Don’t Abuse God
God Wrote Love • Sermon • Submitted
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· 9 viewsThe third command is less about cursing and more about representing God's character to the world in a truthful way. Less about "OMG" and more about communicating the Gospel as God has given it to us.
Notes
Transcript
Big Idea
Big Idea
Three main applications: 1) don’t blaspheme by trying to take God’s place, 2) don’t say things about God that aren’t true, and 3) don’t claim to follow God and live a life in opposition to him.
The positive side: 1) submit to God’s authority in your life, 2) get to know God before you blab about him, and 3) let the Spirit grow His fruits in you.
Don’t Abuse God
Don’t Abuse God
Have you ever texted someone and received a reply similar to this?
[OMG iPhone Text]
It’s an innocent message, but couched in the reply is this little acronym, OMG. Culturally it means, WOW or this is BIG, but there’s something in the back of every Bible reading Christian’s mind that twinges when we hear people say “Oh My God” or write that three letter acronym in a text message. Why is common speech something that should make us cringe? Is there anything wrong with saying “Jesus Christ!” In response to a crisis or challenge? Is cursing even the point of the Third Commandment which says:
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"You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” (Ex 20:7 ESV)
Kevin DeYoung, in his book, The Ten Commandments, says this about the third command,
“…when we come to the third commandment, we feel like we can let our guard down just a little. “Watch what you say, don’t swear. Be carful with your OMGs.” [ ] …The third commandment feels less like a bedrock principle and more like a good reminder.” The Ten Commandments, p 53
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This is the third message in a series on the Ten Commandments that I’m calling, God Wrote Love. This series is a look at the Ten Commandments from the positive side. All of the books that I’ve been reading on the Ten Commandments extensively review the law itself, examining its meanings and exploring all that it prohibits. They value God’s law, but spend very little time exploring what God’s law protects and enables. In this series we’re turning around from facing the prohibitions of the law to explore a small part of the vast landscape of opportunities that the law of love enables.
Today we will consider the third command in a sermon I’ve entitled, Don’t Abuse God. We need to understand what is so important about this command, and also, what does this command have to do with love?
Lucifer and what the third commandment means
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From my exploration it seems like there are three main applications of the third commandment: 1) don’t blaspheme by trying to take God’s place, 2) don’t say things about God that aren’t true, and 3) don’t claim to follow God and live a life in opposition to him.
This third command seems so simple because it’s so short, but dig a little and you’ll discover that this command is God’s response to the original rebellion of Lucifer. Open up your Bibles to Isaiah 14 and put your finger there, then open to Ezekiel 28, and drop a marker in that, and lastly go to Revelation 12 and hold that one too. We’re not going to spend much time in any of these passages—we just want to catch the story line so we can understand how the third command is a response to Lucifer’s story.
In Isaiah 14:12-15 we get a picture of Lucifer’s transformation from angel of light to the father of lies. We learn that he became filled with pride in his own beauty and capabilities, and he began to desire the throne of God. He said things like “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the north… I will make myself like the Most High.” (v 13-14)
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
Turn to the end of your Bible and Read in Revelation 12:7-9:
Revelation 12:7-9 tells about the war that ensued between Satan and his evil angels and the angels who were loyal to God. Ultimately evil was cast out of heaven.
Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
From what we can tell so far, Lucifer, a beautiful and high-ranking angel, got proud and decided he wanted to take God’s throne. So he started a rebellion—a violent protest, of sorts. Revelation calls it a war. There are lots of different weapons in the wars we are familiar with and most of them are violent tools of destruction and death. So, naturally, when we read that there was “war” in heaven, we conclude that a violent, destruction fight broke out. But the words used for war here is the greek work polemos, which is where we get our word for politics. This is more like the disinformation war that we have come to know as fake news. Disinformation has been a political weapon for millennia.
Back in 43 BC Octavian—later known as Augustus Caesar—took advantage of the distance between his partner Mark Antony in Egypt and himself in Rome and he spread vicious rumors about him. He even had short, witty statements opposing Mark Antony printed on small coins—kind of like an ancient tweet. Mark Antony and cleopatra eventually committed suicide and Octavian rose to power—essentially hacking the republican system with a disinformation campaign.
Ezekiel 28:12-19 will help us to figure out if the kind of war Lucifer fought in heaven was a violent, physical war, or a war of disinformation like Octavian waged.
Look at Ezekiel 28:18 where it says, “by the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries…” It may be that physical weapons were used in this war, but that isn’t revealed in the Bible. The only weapon the bible talks about is deceitful accusations—lies about God.
The phrase, “unrighteousness of your trade” implies a sales pitch—a selling of ideas. The word “trade” is the Hebrew word rekhulla which means “merchandise” or “salesperson.” Because of his gossip a third of the angels rebelled against God and were cast out of heaven with Lucifer. At this point we start to know Lucifer as Satan, which means, accuser. The methods of his warfare became his new identity.
Lucificer’s fall into the role of the chief accuser of God and the father of lies illustrates nicely what God is prohibiting in the third command. God is saying, “don’t defame my name with lies and gossip.” He’s also saying, “don’t act like you can be me.” And he’s telling us, “don’t claim to be my supporter and then draw people away from me.”
While this command implies reverence for God’s name—which should cause us to think twice before we insert his name into a sentence—it’s also about knowing who God is and being careful to truthfully communicate about him to others. And it’s about living a life of authenticity in God’s Spirit and avoiding hypocrisy.
What’s in a name?
Exodus 20:7 makes it clear, God will not hold someone guiltless who defames him, or attempts to take His place. It was violating this law that caused Lucifer to be cast from heaven. Leviticus tells the story of a woman’s son who was arguing with another man and he blasphemed and cursed. The Lord passed judgment on the man and said, “Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death…” (Leviticus 24:16)
Why is God’s name holy?
Jesus thought it was so important for us to understand this that when He taught His disciples to pray He began by indicating which God to pray to, then followed up with this statement: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” (Matthew 6:9, ESV)
To hold something as vain means to treat it as insignificant, or to talk falsely about it. To treat something as holy means to consider it as weighty and significant and special. Jesus is saying that we are to approach God with reverential awe—to see Him as holy.
In Exodus 33 Moses asked God to show him His glory, and God responded by saying, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name “the Lord.” (Exodus 33:19 ESV) God’s glory—his character—is contained in His name.
To take God’s name in vain, is to do harm to God so that people don’t see Him for the good, just, loving, and merciful God that He claims He is. To take God’s name in vain is to treat God Himself as insignificant, worthless, or even false.
Turn to Exodus 34 and we’ll read what God says about himself.
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The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
I’ve entitled this sermon, Don’t Abuse God. That’s really what this command is about. If we live life in a way that explicitly or implicitly rejects these truths about God and communicates to the world that God is something that he isn’t, then we’re abusing God by our false gossip.
But we’re also abusing God when we claim something about ourselves that isn’t true. Lucifer thought he could become God—that he could pull himself up by his angelic bootstraps and attain a higher plane of existence. By his claim about himself, he was blaspheming God. That’s why, when Jesus claimed the prerogative of God to forgive sins, the pharisees and scribes accused him of blasphemy. How could a human think he could be God? How could an angel ever think that they could be God? The difference was, Jesus is God, but Lucifer was a created being.
We cannot become God. But when we, by our words or our actions, place ourselves in the role of God in our lives, then we are abusing God’s good name in the world.
The fruit of the Spirit
Let’s turn over to Galatians where we’re going to spend the rest of our time this morning. You see, the prohibition against taking God’s name in vain, or blaspheming his name, or abusing his name is good, but what I want to know is what it means to live in the love that this law enables.
If you’ve ever willed yourself to love something or someone who just isn’t easy to love, you know how hard it can be. All of us post-Adam humans begin with the foundation of selfishness. Love is an entirely divine activity. How do you obey a law that asks you to revere and give glory to one you do not completely love?
Turn with me to Galatians chapter 1 where Paul sets us up to understand how to live a life that reveres and glorifies God.
Paul begins this letter with third commandment language. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…” Galatians 1:6
What is the different gospel they are turning to?
“…we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” (Galatians 2:16 ESV)
The gospel they are turning to is a gospel of pulling yourself up to heaven by your earthly bootstraps! That’s exactly the kind of gospel Satan was preaching, and it’s fundamentally opposed to the third commandment that prohibits us from abusing the character and name of God. How can we claim to do something that only God can do?
Paul turns his focus from the prohibition and begins to talk about what it means to live in love in Galatians 2:20:
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I am dead… I can’t do nothin’, but Christ lives in me.
Some of Paul’s questions make me laugh. In Galatians 3:2 he says, “let me ask you this: did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?” In other words, did you force God to give you His Spirit by your own effort? Paul continues the question “…Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness?” (Galatians 3:2, 5-6)
So… do we force God’s spirit to work miracles among us by doing righteous deeds? When I read that question I had to laugh. Has anyone come up to you with a prayer request for someone who was sick and said, “all right, here’s how we’re going to do this. We’re all going to go out today and do three very righteous things, then we’ll come back to prayer meeting tonight and command God to heal this person. He won’t be able to resist our righteousness.”
No.
God’s Spirit is a gift of grace, and God’s miracles are a gift of love. Remember Jesus? He did miracles in His day. What did his miracles require? Did they have to be a tithe paying, temple attending Jew? Did they have to be careful to not carry their sleeping mat on Sabbath? No!
Jesus healed people and cast out demons with only one requirement—that they believe. He couldn’t do something for someone who didn’t want it, but as soon as they wanted it, he LOVED to pour grace and healing into their lives. That’s the gospel for you and me today. We don’t merit God’s grace of forgiveness—or of miracles—by our goodness. We inherit His mercy because of the promise fulfilled in Christ and because of God’s great love for us.
Paul goes on to reason with the Galatians about a righteousness that is given to us by faith rather than created by us through obedience. In Galatians 3:26-27 he says, “through faith you are all sons [and daughters] of God in Christ Jesus. For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.” [next slide] And then in chapter 4 verse 6 he says, “because you are sons [and daughters], God sent the spirit of His Son into our hearts…”
We are sons and daughters of God because of Christ—because of the promise made to Abraham thousands of years ago that through His seed God would reconcile the world to Himself. When we, through baptism, are buried with Christ then we are clothed with Christ and God has sent his Spirit to live in our hearts.
In Galatians chapter 5 Paul outlines what it means to live in the Spirit. He just spent several paragraphs in chapter 4 contrasting the children of the flesh—those born to Hagar—and the children of the promise—those born to Sarah. He said that all the Jews is Jerusalem were living according to the flesh because they were basing their salvation on obedience to the law, and were, in effect, the children of Hagar. But that all who believe in Jesus Christ are children of the promise, children of Sarah.
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Then in Chapter 5:5-6 he says, “ For we eagerly await through the Spirit, by faith, the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision accomplishes anything; what matters is faith working through love. (Galatians 5:5-6 CSB)
It’s not whether or not you were born a Jew, and keep all the customs and laws, but whether or not you believe in and love Jesus. That’s the only thing that really matters. When you believe, when you have died to yourself, when you have been buried with Christ—that’s when you have real freedom. Not freedom to do all the evil in your natural heart, but freedom to “love your neighbor as yourself”, an beahavior that Paul reminds us in Galatians 5:14 is the fulfillment of the law.
I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The freedom in Christ comes because he is living in us. His Spirit leads us and empower us to live in love.
After outlining several things that are clearly “works of the flesh,” like immorality, idolatry, selfishness, jealousy, and more, Paul lists what he calls the “fruit of the Spirit.”
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Paul wraps up his letter to Galatians with these admonitions:
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
This isn’t slavish obedience to the law, but love worked out by God’s Spirit in our hearts.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Here’s my summary of Galatians: don’t defame God’s name by acting like you can save yourself by keeping the law, or by teaching others that God requires slavish obedience; instead, by faith, let the Spirit live in your heart and your life will begin to truly glorify your Father in heaven as the fruits of the Spirit grow in you.
Isn’t that what the third command is all about, glorifying the name of God and making it holy and honorable?
He is holy and just and good.
Let’s not defame his name anymore by speaking evil about him or by living as though he isn’t good and full of loving grace. Instead, today we have an opportunity to die. To die and let Christ’s Spirit live in us.
This isn’t some theological mumbo jumbo where you say an incantation and some bit of magic changes the workings of your heart and mind. It’s a very practical and relational interaction between me and the only true God of the universe. When I acknowledge him as the creator and Lord who sits on the throne of the universe and I give him my allegiance, He’s got permission to do something with my heart. Now, he sits on the throne of my heart and He doesn’t have to fight with me for control of my destiny. He’s got the power and permission to do something new in my life. And when Christ comes into my life, I fall in love with him. And isn’t that the whole point of the law? To Love God with all our heart our soul and our might?
We love Him because he first loved us. We can only keep the law of love when we are actuated by the love of God poured out in our lives through the righteousness of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Would you like to receive the gift of God’s Spirit today? Would you like Christ’s righteousness to be yours? Would you like your life to be filled with love for God and for others? Just like in Jesus’ miracles, the only requirement is that you believe, and let God work out his salvation in your life.
Would you let Jesus take over your heart today, and let His name be glorified in and through your life?