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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS :TO CONDEMN HYPOCRISY AND PROMOTE TRUE WORSHIPEXODUS 20:7INTRODUCTION Each week as we consider one of the Ten Commandments I am beginning by giving one of the principles of interpretation that we are using to understand what God is commanding. This morning I want us to consider principle #4: All the commandments demand both external obedience and internal obedience. Each commandment requires and prohibits both actions and attitudes, both behavior and emotion. We can see this is clearly the case in two ways. First, the 1 st and the 10 th commandment are primarily concerning internal affections and emotions, while the other eight primarily describe actions. The verb “have” in the first commandment, as we saw, is replaced by all kinds of emotive words in the rest of the law: love, be devoted to, fear, etc. The verb “covet” in the last commandment is merely the word for desire. Desire is clearly an internal affection or disposition of the heart. A second reason we know that the commands concern both our internal and external life is seen in Jesus’ commentary on the commandments in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. In this passage he condemns those who teach that the commandments concern only external behavior. He goes on to say that anger at another human being is murder and that merely desiring to have sex with someone to whom you are not married is adultery. This means that when we read the commandments that appear to only concern external behavior, as in, “You shall not murder” we must understand that God is prohibiting the emotion of anger and commending the emotion of love through this apparently external command. You should not rest easy if you have not physically murdered anyone, nor should you be at peace if you feel love for another but don't act in a loving way. God commands both external and internal conformity to his law. The third commandment has to do with how we treat the name of God. To get at what this means I want to consider how we think about the ways in which people use our names. Imagine with me a conversation between a brother and a sister who are 12 and 10 years old, respectively. The older brother comes to his younger sister on a hot summer day and says, “Hey Sue, I’m really hot. Let’s ride our bikes over to the city pool and go swimming.” Sue replies, “You know we’re not supposed to go anywhere when mom is gone. She said she’d be right back from the grocery store.” Her brother replies, “I already asked mom if we could go and she said yes. It’s OK with her that we ride our bikes over there. Get your stuff and let’s get going.” The two of them ride their bikes over to the swimming pool. There is one little problem, which perhaps you have guessed. The older brother never asked his mom if they could go swimming. She did not authorize them to go to the pool. How will she react when she discovers how he has misused her name? He will be in big trouble. We don’t like it when people use our name, our reputation, our authority to endorse things that we do not endorse. He used her name, her authority in vain, without authorization, falsely, insincerely. If he had asked his mother for permission to go swimming and she had granted that authority then he would have used her name with respect and sincerely and according to her will. God’s name is his reputation, his authority, indeed, his very being. Whenever God’s name is attached to something or someone that to which it is attached must be in accord with who God is. Goran Larsson in his in commentary on Exodus, compares God’s name to a trademark. He says we are “to treat God’s name as a trademarked property… God has graciously licensed the use of his name to anyone who will use it according to his written instructions… (However) God retains legal control over his name and threatens serious penalties against the unauthorized misuse of his supremely valuable property. All trademark violations will be prosecuted to the full limits of the law. The prosecutor, judge, jury and enforcer is God.” Most people when they think of this commandment think of swearing, of using the name of God or of Jesus Christ as exclamation points or to call down curses on others. Speaking God’s name as an exclamation point or to express our frustration or using it to proclaim his judgment upon others because we are mad at them is a violation of this commandment. Whenever you curse someone in God’s name or use the name of Jesus to express your surprise or anger you are using God’s name in vain. However, it is not what the commandment is primarily about. Think with me about the relationship between the first three commandments. The first commandment tells us who we are to worship. We are required to reject every false god and embrace only the true God. We are required to have right thoughts of God, and right affections for God alone. The second commandment tells us how we are to worship and love the true God. It is a command to worship the true God in the right way. We saw last week that means we are to worship God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit using the means he has appointed for us: singing praise, prayer, reading Scripture, listening to the word preached, baptism, communion, etc and rejecting ways he has forbidden us to worship him. In this commandment we are warned that it is possible to worship the true God in the right way but vainly, insincerely, falsely. Or to put it in the positive, we are to worship God from a true and sincere heart. We must not merely have true doctrine and belong to and participate in an orthodox church but we must have a true faith in Jesus Christ, with true love for God that produces true obedience to his will. We must not merely call Jesus Lord, but we must do the will of our Father in heaven. Therefore, while non-Christians break this commandment all the time by their cursing and swearing and promise breaking, yet this commandment is mainly addressed to the church, to all who claim to belong to Jesus Christ. We are the ones who have taken the name of God upon ourselves and therefore, we are the ones who must consider if we are taking that name in vain in our life, in our worship and in our language. MAIN POINT If you claim God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your Savior you must…I. Refuse to misrepresent him The first thing this means is that I do not break my promises. Every promise I make as a Christian I am calling upon God as my witness according to Jesus in Matthew 5:33-35. The religious leaders of Jesus' day taught that promises you made "by Jerusalem" or "by the heavens" were not binding promises. Only those where you swore by God were binding. Jesus' point is that God is the witness to every promise that I make, whether or not I mention his name, so I shouldn't try to avoid keeping my promises through linguistic maneuvering. If I make a promise, God is witness to it and so I must keep it. As a Christian, every promise I make I make in the name of Christ, as his ambassador. Therefore, if I promise to do something and fail to do it, I make God out to be a liar. If an ambassador for the U.S. promises the foreign government to which he is a representative that the U.S. is going to send $10 million in development funding and the money is never sent, he does not merely sully his name but he brings dishonor on the name, the reputation of the U.S. We do not, as those who bear the name of Christ, make promises we never intend to keep or promises we have no ability to keep because we are always acting in the name of, as the representatives of Jesus. The second thing this means is that I do not teach false things about God. Jeremiah 23:31 says, “‘Yes,’ declares the Lord, ‘I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, “The Lord declares.’” In Deuteronomy 18:20 the Lord says, “But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say…must be put to death.” In Deut. 4:2 we are told, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but kept the commands of the Lord your God…” Teaching false doctrine is not something that only the elders of the church or small group leaders need to be concerned about. Every parent in here is going to teach their children about God. In addition, most of us are going to have conversations about the person and nature of God with both believing and unbelieving friends. When we tell people what God is like we are speaking in his name. God is listening and if we are not communicating what is actually true about God, then God is going to hold us accountable. Here is another reason why you cannot afford to be ignorant of theology and doctrine. How many people in the church are telling lies in the name of Christ about the nature of God and man and sin and grace and salvation and the return of Christ, while believing they are telling the truth? You will not be able to plead ignorance when you stand before God for “he will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” While there are many in the church, both in formal and informal settings breaking this command by teaching erroneous theology there is yet a greater way that God’s name is often taken in vain by professing Christians. Whenever you attach divine command to your own preferences or family values or lifestyle choices and thus add to God’s word, you are taking his name in vain. One of the most flagrant examples I have ever heard of this was when a preacher told his congregation that biting your fingernails is sin. That preacher took God's name in vain. Parents and pastors are in precarious positions in this regard. We must be careful to distinguish between what is clearly commanded by God and that which is our opinion or preference or even wise advice. Parents in particular must be very careful how they use the “God card.” It is right for you to tell your children that they must obey you because God commands “children to obey your parents in the Lord.” If you don’t want your child to watch certain TV programs you can tell them they must obey you because God commands them to obey you. However, when you tell your child the reason they cannot watch a certain movie or wear certain clothing or have their hair in a certain style or listen to certain music is because God says so, you are breaking the second commandment by attaching God’s authority to your preference, wise though it may be. You cannot make pronouncements about God’s will for things about which God has not specifically revealed his will. Let me be clear: it is good and right for you to have family rules but don’t tell your child the reason for the rules is “God says so”, rather tell them it is because “You say so” and they are to obey you in the Lord. There is another very common way that professing Christians take God’s name in vain. When we say that God has told us to do things or say things that are not written in this book we are taking his name in vain. Young man, you cannot say to a young woman, “ God told me he wants me to marry you.” Or “I know, without a doubt, it is God’s will that we be married.” You cannot say about a job you are considering, “I know that God wants me to have this job.” It is an error to say to a friend, “ The Lord told me to tell you that you are too proud of your children.” You are taking God’s name in vain when you attach his approval and authority to things of which you cannot know he approves. The only thing that Christians can say with certainty is God's will is what he says in his written word. If it is not in this book you cannot know for certain it is what God wants and to say you know for sure he wants it is to take his name in vain. I can say without hesitation now that God always wanted me to be married to my wife, Jane. He wanted and wants us to be married. I can say that because of what Jesus says in Matthew 19, “What God has joined together, let man not separate.” I know it is God’s will and I can say that God wants me to be married to Jane until the day I die because it is what his word says. However, before we were married, I couldn’t speak like that. The best I could say is that it seems to me that God is leading Jane and I to be married. I could give some reasons as to why I might think that but I cannot say it is God’s will until we are married. In a similar way, prior to our moving to Janesville to plant this church I told people that, for a variety of reasons it appeared that the Lord was leading us to Janesville to plant an EFCA church. However, at no point could I say, “The Lord commands that we move to Janesville and plant a church." Today, inasmuch as we are a true church of Jesus Christ we can say that it is God's will that we exist, for neither Satan, nor sinful man would will a true church exist, but only God. One other way that God’s name is regularly taken in vain by professing Christians in the U.S. is by attaching God’s name to particular political parties, political candidates, political positions, legislation and social policy. Stephen Carter in his book, “Taking God’s name in Vain,” says, “In truth, there is probably no country in the Western world where people use God’s name quite so much, or quite as publicly, or for quite as many purposes, as we Americans do—the Third Commandment not withstanding. 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… God’s will is cited as the reason to be against gay rights and a reason to be for them… Everybody who wants to change America and everybody who wants not to, understands the nation’s love affair with God’s name, which is why everybody invokes it.” I can say without hesitation that God hates abortion because it is murder, always. However, I cannot say that God wants Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito to be a Supreme Court judge. I also cannot say that I know for certain that God wants a prolife amendment to the constitution. I may think that is a good way to achieve the end of doing away with abortion, and work with all my might to get it passed, but I cannot attach God’s name to that particular political strategy. If I do, then I have broken the third commandment. I can say without hesitation that God does not want corporations pouring poison into the environment because "the earth is the Lord's" and we are his stewards. However, I cannot say that God doesn’t want GM to make SUV’s and that Christians that drive SUV’s are sinning. Yet I can fight to pass legislation to eliminate SUV’s if I believe that is good public policy. It is a good and right thing for Christians to be involved in our political process. It is a great sin to say that God endorses my political strategies, beliefs and public policies, that he is on my side. It is a great sin to say that the U.S. is God's nation, that he prefers us above other nations. The only group of people that have the name of God attached to it is the church. To claim that God approves of the U.S. or of my political party is to break the third commandment. I hope you can see in all these examples the basic principle that God’s name is not to be used lightly. Whenever you attach his authority to something you say or do or believe you had better have good biblical support for doing it because God will punish those who use his name to endorse things he does not endorse or to add his authority to things he does not authorize. If you claim God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your Savior you must…
II. Represent him faithfully Everything that I’ve just said we should avoid can be turned around and stated positively. We obey the command to not take God’s name in vain when we keep our promises, when we teach others the truth concerning God, when we command others to do what God clearly commands them to do, when we attach God’s authority to those ethical and social positions that God actually authorizes. I am not taking God’s name in vain when I tell my children they must obey me because God says so. I am not taking God’s name in vain when I tell the young man, “God is going to punish all who have sexual relations with those to whom they are not married.” I am honoring God’s name when I declare that homosexuality is sin and must be repented of, that shoplifting is sin, gossip is sin, judging others is sin and each must be confessed as such. God’s name is glorified and exalted whenever we clearly and honestly tell others the truth about sin and hell and grace and forgiveness. When I use my mouth to instruct others in the “way of righteousness” as it is revealed in the Scriptures, then is God’s name being treated with the respect that his name deserves. When I declare the gospel of God’s grace given to sinners on the basis of Christ’s life, death and resurrection to my non-Christian friend, I am exalting his name. Whenever I speak the truth that God has revealed in his word, then I am honoring his name, which is the positive way of stating the third commandment. However, the command to not take God’s name in vain commands that I not only speak and teach what God commands but that I live in a manner consistent with the name of God. In other words I must live faithfully as a Christian if I am to keep this commandment. Philip Ryken, in his commentary on this commandment says this, “Now the very name of Christ is associated with everything we do. Our reputation is a reflection on his reputation; so we should always make it our aim to honor his name.” This is the point behind Paul’s command in Ephesians 4:1, “As a prisoner for the Lord then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” It is the point of his prayer in Colossians 1:9, “I pray that he fills you with the knowledge of his will in spiritual wisdom and understanding in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord, pleasing him in every way…” It’s the meaning behind Col. 3:17, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ…” And Eph. 5:1, “Be imitators of God therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love…” I heard this story told by a Christian speaker many years ago. I do not know if it is true but it does capture this point very well. There was a young man who deserted his post in the Roman legion during battle. He was caught and brought before the Emperor, Augustus. The deserter was only a teenager and the Emperor was inclined to have pity upon him. He asked him his name to which the young man replied, “Augustus”. The Emperor was filled with anger and said, “Son, either change your name or change your behavior.” What Paul wrote about the Jews in Romans 2 can be said about many conservative, Bible believing Christians, “You who brag about God’s law do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written, ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” How much of the animosity and disdain for Christ that is expressed in our culture is not due to people’s resistance to Christ but due to the repugnant, inconsistent lives of professing Christians? I have two questions for us. First, what kind of life is it that honors God’s name? The people in Jerusalem during the first days and weeks of the church’s existence were impressed with the Christians because of how they loved one another. Jesus said it is through our love for one another that the world will know that we are his followers. Paul says in Galatians 5 that we are to “serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Peter says, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms…so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.” The life that most corresponds to the name of God is a life of self-forgetting love for others, especially for other Christians. The Lord is not honored primarily by my opposition to the great social evils of the day, nor by my avoidance of immorality, though these are necessary, but by the ways in which I use the gifts God has given me to serve others. God’s reputation is made great, his name is honored when Christians love one another. The second question I have is this: Why does this sort of life honor his name? That passage I quoted from 1 Peter makes it clear that God is praised and glorified when we love and serve one another. However, why does this honor him? Self-denying, self-sacrificing, self-forgetting love for Christians honors God’s name because the only explanation for why someone would love a Christian because he or she is a Christian is because God has transformed his or her heart. All men by nature hate Christ and Jesus said that because they hate him they will also hate his followers. Therefore, the only explanation for why someone would do good for a Christian because they are a Christian and for no other reason is because God has given him a new heart. He has performed the greatest miracle that ever could be performed: he has made a dead man alive, transformed his enemy into his friend, made a blasphemer into a worshipper. As Paul says about his own life in 1 Corinthians 15:5, “By the grace of God I am what I am and his grace towards me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all the rest of them. Yet, not I but the grace of God in me.” As he says it in another place: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Just like a beautiful painting reveals the glory and greatness and skill of the artist who painted it, so our love for one another shows off the greatness of God’s love and grace in the gospel. There is no other explanation for the miracle of Christians loving one another than that there is a great and powerful and gracious Savior who is able to make new people. We keep the third commandment when we faithfully love one another for the sake of Jesus. If you claim God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your Savior you must…
III. Respond to him by trusting in, praying in and praising his name In Ephesians 2:8-9 we are told, “It is by grace that you have been saved through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” The reason that God saves sinners by his grace through our faith is so that no human being will boast that she has done anything to contribute to her salvation. Or, to say it the other way, the reason God saves us by his grace through our personal trust in Christ is so that he will receive all the glory. The primary way that we display the greatness of God’s name is by our trusting in his promise to save us through Christ. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to it and are kept safe (Proverbs 18:10)." We glorify the name of God by running to him in order to be saved from his wrath. When we trust in Christ we give to God all the glory for our salvation. We are admitting that we have done nothing and he has done everything. More than anything else you can do it is by your faith in Christ as your sin bearer and your righteousness before God that you most glorify and honor the name of God. Jesus Christ never took God's name in vain and he always gave honor to God's name by his life and his language. Therefore, we can only be saved from the guilt of our taking God's name in vain by trusting in him, which is obedience to the third commandment. John Piper shares a helpful illustration of this reality. Imagine that you are a quadriplegic. You can do nothing for yourself. You have a kind and gracious friend who lives with you and does everything for you. If I came to visit you, how would I know the greatness of your friend? I would not know the glory of her love and grace if you ignored her and tried to feed yourself or give yourself a drink of water. I would not know of her kindness if you tried to meet her needs. No, I would know of the majesty of your friend as you called upon her and trusted her to take care of all your needs. As I watched you trust her to take care of you I would not learn of your great faith but I would learn of your great friend. So it is in our relationship to God, it is as we trust Christ to be everything for us that we exalt his name as the one who came to save his people from their sins. All those who trust in the name of Christ to save them also call on his name in prayer. Jesus says in John 14:13, "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father." Here again we see that the point of the praying is the glory of God. The primary reason we pray is so that God's name is made great in the universe. This is the first thing Jesus tells us to ask God to do in the Lord's prayer. We are to ask our Father, in the name of Christ, to "hallow his own name." That is, to so reveal himself and his glory so that people and angels treat him as the only holy and majestic God. Obedience to the third commandment requires that we pray to the Father in the name of Christ so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Not praying is breaking the third commandment. It is taking the name of Jesus in vain. We are commanded by God to pray in the name of Jesus and so when we take his name upon us and call ourselves Christians and yet do not use it for the purpose for which he gave his name to us, then we are using his name in vain, for no purpose. Therefore, prayer in the name of Jesus is obedience to the third commandment. To go back to the illustration, as you trust your friend to care for you and she does care for you, then what happens? You thank your friend for her kindness and you are delighted with her friendship and you tell others of what a great person she is. You are humble and happy and grateful for a friend like this. In short, when you trust your friend you then thank and praise and glorify your friend. It is the same in our relationship to God. All who trust in Christ, give thanks to him and worship him and honor him from hearts that are truly delighted with him. So we keep the third commandment by offering to God the glory that is due his name in praise, for his saving mercy towards unworthy sinners like us. If you claim God as your Father and Jesus Christ as your Savior you must…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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