FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF GROVER BEACH

July 3rd, 2011

Pastor Andy RockThe Gospel of Matthew Sermon Series, Sermon #2Matthew 6:9-13

Hallowed Be Thy Name

The Pilot and the Presbyterian Pastor

 A Presbyterian Pastor dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates.  Ahead of him is a guy who's dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.

 Saint Peter addresses this cool guy, 'Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?'

 The guy replies, 'I'm Jack, retired airline pilot from Houston.'

 Saint Peter consults his list.  He smiles and says to the pilot, 'Take this silken robe and  golden staff and enter the Kingdom.'  The pilot goes into Heaven with his robe and staff.

 Next, it's the pastor’s turn.  He stands erect and booms out, 'I am Rev. Andrew Rock, pastor of First Presbyterian Grover Beach for the last 43 years.'

 Saint Peter consults his list.  He says to the priest, 'Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom.

 'Just a minute,' says the good pastor. 'That man was a pilot and he gets a silken robe and golden staff and I get only cotton and wood.  How can this be?'

 'Up here  - we go by results,' says Saint Peter. 'When you preached  - people slept.  When he flew, people prayed.'

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PrayScripture: Matthew 6:9-13   9 “This, then, is how you should pray:   “‘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 today 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 the evil one.’

Intro and Review of Last week

- the purpose of prayer

o We get worried we’ll pray wrong, so we don’t pray

Hi God!

Come as you are to pray as children, coming to Him

for the needs of our city and your life

o Pray as you can, not as you can’t

o Not exclusively the Lord’s Prayer- it’s a prayer that starts

us off in prayer, an example, a place to come back to if

you’ve been praying for your whole life

- Structure-

o Our Father

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Worship- three stanzas

Reveal who you are.    

Set the world right;

Do what's best— as above, so below.

Petition- three stanzas

Keep us alive with three square meals.    

Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving

others.    

Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.

- To the Father

o Our

o Father (Abba, radical for its day)

Father in the best sense of the Father, the one we

long for. The remedy for a bad Father isn’t ‘no

father’, it’s the right Father, the perfect Father.

Even in the context of our woundedness, praying

to God our Father is the recognition that healing

comes for us- He is ours.

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o In Heaven (the tension for us- we don’t focus much on

the transcendence and holiness of God, so saying Father

or Heaven doesn’t mean as much).

o Calvin: God is intimately mine yet the God of the cosmos,

his fatherly love toward us and in unbounded power

over us.

Outline

Hallowed

When we pray for to God reveal who He is…

When we pray to God, approaching Him with his true nature in mind…

When we pray God’s holiness and character are revealed…

God shows up and so we…

We worship

We are radically restructured

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Hallowed? Holy? Huh?

Hallowed- holy, heavy, weighty, set apart…God being who God really is

Rick McKinley: We want God set in His proper place so He can be God

for us and for this world. Jesus is very interested in making sure that

when we come to God we recognize that He’s the hope. (not our

spiritual and life mechanic so we can get back on the road).

I need to feel who God is

If holy and hates sin- then I need to feel it

If God is loving and that love blows out every category I can

imagine, than I need to feel that.

I don’t need a God that I’ve conformed to my image

I don’t need a God that I’ve concocted for my purposes

“The present clause is not then a request that it be made holy, as the

traditional translation ’hallowed’ properly means- it is holy already.

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Rather, it is that people may recognize and acknowledge its holiness by

giving God the reverence which is his due.”1

When we pray for to God reveal who He is…

When we pray to God, approaching Him with his true nature in mind…

When we pray God’s holiness and character are revealed…

God shows up and so we…

We Worship

We are radically Restructured

We worship

Isaiah 29:22-23 (Speaking to a people in exile)

22 Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the

descendants of Jacob:

   “No longer will Jacob be ashamed; 

   no longer will their faces grow pale. 

23 When they see among them their children, 

   the work of my hands, 

1 RT France, The Gospel of Matthew, p 246.

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they will keep my name holy; 

   they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, 

   and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. 

We will stand in awe of God, recognizing his holiness- his true character

and weightiness

Why should I worship? Does God need me? Isn’t this a bit vain and

insecure of God, constantly demanding I affirm him and give him praise?

- We worship because of the nature of God

o God is way bigger than we can imagine or understand

Scuba diving, blackness

Mt. Rainier- terrible storm at 10,000

God is in control and made all this

You need to understand how big God is and this

prayer is saying just that- God, show me how

incredible you really are.

o Holy and Almighty

In the presence of greatness, you humble yourself

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I’ve never been in the presence of royalty, but I’ve

seen a glimpse of the Holy and Almighty- tender

NICU w/Jonah, the feeling of awe at my son, the

awe of that place- deep gratefulness, emotion, and

reverence

- We worship because we are designed to

o We all serve something or someone

We want meaning, significance, importance

No little kid says: I want to work in an office!

We want something greater to serve

We get older and we forget this; we prioritize

ourselves. Our culture helps us, being unique in

the history of the world with its incredible focus on

each individual grasping at serving and putting

themselves first

Worshipping and exalting and prioritizing yourself

is incredibly empty and boring

How many of you are satisfied when you just

take care of yourselves?

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How many of your marriages or your

friendships or your relationships with your

children are thriving because you’re only

focusing on yourself? It doesn’t work…

o We’re designed to worship God

- We worship because we see how much God loves us

o We are broken and lost, God is gracious and kind: the

only reason to worship

o Do you see? The deeper you understand your lostness,

the more you will understand God’s love so perfectly

demonstrated in Jesus

- So when we pray- God, be who you really are…get ready to

worship. If you want God to show up, if you want God to

intervene, if you want God to reveal himself to you, get ready to

worship

We pray for to God reveal who He is…

We pray to God, approached Him with his true nature in mind…

We pray God’s holiness and character are revealed…

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We are radically restructured

Ezekiel 36:22-27

 22 “Therefore say to the Israelites, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD

says: It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to do

these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have

profaned among the nations where you have gone. 23 I will show the

holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations,

the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know

that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I am proved

holy through you before their eyes.

 24 “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the

countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean

water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your

impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put

a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give

you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to

follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 

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God is speaking through Ezekiel to Israel- in captivity in Babylon. It’s

the same time period Isaiah is writing from the passage we just read.

God is saying to Israel,

“I’m going to do something incredible for my name’s sake- because

that’s who I am. I am the God who rescues and saves and thus I will

rescue and save you. I will literally prove to those around you that I am

real because of what I’m doing in you and through you.

Holy through you….radically restructured

- We’re brought home

o Israel is in exile because of their sin, rebellion and absolute

foolishness

o The Prodigal Son- the younger brother who is lost and in

rebellion. The elder brother was supposed to go get him

(Luke 15, the elder brother is a twit- aka Pharisees). Jesus is

our elder brother

- Cleansed (expiation)

o Expiation explained….and leads into a new heart and new

spirit

- New heart and new spirit

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o new desires

Old Andy: get people to laugh so they’ll like me

New Andy: put people first, I’m just fine

o new priorities

Old Andy: take every opportunity to comfort myself,

put myself first

New Andy: serve my family and friends because I love

them and God has given them to me to bless me

o new emotions- the good news and bad news

- The result? Obedience. We’ll want to follow God anywhere, do

anything for Him, serve Him in any way, once we understand

who He is and what the Father has done for us through the Son.

So we pray, Our Father in Heaven, make your name holy, reveal who

you are, make your presence weighty and real among us…

As we see God and experience God we worship

As we see God and experience God we are radically restructured

There is tension is praying, God be who you are…be holy and present

and powerful and weighty upon this earth…because of who we are. It’s

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scary to pray this prayer. You and I get fearful to pray this prayer.

Frankly, a common prayer we have is ‘God, don’t look at what I’m doing

right now or what I’m about to do.’

We fear that if we catch a glimpse of who we are really are and

who God really is that we will be ruined. And we’re right. We will be.

That’s the point. We need God to be fully God- not a God of our

imagination or wishful thinking. And we need to be honest with who we

are and the reality, like God says to Israel through Ezekiel, that we have

profaned God’s name among the nations. We have not demonstrated

with our actions and our generosity and our forgiveness who God really

is to our neighbor, to our family, even to ourselves.

What we Christians do is we avoid this tension, this prayer, all the

time. We make two common mistakes.

The first mistake is that we’ll focus primarily on God’s love and

we’ll leave our brokenness and lostness behind; after all, we don’t want

to be offensive. So we don’t talk about sin, nor do we encouraged each

other towards transformation. Many of us have never prayed with

another Christian, confessing our sins and unbelief and having our

brother or sister in Christ minister truth to us. We remain stuck, so we

go to work trying to do good things to demonstrate God’s love in acts of

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service and yet when we turn our hearts toward God our heart is not

immediately brought into a place of worship or awe.

The second mistake is that we’ll primarily focus on our obedience

and we’ll leave God’s love behind; after all, we don’t want to abandon

God’s commands and this world is clearly falling apart from

disobedience. The result is that our faith becomes a grind, worship is

completely lost, Scripture becomes an endless series of do’s and don’ts,

and we get completely exhausted. Frustrated and disheartened, many

of us give up or we increase our efforts all the more and try to become

very helpful to our neighbors and family members, politely pointing out

to them where they are completely failing. In the end, we manage our

behavior and rarely experience the love and tenderness of God for us.

So, how can we pray this prayer and not get stuck in between these two

mistakes? How can we invite God to be God, to be here as He truly is?

The cross

….into communion

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