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Sunday 26 January 2014

'HALLOWED BE THY NAME'

Rev. Brian Wilkie
By Rev. Brian Wilkie                                                                                    

Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario


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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, January 26th, 2014:
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Broadcast Notes:
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‘Hallowed be Thy name

Welcome to Good News in the Morning a program of words and music bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those who are looking for intelligent, meaningful and spirited approach to faith and to life.

This program is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries P.O. Box 184 Rideau Ferry Ontario K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian church in Rockland, and as always I want to start by thanking you our listeners. We're grateful for your encouragement and support. Please remember that you can always visit us on our website for materials to encourage and support you in your Christian walk.

Today I want to look back to a time in Jesus' ministry on earth, the time when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray. In teaching on that subject he introduced what we call the Lord's Prayer. Today I would like to speak to you about one aspect of that prayer, the first petition of the prayer, "hallowed be thy name."

To enter into this topic am going to take a section from the Old Testament book of Exodus in which Moses is going to Mount Sinai and he's going up there to have the tablets of the law replaced by God. God speaks to Moses concerning his name:

1 The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. 2 Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai. Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. 3 No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain; not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”
4 So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. 5 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.
8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. 9 O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes, he said, then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance. Exodus 34:1-9

 Though in this passage the Lord has declared to Moses his name, and I want to look at what it is to hallow His name in a few moments, but first let's listen to this hymn. This hymn is sung by a group called the King's Heralds. I recently started a gospel quartet and this is the kind of music we have been listening to as we try to learn new pieces. I really appreciate the sound, and the faithfulness of the witness of the King's Heralds. The song is called 'Pass me, not gentle Savior.'

The "Lord's prayer begins with these words: 'Jesus said to his disciples, when you pray say, "Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. When I was younger and taking confirmation classes in my church, as I was growing up we were taught around the area of prayer. I remember being taught a formula for prayer it was that based on the initials of the word acts, A C T S. It reminded us that we when we pray we should include in our prayer Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication. The way I recall it, the teaching was centered around the Lord's Prayer. Somehow or other, the Lord's prayer began with Adoration, and it had Confession, Thanksgiving and supplication. When I look at the Lord's prayer today, I'm not quite sure I can find that same order, especially since the Lord's prayer is almost entirely petitions or requests of God. Some of them sound like praise and some of them are certainly confession, but there's really request after request. The first request that Jesus suggests that we make in prayer is that we request that the name of God the hallowed. “Hallowed be thy name.” Now when you're asking for a name to be lifted up, a name to be praised, a name to be honored and respected, you are in fact praising that name because you are acknowledging that is worthy of all that you're asking for it.

What does it mean to hallow the name of the Lord? What does it mean to ask God that his name should be honored?

Is this important? So important, in fact, that Jesus puts at the start of the prayer. As we petition God, our Father, we are to ask him to make his name honored. We’re asking him to do something that is not being done sufficiently. We are asking him to do something that he is already engaged in doing. He is lifting up his name in the earth.

The creation is calling out the honor of his name, and the angels in heaven are constantly praising and glorifying God.  There are pictures in Revelation of our future in eternal life being awestruck and honoring God with our lives and with our praise constantly. It's a picture of joy for the believer and a picture of the fulfillment of righteousness, when God's name is honored as it should be. How about now? How can that prayer be answered, and what is it we’re asking for when we are desiring it today?

There is a need in our own lives to honor God. There is a need in our own hearts and minds to be a person who looks at who God is and sees that he is worthy of all praise, honor, obedience and service. Moses is standing before God and God declares his name which we understand to ‘Yahweh’ the name that he spoke at the burning bush, and the name that that the Hebrew people had used to call upon the Lord through generations. The name, though, doesn't stand alone. God declares the meaning of his name. As he proceeds before Moses saying, “I am the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God; slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness; maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Now there is God's character, God's holiness, God's grace and God's love expressed to Moses and Aaron in the Old Testament. What is the most important thing about God? In John's letter to the church he says, ‘God is love.” We think of that as a New Testament teaching sometimes but here at the beginning of Israel's existence as a nation; as they leave Egypt and they prepare to go towards the promised land;  as they are given the law which describes how they ought to live in the freedom they’ve received from God; here God declares to Moses, “Here is who I am, I am a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.” This is who God is. This is the name which is to be honored. This is the God above all gods.


Now, in the context of ancient history we can see that there are many names given to different gods that were worshiped. We understand that there were false gods in ancient history, god's that never existed but were projections of human desires, human understanding and speculation. These gods were worshiped but very often, not because they were honorable gods, but because they were powerful. People personified forces of nature, people took a look at how humans were and they projected humans extended infinitely more powerfully and they imagined gods. We’re familiar from school encountering the gods of the ancient Greeks; Zeus and Hera and the Norse gods Odin, Thor and Loki. We still see those characters figured in animations, movies and all kinds of storylines, and it's hard to imagine that these characters were actually worshiped in their day, that there was a belief in them. Now even at the time of Jesus the Greek culture was divided. There were people who didn't see the old gods as being worthy of worship. They saw them as capricious. They saw them as petty. They saw them as the worst human characteristics given great power. They didn’t honor those names except out of fear of consequences. Many of the philosophers of the day had ceased honor those characters.

There is a God who is worthy of being hallowed, whose name is worthy of reverence and respect. He is not a capricious God, He is not someone who is randomly acting out of selfishness or out of an easy offensiveness. Not someone who is indulging himself but someone who is reaching out in love and faithfulness to the earth and his creation. This is the Lord who is to be honored.

In the cultures around Israel there were gods of fertility and gods of agriculture. There were gods of storms and gods of life and death but, again, these gods were feared in a negative way they were appeased. Nobody tried to be like those gods, they simply tried to manipulate circumstances to make things work their way.
In Israel we see the development of a belief and understanding of a God who works for his people, who loves his people, and is, himself, worthy of being loved. The name of God: compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness.
Now we have to understand that there is more to God than just one dimension. The Bible doesn't leave it unspoken. We have some questions about God's, his harshness, God’s sternness,  because it does say in this very passage, ‘yet God does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sins of their fathers to the third and fourth generation.’ God is honored also because he's holy because he sees the damage that sin does and he doesn't leave it to fester he doesn't leave it to grow. In my background, in my undergraduate degree I took psychology. One of the things I learned there was that the word punishment in psychology doesn't always mean vengeance. Punishment doesn't always mean getting your pound of flesh back. In fact, specifically in psychological theory punishment and reward are used for training.

We do this with our children, whether we give them a timeout, or whether we take away something that they they've been enjoying, we punish them trying to get them to behave in a way that's more helpful and more appropriate. They can't learn to restrain their impulses and to turn away from those behaviors that get them in trouble without our guidance. We also reward them when they do well, we praise them and we thank them for their helpfulness. In that way we train our children to behave in a way that is going to lead to a better life for them and for the people around them.

Likewise God says he's not going to leave the guilty unpunished. He himself will take the penalty of sin, but training us out of sin is going to take time. He's not going to leave that work undone. I'm so delighted that God is going to work in my life to continue to train me. Sometimes training is hard. Sometimes we don't appreciate training. But when we look at the long view we’re glad that a coach or a teacher or our Savior has taken the time to treat us in a way that will lead us into a better living and a better morality in our lives. In fact these days we’re very conscious of the way that the impact of a father’s sin continues into his family. A mother’s sin continues to her children and to grandchildren and other generations. When I hear that God is going to continue to train people out of sin for generations, I'm delighted. My children will learn a better way than I learned in my life. My children will continue to be in the hands of God being trained through his guidance; through punishment and reward; through grace in every respect. In every dimension God is willing to get involved in our lives and deal with the sin in our lives, and for that I'm very thankful. We will look at this is a good deal more as we continue our program but I do want you to listen with me to this singing of the Lord's prayer. This particular version of the Lord's Prayer is from A Celebration Of Hymns and I encourage you to just take a moment to listen to it now.

One of the things I want to say about hallowing God's name is this: What kind of person will we be if we hallow God's name? If we hallow compassion and grace if we hallow patience and faithfulness; if we hallow steadfast love if we honor God for his for his faithfulness for his love towards the sinner; his love towards the righteous; his love towards thousands and his ability forgive; What kind of people do we become?

Oh, when we hallow power, when we look around us we make idols out of people who have great wealth or exercise influence, or have some amazing singing talent, we don't really do much to improve ourselves. When we hallow God as he is in his glorious graciousness we become different people. If we would spend time in our lives hallowing God as he deserves to be honored giving value and paying attention to the things that God counts as most wonderful for all of creation to share, then we will become the people that God wants us to be. ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus,’ one song says, ‘look full in his wonderful face!’ How much we will be changed as we hallow God's name as we pray.

I do want to pray with you the words of the Lord's Prayer so let's pray together”

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen.

Thank you so much for listening to us today and every week. We appreciate your encouragement and support and we do want to remind you to tune us in weekly, to check out our website, and if you have the opportunity please support us with your gifts so we can continue to meet the one expense of our broadcast which is the cost of the radio time. If you can please make out a check to GoodNewsChristianMinistries, P.O. Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario. We will send you a receipt at income tax time.

Please tell others about the program. I do pray that the Lord will hold your heart and that you would know Jesus personally and profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart. May the heavenly Father surround you with his constant, abiding and accompanying love. Now would you listen again to the Kings Herald’s with me. ‘Let the heavenly shine on me.’

Good News In The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio.

- Rev. Brian Wilkie
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To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:

Sunday 19 January 2014

'WANTED FOR 2014: CRACKED POTS!'

Rev. Juliet Schimpf
By Rev. Juliet Schimpf   

Rev. Juliet Schimpf  is the Minister of 
First Baptist  Church in Perth, Ontario:

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LINK to CFRA broadcast of Sunday, January 12th, 2014) 
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Broadcast Notes:
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'Wanted for 2014: Cracked Pots!'


INTRODUCTION

  • Thirty-eight percent set resolutions related to weight
  • Thirty-four percent set resolutions related to money  (Stephen Shapiro, "Interesting New Year's Resolution Statistics," stephenshapiro.com)

  • SOCIETY LOOKS FOR STARS; GOD LOOKS FOR SCARS!
  • whereas society focuses on the externals, God focuses upon the heart
  • MATT. 9:  “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
  • ISAIAH 64:8  “WE ARE THE CLAY, YOU ARE THE POTTER”
  • JER. 18:6  “LIKE CLAY IN THE HAND OF THE POTTER”
  • 2 TIM. 2:21 EACH OF US MUST BECOME “A VESSEL UNTO HONOR, SANCTIFIED, AND MEET FOR THE MASTER’S USE, AND PREPARED UNTO EVERY GOOD WORK”

TODAY’S MAIN BIBLE PASSAGE

2 Corinthians 4:7-12

The Message (MSG)
7-12 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!

FURTHER BIBLE PASSAGES

  • 2 CORINTHIANS 12:9-10  NIV  “But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
  • THE MESSAGE (BEATITUDES):  “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.  With less of you, there can finally be more of God.”
  • MATTHEW 5:  15 Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.


POEM (ANONYMOUS)

“I asked for help, that I might do greater things.
            I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
            I was made weak, that I might learn to obey.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
            I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power and the praise of men.
            I was given weakness, to sense my need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
            I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for. 
In spite of myself, my prayers were answered.
I am among all people, most richly blessed.”  (Anonymous)


Let’s pray:

“Heavenly Father, We thank you that you are the Almighty Potter and we are but the clay. And this is very good news as we start 2014, because it means that it doesn’t all depend upon us. We don’t have to have our lives all together; you are constantly, steadily, patiently, lovingly, tenderly remolding us and reshaping us, as the perfect potter that you are.
And so, Lord, we come to you, and as we sit upon your great potter’s wheel, we invite you, Lord, to reshape us in 2014 into the vessel of your choosing.
I want to pray for the listener who’s feeling this morning like a cracked pot, keenly aware of their shortcomings, keenly aware of their mistakes, their sins, their addictions, and their flaws. And my prayer, right now, is that, right now, they just come to you – cracks and all – because you are on the lookout for broken people; because, in our weakness then you can be strong and in our cracks, then your light can shine through.
Lastly, Lord, I want to pray for the listener who hasn’t yet asked Jesus into their heart. And maybe all of today’s message didn’t make much sense, because it was all about Second Corinthians, and pots, and clay, but for this listener, right now, the one thing they can hear loud and clear, is that they need Jesus in their heart. And I pray, Lord, that this person, right now, would repeat this prayer: ‘Heavenly Father I believe that Jesus is your Son. I believe that I need Him in my life. Indeed, I want Him in my life. I believe that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for my sins and rose from the dead. And I ask Him, now, to take up residency, and presidency, within my life. I give you my life; I give you my 2014; Father, take my shattered, broken life and do with it whatever you please. Amen.’


Rev. Juliet Schimpf
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To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:
http://proxy.autopod.ca/podcasts/chum/6/18902/good_news_088_jan19.mp3