Sermon Tone Analysis

Your name is important.

Perhaps your name reveals the aspirations your parents had for you; perhaps it speaks of their honour for some other person who bore the name before you.

Whatever their intention may have been in naming you as they did, your name has come to reflect your character, for good or for evil.

What you are called speaks of how people view you.

But in the congregation of the Lord, your name speaks of who you shall be eternally because of God’s grace and mercy.

“Greet the friends by name.”

There is a wealth of theology in that brief charge.

I don’t want anyone to fall into a trap that leads to beating themselves up because they cannot remember names, but one’s name is important.

To use the name of an individual is to acknowledge esteem for the individual.

And to use the name of an individual is to honour that person.

“Greet the friends by name,” for each one who is a friend in Christ shall receive a new name in glory.

They shall reveal the perfection of His salvation.

*You Are Known by Name* — I am struck, as you should be, by God’s knowledge of His own.

I know that He knows all about me.

The Psalmist has testified:

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is high; I cannot attain it.”

[*Psalm 139:1-6*]

With perfect knowledge, should it surprise you that God knows your name?

However, God is concerned with the individual, and not merely with a crowd.

We forget that sometimes; but it is always to our detriment to forget this fact.

There exists among churches an emphasis upon getting a crowd—we speak of this as “building the church.”

However, may I remind you that a crowd is not a church?

A mob is not a church.

While there is indeed a corporate aspect of a congregation, each church is composed of individuals whom God places as He wills in that Body.

This is obvious from even a casual reading of the Apostle’s words.

“The body does not consist of one member but of many.

If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.

And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.

If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?

If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’

On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honourable we bestow the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.

But God has so composed the body, giving greater honour to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.”

Focus on the summation of Paul’s instruction concerning the composition of the Body.

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” [*1 Corinthians 12:14-27*].

Each Christian is indeed responsible to recognise the Body of Christ—the congregation where the Lord is working and wherein He has placed them.

However, no one dare lose sight of the individual in the growth of the Body, for the individual is important.

If the individual is important to God, how much more important should they be to us?

When Israel had left Egyptian bondage and travelled into the desert, Moses took a census.

Recall the instructions concerning that census as provided in the Book of Numbers.

“The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tent of meeting, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying, ‘Take a census of all the congregation of the people of Israel, by clans, by fathers’ houses, according to the number of names, every male, head by head.

From twenty years old and upward, all in Israel who are able to go to war, you and Aaron shall list them, company by company’” [*Numbers 1:1-3*].

Individuals were important to God, and they were to be listed by their names.

When the Lord appointed craftsmen to work on the Tabernacle, He called them by name, as we see in this account in Exodus.

“See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah” [*Exodus 31:2*].

This focus on one man—called by name—by the Living God is iterated soon after this, when Moses says: “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft.

And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan.

He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer” [*Exodus 35:30-35*].

Not only did the Lord call Bezalel by name, but He assigned him a specific job to do.

Isn’t that precisely what we see God doing among His people in this day, just as we saw when we read the passage from the First Corinthian Letter?

God knows you—calling you by name—and He has specifically assigned you with a task, equipping you to perform that unique task.

God knows you and appoints you!

That should be a source of encouragement to every child of the Living God and servant of the Risen Master.

When you pray, do you ever fall into the trap of thinking that your prayers do not matter to the Father?

I want you to witness something God said to Moses when he made a request of God.

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name’” [*Exodus 33:17*].

God answered, in no small measure, because He knew Moses by name.

We have already seen that God knows you by name and that He has appointed you to a responsibility that you alone can fulfil.

You are vital to the cause of Christ!

You are vital to the health of the Body.

There is, in the prophecy of Isaiah, some wonderfully encouraging words that God spoke.

I want to remind the people of God of those encouraging statements.

Take special note of the fact that God deals with individuals, calling them by name.

“Lift up your eyes on high and see:

who created these?

He who brings out their host by number,

*/calling them all by name/*,

by the greatness of his might,

and because he is strong in power

not one is missing.”

[*Isaiah 40:26*]

Did you get that?

God created the stars of heaven, and He calls each one by name.

Can you number the stars?

Scientists estimate that there are seventy sextillion stars in the visible universe—that is seven followed by twenty-two zeros.

Another way of saying this is seventy thousand million million million stars.

Of course, we can only estimate the number, because no one is really capable of counting [3]those stars.

God not only created all those stars—He calls each by name!

Do you really imagine that He has a challenge remembering your name?

It is estimated that the average individual knows about two hundred fifty people.[4]

I have known a few individuals who were able to accurately recall the names of perhaps so many as five hundred people, relating details of their lives.

These individuals were exceptional, to say the least.

Think that God not only knows all to whom He has given life, but He knows all about them—every detail of their being.

The Lord out God knows each star—He made each one; and He gives each one a unique name.

Moreover, He remembers each name.

Because this is true, you may be assured that He knows you, and that He knows your situation.