God has a name for you | Kyle Ranson

We are in the book of Ephesians.

We're just going to get you caught up

in case you missed the beginning.

We're in Ephesians looking at Ephesians chapter three

and asking the question: What is my name?

By the way, I should have made this more clear before.

My name is Kyle, if we've never met before.

I've been thinking a lot lately too about

what it means to be a Kyle. You know?

I don't know what your name is.

Maybe you're a John, what it means to be a John.

Got an email from a woman named Karen this week

who was, like, "I'm so glad you're talking about names.

Mine has become a punch line."

It's like, "That is our fault. So sorry.

It's a great name. You know?'

I'm thinking about Kyle, what it means to be a Kyle.

And I heard the comedian Kyle Kinane say something

that just rung true.

He said: I'm 41 years old and my name is Kyle.

You know what that means, right? I'm on borrowed time.

I mean, there's no such thing as an old Kyle.

Think about it. You don't know one, do you?

I looked it up.

Science isn't sure how long we can even live.

70? 60? Don't know. Haven't seen it. No idea. You know?

There's a reason for that.

It's because us Kyles, we came here to party

with our best friends, Chad and Tanner, you know?

That's why we're here.

We're not here to win Nobel Prizes.

You never heard about that, right?

Oh, Kyle won the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

Nope. That's not going to happen.

You don't know any Dr. Kyle's.

And if you did, you shouldn't trust him.

Us Kyles are supposed to die at 27

in a snowboarding accident.

You know, like, God intended.

Supposed to scatter our ashes over Coachella,

just vibing to Post Malone.

That's what you do with a Kyle.

Also being a Kyle also means I was born in the '80s, you know?

There were some stragglers in the '90s

Most of us were born in the '80s.

It's when God took all the Kyle's and was, like,

"I'm going to do it one time. Boom, right here."

You don't know any Kyle in history class, right?

You didn't study about King Kyle? No, that's not a thing.

No old Kyle's. No new Kyle's either.

You never heard of a Kyle the third, have you?

We're a discontinued model, like Haley's Comet,

you know, like a one time cosmic event.

Take a picture, world, never going to see us again.

That's what it means to be a Kyle.

What about you?

What's your name, by the way?

I'm rude. I should have asked that.

What's your name? Just say it out loud.

Great. I caught all of it. Thank you so much. Perfect.

No, I actually didn't.

But I'll be honest,

I don't actually care what your name is, you know?

And you don't care what my name is either.

When we ask each other, like, "Hey, what's your name?"

That's just so we can ask the questions we want to ask.

Like, where do you live and what job do you do

and where did you go to school?

You know the stuff that adds up to your real name,

the collection of names that describe you.

And so if I could, I'd like to

more properly introduce myself to you, if I could.

I prepared a little something for you.

It goes like this.

I am a husband and a dad.

Roles at which sometimes I'm feeling pretty good,

and sometimes I think I'm probably pretty bad.

In the Myers-Briggs terms I'm an ENFP,

but sometimes a J.

Really, it just depends on the day.

I took an internet quiz that said Gryffindor

is my Harry Potter house.

If you met me in person,

you'd see I'm the size of a mouse.

I haven't measured lately, but last it was

five foot six and 7/16 of an inch, approximately.

I'm an Enneagram 8 wing 7,

which means I do want to be in charge,

but it's so that we can all go to heaven. Okay? Relax.

I have ADHD, which means my brain works real fast,

but the concept of time

and whatever you just said to me, it's lost in the past.

I'm not rich. I'm not poor. I'm just middle class.

I drive a 20174Runner that my kids have completely trashed.

My house is pretty average. It's 2100 square feet.

It had two bathrooms, but I've been remodeling one

and it's still incomplete.

In my free time, I like to make stuff out of wood,

although I chopped off part of this finger,

so I can't say that I'm very good.

My entire life I've cheered for the Bengals.

I just love that Joe Burrow, how he understands

all the throwing angles. Who Dey! Who Dey!

For college I went to Georgia Tech.

I got an expensive degree, and then I wisely went

to work for a church for basically free.

Sorry, Mom and Dad.

Sometimes I get self-conscious about my bad teeth

and big ears.

Oh, I forgot to mention I've been working

at Crossroads for 17 years.

I love a good bourbon. It's my favorite drink.

Forgot to mention that bathroom that's incomplete.

It's missing the sink.

And, yes, figuring out all these rhymes,

it took me a while, but I wanted to introduce myself

more than just Kyle. [cheers and applause]

[cheers and applause]

Let's pray. God, I'm so thankful that we can

go to a church where we get to have fun,

where we get to just take a break out of the life

that's just constantly wearing us down

and just turn our faces to you

and be refreshed and recharged.

And I'm asking today that you would do something

you've never done before, that you would cement a name

into each and every person's heart here,

that they would never forget. Amen. Amen.

We are talking about names today, and it's because

of this phrase from Ephesians three.

And I'll read it to you one more time.

Ephesians 3:14.

Ephesians 3:14

And our question is, what is your name

and who gave it to you?

A number of years ago I was riding in a van

going to a conference up in Chicago.

It was like a six hour drive or something like that.

And it was basically me, this single girl,

and then like a bunch of married people.

And, like, 5 hours we've exhausted all the topics, right?

And so the guy driving, he's about to have a baby.

And by that, by the way,

I mean his wife was about to have a baby.

Just being sensitive to that.

And so we start talking about baby names.

And I never thought too much about it,

but I knew I wasn't going to have a Kyle III,

so I thought a little bit, right.

And so I contributed to the conversation.

And I said, "You know, I've always thought

if I ever had a son, I would name him Ben."

And then the single girl next to me, she looks at me,

she goes, "Why did you say?"

I was, like, "If I ever had a son I'd name him Ben?"

And she was like, "That's weird.

I've always thought if I ever had a son,

I would name him Ben."

I was, like, Oh, you know?

And then she says, "But I've always thought

if I ever had a daughter, I would name her Gracie."

And then my jaw hit the floor because

I'd always thought if I had a daughter,

I would name her Gracie.

It's crazy. So I married her.

That is a true story.

Seven months later, didn't waste any time.

You know, when you know, you know.

The point is there's incredible power in a name, isn't there?

And there's incredible pain

when we don't feel like we have a good one,

like we're missing who we really are,

like we're nameless.

And this is how most of us go through life by default.

We don't really know what our name is.

What are we worth? Who am I?

We feel nameless.

In the Bible Jesus is far from nameless.

He has, like, a bunch of names,

198 different names and titles, to be exact,

in the Bible, and they are all amazing, awesome names.

I'm not going to give you all 198,

but I'll give you just a few of them.

He says He is the Prince of Peace.

He's the Creator of the entire universe,

the one who made everything, you and me included.

He's the Deliverer, like, He's going to rescue everybody.

He's Holy, above reproach in every way.

He's the very Image of God.

Like, one time he said, "If you've seen the Father,

you've seen Me."

He's called Himself the Good Shepherd,

the one who's always going to take care of us.

He's the Heir,

the one is going to inherit every single power

and every single throne ever.

He's just, the one who brings justice, executes justice.

He's called the Lion of Judah,

which I always thought was pretty proud.

And He's, like, mighty,

which he's also called the Mighty One.

He's the Redeemer, the one who can fix everything,

no matter how broken it is.

He's powerful. He's the Light of the World.

He's the Rock, well before Dwayne Johnson got here,

he's the original one.

The Rock of Truth is what he's called.

He said, "I'm the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

And then the kicker that sums kind of the entire thing up,

He said, "I am the very Son of God."

It's an amazing list of names, right?

Like, Jesus, you win.

If it's a name contest. You know, you got Kyle

and you got all this. Okay? You win.

You know, it's amazing some of the names,

not not my set, but an amazing set.

It's be great to have.

Now, this is far from the only place

that names show up in the Bible as a by the way,

there are all over the place.

What? Why? Why would they be?

And I'll give you an example here.

Salvation, the term salvation

that shows up in the Bible 114 times.

That's because salvation is really important, right?

That's a big, big deal.

Faith shows up 458 times in the Bible.

That's also a big deal.

Why more? Because faith leads the salvation.

And then names, names show up 944 times all over the place.

Why? Why waste all the time on the names?

It's because it turns out that a good name is,

one, the thing that God has for you,

and two, the thing you will spend

your entire life trying to get.

It's how you're going to spend all your time,

your money, your energy.

It's the thing you want more than anything else.

Proverbs 22:1 puts it this way:

Proverbs 22:1

And I know some of you are in here.

You're, like, "Kyle, I'm in college.

I will sell you my name for money right now."

You know, you're like, "I was in college 30 years ago

and I still have student debt.

So I will also take up that deal.

Silver or gold doesn't matter. Okay, take it. Venmo me.

Right. Sell you my name."

Let's follow that line of thinking for just a second.

If I were to do that, what would you do with the money?

Would you buy a bigger house in the right neighborhood

so that people would call you successful?

Is that what you'd do?

Would you buy some new clothes?

You know, really cool stuff so that when people

looked at you, they would say that person is trendy.

Maybe you would get a gym membership

or or buy a peloton.

In that way, when people looked at you,

they would say, "She is attractive."

Maybe you'd be, like, "Kyle, I wouldn't spend the money.

Come on. I'm not -- I'm not materialistic like that.

I am a smart, wise, saver person.

I will -- I will save the money and build up savings."

Is that so you can look at yourself in the mirror

and you can say, "I am safe, I am secure"?

See, the point is, you and I are trying our hardest

to make a name for ourselves.

And that's a phrase we say in our culture.

We'll say it at high school graduations

and college graduations

and somebody on their first day of work,

"Get in there and make a name for yourself, son.

Do it right."

It sounds so noble, so good, like, a great idea.

It's not. It's a terrible idea.

It's a terrible idea because I don't know

if you noticed this yet about life,

but everything withers and fades faster than you want.

See, you could earn your way to the name rich.

You could make that name for yourself.

But after you do, you will spend every second

of the rest of your life worrying about staying that way.

Or you could Pinterest your way into trendy.

In your apartment you get the coolest furniture

and the right rugs and plants are in.

You buy a lot of plants right now, right?

But trends change.

And so if you want this name, you're going to have to

continually build it and build it and maintain it.

You could party your way into the life of the party,

but someday at 25, 35, 45, I don't know,

you're going to wake up and find out

that the party ended, everybody's gone.

You're the only one left.

Time to go find a new party if you want to keep the name.

Making a name is an awful idea. Awful idea.

We wish we had a nice set of names like Jesus, right?

But we don't.

And so we work on a set for ourselves.

And I just wonder about you

and the set you're trying to make.

Is it attractive and successful with the house

and the two and a half kids and the white picket fence?

Is it future CEO?

Is that one of the names you're trying to make?

Is it Ms. Always Swiped Right?

Is it the perfect grandma?

What is it?

Strong. Powerful.

What's the name you're trying to make for yourself?

I don't know what it is, but I know it's a terrible idea.

It's a terrible idea.

Now we do it for a logical reason,

a completely logical reason.

It's because we don't like the name we've been given.

I don't mean our first name.

I mean the one that we've been given

that we wear a little closer.

And by the way, I do have a shirt on underneath this.

Some of you got worried, okay,

and some of you got excited.

I'm going to assume more people got excited

than worried, but I don't want to show of hands.

It's the names that we wear closer

that we hope never see the light of day.

See, the reason that we work so hard on this

and on these names so that we keep it covered up

and no one ever sees it and they never have to know.

It's the painful name that we wear,

the one that maybe nobody has ever said out loud,

but they didn't have to, did they?

This is really fresh for me.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we were eating at Skyline

and the same thing happened that has happened

for years and years.

Which is this, my middle son, Eli, is a picky eater.

Right. Sometimes it's too hot, sometimes it's too cold,

it's too chewy. It's not chewy enough,

you know, whatever.

So we're at Skyline.

By the way, he's in the 90th percentile

of height for his age, which is a miracle

because I'm in the 10th percentile for mine.

The facts his pediatrician assure us he's fine,

but I've never let facts stop me

from getting angry before. Have you?

So he didn't eat

and I got upset at him at the restaurant.

And I said something to him, like, "Man, Eli, come on,

man, you're so frustrating.

Just freaking eat the food that we paid for.

Stop wasting our money."

You know, whatever.

We go home and he goes upstairs and I'm in the kitchen.

From the kitchen you can kind of see

the bottom of our staircase.

And I see this paper airplane float down the staircase

and then land on the floor.

And so I go over and I pick it up.

And it's a note from Eli.

It's this note right here.

Now you can't read that,

so I'm going to read you what he said.

He said, "I am a bad, terrible and stupid kid.

And don't try to deny it, I know it's the truth.

If you want to give me away, I would,

do it for your benefit.

And I never want to play baseball again."

He loves baseball.

"I am stupid." Signed, "Hate, Eli the dumb."

Now, I'll come back to that in a little bit.

But, you know, I never called him that name.

I didn't have to.

You know, this happens to our kids

and it happened to us, too.

My mom is five foot one. My dad is five foot six.

And when I say they are, I mean they were,

because they're in their sixties right now

and they're, like, smaller than that now.

That was at their prime. That was at their prime.

So you may not be shocked to learn that

I was always the smallest kid in my class.

Now, I did have asthma,

and so that made being small easier.

It didn't, actually.

As a senior in high school I wrestled.

I weighed 117 pounds.

I wrestled in 130 pound class, which was two classes up.

Problem was, you can only move up one weight class.

And so while the rest of my wrestling teammates

were wearing trash bags and sprinting

and spitting in cups, trying to cut weight

to to make their weight class,

I'm eating cheeseburgers and drinking milkshakes,

just trying to weigh enough to get to wrestle. Right.

The point is, no one ever had to call me weak.

I just knew that was my name.

Everything told that to me. Everything in my life.

I had this name,

Now, in college, I decided I would change it

and I built the name strong for myself.

So, I started working out.

I joined what's called the Barbell Club at Georgia Tech.

It was all the old football weight equipment

and stuff like that, they put it in

this dingy old basement from the 1950s.

It smelled like sweat and mushrooms in there.

It's awesome.

Couldn't afford protein powder, so I ate tons of cans of tuna.

I just just crack off the lid and scoop it right out of there.

Little Texas Pete's Hot Sauce

will make that go down a lot easier.

That is a pro tip.

And it worked. It worked. I got strong.

You know, it worked, kind of.

It kind of worked. Kind of worked.

Senior year, I was dating this girl

and the relationship, it just wasn't going well.

And so I did what you do back in my day, anyway,

I took her to Chick-Fil-A to talk it out.

That's what we did. We go to Chick-Fil-A.

I'm on one side of the table, she's on the other,

and she's saying stuff, you know,

I don't like when you blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, well, I don't like when you whatever back.

And I'm lean forward like this.

And at some point she stops and she looks at me

and she goes, "Oh, your biceps are huge."

I was like, "I think we just solved our problems, you know?

I think we did.

I don't know if you're allowed to make out

inside of God's chicken, but praise the Lord,

We're about to try. It's about to happen."

And then she kept going.

She goes, "It's weird. I mean, it's really weird."

And I was like, "Oh, no. I worked so hard and strong."

Turns out it has its own set of problems.

I want you to get out the nametag

that you got when you walked in.

And if you're at home, if you're online,

you can get out your your notes app on your phone,

open up just a blank notes app.

I want you to write down the name

that's your version of this one.

And I know, I know, you're like,

"Kyle, I didn't come to church to write, you know?

It's okay. Just trust me. Just trust me.

See, there's a good name for you that God has,

but you can't get there if you don't acknowledge this one,

because we have to deal with this one.

So I want you to think about maybe

who or what gave you your name.

Maybe you were the picky eater.

Maybe it was the constant just frustration of your parents.

Or maybe it was something else

that you always butted heads with them with

that just caused you to assume that you are unwanted,

that you are a nuisance, that you are a problem.

Maybe it's something about your body,

maybe you're too small. It means you're weak.

Or you're too tall and it means you're awkward.

I don't know what it is for you,

but I know what it sounds like:

unwanted, dirty, accident, mistake, addict.

Whatever it is, I want you to write it down.

And you don't have to show anybody.

Just write it down

and then put it right back in your pocket.

Put it right back in the dark where it belongs.

Put it back there.

Now, I have a simple question, which is:

Do you want a better name? Do you want a better name?

And I'm guessing the answer is yes,

because the Bible says that the answer is yes.

Proverbs 22:1. I'll read it again.

Proverbs 22:1

Well, the good news I have for you today

is it's easier to get a good name than you think.

It's easier, but you only have a choice to make.

And you have two options, and you have to choose.

No one can choose for you.

And your two options are either

to continue to try to make a name for yourself,

just put things together that add up to the picture of you.

Or you can take the name that God has made for you.

You can make a name or you can take a name.

In the Bible God does lots of different stuff.

It's this really crazy collection

of hundreds of stories over thousands of years

of God doing all kinds of different things.

It's super personal God, it's crazy.

But there's one thing in the Bible God never does,

He never walks up to somebody and goes,

"Hey, you -- Oh, man, don't tell me.

Just, like, dip my tongue. You know what I mean?

Tip of the tongue. Um, it starts with a K. Kevin."

You know, you're like, "No, God, my name is Kyle."

"Oh, that's right. You were born in the '80s.

That's my bad. I knew it. You know?'

Never happens.

See, God knows everyone's name,

not just their given name by their parents,

but their name name, it's what He calls them by.

And you have one too.

Isaiah 45:3 says:

Isaiah 45:3

God has a name for you. Do you know what it is?

If he called it out, would you raise your hand

and go, "Oh, what did you say? Oh, that's me."

Or would you just not even know? Just not even know?

About a decade ago in my life I made this change.

I decided I was going to stop.

I was going to stop trying to make a name for myself

and instead I was just going to do my best

to take the name that God has for me.

Now, if that's a choice you want to make,

I promise you it's easier than you think.

And it starts with the verse we've been looking at

from Ephesians and this line about

the Father from whom the whole family

in heaven and earth is named.

See, there's an idea in the Bible

that God wants to be your Father,

and that when you believe in Him,

He adopts you into His family and you take on His name.

John 1:12 says:

John 1:12

See, step one of going to our Father

is you have to believe that He exists

and that His name is great, that His name is Father,

that His name is Protector, that His name is Powerful,

that His name is the Prince of Peace,

that His name is the Holy One and the Righteous One.

You have to do that first.

But when you do, He adopts you into the family

and it works just like it does in the physical world.

When a family adopts a child,

that child takes on the name of the family.

You get God's name.

That means this one: Son of God, daughter of God,

you you get that one.

And we sang about that earlier.

You know that song, you know, I'm a child of God.

We sang that, you know.

And some of us are in here and we go, like,

"I don't know what that means,

but I think I'm supposed to," right?

What does it mean to be a child of God?

If you're confused about that,

you don't have to feel bad about it.

That's actually how most Christians have been

for a long, long time.

All the way back to when the Bible was written,

as a by the way, Paul, who wrote Ephesians that we're in,

he wrote most of the New Testament to the Galatians

and the Philippians and the Romans.

And most of what he's writing about

is just helping them understand

who they really are because of Jesus.

The letter to the Galatians is particularly poignant.

I want to take you there right now.

And in the Galatians, he just shows you how, like,

full and permanent it is.

You know, being a child of God, taking on God's name,

it's not an honorary degree.

And I think a lot of us, we grow up in churches

or we we've been around churches for a little bit

and we think that's kind of what it is,

like, a celebrity gets a doctorate, you know?

And you're like, "But you're not a doctor."

We think that's what it's like taking on God's name,

it's an honorary degree. It's not.

In Galatians Paul makes that clear.

Galatians 2:20 he says:

Galatians 2:20

So, if you did an X-ray and you looked on the inside,

if I was an M&M and you cracked me open,

on the inside, if you believe in Jesus, is Jesus.

Galatians 3:26:

So, the inner me is Jesus and the outer me is Jesus.

It's almost like what happened,

you know, what we said in Ephesians has happened,

that the fullness of God has filled me to overflowing

and it's spilled out.

So if the inner me and the outer me is Jesus,

what does that mean? It means -- it means this.

It means that when God looks at me, He sees Jesus.

It means that all the names that describe Him

describe me now.

Was Jesus good? Then I'm good.

Is Jesus holy? Then I'm holy.

Is He righteous? Then I'm righteous.

Is He a Redeemer? Then I have the ability to redeem?

Was He a creator? Well, then I can create things for the world.

That's what it means.

The first time I started to think about this, right?

It's like, oh, some of you are uncomfortable,

like, "Kyle, oh, lightning is going to strike you.

You know, Heretic. That's too -- That's.

There's the gospel, which is good news,

but that's, like, too good of news."

That's how it felt to me.

Like, "That can't -- That can't be true.

That can't possibly be true."

But I couldn't escape it.

I just kept reading it again in Galatians and Ephesians,

in Romans and in the Gospels, all over the place.

And so I just said, "You know, God, if this is true,

you have to help me see it."

Because I thought that being a Christian meant

I was supposed to take on names like Sinner, you know?

I was saved by grace, but then God just really

wanted me to remember how much I didn't deserve it.

That's what I thought.

So I said, "God, if this is true, You have to help me

see me the way that You see me."

And I don't know if you know this,

but God literally sees you in a different light than you do.

And you have to choose which light to view yourself in:

the light of the world,

the world's light or God's light.

Right now, volunteers, by the way,

they're going to come down the aisles

and pass out little flashlights,

a little silver buckets going to come by.

I want you to just take one flashlight

and when it comes, please don't shine it all around.

That'll be distracting to your neighbor.

Just take it and put it in your pocket. Okay?

We'll use it in a little bit.

Flashlights are coming out.

And while they do that, I want to give you

a quick science lesson on light.

We'll start with this. What color is this?

Green. Green. So would you say this shirt is green?

Okay, right. It's not. I'll explain.

The light that we see predominantly is white light.

It comes from the sun.

It's the same as the stage lights

that are hitting me right now.

That's white light.

White light is a mixture of the color spectrum.

We can see ROY G BIV,

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, etc.

Right. All those colors, you know that.

Do you know that what you see is reflected light?

See, so when light hits an object,

that object absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest.

What you see is the reflected light.

And so, quite literally,

my shirt has absorbed everything except for green.

This shirt is everything except green.

Green's the one thing it was, like, "Nope,"

shoots it back out.

But we say this shirt is green.

The point is this: the world's light is deceptive.

I honestly think God hides clues like this in science

to help us understand reality.

And this is one that we can't miss.

The world's light is deceptive.

And worse, our view of it is incredibly limited.

If I were to ask you, what percent of light

do you think us humans are able to see?

Just shout it out, percent.

Ten? Ten is a common answer. Wrong.

This is what Google says: .0035%.

That's all you can see.

That means that even by the world's deceptive light,

you and I are missing 99.9975% of reality.

What does that look like? Like this.

This is a picture of my son Eli

I made to help you understand what this is.

This is Eli.

Can you see, it's that little --

see that little green speck?

There we go right there.

See it little bit right there?

That's literally 0.0035% of that image. That's Eli.

Now, what if, okay, what if Eli used this picture

to try to understand who he is?

What his name is, what he's worth,

what his purpose is, how valuable he is?

Do you think it would take him very far,

this tiny little spec?

Are you good? I don't know.

Are you brave? I don't know.

Can you do anything? I don't know. I don't know.

But this is how most of us live our lives.

See, we look at ourselves in the world's light

and we're seeing a deceptive, tiny sliver

that's completely wrong.

And we're going, "I don't know who I am."

It's because we're missing the whole picture.

By the way, this is Eli. This is the whole picture.

You look at that and you go, "He's brave,

he's strong, he's fun, he's adventurous. Right?

That's Eli.

And I think what God wants for you today

is to get that full picture of who you are,

at least to take a step forward and say,

"God, I don't want to see myself in the world's light

and define myself that way.

I want to see myself in the light of You."

See, God wants you to see yourself

literally in light of Him.

That's why the Bible all over the place

talks about having eyes that can see.

Earlier in Ephesians, chapter one, Paul wrote this:

Hope and riches and power.

And how would you get that?

When the eyes of your heart are enlightened,

that means filled with God's light, His heavenly light.

James 1:17 says:

James 1:17

Every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from, who, the Father

of, what, the heavenly lights,

who doesn't change like shifting shadows.

God's not the God who has an opinion of you one day

and then changes His mind the next.

You know? Well, I was okay with you yesterday,

but now I'm upset.

That's not what he does, he doesn't change.

God wants you to see yourself in light of Him.

If you're going to do that, you might have to use

a tool that you've likely dismissed as an adult.

It's called your imagination. A powerful tool.

I do want to point out imagination and imaginary,

not the same thing. Not the same thing.

I'll prove it to you.

Imagine your car. Okay. Can you picture it?

I'm imagining my 4Runner.

It is completely trashed. Dirt is everywhere, you know?

Is your car imaginary?

No. Right, it's real.

Did you just access that reality from where you are?

Yes. That's a powerful tool, your imagination.

And if you're willing, you could ask God to use that

to help you see yourself the way that He sees you.

I started to do this, and one night I got a picture

forming in my head and it was me covered in rags.

And the rags were like falling off my shoulders.

And it was like this, like, kind of sideways thing.

And I was, like, trying to hold them all up.

And it was almost like a mummy, you know?

And these rags I had made myself.

I had found them places and I picked them up off the ground.

They were all dirty.

And I just kept wrapping them around

because I was afraid I was naked.

They kept falling and then this voice just said stop.

And so I stopped and they all just sort of, like,

whoop, fell right off.

And I was like, Oh, no, you know, this kind of thing.

And the voice said, "Open your eyes."

And I did.

And do you know, I wasn't weak, I wasn't naked,

I wasn't shameful, I wasn't any of those things.

I was covered in shining knight's armor, bright chrome.

And I heard the voice say, "You are powerful.

You're not weak."

See, this is the thing, when you view yourself

in the world's lights, often times you'll think

you're the opposite of what you are.

You'll think it's green, and it's not.

It's the exact opposite of green.

That's who you really are.

You know, God has a name for you, too.

He has a name for you, too, a good name, a noble name,

a name you can put on and never, ever, ever take off.

But I have to warn you, you can take His name in vain.

This is one of the biggest problems with Christians,

we take God's name in vain.

And I don't mean say OMG. I don't mean that.

I mean in the way that the Bible describes

not taking God's name in vain,

which it says don't do that,

but take in its context means to put on, to wear.

And in vain means to no end.

See, if you leave all the other ones on,

this one is to no end, to no effect. It's in vain.

You have to get rid of the bad name

and say, "Who I am is only who my Father says, only.

I'm who my Dad says I am."

We have a bedtime routine, like most parents, at our house.

And parents, you've been in this moment before, right?

You're like, it's been a long day

and you just need the kids to go to bed, right?

And so you skip stuff.

You're, like, "Don't put your PJs on.

Go to bed naked. Go to bed with your dirty clothes.

I don't care. I don't care."

You're like, "Skip your teeth. I will buy you dentures later.

I just need you gone out of my face."

Right, those moments.

We'll skip stuff like that sometimes.

But there's one part of our bedtime routine

I will never skip, never.

It's when I take each of my kids and I get them

and I look them in the eyes, and I say,

"Hey, you, you are good and brave and smart

and funny and creative and a leader.

And I love you and I'm proud of you.

And I'm for you and I'm always on your side."

I say that to each of my three kids every night

and I have for years.

Why? Why would I do that?

Because I want my kids to know who they are

and they're in this crazy phase

that I can only describe this way.

It's like they have a childlike faith

that they just are who their dad says they are.

Isn't that crazy? They just believe it.

When that note from Eli came down about Eli, the dumb,

I picked it up and I read it.

And first it broke my heart.

And second, I knew exactly what to do.

I went to his room.

I said, "Eli, come with me."

Brought him back downstairs.

I said, "Hey, Eli. I'm your dad. Do I say you're dumb?"

He said no.

"Did I say you're stupid? Do I ever say that?" No.

"Eli, who do I say you are?"

His little smile, the corner of his mouth,

you he's still upset.

I said, "Say it, Eli."

"You say I'm good." "Yeah. What else?"

"And kind." "Yeah. And what else?"

"And brave and smart and funny and creative and a leader

and that you love me and that you're proud of me

and that you're for me and that you're always on my side."

"Eli, that's who you are.

Son, the rest of your life, people and situations

are going to come at you

and they're going to try to name you.

They don't even know that's what they're doing.

But names are to be thrown at you.

You're going to be tempted to pick a name like Eli the dumb

and wear it around as if that's who you are.

But it's not, son.

You are only who your father says you are."

And Eli knows this.

The names that I tell him are just

the names that God says about all of us.

Nothing unique, nothing special.

You have a God who looks at you every day

and He says, "Hey. You're god and you're brave

and you're kind and you're smart and you're funny

and you're creative and you're a leader.

And I love you and I'm proud of you

and I'm always on your side."

You have a God who says that to you.

Do you know it's your name?

Do you know it's what He's saying to you.

And I know many of us are in this room and we go,

like, "I don't know really what God says to me about me."

And so I'm just going to read you some verses.

These are not my words,

God's words about what He says about you.

Zephaniah 3:17: The Lord, your God is with you.

He is mighty to save.

He will take great delight in you.

He will quiet you with His love.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

Isaiah 46: even to your old age and gray hairs, I am He.

I am He who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you.

I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Psalm 27: Though my father and mother forsake me,

the Lord will receive me.

Romans 5:

For just as through the disobedience of the one man,

the many were made sinners.

So also through the obedience of the one,

many will be made righteous.

2 Corinthians 8: Though He was rich,

yet for your sake, He became poor,

so that by His poverty, He could make you rich.

1 John 12: Yet to all who received Him,

to those who believed in His name,

He gave the right to become children of God.

Jeremiah 29: For I know the plans I have for you,

says the Lord, plans that are for good

and not for disaster, to give you a hope and a future.

Ephesians 1:18: I pray that the eyes of your heart

may be enlightened in order that you may know

the hope to which He's called you,

the riches of His glorious inheritance

in His holy people, and His incomparably great power

for us who believe.

James 1: He chose to give birth to us

by giving us His true word, and we, out of all creation,

became His prized possession.

Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd,

I have all that I need.

He lets me rest in green meadows,

He leads me beside peaceful streams,

He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

bringing honor to His name.

Colossians 1: But now He is reconciled to you

by Christ's physical body through death

to present you holy in his sight,

without blemish and free from accusation.

And Romans 8: Therefore, there is now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ Jesus,

because through Christ Jesus the Law of the Spirit

who gives life has set you free

from the law of sin and death.

That's what God says about you.

These are the names He has for you.

When He thinks about you, when He calls you to mind,

this is what He says about you.

Now our team wants you to hear a name from God.

And so we've been praying and are praying for you.

If you're watching this at home or online

and you want to hear a name from God,

text the word "name" to the number on the screen.

Our team is there.

When that happens, they'll only see

the word name and your phone number,

no nothing else about you.

But they're going to pray for you

that God would give them the name

that He wants you most to hear right now.

And if you're in a room,

I want you to get out your nametag,

the one that you wrote the word on

that you've been believing.

When you came in,

you thought it was blank, but it wasn't.

Our team spent the past couple of weeks

asking God for names, praying for you,

praying for your nametag, saying,

"God, would You give me the right name

that You say to the person who's going to get this nametag?"

We prayed over them and we wrote them in an ink

that you can only see with a light

that goes beyond normal light.

If you want to know what that is,

get out your flashlight and shine it.

Read your name.

That's who God says you are.

If it says loved, you're loved.

If it says you're wanted, you're wanted.

If it says you're forgiven, you're forgiven.

If it says you're brave, then you're brave.

If it says you're courageous, then you're courageous.

If it says you're whole, then you're whole.

If it says you're free, then you're free.

That's who God says you are.

Take it with you and never, ever forget.

Never forget you are who God says you are,

not who the world says.

If that's what your mistakes say, nothing.

You are who God says you are.