Part
I
1. Become
genuinely interested in other people
2. Smile
Part II
3. Remember a person name to that person
is the sweetest and most important sound
in any language.
Introduction
How important is your
name? Have you ever thought about how
important your name is to you? Think
about this, if you heard the names,
Alexander, Adolph, Osama, Isaiah,
Daniel, and Adam, what happened in your
head? Did those names bring up images?
Did you think of a certain person? If
your like most people, as your eyes
crossed the page, a picture of a person
came into your mind. Names are all
around us, we can’t get away from them.
Countries, cities, mountains, companies,
families, people and pets all have
names. Names become directly associated
with the object, whether its a company,
person or place.
The need to
establish a name is directly linked to
our fallen nature; we all want to be
significant. The conflict between Cain
and Abel was the result of Cain, feeling
his significance was in doubt. How could
God accept Abel’s offering was reject
his? After the flood, in the days of
Noah, all humanity was one tribe or
nation. Again at the tower of Babel,
humanity attempted to establish their
meaning apart from God, significance
without God, was their goal.
3 Then they said to one
another, "Come, let us make bricks and
bake them thoroughly." They had brick
for stone, and they had asphalt for
mortar. 4 And they said, "Come, let us
build ourselves a city, and a tower
whose top is in the heavens; let us make
a name for ourselves, lest we be
scattered abroad over the face of the
whole earth."
Genesis 11:3-4
God did not let them
succeed, the descendents of Noah were
scattered over the face of the earth,
however we took with us this innate
desire for importance and meaning.
Notice, the cry was “let us make a
name for ourselves”, they did not
want to be forgotten, and they yearned
to be established.
Every person
wants meaning and significance, our
identity is however linked to word,
which delights our ears more then any
other, it’s our name. Our name is a set
of letters directly linked to us, when
we are in a group and we hear our name
called out, we feel good. Our name is
directly linked to our person, our state
of being, it identifies who we are.
God’s name so identifies His person and
being that the third command forbids His
name to be taken in vain.
7 "You shall not take the
name of the Lord your God in vain, for
the Lord will not hold him guiltless who
takes His name in vain.
Exodus 20:7
God’s identified Himself
to Moses is I AM Who I AM, He
called Himself, the I AM or in the
Hebrew
hwhy
Yehovah,
which means self existent one. For this
reason, Jews rather then say the name of
God, call Him,
“Hashem” , which
translates into “The name”.
What a name means
Names come with
meanings linked to the person named.
For example, the name Adam in Genesis
means Red, to describe the red
earth God formed him from. The name
Moses comes from the Egyptian word,
“Mesu” meaning drawn, because he
was drawn out of the water. Throughout
scripture, people including Angels are
constantly linked to their names,
because the name takes on a person’s
identity. When we hear the name
Goliath, what do we think? How about
Jezebel or Judas? Names become our link
to the world we live in.
Through our names
we attempt to attain immortality, we
don’t to be forgotten, this is part of
our nature. In Psalm 49 written
3000-years ago, shows this is not new,
the inner thought of man is to preserve
his name.
10 For he sees wise men
die; Likewise the fool and the senseless
person perish, And leave their wealth to
others. 11 Their inner thought is that
their houses will last forever, Their
dwelling places to all generations; They
call their lands after their own names.
12 Nevertheless man, though in honor,
does not remain; He is like the beasts
that perish. Psalm 49:10-12
The value of our
name follows after our death; our name
becomes our identity after we die. Our
wealth might buy material things, its
our name people remember. When you hear
of the Wright brothers, what picture
comes to mind? What about Mother
Teresa, isn’t her name is associated
with acts of kindness and charity?
A good name is
to be chosen rather than great riches,
Loving favor rather than silver and
gold.
Proverbs 22:1
This is not only
true in the Bible, but its true for us.
All of us link our innermost person to
our names, the are not just a series of
vowels and consonants, our name becomes
our identity. Dale Carnegie identifies
a person’s name as the “sweetest and
most important sound in any language”.
Knowing a persons name is saying to the
person, you are significant, I
acknowledge your value. Dale Carnegie
relates several stories on just how
important our name is to us.
Sid Levy called on a
customer for some time whose name was
Nicodemus Papadoulos. Most people just
called him “Nick.” Levy told us: “I
made a special effort to say his name
over several times to myself before I
made my call. When I greeted him by his
full name: ‘Good afternoon, Mr.
Nicodemus Papadoulos,’ he was shocked.
For what seemed like several minutes
there was no reply from him at all.
Finally, he said with tears rolling down
his cheeks, ‘Mr. Levy, n all the fifteen
years I have been in this country,
nobody has ever made the effort to call
me by right name’”
Though “Nick” was the name
people called him in the United States,
the name he really identified with was
Nicodemus Papadoulos. He cried because
Sid Levy valued him by learning his real
name. He felt significant, he was not
just a customer being sold a product.
This is the same with everybody around
us, our name is us. So when we learn
somebody’s name we are saying they are
important.
The steel
magnate, Andrew Carnegie, was successful
because he understood how people thought
and worked. Dale Carnegie relates a
story:
When he was a boy back in
Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a
mother rabbit. Presto! He soon found a
whole nest of little rabbits---and
nothing to feed them. But he had a
brilliant idea. He told the boys and
girls in the neighborhood that if they
would go out and pull enough clover and
dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would
name the bunnies in their honor
Andrew Carnegie
would later use these same principles to
expand his steel empire. He wanted the
Pennsylvania Railroad to buy his steel,
so he built a huge steel mill. He
called the mill the “Edgar Thompson
Steel Works” after the Edgar Thompson
the President of the railroad. So when
the Pennsylvania Railroad ordered Steel,
from where did the steel come? Edgar
Thompson ordered steel from the mill
named in his honor, Andrew Carnegie knew
people.
Through our name
our significance is realized, but true
significance only come through our
relationship with God. By acknowledging
the value of every person, made in the
image of God, we help people understand
they are known by God. God knows their
name, which is more important then the
world knowing their name.
Jesus told the
disciples after they were excited about
their new found spiritual success, not
to rejoice at their power over spiritual
realms, but to rejoice because their
names is in Heaven.
19 "Behold, I give you the
authority to trample on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the
enemy, and nothing shall by any means
hurt you. 20 "Nevertheless do not
rejoice in this, that the spirits are
subject to you, but rather rejoice
because your names are written in
heaven." Luke 10:19-20
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others
to talk about themselves.
We all have a story to tell, each one of
us has a unique interesting events that
have shaped our lives. The problem is
the most interesting story for each of
us, is our own. In conversations, many
times we are so interested in our own
story; we never hear anybody else’s
story.
One of the
greatest compliments we can pay somebody
is to be interested in them, in their
lives and their struggles. When we
learn about the lives of others, we can
better understand who we are?
Knowing and
serving the Lord, means getting involved
in the lives of others. This also means
we have to be willing to subdue our own
interesting story, for the sake of
others.
Dale Carnegie
tells the story of Edward Bok, one of
the most successful men in American
journalism. The odds were against him
in every way, but it was his ability to
encourage others to talk about
themselves, which opened doors closed
for most people.
Years ago, a
poor Dutch immigrant boy was the windows
of a bakery shop after school to help
support his family. His people were so
poor that in addition he used to go out
in the street with a basket every day
and collect stray bits of coal that had
fallen in the gutter where the coal
wagons had delivered fuel. That boy,
Edward Bok, never got more then six
years of schooling in his
life;..........
He left school when he was thirteen and
became an office boy for Western Union,
but he didn’t for one moment give up the
idea of education. Instead, he started
to educate himself. he saved his
carfares and went without lunch until he
had enough money to buy an encyclopedia
of American biography---and then he did
an unheard of thing. he read the lies
of famous people and wrote the asking
for additional information about their
childhoods. He was a good listener. He
asked famous people to tell him more
about themselves. He wrote General
James A. Garfield, who was then running
for President, and asked if it was true
that he was once a tow boy on a canal;
and Garfield replied. He wrote General
Grant asking about a certain battle, and
Grant drew a map for him and invited
this fourteen-yea-old boy to dinner and
spent the evening talking to him.
Soon our
Western Union messenger boy was
corresponding to with many of the most
famous people in the nation: Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Longfellow, Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Louisa
may Alcott, General Sherman and
Jefferson Davis. No only did he
correspond with these distinguished
people, but as soon as he got a
vacation, he visited many of them as a
welcome guest in their homes. This
experience imbued him with the
confidence that was invaluable. These
men and women fired him with a vision
and ambition that shaped his life.
In ministry, we are called to be
interested in the lives of others, when
we are saved, we know where we are
going. If we read the last two chapters
of Revelation, chapters 21 and 22, we
see our story ends in heaven. We have
the opportunity to help others follow
us, if we are willing to listen to their
story.
Try to find out about people, learn how
they arrived at their station in life.
Ask people about themselves, be curious
about the lives of others. People want
to tell their story, we/they are looking
for an audience who cares. The amazing
opportunity we have, is are able to give
them a happy ending, an eternal ending
in Heaven.
By encouraging other to talk about
themselves, many times doors to their
souls are opened. We learn what drives
people to be the way they are.
