Exodus 20:7 CSB – You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

Matthew 22:37 – 39 CSB – He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

Why Does Honoring God’s Name Matter So Much?

  • What’s at stake?

Psalm 8:1 CSB – “How excellent is Your name in all the earth,”

  • In general, what does it mean to “take the name of the Lord in vain?”

Matthew 6:9 CSB – Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
your name be honored as holy.

Common ways that people take the Lord’s name in vain

1. Using God’s Name to Bolster our Image

Matthew 5:33-37 CSB – Again, you have heard that it was said to our ancestors, You must not break your oath, but you must keep your oaths to the Lord. 34 But I tell you, don’t take an oath at all: either by heaven, because it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, because it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.36 Do not swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. 37 But let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no.’ Anything more than this is from the evil one.

James 5:12 CSB – Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your “yes” mean “yes,” and your “no” mean “no,” so that you won’t fall under judgment.[

2. False Prophesies

Jeremiah 14:14 CSB – But the Lord said to me, “These prophets are prophesying a lie in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a false vision, worthless divination, the deceit of their own minds.

  • The “God told me” false prophesies

Jeremiah 14:14 CSB – But the Lord said to me, “These prophets are prophesying a lie in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them

Acts.19:13-17 CSB – “Now some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches!”

Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this. The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul — but who are you?”

Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them, so that they ran out of that house naked and wounded.

When this became known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, they became afraid, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem.”

  • The “My Jesus” false prophesies

1 John 5:5-6 CSB – They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

  • “The Lord told me” false prophesies

Principle: Don’t invoke God’s name to spiritualize your own thoughts

Flippancy Dishonors God’s Name

“Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.” – Mark Twain

How to Honor God’s Name

  • Defining the Problem

The consequence of violating the 3rd command is severe:

…the Lord will not leave anyone unpunished who misuses his name.

1) People Abuse God’s Name B/C They Don’t Know God

2) Profaning God’s Name is Done More W/ ACTIONS Than W/ Words

John 2:16-17 CSB – He told those who were selling doves, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

17 And his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house will consume me.

Proverbs 30:9 CSB – 

Give me neither poverty nor wealth;
feed me with the food I need.
Otherwise, I might have too much
and deny you, saying, “Who is the Lord?”
or I might have nothing and steal,
profaning the name of my God.

  • First Step to Honor God’s Name: Surrender to Jesus & Be Baptized in His Name

Matthew 28:19-20 CSB – Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

  • Honor God’s Name In Daily Obedience

Practice Daily Obedience

John 10:27 CSB – My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.

Psalm 23:1-3 CSB – 

The Lord is my shepherd;
I have what I need.
He lets me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside quiet waters.
He renews my life;
he leads me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.

Philippians 2:5-11 CSB – 

 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,

who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
For this reason God highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—
11 and every tongue will confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Assignment: What would today look like if you lived it as a slave of Christ?

Mark 8:34-36 CSB – If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 35 For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels shall save it. 36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

“Jesus says, Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you.

I have not come to torment your natural self but to kill it.

No half- measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out.  Hand over the whole natural self, all the desire you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you myself; my own will shall become yours.” – C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

“But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away “blindly” so to speak.
This principle runs through all life from top to bottom. Give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and the death of your whole body in the end; submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay.

But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.” – C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)