Resurrection Life:Names

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.

It's our hope that these sermons will draw you

more into the life of following God, Father,

Son and Holy Spirit. Please consider coming and

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sermon. God Bless. Oh Lord God, we thank you

for you are good. Your mercy is over all that

you have made. Here we are on this beautiful

morning as spring is getting into gear and yet

many of us feel a weight of sin in our hearts.

Please meet with us here today. Please enliven

our hearts and our spirits. Be with us in Word

and in Sacrament. Please change us to be people

who desire your glory above all things. We pray,

O Lord, that you would open our hearts, even

now. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well,

hello. It's good to be with you this morning

up here. I'm Jed Stalker. I am a pastoral intern

here at Second City. So... If you've just been

attending this church for a couple of weeks and

you are expecting Peter, you are allowed to be

disappointed at this time. If you are a regular

attender here, you'll know that I've preached

here half a dozen or so times over the past year

and I wanted to reveal a part of my process for

writing sermons to you all. So the first thing

that I do before I even study the text intently

is I ask my children who range in age from two

to 11, what I should preach about. And sometimes

they even have good things to say. But more than

anything else, my daughters have consistently

suggested that I preach from Harry Potter. And

there are many good reasons for me to ignore

them in this matter. So I will not be preaching

from children's fantasy literature this morning,

but... For my girls, I do want to begin our discussion

of the third commandment Thou shalt not take

the name of the Lord thy God in vain as it says

in the King James by thinking about a profound

quote from the headmaster of Hogwarts Albus Dumbledore

One of the things that he says to Harry in the

first book of the series is this he says fear

of a name increases fear of the thing itself

fear of a name increases fear of a thing itself.

This is surprisingly profound, right? So in the

context of the book, the character Dumbledore

is talking about the character Voldemort, who's,

you know, the devil. And one of the plot points

in this whole series is that the majority of

the people in this world, they won't even mention

the guy's name. They're too afraid of him. So

they'll refer to him as he who must not be named

or even You know who. So what Dumbledore is saying

is, yeah, he's a bad guy, but you can say his

name. You don't need to venerate him. So get

your fears out in the open, call them by their

name, and then they'll be less scary. And I think

this is good advice for most things that we should

not be afraid of, right? But then the question

is, what about for those things that we should?

be afraid of. Those things that in a good and

godly way we should tremble before. So remember

the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

right? So in that case, well the advice should

be opposite. So if we want to train ourselves

to fear, something, Dumbledore's logic would

say, one way to do that would be to train ourselves

in the fear of the thing, sorry, the name, the

fear of the name, right? That will increase our

fear of the thing itself. So, I feel like that's

sort of a practical, psychological introduction

to the theory of the Third Commandment. Joy Davidman,

who is the woman who married C .S. Lewis late

in his life, there's a movie about it, it's pretty

good. Lewis is played by Anthony Hopkins She

says quote the third commandment is not just

a nice Nellie ish warning against profanity It's

much more like the sort of warning you see around

power plants danger high voltage The implied

moral seems to be be careful how you touch God.

He is dangerous So the point of the third commandment

I think one of the points, perhaps, is that God

is utterly different than us. He is the Creator.

We are the creatures. He is infinite. We are

limited. He is holy. We are sinners. He is other

than us. He's good, but He is very much other

in a separate realm than ourselves, and we need

to be trained in that truth even to the extent

of our language, even to the extent of the things

that we say about Him. Let's think about what

the commandment says. It doesn't say, don't talk

about God at all. No, we should be talking about

God. A bunch of the Psalms, for instance, say

that we're supposed to extol His name, we're

supposed to shout His name, we're supposed to

sing His name. But what the commandment says

is don't take His name in vain. Don't misuse

it. So the question then is, how do you misuse

the name of God? In the small group that meets

at my house, we started looking at Ecclesiastes

recently and many of you know that Ecclesiastes

begins with the line, vanity of vanities. All

is vanity. It repeats this many times. One interesting

thing is that the word for vanity in Ecclesiastes

is a different word from the word vain that we

see in Exodus. The Ecclesiastes vanity is a Hebrew

word that means vanishing, vapor, smoke, something

that is here and then it goes away and there's

no trace of it. The message of Ecclesiastes is

that everything can feel meaningless because

it passes. It goes away from us, right? But the

name of the Lord surely does not pass. This is

a different word that's used in Exodus. The word

that's used in Exodus is a word that means worthless.

It's a word that means nothingness. It means

actually, in context, to take something that's

full of meaning and to empty it. meaning, to

make it worthless. That's the sense of the Exodus

word. So, how do we empty the name of God of

its significance so that we know not to do it?

Well, it seems to me to empty God's name of significance,

you act as though He's not alive and interested

and capable of intervening in the world. Right?

You talk as though God, who is wholly other and

wholly powerful, was just some other thing in

the world. So this commandment, I think, is saying,

don't think you can be casual about God, the

God of heaven, right? Like he was just another

guy that you happen to know. Don't think you

can be casual about God like a politician who

can vote out in four years if you don't like

what he's doing. This is God. He created heaven

and earth. He dwells in unapproachable light.

So the Ten Commandments are given in Exodus 20.

In Exodus 19, right before the commandments are

given, when Moses is going to go up onto Mount

Sinai to receive the Lord's words, God, this

is a quote, says, God tells Moses to quote, set

limits for the people all around saying, take

care not to go up into the mountain or touch

the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain

shall be put to death. That's verse 12 of Exodus

19. The whole mountain became holy. The whole

mountain became dangerous to get near because

God, the living presence of God was there on

the mountain and that's what this prohibition

about using His name casually is there for. That's

the kind of reverence that we're supposed to

give to the name of God. So if you're A lot of

people think about, why do we need to fear God?

Well, if you're a parent, right, you're well

aware that you need to teach your children to

have a healthy fear of many dangerous things.

Fire going in the road, animals that growl at

them, right? We need to be taught to have a healthy

respect, not just for the name of God, but for

God Himself. He's not an idea. He's not a theory.

He's not just a mysterious energy. He's a living

person who is so holy that to see him would kill

you. Philip Riken says this. He says, God's name

quote, is much more than a name. It is God's

identity. For us, a name is a label. It's something

we have, not something we are. But when we use

the name of God, we're referring to the essence

of His divine being. So the name of God is a

big deal precisely because God is a big deal

and we need to be trained in that. Anyway, with

all that said, I want to talk about this third

commandment that we read this morning. I don't

exactly have three points today. I sort of have

three lenses through which we can view it. So

I want to talk about it in terms of law, the

implications of the law, and then gospel. So

first off Law we're not supposed to take the

name of the Lord in vain John Calvin puts it

really simply when he says this quote in some

we must not profane God's name by using it irreverently

or contemptuously so if we use the name of God

in any other way than as referring to God and

In fact doing so in a manner befitting creatures

talking about their creator. We're breaking the

commandment That's the sort of bare minimum,

right, of the third commandment. So here's the

takeaway from that first point. Don't do it.

It's actually pretty simple. And I think for

most of us in here, this is actually somewhat

easy for us, right? We need to remember the holiness

of God and the respect and reverence that He's

due, right? If you're here this morning at the

gathered worship service of Second City Church,

of the Presbyterian Church in America, you're

probably one who does not routinely use the name

of God as a curse word. Probably you do not say,

I swear to God, unless you're making a very,

very serious vow, and you mean it, right? You

are probably not an intentional blasphemer, right?

And this is good. We should keep the commandment

at this lowest level. However, if you are here

this morning, You probably also know that our

surrounding culture is remarkably bad at keeping

this commandment. People curse using God's name

all the time. People who don't believe in God

swear to God without thinking much about it,

right? There for a while, the kids in school

were all saying, by God, all the time, just in

order to prove that they felt strongly about

anything. I want to tell you a brief story. about

how little some people in our culture think about

reverence to God and His name. It's just an anecdote.

So I worked at a library for a few years and

there was one young guy who came in. He was very

angry because the library had fined him because

he had lost several of their DVDs. So we had

a lengthy conversation about this. And in the

course of this conversation, he called me G.

a few times, listen G, yo G, this is a white

guy, and I calmed this guy down and he started

feeling nicer to me eventually and he said this,

you know, some people find G offensive as a term,

but really it's not meant to be offensive. If

you look into it, you'll see that G means God.

And I thought, what? And I said to him, Were

you do you mean that you were intending to call

me God when we were speaking just a little bit

ago? Why? Were you doing that? And he looked

confused about this as confused I think as I

felt and Then he just asked if he could borrow

some more DVDs. So I don't know. I mean, I enjoyed

that interaction more in retrospect than in the

moment, but So even though that was kind of funny,

this issue is not exactly low stakes. If you

think about the rest of the Bible, so in Leviticus,

in one of the few narrative sections of that

book, there's a story in chapter 24 of a man

who quote, blasphemed the name and Moses goes

to the Lord to ask for instructions about what

to do with this guy. And the answer is the people

of God are supposed to stone him. No mercy. Quote,

whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall

surely be put to death. This is something the

Lord feels strongly about and yet we're in a

society in which reverence as such is at a remarkably

low level and verbal reverence for God is at

a remarkably even lower level than sort of the

normal and I think that this is offensive to

God. However, I also think that a lot of the

people who do routinely take the Lord's name

in vain are totally unthinking about it. In a

very real sense, they know not what they do,

as Jesus says on the cross. So I think we should

feel pity and pray for people's forgiveness.

We should not fall into the trap of feeling better

than other people because of our verbal... habits

or theirs, right? Because if we do that, if we

start feeling holier than others, we might be

guilty of taking the Lord's name in vain in a

different way. So this is one of my points, I

suppose. My first mini point was don't take the

Lord's name in vain in a simple sense. My second

point related to it is you probably do take the

Lord's name in vain all the time in a deeper

sense. Look out. We'll come back to this. One

more little mini point again while we're still

in this law section and that's a New Testament

consideration of this third testament. So the

Apostle Luke says that Jesus is suffering before

he was crucified. So the men who came and arrested

him, they were holding him in custody and quote,

it said, they said many things against him blaspheming.

Him. They said things, and this was blasphemy.

This means that Jesus is capable of being verbally

blasphemed, right? And that, according to the

logic of the Bible, means that He has a name

which is equal to that of God the Father. Therefore,

I think for us practically, in this law section

of things to think about, the name of Jesus needs

to be handled with the same respect and reverence

with which we handle the name God for obvious

theological orthodox reasons, right? Okay, so

let's move on to our next lens. That was the

law, flat. That's the prohibition. Don't do it.

And again, we should just agree, right? Don't

do it. It's like Nike, but in reverse. But as

Calvin, John Calvin is good to point out, the

negatives of the law actually mean a good deal

more than just don't. We need to think about

the negatives of the law as a bare minimum, but

we are expected to go above and beyond those

negatives. So Calvin says this, quote, the prohibition

of the third commandment implies a corresponding

precept, which is that it be our study and our

care to treat his name with religious veneration.

End quote. That is to say we're supposed to worship

God whenever we talk about him, in Jesus's terms,

we're supposed to hallow the name of God our

Father who art in heaven, right? So that's my

second lens. This is the implication of the law.

I want to give you a hypothetical scenario to

illustrate kind of what I'm talking about here,

right? So picture this setting. It's lunch break.

At work, a bunch of people have gone out to get

a sandwich. They're walking back to the job.

It's been a hard day already. Consider two theoretical

people and their speaking roles in the same situation,

okay? Here's person A. He's an atheist. He's

speaking to his work buddies. And first, he speaks

the holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he

is not praying. He is not making a theological

observation. He's using it as a curse word. And

then he says, The boss is such an idiot. This

is a believable scenario, is it not? Right? Maybe

you could put in a couple of sprinkling of adjectives

to make it more believable to you, but these

conversations are real. But now, picture a hypothetical

different person, a churchgoer, in exactly that

same situation. So now person B, he says this.

He does not say the name Jesus Christ, instead

he says, golly. Gee whiz. And then what he says

is, the boss is such an idiot. And what I want

to ask you is this, is person B doing better

in this scenario morally than person A? This

is a real question, right? Let's do ethics. Here's

my answer. You can tell me if you think I'm wrong

later. I think person B, the guy who says, golly.

is, strictly speaking, doing better morally than

the other guy. He has not broken the letter of

the law in terms of the third commandment. However,

it's a very shallow victory, isn't it? While

he has not profaned the name of the Lord by using

it irreverently or contemptuously, he's certainly

not bringing honor to God because the rest of

his speech is entirely like this other guy. He

speaks like an atheist except for not honoring

the bear, excuse me, not breaking the bear commandment

itself, right? The rest of his speech does not

hollow the name, grumbling about people, insulting

them behind their back. This is not Christ -like

behavior. Yes? Calvin says, quote, we must not

detract from or throw insult upon God's works.

as miserable men often insultingly do, but we

must laud, praise every action which we attribute

to him as wise, just, and good. This is to sanctify

the name of the Lord. And do you know what's

included in the scope of God's works? It's literally

everything, right? So if we are praising God

for literally everything, we're doing well. according

to the implication of the third commandment.

Do you praise God for literally everything? I'm

not saying that we can't be sad or angry about

unjust things or even that we can't complain

sometimes in a way that acknowledges our own

faults and maintains God's sovereignty, but if

we usually or even often take the position of

judging and grumbling, we're insulting the providence

of God, and that is taking His name lightly.

And friend, if you are like me, I'm a person

who feels things very strongly. I feel like I

should just probably be in charge of the world.

If everybody would listen to me, we would do

better, right? This implication should make you

pause, right? Are your Habitual words are your

habitual thoughts, giving glory to God's name?

What about when you're driving? What about when

you're watching sports? What about when you're

scrolling through your news feed, right? If your

words are not giving positive glory to God, you're

not making it to this implication of the law,

right? quote, whatever our mind conceives of

him, whatever our tongue utters, must bespeak

his excellence and correspond to the greatness

of his sacred name. Do you live up to that standard?

I do not. So, friend, here's the thing. I think

that even if we're really good at keeping the

third commandment in its prohibition, we don't

actively misuse God name, I think we probably

fail. much of the time at keeping the implications

of the same law, honoring God's name and all

that we think as well as we say. I'm guessing

we keep the letter, but break the spirit of the

law. Well, what should we do with this? I don't

think we should just stop trying, right? It's

better to be a flailing sinner who's trying to

get things right than a Pharisee. So that's what

I meant earlier when I said that we better not

be judgmental when we hear others, especially

in ignorance, misuse God's name. Because if we

do that, if we put ourselves in the seat of judgment

against them, we are judging them on part of

the law while we ourselves are breaking other

parts of the law. And you remember what Paul

says about that? Romans 2, he says, Do you hear?

If we don't live up to what God's holiness deserves,

we're causing the third commandment to be broken.

So if we think in these terms, I think we will

say, like Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address,

we cannot consecrate. We cannot hallow. We are

not good enough to bring glory to God's name

like we should. It's beyond our power. We cannot

keep the positive implications of the law. This

is bad news. But there is good news. So the law

is, as Paul says, a schoolmaster to bring us

to Christ. So let's move to my third lens here

today. What does the gospel have to say about

the third commandment? Here it is, I think. God

will do the work that we can't. You remember

the gospel reading this morning from John 12?

Jesus prays, Father, glorify your name, and God

the Father answers audibly from heaven as he

did at Sinai, and he says, I have glorified it,

and I will glorify it again. So, bad news, we

can't glorify God's name the way that he deserves.

Good news, he will do it himself. Praise God,

God's name will be honored because God will honor

it. And that's kind of the picture of Scripture,

the pattern, isn't it? We are lawbreakers, but

God in Christ keeps the law on our behalf and

we get the benefit of His obedience. This is

gospel. The John 12 reading, you remember, is

in the context of Jesus talking about the crucifixion.

The way that God makes sure His name will be

glorified is by the willing sacrifice of the

innocent Jesus who's the only person who perfectly

kept the third commandment. the law and it's

the implications of the law, right? This is the

logic of the cross. So, I gave us a lot of mini

takeaways earlier, right? Don't use God's name

as profanity, don't swear by God unless you really

mean it, right? Don't look down your nose about

people who get this stuff wrong too easily, right?

But the real takeaway here, as always, is this.

Cling to the cross of Christ. Don't trust in

your own righteousness, even in the smallest

and apparently easiest things. Think about this.

Just do a mental check. The third command is

probably the easiest of all of the Ten Commandments,

isn't it? Don't lie? Well, that's difficult.

Don't covet? Oh boy. Don't lust? Okay. Don't

have any other gods before God? That's really

difficult when we consider the large scope. The

third commandment is the easiest of them all,

I think, and you can't do it. So don't trust

in your ability, trust in Christ. I think the

real heart of this message is that we need to

have a renewed sense of our own insufficiency

to keep even the smallest parts of the law and

a heightened desire to go to Christ for forgiveness

and grace and justification before God. And then,

having done that, right? We will want to praise

His name. We will want our conversation to bring

Him great glory. There'll be no temptation to

misuse His name because we will desire to praise

Him, right? That's what this sermon series is

called, you know, the resurrection life. Here

we are in the season of Easter, right? Being

new, being newborn in Christ is to want to praise

His name always. So that's the good news. God

keeps His name holy. It's not up to you. But

wait, there's more. There always is. What's the

greater good news with the third commandment?

What's the great gospel truth? Here it is. Think

about the Great Commission. What does Jesus say

when he's risen from the dead and all authority

in heaven and earth has been given unto him?

He says his disciples are supposed to go therefore

into all the world making disciples and baptizing

them in the name the Father and of the Son and

of the Holy Ghost. Friend, think about it. If

you are a baptized Christian, if you are a believer

in the Lord Jesus and a member of His Church,

you were baptized in the name of the Trinity,

right? the name that God was so concerned in

the third commandment that didn't get misused

and didn't get taken in vain, didn't get dirty.

He lets you and me and every forgiven sinner

into that name. He puts that name upon us. In

Leviticus 24, we have that story of the person

who misused the name of the Lord in anger and

he got stoned for it. He got rocks thrown at

him until he died. is how serious, how intense

the Lord feels about the misuse of His name and

how apparently intense we should feel about the

name of the Lord. And then in the New Testament,

God says that you and me and our children and

all who are far off can be baptized into that

name because of the mediatorial work of Jesus.

This is very nearly unbelievable. God goes to

great lengths all throughout the Bible to show

how drastically holy how other he is, how you

can't approach him without the proper ceremony

or you will get zapped. And then Jesus comes

among us and dies on our behalf. And then what

happens to the holiness of the name? It doesn't

lessen. It does not become less holy. But God

sloshes that holiness out in full measure upon

all his baptized people. In Exodus 19, that same

chapter where God is roping off the bottom of

Mount Sinai to make sure nobody stumbles up into

His holiness and dies, this is what God tells

Moses, to tell the people. He says, you shall

be to me a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

That is, every one of God's people will be like

Moses. They will all be holy. They'll all be

able to stand in His presence. And that's what

happens to us because of the blood of Christ

shed on our behalf. We're not holy in our own

right. We don't earn our position, but instead

we bear His very name. It's part of our new identity.

We become other than what we were. That's what

it means to be a Christian. Right? It means that

you're called by the name of Christ, the holy

name. Think about Ephesians that we read this

morning. The whole family in heaven and earth

is named. Revelation says that believers will

have the Holy Name written upon them. Chapter

22. To be a saved person means that the Holy

Name is attached to you. It's more important

to your true identity than your personal name

is. So, all of this to say, we vain people are

welcomed into the very name we're told not to

take in vain. by the holiness, by the plan of

God. Okay, so fear of a name increases fear of

the thing itself. We should fear God. We should

reverence His name. And Christian, we should

know that we are marked body and soul by that

very name that we are told to reverence to the

glory of God in Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's pray.

Oh Lord God, we pray now In the name of Jesus,

as you have made available for us in this great

economy of salvation, we pray that your name

would be holy. We pray that you would glorify

that name, and we pray that you would glorify

even in us. Help us to live holy lives, to do

those things that please you. Help us to desire

what is right above all things, above our own

glory. Lord God, we pray these things in Jesus'

name, amen.