Worshipping God In Our Prayers 01/31/21

Well, good morning and welcome to New Grace Baptist Church and it is Sunday January 31st and Welcome to our sermon for this week. I am recording this on Saturday afternoon. I hope everyone's had a great week and hopefully you may be ready for a little more inclement weather coming in. Well, we also want to remind you that to visit us on Facebook new Grace Baptist Raleigh and you can hear our sermons there on the course. We are still in our series of power praying and this is the third study and we are studying The Lord's Prayer well today and the title of this sermon today is worshipping God in our prayers and other words when we sit down to pray or kneel down ever how you pray. Do you make it a point to worship God as your praying and we're going to talk about prayer and the Holiness of God in this message today. Well, of course the Lord's Prayer is in Matthew 6 and we're going to read it again verses 9 through 13, but we're going to focus like last week on verse 9. So let's look at it here as we see it beginning and verse 9 Matthew chapter 6 and Jesus said in this manner therefore pray Our Father in heaven Hallowed be thy name or 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 forgive our debtors and do not lead us into temptation. But Deliver Us from the evil one for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Well, what we want to do today is we want to focus on the second part of verse 9 and I remember when Jesus said in this manner, he's giving us a pattern not necessarily the exact words to say but a pattern of prayer and he says first of all our Father in heaven and we looked at that last week and we talked about how about prayer and the fatherhood of God that we can call him father that we can call him dad and we talked about the ramifications of that with this week. I want us to take the next phrase and the next phrase says Hallowed be your name now when we think about God and we think about our life and we when we look at this world, we should just be incredibly grateful for God and His incredible creation his work and most of all for sacrificially giving up his son Jesus Christ. God has created one of the most beautiful pictures of love in all the world and so with thankful and joyful Hearts, we should respond to God and praise and worship and I remember the word worship literally means to ascribe Worth's to something so By applauding and praising the Lord what we're doing is we're showing him how much we value his gift and what he has done for us and it's this type of honest and joyful appraised. This is what Jesus had in mind when he said these words Hallowed be your name. So only have two points today and point one is simply this How to worship God in other words, how can we hallow his name? Well, you know when you think of a church service all the music and drama of the worship service out to focus on one thing and that is bringing and giving glory to God and the Bible says that we are to enter into the gates of his presence with singing and and so we hello His Name by doing that. Well, not many Christians probably understand what exactly what does this word mean? Well, how old is kind of like an archaic word? It comes from the Greek word. Agacio, which means to be holy something that is Holy in the Bible is set apart to be praised in to be worshipped ORD ORD God's name is Holy. So when we praise God we don't lift him up any higher because he's already at the Pinnacle of greatness. But what we're doing is we acknowledge. Is worth when we can fast at the outset of our prayers that he is Holy and so by glorifying his name. We are simply giving God what is rightfully he has and that's our praise and adoration now to hallow God's name. Does it mean to worship the actual letters that form the name Yahweh, but we are honoring the one who the name stands for. Jesus didn't instruct his disciples to praise one particular name of God, but the praise the one behind all the names of God remember he is God the father he is at an eye he is y'all way he is Elroy through the names. We learned a little bit about who God is and cry set up an example of praying that we should follow so we are to hallow his name. And we Halo His Name by doing four things and I want to list these here for you. First of all, and I did send everyone hand out. So I hope you have that first of all, we hallow his name. By rehearsing who he is now someone once said that no religion has ever been greater than that religions concept of God will know church is greater than its worship of God. And if a local church is going to be great. It's going to be due to the personal and the personal Praise of the people toward God you say when we said in church, we're not members of an audience watching too, you know a show produced by you know, the password. We're not to be critics, you know watching for all the mistakes the preacher makes or the song leader makes or the singing or anything like that and we're not to be making suggestions for someone else, you know to how we can improve the performance you see when we said in church. We are the performers and God is the audience. And is he has Applause is what he thinks that's all that matters. No matter what happens upfront everyone in attendance offers up praise and worship to the father. And so when we do that, what we're doing is we're rehearsing who he is now many of you know, I heard some of these names of four of their eight compound names for God in the Old Testament Jehovah tsidkenu, which means Jehovah our righteousness Jehovah mekaddishkem him which means Jehovah who sanctifies then you have Joe. Jehovah-shalom, which means Jehovah he is our peace Jehovah shammah, which means god is there and he never leaves us or Jehovah Rapha, which means that the Lord who heals Jehovah Jireh means the Lord who provides Jehovah Nissi means the Lord my banner and then the last one Jehovah Roy the Lord who is my shepherd. So just think Not this as we go to the Lord in prayer, the first thing that we do is we are to honor and praise and thank God and one of the ways that we can rehearse what God has done and who he is is by simply focusing on the names of God, even the Old Testament names and if you just take one name a day and focus on that and you can thank God for that and we will be Halloween his name you see we would rehearse who he is. And if we consider the needs of most people we all know that most people needs are met in God if we need forgiveness of sin, then we turn to Jehovah tsidkenu because he is our righteousness. Are you facing anxious anxious situation today within you can spend time with Jehovah Shalom because he is our peace if you're lonely Jehovah Shema, he's The God Who is always there when? Someone is sick or if you're sick. You can turn to Jehovah Rapha The God Who heals when you're in need you can turn to Jehovah Jireh you see in the process of worshipping him. We come to understand who he is and we praise the part of God's nature that is closest to our greatest need and the Lord will honor that as we respond to him. You see the Bible calls God all these names so that we can have an understanding of who he is because none of us fully understand God, but he has revealed himself to us through scripture through his name's and through his son Jesus. You see Jesus was the greatest revelation of God in the New Testament says he has the exact image of God the exact representation of God. And so remember in the New Testament Jesus, he was called many names, you know, just think of some of these he was called the bread of life. He was called The Living Water. He was called the Good Shepherd. He was called the Lamb of God even called the bright and Morning Star. He was called the way the truth and the life. He was called the root and The Offspring of David on and on it goes but just think about this now these names they're more than just merely a list, but it's a series of pictures that help us to understand who he is. Remember God. He spoke many times and metaphor and simile and he's giving us some beautiful pictures of who Jesus is as the Good Shepherd. What does the Good Shepherd do what he guides us and he leads us each day when he says I am the door. What does that mean? Well, he just offers a new way of life many of us was walking through the wrong door before we were safe. But now he has open the door to our Salvation and now we're walking in truth and in life and as the living water and as the bread of life, what does that mean? That just means that he satisfies our every need You see when we hallow the names of God, we come to appreciate him and rather than kind of trotting into his presence and toss it out a few short prayers. What we want to do is to linger in his presence and allow him to change our lives and he change what changes the most is that our prayer life will become much more vinyl and he desires us to pray and to be totally dependent on him. So one way of doing that is to hallow his name into hallow his name. We need to rehearse his name scripture. And remember who God is and when we do that, we will Halo him. Well, there's another way to hallow his name. Not only are we rehearsing who he is. But secondly, we are respecting his greatness you see God is unearthly if you can't if that's a word he is. Totally separated from sin. He is Holy and he is above all else. So while he has become our father and we can have an intimate relationship with him as we talked about last week. He is also set apart and he expects us to show him. Do reference now we can have a genuine desire for intimacy with him, but we need to remember to hallow him. You see he is a loving father. But God he is still the great God and we must treat him with fear and honor and when we Halo His Name by respecting his greatness. Well, there's a third way to hollow his name and that is by relinquishing control. You say what what what do you mean by that? Well, God's name is hallowed Among Us. when both our Doctrine the way we think And our living lines up with his word. You see we have to turn over control of our life to him into the power of the Holy Spirit. We cannot hang on to all these little desires that we have because he is our Lord. He's our King. He is over us and therefore we honor God when we relinquish control and give him control and when we obey what he says I think about this many of you are parents and and you maybe have children or you know had shorter maybe they've grown up now but as a father or mother, you know that you are respected when your children are obedient to us when they do what we ask in a positive way. They are honoring us. Well, our heavenly father is also honored when we obey him. So the sole desire of Our Lives should be to Delight. God in everything that we do and we can Halo his name not only by the words we speak but by the actions that we perform remember what the summer said in Psalm 19. He said let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, you see he understood that his life was in God and I want to live my life in such a way. That other people's going to be able to tell that I belong to God, you won't those people with whom you do business with the members of your family the members of your church your neighbors. Do you live decide you want them when they see you coming and going to know that you are part of the family of God. You see when you relinquish control of your life to God. God gets the glory and we had a load His Name by doing that. So we rehearse who he is what He Is We respect his greatness? We can have an intimate relationship. But we also know that God is Holy and he is above us and he is separate from seeing so we have to have a Godly fear of him. And then we relinquish control of our life. We Halo his name when we give him control. Well, there's one more than we Halo his name. When we recognize his presence, you see when we are constantly aware of his presence and we live everyday in light of the fact that God that he is our God we bring Glory To His Name by David Road in Psalm chapter 16. He says I have set the lord always before me in other words David was saying God is always there and we were to always acknowledge his presence. You see by doing that. Hallows his name. And just think about this now we're talkin about praying we're talkin about Jesus is teaching us how to pray. So look how we start our prayer. Jesus makes this merely the start of his prayer. In other words. We don't wait until we get through our list of requests. We don't wait until we hand him our gimme Alias know we honor him first we don't exhaust everything we want to say in prayer and then at the end say oh by the way, God, I know that you're pretty great. No, that's not it at all. When we come to the lower the pattern that Jesus gives us is that we honor and praise God first by rehearsing who is respecting his greatness relinquishing control and recognizing his presence and that's what we do first. So that's how we worship but then point number two is simply this If we worship this way. What what is it that worship does for us, you know all of us in and I'm including myself here. We have to work hard at making worship a meaningful part of our prayer life. All of us would say do you love the Lord? Oh, yes. I love the Lord. Do you think he's great? Yes, he's great, but it's just too easy to fall into the Trap. A simply coming to God and giving him our wish list of everything on our heart. So we have to make a concentrated effort. Every time that we go to the Lord in prayer that we need to start by praising the Lord and when we do that some incredible things will happen when you take up the time to lift up his name all kind of things will start to take place in your prayer life. Now, what I want to do is I want to list six benefits when we worship when we Halo his name and when we worship God In Prayer, I want to give you six benefits that come from that and I have them here all listed out right here on the on the slide. So let's go. Let's go through each one of these. So we're talking about Halloween his name. We're talkin about rehearsing who he is respecting his greatness relinquishing control of our life and recognizing his Prison what happens when we do that what happens when we start our prayer with praise and thanksgiving. Well six of them here letter A letter a is worship. Will it enhance has our love for God in other words that enhances our appreciation just saying the words of Praise helps you to begin to see who God is even when you don't feel like it even when things are going bad. Maybe you have lost a loved one. Maybe you have lost your job. We still come to the Lord with words of Praise because it will help us to grow and change and when we pray this way, we have to work diligently to focus our attention on God's greatness all of a sudden my appreciation and my love for him is renewed it enhances our love for God when we come to him first in Praise, no matter what the circumstances are in our life because it may Scott big it makes him first and foremost when we come to him. So one of the benefits is it enhance is our love for God let her be not only that but when we worship worship expands our vision you see if I don't worship God if I don't come to him and praise and adoration and Thanksgiving my vision of God gets very small. I tend to think of life in terms of what I can do rather than what God can do Through Me Now certainly all of us have some gifts in a in capabilities and abilities, but they are not nearly what they can be if I expand my vision to see the greatness of God you say I don't want and we shouldn't want our life to be merely what we can accomplish much can accomplish in our own greatness or in our own gif. How we want our life to be all that God can do through us and you'll find out that when you worship and praise him when you spend time cultivating your perception of God your vision will expand in other words. I begin to look at life in terms of what great things. God can do not what great things. I can accomplish everything changes when God is in the picture and I let me give you an example of that from the Bible. I love the story of the Israelites when they weren't caught Ash barnea and remember when they sent the 12 Spies out to check out the land and 10 of the spies came back saying that look we can't go into that land. We can't take that land. There's Giants in that land and compared to us. They make us look like grasshoppers. That's what Ken of them said. But then two of the other man Joshua and Caleb came back and they had an entirely different report. They came back said hey, look let's go we can take this lamp. These Giants are no match for God. It's what they said. You see they had expanded their Vision. They didn't look at life. That's what they could do in their own strength and power. They were looking at life of what God can do through them and how big a God that they served in Joshua and Caleb were honored for their face. They were the only men of that generation to be allowed into the promised land. You see honoring God expanded their Vision in friends many of us when we get up in the morning. We look at what we have to do at work and we say I can't do this or think what God has called us to do in the ministry. We say look I just cannot do this. I don't have the strength. I don't have the power. I don't have the education. God knows that and it's not he's not going to call you to do something that you can't do but he will call you to do something that you need. his power to do and we need to expand our vision and we need to see God for who he is because he is a great God and we are able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could either thank her ass according to the power that works within us and so worship will expand your Vision Worship will allow you to see life from God's perspective and not your own letter c worship eclipses are fears. Now you maybe listen to this today and you may have many fears in your life. You may fear rejection. You may fear someone may be physically, you know, someone maybe who stalks you or something. You may be afraid of failing a failure. You may be in a relationship and you may think will you know, I have failed in two or three relationships before why is this one going to be any different? So there's a lot of fear out there, but when we worship God All of a sudden you'll start to see that if you praise and honor him, you'll soon forget those things that are kind of knowing that you and you can remember that. You are a child of the king that your life is in God's hand that God is a great God and I can trust him and I have nothing to fear. You see when I worship my fear seemed to vanish in light of his power. You see when we when we worship and praise him at the beginning of our prayers. Whatever we may fear. Our mine is taking off that and we start to see how big are God and how good of God that we serve worship eclipses are fears. Well letter d And not only that but when we pray and honor Him worship energizes, I work you see if when I hallow God's name my work gets done. Now. It's funny. Sometimes it can seem that our work never gets done and it seems like there's a hole in the boat and we're trying to dip the water out with a teaspoon. It's just like we don't have enough time or work never gets done and most of us begins our day. We will begin our day and we'll look at what we have to do and will survey all the mess owner dancing will think we've got a thousand things to do and and we decided that we had better Jump Right In if we're going to put a dent in this pile of work now in the back of our minds, we may be thinking well, you know, I ought to spend some time with the Lord, but see we decide that we're too busy because if I don't get started I'm going to be swamped by lunch. And so this is what I have found out that if my focus is on busyness. I will be less effective when I rush into my day feeling that I've got to do this that and the other I'll always end up that day feeling fatigued and frustrated. And just like I've been a failure. Day the more busy. I am the less effective I am but it will just push the pile aside and get out our Bible and spend some time seeing what God has to say to me. You'll get a lot more accomplished somehow when we put God first and worship the work will get done quicker and better like Jesus said seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. You say you'll find out that if you don't seek God first that you can take care of things in 2 minutes that normally may take 20 minutes and the people that I need to call in the people that I need to shoot an email to all of a sudden Dell call me first or send me an email first. You see what happens when I put God first. He takes care of me and he energizes our work. well, there's another one in this is fifth letter e worship encourages our spirit

you may go to bed at night. You may have gone to bed last night with something on your mind a worry of discouragement. It just seems like things will not get better. But I found out that worship will encourage my spirit when I go to bed with problems on my mind. I'll wake up many times feeling very heavy and just like I am loaded down with a burden, but if I can get into the presence of God and worship him and adore him and praise him little by little he lifts that burden and the weight does not feel near as heavy. The circumstances may not change but I have a different attitude toward the circumstance worship will just encourage and it will refresh your spirit. Well, there's one more I want to say and that is simply this letter f worship exalts our enemy worship exhaust our enemy it exhausts 8 you say Satan trembles when he sees God's children God's people on their knees you see Satan doesn't like for God to be praised because when God is praise God starts working and then Satan has to work 10 times harder to get his work done. And we all know that we are in a spiritual war in this war is being waged and won way to win these battles is not to spend our time working working and doing and doing and thinking of everything that we can do, but it's the spend time in worship spend time in prayer quietly before God. I've always appreciated the fact and you'll remember this story in jehoshaphat's his army when there's another two or three armies set up against Israel to come against them and they were far outnumbered and the Lord said I'm going to give you the win in this battle. They sent the choir out front and as they marched in the battle, the choir was singing the whole way. You see with worship and praise going to God. They were Halloween his name. They were wearing down the enemy and sure enough. God gave them the victory Satan hates worship. And so we need to activate worship as much as we can in our life today. So think about this he says Our Father which art in heaven Hallowed be thy name so when we go to God In Prayer now, this is how we can use this practically just start rehearsing who he is just Byrum remembering his name is old testament names the names of Jesus in the New Testament. You don't have to mention them all every just pick one. Just pick one as you start your prayer time and thank God and praise him for what that name means respect his greatness that God is a great God and he is set apart and holy above everything else and try to relinquish control allow him to have Pro allow the Holy Spirit to work in and through you and then always recognize God's presence in your life never feel like that. You are long or that you have to go and do this yourself always recognize he's always he said I'll never leave you nor forsake you and so when we do that just think of the benefits we talked about it. Enhance our love we will love God more when we when we thank Him Praise Him in a door him and honor him at the beginning of our prayers and it will expand our vision instead of seeing how how how slow and how it how I can't just do two things that I want to do because I don't feel like I have the ability to I don't feel like I have the education or I'm just not confident in myself. Always remember whatever God calls us do he will enable us to do with his enabling Grace let worship expand your vision the know that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you and then an eclipse is our feet it just it just melts away our fears when we worship him and it will energize you and you will work whether that's your vocation or whether that's your work at church and it will encourage your spirit if you feel heavy and like you just have a burden on you he will live That burden off of you and Satan hates and that's why that we need to make sure that if we want to have a powerful prayer life if we want to be a power of prayer. We need to understand that when we praise God that that exhaust our enemy Satan he hates that and this is what we need to do. So, let's get to it. Let's worship god, let's hallow his name and then just watch it how God will work in your life will a spray father we do. Thank you and praise you and love you today for your word. Lord we just thank you for the opportunity that we have that we can come to you and that we can call you father and that you will bless us and that you will use us Lord. We just thank you that because when we coming to you in prayer that we can praise and honor you we thank you for all the benefits that we Garner from that we just thank you that you're on our side. We know that we are in a spiritual battle help us Lord to rely on you not our own gifts and talents and all the resources, but Lord, let us lay everything down at your feet. Let us admit our weakness and let us see what a great God we have and we want to see you work in the life in our own lives. And in the life of this nation forcing Christ's name. I do pray. Amen. Well, I'm glad you was able to listen today. And I hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend. And now remember Wednesday night Jenny. She will send out the link and will continue our message on praying and looking at how we can develop a powerful prayer life. And this Wednesday night will look at the five types of prayer that we should be praying each and every day. So I hope everyone has a great week and we will see you right back here next week. God bless.