"What's In A Name?" - Pastor Ryan Dean

i'm going to read starting off from genesis chapter 17. if you see a few adult one members come in late that's just because maybe not everybody saw the announcements and so they might see the sign on the door across the street so if they come in late don't judge anybody they just had a little bit longer walk than normal genesis chapter 17 verse 5 no longer shall your name be called abram but your name shall be abraham for i have made you the father of a multitude of nations and skipping down to verse number 15 then god said to abraham as for sarai your wife you shall not call her name sarai but sarah shall be her name i will bless her and indeed i will give you a son by her then i will bless her and she shall be a mother of nations kings of peoples will come from her everybody say abraham sarah i'm going to speak from this subject tonight what's in a name what's in a name does anybody in here you can think of it this way and also the inverse of it do you think that a name is important a name can be very important anybody just raise your hand if you just wave it at me if you think a name can be let's put it this way do you believe that a name can be detrimental you understand that look there are good names and let's just face it there are some names that sometimes can be a little bit of a hurdle and sometimes people think that if it's enough of a hurdle that they will go through the process of legally changing their name companies do this all the time does anybody in here just per chance does anybody in here know what google was originally called anybody any one person in this place jennifer i used go google's original name was back rub that is not brad stop rubbing holland's back every one of us sees that right now my goodness you're in church holland's going to kill me for that google's name was originally back rub and i don't know why they thought that was a good idea but maybe one of their friends said it just it sounds like you're going to go to jail is what it sounds like so they they changed the name and luckily for them they changed it from goo from pacrob to google ebay's original name was auction web which let's let's face it it actually gives a pretty good description of what it is but it's a terrible name it's a terrible name it's like if you were going to rename mcdonald's just put like burger restaurant like it's just a very literal description of it but it's not exactly catchy the microwave was originally called a radar oven and if that doesn't sound dangerous i don't know what it does it sounds like the entire family's gonna start looking like they're from chernobyl after a little while the radar oven good change tide used to be called the the washing detergent used to be called drift drift that does not sound like anything that would clean your clothes drift is a horrible name was a good change a name can be very important and obviously it doesn't just operate with products but it operates with people as well and it's really a major adjustment when a person changes their name and i don't mean just changes like a little bit like the spelling or maybe changes one i'm talking about a complete and total change some of my favorite ones over the years i watched basketball in the late 90s especially and there was one basketball player named ron artest pretty normal name our test even sounds like a good name it sounds close to artists and some people probably misspelled it that way but he decided to change his name not to ronald or richard or or you know leonard or any he changed his name to meta world peace meadow world peace let me tell you it was an adjustment and was also a challenge to get that name on the basketball jersey because it went all the way around the top part of the number it was meta world peace and then there was a football player named chad johnson that his number was 85 so he decided i'm going to name myself chad ocho cinco ocho cinco and somebody said i don't even know that's correct is that dramatically correct isaiah yes all right so he got it done he got it done the right way but still it's an adjustment to call somebody ocho cinco but some people had a very positive change does anybody in here know who leslie lynch king jr was anybody in here there you go who was it brother kenny president gerald ford used to be called leslie lynch king jr has a long story as to why he changed it but it was a good change does anybody remember the journalist edward r murrow anybody remember him some of you all should remember him there we go there you go not being quite as shy now his original name was egbert egbert roscoe murrow egbert is we have any experts in the house did i just offend somebody unwittingly no experts thank goodness look for the first two years of my life that my name is ryan if you're coming here you have no idea who i am my name is ryan for the first two years of my life my family called me austin my middle name and to prove this we have family recordings my brother would put a tape in the cassette player and he would just record random stuff and you can hear me as a little baby playing around they're like it wasn't me austin did it so i was getting the blame very quickly and i was like nope it was ryan it was ryan so then i guess that's when they changed everything over but they they stopped after two years and to be honest i'm still a little irritated about it because let me tell you something every white guy between the ages of 35 and 40 about 70 percent of them are named ryan and i can prove it by telling you almost every class i went to there was going to be a few other ryans and it was very confusing around roll call especially if another ryan was absent a lot i didn't enjoy that but they just they just change it and i i decided one day when i was about 12 years old i'm like you know what i'm going back y'all are all going to start calling me austin now i start demanding people call me austin it didn't work because first of all you're not going to let a 12 year old decide their name anyways because if you do there will be disastrous results second of all it's an adjustment to call somebody something else it's an adjustment to change a name and some of you probably have cool stories behind your name some of you are probably named after a mother a father a grandparent maybe somebody in the family maybe i've often heard people would name someone in the family after an uncle that would die in the war or something and so they carried that name and it meant something special to him so there's probably a lot of people that have a cool story behind your name your name becomes part of your identity people when they see your face they they automatically start saying your name when you see somebody from a distance you say is that so and so and it's not just something that you attach just kind of unwittingly it's it's actually a connection that you've made between that name and that face and that life and even their voice and the memories that you have with that person and so whenever you find somebody who has this name it reminds you of that person that you knew there were some names that i was not allowed to name my kids because my wife said no i know somebody with that name and it wasn't because they were a great great person that i wasn't able to name them that so like we had to eliminate certain names because it was reminding them of that place and time and that person and those memories that you had a name as part of your identity imagine being your age right now whether you're not our adult one class or you're one of our seniors and imagine you right now in your life you didn't just decide to change your name you had a complete change of name first middle and last totally different not even close to what it is right now how do you think that would go with your family and friends if you went to the courthouse and you said give me the documentation i'm gonna change my name the courthouse would be fine with it system would be fine with it you could get everything switched over on your tax paperwork they'd be fine with it but your family and your friends and your co-workers they would have a nightmare of a time trying to adjust to this new name so let's go a step further let's imagine you are 99 years old 99 years old you have gone your entire life with that same name 99 years that's who you are brother brandon you're not 99 but imagine you were 99. do you like this pic i can see you reading the book on a porch somewhere in serepta brother brandon chastises me because when i get a hardcover book i like to take the sleeve off and throw it away and it pains him physically to see this brother brandon imagine you're 99 years old and you said you know what i'm not brandon cox anymore i'm fred smith fred how would your wife handle that would she change your name along with you adventurous in genesis 17 we know something about abram this 99 year old man we know something about him he and his wife sarai have no children no children but what do their names mean at this point because you have to understand to this people in this language this culture their names were very important to who they were abram meant something sarai meant something sarai actually meant my princess which is not a bad name it's not a bad name to have but her name was changed to sarah and sarah means princess of the multitude and that change is dramatic and that change means something because when they said it they knew that this woman who did not have any children was a princess of a multitude in abram that name meant high father not high father h-i-g-h father high father he was called this because if he told people that he was a father they would have said you must be high right now because you are not a father hi father that was a cheesy dad joke give me a break but then he was switched to abraham which meant the father of a great multitude the father of none god changes his name to the father of many this father of none was called the father of many see again to their people in their world a name was incredibly important because the name itself told a story about who you were names gave promises names even predicted futures it told a story of their birth at times and names would sometimes even condem but imagine 99 years old childless everywhere that you go with this new name that you have where you went from father to father the multitude father of many everywhere that you went and they said to your name and it's like oh abram i mean abraham gotta still correct it in my mind guys abraham they would say that name out loud and he would know it and they would know it the name didn't speak truth for a bit everywhere you go when people call out your name you you don't hear that regular name that everybody else would hear just a name that means you know you don't know the meaning you don't know the meaning of the name ryan some of you you don't even know the meaning of your name because it's it's a name but to them when they would say his name it meant father of many nations it was if they were calling out and saying father of many nations and this man with no no children whatsoever would have to turn and look sometimes you'd be in a great mood and whenever you would hear that name you would start to think i remember the promise that god gave and i remember the prophecy that was made over me but then there were days that your mood wasn't so great you might have found yourself in a darker place and whenever that name was spoken you would just kind of wince a little bit and say no i don't have anything but still that was your name and you don't really have a choice because god gave it to you sarah the princess of the multitude but the mother of exactly none but when the promises came to be and that child isaac was born and the cry from that newborn baby boy went out for the very first time how precious must their names have felt then because suddenly the prophecy had a chance of being true how beautiful must that moment have been and suddenly that name sarah didn't feel like you were mocking any longer it felt precious it felt full of joy and full of courage and full of belief in god and the promises that he had the names started feeling like they meant something totally different the word of god you can look at so many different instances where somebody's name was changed either by god or by the people around them but jacob's name was he who closely follows or another way that they phrase it is the heel grabber the one who was born second the one grabbing onto the heel of his brother esau his name told something about who he was but it was not quite as flattering as abram to be called jacob was as if you were walking around and everybody was calling you second best and nobody wants to be second best look if i got a silver medal at the olympics i would be very proud of it but it's a little different whenever your friend down the street has the gold medal nobody's stopping by to see the silver medal they want to go see the gold medal down the road so this this brother this hill grabber this second best lived with that name and then there's esau over there there's the firstborn the manly man and even after you trick your father and you steal your brother's firstborn birthright you still find yourself fleeing for your life and in the middle of the night this spiritual angelic manifestation approaches and you start to wrestle and he knew that he's wrestling with god and he wrestled with such fervent such strength and such desire that he demanded a blessing of god and finally in genesis 32 and 26 then he said let me go for the dawn is breaking but he said i will not let you go unless you bless me second best the hill grabber the one who followed said i will not let you go until you bless me and so he said to him what is your name and he said jacob when he said it that name came along with shame that name came along with just a little blemish that said you know i'm in a good family but i'm still second best still just a little bit lower than my brother and he said your name shall no longer be jacob but israel for you have striven with god and with men and have prevailed his original name that told the story of who he was and what his birth was like and what his future would be like did not define him in the end his circumstances at birth did not define him in the end he wrestled he struggled and he rewrote his story because god gave him a new name his original name did not define him everywhere that he walked he was no longer second best but he was the one who struggled until he was blessed another interpretation of the name israel is he who turned the head of god and what a powerful name that is compared to second best his name did not define him because he was compelled to struggle for the blessing you could go on and on tonight about all the figures as i said in the word of god hosea became joshua from salvation to yahweh is salvation and the meaning of his name the disciples renamed joseph to barnabas meaning son of encouragement another good name to switch to solomon was named jedediah which meant beloved by jehovah and you're probably even thinking about two of the most famous names on this list simon became peter and saul became paul not the biggest switch in the world but it was it was big for him when nebuchadnezzar king of babylon took jerusalem he said to his people look when you go and we've conquered bring the best back take the young men there the young nobles and the young people of the royal family find the most intelligent find the best looking find those who would be considered the absolute pinnacle of their society they're going to come back here with us we're going to re-educate them they're going to be schooled for three years in all of our ways they're going to eat food of the king's table they're going to eat our food wear our clothes and they're even going to have our names in daniel 1 and 7. it says then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them into daniel he assigned the name belt shazar to hananiah shadrach to michelle meshach and to azariah abednego in verse 8 but daniel made up his mind look he just had his name changed belt shazer made notes daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with a king's choice food or with a wine which he drank so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself and so what happened is they agreed to a test and they said fine look you're going to get us killed if you do this and we just let it go we'll give you 10 days he said 10 days and y'all are going to eat your food and we're going to have everybody else eat of the king's food and at the end of that 10 days we'll see who comes out better and whoever wins this little contest will go on from there daniel 1 and 15 at the end of the 10 days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food verse 19 the king talked with them and out of them all not one was found like daniel hananiah messiah and azariah so they entered the king's personal service daniel hananiah michelle and azariah not belt shazzar not shadrach not meshech not abednego but the king said your belch hazard your shadrach your meshach your abednego but yet the scripture still has this passage where it calls back to the names that they were given in holiness not the name that their enemies stamped upon their head you don't read this story in the book of belshazzar you read this story in the book of daniel they're still hananiah still michelle and steal azariah you are not defined by the name that your enemy stamps upon you you are defined by the name that you were buried in when you were baptized in that name above every other name the name of jesus christ of nazareth that is the name that comes to define you that is the name that sums up who you become it's not the name that the enemy tries to put upon you because look the enemy tried to put a few names on me a lot of y'all know my story the enemy tried to put insecurity and depression and suicide upon me but for some reason god said no that's my boy his name is not suicide and depression and doubt and that's not his name his name is minister of the gospel it's father it's husband it's somebody that i can use for so many of you the enemy said your your name is alcoholism your name is drug addiction but god said your name is recovered in the name of jesus christ the enemy dragged some of you down into the pit and said your name is abused but jesus said your name is purity and wholeness the enemy said that your name is mediocrity in half-hearted worship but jesus said your name is reckless praise in the name of jesus christ don't identify with the name that your enemy has given you identify instead with that name above every other name the name say it now tonight jesus somebody say it louder you were given a new name this baptistry that we have up there right now they've been running a little bit warmer so it's like a nice sauna in there feels pretty good just i've noticed people are lingering a little while now one of them pulled out a bar of dove soap and we're like all right thank you for that that's not true somebody believed me them you carry that name you call upon that name and if you've not been baptized in the name of jesus we already have one person signed up to be baptized tonight you can get on that list very easily we will do it in a heartbeat we have everything that you need the name of jesus is the name that identifies you we don't need to associate with the labels look the enemy tries to we always think whenever a message is preached like this there's a reason that i put half-hearted worship as one of the names because that's kind of where most of us reside over time because you can attend church for 40 years but then some of the labels you say you know what that's not of god but it's not what the enemies tried to sneak in but absolutely it is the enemy wants to hold your hands down when everybody's worshipping and that's the label that he puts on you the label is unemotional the label is reserved introverted look i'm introverted it takes a lot usually for me to raise my hands but not anymore because god said look you can be introverted all you want but that's not your label your label is surrender so for some of us our label needs to become surrender your name becomes again reckless worship for god to where it pushes us past the uncomfortable position where we've said look this is who i am and god said i just want you to humble yourself before me humility is your name worshipper is your name prayer warrior is your name that is the name that god has placed upon us there's a rabbi i was reading earlier today named i don't know how to pronounce the name properly it's burrell wine and he had this quote that i wanted to read to you it says the tribes of israel had good names each one representing loyalty to god into jewish greatness in the long night of egyptian exile it would be the fact that they remembered their names their ancestors their traditions their vision of the future that kept alive their spark of hope for redemption as long as they remembered their names they were part of the jewish people in bound to the eternal covenant of being god's people as long as you still got that name to go back to in a time of trial in a time of worry in a time of complacency you can find hope for that name that you still carry hoped it might even be in the back of your mind but it's just an arm's reach a way to call upon that name jesus and say god make me into everything that you want me to be when you get low remember that name when you struggle remember that name when the finances are difficult remember that name revelation 2 and 17 says he who has an ear let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who overcomes to him i will give some of the hidden manna and i will give him a white stone everybody say white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it y'all that is cool that's pretty cool you're going to receive a white stone that only you and god are going to know your new name is written on it you say well i like my name just wait till you hear the one that you've been given see in the back of my mind i'm like i know my luck like all the good names are going to be taken at that point i might procrastinate a little bit on the way to heaven like oh you'll see how high we are and they're not looking everybody's already gotten ahead in the line and so my wife's going to get up there and get some great name i'm going to give her the stone it's going to be like angelic worship i mean oh that's a pretty good thing let me give me a stone i'm going to look back and it's going to be like hashbab shebabble or something like that i'm like i don't think i don't think i got the right rock i think this is the wrong rock i think there was a mistake man some clerical issue here you're going to be given a name it's going to rewrite everything about you because here's the thing we associate so much of who we are with the frailties within us look if you've got an issue that issue does not define you if you have a past that pass does not define you if you have hurts that you have no control over your hurts do not define you all that defines you is the wonderful precious grace of jesus christ that saved us that lifted us up that bound us to him and let us put his name upon our lives that's the name that's the reason you're getting a new name it's a name of complete purity of complete beauty and nothing but the will of god and you're going to be able to walk in and worship and you're not going to be yourself anymore you're going to have a new body you're going to have a new mind you're not going to shed a single tear because all that's going to be left is everything that god said about you and nothing that the enemy ever said so if he's speaking it to you today drop it get it behind you cast it in the sea of forgetfulness right where it belongs and let your name be dictated by god in god only there have been many who have received their new names and the old name was left in the water of the baptistry washed by the blood cast into the sea as i said of forgetfulness but i want to remind you of this and i wrap up tonight john 1 and 12 adult one is saying what's going on because he's never finished this early an adult one it was an accident john 1 and 12 as many as received him to them he gave the right to become children of god even to those who believe in his name who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of god a new creature a new creature in christ with a new name that you call upon whatever the name is that you've attached to yourself look i'm up here and i know this is i always leave some scriptures in the document like i i collect too many scriptures on an issue and then i have to leave out like two-thirds of them we could rattle them all off tonight to just drive in the point but the truth of the matter is this some of you have attached some names to yourself that have no business being there the blood of jesus has already worked a perfect work and some of you the blood of jesus is ready to work it's perfect work but you've got a letting this is one of my big hang-ups i said i got done earlier now i'm going to stretch it out somebody said there you go and everybody else is like no look when somebody says i'm going to go back to my issue just so nobody thinks i'm thinking about them right now when they say my depression that is not my depression that is the enemy's attack on my life that is not mine it does not belong to me and it's not the promises of god over me so people say my issue my addiction my problems mine mine mine mine and what happens is we get attached to it because it's it's like that you know how you say well you know somebody can be absolutely crazy but if there's still blood you know you gotta love them or whatever and you say it that way and say look i know that my depression is absolutely crazy but it's still a part of me it's not a part of you it might be something that you fight your addiction that you fight it might be something that you deal with but it is not a part of you it is not a part of your name it is not a part of the blood of jesus it's not a part of the will of god in your life we have testimony after testimony after testimony in our pews of people that have been delivered from absolutely everything so how dare we go back to that place and pick something up that god never meant to belong to us and we say but it's mine i know that it's dirty i know that it's dirty i know it's wrong i know it's something that god said look you don't have to carry that burden anymore but i've still got to take some of that guilt so that i remember how bad i was and how much i failed and how desperately i needed god in my no no it's not yours to carry that burden that we carry all so often we attach it to ourselves that is the name of the enemy it is not the name that god has ordained over you and somebody say amen somebody that has been redeemed say amen somebody that's been cleansed say amen somebody that believes that the name of jesus is the primary thing that resides over your life right now give him a handclap of praise and love on jesus for a moment let's stand around this house and give god a moment of praise let's love on god for a moment clap your hands and just talk to him so as i was getting ready this afternoon and thinking about this there's look as i said there's every issue in our past around this building i know that but what kept coming back to my mind all afternoon is there people that just don't forgive yourself and you might say well look that's that's like a immature issue to deal with absolutely not absolutely not there are people that have been around for a long time that carry so much baggage unnecessarily and we've let us hinder our expectations for what god will do through us because we weren't always what we needed to be and there's somebody here that has been wrestling with a calling on your life and i'm not saying up in the pulpit i'm saying you know somebody's been wrestling with a calling in their life and you say it's too late for that i have to scale back my expectations i rebuke that in the name of jesus christ he wants you to step up and believe that his word in his blood does its perfect work and you have that promise over you somebody needs to believe that you can let go of the old stamps that have been placed upon you get it out of the way and if you've got to pray yourself out of it you better pray harder than you ever have before because god has just a few days left for us there's not that long left for us to be here any longer there's got to be again we preached about it a sense of urgency so let's do something let's lift our hands all across this house i want you to raise your hands and surrender and say god i need you to cleanse the slave for me i know that your blood has already done its work god i know that but god i need you to take my mind off of this stuff god i'm praying the grace of jesus christ will be all that we need right now god do your perfect work into somebody here today god we need you desperately to speak your life back into us help us to let go of every blemish and stay in the past god to let your blood do its work to not hold it back not try to keep anything for ourselves but god in these last days i pray that you would elevate this people elevate this people god to speak to reach out to be used in the gifts of the spirit god we need it desperately in these last days speak through your people we pray in the name of jesus christ and when everybody say in jesus name one more hand clap of praise before you're dismissed here tonight in jesus name god bless you all you're dismissed here tonight but not before you again look at somebody and say it's good to see you i'm glad that you were here on wednesday night you are the special ones hey [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Pentecostals of Bossier City

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Keywords: pentecostals of bossier city, pobc, pobc live, ryan dean, ryan dean preaching, pentecostal, pentecostal worship, pentecostal preaching, Pentecostal church, what's in a name

Id: e3neGkLmNe0

Length: 34min 46sec (2086 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021