Turn in your copy of the scriptures, first to Luke chapter one, verses 26 to 56. And then we’ll take a peek at Romans chapter six. So we’re thinking tonight from the Heidelberg Catechism about how we honor God’s name. One of the ways is to know him rightly and to honor him.
This is, If you’ve found your way there to Luke chapter one, this is Mary after the visit from the angel telling her she will bear the Christ child. And it’s very interesting, I think, to see what Mary as a pretty young gal, probably, you know, people say 13, 14 years old. This is what a teenage Hebrew girl would have understood. Some of us are well into adulthood before we understand these things. And of course, she says this by the power of the spirit too. So maybe that gives her a little, little help. But it’s interesting what she knows and how she interprets the events of Gabriel’s visit.
So chapter one of Luke, beginning at 26. It says, in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, greetings, O favored one. The Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary. for you have found favor with God.
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called son of the most high. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end. And Mary said to the angel, how will this be since I am a virgin? The angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren, for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, behold, I am the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.
And the angel departed from her. In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country to a town in Judah. And she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, blessed are you among women and blessed as the fruit of your womb.
And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy and blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my savior.
For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
And now Romans chapter six, verses 11 to 14. Romans chapter six, beginning at verse 11. The word of God says, so also you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law, but under grace.” This is God’s word for us.
A long time ago, when we made the crazy decision to homeschool the kids, we registered our little homeschool with the state of North Carolina. I suppose it was the Department of Instruction, something like that. And so you got to name your school. We lived on Hobbs road in Greensboro. And so we called it Calvin on Hobbs, like the cartoon, I guess, and a little, little play on Calvin. Um, and we had to have a little motto, you know, so little theologian brainy me came up with this.
Um, our goal was to teach our children to love God, uh, love God, will love God and live well in the world he made. and put them over as his image bearers. Pretty good, huh? I thought so. That’s, in a sense, the teaching of this catechism. Our job is to love God well and to live well in the world he made. Our job is to love God, know him, but it’s also to reflect him and his goodness in this world. Lots of you have been through the theology classes over the stretch, uh, Westminster confession of faith.
Uh, the ladies are taking the little daily doctrine course. And you understand that when you study theology, there are, let’s just call them chapter headings. I think the fancy word is loci because it has to be Latin. Uh, but there’s chapter headings and it’s scripture. It’s theology proper, which is God. And then it’s creation, man fall. redemption, Holy Spirit, church, last thing, something like that. And different people have a few different tweaks, few different categories, but the starting point for theology is not God. It’s scripture.
And the way we know God, the way we understand God is through the means that he has given, uh, for us to, to know him and understand him. And he has revealed himself in the Holy scriptures. God’s word is God’s revelation of himself. And so if we want to do what this catechism says, hallowed be God’s name, no honor, glorify, praise, all the rest and live well for God by being obedient, we have to read our Bibles. The Bible is gonna tell us what we need to know about God and how we can live for his glory. It’s kind of simple, isn’t it? I read the Bible, know God and love him and worship him. Why read the Bible? So you can obey his commandments and bring glory to his name in this world.
And the beautiful thing about the scriptures is we have a personal triune God who has revealed himself to us in the context of a covenant. You read through the Bible, think through what R.C. Sproul said of his first pass through the Bible. His comment was, and he was a, he was a Pittsburgh teenage college student on the way to buy a pack of lucky strikes, uh, not really heard the scriptures. And he says, when I read the Bible, I realized this God plays for keeps. Okay.
That is the reality of the covenant. You read the Bible and you realize God loves a people. he saves a people through his son Jesus. When he says I’ll be your God, he means it. When he says I’ll rescue and redeem you, he means it. And he means it so much we see the glory of covenant love on the cross of Calvary. And so we have a personal God who has personally revealed himself Through the context of covenant, I will be your God, you will be my people.
We get to the end of Revelation and it says, now the dwelling place of God is with man. He’s wiped away every tear. He’s taken away every pain and suffering and hardship. And so our life as believers is a life dealing with the revelation of God, the Bible, and responding to it appropriately. So on Sundays we gather as God’s people and we worship him.
He’s revealed himself as the God who is to be worshiped, but he’s also revealed himself to us as the God who is to be honored and obeyed. And he has made us, he’s made this world as a theater for his glory. And in this theater for his glory, he’s made man to reflect his image. and to spread his glory and fame across the entire earth. Now, we, of course, know that was thwarted with sin, with Satan in the garden and Eve and Adam tempted and failing.
But the great commission of the church is for the people of God redeemed in Christ to go into all the world and make disciples of the nations. And so at the center of knowing God, at the center of his revelation, At the center of our daily living for him is this theme, this thought, this reality of covenant. I will be your God and you will be my people. And we see it revealed in the life that God had with Adam and Eve.
Here’s a garden, work it, keep it, have dominion over it, make it flourish, spread garden across the face of the earth. Live for me, serve me, worship me. Don’t listen to Satan if he comes in the garden, you know, whack him with the hoe, that kind of thing. Uh, we know how that worked out, but God said, I’ll be your God. You’ll be my people. Don’t eat from the tree. You eat, you die. That was a covenant curse. You don’t eat at some point you’ll eat from the tree of life and live forever. And so.
God had that covenant with Adam and Eve. There’s the same relationship God has with Abraham. I will be your God. Abraham leave or of the Caldeans go to the promised land, the land of Canaan, the land I’ll show you. And what does he tell Abraham? Not only will I be your God and you and your offspring will be my people, but I will bless you greatly. The nations of the earth will be blessed by you. Whoever blesses you, I will bless whoever curses you. I will curse.
And then he says to him, walk before me and be blameless. So very clearly in the covenant relationships that we see in the scripture, at least these two, I’m God, worship me. I’m God, live for my glory and obedience. And so that pops up over and over. And we could talk about Noah. We could talk about David. We could talk about all believers.
But the reality of God is made clear to us in the holy scriptures. And so by God’s word, by God’s spirit, through the powerful word, through the blessing of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we can rightly know God and serve him will be. not too great at it sometimes because we still got sin, right? We have to repent and covenant renewal with God. But we can by word and spirit rightly know God and rightly serve him in this world. And again, it will be imperfect. We have indwelling sin. We struggle with flesh and spirit and all that. So what does the first petition mean? Well, you got two two big headings with all these crazy subheadings and a bunch of nice words.
It simply says, Hallowed be your name means help us to truly know, honor, glorify, and praise you. And then the little subset for all your works and what shines forth from them, wisdom, kindness, power, justice, mercy, truth. And then it means direct our living So if creation shows the attributes of God, what else is gonna show the attributes of God? In a little bitty way, it’s image bearers who direct their living, what we think, what we say, what we do, so that the name of God will never be blasphemed because of us, but always honored and praised. This is a really tall order. So we want to know God, honor God, glorify God, and praise God for all his works, and what shines forth from them.
I put a little funny title, what we think and what we feel and what we do should all lend itself to obedience to God’s commands. but it should also lend itself to us glorifying God because we know Him well. And when we know Him well, what will we think of Him? He deserves praise. He deserves honor. He deserves glory. And He deserves my obedience.
We sing, take my life and let it be consecrated Lord for thee, take my will, take my intellect, you know, take my hands, my feet, whatever. And, you know, we sing that song at the end of a Sunday service, you know, Oh Lord, I’m gonna go serve you. And then we’re out the door and we forget it. Yeah. Okay. I got an amen at least or a grumble. Um, but, but that’s how the Christian life works. We, you know, we hear tonight’s message and then we go home and flip on the TV. I mean, I’m just as guilty. Right. And before long, we, we, Okay, we’re just living for ourselves, maybe semi-pro, semi-Christian, but we get forgetful. But what would it be to devote our mind? What would it be to devote our intellect? What would it be to devote our entire I don’t know, intellectual capacities to truly know God so that we can properly praise him. That’s a lifelong endeavor.
In fact, in Romans chapter 11, when Paul is finished with eight chapters of theology that are pretty amazing, and then three chapters on what happens to ethnic Israel, which nobody can figure out what he means by it. If somebody says they do, they’re wrong. So how does he end those 11 chapters? He says, oh, the depth of the riches of the knowledge of God who can search out his ways. And in a sense, Paul, the theologian says, not me. And then he breaks out into doxology for from him and through him and to him are all things.
And so our lifelong endeavor could be, it should be, it is to know God rightly. That means we read our Bibles. That means we should be able to cough up some words like Mary, I mean, doesn’t a little teenage gal put you to shame? I mean, she had the Holy Spirit. We’ll grant her that.
But what comes out of our mouths when we praise God? Now, I don’t want to get into a little worship war here, but you think about the songs and the hymns and the psalms that we sing and how rich and deep they are. And if you look down at the catechism, if we’re to know, honor, glorify, and praise God, for his wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. If you sit through enough Sundays at our church, you’re probably gonna sing about all that stuff a whole bunch.
That’s good. I don’t wanna, you know, poke at other people. We do it right, they do it wrong. My sister refers to the modern church song as the song full of reflexive pronouns, I, me, and my. And they’re not about the wisdom, kindness, justice, and mercy, and truth of God.
60s love songs and instead of Bobby and it’s Jesus right that’s kind of you know you make me feel so good all that there’s a big difference so one of the ways We can know God, worship God, and give him the proper ascription of praise for these things is to sing good songs, biblical ones, ones that carry the freight of who God is, what God has done. So when we say, hallowed be your name, help us to truly know you, honor you, glorify and praise you. So we want to do that every day when we think about God, when we learn about God, we want to do it every Sunday when we worship God, Remember, God has revealed himself to a people in the context of a covenant.
And that covenant is always revelation and response. God says, here I am. Here’s what I am. Here’s who I am. Like Moses at the burning bush. And the response is take off your sandals. You’re standing on holy ground. The response is I am to be feared. I am to be worshiped. I am to be adored and honored.
And so the better we know God, the better we can praise him. The better we know God and understand him, the better we see what he is like in the works of creation, the better his name is honored. And notice how the phrase of the catechism, help us to truly know, honor, glorify, praise you for all your works. We speak of God’s character.
And then we speak of his actions. What are his actions? What are his works? Well, the works of creation, the works of him providentially working out his decrees in this world. And they show us his almighty power. They show us his almighty wisdom, his almighty kindness, his almighty justice, his almighty mercy, and his wonderful truth.
And it’s a pet peeve of mine when people give a sermon and they say, no, this word means this and this word means that, but here I go, his almighty power. Where do we see that on display in the work of creation? We believe God in Genesis chapter one spoke and from nothing came everything by the word of his power in the space of six days. And what does our catechism say? And all very good. And so we can see in the work of creation, The voice of God is mighty. The voice of God is powerful. In fact, there’s a Psalm that says, the voice of God can thunder.
It can break a cedar of Lebanon. That was the hottest lumber commodity in the Middle East. I mean, when Solomon built his palace, he didn’t go to Lowe’s and Home Depot. He went up to Tyre and Sidon. He wanted a cedar of Lebanon to be the lumber of choice for his palace. And so when God speaks, not only can he break a cedar of Lebanon, he can speak and the calf gives birth. He speaks and the mountains skip like little ones. Quite amazing, his power. And we could go on about his power, but what of his wisdom?
What you think about all the moving parts of the world. Some of you have studied science, some of you have studied the stars, some of you have studied Maybe medicine. Some of you have looked at micro things. Others of you have looked at macro things. And you begin to see what God has made and all its complexities.
And you say, how in the world did he do that? It works and it works really well. Well, the wisdom of God is the foundation of this creation. You know, people who don’t call on the name of God, if they are in touch with any form of reality, they say there was something intelligent behind this. And you know, there’s the movement called intelligent design. They don’t know who the intelligent person is or the God is, but they admit somebody really doggone smart did this. Otherwise it could not be.
And so we see the power of God in creation. We see the wisdom of God in creation. We also see the kindness of God. What does Jesus say? The rain falls on the just and the unjust. We live in a world where there is so much common grace that God blesses everyone in this world at some level with his goodness. He sends rain. He sends peace. You know, he sends all kinds of common grace things. But there’s also the saving grace of God that is revealed clearly in the Holy Scriptures. And so when God sends missionaries, when God sends preachers, when God puts children in the home of parents who are believers and they tell them of Christ, his special and saving grace is an act of his kindness.
But what of his justice? His justice is all over the place. You know, we recently watched the trial of the lady up in New Jersey or wherever, where she she admitted to killing her children and you had All but one juror say, ah, she deserves to go free. But this last juror, he said, my conscience can’t say she’s innocent. And what is written in his mind or heart? I don’t know if he’s a Christian or not. I don’t know what his worldview is. I don’t know what his training or education is. I don’t know how he determined that she was guilty. But isn’t it written in our hearts Generally, we know right and we know wrong. And we know when we’ve done wrong because we hide.
And so the justice of God is written in the consciences of men. But there’s also the principle, some call it karma, but the scripture says you reap what you sow. And whatever you sow will come to fruition. It will come to a harvest. God has also given for justice the civil government. Romans chapter 13 says, the civil magistrate does not bear the sword of God in vain, but God has put the magistrate over us to commend what is good and to punish what is evil.
And then we also see the justice of God. God is at work in the world and he is the prime mover. He is the ultimate reality. And there’s so much wrong in this world that we probably don’t see because our God restrains it. You heard that echoed this morning when we read and when we sang Psalm 113 and then it popped up tonight in the Magnificat, the Song of Mary.
God sees those who are cast down and he lifts them up. He raises them up from the ash heap. He raises them up from the dust of the ground and he sits them with princes. He gives barren women children. We saw that with Elizabeth. as she carries the Baptist, John the Baptist in her womb. Well, what about the mercy of God? We’re to see all his works and how they shine forth the mercy of God.
God preserves a wicked creation. You remember what he did in Genesis when he looked and in the earth, all he saw was only evil all the time, but Noah found favor in his sight. And for a hundred years, Noah built an ark, Noah preached the coming flood and the way of salvation was in that ark, but only Noah and his family had the sense to get in it. And God promised after that, um, through the sign of the rainbow, I will never again flood the entire earth in that way. I will never destroy this creation.
And so we see God’s, uh, mercy in, not giving us what we deserve. What does Psalm 103 tell us? God knows our frame. He remembers we are dust. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. He is the father on the porch watching for the son to come to his senses and to return home. And he receives them and gives him everything as if he had never sinned and as if he had never left. That is the mercy of God. What about the truth?
This is a very interesting thing that’s observable in creation. There are laws of nature, gravity. There are laws of nature. There are things we ought to do and things that we ought not to do. In fact, some decades ago, maybe a century ago, there were things that are praiseworthy in today’s culture that were called crimes against nature. We can’t call it that now. It’s not politically correct. It’s not nice. But there are laws of nature. This earth has a lot of uniformity.
Yes, it’s decaying and it’s bent and broken by sin. And what does Romans eight tell us? All creation is groaning and eagerly awaiting the adoption of the sons of God, because when God comes, he is going to create a new heavens and new earth. But we can still look at this world been and broken by sin and in a state of decay. And there’s much uniformity. There is much in it that is consistent. God in the days of creation took what was formless and void and he formed it and he filled it and he made a habitat that is suitable for us to live in. And so there are truths.
If you remember back to the days of all the arguments about Obamacare, and you remember the Catholics got really upset. We do not want to provide for the Catholic church insurance that requires we cover abortion. And then of course there are other medical, whatever, things that have come up in these discussions. And the Catholics always argue laws of nature. And they’re right to do that.
God has built truth into this world, but he’s also built truth into the holy scripture and scripture is unbroken. All that God says has come to pass. And so we want to know God, honor God, glorify God, praise God for all his works and all that shines forth from them. And what shines forth all those things we’ve talked of power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. But where is the work of God most clear? It’s at the cross. And it’s where all these attributes, power, wisdom, kindness, justice, and mercy, and truth, they all kiss, they all meet, they all merge, they all join.
The mercy of God was to save sinners. The justice of God was to lay our sins on a scapegoat. The truth of God is that all who have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory may seek mercy and justice in the cross and in the person of Jesus. And we could go on about the power of God to raise Jesus from the dead, the wisdom of God to create such a way of salvation on and on. But all that we know of God particularly shines forth in the cross. Creation, yes. more so the cross. But what does it mean for our living? That’s the second part.
It means that we are asking God when we pray, hallowed be thy name, Lord, don’t let me shame the family name. Right? You know, when you’re a young one, you’re going off to school and mom and dad say, don’t embarrass the family name. You’re a, you’re a Smith, right? And Smiths don’t do that. Don’t embarrass the family name.
So we want to bring fame to the name of Jesus. We wanna bring fame to the glory and name of God. So we’re asking God, direct our living, what we think, what we say, and what we do, direct it so that your name will never be blasphemed. That’s a really strong word. You wake up every morning and say, Lord, help me not to blaspheme your name. And not when you stub your toe or mash your finger with a hammer, but just your everyday living. Do you whistle while you work? Do you praise God? Do you put in a good effort? Do you go all in for the Lord?
Help us to direct our living, what we say or what we think. Think on things above. What we say, we want to say what is true, good and beautiful and what is edifying and what we do. We want to live a disciplined, orderly, obedient, just and merciful life.
If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. The old sinful ways are gone. The new, uh, the, the new birth has come. We, we live out of the power of the Holy spirit now. And so everything we do. ought to please God and bring glory to the name. Now we, we struggle with obedience. We struggle with, uh, the flesh and the devil and the world. And God knows this. Jesus prays for us. It is the way he has set it up, but we want to know what God’s righteous standard is and live not for our salvation, but for his glory. Jesus has lived for our obedience. Uh, but we want to live for his glory.
Think of this, uh, the world and everything in it as a really good advertisement. for God. I mean, you look at fall and the changing seasons, you look at the tiny fingers of a baby, you look into a microscope and see tiny things that the naked eye cannot see. You look in telescopes and see galaxies. I mean, there’s stuff we just don’t even know. And this world is quite amazing. But what’s more amazing, I think, to a watching world is to see a human being that had once been riddled with sin and misery and a real bear to live with. come to faith in Jesus and be changed from the inside out. And that’s a wonderful thing for this watching world to see you are God’s best advertisement. You know, we see somebody who’s lost a little weight.
What would you do? And, you know, we say things like, um, I want whatever’s working for them. And so when you live the Christian life, you want people to say, Hey, whatever, whatever you’re, whatever it is you’re doing right down the formula, That’s what I need.
And the formula is faith in Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit in us for the rest of our lives. And so when we pray, hallowed be your name, may we never blaspheme the Lord because we honor and fear him for all that he is. May it be so, let’s do pray. Father, give us the help that we need to know you and live for you, we pray in Christ’s gracious name, amen.