WEBVTT
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Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord
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and Savior Jesus Christ.
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Amen.
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Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
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Hallowed be thy name.
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What in the world does that mean?
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In these Fridays here in chapel we are reflecting upon on parts of the
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catechism and right now the Lord's Prayer.
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And so today the first petition hallowed be Thy name.
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But what does it mean?
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I in some ways am glad for this King James version of the Lord's
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Prayer that we say together because of course it means that we have
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all memorized one standard way of saying the Lord's Prayer and we can
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say it with Catholicity.
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We say it all together and we are all saying the same words and
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there's something beautiful about that.
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And yet I sometimes wonder if that same way of saying it is at the
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cost of faith.
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Saying the words in great faith, believing what they mean,
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understanding what we are saying, that we would pray the Lord's Prayer
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with the faith that it calls forth from us and the faith that it holds
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out to us.
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The catechism is an opportunity to reflect upon the words of the
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Lord's Prayer so that we might say them with great faith.
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Even Luther struggled with the wording of this first petition hollowed
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be thine name in this book.
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Maybe you've heard about it, I don't know, we probably don't talk
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about it enough.
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But it's this book called The Large Catechism.
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Maybe you've heard about it.
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In the large catechism
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Luther, rephrases the first petition of the Lord's Prayer.
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Here's how he rephrases it Father help that your name alone might be
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kept holy.
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He turns it from just words that we maybe mumble into a very clear
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prayer.
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In the first petition we are not saying the words Hallowed be thy name
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like some say the words after they say the name Mohammed,
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peace be upon him.
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We're not saying our
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Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
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As if it's just this little honorific, a nice thing that we say for
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God.
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It's rather a prayer.
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And this morning, what I want to do with you is explore this little
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prayer hallowed be thy name and ask what do we mean? So that we can say
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with all boldness and confidence this prayer that we may ask God as
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dear children ask their dear Father.
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So my family and I were at the Playmobile Fun Park in Nuremberg,
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Germany, several years ago.
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We had gone to this Playmobile Fun Park because, well, I had held out
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the hope that maybe we could go to Neuendettelsau, to the home front of
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Wilhelm Loehe.
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But my family told me that'd be really boring.
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So we ended up at the Playmobile Fun Park, the home of the Playmobile
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Toy company.
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And it was actually a lot of fun.
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There was this castle, this life sized castle just like the one that
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we had at home, but we could explore it.
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There were goblins guarding the gates and my eight year old son Aidan
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at the time, and my four year old son, Noah, they love this.
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There were these obstacle courses and these low ropes and these jungle
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gyms that you could climb on, and they were safe for eight year old
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and four year old bodies.
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And the best of all were these troughs of water filled with Playmobile
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boats.
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And you could zoom the boats up and down this flowing river and oh, it
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was so great.
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And we were having so much fun.
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And I don't know what happened
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maybe I was reflecting on Wilhelm Loehe and on the one hand, he's this
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great missional theologian, and on the other hand, his doctrine of the
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Holy Ministry that has caused so much consternation and that we've
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been talking about ever since.
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And in the middle of my reflections, perhaps I heard, help my little
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Noah, my four year old Noah.
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He had gotten bored with the trough of water.
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He had probably gotten bored because his dad's head was up in the
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clouds and he had wandered off to the low ropes.
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He had tried to wander across a bungee cord rope bridge and had fallen
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through, but he was caught by the bungee cords.
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He was hanging there.
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And the the rope bridge was just high enough off the ground that he
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couldn't touch the ground.
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And he hung there by one foot help.
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I come running to him, I grab him up in my arms and he says, dad.
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One part dread and terror and fear and yet on the other hand he
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was going to live.
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He was rescued, he was safe. When we got him down and Celina, my wife
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and Aiden, his older brother came around him and gave him lots of
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hugs.
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Celina asked Noah what was it like to be there?
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And his eyes got big and he said, I was dangling.
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He was dangling.
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Have you ever been there dangling?
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Maybe it was the amount of demands that had been placed upon you and
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you feel like you were caught up with all these demands and you could
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barely deliver on the expectations of you.
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Maybe it's your own sin that has tangled around you and the guilt and
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the shame and the realization that you can't free yourself from your
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sinful condition.
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And so you dangle.
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Maybe it's a situation so out of your control your hopes and dreams
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for some better future had been dashed and you had no idea what you
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were to do next.
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And there you dangle.
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It's for people like this that our Lord has given his name.
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It's for people like this that our Lord has held forth the first
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petition of the Lord's Prayer.
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Hallowed be thy name.
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In our text today, the entire people of Israel were dangling by the
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cords of slavery.
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They had been enslaved by the Egyptians and they couldn't free
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themselves.
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And so the Lord shows up to to Moses in the burning bush.
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And he tells them that he the God of Moses fathers, the God of Abraham
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and Isaac and Jacob is about to deliver the people of Israel and he
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wants to do so by Moses himself.
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Listen to these words that our God said to Moses. I have indeed seen
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the misery of my people in Egypt.
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I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I'm
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concerned about their suffering.
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So I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians.
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You see, that's who this God is.
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A God who delighted to walk among his people in the cool of the
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garden.
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A God who would come down to punish sin and so to turn the hearts of
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his people back to himself.
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The God who delighted to deliver his people from the evils of sin,
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death, the devil and the sinful flesh of themselves and the sinful
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flesh of those around them from which they couldn't free themselves.
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That is the God who loves to come to his people's rescue.
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And how does God rescue his people?
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By giving them his name.
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By giving them his name.
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God shows up to the burning bush in the burning bush to Moses, and God
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delivers his name.
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Moses says to the Lord, what if I go to this people and I tell them
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that I'm here to rescue them
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and they ask the name of the God who has sent me, what then am I
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supposed to say?
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Tell them that Yahweh, the God of your father's, has sent you.
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Yahweh, the Hebrew name of the Lord.
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Yud hai v hay.
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The Lord says, this is my name forever.
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The name you shall call me from generation to generation.
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God gave his people his name so that they might pray, praise and give
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thanks.
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The problem is that we don't always make use of God's name when we're
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dangling.
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That's not
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always the first thing that we think of to call out God's name.
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Sometimes we forget, distracted by so many other things.
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Sometimes we think we can solve this ourselves, and we set forth a
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plan.
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Sometimes the issue seems so small that we wouldn't bother the Lord
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with these problems.
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And at other times, the problem is so great, so complex, so
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controverted that we think, where would God even start?
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Sometimes our sin is so great and so wrapped around us that we can't
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even bring ourselves to speak God's name.
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And maybe every once in a while, you've said God's name.
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You've cried out so many times, and the suffering continues and your
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faith dwindles, and you wonder if you can call out God's name again.
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And so came Jesus.
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So came our Lord Jesus to people like us.
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He came speaking God's name to his people.
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He introduced a new name to call God, Father.
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Tertullian the Church Father, whom I love to read, said that the name
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Father had never been published before for this God
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but Jesus called him Father.
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And Jesus taught the people that that's how they should talk to his
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God and their God to call upon Him as Father Abba Daddy.
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And so throughout Jesus life, he taught the word of God in all its
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truth and purity.
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And he led people to lead holy lives according to the name of God.
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Right up to the end, where Jesus was dangling over the pit of death
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and hell.
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And on the cross he cried out, Father, forgive them, for they know not
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what they do.
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Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
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Right
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to the very end, Jesus cried out to the Father.
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He kept the Father's name holy.
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And he did so for us.
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He did so to call us back to that simple faith that we would call out
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upon our God and simply say, oh, O God, help dad.
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I'm so grateful for the catechism because it helps us, it teaches us,
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it holds out this faith for us, that when we say words like Hallowed
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be thy name, that we might say them with great faith. That we might
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call out to our God who loves and delights to rescue us.
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How grateful I am for the people in my life the pastors, the
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laypeople, my parents, DCE, deaconess, youth directors who have held
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out the name of God to me and encouraged me when I was dangling to
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once again call out upon the name of God.
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And so may we teach the word of God in all its truth and purity and
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lead holy lives according to it.
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In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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Amen.
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We sing our hymn.