Dear Church family, we have a letter of decline from Isaac Epp that I need to read before our service begins. And let it be our prayer that we would not be discouraged, but look to God to continue to help and send another full-time pastor in due time. Dear Church family of Grand Rapids, Thank you for your patience and support over these past weeks of decision. We wrestled with the Lord over your pastoral call and felt for some time unable to answer one way or the other. In this past while, however, the Lord has provided us with the full clarity and peace we needed. I can now, although with sadness, answer that I do not have the freedom to accept your call. This has been especially difficult for us because of our love for you as a congregation, as well as your support, your prayers, and your friendships over these past four years. Perhaps the best way to explain this decision comes in one of the verses the Lord has repeatedly brought to my mind these last weeks. Romans 12, verse 3. For I say, through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. It has largely been a sober assessment of my own abilities in light of the current needs of our large church family that has kept me from having the freedom to accept your call. Despite our answer, we humbly ask that you continue to hold us before the Lord in prayer. Our continual prayer and wish is that God would send you the man of his own choosing and that a mutual love in the Lord would remain between us. We thank the Lord for you and wish you much joy, continued joy and gladness in your service to the Lord. I want to close this letter with that precious prayer Paul made in Ephesians 3, a prayer I pray also for you as a church family. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height of the love of God, to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. With love in our Lord Jesus Christ, Isaac Epp. Turn with me please to Psalm 115. We'll read a portion of this psalm, and then also I want to read some from Exodus 33 and 34. Psalm 115. We'll read verses one through three, and then 12 through the end. Hear the word of God. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God? But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. And then verse 12, the Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great. The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children. ye are blessed of the Lord, which made heaven and earth. The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's, but the earth hath he given to the children of men. The dead, praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence, but we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. And then turn with me, please, to Exodus. Exodus 33. We'll begin at verse 12 and read through 34, verse 9. Exodus 33, verse 12. And Moses said unto the Lord, See, thou sayest unto me, bring up this people, and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, I know thee by name, and thou hast also found grace in my sight. Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, show me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I might find grace in thy sight, and consider that this nation is thy people. And he said, my presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest. And he said unto him, if thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth. And the Lord said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken, for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name. And he, Moses, said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. And he said, thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cliff to the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen. And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou breakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount, neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount. And he hewed two tables of stone, like unto the first. And Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord! The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation. And Moses, made haste, and bowed his head toward the earth and worshipped. And he said, if now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us, for it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. Thus far, the reading of God's precious and hallowed word. Dear church family, in a world that despises God's name, in a nation that is trying to many fronts keep God's name negligible even non-existent are you and I striving with all that is within us to hallow his name that means to make it honorable to glorify it to praise it, to live out of it. We tend to honor important people, but God has no one in that category that competes with him. God is supremely unique. He's our creator. He's our provider. He's our redeemer. He's our all and in all. He deserves supreme honor. God made you. God made me for one reason. To glorify Him. And so, because we always come short of doing that, at least to the degree we should, We need to be praying, always praying, daily praying, that we may receive grace to hallow God's name. And that our name may fall away, that we would esteem ourselves lightly, but that we would glorify God, may I say, heavily. It's really what the glory means. In Hebrew, the word glory means weighty. God is weighty. God is valuable. God is glorious. And we're called to honor Him. He says, An example of that Children, you know that well, is the story of Belshazzar in Daniel chapter 5. You know, he made this great feast. Thousands of people came to the feast. And as they're feasting, these heathen people took the holy cups that were in the Temple of Jerusalem, and they drank wine from their cups. And suddenly, remember that, boys and girls? A hand, a hand, appeared on the wall, writing these words, mene, mene, tekel, tekel, yufarsen. And no one understood it until they called Daniel in. And Daniel explained the writing. Numbered, numbered, weighed in the balances, found wanting. And you see, that's the life of each one of us. We are all weighed in the balances and found wanting because we're sinners. And then Daniel explained it this way in verse 23 of Daniel 5. The God in whose hand thy breath is and whose are all thy ways hast thou not glorified. That was the message to Belshazzar. But that's also the message to us by nature. Let me read it again. So Belshazzar was a king. He was honored by so many people. But he had never learned to honor God. He had never learned to cry out, hallowed be thy name. So God said, I will lightly esteem you because you don't honor me. What a tragedy. What a tragic life. He was dead the next morning. God does not take it lightly when we don't honor him. And so, My subject this morning with you from Lord's Day 47 is absolutely critical. It's one of those subjects, one of those doctrines that embraces our entire life. Either we are living a life that's in the trajectory of desiring to and striving after honoring God's name, or we're living for ourselves. And the difference between those two lifestyles is an internal destiny in heaven or in hell. So dear church family, hear me this morning. You and I must know what it means to cry out. Hallowed be thy name. So I want to look with you at someone 15. Verse 1A. Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us. but into thy name give glory. And then Lord's Day 47. We'll also be looking a bit at the story of Moses that I read in Exodus 33, by the way. But Lord's Day 47. 122. What is the first petition? First petition of the Lord's Prayer, that is. Hallowed be thy name. That is, grant us first rightly to know thee and to sanctify, glorify, and praise thee in all thy works, in which thy power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth are clearly displayed. And, further also, that we may so order and direct our whole lives, our thoughts, words and actions, that thy name may never be blasphemed, but rather honored and praised on our account." So we're talking about this theme, hallowing God's name, and with God's help, I want to look at three thoughts. We hallow his name by praying to know his glory, by praying to confess his glory, and by praying to live for his glory. So when you say, hallowed be thy name, and you do it rightly, Our instructor is telling us, you're praying to know His glory, to confess His glory, and to live for His glory. Grant us first, rightly, to know Thee. If you don't know God rightly, if you don't know the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible, you can't glorify Him. You can't honor an unknown God. So prayer involves first of all, as does spirituality, as does all true religion, with rightly knowing God and His glory. And so a foundational prayer in our lives, and that's why it's the first petition, is to pray to know God and to know His glory, to hallow His name. What does that mean, the name of God? Well, God gives his name to help us know him, to reveal himself to us. God does not need a name like you and I do. We need a name so people can identify us and call us out. And yet God gives us His name, especially His special name, Yahweh or Jehovah. The Lord, with capital letters in the King James Version. The I am that I am. The covenant name. The I was that I was, I am what I am, I shall be what I shall be. The unchangeable God. That's the name of God. That's the name referred to in the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for he is Jehovah. Now, sometimes we name children or we name other people according to what we wish them to be. That's a wonderful thing. Nothing wrong with that. John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress really gives us a wonderful example of naming people because of what they really are. But often we name people, don't we? We name children without knowing what they're going to turn out to be. But you see, that's different with God. Bunyan catches that spirit a bit more. He names Christian, Christian, for example, because that's who Christian is. He's a follower of Jesus Christ. That's his name, Christian, and that's his identity when he becomes a Christian. He names Mr. Legality, who's a legalist, you see. Mr. Legality, because that's who he is. That's his identity. He's basing his salvation on the law. And so, when God names himself, it's his identity. But even more so than Pilgrim's Progress, because it's his whole identity. God is his name, and his name is God. And so the name of God is actually a self-revelation of God. It's who He is. And God wants us to understand that. The revelation of God's name is such an incredible gift of God. You remember, boys and girls, when Israel went across the Red Sea. Remember what happened when they got across? They sang back to God and they said, the Lord, Yahweh, Jehovah, is his name. Now, when we pray the Lord's prayer and we pray, hallowed be thy name, we are praying that this name of God, which is God, would be sanctified, would be glorified in our prayers, that we would know Him, that we would confess Him, that we would live for Him, that our entire lives would be wrapped around, as it were, this name. That this name would be the center of our lives. You see, that's what that story in Exodus 33, 34, that moving story, so powerfully illustrates. Moses requests, when God wants him to go and deliver the people, he requests that he might see the glory of God. He's saying, Lord, if I'm going to go deliver these people, let thy name be hallowed in me. I want to proclaim the name of God. with the totality of my life. And then the Lord answers Moses in a wonderful way, doesn't he? And he passes by before him and proclaims the name of the Lord. And then the name is described, isn't it? The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, and so on. So God is saying, this is who I am. I'm a God who's worthy to be glorified. I'm this weighty God whose every attribute is worthy to be known. You see, the attributes of God are like a prism to us. God himself is one, but he shines because he's too much for us to take in. He shines his light, his pure light through like a prism, boys and girls. And then you get all the different colors, don't you? All the different colors of his attributes. like our instructor lists here, power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth. But they're all one in God, and they're all summarized by this name of God, hallowed be thy name. And so when things are right spiritually inside of us, Our prayer will be the prayer of Moses. Show me thy glory. Show me thy glory. We're so prone to be self-centered, aren't we? But you see, when the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, we come to know God. And part of knowing God is this passion to know His glory. Now, That sometimes is circumstantially motivated. God uses circumstances in our lives to arouse within us this passion. Oh, yes. And that's a blessing. There's really three circumstances here that give rise to Moses' petition, show me thy glory. The first is he wanted to see more of God. He wanted to see more of God. He needed God more and more. He was called to a tremendous position of leadership. All of his life was one long experience of God revealing his glory to men and nations. It was a special child actually when he was young and he had to be. For 40 years, he was trying to free his captive people in Egypt, even slayed an Egyptian, and it didn't work. And then he had to wait another 40 years, and he was being trained, you see. And then the 10 plagues followed. And finally, finally, Moses was called to lead the people away. But he needed, he needed to know more of God. And so in all these experiences, he saw the glory of God. But the more he saw the glory of God, the more he needed the glory of God, and the more he cried out, oh God, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And the more we know God and the more we know ourselves, the more this humble, beautiful, God-centered prayer will fill our hearts. Show me thy glory. I want to know more of thee in the face of Jesus Christ. Is that you? But then secondly, Moses also wanted the assurance of God's forgiveness. When he went up on Mount Sinai to meet with God and Aaron caved to the wishes of the people, and he came down from the mountain, he saw the idol that they had made, broke the Ten Commandments, the two tables of stone, and oh, there was such an overwhelming, overwhelming sorrow in Moses' heart. And now he longs, you see, as God invites him to come back again into His presence. He longs to have reassurance that God is with him and will be with the people and won't desert them. And he cries out, show me thy glory. Take my eyes off of this world and off the sin of my people and put my eyes on that heavenly one who's the Lord of glory. Take my eyes off of all the sorrows and disappointments and trials. Lift me up with heavenly things that I may see Thy glory. Hallowed be Thy name. But then there's a third reason. There was a future. Moses didn't know. what that future would all entail. It would entail 40 years of wandering in the wilderness to the promised land. All Moses knew was he needed God. He needed God. He needed God for strength. Strength for the journey to come. O Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory. Go with me. If Thy presence go not with me, Lord, carry me not up hence. absolutely needs the Lord. And so do you. So do I. And so, you see why our instructor now says the very first thing, the very first thing this petition means is that we must rightly know God and His glory. And that must become the passion of our lives. But how does the Holy Spirit work that in us? Because, of course, by nature we don't have that. You know that. Well, the Holy Spirit works it in us through the Scriptures, through preaching them, through reading them. He applies, the Holy Spirit applies and brings home the Word of God to our souls, showing us our sin, showing us our need for Christ, and showing us that Christ is the glory of God. He's the express image of God. He's the only begotten of the Father. And it's in Him, through Him, by the Spirit, that we can have access to the Father. That we can behold the glory of the triune God. That we can be known of God and know Him in return. As Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd and know my sheep and am known of mine. Hallowed be thy name. Holy Spirit works that in our soul through the Word of God. Preached the Word of God, read, and those of you who are saved, you know what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. That Word becomes powerful. And that Word makes you love God. It makes you long to know Him more. It makes you cry out, Oh, I beseech thee, show me more, in Christ, in Christ, of thy glory. But also the Holy Spirit uses our lack to convict us personally of sin that we don't know the glory of God as well as we should. We're always coming short, aren't we? We're always too self-centered. And he shows us how full of dishonor we are toward God. And so it becomes our prayer, not only because we know something of it, we long to know more, but also because we don't know as much as we should. And we say, oh Lord, teach me, teach me more of thy glory. Deliver me from my earthly mindedness. I cannot deliver myself from it. Grant me that I may rightly know Thee. That's the petition you're praying when you say, Hallowed be Thy name. It's like Jeremiah 9 says, Thus saith the Lord, let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, or the mighty man in his might, or the rich man in his riches, but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord. Yahweh, it's the Lord, it's the Jehovah name. Which exercise loving kindness and judgment and righteousness in the earth. For in these things do I delight, saith the Lord. That is so powerful, isn't it? In these things I do delight, saith the Lord. God delights when a human being delights in Him. God rejoices when you long to know Him better. Dear friend, and so God convicts us by the Holy Spirit of how little we know Him, how much more we have to learn about Him, how much more we need Him. So that we cry out, grant me, grant me Lord to hallow thy name by rightly knowing thee, knowing thee in the intimate sense of the word knowing. that I may glorify Thee and praise Thee," says our instructor. And then one more thing here. Thirdly, knowing God is also comforting. It's comforting. The Heidelberg Catechism puts that so well in question one, what's your only comfort in life and death? That I don't belong to myself, but I belong to this faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. And the whole answer is Trinitarian, talking about how we know the Son, then know the Father, then know the Holy Spirit. And so growing in this knowledge, growing in this Christ-centeredness, growing in this assurance that I know Him and am known of Him, This is at the center of the totality of the Christian life. And so I need to ask you, are you known of God savingly? And do you know God savingly? And is it your prayer that you will know him better? better that you'll be convicted if you need to know him better but not only but also you'll be comforted by actually knowing him better and better by the Holy Spirit through the word and in Jesus Christ to the glory of the triune God hallowed be thy name now instructor goes on to say we also need to confess this This isn't something we just pray for, but we also confess it. Grant us also to sanctify, glorify, and praise Thee in all Thy works in which Thy power, wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth are clearly displayed. He's really praying for that spirit of Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits. He's praying for the spirit of Psalm 115. Not unto us, O Lord. Not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory. For Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake. Let that be my confession. Let that exude from my life. Let it be coming from my lips. that I would confess the glory of thy name, the glory of thy attributes, that I would bless the Lord God. You see, that's what we're called to do. That's why God made us. God made you, boys and girls, teenagers, God made you, created you, to be a blesser of him. That's the purpose of life, to bless him. bless the Father for His goodness, to bless the Son for His redeeming love, to bless the Holy Spirit for His sanctifying work. Do you bless God for His works? Do you know what it means to cry out with all your heart, Hallelujah! Praise the Lord for His works and His holy name. 1 Peter 2 verse 9 puts it this way. The scattered believers are declared to be, quote, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. Why? That ye should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And so when we bless God, we worship him. And when we worship Him, we respond like Moses in Exodus 34. I think it was verse 8, wasn't it? After God revealed His name, revealed His glory, Moses bowed his head toward the earth. And did what? Worshipped. Worshipped. Worshipped. To worship God is to glorify God. The word worship, you remember, especially in Greek, has a wonderful meaning. It actually comes from two Greek words. One is to kiss. To kiss. And the other means towards. So the idea is that all my affections, my internal being, my emotions, my heart, my mind, all that is within me, goes out with affection to God. And I worship Him. I love Him. I love the God I write. I don't just know Him, but I love the God whom I come to know or to bless God, says the psalmist, in all His works. But we do that humbly, you see. The sacrifices of God, Psalm 51, 17, are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart. That is a heart that worships God in humility, a heart that bows before Him. God that will not despise." Now what are some of those works in which we are to bow before God and confess His name? Well, I suppose you could come up with a hundred. I'm just going to give you four quick ones. First of all, we see God's work of power, His work of power in creation. And when you're a Christian, a true Christian, you see in creation what the unbeliever doesn't see in creation. Unbelievers are impressed with the Rocky Mountains. A believer can be profoundly impressed with his God by seeing a ladybug, beautiful orange and black ladybug, crawling up one blade of grass. That's why a believer, when he walks in nature, feels so close to God. Because he sees God. Calvin says you put on the spectacles and you see God everywhere. Through the Word. Also in nature. And you bless Him. You marvel. You marvel at His works in nature. You stand amazed, even at your own body, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Jonathan Ebers said when he wanted to feel close to God, he would often go out in the countryside and just view the stars and the moon in the evening and cry out in prayer to God. Nature can be used by God to cause a believer to grow in praising God. His work in creation shows his power, his beauty. But then there's his work of justice. justice in our lamentable fall. Oh, we weep, don't we, over the fall of Adam into sin. And yet in that fall, God clearly radiates His justice. God is just in all His ways. And we bow, when the Spirit works in our hearts, we bow under that justice. We acknowledge we deserve to perish, that we are a child of Adam. We put our face toward the earth and we worship God in His justice. But at the same time, we're taught by that same Spirit that His justice is satisfied in Jesus Christ, that He paid the full price. And we glory in that, and we praise God for that, that Jesus Christ paid the whole price of all our sin. and satisfied the justice of God so that we could be set free through faith in Him. What a marvel, what a thing the gospel is. Substitutionary obedience of Jesus Christ, turning the justice of God, as it were, without changing the justice itself, but making that throne of justice a throne of grace because of Jesus. And then there's Glory in the work of God's great goodness in providence. Providence, what a wonderful thing that is. We bless God because of His providence. Almost every day we see something in our lives, don't we? Or we say, that's the providence of God. He really does do all things for good, even though we don't often understand how it can work for good. Like the Catechism says in question 27, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, and all things come not by chance, but by His fatherly hand. And all creatures are so in His hand that without His will they could not so much as move. So we bless God, we confess He's a great God, He's a good God, a God of wonderful providence in my life. He's never made one mistake in my life. I've needed every affliction I've ever received, and I rejoice in every providential mercy I've ever received. He is so, so good to me. And then fourthly, We also bless God for His work of mercy, that most of all, in recreating us, in glorifying His name in us, by regenerating us, and converting us, and justifying us, and sanctifying us, and adopting us into His family, and assuring us of our salvation, and persevering with us through His perseverance at the right hand of the Father, and then preparing us for glorification. What a wonderful God of salvation he is. Lord, who art thou? Said Saul of Tarsus on the way to Damascus. And what wilt thou have me to do? You see, when God stops us and God converts us, then we glorify him and we want to obey him. Our whole life changes. We turn to God. We bow our heads. and we worship with confession as the God of creation, the God of justice, the God of goodness, the God of mercy. But more than that, we want to live our entire lives to this God. Not just our mouth, our eyes, our hands, our feet. Take my life, O Lord, and let it be consecrated wholly to Thee. Our instructor puts it this way, further also that we may so order and direct our whole lives, our thoughts, our words, our actions, that thy name may never be blasphemed, but rather honored and praised in our account. Let's look at that as our third thought. When we truly pray, boys and girls, when we truly pray, hallowed be thy name, we're praying to rightly know God's glory. to rightly confess God's glory, but also rightly to live to the glory of God. And our instructor says at the end here of this answer, there's a way to understand this negatively, positively, and Christologically, that is, in Christ. So those are my three closing thoughts this morning. How do we respond to living to the glory of God negatively, positively, and in Christ? Well, negatively, our instructor says, that thy name may never be blasphemed on my account. Now, by nature, our whole lives is a blasphemy of God's name. in all kinds of ways. With our lives, we show that we consider ourselves to be greater than God. Our name greater than His name. We can mock God, for example, when we come nicely dressed to church but are living selfishly, committing sin thoughtlessly during the week. Or practically, perhaps, we blaspheme God's name when our neighbors cannot tell the difference between their way of life and our way of life. Or we blaspheme God in our thoughts when we even think disrespectfully of God and His holy character. Or we sin with our minds and excuse our sin and then reason that somehow God will forgive us anyway, but we don't take our sins to Christ for forgiveness. We're deriding, you see, blaspheming the holiness of His name. James says we curse God by nature instead of bless Him with our mouth. And we can do that in the privacy of our homes. We can do it in public. Our actions betray our thoughts and our hearts. Our life by nature is a blaspheming of God's name. It's a tragedy. We want our name before God's name. Our actions betray us and show us our self-hallowing. And for God, that is blasphemy. Positively, positively, our instructor says, God's name must be honored and praised on our account. And what does that mean? Well, boys and girls, when you go to Grace Christian Academy, most days you bring your lunch. And your mom makes your lunch, probably. And she makes you a good lunch. And you're thankful. Maybe you even say to your friend at school, my mom just is so good to me. Every day she makes me this lunch. You're thankful. That's good. You see, you boast about your mom. But you see, when you love the Lord, you want your whole life to be a boast about God. It's like the Psalter 420, it's in the 420s. Thou, O God, art our boast, our glory, and our power. See, then your joy, your boast, your glory, your power is not in you, but it's all in God. And you drink out of that. And you have joy out of that. Joy that the world doesn't know. Joy unspeakable. When God is your boast, you see, then that looking down with your head toward the earth and worshiping God with all your heart is the most joyous thing that could ever be experienced because you're filled with the love of God. You are small and God is big and you love it that way. There's nothing so sweet, nothing so joyful in this world as worshiping God and hallowing His name positively. And that means that you're looking for opportunities to speak well of Him. Wherever you go, whatever you do, and you think high thoughts of Him, and you want to walk in His ways, you want your whole life to honor Him, and you grieve that it's not that way yet. And you long sometimes for that glorious land of heaven where you will be just perfect. Where your whole soul and your whole mind and everything about you will just glorify God forever without being stained by one sin. Oh, just imagine that. Sin free, sin free. Pure glory of God. That's what heaven is all about. And I'll be there if I'm a true believer. And I'll be as holy as Jesus is holy. Glorifying God with the totality of my being. Oh God, hasten the day. And this mortality shall put on immortality. And this corruption, incorruption. And I'll ever be with the Lord. You understand now the instructor's desire. soul order and direct our whole lives, our thoughts, our words, our actions, that thy name may never be blasphemed, but rather honored and praised on our account. You see, then our prayers, when we're in this frame of mind, our prayers are not just a shopping list. No, no. Our prayers are Moses bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. God. Our prayers are then filled with thanksgiving and adoration, adoring him, and petition, and confession. And not just for ourselves, but for our family, for our church, for our country. We want God to be glorified everywhere. In our stewardship, we want to give to the glory of God. In our activity, we want to serve the church and the ministry of the glory of God. In our service to our neighbor, we want to live to the glory of God. In our work, we want to live to the glory of God. We want to hallow God's name everywhere, in our whole life, in our education, even with our good health or our sickness, and in all the doctrines of grace. In all the truths of the Bible, we want to glorify God in them all. And then finally, this is not only a negative aspect and a positive one, but a Christological one. Because you see, we can only glorify God through Jesus and in Jesus. And he's the one who did it perfectly. He's our model example. A premier example. He lived entirely for his father's glory, didn't he? My meat and drink is to do my father's will. I and my father are one. His business was to go about glorifying his father. Thank God for that. And because he did that perfectly, and because he paid, dear child of God, for your sins completely, you see, he begins to work in you that obedience here in this life. So you know something of the sweetness of it, but he's the one that saves you so that on the judgment day, he can say, my obedience is the reason why you can be admitted into glory. But I have prepared you now so that you can enter into glory and live totally for the glory of my name. Totally. Consider Christ, who perfectly honored the Father. He says in John 13, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself and shall straightway glorify him. And a bit later, Jesus says, I have glorified thee on the earth, John 17, 4. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. Jesus' whole life, His whole life is Psalm 115, 1A. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name give glory for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake. And you see, that's exactly what every believer wants his life to be, her life to be. Not unto me, not unto me. cleanse me from this wicked self-centeredness, from this ungodly blasphemous pride, and help me, help me to want to glorify Thee alone. Dear friend, as I close this morning, would you be willing to just examine yourself? And me too. I need it just as much as you. Do you pray, Hallowed be thy name? Because you long to know God and glorify Him and confess Him and glorify Him and live to Him and glorify Him. Is that your desire? Or are you like Belshazzar? Even though Belshazzar was so afraid of what Daniel said, that his knees smote together, he didn't turn to God in repentance, did he? No. What did he do? Well, he was so used to being man-centered that he responded. He felt the conviction, the truth of it, so he responded. Instead of glorifying God, he clothed Daniel with purple, put a gold chain around his neck, and proclaimed him the third highest in the kingdom. Well, that was God's providence, too, of course. But you see, the problem with Belshazzar was that he didn't honor God. He just honored Daniel. And the result was that God esteemed Belshazzar lightly because he did not honor him. And in that night, Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was slain by Almighty Holy God. And so, dear friend, I want to say this to you. If you don't glorify God, if that is not the center of your life, your hope, your desire, you will be slain. You will perish forever. because you are utterly contradicting, do you understand, the purpose for why God put you here on this earth? And one day you have to give an account to him of everything you've done, everything you've thought, everything you've said, everything you've done with your hands, with your eyes, with your ears. And if you don't glorify God, there's no holiness in your life, there's no fruit of salvation in your life, and you're not living out of Christ, you will perish. Do you hear me? You will perish forever. You must be born again. You must learn to cry out, hallowed be thy name. You must be delivered from the bondage of self and sin and be brought to the Lord Jesus Christ, poor and needy. Otherwise, the day will come when you will cry out, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. But the good news, God is willing to be your God. Now, today, go to your home, go into your bedroom, get alone with God, and bow your head toward the earth and worship Him by repenting, by trusting, by surrendering your whole life to this God of amazing grace, through Christ, in Christ alone. Amen. Gracious God, we thank Thee so much for Thy glorious and beautiful name, for Thy glorious and beautiful being, for Thou art Thy name. Lord, there's no one like unto thee. Oh, that we would find our greatest joys in life in worshiping thee. Help us to bow with our faces to the earth and worship thee in the Lord Jesus Christ and confess thee and come to rightly know thee and to live with our thoughts, our words, our actions. so as to never blaspheme thy name, but to honor and praise it, as is thy worthy due. Hallowed be thy name. Be with the unsaved among us. O God, show them, please, please show them what they're missing, and please help them to fall before thee and cry out, O God, be merciful to me, the sinner. In Jesus' name, Amen.