Okay, that time is upon us again this night. Take your copy of the scripture and open it with me to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20. Our study of the Word of God has brought us here on this Lord's Day as we are looking at what it is to worship God in a way that he will accept, to worship him in an acceptable fashion, to serve him in an acceptable way. Had he merely introduced himself as the God of heaven and the creator and then left things up to us to figure out how to approach him in a pleasing and acceptable way, we would never have done that. We would have been like all of the other false religions in the world, maybe the oldest of which is my children were watching a movie recently of, it was a kid's show, but they wound up in South America. And they wound up, they were looking for the legend of a city full of gold. And where it led them was into a city that had in the center of it a temple, a pyramid-shaped temple that would be a ziggurat, which is exactly what the Tower of Babel was. We call it a tower. It was an edifice that was lifted up. The Israeli people would find themselves in the land of Canaan. You'll read about the kings, Josiah being one of the kings that tore down the high places. You'll read that expression when certain kings came in and wanted to bring They wanted to bring restoration of of of the religion of Yahweh They would tear down the the Asherah poles and they would they would destroy the high places. Well That idea of the high place is to be on a high hill but in the plain of Shinar there were no hills so they built a ziggurat and Nimrod said let us build a tower to the heavens we may worship and The heavens is what he was after it wasn't so that we can build a tower high enough to get to heaven that that would have been absurd But they set up these temples to worship god their own way and even in this In this movie that my kids watched they come into this temple and on the ceiling Was a depiction of the sky at night all of the constellations and the stars were in their place And that's exactly what would have been in a ziggurat that was historically accurate, but it wasn't merely an astrological experiment, this was worship. These people were attempting to worship God themselves and come up with their own way of doing things. And were God not to have explained himself the way that he has in the Old Testament, having revealed himself in this progressive revelation, moving, taking baby steps forward, dealing with with abraham with noah and abraham and and and abraham's descendants and now calling the israeli people in and and getting very serious about being specific in revealing himself to man god is such a complicated being he could not do that all at once so it has taken time and when he comes to to this point he has gotten very serious and he has the people's full attention he is speaking from the mountain that is in perpetual Eruption surrounded by a thick cloud full of thunder and lightning And god speaking to the people and terrifying them as we see in verse 18 They perceived all of this stood at a distance and shook And he's revealing to them who he is and how they are to approach him what he will accept And this is revealing to these people, one, it is revealing the holiness of God and who he is, and two, it is revealing what a magnificent being it is that we are approaching. And it requires reverence. And he gets very specific about that in here, this third commandment. The first of the commandments is, you are to have no other gods before me. You are to worship the one true God and worship him alone. You are to worship Yahweh alone. Then you are to worship Yahweh rightly. You're to do it my way. He doesn't say worship me and then send you out to do your own because the best that we could do is what we see in the rest of the world. Maybe we would have wound up like a Hindu or a Buddhist and have just everything be a God because we're so afraid that we're going to forget something. that we might offend a God. And just you look at the religions of the world, they came from the Tower of Babel knowing one thing, that there was a God in heaven that they must worship. And they took it upon themselves to do it their own way. And in doing that, they invariably blasphemed him. So here, he's calling Israel out of this idolatrous place of Egypt, where they have been for 400 years, generation after generation after generation, bombarded with the religion of the pagans around them, and we see them very shortly after this chapter attempting to blend the two together, the worship of Yahweh with what they already knew, and we're familiar with this, and we know that we need to worship him, so let's put the two together, and we'll produce an act of worship that means something to us, but we'll do it toward him. And I've told you, that's like taking your wife to your favorite restaurant for her birthday. It doesn't work that way. Now you may have a gracious wife that's just happy to have some of your attention and not say anything, but you're not doing her a favor, you're doing a selfish act to try to please another person to get them off your back, rather than finding out what would you like to do. And honestly, The longer you've been married, the more you should be in tune to what it is that she does like. And that's a tall order for some of us. It's a tall order for me because my wife's a pretty complicated gal. I guess in calling her a gal, that says that she's complicated, but it's sometimes I just, I just, I don't know. So this last birthday of hers, I tried to take some of the things that I thought she would like and put them together, and it didn't work out exactly right, but she knew that I would, putting in the effort of trying to do what I knew that she liked, and it meant something to her, even though to me it was a failure, because I didn't get any of it done in a timely fashion. I'm trying to put it together the best that I can, but what I did know was these things matter to her, because I've learned this about her in all these years that we've been together. And if we're going to approach God in a way that is meaningful to him, we must find out what is meaningful to him. And that is part, a major part of what this law of God is as it's being given to these people. We tend to look at the law of God as a list of do's and don'ts, some constraints upon us. But it's not, that's not the first and foremost reason for them. It's not to constrain you, it is really to protect you. It is to guide you into a path that he will accept, put you in a safe place before him, rather than leave you out here to figure it out on your own, or to listen to someone else who tells you that they have figured it out on their own. There's really only one that can lead you down that path, and it's the Holy Spirit of God himself. It's not the preacher. It's not your mama. It's not the seminary professor. It's not some life coach, whatever in the world that is. We see so many today. Pastor, author, and life coach. Okay, what's your family life like, life coach? I was listening to a guy, I listen to a lot of sports radio, and I listen to a lot of talk radio in various genres. One of them was a sports radio guy. I really don't like the guy, but there was something going on I was trying to get some information about, and he made this statement. He said, everybody in my family has a family counselor. Everybody in my family goes to a counselor. I'm thinking what kind of a nutjob family are you in? Where you have a counselor your wife has a counselor your daughter has a counselor your son has a counselor Everybody has their own counselor. What do you not have a Bible? Is there not a church in town? The best that you can do without God telling you how you ought to approach him and how you can have a life of lived for his honor and to put your conscience in its properly informed place. You don't need a life coach. You don't need a counselor. What you need is the Holy Spirit of God and the Word of God. The reason that you're here tonight should be because the Holy Spirit of God has prompted you to be with his people for the preaching of his Word. That should be. It may be some other things. I'll take it. I don't care why you're here. I'll take whatever excuse because we want to look at what it is that honors God and benefits us from God giving his list of expectations and really revealing himself. I've told you that this is the communicable law as opposed to the ceremonial law and the civil law. God is expressing himself to us. and how we ought to approach him, what he deserves, what he will accept, and what is the best path for us to follow. Now in that path that he's defining, you have some guardrails, you have some do's and some don'ts, and there to be the guardrails, like if you go bowling and you wanna actually hit the pins, tell him to put the bumper guards up. You can turn around and hike that thing like a football, you're gonna knock something down. We have God hemming us in on this path that is the best for us and the most honorable for him. What better can you ask from God than that? Let's read all 10 of them. Let's read the first 17 verses. We're going to come back here and park on verse 7. We began last week looking at We are to worship the one true God alone. We are to worship Yahweh, the one true God, rightly. We're going to have no idols like men are prone to do. They want to make something to see. And what they make visually is something that they understand and ultimately something that they can control. And he says, you're to make no graven image. You're to have no idol. There's to be nothing before me, no other gods before me. You're not to try to make anything that you think is able to contain my essence because nothing can communicate God to you in a visual form that is adequate to represent who he is. That is what he's told them. Here, he tells them you are to worship Yahweh, the one true God, rightly. to do it the right way as we will see let us begin in verse 1 of chapter 20 god spoke all these words saying i am yahweh your god who brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of slavery you shall have no other gods before me you shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth, you shall not worship them or serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of Yahweh your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female slave, your cattle, your sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days, Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which Yahweh your God gives you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male slave, or his female slave, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. These are the Ten Commandments, or the Decalogue, the Ten Words, as sometimes they are referred to. Some of these are blended and some are, at least one is broken into two and in certain In certain circles they see having no other gods before me and not making for yourself an idol to be the same commandment and We'll come to what is verse 20 verse 17 here and say you're not to cover your neighbor's house and then you are not to cover his wife or any of his people or any of his belongings and split that into two to make it to to make it a full 10, but we see them. In a more traditional way, this is more obvious. I think that verse two, that I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, I think that this is the precursor to every one of them. This is really, if you want to have a motivation, a motivating factor, this is the motivating factor. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and because I am the one that has done these things, I have right to tell you what I expect of you. Remember, this will be said in our Sunday school lesson this morning, prayer, the key to the proper perspective in prayer, position aside, you need to remember two things, who it is to whom you are speaking, and also who it is that is doing the speaking. And what he's saying here is you need to recognize who it is that is speaking to you, and who it is that is being spoken to. Now we began, Looking at this verse last week, we look at Psalm 119.95, where David said, I have contemplated perfection, and I've come to know that your commandment is exceedingly broad. I've looked at what men consider to be perfection in behavior, and I realize that your commandment is exceedingly broad. It far exceeds what man Attempts to do and to hold in perfection your your your word has I've contemplated and and and meditated on your word and it is exceedingly exceedingly broad We looked at this situation first that we're in We're looking at a God who has a name. He has a name and we need to know his name You you don't approach your spouse by a name other than hers. At least you better not Better not call your wife another woman's name Or your husband Another man's name. I guess you wouldn't want to call him another woman's name either, but he has a name. And we approach him by name. It is personal. There was a relationship there. We come to him in service. We come before him in prayer. How are we going to commune with him without knowing his name? And lastly, we looked at the fact that we hallow his name. We hold his name high. We revere his name. The idea of prayer, the first aspect of prayer is adoration. And we see that in the pattern of prayer that the Lord gave to his disciples in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. When you pray, pray like this. Our Father who is in heaven hallowed be your name. Your name be hallowed in the world. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. But may your name be hallowed in my life, in my mouth, in my behavior, in my conduct, and may your name be hallowed in the earth and how the world responds to your name. That's the situation that we're in. We have a God that we must approach, and he does have a name. It is not a nameless God. It is not a generic God. We read in the Old Testament, in this particular English translation, Yahweh is used. I like that very much. But he says that I am Yahweh, your God. And we look at that maybe from a very small-minded English-speaking perspective, we would say, well, that's redundant. It's Yahweh and God. Well, it's two different words. The I am, Yahweh. The word for God is Elohim. That is a fairly generic word, is Elohim. And Elohim is really a plural. It's a plural for the generic idea of God. Now, when you and I converse and we use the name God, we say, this is what God has brought me through. You know who I'm talking about. You know exactly who I'm talking about. We don't need to be overly cultish about using the name Yahweh, but Yahweh is his name. I mean, the Israeli people, by the time of the copying of the scripture, the scribes wouldn't say the name, they wouldn't even write it out. They would write the YHWH is the transliteration into English, but it was called the Tetragrammaton. But nobody ever said, well, you know, I was praying and the Tetragrammaton laid upon my heart something. You wouldn't say that. But this is the name that he revealed to them. And he said, this is to be my covenant name. And they come to verse seven and it says, you shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. And they said, we want to be so far away from crossing that line that we're gonna draw another line right here so that we never get close to over there. Therefore we can never cross that line because we stop here. Do you see a problem with that immediately? If we never get there, we never get closer to him than right here. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. May I ask you why he did that? so that you might be my treasured possession among all the people. If they were to be his treasured possession among all the peoples of the earth, you think that might mean that he wants to have some intimate relationship with them? You think that he might mean, don't misuse my name rather than don't ever use my name? Well-meaning, zealous people. Well-meaning, I put that in the forefront. I don't mean that this always starts out as some nefarious thing. There are well-meaning people that begin to put illegitimate and unnecessary constraints on themselves and ultimately on others, and it begins to inhibit their relationship with their God. Well, preacher, are you saying that we can't overuse it? No, I'm not saying that, because that's what he condemns here. Improper use, overuse, taking the name in vain. So let's get some clarification here. We've discussed at length the situation that we're in. Let's look at, from this position of the situation that we're in, that we do serve a God that has a name, he's given us his name, We approach him by name, we serve him in that name, we hallow that name, we have a desire to revere and hallow that name. So let's look at exactly what is the prohibition here, because he does start out by saying you shall not. It is a prohibition, it is one of the don't commandments. You ought to keep the Sabbath, but do not take my name in vain. There is a do and a don't here. will honor your father and mother remember the Sabbath what is the prohibition now I'll warn you ahead of time of all of the ten I gave you a list of the Ten Commandments and I put them in in shorthand short version not all of the jealous God, visiting iniquity on the fathers, not your son and your daughter and your slave and your animals and God made the heavens. If I just put the six real quick, real easy, the ten, real easy, and just gave you a list and said, rate how good you keep these ten. Of all of the ten, if we were really We were really looking to get ahead of all of the 10. This is the one that we would think that we have the least problem with. This is the one I'm the closest to keeping. I hope that you understand by the end of our time tonight that this may be the one that we trample on the most. Maybe. And I know what you're thinking, oh, yes, preacher, but I see all of the social media posts and the text messages, OMG is everywhere. That is not what I'm talking about. That's a small alligator. But we do, and I ask you to give me some patience, beloved. I've never heard anybody attempt to preach these verses the way that we're trying to go through them. I've heard them referred to, I've never, I have to search far and wide to find people that have dealt with this in any depth. And then I'm, my head is spinning after this. I've never heard this. Why have I never heard this is the question I want to ask. Why isn't, you know why? Because it's hard. It's hard. I'll tell you that. And I'll tell you it's satisfying because I want to know how to please this God who has given all this to me. Let's look at the prohibition. You shall not, The shall not is the prohibition. What is it referring to? Well, first, I think that it is making a very clear application to a phony retention, a phony retention of his name. I asked my children on the way here tonight, what does it mean to you? But what do you think it means that you shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain Or older English translations. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. What does that mean? What does it mean? I'd go around this room. I think most of you would probably give a very similar answer So we're not to use his name in an unworthy way like as a cuss word or just frivolously say the word God. Oh my God, we see people say that, that may be the most. Ubiquitously used expression in in all of our culture. We see it on television We see it in in commercials in movies all over social media And if if if people are concerned, they don't want to say the whole thing They'll put it in shorthand OMG, but we know what that means or we teach our children. Listen, you're talking about You're trying to split a hair that doesn't exist. Well, I didn't say oh my god. I said, oh my gosh. I So you're just trying, you know it's wrong, so you don't say it, but not saying it, knowing that it's wrong is better than saying it, knowing it's wrong. Logic has fled the argument at that point. Or we substitute the word goodness, oh my goodness. That's a problem as well. Because when Jesus was approached by the rich young ruler, what did he call him? Good teacher. What should I do? What commandment do I need to keep? He says, why do you call me good? There is one that's good, and that's God. So even if you're referring to whatever is the best about you, that my goodness, whatever I consider to be good about myself, and I'm referring to that, and I explain that, oh my goodness. The best that you can possibly be saying right there, if you are attempting to say to someone that I'm not really referring to God, you're saying that there's a goodness in this universe that's not God. You're just running out of excuses here. And we do this all the time. People around us do it. Or this expression, you see it in movies and on television, Jesus H. Christ. I have no idea what the H means. I've told you we were at a church function, we were at a church fellowship at the old church. One of the deacon's wives said, Jesus Christ, we're in the middle of serving people at a fellowship. And the preacher's wife at the time said, yep, he's here too. Thank you for saying something. And that woman didn't even notice what the preacher's wife said. I hear people say that all the time. They'll throw his name, they'll use the name of my savior as though it's some sort of an epithet. And I say, why are you bringing him into this? Ask somebody that the next time they say it. Why are you bringing him into this? What do you want him to do? What? Be ready. If you're gonna be obnoxious, be ready for what comes. It doesn't bother me. It bothers some people and just try it sometime, you know, if you're feeling really brave. But again, they brought it up. Oh, do you know him? Are you a disciple of his? Because sounds like it. Are we talking about here is taking the name of Yahweh your God in vain. Is it talking about using his name in a frivolous way? The answer to that is yes, but more. It's more than that. It is that to be sure, but it's more than that. What we try to do is make it just that. And when we make it just that, we think that once I've cut all of that vocabulary out of my life, I've got this one done, I can post this one on the wall. This one I've kept, now I'll go on to the fourth one. Or the second, maybe I'll go back to the second one. I'm having trouble with the second one since the preacher made it all impossible to keep. What does it mean to take the name of Yahweh? Let's just back up from the in vain part. You shall not, the prohibition is take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. Let's park on this word take. What does this word take mean? It's the same in almost every English translation. Take the name of the Lord your God. What does it mean to take his name? Well, we really need to explore that if we're ever going to get, we can get to vain, maybe we can understand vain, we'll get there in a little while. Let's look at take, what does it mean to take the name of Yahweh your God? Because if you're like me growing up in church, it was just about don't say his name frivolously. But I always wondered why that, Why did the Englishman of the 16th and 17th century use the word take there rather than something else? Because it's still confusing to me. The preacher has explained it, but to take his name, okay, it's too much to think about, I'll just do what he says. But then you grow up. begin to really search the scripture yourself and some of these words come out and you really need to know what they mean if you're going to make sense of this and I needed to make sense because I'm attempting to approach this God in heaven in a way that he will accept I need to know what this means I need to know what this means well the word the the Hebrew word that is translated take up here or take really could be better translated take up It means to use or to employ or to carry. It can mean to take up, to use, to employ, to take up like a shield. Take it to yourself and use it as a shield. To take up to use as a shield in battle or to take up to use in some act of service. That changes the meaning a little bit and begins to show us that it means more than just saying his name at the wrong time and in front of the wrong group of people and maybe saying it in the wrong way and attaching it to the wrong subsequent word. Although that has its place to be avoided. I do not mean to minimize that, but it can't mean just that. To take the name, to take up like a shield or to take up like a banner. Now, a banner is not something that we really put a lot of stock in in America anymore. We put a sign on the door. put a sign on the front of the church. We don't typically march through the street with a banner declaring who we belong to, declaring who we serve. But it's the idea of taking up a banner. And we teach our kids to sing in kids club when we had a WANA and now in And these generations of grace material that we're using now, the song time before, what was always a weekly favorite, when I used to be, I used to lead the singing, for those of you who weren't here, I would lead the awana and subsequent different children's ministries that we've had here, I would do the song time. First couple of years we had VBS, I would do the song time, and they all liked his banner over me as love. And we do, the banner is over us. It's tough to do wearing a sport coat, but you get the thing. His banner over me is love. He is the vine and we are the branches. You know, we do all that fun stuff. But the idea of a banner is the covering that is over us that identifies us as who we are. To take his name, to take it up as a shield. Remember what we read in Genesis 15 this morning? He said, Abraham, do not be afraid. I am Yahweh your God, I am your shield, I'm your covering, I'm your protector, your provider. To take up his name as our shield in battle, as our banner, it is a token of affection. To take his name over us, to say that I belong to him and I serve him, I am in his realm. Gives a little different facet to this jewel of the third commandment. or to take up to employer to carry his name as an evidence of belonging. Now this is where it gets really graphic for us. There are many English idioms that we use to refer to certain things in life, one of them being like marriage. Yeah, somebody, you know is engaged say hey when y'all gonna jump the broom you ever had somebody ask you that do you ever ask somebody? Some of you're like, what does jump the broom mean Mona? You know what it means? Yeah, that was part of a marriage ceremony is especially in in in the in in the to put a broom down that they didn't have time and they just typically was in slave culture where you didn't have a whole lot of time to plan a wedding if Boss man said I got to be out there cutting cane tomorrow morning We're gonna get married this evening and rather than have a full ceremony They would just jump a broom and that was the act that signified to everyone there. This is now a married couple So we use jump the broom tie the knot We'll tie the knot Put a golden band on the right left hand. Had somebody tell me that one time. Third time's a charm. I'm sorry, what? I put a golden band on the right left hand this time. Don't tell your kids that. Cause they thought the first or second one was the right time. We use this expression as an idiom of marriage. She's going to take his name. When Liz and I were preparing to get married, I was as much of an obnoxious shyster then as I am now, maybe more. And I took advantage of some of the older ladies in our church that were constantly asking me, how things are going, planning for the wedding? Is it going well? How are things going? You got this ready and that ready? I'm thinking, look, I need somebody to pronounce us husband and wife and sign the paper. And that girl, that's all I need. The rest of this is superfluous to me. This is for the mamas and the grandparents. And she wants to have pictures in that dress. That's fine. The rest of it, I don't care. So I'm going to take advantage of the situation. And one of the older ladies in the church asked me, well, how are things going with the wedding? Do you have this? She named three things. This, that, and I said, well, yes, and we're doing that, but we've got bigger problems than that. Oh, do tell. ears come oh do tell I said we're still trying to figure out who's gonna change their last name because I did everything with the corneas you know worked for dad I was with him all the time so we're still trying to figure out who's gonna change their name and the look of just just this lady was the dissonance either that's what did you say so I That went on, you know, a day or two. Then Liz called me up and said, did you tell somebody you're planning to change your name? Oh, no, but I almost did. That was, I had no idea. I was so excited. It got back to her mama. These ladies were in an uproar. Is that boy planning to change his name? We've never heard of somebody changing their, that he's gonna change his name. So mother-in-law had to talk those ladies down, and then my wife's like, man, you got my mom all stirred up. I said, well, she better strap in, because it's coming for the rest of her life. And it is, and she loves me. I'm her favorite son-in-law, married to her only daughter. What does it mean at a wedding when Haley walked up here, Haley and Nicole Tullis, and walked out of here, Haley and Nicole Stelle? What did that mean? That I lost a tax write-off and he gained one? Is that what it meant? That's part of what it meant. But that's irrelevant. I walked her down that aisle, and he stepped down there to meet us. Andre said, who gives this woman to this man? I said, her mother and I do. And I took his hand and I put their two hands together and I said, son, this is the best gift you are ever going to receive. I've raised her to be a better wife than you will ever deserve. I've given her to you. I said, sweetheart, you're going to belong to him. You're taking his name, you have become an extension of him by God's design. Don't abuse it. Taking of his name exemplifies belonging and affection. To a substantial degree, it becomes ownership. I know that's a word that people don't want to hear in relation to marriage today. Oh, but you're telling me he owns his wife? He has absolute responsibility for her before God. You tell me what that means. You're going to stand before God and answer for how you treat your wife. You ladies get to stand over there and laugh. Me and him, we're gonna stand before God and answer for how we took care of our wife, how we provided for them financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. You don't want some of that. They get to Ephesians 5 and, oh, we're gonna submit to him? You know him? Yeah, I know him, but you know who else I know? I know the God we're gonna answer to. And you better mind your place before him and support that boy, because the last thing you want is for him to fail, because it affects everybody. Take his name, speaks of that, speaks of an unbreakable bond. What is the movie with Kirk Cameron, Fireproof? Many of you have seen it. That scene in the firehouse where he's talking to his friend, he's getting godly counsel from his friend about his marriage. This unbeliever is receiving godly counsel from his friend and he takes the salt shaker and the pepper shaker and he glued them together. You remember that? Glued them together and he handed it to Kirk Cameron. He said, now break it apart without harm in either one of them. This is the union of marriage. We've been put together. You can't dismantle that without damaging both sides of it because it is not meant to be taken apart. The idea of this unbreakable bond, this devotion to one whose name you take upon yourself is what is conveyed in this term, take, you shall not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. You take his name upon you. You call yourself a disciple of Jesus Christ. You say that you belong to this God. We looked at it this morning. Salvation is believing God. We take Christ as our Savior because God says, this is the Savior that I have sent for you, that you might become mine through him. We take the Lord's name upon us. Maybe the next time you fill out a resume, you need to put down, Vincent, tell us, disciple of Jesus Christ, husband to Liz, father to all of these children, maybe grandfather to some too, pastor of the Opelousas Bible Church, in that order. Because it is so significant to say that we belong to him. We've taken his name. You see that it's a little more than we maybe have given it credit for? Yeah, we want to be very careful with the name of this God that we revere and that we love, that it's taken us to be his, and we have taken him to be ours. I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Do not take my name in vain. You claim to belong to me, and you're going to obey me. Don't take my name in vain. Be careful how you use it. Be careful how you misuse it. Be careful how you represent it. I asked my children on the way here, what does it mean to take his name in vain? And one of them says not to mar his image. And she thought about it and she said, his reputation. We don't want to put a black mark on his reputation. I sent my 205-pound little boy back to school today, and I hugged him, and I said, Boy, you remember your last name. You remember who you represent. Make us proud. Make the name of your family proud. Make the name of your God proud. He called me the other day, said, Chickens are coming home to roost. I'll just throw this anecdote in there. When I was a boy, When I was a teenager, late teenager, early 20s, when I was a boy, I'd call my daddy and he'd, hey boy, what you doing? I said, ain't no boy. So we got to where when he would answer the phone, that's what I would say. Hey boy, what you doing? Well, you got the wrong number. Ain't no boy around here. That's just been the banner between my daddy and me for years. Samuel calls me the other day. I say, hello. He said, what you doing boy? I told him what I was doing. I said, what you doing? He said, we're about to start our Bible study. He said, we started a Bible study with the football players up here. What does that mean? I don't know. How far is that going to go? I don't know. I talked to his buddy. He had his best friend with him last week when he was here. Somebody else got to meet him. And it's the two of them that started this thing. He said, they were telling me, we're shocked at the guys that have showed up, guys that we never thought would care about this kind of thing. They're showing up at our Bible study. We have this opportunity to share the gospel and to share our God with them. And I said, boy, you're a Tullus, but you represent the Opelousas Bible Church everywhere you go. What's been poured into your life from this church from before you were born? The prayers of your mother while you were in her womb, all of this is on you to represent. And that is a fraction of what it is that we carry upon ourselves as we go out claiming to be the people of God, as we represent Him in this world. We take His name upon us. We call ourselves Christians. What's the root word of Christian? It's Christ. I'm a Christ, not just a Christ follower, I'm a Christ imitator. I'm a child of God. I am a co-heir with Christ. I'm not in the back of the bus barely hanging on. I'm in the bosom of the Father. And that is what we claim and know that we are. But how does the world see that when our behavior comes out? I'll get a little more personal. How does our family view that when they see our behavior come out? What does our spouse think? What do our children think? What do our in-laws think? This becomes a burden that is very, very heavy to bear when we put it in that context. Call yourself a Christian. You call yourself a follower of Christ. That means that I belong to Yahweh, the Father in heaven. I am an heir of God, co-heir with Christ. I have a heavenly inheritance from a heavenly Father that is equal to Christ. What? And that's how I acted this afternoon? You're not to take the name of Yahweh your God in vain. You know, there are serious consequences, legal consequences, for someone who impersonates an officer of the law. Sometimes there are people that impersonate an officer to take advantage of other people, kidnap people, to rob people. I know when this government collapse of responsibility in North Carolina, when that hurricane passed from Florida through North Carolina, these people lost everything. They had no electricity, had no hope, and there were people that were robbing these people that had just about lost everything but their life by impersonating police officers, impersonating a FEMA official. They would show up and rob these people blind, leave them tied up, take all their stuff. You gotta be pretty low-down, cat-pull-something-like-that. There are serious consequences to impersonating an officer. Let's take it a step further. When you buy a product, you'll see the name of that product. Say Coca-Cola. You see the name of that product. There's a little R over there on the end with a circle around it. You ever notice that? You know what that's called? It's called a trademark. A registered trademark. That belongs to a Coca-Cola company. You can't use that or anything that looks like that. We're familiar with good seasoning blends around here. I know Joe uses Show Nuff, which is his own personal seasoning blend. That's why it's called something nobody would ever use. You showed up in the store and you saw something, a seasoning blend that said Show Nuff, you'd go down to the next one. It's called Slap Ya Mama. That one we can get behind. Some Slap Ya Mama seasoning. They're building a brand new facility out here off the interstate in Cairncrow. Well, some guy from Ville Platte saw that and said, hey, I'll take a spin off of that. We can't call it slap your mama, we'll call it punch your daddy. Y'all don't remember this? I was talking to Greg because the original is Tony Sashory's and Brother Greg has been at Tony Sashory's almost his whole life. and he was telling me about the city added slap your mama took him to court for copyright and and trademark infringement and they won because it was so close to slap your mama that they wouldn't allow them to to try to make any money off of their their likeness, their image here. You're claiming some attachment to us, trademark infringement. And listen, if you get sideways with the wrong company, you mess with Coca-Cola, IBM, Goodyear, man, they'll sue your socks off to make an example of you. And we say, oh, we wouldn't do that. But to take the name of Jesus Christ and to represent him in a way that he does not deserve has far more eternal consequences than trademark infringement or the impersonation of an officer. Beloved, this gets a little more serious than maybe we're comfortable dealing with sometimes. Stories told of Alexander the Great, In his military conquest, he had a young man defect, and they caught him. He went AWOL by modern standards. And they caught him, and they brought him back, and they brought him before Alexander the Great, and he stood before the emperor, and he said, son, what is your name? He said this in Greek, obviously. I'm not gonna try to do that. But he said, what is your name? And the young man said, my name is Alexander. And he's told that Alexander the Great paused and looked at that young man for longer than what was comfortable. And he said, young man, You either change your ways or change your name. Because you have the same name as me, and if you behave that way with my name, that's unacceptable. What I told you, I tell my children what my dad told me. You carry this name. What you do reflects on your family's name. What you do reflects on your family's name. That's true physically, in the physical world. Friends, that's even more true spiritually. When we take the name of the Creator, when we take the name of His Savior, our Savior, how do we represent it in this world? How does it come out of our life? We take Him as ours and He takes us as His. Beloved, that's serious business. In this day and age where Jesus is peddled as some sort of a celestial Santa Claus, who cares how you treat somebody like that? They just can't wait to give you good stuff, this gullible goober of a grandfather that's portrayed in so much preaching today. No, this is the sovereign one on the throne. This is the one that stood before John and said, if you tell the church, if they continue to misrepresent my name, I'm going to take away their lampstand and snuff out the light of that church. The same is true for an individual. God is telling these people it is serious to call me your God and to call yourself my people. When we speak of his name, you say, what is in a name? There's a lot in a name. And there is a tremendous reality behind the idea of the name of God. We're speaking about his name and his word and his works, everything by which we know him. How do we know God? We know God by his name. We know God by how he has revealed himself in his word. And we know Yahweh by the works that we see. The heavens declare the glory of God. We see him by the works that he does in our lives individually, the answers to prayer. We prayed for our beloved Richard family and what the provision that he made for that mother and that infant for a full term, a full 40 weeks in a, what no one knew ahead of time was a very precarious situation. And this child was born, seven and a half pound child is small by tele standards, that's a healthy child. Yahweh did that. We know him by what he does and what his word tells us about him. What is in a name? When it comes to our God, everything by which he identifies himself and defines himself is to be considered his name. There is exceedingly more here than what at first meets the eye. Everything by which he identifies himself. He's a long-suffering, gracious provider. He is a healer. He is the director of our life. He is the provider in your life. Jeremiah said that when the new covenant was to come to Israel, That Israel's new name for God would be Yahweh Tzidkenu in Hebrew. It's translated into older English versions as Jehovah, our righteousness. God, our righteousness. Not a righteousness that we've earned, not a righteousness that we have taken part in. It is a righteousness that is given to us from another, and it is the very righteousness of God. What has He done by which He identifies Himself? He has become our righteousness. Why? Because that is the only way that anyone will ever be able to belong to Him, because we need a righteousness that He will accept, and the only one He accepts is His own. And when He has bestowed His righteousness on His people and they have taken His name, There are significant ramifications attached to that. We take His name and we use His name. And His names define who He is. So the prohibition here is first and foremost against a phony retention of his name as though we're name dropping as we speak of God, that God did this for me or did that for me, or I'm a child of God. We're all God's children. No, we are not. You know how I know? Because hell's gonna have more people in it than heaven will. And if we're all God's children, why are any of God's children in hell? We're not God's children. We're naturally born as God's creatures. But those natural-born creatures are clearly depicted in scriptures as the enemies of God. We don't begin to see the Savior until we are born again from above. Another does the work in us. Then we have the right, those who have believed in Jesus Christ have been given the right to be called the children of God and none outside of that. And once you have been given the right to be called the children of God, friends, you have a responsibility to carry that name in a way that brings him honor and glory. And he says, you will not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain, for Yahweh will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. We're gonna dig a little more into this the next time This phony retention is is followed by a personal responsibility you're not to take the name of Yahweh your God And there is some personal responsibility in this He's not speaking to this entire group of people. He doesn't say, okay, all of you better get this right, because if one of you don't get it right, all of you are going to suffer. He doesn't say that. Sometimes that's how it happens, but that's not what he's saying. This is intensely intimate and personal. And then we will see that his name is ours to use in a very personal, purposeful, Reverence before him We find ourselves on bended knee before him in in all of him in worship of him in service to him Yahweh your God We don't take it in vain we'll look it into that word what that means and how that applies I I hope that this has been informative and encouraging for you. I know that there's been some admonition here because I know my own heart. But I want you to know that this is the God who has chosen to purchase a people for his own possession. He is not a harsh, unloving, unapproachable God. And he has proven that by giving us the third commandment. Don't misuse my name. That is the best for you and that is the most honorable for me. We can praise him for it. Otherwise we would never know this. Otherwise we would never do anything except blaspheme his name. Father, we thank you tonight for your word. Thank you that you have not left us to ourselves to attempt in some way to claw our way to you in the dark as blind men groping in a dark room with no hope of ever finding anything. but you have revealed yourself to the world. You have revealed yourself to your people in a very special and intimate way. You've given us the right to call ourselves by your name, and I pray that you will guide us and encourage us, instruct us as we go through your word, especially in these passages in Exodus 20, Lord, that we would see the exceedingly broad nature of the law and that we would revere our Savior for having kept every jot and tittle of it on our behalf. We might see our Savior in a greater light. We might see ourselves in a more appropriate light, and we might see you through the utmost honor and reverence, and that it would come out in our lives that we would truly be ready when our Lord returns. Be honored by our time here tonight, Father, we pray in our Savior Jesus' name, amen.