Courage Church

series: Red Letter City

title: The Law

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 24, 2016

scriptures: Matthew 5:17-20, Luke 24, John 16, Matthew 11:29, Romans 7:7, Romans 7:13, Galatians 5:4, Matthew 23, Acts 15, John 1:14, John 19

Is it coincidence that Jesus first gave us the beatitudes, speaking a blessing over the broken people who were there with him, before telling them that they were salt and light? 

I am not sure, but I don’t really get an image of Jesus going into his sermons with an outline. I think its probable that everything he said was incredibly timely and that he discerned what it was the the people needed to hear next, and I think that its very likely that he said what he said here about the law, because he realized that these people were beginning to go somewhere in their minds. 

again, you have to consider the crowd. Just take the disciples… the bible says that they were often slow to understand. they were uneducated fishermen… beyond the uneducated fishermen were a group of outcasts who had just been told that they are blessed… that they are salt and that they are light.

Could it be that these things were already getting to their heads? 

Jesus has brought a brand new, upside down Kingdom, and with it he has promised the marginalized crowd on the outskirts of the mountain and his ragamuffin group of disciples, that they were ultimately going to be the image bearers of hope. 

Could it be that these people began to think in their minds, that everything he was teaching meant he was replacing the law with himself… and that in the new role he had just given them, of being salt and light, meant that they no longer needed to follow the law, but instead needed follow this new teaching.

I am sure they were thinking, okay, awesome, glad we got that out of the way. Now lets go back to our beards that we can’t cut, our side burns we can’t trim, the foods we can’t mix together, and the 613 laws that we have spent our whole lives trying to keep even though we know that it is impossible for anybody to ever keep them all perfectly… Why would we have thought that he came to do away with those laws? Silly us.

He only is claiming that he will fulfill them.

"oh... much better... and to think I actually thought he was saying........"

and then its likely they had another moment… one of those “Wait a second!” moments. 

The law was not something that the Hebrew people thought needed to be fulfilled. They thought the law was a book of rules that they were bound too. They didn’t understand that they all pointed, as did the rest of the bible, to the coming Messiah. and so for him to come here and say, “I am going to fulfill the law” they would have been totally, utterly, shocked. 

but not only the law… but the prophets as well! For those of you who have been joining us at Equip as we have been studying each beatitude in depth, we have been talking a lot about Luke chapter 4, when Jesus said that he had fulfilled the first half of what the Prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 61… and how the crowd was shocked by that statement.

But here, Jesus is making, without a doubt, the boldest statement anybody could ever had made in that culture.

series: Red Letter City

title: Salt & Light

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 17, 2016

scriptures: Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 18:19-20, 1 John 1:5, John 8:12, Matthew 25:14-30

We have less working street lights than anyone. And maybe that statistic has changed by now, because I know that the mayor and our city officials have been working really really hard to put up new lights around the city and really make it feel safer for people when they are walking to their cars or walking down the street at night. But most of you who live here have probably experienced what it feels like to walk down a street at night, with no lights.

Its a horrible feeling. 

All sense of confidence is gone. Its just gone. You walk on eggshells. You wonder what is around you. Because its really really dark. You can’t see whats right in front of you. and there is something about experiencing a lack of light in a context like that one that makes you realize how valuable the light truly is. 

It shows us what is right in front of us. It shows us what is a few feet down the road. It shows us where we parked, and who is walking toward us in that moment. 

But how many of you know, we live a world that is filled with uncertainty. It is filled with doubts. It is filled with people walking through their days not knowing what is on the other side of it, not knowing if people are on their side, or are out to get them… not knowing if tomorrow is even going to come. 

and in this dark city that still lacks lights to even guide our steps as we walk on the streets… in this dark city that is Detroit but in so many ways can represent life… Jesus tells us that  in this city… we are supposed to be another city… a city on a hill. 

series: Red Letter City

title: Salt & Light

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 17, 2016

scriptures: Matthew 5:13-16, Matthew 18:19-20, 1 John 1:5, John 8:12, Matthew 25:14-30

We have less working street lights than anyone. And maybe that statistic has changed by now, because I know that the mayor and our city officials have been working really really hard to put up new lights around the city and really make it feel safer for people when they are walking to their cars or walking down the street at night. But most of you who live here have probably experienced what it feels like to walk down a street at night, with no lights.

Its a horrible feeling. 

All sense of confidence is gone. Its just gone. You walk on eggshells. You wonder what is around you. Because its really really dark. You can’t see whats right in front of you. and there is something about experiencing a lack of light in a context like that one that makes you realize how valuable the light truly is. 

It shows us what is right in front of us. It shows us what is a few feet down the road. It shows us where we parked, and who is walking toward us in that moment. 

But how many of you know, we live a world that is filled with uncertainty. It is filled with doubts. It is filled with people walking through their days not knowing what is on the other side of it, not knowing if people are on their side, or are out to get them… not knowing if tomorrow is even going to come. 

and in this dark city that still lacks lights to even guide our steps as we walk on the streets… in this dark city that is Detroit but in so many ways can represent life… Jesus tells us that  in this city… we are supposed to be another city… a city on a hill. 

series: Red Letter City

title: The Beatitudes (overview)

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 10, 2016

scriptures: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, Luke 6:40, Matthew 5:1-12

alongside of our series on "the sermon on the mount, we did a midweek Bible study through each individual Beatitude. Listen to those teachings below!

It was the kids spring break, and Dawn’s mom blessed us with an awesome place to stay in Orlando. It was a really great time. so we were gone for a little over a week, and even in that small window of time… in fact, only two short days into the trip, one family in our church had a baby… they welcomed new life into this world that they get to be stewards of now. A crying bundle of joy, we got to go and visit them as soon as we got back and it was just so good to see this child born, healthy. The mom doing great. A beautiful child. 

And they rejoiced, and we rejoice with them because Romans 12:15 says to rejoice with those who rejoice. But then right after that, it says to mourn with those who mourn. 

and only a day later, while we were still gone in Florida and completely disconnected from what was happening here, another family in our church faced a tragedy. 

and I received the message of this news, and man, it crushed me. Because people matter… every one of you matter, and even if Paul hadn’t said to mourn with those who mourn I believe that i would still mourn. Because even though my life is so full of imperfections, Christ is working on my heart every day and making him more and more like him… and he hurts for people… and in those moments a mourning position becomes the only sensible one. 

When you live elbow to elbow with people that you come to love and then something happens in their life that only happens because we live in a world that is just so broken… man, all you can do is mourn.

Because this Kingdom of heaven that is here on earth is standing opposite to the earthly kingdom that we live in. And the earthly one is completely broken.  and how our Kingdom engages that one will determine the fate of our city. Peoples souls are at fate. Peoples eternities are depending on us to learn how to love them in a way that shows them Jesus. 

It depends on us bringing heaven to earth, because everything in this kingdom is so fickle. It is fleeting… it is changing. 

Things for both families were one way, and then you blink, and it all changed. 

Things change in this kingdom. 

and when tragedy hits it makes you evaluate your life. The way you are raising your family. The way you treat your spouse, and your friends, and those who God puts in your path. 

Even when I look at my life… it seems like it is just flying by. We have been pastors here almost a whole year… May 1 will make a year. That is crazy. I met Dawn ten years ago this June, and the last ten years have just flown by. 

I blinked, and I have three kids, and have lived in Lansing, Los Angeles, three of the five New York burroughs and now Detroit. and I want to make every moment count… so that every person that I come in contact with on that journey comes in contact with Jesus… because He is in me and that should be obvious. 

it made me wonder, “does my life look like Jesus? Am I shining the light of Jesus everywhere I go? And made me seek Jesus’ face in prayer because man, I want to raise my family in a way that ushers in the Kingdom of heaven. I want my home to be a haven for my children as much as anyone else who enters it… that they look to our family and they see Jesus. I want to be an example like so many others have set for me. 

There is a family I grew up with. A great family. Several members of this family are very close friends of Dawn and I. In the first two days that we were gone on our vacation, their grandmother passed away. She lived in Lansing so all of their family who live all over the country now, from Wisconsin to Philadelphia, all regrouped here in Michigan… for a funeral. and one of them posted a picture of her grandfather… the man who had just lost his wife, and he is sitting around a table surrounded by all of his children. And he is kind of smiling in this picture, and moving his arms in a way that it is obvious he is teaching his adult children, even in that moment. And all of their heads are facing him and their eyes are locked on him. 

and I couldn’t help but wonder as I starred at this picture… “What is he teaching them in that moment?” that would cause them to look with such anticipation for what he was sharing, in the midst of such a brokenness and void that they all had to of been feeling…

and then I wondered, how did he and his wife manage to raise that many kids up in such a way that they still hung on every word that he says? 

How is it that in the middle of loss, people can come together and somehow, in some amazing way, they can do something collectively that just feels like Jesus. Thats just this beautiful reflection of what he is like. 

Like he is there. and everything that is supposed to be wrong, is going to turn out ok. 

its almost as if they have learned a secret. and I am not sure if I have learned it myself yet or not, but if I had to guess as to what it is, it would be this. 

That he came to call the sinner… the broken one. 

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor… but those who are sick.”

Some of us just don’t know it yet. 

series: Red Letter City

title: The Beatitudes (overview)

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: April 10, 2016

scriptures: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, Luke 6:40, Matthew 5:1-12

alongside of our series on "the sermon on the mount, we did a midweek Bible study through each individual Beatitude. Listen to those teachings below!

It was the kids spring break, and Dawn’s mom blessed us with an awesome place to stay in Orlando. It was a really great time. so we were gone for a little over a week, and even in that small window of time… in fact, only two short days into the trip, one family in our church had a baby… they welcomed new life into this world that they get to be stewards of now. A crying bundle of joy, we got to go and visit them as soon as we got back and it was just so good to see this child born, healthy. The mom doing great. A beautiful child. 

And they rejoiced, and we rejoice with them because Romans 12:15 says to rejoice with those who rejoice. But then right after that, it says to mourn with those who mourn. 

and only a day later, while we were still gone in Florida and completely disconnected from what was happening here, another family in our church faced a tragedy. 

and I received the message of this news, and man, it crushed me. Because people matter… every one of you matter, and even if Paul hadn’t said to mourn with those who mourn I believe that i would still mourn. Because even though my life is so full of imperfections, Christ is working on my heart every day and making him more and more like him… and he hurts for people… and in those moments a mourning position becomes the only sensible one. 

When you live elbow to elbow with people that you come to love and then something happens in their life that only happens because we live in a world that is just so broken… man, all you can do is mourn.

Because this Kingdom of heaven that is here on earth is standing opposite to the earthly kingdom that we live in. And the earthly one is completely broken.  and how our Kingdom engages that one will determine the fate of our city. Peoples souls are at fate. Peoples eternities are depending on us to learn how to love them in a way that shows them Jesus. 

It depends on us bringing heaven to earth, because everything in this kingdom is so fickle. It is fleeting… it is changing. 

Things for both families were one way, and then you blink, and it all changed. 

Things change in this kingdom. 

and when tragedy hits it makes you evaluate your life. The way you are raising your family. The way you treat your spouse, and your friends, and those who God puts in your path. 

Even when I look at my life… it seems like it is just flying by. We have been pastors here almost a whole year… May 1 will make a year. That is crazy. I met Dawn ten years ago this June, and the last ten years have just flown by. 

I blinked, and I have three kids, and have lived in Lansing, Los Angeles, three of the five New York burroughs and now Detroit. and I want to make every moment count… so that every person that I come in contact with on that journey comes in contact with Jesus… because He is in me and that should be obvious. 

it made me wonder, “does my life look like Jesus? Am I shining the light of Jesus everywhere I go? And made me seek Jesus’ face in prayer because man, I want to raise my family in a way that ushers in the Kingdom of heaven. I want my home to be a haven for my children as much as anyone else who enters it… that they look to our family and they see Jesus. I want to be an example like so many others have set for me. 

There is a family I grew up with. A great family. Several members of this family are very close friends of Dawn and I. In the first two days that we were gone on our vacation, their grandmother passed away. She lived in Lansing so all of their family who live all over the country now, from Wisconsin to Philadelphia, all regrouped here in Michigan… for a funeral. and one of them posted a picture of her grandfather… the man who had just lost his wife, and he is sitting around a table surrounded by all of his children. And he is kind of smiling in this picture, and moving his arms in a way that it is obvious he is teaching his adult children, even in that moment. And all of their heads are facing him and their eyes are locked on him. 

and I couldn’t help but wonder as I starred at this picture… “What is he teaching them in that moment?” that would cause them to look with such anticipation for what he was sharing, in the midst of such a brokenness and void that they all had to of been feeling…

and then I wondered, how did he and his wife manage to raise that many kids up in such a way that they still hung on every word that he says? 

How is it that in the middle of loss, people can come together and somehow, in some amazing way, they can do something collectively that just feels like Jesus. Thats just this beautiful reflection of what he is like. 

Like he is there. and everything that is supposed to be wrong, is going to turn out ok. 

its almost as if they have learned a secret. and I am not sure if I have learned it myself yet or not, but if I had to guess as to what it is, it would be this. 

That he came to call the sinner… the broken one. 

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor… but those who are sick.”

Some of us just don’t know it yet. 

Series: Realities

Title: Thou Shall Covet

Teacher: Jacob Bender

Date: November 8, 2015

scriptures: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19:10, Psalm 68:16, Proverbs 5:18, Philippians 4:11-14, Romans 7, Hebrews 12:2

I have heard it put this way, it is an inward grasping for something… something that is not yours... It means you don’t have something, and you yearn for it. Maybe we think we are nothing without it. We hear that word, and right away we default to the Ten Commandments. Right away, we think, this is a bad word. This is something that we must not do. Ever. Under any circumstances. I think that the word we typically associate to it is the word jealousy. Or the word envy… and where the command as a whole may be getting at that, those things are not the same as coveting, in the way it was written on the tablets. Not at all.

I covet my children.

Honestly, you should covet (chamad) your friends. Your friends carry a lot of weight. They are very valuable. You should delight in the fact that you have them. You should delight in your relationships. They are gifts.

To say you chamad something does NOT mean you are jealous of it, it means that you delight IN IT.

What you should not do, is covet your friends house.

God has given you specific things in this life that are tailor made just for you.

For your life.

For your family.

and to not delight in those things would be a slap in the face to the God who gave them to you.

You see, the problem lies in when you covet what is not yours. The command does not say Thou shall not covet.

Series: Realities

Title: False Witnesses

Date: November 1, 2015

Teacher: Jacob Bender

scriptures: Matthew 12:33-37, Proverbs 18:21, James 3:1-12, Proverbs 6:16-19, Proverbs 26:17-26, Romans 10:13-14, Matthew 27:46, James 4:6, John 3:16

False witness is the Hebrew word שָֽׁקֶר׃ šā·qěr (shek air) – and it means “a lie, or a breach of faith.”

It is so much more than just a lie. It is so much more than making something up. It is also an abuse of information. It is not being trustworthy. It is not controlling your tongue. It is lying, and it is gossip. And it destroys communities and it destroys churches, and it destroys trust faster than anything else I have ever seen.

It is the 9th commandment, and the Hebrew letter that represents nine is the letter “Tet” and the word picture for “Tet” is a picture of a snake. Now think about this. What does a snake represent? You can take this one all the way back to the fall of man… How does the serpent manage to get man to fall?

He convinces Eve, “yes, God said that, but that is not true. That is God’s paranoia that you are only one step behind him and if you eat of the fruit your eyes will be opened. If you eat of it, you will level the playing field.”

He lied about God. He made Eve think that God has an insecurity issue. He painted a picture that was not true, and she bought into that picture.

From the beginning of time entire worlds were being destroyed by the stupid words that are said. It is the devils only weapon, but unfortunately, for a lot of us, it is the only weapon he needs. So that is why we are taking an entire message to talk about it. Because words shape people.

series: Realities

title: The First with a  Promise

teacher: Jacob Bender

date: October 25, 2015

scriptures: Ephesians 6:1-3, Exodus 20, Numbers 13:30, Numbers 14:6-9, Numbers 14:10, Numbers 14:12, Numbers 14:20-24, Proverbs 18:21, Matthew 7:2, Matthew 16:19, 1 Peter 3:7, Mark 6:1-6, 

I don’t have to agree with someone to bless them. I don’t have to agree with someone to honor them. And if I do honor them even when maybe they don’t seem very worthy of that honor, then there is a blessing for me which we will talk about later.

But the natural instinct of man is not to bless. It is to curse. Now let me explain, because you probably would say “I would never curse someone!”

All of us in this place have been cursed. We have been belittled. We have been made to feel like we have no value. And I don’t know about you, but when someone makes me feel that way, I shut down. I have a very hard time pulling myself back together and refocusing. It hurts really bad.

On the contrary, the Hebrew word for blessing (Ba-rak) means something very interesting… you would think it would be the opposite of cursing, but its not. Blessing, in Hebrew, means “to bend the knee.”

Think about it. When a King walks into a room, what do people do? They get on their knees. Why? Because they want to show honor, because that person holds a position of great authority. Showing honor blesses people.

We need to set our social default mode to blessing.

Its the best way to honor one another no matter what the circumstance.

But what is honor?

The most simple way to put it is that it is how you treat people. When you are around them, when you are not. Thats the simple way to put it. But there is so much more to it than that.

Honor is the Hebrew word “kavod” (ka-vode) and it means “heavy or weighty.”

It means to place weight on something. It is literally the opposite of cursing. Cursing is to make light, honor is to give weight.

Now, as you probably know, in the time of the Old Testament, value was based on weight. If you were measuring how much money you had, it would be determined by the weight of the gold in your possession, not the number of pieces, so what it is talking about is “giving something value.”

That is why people bow before the King. Because his job carries weight.

We would have no problem honoring a King, or honoring someone who has already accomplished what we desire to accomplish.

Now, we have been looking at the word picture for each number in the ten commandments, and we will get to that in a minute, but first… there is also a word picture for the word “honor” itself, you have possibly heard this phrase but this is where it comes from…  for the Hebrew word “kavod” – If you take away the vowels (because there are no vowels in Hebrew, we add them so that we can say them in English) the letters are K-V-D

If you look at your life, and you look at the people you let in and the people you keep out, does it not always come back to the ones who honor you?

The ones who make you feel like you matter?

Like your words matter? Like your opinion matters?

That is a natural instinct in us, we are drawn to honor, and that is why.

Series: Realities

PLEASE NOTE: This book was written by a 20th century Jewish Rabbi and takes the Jewish perspective.

Title: Resting

Teacher: Jacob Bender

Date: October 18, 2015

scriptures: Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Exodus 20, Exodus 31:15-17, Genesis 2:7, Genesis 2:2-3, 2 Chronicles 36:18-21, Exodus 16, Mark 2:27, Hebrews 4:1

The Old Testament speaks of different kinds of Sabbaths. There is, of course the 7th day of the week. A day of rest. That is what we know as “The Sabbath Day” – then there is something called the Sabbath Year… and it was the same concept as the Sabbath Day, but it was the 7th year… and every 7th year, the Israelites were commanded to take an entire year off from labor. And then on the seventh year of the seventh set of years, so it would be “every 7th sabbath year” was something called “The Year of Jubilee” which we are going to talk about in the series we are doing in December so I won’t get into it today, but its absolutely incredible. But the point is that God laid out all of these incredible structures to make sure that his people were okay. Because nobody can go and go and go and still maintain sanity. So he said, every seventh day, rest. Every seventh year, really rest. Vacation. Stop everything, and let me show you that even when your world is paused, the world I created keeps producing. God commanded them (Leviticus 25) to not even work the land. Give the land a break, for a whole year.

Now, if you do a little research, even now, studies have shown that the even today, land will produce more if every seven years you allow it to rest. Over the course of the next seven years, you would get more out of your land by letting it rest the seventh, and then working it the next sixth, than you would by working it all seven. God knows what he is doing.

But this is how human minds think… We like to think we have faith, but we don’t like actually relinquishing control as if we truly have faith. So we hear, “take a day off…” or even, “take a year off…” and we think, “That sounds great, but too much would fall apart during that time. If we don’t work the land for an entire year, there will be no harvest, and there will be nothing new to grow.”

Whatever that may look like in our lives… Take a day off…

“yeah, but if I am mid-project, I have to finish this, and then I will rest.”

Take a day off… “Yeah, but its “4 days” this week, so I will make sure to take a day off next week.”

And so we go and we go, until what happens? We start getting sick. We start not functioning at the capacity that we know we are capable of… our work sort of starts to fall apart, our bodies begin to deteriorate, and before long we are FORCED to take a significant period of time off.

Have you ever seen that happen to someone?

Has that ever happened to you?

I obviously, being a pastor, am most familiar with that church world, but i see this happen to pastors ALL THE TIME. A lot of people have no idea that they are going through it, but they have moments when they feel like they are literally dying.

and they end up in the hospital, and nobody can figure out what is wrong with them. And suddenly they are forced to take extended periods of time off, and I can’t help but wonder, in the back of my mind, if those moments are God just getting his days back.

God saying, “if you won’t break, I will make you break. You haven’t taken a day off in 14 weeks, so now you won’t work for 14 days.”

You may say to me, “God wouldn’t do that.” But remember, this day is Holy. This day is set apart. There is more to this day than we think. This is one of the most significant issues in the whole bible. Let me tell you about what God allowed to happen to Israel.

You see, God gave them this command. A day off… and every 7th year, a year off.

They heard the command, take a sabbath. Give the land a sabbath.

But nobody actually does that, right? We don’t rest.

Now, this is incredible.

They plowed the land anyway. On that seventh year, they relied on their own strength, just like we do so well today. And instead of trusting God, they plowed. They worked the land. They gave the land no rest and they took non themselves.

And they did this for 490 years. 490 years went by, and Israel never, once took a Sabbath year as the Lord had commanded. And perhaps after 490 years they thought, “Ok, we are doing just fine.”

But then something happened. Something that the bible makes very clear that God allowed to happen, and we have talked about it a couple of times before briefly, and we won’t get into to much today either… but The Israelites are attacked, and they are captured and put into exile in a place called Babylon.

A place different than all they had ever known.

And do you know how long they were in Exile for? Does anyone know?

70 years.

70 years they were removed from the land that they refused to let rest, and became slaves to a godless ruler.

They become slaves. While the land enjoyed her sabbath.

For 490 years they did not honor the command to let the land rest every seventh year, but God said “the Sabbath is Holy. It is set apart. Its unavoidable.

The Israelites owed God 70 Sabbath years, and he got them all at once.

Look at what 2 Chronicles 36:18-21, this is talking about the Israelites and how they were attacked, captured and taken into exile.

All the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. 

The word “enjoyed” is the Hebrew word “ratsah” (rawt saw) and it actually means “to satisfy a debt.”

Do you see this?

You can’t cheat God out of what is his. You can’t. This is not about grace. This is about Holiness. Can you skip a sabbath day and still be saved? Yes. Of course. But you won’t live a Holy life, and you will live a shorter life than you should. God told us that this covenant will last forever. This must be kept forever, it will go on and on and on forever, because this is Holy. If you want to be Holy, you must keep the Sabbath.

Series: Realities

Title: giving & taking

Teacher: Jacob Bender

Date: October 4, 2015

scriptures: Mark 12:29, Malachi 3:6-15, Psalm 119:36, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 25:32, Matthew 25:41-46, Ephesians 4:28, Luke 12, Acts 5:1-11, 2 Samuel 13

The word “vain” is the Hebrew word “shav’” and it means “to not be real.”

Most people think that the third commandment is telling us to not swear. Or to not say “God – blank”

But the third commandment literally says “You must not take the name of the Lord in unreality.”

You use his name in a way that makes it not real.

There is something about the name of God, is there not?

And man, there is something about the name of Jesus.

Something powerful. Something everlasting. Something that just makes you feel, in the darkest hour of your darkest day, like there is light. When it feels like everyone everywhere has abandoned you… that Someone still has your back. Someone still cares. God’s name can heal, it can redeem, it can provide, it can bring peace.

It is incredibly powerful.

But because of its incredible power, it also can be incredibly manipulated. If that wasn’t the case, then it would not be in the ten commandments.

It is a name that carries weight. A lot of weight.

But throughout history, various religions and religious leaders have misrepresented that name and have used it for selfish things. Wars have been started in the name of God. People have been killed. People have been robbed. People have been hurt. All, in forms of manipulation by people taking the Lords name in vain.

If you use the name of the Lord for selfish reasons, you are stealing. You are taking his name, and manipulating it for your purposes. You are not associating it to the power that it has, and that is why so many will be crushed by it.