Summer in the Forge || Week 2

Summer in the Forge                    Week 2

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7

Vain: empty, useless, meaningless.

1. Respect His Name.

Don’t let your 
 with God become 
 for God.

2. Reserve His Name.

Common misuses for the Name of God:

Playing “ The God Card."
I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. Jeremiah 23:21

Saying, “ I Swear to God”.

Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:33-37

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7

Using God’s Name to further  your own agenda

3.  Represent His Name.

The best way to honor God’s name is to represent it well. 

Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Luke 6:46

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 2 Corinthians 5:20

You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7

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Discussion Questions:

What is one name, title, or nickname people call you that means something special to you? Why?

Pastor Sean said, “Don’t let your comfort with God become contempt for God.” Where do you think the line is between being close to God and becoming too casual with holy things?

Have you ever seen someone use spiritual language to justify their own agenda? Explain.

How can we guard our own hearts from doing that?

The message said, “The best way to honor God’s name is to represent it well.”

What does that look like at work, at home, online, and at church? What would change this week if you lived more aware that you carry the name of Jesus

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

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Welcome And Small Group Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Everybody. Good morning, relate, and welcome to church. I'm glad you're here. Tell somebody right next to you, I am so glad you came today. It's summertime, but we can still have a good time. Somebody asked, why do we not just have small groups all the time? I feel like if we had small groups all the time, we wouldn't be able to have a party a few times a year when we kick off small groups. So uh I love this is one of my favorite times of the year. One of my favorite times of the season is when we get to uh start new small groups. There's things that we've never seen before. And uh it's exciting. Today we are in week number two of a brand new series. That uh not only are we going through the Ten Commandments, but we are uh balancing and recali calibrating ourselves, our hearts, our faith, our uh integrity, the sharpness of our faith, the the direction and focus of our lives with God's commands and his purpose for us in as it can be seen in the Ten Commandments. I think what better fundamental basis can we uh forge our lives to than looking at the very first set of commands that God gives his people. So I uh I'm thrilled if you're here today and you are new to Relate, maybe you've been around for a little while, if you are watching online, um we do not forget or make little of the fact that it takes a lot to reach out into a new place or to click into a new um group of people and community. I know that takes a lot of courage. Uh not maybe not as much courage, or maybe so, to jump into a new small group. But let me just say that um our hope for every person in the room. In fact, sometimes there are there are more people, some weeks there are more people at small groups than there are on Sunday mornings. I love that. I love that that's where healing and freedom and deliverance and uh life happens in those circles, in those small groups, and uh we want to see every person growing and thriving and building community, and that happens. Let me just give you one quick thing. Sometimes it's very easy to come and sit in a church service on Sunday morning and listen to a message and not engage and not build relationship and just high-five the everybody and smile, and you can still carry some super heavy stuff with you. So, on this day, as we kick off small groups, let me just encourage you that there is so much freedom to be found when you start doing life with people. Somebody said amen. Okay, so before we really dive into week number two of uh Summer in the Forge, let me just give you uh, since we're doing Ten Commandments, which is God's top 10, we're gonna do, I'm gonna give you another top 10 list this week. And uh I hope you're ready for it because First Service was not awake enough or ready for it, and it hurt some of their feelings. So I'm just pre-warning you.

Ten Funny Signs You Need Community

SPEAKER_00 3:21

This is the top 10 signs that you need to join a small group. I thought, what better time to do it than on kickoff Sunday? Um, here we go. Number 10, the top 10th reason that you need to join a small group. You've started calling your couch your community. That's not your community, it can't disciple you. You're just you're resisting people. Number nine, your idea of deep conversation is reading the comment section on social media. That's how you interact and engage, not fellowship. Number eight, you keep saying we should hang out sometime, but then you disappear for nine months. Listen, if you want to join all the small groups, you can, but go to one. At least go to one. Don't join all of them, then don't go to any. That doesn't help anybody. All right, here we go. Number seven, reasons why you should join a small group. You know 47 people at church, but you still act brand new every Sunday, and you introduce yourself. That's the way that's how you go deeper. You join a small group. Here we go. Number six, you say you don't have time, but then you investigate strangers on Facebook for hours. You have time. Elbow them next to you and say, you have time. You have time, you have time. I don't have anyone to elbow you. Here we go. Top 10 signs you need to join a small group. Number five, your social life is you, your Stanley Cup, and a group text you refuse to answer. Don't put me in a group text. I hate group text. I'll rather go talk to you face to face. Number four, because life is hard, people are weird, and you are also weird. That's my way of saying that you're weird. Everybody's weird. So go get with some people who are like you. Number three, reason you need to join a small group, signs you need to join a small group, because you've talked yourself out of going for so long, saying it might be awkward. I just, I'm telling you, it will be awkward. Just go. Let it be awkward for five minutes, and then someone will say something weird, and then you'll realize I'm home. I've made it. These people are just like me. Number two. Number two, you've watched enough true crime to distrust everyone, including the group leaders, casserole. And you don't trust what they're serving for food. Who touched this? Whose pets were in this food? That's that's why you need to be in a small group because you don't trust anybody. Come on. And finally, number one, you say I'm busy, but you just finished the third season of a show in one weekend. You watched all the seasons, you binged it. You could have been in a small group. So don't do that this week. At least go to a small group. I know that hurts some of your feelings. That's okay. Thank you. All right, if you weren't here last week, and I won't ask who was and who wasn't, I'm gonna assume that all of you were. If you weren't, if you weren't though, I'm gonna say that we talked about not just the first commandment, which is to put God first, that you'll have no other gods before him, and he becomes our highest priority, and he is the center of our universe, and we keep him at the center, and we fight for the uh to keep the other things from taking his place in the center. Not only that, but we looked at really the

Why The Commandments Protect Relationships

SPEAKER_00 6:46

the Ten Commandments in totality and why it matters, why, and I I think it boils down to this because Jesus summarized all Ten Commandments with two things. He said, This is the law of the prophets, and that you should uh love the Lord your God, and this is my summary, not only love God, but love people. And in that way, when you look at the Ten Commandments, the first four are really about our relationship with God. The last six are about our relationship with each other and how we relate to each other, how we commit to each other. And when we keep God's commandments, it's not this prison or a jail cell that we that we build around us, and oh, I got to follow the rules and I can't break this law and I can't break that law. No, what it's actually doing is it becomes a protection and not a prison. It be it protects me and my relationship with God when I keep him first, but I don't put any other gods ahead of him. Whenever I make no idols, and whenever uh that that's my way of that's God's way of protecting the way I relate to him. And the last six are about protecting how we relate to each other. I don't kill you, and that protects us. I don't steal from you, I don't lie to you. I don't uh the way that we interact needs to be protected, and so we're protecting God's protecting our relationships. And so today we're gonna look at, and by the way, for those of you still trying to figure out how how this works, I'm telling you, you're not gonna figure it out because we're not going in order, we're going out of order, so you can't plan which ones you want to miss. I'm just letting you know. Exodus chapter 20, verse 7 today. I'm not gonna read all the verses. We did that last week. We read the whole passage for the Ten Commandments. Today we're gonna look at just this one commandment. It says, You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. For the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Now, let me just say this too. There are a few of the commandments, this is one of them that I think we we don't take serious at all. It it's one of those ones that if you knew it was coming, you might say, I

The Third Commandment Read Clearly

SPEAKER_00 8:51

don't need that because I don't do that. Uh I got this one down. All right, I can check this one. Let's go to the one of the ones I need help with. No, listen, we need help on it because it's one of the things that we don't fully understand. I think for the most part, when we discuss this, we don't have a great understanding of it. And most of us think that using the Lord Lord's name in vain, one translation says using his name in vain, we're gonna say uh misusing his name. I don't do that because I don't uh I think it's been abbreviated, especially in in modern culture, to OMG. Or if you grow up in in uh a world like I did, where I was in church all the time and my mom took very seriously what we said. If I said, oh my god, my mom would wash my mouth out with soap. How many of you guys have ever had your mouth washed out with soap? And you're still careful about what you say today because you remember it well. And we would we would even substitute uh God's name or God's title for gosh, and we would just fix it. Now I can say, oh my gosh, or gosh darn because I haven't said anything wrong, right? Um, you know, that's not I don't think that's the way it works, then I don't think that 4,000 years ago, Jesus, I don't think that God, whenever he gave the Ten Commandments and He said, Don't take my name in vain. I don't think he was thinking, I don't want anyone to say OMG. I don't want anyone to say my name and just passing and say, No way, Yahweh. I don't think that is just this. Well, they better not say my name or else keep my name out of your mouth. I don't think that was his intention. I think his intention was that his name holds a special place. And I want to look at that word vain for just a second. If you're taking notes, you can put this down. The definition for vain, as in not taking his name in vain, the vein is empty, useless, or meaningless. I think what God is showing us is that his name has value. It should be weighty, it should, it should be a careful, considerate. Am I saying this right? Am I am I putting

What “In Vain” Really Means

SPEAKER_00 11:11

his name in the right place? And it it matters how we relate to him and how we refer to him. Names nowadays don't have a lot of value, have a lot of value, and just then I just like the way that sounds. So I've heard people's names and I have no clue what I like in names that people just make up because it sounds good, or I like it, or but it doesn't have a lot of meaning to it. I have a lot of names. In fact, I have a name. Everybody knows probably that my name is Sean, my middle name is Eric, my last name is Mooney, but I have a lot of other things that people call me. Some people call me Pastor, people call me Sean, people call me Pastor Sean or P. Sean, which I picked up as a youth pastor from a long time ago. I don't think that's any less considerate or respectful, but it can degenerate into we just can call people's names. My my kids call me dad. My wife calls me babe, or any other list of names, as long as we're in a good mood. I won't tell you the other ones. But with God, it's the same. His name reflects his character and who he is and what he does and how we relate to him. And so when we call his name and we take his name in vain, we're making little of it. There are over 300 names for God in the Bible, and all those names mean something. God is a uh more of a title, and what he is, and not who he is, but his actual names as of the names that he is called, of which a few are Yahweh, which is where we get the word Jehovah. He says, I am that I am El Shaddai, the ancient of days, or Jesus, Yeshua, Elohim. They mean something, and we just in it passively, indifferently, we just say his name or say use his titles. I'm not asking you not to say OMG, I'm asking you to consider the place that he holds. And if he is sacred and he is holy, how do we make his name holy? How do we keep his name holy? How do we reverence his name? And so I want to look at three things today, and you can put these in your notes. We are a note-taking church, so pull out your notes. I want it to stick with you, I want it to stay with you. When you go to here, listen, if you haven't figured this out yet, I'm gonna I'm just gonna uh uh reveal a secret for some of you. A not so secret secret. If you take your notes to your small group, especially if you have a small group that discusses um the sermon from Sunday morning, where's Dwayne at? Brother Dwayne, you got a small group that discusses a sermon on Sunday morning. You get to carry it with you and continue to unpack it and chew on it and take the scriptures back out and unpack them and study, study into them, and write more notes in it. This is not just a Sunday morning set of notes. You can take it and it can continue to grow along with your studies. So here we go. Three ways to keep his name holy. Are y'all ready? Half of you are ready. All right, are y'all ready? Are y'all ready? All right, here we go. Y'all are more ready. Let's get ready. Number one, respect his name. Uh, most of us would not say that we most of us would not acknowledge that we we disrespect God's name. But I gotta tell you

Respect God’s Name Without Contempt

SPEAKER_00 14:48

that um, if we're honest with ourselves, there's a difference between real respect and just this um perfunctory, okay, we we do the God thing, we do the church thing, we do the Sunday thing. Uh I want to put it into this context for a little bit. Like most of you guys know Angela, sitting right here on the front row, my lovely wife. And if you've ever spent some time with her, you know that she is a lovely, beautiful, amazing, respectful person. But what if it just became common knowledge, common practice that if I stubbed my toe or you stubbed your toe, it just became common for us to say, Angela, with gritted teeth and ugly and Angela. And I'm just gonna let y'all know something that you probably don't know about her, but she doesn't like, she thinks it's weird, especially if I call her Angela. She'll say, Oh, my full name, my full government name, Angela. What if we just leaned into that when we were upset and frustrated? Angela. Not only is that disrespectful to her, but it's it's out of place, right? It's out of character for who she has, it's disrespectful to her. Because that's taking something that's negative and connecting it to something that is pure. And when we take the creator of the universe, our God, our father, and we just make it like oh now. Let me draw a quick distinction. There's a difference between falling off of a ladder or getting into almost a near car accident and you calling out on God, oh God, Jesus! Like there, that's there's two different things. When you stub your toe and you're mad and you need an expletive, and you string his name together with a bunch of other things, and when you actually the Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That there's a di there's two that's two different things. So I'm not saying don't call out Jesus, I'm saying where's that coming from and who are we? And we've got to protect our relationship with him, and this does that. He has his name has power. This kind of also goes along with um if you get so comfortable with God that you just call him uh the big man upstairs, or if your prayer in your small group is yo Jesus. I wrote it down this way. Don't let your comfort with God become contempt of God. I'll give you a couple of examples of how our comfort can turn into contempt. Angela and I watch you you've heard me say this many times before, but Judge Judy, I love Judge Judy. There's that you're never gonna watch Judge Judy and be upset because something crazy happens on the screen. Son it, something in well, some inappropriate things, but not they don't cross the line right here. So here's Judy, and people come into the courtroom, and yeah, I one of my favorite things is whenever someone's standing there, she's asking them questions, and they say, Yeah, or mm-hmm, or yep, she says, That is not an answer, right? Why? Because that's she kind of holds that in contempt. She says, You're not gonna talk to me that way. Because you don't have to respect Judy, but you have to respect Judge. That kind of happens with God a little bit, that we get so comfortable, oh well, Jesus is just a friend of sinners, and I'm a sinner, so he's my friend, and we're just homeboys. But what about the fact that he's that he's sitting on a throne? What about the fact that he is God and we have to respect who he is? Another example that is uh become a common conversation. I've been I see this online, I see this in a lot of us have these conversations, and uh I always think it's interesting when people are picking out grandparent names. How many grandparents do we have in the room? Raise your hand. Yeah, grandkids. So every one of you probably has a different name that your grandkids call you. I don't know what's wrong with grandpa and grandma. Some of there are some very weird ones out there, and some of the weirdest ones that I've actually heard are Lolly and Pop. If you're going by Lolly and Pop, that's that's different. I don't know. That's just I heard another one that uh they were going by Nana and Pop, but it devolved into banana and popcorn. I have also heard, which I have already forewarned my kids, that when at some point they ever have kids, um this is not gonna be our names. And I I I will I don't know what I will do. I will sue you if you try to call us pee-pee and poo-poo. I I don't know who came up with that, but that's a perfect example of becoming so comfortable that it becomes contemptuous. Like this is disrespectful. You can't, and if I had to choose between those two, pee-pee and poo-poo. I'm sorry, babe. I just absolutely not. I think sometimes we refer to God and sometimes we interact with God, and the the way that we pray, the way that we interact, the way that we call and say his name is so contemptuous and disrespectful. We don't have bad intentions, we don't have good intentions either, and it becomes common, commonplace, and casual. So, as Jesus followers, God is showing us as his people. Don't miss me, don't misuse my name. So, how are we gonna do that? We're gonna respect his name. Number two, we're gonna reserve his name. It's like when you call ahead and get a reservation for a restaurant and they set aside a table for you, they set aside a time and a table and a place for you. I think that is that has to kind of be the uh the position of our hearts, the posture of our hearts and our lives that whenever we we have set aside. In fact, the word holy means set aside. There's a special place for it,

Reserve God’s Name And Stop Misuse

SPEAKER_00 21:47

it's reserved. And so I want to show you uh three quick things that I think are common misuses of God's name, like the way that we would typically, if you're misusing God's name, this is probably what it looks like. The first one is this that we play the God card. Don't look at anybody, but we have all heard this, we've all experienced this. Well, God told me, and so I have to do this. Here's the problem when people tell me God told me, I usually look at them very. Um I'm not sure. I'm a little I'm very cynical about this because the amount of times that God has spoken to me, and I could a hundred percent believe that God told me something is a small, um, it's a it's a small I feel led by God often. But when I know when God tells me something, it's a uh it's a a smaller here's the thing when you tell me that oh God told me to quit my job, so I just did it right then and there, and now I haven't paid my bills for three months. And now I know God's gonna show up because he told me to wait a second. How do you know that God? That's usually my first question. What makes you think that God told you this? Because sometimes it's like, well, God told me to buy the new iPhone and I'm in, I had to, I had to go into deep debt. Or God told me to get a new car, but I still haven't paid off my old car, and I'll never be able to pay this off now. But I know God told me to get this one. I had a guy tell me one time many years ago, he said uh he he was an aspiring minister in the church, and he he said, Listen, uh last night I had a dream, and I gotta tell you all about it because God told me to leave my wife, who was pregnant with their first child. God told me to leave her so I could focus on my ministry. Because I'm getting too uh I'm getting too occupied. My thoughts are too occupied with the with her, and my I was like, ho, whoa, ho breaks, just stop. Hold on. Let's talk about why you think God told you this. Sometimes we're so intent on a thing that we say God did it because we really want to do it. Don't use don't play the God card. Don't okay, here's another thing. If you've grown up in church, you've probably heard this too. Don't uh especially I'm gonna talk to all the young people in the room. If you're not married, don't go tell someone God told me we're getting married. Because that's probably the best way to not get married to that person. They're gonna look at you and say, uh in the old testament, if you said God told me something and then it didn't happen, like if God said this is gonna happen, it didn't happen, you know what happened? You know what they would do? You'd get stoned with rocks. Some of y'all just woke up right now and you're like, oh, I'm I'm you got me, Pastor. What are we talking about? I like this. You have my attention. No, they would kill you. Deserving of death because you're putting words in God's mouth. Jeremiah 23, 21 says it this way: God's speaking through the prophet, and he's saying, I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message. I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. It's still happening today. Well, God told me. If you hear some, if you hear God say, if you hear someone say, God told me, you need to be very careful. In fact, I would take a step back. Just let's talk about why you think God told you. Number two, the second way that we misuse God's name is we say things like, I swear to God. Or if you're from Gen Z and you're in the room, it's not I swear to God, it's on God. We're putting God's name on it so that it'll be more important, so that it will have more weight, and yet it's really from me. Jesus said it this way in Matthew chapter 5. Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago. He's bringing it back up saying, Do not break your oath, but fulfill the but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made. That's what you've heard. Don't break your oath, keep your word. He says, But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all. Don't make a promise, either by heaven, for it is God's throne, or by earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. You can dye it. All you need to say is simply yes or no. Anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Like let your yes be yes, your no be no. Let your word be your word. Be people of integrity. You don't need to put God's word on yours so that people will believe you. Okay. So don't swear to God. Number the third, the third way I think we misuse God's God's name is we we're using God's name to justify our own agenda. And this typically comes in a uh it this is super super common. This comes whenever I'm doing something that pretty much everyone knows God doesn't approve of. Maybe it's a lifestyle, maybe it's a choice I made. Maybe it's something like, I know I'm supposed to leave my wife because God gave me a dream last night. Well, that could have just been been the fact that last night at 10 o'clock you ate a whole pizza all by yourself, and so you had a weird dream, and now you think it's God because it was so heavy and it just stayed with me. And when we put God in it and we say, Well, I know God's okay with it. You know, He knows my heart. Wait a second, that's not why do you think that's okay? You don't you don't know God, you don't know his character. God would want me to be happy. That's that's the kind of things that we say whenever we justify our agenda with his with his name or his word. God would want me to be happy. Can I tell you this? God doesn't care so much if you're happy, he cares if you're holy. He wants you to be focused on holiness and not happiness. And when we start shifting those two, all of a sudden we start putting God into a position where he just supports what I want. I prayed and I have peace about it. So you know that you could be a murderer, a thief, and a liar, and have peace about all those things. You could just justify yourself right into feeling good about yourself. Well, God loves me just the way that I am. I was born this way, and so it must be the way God wants me to wait a second. We're all born in sin. And he loves us, of course he loves us, but he wants more for us. Here's one last uh concept that I need you to get, and it's so powerful because I think we all have experienced this. There's a uh I want to read you just a little uh excerpt from uh uh the Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible where it describes something in this third commandment. In ancient Near Eastern religions, magic was commonplace. Magic involved the use of a God's name, which was believed to control God's power. Are y'all getting this? If I could just uh if I could express the name of this God in just the right way and in and uh call upon his power, and that is to harness it for human purposes. Thus, the kind of activity which is prohibited by the third commandment is magic, namely attempting to control God's power through his name for a personal and worthless purpose. God must not be manipulated or controlled. You're not gonna say God's name just right. Jehovah God, we call upon you today to answer this. Save my marriage, save my job, help me pay my bills, or we will enunciate just the right biblical things and think that if I just say it right and if I could just express it, just that's not that's not prayer. I can call upon the name of the Lord and I can speak to him commonly. I don't have to say things in just the right King James Version way. God doesn't care if I'm speaking in key, if I if I use the King James Version, He cares that I'm approaching Him the way He wants to be approached. It's not a magic word that you need to say if you end a prayer without in Jesus' name, amen, that doesn't, you know, disqualify the whole prayer. I think this kind of also works with putting a cross on your business or putting a fish sign on the back of your car. Well, you know, I'm a Christian. There's the proof right there. Or if we if we have on our business card and we're trying to make contacts and business people in the room, if you think that putting a little cross on there will make people oh, they'll come to my business because I'm a Christian. Maybe this will make me a little bit more money. I think that is invoking something that's not meant to be invoked. So we're gonna respect his name. We're gonna reserve his name. And finally, number three, and we'll close with this one. We're going to represent his name. I think there's nothing more, there's no better way of showing respect and making God's name holy than when we represent it well. There's no way that there's no worse way to keep his name holy than when we misrepresent his name. I have the uh about 26 years ago, Angela and I were married,

Represent God Well As Ambassadors

SPEAKER_00 31:27

and she had the great pleasure of taking on my last name. She received my last name, right? And now my kids, they we you became a mooney. I'm sure it was a great honor for you. When we go to um, my grand, my grandfather passed away a few years ago, but even still, when we go to his town, we go to his hometown, and I'll be there uh next week, it's always amazing to me that even though he's been gone for several years, all growing up, when I would uh we would go to his town, just going to the corner store. I could pull in without my parents, without anything. If I would pay at the the register with my card and they would see my name, they would see my last name, Mooney, they would say, Oh, you must be Mr. Mooney's grandson. And then they would want to talk and they would want to uh engage and share stories and tell me about my grandpa. And we'd just go to a restaurant and people would literally uh pass us and figure out that our somebody would I it wasn't because of me, but I was carrying a name that I didn't even know the value in that town. And some of us walk around with the name of God, or we have a tattoo with a scripture on our arm, or we have a uh a necklace with a cross or a bumper sticker on our car, and we carry the name of Jesus, and yet we misrepresent the name so poorly, so badly. We scream at people in traffic, or we flip people off, and we cut people off, and yet as soon as we get in front of them, what do they see on the back of the car? Jesus loves you. And even worse, when we engage and interact with people in our day-to-day life and we are saying that we're a Christian, but we're not representing. In fact, I think a lot of Christians they don't like to let their light shine and they don't like to broadcast that they're a Christian because I'm not good enough, Pastor Shino. I can't live up to that. Here's the thing there's a big difference between trying to live up to his name and keeping it holy and being willing to be honest with people and saying, you know what, I make mistakes and God loves me and I'm doing the best that I can, and not hiding who I am, and not being one thing in this room and a different thing in this room. I can be flawed and fail in the same room that I can stand up and say that Jesus is King and my life belongs to him, and I mess up and I get back up, and He covers me with His righteousness, and my life's not good because of me, it's good because of Him. There's a big difference between that. And I think we have to be confident and bold in our assertion that we are His people, but not so bold that we hold Him in contempt, that He holds us in contempt. Jesus said in Luke 6 46, Why do you call me Lord, Lord and do not do what I say? That is so scary. We have to try, we have to make an effort because I think there are a lot of church people who have been misrepresenting, and you look at some big big companies who have had had their uh their brand misrepresented very, very badly. Companies like Subway. And if I say the their spokesperson, Jared, you think, oh, wait a second, I don't want that sandwich. Or even uh health brands like Livestrong, you think of Lance Lance Armstrong, then you think this company is not known for what they should be known for. I think um we watched Walmart and Target and Food Network distance themselves from Paula Dean because of racial issues. There are lots of people who stand up and say, I'm doing what I ought to be doing, and yet we're misrepresenting the name of Jesus. And there are lots of people who think God is, and they think Jesus is about something that he's not about because we have broadcast and said this is what Jesus is about. We have to be very careful with what our lives are representing. Last verse, 2 Corinthians 5, 20. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors. As though God were making his appeal through us. God is appealing to all of mankind, that he loves them, he cares about them, he sent his son to die for them. And what do we make church about? What do we make? We make God we make God about church. God's not about church, we are the church. God loves us, God loves every other person, and he's making his appeal with ambassadors. He says, We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. That should be the message that we carry. Not you should act this way or dress this way or go to this thing or be a part of this club or wear this uh brand on you. No, be reconciled to God. I don't need you to connect with me. I don't need you to go to a small group so that you could be a part of that small group or a part of relate. I need you to be reconciled to God, and I need you to be someone who points other people to Jesus. Despite our flaws, he loves us. I want to close with just a simple thought, and it's this the best way that we can keep his name holy is we can represent him well and make the greatest effort to represent him and honor him. There's a well-known story about Alexander the Great, who in ancient times had conquered all of the known world. And Alexander the Great, as this great general, the story goes that one night he was walking through the camp, and that night he comes upon a soldier who is asleep on duty. That's a terrible, terrible thing. And yet, as he sees this young soldier, the story goes that he kicks him. He falls on the ground, and the soldier gets up and looks up and realizes that Alexander the Great, conqueror, is standing over me. He's trembling in fear. And Alexander the Great asks him, Soldier, what is your name? And he responds with a shaking, nervous Alexander. And again, he asks him a second time, What is your name? And he says, My name is Alexander. And famously he responds with this. He says, Alexander the Great says this, young man, change your name or change your conduct. Like you can't carry that name, you can't carry my name and act like that. I think this message today should challenge all of us a little bit like that, to say, there's an expectation of God, not to, hey, you better straighten up, but his name deserves so much more. His name deserves the kind of respect that we can give him, the kind of respect that he deserves. We can reserve his name to be holy, to be special, and certainly we can represent his name. Before we pray, I want to just present a uh a question to you today. I know that none of us, the scripture says that he will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Like I know that there's none of us who are guiltless. There's none of us who can live up to. We're all we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Yet

Commitment Prayer And Closing Invitation

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there is a name above all names that covers us and that gives us grace, that affords every one of us to be able to boldly approach our Father, knowing that He loves us and cares for us, but it's all been bought and paid for. Every bit of the grace and mercy and salvation that we have is because of His name. Because of what He's done and who He is. So today, before you leave today, I would like, let's let's make a commitment in our hearts. Let's let this be that moment where the hammer hits the anvil and we are shaped and molded and sharpened, and that we we yield to the fire and the pressure of his word and his will. Okay, God, I'm not gonna miss your, I'm not gonna misuse your name. I'm gonna honor you and respect you and leave that space in my life. And I'm gonna represent you as well as I can. So would you make that commitment with me in prayer? And maybe you're in the room and you've never committed your life to Jesus ever. Maybe you've never submitted your life to that name. The Bible says that there is one name. One day every knee shall bow. You don't have to wait till the end of time, you don't have to wait till judgment day to bow. What we can do right now is we can bow our hearts and yield our lives and surrender and say, God, today, my life belongs to you. And I'll surrender my name, my life, I'll surrender everything to you. So would you just bow your head right where you are, close your eyes? And if you're watching online, I would encourage you and invite everyone to would you say this prayer with me and let's commit our lives to yield to him, to surrender to him, to his holiness, to his authority, to his power, so we can protect our relationship with him and other people. Would you say these words out loud? Dear Heavenly Father, today I surrender my life to you. I bow my life to yours. I yield my name to yours. Because you are holy. I want to respect your name. I want to reserve your name. I want to represent your name. So take my life, forgive me of my sin, and make me holy as you are holy. From this day forward, I choose to follow you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's put our hands together. Would you all stand on your feet? I'm excited about this series, continue to be, and I can't wait until first Wednesday coming this Wednesday night. And we will see you next week. God bless you all. Have an awesome week.