Speaking Truth, Resting in Resistance: A Sermon on the Third and Fourth Commandments
Preached at Blue Ocean Faith Columbus on Sunday, November 9, 2025
Reminder: I never stick completely to my written sermon. This isn’t a transcript, but the written sermon I was using when I preached.
Tonight, we’re going to continue our exploration of the Ten Commandments including how the ancient Hebrews would have heard and understood these commandments; how the commandments have been understood in the Biblical tradition; and how we can live out these commandments in our lives today.
The Third Commandment: “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses their name.”
What It Meant to the Ancient Hebrews
My sister, Emma, is pregnant and with that comes the search for a name for the new son, brother, nephew, and grandson. Emma likes a compromise between traditional and non-traditional names. Patrick, my brother-in-law, is afraid that his son’s name will sound like, and I quote, “a Southern frat boy.” Both Emma and Patrick are convinced that the name cannot be one used by anyone in their lives including the names of their friends’ animals. Jack wants his brother to be “Max” and he’s sticking to that. Family names as first names are out of the question. They laughed when I suggested “Benjamin” as a first or middle name, but they seem set on “Paul” as a middle name which is my dad’s middle name. If I had children, I’d use family names and other traditional Euro-American names with nicknames at the ready.
Names are important. They identify not only who we are, but also who we came from, how those people thought and what biases they held. Our names also reflect who we are and how we want to identify ourselves. Growing up my mother was adamant that I was Benjamin, and no one would give me a nickname. In high school I got tired of correcting people and started using Ben, even though I still told people my name was Benjamin. In college it became important to me to be viewed as laid back and so I embraced Ben. Almost twenty years later everyone knows me as Ben and some people get confused when they hear someone call me Benjamin.
In the ancient world names held even more power as did how your name related to your family or your associated location. Remember, Jesus is referred to as Jesus of Nazareth, as the Jesus, son of David, and Jesus, son of Joseph. Names were thought to hold power. Our hymns and songs continue to discuss this dynamic. How often have you heard “there’s power in the name of Jesus” or “at the name of Jesus every knew shall bend?”
In the ancient Near East, particularly among the Hebrews, people believed that knowing someone’s name gave you power over them. If you knew the name of a god, you could invoke that god. You could call on that god’s power. You could use that god’s authority for your own purposes.
The Hebrews had just escaped Egypt, where Pharaoh used the names of gods to legitimize his power. Pharaoh would say, “The gods have spoken through me. Ra commands you. Horus demands this.” The gods’ names became tools of oppression, justifications for slavery, divine endorsement for human cruelty. If that sounds eerily familiar, it should, because some religious people, some Christians, have continued right where the Egyptian pharaohs left off.
Ready for some heresy? We need to unlearn that this commandment is about swearing and cursing. We need to stop taking a third grade approach and dumbing down what God is really saying to us.
Into the cultural milieu of the time enters God, the God who liberated the Hebrews, who says: “Don’t use my name the way Pharaoh used the names of his gods. Don’t use my name as a tool. Don’t weaponize my identity. Don’t invoke my authority to do what I would never do.”
The Hebrew phrase here is “lo tissa”—you shall not lift up, you shall not carry. Don’t carry God’s name into places God wouldn’t go. Don’t lift up God’s name to support what God would never support.
The word that’s often translated as “vain” is the Hebrew “shav” which means emptiness, falsehood, and worthlessness. Don’t empty God’s name of its meaning. Don’t turn God’s name into a lie. Don’t make God’s name worthless by attaching it to worthless things.
For the ancient Hebrews, this meant you didn’t swear false oaths in God’s name. You didn’t make promises you couldn’t keep and seal them with “I swear to God.” You didn’t use God’s authority to close a business deal that would cheat your neighbor. You didn’t invoke God’s name to win an argument God wouldn’t agree with.
But it was bigger than that. It meant you didn’t claim to speak for God when you were really just speaking for yourself. You didn’t use God’s name to make your prejudices sound holy. You didn’t baptize your agenda with God’s authority.
Because here’s what happens when you misuse God’s name: you don’t just insult God. You mislead people about who God is. You create a false image. You make people think God stands for something God never stood for. You make people think God condemns someone God actually loves.
What the Bible Says About It
This commandment echoes throughout Scripture, and remember it’s not about casual cursing.
In Leviticus 19:12, God says, “You shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord.” Notice that? When you misuse God’s name, you profane it. You make the holy common.
In Jeremiah 23:31-32, God says through Jeremiah: “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet shout, ‘The Lord declares.’ Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams and tell them, spreading reckless lies in my name. Yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least.”
Repeat after me: “God is against false prophets.”
God is against people who claim divine authority for their own agendas.
And then there’s Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:33-37, Jesus says: “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all... All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No;’ anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
Jesus is saying: don’t use God’s name to make yourself sound trustworthy. Just be trustworthy. Don’t invoke God’s authority to make your words carry weight. Just tell the truth. Let your yes be yes and your no be no.
The Bible is consistent here: God’s name is not a tool. God’s name is not a weapon.
Living the Third Commandment Today
Church, we need to have an honest conversation. Because the third commandment is being broken every single day in our country, and it’s being broken by people who claim to be the most faithful.
We’ve already established that this commandment isn’t about whether you say “Oh my God” when you’re surprised or about those times that you use God’s name with more colorful language. God’s not up in heaven with a checklist, tallying up every time someone uses their name in casual conversation.
This commandment is about something far more serious. It’s about the systematic misuse of God’s name to oppress, exclude, and harm.
The Third Commandment is telling us that using God’s name to hurt people is taking God’s name in vain.
When politicians and other leaders say, “God told me to ban this book” or “God told me we need to criminalize abortion” or “God told me Trans people shouldn’t exist,” that’s taking God’s name in vain. Because the God of the Bible—the God who heard the cries of the oppressed in Egypt, the God who showed up in Jesus to welcome the outcast—that God didn’t tell you to do any of that.
When preachers stand in pulpits and say, “God hates Queer people,” that’s not just bad theology. That’s breaking the Third Commandment, because you’re putting words in God’s mouth. You’re making God say something God never said. You’re taking the name of the God who is love and attaching it to hate.
Right now, in 2025, people are using God’s name to:
· Justify cruelty toward immigrants
· Deny healthcare to Trans people
· Strip away the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies
· Criminalize homelessness
· Defend systems of mass incarceration
· Legislate LGBTQIA+ people out of existence
Today the Third Commandment demands that we examine our own use of God’s name and that we act.
First, we must examine our own use of God’s name. Are we invoking God to justify our comfort? Are we using God’s authority to avoid doing the hard work of justice? Are we claiming God’s blessing on systems that God would dismantle?
Second, we must protect God’s name by protecting God’s people. When we harm people made in God’s image, we profane God’s name. When we exclude people God includes, we take God’s name in vain. When we deny someone’s humanity, we blaspheme against the God who created them.
The Third Commandment isn’t about policing language. It’s about protecting truth. It’s about making sure that when people hear God’s name, they hear the name of the Liberator, not the oppressor. They hear the name of Love, not hate. They hear the name of the One who welcomes, not the one who excludes.
The Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your children, your slaves, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
What It Meant to the Ancient Hebrews
I imagine every one of us has been told recently what we need to rest, relax, take a break, or get some down time. I know I have. The Fourth Commandment is about rest which might sound strange to most of us. Americans are terrible at rest. The Puritan work ethic, the Black work ethic as a path to move beyond the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, the profound work ethic of immigrants trying to build the American dream, the suffering of people working full time jobs and still needing government assistance, and many other expressions of work as a type of salvation hasn’t left much space for rest. The Hebrews were no different.
For the better portion of four hundred years in Egypt they had been slaves. What little value their lives held, that value was proportionate to their ability to work and produce. There was no Sabbath for slaves. They worked until their bodies gave out.
In the imperial economies to this day, rest is rebellion. In imperial worldviews, rest is weakness. In the logic of oppression, rest is worthless.
Enter God with this radical commandment: Stop. Rest. One day a week, you don’t produce. You don’t labor. You don’t prove your worth through work. And this commandment covers everyone: You, your children, your servants, your animals, even the immigrant living in your community. Everyone rests. No exceptions. No loopholes.
The Fourth Commandment remains revolutionary. God’s saying: My economy doesn’t run on exploitation. My kin-dom doesn’t measure worth by productivity. In my world, rest isn’t a luxury for the privileged few, it’s a right for everyone.
The Sabbath is supposed to be a weekly reminder: You are not a slave anymore. You don’t have to produce to justify your existence. You are human, made in the image of God, and your humanity is not dependent on your labor and contribution to society.
The Sabbath was meant to be a form of resistance. Every week, the Hebrews said to any empire that would try to enslave them again: We will not work ourselves to death. We will not sacrifice our humanity on the altar of productivity. We remember that we are free.
What the Bible Says About It
The Sabbath shows up throughout Scripture, and it gets more radical with time.
In Deuteronomy 5, Moses repeats the Ten Commandments, but the reason for Sabbath changes. In Exodus, the reason is creation: God rested on the seventh day. But in Deuteronomy 5:15, the reason is liberation: “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore, the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”
The Sabbath is both a principle of creation and a practice of liberation.
In Leviticus 25, God takes the Sabbath principle even further. Every seven years, the land itself gets a Sabbath. And every fifty years—after seven cycles of seven—there’s a Jubilee year. During the Jubilee, debts are forgiven, slaves are freed, and land is returned to its original owners. It’s a complete reset of economic inequity.
God’s saying: Rest isn’t just for people. Creation itself needs rest. People need periodic rest and liberation from systems of debt and inequality.
The prophets constantly called out Israel for breaking the Sabbath, not because of the rule itself, but because of what breaking it revealed. When Israel’s elite forced people to work seven days a week, they were recreating Egypt. They were becoming the oppressor. They were forgetting who they were and whose they were.
Then there was Jesus. We all know about the trouble Jesus got into on the Sabbath. The religious leaders kept trying to catch him breaking Sabbath, and he kept doing things like healing people and letting his disciples pick grain to eat.
In Mark 2:27, Jesus says something profound: “The Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” The Sabbath is a gift, not a burden.
And in Luke 13, when Jesus heals a woman on the Sabbath and gets criticized for it, he says: “Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
Jesus is saying: The Sabbath is about liberation. It’s about freedom. It’s about healing. If keeping the Sabbath means letting someone stay in pain, you’ve missed the point of the Sabbath.
Living the Fourth Commandment Today
We live in a world that has largely forgotten the Sabbath. We live in a society that worships at the altar of productivity, that measures worth by output, that says your value is determined by your hustle.
Repeat after me: Rest is resistance.
In a world that says you must always be productive, rest is revolutionary.
In a world that says your worth is tied to your work, rest is rebellion.
In a world that exploits labor and extracts everything it can from bodies, rest is radical.
But here’s what we need to understand: The Sabbath isn’t just about individual self-care. The Sabbath is about collective liberation.
When God says everyone rests, they’re creating an economy of enough. God is saying: There is enough. Enough time. Enough resources. Enough life. You don’t have to exploit others to survive.
We need to challenge systems that deny people rest.
People are working two or three jobs just to survive. Despite their hard work, they often still need assistance, and they can never get ahead. They don’t get sick days. They don’t get vacation. They certainly don’t get a weekly Sabbath.
The Fourth Commandment demands we ask: Why? Why do we have an economy where some people work themselves to death while others accumulate obscene wealth? Why do we accept a system where rest is a privilege of the wealthy instead of a right for all?
When we fight for living wages, we’re honoring the Sabbath.
When we demand SNAP benefits and other social safety net programs, we’re honoring the Sabbath.
When we advocate for paid sick leave and family leave, we’re honoring the Sabbath.
When we push for protections for workers, we’re honoring the Sabbath.
Make no mistake, friends, rest is a justice issue.
Who in our society gets to rest? Who gets vacations? Who gets leisure time? Who gets to disconnect?
It’s not random. It’s stratified by race, by gender identity, by class, by citizenship status.
Undocumented immigrants can’t rest because they’re constantly afraid of ICE. They work in the shadows, often in the most dangerous and demanding jobs, with no protections, no benefits, no rest.
Black and brown communities work longer hours and multiple jobs, because systemic racism has created wealth gaps and denied economic opportunities.
Women, especially mothers, carry a double burden—work outside the home and the unpaid labor of caregiving inside the home. When do they get Sabbath?
Trans and Queer people can’t rest because they’re constantly defending their right to exist, constantly fighting for basic recognition and safety.
The Fourth Commandment is clear: Everyone deserves rest. The immigrant, the worker, the mother, the Queer person, the neighbor you don’t know. Everyone.
We must practice Sabbath ourselves, not just as self-care, but as spiritual resistance.
In a world that demands constant productivity, choosing to rest is an act of faith. It’s saying: I trust that God’s economy is bigger than capitalism’s demands. I trust that my worth isn’t tied to my output. I know that the world won’t fall apart if I stop.
But here’s where it gets challenging: We can’t just practice Sabbath for ourselves while ignoring the systems that deny others rest. That’s not Sabbath. That’s privilege.
True Sabbath practice means:
· Using our rested bodies to fight for those who can’t rest
· Using our Sabbath time to organize, to advocate, to resist
· Examining how our comfort might depend on someone else’s exploitation
· Working to dismantle systems that treat people as machines
Conclusion: Speaking Truth, Resting in Resistance
Friends, here’s what I want you to take away today.
God’s name is not a weapon, it’s a promise. The promise of liberation, of love, of welcome. When we protect God’s name, we protect God’s people.
And God’s rest is not a luxury, it’s a right. The right to be human, to stop producing, to exist without proving worth. When we practice Sabbath, we resist empire.
Stop letting people use God’s name to harm others. When someone says, “God hates” or “God condemns” or “God wants to exclude,” you speak up. You say: “That’s not the God I know. That’s not the God of the Bible. That’s not the God who liberated slaves and welcomed outcasts.”
Stop accepting systems that deny people rest. Fight for living wages. Fight for workers’ rights. Fight for immigrants who labor in the shadows. Fight for mothers who carry double burdens. Fight for the right of every human being to stop, to breathe, to rest.
Practice Sabbath as resistance. Rest your body as an act of faith. Rest your mind as an act of trust. And use your rest to build energy for the work of justice.
Here’s the truth: Empire—whatever form it takes—wants us exhausted. It wants us too tired to resist. It wants us working so hard we don’t have time to organize, to advocate, to imagine something different.
Yet God says: Rest. Stop. Remember who you are. Remember whose you are. Then, rested and renewed, go out and break chains. Speak truth. Practice justice. Love radically. That’s what it means to honor God’s name and keep the Sabbath. That’s what it means to be free.
Amen.