Verbal Vandalism & The Third Commandment

Exodus 20:7 September 1, 2024 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis We violate the third commandment when we invoke God's name, work, or word to establish improper authority or credibility, but Jesus came to redeem our speech and give us the sacred privilege of calling the Creator 'Father.'

Series

Clear Truth for a Confused World

Type

Expository

Tone

pastoraldidacticprophetic

Method

grammatical-historicalcanonicalapplicatory

What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

26 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #9

"First application example: perjury—swearing to tell the truth using God's name while intending to lie. Oswald uses Chesterton's quote about shared moral foundations and explains how perjury invokes God's authority to establish credibility for a lie."

Doctrinal loci· 4 surfaced

Ethics / Moral Theology · 13 Christology · 3 Doxology / Worship · 2 Pastoral Theology · 2

Bible citations· 11

Illustrations· 4

personal story · unit #1 — Personal story about Oswald and his wife's childhood report cards—his for daydreaming, hers for talking too much—illustrating that many people struggle with controlling speech and making the problem relatable.
historical example · unit #3 — Historical example from World War II illustrating how careless speech—soldiers inadvertently revealing troop movements in letters home—can have catastrophic consequences, even when no harm is intended.
cultural reference · unit #13 — Oswald defines performative piety as projecting greater holiness than one possesses and illustrates it with humor about Baptists refusing to acknowledge each other in the liquor store—capturing the hypocrisy of public righteousness contradicted by private behavior.
personal story · unit #17 — Personal story about Oswald's early mentors—a godly couple whose only fights occurred when his reckless driving contradicted the 'I love Jesus' bumper sticker on their car, illustrating the seventh violation: public witness contradicted by behavior.

Theological claims· 3

Taking God's name in vain constitutes 'verbal vandalism' because God's name represents the totality of who God is and what He does. unit #5
We violate the third commandment when we invoke God's name, work, or word in order to establish improper authority, credibility, or power. unit #7
Jesus came to give believers the privilege of calling God 'Father,' transforming an exclusive divine relationship into an inclusive one through adoption, which is the gospel revolution in one word. unit #21

Quotations· 11

"I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." — Jesus (unit #0)

"His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. In like manner, we conceiving God as having certain properties, characters, methods, and so forth, call him creator, preserver, benefactor, king, judge, the eternal, the almighty, the all-seeing, the heavenly father, Emmanuel, Holy Spirit, and the like." — Dr. Pepper (Baptist pastor) (unit #4)

"God's name not only signifies all his various titles, that were little to say, it also signifies his nature, his attributes, his character, his authority, his purposes, his methods, his providences, his words, his instructions, his institutions, his truths, his kingdom. In short, all that God is, all that God says, all that God does, all that God bids." — Dr. Pepper (unit #4)

"You can either have Ten Commandments or Ten Thousand." — G.K. Chesterton (unit #9)

"You heap burdens on men's backs, burdens that you yourself do not carry." — Jesus (unit #11)

"Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the synagogues, in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses for a pretense, make long prayers. They will receive greater condemnation." — Jesus (unit #14)

"I know by experience that impressions made with great power and upon the minds of true saints, yea, imminent saints, and presently after, yea, in the midst of extraordinary exercises of grace and sweet communion with God, and attended with texts of scripture, strongly impressed on their mind, are no sure signs of being revelations from heaven, for I have known such impressions to fail and prove vain." — Jonathan Edwards (unit #15)

"Many Christians now rely far more on inward promptings than on their Bible knowledge to decide what they are going to do in a situation." — D.A. Carson (unit #15)

"There is no other name under heaven and earth by which men may be saved." — Peter (unit #20)

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved." — Paul (unit #20)

"For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. But the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he'd given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." — Paul (unit #24)

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Full transcript

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0 · Oswald opens by locating the sermon in Exodus 20:7, previewing next week's topic, and then introducing the sermon's central concern through Matthew 12:36-37

and you're going to want to be in Exodus today, chapter 20, verse 7, Exodus 20, verse 7. We're at the third commandment as we work our way through the commandments, and just as a reminder, next week we start kind of the full-blown series that we've been planning, clear truth for a confused world, and we'll be talking about next week rest in a busy world as we discover what God has planned for us with the Sabbath. I want to start as an introduction. I want to start by reading Matthew 12, 36 to you, Matthew 12, 36, and 37. Listen to this. Listen carefully. Jesus says, I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. How does that make you feel?

1 · Personal story about Oswald and his wife's childhood report cards—his for daydreaming, hers for talking too much—illustrating that many people struggle with controlling speech and making the problem relatable

A few of you are so quiet, you are safe. You are okay. But many of us are not naturally very quiet. My wife and I were talking about our report cards, you know, back in the day. You used to get those sent home with you, and you had to get them signed and taken back, and there was always a spot for comments. And my comment was always, is constantly daydreaming. I would get in trouble for just like staring out the window, and I'm out. I hadn't learned how to breathe through my nose yet, you know, and so just staring out the window, with these big old lips just daydreaming of whatever. And Ange's comment, though, now this will surprise you. Ange's comment from grade K all the way through 12 on her report cards, every single report card just about was, talks too much.

2 · Oswald analyzes Matthew 12:36-37 to establish a third category of speech beyond good and bad: careless speech—words not intended for harm but spoken without thought, which nonetheless carry consequences and danger

This verse that Jesus is giving to us in Matthew, this idea, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak. It shows us that there is a third category for speech that we don't often consider. We have a category for negative speech, right? For speech that is hurtful, for speech that is meant to inflict harm, lies. We have a category for wrong speech, bad speech. We have a category for good speech, you know, admonishing, exhorting, affirming, praising, so forth. The category we don't often consider is this third category, and that is just careless speech, careless speech. And I'm sure that you have, as I have, experienced problems as a consequence of just not speech that was intended really for anything except to fill the room with some noise. This category of careless speech is pretty dangerous.

3 · Historical example from World War II illustrating how careless speech—soldiers inadvertently revealing troop movements in letters home—can have catastrophic consequences, even when no harm is intended

During World War II, one of the most successful kind of advertising campaigns during World War II was the campaign that usually said, loose lips, sink ships. And what they would do in that campaign is to remind, actually, honestly, mothers and fathers were receiving letters from their soldiers, often the European theater in particular, but also the Pacific theater. And these soldiers were told, and these letters were reviewed to some degree even, but these soldiers were told, be very careful about communicating plans. But things would slip through. For instance, we've been on the move for three days. We haven't been able to set up a kitchen. We've been eating only MREs. You send that to your mom back in Kansas. And if she communicates that to the wrong person at the wrong time, someone now knows that this particular division in the Army is moving in haste in a particular direction, and so on and so forth. And so there was an entire campaign built around loose lips, sink ships. This problem of careless speech is well known to those of us that struggle with it. It is well known throughout military history.

4 · Oswald reads Exodus 20:7 and establishes that the third commandment is the foundation for all speech ethics

And the sort of headwaters of careless speech is found in Exodus 20, verse 7. If you want to know where like kind of the pinnacle of careless speech is, it would be Exodus 20, verse 7. 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. To be honest with you, this is where we start. If you have any struggles in controlling your speech in any way, this is where we start. We learn how to honor God in our speech. And the lessons we learn in that realm work their way through into the rest of our lives. If you ever wonder, should I trust so and so or not? Here's how I would tell you to evaluate a person. If they don't honor God's name, if they're routinely dishonoring God's name, don't trust them with your name. This capacity to simply revere God's name is so countercultural. It's so common for us to walk through the world every day and to watch our movies and so on and so forth and hear God's name being taken in vain. It rarely registers any longer, but I tell you, it's indeed a symptom of something quite terrible that many an English poet feared back in the day. Many a Greek philosopher feared back in the day. And that's simply the loss of all sense of reverence. And there's a problem is when you lose all sense of reverence, people have nothing to swear by any longer. People have nothing to swear by that we can be assured this person means it because they're swearing by this thing that they hold in deep reverence. All of the intentional irreverence and cynicism and so on and so subversion and so on and so forth. This is all intended not simply to like ruin norms, which it does that, but also create a low trust society because none of us know if what is holy to me is holy to you. Did you hear about the recent parliamentary swear in in London? You know, it's typical to put your hand on a holy book of some kind. And there were something like 15 to 20 different holy books used there, each one swearing in the name of their own higher power. Problem is, is that all these higher powers have different standards. And I can't be assured, for instance, Muhammad or Allah, he doesn't mind if you lie, if you lie for his purposes. So how can I be sure if someone pushed their hand on this book or that book and swears to this God or that God? The world is kind of becoming a place where I, if we don't hold simple things in reverence together, it's, it's not just impolite to use the name, the Lord's name in vain. It actually, it actually matters at like deep functional societal ways. I drove past a vegetable stand last night that was an honor system vegetable stand with a jar of cash sitting right there, completely unguarded, no one around. How can we, how can we find that again? It's actually connected in many respects to what we're going to talk to do, talk about today, this idea of revering the name of the Lord. Now, why does God care if we take his name in vain? I've touched on some of it, but I want to remind you what Dove shared with us last week. And that is, is that we are a word-based religion, not an image-based religion. We're a word-based religion, not an image, image-based religion. So for us, careless speech, sinful speech, and in particular, taking the Lord's name in vain, that would be verbal vandalism on the image of God, the image of God being the word of God. It's very important to remember that we are not, when we use God's name in vain, simply using a name in vain. We are speaking ill of God in totality. There's this old Baptist pastor whose last name was Pepper, and I did confirm he did get his doctorate. So we, we have a quote here from Dr. Pepper. Listen, listen to what he says about the name of God. His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. In like manner, we conceiving God as having certain properties, characters, methods, and so forth, call him creator, preserver, benefactor, king, judge, the eternal, the almighty, the all-seeing, the heavenly father, Emmanuel, Holy Spirit, and the like. On the other hand, would we give the supreme being no specific title? The general phrase, name of God, stands as a compendium of our conceptions of God, a human epitome of deity. A lot of $5 words there. What's he saying? Well, he's saying that when you choose the name God, you're not simply using a name. You're referring to the entire person, all that he does, all that he is. He says more clearly in another paragraph, God's name not only signifies all his various titles, that were little to say, it also signifies his nature, his attributes, his character, his authority, his purposes, his methods, his providences, his words, his instructions, his institutions, his truths, his kingdom. In short, all that God is, all that God says, all that God does, all that God bids. Thus, comprehensive is the phrase, name of God.

5 · Oswald synthesizes the exposition into the sermon's first major claim: taking God's name in vain is 'verbal vandalism' because God's name represents the totality of God, and therefore misusing it dishonors all that God is and does

So God's name is more than just a name. And that's why he says in Exodus 20, verse 7, that if we take his name in vain, we will not be held guiltless, because God's name is a representation of all that God does. And so taking God's name in vain is what you would call verbal vandalism. And that's point one of our message today.

6 · Oswald introduces point two—the wide variety of ways to violate the third commandment—and quotes extensively from the Westminster Larger Catechism to demonstrate the breadth of violations, ranging from blasphemy and perjury to hypocrisy and backsliding

Point two of our message is that there is a wide variety of ways in which you can take the name of the Lord in vain. I would encourage all of you to just remember this. You don't have to do anything right now. But as you yourself are thinking about the Ten Commandments, I would strongly encourage you to look up the Westminster Larger Confession, the Westminster Larger Catechism, rather, Westminster Larger Catechism. I would encourage you to look that up and read their comments on each one of the commandments. Because there you've got a group of men who met for about two years, working their way through the Word of God, and they did an amazing job of thinking through all of the different categories that exist in each of these commandments. And listen to this. The question in this answer of the Westminster Catechism is, what is forbidden in the Third Commandment? That's the question. And the answer provided by the larger Westminster Catechism is, the sins forbidden in the Third Commandment are, the not using of God's name as it is required, the abuse of it, an ignorant, vain, irreverent, profane, superstitious, or wicked mentioning, or otherwise using his titles, attributes, ordinances, or works by blasphemy, perjury, all sinful cursings, oaths, vows, and lots, violating of our oaths and vows, if lawful and fulfilling them, if all things unlawful, if of things unlawful, murmuring and quarreling at, curious, prying into, misapplying of God's decrees and providences, misinterpreting, misapplying, or any way perverting the Word or any part of it, to profane jests, curious or unprofitable questions, vain janglings. Someone tell me what that is, maybe one time. Vain janglings, or the maintaining of false doctrines, abusing it, the creatures, or anything contained under the name of God, to charms or sinful lusts and practices, the maligning, scorning, and reviling, or any wise opposing of God's truth and grace in ways, making profession of religion and hypocrisy, or for sinister ends, being ashamed of it or ashamed to it. Being ashamed of it or ashamed to it. We'll talk about that at the end. By uncomfortable, unwise, unfruitful, and offensive walking or backsliding from it. So that's how the Westminster Catechism talks about the Third Commandment. How do you violate the Third Commandment? Basically, how do you not violate the Third Commandment? Like, there's a lot of ways to violate the Third Commandment.

7 · Oswald provides his working definition of violating the third commandment: invoking God's name, work, or word to establish improper authority, credibility, or power

Here's my definition, which is more appropriate to my IQ level. Here it is. We disobey the third when we invoke God's name, His work, or His Word in order to establish improper authority, credibility, power, and so on. This is how I would describe what God's forbidding in the Third Commandment. We disobey the Third Commandment when we invoke God's name, His work, or His Word in order to establish improper authority or credibility or power by the invocation of that name.

8 · Oswald signals a structural shift to application mode, noting that the sermon will cover eight examples of violating the third commandment

So I've got eight examples of that today, and we're just going to mostly talk, you know, application. I told someone this week as they asked me how sermon prep was like, well, I've gotten to the text and don't do that. That's where I've gotten to. So what we really need to look at is the various ways that we could accidentally or intentionally transgress the Third. I'm going to start with three areas that probably won't be convicting to you, that will give you kind of a capacity to sense what's going on in my definition from a distance.

9 · First application example: perjury—swearing to tell the truth using God's name while intending to lie

And the first one would be the simplest, and that would be perjury. Right? Chesterton, remember that I said about the swearing into 20 different holy books or whatever. Chesterton said you can either have Ten Commandments or Ten Thousand. And what he meant by that is, is that you have to have a means by which we can all validate that we're all playing on the same sheet music. Right? And he essentially says that it gets into this idea of perjury that like, how do I know if so-and-so, when they put their hand on the Bible or put their hand on this or this or this, means what they say? Perjury is, of course, well, it was designed, I think, I'm assuming that it works differently in some places now, but it was always designed to say, I tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and then what? So help me God. So suppose you come up that day to testify, and you have every intention of lying, and you put your hand on the Bible and say, I'll tell the truth, the whole truth, and, you know, so help me God. And it's, you know, you actually don't mean that. You don't mean, so help me God, meaning if I don't, God's going to be mad at me. You don't mean that. That would be an example of taking the Lord's name in vain.

10 · Second application example: politics—politicians invoking God's name to establish credibility and authority without genuine reverence, whether from malice or ignorance

A second one that, you know, is pretty obvious is politics. You just see political parties and political candidates using the name of God to advance their particular stuff, and you really get the clear sense, sometimes because they're evil, wicked people, and sometimes just because they're clowns, you really get the sense that they don't leave in, they're not saying God's name there with a reverence. They're using it, as I said in my definition, to, they're invoking God's name to establish credibility, power, authority, and so on and so forth.

11 · Third application example: preaching

And here's one that I'm very eager for you to be aware of, and that would just be preaching. Very often, I believe that preaching violates the third commandment. There's a few ways that that could happen, and I just want you to think about this and be aware of it. The first one is, is when a preacher binds people's consciences to things that God would not bind their consciences to, and he does so in the name of God, that would be taking the Lord's name in vain. For instance, if I, just throwing some kind of crazy thing out that would never happen, if I wrote a book about what, how long your hair should be, and I said, this is what God wants, well, I've just taken the name of the Lord, I've just taken the Lord's name in vain. You understand? Because I've just, I've just invoked God's name, this is what God wants, and I've bound your conscience to something that I'm suggesting to you is from God, when it's not. It's just my opinion. It might be an educated opinion, it might not be. But one of the common ways that preaching can take the name of the Lord in vain is by binding people's consciences to standards that God himself does not, would not bind you to. Sometimes this comes off as a pastor expressing his personal opinion, that doing so with, sometimes accidentally, with too much authority, too much sauce, you know, it's not always intentional. But you have to look out for this. Jesus says of the Pharisees that he's woeing them, you know, he's woeing them to kingdom come, and one of the things he says is, you heap burdens on men's backs, burdens that you yourself do not carry. So one of the ways preaching can violate the third is by binding people's consciences. Here's one, if you love your neighbor, you'll wear a mask. Like, that was sin. And if you haven't, if you thought that and haven't repented, you should. That was wrong. That was a wrong take. We all get things wrong. It's okay. But that one was wrong. You used a Bible verse to say more than it said. You could say, I believe that I would love my neighbors by wearing a mask. Sweet. Great. But once you give me the thus sayeth the Lord treatment, you're in the wrong. So that's another one to look out for. And the third way, or another way, is pastors that will kind of accidentally, usually accidentally, sometimes knowingly, but usually accidentally, just teach false doctrine, false things about God. Well, that would be taking the Lord's name in vain. You're presenting something that's just not true. You're presenting a description of God that's just false. And related to that is this idea of misrepresenting God by emphasis. If I present God's attributes to you in a very lopsided way consistently for years, whether I make him more wrathful than he really is, or more patient than he really is, you understand what I'm saying? Like if I present a piece of God to you as God, that would be taking the Lord's name in vain. So those are three areas that probably don't step on a lot of toes. You know, they're just examples of how we would take the Lord's name in vain in real life.

12 · Oswald signals a shift from 'safe' examples to personally convicting ones, introducing the fourth category: performative piety—acting more godly than one actually is

Now let's step on some toes. And the first one I think that we should talk about is what I would call performative piety.

13 · Oswald defines performative piety as projecting greater holiness than one possesses and illustrates it with humor about Baptists refusing to acknowledge each other in the liquor store—capturing the hypocrisy of public righteousness contradicted by private behavior

Piety. Performative piety. So piety has to do with holiness. And here I'm talking about like acting like you're godlier than you are would be an example of taking the Lord's name in vain. You're picking up the things of God and you're sort of holding them in front of you in this social situation to sort of look like you are more holy than you actually are. I'm sure you probably heard this, that Muslims do not recognize the Jews as God's chosen people. The Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian church. And Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store.

14 · Oswald applies the concept of performative piety directly to Providence Community Church, warning against religious posturing in conversation

And that would be what we're talking about, right? Like there's just this, I am presenting, I'm really putting, I'm very God forward in this particular conversation because I want you to think that I am holier than I actually am. Jesus covers this when he's talking about the Pharisees in Mark 12, 38. Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the synagogues, in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses for a pretense, make long prayers. They will receive greater condemnation. I've found that this is just a constant temptation in church. And I'll just tell you straight up, some of you have been here a long time, some of you are new, and we kind of got a, you know, light Labor Day crowd today, which is fine. But let me be clear about something. Our secret sauce at Providence is people who are comfortable in their own skin. There's a reason I don't preach with a lot of rhetorical flourish. I made that commitment over 10 years ago because I realized that if I'm presenting something to you that isn't fully me, and I'm training you over time for you not to be fully you. But if I get up here and I'm just me, and I'm, you know, the preacher version of me, which is a real version of me, if I'm authentic and I'm communicating to you like people would talk, like I would talk to you at your house, what I'm communicating to you is you do not need to put on a show to do church. Now, what happens when a whole congregation gets a hold of that and God bless, praise the Lord, he is doing this. I'm hesitant to point this out. I don't want to be boastful. Our church is comfortable in its own skin to a degree that most churches are not. And I would just remind you guys, like, if you start doing this performative piety thing where you're talking, now you don't have to dump and say like everything about how terrible your life is or anything. But man, if you start throwing in these little Jesus adjectives and verbs and so on, and you start seizing your conversation in a way as to present you as more godly than you really are, you're losing the plot and it's ruining our, like the thing we got going. It's our secret sauce, you know, it's not the building, you know, it's us being real. And so let's watch out for this performative piety.

15 · Fifth application: prophecy and promptings

A second area that would be consistent, I think, for us as the temptation to violate the third would be in the category of what you might call prophecy and promptings. You could go as far as the occasions when someone would claim to have a word from the Lord and use language in their description that would put an amount of authority on their thought or insight that would be inappropriate and would be kind of, again, invoking God's word, his ways, his name, in a way that makes you look like you are certain that you really, it's like, no, no, be careful. Be careful. Be careful. There's another related element. That one would be kind of public. There's another one, and this happens a lot to pastors. We find out about this a lot. So and so will come to us and say, hey, I've just decided I'm going to make a massive life change, but don't worry, I've prayed about it. And what happens essentially in these sorts of moments is, is that a Christian can, without realizing it, sort of insert God's name as a means of credibility. Like, I've felt this from the Lord. I've received this prompting from the Lord, and so on and so forth. And boy, I would just tell you, you need to be careful. That very easily could be using the Lord's name in vain. Jonathan Edwards, many of you know, had, you know, a front row seat to one of the most dramatic revivals of all time. And he was really careful to say the following. I know by experience that impressions made with great power and upon the minds of true saints, yea, imminent saints, and presently after, yea, in the midst of extraordinary exercises of grace and sweet communion with God, and attended with texts of scripture, strongly impressed on their mind, are no sure signs of being revelations from heaven, for I have known such impressions to fail and prove vain. D.A. Carson, in his classic book, this is a book I would commend to many of you. He wrote it in the late 90s. It turned out to be prophetic. Well, I guess I, maybe not, according to what I just said. D.A. Carson wrote this, many Christians now rely far more on inward promptings than on their Bible knowledge to decide what they are going to do in a situation. And I would say, there's a category for that. It's okay. You need to understand, though, that that did not come to you with the level of authority that you would be, that would be appropriate for you to say, in the name of the Lord, I, or thus sayeth the Lord, or the Lord has told me. You need to be skeptical of those things. You need to be careful of those things. And you certainly would never want to use those things to sort of win an argument, to sort of overcome counsel from the outside. You just want to be really careful there.

16 · Sixth application: profanity

So those are two. There's another one, which would just be profanity. Using the name of God as a swear word is strictly forbidden. You must not do it. And let me tell you another thing. Some of you guys, and you know I don't hear so well, some of you guys, if you're going to do gosh, you need to up your shh game a lot. Do you understand what I'm saying? If you're going to be a gosh person, fine. But what I hear a lot of times isn't shh. I just hear God. Now, I want you to think about this also, just so you understand, if you're going to be a person who says gosh, okay, I want you to also understand something. You're surrounded by people who are saying God. You're seeing it on TV. You're hearing it in movies and so on. So I would just tell you, like, you just need to be careful. Because remember, why do we even care about taking God's name in vain? We care because God's name represents God, all of God. And so even if it were just to be like, I just want to make sure if I'm saying gosh, people hear me say gosh. And this might be my oldest guy take I've had a number of weeks. But I'm telling you, young people, you got to watch this. It's like you don't want to accidentally do it wrong. God's worthy of great care. His name is worthy of great care. So watch yourself there.

17 · Personal story about Oswald's early mentors—a godly couple whose only fights occurred when his reckless driving contradicted the 'I love Jesus' bumper sticker on their car, illustrating the seventh violation: public witness contradicted by behavior

Another example would be publicity. publicity. So I've had some wonderful mentors over the years. And most of them were informal. And so I would just kind of fall in and pester a person until they started telling me what to do, especially when I was younger. And Angela and I had these mentors when we were younger. And it was a couple that were probably in their 40s. And we would just like constantly go to them with questions and just spend tons of time with them. And they were to us like some of the godliest people we knew. And we just thought so much of them. They had a like I love Jesus bumper sticker on their Ford Taurus or something, you know, something like that. And the only time I ever saw them fight was when we would drive in the city together. And, you know, the girls would be in the back and I'd be up in the front with the guy. And he was kind of a reckless driver, not a super careful driver. And she would yell up from the front seat like, if you don't learn how to use a turn signal, I'm taking the bumper sticker off the car.

18 · Seventh application: publicity—Christians who publicly identify with Christ while behaving badly in the world violate the third commandment by bringing dishonor to God's name through their conduct

And what she was saying essentially was like, we are not going to drive through St. Louis telling everyone how much you love Jesus while being such an inconsiderate, terrible driver. And so one of the ways we could take the Lord's name in vain, one of the common ways is we carry God's name. People know we're Christians and we're just idiots, you know. We're just chumps. We're just inconsiderate. We're rude. We're so on and so forth. And we just like that would be kind of acceptable if you weren't, if everyone didn't know you're a Christian, but they often do. And so listen, guys, you just need to be understanding that if you are carrying God's name into the world and you're not careful in how you represent God, you're violating the third commandment.

19 · Eighth application: parenting and spiritual authority

And I have one here that is not intended for you really, but I want to talk about parenting for a moment. I'm not putting this here because I see any parents in Providence that are actually struggling with this. I see a lot of great things in the parents at Providence. But I'm putting this here actually for some adults who might be here today, and I felt like maybe this would just could potentially be useful to some of you. And I would extend it not just to parents, but to pastors and other people. See, by the time you're a certain age, you will probably encounter someone in a position of power who used God's name to endorse things that God would not endorse. I think that there's some in the room who had a spiritual leader, a parent or something that would use God's name, God's word, God's work in a way to win the moment, to establish a moral high ground, to make the, you know, persuading you or getting you to do what he or she wanted you to do, like kind of easier. And I just think that like, we just need to acknowledge that for a moment and understand that's actually probably a part of a lot of our lives. We've had someone in our life who used God's name to move us in a direction that God himself was actually completely not for. And I bring that up to you, first of all, to be clear, because sometimes it's just important to understand that someone sinned against me and to understand what sin it was. So if you've been bullied, not led, but if you've been bullied, gaslit, whatever, in the name of God, we now have a name for what that was. That was taking the Lord's name in vain. And you can understand that. And then you can choose by God's grace to say, well, that's the sin. I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm going to move on. But just understand that the law that was violated in many of those cases, sometimes very knowingly, sometimes completely accidentally, was a sort of pharisaical means of taking the sacred name of God and using it to win a fight. And those of you, if you're married and you're the one who's more verbally astute than the other one, Anne's talked her whole life, but I'm pretty good at winning arguments. And I've had to learn, man, like, just because I know more Bible verses, just because I'm better at making an argument, doesn't mean that I get to just drop God cluster bombs on my wife's head to win. That would be fundamentally disobeying the third commandment.

20 · Oswald pivots from violations to right use of God's name

So that's sort of like some ways that you could violate this. I want to talk about the opposite. As we know, very often, the way that we avoid doing the wrong thing is by doing the right thing. Now, let's be clear. The Jews have this completely wrong related to not saying the name of God. This isn't one of those Will Smith, keep God's name out of your mouth kind of things. It's not that at all. It's actually the best way to learn reverence for God's name is to use God's name in the ways that God has called you to use his name. And so I want to just talk about a couple of those. Firstly, fundamentally, ground floor, the number one way to use God's name is to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. And we are in a moment culturally where almost every week, I'm sure, in churches all over America, people are revisiting the Christian faith. I know it's happening. And we're doubling down on just being clear, not only to share the gospel, which we do every week and have for years, but to invite people to trust in Christ because of what God's doing in the world right now. And so I'd say we're talking about God's name and you're like, well, you know, I probably do a lot of these things and so on and so forth. Like here's the number one good way to use God's name. Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. As Peter says, there is no other name under heaven and earth by which men may be saved. As Paul writes in Romans 10, that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

21 · Oswald identifies the second right use of God's name: praying to God as Father

So ground floor, God wants you to use his name. And the first thing he wants you to do with God's name is to ask him to save you. Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Be saved of the guilt of your sins. Be saved into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Be brought into the kingdom of God. Here's the second thing that I would commend to you in no particular order, I think. Another way to use God's name that is absolutely beautiful, positive, and glorious. And that would be to pray to the Father. Pray to the Father. Of all the names of God, what's the one I don't know if I could do without? Creator of the universe, guys. The Bible says in John 1, 12, My sense is that, and I'm sure you've probably seen this, that Jesus comes on the scene and he's using this term for God that just almost never gets used in the Old Testament, that term being Father. Father. It is my sense that Jesus had a special access to that word that people do not have, which is not uncommon. My wife has some names for me that you cannot call me. It would just be super weird. sense that Father. A sense that Father was the privileged name for Christ to refer to the first person of the Trinity. And I believe that, and I think I can prove this theologically, Jesus came to give you this word. And for it to mean something and not be vain. He came, of course, to offer you forgiveness, of course, to teach you how to love and so on and so forth. But fundamentally, it came so that you could be adopted into the family of God and you could call the creator of the universe Father. And so if you want to know, like, what's the right way to use God's name? Jesus tells us that when the disciples asked him, Jesus, teach us how to pray. He said, start like this. Our Father. Our Father. I think that that, pluraling, our Father, is the gospel revolution in one word. It went from my Father, the only begotten Son, to our Father.

22 · Oswald exhorts the congregation to use the name 'Father' in prayer, emphasizing it as the sweetest name for God and a privilege Jesus personally delivered to believers

So if you want to know how to use God's name, I don't know any sweeter name. I don't know any sweeter name in any language, in any sweeter name for God than the one that Jesus hand-delivered to us and made a possibility for us. And so I say, use that. It's a great privilege. Use it.

23 · Oswald transitions to communion by answering how believers gained access to call God 'Father

And we're kind of ready to pivot into communion because the question is, how did we get access to that name? Now Hebrews 2 tells us very clearly, speaking of Jesus, but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. And so we come to this time where we get to approach the table that commemorates the thing Jesus did to give us Father as the name of God. And what he did was he offered himself as a sacrifice to make payment for our sins and to give us his righteousness. When Jesus died, the temple veil was torn in tune that separated man from God. The idea of you have been given access to God as a child has access to his dad at all times. That's what's being communicated by this table.

24 · Oswald reads the 1 Corinthians 11 communion text and invites the congregation to take the elements and pray, specifically using the name 'Father' to thank God for what He has accomplished through Christ's death

So I'm going to read our text from 1 Corinthians 11. I'd love you to come and take these elements and go sit in your seat and just love you to use that name and pray to the Lord and say thank you Father for what you've done. The creator of the universe I now call Father. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. But the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and when he'd given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

25 · Oswald closes with a pastoral prayer thanking God for salvation by grace alone and connecting the sermon's theme—taking God's name in vain springs from pride and the desire for status—to the humility required at the communion table

Father God we are so so grateful for the tremendous work you have done for us the work we did not deserve and could not earn or we have brought nothing to the accomplishing of our own salvation. It is all of grace and perfect grace. You have saved us by grace so that not of work so that none of us could boast. And Father in many respects this the desire for boasting is what's behind this great sin of taking your name in vain. So even now as we come and acknowledge this table and that we are debtors and debtors alone may you do work against this sin this sin of pride this desire for status. Every person who comes to this table is acknowledging they were saved by grace alone and nothing else. Let us be revealed to be the beggars that we are as we come and then let us sit in our seats and with great reverence understand that we can call on the creator of the universe the God of all we can call on him as father. You are amazing we love you in Jesus name Amen.

Where this fits

Recent preaching context

The three sermons immediately preceding this one in the preaching schedule.

Aug 11, 2024

How to Outgrow Grumbling

Christians must replace grumbling with lament—bringing their complaints to God in faith rather than to themselves or others in unbelief—because the cross proves God's trustworthiness and grants us access to a Father who cares for us.

Exodus 15:22-26

Aug 18, 2024

Two Mountains: One Mandate

Christians have moved from Mount Sinai (terror under the Law with Moses as mediator) to Mount Zion (peace in the Gospel with Jesus as mediator), but the mandate to worship God alone has not changed — only now we are empowered by the Holy Spirit who writes the Law on our hearts and fuels obedience through remembrance and gratitude.

Aug 19, 2024

Ode to Sovereign Joy (Sermon Remix)

The breaking winter of Reformed austerity gives way to sovereign joy—a comprehensive transformation of worship, community, and life posture that flows entirely from God's free and unbounded grace.

September 1 · This sermon

Verbal Vandalism & The Third Commandment

We violate the third commandment when we invoke God's name, work, or word to establish improper authority or credibility, but Jesus came to redeem our speech and give us the sacred privilege of calling the Creator 'Father.'

Exodus 20:7

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

Exodus 20:7 forbids taking the Lord's name 'in vain.' From the sermon, what does it mean that God's name represents the totality of who God…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we trace God's name from its violation through speech to its redemption in intimate prayer—moving from the commandment's demand for reverence, through the ways we break it, to the gospel privilege of calling God 'Father.'

Prayer

Father, Redeem Our Speech

Father, we come before You in awe of the weight carried by Your name. Your name is not a label but the totality of who You are—Your characte…

Family table

When We Use God's Name

This prompt invites kids to notice the difference between using God's name casually versus calling on Him seriously. Listen for whether they…

Couples

Whose Name Are We Calling On?

What did you hear about how easily we can slip into using God's name for our own authority or credibility—and where do you feel that temptat…

Memorize

Exodus 20:7

This is the commandment itself—the interpretive anchor for everything Chris unpacks about verbal vandalism, improper authority, and the misuse of God's name. Memorizing it forces the hearer to reckon with what 'in vain' actually means: not just profanity, but any invocation of God's name, work, or word to establish illegitimate power or credibility.

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Exodus 20:7

When Moses writes 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain,' he is forbidding us to treat lightly or mishandle the sum total of what God is. His name is not a label we use casually; it is the concentrated weight of His holiness, His power, His faithfulness across all creation. To speak God's name carelessly is to commit vandalism against His very identity.

Tuesday Matthew 12:36-37

Jesus warns us that 'every careless word you speak you will give an account for.' This includes every time we invoke God's name to prop up our own authority—every oath sworn to establish false credibility, every claim of God's direction to hide our own agenda. Our words reveal whether we truly reverence God's name or merely use it as a tool for power.

Wednesday Mark 12:38-40

Jesus condemns the scribes who 'like to walk around in long robes' and 'devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.' They wrapped themselves in the apparatus of piety while exploiting the vulnerable. Their misuse of God's word and name was not crude profanity but the refined corruption of true devotion—perhaps the most dangerous form of taking God's name in vain.

Thursday Acts 4:12

Peter declares that 'there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.' The third commandment protects God's name from being weaponized for human ends. True reverence recognizes that God's name carries weight and authority that no human agenda can alter—only Christ Himself, through whom salvation comes.

Friday John 1:12

To all who receive Christ, John writes, 'He gave the right to become children of God.' The third commandment was never meant merely to silence us before God's majesty—it was meant to prepare us for the day we would be invited into His family. The redemption of God's name culminates not in our silence but in our intimate address: Father. This is the gospel revolution in one word.

Draft · pending review

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

Exodus 20:7 forbids taking the Lord's name 'in vain.' From the sermon, what does it mean that God's name represents the totality of who God is—His character, attributes, authority, and works? What changes about how we think of this commandment when we understand it that way?

Exodus 20:7

→ Can you think of a moment this week when you invoked God's name, authority, or word—in conversation, prayer, or decision-making? What were you actually doing in that moment?
The sermon identifies several ways we commit 'verbal vandalism' against God's name: perjury, political manipulation, performative piety, false prophecy claims. Of these, which one do you see most frequently in the world around you, and what makes that particular violation so dangerous?

→ What do all these violations have in common? What is the speaker actually trying to accomplish by invoking God's name in each case?
Matthew 12:36-37 says, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks' and we will give account for every careless word. How does that text sharpen what the third commandment is really about—is it primarily about the words themselves, or about what those words reveal about the condition of our hearts?

Matthew 12:36-37

→ If our words reveal what's in our hearts, what does your speech this past week reveal about what you actually trust or value?
The sermon claims that when preachers bind consciences to extrabiblical standards, present personal opinion as divine command, teach false doctrine, or misrepresent God's character through lopsided emphasis, they are violating the third commandment. Why is this a violation of taking God's name in vain, and not just 'bad preaching'?
Jesus came to give us the privilege of calling God 'Father'—a relationship that was once exclusive and mediated through the temple, but is now intimate and direct through His death. What does it mean that this gospel revolution hinges on how we address God and invoke His name?

John 1:12, Hebrews 2:9-10

→ How should the fact that you can call God 'Father' change the way you speak about Him or to Him this week?
If the third commandment is ultimately about protecting the honor and integrity of God's name, and if Jesus has given us access to call God 'Father,' what is the positive command hidden inside this prohibition—what are we actually supposed to do with God's name?

Romans 10:9-10

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

When We Use God's Name

For the parent

This prompt invites kids to notice the difference between using God's name casually versus calling on Him seriously. Listen for whether they can distinguish between careless speech and genuine reverence—that's the heart of the third commandment.

Chris talked about how God's name isn't just a word—it's like His whole self, everything He is and does. He said we use His name wrong when we say it just to sound important or powerful, or when we promise something 'by God' but we don't mean it. Can you think of a time this week when you heard someone use God's name—maybe in anger, or to make themselves sound like they knew something they didn't, or just without really thinking about it? What was happening?

works for ages 7+

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Exodus 20:7

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.

Why this verse: This is the commandment itself—the interpretive anchor for everything Chris unpacks about verbal vandalism, improper authority, and the misuse of God's name. Memorizing it forces the hearer to reckon with what 'in vain' actually means: not just profanity, but any invocation of God's name, work, or word to establish illegitimate power or credibility.

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Whose Name Are We Calling On?

What did you hear about how easily we can slip into using God's name for our own authority or credibility—and where do you feel that temptation most acutely in your own speech?
How do we as a couple invoke God's name together—in our prayers, our promises to each other, the way we speak about His character to our kids? Where might we be careless, and where are we honoring His name well?
What would it mean for each of us this week to call God 'Father' with more reverence and intimacy in prayer—and how can we pray that for one another?

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Father, Redeem Our Speech

Father, we come before You in awe of the weight carried by Your name. Your name is not a label but the totality of who You are—Your character, Your authority, Your redemptive work across all of history. We confess that we have spoken carelessly, invoked Your name without reverence, and used Your word to establish our own authority rather than to exalt Yours. We have bound consciences to our opinions as though they were Your commands. We have preached half-truths and called them gospel. We have sworn oaths we did not mean to keep. We have dressed up our own ambitions in the language of Your calling and asked others to believe us. Forgive us for this verbal vandalism against the image of God.

Yet we rejoice that Jesus came to tear down the barrier between us and You. Through His death, the temple veil was rent, and the exclusive privilege of calling You by name has become ours. We are no longer slaves but adopted children, free to approach the throne of grace and call You 'Father'—not because we have earned it, but because Christ has made us worthy (Hebrews 2:9-10, John 1:12). This is the gospel revolution in one word.

Grant us, we pray, a deep reverence for the power of speech. Make us slow to speak and quick to listen (James 1:19). Guard our lips from perjury, from political manipulation dressed in religious language, from false prophecy, and from the casual misuse of Your name. Help us to speak truth in love, to let our yes be yes and our no be no (Matthew 5:37), and to handle Your word with the care it deserves. When we preach, teach, or testify, may we present only what Scripture says and attribute to You only what You have claimed. And may every word we speak honor the privilege You have given us to call You Father.

To You be glory and dominion forever, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [How to Outgrow Grumbling (Exodus 15:22-26, 2024-08-11)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/08/how-to-outgrow-grumbling)
- [Two Mountains: One Mandate (2024-08-18)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/08/two-mountains-one-mandate)
- [Ode to Sovereign Joy (Sermon Remix) (2024-08-19)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/08/ode-to-sovereign-joy-sermon-remix)
- [Verbal Vandalism & The Third Commandment (Exodus 20:7, 2024-09-01)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2024/09/verbal-vandalism-the-third-commandment)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

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