WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.320 So, would you turn with me to the Gospel of Matthew? We are back in the Gospel of Matthew 00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:10.839 this morning, chapter 6, that's page 761 in the Pew Bible, if you want to turn there. 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:14.859 As Pastor Matt mentioned last week, we're continuing our series in the Sermon on the 00:00:14.859 --> 00:00:19.260 Mount, and we've come now to the center of the sermon, what we call the Lord's Prayer. 00:00:20.179 --> 00:00:26.320 And for the next few weeks, we'll be slowing down and considering the Lord's Prayer pretty 00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:35.120 much line by line. Now, you might be wondering, why spend so much time on prayer? Well, 00:00:35.980 --> 00:00:45.340 because prayer is that important. You know, imagine someone handed you the keys to an enormous 00:00:45.340 --> 00:00:51.120 mansion high up in the mountains with beautiful views, with spacious rooms, with vaulted ceilings. 00:00:51.120 --> 00:00:54.760 Imagine it was just given to you. It was all yours. You own it. You live there now. 00:00:54.759 --> 00:01:01.099 But imagine you kind of arrive at this new home, and you walk in the door, you put your luggage down, 00:01:01.259 --> 00:01:08.659 and then you just stay right there in the entryway, right? You sleep there, you eat there, 00:01:09.319 --> 00:01:14.439 you brush your teeth there. In the vestibule, you never explore the house, you never take in the 00:01:14.439 --> 00:01:19.560 rooms, you never admire the warmth of the fireplace, you never see the sunrise over the mountains from 00:01:19.560 --> 00:01:27.480 the panoramic windows. You just strangely just stay right there in the entryway. That would be ridiculous, 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:35.820 right? Who would do that? And yet, many of us actually live the Christian life that way. 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:43.620 God in the gospel has given us, as Paul says in Ephesians 3, the unsearchable riches of Christ. 00:01:43.620 --> 00:01:52.320 Yet, we are still only standing in the entryway of this unspeakable gift that we've been given. 00:01:53.820 --> 00:01:59.780 We're still only standing in the entryway of this new life, this eternal life, this kingdom life in 00:01:59.780 --> 00:02:08.800 Christ. But the question is, how do we move in? How do we move in and inhabit this unsearchable grace 00:02:08.800 --> 00:02:13.460 that we've been given? How do we explore the splendid views and rooms and comforts and joys 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:24.600 of faith in Christ? Well, the answer to that is prayer. By prayer, we explore and inhabit more and 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:32.500 more this great salvation that's been given to us. I like how John Calvin put it in chapter 20 of the 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:41.400 Institutes. He said, we dig up by prayer the treasures that were pointed out by the Lord's 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:49.400 gospel and which our faith has gazed upon. We dig up by prayer the treasures of the gospel. 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:58.000 And here's how wonderful the Lord Jesus is. Our Lord Jesus has not only purchased the riches of 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:03.039 salvation for us through His life, death, and resurrection, and He not only gives them to us 00:03:03.039 --> 00:03:09.120 free of charge by His Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel, the Lord Jesus also taught 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:14.560 us how to pray so that we can explore those riches and enjoy them more and more and more. 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:20.560 So, we're going to go slowly through the prayer that Jesus taught us in Matthew chapter 6 00:03:20.560 --> 00:03:23.680 so that we might learn how to pray. 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:30.920 Last week, we looked at the opening of the prayer, our Father in heaven. Today, we'll look at the first 00:03:30.920 --> 00:03:37.740 petition, hallowed be Your name. So, let me pray for us, and then I'll read verses 9 through 13, 00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:40.860 and then we'll unpack the first petition. Let me pray. 00:03:42.819 --> 00:03:51.420 Father, how we need Your help to learn how to pray. Thank You for the unsearchable riches of the gospel, 00:03:51.419 --> 00:03:58.759 and thank You for giving us Your Holy Spirit who intercedes for us when we lose the words to pray. 00:03:59.919 --> 00:04:06.319 Thank You most of all for sending Your Son, our Lord Jesus, who teaches us to pray so that we might 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:12.079 experience all the riches of intimacy with You and so that we might experience the advance of Your 00:04:12.079 --> 00:04:20.759 kingdom in the world. Help us now as we come to Your Word to read, to mark, and to learn what You are 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:29.139 saying to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, Matthew 6, 9 through 13. Jesus says, 00:04:29.139 --> 00:04:36.319 Pray then like this, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, 00:04:37.079 --> 00:04:44.740 Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, 00:04:44.740 --> 00:04:52.300 as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. 00:04:54.540 --> 00:05:02.519 So, the 17th century poet, English poet George Herbert, once described prayer as reversed thunder. 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:09.480 He says, it's God's breath in man returning to His birth. What a powerful image that is, right? 00:05:09.480 --> 00:05:17.140 God's Word spoke the heavens and the earth into being, and in words, in prayer, we speak back to God, 00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:22.180 to this awesome and majestic God. Thunder, right? Thunder is something that comes down from heaven 00:05:22.180 --> 00:05:29.939 and sort of shakes the earth, right? But prayer, says Herbert, is reversed thunder. It's human words 00:05:29.939 --> 00:05:37.100 that resound in the heavens. What a thrilling picture of prayer, reversed thunder. 00:05:37.100 --> 00:05:47.560 Father. But I wonder, is that your and my experience of prayer? To borrow a line from T.S. Eliot, 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:52.820 too often our prayers seem to end not with a bang, but with a whimper. 00:05:55.020 --> 00:06:00.800 If we're honest, prayer just doesn't really excite us all that much. It's not that we can't pray, 00:06:00.800 --> 00:06:09.900 it's that we honestly don't want to pray. And we don't want to pray because prayer doesn't seem all 00:06:09.900 --> 00:06:16.500 that exciting. After all, in a world of ice cream, who wants to eat a stalk of Brussels sprouts, 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:24.180 right? Who wants to spend time like that? Prayer sort of feels like a stalk of Brussels sprouts. 00:06:24.180 --> 00:06:30.620 But, you know, prayer sort of becomes this way for us. It sort of becomes dull and undesirable 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:38.500 because our view of God has become so dull and undesirable. We have cold and joyless hearts toward 00:06:38.500 --> 00:06:46.560 prayer because we have cold and joyless hearts towards God. And this, I think, is one of, if not 00:06:46.560 --> 00:06:56.800 the greatest obstacles to prayer, you're in my cold and joyless heart toward God. And that's why Jesus 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:04.959 teaches us here in the Lord's Prayer to pray the first petition first, hallowed be Thy name. 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:10.680 This is the prayer our cold and joyless hearts need. 00:07:10.680 --> 00:07:18.819 But maybe of all the petitions, this one is probably the most foreign to us. After all, 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:25.720 how many of us use the word hallowed on a regular basis? I was thinking about that this week, and 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:30.439 there's only one instance of the word hallowed I can think of, and it's in a song we sing in church 00:07:30.439 --> 00:07:37.399 in Christmastime. Like, that doesn't count, right? So, I think we need to approach this petition, 00:07:37.399 --> 00:07:41.199 hallowed be Your name, by maybe asking three questions. So, here are the three that are going 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:47.379 to kind of order our time together. First, what are we praying for when we pray, hallowed be Your name? 00:07:48.039 --> 00:07:54.060 And second, why are we praying it? And then third, how can we actually pray that prayer? 00:07:55.779 --> 00:08:00.799 So, okay, so first, what are we praying for when we pray, hallowed be Thy name? Well, let's just look 00:08:00.799 --> 00:08:05.919 at the two halves of this petition, first hallowed and then name. What does it mean to hallow something? 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:11.500 Well, that's an older English expression that means to treat something as holy. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:17.580 Okay, well, what does that mean, right? Well, when you encounter something that's holy, 00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:25.120 what is it? Well, it's set apart. It's unique. It's worthy of admiration. It has no peer. 00:08:26.700 --> 00:08:33.779 And when you're in the presence of something holy, your response is awe and wonder. 00:08:33.779 --> 00:08:44.259 It's the opposite of something being commonplace. Commonplace things, right? What do we do with 00:08:44.259 --> 00:08:48.279 commonplace things? Well, you kind of use them, maybe they're useful, and then you ignore them, 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:57.419 right? Because they're common. But if something is holy, you realize that it doesn't exist for you to 00:08:57.419 --> 00:09:08.919 use it or consume it and then ignore it. Rather, you're struck by it in wonder. It's bigger than you. 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:18.659 It's greater than you. It's holy. And this wonder and awe in the face of something like that leads to 00:09:18.659 --> 00:09:28.339 reverence and respect for it. It leads to honor. Mountain climbers tend to treat great mountains 00:09:28.339 --> 00:09:33.419 this way. You know, they're not just sort of in awe and wonder at their beauty, but they approach 00:09:33.419 --> 00:09:42.439 them with reverence and respect. You know, a mountain climber would never speak about K2 or Denali the way 00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:48.520 you and I speak about Sleeping Giant or East Rock, right? Those things are commonplace. You wake up on a 00:09:48.520 --> 00:09:54.200 day off, you're like, eh, let's go hike Sleeping Giant, right? But if you're around a mountain climber, 00:09:54.200 --> 00:10:00.100 you're talking about K2, there's a reverence. Those things are set apart. They're worthy of awe. 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:07.520 They're worthy of respect. They're worthy of fear even. So that's what hallowed means. 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:14.299 Hallowed means to treat something or to treat someone with awe-filled reverence. 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:21.179 But what about thy name? Well, notice that the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer are all 00:10:21.179 --> 00:10:26.799 God-centered, aren't they? Here, in these first three petitions, we turn our hearts to God's kingdom, 00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:35.360 to God's will, and in this first petition, to God's name. But what is that? Well, in the language of the 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:42.879 time, to speak of something's name was to speak of its nature, what it really is, what it's revealed 00:10:42.879 --> 00:10:51.000 itself to be. So God's name is God's revealed nature, who God is. And that sort of makes sense 00:10:51.000 --> 00:10:57.060 when you think about it. A name, after all, is how you do what? It's how you identify someone, 00:10:57.820 --> 00:11:04.000 right? Hi, my name is Nick. That's how you can sort of identify me. And over time, what happens 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:10.519 through usage is that a name begins to gather up all that's true about someone and then kind of holds 00:11:10.519 --> 00:11:16.779 it forth. You know, think about when you hear the name of someone you love, right? Just hearing their 00:11:16.779 --> 00:11:23.759 name can make you feel wonderful, feel good. It brings to mind all that's true about your experience 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:29.360 of that person. But the opposite is true, too. When you hear the name of someone who's hurt you, 00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:34.080 someone you don't like, just hearing the name can bring up all sort of feelings and emotions. Why? 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:41.560 Because a name sort of functions to carry the identity, the character of the person. 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:48.480 Okay, so let's put these two things together. What are we praying for when we pray, 00:11:48.480 --> 00:12:02.159 hallowed be your name? In short, we're asking to live in awe of God. We're asking for God to be known 00:12:02.159 --> 00:12:07.019 with wonder-filled reverence just because of who He is. 00:12:09.180 --> 00:12:17.519 When we pray this first petition, we're praying, God, would you be seen and known as holy, as wonderful, 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:25.699 as good, as just, as loving, as wise? In my heart, would I live in awe of you? In the hearts of my 00:12:25.699 --> 00:12:32.500 family, would they be filled with wonder and reverence just because of who you are? In the 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:38.179 hearts of my fellow church members, would we live in awe of you? Would you be at the center of what we do? 00:12:39.399 --> 00:12:47.500 In the hearts of my neighbors, would they see you as good and worthy? In fact, would you be seen 00:12:47.500 --> 00:12:55.179 and known and worshiped as God in the whole world? Hallowed be thy name. 00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:07.700 So that's what Jesus instructs us to pray here. But why? Why do we pray this? Why does Jesus tell us 00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:14.100 to pray this first? Well, that brings us to our second point. After considering what we pray for, 00:13:14.100 --> 00:13:20.279 now we'll consider why we're praying for it when we pray, hallowed be thy name. And I think we can 00:13:20.279 --> 00:13:30.360 answer the question of why in two ways. First, we should pray this prayer because God deserves 00:13:30.360 --> 00:13:37.360 public renown. God deserves public renown. No one is more worthy of public honor and renown than God. 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:44.740 I mean, just think of all the things that we extol and praise and give credit to. We live in awe of the 00:13:44.740 --> 00:13:50.700 latest technological advance, the next championship sports team, the artist or actor or musician who's 00:13:50.700 --> 00:14:02.019 made it big. The human heart is like hardwired to publicly praise, right? But who ought to be uppermost in 00:14:02.019 --> 00:14:09.220 our exaltation? Who should be getting the glory that we so readily dole out? You know, we get excited 00:14:09.220 --> 00:14:17.939 about the latest scientific breakthrough. Okay. But what about the one who so fashioned the universe, 00:14:18.899 --> 00:14:28.519 who so fine-tuned the laws and constants of reality such that it makes rationality and science 00:14:28.519 --> 00:14:37.600 and discovery even possible in the first place? You know, we walk into Target or Costco, and what's the first 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:42.120 thing you see when you walk into Target or Costco, right? Oh, I know this is true of BJ's anyway. We go to BJ's. 00:14:42.179 --> 00:14:48.120 We're like a BJ's family. You walk in, and like, what's the first thing you see? These huge flat-screen TVs, 00:14:48.439 --> 00:14:54.819 right? And they just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger as the years go on. But you can go and stand in the 00:14:54.820 --> 00:15:02.260 middle of Times Square and see a digital display like a hundred times that size. But friend, stare up at 00:15:02.260 --> 00:15:11.520 the night sky, and there you see just a speck of the depths of a universe that stretches farther than 00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:19.320 our imaginations can even fathom. Who placed the stars in their orbits? Who extended the reaches of 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:30.120 space beyond human calculation? That's the one that deserves public renown. Hallowed be His name. 00:15:32.140 --> 00:15:40.000 And again, you know, we rightly extol those men and women who stood up for justice and righteousness, 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:46.960 don't we? The Dietrich Bonhoeffers, the Martin Luther King Juniors, the Mother Teresa's, 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:53.879 the Susan B. Anthony's. We admire how they could go against the tide of their day and do what is 00:15:53.879 --> 00:15:59.379 right despite misunderstanding, despite opposition, despite even the threat of death. 00:16:01.540 --> 00:16:09.040 But who is righteous in all their ways? You know, consider the lives of even the most admired 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:18.159 social reformers, and you will see that they too have feet of clay. Their lives too are imperfect 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:28.360 and broken. They too fall short. But there is one who is just in all His ways, who never errs, 00:16:29.019 --> 00:16:34.139 who is always trustworthy and true, whose righteousness is like the mighty mountains, 00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:42.620 whose faithfulness stretches to the skies. That one certainly deserves public renown. 00:16:43.259 --> 00:16:44.759 Hallowed be His name. 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:53.279 But this one is not just infinitely wise and powerful. He's not just infinitely righteous and 00:16:53.279 --> 00:17:02.079 just. This one is also supremely beautiful and good. How lovely is Your dwelling place, 00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:09.339 Lord God Almighty, the psalmist say. One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, 00:17:10.139 --> 00:17:17.299 that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. 00:17:17.299 --> 00:17:29.079 How long can a human stare at the sunrise and still be thrilled as the colors of dawn spread across the 00:17:29.079 --> 00:17:41.359 horizon? I mean, a long time, right? And yet the Lord is infinitely more beautiful, infinitely more 00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:50.159 satisfying. God deserves public renown. We too often give our glory to another, to created things, 00:17:50.159 --> 00:17:58.419 when our praise belongs rightly to our Creator. But this brings us actually to the second reason 00:17:58.419 --> 00:18:05.339 why Jesus teaches us to pray this prayer. It's not just that God deserves public renown, 00:18:05.339 --> 00:18:11.980 but it's also because our hearts long for lasting joy. 00:18:14.299 --> 00:18:22.500 As we've said, we humans, we're sort of hardwired to publicly praise, aren't we? And when we praise 00:18:22.500 --> 00:18:29.379 something, what are we doing? We're kind of finding our joy in that thing. And of course, 00:18:29.379 --> 00:18:35.000 there's nothing necessarily wrong with praising a masterful symphony or praising a delicious 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:46.500 meal or praising a trustworthy friend. But does your heart have no greater joy than in these passing 00:18:46.500 --> 00:18:57.799 things, no more lasting joy? I mean, what if the human heart only hallows a created thing, a fellow 00:18:57.799 --> 00:19:08.259 creature? What will the outcome be? What mere human, what mere created thing can bear the weight of a human 00:19:08.259 --> 00:19:20.799 soul looking for lasting joy? You see, friends, you're going to hallow something. You're going to set something 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:32.180 apart as the object of your desire for lasting awe-filled joy. What will it be? There's only one that can 00:19:32.180 --> 00:19:44.180 sustain that weight. There's only one who can be the object of lasting, awe-filled joy. Psalm 1611 says of God, 00:19:44.180 --> 00:19:53.660 God, You make known to me the path of life. In Your presence there is fullness of joy. At Your right hand 00:19:53.660 --> 00:20:03.400 are pleasures forevermore. Only the eternal God can satisfy your desire for eternal joy. 00:20:03.400 --> 00:20:15.519 So, when you pray, hallowed be Your name, you're actually praying at the same time, all at once, a very dangerous 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:23.160 prayer, but also a very liberating prayer. You're praying a very dangerous prayer because praying, hallowed be Your 00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:31.820 name, by praying that, you're asking God to cleanse your heart of idols. You're asking God to cleanse your heart of the 00:20:31.819 --> 00:20:39.019 misdirected worship of created things, and that is a dangerous prospect because you might find that your 00:20:39.019 --> 00:20:46.240 life has been built around things that God is now going to unsettle and remove. You have lived for human 00:20:46.240 --> 00:20:54.119 praise. You and I have lived so that our names might be praised. We've lived for human honor. We've lived for 00:20:54.119 --> 00:21:03.679 human recognition, but now God's going to dethrone those things. And you know, if you live now no longer 00:21:03.679 --> 00:21:11.739 for those things, it's actually going to put you out of step with many who sought their utmost joy in 00:21:11.739 --> 00:21:20.419 those things too. Work colleagues or friends or neighbors will be surprised that you no longer chase 00:21:20.420 --> 00:21:27.519 the same thrills and passions and goals that you used to chase with them. You no longer join with 00:21:27.519 --> 00:21:36.660 them in the hallowing of things that only give fleeting satisfaction. It's a dangerous thing to pray, 00:21:36.820 --> 00:21:44.960 hallowed be Thy name. You may find that it leaves you like Daniel and his friends, standing alone in the 00:21:44.960 --> 00:21:52.700 court of earthly power, refusing to eat from the king's table, facing the prospect of a fiery furnace 00:21:52.700 --> 00:22:03.360 for your nonconformity to the gods of the age. But this dangerous prayer is also the most liberating. 00:22:03.359 --> 00:22:15.259 The deep wellspring. Hallowed be Thy name means let me find in You, God, the deep wellspring my thirsty heart has been 00:22:15.259 --> 00:22:28.619 yearning for. And what does God say? Come and drink. Without money, without price, come and drink. 00:22:28.619 --> 00:22:35.739 No longer do you need to serve the idols of your own making, hoping they bring you joy. 00:22:37.239 --> 00:22:44.959 In praising God, you will find the joy you were created for. God is an infinite God of infinite 00:22:44.959 --> 00:22:51.619 beauty and goodness. How could our finite human hearts not be forever satisfied? 00:22:51.619 --> 00:23:00.319 So we pray, hallowed be Thy name, not just because we want God's public renown to be rightly spread, 00:23:00.399 --> 00:23:07.519 but because we want our hearts to join that song, to find ourselves liberated for lasting joy in the 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:18.779 praise of our Creator. Hallowed be Your name. There is no greater prayer than that. It's actually the most 00:23:18.779 --> 00:23:26.319 compassionate prayer that you can pray for your neighbors. It's the most thrilling prayer you can 00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:33.839 pray for your own soul. This is why Jesus makes it the first of all prayers. Put God in the center. 00:23:35.700 --> 00:23:43.740 Yes, we will soon learn to pray for our daily bread, for forgiveness, for strength in trials. 00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:54.640 Our Lord knows that we need these prayers. But first, always first, pray to know God is holy 00:23:54.640 --> 00:24:05.299 and good and satisfying before all else. After all, what good is bread? What good is forgiveness? 00:24:05.299 --> 00:24:15.899 What good is victory in trials if you don't have God? What does it profit to gain the whole world, 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:24.619 Jesus said, and lose your own soul? I wonder, are you facing a trial today, brother or sister? 00:24:25.619 --> 00:24:32.639 Are you facing a very real need? Then yes, take that specific care to your heavenly Father. 00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:44.500 Father. But also, and first, pray what Jesus has taught us. Hallowed be Your name. God, help me to 00:24:44.500 --> 00:24:53.440 really know You and to praise You for all Your works and for all that shines forth in them, Your almighty 00:24:53.440 --> 00:25:04.340 power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. And help me in this trial, in this time of need. Help me 00:25:04.340 --> 00:25:11.340 so that everything I think and say and do will honor and praise Your name, for there is my greatest safety, 00:25:11.980 --> 00:25:19.660 my greatest provision, and my greatest joy. And you know, as we so often see in the Gospels, 00:25:19.660 --> 00:25:26.320 Jesus Himself lives out what He teaches here. In John 12, Jesus realizes that the time is drawing 00:25:26.320 --> 00:25:33.560 near for Him to face the cross, and He says, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, 00:25:33.700 --> 00:25:40.920 save me from this hour? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. 00:25:42.259 --> 00:25:47.200 Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again. 00:25:47.200 --> 00:25:55.200 You see, Jesus' prayer, even and especially in trial, was this, Father, hallowed be Your name. 00:25:57.360 --> 00:25:59.140 So make it your prayer too, friends. 00:26:02.860 --> 00:26:10.120 So here it is. Here's the answer to the cold, joyless heart toward God that chokes out our prayer 00:26:10.120 --> 00:26:15.519 life before it even begins. The answer is to take up this first petition 00:26:15.519 --> 00:26:23.559 and to ask God to fill your heart with all of Him, to pray for His public renown in your life 00:26:23.559 --> 00:26:25.519 and in the lives of those around you. 00:26:27.819 --> 00:26:35.200 But our last question is, how can we pray this prayer? And what I mean by this question is not 00:26:35.200 --> 00:26:42.019 kind of practically what words do we use. Use your own words, or use the words of the Psalms. You'll find 00:26:42.019 --> 00:26:46.039 much help in the Psalms as they direct our hearts to the goodness and glory of God. 00:26:47.960 --> 00:26:52.579 So when we ask how can we pray this prayer, I'm not asking what words we should use to pray, 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:58.539 hallowed be Your name. Rather, I'm asking this question, what right do we have to pray this prayer? 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:08.240 You know, the older one gets, the older you realize how cold and joyless your heart can be. 00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:15.620 Many Christians have followed the Lord for many years, and they can testify that there are seasons 00:27:15.620 --> 00:27:25.140 when the things of God grow cold, when His name does not evoke awe and wonder. When we've become so 00:27:25.140 --> 00:27:35.140 familiar, God's become so commonplace. You know, that's perhaps one of the greatest dangers of ministry, 00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:41.980 whether paid ministry or volunteer ministry. One of the greatest dangers is God and the things of God 00:27:41.980 --> 00:27:51.400 just become commonplace. So what right do we have to pray this prayer, hallowed be Your name? How can we, 00:27:53.080 --> 00:28:01.840 sinners, sinners who know better, take this prayer on our lips again and pray it, expecting for God to 00:28:01.839 --> 00:28:12.919 hear us an answer? Have we not spurned Him or ignored Him or used Him one too many times? 00:28:17.119 --> 00:28:27.179 But friend, brother, sister, consider with me, who is it that teaches us this prayer? 00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:39.360 It's the Lord Jesus. And what did He come to do? He came for cold, joyless sinners like you and me. 00:28:40.500 --> 00:28:47.700 Yes, you have made God commonplace in your life, but that is exactly why Jesus came. 00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:54.900 Friends, this is the gospel. As the Holy One, the Lord Jesus Christ became common 00:28:54.900 --> 00:29:02.740 so that we, the common, could become holy. Jesus stood in the place of sinners and was rejected 00:29:02.740 --> 00:29:06.280 so that sinners could stand in the presence of God and be accepted. 00:29:07.700 --> 00:29:15.240 The truth is you're not running out of chances with Him. His work is finished, and there's no exhausting it. 00:29:15.240 --> 00:29:22.039 And when you see that, friend, when you see it, when you see the way He died for you, 00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:27.880 when He looked at you in your cold, joyless heart and said, I love you, and I'm coming for you, 00:29:28.160 --> 00:29:34.140 and I'll become common so that you can become holy, when you see that, then you're really starting to see 00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:42.599 His glory. Then you're starting to really see what sets God apart as holy and worthy of awe and wonderful. 00:29:42.599 --> 00:29:54.879 example. Christ died for sinners. God justifies the ungodly. That is how God has set His name apart 00:29:54.879 --> 00:30:06.139 for eternity. In the center of the throne in heaven is the Lamb who was slain. There is no other God 00:30:06.140 --> 00:30:15.000 than God, and this is who He is. This is His name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God of the gospel. 00:30:16.320 --> 00:30:25.240 And God the Son invites you. Come out of the entryway. It doesn't matter how long you've been stuck there. 00:30:25.940 --> 00:30:30.560 It doesn't matter how long you've neglected prayer. It doesn't matter how cold and joyless your heart is. 00:30:30.559 --> 00:30:41.579 Come out of the entryway. Start here. Hallowed be Your name. Pray that prayer. God, help me to really 00:30:41.579 --> 00:30:49.740 know You, and may I live in awe of You, and may my life glorify Your name. Amen. Let's pray. 00:30:49.740 --> 00:31:02.599 God, that is what we pray this morning, that You would come by Your Holy Spirit, 00:31:03.819 --> 00:31:08.759 and as the old song says, tune our hearts to sing Your praise. 00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:20.819 Amen. We ask this not because we deserve it, but because You, Jesus, are a sufficient and loving Savior 00:31:20.819 --> 00:31:27.160 who give good gifts to Your children. We pray this in Your mighty name. Amen.