Knowing God through His Word … Day by Day

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Pastor John Piper’s first sermon of 2011. “Our Deepest Prayer: Hallowed Be Your Name” is a MUST to read, listen to or watch!

Sooner or later life almost overwhelms you with pressures and problems—physical problems (give us daily bread), relational and mental problems (forgive us our debts), moral problems (lead us not into temptation). And what I want you to see is this. You have a Father. He is a thousand times better as a Father than the best human father. His fatherhood means he cares about every one of those problems, and he beckons you to talk to him about them in prayer, and to come to him for help. He knows what you need (Matthew 6:32).

That’s the way we usually attack our problems. And so we should. We attack them directly. I have this financial problem, or this relational problem, or this bad habit problem. Father, help me. That is right and good.

But Jesus offers us more in this prayer. There is more—not less than that, but more. There is an indirect attack on our problems. There is a remedy—not a complete deliverance from all problems in this life, but a powerful remedy—in the first three petitions of the Lord’s prayer, especially the first one.

Attacking Indirectly

God made you be a part of hallowing his name, extending his kingdom, and seeing his will done on the earth the way the angels do it in heaven. In other words, he made you for something magnificent and for something mundane. He made you for something spectacular and for something simple. He loves both. He honors both. But what we fail to see often is that when we lose our grip on the greatness of God and his name and his kingdom and his global will, we lose our divine equilibrium in life, and we are far more easily overwhelmed by the problems of the mundane.

In other words, I am pleading with you not to lose your grip on the supremacy and centrality of hallowing the name of God in your life. I am urging you from the Lord’s prayer that you go to God for bread, and for healing of relationships, and for the overcoming of besetting sins, and for the doing of God’s will, and for the seeking of God’s kingdom—all of it, all the time for the sake of knowing and hallowing, reverencing, honoring, valuing, treasuring God’s name (God’s being, God himself) above all things.

Feet on the Ground, Heart Rising to God

Keep your feet on the ground. That’s why the second three petitions are there. But let  your heart rise into the magnificence of God’s global will, God’s kingdom, and most of all God’s holy name—his being, his perfections.

You may not see it clearly now, but I testify from the Scriptures and from experience, there is more deliverance, more healing, more joy in the hallowing of his name than perhaps you ever dreamed. Let’s pray all year in the fullness of this prayer.

Please click this link to go the the entire sermon and READ, LISTEN or WATCH!