Hallowed Be Thy Name, Sunday, 7/3/16 1 This morning we re continuing our worship series on the Lord s Prayer. Last week we looked at the image of

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Thomasina Cunningham
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1 Hallowed Be Thy Name, Sunday, 7/3/16 1 This morning we re continuing our worship series on the Lord s Prayer. Last week we looked at the image of heaven portrayed by the Apostle John in Revelation and discovered that instead of being a scary description of cataclysmic events in our future, Revelation, and the image of heaven it portrays, offers us hope that God is in control and that we, as followers of Jesus, are secure in the present as well as the future. When we pray who art in heaven, we pray to the one who is sovereign, who is in control of space and time, and uniquely deserves our worship. Today we re going to ask what it means for it means for God s name to be hallowed. 2 We talked a little about God s name two weeks ago when we asked what it means to call God our father. It turns out that God answers to a great many names in the Bible. But what does it mean for them to be hallowed? Hallowed is an old fashioned way of saying sanctified or holy. We keep using that old word because we re all used to praying the Lord s prayer with the same words our parents and grandparents did, much in the same way that we recite the 23 rd Psalm using the old King James translation. So what does it mean then for God s name to be sanctified or holy? The Apostle Peter gives us a clue in our second Bible passage. I m reading from 1Peter in the first chapter, verses 1-9 and 13-15, the New International Version. {Read 1Peter 1:1-9, NIV} 3 You might think that when we pray, hallowed be thy name, we re simply reiterating the third of the ten commandments to not take the name of the Lord in vain. But the meaning behind the hallowing of God s name goes far beyond our need to refrain from profaning God s name by using it inappropriately. You ll notice that Peter never even addresses this point in his letter, because at that time and place, it would have been simply assumed that the people of the church would not take the Lord s name in vain. How times of changed. The phrase OMG, for example, whether in the abbreviated letters or the fuller spelled-out expression, is no stranger to the walls of this church or even this sanctuary. Some of us routinely invoke the name of Jesus at the oddest times- like when the bottom falls out from our bag of groceries in the middle of the parking lot. I suppose that crying out to Jesus could be construed as a reasonable plea for help in that situation, but I have a feeling that most often we use the name of our Lord as an expletive to vent our frustration. Surely using 1

2 the Lord s name in vain is at least at odds with what we confess every week in prayer: hallowed by thy name. 4 Of course it s much more than just God s name that is hallowed, or holy. God himself is holy. God is so holy, so set apart, so beyond the ordinary, that God s very presence requires a different kind of behavior and attitude. Take, for example, the appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush. Do you remember what God said to Moses? Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. It wasn t that the sandals were a problem, really. The act of taking off the sandals, however, was an outward acknowledgement by Moses of an inward reality. To stand in God s presence requires a reorientation of our hearts and our lives, a setting apart from the ordinary, just as God is already set apart. When we pray, hallowed be thy name, we mean that everything about God is beyond the standards and expectations of everyday life, and to be in God s presence as a follower of Jesus means that we have to be different too- we have to take off our sandals, because we are walking on holy ground. Isaac Newton once reportedly stared into an image of the sun reflected in a mirror. Don t try this at home! As you might guess, he suffered temporary blindness. If he had kept at his experiment much longer, he might have lost his vision permanently. That s a bit how it can be for us to be in God s presence without the proper preparation. Our broken, sinful selves don t handle the glaring light of day too well! In order to be in God s presence, we too need to be hallowed. So how do we do that? 5 Peter gets right to the point in his letter when he identifies the primary agent of the holiness we so desperately need: The sanctifying work of the Spirit. Sanctification is the process of being made holy. God doesn t need sanctification because God is already holy. God, you might say, is already the gold standard for holiness against which all others are judged. But over time, things, places, and especially people have always been sanctified, or set apart, for the special use of God. This sanctuary, for example, I m sure was at some point consecrated for the worship of God. But what Peter is talking about in his letter goes beyond priests and pastors and altars and one-time ceremonies. The sanctifying work Peter is referring to includes every person here, and in fact all persons who desire to draw close to God by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. When we pray, hallowed be thy name, we are 2

3 inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives to do what only God s Spirit can do- make us holy. 6 You might be surprised to learn that the Holy Spirit has been at work in your life already, whether you like it or not, whether you pray or not, whether you consider yourself a Christian or not. John Wesley had a twenty-dollar theological phrase for that: Prevenient Grace. It simply means grace that comes before. Prevenient Grace simply describes the work of God s Holy Spirit in our world and in our lives before we even know enough to acknowledge God or ask God into our lives. Before we were born, the Holy Spirit took part in the creation of all things. At our conception, the Holy Spirit gave us the spark of life. At our birth, the Holy Spirit gave us the breath of life. And as we have grown, learned, laughed, cried, failed, and succeeded, the Holy Spirit has whispered to our hearts the truth of all those things- the reality of God s sovereignty, the tenderness of God s mercy, and the terrible power of God s judgment. Without the intercession of God s Spirit, we d be unable in our broken and sinful states to even make the first decision to turn toward God. As United Methodists, and as followers of Jesus, we are a people of Grace, and our journey toward holiness begins with grace that comes before us: Prevenient Grace. 7 In Peter s letter, he pleads with us to be obedient children, conforming not to the evil desires we had before we received the revelation of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Conforming is just a fancy way of saying, taking the shape of. All of us have attitudes and behaviors in our lives that we ve been formed into over the years. If your childhood was like mine, then you learned how to think and act by watching network television, like Mr. Ed, Hogan s Heroes, and Petticoat Junction - God save me! Your parents and teachers most likely made a valiant effort to teach you a more elevated way of being human, but like me, you probably saw through the teaching and instead emulated the way those role models were actually living their lives. Do as I say, not as I do is not a very effective admonishment. Because we are imperfect people raised by imperfect people in an imperfect world, we all need some work in changing our shape- conforming to God s holiness rather than the world s sinfulness. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, made this unflattering observation of our conformation to the world: In virtually every study we conduct, representing thousands of interviews every year, born again Christians fail to display much attitudinal or behavior 3

4 evidence of transformed lives...[i]n 2007, we found that most of the lifestyle activities of born again Christians were statistically equivalent to those of non born again people. When asked to identify their activities over the last 30 days, born again believers were just as likely to visit a pornographic website, to take something that did not belong to them, to consult a medium or psychic, to physically fight or abuse someone, to have consumed enough alcohol to be considered legally drunk, to have used an illegal nonprescription drug, to have said something to someone that was not true, to have gotten back at someone for something he or she did, and to have said mean things behind another person's back. 8 Left to our own devices, we conform our lives to a sinful and broken world. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit not only goes before us, but also calls us to repentance. If we have any hope of growing in our sanctification, it begins with our repentance. From the growing awareness that something about our lives is displeasing to God, to the marshalling of the resources and resolve to actually turn our lives around, the Holy Spirit is what allows us to make Godly changes that take us in a different direction. John Wesley taught that when we respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit in this way, we submit ourselves to the convincing grace of the Holy Spirit, we receive the saving grace of God s forgiveness, and are justified in God s eyes and given rebirth. What s more, this isn t a hidden process. God s Spirit can and will give us an assurance of our salvation if we cooperate with God s Spirit in our prayer, actions, and attitudes. Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, Peter writes. Be holy- be set apart- go in the direction that Jesus is taking, even if that s different than the direction taken by the world around you. And incidentally, Wesley taught, and I ve most definitely experienced, that this is not a once and done thing. Each day we awake and make a series of choices to either follow the world or follow the Spirit. We are working out our salvation, one day at a time. 9 Mostly, though, I believe that we are growing in holiness, even if we sometimes take sharp turns or steps backwards. That s at least part of what we mean by discipleship. We are becoming better followers of Jesus as we become more obedient to the prompting of God s Spirit in our lives and conform ourselves more and more into God s image of perfect love. Someone once described holiness as the habit of being of one mind with God. I like that, because it implies all sorts of holy habits that allow us to know the mind of God. The 4

5 Holy Spirit will speak to us, but without cultivating lives of prayer, Bible reading, worship, service, and witness, we short-circuit the most abundant means God has given us to hear hear the Spirit s voice. Someone once also said, Live so that the preacher can tell the truth at your funeral. You know, I kind of like that as well! 10 Holiness isn t exactly popular in our American culture. Ray Stedman writes, When I was younger, most people thought of holiness as grimness. I did not like holy people...holy people never smiled and never enjoyed anything. In fact, if they did enjoy anything, they felt guilty about it!...they looked like they had been soaked in embalming fluid. They were grim and dull; they frowned on anything that was fun or pleasurable. But that is not holiness...the Old Testament speaks about the beauty of holiness, the inner attractiveness that is apparent when someone begins to function inwardly as he or she was intended That is what [God] wants. And not merely outwardly beautiful people like those we see on television, but inwardly beautiful people. [God] is more interested in inward beauty, in making admirable, trustworthy, strong, loving, compassionate people -- having all the qualities which make for inner beauty." In order for us to truly hallow God s name, we, the people whom God calls his very own children, have to eagerly desire that we grow in our family resemblance to our Father. And this isn t at all a passive thing. Peter calls us to prepare our minds for action. Sanctification is an active verb, and so is discipleship. We can t have it both ways, calling ourselves the children of God and then behaving as if we were children of the world. Even today, in this place and time, God s Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart, offering you a new life, if only you ll let go of the old one. Maybe you think holiness is for popes and hermits. Maybe you think you re too far gone into sin to ever be holy. Those are both lies. Growing in holiness is not only possible, it s actually part of God s will. Just as the one who calls us is holy, so we too must be holy in all we do. On our own, this is impossible. But with the powerful, life-transforming Spirit of God? All things are possible! Please pray with me 5

6 Buffalo United Methodist Church serving people for Jesus Christ so that we all may know joy! th Street NW Buffalo, MN Bill Reinhart, Pastor pastorbill@buffaloumc.com 6

Big Idea: Living a Life of Holiness, Our Life Redeemed, Our Faith and Hope Is Jesus

P a g e 1 Life Link Countdown: Back Ground: Contending for the Faith Music Video: Sermon Video Illustration: Today Is Worship Intro Title: "Living a Life of Holiness" Big Idea: Living a Life of Holiness,