Latest / Reformed Thinking / Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name’: The God-Centered Heart of Christian Prayer (Matthew 6:9)

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Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name’: The God-Centered Heart of Christian Prayer (Matthew 6:9) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're looking at something
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  so familiar, maybe too familiar. We're going to take the Lord's
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  Prayer and really slow down looking at just the very first
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  line. Reformed thinking.
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  And what's amazing is how that one line, that one opening,
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  contains a truly radical reorientation for, well, for
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  everything. It does.
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  We often say it so fast we just miss it.
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  But our sources for this deep dive?
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  They're all focused on the exegesis of that opening.
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  Matthew 6.9. Our Father in heaven, hallowed
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  be your name. And that's our mission today, to
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  pull out the theological and, you know, the structural truths
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  in that single verse that really set up the controlling aim for a
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  believer's entire life. It's about shifting prayer from
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  a kind of spiritual checklist for ourselves to a God centered
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  act of worship. It's a total recalibration.
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  So let's start where Jesus started, because before he gives
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  the model the right way to pray, he spends a good, good bit of
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  time clearing the ground. He has to.
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  He corrects what prayer is not, and this context from Matthew 6
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  verses 5 to 8. It's just so necessary.
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  The Lord's Prayer only makes sense when you see what it was
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  replacing. That's right, Jesus exposes 22
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  great distortions that were common then, and if we're
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  honest, they're just as common now.
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  What are they? It comes down to wrong motives
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  and wrong theology. You can have a prayer that
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  sounds, you know, perfectly fine, but if the motive behind
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  it is rotten, it's worthless to God.
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  And on the other. Hand you can have a motive that
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  feels sincere, but if your idea of God is all wrong but your
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  prayers basically Pagan. So let's take the first one the
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  motive problem. Our sources call this the
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  exposure of hypocritical practice, a distorted motive.
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  The behavior Jesus points to is really visual.
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  He talks about people praying in public, you know, in the
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  synagogues on the wide St. corners.
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  And the location itself isn't the problem, is it?
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  No. Not at all.
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  The problem is the motive, he says.
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  They do it so they may be seen by others.
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  It's a performance. So the real audience in their
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  mind isn't God, no. It's the people watching.
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  They aren't seeking communion with God.
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  They're trying to build up a reputation.
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  They're using prayer to get social capital to look
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  spiritual. It's spiritual showmanship.
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  Absolutely. The goal is the applause of men.
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  It's an ancient version of what we see all over the place today.
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  You could think of the person whose social media posts about
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  their prayer life are more crafted than their actual
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  prayers. Right, they're using the idea of
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  prayer to promote themselves. And Jesus is just, he's brutal
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  in his assessment of this. He says they have received their
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  reward in full. That sounds very final, like a
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  business transaction. It is the Greek verb there.
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  It implies they've been paid off completely, like a receipt
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  that's been stamped paid in full.
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  The reward they wanted was human approval, and they got it.
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  So that's it, account closed. Account closed.
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  Since they were never really looking for God in the 1st
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  place, they don't get an audience with Him.
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  The analogy from our source material was really helpful
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  here. It's like someone writing a love
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  letter to their father, but instead of sending it, they get
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  up on a stage and read it out loud to a crowd to show everyone
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  what a great son they are. Yeah, that's it.
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  You've just used your father's name for your own show.
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  So the correction Jesus gives is designed to completely purify
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  that motive. Go into your room and shut the
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  door. Right.
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  Go into your room, shut the door and pray in secret.
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  The action itself, the physical withdrawal, is a tool to isolate
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  your motive. When there's no human audience
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  left to impress, you're forced to seek only the Father's gaze.
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  So this isn't a rule against all public prayer then?
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  No, not at all. It's a command to fix your
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  intent. It's a kind of spiritual
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  hygiene. You have to make sure you
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  understand that God is the real audience, the only one that
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  matters. It's a good gut check.
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  If my public prayer life is more impressive than my private one,
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  I might be in that danger zone. You might have already been paid
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  in full. And that leads right into the
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  second direction. We move from The Who of prayer
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  to the how and why. OK, so this is the distorted
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  theology, the exposure of Pagan practice.
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  This is more about the mechanics Jesus talks about, heaping up
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  empty phrases or the belief that you'll be heard because of your
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  many words. And the issue isn't just long
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  prayers, right? Daniel prayed long prayers.
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  Jesus himself did. No, the length isn't the
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  problem. It's the theology behind the
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  length. The Pagan idea in Roman and
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  Greek religions was that their gods were distant, or maybe just
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  busy or even unwilling to help. So you had to get their
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  attention. You had to get their attention
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  so they would use these repetitive chants or a long list
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  of a God's titles, believing that the sheer volume of words
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  or maybe some magic in the formula wood forest the God to
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  listen. It's that vending machine
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  analogy. The machine is stuck, so you
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  have to kick it a few times or push the buttons in a secret
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  sequence to make it work. That's a perfect way to put it.
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  It's a pressure campaign and it assumes God that is defective in
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  some way. Either he's ignorant and you
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  have to give him a full report. Or he's inattentive and you have
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  to shout to get him to look up. Or he's unwilling and you have
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  to badger him into being generous.
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  Any way you slice it, it's a very low view of God.
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  I can see how easily we can slip into that, though, even using
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  all the right Christian words, when we get anxious that we
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  haven't prayed enough about something or we try to bargain
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  with God. That's the mechanical view
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  creeping back in. Yeah.
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  And Jesus says this approach is functionally godless.
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  It's not praying to the Father of the Bible.
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  It's praying to a God you've invented who needs your help to
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  do his job. So the correction isn't a new
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  technique, it's just a statement of fact, a piece of pure counter
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  theology. It is in verse 8 He just says
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  it. Your Father knows what you need
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  before you ask him. And that one sentence just
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  demolishes the entire Pagan framework.
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  It does, because if God is all knowing, He doesn't need your
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  information. If he's attentive, he isn't
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  distracted, and if he is a loving Father, He isn't
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  reluctant. So prayer stops being an anxious
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  effort to twist God's arm. And it becomes an expression of
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  trust, of confidence and dependence on his character.
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  It's less about informing God and more about aligning our own
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  hearts with what He already knows and what He's already
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  doing. That changes the whole tone of
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  prayer. It changes everything.
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  We come with humility because he's God, but also with this
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  incredible confidence because He is Father.
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  And that sets the stage perfectly for the model prayer
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  itself. After clearing away the
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  hypocrisy and the bad theology, Jesus gives the command.
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  Pray then like this. And the sources we're looking
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  at, they really zoom in on a couple of small Greek words
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  right there. Let's start with UN, which is
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  translated as then or therefore. It's so easy to just read past
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  it, but it's not just a transition word, it's a logical
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  engine. It's a hinge.
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  It connects everything he just said to everything he's about to
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  say. Yes.
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  The logic is because the Father already knows what you need from
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  verse 8. Therefore, your prayer should
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  follow this confident, trusting pattern, not a frantic begging
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  one. If you skip verse 8, the prayer
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  doesn't have the same foundation.
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  It doesn't. We're not coming to an unaware
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  or unwilling God. We're coming to a capable,
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  loving Father. So our prayer needs to be
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  ordered. It has to prioritize what He
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  prioritizes. And that brings us to the other
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  word Hutos like this. The sources are really clear
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  that this isn't Jesus giving us a magic formula to recite no if.
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  It were just a formula. We'd be right back in the Pagan
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  trap, thinking the words themselves have some kind of
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  power. Instead, he's giving us a
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  paradigm, a template. A blueprint for how to pray.
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  A blueprint for all Christian devotion, really.
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  It dictates the structure, the priorities, the tone.
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  It shows us that the very first thing we must do when we come to
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  God is adore Him and align ourselves with who He is and
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  what He's doing. So the structure itself is a
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  lesson. The order matters.
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  The order is everything and if we jump straight to our own
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  needs, we're ignoring the blueprint he gave us.
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  Which brings us to Matthew 6.9, the address itself.
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  Our Father in heaven. Our sources call this a
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  miniature confession of God's character.
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  It's this beautiful compression of God's closeness and his
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  absolute, well, His otherness, and it establishes the only
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  right posture for a believer before.
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  God, let's start with that first word our It seems simple, but in
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  our modern world, it's pretty jarring.
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  It really is. We live in such an
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  individualistic culture. Everything is about my
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  experience, my truth, my personal relationship with
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  Jesus. And the moment Jesus says our
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  Father, he just hits the brakes on all of that.
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  He does. It immediately frames this as
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  the family prayer of the people of God.
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  Even if you're praying it alone in your room, you are
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  consciously praying as part of a community.
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  It forces you out of your own head.
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  It trains you out of self absorption and into what you
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  could call a family mindset. I mean, think about the
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  practical side of this. Can you honestly pray, our
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  Father, if you are holding on to bitterness or, you know,
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  resentment against another believer, another one of his
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  children? No, not genuinely.
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  The first word of the prayer is a demand for reconciliation.
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  It forces you to see your own needs as part of a much bigger
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  picture. It relativizes your own agenda.
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  You're approaching God as one among a huge family of the
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  redeemed, so that starting line requires unity.
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  That's a huge challenge, and it leads right into the heart of
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  it, the word Father. The sources call this a gospel
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  word. It is a gospel word.
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  Jesus is giving his disciples a status that was almost unheard
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  of in the Old Testament. You have these titles of
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  transcendence, King, Lord, mighty one.
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  But to come to God as as ABBA, which is the intimate Aramaic
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  term Jesus would have used, that's revolutionary.
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  It defines prayer as a privilege of adoption.
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  It's not a right we have by nature.
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  That's a key point. Scripture is clear that in our
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  fallen state, we're estranged from God.
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  We are children of wrath, so to be able to call him Father means
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  something radical has happened. A redemptive action.
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  The cross, the barrier of guilt that was created by our sin, has
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  been removed by the work of Christ.
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  It affirms that God is personal. He's attentive.
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  He's committed to his kids. And that's what makes the Pagan
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  view so wrong. We don't have to badger and
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  manipulate him because he's already for us.
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  Not because we deserve it, but because he chose to adopt us.
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  And our sources are very careful here.
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  Doctrinally, they insist this is a covenant status.
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  It's for those who are in the sun.
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  This guards against that more liberal idea of a universal
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  fatherhood of God, where everyone is a child of God by
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  default. Right, because if everyone is a
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  child of God just by being human, then what's the point of
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  adoption? The cross becomes well, it
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  becomes unnecessary for reconciliation.
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  The beauty of calling him father is tied directly to the cost of
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  making us his children. But that intimacy, if it's not
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  balanced, can slide into a kind of casual disrespect, And that's
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  why the address immediately gives us the counterweight.
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  In heaven. In heaven, this phrase pulls us
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  back. It reminds us of His Majesty.
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  And our sources say this isn't a location like a point on a map.
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  No, it's a theological marker. Heaven is shorthand for the
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  throne room of the king. It's about his transcendence.
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  He isn't just our nice dad who lives next door.
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  He's infinitely exalted above all creation.
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  This is the correction to what some call the domesticated
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  deity, yes. If you only focus on Father, you
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  could end up with this sentimental idea of a cosmic
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  grandfather figure whose only job is to make you feel good and
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  give you what you want. But in heaven reminds us that
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  this Father is also the sovereign King, the one who sits
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  in the heavens and does whatever he pleases.
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  He has absolute power and authority.
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  So when we acknowledge He's in heaven, our intimacy is balanced
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  by a reverent awe, a holy fear. We aren't just chatting with a
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  pal, we are bowing before a king.
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  And that creates the synthesis, the correct posture for prayer.
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  Right. If you lean too hard on Father,
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  you lose reverence. If you lean too hard on in
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  heaven, you lose assurance. True Christian prayer holds both
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  together imminence and transcendence.
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  So we avoid the groveling slave mentality, which is all fear and
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  no access. And we avoid the chummy equal
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  mentality, which is all access and no reverence.
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  Both are wrong. Both are wrong.
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  This balance refutes deism, which is the idea of a distant
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  clockmaker God who isn't involved.
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  But it also refutes what you could call sentimentalism, this
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  idea of a therapeutic God who just offers comfort.
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  The analogy that really brought this home for me was the Prince
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  or Princess in the throne room. It's such a great picture.
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  Imagine you're that adopted child.
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  You walk into the throne room and you see the crown and the
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  scepter. You see the symbols of the
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  King's absolute majesty, the power that makes nations
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  tremble. And so you bow.
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  You have to. He is the ultimate authority.
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  But then because of adoption, you look up and you see the face
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  of the one who loves you, who brought you into the family.
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  So you bow because he is king, but you can speak freely with
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  confidence because he's your father.
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  The right to climb onto his lap is held together with the
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  knowledge that he wears the crown.
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  That posture of confident reverence, that's the only way
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  to come to God. Who we are talking to determines
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  how we talk. OK, so that address sets our
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  posture. The very next phrase, the first
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  actual request, sets our priority.
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  Hallowed be your name. And this is maybe the biggest
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  shock in the whole prayer. Before we say a word about our
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  needs, our food, our forgiveness, the first priority
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  is God's reputation. This is where we find that
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  governing aim for all of Christian life.
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  Let's start with what it means. What is hallowed?
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  The Greek verb is hagiazu. It means to sanctify, to set
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  apart, to treat as holy, to recognize something as utterly
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  separate and pure. But the grammar is really
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  specific here, isn't it? Our sources call it an aorist
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  passive imperative. Let's let's unpack that.
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  The imperative part means it's a command, but since we're praying
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  to God, it works as a request. Let your name be sanctified.
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  OK, but what about the passive part?
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  That seems strange. This is what they call the
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  divine passive. It implies that God himself is
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  the one doing the action. We're not just asking that
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  people would try harder to respect God's name.
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  What are we asking then? We're asking God to act.
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  The prayer is Father, please work in the world and in me in
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  such a way that your own holiness is recognized and
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  revered by everyone. We're asking him to magnify his
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  own reputation. So we're asking God to make
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  himself known for who he truly is.
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  And name here isn't just a title like Yahweh or Jesus.
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  It's his whole revealed character, His justice, His
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  mercy, His sovereignty, His wrath against sin.
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  We're asking that everything God has revealed about himself be
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  honored as supreme. And the fact that this petition
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  comes first, this reorders everything for us.
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  It does. It becomes the theological
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  center of the prayer. God's glory is the number one
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  concern before any of our personal needs.
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  It's a direct assault on our natural self centeredness.
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  It dismantles that idea of prayer as a spiritual wish list.
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  Or what? The source is called functional
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  atheism. That's the view where we say we
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  believe in God, but we treat Him like a cosmic helper for our
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  agenda. His job is to make our lives
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  work better. We see that in a lot of, you
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  know, health and wealth teaching or therapeutic religion.
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  And this prayer just flips that upside down and puts God back on
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  the throne is the end goal of everything.
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  The only reason we ask for daily bread later is so that we can
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  have the strength to keep living for the priority, which is
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  hallowing His name. So every other request we make
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  has to be connected back to this one.
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  It's nested underneath it. If I pray for a new job, the
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  highest reason isn't so I can have a bigger house, it's so I
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  can better use my gifts to serve Him and bring Him glory.
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  This has huge implications, then for how we live our lives, for
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  our personal conduct. It's massive.
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  If I pray hallowed be your name, I'm also praying for my own
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  personal holiness. Why is that?
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  Because as Christians, we bear Christ's name.
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  If a believer is living in open, unrepentant sin, they are
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  actively profaning the very name they claim to honor our lives.
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  Reflect on his reputation. So the prayer becomes a
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  commitment. Let my life reflect Your
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  Holiness so your name isn't dragged through the mud because
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  of me. Exactly.
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  And it has just as big implications for the church when
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  it gathers for worship. It changes how you would measure
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  a successful church service. It does.
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  The main question is no longer did people have a good time or
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  was the music cool or did we attract a big crowd?
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  The question becomes. Was God's name, His character,
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  honored in truth and spirit? That forces the church to look
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  at everything it does. Worship has to be ordered,
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  reverent, and full of Scripture because that's what honors Him,
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  not just what's entertaining. It also means things like
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  doctrinal fidelity and church discipline become really
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  critical. They have to be.
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  If you tolerate false teaching or open sin in the church, you
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  are bringing a reproach upon God's name to hallow.
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  His name needs to guard the purity and the truth of His
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  church. The analogy or Arsus is used for
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  this shift is powerful, the mirror and the window.
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  Yeah, a self-centered life is like a mirror.
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  Everything I do, my prayers, my work, it's all about reflecting
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  my own needs, my comfort, my image back at me.
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  And praying hallowed be your name does what to that mirror?
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  It shatters it. It replaces that inward looking
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  mirror with a perfectly clear window.
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  The goal of my life is no longer about my own reflection.
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  It's about giving the world a clear, unobstructed view of the
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  glory of God on the other side. So our lives become the frame
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  for that window. That's the goal, that God's name
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  would be seen clearly through the window of our lives and our
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  churches. And the power of this isn't just
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  in the words, it's in the structure of the whole prayer
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  that follows. The whole model is split into
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  two halves, and that structure is theological teaching all by
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  itself. It's designed to put God's glory
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  first. Right you have the first half
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  which is entirely God. Word is the first 3 petitions.
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  Hallowed be your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done.
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  All of them are about God's agenda, His honor, His rule.
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  The focus is completely on Him. And then you get the
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  second-half, which is about our human needs.
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  Free essential areas give us this day Our Daily Bread, which
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  is our physical provision. Forgive us our debts, which is
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  our spiritual need for reconciliation.
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  And deliver us from evil, which is our need for moral protection
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  and perseverance. And the order is deliberate.
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  It's teaching us where the center of gravity has to be.
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  It is it's teaching that God's name and Kingdom and will are
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  more central, more pressing than our next meal or our personal
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  safety. So when we do get to asking for
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  Our Daily Bread, we're asking with a qualification.
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  Yes, we're asking for provision so that we can be equipped to
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  keep living for the first 3 petitions.
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  The second-half serves the first.
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  You're asking, Father, give me the strength for today so that I
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  can live for Your glory today. Our needs are sanctified when
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  they're placed under the priority of His glory.
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  The sources use that great analogy of building a house.
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  Right, the first half of the prayer, the God Word petitions.
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  That's the foundation. It has to be.
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  You can't build anything that will last without a solid
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  foundation. And the foundation of all
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  reality is God's glory, His Kingdom, His will.
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  And our needs, the bread, the forgiveness, the protection.
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  That's the superstructure, the walls and the roof and the rooms
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  where we actually live our lives.
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  That's where we spend our time, right?
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  Dealing with bills and sickness and sin.
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  But those rooms will collapse if they aren't built on and
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  constrained by the foundation of God's glory.
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  The foundation has to come first.
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  It has to, and it has to define the shape and the strength of
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  everything else. This is why Jesus said pray like
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  this. It teaches us to start big with
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  God and then move to our smaller story, always seeing our needs
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  in light of His eternal purposes.
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  So the real point of prayer isn't to get God to change my
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  circumstances, no. The point is to align my heart
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  with His will so that His name is magnified through my
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  circumstances, whatever they turn out to be.
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  This has been a deep look at a line we thought we knew.
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  We started by clearing away all the wrong ideas about prayer,
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  the performative and the mechanical.
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  And we landed on the correct posture that we're talking to a
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  Father who is both our intimate Father and our sovereign King in
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  heaven, a barons of intimacy and majesty.
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  And most of all, we found the absolute non negotiable priority
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  hallowed be your name. God's glory, not our need, is
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  the controlling aim of a believer's life.
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  And you know, if we're honest with ourselves, that focus on
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  hallowing God's name ought to show us how much we fail.
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  Our self-centered prayers, our casualness, the way we so
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  quickly put our physical comfort ahead of His honor.
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  It all proves that we don't naturally do this perfectly.
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  And that failure, that realization, it could lead to
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  despair. Who among us can say we
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  perfectly Revere God in every moment?
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  But that's where the gospel comes.
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  In it has to because Jesus Christ did perfectly hallow the
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  Father's name. Every second of his life was
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  lived in perfect reverend awe of the Father.
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  He fulfilled this prayer on our behalf.
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  And on the cross, he carried the guilt for all of our
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  irreverence. So we get to pray this prayer
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  not based on our own strength or our own record, but relying
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  completely on the perfect record of the One who taught it to us.
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  So we'll leave you with this question to think about the next
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  time you face a crisis in your own daily life.
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  A financial problem, a health issue, a big decision.
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  What would it look like to start by focusing not on your need for
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  relief, but on Christ's perfect hallowing of the Father's name
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  and the priority of God's Kingdom?
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  How does that change the way you approach the problem?