Spark Notes (11/5)

Teach Us To Pray: Week Two

This week, Jen Sandbulte continued our series called Teach Us To Pray, focusing on the first phrase of the Lord's prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven - hallowed be thy name"

"OUR FATHER" - It begins with revelation of who God is. The name doesn't mean anything until you have had a revelation to the person behind it. 

Who can use the word "father"? Unless you are a child of God, you have no right to use this prayer. Until you know Jesus, you are an orphan. ?You are in the universe without a father. When we kow him as a father, the world becomes a totally different place. We are all adopted and grafted in through Jesus. We can all call him "Father" (Abba meaning Daddy). We pray "our" - not "my". 

The phrase "Give us.." is not a selfish, private prayer, but a way to pray for things you could ask for others. 

"IN HEAVEN" - this keeps "daddy" from being too casual. Our Heavenly Father is holier and more powerful that ANY dad on this earth. 

Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Psalm 102:25 - In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the  heavens are the work of your hand.

Psalm 19:4 - Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

Revelation 5:13- Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!"  

"HALLOWED BE THY NAME" - If you were going to pick on someone or curse them, would you di it if they were sitting right next to you? We cannot get away from the presence of God. If we have a sense of his presence, we hallow his name. We cannot take his name in vain in his absence, because God is always there. 

We need to not blaspheme the name of God, we should hallow it. How do we blaspheme the name of God? 

1. Perjury - When we go to court - we swear on God's word, but do we get what we are doing?
2. Profanity - There are two deeply sacred relationships: a man's relationship with God and a man's relationship to women. Almost every swear word points to one of these two relationships.
3. Flippancy - A sense of humor that goes too far. Never laugh at the devil. We have authority over him but we do not need to mock him. We should spend our time praising Jesus over mocking the enemy. 
4. Incredulity - refusing to believe in God's works and his words. 
5. Hypocrisy - we come to church and take the name of Christ on our lips and then dishonor the name of Christ by living in the way of the world. 
6. Familiarity - Jews hallowed the name of God so much that they wouldn't even speak his name. In the days of Jesus, they called him "The Name".
7. Blasphemy - when Godd's name is used to support evil things - there will come a day when people will kill you in the name of God. 

What we pray for is that men would know what it stands for - that one day they would stand to render their account. 

Why was Jesus put to death? One charge of blasphemy. He called himself God and to those around him, this was not honoring the name of God - it was blasphemy. According to their law, not to hallo the name of God was punishable by death. 

In then name of God, they condemned the son of God to die. 

Jesus never joked about God -was never flippant or profane about God. It was men who were. 

Jen then challenged the group to pray that we may come to know God as holy, heavenly, and mighty. 

If you would like to watch the full service, click here. 

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