When I was nine years old, my dad took me to a dinner banquet he had been invited to that featured the famed sportscaster, Howard Cosell. I was the only kid in the room. After what felt like a very long dinner and a very boring speech, guests were invited to come up and meet Howard Cosell and Lamar Hunt, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs and an NFL icon.

The man who had given my dad the tickets handed me an official NFL football and suggested I get it signed. And I did. We stood in line, shook their hands, collected their autographs, and went home. That football became a prized possession—perfect for show-and-tell—and eventually earned a place of honor on a shelf in my bedroom.

Do you know where that football is today?  Yeah… me neither.

A few months later, when football season rolled around, the value of actually playing with the ball far outweighed the value of the signatures written on it. I was nine.

As I grew up, I managed to collect several more autographs from professional athletes. I’m really going to date myself here—most of you may have to Google these names. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, Gale Sayers visited our Boy Scout troop. Kansas City Royals greats like John Mayberry, Darrell Porter, and Dan Quisenberry or Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter and Lou Pinella signed items that I carefully stored in a scrapbook.

Do you know where that scrapbook is today? Yeah… me neither.

Somewhere along the way, I realized something important. The real value was never in the name written on a ball or a piece of paper. The value was in knowing the person behind the name. I no longer wanted signatures—I wanted relationships.

In many ways, professional athletes are still idolized today. People wear their names, cheer for them, and follow them closely. But most only know what they see from the stands or on a screen. They know the name—but not the person.

Isaiah 6 gives us one of the most powerful pictures of worship in all of Scripture. The prophet is given a vision of heaven: God seated on a throne, seraphim flying above Him, calling out in worship. The scene is so overwhelming that it shakes the temple itself and brings Isaiah to his knees in confession and repentance.

But if we read this passage only in our English translations, we can miss something significant. We see words like Lord and LORD Almighty and understand they refer to God—but Isaiah was using specific names for God, and those names carried deep meaning for those who truly knew Him.

“In the year King Uzziah died, I saw Adonai seated on a throne.”

And the angels were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Almighty.”

God reveals His names because He longs to be known.

Adonai means Master or Sovereign One. It is both a name and a title. When Isaiah uses this name, he is placing himself in the position of a servant – a slave – before his Master. He sees God’s authority and power as His robe fills the entire temple. Sovereignty of this magnitude in human hands would be terrifying. But Adonai is all-seeing, all-knowing, and all-loving. He makes no mistakes. He allows nothing without reason or purpose.

Yahweh is the most personal name of God—the name first revealed to Moses at the burning bush. When Moses asked who he should say had sent him, God replied, “Tell them I Am has sent you.” Yahweh simply means I Am. The eternal, self-existent, ever-present God.

Isaiah didn’t just know about God. He knew Him. He knew Adonai, the Sovereign One. He knew Yahweh, the holy and personal God. God was not a concept to Isaiah—He was a person. And because Isaiah knew God by name, he could worship Him in every circumstance.

In the end, what’s in a name? Everything—when the name leads you to truly know the One behind it.