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What's in a Name?

Dwayne Gandy
03/23/25 - Praise and Preaching Service

Sermon Summary: What’s in a Name?

Preached by: Dwayne Gandy | Date: March 23, 2025
Theme Verse: Colossians 3:17 – “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

In this foundational sermon, Dwayne Gandy introduces a new series on the authority of God, beginning with a deep dive into the meaning and power of a name—especially the name of Jesus. Drawing from both Scripture and personal stories, Dwayne explains why it’s critical for believers to live, worship, and act under the authority of Christ.

The sermon explores four core truths about names:

1. A Name Means Something – In biblical times, names carried deep meaning and often reflected a person’s identity, role, or destiny. Names like Eve, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were given for specific reasons. Understanding this helps us grasp the significance of doing everything “in the name of Jesus.”

2. A Name Represents a Person – Saying "in Jesus’ name" isn't a formula; it points directly to the person and authority of Jesus. The name of Jesus only carries power because of who He is. Stories from Acts highlight how healing and salvation came through faith in His name—not just the words themselves.

3. A Name Reflects a Person’s Qualities – Names like Holy, Lord, and Savior reflect the divine character of God. Jesus’ name carries the weight of His identity—He is the Holy One, the Anointed One (Christ), the Savior, and God with us (Emmanuel).

4. A Name Can Represent a Person’s Position – Titles like King of Kings and Lord of Lords signify Jesus' ultimate authority. In Philippians 2, we’re told that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess His name. Jesus is not just a teacher or prophet—He is the one to whom we submit our entire lives.

The sermon closes with a powerful call to action:
✅ Evaluate your life. Are you living under the authority of Jesus Christ?
✅ Return to the Word—not tradition or opinion—to guide your faith and decisions.
✅ Submit to Jesus as both Savior and King, the only name by which we are saved.

Complete Transcript (ChatGPT transcribed this sermon. Let me know if you find mistakes I missed at dwaynegandy@gmail.com)

03-23-25 Whats in a name

We're going to start with some praise statements. If you agree with these, you're welcome to say amen or nod your head.

Praise God for being in charge. We need someone to be in charge. It's good that God is the one that's in charge.

And praise God for using his absolute authority in an absolutely perfect way. God is our authority. So what we're gonna do is we're just gonna start a series of lessons that I'm gonna be preaching to you over the next few months, coming back to a very important basic topic, and that is to make sure that we're always doing things according to what God wants us to do.

So it's gonna be lessons on God's authority. The theme verse is going to be there in Colossians. Colossians chapter three and verse 17.

I love the song that Phil led for us. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now that's true of us individually.

Everything we do in our lives should be under the authority of Jesus. We should be doing it for his honor, his glory, and God's honor and God's glory. That's also true with what we do collectively.

We call ourselves and we describe ourselves, hopefully accurately, as the Church of Christ. That's not a name. That's a description.

We belong to Christ. And so Christ is the authority for everything that we do. And so over the next several times that I have a chance to give a lesson, over the next few months at least, maybe there'll be some breaks in there when I do something different, I'm gonna be talking about how we establish authority in what we do and to make sure that everything we do in our own lives and what we do together is done under the authority of Jesus Christ.

Because we do not wanna act outside the authority of Jesus and call ourselves a church that belongs to him. So I think it's gonna be very important, very helpful. It's sort of maybe a more fundamental or foundational thought, but I think we need to come back to things like this on a regular basis to make sure that we're grounded in these kind of ideas and that we're all on the same page, that we all realize, hey, you know what? If we have some kind of a discussion, we're both gonna go back to God's word and try to find his answer and not my opinion or your opinion or what you prefer or what I prefer.

We're going back to what God says. So I think these will be helpful to us as we make sure that we have a solid foundation, that we are going to act under the authority of Jesus. Everything we do in word or deed is done in the name of Jesus, giving thanks to the Father through him.

All right, I do have one thing of housekeeping. I just totally did not do a great job on the word scramble in the bulletin. Have you noticed there's a word scramble instead of a word search? Some people like to do those puzzles, maybe between services or whatever.

They like to look back at those. Those word scrambles, they're actually the answer to the blanks as well, and I didn't describe it at all in there. People are like, these are hard.

These are difficult. It'll be a lot easier after the lesson because all you got to do is go to the lesson. You'll have them all answered for you, a piece of cake, but I don't know if I'll do any more word scrambles.

If you have a suggestion, I'm up for that. I know sometimes the kids like to do these to keep their mind focused on something in the lesson, and then sometimes I've even had some of the grownups tell me that when they go home, they color the pages. They have a few extra minutes, they color the pages.

So hopefully those will be helpful, and they're always trying to get us back focused on whatever the theme of that particular day is. So they're not just random, usually. They have something to do with the theme of this lesson.

The coloring page now is the verse that we just read today. So this lesson here is a lesson that we're gonna talk about the importance in a name because in order to understand what it means to do everything in the name of Jesus, we have to understand the value and importance that goes along with someone's name, and that's not really normal in our society. So the four points we're gonna consider together this morning, first of all, a name means something.

Figuring out what the name means could be a very important part of doing things under his name. Second, a name represents a person. So it's not just doing something under the authority of a particular name; it's the person behind that name who we're trying to follow, and his authority is who we're going to be under.

The third is a name represents a person's quality, and then the fourth is a name represents a person's position. Sometimes a name can tell you in and of itself just the name that person's in charge, that person has authority. It could be boss, it could be dad, it could be mom, it could be whatever it is, that just the title, just the name carries with it authority and of course that's true of God and that's true of Jesus as we go through scripture and examine these concepts.

Our first point here is a name means something. Now that's foreign to us. At least before Google it was foreign to us because we had no way of knowing what the names meant that we were naming our kids.

You probably didn't sit around the house naming your kid based upon the definition of the name. All right, here's this name, I love the definition of this name, I'm gonna call my kid this particular name. For instance, my name is Richard Dwayne Gandy.

Herb just found out that the other day in one of our meetings. Richard Dwayne Gandy, my dad's name was Richard, so I didn't go by Richard, I always went by Dwayne, which made first day of school always terrible. But here's what my name means.

I am supposed to be a rich ruler who makes wagons and wears gloves. So I don't think my parents sat around in the hospital room thinking, you know what, the world needs more wagon makers who wear gloves and that's what we want for our son. We are going to name him, we'd like for him to be rich too, Richard Dwayne Gandy.

It didn't work that way. One of my daughter's names, Ann Marie, she's the redhead that comes so much, she just graduated from college. Her name means sea of bitterness.

We didn't sit around the hospital thinking, you know what, we want a bitter girl. I mean, we want not just a bitter young lady, we want a young lady who is a sea of it. I mean, we just want total bitterness everywhere she goes.

Now she's not that. I think I told you at one point when she was younger, somebody described her as having a zest for life. I did a little more research this week about the last name Gandy just because I was doing this.

And there are different names for Gandy instead of one who wears gloves. There's another one, one who works for the mayor. You know, that's another possibility of where the name Gandy came from.

It could also be one who tricks or somebody who is involved in trickery or one who parts air or breaks wind, I guess. When I told Peyton that, he said, verified. For those of you who have been named before Google, your parents didn't set out to say, all right, what does this name mean? Before we name it that, we just, you know, what sounds good with Gandy? And you know, we think this name sounds good with Gandy.

That's how we did it. Galatians chapter three and verse 20. Galatians chapter three and verse 20.

Genesis chapter three and verse 20. This idea of names meaning something goes all the way back to the book of Genesis when God created Eve and brought Eve to Adam. It says in Genesis chapter three and verse 20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve.

Why? Why, because it sounded good? No, because she was the mother of all living. See, the name meant something. The name means mother.

She's the mother of all living. Let's call her that so when someone says her name, she knows who she is more than just a descriptive title, more than just a name that identifies someone. It identifies who she was, who is she? She's the mother of all living.

If you go down to Genesis chapter 17 and verse four, Genesis chapter 17 and verse four, sometimes God changed people's names. It says, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you and you shall be a father of many nations. This is when God is giving him circumcision as the token of the covenant.

The sign of the covenant, verse five. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you and kings shall come from you and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you.

Also, I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession and I will be their God. Why is he changing his name? Because the name Abraham meant father of many nations. And so that's who you are, Abraham.

You are the father of many nations. So every time Abraham heard his name, it wasn't just something to recognize him by, it was a description of who he was, it meant something. And we know from reading scripture, Abraham was the father of many nations.

It wasn't just Israel, he was actually the father of a whole bunch of nations. That name came true in his particular life. Sarah's name was also changed to mean princess in Genesis chapter 25 and verse 25.

And the first came out red. He was like a hairy garment all over. So they called his name Esau.

Afterward, his brother came out and his hand took hold of Esau's heel. So his name was called Jacob. The name Esau means hairy.

So in other words, it meant something. The baby comes out, the baby has a lot of hair on it. And so they wanted it to mean something.

And so they said, let's call him hairy. You've known anybody called hairy? I don't, probably wasn't because he came out looking hairy. I don't know, but hey, that's hairy.

We're going to call that baby hairy. And then Jacob, the name Jacob means supplanter or deceitful. If you remember, he was, that's what he was grabbing the heel.

He was meant, it was named for that reason. It meant something. Esau's name was changed to Edom, which means red.

So Esau, his whole life, he was just called things that reminded him of what he looked like. Hey, there's the hairy guy. Hey, there's the red guy.

Maybe they put both names together. There's a hairy red guy. That was just a description of who he was.

I don't know that I would like that. I don't know if I would like every time you guys saw me, you came up with a new name or just gave me a name. This is what he looks like, so let's call him that.

But that was what he went through. All of Jacob's 12 sons were named and those names meant something. If you go back and read the account there of all the names of Jacob, you'll see, if you read the footnote, this is the name and this is what it means.

Their names tell a story. Their names tell a story of the conflict between the two wives. They're just one upping the other by the name.

All right, you named your kid this. Well, now I have a kid, I'm gonna name it this. When I have another kid, I'm gonna name it this.

And Levi means attached because Leah thought that since she has given her husband three sons, that he would be attached to her. So every time Levi heard his name, he recognized I was the third son, my mom was desperate to get the attention of my father, and so named me attached, hoping that that would make a difference in her relationship with my father. Names used to mean something on a more serious level than they do today.

So when we read a verse that says that we are to do everything in the name of Jesus, if we don't understand the importance of names in general, we're not gonna understand the importance of what that means. In Exodus chapter two and verse eight, another example of a baby being named, and that name was describing their birth. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, this is after they find Moses, go, so the maiden went and called the child's mother.

Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages. So the woman took the child and nursed him, and the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. So she called his name Moses, saying, because I drew him out of water.

So the name Moses means drawn out. So every time Moses heard his name, he recognized there was a story at my birth. The story of my birth is that I was drawn out of water by Pharaoh's daughter, and I was raised by her.

Most of us remember that the name Peter means rock. Jesus himself changed Simon's name to Peter in order to describe who he wanted him to be. There are a lot of Simons.

I think there are seven or eight, maybe even more than that Simons in the Bible, but how many Peters are in the Bible is just one. So he gave him an identifier that was going to describe him and be different than everyone else, and that was an important part of who Peter came to be. But Jesus also was given names at his birth, and the names Jesus was given at his birth will help us understand why he is the authority behind everything that we do.

So let's read a few of these. Matthew chapter one and verse 18. Matthew chapter one and verse 18.

It says, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was mindful to put her away secretly.

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And you shall bring forth a son and you shall call his name Jesus. Well, why? There were other Jesuses, other Joshua's.

But why are you calling his name Jesus? For he will save the people from their sins. So the name Jesus means savior. And I would desire for all of us to get back and recognize when we say the name Jesus, we're calling Jesus our savior.

It's not just a name with no meaning at all. His name had a lot of meaning and the meaning that God gave him, the name that God gave him was savior. Now, what's wrapped up in this idea of savior? Well, one, we realize we were lost.

We needed a savior. And what does the savior have over us? Authority, right? He saved us. We should be grateful that he saved us.

And because he saved us, we pledge ourselves to him as our savior. God used that over and over and over in the Old Testament when he says, I brought you out of Egypt. What's God saying? I'm your savior.

And because I'm your savior, you should respect my authority over you. So God had inherent authority because he created us. And just because he created us means he has the right to tell us what to do.

But then when you add another layer of that, not only did he create us, but yet he saved us from our own sins, a double layer of authority why we should submit to him. So when we say the name Jesus, let's remember we are saying every time we are saying savior. The name Christ means anointed one.

Well, what goes along with that? Kingship. And this is maybe a challenge for us in our country and the way that we've been brought up because we've not been brought up thinking that one particular political person has all authority over the kingdom, right? We just don't think that way. And so when we come to the Bible and we see Jesus is king, he's Christ, he's the anointed one, we sort of have to learn to shift our mindset from the way that we think about politics and three equal branches and they all keep eye on one another.

Just say, no, no, no. In this realm, in authority, in God's church, in this church is that God has all authority through Jesus Christ because he is the king. And when we say Jesus, we're saying our savior and we say Christ with it, our savior and our king.

Now, how are you not going to obey him? How are you not going to say, I wanna make sure that everything I'm doing has his approval. He's my savior and he is my king. Another name given to Jesus was Emmanuel and that means God with us.

So when somebody would call Jesus Emmanuel, hey, God's here, that's who Jesus was. Jesus was God in the flesh. It was a reminder of who he was.

So there's so much about names that we have to learn before we can understand why it's so important that everything we do in word or deed is done in the name of Jesus because Jesus' name has a lot of meanings. Names mean something, that's our first point. Our second point is names represent a person.

There could be other Jesuses. There were Joshuas, right? And if someone's name today was Jesus, what would that mean? It would mean nothing because it's not attached to the one who has all authority over us. A name represents a person.

Why is the name Jesus so powerful? It's because it represents Jesus Christ and it's not powerful unless it represents him. So if you say something is done in the name of Jesus and it's not, there's no power in just saying the name Jesus. It's only if it's linked to the one who has all authority over us.

Let's look at Acts chapter three and verse 13. In Acts chapter three, Peter and John are going into the temple and there's a guy there begging for money and they bring him there every day and as Peter and John walk in the temple, they see this guy and they make a special effort. Look at me.

So the guy looks up at them and he says, silver and gold I don't have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, rise and walk. And if you look at chapter three and verse 13, this is his description of this because after this, everybody's like, in the name of Jesus, well, how's this man made to walk again? It says after he was made to walk, he was leaping around.

When someone leaps, does that draw attention? If you saw a grown man leaping, you know, you would say, oh, what's going on with that guy? And so that's the guy that was paralyzed. The begging, whatever. And he was paralyzed and so now he's leaping about and that drew attention.

So a crowd gathered and this is what they said in chapter three and verse 13 of the book of Acts. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. But listen to this.

I mean, this would be such a powerful statement to this group of people who are assembled here. He says, but you denied the Holy One. That's a pretty powerful description of Jesus, right? You denied the Holy One.

If somebody told me I denied the Holy One, I'm now saying this isn't just any Jesus, this is the Holy One and the just and asked for a murder to be granted to you and killed the Prince of Life whom God raised from the dead of which we are witnesses and his name through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. The name of Jesus is what made this man well.

But it was because it was Jesus, the Christ, that made him well. It was the real Savior that made him well. There was power.

This man was hailed because of faith in Jesus, not just his name. So in other words, some people might like to just throw the name of Jesus around, thinking that just the name itself has authority, and we're gonna see that in another example in just a few minutes. Now, if you continue this story, they're brought in.

They're called in by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and they explain yourself. You're causing quite a stir out there. You have to tell us who gave you the authority to do this because you can't be doing this on your own.

So in chapter four in verse seven of Acts, it says this, and when they had set him in the midst, they asked, by what power or by what name have you done this? I wanna stop there just to link these two ideas together. There is power in the name of Jesus because of who Jesus is. And so power and the name go together, just like power and authority go together.

That's why we don't like authority very much because if we recognize someone having authority over us, we recognize they have power over us. And we're Americans, we don't like that idea, we don't like that concept, we wanna be powerful ourselves. But in God's kingdom, being a church of Christ, we're saying, you have all power, Christ.

We submit to your reign, your rule, in everything that we do. In verse eight, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders of Israel who thought they had power, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Savior King of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.

Nor is there salvation, nor is there Jesus, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled and they realized that they had been with Savior. I mean, just think about them saying this.

They weren't getting the connection, right? They could say Jesus without getting the connection of who he was. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves.

So the disciples are out, they're coming together. We are in a pickle here, we are in a bind. They have healed this man, we can't deny that.

And they're preaching it was Jesus of Nazareth, which we just killed that guy trying to get rid of this whole thing. And so they're having this discussion among themselves with the disciples of the apostles laid out. In verse 16, what shall we do to these men? For indeed that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we can't deny it.

But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them that from now on they speak to no man in this name. All right, the power in the name, right? So we don't want you even bringing this guy's name up anymore because it causes a distraction. So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus.

That didn't work. They left thinking, we're gonna keep preaching in the name of Jesus, because he's the savior. We're under his authority.

And he has commissioned us and given us authority to go into the rest of the world and do what? Teach about him and to baptize people so they can be saved as well. So when the Jewish leader asked by what name have you done this, Peter responded, by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, this man was made whole. The name of Jesus had the ability to heal people.

You recall the Lord told Ananias to tell Saul, you are a chosen vessel to bear his name to the Gentiles. So Saul, who later became Paul, known as Paul, says here's your mission. Your mission is to take the name of Jesus to the Gentiles.

There's this very interesting story in Acts chapter 19. There were people, there were exorcists, and they saw what was happening when Paul would use the name of Jesus over people. Power, healing.

As a matter of fact, God gave Paul so much power that they could take a handkerchief from Paul, they could take that to their parents or their loved one who was sick, they could wave the handkerchief over them and that person would be healed. And they wanted that power, they wanted that authority even though they didn't have it. And so what they started doing is they would go to sick people and they would say, in the name of the Jesus Paul preaches, evil spirits come out.

And if you recall what happened, the evil spirit did come out and it said, Jesus we know, Paul we know, but we don't know you. And those evil spirits came upon those guys because what happened? They thought they could have authority just by saying Jesus. And here's the point, we're gonna come back to this over and over and over again.

You can't just claim authority if it hasn't been given to you. Jesus I know, he had authority. Paul I know, he had authority.

Jesus gave it to him. I'm sending you to bear my name to the Gentiles. These other guys didn't have authority and so they paid the price for this.

That is true today. Do you know how much power I have? Phil knows. Phil's shaking his head, you ain't got none.

You don't have any power. That's exactly right. And so if I claim to have power and I'm claiming to tell you something that Jesus didn't tell you, well don't listen to me because we have to listen to Jesus.

He's the one that as the power. So you can't just say I have power or authority. It doesn't work that way.

It has to be given to you by someone who has the power. And the only one that had all the power was God. He gave it to Jesus.

All authority be given to me in heaven and on earth. And Jesus commissioned his apostles and they wrote this. And another song that Phil led for us is there's power in this word.

When we, why do you think one of our keys is we love God, we worship God, we study his word. There's power in his word because it comes from God. And we wanna make sure that everything we do is backed by the authority and the power of Jesus.

So third point. First point was names mean something. Our second point was names represent a person.

That's where the true power comes in. But oftentimes, names represent a person's quality, who they are. We say something like live up to your name.

We're saying live up to the quality behind the name. You know, whether it's our last name, whatever, live up to your name, that means something. Now, I can't tell Anne Marie to do that, okay? So don't name your kid the Sea of Bitterness and tell him to live up to the name.

It's just not a good idea. Luke chapter one and verse 49 says, for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. See, holy describes the quality of God, who God is.

It's God is holy. He is separate from everyone else. And so when you call God holy, that means something.

He is the holy one. When Jesus is described as holy. As a matter of fact, if you recall, when God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh, what does Moses want to know? I need to know your name because they're not gonna listen to me unless I know your name and I can tell them who it is that sent me.

And that is when he says, I am sent you. There's power in that. When Jesus claimed that I am, when he was talking to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they picked up rocks ready to throw it to him because he was claiming deity here.

Exodus chapter six and verse one, it says, and the Lord said to Moses, now you should see what I will do to Pharaoh, for with a strong hand he will let them go and with a strong hand he will drive them out of this land. And God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name, Lord, I was not known to them.

I have also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage in which they were strangers. So God says, now I'm known as I am, but before I was known as Almighty. It brought out a characteristic of God.

Who God is, who is God? Is he just some Lord or has some authority? He is the Almighty. And the fourth point that I want to get in this introductory sermon is a name represents oftentimes a person's position. In Hebrews chapter one, one through four, it says, God who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son.

There's power there, right? There is a difference between angels and the Son. That's the whole point he's making here. There's a difference in how he's described.

Who he has appointed heir of all things through whom also he has made the world who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power when he had by himself purged our sins and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Look at all the power there. Purged our sins and where did he sit down? At the right hand of the majesty on high.

Having become so much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name. The name itself was more excellent because of who he was, and what he did. He purged us from our sins and is set down by the right hand of God.

Therefore, when we're talking about Jesus, he has the ability to tell us what we need to do and we have, we should not only have, we have more than an obligation to do it. We should have a pleasure, it should be a pleasure for us to do what God tells us to do through his son Jesus. We desire to do it because we know who he is.

If you read Revelation 19, we'll just drop down to verse 16, Revelation 19, 16. It says, and he has on his robe and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. What does that name mean? It's a position, isn't it? Who are you? I'm a king.

No, I am the king of all kings. I am the Lord of all lords. It shows a rank in all of this.

So when we look at the name Jesus and we call him savior, we call him king, we call him Lord, why do you call me Lord, Lord and don't do what I say? When we use those terms, in those terms is an admission that we submit to you. You are the authority. You are the head of this church.

You are the savior of this body. And therefore you are the one that we are gonna follow. And that's why it's so important that we come here on a regular basis and we study this book to know what we need to do.

I'm just gonna read you the answers for these next. I implore you to read the verses in Ephesians and Philippians. But the name of Jesus is above every other name.

It's ranked, right? When someone says Jesus, there's no greater name than that. At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Not just Lord, who is he? We already looked at, Lord of lords.

He has authority over our life. In Philippians chapter two, verse seven, at the end of time, every knee will bow to the name of Jesus. He is above everyone.

So in a couple weeks, we're gonna pick back up on the subject of names and find out what it means to do something in someone else's name. What does that mean? And how serious should we take it when we say we are doing this in the name of Jesus? That should be pretty serious. You don't take that lightly.

So what we looked at today, just in this foundation, we looked at how important a name is. A name means something. A name represents the person behind the name.

A name represents qualities, holiness, rulership. And then a name also represents a position or a rank. King of king, Lord of lords, every knee bowing to him.

Those of us who are part of this church recognize Jesus as our Lord. And we recognize this book is where we go to find out if we should be doing something or not. There's not, hey, what's your opinion? What's Dwayne's opinion? What's Brian's opinion? What's the opinion of the elders? We go back to this book to find out what Jesus wants us to do.

And there's no other creed, there's no tradition even. Tradition sometimes, we can start bowing down to tradition, holding tradition above Jesus, and we don't want to do that. We want to be part of it.

And when Jesus commissioned his disciples, he tells them, go into all the world and preach the gospel, baptizing people, and teaching them everything that I have commanded. So if you were to come to me and say, Dwayne, what do I need to do to be right with God? I would tell you to do what Jesus commissioned his apostles to do. And what, when Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when they said, men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter knew, why did he know? Because that's exactly what Jesus told him.

Baptize them for the forgiveness of their sins. And when you do that, they're submitting to the name of Jesus. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That's why we say these things, because there's a power in that. So if you need to become part of God's family, and if you're willing to submit to his rule, and have all of your sins washed away by being immersed in water, you can do that right now. But everyone in this building today, and everybody who's watching on livestream, this is the commitment I want you to make.

I want you to think about this for a second. You don't have to make this commitment out loud right now, but I want you to make this commitment. I will live my life under the authority of Jesus Christ.

And that's how I'm gonna live this week. And if we can help you, we ask you to come as we stand and sing.