I greet you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's a privilege to worship with you and to bring God's word to you. So thank you. I bring greetings from your extended family, your brothers and sisters at College Hill. We're thankful for your partnership in the gospel, and specifically your partnership in college ministry. I know this congregation has had a long history of college ministry. And we're right next to Geneva College, so we spend a lot of energy on college students. We know you do too. It's such an important time in life, and for you to emphasize that ministry is great. You often don't get to see the fruit, the direct fruit of that labor, but serving the Lord and equipping the next generation. It's an important thing and a special thing. Came from the conference last night, and I was packing up to come over here, and I was packing my clothes for the day, and I put my tie in a really safe spot, and it's still there. So good news is that I'll have unrestricted breathing the whole time. And so I look forward to that. Today, we're going to take a look at the name of God, the Lord. And I'm going to read to you from Exodus chapter 1. You're welcome to turn there. And I'll read that in a minute. We're taking a look at this name of God that's mentioned here. Apparently there are, I haven't counted them, but there are over 650 names, names and titles of God in the Bible to refer to God, 650. And each name and title tells something more about God and his character. And so when you introduce yourself to someone, you start with your name. Hi, I'm Titus. And then as the conversation develops, you get into a lot of your titles. So I'm a Christian. I'm a man. I'm the son of Paul. I'm the brother of four siblings, an uncle to many. I'm a husband to Elissa. father of three, a pastor. I'm a resident on College Hill. I'm a Suns fan. I'm neighbor to Kristen and Kevin and Sarah. My first real job was a gas station attendant. I graduated from Covenant Christian School and on and on and on. You could go on. There's lots of titles. Each title that you use gives people a little bit of an insight as to more of who you are and what you do. There are some people who really, really like titles because it makes them feel more important. There was a dictator back in Uganda in the 1970s. His name is Idi Amin, and during his terrible, bloody reign in Uganda, he collected titles. And so these were his titles, his official titles. His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al-Hajji, Dr. Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, and my personal favorite here, Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and the Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in general and Uganda in particular. That is quite a string of names and titles. I also discovered the late Prince Philip of England before he passed away, of course married to the late Queen. His title was very long too. He said, it goes like this, His Royal Highness, the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merenoth, Baron Greenwich, Royal Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Extra Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Member of the Order of Merit, Grand Master and First and Principal Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Knight of the Order of Australia, Additional Member of the Order of New Zealand, Extra Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Royal Chief of the Order of Lagauhu, Extraordinary Companion of the Order of Canada, Extraordinary Commander of the Order of Military Merit, Lord of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Counsel, Privy Counselor of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Personal Aide to Come to Her Majesty, Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom. Man, you get tired of being introduced if you had that many titles. But there is a huge difference between names and titles that you've earned as opposed to names and titles that actually don't really mean anything, but just sort of make you feel a little bit better about yourself. So both Idi Amin and Prince Philip had these titles that didn't really mean anything, but it made them feel more important. Well, in scripture, we see that God takes over 650 names and titles over the pages of the Bible, and you might think that that's overkill or flattery just to make him feel important. But of course, that's not the case at all when it comes to God. Every single name and title communicates a different feature of the profound reality of who God is. The names of God communicate the character and power and authority that he actually has in the world and in our lives. And actually, they can't captivate enough of who he is. They give us a slice, a little taste of the reality of our God. Now, of all the names and titles that God has, you might think that the most commonly used name in the Bible would simply be God. But actually, far and away, the most commonly used name for God is the name Yahweh. Yahweh was most commonly translated as the name Jehovah. That's how the King James translates it. But whenever the writers of the New Testament quote a verse from the Old Testament that has this name Yahweh in it, they translate it into the Greek word for Lord. Now, of course, these New Testament writers were inspired by the Holy Spirit, so we felt like that's a God-ordained pattern for us to follow, and so when we translate the word Yahweh, which is, of course, only in the Old Testament, and we translate it into English, most translations follow this New Testament pattern and use the word Lord. But there's a problem with that, there's a challenge with that. There's another Hebrew word that is also translated as Lord, that's the name Adonai. And so in order to distinguish between these two names, Yahweh and Adonai, when you translate Yahweh into English, they use the Lord with all capital letters, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. And you'll notice, as we sing the Psalms, that quite a few times, most of the time, when the Psalms use the word LORD, it's spelled with all capital letters. And when you see that, you know that it's this name, Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Lord. And actually, you'll see Adonai Yahweh together as a title of the Lord. So you have the Lord, the Lord, or when it's translated into English, you'll commonly see it as Lord God, and then in that case, God is all capital letters. Whenever you see that name in all capital letters, you know it's a reference to this name of Yahweh. I'm almost gonna read here soon, but as you read the New Testament now, when you see the word Lord, the writers, no doubt on many occasions, had this concept of Yahweh in the back of their minds. And so think of that when you see the word Lord in the New Testament. As we take a look at this name, we're gonna reflect on a few passages where Yahweh is used very intentionally, communicating something about the character of God. And I'm gonna read one of these passages from Exodus chapter three. So Exodus three, starting in verse one. Exodus, of course, second book of the Bible. Relatively easy to find there. But listen to God's word, and may we be in awe of our God who is the Lord. Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why this bush is not burned. When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings. And I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flown with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? He said, but I will be with you, and this shall be a sign for you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me what is his name, what shall I say to them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent me to you. God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, that's Yahweh there, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. And that's where we're gonna end the reading of God's holy word. May we learn more and more what it means to take refuge in his holy name. Six degrees of separation is this idea that all of us are at most six relationships away from every single person in the world. You can connect dots through relationships with everyone in the world within six dots. That's what they say. I don't know if that's actually true, but it is true that we're all connected through relationships. And relationships are perhaps the most meaningful titles that we claim in this life. I am Titus, the son of Paul and Esther, born to, I mean, brother to Cara, Joel, Tasha, and Anna, and uncle to these nieces and nephews, and husband to Alyssa, and father to Finley, Knox, and Piper. And I have aunts and uncles. And depending on the context that I'm in, I might introduce myself in any one of these ways. You identify yourself depending on who you're related to, and that's a part of who we are. I watched one skit one time called The Guest List of His Majesty. And the skit goes on where the king threw a ball, and everyone who came was announced by the herald, and he announced every guest by their relationship to the king. And so, the first guest was announced, announcing Lord Arthur of House Pembroke, first of his name brother to the king. Announcing Lord Rutherford, Rutherbridge of House Gamford, the first of his name and nephew to the king. Announcing Sir, Gavin Jagimus Dunwall of House Bevington, third of his name, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and undercover assassin for the king. And then a few guests later, introducing Sir Thomas T. Bone Harrington of House Cornwall, eighth of his name, winner of Mr. Congeniality at the Battle of Wedgmore, cousin to the nephew of the niece of the niece's niece's nephew's nephew's niece, who once sat at the same table as the king, though not at the same time. And finally, the Honorable Katerina Francesca Euphoria, the 23rd of her name, sister to the shoemaker, next to the coffeehouse, four doors down from the woman who once rode a horse, across the street from the Duchess of Pemberley-Ristinowitz, who at one time received a strange letter from a man who said he was the king. Though later he was found to be lying. So every guest was identified by their relationship to the king. That was their identity. That's how they were introduced. Well, the most fundamental identity that we have as human beings is that we are identified by our relationship to the king and to the Lord Yahweh. We are members of the household of God. We are given his name and this fundamentally is who we are. Yahweh, Jehovah, Lord, is the most fundamental name of God because it reveals two things. First, it reveals that he's the self-existent one. He is the God who's always been, who is, who will be forever. And second, it identifies the kind of relationship that he has with his people. He is the self-existent one who is in relationship with his people. That's the essence of this name. This reminds us that our most fundamental identity marker is not our biological family, it's not who we're married to, it's not what you do, it's not how much money you make or where you live. The most fundamental identity marker that you have The essence of who you are is your covenant relationship with the self-existent One. And on that grand wedding feast of the Lamb, we're all gonna be announced by the angels, not identified by our accomplishments or our earthly relationships or lack thereof, we will be identified as sons and daughters of the Lord, Yahweh, the King, because He is our God and we are His people. Through Jesus Christ, the self-existent one has become our God, and this is fundamentally who you are, son or daughter of the Lord. As God himself said, this is my name forever, and this is how I should be remembered throughout all generations. So take refuge in his holy name. We're actually first introduced to this name of God in the book of Genesis, in the second chapter of Genesis. In the first chapter of the Bible, we're told about the beginning of when God created the heavens and the earth, and that word for God there in Genesis 1 is the Hebrew word Elohim. Although chapter one, all throughout chapter one, God is referred to as Elohim. He's the powerful creator. But then in chapter two, starting with the more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve, God suddenly begins to identify himself as the Lord, Yahweh. He shifts names here, and you'll see it in our Bibles as the Lord, all capital letters, starting in verse four of chapter two. And this is the beginning of the more personal and more detailed account of the creation of humanity in the image of God. What this shows us is that Elohim by itself is the revelation of the God of power who created the universe by simply speaking, but then he shifts to the name Yahweh by which God reveals himself as the God of relationship. He is the God of love who took special care to create humanity in his image. He is the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Elohim created the world, but Yahweh formed mankind and lived with them and walked beside them and lived among them. It was the Lord Yahweh who was among His people. So when you see the Lord with all capital letters, it's to remind you that this is the God who created you in love and cares for you and walks with you and is always with you, and we are to take refuge. in this name. Fast forward a few thousand years to the time of Abram, who later would be renamed Abraham. In Genesis 12, God called Abram, who lived in the city of Ur, And he told Abram to leave your father's house and your family and go to a land that I will show you and I will make you into a great nation. And we're told that Abram walked with God by faith. Well, after quite a few years of living in this land as never really having land of his own, but traveling through this promised land, God reaffirmed his promise to Abram. And in Genesis 15, it says, the word of the Lord, Yahweh, came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward. But Abram said, O Lord God, and you'll notice that God is all capital letters. Again, Lord Yahweh, what will you give me for I continue childless? you have given me no offspring. And the Lord, Yahweh, came to him, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars, if you're able to number them. And then he said to him, so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. But then in verse 8, after this confirmation of the promises of God, Abram believed in God, but yet he still had doubts. We see throughout his life that he had times of great weakness. And so he asked God, in his doubts, he asked him this question, he said, Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He wants all this assurance. He wants the assurance that God's promises will indeed come true. How can I really be sure that you're gonna give me a son? How can I really be sure that this land is gonna be mine? How can I really be sure that you're gonna grow me into a great nation and that my seed, my offspring will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth? How can I be sure that your promises are true? And what a common struggle for the Christian. We struggle with this doubt. We have the promises of God lined out for us on the pages of scripture, but sometimes we go through life and we think, how can I really be sure? It doesn't feel true so oftentimes. Well, God responded to Abram and he simply could have said, well, just trust me. I will surely do it. Which actually he says in many other places. But on this occasion, instead of just saying that, he gave Abram a task. It says this in verse nine, the Lord said to him, this is 15 verse nine, the Lord said to him, bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon. Abram brought all these to him. Then Abram cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other, the birds, however, he did not cut in half. So you really have to imagine what's going on here. God told Abram to gather these animals and to cut these animals in half. And he lined these halves of the carcasses up on each side. So you have like half the heifer here and half the heifer there. And then you have half the goat. What do we got? We got half a goat here and half a goat there. And we got a ram, half a ram here and half a ram there. And then you have a bird on each side. And what he did here is he lined out a very short path lined with dead animals cut in half. And in that day and culture, this actually was how solemn agreements and commitments were made to each other. Two people, if they were making a contract where they had to promise something to the other, they would walk down, they would create this little aisle and they would walk down this bloody aisle together. And in so doing, they were saying that if I do not keep my half of the bargain, this contract, then may what happened to these animals happen also to me. It's a very clear statement. If I don't keep my promise, then may I be torn in two. Abram was seemingly familiar with this ritual and so he lined up these carcasses and he waited. He waited all day for God to come so that they could together walk through this aisle. They could walk together down this path of dead animals and make a covenant and that's how God, he thought, would affirm his promises. But he waited all day and God delayed. And as God delayed, it said that birds of prey, these vultures came down to try to eat the carcasses, but Abram drove them away, just waiting for God, like, we're ready here, like, let's get this ceremony going. But God delayed, and he delayed all day, and as the sun was setting, after waiting all day, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and it says that a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. And as he slept, the Lord assured him of everything that he was going to do. And then, as Abram slept, and the sun set, it says in verse 17, that a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch appeared and passed through the pieces. And it says, on that day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, to your descendants, I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. And through this ceremony, God, the Lord, Yahweh, confirmed his promises to Abraham. Well, Paul Tripp gives us good insight into this event, and he wrote this. He said, what's going on in this strange encounter? Here, Abram is struggling to believe God, so God helps him. And he tells him to cut some of these animals in half, but instead of the two of them walking between the animals together, that night a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch, which represented God the Lord, passed between the animals by himself. He says, in so doing, the Lord Yahweh was saying, If I do not keep my promise to you, may what happened to these animals happen also to me. If I do not keep up my end of the bargain, may I be ripped apart. But of course, that's not all. Since God walked down this path by himself without Abram, Abram was asleep. And God passed through these halved animals by himself. He was also saying, and also Abram, if you don't remain faithful to this covenant relationship, I won't tear you apart, but instead I will be torn apart in your place. God was taking on the responsibility and the penalty for Abram's failure. And of course, as the story continues on, Abram failed so many times over his walk with the Lord, he was not always faithful, he lied twice about his wife, Sarah, because he was afraid, he got Sarah's handmaid pregnant, he faltered many times, but instead of God tearing Abram apart for his failures, he promised, God promised that he would take on the responsibility and penalty for Abram's sins, and the Lord would be torn apart in his place. Well, of course, this is exactly what happened. Over 2,000 years later, this ceremony was fulfilled on the cross. because of Abram's failure to uphold his side of the covenant, and because of our repeated failures, God sent His Son to the earth to suffer the penalty of that ceremony of Genesis 15. And as God hung, the Son of God hung on the cross, He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? My God, my God, why have we been torn apart? Not only was Jesus burned up on the cross for our sins, but in some way, the Holy Trinity, although ontologically unchanged because He's the same yesterday, today, and forever, yet in some way, somehow, relationally, God the Father turned His back on His own beloved Son, and in a way that we cannot fully comprehend, this Trinitarian relationship was torn apart. Because the Son was forsaken by His Father. This covenant ceremony that God had Abram set up but not participate in was to point Abram to the cross, which of course is the assurance of all God's promises. Every promise and every spiritual blessing is yours and you can be assured of that because Jesus went to the cross and he was torn in two The foundation of our relationship with the Lord Yahweh is the cross. The assurance of all His promises is the cross. All our hope is in the cross where Jesus was burned up by the wrath of His own Father. The Father and Son were in some way torn in two, bearing the full weight of the penalty for our sins and our failures. This is the Lord Yahweh, the All-Sufficient One who has become our covenant keeping God and were to take refuge in his name. The next story that we come to is the story I read at the beginning about Moses. Moses grew up as a Jew in the Egyptian royal family, but after killing an Egyptian, he fled for his life and he was living his life as a shepherd in the land of Midian. One day, as he was following the flock around, he saw a bush that was burning, but it wasn't being consumed, and he went to look at it, and there, that's where God spoke to him. And he told Moses to go back to Egypt and to speak to Pharaoh and to tell him to let the Israelites go. Well, Moses, of course, wasn't very confident about this plan, and he hemmed and he hawed, and one of the questions he asked in verse 13 is that, well, if I go and I say that, tell Pharaoh to let the people go, and I tell the Israelites that God has come, who shall I say has sent me? If they ask, who sent you to do this? Like, what am I gonna say? And God responded. He said, I am who I am. Meaning, I am the self-existent one, the self-sufficient one. And then in the very next verse it says, God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. He says, this is my name forever and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. He introduces himself to Moses as Yahweh, the God of your fathers. The name Yahweh is derived from this verb to be, I am. He took the phrase I am who I am, he shifted it just a bit to change it into the name Yahweh, the Lord, the self-sufficient one. And in this process, he's both identifying himself as the self-existent one, the all-sufficient one, the one on whom everything and everyone depends, but at the same time, he's identifying himself as the rescuer and the redeemer of his people who are enslaved in Egypt. He says, tell them, Moses, that the all-sufficient one has come to save his people. For I am the Lord, Yahweh, the Lord saves." What a glorious name that is. Because we were enslaved. Enslaved to sin and death, under the power of Satan, controlled by our sinful nature. We were dead in our sins, without hope, without God. But God, the All-Sufficient One, came to save and redeem His people. He came in the flesh, He brought us out of slavery, and He set us free. And if the All-Sufficient One has set us free, then we are free indeed. He is the Lord Yahweh. This is His name. And now we're going to fast forward and come to the New Testament. Of course, the New Testament was written in Greek, not Hebrew, so you don't see the name Yahweh itself. It doesn't appear in the New Testament, but it is there. And one of the points that the New Testament writers make about Jesus is that he actually is the Lord Yahweh in the flesh. They make it clear that Jesus is the same God of the Old Testament, the self-existent one, the self-sufficient one, the one on whom everyone and everything depends. This Jesus is the same Lord who cut that covenant with Abram. This Jesus is the same Yahweh who rescued the Israelites from Egypt. It's this Lord who has come to dwell with us in the flesh, to shepherd us, and to redeem us as His bride. The Gospel of Mark is the very first gospel that was written, and one of the very first points that this very first gospel makes is that Jesus is the Lord Yahweh. Mark starts off in verse 1, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And then, immediately after that, he quotes from Isaiah 40, referring to John the Baptist, which says, behold, I send my messenger, John the Baptist, I send my messenger who will prepare your way. He is the voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way for the Lord. You look back to Isaiah 40, and it's the Lord Yahweh. And Mark is making it very clear, immediately clear, that Jesus is the Lord Yahweh who's come in the flesh, the All-Sufficient One who's come to save His people. And then go further in the New Testament, Hebrews 1, the writer quotes from Psalm 102, taking the words that apply to Yahweh and he applies them to Jesus, again making the connection very clear that Jesus is the Lord Yahweh. When Jesus was arguing with the Pharisees in John 8, in verse 58, Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am. The same phrase that God used when speaking to Moses there at the burning bush, saying, I am. Jesus himself claims this very name of Yahweh, the all-sufficient one who has come to redeem his people. In Romans chapter 10, Paul writes perhaps the most basic confession of every Christian. He says in Romans 10 verse 9, Jesus is Lord. And when he writes Lord, he no doubt has in his mind his holy name of God. He's not just Lord Adonai, the king of your life, but he is the Lord Yahweh who created, who saved, who died, who rose again, so that he would be your God and you would be his people. That he's the all-sufficient one who is in covenant relationship with us. Jesus is Lord, our basic confession. This most basic name, this most common name, gives us such great insight into the character and into the heart of God. He is the self-sufficient one. who has committed himself graciously to be our God, not just now, but forever. Oftentimes, our basic identity in this world is an identity of who we're related to. Well, in the end, for all eternity, we will be forever known as sons and daughters of the Lord. created by the Lord Yahweh in splendor and dignity, brought into a covenant relationship with the Lord Yahweh, redeemed out of slavery by the power of the Lord Yahweh, and saved by the blood shed by the Lord Yahweh as He hung on the cross. And in Zephaniah 3, verse 12, it is written that the humble and lowly will take refuge in the name of the Lord Yahweh. May this name be your refuge. The all-sufficient God is your God. You belong to the Lord. And this is who you are. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you, God, for revealing yourself to us as the Lord Yahweh. And we praise you for your covenant faithfulness. We are nothing in ourselves. We are here one day and gone the next, but you created us in love, you redeemed us in love, and you've given us the gift of eternal life in love. And we have you as our God. And you have become our refuge in this world. And you will be our refuge forever. Let us find refuge in your holy name. All for the glory of your holy name. And together we say, amen.