Sermon Transcript September 25, Lord, Teach us to Pray. Hallowed Be Thy Name Selected Passages

Transcription

1 Sermon Transcript September 25, 2011 Lord, Teach us to Pray Hallowed Be Thy Name Selected Passages This message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethersfield Evangelical Free Church on September 25, 2011, at 511 Maple Street, Wethersfield, CT, by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. It is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) An audio/download version of this sermon may also be found on the church web-site at 1

2 SERMON TEXT Luke 11:1 1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. Matthew 6: Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12 and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Exodus 3: Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name? what shall I say to them? 14 God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. 15 God also said to Moses, Say this to the people of Israel, The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is tmy name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. Romans 2: you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. 24 For, as it is written, The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. 1 Corinthians 10:31 31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 2

3 INTRODUCTION Lord, teach us to pray. This is the request we are making of Jesus through this series on the Lord s Prayer. One simple application to this series is to just add this request to your prayer list. It is not a request reserved only for the novice. All of us could stand to pray this prayer on a regular basis. Lord, teach us to pray. We all have much to learn in this regard. It dawned on me this week that there is a fine line we need to walk as we journey through this series. Notice, the request made of Jesus in Luke 11:1 is not Lord, teach us about prayer. Rather, the request is Lord, teach us to pray. There is a vast difference between these two seemingly similar requests. There is nothing wrong with learning about prayer. But that is not the ultimate goal of this series. The goal of this series is that we would actually be taught to pray. So we are going to have to constantly remind ourselves that this series is not merely an academic exercise, where we are simply learning about prayer. Rather, this is a practical series helping us learn how to pray. This is a how to series. Anything short of how to comes up short of our goal. Lord, teach us to pray. Let me remind you of some prayer nuggets that I hope stick with you long after this series is completed. Last Sunday, you were introduced to these statements about prayer, and I am convinced that they are fundamental to developing both a biblical view and a biblical practice of prayer. Here they are: God is not just concerned that we pray, but what we pray. The purpose for prayer is not to get God on board with our agenda, but for us to get on board with God s agenda. Prayer most definitely changes things! It changes us, not God. Daily ask, seek and knock on God s door for the filling of the Holy Spirit. If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. It is with this in mind, I would like us to begin taking a very practical look at the Lord s Prayer. We mentioned last week that when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus responded by saying When you pray, say Say what? The Lord s Prayer. By giving us the Lord s Prayer, Jesus was giving us an outline to help us pray according to the will of God. Remember, God is not just concerned that we pray, but what we pray. And so here Jesus is, telling us what to pray. When you pray, say So this morning we are going to start taking a very practical look at the Lord s Prayer. By practical, I mean I don t want to just explain the meaning of the prayer, but I would 3

4 like to share with you real practical ways you can take each request and use it to form your own prayer list and your own conversation with God. Remember, last week we likened the Lord s Prayer to a file drawer. Each request in the Lord s Prayer is like a file folder. As we go along understanding the meaning of each request, you will have the ability to begin stuffing your requests into these folders; and it won t be long that you will find these folders becoming so full that you will have to get more folders to contain all of your prayers. Some people are discouraged with their prayer lives because, when they go to pray, they are not sure what to say to God. I promise you, if you take time to process through what we are talking about in this series, that will no longer be a problem. You will have more than enough to pray about through applying the Lord s Prayer to your life. BEGINNING OBSERVATIONS Before we start dissecting each request in the Lord s Prayer, I would like to begin by making three quick observations regarding the prayer itself. Look at it in Matthew 6. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name Your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Give us this day our daily bread Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Observation #1: The Lord s Prayer if made up of six requests. You can divide these six requests into two sections, each containing three requests. The first section calls us to pray God-centered prayers. We are to pray that God s name be honored, God s kingdom come and God s will be done. When we pray, we are humbling ourselves before God and we are expressing our concern for the advancement of His glory. In other words, through prayer, we are getting on board with God s agenda for this world. God s glory, God s kingdom and God s will form the deepest note in prayer. This ought to be one of the most revolutionary discoveries for you when it comes to the practice of prayer. My hunch is that our needs and our agenda often form the primary and deepest note of prayer in most of our lives. The Lord s Prayer forces us to put God front and center in our prayer lives and that is where God belongs. Now it is not wrong to pray for our own needs. Please notice that our needs make up the second half of the prayer. We are to pray for our daily bread, we are to confess our 4

5 sins and pray for strength to overcome temptation. God is concerned about our needs. We are encouraged to cast all our cares on Him. Why? Because he cares for us. Psalm 103:13-14 says, As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. Therefore He welcomes us to bring our requests to Him. I think the Lord s Prayer mirrors what Jesus says in Matthew 6:33. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [that is all we need] will be added to you. That is the pattern of the Lord s Prayer. Seek God first and bring your needs to God and God will supply what you need. Observation #2: Nowhere in this prayer will you find a singular personal pronoun. Every pronoun is in the plural. Our Father... Give us... Forgive us... as we forgive... Lead us not... But deliver us. This does not mean it is wrong to pray for yourself. But what it does tip you to is that we are called to pray for one another. It is one of the most important ministries you can have within the church family. Jesus prayed for us, in John 17, and continues now to intercede on our behalf. Paul continually and regularly prayed for the churches he was writing to. Paul asked that they pray for him. So evaluate the content of your prayers and consider how much you are praying for yourself as opposed to praying for others. We want to cultivate a culture here where we are praying for one another. Pick up the prayer sheet and use it. Come to the front of the church and allow others to pray over you. Let us pray for one another. Observation #3: This prayer begins by reminding us who we are talking to. Can I encourage you to pause and consider who it is you are talking with when you pray. Before you run off with your litany of requests, take time to acknowledge who it is you are speaking with and turn it into a time of worship. When you pray, you are speaking to Our Father in heaven. Don t run past that statement without reflecting on it. Let me begin with the in heaven part of this prayer. When you pray, you are speaking with the living God. The phrase in heaven clues us into the fact that when we pray we are speaking with the holy, eternal, infinite, almighty, unchanging, unlimited, unconquerable and Creator God, who is able to deal with all the needs we bring to Him. How would it impact your posture of prayer and your time of prayer if you took the time to pause and consider who it is you are praying to? This simple recognition should both humble you and thrill you. In prayer, you have access to God! But then the phrase Our Father is a wonderful reminder of how this awesome God views us. When Jesus invites the disciples to pray to God and to call God their Father, this was something new to them. They were even a bit uncomfortable with it. It expressed a measure of familiarity and, perhaps, would even be considered somewhat 5

6 presumptuous to call God Our Father. Paul said it this way, in Romans 8:15, But you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father! That term Abba, in Aramaic, was a term of endearment expressed between a child and his father, it is if we are invited to view our relationship with God with expressions of endearment, and to view our access to God as a child running into the open arms of his or her daddy. So when we are invited to call God Our Father, we ought to pause and consider the incredible love of God expressed to us through Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. John 1:12 says it this way. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Reflecting on this great truth, John later says, in 1 John 3:1, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. If you pause to consider this wonderful truth, it will impact your posture of prayer. It will cause you to run into the arms of your Heavenly Father; and you will come into this throne room with boldness because He looks at you and sees that you are His child and His eyes light up with delight the moment you enter His presence. He says, with a twinkle in His eye, Ah, there you are! So let me give you a how to comment here when it comes to prayer. Before you start rattling off the long list of requests you have to present to God, why not take time to pause and consider who it is you are speaking with when you pray. This past May I was in Tennessee at a prayer conference, and one of the practices that I noticed, and I am trying to remember to put into my own habit of prayer, is that whenever someone prayed with me, their prayer began with a long silent pause. They were taking their time to acknowledge who they were speaking to; and, as a result, their prayers were very measured and very much in tune with what God wanted them to pray. Simply begin by pausing and acknowledging who it is you are praying to. So here is your first file folder of prayer. Our Father in heaven is a launching pad to a time of worship and acknowledgement of the majesty and love of God. It can look like this, Dear God, You are holy and there is no one like You. I bow with all the angels in heaven and all the saints on earth below and in heaven above and I worship You. I would just like to start by thanking You for Jesus. I come to You in the name of Jesus, the One who lived and died and rose again and is now exalted above every name. I come to You in His name and I thank you that You love me because of what Jesus did for me on the cross. Some of you are taking the class on the attributes of God. Why not take the attribute you study this week and use it as a resource for beginning your prayer and acknowledging who it is you are speaking with. Take what you read in the Bible on a given day and pray back to God, as an act of worship, what you learn about Him. Begin your prayer by pausing and acknowledging who it is you are praying to. 6

7 HALLOWED BE THY NAME In giving us instruction on what to pray, the first request Jesus gives us is Hallowed be thy name. What is the focus of this request? How do we pray this prayer? What requests can we stuff into this file folder as we build our prayer list? The Name of God: Let s simply begin by looking at the name of God. Did you know God has a name? God s name is not God. Does God have a name? This is a question that Moses asked God in Exodus 3. This is the scene where God speaks to Moses through the burning bush. It is here where God acknowledges that He has heard the cry of His people in bondage under the hand of Egypt and that He was calling Moses to go and deliver the people of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. It is obvious, from the text, that Moses was hesitant to go; and so he asks God, in verse 13, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them? In other words, what is Your name God? Does God have a name? I love the response God gives to Moses in verse 14. "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you. This is the name by which God wished to be known by the people of Israel. You see this name for God every time you see the word LORD with all capital letters in your Bible. That is the English translation for the Hebrew word yaweh, and in English it is the name Jehovah. The Hebrew word yaweh is the third person form of the verb I am. In the very next verse, verse 15, we read, "Say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. What is the name by which God is to be remembered from generation to generation? It is the LORD, or the great I AM! What is God saying about Himself by telling Moses that His name is I AM? God is saying that He alone is self-existent. God does not require a cause. He causes all creatures to be, but He Himself is caused by no one. God exists by His own power, and this characteristic separates God from all other beings. God is the only one who can truly say, I AM. Did you ever notice how the Bible begins? In the beginning God. D. A. Carson says it this way, The Bible does not begin with a long set of arguments to prove the existence of God... The Bible begins simply but dramatically: In the beginning God. 1 God simply is. He is the I AM who has no beginning and no ending. He is from everlasting to everlasting. This makes God distinct and separate from everything else that exists. God made everything else that is. Listen to what it says in Colossians 1:16. For by him all things 7

8 were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him. Do you know what jumps out at me in this verse? The last two words are for him. Everything in the universe is dependent upon God and therefore exists for God. Hallowed be Thy Name: So what does it mean then to hallow the name of God? It means that I recognize that I owe God everything life and breath and everything else, such if I do not see it that way, then I am out of line with my Maker. I am out of line with the one who designed me and with what I am designed by God Himself to be. 2 To hallow the name of God means that I recognize that God is sacred and holy and both the source and the end of all things and, therefore, everything, including myself, exists for the glory of God. This is why Paul says, at the end of Romans 11, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. To put it simply, through this prayer, we are praying to God be the glory! Do you think God takes the issue of His glory seriously? It is no accident that the first of the Ten Commandments is, "You shall have no other gods before me. It is no accident that the first request that we are taught to make to God is hallowed be thy name. It is no accident that Jesus defines that greatest commandment as Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your strength. It is no accident that the cause for the wrath of God upon man, in Romans 1:21, is man s failure to honor him as God. I would say that the issue of God s glory is pretty high on God s list and ought to be priority number one on your prayer list. I am reminded of the story of Moses. The people were complaining about having no water, so Moses calls out to God. God tells Moses, Speak to the rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. So Moses and Aaron gather the people of Israel around the rock. He had grown tired from all of the complaining and the griping. And so in anger, Moses said to the people of Israel, Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock? And guess what he did. He struck the rock twice and water came out. He didn t speak to the rock. He struck the rock. God pulled Moses aside and said to Moses, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them. This is a difficult passage to read. Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land all because he struck a rock in anger? No. It is because he failed to honor God as holy that he was not able to enter the Promised Land. Do you know how he dishonored God here? Some may say that he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. Maybe that is the case. But I think there is something bigger here. Did you hear what he said to the people? Must WE bring you water out of this rock. I think Moses 8

9 had a little more confidence in himself and his rod to supply the water and, in doing so, he failed to hallow the name of God in front of the people. He took credit for the work of God. The result was that the greatest figure in the Old Testament could not enter the promised land. I think God takes this issue quite seriously. Be careful that you don t take pride and credit for what God has done and for how God has gifted you. Give Him the glory! Hallow His name! Are you familiar with the Latin phrase Soli Deo Gloria? It is what Johann Sebastian Bach put next to his name at the end of every musical manuscript of each of his cantatas. Next to his name went the initials SDG signifying that everything that is done should be done for the praise of God, to the exclusion of human self-glorification. It is what we read in 1 Corinthians 10:31, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. It is what Mariano Rivera, pitcher for the New York Yankees did this week after recording his record breaking 602 nd save. He was mobbed at the mound at the end of the game and he is truly beloved in New York for all the right reasons. With the crowd lingering at the stadium after the game, listening to the interview with Mariano taking place on the field, the first words out of his mouth were, I would like to first of all give thanks to God. You know, with him, these words were sincere. Later in the interview he was asked whether he now thinks he is the greatest reliever of all time. He said to the interviewer almost with a tone of you should know better than that - he said, Now you know I never talk about myself and I don t think of myself as the greatest reliever of all time. Again, he reiterated his thanks to God and gave God all the praise. That is what it means to hallow the name of God. We want God to get all the glory that God is due, for all things come from God! Hallowed be Thy Name. Praying the Prayer: It is one thing to say that we desire to reverence the name of God, but it is another thing to understand what we are praying for when we pray this prayer. What are we asking of God when we pray this prayer for ourselves, our family, our church and our community? Jonathan Edwards put it this way. He said that if we want to seek and magnify the glory of God, two things must happen. First of all, we must see God with true understanding and then we must savor God with due affections. 3 In other words, we reverence God when we think accurate thoughts about Him and when we take those thoughts and turn them into praise, because we delight in God. Our prayer ought to be, God, help us to see You truly and savor You duly. Part of hallowing the name of God and praying this prayer requires that you see God for who He is. Norman Rockwell painted a series of paintings inspired by Franklin 9

10 Roosevelt s speech, underscoring the freedoms America was fighting for in World War II. The four freedoms Roosevelt spoke about and Rockwell depicted in his paintings were: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear. At the Rockwell Center in Stockbridge, MA, you can hear a portion of this speech. Here is what Roosevelt said about the freedom of religion. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. 4 Now, as an American, I appreciate that. Because of this freedom, we are able to gather this morning and do what we are doing. But, what I notice in the Bible is that God does not grant us this freedom. His invitation to us is not that we can worship God in our own way. Rather, we are called to worship God as God has been revealed to us. Therefore, we hallow the name of God when we see Him truly. When you pray this prayer to Hallow the name of God, pray that you would see God for who He is, and that you would reflect accurate praise to Him. When you come to this request, ask the Holy Spirit to take the Word of God and give you a spirit of understanding, so you might see God as God has revealed Himself to us. For example, a lot of people in our culture see God as a God of love, but they do not see any room for the wrath of God. But what does God say about Himself in this regard? When Rob Bell is questioning the idea that people, apart from Christ, would face the judgment of hell, he came out and asked the question: What kind of a God would God be if we needed to be rescued from him? Well God tells us what kind of a God He is. He is a holy God and that is why we need to be rescued from his wrath. When our culture says that there are many paths to God, it is God s Word that reminds us that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by Him. When someone questions the truth of the Trinity, it is God s Word we turn to to see how God has revealed Himself to us as being Triune. Do you see the point? We hallow the name of God when we acknowledge God for who He is and how He has revealed Himself to us. So we give glory to Him when we know Him truly. The other way we hallow the name of God is that once we see God, He becomes our delight and our joy; thus we want nothing else than to glorify God with our lives. There is no greater honor of God than the honor we give Him when see Him for who He is and then delight in Him by serving Him. This delight for God is most seen when we obey Him. Moses had this encounter with God at the burning bush. God told him to go to Egypt and he initially hesitated in being obedient, but we find, in Exodus 4:29-30, that he goes to Egypt. The bottom line is, Moses obeyed. The text says, Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the LORD had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the 10

11 LORD was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped. In fact, do you see the result of Moses obedience? The people of Israel bowed and worshiped the name of God. Our obedience to God is our worship; and when we obey, we lead others to worship God. When we put our delight in God and honor Him with our obedience, not only do we glorify Him, but so do others. Your testimony becomes contagious and others find their delight in God. The opposite is true as well. In Romans 2:21-24, Paul is laying out a case against the Jews, demonstrating to them that they too, like the Gentiles, are sinful and in need of Christ. In building his case, listen to the charge against them. You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. This was quite a sobering statement regarding the Jews. They dishonored God by breaking the law of God. Did you catch that? They spoke the law of God in their meetings and yet they broke God s law. They said don t steal, and yet they stole. They said, don t commit adultery, and yet they committed adultery. Paul also mentioned that they would brag about having the law and yet they dishonored God by breaking the law. They said one thing out of one side of their mouths and did another thing out of the other side of their mouths. Paul said, that dishonors God. And even something worse takes place as a result of this. The Gentiles looked at this hypocrisy and blasphemed the name of God. Have you ever heard that said about the church? How many times do you hear people say they are attracted to God but not the church? How many times do you hear people say they don t want anything to do with your God because of what they see in the church. When we pray that the name of God would be hallowed in our lives, we are praying that our lives would reflect the glory of God through our actions. In considering the Lord s Prayer and how it begins with this great request, Jonathan Edwards concludes, And this may be argued, that Christ requires His followers should desire and seek God s glory in the first place and above all things else. 5 The highest duty of man is to glorify God. Make that your most pressing and fervent prayer. In my life, Lord, be glorified. In my home, Lord, be glorified. In my marriage, Lord, be glorified. In my work, Lord, be glorified. In my church, Lord, be glorified. In my trials, Lord, be glorified. On this earth, Lord, be glorified. There is a lot that can be stuffed into this file folder! 11

12 CONCLUSION Spend time reflecting on what prayers you would like to add to this request Hallowed be Thy Name. This request is that the name of God be hallowed. Remember, here we are praying and confessing that our first desire in life is to give all of the glory and praise that is due His name. We want to keep our purpose for living front and center. The goal of this prayer is to keep before you the call on your life to bring honor to God in all you do. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So what prayers can we stuff into this file folder? Here are some thoughts to get you started. Write them down in your insert in this file folder. Be honored through my actions. We recognize that our life is to be a testimony to others. Therefore, we do not want to take the Lord s name in vain by the way we live. Maybe you know a particular area where you struggle with this. Pray about that area. Pray that God would be honored through you at your work place. Pray specifically for this. You are an ambassador of the glory of God, so pray that you would bring honor to Him wherever you are. Pray that the name of God would be honored in our community. This is a prayer for the testimony of the church and for other churches in our community. Pray that there would be nothing that would happen in the Christian community that would hinder the glory of the name of God. Lord, teach us to pray! Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Just settle there this week and start building your prayer list. 1 D. A. Carson The God Who Is There (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010) 18 2 Ibid., 26 3 John Piper, God s Passion for His Glory, (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1998) 79.\ 4 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, four_freedoms/four_freedoms.html, January 6, Piper, 198 By Dr. Scott W. Solberg - All rights reserved 12