How Majestic is Thy Name

God's name is like a key that unlocks the treasure to the inquiring mind. Dr. Tony Evans explains why when it comes to the Lord, there's more to a name than just what you call someone. Because to know his name is to experience his nature.

Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. What's in a name? Well, everything when that name is God's. And there are several of them that we'll be looking at as Dr. Evans kicks off a series titled, Knowing God's Names.

Let's join him. Let me call your attention to Psalm chapter 8, the eighth Psalm. The psalmist says, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who has displayed your splendor above the heavens. From the mouth of infants and nursing babes, you have established strength.

Because of your adversaries to make the enemy and the revengeful cease. When I consider your heavens, the works of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him? The son of man that you care for him. You have made him a little lower than God, and you crown him with glory and majesty. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. I am sure you would concur with me that names are important. Names provide for us a point of identification. We don't as often deal with the meaning of the name. When you come to know a name, it becomes more intriguing when you find out what's behind the name that you've come to know.

If I said to you, Bill Gates, you're going to naturally and immediately think of wealth and business success and entrepreneurial intrigue. You can be enthralled with Serena Williams because you're going to think tennis. You say, I'm going to name my daughter Serena.

She can't even play ping pong. You can have the name without the substance. The concept of naming goes from Genesis to Revelation. Over 80 names for God or compound relationships thereof are in Scripture. And the reason why God wants to give you all these names is so that you can get a different perspective on who he is. And the reason why you need these different perspectives is one name doesn't fully contain it.

All that he is, simply to say God, does not fully say all that he is in terms of the nuances that make up that overarching term that we say when we say God. And so what God does is he wants you to know him relationally through his multiplicity of names. Depending on what the relationship is, my name varies. My name varies.

Because a husband, father, uncle, a pastor, a professor, whatever that relationship is, the nomenclature may adjust to that relationship. God's name is critical to our understanding of his multidimensional nature. God wants us to come face to face with his significance and substance, and so Moses wanted to know God's name. He says, when I go over to Pharaoh, they're going to want to know who sent me.

Who are you? Then God unveiled one of the great names, I Am That I Am. Our goal through this series is to introduce you again to God for the first time. But the goal is not merely for you to be able to pronounce his name. The goal is to understand the nature behind the name. His name shows up in the situations of life.

And to be able to know which name relates to this kind of situation that you are facing. David says in Psalm 8, he says, how majestic is your name? He doesn't say, I just know your name. He says, your name is excellent. Majestic means full of splendor.

It's magnificent. Please notice that David says in verse 2, from the mouths of infants and nursing babes, you've established strength. In other words, God doesn't tell everybody his name. He says the people who will know his name are babes and infants. In other words, God restricts the use of his name to people who are not dependent. He says, you disclose this awesome, excellent, splendorous name to babies and infants.

Jesus prayed this prayer when he was praying in Matthew 11. He says, I thank you, Father, that you have not revealed yourself to the proud, to the intellectually astute, to the PhDs, but you have revealed yourself to babes. So if you come to this series already knowing it all, if you come to this series already having it together, if you come to this series already successful in your own right due to your own human achievements, you may leave being able to pronounce his name, but you won't leave knowing his name. Because to know his name is to experience his nature, and that's only given to babies.

So that must be a humbling, if you will, on all of our parts if we really want to know his name, that is, know the nature of the God whose name we will discover in a whole variety of ways through our time together. But you've got to be an infant now. You've got to be a baby.

You've got to be dependent. And so do I. We say it regularly in the Lord's Prayer, don't we? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

The word hallowed is from a word where we get the word holy or sanctified, and sanctification or holy means to be set apart. Our Father, who art in heaven, let me set apart your name. Our Father, who art in heaven, let me place as unique your name. In other words, I'm not going to mix your name up with everybody else's name.

I'm not going to just lump you in. I'm not going to just throw your name out there because your name is to be hallowed. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. In other words, don't use his name regular. And the reason you can't use his name regular is he's not regular. He's not regular because he's hallowed.

Well, where does his influence come from? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. I'm going to hallow your name because you're daddy from above.

You're in heaven. Now, there's only one God who operates from heaven, so he owns the whole dining room. That is, he is set apart as unique.

Let me give you the flip side of this. The flip side of this is when God says, Thou shalt not use the name of thy God in vain. That's the opposite to hallowing his name, is to use it in vain.

The word in vain means empty, without meaning, without substance, or with detriment. It has to do with using God's name in a way that's not consistent with God's person. In other words, it is taking the value out of his name. You see, everybody uses God's name, but it's often stripped of God's meaning. So you can use the name without hallowing the name that you use. You can even make fun of the name, joke about the name. You can even forge the name. When you forge, you have the unauthorized use of a name. You don't want somebody using your name without your permission, or using your name in a way that's hurtful or in a way that would be embarrassing. God says, I want you to know my name because I want you to hallow my name, and I don't want you to use my name in vain because how majestic is thy name?

And nobody is to escape from it. How majestic is thy name in all the earth? So in all four corners of the globe, God wants to make sure his name is not emptied of its meaning.

And guess how he's going to do that? God's going to do that by telling you who he is and not letting you tell him who you want him to be. That's why he told Moses, I am who I am.

I am not who you tell me I am. There are a lot of views out there about God today. Everybody is using his name, but not everybody is being consistent with his nature. Therefore, the use of the name is in vain. That's why when you put your hands on the Bible in the court, in other words, you tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and if you lie, you perjure yourself, because what you have done is in the name of God, you've used vanity. What God is saying, Satan used God's name in vain.

He came to Eve and said, have God said? So he brought God's name up. He used God's name, but he used God's name to deceive. But he used God's name. He said God.

In fact, you'll discover as we go through this as a name, he dropped off. He used part of God's name, left off another part of God's name, because he wanted to use God's name for his purposes. And I hope you notice, you got a lot of devils in your life who use God's name. Just because folk use God, come to church and have a Bible. You can use God's name in vain. How majestic is thy name in all the earth. He goes through these verses and he talks about, when I consider, verse three, your heavens, the work of your fingers. That's a whole sermon within itself.

Let me just mention this here. He says, I know how great your name is when I look up, when I see the heavens. Do you have any idea how big the universe is? The trillions of stars and the hundreds and thousands of galaxies.

How excellent is your name in all the earth. But that's not what gets me. What gets me is this next phrase. He says, the reason I am odd is when I consider your heavens, verse three, the work of your fingers. Now the Bible talks about the anatomy of God. It talks about God's arms, eyes, ears. It uses what we call anthropomorphic language. Anthropomorphic language is human language given to God so that we can relate to it.

Since God is invisible, He uses man's frame to explain God. He says, when you created the heavens, you only needed your fingers. To pick up something with your hand is a full grip. If I said I picked up something with my fingers, that didn't mean I didn't use the full force of my hand.

I could just pick it up with my fingers. When God created all the galaxies, all He needed was fingers to pull it off. He didn't need hand. He didn't need arm, shoulder.

He didn't need all that. It was finger work for Him. Finger work. He says, when I consider that you did all this with just finger touch, He says, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. God wants us to know the name, bear the name, and share the name. Dr. Evans will explain how understanding the majesty of God helps us size ourselves up differently when he continues this message from his series, Knowing God's Names.

You've probably run across several of those names as you've been reading the Bible, like Elohim, Adonai, Jehovah. Well, in this two-volume, 14-lesson collection, you'll get a close-up look at many of them, one for any situation you can find yourself in. There's so much to learn in Knowing God's Names that we're offering all 14 messages on both CD and digital download as our gift to anyone who will help us keep Tony's teaching on this station by making a contribution to the ministry. And as a special bonus, we'll also send you his popular devotional, Experiencing the Power of God's Names. Study by yourself or with your small group.

Either way, you'll make discoveries about the Lord's character and identity that will connect you with His peace and power. We can only make this special double offer for a limited time, and we don't want you to miss out. So get in touch with us today by visiting tonyevans.org, where you can find all the details and make the arrangements. Or call our resource request line at 1-800-800-3222. Team members are standing by around the clock to help you. Again, 1-800-800-3222. Well, right now, Dr. Evans is back with more of today's message.

Let's join him. How will you know that you've experienced the name? Because the names do not come out of nowhere. They do not just come out of space. They come out of circumstances.

In other words, they come out of God's involvement in history. David says, the bigger God grew, the smaller I got. Because he raises the question, what is man, verse 4, that you take thought of him? See, the reason why we're so big is because God's so small. The only reason you and I can become prideful is because we have forgotten who He is. So what we do is we build idols, and we visit them every morning in the mirror. But David, understanding his smallness in the light of who God is, says, what is man? You are thoughtful of him and the son of man that you care for him. You've made us a little lower than the God, but you've given us glory and majesty.

But while you are reduced in your size, you are increased in your significance. Because when you understand you in relationship to this God, then you understand your significance under him, not independent of him. He closes verse 9, he says, O Lord, our Lord, O Jehovah, our Adonai, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Why does he do this? He envelopes this thing. He closes this thing out as he begins it. You get the sense that David is awed by the thought of God's name.

He's overwhelmed. Fundamentally, David was a king of Israel. But fundamentally, David is a worshiper. I mean, so many of the songs were written by David, and so many of them involve worship. When you discover God's name, worship won't be hard.

Because when the awe of God grows, the worship of God is tethered to it. When people have to be pushed to worship, you know, why don't you go to church? Why don't you stay awake at church if you go? Why don't you pay attention? Why don't you open your Bible? Why don't you sing? Why don't you? And you push or pull, that's because they don't know his name.

Now, usually when something goes wrong in life, and God is the only one who fixes it, you don't have to push him or pull him, because there's a crisis. But David says, how excellent is thy name in all the earth? Most of us, perhaps at some time, have sought somebody's autograph who was believed to be significant— athlete, movie star, an entertainer. People will stand in line, because they say, oh, that's so-and-so.

They will pronounce their name. But that name represents whatever the achievement is in their lives. And so they will get in line for a signature. For a signature. Because there's a star, and I want to have memorabilia that at least I was in their presence. And I got them to sign their name. The people will stand in line for an hour or more to get a signature of someone who's fading. They got a name today that will mean little tomorrow.

In fact, you can't even find the piece of paper the name was written on. It's football season. Everybody knows the name. Cowboys. Folks will show up next week for cowboy worship. That's a three-hour church service. That's a three-hour service. Ain't nobody gonna be talking about church went too long.

Ooh, ooh, it's getting nasty, man. Nobody gonna come back. In fact, if it's the entire game and it goes overtime, nobody leaving?

Because service went longer than planned. And nobody's gonna leave because of a name and their relationship to the name. And they're gonna decide that the team is worthy of my uninterrupted adoration. I'm gonna cheer and I'm gonna celebrate because that's my team. And even if you're not at the stadium, you're gonna be in your home church.

Three hours and everybody else is gonna have to adjust. Bring my food in the den. Y'all go there, do that somewhere else because you gotta adjust because I'm in church now and the altar of the television is before me. I looketh upon thee. You know why?

Value. You know why worship is so hard? We don't know his name.

David knew his name, though. He says, O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. I love how the psalmist says it in closing in Psalm 34. He says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord.

The humble will hear of it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. O magnify the Lord with me. Now, you know what magnification is. Magnification is to make something bigger. You can't make God bigger.

He already encompasses the whole earth. You can't make him bigger. But if you take a magnifying glass, if you got a little reading problem and you have to have glasses to help magnify the words, or you put a magnifying glass and you look through it in order to make it bigger. Now, you actually don't make it bigger. You make it appear bigger. When you're reading the words and you have to put on your reading glasses because the print is too small and the print all of a sudden gets bigger, it's not because you made what was on the paper bigger. You made it look bigger to you. You just made it look bigger to you because the print is the size of the print.

Whatever the size of the print is, that's the size of the print. But when you magnify it, you take what was hard to read, make it easier to read because you made it appear bigger. God may seem small to you right now. He may be a little G right now.

He may be lowercase right now. But as we discover His name, as we put on the glasses to understand what the name means and what the nature refers to and how it fits and how it deals with the situation in life, the G should get a little bigger. The zero should get a little bigger. The D should get a little bigger. And all of a sudden, it should get magnified.

It should get bigger than you started with. Right now, you may look at God at this level, but as I study and prepare every week and come and meet with you, I'm gonna invite you to magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together because I'm gonna come and tell you what I saw, tell you what the glasses revealed to me, and then I'm gonna invite you to magnify the Lord with me so that we worship Him together. He said, let's magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together so that He's not just a term and a word, but we put on our glasses and we magnified Elohim and Yahweh and Adonai and El Elyon and El Shaddai and we magnified Jehovah Jireh and we magnified Jehovah Ra, and His name just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, not because we made it bigger. It's just because we put the magnifying glass on it, and God just kept getting bigger.

And guess what happened? The bigger God gets, the more worship He gets because you will discover there is nobody like my God, nobody like my sovereign, nobody like my King. He gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger till you have to say, I can't take no more. Oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a closing thought, so don't go away. First, though, I wanted to let you know that today's lesson is the first installment in Tony's powerful two-volume series, Knowing God's Names. As I mentioned earlier, all 14 messages in this collection will be yours with our thanks when you make a contribution to help us keep bringing you Dr. Evans' teaching every day.

When you do, we'll send them to you along with his popular devotional book, Experiencing the Power of God's Names. This special double offer won't be available for long, so be sure to visit tonyevans.org right away for the details. You can also get some in-person resource help from a member of our team by calling 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night.

That's 1-800-800-3222. For too many people, there's church life and real life, two different realities that weaken our faith and perpetuate our problems. But next time, Dr. Evans will talk about how that can change when God becomes our banner of victory. Right now, though, Tony's back with this closing invitation for you. If you've been listening to the broadcast and you have yet to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, we can resolve that right now. I'm going to say a little prayer. I want you to pray it after me, but you've got to mean it for yourself. Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner, and I know I need a Savior because I can't save myself. So right now, I trust You alone because You died for me and arose for me to be my sin-bearer. You are now my substitute, and I'm believing You to forgive my sin and to give me eternal life. Thank You for the free gift of salvation that You have given to me. Help me to live a life to please You. In Jesus' name, amen. Welcome to the family, and we'll keep ministering to you for your spiritual growth through our broadcast. God bless you. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.