There Is Something About That Name Series

AM Sermon preached at Central Christian Church

#4 in God’s Top Ten Sermon Series (10 Commandments/3rd Commandment)

“There IS Something About That Name…”

[SERIES TITLE SLIDE---WILL AUTO ADVANCE---

FIRST TO SERMON TITLE---THEN TO BLANK SLIDE]

The game show is Jeopardy. The contestant says “Alex, I’ll take Occupational Dialogue for $100.” Alex, the game show host then explains to the contestant, “See if you can guess the occupation of this first person from this job-related quote.” Think you can handle it? How about we give it a try?

Here’s your first job-related quote….

“Would you like fries with that?”

Fast-food restaurant worker/someone who works at a drive-through

“After your miter the boards, you’ll nail them together with a galvanized #10.”

Carpenter or construction worker.

“With the recent fluctuations in commodities I wouldn’t advise that move.”

Stock broker/investment counselor.

“Man, I can’t wait for Spring Break!” Junior High or High School Teacher

“Considering the frequency of infections, a tonsillectomy is in order.” Doctor

Just one more…

“He’s broke free! Touchdown! And the Bears win the Super Bowl!”

I hope that’s what I hear from next week’s sports caster.

Seriously now---we can tell a lot about a person by the things we hear them say. And please don’t take offense in what I’m about to say but instead understand I say it with a burden on my heart---The fact is when we hear someone in anger say “Jesus Christ” or when we hear someone say in a moment of surprise or shock “Oh, my God” or when we hear someone tack the word “damn” onto God’s name with regularity so it’s G-D this and G-D that---it really does tell us a lot about that person, doesn’t it? It’s lets us in on the fact that they do not really know, love and respect God.

Years ago audiences were shocked when Rhett Butler in the Movie Gone With The Wind used profanity to let his former lover know he didn’t care what happened to her. And frankly folks, we’ve come a long, long ways since then. We can hardly read a novel, watch a movie or television show or even walk through a mall without hearing someone blurting out some profanity spattered with God’s name.

Mike Breaux suggests that people who regularly swear and drag God’s name into their gutter talk fall into one of three categories. [SLIDE] He says they’re either uninformed, uncontrolled or unsaved. Mike says uninformed people use God’s name in profanity. He says some people just don’t know that it’s wrong. Every parent can relate to this idea because we’ve been through one of those moments when our little girl or little boy proudly threw the new word they learned on the playground into one of their comments. And for some unknown reason they always seem to do it when company’s present. I remember my brother telling me how he and a handful of students had been asked to join one of Lincoln Christian College’s professors for dinner. At one point during the meal this professor’s young son chimed in with something like “Pass me the blanking butter, please” After his Dad picked his jaw up from the floor, he asked his son “WHAT did you say?” The boy proudly repeated himself. “I said, ‘Pass me the blanking butter.’” The prof said, “That’s what I thought you said. “Come with me. We’re going to have a little talk.” After that talk that young boy knew that that word he’d used was not acceptable to his father.

The fact is, the use of God’s name in profanity is so common these days---that there probably are a lot of people who really have no idea as to how wrong it is. They just hear it in swearing so much that they figure it’s okay to throw some of the most popular God-condemning phrases into their everyday conversations. But they are so-o-o wrong as we’ll soon see when we look closely at the third commandment.

Besides the uninformed, Mike says another category of people who mix God’s name in with profanity is the uncontrolled. A lot of people will admit they know its wrong to swear using God’s name but then they’ll go on to say something like---but sometimes I just can’t help myself. Something will happen that will tick me off and I just blurt it out. I know I shouldn’t and I feel bad when I do it. It’s just something that happens and I can’t seem to get a handle on it. People who fall into this category can perhaps take a little comfort from the fact that Bible agrees that it’s hard to control what comes out of our mouth. James 3--- And to those people who struggle with occasionally trash talk with God’s name I would ask are you working at doing it less and less? Are really trying to close the damper on the profanities that come from your mouth? If you’re not you should be. Because when you make those occasional slips of the tongue they let you know you’ve got some real heart issues deep down inside of you. Jesus said “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45 If you’re one of those people who knows its wrong to use God’s name in profanity, but you find yourself doing it anyway you need to go to God in prayer and not only ask Him for forgiveness, but also ask Him to change your heart, to transform it, to do a heart surgery removing whatever it is in there that would spill itself out into the world in vulgar speech.