A New Name
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
Let's play a game. I am going to say a name and you think about that person. What emotions does the name bring to mind? What nostalgic feature? What accomplishments do you remember about them or what negatives have they produced in your thinking?
* Abraham Lincoln
* Eve
* Tommy Dorsey
* Joan of Arc
* Paul the apostle
* Amelia Earhart
* Mohammad Ali
* Albert Einstein
* Mary the Mother of Jesus
* Osama bin Laden
* Mother Teresa
Now think of the names of people in your life who have influenced you
* parents
* grandparents
* other relatives
* Sunday school teachers
* schoolteachers
* pastors
* friends
* classmates
* coworkers
The first set of names you have read about, and you have formed opinions from someone else's perception. The latter are names that you know or have known personally. They have intersected your life either positively or negatively.
Charles Swindoll reminds us that in Pilgrim's Progress the pilgrim's name throughout the book is Christian, but that was not his original name. At the start of the allegory, the scene shows the pilgrim talking with a porter:
Porter: What is your name?
Pilgrim: My name is now Christian, but my name at the first was Graceless.
"The same could be said for all of us today who claim the glorious name of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our name is now Christian, but it has not always been so. That title was given to us the moment we believed, the day we took God at his word and accepted the gift of eternal life he offered us. Prior to the name change, we were Graceless, indeed."1
When was your name changed to Christian? Can you reflect on that day? What stands out as you remember when you received a new name? How has the new name affected your outlook? What problems has it caused? What excitement has it brought?
A New Name Denotes A New Identity (Isaiah 62:1)
My identity is the collection of the characteristics by which I am known or recognized by others. I was once known as "sinner" because of how I acted and lived. When I came to know and experience forgiveness from God my name was changed to Christian. C. Austin Miles titled one of his songs, "A New Name In Glory" and penned these words:
I was once a sinner, but I came
pardon to receive from my Lord.
This was freely given and I found
that he always kept his word.
Refrain:
There's a new name written down in glory,
and it's mine. O yes it's mine!
And the white robed angels sing the story,
"A sinner has come home."
With my sins forgiven, I am bound for heaven.
Never more to roam.2
God's power of forgiveness allows me to change my identity. He puts me on a new track in life. We can help others in their identity crisis by forgiving them.
Walter Rathenau was Germany's Jewish foreign minister in 1922. He was born in Berlin, the son of Emil and Mathilde Rathenau, a prominent Jewish family in 1867. He became an engineer after studying physics, chemistry, and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg. His father founded Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft (AEG) electrical-engineering company, bringing it to the forefront of Germany's economy and amassing a fortune. When Emil Rathenau died in 1915, Walter became the chairman of AEG and prominent in the new industrialization of Germany.
Walter Rathenau was a moderate liberal in politics and was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party. He rejected the tide of socialism that was sweeping through Germany and advocated for privatization of industry and greater worker participation in the management of companies. He greatly influenced the post World War I government of Germany.
In 1921, Rathenau was appointed Minister of Reconstruction and on February 1, 1922, became Foreign Minister of Germany. He insisted that Germany should fulfill its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, while working for a revision of its terms. He also negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union. Both of these items infuriated German nationalists including the (still obscure) Nazi Party and other right wing groups.
On June 24, 1922, he was driving from his house to Wilhelmstrabe, as he routinely did. During the trip his car was passed by another with three machine-gun-armed men who peppered his car with bullets and riddled Rathenau's body. He was killed at the scene.3
According to Victor M. Parachin's article in the Standard the three assassins were captured and two of them ended their lives by suicide. Ernst Werner Techow was the only one who came to trial. According to Parachin, "Mathilde Rathenau, the victim's mother, wrote to the mother of Ernst saying, 'In grief unspeakable, I give you my hand ... Say to your son that, in the name and spirit of him he has murdered, I forgive....' "
Her words were read in an open court as Techow listened. Techow was sentenced to fifteen years for his part in the assassination. Just five years later, in 1927, he was released for good behavior. The impact of Mathilde's words dramatically changed the killer. In prison, he began to seriously study Jewish history, art, literature, religion, and culture. He mastered Hebrew, becoming an erudite scholar of Judaism. Parachin writes that Techow also became highly sensitive to issues concerning the Jews.
Techow wanted to start life over and atone for his murderous act. He changed his name to Ernst Tessier and joined the French Foreign Legion, becoming a highly decorated officer. He became the officer in charge of Fort Flatters, a Legion desert outpost. He met another legionnaire whose name was Rathenau. He asked if he was related to the late Walter Rathenau. The legionnaire stated that he was his nephew. Carefully choosing his words he told the young man his story and pulled the letter from a trunk that Mathilde Rathenau had written. He explained how her forgiveness and compassion changed his life.
When France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940 Techow left the Foreign Legion and moved to Marseille and disguised himself as a dock worker. It is there that he began to smuggle Jews out of France to Spain to safety. He enabled over 700 Jews to flee for freedom. Techow's dramatic transformation came on the part of Mathilde Rathenau whose conscious choice was an equally dramatic act of forgiveness.4
His new identity made a difference. Since you have taken on a new identity what difference have you made in life? What ways can you influence others? It may not be as dramatic as Techow's, but even the little acts can make a difference.
A New Name Denotes A New Gift From God (Isaiah 62:2)
God offers his gift of righteousness through his grace and manifested in his work and character on our behalf. Just as it is in God, so it should be in the redeemed of Israel of Isaiah's day and so it is in the New Testament believer. God instills within the believer his righteousness as characterized through our life and work by his grace.
What is grace? How would you define it?
The most popular two-word definition is "unmerited favor." To amplify that a bit: Grace is what God does for mankind, which we do not deserve, which we cannot earn, and which we will never be able to repay. Awash in our sinfulness, helpless to change on our own, polluted to the core with no possibility of cleaning ourselves up, we cry out for grace. It is our only hope.5
The word "righteous" means "to be right and to be right is to be fair, just, or straight." Since God is righteous, he will deal with each of us in a just manner. Since we are hopelessly lost, we need a redeemer. His name is Jesus who took our sins and punishment upon himself so we could have an eternal hope. This is the meaning and purpose of Christ's death for all people -- the righteous one dying to make the sinner righteous.
Cliff Barrows, who for many years was the song leader of the Billy Graham Crusade ministry, had an incident occur in his home when his children were small that illustrates the word "righteousness."
Cliff said, "They had done something I had forbidden them to do. I told them if they did the same thing again I would have to discipline them. When I returned from work and found that they hadn't minded me, the heart went out of me. I just couldn't discipline them."
He wasn't sure what to do. It was just one of those circumstances that made it hard on a dad to know how to handle it. Bobby and Bettie Ruth were very young and Cliff called them into his bedroom. He took off his belt and his shirt. With his bare back exposed, he knelt down beside the bed and made them both strap him ten times each with his belt. Barrows says, "You should have heard the crying! From them, I mean! They didn't want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and so through their sobs and tears they did what I told them."
He said that it hurt them to do it. But the result was that never again did he have to spank them, because they got the point. They hugged and kissed one another and then prayed together.6
Barrows modeled the love of God by taking the penalty for their wrong upon him. God's righteousness, holiness, and justice have been satisfied with the death of Jesus. The power of the resurrection is that gift was given to us so that we would have the strength to live life ... righteously.
A New Name Denotes A Fresh Start (Isaiah 62:3-4)
After living a life full of sin, we all need a new beginning, a fresh start to real life. God offers that freely to each one who asks. This includes:
* Future-positive possibilities -- the old lifestyle gave me limited possibilities to make my life choices, but never in the will of God because I didn't ask his direction. My future was self-centered and out of focus because my life was not God centered. With God I have the possibility of making right choices with his direction that gives rise to a positive future.
* A redeemable past -- though my life was ruled by sin and my past strewn with wrong decisions, because of the fresh start, God redeemed, forgave, and forgot my past. David wrote, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12 NIV).
* A filled heart -- Blaise Pascal wrote, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ."
This fresh start puts me into a right relationship with God. Oswald Chambers offers the bottom line.
You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, he is pouring rivers of living water through you ... it is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for him.7
Remember the song at the beginning of this sermon, "A New Name In Glory" by C. Austin Miles? Do you have a new name? God offers it to you now! Amen.
___________________
1. Charles Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 409.
2. "A New Name In Glory," words by C. Austin Miles (1910). In the public domain.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rathenau.
4. Everett Leadingham, editor, Standard, published quarterly by Word Action Publishing Company, 2923 Troost Ave., Kansas City, Missouri.
5. Charles Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1986), p. 215.
6. Ibid, pp. 257-258.
7. Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight (New York: Penguin Group, 2001), npn.
* Abraham Lincoln
* Eve
* Tommy Dorsey
* Joan of Arc
* Paul the apostle
* Amelia Earhart
* Mohammad Ali
* Albert Einstein
* Mary the Mother of Jesus
* Osama bin Laden
* Mother Teresa
Now think of the names of people in your life who have influenced you
* parents
* grandparents
* other relatives
* Sunday school teachers
* schoolteachers
* pastors
* friends
* classmates
* coworkers
The first set of names you have read about, and you have formed opinions from someone else's perception. The latter are names that you know or have known personally. They have intersected your life either positively or negatively.
Charles Swindoll reminds us that in Pilgrim's Progress the pilgrim's name throughout the book is Christian, but that was not his original name. At the start of the allegory, the scene shows the pilgrim talking with a porter:
Porter: What is your name?
Pilgrim: My name is now Christian, but my name at the first was Graceless.
"The same could be said for all of us today who claim the glorious name of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our name is now Christian, but it has not always been so. That title was given to us the moment we believed, the day we took God at his word and accepted the gift of eternal life he offered us. Prior to the name change, we were Graceless, indeed."1
When was your name changed to Christian? Can you reflect on that day? What stands out as you remember when you received a new name? How has the new name affected your outlook? What problems has it caused? What excitement has it brought?
A New Name Denotes A New Identity (Isaiah 62:1)
My identity is the collection of the characteristics by which I am known or recognized by others. I was once known as "sinner" because of how I acted and lived. When I came to know and experience forgiveness from God my name was changed to Christian. C. Austin Miles titled one of his songs, "A New Name In Glory" and penned these words:
I was once a sinner, but I came
pardon to receive from my Lord.
This was freely given and I found
that he always kept his word.
Refrain:
There's a new name written down in glory,
and it's mine. O yes it's mine!
And the white robed angels sing the story,
"A sinner has come home."
With my sins forgiven, I am bound for heaven.
Never more to roam.2
God's power of forgiveness allows me to change my identity. He puts me on a new track in life. We can help others in their identity crisis by forgiving them.
Walter Rathenau was Germany's Jewish foreign minister in 1922. He was born in Berlin, the son of Emil and Mathilde Rathenau, a prominent Jewish family in 1867. He became an engineer after studying physics, chemistry, and philosophy in Berlin and Strasbourg. His father founded Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft (AEG) electrical-engineering company, bringing it to the forefront of Germany's economy and amassing a fortune. When Emil Rathenau died in 1915, Walter became the chairman of AEG and prominent in the new industrialization of Germany.
Walter Rathenau was a moderate liberal in politics and was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party. He rejected the tide of socialism that was sweeping through Germany and advocated for privatization of industry and greater worker participation in the management of companies. He greatly influenced the post World War I government of Germany.
In 1921, Rathenau was appointed Minister of Reconstruction and on February 1, 1922, became Foreign Minister of Germany. He insisted that Germany should fulfill its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, while working for a revision of its terms. He also negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo with the Soviet Union. Both of these items infuriated German nationalists including the (still obscure) Nazi Party and other right wing groups.
On June 24, 1922, he was driving from his house to Wilhelmstrabe, as he routinely did. During the trip his car was passed by another with three machine-gun-armed men who peppered his car with bullets and riddled Rathenau's body. He was killed at the scene.3
According to Victor M. Parachin's article in the Standard the three assassins were captured and two of them ended their lives by suicide. Ernst Werner Techow was the only one who came to trial. According to Parachin, "Mathilde Rathenau, the victim's mother, wrote to the mother of Ernst saying, 'In grief unspeakable, I give you my hand ... Say to your son that, in the name and spirit of him he has murdered, I forgive....' "
Her words were read in an open court as Techow listened. Techow was sentenced to fifteen years for his part in the assassination. Just five years later, in 1927, he was released for good behavior. The impact of Mathilde's words dramatically changed the killer. In prison, he began to seriously study Jewish history, art, literature, religion, and culture. He mastered Hebrew, becoming an erudite scholar of Judaism. Parachin writes that Techow also became highly sensitive to issues concerning the Jews.
Techow wanted to start life over and atone for his murderous act. He changed his name to Ernst Tessier and joined the French Foreign Legion, becoming a highly decorated officer. He became the officer in charge of Fort Flatters, a Legion desert outpost. He met another legionnaire whose name was Rathenau. He asked if he was related to the late Walter Rathenau. The legionnaire stated that he was his nephew. Carefully choosing his words he told the young man his story and pulled the letter from a trunk that Mathilde Rathenau had written. He explained how her forgiveness and compassion changed his life.
When France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940 Techow left the Foreign Legion and moved to Marseille and disguised himself as a dock worker. It is there that he began to smuggle Jews out of France to Spain to safety. He enabled over 700 Jews to flee for freedom. Techow's dramatic transformation came on the part of Mathilde Rathenau whose conscious choice was an equally dramatic act of forgiveness.4
His new identity made a difference. Since you have taken on a new identity what difference have you made in life? What ways can you influence others? It may not be as dramatic as Techow's, but even the little acts can make a difference.
A New Name Denotes A New Gift From God (Isaiah 62:2)
God offers his gift of righteousness through his grace and manifested in his work and character on our behalf. Just as it is in God, so it should be in the redeemed of Israel of Isaiah's day and so it is in the New Testament believer. God instills within the believer his righteousness as characterized through our life and work by his grace.
What is grace? How would you define it?
The most popular two-word definition is "unmerited favor." To amplify that a bit: Grace is what God does for mankind, which we do not deserve, which we cannot earn, and which we will never be able to repay. Awash in our sinfulness, helpless to change on our own, polluted to the core with no possibility of cleaning ourselves up, we cry out for grace. It is our only hope.5
The word "righteous" means "to be right and to be right is to be fair, just, or straight." Since God is righteous, he will deal with each of us in a just manner. Since we are hopelessly lost, we need a redeemer. His name is Jesus who took our sins and punishment upon himself so we could have an eternal hope. This is the meaning and purpose of Christ's death for all people -- the righteous one dying to make the sinner righteous.
Cliff Barrows, who for many years was the song leader of the Billy Graham Crusade ministry, had an incident occur in his home when his children were small that illustrates the word "righteousness."
Cliff said, "They had done something I had forbidden them to do. I told them if they did the same thing again I would have to discipline them. When I returned from work and found that they hadn't minded me, the heart went out of me. I just couldn't discipline them."
He wasn't sure what to do. It was just one of those circumstances that made it hard on a dad to know how to handle it. Bobby and Bettie Ruth were very young and Cliff called them into his bedroom. He took off his belt and his shirt. With his bare back exposed, he knelt down beside the bed and made them both strap him ten times each with his belt. Barrows says, "You should have heard the crying! From them, I mean! They didn't want to do it. But I told them the penalty had to be paid and so through their sobs and tears they did what I told them."
He said that it hurt them to do it. But the result was that never again did he have to spank them, because they got the point. They hugged and kissed one another and then prayed together.6
Barrows modeled the love of God by taking the penalty for their wrong upon him. God's righteousness, holiness, and justice have been satisfied with the death of Jesus. The power of the resurrection is that gift was given to us so that we would have the strength to live life ... righteously.
A New Name Denotes A Fresh Start (Isaiah 62:3-4)
After living a life full of sin, we all need a new beginning, a fresh start to real life. God offers that freely to each one who asks. This includes:
* Future-positive possibilities -- the old lifestyle gave me limited possibilities to make my life choices, but never in the will of God because I didn't ask his direction. My future was self-centered and out of focus because my life was not God centered. With God I have the possibility of making right choices with his direction that gives rise to a positive future.
* A redeemable past -- though my life was ruled by sin and my past strewn with wrong decisions, because of the fresh start, God redeemed, forgave, and forgot my past. David wrote, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12 NIV).
* A filled heart -- Blaise Pascal wrote, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person and it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ."
This fresh start puts me into a right relationship with God. Oswald Chambers offers the bottom line.
You never can measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, he is pouring rivers of living water through you ... it is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for him.7
Remember the song at the beginning of this sermon, "A New Name In Glory" by C. Austin Miles? Do you have a new name? God offers it to you now! Amen.
___________________
1. Charles Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1998), p. 409.
2. "A New Name In Glory," words by C. Austin Miles (1910). In the public domain.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rathenau.
4. Everett Leadingham, editor, Standard, published quarterly by Word Action Publishing Company, 2923 Troost Ave., Kansas City, Missouri.
5. Charles Swindoll, Growing Deep in the Christian Life (Portland: Multnomah Press, 1986), p. 215.
6. Ibid, pp. 257-258.
7. Jan Karon, Patches of Godlight (New York: Penguin Group, 2001), npn.
