Andrew Meher: If you have Bible, would you open up to the book of Exodus, chapter three? We're going to read verses one through fourteen there in a moment. if you're just joining us or you haven't been here much this fall, we started a couple of weeks ago a new teaching series called Praying Like Jesus, where we are learning to pray as Jesus taught us. And there's one prayer in the Gospels that Jesus taught us to pray. His disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray. And he said, When you pray, pray this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And don't lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And that prayer has been prayed. for two thousand years by followers of Jesus around the globe. Now how many of you grew up in a church tradition where you said that prayer every single week and you weren't really sure what you were saying? How how many of you grew up in a tradition where you would never actually say that prayer because we don't want to pray a prayer that's like written because that would mean we don't mean it. And so we don't do that. Anyone grew up in a tradition like that was my tradition. We don't pray written prayers because then I won't mean it. It won't be authentic. It won't come from the heart. And how many of you maybe have just heard like some of those lines or lines changed in in like Hollywood movies or something like that? Like I'm thinking of like Godfather, maybe it's not the Godfather, one of those like mob move mob movies, right? Where they're where they're praying like the Lord's Prayer and they're praying these different things, and then it's like cutting to videos of of hits being carried out in their name. so we've got like a lot of different ideas about how the Lord's Prayer is to be used in our minds. but what I want to say is to pray. Pray like Jesus, to pray like Christians and and not like anyone else might imagine prayer, is to pray in the way that Jesus taught us to pray in this prayer. Jesus said in Matthew, if you remember the last couple of weeks, he said, don't pray like the pagans, like people who do not know who the one true God is. they pray anxious prayers, they pray fearful prayers, they pray worried that they're not gonna have enough. They're always focused on their material possessions and getting more. Don't pray like hypocrites who are just trying to look spiritually better than everyone and mature and they want to be seen. They don't pray in secret to their heavenly father. That's not how I want you to pray. When you pray, pray like this. And then he gave them the Lord's Prayer. And he did it in it in two ways. One thing is Jesus said, pray this, literally, recite this prayer. So we are commanded as Christians to literally pray that prayer, recite it. But also, you'll see, and scholars have pointed this out, there are places where Jesus essentially prays, like in John's Gospel in particular, Jesus prays the Lord's Prayer, but he doesn't pray it word for word. He almost uses it as a model to pray his own personal prayers. And one of the things that I want us to see is that Jesus is teaching us how to pray a prayer that is written, and we should pray that prayer together and by ourselves, but also we should use that prayer to inform the way we pray our own personal prayers. Does that make sense? And so everything we're doing, some of some someone respond. That makes sense? Okay, I was a little worried there. It was like so when we pray the Lord's Prayer. We are praying, we're both learning how to pray a prayer that's memorized, that's written, that's a traditional prayer that's been s prayed together for 2,000 years. But we're also learning how to learn, well, what is this prayer actually saying? Why these words? What does it mean? And how can that inform the way my personal prayers to God should be prayed every day? And so this week, last week we looked at the first line, our Father in Heaven. We talked about how we have a father that we come to, this always wants us to come to him in prayer. And today we're going to look at this second line: hallowed be your name, which I know all of you say hallowed on a regular basis. And so this is a word you're all very familiar with. but this is it's a strange word. And so what we're going to do is we're going to read a text that may be a familiar story to some of you in Exodus chapter 3, that it's going to help us understand a little bit about why Jesus said. So let's read this together. Exodus chapter 3, verses 1 through 14. It says this: Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight. Why the bush does not burn up? When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush. Moses Moses And Moses said, Here I am. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out to the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites and Hittites, Samorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebuzites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh, to bring my people, the Israelites. Israelites out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt? And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain. Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you. And they asked me, What is his name? Then what shall I tell them? God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites. I am, has sent me to you. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hearts to know, and our minds to understand your word to us today. That we would be people who learn how to pray like you. And that your Holy Spirit would strengthen us and empower us to receive the life of God as we learn to pray. In Jesus' name. Amen. I don't know how many of you with children or when you had children, if you ever have had children, or maybe yourself when you were a kid, you got into building with Legos. Anyone love Legos? I love Legos. my kids kind of have a smattering of some Legos and some Duplo blocks. We haven't gotten super, super deep into Legos yet, but who knows what might happen. The thing about Legos, though, is they're really fun and you can do a lot of different things. But how many of you have ever tried to build one of those really complicated Lego sets without the instructions? Doesn't go too well, does it? You you got this kind of idea about how each step is supposed to go, this thing you can look to that will help make this thing into what what you see the the image of. and and if you try to do it yourself, there's like these videos online of people looking at the finished product and they're trying to figure out how to put it together without the actual instructions. It doesn't usually end up well. It's usually kind of messed up. There's something missing. It breaks under its own weight because we're trying to build it kind of based on on its own understanding and idea. And it wasn't based off of the original instructions and the original model. and as we think about praying, hallowed be your name, this this image of Legos is really, really helpful for us because just like with these Legos, if we do not have one that we are looking to in prayer. Then we will only be able to put something together that that is kind of clunky and will sort of collapse under its own weight. Remember, I said a couple weeks ago that that the whole point of prayer is for us to be shaped into the life of God. We're with we're given the Holy Spirit, right? How much more will your Father, Jesus said, give you the Holy Spirit when you ask him? The very presence and life and person of God filling our lives is what we get in prayer, to be drawn into the life of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Prayer is not just like hoping we feel like a little bit more comfortable about things as they currently are. It is about pulling us into this whole other life that God has and God is. And and so if we're in prayer and we're not looking to that life that God is, then it's gonna be really hard to construct something that looks like God as we pray. Are you with me? and so the invitation of the second line of the Lord's Prayer here, hallowed be your name, is to bring us out of the broken, unfinished life that we all live and into this wholeness and fullness of our glorious Father. If we're focused on praying like Jesus then and and we want to be drawn into this life of this glorious Father, why are we reading a text from the Old Testament this morning? Well, what Jesus is teaching us about prayer is rooted in a whole way of thinking about the holiness and the name of God, and it all finds its origins in this very text in Exodus that we read this morning. For Jesus to say, hallowed be your name, to his original audience, they are immediately going to think of this text that we just read. Because it is the moment where God reveals God's name to his people. It is the moment where God reveals in a different way than he did to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Reveals his character and his nature. And this idea of God's name is going to be continued to be developed. This idea of God's holiness and otherness continues to be developed throughout the Old Testament. Moses has this encounter with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the same God, of course, that we were learning about when we studied Genesis over the summer, who created the world, who prom made a promise to this people that Moses was now a part of. This promise that God would bless the whole world. Through this family, that every nation, every people group, every language, every culture would be blessed through this family that Moses was now a part of. And so he meets, he sees this burning bush. This is strange, and he goes to it. God is about to reveal himself to Moses to help save the people of Israel, this most significant moment in Israel's history. And Moses is going to approach this. Bush that is not burning up, and God reveals himself in that moment in two significant ways that Jesus' audience would have been thinking about. First, he reveals himself in his holiness when God says, Take off your shoes. The ground you are on is holy. We'll talk more about holy in a minute, but essentially for now, you can just understand that word to mean this is other. This is a set apart, different thing. do do you have bad associations with the word holy in your mind? Some of you might. I I certainly did at at some points in my life. I would have moments where I'd think of holy, and it was just like, ugh, like, like I would think of people who kind of were like, I'm holy. I'm not, I'm not, I don't want to, I don't want to be near you. It feels like this separateness, but in an arrogant way, right? That that's a that's a very flawed understanding of holiness that unfortunately we kind of have to like unlearn. Because when the scriptures talk about holiness, what we're talking about is this God who is so other, not just than us, but he is so other and separated from creation. Gotta remember, God's not part of creation. God made all of creation, all of time and space, and if you nerd out watching quantum mechanic videos. On YouTube, you learn this real quick. Like, there's this really bizarre world and universe that we don't fully understand, and God is completely outside of that. God is other. But God, in his infinite love, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, as we learned over the summer, created this world, loves this world, wants to bless this world. But because God is other, we have to approach God. Differently than we do just everything else in our life that's normal and common and typical. Not because God is arrogant, but because God needs us to be trained into another way of seeing life in the world. Are you with me? So God reveals himself as holy, and then also God reveals his name. God says, I am who I am. Now that's a pretty bold statement. None of us can say that. I know Descartes wanted to say, I think, therefore I am. for you philosophy people, right? Who's trying to say, I have a thought, that's how I know I exist. And that's a kind of like actually a very arrogant thing to say. Because we exist because our parents exist, is actually the true statement, right? And they exist because our grandparents exist. And those grandparents exist because of great grandparents exist. And eventually we would say as Christians that we all exist because God exists. But God doesn't say I am because my parents are or I am because my mother is. God says I am who I am. There's not there's nothing else. I just am, God says. There is something unique and foundational. That we're understanding here. And this is why Jesus is teaching us to say, hallow or holy or honored is the Father's name. This is a name that is not producible, not reproducible by anyone else in any other setting. It's so other, it's so unique, it's so significant. Now, this feels like really like, okay, great. So God's super far off, and so this is now irrelevant for my life. That's kind of how I think about it. Is that how you think about it too? Okay, if God is that other and different and far off, then this is now starting. I like the idea of our Father. I can get into that. Like I can be close to God, right? But then there's like the but holy, I'm like, I don't know how to understand this. But for some reason, Jesus is putting these together and saying we approach God calling him our Father, but then we also say, Holy is your name, or hallowed be your name. And there's something about these being together that matters deeply for being able to pray in a way where we begin to come into the life of God. So each of these words, holiness and name, I just want to unpack them just a little bit more. And then this will help us understand really practically why it matters that we pray, hallowed be your name. Just to unpack this word hallowed a little bit more. It means like holy or glory or honored. Many of us, if we think about glory. if we think about honor, we know how to give gl honor and respect to people that we know in life. In fact, we like to have glory and gain honor for ourselves a lot of times in different ways. we seek opportunities just kind of naturally to feel good about ourselves. And so we don't maybe say, I'm gonna try and get glory today. you don't want you don't get out of bed and say that, do you? You that might be weird. But we do say things like, I want to be respected in my career. Or we say, I want to be really secure in my like material possessions and comfort and my money situation. I want to be really, I want to feel really secure. These are ideas associated with glory. I want to have a sense that I have made something of me on my own terms. I want relationships that are fulfilling me. Now, none of these things kind of in some ways are necessarily wrong that we they want to make sure we have enough money for providing for our needs, right? We want to have relationships that are healthy and good. We want to work hard in our jobs and our careers and all of these things. But when these things become ways of seeking glory, they've become something else. They become something else. Even sometimes, you know, I find myself doing this sometimes lately. you can even, believe it or not, as a parent, be seeking glory through the success of your children. if they do really good, this is gonna look really good on me. And so I want to put them in the best extracurriculars so they can get into the best college, so they can do this, and then I could, you know, my kid went to that school. It's is it really about the kid or about your own personal glory? Like, what's going on here, right? And so we have these things that we're constantly trying to do to gain glory. But I love what Rich Velotis says. He says, the problem is when we attempt to gain glory, instead of give glory, we are crushed under its weight. Gaining glory crushes us because ultimately, as I said a few weeks ago, it's like we're looking in a mirror at this broken image of God. It's just reflecting us back at ourselves. And we think that we're doing something great, but it's just us kind of in this echo chamber back to ourselves. And we get crushed under life's weight and trying to be the fulfiller of our own fulfillment. And so so we get crushed by trying to give gain glory instead of give glory. And Jesus recognizes that this is the reality in our human nature. He recognizes this, and Jesus knows that to pray in the way that the pagans and the hypocrites do, which they're concerned about. More material income, more success. They want to look spiritually mature on the outside to people. They're trying to gain glory, right? And Jesus recognizes if we pray in that way, all we're going to do is create impossible standards of self-worship on ourselves that we'll never be able to get past. And so we need to pray in a way that does not seek to gain glory, but gives glory. And so Jesus teaches us very intentionally that we need to hallow. His name, to give glory to God. Now this we need to give glory to specifically the name of God. Now, why are we saying name here? We heard in Exodus 3, what name should I give them? What is this name? My name is I am. This is where we get the the word, if you've heard the the the Hebrew word Yahweh. It it's essentially I am is sort of like four Hebrew consonants that sound like a breath, like Yahweh. It it's it it it's we don't have exactly the pronunciation or how it's how it's pronounced, but that's essentially it. And and this name functions as God's identity, it's God's reputation, it's God's character, it's God's nature, it represents all that God does or doesn't do. you understand this to a certain extent when you think about like a legal document. If you have a legal document, right? You have a contract or a will or an MOU or something like that, some kind of memo that you sign off on or agree to. And if you fail to follow through with that thing that you have put your name on, then your name has kind of faltered or failed, if you will. That makes sense to us. Our name carries some weight when we sign those legal documents. Well, God's name and God's reputation carry weight. In fact, God's name and reputation is so reliable that it bears the very weight and presence of God on it. So you'll see throughout the Old Testament the use of God's name. God might be enthroned in heaven, but it'll say, His glory, his name covers the earth. God will say, When you build this temple and dedicate it to me, he says, My name will rest there. God's reputation is so weighty in Scripture, it's like it has its own presence. Isn't that interesting? God's name is so weighty and powerful. God is so committed to following through on his promises. God's promises and word never fail. His name is always a guarantee when it's signed on the contracts of life. So God's name means a lot here to say, holy is your name, hallowed be your name. This is a name that never fails to follow through. This is why in the prophet Ezekiel, when Ezekiel is talking about, man, Israel, you have failed again. This isn't working. You have disobeyed God, you have not kept up the commandments that God has had. And so then Ezekiel says something to this effect, and a lot of the prophets do this. God, God speaks through Ezekiel and says, You have not done this, but God says, I will still do this and honor my promise for the sake of my name. God says, I still signed a contract and I still plan on honoring that contract. My name will always follow through. So when we think about holiness, we can also think about this as an unfailing reputation. All of us have reputations, as good as they might be, they fail sometimes, right? Our names fail sometimes, but God's name never fails, and this is part of his holiness. It is a name that never fails to do what it says it's going to do. Are you with me so far? So here's kind of the problem though, is we like to associate God's name with a bunch of stuff that God says, that is nothing that I'm doing. The Israelites do this all through the Old Testament. I'll get to two stories briefly towards the end, just to give you a picture of how this could affect us. People associate God's name with all kinds of things. By the way, this is why we get the commandment in the Ten Commandments: do not use the Lord your God's name in vain. Has nothing to do with swearing. I know some of you are like shocked right now. It has nothing to do with swearing. It says, do not associate my name with something that I have nothing to do with. It is crucial if we begin when we begin to pray, hallowed be your name, that we understand that this name is so holy, there are things we can associate with the name, the reputation of God, and there are things that we should never bring near that name. Because this name is holy and set apart and always cares for those who are in need and does what it says it is going to do. And so you and I, we either take glory on ourselves and try and gain glory, or we do a pretty poor job of giving God glory. How many of you feel really great about your prayer life right now? One theologian put it this way: we all worship badly to greater or lesser degrees. I think that's a great way to put it. But I think that just takes the pressure off. We all worship badly. It's just to greater or lesser degrees. I appreciate the amen on that. Only God can truly honor God. So the question is if we're so bad at this and we all worship poorly, then why does it matter that Jesus is teaching us to pray, hallowed be your name? Why does it matter that God's name be kept holy, that it remain front and center before us? There's three reasons that I want to briefly give to you. And the first one is this: we are taught to pray, hallowed be your name, to humble us. Because only God can honor God. So to pray, hallowed be your name, is a recognition of our human limitations. I'm saying hallowed be your name, but I know there are going to be moments where I do not hallow your name. In fact, Lord, I do the exact opposite. In fact, Lord, I can think of five things I'm doing right now to try and gain my own glory or am trying to associate with your name that do not belong to your name. And so I need to pray this humble prayer of hallowed be your name, and God, please, will you make your name great? Because I'm doing a pretty poor job right now. And we recognize in humility, we are humbled by this. This is why God gives them this name. My name is I am who I am, meaning like we we might, like with my children, we gave them names. We have some sense of kind of voice in their life, especially at the beginning, because we named them. But God saying, I am who I am is like you don't get to name me. You don't get to speak into who I am and what I do. You just get to deal with the reality of who I am because I am God. And and so for us. Let me just say this. This isn't in my notes, but I I feel prompted to say this right now. It's really important that we remember what I just said. We don't get to choose this, we just have to deal with who God is on his terms. It's really important that that not strike fear in us in in a in a unhealthy way. There's a reverent fear and awe, but there's also a fearful kind of fear. And this is why we have to remember what we started with last week. We have a good father. The one that we cannot name or deal with is a good father who wants to give us more than the best earthly father ever could. We started with that last week. And it's very important to remember. So we could say it this way, as the writer of Hebrews say, we come boldly before the throne of grace, but hallowed be your name helps us remember it's still a throne we're approaching. But we come boldly. And so I just wanted to say that because we can really get a twisted idea in our minds about how we are being humbled. We are being humbled like little children, not as fearful subjects. And so we come before God, this one who we cannot name, who we always fail at one point or another to live up to his reputation. And God, in his mercy, will always make sure his name and his reputation are hallowed. And so we just pray as a way of being made humble. God, hallowed be your name. Because you know the moments that I do not. Praying this way also helps us to remain dependent on God, even dependent on God for the ability to say that God, you are holy and you are honored. And so, in turn, we we're humbled as we pray this, but it not only humbles us, but when we pray, hallowed be your name, it also shapes us. It also shapes us. This is probably the most crazy, crazy thing about praying hallowed be your name. Because here's what it does God's holiness makes us holy. When we pray, hallowed be your name, we are entering into the process of being made holy like God, all through the New Testament. If you just quickly look through, especially the beginning, introduction of all of the New Testament letters that some of the early church leaders wrote, many of them begin with to the saints at Ephesus, to God's holy church in Corinth or Galatia or somewhere like that. These words saints and holy get used a lot to describe not super special Christians. actually often quite messed up groups of people that are trying their best to muddle through following Jesus. And these letters start with to the saints, to the holy church. The saints literally just means holy ones. You you you are being holy. In fact, in First Peter, he says, you are a royal priesthood. You're a you're a holy nation because you are following Jesus. You're this new holy people because of who God is, not because of anything you've done, just because of who God is and because God is hallowed. And you are becoming that people by your attentiveness to the holy name. we're we were talking this morning and and praying and and I I was looking at my coffee cup and and and I just had this sense of I'm gonna admit something to you that as a coffee snob I don't like admitting e easily. coffee is really just strongly flavored water. And I was sitting there looking at my coffee cup as we're praying, and I was realizing that this coffee is just strongly flavored water because what I noticed at the very bottom is there were a few grains of coffee grounds in there. And I was thinking about how we have these coffee beans, which are really coffee. That's the actual coffee. It has the smell, it has the flavor, it has all that, right? But but when the water, that's just water, makes contact with those grounds, something happens to. The nature of that water, and we don't call it water anymore, we call it coffee. Even though all it is is heavily flavored water. But it has come in contact with the grounds. And the grounds have profoundly changed it to the point where we usually, when we say, let's get coffee, we're not talking about beans, we're talking about a cup of strongly flavored water. Now I want you to hear this because the the that strongly flavored water that we call coffee is not in itself coffee. But it has passed through what is actually coffee and has taken on all of these flavors and aromas and property of it. This is what is happening to you and I. We have no kind of in internal holiness that's naturally there, that's a part of us. But when we pray, hallowed be your name, when we resist trying to gain glory or associate God's name somewhere else, and we recognize and are attentive to the holy God, it's like we pass through the grounds of God's But we have no holiness in and of ourselves. It's only because we have been with the Holy God. That is stunning to me and bizarre and feels like there should be a couple more requirements to get to be holy. But because of what Jesus has done as the only human who has never failed to hallow the Father's name, Jesus has made a way for all of humanity to now join into that holiness. And we become holy people simply by fixing our attention on a holy God. And so when we pray, hallowed be your name, we are humbled, we are shaped, but we are also kept. When we pray, we pray, hallowed be your name, because Jesus wants to keep us. Because otherwise we would deteriorate into destructive idolatry. we would deteriorate into destructive idolatry. When I say idolatry, what I mean by that is focusing on something for direction and instruction in our life that is less than God. What what do I mean by that? This doesn't mean like you shouldn't listen to your teacher in school. This doesn't mean you should ignore like just basic facts and things that you learn. What I'm talking about is who is informing and driving the way you behave in everyday life. Let me give you the easiest example to do this with is money. If I develop strong desires for a certain level of comfort, or I really like, like most of us, right, I'd really like to have that. I'd really like to be able to do that. Well then I need to chase the kind of job or career that's going to afford me the ability to do that. That's just a really simple example. I'm not talking about like trying to like make enough money to have a place to live here. You hear what I'm saying? You hear the difference? I know this is like a little bit startling to us, but as soon as I make decisions about material comfort and trying to accumulate possessions and have more, and then I make decisions like, for example, where to live, what kind of car to get, if I'm not-I'm not gonna be generous. I I need this because I want to do this here. I am beginning to make money an idol because I'm using it to inform and make decisions about how I live my life. Does that make sense to you? And so as soon as we do that with anything, a marriage, another kind of friendship or relationship, even with parents or anything like that, a career where we're chasing fame, any kind of way we're trying to gain glory, what begins to happen to us is we become a distorted version of who we were created to be as humans in God, because we have started to look for something at something to instruct us about how to live life that is less than God. This is what idolatry is. Let me give you two examples from scripture to help you understand how this idolatry thing really distorts us. And they both have to do two stories of two golden calves in the Old Testament. The first one has Moses' brother, Aaron. Can you believe this guy? Moses' own brother, later in the book of Exodus. Moses, this is after they've been freed from Egypt. They're out in the wilderness, and and Moses is goes up on Mount Sinai. everyone's picturing like Charlton Heston or something. And they they go up there on the on the mountain, and he's in God's glory, and he's meeting with God, and he's getting the Ten Commandments, and instructions on how to live well together as a society that will not destroy itself because it's not built like all of the other societies that are looking at something other than the one true God, right? And and so this is the instructions that Moses is getting. While that's happening, the people are getting impatient. Where is our God with directions on how we will be a great people? Will he hurry up, please? Aaron, Moses isn't coming. Do something about it. And Aaron, at this point in his life, unfortunately, is a really big people pleaser. And he's afraid of what the people thought of him. And so he's like, you know what? Give me all your gold jewelry. And he melts it down and he makes this golden calf. Statue. And I want you to notice what Aaron says. You can read the story later in Exodus sometime. Aaron does not say, Here is your new God that you're going to worship. Like one of the Old Testament deities of other nations was called Baal. And they would say, Here is Baal. Here is Baal, and you're going to worship Baal. Notice Aaron doesn't do that. This is really important. Aaron says, Behold the gods who led you out of Egypt. Do hear what happened there? Aaron associated something that had to do with God's name with something that had nothing to do with God's name. Are you following me? This is how idolatry works, and probably the most dangerous kind of idolatry. And it begins to shape our worship based on our preference instead of what God has instructed us to live into. Are you following me? Okay, I know this is a little complex, but this is really important. There's one more golden calf story later in the Old Testament. These people never learn. And neither do we, so it's encouraging. The story of Amos, he's one of the Old Testament prophets. and at this point in Israel's history, this is right before it kind of all collapses, Israel was in the promised land. They'd been established there, they'd had a kingdom for a while, but there was a civil war. And so the northern part of Israel's kingdom split off from the southern part. And the southern part was where. Where the temple was in Jerusalem, where God said his name would be, right? And his name would be there in the temple. Well, the northern king, the northern kingdom didn't like that. And so he decided that God's name would also be in a place called Bethel in the northern kingdom. And he put a temple there, but he put another golden calf in it. These people in golden calves. and and t the the golden calf by the way is a symbol of kind of like economic power, which is why they w in that in that era and in that day and age, that's why they would put that there. If you put that there, it's a sign that you're strong. By the way the world looks at things. And so and so they had this golden calf in there, and they were saying, This is God. They were saying, This is the God who led us out of Egypt. Same thing. They are associating things with the name of God that had nothing to do with God. And so Amos the prophet starts decrying the idolatry at Bethel, this false worship center set up. Using God's name incorrectly and unfaithfully. And here's the thing that Amos explains. If you read the book of Amos, he begins to explain what happens as a result, the destructive power as a result of their idolatrous worship. And Amos talks about how, because you're kind of creating a God through your own preferences, you're gonna begin to decide that this God looks a lot like you and likes the same things you like. And so here's what happened. The the the powerful leaders and the wealthy that that established this here, they started to say things like, you know what? we need more economic success. And so Amos starts pointing out that they're mistreating the poor and the weak. And and people who need money, they need food for sh and they need shelter and things like that, they're being forced to work for little to no money because they're desperate and they're in terrible conditions. And Amos connects all of this injustice in sus in their society to them associating the name of God with a false God. And friends, when we pray, hallowed be your name, we are being kept from the conditions that allow us to destroy ourselves and our neighbors. When you see injustice in the world, it is at its core idolatry, because we have decided to make decisions on how to behave as a society that have nothing to do with how God taught us to behave and treat each other and honor Him. And so to say, hallowed be your name, is a cry for God to keep us from destroying ourselves and destroying our neighbors and the world around us, because we will just go to that so fast when we begin to make God look like us. This is why we pray, hallowed be your name. Like the like the building with Legos. Without the instructions in front of us, the real instructions. In this case, in prayer, the very face of this holy God, when that's not in front of us, we will never become what we are called to be. We will become distorted and destructive false images. We'll destroy ourselves. We'll destroy other people. We won't be humble. We won't become like God. We will become distorted things in the world that are actually subhuman and not really the full thing that God has created all of us to be. But this is when the authors of the New Testament point to Jesus. They say, when we pray, hallowed be your name, we are being called to be like, as the writer of Colossians says, like Jesus, who is the image. Literally the word translated there is idol. He is the image of the invisible God. You want to look to someone, look to Jesus. And you will become like the one true God. You will be humbled. You will be shaped into God's holiness. You will be kept from destructive ways of life that destroy you and destroy your neighbors. When we look to the real thing, we will begin to construct a life that looks like the life God has designed and created for us. And so we pray: hallowed be your name. I want to make this really practical as we close and just and just give you a question to to ponder here before we come to the table to receive the body and the blood. And the question is this, what ideas have you created about God that have more to do with you than with God? Another way to to say this that that's not on the screen is how have you been heaping glory on yourself rather than on God? Or even another way, what have you been associating with God's name that has nothing to do with God? This might in you lead to a sense of oops. That's a good thing. Because we can come boldly before the throne of grace to our Father. We'll talk about forgiveness in a few weeks. But it begins with that: our Father, hallowed be your name. Lord, there are things where in my life I have been trying to gain glory. So instead of that, hallowed be your name. There are things in my life, Lord, where I, man, I have been thinking that this is what you're doing, God, and this is something you're doing, and I see that you have no part in that. Hallowed be your name. Help me to see that more clearly. Lord, there are ideas I have about who you are that have nothing to do with you. And so, Lord, help me see who you really are. Hallowed be your name. May we become like you and like Jesus. As we pray, hallowed be your name, may we be humbled and shaped and kept so we can be like Jesus. I'm gonna give you a moment in silence to be still. And then we're gonna say the Lord's Prayer together as we prepare for communion. But would you just, a team, you guys can just wait for a second, if you don't mind. Let's just sit together for a moment and hallow the Lord's name, honor God's name together, our Father's name. Would you stand with me as we pray the prayer that Jesus gave us together? it we'll I was gonna say, I was gonna have it on the screen, but I don't I don't know that I have it in there. I'm sorry. So we're gonna try and stumble through this, but I'm gonna pray it. And if you can pray it with me, feel free to. I apologize, I forgot to give them the slides to put that on the screen. But let's let's pray this together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts. as we also for have forgiven our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.