Honoring the Lord's Name Exodus 20:7

The Meaning of a Name and the Name of the Lord

Every one of you has a name, and you had no say in what your name would be. And once your parents chose your name, that name became permanently attached to you. You're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

Now I realize that some people change their names. One that comes to mind is a man who loved fishing, and he became a professional fisherman, and so he changed his name to Fish Fisherman. True story. But most people in the world do not change their name, and they are stuck with it the rest of their life.

In the recent time of our church, we have had babies born. In fact, a little over a month ago, Sequoia was born to Derek and Madison Jorgensen. Derek and Madison didn't flippantly choose that name. They carefully thought through, what do we want our baby girl to be named?

Brianna and I carefully chose the names of our two children, Aletheia and Isaiah. Aletheia means truth in Greek. In John 14, 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the Aletheia, and the life. We named Aletheia this because in this world, most people don't believe the truth.

And we want our little girl to follow the truth, and we want people to be reminded of the truth when they hear her name. In the case of Isaiah, we wanted a strong Old Testament name, and so we named him after the great prophet Isaiah.

Many parents give careful attention to the name that they chose for their child, because they want that name to fit that person. They want that name to have significance. In God's wisdom, He of course knew what our name was going to be.

In Scripture, we are told that He knew us before we were born. Scripture even says in Revelation 13, 8, that in the Lamb's Book of Life, all of the names of the redeemed were written there before the foundation of the world.

So God knew what your name would be, and He gave your parents wisdom when they decided on that name. Now your name is one of millions and millions all over the world. And of course, there are many different names with all the languages that are out there.

And your name isn't superior to other names. It's not as if John is superior to Sean or Keith to Mark. No name is superior to another name. However, there is a name that is above every name, and it's God's name.

Now none of you chose what your name would be, but guess who did choose what His name was going to be? God did. God named Himself. And God revealed this name to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. In verse 14, He said,.

And He said,. So the name that God gave Himself is Yahweh, or it can also be pronounced Jehovah. The name of the Lord is four Hebrew letters, and you can pronounce His name either Yahweh or Jehovah. This name means to be, or it means I am.

By giving this name, God is saying to the people of Israel something about His being, that He will always be with them. This name says something about who He is. God is self-existent and self-sufficient.

No one created God. This is hard for us to wrap our minds around, because everything we see in this world has been created. But God has always been. God has pure existence, which means He must exist. We have potential existence, which means we can exist, but only if He makes it so that we exist.

If you ever need to be humbled, think of this fact. You had nothing to do with your entrance into this world. God is the reason you are here. He used your parents, yes, to bring it about, but God is the reason that you are here.

You came into this world at this given time in His providence. The Lord is the creator, and He is sovereign over the entire universe. Now the Lord's name shows up in the Old Testament over 7 ,000 times, and you might wonder, why don't I see Yahweh or Jehovah show up in my Bible?

And that's because every time His name shows up, the translators decided to write the name Lord in all capital letters. There's actually two different words for Lord in Hebrew. One is Adonai and one is Yahweh.

But whenever you see the capital letters, L-O-R-D, that is the name of the Lord. And in fact, there is a new version of the Bible out there called the Legacy Standard Bible, and I've heard it's a very good translation of the Bible.

And in this translation, they actually use the name Yahweh, which I think is wonderful. And what God demands of His name, the name that is above all names, is that it be treated with honor. To treat someone's name with honor is to treat that person with honor.

The Third Commandment and the Meaning of Taking God’s Name in Vain

So this time I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Exodus 20. This morning we're going to be looking at verse 7 as we jump into this sermon series again on the Ten Commandments. So Exodus 20, verse 7.

There the Lord told Moses, 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. So there is the third commandment. What we focused on thus far in the Ten Commandments is the fact that worship should only be directed to one.

We saw this in the first two commandments one Sunday ago. Worship must only be directed to God, but so often this doesn't happen. Worship is directed toward created things. This is what we also saw in the second commandment last week.

There the Lord told Moses and the people of Israel, You shall not have a carved image or any human likeness. There is only one who deserves the highest honor, the highest praise, and the highest glory, and that is the Lord God.

Involved in that is honoring the Lord's name. To honor his name is to show honor to him. And as we jump into this third commandment this morning, this sermon is titled, Honoring the Lord's Name. And before I give you the big idea, I want to look at what does it mean to take the Lord's name in vain?

What does this word vain mean that shows up twice in Exodus chapter 20 verse 7? In Hebrew this means emptiness, vanity, falsehood, and nothingness. So to treat the Lord's name in vain is to treat his name in him without value, respect, honor, and in truth.

And instead it is to treat his name and the Lord with no value, disrespect, dishonor, and falsely. So to treat the Lord's name in vain is not only to use his name in a derogatory way. That is usually what we think of.

Oh my God. Using it in that way is what comes to our mind. Or I swear to God. So on and so forth. But we also devalue him. And when we devalue him in our lives, we are actually taking the Lord's name in vain.

With that in mind, here is the big idea, what this sermon is calling you to do. The big idea is this. Treat the Lord's name with care. Treat the Lord's name with care. And we're going to see three disciplines how as we focus on Exodus 20 verse 7, the third commandment.

Refusing to Use God's Name to Your Advantage

The first discipline how is this. By refusing to use his name to your advantage. Now this is common. This is very common to use the Lord's name to one's advantage. There are several examples in the Bible where people did this and it didn't turn out well for them.

False prophets used the Lord's name in order to convince people that their prophecy was true. What they would say is, thus saith the Lord. And when they prefaced the statement with thus saith the Lord, that added authority to their message so that people would believe them.

It was supposed to add credibility to what they were about to say. In Jeremiah 14 verses 14 and 15, Yahweh the Lord describes his anger toward these false prophets who used his name wrongly. He said, The prophets are prophesying lies in my name.

I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that prophesy in my name, although I did not send them, and who say, Sword and famine shall not come upon this land.

By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed. The very things that they were saying wouldn't happen, these horrible things would actually come upon them. This would be the judgment of God upon them.

This agrees with the second half of the commandment in Exodus 20 verse 7. The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. You know what else people did? They also swore falsely in his name.

In Leviticus 19 verse 12, the Lord says that you shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God, for I am the Lord. Then in Jeremiah 5 verse 2, people would say, As the Lord lives.

But they would swear falsely. The fact that the Lord lives would be spoken before an oath, and then the oath was to be carried out, but it wasn't carried out. The Lord was troubled that so many would swear falsely, using his holy name to do so.

Now in the New Testament, people also used the Lord's name wrongly. During the ministry of the Apostle Paul, he was doing all sorts of miraculous signs, which included healing people, and he did this in the name of the Lord.

He was doing wonders among the people, and one thing that some of the Jewish people noticed was that he was using the name of Jesus. So they discovered there was power with this name. If Paul is going to use this name and have this success, then we're going to use it.

This is what they're thinking. That passage says this,. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.

Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you? And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

What we see in this passage from Acts 19, this was a misuse of the name of Jesus, and it didn't end well for the sons of Sceva. There were people that witnessed what took place there, and they were moved by what took place.

It says in verse 17,. This became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. So good things happened because they recognized that to misuse his name brings grave consequences.

So they began to fear the name, they began to honor the name of the Lord Jesus. Let me ask you this, have you ever misused the Lord's name to make a point? To make your point or to drive a selfish cause that the Lord was not behind?

Have you ever said, God told me to do this, when in fact he didn't? Who could argue with God so you use his name to your advantage? It's kind of chuckling where young men can do this with a young woman.

A young Christian man talking to a young woman says, God told me to marry you. And the young woman is thinking, He hasn't told me that. What we see here is a misuse of the Lord's name. Now certainly the Lord leads a young man and a young woman in marriage, and when it is right, they are truly led by the Lord down that path.

But to say that the Lord told you something in a moment of desperation is sinful. The Lord's name can also be misused in other ways. God told me to buy that lottery ticket. God told me to leave a difficult situation because the grass is greener on the other side.

This can be done in all sorts of areas of life. But we should never use the name to our advantage to give us credibility in some way, to justify something that we did. And if we're honest, we've probably all used the Lord's name in this way at one time or another.

So the first discipline, how you must treat the Lord's name with care, is by refusing to use his name to your advantage. The second discipline, how you must treat the Lord's name with care, is by refusing to carelessly worship his name.

Refusing to Carelessly Worship the Lord’s Name

Refusing to carelessly worship his name. Here's a common one in the church today. How often do you come to church on Sunday.

Without focus,.

Without intentionality, without a desire to worship God, but instead you go through the motions? How often do you do that? I know I've done that many times. We should come to worship on Sunday with our mind focused on worshiping the Lord.

For those parents with young kids, this is especially hard. The home can be a wild and crazy place, but how about saying a prayer with your family before you come to church on Sunday? This is good for all of us to do.

To say to the Lord, Lord, may my focus be on you. Help me to receive what you want from me this morning. Raise my heart to give you honor and praise this morning. This is good for us to do on Sundays before we come to morning worship.

Think about this one. How often do you pray without even thinking about what you are going to pray? It's worth reflecting before praying. How often do you read Scripture without even desiring to hear from God, but you do it to check it off the list?

Here's another one.

Sporadic church attendance because one's priorities are out of place. We are commanded in Scripture, in Hebrews 10, verses 24 and 25, do not neglect to meet together, but stir one another up to love and good works as we see the day drawing near.

And there's a command that the Word of God be consistently preached. 2 Timothy 4 .2. And what is implied in that is that listeners will regularly gather to hear the Word preached. The Lord doesn't want us to be sporadic in our gathering with God's people.

Now I understand that there are good reasons to miss Sundays, but we need to be honest with ourselves. Do we miss sometimes when we really can be here? Are other things that are less important taking priority over that which is much more important?

That's a good question to ask and my encouragement is be honest with yourself. Now let me say this. Many of you do have very good church attendance on Sundays. And as people drive by, they see all the cars in the parking lot.

And when you are here, most of the time what it shows is that you look forward to Sunday mornings. And that shows your hunger to gather with God's people and grow in the Lord through corporate worship on Sunday mornings.

But it can be easy for believers to slack off and go through the motions. And it's not just the disciplines above that I mentioned where it can be easy to be lax. We can be lax in our marriage, in our parenting, in our desire to see people come to faith in Christ, in our desire to see others blessed through our lives.

When we are slack, it's not just we who lose, it's the people in our life who lose. Because think about it, you are here for a purpose. You are here to be a blessing to other people. And when you are not carrying that out in your life, the people in your life lose.

Your family, your friends, the people in the church. If you think about the person who hardly ever comes to church. Not only are you sinning against God, you are also sinning against the people in the church because the Lord wants you to be a blessing to those people in the church.

And our whole lives should have intentionality and focus on the Lord. Jesus went after a certain people in Matthew 6, verses 7 and 8. People who were heaping up empty phrases to God. There he says, When you pray, don't heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need even before you ask. In particular here, Jesus is going after the Gentiles who worshiped false gods. Who babbled thoughtless words to these false gods.

And what Jesus is saying is, don't be like them.

Think about the prayer,.

Our Father who art in heaven. The Lord's Prayer. People so often say this prayer without even really understanding what they are saying. It's just a mindless prayer. And this is not what the Lord wants.

When we do this, we are actually taking the Lord's name in vain. What God desires from his people is sincerity of heart. It's better to say a short prayer with sincerity of heart than a long prayer where we don't even know what we are saying.

And before you pray, think about what you are going to pray. I remember when I was younger, I would say the same prayer over and over and over again. And it took me years. Not until I got older that I realized, Lord, you were not honored with this repetitive prayer that I kept on praying.

We are to worship the Lord with a purpose. And we need to confess to the Lord when we fall short, and we will fall short. And this is where 1 John 1 -9 comes in. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

As we confess, we need to grow in our focus and intentionality in our walk with the Lord. I find myself doing this and when we do it, we need to acknowledge it and pray for the strength to do better. And as you think about your relationship with your friends, the best friendships are those where there is intentionality on both sides.

There's no such thing as a good friendship that is one way. A healthy marriage is one where both spouses are committed. You aren't going to stumble into a good marriage when there is no effort by both parties.

Healthy marriages have intentionality. And so it goes with our walk with the Lord, which is the most important relationship of all. He is the only one that we are to worship and we are to have intentionality in our relationship with Him.

So, treat the Lord's name with care. And the second discipline how is by refusing to carelessly worship His name. And here is the third and final discipline how you are to treat the Lord's name with care.

Refusing to Speak the Lord’s Name as a Profanity

And that is by refusing to speak His name as a profanity. Now this is the one that comes to mind when we think about the third commandment. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. This one is very common in our society.

We live in a godless society. The sad reality is that most people out there don't fear God. We just saw that with the Olympic ceremony last week how the Lord's name was taken in vain. Think of how much the Lord was dishonored with that Last Supper scene and all the other shenanigans that were done.

They were mocking the God of the Bible. That's what was taking place. And this is the society that we live in in America and all around the world. Most people don't fear God. Most people don't give the Lord the honor that He is due.

People don't lift up His name. People don't honor Him. And you know what's troubling? His name is used in the worst possible way as a profanity. It is likely that the most common swear words used aren't the ones that we typically think of, the four-letter words.

The most common swear words are the Lord's name. If you go to a sporting event, a Packers or Vikings game, I'm willing to bet that the name of Jesus is said more at a sporting event than at any church service.

It is, of course, not in honor of Him, but as a swear word. Have you ever wondered why people use the Lord's name as a profanity? Think about this. I find this very interesting. I was reading an author a number of years ago.

Who said,.

People taking the Lord's name in vain, using it as a profanity, in fact, proves the existence of God. This is exactly right. People in their rebellion proclaim this and it shows their heart and they say God's name.

As one author said, when non-Christians use God's name, even in vain, it shows that deep down they know there really is a God. Their rage is direct rebellion against His honor. So when people use the Lord's name in vain as a profanity, they reveal what is in their heart.

As they throw out His name in such a disgusting way, it, of course, greatly dishonors Him. It shows their rebellion. And Jesus tells us what is found in people's hearts in Mark 7, verses 21 and 22. For from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality,.

Theft,.

Murder,.

Adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality,.

Envy,.

Slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. So man is not inherently good. What comes out of a man's heart is evil. And one of the things that comes out of man's heart is the Lord's name as a profanity.

This is troubling. What also is interesting is why do people curse the one true God? There's only one God who created the heavens and the earth, who created all of us, and has a plan for this world. Why do people curse the one true God?

There's a Christian comedian by the name of Darren Streblo. This Christian comedian brings out this point. He told his audience, it's difficult being a Christian because people use God's name, the God I worship, as a profanity.

He said,.

When I stub my toe, I don't yell Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, or Allah. Very interesting. And personally in my own life, I've never heard people use those names. But people use curse words against the one true God because the rebellion is not against false gods, but against the one true and living God.

It's fascinating to think about this. A pastor had an encounter one time on an airplane. And this confrontation with these two men was about them speaking the Lord's name in vain. And I want to read this encounter.

Here's how the story went. This pastor said, Some years ago, after a long speaking itinerary in the Midwest, I boarded a late night flight to return home. I was tired and looking forward to a rest. Sitting behind me in the airplane were two salesmen whose conversation was peppered with profanity.

I finally had it when they began to run the Lord's name into the gutter. I raised myself up from my seat and turned around so that I was looking down on them from my perch. Then I asked, Are either of you in the ministry?

The one in the aisle seat raised his eyebrows incredulously and said, What the expletive would make you think that? Well, I am in the ministry, I said with a smile, and I am amazed at your communication skills.

You just said, God, damn, hell, and Jesus Christ in one sentence. I can't get all of that into a whole sermon. They both blushed, and I didn't hear another word from them for the remainder of the flight.

That one gets me every time I've thought about that story. And isn't this true? You hear God's name spoken outside of the church even more sometimes than you hear it inside the church. But the difference is that it is spoken in a dishonoring way.

But when we speak the Lord's name on Sundays or during the week, it must be in an honoring way. He is the holy God. He deserves all the honor, all the praise, and all the glory. Now it takes courage to do this, but something we should do is call people on it when they use the Lord's name in vain.

When an unbeliever says, Jesus Christ, or God, or oh my God, you and I should tell that person, you need to honor God. He created you. He is worthy of our worship, not derogatory language. Now this isn't the first time I have preached on this commandment.

Nine years ago in the summer of 2015, I preached on this, and there was a gentleman in the church at that time by the name of Doug Jepson. And Doug Jepson was really impacted by this challenge that I gave.

And that very week, Doug went up to one of his co-workers who was using the Lord's name in vain, and he told him, don't do that. And then Doug told me that he told his co-worker this. And I was so proud of Doug Jepson that he had that much courage to do that.

And I'm moved as I tell this story because Doug passed away from a heart attack, I think it was four or five years ago, suddenly passed away from a heart attack. But it just makes me think of the courage that he had to do that.

And may we follow the example of Doug Jepson in saying to someone who is using the Lord's name in a derogatory way, please don't do that. His name deserves honor. Now what's interesting is that we can also use the Lord's name in vain with lighter expressions.

But the lighter expressions are wrong as well. You might say, man, this is getting kind of legalistic. I don't think so. Because what do these lighter expressions indicate? They actually indicate the Lord's name.

Like, good Lord, or oh my gosh, or gall dang it, and so forth. This isn't the worst way to use the Lord's name, but even this dishonors Him. We need to examine this in our lives. We should never use the Lord's name in a flippant, dishonoring way.

And if we do, we need to repent and refrain from doing this in the future. Jesus died for every type of sin. He went to the cross, and He paid the full penalty for our sins, including the sin of dishonoring His name.

And God takes cursing His name very seriously. There's an account in Leviticus 24, verses 10 -16, where we see this. Now, an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the people of Israel.

And the Israelite woman's son, and a man of Israel, fought in the camp. And the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed. Then they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shalemeth, the daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan.

And they put him in custody till the will of the Lord should be clear to them. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Bring out of the camp the one who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him.

And speak to the people of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him, the sojourner as well as the native.

When he blasphemes the name, he shall be put to death. As you can see, in the Old Testament, this sin was taken very seriously. And you might think, Man, this is harsh. I don't think this is a situation where someone just said it and they felt really bad about it.

But he said it in such a rebellious way and probably continuously that the punishment for that was he was to be put to death. And we see that in Leviticus 24. And in Exodus 20, verse 7, this third commandment on which this sermon is built, it's kind of vague what the punishment is supposed to be for taking the Lord's name in vain.

But there, once again it says, the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. There's different degrees of punishment depending on how serious the punishment is. As it says in the Old Testament, an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth.

What this means is the more severe the crime, the more severe the punishment. The lesser the crime, the lesser the punishment. But what we see with all this is that you and I must take the Lord's name, take care in how we treat it.

Treat it with honor because God cares deeply how we use His name. So let's summarize what we have seen here. We are to treat the Lord's name with care. That's the big idea. And in this sermon built on the third commandment, we have seen three disciplines how we are to live this out.

First, by refusing to use His name to your advantage. Second, by refusing to carelessly worship His name. And third, as we have just seen, refusing to speak His name as a profanity. Yahweh, Jehovah, is the name that is above all names.

And so is the name Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. When we call Him the Lord Jesus Christ, we're using the name Lord the same way we use the name Lord to identify the Father. He is the Lord God. And this is what Philippians 2, verses 10 and 11 says, At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

We treat God's name with care. God the Father is the Lord. God the Son is the Lord. And God the Spirit is the Lord. It is the triune God that must be treated with honor. And this honor is shown through our words and the way we worship Him in our entire lives.

And by God's grace, may we live lives that honor His holy name. Now next Sunday, we will look at the fourth commandment,.

The Sabbath.

And this is a big discussion, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take two Sundays to go through this fourth commandment where the Lord tells the people of Israel to observe the Sabbath. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You that it is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. And Lord, Your name, as we saw in the third commandment this morning, is to be treated with honor and with care.

And not just that we don't use it as a derogatory term, but how is it that we are worshiping You? How is it that we are living our lives? Are we taking Your name in vain by the way that we live our lives?

That's something we need to ask. Help us to be intentional in the way we worship You, intentional in the way we live our lives. And may You be honored. In Jesus' name, Amen.