Deeper: S3, E8 - Carry

There is a commandment that asks us not to 'carry' the Lord's name in vain.  I was always brought up to read that as "don't swear using God's name", but what does it really mean?  And why is it so important to God that he also follows it up by saying he won't hold anyone innocent who does this!  Seems a little harsh.  More importantly though - what has that got to do with living this abundant life that God has for us??

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi there, I'm Alex, and this is episode 8 out of 10 as we move backwards through the Ten Commandments to open up the idea of the abundant life that Jesus promised to anyone who believed in him. In this episode called Carrie, we're going to look at the third commandment to not take God's name in vain. What does that actually mean? Is it about swearing using God's name or is there something much more significant? What does it look like when it goes wrong? And what could it look like when it all goes right? I think both of those two questions are equally as important for us to wrestle with as we try to live out lives that reflect God. So in the last podcast about Sabbath, we noticed that the focus has now shifted to being about the relationship between humans and God. And this one carries on that line but focuses on how we honor God in the way that we carry his name or represent him. So, grace for impact. This is Carrie. Father God, as we look at what it means to have this abundant life that you say believers will have, I pray you would help us to have the courage to put down things we might already think and feel about how we live and who you are. Help us to lay them at your feet and to re-examine our beliefs and practices in the light of what you might be saying. Help us to weigh up what is said here, to take what's coming from you and leave behind anything that isn't from you. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, so I have to say this is one of my favourites so far, but they've all kind of been building to these last three, so it kind of should be, shouldn't it? Um the third commandment is super interesting. You know, when I'm having conversations with groups or individuals who are antagonistic to faith, quite often one of the accusations levied at God is about him being either paranoid or self-obsessed. Oh, worship me, pray to me, devote your lives to me. And this third commandment comes up. Do not misuse the name of God or do not take the Lord's name in vain. It's seen by some people as like a massive insecurity, like God's somehow afraid of people talking about him badly behind his back. But but that's not what this commandment is about at all. It's not even about using God's name as a swear, although if you do do that, please stop. Um, so firstly, let's find out a really good way to understand what's going on here with the Hebrew in this sentence and what that means for us. So here's how to interpret the original language today really, really well. Um the Hebrew would translate into something like, do not carry the name of I am or the name Yahweh in vain, because God will not declare innocent any who carry his name in vain. So there's kind of like there's three basic ideas in this commandment, and it's really important in understanding the commandment to get to these three. So the first one is what does it mean to carry someone's name? And the second thing is, what does it mean to do that in vain? And the third one is if this is so important, so important to God, that he will be actively seeking justice for this one. We often think that uh we don't understand what it means to carry a name around with us. It sounds like an odd idea, doesn't it? Um, but we do know what it means. Anybody who went to school and had a school uniform will probably have had this assembly. Are you ready? It's like the whole of year 11 gets lined up in the assembly hall and the head of year comes in looking super grim uh and they say, Okay, we've had reports of antisocial behaviour, smoking and bullying near the co-op down the road. Um, and we know it's you, Year 11s, because you're wearing the school uniform while you do it. Need I remind you that while you are wearing this uniform, you represent this school and all of us in it. All eyes in the room shift around to the 10 or so people we know that it must have been, and then everybody marches out to their lessons. And it's not just about school uniforms. You feel that same sense of representing a large group of people or a set of values if you're in, say, the police or the army, or if you're a nurse or a doctor, or if you work for any organization that has a uniform, even if that's a supermarket t-shirt, while you're in your uniform, you represent the whole organization and everything they stand for. That's what it means to carry the name of Yahweh. When we identify as a person of faith, we carry God's name with us. Christians carry the name of Jesus. That means that whoever knows that we are a disciple of Jesus today, when they look at us, we represent all Christians everywhere, and more importantly, we represent God Himself. That's why this command is so super important. How incredible it is that the God of the universe would say to us, I am going to attach my name to you. I want you to represent me. I mean, we read in Genesis 1 that all humanity is made in God's image. So all of us represent him. We're all carrying God's name, whether we choose to or are aware of him or not. But for Christians and Jews in particular, there's this extra thing going on where we felt at some point or felt repeatedly that God has asked us as an individual person, and he said, I choose you. I choose you to carry my name into the world. So if that's what it means to carry the name of God, what does it mean to carry that name in vain? In vain is one word in Hebrew, shaf, and it describes something that has lost its meaning or its purpose. So uh it's in Psalm 127, for example, unless the Lord builds the house, the people build it for shaf, uselessly or in vain. Kind of what it's implying in this commandment, then, is that if we build our lives without reference to God's ways and God's ethos and God's character, our lives are like an empty shell, useless. Like we build our lives in vain. Doesn't matter how great they look on the outside, inside they're dead and empty. It's exactly what Jesus says using one of his amazing riddles at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's gospel. He says, You're a wise builder if your house, meaning your life, is built on rock. Because when a storm comes, you will stand firm because you've got a good foundation. But if you build your life on sand, the whole thing is just going to one day collapse. Luke represents that parable, adding in that the wise builders are the ones who are listening and obeying his teaching. Once you do what Jesus says, as in once you're living like him, then you're carrying his name. And if you're hearing and there's no likeness of Jesus, uh, it's in vain. Don't you know uh if you've ever had the experience where someone says they're gonna represent you personally and then you stand like horrified as they misrepresent you, or worse, someone who represents a group or an organization that you're part of does something galactically wrong, and you know they represent you. Police feel this way every time there's an allegation of brutality or corruption from one individual police person. Suddenly they walk out in their uniform and there's like a thousand eyes looking at them as if they were personally responsible for whatever that other person did. Same for teachers, same for taxi drivers and teenagers. I mean, there are a few bad representatives who cloud the whole thing. That's why God says at the end of this commandment, He will not declare innocent anyone who carries his name in vain. As a whole culture, we find it easier to measure things from the times they've gone wrong, and this idea of carrying the name of God along with us as a global or historical church can sometimes feel like we are constantly in the firing line. I mean, the church throughout history, with no exception today, is guilty of dragging God's name through the mud instead of carrying his name with holiness. There have been huge mistakes we've made where the church groups have fought between each other, we've been guilty of drowning or murdering each other, we've fought people groups, we've been overly strict, we've oppressed women, we've condemned people for who they love or who they think they are, we've even spoken against the need to look after our planet. Worse still, within churches, uh we have been and we still can be bullying, controlling, overly prescriptive and abusive. And we do it all in the name of God, as if that's the way Jesus would lead, if as if that's the way Jesus would treat people and would lead his church. God takes this seriously enough to write it as a single command, place it in third place in the Ten Commandments, and He says He will not declare innocent anyone who carries his name in vain. If you've tried to bring up with your church that a leader or leaders are overly dominating or abusive, if you've tried to address church issues and just been shot down repeatedly, or you've been told that you're being rebellious or trying to stop the work of God, then tell other people. Jesus is very aware that his future church is not going to be perfect, and he lays down some simple steps. Step one, go to the people in question and address it. Step two, if nothing changes, go with other people and do it again. Step three, if there's still no change, take it to the people. That means go to the wider church, go to the leaders of other denominations, or a safeguarding lead outside of the church. And if you think imminent harm is in play, then go to the police. Keep making your point. The outcome of leaving this behavior unchecked and allowing another generation to grow up looking at these ways of being church leaders and thinking that that is how church leaders should act. The outcome of that is so undesirable. We need to act. None of us are perfect, and sometimes we don't address things because we feel like it's gonna somehow stop God's work. But let me put it like this: if entire regimes have tried to stop the work of God by making it illegal to have church sometimes in whole nations, or for decades, then the result of me addressing hypocrisy or abuse in a church is not going to be able to stop the work of God. So we've looked at what goes wrong when we carry God's name badly, but what could it look like if we carry God's name well? This series isn't called Disasters of Faith, it's called Abundant, about the abundance that Jesus promised. So we're gonna end by asking this other question. What happens when a group of people do carry the name of God really well? When we reflect Him in our words, in our attitudes, in our actions, our finances, our morals, and everything, everything about our lives. What happens then? I have been part of communities of faith where people have focused on living God's way with passion and with purpose, with humor, with grace, with mercy, and with an outward focus and with a commitment to prayer. It is such a powerful thing. In the book of Acts, uh, in chapter 2, from verse 42 onwards, we read this: they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts, they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. They were praising God and enjoying the favor of all of the people. And God added to their number daily those who are being saved. I have been involved in temporary communities on mission, in semi-permanent communities like a team house, and I've been involved in whole churches where for a season it did feel exactly this way. People were so excited about living a life of faith, about the honor and the excitement of carrying God's name as a group of people, that we devoted ourselves to Bible study, to prayer. We had early morning prayer meetings, midweek groups, prayer triplets, mission trips. We ran cafes and dry bars, we put on events and dreamt of things bigger than ourselves. We listened to God together and felt drawn to bring aid to far-flung places. Some of us have driven lorry loads of shoeboxes thousands of miles. Others have shared their practical skills with people in need. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. See, when we get this right, when we refocus our free will and align it with God's big mission of caring for creation, addressing human need and bringing Christian faith within reach for those who have not yet got it. Those things they bring us to life. When we do those things as individuals, it fires us up, it reignites faith and purpose and brings the Bible to life. The Bible's written for people who are engaged in God's mission. It's not a nice philosophy book designed to teach us Christian dogma. It's a sharp, God-breathed history of God's people getting it wrong and getting it right. And when we do the things that it's showing us we can do and should do, that's when we feel like we are the people like those people. You know, across the world today, despite our flaws and mistakes, the Church of God is still the most prolific source of goodness and grace and help and welfare that the world has ever seen. A global movement of people tuning ourselves to God's Spirit, listening to His orchestration and engaging with His mission wherever and whenever He directs us. Some of those things are long-term, some are momentary. All of them, all of them are flashes of the divine lived out in the extraordinary lives of everyday people who are carrying the name of God and His church. These commandments that we've already looked at are the ways that we carry God's name well. We ditch materialism and work to share the world's resources. We defend those in need, we provide for those with nothing and protect the property of the vulnerable, we treat each other as holy and precious rather than lowering our personhood for pleasure or lack of relationship. We forgive, we live in grace, we honour the elderly, especially our parents, and we enable all of creation to live in that Sabbath way of being. I mean, if as Christians we spent our days doing these things, there wouldn't be time for us to fight with each other or to be bored or to be selfish. We definitely wouldn't be able to view Christianity as outdated or irrelevant, and just maybe this bright, shining, active way of carrying God's name would become the magnetic, beautiful thing that the church is designed to be. So, Creator God, as you look at your world, as you gaze with love and compassion on all human beings, help us to carry your name with the holiness, the seriousness, and the awe that we're meant to carry it with. Forgive us when we carry you in vain or falsely as individuals, and give us courage and boldness to address where churches, particularly Christian leaders like myself, can be dragging your name through the mud. Lord Jesus, would you quicken inside us the marks of your mission, care for creation, addressing human need, and bringing Christian faith within reach. And Holy Spirit, we invite you to unite us on your mission in every sense. May we become the compelling, magnificent body of Jesus at work in the world, that your church actually is.