Thus Sayeth The Lord - Bear My Name Well

This week, join us as we listen to Adam Bloch, preacher at Ridgeview Christian Church, as he unpacks the third commandment. What does it really mean to "not take the Lord’s name in vain"? Is it just about cursing and empty language, or something deeper about how we carry His reputation in the world? 

Transcript

Okay, so what is actually in my notes is first things first, I have broken hand, just need to get that out of the way because You're gonna be like hey his hands messed up. Yeah, that's probably a good idea All right, so there's not a good story. I broke the fourth metacarpal. It is no bleak spiral fracture which It was because I was reaching for groceries that were falling and I hit the shopping cart That's that's all that happened there. So not an exciting story. Second thing. So that's first things first. Yes, my hands messed up Let's acknowledge that and move on Second thing second is my name is Adam Bloch since we're on a college campus. I might as well use it. I am a doctor block But I tried to get doc block to catch on back when I first got my doctorate and it never did so Adam is fine Yeah, so I'm the preacher at Ridgeview Christian Church Even though I'm a pastor. I'm still prefer Adam over some other weird titles things like that, and my name Adam will my name is mud If you've ever heard the phrase my name is mud before It was originally written down as far as we know in 1823 that is in a printed dictionary Which means it goes back even further than that and if someone says my name is mud it means they know that their Reputations tarnished That's what it means is yes. I know there's a bad reputation with my name. Unfortunately for me my name literally means mud That's that's what Adam means. What means dirt technically? but That that's my name. It's a pun for the Hebrew word dirt. Adam is the first human who was made from dirt Therefore with all the creativity that we see in naming conventions throughout a lot of the Bible that man gets called dirt so But what's in a name really? What's in the name Juliet of Romulan Juliet? What does she say about names? Right that which we call a rose by any Their name would smell as sweet So if you like the smell of roses you can call it a duck and it would still smell like a rose So it doesn't matter so much but as it turns out there is something in a name Right now I may or may not have a tarnished reputation with my name I don't know maybe you've heard of me before and you're like wow that guy's a loser Maybe you don't know me I'd prefer that but I like the other meaning of the word Adam because it's a pun right? So it is two meanings the other meaning of the word Adam means man. So technically I have literally the most manly name there is And I prefer that reputation over dirt all right, but you may disagree with my manliness too bad you're wrong But it is just an opinion there is another name. However that you can disagree with but that one too bad you're wrong Also, there's a name that is above every other name and that is the name of the god of the Bible his name as meaning It is not a pun. It's not silly. It is a name of profound and incredibly high value and worth in fact I'm going to go through a whole bunch of verses really kind of rapid fire that tell us some of what god's name is worth So Psalm 20 verses one and and verse seven in that psalm says may the Lord answer you in the day of trouble may the name of God of Jacob protect you some trust and chariots and some in horses But we trust in the name of the Lord our God so in in that song God's name is synonymous with his ability to protect and his name is Trustworthy going to another Psalm Psalm 69 30 it says I will praise the name of God with a song I will magnify him with thanksgiving which tells us the God's name itself is worthy of thanksgiving and praise in John chapter 17 and Jesus is high priestly prayer when he was praying to the father He said Jesus is speaking. He said I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world Yours they were and you gave them to me and they've kept your word and later on in the same prayer He says I have made known to them you are name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them So at least one of Jesus's missions was to manifest God's name and one of his stated goals was to make a god your name O Lord endures forever your renown O Lord throughout all ages That is called synonymous parallelism, which means these two things are the same and so God's name is synonymous with his renown The renown is that fancy word for fame or how well something is it's reputation and so God's name is tied to his reputation and if you want to know okay We've talked about his name at vague terms so far. I mean, it's okay. It's praiseworthy. It's powerful It's got it's tied with his reputation. What is his name? There is a passage of the Bible where God declares his name and says What does name means Xs 34 5 through 6 says the Lord Descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord the Lord passed before him and proclaimed The Lord the Lord a god merciful and gracious slow to anger and a bounding instead fast love and faithfulness So it says God proclaimed his name and he proclaimed This description that his name is merciful. It is gracious. It is slow to anger It's a bounding instead fast love and faithfulness. That's the type of reputation. That's the association God wants with his name He is merciful. He's a bounding in love. He's steadfast. He is faithful. So that is his name It's fairly important. We can praise his name itself. His name is tied up with his reputation It is what keeps us safe in times of trouble. That is things God wants associated with his name There are just two problems with this first problem his name the actual name is not in English and I doubt any of you and maybe there's one in the room that be cool is a native Hebrew speaker No, okay, so we're gonna immediately have that language barrier there with his name Second his name has been treated so sacredly because of verses like this. We don't have a clue how to say his name anymore We just don't know how to say God's name depending on your English Bible You'll see God's name a lot in the Old Testament, but it's never his actual name We've actually a lot of the verses we've read already have his name in it But that kind of illustrates the problem the way we print God's name in most English Bibles is with the phrase the L.O.R.D. in all four capital letters. So if you noticed him in those verses We weren't screaming the name the Lord like the word Lord. It's that's how you write God's name in most English translations So there's the Hebrew word that is God's name and the way it gets put in English is L.O.R.D. in all four capital letters That's how it works whenever you're in the Old Testament You see that that means the original Hebrew behind that translation is God's name the interesting thing is old Hebrew didn't have vowels and so We just have the constant so you go from Hebrew into English and the Hebrew is Yodhev Avhe Which is roughly the English equivalent of YHV or WH and the idea of translating God's name into the Lord is An extremely rightly really really long tradition goes back to before we even started translating the Bible from Hebrew into other things The Hebrew Scriptures the Old Testament before we ever translated those into the language They started using the Lord as God's name's placeholder ancient readers would say the word Lord which in Hebrew is Adonai They would say Adonai instead of God's divine name when they would come across God's name in Hebrew they would say a different word out loud So they would say Adonai instead of God's name they'd say that they knew it wasn't God's name But they said the wrong word on purpose because it's God's name and they believed God's name should be sacred and therefore We won't even say God's name out loud even when we are literally quoting scripture and so his name got replaced with the Lord That is how you get the Lord and that's the tradition we follow in those translations Not just when saying out loud, but when writing it to so we know the consonants are Yodhev Avhe When they started adding vowels which actually isn't until the Middle Ages which is weird But when they started adding vowels to the Hebrew Scriptures They wanted to make sure you don't accidentally say God's name out loud So to remind you you're supposed to say Adonai when you get to God's name You get the vowels from Adonai put on top of the confidence of Yodhev Avhe God's name So this is a nice little historical lesson for you right now But they would add the wrong vowels on purpose That's what they would do to remind you to say a different word than what is printed if you're reading it out loud And so this went on so long that we lost the ability to say God's name Because you fast forward a thousand years. You don't know how to say a thousand year old word if you've never written down its proper spelling That just has never happened before and so when you take the vowels you might have heard one stand in for God's name before if you take the vowels from Adonai That's A-O-A right and you put those into H-H-V-H-U-G-T-YAH-H-V-A You've never heard that name for God before Say it with a German accent that is Jehovah right and so that's where we get the name Jehovah that is a known wrong way to pronounce God's name Which that plays into a couple things doesn't it but it went on so long We just don't know how to say it, but Jehovah is one knowingly wrong guess at how to say it because it's the vowels from another word that we shoved into the Consonance from God's divine name, but that's that's like weird, right? It's a cool historical rabbit trail to talk about But it's weird that we just never said God's name works. We can say it's Jehovah or Yahweh That's how it would be but there's a chance we have a wrong because we just never wrote down the vowels There's never did and so why did God's people consider God's name so sacred that we forgot how to say it like how do you get to that point? Where you just go so long you never ever Connect with it and it's because the long standing traditional interpretation of one specific verse in the Bible it's actually two verses in the Bible It's one of the ten commandments written ten things are repeated and so you've got it twice But it's one specific command in the Bible that's very important wording, but it's a long-standing tradition traditional way to interpret that verse that says don't ever say his name and That verse is Exodus 20 verse 7 you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain for the Lord will not hold him Guildless who takes his name in vain now. Let's actually you know names. We usually transliterate. We don't translate so You could read it the way you shall not take the name of Yahweh in vain for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain That's what the sentence says there It's the third commandment if you're a Protestant in the right tradition that makes it number three There's some traditions that call number two, which is weird But it's usually summarized as don't use God's name in vain like that's That's the way you summarize this commandment, right and growing up. I was always taught that this commandment means you can't cuss We've ever heard that interpretation of the third commandment Especially don't accidentally say the word God if you're surprised That's really what this commandment means That is how that commandment was always taught to me including like the songs I learned and Sunday school and things like that like that That's the meaning of this command. We can't use God especially except in certain circumstances But apparently God's people have been so afraid of saying God by his name that we avoid it all together and if it's in the Bible Why can't I quote the Bible? I guess into a good thing to quote scripture If you're quoting scripture in an honest fashion is that really misusing God's name? I don't think so not only those verses like his name is used almost 7,000 times in the Old Testament so the people inspired by God weren't afraid of using his name So that's an interesting thing there now not only those verses we mentioned before earlier I was kind of going rapid fire, but there's another verse This is during the burning bush incident when Moses is, you know, seeing a bush that's burning But it's not burning up and he asks God. Hey, uh God's a pretty generic word How what do I tell people to call you? And so that's this passage next it is 313-15 it says then Moses said to God if I come to the people of Israel and say to them The God of your fathers has sent me to you and they ask me what is his name? What shall I tell them God said to Moses? I am who I am and he said say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you God also said to Moses say this to the people of Israel the Lord notice how it's in all capital letters They're the Lord the God of your fathers the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you This is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations God explicitly commands Moses to make a God's name known Remember that Pointing that it's the Lord and all four capital letters So that's the English placeholder for God's divine name and here you can see the connection He says I am who I am I am has sent me to you The letters of Yodhe Vavhe that is connected to the root word for to be or to exist That's the verb there that he's using but he's using a unique construction of it to say I am the God who is I am the God who was I am the God who will always be I am And that unique personalized construction of that verb is this word that is the four constants Yodhe Vavhe And God says to Moses this is how I'm supposed to be remembered for all of time That's what he directly tells Moses there So God announced himself to the world introduced himself to us through the Bible when Moses asked what's your name So we have a name for him and we know from other verses that God's name is to be tied to his reputation We know it's tied to his renown. It is how he wants to be remembered And so why would the third commandments interpretation be don't ever say his name That's clearly not a good interpretation of it in my opinion like I don't think we have to think very hard to realize That's not a good way to interpret the commandment. It is not don't ever accidentally say God's name When God throughout scriptures is saying here's what you should think about when you hear my name This is what my name means my name is tied to my reputation I want all of the generations after me to know me by my name And I actually clear some things up when you have conversations with people of other faiths when you're talking about God and you're asking which God You could say this God now the New Testament fixes some of the problems with that for us, right? But right now we're just talking about the ten commandments here And so this command is not just make sure you never use his name It's not a good interpretation So then the logical question is okay, what is a good interpretation of the third commandment What does you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain mean? And so that's when we get to look at the word take because we got to talk about what does take mean The word take is not a rare word. It is used over 600 times in the Old Testament And so we've got a lot of context to figure out what the word means nowadays It's super easy any one in this room can do what is called a Hebrew word study or a Greek word study Whichever the original language is of the passage that you're reading it's super easy to do a word study You go to website like blueboaterbible.com Bible get will Bible get away doesn't have it easily Bible hub.com is the one I use all the time and you click the verse you go to the verse you want to You click the little button that says change into inner linear and then you see the word you hover over that You click the button it gives you the dictionary definition and a list of every single time that word is used in the Bible Super convenient takes about 10 seconds So you do one of those fancy word studies on the word take and you can see all the different uses of when the word take is used in Other contexts which then lets you know what the word means Which is how you interpret the Bible just in case you didn't know that that's how you figure out what a word means in the Bible is How the word is used and the word is often translated to bear Like not bear gear, but to like grin and bear it so like hold something up It's when you metaphorically have baggage. You're bearing something An Exodus 23 just a few paragraphs over from the 10 commandments It's translated to to spread around or to carry around specifically for gossiping. It's carrying around someone's reputation It's used a lot for physically lifting something up To take a God's name the word take that would take is often translated as just to carry To Put to hold it there. It's used often when God spiritually puts Something on someone like laying a message at their heart or giving them a special ability so to put is another way to translate the word It's used a couple of times for when someone is educated like you're putting knowledge in their head That is to take you are taking something into their head That's the word take as well It's used a lot for lift up your head or lift up your eyes. The lifting is the same word as the word take It is used often even for the word forgiveness like you are taking the pain of a sin Upon yourself Specifically when God does he takes it upon himself. He's taking that away himself And that's how the word is used. So put all that together and what do you get? You get an extremely generic action verb It's used pretty much for almost any action of moving something from place to place knowledge concepts actual burdens sinful burdens things rocks is several times used in the Bible so It's the word for holding carrying transferring something and you have to ask, okay, so does that help us at all? Yeah, it does because it gives us a whole lot more meanings than just what you say out loud It's what you do with God's name is what the sentence is about It means we're not talking about speaking God's name. We're talking about using God's name Carrying God's name bearing God's name lifting up God's name or spreading around the idea of God's name It's a generic word because it's really useful for any time we want to make use Of God's name and remember how we started with a bunch of verses about his name God's name is representative of his authority His renown his honor Especially his reputation as a merciful and gracious and faithful God and actually I had a dot dot dot The very next end is also that he's a judgmental and wrathful God, but I didn't want to go that deep when we're starting out But that's that's the rest of it That is his repition and when you spread his reputation around that's taking the name of the Lord We are not to misuse the authority or name of God in vain now we have to ask the next question. What does in vain? Mean there. This one's a lot easier right? Hopefully you don't have to struggle too much with in vain But it's kind of old oldest you don't say in vain very often There it's also if you do a word state with that when it's not as common But it's like 60 issues and it's translated as false Falsehood worthless deceitful those the ways it is used and so it's often used for something evil It's occasionally used for something neutral where you just don't care about something But usually it is deceitful or evil and that's that's that form of the word when you take it into a verb the verb of in vain means to desolate That's what that a word is if you like word roots there. So don't desolate God's name don't lie about God's name Don't be deceitful about God's name don't do something worthless with God's name And so let's put it all together everything we've learned so far Do not take God's name in vain really means that don't misuse don't abuse don't lie about don't manipulate Don't inappropriately bear don't wrongfully carry don't vainfully press God's name on someone else with your life in a way that Desolates makes deceit vilifies or lessons the meaning of his name reputation or perceived character That's all those meanings. Let's summarize that quite a bit and we could summarize it down to don't do anything that would make God's name mud That's what the commandment means his name is not mud It is much higher than that now this commandment therefore it's not then necessarily about swearing It's not about using God's name as an exclamation point although it includes that right like God's reputation is tied to how you talk about him and what you say when you get hurt Obviously, but it is much more than that. That is not what this command is about That is a tiny little footnote about how this command can be applied Is much bigger than that there. It's about God's divine reputation You are not to use God's name in a way that brings him distribute or tarnishes his character So yeah, it should stop us from having careless slips of the tongue It should it should also stop us from trying to use God's reputation to get what we want Satan's original words did God really say That is a violation of this commandment When you're saying this is what God meant, right? That is using his honor in vain Manipulating God's character and his words would most definitely fall into the general prohibition of using or carrying or Talking about God's name in vain ways if you know better or if you're unsure Do not claim to speak on behalf of God That is this commandment Because if you do speak on behalf of God and you're doing it in a way that you know Doesn't line up with the reputation that he establishes in scripture that his name should be Then really you're just speaking for yourself and you're claiming it's God And that is what this command is against the second commandment that don't have idols one that second command was about trying to encapsulate God into an Idol so you can control him this third commandment is trying to encapsulate the idea of God into your actions and speech So you've got his power behind what you want to do and say That's not how he wants his name to be used And so if you would rather God not have said something But he did or if you would rather God have said something and he didn't You don't get to use God's authority to say yeah, this is really what I think you would have said Actually, if you say this is what I think you would have said that's actually safer But if you say this is what he really said and your purposefully manipulating what's in scripture that's using his name his reputation in vain So moving words from his mouth are putting words in his mouth So that's what this command the third commandment of the ten commandments is if you a member of God's people today that be a Christian If you claim to speak on behalf of God and you admit that you want of God's image bears and you're wearing the helmet of salvation Which is that thing that's really recognizable and makes Roman soldiers obvious the who and which army they're on And you do that your carrying God's name around with you Make sure you don't do it in vain That's what this passage is about if you wear a cross necklace if you go to C.C.F events and people know it if you pray before meals and people can see you bowing your head If you post verses on social media if you make it known your Christian Unfortunately, you were violating the actual meaning of the third commandment It's about how you carry his name in public if people know God's reputation is tied to your reputation So we need to carry his name not just the sound of noise that comes out of our mouths Like that's that's not all it's about it's not just about sound the name as it's spoken of throughout scripture Is God's name is the idea of who he is he is the God overall He is the God who always was and is and will be the God of the promises that were given to Abraham Isaac and Jacob that could fulfill than a man who is Jesus the Christ carry the idea of God wherever you go Don't pretend to carry him and then just carry him around in vain As Christians we are supposed to do the literal opposite of the third commandment We are to be salt and light on the earth We are to be lamps that shine on a hill We are to be the body of Christ moving around as his ambassador on earth And God's name again is not mud. He is the God who is revealed in scripture Your name is not mud Because the cool thing about being a Christian is you are wrapped up in the identity of Christ And so everything we learn about God's name should be on your shoulders as well And you should be thinking of yourself as sacred in that way you're supposed to be a temple over the Holy Spirit like Don't treat yourself like mud bear God's name well And if we have that title of being a God's image bearer that's the image of Christ too And we don't act like it we're bearing his name in the name Now we know that the first half of the verse is you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain Exist 27 There's that scary part at the end of the second half for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain If you go to the second half of the 10 commandments a lot of them just like don't do this Don't do that. Don't do this. This one is don't do this or else That's fun right But why wouldn't God be concerned with how you represent him to the world? A lot of the other commandments are how you do that well or how you avoid doing it poorly One last item of housekeeping before we can finish a conversation on this commandment is we got to talk about the name Because it might be weird to think oh no, we don't know how to say God's name That's This commandment's not about how to literally make the noise that is God's name. God knows 100% of languages Scripture tells us that he looks at the heart more than the outside which probably includes the sounds that we make If he knows the intentions of our heart God knows to whom you are speaking when you are speaking to him He's not stupid So he he can get it if you're talking about him He knows those things and the cool thing is in the New Testament God is revealed as a human who took on flesh And his name is Jesus and Greek it's Jesus and English it's Jesus Interestingly some of the people get really concerned about God's name or like it's Yeshua That's not in the Bible anywhere No where unless you translate it from Greek into Aramaic or Hebrew then you get Yeshua, but the New Testament's written in Greek So that confuses you talking about it later All that to say when you call in the name of God God knows which name you're talking about it and the Bible doesn't tell us to not use his name It actually says the opposite do use God's name Just don't do it in vain Don't do it for your own ends Don't do it in a way that you know will tarnish his reputation Don't do it in a way that purposefully misrepresents who he is or what he has commanded But do use his name as Bible the Bible actually commands us to use his name a lot Sing praises to his name like that's a phrase you see often in the book of Psalms right and scripture tells us in the book of Romans Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved He doesn't want you though to use his name as a tool Not an idol. I think there was a whole other commandment about that right Use his name as the way to cry out to the God who is merciful and loving and steadfast and faithful Call out to that guy And even if you're not sure how to say a Hebrew word or a rare-mayak word or anything God smart enough to know who you're talking to Trust that he's that smart call out to his name Let's pray Father heaven we are so thankful that we Even if over time humans have forgotten what your name sounds like the one you revealed yourself to Moses That we have you as a cooler names than that. We've got you as father That we know you as Jesus our savior So God we want to call out to your name with our immediate just coming forward to you Being united to your name the way scripture commands through baptism and also living out and bearing your name well with our lives Assault might on the surface help us do that well help us to call out to your name When we need to help need your help and even when we don't need your help help to remember whose name we represent We walk this earth. We ask this in Jesus's name. Amen