Watch Your Mouth Series

Taking up the name Christian is a big deal because it means “little Christ.” When we are called Christian it means that we are called by Christ’s name to follow Him and we now represent Him to a watching world. We are the keepers of God’s reputation in this community, in this county, in this country, and on the continents.

Let’s go back to the idea of God’s name being trademarked property. We could say that He has licensed the use of His name to anyone who will use it reverently. One author puts it like this: “God retains legal control over His name and threatens serious penalties against the unauthorized misuse of this extremely valuable property.” One of the most chilling verses in this regard is found in Romans 2:24: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” May that not ever be said of you or me.

And so let’s watch our lives so that we don’t take God’s name in vain. We also need to watch our lips.

Watching our Lips

Profanity can be understood as taking lightly that which ought to be taken seriously. To profane is to “treat something sacred with neglect or disrespect.” A pastor friend paraphrases the third commandment this way: “You shall not use the name of the Lord without meaning something by it.”

I wrote down some ways that our lips can offend the Lord.

1. Outright Blasphemy. Merriam-Webster offers this definition: “the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.” Isaiah 52:5: “And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed.”

2. Common Cursing. When we tell someone to go to hell, we’re sending them to a place that they’ll never get out of. When we say, “God you” we’re asking God to sentence someone to eternity in hell. Why would we ever want to call down divine damnation on anyone? Isn’t it our job to share the good news of Jesus Christ so that they won’t be damned?

3. Memorized Table Prayers. I can still quote the prayer we said growing up with the same speed as I spouted it off over 40 years ago: “Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord Amen.” Beth and I have taught our girls a prayer that we often use but this week I’ve avoided it because I realize that many times I’m just racing through it to get to the brats. If you do use a memorized prayer, try slowing it down.

4. Prayer Pauses. Sometimes we insert the name of God into our prayers like we use the word “um” in our sentences. God’s name is not to be filler in our prayers. In Matthew 6:7 Jesus said to “not keep on babbling like pagans…”

5. Careless Conversation. Some of us aren’t technically swearing or cussing but we don’t think anything of adding God’s name to our conversations. I ran into someone this week who was telling me about his 20-year-old Converse All-Stars. He used about three different names for God to describe his shoes.