God Has a Name

Knowing God through His names.

[Intro]

What you believe about God is most important to what we become.

We become like what we worship

What does God mean?

God is not His name.

God - object of worship that is mighty/strong/powerful/etc. (that object can truly be anything)

Same word with many different meanings.

You might worship a god of your own imagination and creation if:

He agrees with you on everything.

He exists solely for your better happy life.

He exists to give you what you want.

He is a democrat

He is a republican

He votes for all those you vote for and believes everything you believe.

This is why theology is so important - Theos (God) Logos (Word) = It’s what comes to mind when you think about God.

I can’t believe in a God that would or wouldn’t do this _________

Imagine if what you believe about God was the actual barometer of who he is.

Scripture assumes we know nothing about Him, so here is the story all about him and how we can relate to him.

Who is this God, what is His name?

Name gives definition.

God Has a Name(s)

God employs names to reveal himself to us. That we can know him, his character, who he is, so that we can trust him.

As we study the name and names of God we will be struck by the greatness, holiness, majesty, glory, indescribable goodness, and justice of God.

This includes the study of His acts because that is attributed to His name.

But truly, as we learn more about God through His names and actions we will see and feel that his mystery is unfathomable.

Judges 13:18 “Why do you ask my name?” the angel of the LORD replied. “It is too wonderful for you to understand.”

We will see this today with his personal name.

Understanding Names in Hebrew:

Indicates that by which a person or object is to be known.

Indicates the essential character of that to which the name is given. It expresses the essence of the person or object in actuality

For example: In Exodus 23:21 God tells Moses that the Angel will lead them and says that His Name is in him - he was saying that He himself was in this angel. His very presence or essence.

The Name of God is cast as an entity in Psalm 20:1 “1 May the Lord answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.”

Psalm 20:7 “7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”

The point is that trusting in the name means trusting in God Himself, He is the name and all that the names essence and character represents.

We remember that God changed the names of Abram and Jacob because the name of a person or people expressed what the person or people’s character is.

Exodus 3:11–15 NIV

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” 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 you shall call me from generation to generation.

3. The Name

Options for ‘ehyeh ‘aser ‘ehyeh are: “I am who I am,” or “I will be who I will be,” or “I create what I create” or “I cause to be what I cause to be.”

“The Lord”

Yahweh - Jehovah - (Using Adonai vowels to fill in the Consonants). Used over 6,000 times in the OT. As much as 6823 times. Best pronounced as Yahoveh.

Written Hebrew does not use vowels.

Depended on being immersed in oral tradition to understand correct pronunciation. After the diaspora and dispersion of the Hebrew people the oral tradition began to be lost.

Hashem - “The Name”

Adonai - Lord

What Does This Name Mean?

This is the unutterable name of God, His personal name.

I Am is entirely appropriate for God

The divine name is ineffable and therefore intrinsically mysterious.

Ineffable: incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible. Not to be spoken because of its sacredness; unutterable.

I AM with this name indicates a connection between the Name YHVH and being itself.

YHVH is the Source of all being and has being inherent in Himself.

Everything is contingent on him and derives existence from Him.

The name expresses the utter transcendence of God.

In Himself, God is beyond all “grammar or language: He is the Source and Foundation of all possibility of utterance and thus is beyond all definite descriptions.

Like Paul in 2 Cor. 12 - He heard things that were unspeakable or inexpressible and was not permitted to share.

Aquinas replied, “I cannot. Such things have been revealed to me that what I have written seems but straw.”

In Jewish tradition the Name expresses the mercy of God.

“The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to those, You want to know my name? I am called according to my actions. When I judge the creatures I am Elohim, and when I have mercy with My world, I am named YHWY.”

Elohim implies His strength, power, and justice and as Creator of the Universe.

YHVH expresses the idea of God’s closeness to humans, it was YHVH is first mentioned as the One who “breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life.”

God has a Name, He is a person and is relatable to us.

Relationships:

This relationship is not some formula like the pagan gods.

Complex, not an algorithm or a formula

You are dealing with wills/desires

A magic genie, formula, system, or algorithm is to be manipulated to get what you want.

That doesn’t work in relationships, manipulation is abuse.

Manipulating my wife to get what I want is abuse.

ADD LOVE to the relationship and you have not self-service but other-service. I want what you want.

1 John 5:14–15 “14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

The Great I Am desires that His desires and will is played out in your life.

Colossians 1:9 “9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,”

Jesus’ prayer: Our Father, Holy is your Name, Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done.

We can begin to transform our frame of this relationship and begin looking to God we love and praying

That it’s not what I want, but what you want.

it’s not what I think looks good or so and so thinks looks good, it’s what you think that matters.

Not my great plans for my life but your plans for my life which are inexpressibly better than anything I could imagine.

Responsive

What I mean is, if you would like a healthy marriage, it takes two. Now it may take only one to initiate but eventually for a thriving relationship it will take two.

If you… Then I…

Deuteronomy 4:29 “29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Jeremiah 29:12–14 “12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity…”

2 Chronicles 7:14 “14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Life is not on automatic. It is not fatalistically determined by God… It is not that whatever happens is God’s plan and He sovereignly made it happen.

Prayer truly makes a difference.

Praying or not praying lead to two very different results.

Imagine blind Bartimaeus…

Before you think the world and your life is all on your shoulders, remember that He is the great initiator.

Revelation 3:19–20 “19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”

He came first, He revealed Himself

In a way, God waits to be wanted.