Hallowed be Thy Name

You will find an outline on page 9 of your bulletin, actually pages 9 and 10. You're looking for the scripture text for this morning's message, it's actually the title of the sermon, so look no further than the title of the sermon. We are in a series on the Lord's Prayer, and we have seen that we are to come before God and wet by way of personal relationship. He is our father, we are his children, his daughters and his sons by adoption. Our father happens to be the king of the universe, the creator of all things, the king of kings and the Lord of Lord. And so we come before him with great reverence and awe because of his greatness. If you are here visiting and you haven't heard about this series we're doing on the Lord's Prayer just to make known to you, there is a daily devotional guide. In fact, I've put a few of them out in the foyer on the mission's rack, you'll have to search and find it, I suppose, rather than describe where it is, but the devotional guide is to help us pray through the Lord's Prayer, to study the Lord's Prayer and help us with our prayers and learning to pray this way. If you look at it, you'll note that this is the second of two sermons on this petition, hallowed be thy name. As we look at this petition this morning, we'll see that we should share God's passion for the hallowing of his name. Now have you ever noticed that when people are dating, in that dating time of life, that person they're interested in, all of a sudden the things that person is interested in, they're interested in, right? So boys, all of a sudden have a fascinating with shopping or girls fishing and hunting and this sort of thing. And they're interested in those things because the person they're interested in is interested in those things. It should be that way in marriage. I had a friend, they were young at the time that he kept snakes and that's right. And his wife loved him, didn't like snakes, loved him, maybe afraid of snakes, loved him. And he happened to do a little bit of traveling and he had convinced her or she showed an interest in the snakes because he had an interest in snakes and she understood that snakes need to be handled so that they're used to that and don't latch onto you in uncomfortable ways and such. And so while he was out traveling, this woman who didn't like snakes, a little bit of fear of snakes, held her husband's snake day to day because she loved her husband. In fact think about it. This is true in life. We will prefer the things that are most important to us. And she has competing interests, emotions and thoughts. She has negative feelings toward the snake, she doesn't like snakes. She has negative emotions towards it, she's afraid of it, but she loves her husband. And her love for her husband and her desire to be involved and to show an interest in the things that he's interested in, moved her in a way that was greater than her fear and just like a snake. I think we should be that way. Think about it in terms of our relationship with God and get the snake idea of your mind. I know that that lacks because it's like snakes really come on, but think about that. We love God. We want to love Him with our whole hearts, with all that is in us, with all our strength and might. Therefore, we should be interested in the things that interest Him. And this petition is all about that. I hope to show you that this morning that we should love. One more illustration as we think about this. And this has to do with a sense of loyalty, I had a friend who had, I think it was four brothers, total of five brothers. And these brothers were wild. They looked like the brothers of Zizi talked. They all had long beards and lived rough lives and when they got into a parade with each other, you just stood back. The further back you stood, the safer you were because you never knew what was going to go flying around. If you got into a fight with any one of those brothers, you had to deal with five brothers because all of a sudden their loyalty for one another came around and they were loyal. That should be a part of our interest in the things of God too. There should be a loyalty because if blood is thicker than water, we've been bought with the blood of Christ, our primary relationship is that of our relationship with God. And so this morning as we talk about hallowed be thy name, I hope to convince you that we should share God's passion, that is name be hallowed. We should share God's passion, that is name be hallowed. And I want to show you this by showing you that that's what Jesus is teaching in this petition. And we'll look at the petition, then I'll show you that this is God's zeal. This is God's passion that he be treated holy and then we'll talk about what's it look like for us to share that same passion. So let's think of this petition, hallowed be thy name. First thing I want to tell you about it is it's the first request. There's six requests, six petitions in the Lord's Prayer, hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done. Those are the first three all dealing with God. That's priority, God's glory. Then the next three, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us or our debts and we just nod into temptation but deliver us from evil. Six requests, this is the first one. That's not a mistake. It's the first one and the first three have to do with God and that's not a mistake. Jesus is teaching us how to pray and he's teaching us that our first priority is the hallowing of God's name. Now that doesn't mean we can't start our prayer in some other way than hallowed be thy name. We have the whole of the Bible, right? The whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer and so we can go to the scriptures like even our Lord Jesus on occasion and say, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So hallowed be thy name, right? Just write to the request, help Lord for the godly ceases or wherever we happen to be. We can follow the Psalms, we can follow the scriptures but as it goes as a way of life, a way that we think when we investigate, what does Jesus say is a first importance? He puts this first. Now it's not only first in the line of six but the second thing is this. The verb structure indicates urgency. The verb structure indicates urgency. It does this three different ways. First of all, in the Greek, you can put your words in various orders and whatever you want to emphasize as most important, you put that word first. So you may have a verb verse or you may have a noun first, you may have the subject or the object, it's not like us, right? We always do the subject, the verb, and the object, the boy hit the ball. But in the Greek, you can say, hit, the boy hit, the ball, we can't even conceive of it. In the Greek, it starts off with the verb. It starts off with the verb hallowed and it puts it first as a way of indicating a sense of urgency. Now that's not all. There's different ways you can make a request. Requests are in the imperative. We think of commands often. It's in the imperative. It's like the little boy who says, Daddy, give me ice cream. Okay? Of course in the Greek, it's ice cream, Daddy, give me, but if there's urgency, you put it in the eras tense. It's the first verb, it's in the eras tense, which means it's urgent, Daddy, ice cream. I really want ice cream, give me ice cream. And so it's the first word, it's in the eras tense, you don't have to do that. The first three petitions are in the eras tense. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, just understand it's in the tense of urgency, okay? The second three aren't necessarily in the tense of urgency, but the first three are. And one other thing that he does that is strange. He puts it in the third person, again, forgive all this great technical language and stuff, but he's saying his hallowiness or the hallowing of his name. We don't even know how to conceive it, but it's another way in the Greek of giving emphasis to it. The other petitions are, Lord, would you give us this day our daily bread? This one is, in a different, it's in a different structure, there's three different things because in the Greek, they just, they didn't capitalize things because they capitalized everything, so that didn't give emphasis to it. They didn't bold things, it's handwritten, and they didn't bold, and they didn't underline. They used word order and choice of words, and so what he's saying by this, this choice of words is, it's like bolding it and underlining it and putting it all in caps and saying, God, the most important thing, the thing that is urgently on my mind is that your name can be hallowed. Now why is Jesus giving such urgency to this? Why the emphasis? I think the answer is clear, we should be passionate that God be treated holy because God is holy. There's an urgency because we are to be passionate. He's trying to tell us, this is your highest priority, this is the most important thing. And I want to show you next that it is God's passion, that he's teaching us to care about the things that God cares about, to be interested in the things of the one we're most interested in, to be loyal to the one that we care the most about. And so let's think about this, God is passionate about his name being hallowed. We could spend the rest of the day on this, but I've limited myself to do and the Lord willing will get through them okay and quickly to move on, but see this, we see this in the way God prescribes how he is to be worshiped. I want to use the Old Testament as our example, I want you to think about how God rescued us people out of Egypt and he took them to the Mount Sinai where he gave to them the Ten Commandments, right? And as he gives them the Ten Commandments, Moses is up on the mountain and Moses receives further instruction about worship. Now when we read through the Bible often, you know, we read through Genesis and there's interesting narrative, creation, okay, interesting, you know, Tower of Babel, then that we're Abraham, what a cool guy. Look at all the things God made him do. What a dysfunctional family Abraham Isaac and Jacob, right? And we read through this and we get to the Ten Commandments and it's like, that's the crescendo. And then we read in chapter five at the end of chapter 25 of Exodus, after the covenant is made, tell the people to take up a collection of porpoise skins and gold and silver in this and that and our eyes get a little heavy and start to yawn. And there's all these instructions, the Abernacle will have this much length and you'll have this many poles and you'll have silver clasp in it. Let's just to sleep so by the time we get to Leviticus and he's talking about how this

right? How many of you read through the Bible and you got about the Leviticus? Did you know that in the Tabernacle it's called, there's two parts to it, what are they called, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The most holy place, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The place where God dwells is called the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. Saying something to us, isn't it? Well, let's think about the priests who served there, set apart, consecrate, I want the priests to be holy. I want their clothes to be holy. I want their lifestyle to be holy. They can't marry anyone like the other people can as far as widows and so on and so forth. They have to, they're set apart in such a significant way, there's special rules about them, they're holy. The Tabernacle with the Holy Place and the Holy Place has holy utensils and the incense that is offered is holy incense and you don't offer any other kind of incense and you don't use the same ingredients to make your own incense. It's holy, it's set apart exclusively for God's service. Holy, holy, holy, holy. Everything. We haven't even talked about the animals and that they had to be a specific animal. You set apart a specific animal and it had to be holy physically and in other ways as well and it had to be offered on a holy altar that was consecrated especially and everything about it is holy and the whole lifestyle is holy. This is a holy day, this is the sacrifice for this day. The week is holy on the seventh day, I've sanctified it, made it holy, set it apart as a special day and the month and the year and the fifth year and the fifth year, holy, holy, holy, holy. It's a big deal to God. Just so we are looking at at least a few scriptures that point this out and I'm not just calling you to recollect, I've copied just a few passages on page 11 of your bulletin and we're not going to read through it but let me just read a few of these Exodus 2937 for seven days. You shall make a tonement for the altar and consecrate it. The word consecrate exact same Greek word as is used, howlode be thy name, to consecrate, to make holy, to set apart. And the altar shall be most holy and whatever touches the altar shall be holy. Next first, a little bit of a caston and three, this by the way comes right after Moses's nephews, Aaron's sons are turned to smoke for offering strange fire. And Moses said to Aaron his brother, this is what the Lord spoke saying by those who come near me, I will be treated as holy. And before all the people, I will be honored. Leviticus 1144 for I am the Lord your God, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy. Why? Where I am holy, Leviticus 1145 for I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God thus, you shall be holy because I am holy, the rest of it, I'll stop reading there, that's enough, you see what it is and we see what this idea of hallowing God's name, if it's the same word it has to do with consecrated, it has to do with being set apart exclusively for God's service. And we see that God is zealous for it in the way he's prescribed how we are to worship, everything set up that way. And he just shouts it in the repetition of that word holy. By the way, we fall asleep in Leviticus, guess which book of the Bible uses that word the most. I was listening to a Tim Keller sermon on hallowing God's name and he pointed out he went into a bookstore looking for books on spirituality and there were thousands and secular stores as well as spiritual stores but when he looked for sanctification and holiness, guess how many he found? Good thing, the problem, the thing God's most passionate about. Let me show you how passionate it is in this next point. We see this in the way God dealt with Moses and Aaron. Now I give you verse 12 of Numbers 20 and I'll read it in a minute but let me kind of set the story up. By Numbers 20, they've already been to the edge of the promised land sent in the spies, there's giants in the land, we ain't go and God says that does it, your toast. Moses says, wait, Lord, don't kill them and it turns out that they're going to be 40 years in the wilderness. They all know that and they're wandering in the wilderness and they don't have water and they start grumbling and complaining. Would that we have died before the Lord in better circumstances than this? There we are out in the wilderness, nothing to drink, we're in no promised land. They are grumbling, they are complaining, they are exaggerating, they are heart-hearted, they are stiff necked, they are just miserable offenders as the prayer book would say. This is where Moses and Aaron go to God and God ends water problem, Lord says, speak to the rock. He's hit the rock before, that was God's word to provide water in a previous time but this time it's just speak. Moses goes out and hits the rock. You want water, alright fine, he strikes the rock twice and even though he didn't do what God said, the water comes and God provides water for his people. But because he struck the rock rather than speaking to it, here it is. The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, because you have not believed me to treat me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them, what? This is Moses, Moses who met with God at the burning bush who took off his shoes because it was holy ground. This is Moses who's been faithful to the Lord through thick and thin, leading God's people speaking to Pharaoh. Moses who has just walked before the Lord who's interceded on behalf of the people in their sin. Moses who has sought God's favor for his people, Moses who has done everything the Lord has asked for of him. One small infraction and when you look at it in its context it looks smaller than the grumbling and complaining and hardheartedness of Israel, why God? Such a stiff penalty. Is it harsh? There's two reasons really, one is he's a leader, again in that book we sleep through it it makes it very clear that leaders incur a stricter judgment. They have to offer a bigger sacrifice for sin when they said because they're sin is greater. But that's not what's going on here in total, it's in part. You did not treat me as holy in the eyes of the sons of Israel, but Israel, where was Israel at the at the Mount of Sinai when God thundered the ten commandments? They weren't on the mountain where they were standing back weren't they? Where was Moses on the mountain? Where was Moses the second time? 40 days he was on the mountain with the Lord, 40 days he spoke to God, voice to voice. And after the golden calf incident was over, there he is again on the mountain, 40 days and he comes down and he spent so much time with God and he's heard God and he's seen something of the glory of God so that his face shines in such a way that Israel is afraid of him. Here's the man who not only heard the voice of God but talked with God, voice to voice, whom God has defended himself. Here's the man who stayed awake because he was riding how the temple was to be developed. I can hear God speak to him, Moses. These people have been hard-hearted and stiff neck from the beginning, but you were with me at the burning bush and when I said take off your shoes, it's holy ground you did, you knew I was holy. Moses, you were on the mountain with me and everyone's running in fear and there you are and I'm keeping you. Moses, the second time you say, show me your glory and I show you as much as you can handle and we talk and your face shines with the glory. You love me. But in this case, your intimacy made you take me for granted and you sinned against me. Moses, I'm zealous with a hallowing of my name and here you are as the leader who is most intimate with me, not believing me so as to treat me as holy. Isn't that profound? Jesus teaches us to pray about treating God holy because He wants us to share God's passion on this. Look at your page 10. I want to read that to you again. Jesus teaches us to pray about treating God as holy because He wants us to share God's passion on this. Underline that. He wants us to share God's passion on this. Underline it again. He wants us to share God's passion on this. Let's talk about sharing God's passion. How are we going to do that? Let me suggest that the first place we need to start in doing this is acknowledge or confess your lack of passion. Start with self-examination. Isn't that what happened to Isaiah? It's beautiful. If you're doing the daily devotions, it was the reading for today and before even filled out the questions that go with it, I just took that text and I copied it and broke it into his sections and there's the holiness of God and the seraphim singing holy holy holy. And the first thing when Isaiah sees that is, I'm not clean, I've got 30 lips just like the people around me, the very, if you see something of God's passion for the hallowing of this name at all today, it ought to expose where your heart is there. Let me suggest we don't have the ability to work this up in and of ourselves. We can't create this kind of passion. Let me say that I don't mean anyone personally, but I think we struggle within difference and an unwillingness, the hallowed God's name, to share his passion, evidence for the big church in America anyway, bigger than that. Kingdom of God is far bigger than America in time and space. But my how the church has become more and more secular. My how the church alerts with sin, my how many people in the church have just as many divorces as those outside the church, my how the church lives in its luxury and does not seek the glory of God's name with the kind of passion that God has. And we're weak and we're impudent and we're priceless. Look at your prayer life. How long can you pray? And what do you pray for? Let me push this just a little bit, this indifference and unwillingness because it's not that you can't. What are you interested in? How much time do you spend doing it? What do you put aside so that you can do the thing you care about? If this doesn't fit, don't put it on, but at least do the self-examination.

Let me give you a test. If you go through the day without thinking about what we've talked about this morning, that's an indicator that you're indifferent and unwilling. If you don't make a change in your life based on Halloween God's name, let that be an indicator that yeah, I come to church every week. I love the worship. It's great. Good teaching, good worship, good whatever. It's during the week, application during the week, let's see, when was it time I did that? If that's where your mind goes, again, if the shoe doesn't fit, don't put it on, but if the shoe fits, what are you going to do? Let me suggest that you start by acknowledging and confessing in the number two, ask God to change you. Ask him to give you the desire and passion that you lack because really, you cannot create it yourself. That's why the great prayers of the Bible, right? Moses, show me your glory. Paul, I pray that God give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, or I pray that you'd be filled with all spiritual wisdom and understanding to know the height and depth and length and breadth and be filled up with the fullness of Him, or that your love may have bound still more and more in real knowledge and depth of insight because of Him. He's the one who does it. Ask him to give you the ability. And let me suggest, if you are here as a child of God, not suggest, let me tell you. If you're here as a child of God, you have the ability. Not in and of yourself, but you have the spirit of God dwelling in you. It's the spirit of God who dwelling in you says, Abba, daddy, help me. You know one of the verses that struck me this week and I'm talking about myself now. It's in Romans 8 where it says, and the spirit helps our weakness. That's very encouraging to me, but it's very encouraging to me because it's very encouraging to me. A very discouraging to me that the next race says, because we do not know how to pray as we ought to. Can you say that? All could say, we, but if we have the spirit, he will help us to pray. He will change us and there are some things we can do. First of all, we ask, we acknowledge where we are. Second of all, we ask, change us by faith. Faith is key here. God will change, if he says he will, if this is his passion and if we are his children, of course he'll change us. In fact, the Scriptures are very clear. That's his will that we be conformed to the image of his son and holiness and righteousness of the truth. That it is the will of God that we are sanctified, set apart for his sacred service and thus by our lives reflecting his holiness. But the third part is organize your life around Halloween God's name, two ways. First of all, make it your greatest single passion, greatest single passion, greatest single passion. Kind of like the first petition. Kind of like the 10 commandments, right? They don't start off with don't murder or commit adultery. They start out with, you shall have no other gods. You shall not worship gods by images. You shall not use the name of the Lord or God so our prayer lives should reflect not in every single prayer, but in our hearts as a general rule, his passion for him and so we can begin to organize our lives that way and make it our single greatest passion, our greatest single passion. I had a dog, Duncan. It told us it was an otter hound, I don't know what it was, but I can tell you this, he had a single greatest passion. Fetch. It didn't matter what time of day, what type of weather. It didn't matter, it just didn't matter. He would fetch and he would drive you crazy until you threw something for him to fetch and then he'd bring it to you. And if it was a tennis ball, it didn't take long before that thing was just disgusting, we kept gloves around. And when he nod on it and there was this little piece, guess what, he'd bring it to you. Hey, you want to throw this, I can't find anything else. It was his passion. If he had to choose between it or eating, let's play fetch. He had an allergy to grass, wasn't so bad in Colorado, but we moved to Maryland where there was a lot of grass. And he, you throw it, if he didn't see it, he'd start sweeping with his nose. And by the time he brought it to you, his eyes were running, his nose was running, the slow, it was just disgusting. We would stop it for his health. Single greatest passion. The most important thing you train for doesn't come easy. It's like running a race, kind of like Hebrews 12, right, fixing our eyes, run the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. You train for it. You know, if you train to run a marathon, everything has to become subservient to it. Your diet becomes subservient to it because you can't eat and drink yourself into excess. You can't finish the race. You're sleep schedule. Even your social calendar, I'm sorry I can't go out that night because I'm running first thing in the morning. You train for it. You set yourself apart exclusively for training for the goal of the prize. And if you just want to complete, maybe you still eat a lot or take those party things. But if you are going for the goal, if you're going to win, everything comes under that.

And that's how Jesus is teaching us to pray. Hallelujah. Be thy name. We want it. So we really have spent very little time talking about, so what do I do? I've done that on purpose. I gave you three things, actually. Talk to God. Confess. Ask Him to change you. And then start to organize your life. So what do I organize? I put this little prayer. I used this when I did the prayers for God's kingdom a couple of weeks ago. The little quote, give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation. Quote from Ephesians 1. In our knowledge of you, so that tasting and seeing your glory, kind of like Isaiah, right? Glory and majesty may humble ourselves. There's a good way to start. And share your passion for the hallowing of your name by declaring your praise. By loving you, good, by keeping your commands good, and by glorifying Jesus with our whole hearts. As we come to the table of the Lord, it's a perfect segue really because what's this meal all about? This is where holiness and love meet.

God who is so incredibly passionate that he be treated as holy. So much so that he toasts people. Not just in the Old Testament, but Ananias and Sapphira, and what Paul says in the giving of the Lord's supper for this reason, many of you are sick and weak and some of you have fallen asleep. God is so passionate that he be treated as holy.

That when Jesus prayed in the garden of Cassimony, Father, is there any other way than I drink this cup? The word came back, Son, drink the cup.

My zeal for the holiness of my name must be unquenchable and undefiled. Sin is reprehensible. The profaning of my name is cosmic treason. It cannot be left unpunished. But I love them, Son. And I want them, Son, to pay their penalty. Son, we to mill. We talk about it as what Jesus did before his passion,

because we find in Jesus not only the zeal of God for the hollowing of his name, but the zeal of man perfectly lived out for the hollowing of God's name. He was willing to do it in all of life even to the point of death.

That's how we do it.

As we eat this bread this day and drink this cup, as they represent the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ,

think about the holiness of God, the zeal he has to be treated as holy. And what lengths he is willing to do, to go to, to uphold that, and to make you as child, and to bring you into his presence.

Where I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant and blood my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until it comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly, for this reason many of you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. Table of our Lord, the bread represents the body of Jesus, the cup represents his blood, symbolic. What we do physically and taking bread and eating it that symbolizes Jesus and taking the cup and drinking it that symbolizes Jesus as a spiritual reality. It is that Jesus is our nourishment, our spiritual nourishment. Just like a good feast provides not only for nourishment and strength and energy, but also satisfaction and joy and community. So does this meal spiritually. We as brothers and sisters have union with one another and communion with our Lord.

And thus we must judge the body quickly or rightly and pray the Lord's prayer. Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who sent against us and we come,

receive grace, find help and time of need. Let's pray. Lord feed us, let this bread represent the body of Christ and this cup of his blood. That we may be spiritually nourished. We ask in Jesus name. Well, the elders please come and just stand here as they distribute the bread. Let's all who are communing take it and hold it until all have been served. I remind you of the warning of the passage from Saint Paul that we examine ourselves and encourage you that if you do not have a relationship with God, if you have not been born again by the Spirit of God that you just simply pass the elements by as they're passed by and not partake. For this is for those who have been redeemed, reconcile the God through faith in Jesus Christ.