Hallowed Be Thy Name (part 3) - [Matthew 6:9]

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Jet Tour Of Hebrews (part 4)

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O to be like Thee, O to be like Thee, Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art, come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness, stamp
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Thine own image deep on my heart. Thank you, Amelia, for that wonderful song.
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Remember the old slogan, WWJD? It was everywhere. Wrists, ankles, banners,
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Bibles, WWJD, and what did it stand for? What would
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Jesus do? Generally, I thought it was a pretty good campaign. Jesus would be kind,
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He would be sweet, He would tell the truth. But there are a few things that we can't do that Jesus did, right?
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We wouldn't want to go talk to Satan out in the wilderness, go without food for 40 days, can't walk on water, can't make bread out of nothing.
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So I have a better slogan. I know I'm a day late, a dollar short when it comes to slogans, but four letters that if applied to your life in everyday situations, it will always be applicable.
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Now, I don't want us to make any kind of wristbands or anything like that, although I would take the copyright laws for that.
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Instead of WWJD as an overarching principle, how about HBTN?
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I did not say TBN, the Trinity Broadcasting Network. I always found that funny because some of the people there don't even believe in the
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Trinity, but that's another sermon. HBTN, what might that stand for? Hallowed be thy name.
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Hallowed be thy name. Each and every situation in your life, if you remember that banner as Jesus has taught us to pray in that first petition,
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I believe it can be helpful. I believe it can drive us to think biblical thoughts of God. I think that if we understand this properly, it can revolutionize our lives on earth.
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Hallowed be thy name. This week, I'm going to change my email signatures.
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And at the bottom of my email signature, it's now going to be HBTN. And I'm just going to die for people to ask me as unbelievers, what does that mean?
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When I write a letter, I'm going to write HBTN, hallowed be thy name.
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Some composers would write SDG, solo deo gloria.
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Some people would write DV, God willing. I hope to live my life and it is my desire for you as a congregation to live your lives under the umbrella hallowed be thy name.
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If you'll turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 6, we are going slowly through this great sermon, the
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Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, as the King, King Jesus, gives His manifesto on how to live as a subject in this great kingdom.
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And Jesus is going to teach the disciples to pray. Jesus understands that the human heart is sinful.
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Jesus understands like John Bunyan who said basically, my best, most godly prayers contain enough sin to damn the entire universe.
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And sin can even sneak into prayers and so Jesus is going to help His disciples out of His goodness and out of His kindness and His love.
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Here's how I want my people and my kingdom as my subjects to pray. And like any good teacher, he'll say, don't pray this way, chapter 6, verses 5, 6, 7, and 8.
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Instead, pray what? Like this. And so we see this great prayer of Jesus called the
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Lord's Prayer. Kind of through time it's been called that and we know it better as the disciples' prayer.
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Pray then in this way and He gives us this prayer in chapter 6, verses 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13.
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Let me read you that prayer. Pray then in this way. Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
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Your kingdom come, the NAS says, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And as we've been working through this passage, hallowed be thy name,
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I just have to kind of stop. I mean, this is part three, hallowed be thy name. And I think part four is coming next week.
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Why? There's just so much information in here. I just can't just go by this because it will be 40 years before I come to this passage again.
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So we teach through all the Bible and then come back here. I don't know if you ever light off fireworks.
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This is the time of year to light them. Maybe not in Massachusetts, but if you were to light one in Massachusetts.
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I light them fireworks that are fairly small and compact. They're kind of like Mount Vesuvius type of things.
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And you light them, lay on ground, light fuse, get away. And you run away and they kind of don't impress you at the beginning.
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Just kind of superficially having a few sparks flying up and you're going, all right, another $5 down the drain, but kids seem happy.
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And all of a sudden out of nowhere up this thing goes. And I like the kind that shoots straight up into the sky.
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And at the last minute when you think they're done, what do they do? They're like cluster bombs. There are these clusters that shoot everywhere and then they do the same thing, a cluster after a cluster, just full of gunpowder, full of smoke.
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There's nothing like the wafting smoke of a good firecracker lit off. Boy, that brings back memories.
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This passage is the same thing. Like any passage of scripture, it is so compact.
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It is so dense with information and with information that not just as good for our brains, but will transform our souls.
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And we're just going to take our time and work through hallowed be thy name.
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What did Jesus want us to understand when he prayed for the father to make his name, his character, all his attributes hallowed in the lives of people.
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And when we are taught to pray this way, the prayer is set up in such a way that God has to do the action.
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Hallowed be thy name. For you English students, this is a passive. Somebody else has to act.
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Jesus is not saying we make our own, we hallowed God's name on our own.
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We're asking God to make his name hallowed. He's the actor. He's the active one.
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We are a passive. But that being said, when we pray the prayer, hallowed be thy name, we are saying to God, God make us holy, aren't we?
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Make your name known, yes. May the nations no longer blaspheme and profane your name, but make it holy.
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But we're also saying, God, we live in your kingdom. Make me holy. May my life show how great you are so your name might be honored as people see me, that your honor might be through me, that others might see that.
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When people see my life, God, I want them to glorify you. I want them to consider you,
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God, holy. I want them to see me and acknowledge you. On a very human level, when our children do something to make us proud as parents, with a godly, righteous pride, we want to say,
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God, we want you to commend us as children who exemplify and live out your name.
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So this morning, I wanna be as practical as I can, as basic as I can. And I want to give you several ways that you can hallow
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God's name in your life. We pray for God to do it, but we also don't just lay back and let
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God like the pietist or the quietest. We are to work out our salvation with what?
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Fear and trembling. God saves alone. But sanctification, becoming more holy, transformation takes place as God works through our work.
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True? Is there sweat and toil to sanctification? Yes. So God make us holy, and this is our response to that.
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Very specific ways that you can make God's name holy in your life are hallowed.
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Now, these could come across as prayer requests because we're asking God to do this. We could never do this on our own.
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So we can look at this outline two different ways. Ways in our lives to act so God's name would be holy, hallowed, or prayer requests because,
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God, you're going to have to help us to do this in our lives. The greater catechism written by Martin Luther called the
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Grosser Catechismus asked this question. How is it that God's name is hallowed among us?
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Answer, Luther said, when our life and doctrine are truly Christian. When our life and doctrine are truly
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Christian. So the whole sermon outline today is an expansion of that statement right there.
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Ways to hallow God's name in your life. Number one, what's the first way you could hallow
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God's name in your life? God's name is hallowed when you speak of God with honor and with reverence.
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When you speak of God with honor and reverence, and I could say fear. Now that goes from personal conversation all the way to testimonies.
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Let's talk about personal conversation first. As I've said a couple of weeks ago, this means we avoid taking
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God's name in vain. This means that we use God's word in a holy way and we're not swearing, but we use his name with reverence and with fear.
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I think it was Mack Roski and I were laughing the other day that Scott walked in. When people stub their toe,
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I never hear them say Buddha. I just never hear that, but that's what
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I'm gonna start saying from here on out. If I hurt myself or hit my funny bone or something, I'm just gonna start, I guess in New England I'll have to say
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Buddha or something. Just takes the edge off. But as Jesus has taught us to pray, pray then in this way.
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Our Father who art in heaven, God, you're a transcendent God above us, but you're also a close God, personal.
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And God, we wanna make your name known well. So certainly that would include speaking well of God and not using
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Jesus as the end of a joke or some kind of catchphrase. But when we say his name, it should come from a desire of holiness and reverence.
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And that is, beloved, even when God doesn't answer your prayers, that is even if you're not healed, that is even if your trial does not end to your liking, when you speak of God, it should be with hallowedness, our holiness, our reverence.
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But not just in daily speech, how about your testimonies? Do you think when you give a testimony, you could do it in such a way that it would hallow
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God's name and show forth his honor and glory? I think you could, but you could also talk in such a way that you'd get up and basically brag.
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Remember in school, at least back in public school when I was going to school, I think Thursdays was show and tell. Yeah, what did we also call show and tell?
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Bring and brag, that's right. Now if you're bragging on God, that's fine, but I want us even to consider this, that when we give a testimony of God's goodness, it should be of God's goodness and not how bad we were.
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Not about all our heroin dealings and all these kind of things. I want to have God as the actor and me as passive.
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So let me take you to my testimony verse that I think will help us. Let's go to Titus chapter three.
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And I believe that when you give your testimony even, it should be in a God -centered, God -hallowing way.
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Not self -promoting testimonies, not how bad you are and kind of bragging of all your accomplishments of sin.
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I think when you give a testimony, you give a testimony like this. Here was my life before Christ generally.
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Here's how God saved me and these are now my desires. So whenever you have to give a testimony, it's always three parts.
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Here's my life of sin generally. Here's how God saved me, not how I accepted
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Jesus. I bowed my knee, I received, but here's what God did. And here are my new affections, my new religious desires, my new likes and dislikes and how
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I used to love sin and now I hate sin. And I think if you use Titus chapter three, it's a good template.
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And I call this an expository testimony, verse -by -verse testimony, just a sequential testimony.
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And we wanna speak in such a way that even when we give a testimony, we don't fall into the trap of promoting ourselves.
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And we could. If sin can get into prayer, certainly sin could get into a testimony. And Paul is trying to teach
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Titus and therefore the church members at Crete why they should be godly, why they shouldn't say bad things about other people in verses one and two.
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The motive is because we have our own sinful past. Look at chapter three, verse three.
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Here's part one of an expository God hallowing testimony. We just give general description of our sins.
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Here's my resume before Christ and it was yours too. For we also once were foolish ourselves.
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In other words, we didn't have a clue spiritually. We couldn't understand spiritual realities. We were living in an
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XYZ framework and we only could see X darkly. We were foolish ourselves, disobedient.
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When it comes to God's law, we were stubbornly obstinate. God said, do this. We wanted to do it anyway.
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I mean, we didn't wanna do it. He says, don't do that. We wanted to do it anyway. Notice just the general terms.
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Deceived. We had false guides. We were just following anybody that would say anything that matched up to our own passions and pleasures.
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Enslaved to various lusts and pleasures. There's no free will for the unbeliever.
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They are slaves to sin. Spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.
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So when we talk about a way to hallow God's name, let's do that in our testimonies. When someone says, tell me about your testimony, we first talk about generally our life of sin.
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Secondly, we wanna talk about how God saved us. And look at these verses, verses four through seven in Titus chapter three.
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And look at the active nature of God's working and look at our passiveness in it. That is to say, look at God's, God is a subject of the verbs and we are the recipient of the verbs.
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It's just great language. This is the best. By the way, if you're giving a testimony like this, you're giving people the
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Bible and you're preaching the gospel. Don't ever give a testimony without giving the gospel. But when the kindness of God, our
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Savior, and His love for mankind appeared, it's not when I figured it all out, when
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I had run my course of sin to the end. This is all God language. You hallow
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God's name when you talk about how great He is, not how bad you were, how you figured it out, but it's
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His kindness, His love for mankind, His desire to initiate the bestowing of forgiveness,
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His love. And then look at verse five. He saved us.
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That's why when we give a testimony, we say, God saved me. God saved me when I wasn't looking. God saved me when
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I was a sinner. God saved me. To what degree did He save me? I did a little bit.
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He kind of made up the slack. I took the first step, then He went. He was kind of a gentleman
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Jesus and He certainly wouldn't bulldoze me over to try to save me. That's not what the language says at all.
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If any of our good works can save us, then why send your Son and crucify Him? He saved us.
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That's the Bible right there in summary in three words. He saved us. To make sure we understand, to give
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God the glory and hallow His name, Paul says more, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness.
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It's not because of that. What is the motive for your salvation? But according to His mercy.
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God saved us because of His mercy. He's merciful. He's the one. By the washing of regeneration of the pastor dunking me in baptism.
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Is that what the text says? Who does the washing? Who does the regenerating? Who does the renewing? Answer, by the
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Holy Spirit. Can I not give you this as case in point when you talk about yourself? It should be general sin.
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And then when you want to hallow God's name in your own personal testimony, ought you not talk about God did this for me?
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Here's what God did. God initiates. God starts. God's the author. God's the beginner. That's how
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Paul talks. He just goes on and on. As God lavishes the riches out,
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Paul lavishes the words upon us so we might see how great God is. Verse six, whom
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He poured out. Can you imagine just some kind of big Gatorade bucket pouring out?
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This is not some kind of little dribble. This is not some kind of sprinkle. After the Celtics won last week, it was a little dribble.
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We're going to see the big dunking coming up soon after game seven. This is pouring out just with generosity, lavishly, richly.
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Through which channel? Through Jesus Christ our Savior. And more language to talk about God so that being justified by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
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When we pray, God, would you make your name hallowed in the universe? We're implying that He'd make it hallowed in our life.
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So the first thing we need to consider is our own conversation from daily speech to even testimonies.
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Let's talk about what God did for us, not how we do things for God. Fair enough? Number two, the second way you can hallow
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God's name is not just when you speak of God with honor, but number two, when you intensely study
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His word so that you might know more about Him. That is to say, the more you know about God in the scripture, the more ways you could hallow
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His name by thinking and by actions. True, let's turn to 1 Peter 2.
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We want to hallow God's name in our life as we learn more about Him. There's kind of a spiritual algebraic equation.
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An increase of knowledge increases your potential of knowing God better. Increasing knowledge from scripture increases the potential of knowing
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God better. I said it that way because there's always a little caveat. We can just learn and have our minds puffed up.
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But God uses His word and knowledge about Him so that we might revere Him and honor
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His name. Every time you learn something new about God, you have a new way to honor Him. If last week was the first time you understood that God was jealous, you can say for the first time,
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God, I didn't understand it. I didn't understand that you would brook no rivals, that you would love me so much that when there was infidelity on my part of spiritual worship, you would do something about it because you cared.
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That is amazing to me. And so when you study God's word in the Bible, you can think more biblically about Him.
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Conversely, anything you believe about God that's not true is idolatry. So we want to think
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God's thoughts the right way. We don't make God up because this is how we feel about God.
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And I remember Oprah saying, well, you know, when
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I was a Baptist sitting in that church at age 27 or 28 years old, and the pastor said,
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God is a jealous God. So there was something wrong in my spirit about that. And I just didn't like that.
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And I think what God is really teaching us through Christ is we should have a Christ consciousness. Well, it doesn't matter what kind of burning we get in our bosom.
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It doesn't matter what we think about God. God knows we couldn't figure it out on our own. So He tells us directly through His word, through the prophets, and through Christ incarnate, the word
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Himself. And we want to study God's word so we can know what to praise Him for. In 1
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Peter 2, verse 2, don't you love the degree of desire shown here in 1
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Peter 2, 2. Like newborn babes, what? Long for the pure milk of the word that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.
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That's the tenacity God wants us to have. And I commend you as a church. Some people are driving 40, 50, 60 miles because their desire is for spiritual things.
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How far would you drive? I remember when I first got saved, Kim and I, we'd drive 45 miles a church because we wanted to be fed the word of God.
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And the Nebraska person in me had a hankering for that word. I was craving. I had a desire.
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And you could give me sports scores, and you could give me magazine articles, and you could give me
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TV shows, but nothing would do. It had to be God's word. And isn't it the same thing for children? Like newborn babes.
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You find me a newborn babe, and I mean, what do I have in here? I have paper clips you can jam in their mouth.
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That won't do. There's a guitar pick up here, probably some water. There's a
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Bible up here. Whose Bible is this? Well, that's an Avendroth Bible. Whatever you give them, you can trick them for about 10 seconds with your pinky.
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They long for one thing. And what does the text say that the Christians should long for? The pure milk of the
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Word. The Word that is undiluted, that is not full of hormones falsely, that is the
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Word of God. This is our desire. It's an imperative. We have this strong of a desire.
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It should be a burning. Let me push it a little bit. You should lust for God's Word. You know, lust in the
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Bible can either be positive or negative. This is a very positive word. I lust for the Bible, to know
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God for the pure milk of the Word. When you see the word milk in the New Testament, it's always referred to as something that is basic to the
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Christian life. Five times used in the New Testament, it's basic. It's standard. In the Old Testament, it was abundance.
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It was above and beyond. A land flowing with milk and honey. But here, this is basic.
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Next to food, it's a staple. Like a newborn babe with tenacity.
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I'd love it when I got to feed, I think Maddie was the most tenacious. And I would hold Maddie and I'd have a bottle and stuff and I'd get it all taken care of and fixed up.
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I kind of miss those days. Kim? And she would be so ravenous to get that bottle and to grab the nipple on the bottle.
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And she'd just jam it in her mouth. And you know, sometimes if the nipple of the bottle just flings out like that, just the formula goes all over everywhere.
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She didn't care. She had a bunch of drops all over her eyes, kind of like Visine put in the wrong way, all over her face, but when she had that nipple, she was set.
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Doesn't even matter. Accepting no substitutes. And as we do that, we understand exactly who
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God is so we can praise Him for who He is. So we don't just think, oh, He's only a God of love. He's the
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God that gives me everything I want. He's the God that grants salvation not just in eternity, but on earth somehow.
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I love it when David said, the law of thy mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
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Do you think that's a hallowing statement of God's name? Do you think Job hallowed
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God's name when he said, I have not departed from the command of His lips. I have treasured the words of His mouth,
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God's mouth, more than my necessary food. Do you think
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Jeremiah hallowed God's name as he thought about His words like this? Thy words were found and I ate them.
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And thy words became for me a joy and delight in my heart, for I have been called by thy name, O Lord, God of hosts.
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You are to delight in God's word with the intensity that a baby craves milk.
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This is needed. When you got saved, God could have put into your memory banks all the doctrine you would ever need.
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But in God's wisdom, He has said, I want you to study, I want you to learn. Study, sweat, toil, no easy way out.
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No shortcuts. I found some shortcuts this week.
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You tell me if you think these hallowed God's name. You know, if you're kind of lazy when it comes to Bible study, there's a few things that you can do.
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There's a new Spider -Man Bible study. I was glad the editor gave me a note and the editor note said, there are two versions of this study, one for adults, one for teens.
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Thanks for the heads up for that. I think that would really be helpful. And maybe I could go do the
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Mayberry RF. And that's not RFD, but the Mayberry Bible study. For those of you that that's a little too high and lofty, want to kind of go for the simple kind of easy way, there's a
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Beverly Hillbillies Bible study. There's the Lucy Show Bible study for you ladies out there.
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And for those of you that like the little buddy, there's a Gilligan's Island Bible study. How many of those do you think really hallowed
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God's name? Show reverence for Him and honor that is due His name.
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I think those things give shame to the name of God. We are given His word, we're given His spirit and we're given salt in our mouth as it were, so we can get our thirst quenched by God's word.
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How do we hallow God's name? We hallow it by speaking well of Him. We hallow it by intensely studying.
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Number three, how do we hallow God's name in our lives? God's name is hallowed in our lives, hallowed in your lives when you evangelize biblically.
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When you evangelize biblically, we wanna make sure when we talk to other people about the Lord that it would be true and right, yes?
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We don't just make stuff up. We went to that Christian surf movie last Sunday night.
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And the waves were pretty good and got some free t -shirts. But here's how they did their evangelism.
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Are you lacking a relationship with God? Do you have no purpose in your life?
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Do you have a void space in your life? And basically they would say, if you wanna have your relationships healed in life and you wanna catch big gnarly waves,
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Jesus is the dude. And they didn't actually call Jesus dude, they said he's kind of like a punk, he's cool, best friend.
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Let's give Jesus a round of applause for the resurrection. You know, my kids always look over at me, dad, are you gonna clap?
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Well, I ain't clapping unless dad's clapping. Is that how we evangelize?
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Jesus doesn't beg. Jesus is not some gentleman knocking at the door, hoping pretty please, fingers crossed, that we might somehow bow the knee.
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Jesus is Lord, Jesus is King, and he demands obedience. I got a little
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Christian surf magazine. Basically, it's whatever you think is cool,
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Jesus thinks is cool. And there's a lady in the magazine, and I won't even tell you her name to shame her.
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She's on Fuel TV, and she was asked this question, have you been able to share your faith through the
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TV show? Yes, here's how you do it. We like to weave in the positive message through music, our actions, and helping the people in the countries that we visit.
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In our Italy show, my husband Shane references the Bible as a source of research for waves.
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He used the story of when Paul was shipwrecked in large surf and had to ride planks to shore. Hallowed be thy name.
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I think a better moniker would be, I shame to the God. I read a brochure from a church in the
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Worcester area that says this is how you evangelize. A, admit you're a sinner, and you're willing to turn 180 degrees from your sin.
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B, believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose again from the dead. C, confess verbally and publicly your belief in Jesus Christ.
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Pray the simple prayer and get life. Then it gave the prayer. Congratulations, you just got life.
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Does it hallow God's name to preach the gospel in such a way that is minimalistic? How would
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Jesus preach? Maybe we should do that. Let's turn our Bibles to the gospel of Luke and let's see how
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Jesus hallowed the Father's name even as he preached. I think if we look at Jesus, we can certainly find out how he would preach.
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And I think he preaches unlike any false advertising, heal your relationships.
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He doesn't do any kind of minimalistic preaching. ABC, bow the knee and you're in.
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I don't think he does any of the kind of CBD bestsellers that I looked at this week.
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Eight Steps to Create the Life You Want. Another book is called The Life You Always Wanted. Another book is called
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Get Out of That Pit. How does Jesus preach? I think we can say with confidence, he would preach in such a way that would hallow
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God's name. I believe when we preach the gospel and evangelize, we ought to be hallowing
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God's name. Here's what Jesus does. It's quite the shock. There's no textual difficulties in this text.
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The difficulty is in what he says, Luke 9 .23. And he was saying to them all, this is not a one -time thing.
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He just kept saying this over and over. If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
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For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.
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For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits his himself?
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Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, those words, by the way, would cause people to say, those are shaming words.
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The Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
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That's how Jesus preached the gospel. Do you know Jesus preached confrontationally? You know Jesus preached with a high view of God?
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You know when Jesus preached, he didn't say, I'm gonna kind of adjust the message in such a way that it kind of is more comfortable.
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Jesus adjusts the message to make it more difficult. Jesus is trying to push people to the very corner and say, you know what?
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My desire for forgiveness of sins and eternal life is so great, I don't care what happens with my life.
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I don't want my best life now. I don't need to have salvation now. I don't need to have my mother, brother, sister, family, friends, relationships, money, houses.
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I have such a desire for eternal life through the forgiveness of sins found in Christ Jesus. He says, I will do anything.
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MacArthur calls Jesus' preaching, give up everything preaching instead of get what you want preaching.
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Jesus did not come to give a self -fulfillment gospel. It was self -denial.
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If you look at Luke chapter nine, verse 23, see where it says he must deny himself?
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Any guess what the word deny there means? When Jesus comes preaching, he says you have to deny yourself. What is he trying to tell the people?
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The word means to refuse to associate with. Have you ever met someone and you think, your kids have a friend and those friends of your children are bad influences?
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They ought not to be around your children because they fan the flame of your children's own sinful hearts.
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And so you say, don't associate with them. Don't be hanging around them anymore. That's exactly what Jesus said of you.
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That's how he preached to people. You've got to refuse to have anything to do with yourself.
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How many takers follow after that? No longer associate with me anymore.
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Jesus is basically saying, you are the problem. Your self -fulfillment is not the problem.
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I'm going to preach in such a way that you're against the wall and you're desperate for forgiveness. I'll do anything for forgiveness.
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Jesus says, these are my terms. What do you think of someone who said something like this in light of this passage?
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In light of this passage and people teaching Jesus the other way, I hate the churches of the world, however, that have become havens for heretics.
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I resent a TV church that in many cases has become a den of thieves. I would love to see the divine
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Lord take a whip and have it at the religion of our time. I sometimes pray in precatory
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Psalms directly on the heads of certain people. I understand why pioneer missionary
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Henry Martin ran out of the Hindu temple in India exclaiming, I cannot endure existence if Jesus is to be so dishonored.
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Friends, when we preach the gospel, we want to preach the gospel in a way not so people will get saved. We would like them to get saved, but that's not primary.
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We preach primarily for God's glory to be manifest. Then we won't change the message. If your number one desire is
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I've got to save the soul of my friend, then you will cut the gospel's corners because the gospel has sharp edges, poking edges, rough edges.
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That's why we don't do the nonsense that would profane God's name like they do in Indiana at a church
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I won't mention. The pastor said around Christmas time, the church offers a whole series on Beatles music.
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This was their tagline. I mean, I hate to even say it in public. The Christmas story, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George and Ringo.
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And the overall theme of the service was we want to start a revolution. I don't say hallowed.
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I say blasphemy. Oak Leaf Church now has a tattoo parlor theme.
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And I watched part of the service the other day and it showed a man talking about tattoos. That was a sermon.
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It was about tattoos. And up on stage, because when God's not enough, nothing's enough. So they have a guy getting a tattoo from another guy.
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That's the sermon. There's another church in Sydney, Ohio.
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And here's what they promise. Pizza, wings. I mean,
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I want to smile because it's just so insane. Rowdy fun, short messages, mechanical bulls.
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And the sermon theme is getting along in life. I mean, I just call this
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Circus Maximus is what I called it. Stolen from somebody. You think, ah, that's not really a circus.
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Well, how about Pastor Jim Lavender riding an elephant into the church service?
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Or how about Advent Lutheran pastor who also goes by Ricardo the
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Clown, who dresses like a clown to lead communion. If the draw when you preach the gospel is not forgiveness of sins and the glory of Christ Jesus, then let's just pack it up and go join the
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Unitarian Universalists for unity because it's just fellowship time with a tax deduction. When we preach the gospel, it's not for felt needs.
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It's not for better marriages. It's you're damned unless you have forgiveness. This is your only way. Are you interested?
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Of course, you can be nicer than that, but this is just my preaching mode. I'm still thinking about Ricardo the
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Clown. Makes me want to do something.
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Makes me want to stand up for God. Has anybody in your life ever been dishonored and you want to stand up for them? That leads me to number four.
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God's name is hallowed when you contend earnestly for the faith. We hallow God's name when in our sanctification, we say,
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I want to speak well of God. I want to study God's word so I know how to praise him. I want to evangelize biblically with the right motives.
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And number four, I want to hallow God's name in my life by contending for the faith. You say, well,
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I don't know if we really need to contend. A, that's for pastors. And B, we're a church that we want to be known for what we're for, not what we're against.
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Let's turn to Jude and find out in the passage about contending, who might contend?
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Are you the congregation supposed to contend or is it just the elders? And I think if you see what's going on in the name of Christianity around churches, in churches, that will cause you enough contending that you don't have to go to the
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JWs and Mormons or anybody else. There's something about it that when my King's name is dishonored,
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I want to stand up. That's a good thing. The Spirit of God is driving that. When people call
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God a force, people call God all kinds of other things, I want to stand up.
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I think the number one preacher on TV has nothing to do with Texas. I think her name's Oprah Winfrey. And I think she's the new age guru of the world.
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And if she was just a talk show host, I wouldn't mind. But she was chosen to lead the post 9 -11 prayer for America at Yankee Stadium.
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She was ranked by Gallup years ago as the number four most influential woman in history. She frequently talks about her show as her ministry.
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What's the response? If your response is, well, when I see God's name dishonored, live and let live.
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If your response is God's name is blasphemed and God will get him in the end. If your response is, you know what?
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I don't want to be too negative or harsh or say something mean or do anything else. Then if any of those responses is for you, then may
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I correct that thinking today because you are all commanded to contend for the faith.
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Jude 3. Jude, only one chapter, verse three. Beloved, I was going to talk about good things.
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I was going to write about the faith. No negative stuff, no attacking. I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, the grace of God, how
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God saved us, how it's not by our own deeds of righteousness. I want to just write a letter like Romans.
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Righteousness of God, how we didn't have it, how God in his mercy and love demonstrated that love by giving us righteousness,
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Christ's righteousness. How he was vindicated by being raised from the dead. I wanted to write about those things.
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But Jude had honor and hallowedness for God. So what does the text say?
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I felt the necessity to write to you, appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.
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Now, here's my question. To whom is Jude writing? Pastors, elders, deacons, leaders?
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Well, there's always a way to find out, isn't there? Look at Jude, verse one. Jude, a sponsor of Jesus Christ, a slave of Jesus, brother of James.
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To, from to, to those who are called, beloved in God the
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Father and kept for Jesus Christ. Who is supposed to be contending for the faith?
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Who should stand up for the faith once delivered when God's name is dishonored? Your spouse, your pastor, your elder,
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John MacArthur. What's the answer? You, you are to contend.
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You cannot have this philosophy that says, I'm gonna let sleeping dogs lie. I don't wanna be known as a negative person.
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I wanna be known what we're for and not what we're against. If you have that idea, that's not
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Christianity. That's not hallowing God's name. Now, it doesn't mean you need to be Mr. Confronter and Rambo guy all the time.
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And sometimes I've been Rambo and sometimes I've been called Rambo and probably be called Rambo again. But I have this desire in my heart that says, how dare you speak of my
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Lord that way? That is profaning, that is blasphemy. And I want to stand up, 2
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Timothy says, with gentleness, with the idea knowing that I used to be that person.
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And you don't have to contend like I am now kind of yelling. This is preaching after all.
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I don't mean yelling is preaching. But in your own way, in your own personal circumstances, when someone says something to you in your home or their home and they dishonor
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God, you should contend for the faith. You should stand up for the faith. And look at the way he says it here, beloved.
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Kind of an unusual beginning for this letter of stand up for the faith. He loves the people.
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He's a pastor, he's a watchman. He wants God's honor. He wants the welfare of his people.
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I was gonna write to you, but these false teachers slammed my funny bone down and I had to do something about it.
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And I'm appealing as a pastor would that you contend earnestly for the faith.
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Some people run from a battle. Jude says, I think you're that way.
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So through the power of the Spirit and His word, I'm charging you to run to the battle. It's like a person,
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Jude is a person, who's running alongside a marathon runner saying, you're almost there, keep going, way to go.
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We're at the 20 mile mark, only a little bit of time to go. Instead, here he says, you gotta contend.
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Don't let anybody say that about your Lord. Don't let anybody say anything like that. Stand up for truth.
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This is no choice. Stand up for the faith.
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You see the text? There's the definite article the in front of it. Stand up for the faith. Not for faith, but for the faith, the one faith that was delivered how many times?
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One time, this faith shown in the Bible, we stand up for that. Why? Verse four, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed.
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They're sneaky people in the church. Those who are long marked out for this condemnation.
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Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
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Stand up for God's honor. Would you turn with me to Numbers chapter 25? And I intend here to blow your mind.
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If it's not already blown, this is a passage that if you read it like any person on earth would read it, the circuit breaker is gonna switch.
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It's going off. There's electricity. You read this passage and the circuit breaker breaks.
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I read this to the kids the other night. Numbers 25. Now here's what
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I'm gonna ask you before we read it. As we read this passage, I want you to say to yourself, is this a good thing that Phineas did?
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Is he to be commended or is he to be despised or chastened or, you know, this is the black sheep of the family and he's kind of involved in our family but we don't want anybody to know about it.
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Now certainly this isn't the church, this is Israel, but I think we can see something about contending for God's honor and hallowed name here by Phineas in a way that's shocking.
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Numbers 25. While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab.
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ESV, I think it says they whored. They invited the people to sacrifices of their gods.
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By the way, these were Moabite people and in all kinds of sexual immorality and worshiped by horrible sexual things and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
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So what Israel do? They were holy like God is holy.
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No. So Israel joined themselves to the Baal Appeal and the Lord was angry against Israel.
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The Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the
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Lord, before Yahweh, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.
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So Moses said to the judges of Israel, each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal Appeal.
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Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his relatives a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel.
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While they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting, God is going to judge Israel for their sin and this guy is basically in your face more sin.
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We don't care about you and Moses and God and holiness and we've already been warned not to do this. We're going to just do this sin right in your face.
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This is it. Here you go, God. Here you go, Moses. Blatant profaning and blaspheming
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God in His holiness. What would you do? Well, maybe
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God will get them later. I hate to stand up or anything because I'm kind of shy with my personality and reserved and quiet.
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Well, I want to be known for what we're for, not what we're against. By the way, if you haven't already noticed, that slogan is stuck in my craw in such a way that I can't wait to get rid of it.
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I'm for everything Jesus is for and I'm against everything Jesus is against. Anybody with me? Of course.
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That's basically, you know, you're going to be comfortable at our church and we're not going to talk about sin. Well, that's fine.
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Just change your name to some kind of tabernacle or temple. Just don't call it a church because that name's taken.
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All right, what about this guy? What's he going to do? When Phineas, which
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Phineas is that? The son of Eleazar. What son is that? The son of Aaron, the priest, saw it.
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He arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand. And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, pierced both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman.
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Through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were 24 ,000.
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Do you think God commended that? Or do you think God said, you know, kind of zealous, a little overboard,
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I think the whole spear thing and kill them both with one. It was economic, but just, you know, they screamed, they shrieked, the gurgle of the blood.
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I think we know the answer. Verse 10, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned away my wrath from the sons of Israel and that he was jealous with my jealousy among them so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in my jealousy.
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Therefore say, behold, I give him, Phineas, my covenant of peace. And it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of perpetual priesthood out of his family are going to be the high priests because he was jealous.
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Now I'll put in my interpretive translation. He was jealous for God's holy name. He was contending earnestly for the faith of God and his holiness.
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And then God made atonement for the sons of Israel. It's shocking, isn't it?
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That's shocking for the holiness of God. Now, am I calling you to grab the spears literally?
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Well, I think you know the answer. But with the same zeal of Phineas, when something is done to dishonor
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God, then say, God, would you give me the grace and the boldness to say the truth, to stand up for his name?
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And you say, well, you know what, if I do that, I'm not gonna have many friends. Welcome to apostolic life.
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Welcome to the life of Christ. We have it all wrong. We want to have everybody like us, to be everybody's buddy.
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That's actually the new kind of evangelism. We're your friends, we're cool. We can do whatever you do.
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Jesus thinks that's cool. I think that's cool too. And you don't have to shun the world at all. And we're just all kind of cool together and we're all buddies together.
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And we're not judgmental. The Bible says the church people are to contend earnestly for the faith.
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If Matthew's this great book about King Jesus, and we see people who are in King Arthur's court, stand up for the name of King Arthur, who's a man, fictional man.
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And we see the chivalry and we see the loyalty and we say those things cause me to say valor.
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I want to follow them. I see that it's good. How much more than when God's name is profaned or something said about God, that we're to stand up and say, well, you know, friend, you said that about God, but I don't think you have the slightest idea about God.
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And let me tell you who he really is. We don't have to shout at people, but we can certainly explain it.
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Sometimes you maybe just get up and walk out of the room is what you need to do at work. But other times, I think we don't need to say anymore.
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I really wasn't led to contend for the faith. The spirit wasn't moving me. Does the spirit need to move us when we've already been commanded?
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No, we don't want to have a confronting ministry. Well, what's my ministry? I confront. But we want to have a contending ministry, standing up for the faith.
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And it's going to be difficult because after Jesus gave his call to discipleship, to salvation, he talked about being ashamed of his words.
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You have a savior that says, if you want to be saved, it's all or nothing. It's the narrow road. Everything that your grandparents taught you, everything that your friends believe, your parents have taught you, if it's not biblical, it's all rubbish.
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It's all nothing. It means nothing. It says nothing. It's actually negative. And there's one way, one
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Lord, one master, one book, and you either believe this one savior or there's damnation eternally.
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That's our message. It will not create people who go, wow. You know what it'll create though?
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It'll create a church that says, thank you Lord for saving us. Because when you know how low you've been and you know how great
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God's grace is, the difference is called what? Praise. The difference yields praise,
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I should have said. And you say, man, but if I'm pretty good and God's not really that great, then the result yields tax write -offs and community fun.
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This is a war we're in. And I think we're in a war to hallow God's name. I don't think
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I'm probably the best guy to invite to a cocktail party. I wonder if you're the best guy or gal to invite.
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I wonder if everyone knows that when they invite you, you'll be sweet and kind. And you're the Christian that really never causes any waves and doesn't really say much.
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I hope you're kind and loving and gentle and have the fruit of the spirit. But I hope they all know when we invite this person over, just by them standing there, we realize that this person will stand up and hallow
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God's name. If one of you ever said something about my wife, that dishonored her or defamed her, and I did nothing, you would say about me what?
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You would say he's a coward. If I just heard some horrible things about my wife, and I just went back into the nursery there and grabbed a bottle and started sucking on it, you would say of me, that's a man
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I'll follow. He's like Peter. He's like James. He's like Jude.
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He's like John the Baptist. How much more then, when people say one thing that's not true about God, shouldn't it churn inside of us that we should say,
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God, give me the wisdom. God, give me the grace. God, give me the gentleness. Yet God help me obey, hallowed be thy name.
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And when you do that, it won't be a slogan on your wristband. It'll be for God's glory.
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Let's pray. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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I pray in our church and our beloved church family here, from those who work in nursery, set up chairs, library, pulpit ministry,
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Mozambique, that our lives might be exactly what we've learned about today, in action and in attitude, devoted to hallowing your name.
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You're such a great king. You're an awesome king. You're a king that deserve to, we deserve to be banished from your kingdom and sent your son to rescue us.
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And now we're in your courtroom forever. We're like Meshibeth, sitting at the king's table.
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We thank you for that. Help us to be worthy citizens of your kingdom. We know we've fallen short.
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We know we could never do this without your spirit's grace and power. We thank you that the spirit of God, he's fully
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God, he's fully alive. He fully indwells in us. And Father, may he have his good pleasure in our lives as he promotes us to hallow your name.