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
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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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