Ten Words to Live By: Revere His Name
Exodus 20:7
Patter Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
8-10-2025
Mavine
Several years ago, Maxine and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary with a dinner cruise on lake Michigan. It was a beautiful night with wonderful dinner, a jazz quartet, and dancing, which we are not very good at.
The host of the cruise came to the stage between songs and said that there was a couple on board celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. Then he said, “Let’s all congratulate Jeff and Mavine Williams!”
I finally got his attention and he corrected himself. But it was too late. Mavine wasn’t happy!
Don’t you hate it when someone gets your name wrong? Mavine does!
We hate it because our name is important to us. It represents us and tells people something about us. When people fumble our names it makes us feel like we aren’t very important to them.
Review ?
God has a top ten list. We know them as the “The Ten Commandments” although that name is never used in the Bible.
In Hebrew, this top ten list is known as the “Ten Words,” or Decalogue, and we find them in Exodus 20.
Pastor John Miller reminds us of three reasons the ten words were given:
* God is holy
* Man is sinful and we need a Savior
* Shows us how to live
They are less rules about what to do and tell us more about who God is to us:
1. One God - God is God.
2. No idols - God is Creator.
3. Revere His Name - God is holy
4. Remember to Rest - God is Rest
5. Honor Parents - God is Father
6. No murder - God is Life
7. No adultery - God is Faithful
8. No stealing - God is a Provider
9. No lying - God is Truth
10. No coveting - God is Sufficient
The first commandment tells us who to worship - “do not have any other gods before you.” We are to worship God exclusively and passionately. The second commandment tells us how God desires to be worshipped.
The first commandment covers idolatry generally. The second hones in on the specific relationship between visible things and the invisible God.
The third commandment calls us to revere His name.
“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)
The Third Word
It’s as if God has trademarked His Name. One author puts it this way:
“God retains legal control over His name and threatens serious penalties against the unauthorized misuse of this extremely valuable property.”
To “take” (NASA) means to “lift up, to carry, to bear or raise.” As Christians, literally “little Christs,” we carry God’s Name into a lost and dying world.
“In vain” means “empty, useless, nothingness, wasted, with a worthless purpose.” When we take the Lord’s Name in vain we are saying, “Your Name means nothing to me.”
In this commandment, God was directing us not to use His Name flippantly, whether in word, thought, or action.
The Name
A new student came to our ministry many years ago named Corey. Or least that’s what I thought his name was. After calling him Corey for about six months, another student finally told that his name wasn’t Corey. It was Casey. I said that was impossible because he had never corrected me.
When I asked him what his name was he sheepishly said, “Casey.” He was shy and didn’t want to embarrass me by correcting me about his name. From that time on, I called him Fred! I even called him Fred when I performed his wedding!
We are not to treat God’s name as if it means nothing. But what is God’s Name? Isn’t it just God?
In the Bible, a name wasn’t just a collection of letters. A name describes the character, personality, and reputation of a person.
In the Scriptures, people don’t have names, they are their names.
Jacob means “deceiver” and he lived up to his name. Jesus literally spoke courage into Simon and renamed him “Peter,” which means, “Rock.” (Not that Rock)
My name means “son of peace” and I try to remember that when conflict arises in my life.
Before we had kids, I told Maxine that I wanted to name a daughter Msyteri Lorilei. She said no because those were stripper names!
I met a woman in her 20s and I asked her if her parents were big Rod Stewart fans. She said, “Of course!” Her name was Maggie Mae.”
I know a student named Rio and I asked her if her parents were Duran Duran fans. Yes, they named her after the song.
There was a basketball player for the Fighting Illini a few years ago named Maverick Morgan. Yes, his parents named him after Tom Cruise’s character in the movie “Top Gun.”
At the psychiatric hospital, I worked on the children’s unit and we had a kid who was admitted multiple times. His name was Storm and he lived up to his name.
At the junior high, I worked with a student named Tovah, which in Hebrew means “good.” She was the personification of her name.
In Scripture, there are over 300 names for God. The Name of God is a composite of all His attributes – His title, His person, His power, His authority, and His very reputation. God is faithful, good, holy, immutable, infinite, just, patient, loving, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotence, righteous, self-existent, and sovereign.
I could go on, but it would take all day!
When Moses encountered God in the burning bush, he asked what God’s Name is? God replied, “I Am who I Am.” This is called the “tetragrammaton” because in Hebrew it only has four consonants YHWH. In our Bibles, it is translated “LORD” (in all caps) and is used over 6,000 times in the Bible. God is the eternal God of the universe.
Ancient scribes so feared misusing God’s name that when they came to “Yahweh” they would take a bath and use a new pen before writing the word, leaving out the vowels. This word then became Jehovah and then finally LORD. Only the high priest could utter the name and only on one day of the year, the Day of Atonement.
Orthodox Jews today don’t write out the name God. In Israel today, they write it this way “G D.”
By the way, are you beginning to understand how absolutely radical it was for the disciples to call God Abba?
John Calvin wrote:
“That’s God’s Name should be hallowed is to say that God should have His own honor of which He is so worthy, so that man should never speak of Him without the greatest of veneration.”
God’s Name, all of who He is, should be honored, esteemed, reverenced, valued and treasured above all names.
So how does this happen? How can we break the third commandment? Is it just about curse words or is it something deeper?
Breaking the Commandment
Let’s look to the sister verse found in Leviticus to see if it clarifies the commandment:
“‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:12)
Oaths
I worked with students for almost twenty years. When they were in trouble, they would often become very animated and declare, “I swear to God I’m telling the truth” or "as God is my witness.”
Many times, that’s how I knew they were lying. Hey didn’t feel confident in convincing me and/or their parents so they pulled the “swear to God” card.
I would stop them immediately and explain what the third commandment is and then read them Jesus’s words about this:
“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)
Let your yes but yes and your no be no. In other words, be a person of such integrity that you don’t have to swear on anything to the truthfulness of your words.
Another way we break the commandment is to promise something and then to not carry it through:
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.” (Ecc 5:2-5)
If you make a promise, keep it. Let’s be known as people who keep their word.
When I do a wedding, I remind people that the vows are made to God and then the two make a promise to each other to keep those vows.
I remember talking to a guy who was in the process of leaving his wife for another woman. I reminded him of his vows and he said, “Well I meant that at the time. But I don’t feel that way now.” I said, “Our feelings can’t pull the train of our hearts. Feelings come and come. You made a vow to God and a promise to her. I’m challenging you to keep your word.” At this I started crying and he just shrugged.
If you sign a contract, honor it. If you give your boss two week’s notice, do your best for those two weeks and then leave well.
It really does come down to integrity.
Solomon wrote to his sons:
“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Prov 10:9)
Steve Carter in his book, “Taking God’s Name in Vain,” writes:
“In truth, there is probably no country in the western world where people use God’s name quite as much or quite as publicly, or for quite as many purposes, as we Americans do…Few candidates for office are able to end their speeches without asking God to bless their audience, or the nation, or the great work we are undertaking, but everybody is sure that the other side is insincere…Athletes thank God, often on tv, because, like politicians, they like to think God is on their side. Churches erect huge billboards and take out ads in the paper…Everybody wants to change America , and everybody who wants not to, understands the nation’s love affair with God’s name, which is why everybody involves it.”
?2. Misusing the Name
Our next door neighbors in Pontiac for years were an older couple that loved our boys.
One Sunday afternoon, I was laying in the pool reading and he came out and asked if I preached that morning. When I said yes, he smiled and said, “I bet you are a G/D good preacher!”
He didn’t even hear himself and how blasphemous his words were.
When I would play basketball at the rec center and someone would say that word or use the name of Jesus as a curse word, often times they would turn and say, “Sorry pastor.” I would smile and say, “It’s not me you owe an apology to.”
Using words like G/D, Jesus Christ, Good Lord or OMG in a frivolous, irreverent way is breaking this commandment. For most people, like my neighbor it is more of a verbal habit than intentional blasphemy.
Whenever a person would say Jesus around me I would look and say, “Where? Did you see Him? Is He back? Are you ready?”
Why when we hit our thumbs with a hammer do we not yell “Buddha!” Or “Confucius?”
At the Academy Awards ceremony in 2022, Chris Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith. Her husband Will charged on stage, slapped Chris Rock and said, “Keep my wife’s name out of your mouth!”
Sometimes I want to do they same, in Jesus’s love of course, when I hear people misusing my Savior’s name.
Being informal in the way we talk about God, “The big guy in the sky” or a shirt I once saw, “Jesus is my homeboy,” breaks the third commandment.
The Bible speaks about the power of our words:
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29)
3. Hypocrisy
The story is told that a young man serving in Alexander the Great’s army became afraid in battle and ran away. He was caught and brought before Alexander.
Alexander the Great asked the young man, who was trembling in fear, what his name was. The young man answered, barely above a whisper, “My name is Alexander.”
At this, the great King stood out and roared, “Either change your behavior or change your name!”
We wear the name of Jesus in this culture. And we we do not practice what we preach, there are consequences.
Paul told the Romans that because of their unholy living that ?
“God’s Name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24)
This is one of the reasons I fought God for so long. I had seen too many people who claim to be Christians living like the devil that I just couldn’t believe Christianity to be true.
I had a pastor try to share the Gospel with me only to be arrested later that month for trying to steal a saw from Home Depot.
My brother spoke wise words to me, “Don’t look at the Christians, they are human, they will let you down. Look past the Christians to Christ, He will never let you down.”
We are not going to be perfect until we reach heaven, but let’s make it a life ambition that I don’t have to lie at your funeral.
4. Playing the “God told me” card
At the church in Florida, there were multiple people who began their sentences with “God told me” all the time. I told Mavine that I think God spoke to them in their Alphabets cereal every morning.
Two days before our wedding, an ex-girlfriend called and asked me to meet her at the park. We sat on a picnic table as she began the conversation with “God told me that you are supposed to marry me not Maxine.”
I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to say. I said a quick prayer and finally asked, “If that was true, don’t you think He would have told me also?” At that, she began to cry. That was not fun.
There is nothing wrong with saying, “I feel God is leading me in this or that direction.” But when you say, “God told me…”. You are claiming to speak for God.
In the case of that young lady, she was guilty of breaking the third commandment because she invoked God’s name in order to get what she wanted.
God is very serious about those who speak lies in his name.
Jeremiah quotes God as saying:
“Then the Lord said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore this is what the Lord says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them…” (Jeremiah 14:14-15)
A few months ago, Kenneth Copeland, who is now close to being a billionaire, told his church that
“I have made and entered [into a] covenant with God and on December 6, 2056, I'll see you all later. I'm out of here, 120 years old.”
I’m here to tell you that this is a false prophecy and it will be proved sooner than later.
Not hold guiltless
The word “guiltless” means, “to be made clean” or “to lay bare.” God wants us to know how serious He is about His name.
Ray Pritchard writes,
“God is not a toy you can play with casually and then put back on the shelf. It’s like those warning signs that say, ‘Danger! High Voltage!’ If you ignore the sign, you will soon be electrocuted. The Third Commandment is saying, ‘Danger! God is a live wire! Do not touch or trifle with Him.’”
In the Old Testament, the penalty for misusing the Lord’s name in vain was death by stoning.
“Then the Lord said to Moses: “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. Say to the Israelites: ‘Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.” (Leviticus 24:13-16)
Do you want some good news? The word “take” means “to habitual misuse the name.” This is good news because we all break this commandment from time to time. But, because of the Gospel, we can repent and be forgiven!
Lift Him Up
At the center of Jesus’ life and ministry was a passion for His Father’s Name being hallowed. (We see that especially in John 12 and 17, “I brought you glory here on earth by finishing the work you sent me to do”) As a good Jewish boy, He would have been raised knowing the Ten Commandments.
What Moses gives us as a “you shall not take the Lord’s Name in vain,” Jesus flips and puts it in the positive – “you shall pray that God’s Name would be hallowed.”
David Jeremiah wrote a wonderful book on prayer and he gives us three ways we can practically hallow God’s name.
* Remember who He is - As we come into His presence with worship, gratefulness and praise, we hallow His name. When we focus on His glory instead of our story, we hallow His name. When we preach the word, sing to him, pray, give, and baptize, we hallow His name.
* Relinquish control of your life – when we lift up His name and let Him be the leader of our lives, we hallow His Name.
When William Booth, the founder of the Salvation army, was dying, there was some paperwork the lawyers needed his signature on. They gently approach Mrs. Booth and asked if she could get him to sign the papers. He was going in and out of consciousness but she managed to get him to sign the papers. After he died, they discovered that he hadn’t signed his name on any of the papers. He signed everyone “Jesus.”
* Recognize His Presence in our lives – God is not some far off, distant deity who wound the earth like a top and then went on vacation. God is close; He is involved, most of the time behind the scenes.
John Piper has said that at any given time “God is up to 10,000
things in our lives and we may be aware of only three.”
The story is told of a man who was dying and asked the pastor to visit him. He admitted to the pastor that prayer had always been hard for him but he wanted to pray. The pastor pulled up a chair beside the bed and told the man, just talk to the chair as if Jesus is sitting there, because He is.
A couple of days later, the pastor got the call that he had died. The nurse calling said it was the strangest thing. When they found him, he had his head resting in a chair that was beside his bed.
Live it Out
Let’s get really practical. How do we actually “hallow” God’s Name in our lives?
A.W. Tozer, writing 60 years ago:
“The greatest loss today is the loss of reverence for God Himself.”
Don’t misuse His Name.
As Christians, let’s make it a priority to not profane God’s Name. This can mean cursing or using God’s Name in a flippant manner. This even means OMG. . When we are in conflict and don’t handle it Biblically, we profane God’s name. When we gossip, we profane God’s name.
By the way, I read a quote from Scott Sauls on gossip:
“Gossip is just another form of pornography in which you undress someone and turn them into a thing in order to get a cheap thrill.”
The world is listening to us. They are watching us.
I read a story in Maryland about a drunk driver that was pulled over and arrested. He fought the officer and cursed them out, including asking God to damn the officers to hell.
The judge’s hands were tied by the sentencing structure and had to give him a relatively light sentence. But then he found a statute that hadn’t been used in years but had not been repealed.
He charged him an extra $100 and an additional 30 days in jail for the crime of public blasphemy.
The local paper went crazy citing separation of church and state and that no one cares about blasphemy anymore.
That truck driver better be glad that he didn’t during the time of Moses because he would have been stoned to death!
Ezekiel told the Israelites to take this seriously:
“Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.” (Ezekiel 36:22-23)
When I was subbing one day, one of the students used Jesus name as a curse word. I stopped the class and told him that the name of Jesus was very special to me and I would appreciate it if he would not use that name in that way.
Paul told the believer at Colosse,
“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Col 4:5-6)
We are to make people hungry not angry.
It is very difficult to reconcile a heart that says that they love God but lips that blaspheme God.
Let’s remember this especially when we are around our children and grandchildren. Let’s teach them by word and example how precious the name of God is to us.
2. Worship Him with all your heart
“I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.” (Psalm 7:17)
We need to focus on God not ourselves – may Your Name be more and more hallowed in this world, may Your Kingdom come and will be done as it already is being done in heaven.
We can say with the Psalmist:
“Not to us O Lord, not to us but to Your Name be the glory.” (Psalm 115:1)
This has a way of reorienting us from our preoccupation with our own belly buttons.
As we gather together on Sunday mornings, we have the opportunity to lift up the Name. As you get alone with God and pray and sing to Him, you are hallowing His Name.
King David wrote these encouraging words:
“Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9:10)
3. Live a life that displays the wonders of our King.
It’s been said that of all the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, this one will expose our hypocrisy faster than all the others combined.
As we pray, “Abba, may the world see the greatness of Your
Name through my life” we are reminded of all the ways we fall short.
We carry His name with us wherever we go. We are a walking billboard for the glory of God.
I’ve always tried to remind my boys that “a good name is more desirable than gold” (Prov 22:1) and that their name “Williams” means something. They represent us. Williams are loyal, we work hard, we are honest, we are faithful, and we don’t leave when the going gets tough. I’ve said to them, “Our name is important, carry it well.”
When we live in such a way that God’s Name is hallowed through our lives, people will say, “I know what family they come from. They are one of Abba’s kids.”
Martin Luther wrote that God’s name is hallowed in our lives when both our doctrine (orthodoxy) and our lives (orthopraxy) are truly Christian.
We are not perfect but let’s make a commitment to make much of Jesus in our daily lives.
Steven Curtis Chapman has a song that we love called “Much of You.” The second verse and chorus go like this:
And how can I kneel here / And think of the cross
The thorns and the whip and the nails and the spear
The infinite cost
To purchase my pardon / And bear all my shame
To think I have anything worth boasting in
Except for Your name
'Cause I am a sinner / And You are the Savior and..
I want to make much of You, Jesus
I want to make much of Your love
I want to live today to give You the praise
That You alone are so worthy of
I want to make much of Your mercy
I want to make much of Your cross
I give You my life / Take it and let it be used
To make much of You
The Name Above Every Name
Out of all the petitions, this is the only one we will still pray in heaven. We won’t have to pray for His kingdom to come (it will be consummated) or His will to be done (because it will be done joyfully), or for our daily bread (because we will all eat our fill of deviled/angel eggs and oatmeal butterscotch cookies, we will not pray for forgiveness (because there will be no sin!) or pray against temptation (because that’s done as well).
But we will join with the angels singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy” and spend eternity praising His Name.
Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Rev 4:9-11)
Will you be there with me?
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7)
Will you trust Him? He is trustworthy!
“The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” (Proverbs 18:10)
What name?
When the angel announced to Mary that she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit, He told her to name the baby “Joshua” in Hebrew, Jesus in Greek. Jesus means God is salvation!
Cry out to Him and be saved!
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
Paul makes it clear that every knee will bow to this Name:
“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:6-11)
You will either bow in unimaginably joy and love or indescribably horror and regret.
Today, have you bowed the knee to the Name of Jesus? And if so, will you commit to lifting His name high in a lost and dying world?
Ending Songs
O Praise the Name
What a Beautiful Name
There’s Something About that Name
