January 29 Sermon: How We Talk About God

Language is a substantial gift from God, isn't it? It's important. But I think we often take language for granted because it's just something that we do every day. And, when we look back on what percentage of our life we didn't talk, it's pretty small. And after that, some of us talk more than others, no judgment there. But we talk all the time. It is something we do every day, but it's an important part of who you and I are. And it's powerful. Language is an important thing because it allows us to communicate. It allows us to express ourselves. Now, like I said, we often take language for granted. We speak flippantly at times, don't we? But have you ever been at a sporting event and found yourself sitting next to a camera? Normally, if you're at a sporting event, you say all kinds of things, good, bad or otherwise, but you're talking to the person next to you and you just say what comes to your mind while you're doing it.

 Well, then if you look out of the corner of your eye and you see a camera or maybe an iPad sitting on top of a tripod resting there, and you know that maybe that's the live stream or that's something that maybe even the coach might be watching back later for film, you talk differently. You put a filter on what you say because words matter. Words matter. There are other times where we really deeply consider what we're going to say. We think it through a lot, right? Maybe you need to discipline your child and you're waiting for them to get home and you're sitting there and you're going through, what am I going to say? Because the words that you have to say matter. You want to make sure that they are in the order you want them to be in. Maybe you have a loved one or a friend who's lost someone close to them and you're waiting to talk with them after this loved one has died and you're going through in your head, how do I convey to them how much this person meant to me? How much can I say that will let them know that I'm thinking of them in their time of loss, that I'll be praying for them?

 We can think also about how much words mean because I don't think I'm probably the only one who's ever typed out a message and then back spaced over it and typed it out again and then back spaced and done it again. Then you just like, No, if I don't if I don't send it now, I'm not going to send it at all, and you hit send, and then afterwards, you read it again to make sure that what you were trying to convey is coming across because we know that words matter. I see people nodding. I'm not the only one who does this. Thank you for that affirmation because there's times where you think, maybe I'm the only one that does this, but I think we, a lot of us, if not all of us do that. My point is that words matter. Words matter a lot. It is with this conviction of this truth that we find ourselves looking at the third commandment this morning. If words matter, and I'm sure that we agree that they do, then how much does it matter how we speak about God? How much does it matter what we have to say about God?

 How important is it that you and I speak well of the one who created us, of the one who has redeemed us. And so we come to the third commandment today. And I've been thinking about the third commandment a lot this past week. Obviously, it's something that I have to consider. What am I going to say? It happens every week, but I have just really enjoyed this past week a lot considering the third commandment because there is so much more to this commandment than you normally think about. Now, I've talked before in the past two weeks about this sheet that I would give the catechism students, have them rank how easy it is to keep the commandments. I mentioned that they usually say that the first and the second commandments are some of the easier ones to keep. Now, that's not what I want to reference that about today. I don't remember a consensus on how easy students think it is to keep the third commandment, to not take the Lord's name in vain. But I want to think about maybe a hypothetical different sheet. What if I gave a sheet out to us and said, of all the commandments, which one is easiest for us to remedy if we find ourselves breaking it?

 Which commandments would maybe be at the top there? We look at the matters of the heart, Jesus talking about lust and anger being violations of the sixth and the seventh commandment. That might be hard to change the way we think. I think if we were to hand out a sheet and say, Which command is easiest to remedy? This one might be pretty close to the top. Because our thoughts of this commandment is, Well, it's pretty simple. I just need to stop using God's name as an expletive or as a curse word. I just need to stop that. I probably don't do that very often in the first place. I just need to stop that. We look at this commandment as really only that being the breadth of it, that is the main focus of it. But as we come to this, as we think about this commandment, we're going to think about the fact that this is more about more than just using God's name as an expletive. We want to make sure that we're speaking well of God, that we are accurately conveying His character and His nature and His work to the people around us.

 We want to talk about God with reverence and with fear. Now, long before I was dwelling on this commandment, I've considered the truth of this because the third commandment is one that, again, you think, well, I can pretty easily keep track of that one. I can avoid that one. But I came across Luther's small catechism, and in it, he speaks more about the breadth and the extent of this. And so as we look at that commandment, we're going to see that it's about much more than just what we normally think. We see that Luther replies with this about what this commandment means. He says, We should fear and love God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie, or deceive by his name, but call upon it in every trouble. Pray, praise, and give thanks. So, I've been thinking about this commandment since I came across this years ago. I'll get to what specifically I've been thinking about here as we get to the end, but I want to go through this because I think this is a good definition. Now, we get that we should not curse and swear.

 That one, we understand. That's our general understanding of the third commandment. But I want us to remember that probably in the course of this, this is probably not so much that it is cursing or swearing as we use the words. We have to remember that the idea of cursing also means that we are trying to bring down the wrath of God on somebody. We're angry at them and we say, May God curse you. We shouldn't be doing that either. Or that we should not swear, swear an oath, say I swear to God and we don't intend to have a lot of gravity behind what we're saying. Those are the things that we're talking about here. Then we have using satanic arts. Now, you and I get that one. In fact, I'm not even sure what that means. So, you're not the only one. I'm not sure exactly what that looks like because that's just not the way that we talk. We don't think about those things. It's obscure. But you can understand why doing that would be a violation of the third commandment. What I want us to dwell on here is the idea of not lying or deceiving by his name.

 That's the point that really gets my mind going here. We're not to lie or deceive. When I first stopped years ago and considered this, I wasn't sure exactly what's that look like? What does it mean to lie or deceive in God's name? Who would do that? Why would they do that? Well, at the time, I was listening to a apologetics podcast, and ironically enough, it was by a Lutheran apologist. So that helped me remember Luther's Small Catechism. But he would go through and he would point out false teachers and what they were saying. And at one point, and I can remember what he said so clearly, he just stopped and he said, you know, this is exactly what it means to take God's name in vain. When you say something that you think that he is doing, instead of being clear about it or speaking correctly about God, you take his name in vain by teaching incorrectly about God. When we lie and we deceive by his name, we're not calling upon him in every trouble, in prayer or praise or giving him thanks.

 Instead, we are telling things that are incorrect about God. I have to say that that stuck with me over the years, and it has affected how I teach in a profound way. I'm always very concerned about what I am saying because I want to make sure that I'm speaking correctly about God because to teach falsely or to attribute something to God that God didn't say is a clear violation of the third commandment. And so, as we look at this, it's important that we remember that we're deliberate to speak correctly about God and not let vain speech cross our lips. But instead, have what we say about God be words of praise and words of truth, because God is worthy of praise and God is himself truth. And as we think about this, I think something that can really help us understand the depth of the third commandment is by thinking about what the word vain actually means, the actual definition from the dictionary. Now, when I went to dictionary.com, I didn't waste my time with a physical dictionary, unfortunately, but when I went to dictionary.com and looked it up, the first two meanings of vain were conceit and vanity in the way of physical appearance.

 In that whole you're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you way. That's what the first two are about. But I think the third and the fourth definitions really help us to understand what it means to not take God's name in vain. Let's look at what they have to say here. It says, Ineffectual or unsuccessful, futile, without real significance, value, or importance, baseless or worthless. I think this definition really helps us to understand just how we can violate this command without even realizing it. Do I talk about God in a futile or an insignificant way? In other words, do I just talk about God without thinking about the consequence of what I'm saying? It's very easy to speak about God in an attempt to sound pious or to sound holy, but yet, many times we might not be speaking correctly about God or accurately reflecting how He's revealed himself to us in His Word. And we can see from what the word vain means here, just how much depth this command has compared to how we normally think about this command. So we should expect this, shouldn't we? We should expect that this is an important command because of what Exodus 20, verse 7 has to say to us.

 Let's look at the second half of it here. It says, For the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Now, we know, of course, that there is grace in this, that we violate this command all the time, and God shows us his grace in Jesus Christ. But we see how important this is when we see these words afterwards. We don't think about this part of it, do we? Because normally, when we think about the Ten Commandments, we're going through them, we're trying to say the Commandments. We don't approach them, say, like a memory verse. So we don't say this whole thing. But this shows us the gravity. It shows us how much this means. When it says the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain, it's showing us the importance of speaking about God. There is seriousness, there is weight to this commandment. So, why is there so much weight to this? Well, let's think about what we have been seeing in the commandments thus far. What do we see at the beginning before the commandments even start? It says, I am the Lord, your God.

 God identifies himself as we move into the commandment. He lets us know who he is. He is the Lord. He is Yahweh. He is the God who brought them out of the bondage in Egypt. It wasn't any other God. It was him. He identifies himself clearly. He gives them his name. And so, what do we see in the next commandment? We see that he alone is to be worshiped. And we saw as we looked at those two commandments, we saw that Yahweh is different than the gods of their neighbors. God is outside of creation. And as I mentioned last week, in all of this, and in Scripture as a whole, but in the Ten Commandments, we get this idea that there is a distinction between the creator and the creation. And in paganism, this is absolutely absent. There is no distinction between the creator and the creation. And so the point that we've been seeing in the Ten Commandments is that the God of the Bible is different. The God of the Bible is distinct. He is unique. What has this God done? What has He done? He has revealed himself to the Israelites. We see that to teach falsely about him is a violation about this commandment because we want to be clear of who he is.

 Why is that? How does this connect to how God is revealing himself through the commandments? As the pagans around the Israelites are crying out into the void, screaming into the darkness, talking about their gods, what has happened? The Lord of all creation, the one who redeemed them, the one who made them, has spoken their names and has called them out. While they are talking about and speaking to gods who have no ears to hear and have no mouth to speak to them. God has revealed himself clearly to the Israelites. Think for a second about how amazing that is. God has revealed himself to his people. While their pagan neighbors are bowing down to images of wood and images of metal, the Israelites are worshiping the one true God. How awesome isn't that this God has revealed his name to them? This is more than just they know the name, hey, they know it. But they are able to speak his name. They're able to say things about this God that they serve. This is the God who made them, the God who redeemed them. They know his name. He is a personal God. Now, have you ever had someone get your name wrong?

 Or maybe you have had interactions with someone and they clearly don't know your name and you can tell by the fact that they're not saying it. They're just dodging it. And at first, that's cool. It's no big deal. Easy mistake. You just met the person, maybe. And there are very few of us who ever say, I'm great with names. I think the number one thing people say when they meet people, I know you told me your name, but I'm bad with names. I'm not going to remember, right? I think we all say that. But there comes a point where we go from, Hey, this is understandable. You don't know my name, to a point where it's disrespectful and even frustrating. I think back to... I got to know somebody through Carly playing sports. I got to know the grandfather of one of the other girls on her team. And I didn't know his name, but we didn't talk all that much. And at one point, he came up to me while we were washing our hands in the restroom at a tournament. And I realized I don't know this guy's name. So I went to this girl's mom and said, What's your dad's name?

 We're on the relationship now where we're talking in the bathroom, so I should probably know it. But that's what you do when you know somebody. You want to know their name. You want to speak to them correctly. You want to talk about them in the right way. Now, Amy drew that out in the children's message, right? Here, as we get to know God, we're going to want to speak his name correctly. We're going to want to get it right. What is the truth underlying all this? That God has called his people by name. And so they should speak his name with reverence and with respect and be certain to speak the truth when we speak of who he is because he created his people. He formed his people. And so this is an important reminder for us because it's easy for us to come to the law of God and to see the law of God as rules that we need to keep in order to earn favor with God. That's natural. We see a list of rules and we think, Okay, if I'm going to do this right, I've got to keep this. We naturally see a list and we want to check it off the box.

 But as we consider the application of this third commandment, I think it's so important for us to remember this truth that God spoke to his people. In return, we want to speak his name correctly. I have just been blown away this past week thinking about this, how of all the commands, how rooted this one is in the gospel. Yes, it is a command. Yes, it is the law. But it's rooted in the truth that God has spoken our names. And so we want to speak correctly about Him. So we remember today as we consider this command, as we think about the application here, we want to remember that we desire to keep the law. Yes. But the reason we do this is because he saved us, because he called us by name, because he spoke our name. We want to speak his name correctly. Now, I don't think as we think about our application today, and we're going to take a look at the second use of the law in some application and the third use of the law, the second use being a mirror to show us our sin, the third use, a map to show us how to live a holy life.

 As we think about this commandment, I don't think it's going to be any trouble for us at all to think about the second use, right? To look in the mirror and say, Yeah, there have been times where I've spoken incorrectly about God, or I've failed to keep this command correctly. But I want us to think about it again from that gospel centered perspective. We'll get to that more with the third use. But thinking about this command is a good exercise for us, not only because it causes us to think more deeply about God and his nature and his character. But as I've been meditating on the third commandment this past week, I find that I'm not only mindful of how I speak about who God is, but how I speak in general, how I speak to other people. Now, of course, I still fail in that, but it has made me mindful of how I speak in general, not only how I speak about God, but about his creatures and about my brothers and sisters around me. And so as we think about this, I want to challenge us this coming week to be deliberate to let this command do its good work in you.

 Because as we do this, we remember the blessing that we have in God's law. What a blessing it is that we have the Holy Spirit to help us to hear this law and to convict us of areas of sin and unbelief in our lives. That is a good thing. It moves us towards holiness. So we need to be deliberate to think about this, even though it's convicting and even though it's hard. Also along the use of the second use of the law here, it's important that we remember that this isn't just about the Israelites. God has called you Christian. God has called you by name. You have been blessed with the gift of faith. He has called you. You are his. So may this drive us to speak his name in a manner worthy of what he has done to save us. May we want to speak his name because he has first called out our name. So as we are convicted of this, may we remember this great truth as we move on and we think about how we can use this as a map for holy living. And as I said here, and as I said earlier, the third commandment is rooted in the gospel.

 This brings us to understand here that this is truly rooted in who God is. It's rooted in the truth of what God has done to save his people. Because we are called to speak of God in a meaningful way because he is the only true God. And so we are called to speak words of praise to him because he's the only one who's worthy of worship. And we speak of him in this way because he has given us these words to speak by his saving of us. Remember, while the pagan neighbors of the Israelites were speaking of their gods who had no mouths, who had no ears to hear, the Israelites were given a gift that they were not only hearing the Word of God, but they were hearing him call them to faith. Then they were given this privilege to have his name to speak. And the same thing applies to you. From among all the peoples of the earth. God has spoken your name. He has called your name to be his faithful servant in this world. He has given you the gift of faith. He has given you the indwelling Holy Spirit.

 And so as we consider what we can do here to serve God in regards to this commandment, we need to remember that he has spoken to us. Not only has he spoken, he has given us the ability to hear. Behold, Christian, this is your God. This is your God, the God who speaks. You are so blessed to be able to hear and so may this profound truth build up in us a desire to speak the name of the one who has spoken to you. May you desire to not speak of him in a vain way because God's speech to you was not in vain. You heard and believed the gospel. Now, how can you and I live this out? As I mentioned, we need to be mindful. We need to be mindful of our speech and we need to know deeply who this God is. Because a mouth that is reverent comes from a heart that is reverent. A mouth that speaks the truth of God comes from a mind that knows the truth of God. So may you and I be driven to speak the name of God, and may God use our speech then to bring glory to himself.

 And may the truth of the gospel be heard from our lips that others may hear and believe and be brought to faith. That along with our faithful proclamation of his holy name, that along with our worship of him, people may join us in our worship and our speech about this one true God who loves his people and has saved them. Amen.

Let us pray. Gracious and merciful God, we thank you for the mouths that you have given us. For this allows us to not only speak to one another, but to speak of you and of your saving and forgiving work that you have done in us. We praise you, oh God, for you have not spoken to us in vain. You have given us the gift of faith. And so, we pray, O Lord, that from our mouths would come praise to your glory, that our lives might reflect who you are and what you have done. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray, Amen.

This message was delivered on January 29, 2023 by Pastor Mark Groen at First Reformed Church in Edgerton, MN. First Reformed is a congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.