Bearing God's Name

How do we show Jesus that we love him? In John 14, his answer is plain: “If you love me, keep my commands.” Guest speaker and missionary Julie Kim explored that answer with Heartbeat Church across Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast on Sunday 25 October 2026, asking how we carry God's name in everyday life.

Carrying his name

Did you even know that God had a love language?

Apparently it isn't affirmative words. Jesus asks us to keep his commands, so loving him means more than saying or feeling it. It shapes how we live, on Sundays and house church nights and every other day.

One commandment is usually read as “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”. We might hear that and think about swearing. Following Carmen Joy Imes's book, Julie reads it as “you shall not carry or bear the name of Yahweh your God in vain”.

The Hebrew word is nasa. Nasa, not the space program. It means to lift, carry or bear. Shem means name, and shav means empty or worthless. So the command is about how people who carry God's name actually live.

Scripture keeps returning to the idea. God sends an angel who bears his name and represents him. Aaron carries the people's names on the stones of his ephod as he represents them before God. In the priestly blessing, God's name is put on the Israelites. In Ezekiel, God is concerned that his people have profaned his name among the nations, when he wants his holiness to be seen through them.

We bear that name too. We're baptised into it and called Christians. Revelation pictures God's name written on our foreheads, like an “invisible tattoo”, so his presence goes wherever we go, individually and together as the church.

Don't give people a distorted impression of who God is by the way that you live your lives.

Or, more simply, don't drag the Lord's name through the mud. We can't change God's character, but we do shape what people think he's like, because they often form that impression by watching Christians. Nobody has to pretend to be perfect. Honesty about our mistakes helps, along with lives that show the kindness and grace we talk about.

Caring for each other

In John 13, Jesus says that people will recognise his disciples by their love for one another. Tertullian recorded pagan observers saying of the early Christians, “See, they say, how they love one another”. Outsiders could see it.

Does that describe us? Is there unforgiveness we're holding towards another Christian? Do we look beyond our own friends to notice someone who has arrived alone? Can someone share a struggle honestly, or do we all say we're fine and leave carrying the same trouble we brought?

A friendly greeting matters, and so does the conversation after it. When we're willing to hear how someone is actually doing, and keep caring, our words about God's love have something behind them. That takes ongoing effort from all of us.

The poor and vulnerable

In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks about feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing people in need, visiting prisoners and caring for the sick. He identifies himself with those people, so how we treat them is part of how we express our faith.

Vulnerability includes poverty and homelessness, illness, disability, loneliness and mental distress. Some struggles are visible; others are hidden. We can offer a meal, listen, help someone access support or speak up when they're treated unjustly. Opening our homes can help too, with the practical caution to “don't be dangerous”. And we should protect people's dignity in how we talk about them.

In a letter from 362 AD, Emperor Julian complained about Christian generosity. He opposed Christianity and still noticed the help Christians gave.

These impious Galileans support not only their own poor, but ours as well.

Julian tried to set up a pagan charity to compete with the church. It failed, and historians note it lacked the internal motivation of Christ-like love. We can't do this work in our own strength either. It is hard, and the love of Christ in us, his name and his presence, keeps us going. We won't solve everything.

You know, you're not going to solve the whole problem of Sydney or Melbourne or Gold Coast or Australia. But you can do something.

What could we do together as a church for someone in need?

The foreigner among us

Deuteronomy 10 describes God loving the foreigner and providing food and clothing. His people are told to love foreigners because they were foreigners in Egypt. In the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10, the foreigner is the hero who cares for his neighbour.

Early churches made this care practical through shelters known as xenodocheia. Travellers, migrants and poor foreigners could find food, shelter and medical care regardless of their background or faith.

The Australian ads with vanished workers make a familiar point. A coffee shop or hotel suddenly has nobody to make the coffee or clean the rooms. What would we do without migrants? Still, people who have made their lives among us can feel unwelcome.

Anti-migrant talk lands on the people hearing it. In Britain, even migrants who had lived there for decades felt threatened when British flags filled the streets amid hostility towards foreigners. We don't have to take a political side to ask how people already here experience that atmosphere.

God calls us to love them. A few words of someone's language, an interest in their food or a conversation in their shop can start a relationship. We can let the foreigners among us know we care about them and their situation.

Care for the nations

God blessed Abraham so that the blessing would reach the nations through him. As the church, we also receive God's favour, and with it a responsibility towards people who haven't heard the gospel.

Jesus calls us the light of the world. Our concern can reach past our families, workplaces and neighbours as we pray for the nations and go to them. Short visits can be a beginning. Some people give years, or a lifetime, to serving God among people who don't yet know him.

The Bible ends with all nations worshipping together, every language and culture represented. There are still people who haven't heard, and we have a part in bringing them the good news.

If you love me

“If you love me, keep my commands.” We carry God's name and presence into our relationships, our neighbourhoods and the wider world, and our way of life should honour it.

Care for one another.
Care for the poor and needy.
Care for the foreigners among you.
Care for the nations.

Keeping that command means living so that God's name and presence are seen and honoured among the nations. One of the songs we sang puts it as a prayer: Jesus be the name that gets all the glory, through us.

If we're already doing these things, let's keep going and bring others with us. Where we need healing, forgiveness or strength ourselves, we can ask God to bring people around us. We need his Spirit's help to offer that same care to others.