As preached by Pastor Tony Evans.
A man one day was talking to a friend of his. And they were discussing biblical things. And the gentleman looked at his friend and said, you don’t really know that much Bible. I bet you you don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, I’ll give you $10 If you recite the Lord’s Prayer, his friend said, I’ll take that bet. He said, Okay, let’s hear it. The man said, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. Pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake, praise the Lord my soul to take”. His Friend looked at him and laughed. Reach in his pocket, took out $10 I didn’t think you knew it. A lot of people think they know the Lord’s Prayer. It’s recited before sporting events, in locker rooms, civic events, school events, community gatherings. It is the go-to prayer. But we’re going to walk through the Lord’s Prayer word by word line by line.
We introduced it last week where Jesus told his disciples how not to pray. He let them know if you don’t have a prayer relationship in secret, don’t think you’re accomplishing anything in public. He said God looks at the secret closet of communication, because you want a relationship with him. You just don’t want something from him. You want to be with him.
Prayer is relational communication with God. Yes, to draw heaven into history, eternity into time, and the mechanism that God has established his prayer in Luke’s rendition of the Lord’s Prayer, in Luke 11:1, the disciples went to him and said, teach us to pray. We see this power you have these miracles you do we see this direction and, and this hookup you have with God, we want in on that teach us to pray. That needs Jesus to tell them the Lord’s Prayer as it is known, it really could be called the disciples prayer because this is a prayer that Jesus could never pray. So, Jesus can’t never pray this prayer. Because it says, forgive us our trespasses. And he would never need to be forgiven.
So, it’s really not his prayer to pray is him teaching us how to pray. Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. It’s about Thy, or you. The second half is about us. Our daily bread, our trespasses, lead us not into temptation. So, the first half is all about God, the second half is about you. And then he calls he closes it with prayer about God again. That is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. So, it’s God-Us-God.
What leads Jesus into this prayer from verse eight. It says statement that God knows our needs your father already knows. Before you ask what, you’re coming to him to talk about. So, Prayer is not an informational session to inform God. He says, I already know what you want to talk about. I just want to know; do you want to talk to me about it?
Here’s the key. Just because God knows something doesn’t mean he will act on it. He has knowledge of everything. But some things he will not act on until there is relational communication with him about it. So, his knowledge does not equal his action. I know what you need. I just want to know Do you want me or just do you want the meeting of the need? Prayer becomes an answer to that question. Jesus says, pray in this way. In verse nine. Pray like this. This is really not a prayer to be repeated word for word. It is really a framework, a guide for praying. This prayer is one of the most empty prayers prayed by people. Some of you didn’t even look at the screen didn’t even look at your Bible. Because you notice prayer. It’s, it’s been prayed since you were a child. He says pray like this. In other words, follow this guy. Let this be a governing premise as to how you approach prayer. So, it’s nothing wrong with repeating it, but he doesn’t want just meaningless or what he called in verses five through eight, vain repetition, just talking because you’ve memorized it. But he says you can use this as an outline, if you will, for communicating with God. Today, we want to look at verse nine. For verse nine is pregnant with principles for prayer. First of all our father. Point, you are not an only child. It’s not just yo daddy. It’s our father.
Why does Jesus say when you approach me you are approaching and our God, and not just your God? Because you’re not the only kid in the family. If you are a parent and one of your children wants to act like they’re your only kid, there’s gonna be conflict not only with the other kids, but with daddy who has to equally relate to the whole family. So, you can’t be in a family of multiple people. multiple children and function like you’re the only child in it. It’s our father. This is why God has said there are certain things he will not do for one of his children, if they are not connected to the rest of the family.
So, any unchurched uninvolved Christian is blocking the father, from answering their personal needs, because they don’t want to be related to the siblings. So that’s why God wants every Christian to be a functional, ministering part of a local church with the Bible calls the family of God, the household of faith. Scripture says forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, all the one another’s in Scripture, love one another care for one another, support one another, connect with one another, assist one another, all these one another’s in Scripture, because God says you will get more from daddy If I see you relating to your siblings. So, church involvement has to do with Father engagement. One father, many children. So, it’s Our Father, Who is in heaven, not just your daddy. But he is His father.
let’s talk more about that. You only have a father because you got kids. That’s what makes you a father. Everybody who has accepted Christ, John 1: 12 has been made a son or a child or daughter of God. So, you have a father. So, when you approach God in prayer, he wants you to approach him relationally not just God – way up there. But daddy up in here. He wants a relational communication as a father, now the problem is, many of us have had a bad relationship with Father.
Some of you have had no fathers. Others of you might as well have had no fathers, because he was there and not there. Others have had bad fathers or abusive fathers. And the temptation is to start with the Father on earth and let him define your view of the Father in heaven. So, you if you had a bad deal with the Father on Earth, it may have colored your view of your heavenly Father. But the idea is to start with the father of there and let him define fatherhood down here.
So, for all you men who happen to be fathers, let’s find out what the Father is like. So, you and I can know the kind of father you supposed to be. First of all, he his father, by position, because in the scripture the father was the head of the home. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the breakdown of the Father. God always did his covenant through the father, because the father held the post of responsibility. So, if you are a man here, God hose you an ultimate place of responsibility for your home by position, and for your children.
Maybe you didn’t know that, but every man needs to know in the Bible. It is the father’s responsibility to raise the children, not the mother. The Bible says in Ephesians 6: 1-4 fathers, raise your children. It is not the mother’s job to raise the children. It is the father’s job to raise the children. The job of the mother is to help and filling the gaps when the father can’t be there, because that is your role. The Bible tells the fathers to teach their sons. The Bible gives the father the responsibility. So if the father doesn’t own it, you may be father by title, but you’re not father by position, because you’re not carrying out the rearing responsibility that belongs ultimately, certainly with the help of the wife, but ultimately belongs in the hands of the man.
So, if you are the devil, what would you do? Get a father’s out of the home. Because by getting rid of the Father, you’ve cancelled the position, create an extra burden on the mother, and perhaps damage the kids. So, the devil has gotten father’s the way so that people can be messed up about what our heavenly father really looks like.
So, there is a position to be held. The beautiful thing is if we start with our Heavenly Father, he takes responsibility for all of us children, and for all of us who name the name of Jesus Christ. He only That God owns that because that’s what father’s do. In addition to that position of raising the children, his job is to provide.
God told Adam before he gave him my family, I’m going to make you a provider, and I’m going to provide for you. So, I’m going to provide for you so that you can provide for them. Because I’m your Daddy, I want you to be their daddy, in addition to the position, and the provider was the protection. He says you are to guard the guard. And if you guard the garden under me, I’m going to guard you are God you are you guard the garden, and you cover the family. So, it was the god fathering Adam. Adam was the father; the family and Adam wants to get his clues of fathering from God. If you start with your human father, and your human father wasn’t a father worth following, and you transfer that to God, you have a bad attitude toward God, because you had a bad situation with you human father.
So, you’re not an only child, but you do have a father. And he says you start your prayer, recognizing that there is this relational connection with God, even in ministry. I am pastor by position. But Paul says that your role in First Timothy is to follow the flock. So, I’m not just to occupy a position, but I am to father the lives of those who he has placed under me under our pastoral staff that is to care for your wellbeing, because that’s what fathers do. They don’t just show up to eat. They show up to care. And so, our Heavenly Father has a position. He has a provider, he has a protector, and that’s who you talk to when you pray; Our Father.
Second thing you need to know is Our Father, who art in heaven. Translation, our father who’s not on Earth. Your father is a heavenly Father. Now, this is critical. Because you and I live on earth. And on earth, we operate by our five senses. And we are limited by time and space, because we’re Earthbound.
Let me tell you something about your daddy. Your dad is not subject to the limitations of time and space, because your daddy’s house is in heaven. Daniel 4: 26 says, heaven rules over Earth. So, what you need to know when you pray to your unseen father is that he’s very much operative, He’s in heaven. And heaven over-rules Earth. So therefore, the limitations of your earthly father are not the limitations of your heavenly Father, because your earthly father is bound to Earth as you are, but your heavenly Father is not. Therefore, if you put all your marbles on your earthly father, with their limitations, you are going to miss out on the potency of your heavenly Father, who is not subject to this world order. I’m glad to know that earthly fathers don’t have the last word. So if you are raised without a father, if you were raised with an abusive father, if you were raised with a neglected Father, I want you to know right now that that earthly father doesn’t have the last say so over your life. over your recovery, over your stability, over your provision, cuz your daddy got a daddy who is in heaven. That is, he operates out of a whole different realm.
Now, when Jesus was on earth, He prayed to God as his father. Every time Jesus prayed, he prayed relationally. In fact, the only time that I’ve seen in scripture where Jesus prayed and called his Father God was when he died on the cross. My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? every other time. He calls him father. The reason he asked to call him God on the cross, is he’s coming with our sin. So, there’s no fellowship with the Father. So, he got to have him way out there as the transcendent God, but when he was walking on Earth, He called him, father. This is why I love john 20:17, because it says, he tells his disciples, I am going to my father, he’s getting ready to leave Earth and go to heaven. I am going to my father, but then he says, And yours.
I’m not only going to my daddy; I’m going to your daddy too. Now why do you need to know that? You need to know that because what Jesus was telling them that he’s telling us is the same help that my daddy gave me when I’m on earth now that I’m leaving, he makes available to you because you’re as much of his kid as I am. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is seated on the right hand of the Father in heaven. And guess what it says in Ephesians 2:6, we are seated with him. So, the same level of intimacy based on God’s will, that he had with Jesus as he says he wants to have with you if you relate to him as daddy. Some of us have gotten such bad teaching, that we might as well be praying. Our judge who art in heaven, because we walk around feeling this hammer over our head. That’s what legalism does.
It puts a hammer over your head. God is always out to get you. God is always out to judge you. Now, God does have a standard, but that’s not the relationship he wants you to pursue. He wants you to pursue an intimate relationship with Him so that you feel safe and experience His love. Not is discipline, because good fathers do discipline. So, it’s our father, he is your father. Now you’re going to have to grow into this you’re going to have to you have to grow into this. But when you do when you experience Him on the father level, not the judge level, although he does judge not the way out their level, talking King James English; You know, English you would never use Him in Human discussion. You get private with God.. God oh, one who lives in the third heaven, the one who put the stars in space? Okay, you don’t talk to your daddy like that. Oh, Father who goes to work every day. Oh, father who brings home the bacon; Oh Father, you don’t talk to your daddy that way. Because that’s stranger conversation. He wants to talk to one of his kids. Prayer is a kid talking to his dad. And now it becomes a conversation. Not just this a theory of discussion. Our Father who is in heaven, who operates out of that realm, but I’m praying because I need you in this realm. Then it comes to it here. It is. Hallowed be thy name…..
Hallowed be thy name. The Greek word hallowed means to be sacred, separated and unique is to treat as one of a kind. To treat a special a class by itself. It’s from one of the cognates of the word holy to be separate, unique, special. Daddy, t here’s nobody like you. If you’ve been around for some time from time to time, you hear me talk about my dad. He’s in a nursing home now and I fly up as often as I can given everything else is going on, to spend a few days with him in the nursing home.
It’s a joy for me to talk About my father. So, joining me to talk about my father because I know the price he paid for our family. Our father dropped out of high school because my grandfather was not able to make ends Need. To help my grandfather make ends need. He dropped out of school. And then when he could go back to night school so he could finish. When he had the four of us, he was a longshoreman working in the Baltimore Harbor.
And some weeks he wouldn’t have work to do of loading and unloading boats. Sometimes it went on for months that they didn’t call him for work. So I remember now if you were to go to the basement in the home that I grew up in, you’ll see all of this stuff to old TVs or radios because to make ends need, he would go down and he would try to fix the neighbors ready or the neighbors TV to just get a few dollars so we could eat.
As most of you know, I don’t eat fish. I can’t stand fish. But there’s a reason I can’t eat fish and don’t eat fish. Because when my father didn’t get work and couldn’t make ends meet, even shining people’s shoes, he would go fishing. And he would go out and take a net and catch herring. herring a little fish with a billion bones. Okay, he would catch her and by the hundreds. We had herring and eggs for breakfast, harring mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch, herring and greens for dinner, and herring and ice cream for dessert. I mean, we got overwhelmed with herring.
I hate fish. Because for some reason that thing created a negative thing. But my point is, he would do whatever he had to do for his family. He wouldn’t give excuses. He wouldn’t say it’s tough out here. He wouldn’t blame racism. All those things were real. But he had a responsibility to take care of his family.
And so, when it comes to Earth, Hallowed be his name. I celebrate his name. And there is no inconvenience. There is nothing I’m not willing to do that I’m able to do cuz I know. The price he paid when you know the price God paid for your salvation, for your deliverance, it should be a problem hollowing his name. That means to put it in a class by itself, he’s not to be treated like just another deity or just another great you know you are diminishing his name. That’s why the third commandment says, don’t take the name of the Lord in vain. That means don’t not Hallo his name.
Don’t treat his name as ordinary. Don’t treat his name as something regular. We are dealing with super unleaded here, not regular. What does it mean? To not hollow his name that is to treat his name in vain. A lot of ways you can do that. Comedians do it by profaning his name. They will put his name or Jesus’s name at the end at the beginning. of cuss words of evil, and they profane his name. They take the great name of God and they desecrate it. That’s not the hollow his name. Or maybe it’s not something that radical.
Maybe you knew you are lying. But you said, so help me God. So, you used his name to back up your life or your deception. It’s a bad enough you lie, but to put his name on it. That’s why when you go to court, Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
Now, why did they make you do that? Because what they’re saying is if you go lie, after having put your name with God’s name, you have perjured yourself. Because once you do that now, once you bring God’s name into it, you shouldn’t rely on attached That’s how serious in principle, they use the hand on the Bible, and so help you God. Because you can profane me the word vain means empty, with no real reason that there’s you just throwing it out and not recognizing the significance of it.
Okay, I’ve said this before but to understand this idea of hallowed, start making it sacred treating it like it’s like it’s unique. I am enlightened what’s happening in our home with sister Evans and everything. I’ve had to learn to do dishes. for 15 years, I’ve not done dishes. Okay, now I had other responsibilities. You know, the trash cleaning the bathrooms, and my task, but dishes was never one of them. So, I never, I never had to do dishes, but now I got to do dishes. So, I’m trying to figure this out I’ve gotten instruction but I’m trying to figure this thing out. Met as a dishwasher.
But that’s too much like using a computer so and before with that so there’s a dish board, whatever this thing is that holds the dishes over here. And so, I’m, I’m washing the dishes, you know, try to my big problem is not making the water too hot. Just trying to get it. Get it just right. So, every day I’m washing dishes, okay. So, I wash the dishes. Now the reason I’m washing the dishes is because the dishes in the sink are profane. They’re dirty, though the dirty dishes. That’s the reason I’m washing them. When I wash the dishes, they’re no longer hopefully profane. But I’ve gotten the dirt off the dishes. Then the dishes after they dry have to be put up in the cabinet in the kitchen. Those are regular dishes. Those are the dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, they’re profane. If they’re in the sink, they’re dirty, but that they’re clean in the cupboard. But they’re regular because you use those all the time. But in this whole separate room, called the dining room, are The Untouchables. These are the dishes you bet not touch. Unless it’s the birthday, Christmas anniversary, or you got special guests over, you don’t touch those dishes. They are off limits. Why? Because those are special dishes, accompanied by special silverware that has to be used for special purposes. Those are holly dishes. Those dishes get their own room, own glass cabinet. You know, those dishes are not treated, you know, the few times we get the user I kept on tip toe with these things because those are hallowed dishes. These dishes have been separated as unique.
God certainly doesn’t want to deal with the profane. But he doesn’t want you treating him with the regular. He wants you putting them in a class by himself. Now we had some folks at first service. The only reason they were first service is because the Cowboys plan at 12. I taught pointing them out. I pointed them I just pointed folk out who I knew if we’re not here ever at the early service, but when I found out the Cowboys was playing, Cuz they hallowed their name. See, they treated them so special, that they were willing to do something they don’t normally do and get up for somebody that may or may not win. Even some of you here today, who didn’t skip service. Thank you fooling me by having your phone low making me think you’re reading along with me in Scripture. But I know you don’t have to read along with me because I’m just doing verse nine and you just quoted him so every time you look down, I know what you look in to. cuz you hollow their name wherever you go Hello the name of somebody that may or may not we win or may not be successful, what you think you ought to do for the King of kings and the Lord of lords, Who is your daddy?
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Disclaimer:
This sermon is generated out of AI-Powered assistant tool and further edited word for word manually, hence in your reading you might find some miss pronunciation and other unintended errors. I would really appreciate if you can help to point out such case, so that I can work to fix it for the greater good of our community. Thanks
