♪ Theme Music ♪
Open your Bibles to Matthew Chapter Number 6.
I'll read Verse 5 and 6.
Then I'll read Verse 9.
Matthew 6:5-6, 9.
Ready!
"When you pray, you're not to be like the hypocrites,
for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues
and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men.
Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, your closet,
close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and
your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."
What He's saying here is, who you are in secret,
who I am in secret-go to bed, what do you think about?
Wake up, what do you think about?
Quiet times, by yourself, what do you think about?
That's the center of your life.
Who you are, who I am is best seen in secret.
What do you think about?
What do you think about?
What do you think about?
And then Verse 9: Jesus says, "Pray then in this way:
'Our Father Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name."
The first followers of Jesus were like a bunch of kids
-just like a bunch of kids.
Jesus went up to them, and they were fishing, engaged I'm sure
in their family vocation, and Jesus said, "Follow Me!"
They didn't know much about Him, and they put their nets down and
just sort of, the Bible seems to say, spontaneously followed
Jesus like a bunch of kids.
Another'd happen-"Follow Me, follow Me, follow Me..."
and they followed Him.
How old were those guys?
I don't know-maybe older teenagers; maybe early twenties,
mid-twenties, maybe a few in their early thirties,
but they were like a bunch of kids.
And I wonder if they asked-in fact, I know they asked in their
mind, "What is it going to be like in the future
for me to be a follower of this Man?
What's gonna happen in the future as I follow this Man?"
They could never have guessed, could they?
Not in a million years!
Because as they followed Jesus, those Apostles, disciples,
they went from one mind-boggling experience to another.
Blind man-whew!
Now he sees.
Wow!
Oh-ho, whoa!
Lame woman-now she walks!
Whooaaaah!
Whoah!
Wait a minute!
Storm-brrrrooomm!
Quiets the Heavens... .
Hmmm, mind boggling!
Mind boggling...
That was their experience as followers of Jesus.
And then they saw that sometimes they would eat a meal and they
were camping out as they were traveling, primarily through
Galilee early on; and they'd look up and they'd say,
"Where's the Master?"
And they'd say, well, He's gone to pray.
He'll be praying all night..." Hhmm...
They'd be walking down the
road, and He'd walk on ahead, and they'd say,
"Well, what's His hurry?"
And they said, "Oh, look -He's got that crazy look.
He's praying..."
Then He would lag back as they were walking, and they'd say,
"What's He doing back there?"
"Well, He's talking to the Father.
He slipped away over there
behind those rocks on the mountain."
"What's he doing?"
"He's praying."
This went on all the time.
There was this private time Jesus had with the Father,
and the public time He administered the supernatural.
And naturally, they began to ask, "Man, what's His secret?"
And they saw and discovered it was prayer.
Now they were all familiar with praying.
Did you know the pious Jew would pray three times a day?
They would pray in the morning, the Shema.
They had seventeen different petitions they would offer
to God as a ritual -seventeen of 'em.
Count 'em.
So they knew about prayer.
They prayed all their life.
Jesus, I'm sure all His life,
prayed those seventeen petitions every day.
But they saw in Jesus a kind of praying that was
-could I say it-out of this world!
And so they went to Him, according to Luke,
Chapter 11 and said, "We want to learn how to pray like that."
And so Jesus gave them a pattern
of prayer that we're going to look at.
Now somebody may be saying, "We're studying the
Lord's Prayer (yawns...) That's the only thing in the
Bible (yawns...) that I really know.
I don't need to study the Lord's..."
Let me tell you something.
I have preached and taught on
the Lord's Prayer dozens of times.
But in preparation for this study, I haven't looked at one
word, or one note that I've taken in all
the years of studying the Prayer.
I started clean and fresh.
And God shows us things.
You can take the same Scripture and study it, and pray over it,
and meditate; read commentaries, ask people go to Bible studies,
and suddenly you'll pick it up one day, and it's like whewwwww!
So we come here and see that Jesus taught them how to pray
and how important it is that we learn how to pray.
Let me say two things to you.
If you really pray, these two things have to be in place,
okay?
You can say words, rituals, go through the motions...
but if you really pray, you have to have two things operating.
Number one, you have to know Who God Is.
Number two, you have to know who you are.
Got that?
You can't pray unless you know Who God Is, and you can't pray
unless you know who you are.
So you have to know God, and you have to know yourself.
And look what it says, "Our Father..."
Look at all the plural, personal pronouns in the prayer.
"Our, us, us, we..." Not in the Lord's Prayer do
you find one single, singular personal pronoun.
You don't say "My Father".
No, you don't find "My Father".
"My debts..." "My..." It's not there.
It's all plural.
It's "Our..."
It's a corporate prayer.
It's not only a corporate prayer-we say "our".
Guess what?
Jesus is praying with us.
Who gave us this prayer?
Jesus.
He's saying, "Our..." we pray with Jesus.
That's the only way to pray anyway.
We can't get to the Father except through Jesus, and now
Jesus says, "How do you pray?"
We pray "Our".
Jesus prays with you and me when we pray.
I get excited about that when I think about it.
I mean, Jesus is praying with us-"Our Father..."
And we can't pray unless we have
a relationship, a personal relationship
with the Father, and the only way we have that is
through Jesus Christ.
So we begin to see Who God Is, and we pray to the
True and Living God, and that changes
everything about our prayer, doesn't it?
So we have to know Who God is.
Also, we have to know ourselves.
There's a task!
Why do you think God sent His Son into the world?
Well you say, "Oh, I know that one!
I've been to church-to save me."
No, He sent His Son in the world primarily to make out
of you and me a worshipper.
Did you know that?
Our first thing we are to be is a worshipper!
Christ came and took a bunch of rebels
and made us into worshippers!
That's what we are to be-worshippers.
You say, "Well, what does it mean to worship?"
Hallowed be Thy Name.
That's the beginning step of worship.
How do you like the word hallowed?
Have you used that lately?
Now it's a kind of an old-fashioned word.
It's an Anglo-Saxon word.
It comes from the English word, "Hale" H.A.L.E.
Say, "I don't know that word."
Oh yes you do!
We say to somebody, "How are you doing?"
"Well, I'm hale and hearty!"
There it is!
Now what does it mean to be hale?
It means to be holy.
It means to be separate.
It means to be solid.
It means to be complete.
So you say, "How are you doing?"
"I'm complete.
I'm holy.
I'm solid.
I've got it all together.
I'm unique.
I'm complete."
All this is involved in the word, hallowed.
In our translations, most of 'em, even the new modern
translation, they still use the word hallowed.
And some of them have reverend, reverent, "Reverent be Thy
Name..." uh, "Unique be Thy Name", "Special be..."
But you can't beat hallowed.
Hallowed...
Because this leads us to worship.
Now what is worship?
Simple definition.
By the way, if you ever write anything down, this might be
what to write down, but I don't want to upset anybody.
Worship is to feel in your heart.
It's to feel in your heart, and to respond with wonder,
awe, and humility.
It's to feel in your heart and to respond with "Aahh!
Ohh, ahh!"
and wonder, and humility.
You meet God, and God meets you!
Worship.
Did you know we were all built to be worshippers?
That's the primary reason God sent His Son into this world to
clean up our act on the Cross of Jesus Christ
so we're able to worship?
Have a Divine appointment with God to worship?
We are called primarily-you say, "Who am I?"
I'm a worshipper, if I'm in Christ.
Who is God?
He is a Father, our Father.
So we know Who God Is, and we know that we are worshippers;
but in our society, how we have moved
away from being worshippers.
How far we've moved away from that.
There is Moses in the wilderness, remember?
All the people were thirsty.
They were dying, and God said, "Moses!
Speak to the rock..."
and Moses took that rod and struck the rock.
Water came forth, but God says, "Moses, you have responded to
My sacred request in a very personal,
secular way in striking that rock.
Moses, guess what?
You're not going to go to the Promised Land."
His whole life was about going to the Promised Land.
His whole reason for being alive was to lead the children into
the Promised Land, but because he responded to a sacred request
in a selfish, violent, personal, secular way-bang!
He was prohibited.
He was prohibited...
Did you read in the paper about in a rural church,
a young kid went in there and took a stick
and just smashed everything?
Did you read that?
He just smashed up everything he could find in church in anger?
Just smash, smash, smashed up, broke up the whole church.
The reason was, he came from a tough family.
He had a problem with anger, and he wanted to go on a church
picnic-miss-communication; he didn't get to go.
So he went in there and just smashed up the church.
Say, "Well, that's a horrible thing, the place that's set
aside for God's business to be smashed like that..."
But we realize that you and I are in the smashing business.
We take sacred things; they become secular.
We have smashed up sacred relationships, have we not?
Marriage is a covenant-sacred.
And we've taken marriage and made it secular and say,
"I'm just ready to move on..."
Or we say the dumbest thing of all,
"I just don't love you anymore!"
Pwoo!
As if love is a feeling instead of an action...
We've smashed...
We've smashed through a relationship
between parents and children.
Children are to honor and respect their parents.
Honor and respect...
and there is the Biblical promise, "Long will you,
be your days on this earth, the Lord thy God has given you..."
When you respect and honor, it's a commandment with promise, and
we are to respect and honor our parents, even when they're
wrong; even if they're out of base;
even if you are 81 and they're a 103!
The respect and honor is there.
We have taken and smashed sacred relationships.
And we've smashed sacred days.
Did you know in the Commandments, there's more
written about the Sabbath than any other Commandment?
Than any other Commandment... and we're in the New Sabbath.
We're in the Resurrection Day of Sunday, and therefore,
we should keep this day sacred.
The Scripture says we're to take one day out of seven and set it
aside, and it's God's Day.
But what have we done?
We have squeezed the secular into Saturday night.
It goes on and on, and then Sunday...now we have all kinds
of games, and Little League, and activities, and Sunday
afternoon-my goodness, there's always something going on.
So we have squeezed out the sacred with the secular,
and we forget that that first day of the week is a Holy Day.
We've smashed Sunday.
Also, we have smashed the Sacred Name.
It is amazing to me when I hear people take God's Name in vain.
Let me tell you something-when that happens, you're in deadly
barracuda waters with sharks spinning around, smelling your
blood because God knows that you've not taken His Name and
made it sacred, and that's a big, big problem!
We can't do it.
You say, "Well, how are we going to change?
I'm not a worshipper, really.
I, you know, when I - I'm not a worshipper.
How can I feel in my heart and respond to the Presence of God
with awe, and with wonder, and with humility?
I want to do that.
How can I change?
By praying.
By praying, "Hallowed be Thy Name"
where you recognize that all of life is sacred.
God doesn't look down and say, "Oh, that's secular!
Oh no, no, this is sacred."
That's how we think.
Oh no.
God sees the whole created order.
He sees all of us as potentially sacred in that everybody
was created in His image!
That's tremendous, isn't it?
We come to Christ-that image is beginning to be restored,
and we become sacred.
Everything we touch can be sacred.
Second World War-Wallace is the only one here to remember that,
old enough.
In the Second World War, Hitler came and bombed the
Coventry Cathedral there in England.
And it was totally destroyed, and it was left there in ruins,
and totally outdoors, and they went;
somebody put a sign on the altar of it.
It said, "Father, Forgive Them".
And then in this Cathedral, they had these little chapels,
these little alcoves here, and here, and here, and here,
all these little chapels all the way around it.
And they put signs outside this chapel over here, and it said,
"Hallowed be Thy Name" in business.
Another one said, "Hallowed be Thy Name" in arts.
"Hallowed be Thy Name" in family relationships.
"Hallowed be Thy Name" in sports.
"Hallowed be Thy Name..."
and it went all around that chapel,
saying simply that in every activity of life,
His Name must be hallowed, hallowed.
What would happen to anybody here?
Pick out any of us and say, "In every aspect of my life or your
life, His Name can be hallowed."
You can sign His Name to it.
Say, "Well, you know, I've got some business deals I put my
name to, but I don't want to put His Name to."
You know, "I turn in my travel expenses.
You know, everybody pads 'em.
I put my name; I don't want to put the Hallowed Name to it."
You know, "I have this relationship that you know,
my name is on it.
I'm a part of it, but you know, I can't bring Christ.
I can't put the Name of God, the Name of Jesus to that...
I want to keep that sort of my own mono...
my own property there..."
You see, if we take all of our life, whatever we do,
wherever we are and say in the sense,
"Hallowed be Thy Name..." everything we do is hallowed!
Hallowed be Thy Name in education.
Oh, what a difference.
Hallowed be Thy Name in music.
What a difference.
Hallowed be Thy Name in what we read.
Hallowed be Thy Name in what we watch.
Hallowed be Thy Name on the Internet.
Hallowed be Thy Name!
You see what a difference that would make?
God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, so we could pray,
"Hallowed be Thy Name!"
And if you and I can pray, really pray
"Hallowed be Thy Name" it means we know Who God Is,
and we know who we are.
We are worshippers, and we're praising Him by hallowing,
making special His very Name!
Let me give you the whole Gospel, the whole Good News of
what Christianity is all about in a different way.
Listen to this: The highest became the lowest
so the lowest can become the highest.
Did you get that?
He who was the highest came all around to you and me who are the
lowest so that you and me who are the lowest may go all the
way up to Him who is the highest.
That's Christianity.
Hallowed be Thy Name!
S. D. Gordon has a little book, old book on prayer.
And in this book, he tells a story of a 14-year old boy who
cut class for three days.
And finally in the fourth day, the teacher called,
thought he was sick and said, "How's Steven doing?"
And they said, "What do you mean?"
Mom and dad found out.
I don't know how moms and dads find out.
It worried me my whole life.
And so they brought Steven in.
They said, "Steven, it's a terrible thing.
You've cut class these three days.
You know that, don't you?
"Yes sir."
"But Steven, more serious than you cutting class is
you've lied about cutting class."
He said, "If you lie, you can't be trusted,
and there's nothing worse in life than to run into a liar,
because a liar just can't be trusted."
And they said, "Steven, you understand that..."
"Yes sir..."
And Steven, we're trying to figure out
an appropriate punishment for you.
You're 14, and your mom and I've decided for the next three
nights as you cut school for three days,
you're going to spend, when you come home from school,
all the time in the basement by yourself.
You're gonna sleep down there; you're gonna eat down there;
you're gonna be in the basement for three days when you're
at home, and three nights."
Said, "Yes sir..."
First night, Steven goes down.
Parents are trying to read, and the father keeps-You know, I
don't know why my eyes are so watery tonight.
I just..." And the mother's over there fidgeting around,
picking up, and she says, "I'm thinking about Steven
down in the basement..."
and said, "Yeah, yeah..." He said, "I am too..."
They went to bed about 12:00 o'clock, tossing and tumbling.
He says to her, "Are you awake?"
Husbands and wives understand that, don't you?
You know when the other one's awake.
"Are you awake?"
She said, "Yes."
Said, "I can't sleep thinking about Steven.
I wonder if he's frightened down there, sleeping in the basement.
She said, "I'm doing the same thing."
About quarter til' three, he woke up and sort of dozed off,
and woke up, and dozed off, and quarter to three,
he saw her turning and said, "You awake?"
She said, "I haven't been to sleep at all..."
He said, "I'm going down in the basement and spend
the night with Steven."
So he picked up his pillow and his blanket,
went down the steps into the basement.
Steven was on his bed.
He hadn't been to sleep.
He could see he'd been crying, and the father went down and
lay down by Steve and put his arm around him.
And their tears mingled on each other's cheek, and he said,
"Steven, your punishment stands.
You're gonna be down here these three days and three nights" but
he said, "Steve, I'm gonna be down here with you.
I'm gonna be down here with you."
God woke up one night, picked up His pillow, picked up
His blanket and said, "I'm going down in the basement.
I'm going down in the basement with all of those who are down
in the basement, and I'm gonna to provide a way, not with a
blanket and a pillow, but with a Cross and three stakes.
I'm gonna identify with them on that Cross.
As they will die spiritually, I will die physically and take
their punishment upon myself.
The highest became the lowest so that we who are the lowest in
the basement may be elevated with
a clean life to the highest!
If you and I can really pray, really pray,
"Hallowed be Thy Name", we know Who God Is,
and we know who we are, worshippers.
God is Abba Father.
You and I are worshippers, and we celebrate the fact that He
who was the highest came down to the lowest in the
basement-that's all of us, so we will be forgiven and cleansed,
and we can go up to the highest!
Hallowed be Thy Name!
As a thank you for your support of the Winning Walk,
this month Dr. Young would like to send you his
prayer journal as a gift to you.
Prayer is an essential part of our spiritual lives.
Even Jesus went away from His disciples
to talk with His Father.
(Dr. Young) "It doesn't matter what's happening in your life.
Get on your knees!
He said in every situation we are to pray, pray, pray, pray."
Spending time with God in prayer everyday
can change your life forever.
And this beautiful prayer journal
will help guide your time spent with Him.
It features a practical design that lays flat for easy writing,
with plenty of space to write down prayer request
and the answers to your prayers.
It's the perfect size - easy to carry with you wherever you go,
and it makes a great gift for someone you love.
Request your prayer journal today at winningwalk.org
or call the number on the screen.
Know God more intimately and invigorate your prayer life
with this beautiful prayer journal.
Let me give you one the most important reminders
in living the Christian life.
Now listen.
Don't confuse the sacred with the secular.
We often talk about the importance of prayer
but sometimes,
I think, we trivialize what prayer really is.
Prayer is a one-on-one meeting with
the Creator of the universe.
Know this, our Holy God gives us the right to call Him
"Father", and to talk to Him through Jesus Christ.
My prayer for you and for myself is that we would understand the
privilege of prayer, and talk to God every day.
We talk, we listen, we wait throughout the day.
We want to help you learn more about prayer were it can be
exciting, relevant, meaningful,
not just some morbid kind of thing.
We want to you give you information about how you can
learn really to listen, to talk, to pray,
to have an attitude of thanksgiving.
And really to communicate with God, as your Father,
as your friend, as your savior, as your Lord.
To talk to God, to listen to God.
So please call the number on your screen.
We have people standing by,
waiting to talk to you and pray for you.
And introduce you, if you desire, to a life of meaningful
communication with the Almighty.
Thank you for joining us today.
We'll see you next week right here, same time,
same station, right here on The Winning Walk.
For more infomation >> World Of Warships - Detonação Naval #18: Fletcher - Duration: 7:22. 
For more infomation >> DUELO DE DISEÑADORES!!!! #2 | @HDVeRdeYT vs @DisisGraphs | CASTIGO PARA QUIEN PIERDA 😱 - Duration: 4:38. 
For more infomation >> GALLETAS DE JENGIBRE | LOS BARONI | GINGER COOKIES - Duration: 9:31. 
For more infomation >> Gimper - Tururu! /Remix Ruzio - Duration: 0:20. 
For more infomation >> Me Enamore De Mi Violador💔😱👫 | Caso Cerrado | Telemundo - Duration: 20:48. 
For more infomation >> JE VAIS ME SUICIDER - Sois pas si bêêête #36 - Duration: 8:17. 
For more infomation >> LE TUBE DE L'ÉTÉ | the kidults feat. Alex - Duration: 2:46. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét