Sermon Tone Analysis

ATTN

You may, or may not recognize this picture.

This is Francis Collins.

He is a well respected geneticists who headed up the Human Genome Project as the Director of the National Institutes of Health.

In case you’ve never heard of the Human Genome Project, it was the complete mapping of the Human DNA.

The completion of this project has made if possible for doctors to treat all kinds of genetic diseases in much more effective ways.

By the way, if you’re a tarheel, Francis Collins is a graduate of the UNC medical school.

However, Collins was an atheist.

As a medical student, Collins thought it was “convenient not to have to deal with God.”

But then, after one of his patients told Collins about her faith, she asked him, “What about you?

What do you believe.”

In Collin's own words, "I stuttered and stammered and felt the color rising in my face, and I said, 'Well, I don't think I believe in anything.'

But it suddenly seemed like a very thin answer.

And that was unsettling."

Then after a long period of searching, which included grilling a pastor and reading C.S. Lewis, Collins finally came to Christ after watching the beauty of creation.

This is Collin's description of that life-changing encounter:

I had to make a choice.

A full year had passed since I decided to believe in some sort of God, and now I was being called to account.

On a beautiful fall day, as I was hiking in the Cascade Mountains during my first trip west of the Mississippi, the majesty and beauty of God's creation overwhelmed my resistance.

As I rounded a corner and saw a beautiful and unexpected frozen waterfall, hundreds of feet high, I knew the search was over.

The next morning, I knelt in the dewy grass as the sun rose and surrendered to Jesus Christ

Ever have that kind of experience with God? Ever get beyond what you’ve always been taught or the ritual of faith to truly encounter His awesome presence.

I believe I have.

On a few occasions in my live, I have been brought to the point of being absolutely overwhelmed by the power and majesty of God.

I’ve told this story so many times, but you’ll bear with me again won’t you?

I was a senior in high school, living in South Florida.

As far as I knew, it had never snowed that far south.

I one day said, “God, if you can make it snow here, I’ll be a preacher.”

In just a few short weeks, we were sitting in class one day when some one came running in saying, “It’s snowing.”

I went outside and there blowing across the parking lot was snow.

It was a “God moment” in my life.

Ever had that happen?

Here’s what I will tell you: It is these moments of reality, when, through circumstances or worship, I see God for Who He is that radically changes your life.

Ever experienced that?

NEED

If you haven’t, you need to.

That’s why I’m asking you to listen this morning.

Some of you are empty and you can’t fill up your heart.

You’ve tried.

You’ve got this big old hole in your soul and you’ve tried to stuff everything in it.

You’ve tried drugs; you’ve tried sex; you may have tried money or power or even religion.

But nothing fills that emptiness.

Maybe its time you had a real experience with God.

And then some of you may really be saved, but you’re rebellious and you can’t seem to surrender your will.

You know you should; You’ve heard all the sermons about it and you may have even tried to surrender, but you always keep slipping into the driver’s seat of your life and kicking God out.

Here’s what you need to know: Until you see God for Who He really is, you’ll never be able to trust Him with your life.

Maybe its time you had a real experience with God.

BACKGROUND

How does that happen?

Well, there’s a sort of strange sounding phrase in that prayer we’ve been studying over the last couple of weeks.

We’ve been walking through what Jesus told His disciples about prayer.

You remember, they came to Him and asked Him to teach them how to pray and He obliged.

He said, “Well, if you want to know how to pray, do this: Say, ‘Our Father in heaven, (and here’s the curious phrase) Hallowed be your Name.

“Wow!” you might say, “Kinda sounds like the 31st of October . . .

you know - Halloween.”

That word “Hallow” is not one we use commonly.

What does it mean?

Well, “to ‘Hallow’ God’s Name means that you recognize the holiness of God for what it is and give to God, on that basis, the reverence that is due.”

Someone else wrote that “referring to the name of God points to his specific personal identity as made known in his deeds and self-revelation.”

Now, if you put the two together, to hallow God’s name means that you give reverence to His personal identity as made known in His deeds and self-revelation.”

In other words, I come to understand Who God is by experiencing His presence and on that basis, I am aware of and I praise God for the implications His Name makes possible.

I “hallow;” I see and I give Him glory for Who He is.

By the way I believe that, more than any other phrase in the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be your Name” most succinctly describes worship.

To “Hallow” God’s Name is truly to worship Him.

So, if worship and hallowing are synonymous, What does it mean to truly worship God?

How do we “Hallow His name?”

Well, if “seeing is believing,” let me give you a picture of worship.

It happens right in your Bible over in the book of Isaiah, chapter six.

There the prophet has one of those “life-changing” experiences with God.

Read it with me:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.

2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

3 And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” 4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

5 So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone!

Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar.

7 And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”

8 Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” 9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’

Now you can say a lot of things about this passage of scripture, but you’ll have to admit that Isaiah was not bored in church on that day.

No!

He saw the Lord and he was absolutely and permanently changed by it.

That’s what real worship does for you.

That’s what happens when you really “Hallow” the name.

In fact, this picture shows us three primary ingredients of worship.

The first is this:

DIV 1: REAL WORSHIP BRINGS WONDER

EXP

One of the most overused terms in our vocabulary is the word, “awesome.”

Everything is “awesome” from the size of the your new “Kit Kat” bar to the way your kid played his last soccer game.

We use it so much it loses its meaning.

But if you ever wanted to see a true picture of “awesome,” this is it!

Isaiah, the prophet is given a picture of that few people ever see.

In fact, this depiction describes what I have called a “cycle of wonder.”

Isaiah, through a process of revelation, is brought to the place God wants him to be.

Here’s how it starts.

In the first place, experiencing God’s greatness brings a consciousness of sin.

v1 begins, In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord .

Stop right there!

That alone would have killed Him apart from the grace of God.

God had already told Moses that no man could see His face and live, but Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord!”