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Hallowed Be Thy Name
Reputation matters. In fact, if you think about it, how much of your life, how much do we spend on our reputation?
Exodus 3:5, Matthew 6:9
Reputation matters. In fact, if you think about it, how much of your life, how much do we spend on our reputation? Our clothes, our haircut, the car we drive, the perfectly manicured lawn. Reputation is worth investing in. And if it’s important for us, if it matters for us, what other people think about us, then that certainly also is important for God. His name, his reputation matters.
One of the neat moments in the Bible with God and His name and reputation is when Moses first meets the Lord and God reveals his personal name to Moses. Do you remember what happens? Moses comes up to the burning bush and the angel of the Lord tells him,
Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)
What is the holy ground in your life? What is that ground that is sacred and set apart for God and His holy name? Well, first, when we answer that question, we have to look inside. We have to look at our own hearts. Is my heart holy ground? I wish that were the case. When I look at my heart, I see all the times I haven’t put God’s reputation first or God’s honor first. I see a place that’s often inhabited by sin. I see a place that oftentimes I’m ashamed of, and I would want God to be everywhere but in my heart. However, God takes our hearts and He makes it His holy ground. He places His name on you. When God places his name on you in baptism, he takes you and me, and he consecrated us as his own. He dedicates our heart. He dedicates this earth, this body, as his dwelling place on earth. He washes away our sins.
What an amazing comfort that is that God wants his dwelling place to be in us. That He takes people like you and me and uses us to proclaim his reputation to the world. And God doesn’t just take our hearts and us as individuals and set us aside for the use of his name. But when we answer that question of what’s a holy ground in my life, I hope you also think about your church. Your home church, that place where God causes his name to dwell. We see that throughout the Bible, wherever people call upon God’s name and wherever God’s people gather together for worship that is sacred ground, a sacred space. It’s sacred because that’s where God’s Word is proclaimed. That’s where the gospel is shared, where people learn about Jesus, their Savior. And here God takes all these sacred spaces, whether it’s our hearts, whether it’s our churches. And he uses us to proclaim his holy name.
By being together as the body of Christ. God uses us to share the good news that Jesus is our Savior. He uses us to try to help make other hearts His holy dwelling place. And they, when they hear the wonderful, comforting message that Christ Jesus is their Savior.
You have holy ground. And whenever we pray that prayer.
Hallowed be thy name. (Matthew 6:9)
We’re asking God to not only to use our hearts and our churches, but to use all of us together to keep his name holy here on Earth. Amen.
