Names | YHWH - Revelation 1:3 | March 22

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God, we thank you so much for the ways that you have chosen to reveal yourself to us.

All of the character, all of the purpose, the fullness that you bring to all

of life as you reveal yourself to us.

So I just pray that you would reveal yourself this morning in your name,

that you would speak into our hearts, that you would encourage us,

that you would just continue to be bigger and bigger in our eyes and our minds,

that everything else in this world would shrink in comparison to the greatness

and fullness of who you are.

And I just pray that that would change us. As we talked about last week,

being maker, which means we are made and we are made with love and care.

As we talk about today, that you are the all existing one, that you were,

you are, and you will be forever and ever.

That we get to join you in your existence, that we get to worship you in spirit

and truth, that you have made us for companionship and relationship with you,

that you fill all of the ways that we feel that we are not when you say that you are.

So we praise you this morning, Lord. Speak to us, speak clearly, speak loudly.

Sometimes I'm hard of hearing. Amen. man.

So I want to start in more of a sort of, I can move around now since I don't

have those mics on there.

I don't know. I like this. I'm going to try not to cough though.

I'm going to start in a strange place. I imagine when you, some of you,

when you heard what Bree was talking about, what we're going to be talking about,

you kind of immediately jumped to the burning bush in Exodus 3 as well. And we'll get there.

But I want to start, I want to start in Revelation. But before that,

I want to, I just want to remind us of the importance of God revealing himself through these names.

And of course, most of them are not names. they're more descriptions or titles

or whatever you might want to call them.

So it's not necessarily that they're names. We call them names.

We have all of these verses. I've been collecting these verses over time as

I've come across them, talking about the importance of God's name.

And we know some of them that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and

every heart confess, or every tongue confess.

There's these phrases, there's these verses that not just share what a name

is, but they share the importance of God's name.

And one of the most important ones for us this morning is Psalm 910,

that those who know your name put their trust in you.

And it goes on to say, for you, O Lord, have not abandoned those who seek you.

But we're setting out to learn the names of God in one way, because when we

learn the names of God, we learn the truth of who God is, and we learn the truth about who we are,

but also that in believing these names and believing these character traits

and believing these words that describe our magnificent creator, that describe the Lord,

that we would be strengthened in our confidence and belief and trust in Him.

That's what the Psalm is saying, right? That when we know God and His name, the result is trust.

And this is perhaps one of the greatest questions that anybody could ever ask is, is who is God?

Essentially what we're answering with these names, these words.

There's no more foundational question for us, even in our faith that perhaps

has lasted decades and decades, for us to continue to ask this question, who is God?

The one behind all creation, the one who has made you and me,

the one who speaks to us through these words, through this ancient book,

which is not just a book, but it is living and active.

And when God names himself, we can be sure that that name is packed with meaning,

that it's full, that it's revealing something important about who he is and what he intends to do.

And God doesn't just choose names for himself at random. God chooses these names

purposefully for the sake of revealing things about himself,

to deepen our love for him,

to enlarge our admiration, to strengthen our faith, that trust might result.

So this is the ultimate question that we are answering as we continue to look

at names for whoever knows how long.

Who is God? God is answering that question. God is.

And again, so I want to start with this name, which I'm going to resist saying for a while.

And if you are offended by pronouncing the name, there are some people,

I apologize. I will say it. We did sing it.

So I can only apologize for what's already been done, but I am going to say it a few times.

But I want to start in Revelation chapter one.

And it's talking about the purpose of this revealed vision to John.

And he says that, we're going to look at two verses, grace to you and peace

from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seventh spirit sword before the throne.

So this is meeting John and then the revealed truth, I am the Alpha,

the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come the Almighty.

The name that we're talking about, the meaning that it has is exactly this.

I am, I was, I will be. More specifically, this idea that in a more maybe chronological order, right?

That God was, that he is, and forevermore he will continue to be.

This is the truth of what that name reveals more than anything else.

We're going to talk about the implications of that truth.

But this is the heart of the name.

I was, I am, and I will be. It's packed into this phrase that we attribute.

When we think about revelation itself and this purpose that we look at,

it is that the servants of God would know what is to come.

That's part of it. That they would have hope, that they would have a faith,

that trust would result, but they would know what is going to come,

that the mysteries of the earth would be revealed to them.

And we live in these places ourselves, even though we might try to occupy the

present as much as we can, all of us live in these three spaces.

We live in the regrets of the past.

We live in the freshers and fears of what is. We live in the anxiety of what will come.

So we live in these spheres that God occupies.

And so into those realities that we can't escape, we can't escape worrying about

the future. We can't escape what is right now.

We can't escape as hard as we try the things that have defined us in the past.

God introduces himself into these areas of life.

He who was, he who is, he who is to come. And this is the meaning of God's name.

This is, that one snuck up on me.

Sorry. This is, especially at least in the Old Testament,

the most used, the most common, the most important name for God,

which might surprise us considering a lot of us in the back of our mind are

thinking, yeah, but they didn't even pronounce the name.

Nevertheless, this is the most common name. It is used three times more than

Elohim, which is the word for God.

It is used probably twice as much as all the other names with Elohim combined.

So it is used the most far and wide than any other name.

So whenever we see the word Lord in our Bibles and all capital letters,

even in the New Testament, what it is suggesting to us in our English translations

that this word is being used behind that.

These, I say word, but really what we're talking about is four consonants.

These four letters, it's called the tetragram and it's used 6,827 times.

Now, what we have come to know is from Jews in the second century that they

stopped pronouncing the name.

They believed it too wholly to pronounce.

And so our representations mostly are these four consonants,

these four letters, Yot-Heh, Vav-Heh.

And because they stopped pronouncing it.

And because traditions that followed, so in the third century,

there were rabbis who were killed in pretty gruesome ways by the Romans.

And the commentary on that was, oh, well, they used the name as it was spoken,

or they spoke the name as it was written.

And that's not why they were killed, but that was what the commentary from other Jews was.

They received this punishment because they dared to speak the name as it was written.

They're kind of hinting at more of like a magic thing than not just pronouncing

the name, but using it in sort of ritual and incantation.

But still, because of this history, there's become a lot of distrust or speculation

as to the fact that maybe the Jews completely forgot how to even pronounce it.

And so we get to our modern day, and Christians, we like to pronounce it as

Yahweh, which is is perhaps how it was pronounced, but it's very much a Christian

thing that we would say Yahweh.

We know for a fact that the Jews

did use this word up until the time when they decided it was too holy.

We know in the Bible, in Exodus three, what God says when he reveals himself

is, whenever you make mention of me, whenever you call on me,

call on my name, use my name.

We see in the book of Judges in chapter six, with the story of Gideon.

When the angel appeared to Gideon, he appeared with this phrase,

the Lord is with you, mighty man of valor.

So they used this name as a greeting even when they greeted each other in this time.

So, how do you pronounce it? Christians say Yahweh.

That has less to do with Jewish tradition and more to do with compiling evidence

from neighboring countries and histories and different things like that.

There is the explanation that Jehovah, the word Jehovah, is the word Yahweh

with the vowels of Adonai, which is kind of correct.

And so you get this word, Yehovah. So when,

also, even in this time of when the name was not pronounced,

there's also a record that says,

rabbis would speak the name and teach it to their students, their disciples,

once every seven years, that they would know how to say the name.

So as you come through history, you have these rabbis arguing with each other.

It's pronounced this, it's pronounced that.

It's the vowels of Adonai. What they agree on over time in the Jewish community

is that the vowels are Yehovah.

So we have Yahweh, Christians like to say, we have Yehovah, which is more of

the Jewish pronunciation, perhaps the original pronunciation.

What does it matter? It doesn't matter.

How it's pronounced, you know, it could be important, but there's something

more important than how you say it. And that is, of course, the depth of meaning

that it brings, this word.

I'm going to try and remember to say Yehovah, but Yahweh is acceptable as well.

And here's where we ought to spend our time meditating today.

What does it mean when you ask God, who are you? And he answers, I am who I am.

What did it mean when Moses asked God, who are you? And he said, I am.

I am who I am. I am. Tell him I am sent you. What does it mean today when we

ask God, who are you? And the answer is, I am.

There is perhaps in this naming of God, no more important word for us to ponder, for us to meditate on.

And the more we think about it, the more awesome they become.

I know I can't do them justice in our time this morning, but perhaps the Holy

Spirit will take these stammerings and these revealed truths in scripture and

open some sort of window to you.

The importance and magnitude of what this statement means, the weight of I am.

What does it mean when he says, I absolutely am, I am who I am.

First, I just want to run through, actually, this is how it's going to work.

I want to run through quite a few things of what it means. And I want to spend

too much time on any one of them.

But the complexity and the weight of it deserves more fullness than just camping on one thing.

So first is this idea that God exists.

That should not be surprising to us. The existence of God, or as others maybe

have said, that God is there. It's not just that he exists abstractly, but he is present, holy.

And this seems to be so obvious, so basic to us.

We read in Isaiah 65 that before they call, I will answer.

While they are still speaking, I will hear that God is present,

that God is here, that even before we speak, he already knows what we're going to say.

Jesus says that in Matthew chapter six, when you pray, don't heap up these empty

phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they'll be heard for their many words.

But your father knows what you need before you ask him that there is this existent

God who is there and who is present.

And while that's obvious and basic, the reason we start there is because most

people don't live like that is true.

And even within the church, a lot of times people don't live as if it's true that just God exists.

We pursue our own things and we shape God into our own image and we expect him

to be a certain way. But God is God.

Regardless whether we believe and regardless of how we believe he is, he simply is.

So God had no beginning. He never had a beginning.

There is no other thing that is permanent and eternal in this world.

No other thing that is infinite.

The earth had a beginning. Everybody agrees on that. Even scientists,

the earth had a beginning. The universe had a beginning.

Anything that has a beginning is not infinite. Infinite goes both ways.

We may be spiritual beings who get to spend eternity with God,

but we were also created.

We have a beginning. There is no other thing in this universe that has no beginning but God.

Every child who's ever asked their parents, where did God come from? Who made God?

And every parent who had a simple answer, nobody made God.

He just always is, always was. There was no beginning.

God is without end.

He didn't come into being. he can't go out of being because he is being, absolute being.

There's no place to go outside of who he is.

It's just him. Before he creates, he's there.

When all that ends, he will still be there. The Lord doesn't count time as we do.

He's above it. He's outside of it. He created it. He created our perception of existence.

He sees all eternity, past, present, and future. He sees all the time that passes

on the earth, Bible says that to God, a day is like a thousand years.

A thousand years is like a day, right? Like he is experiencing everything all

at once because of his character and the greatness of who he is, he can do that.

And it makes sense because of our finite minds can only grasp the concept of

God's timeless existence in part.

So we describe him as a God, as a being with no beginning, with no end,

who is eternal, infinite, everlasting.

We do our best, but even the ways that we can imagine what that means fall short.

Psalm 90 verse 2 declares from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

Psalms 90:2

He always was and always will be.

So God had no beginning. He will have no end. He is eternal.

He is infinite. He simply is. also.

God is absolute reality.

We've talked about that a little bit amongst our people.

We've used that phrase that we want to be real people who are part of a real

family, who worship a real God.

The heart of what that idea means is that all realness that exists in this world is found in God.

The heart of what is absolutely true exists in Him.

There's no reality before him. There's no reality outside of him.

So when we think about creation, when we think about created things,

when we think about things that we experience in this world,

we have kind of three categories.

We have these, we have kind of this idea of inanimate objects.

We have this idea of like plants and we have this idea of humans and mammals,

these kind of three orders of, of existence or consciousness,

or I guess the first one doesn't consciousness, but,

we try and classify our surroundings, but at the heart of it,

they are all created things.

God is the initiator of them all.

He's not one of many realities. He is simply absolute reality.

He's all that was created.

When we think about Genesis and we think about those categories that I was mentioning,

these non-conscious programmed machinery kind of things, these impersonal consciousnesses

like plants, these personal consciousnesses like humans,

there's different words. Hebrew's got a lot of words.

There's different words for to make or to create.

And there's two that are used in Genesis.

One of them is exclusively used for God when he creates.

One of them can be used for people as Paul. when it uses the word that is exclusively

used for God, it should be no surprise that it hits these three categories.

That he creates in the only way that God could these non-conscious program machinery,

that he spoke and light appeared, that he spoke and these mechanisms of life

existed, they came into being.

That when it says he created all the plants and trees and things that covered the earth,

it uses this word that is only described for God himself, that he spoke into

being all of these impersonal consciousnesses that exist around us.

Then of course, when he creates human life, it uses that word for something that God only can do.

Which is funny because I feel like a lot of science is aiming for like,

when can we create life? When can we do this thing?

And the more we learn about a cell, the farther that date is pushed back.

It is mind blowing that the more knowledge a human has, the less likely it is

that we will ever be able to achieve that one act of creation that God made

with his mouth or his word.

God is absolute reality and everything that exists, exists because of him and

everything that exists, exists and is upheld by him.

God is, so first God is utterly deep independent,

that God depends on nothing from us or from anything else to exist or to be,

or to bring him into being. He depends on nothing to support him.

He depends on no one to counsel him. He depends on nothing to make him what

he is. He is independent.

I love this verse in Romans chapter 11. It just pours the glory on God.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,

how unsearchable are his judgments, how inscrutable ways.

For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor or who

has given a gift to him that he might be repaid.

The Old Testament talks about tons of times that he, the cattle on a thousand

hills are his, which I suppose was pretty cool and important back then.

I don't know that I want thousands of cattle, but it talks of that.

And so Eric wants cattle.

Just give me one a year and chop it up for me. I'm going to make sure I get

the tongue because nobody else delivers that in this part of the world.

Everything belongs to him and comes from him and nothing that we could ever

do or give him is something that he doesn't already have.

Even when we give him ourselves, which is all that we have to give,

we are giving back to him something that was already his.

He is utterly independent. And then the flip side of that, everything else depends on him.

God is who he is means everything that is not God depends totally on God.

Everything that is not God is secondary. It is dependent.

The entire universe is dependent reality.

It is secondary reality. Just let that sink in for a moment.

Word secondary might give you some trouble. I don't want to feel like I'm secondary.

There's a whole video series with famous Christians called I Am Second.

It's pretty cool. You should check it out.

But it's the way that this passage in Romans chapter 11 ends in verse 36.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

For from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever.

All of the universe is secondary because all of the universe depends on him. He alone is primary.

Humanity is secondary. God is primary. Absolute, first, last, glorious.

Everything else is secondary to him.

So with that, nothing compares to God.

Yehovah, Yahweh means that nothing else can compare to God.

Nothing else in all of the universe.

Galaxies cannot compare to God. They are nothing before Him.

We talked about this week, a group, we showed a video to the kids of the scale

of the universe, the scale of our own sun and looking at the fact that it is

not even close to being the largest star.

And that the Bible says that God breathed out the stars.

That if you took a picture of the largest star that they have found,

which probably isn't even the largest star that exists.

And you had it on the biggest screen you could have it on and you put a dot

with a sharpie, that is too big for how big the earth is compared to that star, a star.

And yet the Bible says that God breathed out the stars.

Nothing compares to him. Everything is dependent, contingent on him.

Everything else is a shadow of the substance of who he is.

Colossians 2 talks about this idea. It talks about the importance of all of

these things that we give importance to in our world, even religious practices.

And it says that these are only shadows of what is to come, but the substance

itself belongs to Christ.

Of reality belongs to Christ. You were to put God on one side of a scale and

everything else on the other side, it would fly off as if it were just a single piece of dust.

There is nothing that even comes close.

Isaiah chapter 4, he says that all the nations are as nothing before him.

Isaiah 4 · chapter mention

They are counted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

When we look at creation, the world was wild and waste. There was no nothing.

It was chaos. And God spoke and brought order to the chaos and God spoke and

brought everything to existence.

And yet even all the stuff that came about when compared to God is still just emptiness.

I just have a couple more. of what this name Yehovah, Yahweh means to us,

that he was, and he is, and he will continue to be forever and ever.

God is who he is, means that God is constant.

He cannot be improved. Bible says that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

He cannot be improved. He cannot be diminished. He's not becoming anything.

God is not becoming anything more than he already is because all that he is, is already complete.

There's no development. There's no progress.

He is absolute perfection.

God cannot be improved.

With that, God sets the ultimate standard.

God is who he is, means that he is the absolute standard for truth,

for goodness, for beauty, for all that he is.

Everything else that we try and decide upon and agree upon as good and right

is arbitrary and inconsistent.

Alone is absolute truth. He is the absolute standard.

There's no law book that he consults in deciding what's right.

There's no governing body for him to determine what is excellent and beautiful. He is the standard.

We talked about this last week, the two things that I wanted you to know about identity.

And that is that identity is given, not earned.

God says who you are. You You don't, under your own strength and power,

determine who you will be.

And also that God is the ultimate validator, not man.

God is the ultimate standard. No one, not even yourself, can be the person who

says, absolutely, this is who you are.

God alone is the ultimate validator of truth and reality and of identity.

With that, God always does right.

God is who he is means that God does whatever he pleases and it's always right,

always beautiful, always in accord with truth.

It always agrees with who he is and he is those things.

He is utterly free and utterly unhindered.

Is who he is means that he is the greatest, most beautiful, most valuable,

most important person in existence.

Nothing is worth more than God.

Nothing is worth more than Yehovah.

He is worthy of interest and attention and admiration and enjoyment and all,

of all persons and all realities put together in the entirety of the universe.

There's nothing more worthy than him.

So when God says, I am, when God tells us, when we say, who are you, God?

And the name that he reveals for himself is, I am.

What he does here is he summons us to objectivity, that he puts an end to any notion that.

Everybody's view of God is as good as everybody else's.

He puts an end to this idea that anybody's opinion about him can make any difference at all.

God is who he is. And we can't change that by believing he's different.

The vast majority of humans on this earth go about in their lives with little

or no thought to the will and the character of God.

Even us as Christians can be so consumed by our own desires and our own passions

and how we want God to be that we, we end up not letting him be who he is.

But if God is simply who he is and not who we make him out to be, then God.

Is we who must conform to God and not he to us.

We must conform to who God is and who he is is amazing.

Last implication here, and then we'll wrap it up, of this magnificent name,

Yehovah, that this infinite, absolute self-determining God,

that this all existing God who swallows our dwarfs, I should say,

the entirety of everything that has been created has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ.

Not only is Yehovah, Yahweh alone, the creator, Not only is he alone righteous,

not only is he alone God and alone Savior.

Again and again, the Bible says, I am the Lord and there is no other.

I am Yahweh. I am Yehovah. There is no other.

And we get to Jesus and even in just the pronouncement of his birth in Luke

chapter two, it says, unto you is born this day a Savior, right?

It says, who is Christ the Lord. Thank you.

At his birth, we have that declaration that Jesus is Yahweh.

Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is the all existent God who was and who is and who will ever be.

This is not just some ruler. This is not just some prophet.

This is not just some guy that they've been waiting for to throw off the shackles

of human empires and reign in this kingdom.

This is Yahweh, Yehovah himself come in the flesh.

Jesus is Lord and there is no other. Jesus is Lord and there is none like him.

So with all of that, now we go back to Exodus chapter three,

where it all sort of started, although the word was used, the name was used

before this, but this is the first place that God reveals the name to his people.

He was, he is, he will always be. Moses meets God in this bush and God calls

him on this great rescue plan that will forever define his people.

It's the God who led you out of Egypt.

It forever defines us as all of our life is continuing to be compared to this

exodus, this walk out, this freedom, this salvation.

Meets God in that moment. And he says, I don't talk good.

I don't speak too good. I don't understand.

Now, some scholars will tell you that Moses was raised in the house of the Pharaoh

and he was probably the best person to come and speak, but he could have had

a speech impediment or something like that.

He could have been sincere and not just been afraid.

It could have been a sincere thing.

Regardless of that, Moses shows up with all of the reasons why he can't and why he isn't.

And God reveals himself into that moment by saying, I am.

You might not think that you are, but I am. You might not think that you can, but I am.

God answers Moses' doubt and insecurities with that declaration.

You may not be, but I am.

The God who was, the God who is, the God who is to come, the God who says I am, he was before it.

He is with you in it, declaring over you, you might not think you are, but I am.

You might not believe, but I am. You might have fear and doubt, but I am.

And he will continue to be that forever and ever beyond all that we can hope or imagine or think.

Praise you, the God who was, the God who is, the God who ever will be,

the God who has revealed himself to us over and over and is continuing to reveal himself to us now.

That all of creation, all of the universe exists because of you. It exists for you.

It is dependent on you to continue you to exist.

You are independent. You need nothing from us, and yet you draw near to us,

and you say, I care for you.

I love you. I am here with you.

And you speak that truth over us time and time again, that you may not be, but know that I am.

I am the good shepherd. I am living water.

I am your breath and your life and all things.

I am your strength. I am. I am.

That we would know that name and that we would trust in all of our right nows, the truth of who he is.