Sermon Cloud

The name of God

When we talk to God, how should we address Him?

When we talk about God, what should we call Him?

What is God’s name?

About 3500 years ago, on a mountain in the middle of the Arabian desert, a bush caught fire. An eighty-year-old shepherd saw it, and was surprised. The bush burned, but was not consumed. He went closer to get a better look.

Then God spoke from the bush.

God called out Moses’ name, and Moses said, “here I am”

God told Moses to remove his sandals, because he was standing on holy ground.

God said he is the God of Moses’ father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face.

Moses—the eighty-year-old shepherd—was awed by God’s voice. And Moses was surprised by God’s command. Return to Egypt. Bring my people out from there to the promised land.

Moses had objections to this new job description. He first objected that he was not on par with Pharaoh. God promised to be with Moses.

Then Moses, not sure anyone would listen to him, asked about the Israelites. “When I tell them ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me’ and they reply ‘What is his name?’…What do I tell them?”

And in that holy place, where Moses removed his sandals and hid his face, God said something truly amazing, truly awe-inspiring, both frightening and hopeful.

God said his name.

This is the story in the Bible, Exodus chapter three.

You have a name; I have a name; every person on the planet has a name.

Does the divine being, who always was and always will be, have a name? The answer is, yes. God has a name, and it means something.

God has a name that distinguishes him from all the other gods, all of them invented by humans.

God is not really a name. It tells us WHAT God is, not WHO God is.

Calling God “God” is like calling you “Human”

Can you see it? Someone walked in this morning, looking around.

Can I help you? “Yes, I’m looking for someone.”

Who? “Human. Definitely a human being. You know, eyes, nose, mouth. Breathing.”

Today, we think there is only one God. That’s always been true.

But in Moses’ time, there were many idols, many gods humans had invented.

Moses was going back to Egypt, where the Egyptians worshipped the gods Ra, Isis, and Annubis

Moses would lead the Israelites to the promised land, Canaan, where the Canaanites worshipped the gods Baal, Asherah, and Molech.

Jesus would walk that same land, taken over by Greeks and Romans who worshipped Zeus and Hermes and Aphrodite.

Acts 17:22-23 (NIV) ²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

Often we call God “Lord”

That’s a title.

When I was a young man, I would go to a store and hear kids calling out “Dad? Dad, where are you?”

I tuned them out. They didn’t bother me.

Then I became a father

I could be 100 miles away from my children…but when I heard “Dad” I turned around!

Lord is a good title for God. It describes what God does.

Lord means

• The one who owns the land, the house, and the food
• The one who allows you to work on his land, live in his house, and eat his food.
• You work for him, and he provides for you and protects you.

Acts 17:24-26 (NIV) ²⁴ "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

This God is different from Zeus or Ra or Baal.

This God made everything. This God is our one Lord.

Why did God set things up like this? What was God’s plan?

Acts 17:27-29 (NIV) ²⁷ God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸ 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' ²⁹ "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill.

THIS God, he has a name.

Exodus 3:13-15 (NIV) ¹³ Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

¹⁴ God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

God’s name comes from the word “I am”. God who always has been, and always will be. The eternal God, no beginning, no end.

See LORD in all capital letters? That’s God’s divine name

YHVH. Some say it Yahweh, some Yahovah, some Jehovah.

It is believed that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. If this is true, Moses inscribed the name of God 1821 times.

The divine name is given 6824 times in whole Bible (Tanakh, Old Testament). The first five books account for 1/4 of that!

We don’t know how to pronounce it correctly. Hebrew is written with no vowels.

Somewhere in the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the 400 years before Jesus, the Israelites stopped saying God’s name. There was good reason for this.

Perhaps a few months after God spoke to Moses from a burning bush, God spoke to all the Israelites. At the same mountain. From fire and smoke, God’s voice thundered the ten commandments to their fearful ears.

The third commandment God spoke was:

Exodus 20:7 (NASB) "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.

Vain means useless, empty, or even deceptive, as in a false report or false witness. [See Exodus 23:1, and Deuteronomy 5:11 and 20, where the ten commandments are repeated, but this same Hebrew word is used “You shall not bear false witness.”]

The Israelites wanted to avoid using God’s name in vain. So they stopped using it altogether. They replaced it with the word adonai, lord.

This was the practice in the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

Quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, he said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

And in the synagogue, he read from Isaiah 61:1-2, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” [Both found in Luke 4:1-19.]

And this is good enough.

Jesus never used God’s proper name.

When we talk about God—when we talk TO God—what name should we use?

Luke 11:1-4 (NIV) ¹ One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples." ² He said to them, "When you pray, say: "'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.

³ Give us each day our daily bread.
That’s God as Lord

⁴ Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.'"
Who forgives? More than a divine being, more than our Lord. Our Father in heaven

Acts 17:30-31 (NIV) ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."