 What is Jesus' real name? And, just as importantly, does it matter? Understand people wanting to say the name of our Lord correctly, just like people want their name to be said correctly as well. However, we need to remember there's a bit of a difference between what we think and feel and understand today versus back then. Remember, we are in, especially for the bulk of us, we are in a Westernized society some 2,000 years after the fact, thinking about or reflecting on what was happening in an Eastern culture 2,000 years ago. Why is that important? Well, because for us sometimes it's the sound of the name that's more important than actually the meaning of the name. The names that you will hear will be the name Jesus. Well, obviously it's not what he was called or heard himself being called during the time that he lived because Jesus is an English name. Was it Joshua? Well, that's similar to the English name. What about the name Yeshua or Easus? More and more scholars are realizing that what was the lingua franca, which is the dominant language, the language of the land for the people in that area was Greek. Remember, the Jews were taken into captivity and they were out of their land. And when they came back, the people that were in charge were not Jewish speaking people. And so what ended up becoming the language of the land was Greek. Even when Rome took over the dominant language of that region or the population of Rome's empire, most of them were Greek speaking people. Even though there were different dialects of Greek, Greek was the lingua franca. Even as we think about the Old Testament, Hebrew fell out of favor with a large portion of Jews. So much so that the library in Alexandria needed to have a Jewish copy of the Hebrew text written in Greek, which is where we get the Septuagint from. These are these Jewish scholars who would undertake the task of translating the Hebrew text into Greek. Why? Because a majority of the people in Rome spoke Greek. Now, does that mean if that was the only language that was being spoken? No, obviously you had Latin being spoken. You obviously had Aramaic being spoken. You obviously had Hebrew being spoken. It was a smaller number of folks that were speaking Hebrew, but you still had Hebrew being spoken, and you had Greek different dialects. Why is that important? Because we're finding more and more copies of deeds, bills of sales, wedding invitations written in Greek. And so how did Jesus likely hear his name, the majority of the time? Well, probably he heard the term Easus, those that would want to hold to culturally calling him by his Jewish name, because after all, Jesus was Jewish, though they were predominantly Greek-speaking people, they may have called him Yeshua, even keeping the Jewish name, though they were speaking Greek. Both of those are possibilities, but the likelihood that the majority of people that called him or whom he heard called himself was Easus. Why that's important, going back to the topic, is that it wasn't so much the sound of the name as it was the meaning of the name. Now, my name is Cory. If I go to another part of the world, they're going to ask me what my name is. I'm going to tell them Cory. They're going to call me Cory. Most folks aren't thinking of what does the name Cory mean? However, that's our culture, that's our society, even really globally. But in that day, in that culture, the meaning of the name was what was important. The name Easus, the name Yeshua just simply means the Lord saves. To give a couple of examples that if we think about it in Esther, we've got a king named Xerxes. Some would have his name as Artexes. Some will have his name as a Hashirah. And so oftentimes in the scriptures, you might see a Babylonian or a Greek or a Hebrew rendering of the name. To make it even more specific that we can all relate to is Paul. Paul in Acts 13.9, remember the Bible says, but Saul, who was also known as Paul, was filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, who is Paul? Who is Saul? The same person. God did not change Saul's name into Paul. One is the Hebrew name. One is the Roman name. And if we would go later on and ask, we would see from time to time, people would still call him Saul. Why? Because it's not how it sounded. It's what his name meant and depending upon which language you were speaking or your nationality, you may call him Saul or you may call him Paul. Nothing has changed about the meaning, just the sound of the name might change. Now, it's just important to realize what does the word name mean? The Greek word that we have for name is the word Onoma, which means name or reputation. It refers to one of two things, either the person's nomenclature, their proper name or their reputation, who they are, what they will be. An example of this would be found in Isaiah 9. You all know the passage, Isaiah 9.6, for unto us a child is born, a son will be given and the government will wrestle on his shoulders and his name will be called. Now, these are not his proper names, but this is how he would be known. This is how he would be viewed, how he would be seen. His name should be called Wonderful Counselor. We will call him Wonderful Counselor. His name will be called Mighty God, Eternal Father, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Now, this other word right here, Eternal Father, this is what he will be to us. And so again, this is how he would be known to us. No one calls him Wonderful Counselor. We don't find people calling him Prince of Peace. Now, we would refer to him as the Prince of Peace, seeing this is who he is or even him being like a father or fatherly to us. But these are, this is what he would be called. Even more so, we have this term here where he says in chapter 1 of verse 23 of Matthew, Behold the virgin shall be with the child and the child shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel. We didn't call him Emmanuel as his proper name, but the term Emmanuel, what does it mean? With us is God or God with us. And so he would be known that way. And so in this sense, the name Onoma refers to not his nomenclature, not his proper name, but what he is, how we refer to him. A good example of this, and this is something that we can all relate to, is the President of the United States. Right now it is Joe Biden, whoever's going to be after that, we don't know. But what do most people call him? They might call him Mr. President or the President. That is his name, but not his proper name, but it's who he's known by. Even an even better example is for those of us who are parents or have parents. My children know that my name is Corey. They do not call me Corey. They do not call my wife by her name. They will call her mom or mama or mother. They will call me daddy or dad or father. That's what they call me. Now, would I like for them to call me by my proper name? No, I would not. Why? Because it's what I am to them. That's the most important thing. The same with Jesus. Jesus, the Lord saves is what's important to know him in that regard. That is a name that you ought to call him or know him as. Because it makes no difference if you can name his name, even if there was a such thing as calling him by the proper name, the proper nomenclature, but you don't know him as the Lord who saves. That would be a person who would have head knowledge, but was still Ms. Heaven. Now there are still people that would insist on wanting to call him by whatever name they think is the proper name to call him. They would want them to call him. We must call him Yeshua. We must call him whatever name you think is the proper name. The question that I would ask is if that's the case, why not carry it out and be consistent? For example, if I say turn your Bible to the book of Yahub or the book of Jacob, most would say what is that book? We don't have that book in the Bible, but if I would then turn around and say yes we do, the book of James. If we're going to call people by their proper name, well then James is not his name. That's the English version of his name. His name is Jacob, or to be even more precise, Yaqub. We tend to not call people by their actual names that are in the Bible. Rather we tend to refer to their English names, but then we'll turn to Jesus and say that we must call him by his name. We'll just be consistent, but the truth of the matter is God isn't as concerned about that as he is about something more important. We'll come to that in a second, but maybe we ought to also ask ourselves is what we know to be his name, whether it be Jesus, Yeshua, Jesus, is that really what his name is? Remember in Revelation 19, we're told that Jesus is coming back and he's going to have a name on him that we don't know. Chapter 19 verse 11, and I saw heaven open and behold white horse and he who sat on is called faithful. He is called faithful and true and righteous. Is that his name? No, but that's how he's known by, and he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire and on his heads are many deities and he has a name in this word, a noma written on him which no one knows except himself. Is that possibly the name that we would call him or know him as forever? Probably so. Do we know that name? No, which indicates that it's not that name that's as important right now that we need to know. It's what we know him as, as Lord, as God, as our Savior. And so ultimately the more important thing is not what name do you know him by but what name do you know him as and even more to the point what name does he call you? Does he know you as a child of his? Does he know you as his son? Does he know you as someone who's been redeemed? That's more important. Do you know his name? Does he also know your name? Trying to fight and figure out what's the right way of saying it? Well, say it with your heart. Know his name in your heart. Be known by him. Don't be the one that will go to him and be able to maybe figure out what his actual name is but then he'll say to you, I never knew you. But then because he doesn't know your name, he'll say to you, I never knew you. So make sure that you know who he is. Amen.