship or grace and apostleship, he's not talking about grace and apostleship as two different things.

He tends to speak of his apostleship as a grace. And so here, when he talks about grace and apostleship, it's really just referring to the same thing.

His particular commission to spread the name of Christ in all the nations. Peter was sent to the

Jews, Galatians 2 tells us, but Paul was sent to the Gentiles. You can see his use of grace this way in many other passages.

But just looking at Romans 15, he says in Romans 15, 15. But on some points,

I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the

Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God. So that the offering of the

Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So here he speaks of the grace given to him to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the

Gentiles. This is how he talks about his apostleship, even in the letter that it's a grace given to him.

So what his concern here is particularly about his commissioning.

So he's been given this commission. He has a special message that is not the message of every other apostle.

And he has done this to bring about the obedience of faith. Faith results in obedience.

God has made a people to himself, not just to believe, but in order that we'd be a people purified for his own possession, zealous for good works,

Titus 2 .14. He desires not just to bring about believers, but to bring about obeyers.

If you consider the Great Commission, as the Great Commission say, baptize, make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

The aim is to make obeyers. Those who would follow the word of God to have faith and then to have the obedience that springs from faith.

And where? Among all the nations. This is not something that is just supposed to be centered in one place as it was through most of human history.

Where it was the people of Israel who were primarily God's people, maybe a person here or there coming in to join

Israel, but it really just being one nation. We live at a time where Satan has been bound so the nations may no longer be deceived.

As such, the gospel is free to spread much farther. And it ought to spread much farther in order that Christ would be honored.

His name would be honored through obedience. Now we come to that question here.

What does it mean that this is for the sake of his name? Different translations will put this phrase at different parts.

Some say we have received grace and apostleship for the sake of the name to bring about the obedience of faith, etc.

Here we see that it says to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of the name. And then the way it appears originally in Greek is just the obedience of faith for the sake of his, excuse me, the obedience of faith among all the nations for the sake of his name.

This phrase for the sake of his name in Greek is all the way at the very end. And so different interpreters and even the translators, when they're trying to communicate to you what the words mean, are asking themselves, what is it that is for the sake of his name?

Is it the apostleship that's for the sake of his name? As Paul is a representative having the authority of Jesus Christ, is it the obedience that's for the sake of his name?

What is it? It seems very clear to me in reading, once again,

Romans, you see how he ends his message, repeating the same themes that he opened it up with, that what he has in mind is what the translators of the

ESV are communicating to you here. Is that it's the obedience of faith that is for the sake of the name of Christ.

And even if it were the apostleship, then it is ultimately for obedience, which is for the sake of his name.

So Romans 15 in verse 8, it says, So what is happening for the sake of God's name in this passage?

The Gentiles are praising, or the Gentiles are hearing praise. So here, what is happening for the sake of the name?

The Gentiles are receiving the message. Gentiles are being transformed by it. They're glorifying God. And in this context, he does particularly have in mind the donation, the collection for Jerusalem, for the poor in Jerusalem.

So the Gentiles giving praise to God for the sake of the name of Christ in that way.

Later on in verse 20 of chapter 15, it says, So Paul goes around to different places in order that Christ would be named there where he hasn't been named before.

So Paul in chapter 15 is letting you know that it's not just that he has the authority of Christ's name.

Rather, his particular mission is to go make Christ named places where he is not presently named.

So what does that mean for us as we read Romans 1, verse 5? What is for the sake of his name?

The obedience of faith among all the nations is for the sake of his name.

That Christ would be honored the way that God wants him to be honored, not just by one earthly nation, but by people from many earthly nations.

And how should he be honored? Just through song, just through verbal praise, particularly through the obedience of faith.

Just taking a step back and asking ourselves about the importance of names and honoring names, it is important to honor good names.

Good names deserve honor. This is what we are told in the ninth commandment, even, that good names deserve honor.

If you look at the back of your bulletin, I've put the Westminster Larger Catechism question about the ninth commandment here.

What are the duties required in the ninth commandment? It says the duties required in the ninth commandment are the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man.

Remember, the ninth commandment is thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. The preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbor as well as our own.

So it talks about promoting and preserving the good name of our neighbor. Later on, it says loving, desiring, and rejoicing in their good name.

Speaking of our neighbor, we are to love, desire, and rejoice in the good names of our neighbors.

Now, what neighbor should we care about above all others? Is it not Jesus Christ? We are to honor his name.

His name refers to his reputation, to his recognition.

It is one of those spiritual realities that exist beyond the material that we should be sensitive to.

There are a lot of things that God ordered in setting up the world in such a way that we would understand who he is.

He gave us material things in order that we might have dominion over them and understand his dominion.

There is a way that in creation, many of his own characteristics are expressed.

So it is with the notion of name. He is high above all things. He should be recognized as high above all things.

And he has given us the notion of a name by which we can see that. You consider the various things that exist that are immaterial, but plainly present in Genesis 1 and 2 as God has created the world.

There is righteousness. That is not something that is material, but certainly something that is part of our reality, like morality.

Even people who deny that God exists, and they might even say that there is no such thing as morality, they operate as though there is a real morality, as though some things are good and some things are bad.

They do certain things because they think they are better to do. And they are offended when other things happen because they think those things are bad to do.

So even people who would deny that there is anything spiritual, anything beyond the material, recognize it even in their own activity.

There is also dominion, the notion of ownership. Ownership is a real thing, upheld by the eighth commandment.

That you should not steal. There is a real relationship that you have to particular objects that other people do not have.

You and your car, you have a relationship of ownership that other people do not have.

If you do not own something, then you do not have that particular relationship with it. If you've never thought about this before, this is something that doesn't exist in the material world itself, even though physical things do exist in the material world.

But that notion of ownership is something that is beyond just the material.

Similarly, the notion of a name is something that exists beyond just the material. It refers to the recognition that one ought to have for another, the reputation that someone has.

We are to care about others in this way. We are to care about their righteousness.

We are to care about their ownership. We are to care about their name, as represented by these different commandments.

The ninth commandment, being concerned about the name of others. You might be wondering, well, why does lying, what does that have to do with someone's name?

Well, if you slander someone, especially in court, what are you doing? You are sullying their name, their name that needs to be cleared.

So we should desire the good of people's names rather than evil for their names. There are different kinds of names that you bear.

It is not just your own name, like my name is Conley. I also have a last name that I share with others,

Owens. And there's the name of my nation. We live in very impersonalized nations.

It used to be that every nation had a king, and there was a way that you were under him. Now we're kind of under these corporate entities, so people don't quite think that way anymore.

But you are either an American or of a particular country, and so you bear that name of your country.

Then you might bear other kinds of names as well. And so there are various sorts of reputations that we should care about.

Now, how do you honor a name? Well, first, truth. Truthfully, with your words, you defend the names of others as need be.

You can also cover shame. What happened in Genesis, where Noah's sons did not care about their father, or where Noah's son did not care about his father, he did not cover his nakedness.

He did not cover shame, where others covered his shame. But you can do that in your words, where you see people who are shamed.

One thing that people do today is they pretend as though the shame isn't real. I'm not arguing that you pretend that shame isn't real.

Like there's a shame of barrenness in scripture, for example. A lot of people pretend that that isn't real, and that's how they deal with it, that it doesn't matter whether or not one would be barren.

The way to deal with shame may be to cover, but it's not to pretend that it doesn't exist, not to pretend that it's not a real thing.

So you can cover shame even with your words. Then negatively, with your words, you could slander someone.

So if you were to, in an evil way, besmirch someone's name, you could slander them.

This is also known as traducing. You can traduce someone's name by saying wicked things about them, by saying lies about their activity or anything about them.

Now also you can uphold someone's name with your actions. Because you may bear a name that multiple people are bearing, as one who is a member of a family underneath a father or underneath a king or within a country, you bear the name that someone above you bears and other people with you bear.

And so as a representative of someone with that name, your activity, like your obedience in this case here, your activity is something that honors that name.

Or you can have things like monuments. Like we read about earlier,

Joshua's 12 stones. You also have Jacob's pillar. There's Samuel's Ebenezer.

There's a lot of different monuments you see in Scripture that are lifted up in order to honor

God's name and recall the things that he has done. So there are various ways that you can honor someone's name.

The ninth commandment is not merely about the words spoken out of your mouth, but about other ways that you would represent someone in all truth, even as you are bearing their own name.

You consider how the fifth commandment ties into this. The fifth commandment being honor your father and mother. How is it that you honor your father and mother?

Well, in being their own representatives, you are supposed to live a godly kind of life that would pass down that legacy in a way that is honorable to them.

All right, if we should honor good names, then most certainly we should honor Christ's name.

There are several reasons that we should honor Christ's name. First of all, he is God. Because he is God, he is high above all things.

His name should be praised. The verse that I read for our call to worship today here is relevant.

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted. His majesty is above earth and heaven.

God's name alone is exalted. And so, Christ being God, we should praise his name.

However, there's an additional way that we should praise the name of Christ. Not just as God, but as man.

He has, through his great righteousness, through his great obedience to the

Father, earned for himself such an incredibly high and exalted name. A name that he was not born with, by the way.

Right, he made himself like a servant, obeying even to the point of death.

For this reason, God has given him the name that is above all names. This is a name that he is said to have inherited.

Hebrews 1, 4, Having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Hebrews 2 says that he was a little while lower than the angels. But it is through his great work of salvation, through his great obedience, that he has earned a great name.

And because of this, we should praise his name. Philippians 2, 9 -11 says, Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Therefore, therefore being his obedience even to the point of death. So that the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and other under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. So what do you do given that he has been given a great name?

You are to praise that name because he has been given a great name. What's the default? The default, if you do not praise his name, this is not one of those things where there's a neutral position.

Right? You either serve God or you serve mammon. You're either a friend of God or you're an enemy of God.

You either praise the name of Christ or you praise other gods. Isaiah 26, 13 says, O Lord our

God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone we bring to remembrance. Because of the competition of all the lords and all the gods, because there are many lords that claim dominion over people's lives, when you do not praise

Christ, the implication is not that you are a free man who's not ruled by another.

The implication is that you are ruled by another and that that is the name that you praise. So you should praise

Jesus Christ. As a demonstration of the fact that he is your

Lord. He is your God. So why should we praise him? He is

God. But then as man, he has done most righteously. Now every knee should praise him for that.

Every knee should bow before him because he has done most righteously. You, if you have trusted in the

Lord Jesus Christ, you have a special reason to praise him. Because that salvation does not just benefit others, it benefits you in particular.

You have a special reason to praise him because he has done wonderfully for you.

Having given you a great salvation and dying on the cross, that obedience even to the point of death, caring about others more than he cared about his own life.

You are so blessed by that name that it should be praised. And you bear that name so that it should be praised.

The disciples are called Christians. That only happens one time in Acts. And yet we bear that name throughout history.

We have borne the name Christian. Why Christian? Because we are followers of Christ. And so in bearing that name, when we honor his name as one who is a little while lower than the angels and exalted high above all dominions and authorities, we are honoring a name that we ourselves bear.

We ourselves benefit from this. You think about the way people do this. Some people, very obnoxious manner, praise their university to high heaven, right?

They talk about how great their university was. And they talk about the sports team. And just the sports team is the greatest thing in the world.

And it is the hill that they will die on. That their university was the best university. Their colors are the best colors.

Why do they care so much about that when you know that if they had not gotten accepted to that school and they had gotten accepted to a different school, they'd be saying the exact same thing about a different set of colors?

The answer is because they bear that name and they know that as much as that name is held up high, they are imagining themselves being held up high.

Now, whether or not a university really matters that much is a different question. But this is what's going on with people when they praise their university's name and they praise the university's colors.

Is it because they know that they bear those colors? Same thing is true of families, although families have really broken down.

Same thing is true with nations, although nations have really broken down in a way that the analogy does not hold as well as I'd like it to.

But if you can imagine the patriotism that one ought to have, you know, the loyalty to one's family one ought to have, not just because the family really is better than every other family, though that may be the case.

The reason that they would care so much about that particular name is because they themselves bear it and so benefit by that name being held up high because even if it's not their own name proper, they are bearing that name.

So it is with Jesus Christ. When he saves us, when he has died, us dying with him, us being divorced from the law, as it says in Romans 7, so that we can be united to him and have his name instead, we now benefit by his name being advanced, by his name being held up.

You might not have a very good name on your own, but as you are found in Jesus Christ, you have the most excellent name.

You have the name that is above every name, to which every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord. This is the name that you bear. Proverbs 22, 1 tells us that a good name is to be desired over great riches.

If you, and think about that, people will go broke in order to clear their name if there are slanderous charges against them.

People will do anything for a good name, given that what they care about, more than even having bread to eat the next day, is often just what, that they be honored rightly.

You might be a very poor man, but if you have the name of Jesus Christ, you have something that is greater than the greatest of riches.

Because a good name is to be desired over great riches. You can bear the name of Christ.

If you have not trusted in Jesus Christ, you do not bear that name. You should turn to him, trust him in faith, and you can bear that name.

And then your obedience to the law would not just be something outward that is not pleasing to God because you have not been filled by his spirit, and it's not actually honoring his name.

Instead, you having been saved, having been transferred from a kingdom of darkness into a kingdom of light, having been transferred from the name of your father, the devil, into the name of Jesus Christ, bearing that name, you may obey with all joyfulness, knowing that your obedience is not just doing something for others, but it's advancing the very kingdom that you're a part of, his name being advanced, that name that you bear, name that is better than great riches.

So obedience honors Christ's name. He is a good king.

If you think about why a king's name would be honored because of obedience, well, first of all, if you are a good people, that just is good for a king in general, right?

Someone is proud of those things that he has, those things that are under him, right? Someone might be proud of their children, even if they weren't the ones that really, even if they weren't involved in their lives at all.

You see that a lot of times, right? Is a father who's never involved in his kids' lives, but he'll still be proud of his kids accomplishing something because there's just an association there that he's proud of, right?

You may be proud of even possessions that you have or things like that just because you have those things.

So there's a sense in which just goodness, being good itself honors Christ just by virtue of being good, just by virtue of obedience.

However, what it communicates about him as a king is that he is a great king that transforms his people to be obedient because we know that his kingdom is a special kingdom that involves people being born again, people being transformed.

So it shows that he has transformative power. If you think of the kings of the earth, what does it say if subjects obey him?

If subjects obey him, that means that he has great power, that he is to be feared.

People who do not fear a king do not obey their king. When we obey our king, we demonstrate that his name is to be feared.

And likewise, when we obey him, we demonstrate that he is a king that is so noble that he inspires us.

He has filled our hearts with gladness to want to obey him.

These are the various ways that Christ is honored through obedience as his name is held up through obedience.

And it brings attention to his name as God's people in all the nations obey him. And they recognize that this is happening because God's people are a special people that do not operate by the same laws that others do.

They operate instead by a rule of righteousness being truly transformed.

This brings attention to the name of Christ and honor to his name. It is a monument that is erected for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Now, on the other hand, disobedience dishonors the name of Christ. Paul says this in Romans 2 of the

Jewish people. He says in verse 24, as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the

Gentiles because of you. So this is coming right after his introduction.

This is not unrelated. He's talked about how he has been given apostleship in order that the obedience of faith might spread throughout all the nations.

And then as he's setting up the foundations for his letter, he explains that the name of God is dishonored among the nations because of disobedience.

These are very related truths. Even there are ways that people will honor

God hypocritically that likewise detract from the honor of his name. So for example, in Luke 11, 47 to 48, it says, woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.

So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers for they killed them and you build their tombs.

So you have hypocritically people building up tombs to prophets, but really because they're doing the same deeds that those who killed the prophets would have done, they're dishonoring the prophets and they're mocking them.

This is us when we disobey God while bearing his name. We might say that we love

God. We might erect monuments of false works or might erect monuments of praise and verbally praising him, but then if with our own activity, we are dishonoring him, these are all just mockeries and God is not mocked.

So obedience honors the name of Christ and particularly obedience honors

Christ's name among the nations. Matthew 28, 20, Jesus gave the great commission.

He said, go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. What are they supposed to do?

They're supposed to teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. This is how

Christ is to be honored, not just in their being believers all over the world, but in their being obeyers all over the world.

Christ's name is to be honored by the obedience of faith among the nations. I'll repeat what

I said during the introduction. We live in a very particular place. This command is given to all

Christians, but this introduction is especially important to us being people who live here in Silicon Valley and what is in a lot of ways, practically the capital of the world, being surrounded by many nations, being surrounded by such great wealth, being surrounded by such great power.

So many of the world's decisions being made here show that well over half of all the venture capital spent in the

U .S. goes right here to this area, this Bay Area, the whole

Bay Area, not just the Valley. But that's an incredible statistic. As Paul is writing to the

Romans, encouraging them to obey, not just in the land of Judea, but that there be an obedience among them, in the, among the nations, and particularly them as being those who are in the capital of the nation.

He's saying, including you who belong to Jesus Christ, there's some ways that this language says even.

It's like the extent is all the way even to you. To all those in Rome who are so loved by God and called to be saints, grace to you and peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If those in Rome were to be particularly concerned about the honor of Christ's name through obedience, how much more should we at this point in history, at this place, this time, we ought to carry very much for the name of Jesus Christ.

If we go about disobeying him, we dishonor him. Now you consider the way that people have done that, people have brought evil, or they have brought their name that they bear under disrepute.

I remember, how long ago was it that there were all the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio that were, there were a lot of car accidents.

And so, you know, it was a well -known thing that the

Haitians in Springfield, Ohio weren't able to drive well, right? And so it's bringing shame on the name of Haitian.

I remember when I was a student at Virginia Tech and there was the shooting that the

Koreans, because the Korean had done the shooting, the Koreans were very worried that this would bring dishonor on the name of being a

Korean, right? So as you dishonor, you bring shame on that name.

You bring shame on the name of Christ. But as you honor it, you bring honor on that name.

And as you bear that name, you yourself benefit from it. There are a couple of simple applications

I'd like to draw for you today. First, you should cultivate a joy and obedience knowing that you are advancing the name of Christ.

You should recognize that as you bear that name, it is something that benefits you. Your own name may not become very honorable, but as you bear the name of Christ, that is a name that will bring, gather more glory and honor until that final day.

And you can have a part in making that name more honorable as you obey

God among the nations. You can erect monuments for the sake of his name.

You can recall the things that he has done. You can praise him. You can obey him.

You can follow after his ways. And as people see your life, a living sacrifice, a living monument to the name of Jesus Christ, he will be honored more and more.

You might feel that these things are not very visible. It will all be brought to light on the last day. There are many verses that assure us that our activities will be brought to light on the last day.

So do not worry that your obedience is not seen. It is not meant to be seen. Very frequently is not meant to be seen on this earth, but it will be brought to light the last day.

And you should take joy in making your life a monument erected to the honor of Christ's name, that name which you bear.

Likewise, it is important that we maintain the name of Christian as a meaningful term.

If this honor goes to Christ through those who bear his name and represent him in their obedience, then that name

Christian needs to mean something. If you have called yourself a

Christian, but you are not honoring Christ's name, you are not obeying him, cease to call yourself a

Christian. Turn, repent, then call yourself a Christian, but do not call yourself a Christian if you are not honoring his name.

Part of the way that this is guarded, this honor of his name, the mechanism that he has given us is through his church.

That's why it says in Matthew 28 that we are to go out for the sake of his name, baptizing in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, making disciples of all nations. Why is it that God has given us this particular way of recognizing disciples who are being taught to be obedient?

That is in gathering them together into the church. You know, that presence that he says,

I'm with you always to the end of the age, the same thought in Matthew 18, where it says wherever two or three are gathered, there

I am among you. What's happening in Matthew 18? People are being removed from the church through church discipline.

What's happening in Matthew 28? People are being added to the church through baptism. That authority of the church to declare who belongs, not people just declaring it of their own, is something that is important to honor the name of Christ.

If you uphold a churchless Christianity, you are not upholding the guards that Christ has put in place for his own name.

He has put this in place so that only those who ought to be added are added, and only those who ought to be removed are removed.

That there is a guarding of his name in the guarding of the church. So uphold the notion of church membership.

If you are not a church member, pursue church membership. If you know someone who is attempting to live the

Christian life but without church membership, tell them of this importance, even to the effect of, and I think this is important, even to the effect of letting them know that they are undermining the reality of Christianity by a churchless

Christianity, right? There is a sense in which that bearing of the name is illegitimate, right?

One analogy I very much like is, it's like a passport. You can be a citizen of another country, right?

We're all on this earth citizens of another country. You can be a citizen of that country without a passport, but it is not as meaningful, or it is not as legitimate, and you shouldn't expect others to recognize it as legitimate, without the passport, right?

That's the best way of saying it. You should not expect others to recognize it as legitimate. So it is that people will say all kinds of things about what

Christians do, and there's all kinds of statistics about Christians that look very dishonoring to the name of Christ.

Why is that? Because we don't have a serious understanding of what a Christian is, because we don't have a serious understanding of what the church is.

If we were to uphold the notion of the church, denouncing false churches, and making necessary the notion of church membership to be an official representative of Jesus Christ, then

Christ's name is guarded as it ought to be guarded. So as you have opportunities to interact with people who claim the name of Christ, but are living a churchless life, right?

Or belong to some false church, or even as you interact with unbelievers, this is worth pointing out.

One of the attitudes that I used to have is, well, what do I care what an unbeliever thinks about Mormonism or something like that?

Because, you know, they're already unbelievers. It doesn't matter. But I think the more that I point out to them that those are not true

Christians, the more that I'm honoring the name of Christ because I'm taking away the notion of legitimacy to those who would bear the name falsely being a part of some false church.

So uphold the name of Christ, particularly by upholding that mechanism by which he is given to guard his name, which is the church and membership in it.

With all that, I hope that this is a great encouragement to you to obey Jesus Christ, to walk in the works that God has prepared beforehand for you, to serve him with good works.

Why should you do that? To improve the kingdom by advancing his name, that name being the very name that you bear if you are a servant of Jesus Christ.

A good name is to be desired more than great riches. And you have that name that is above every name.

So let us advance the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the name of Jesus Christ.

We thank you that we have the great privilege of bearing that name, us being called Christians, us being his disciples, having been baptized in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We pray that you would help us to honor that name among the nations by our obedience of faith.

We ask that many others would join us in that obedience of faith, that he would be completely honored.

And we ask for that final day to come quickly where all that honor would be fully manifest.

Those works that have not been known would be brought to light and his name would be exalted far, far higher.