May 10, 2026: Doxology - Matthew 6:13

We've been working our way slowly and methodically through

the Lord's Prayer for weeks now, and we're now in stage four of

four. The prayer can be divided into 4

sections. Talk first about the invocation.

We pray to a loving and able father.

The second section has to do with prayer requests or

petitions about God. We start with God's Kingdom and

honour and name and agenda. His will.

And you move into the third section, petitions about our own

needs, our needs for daily provisions, our need for a.

Pardon in the Gospel. And so in our need for

protection against our enemies, our own sinful desires, the

world. And the devil.

The fourth section is not in the main block of text in your

Bibles, but is often in the footnote of your Bible, the

section we call the Doxology. The doxology for Lion is the

Kingdom and the Power and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen. So we'll talk a little bit about

why it's down in the footnote later, but I just want to begin

with a word of introduction about what that churchy word

means. What, after all, is a doxology?

Doxology. The roots of the word are

actually helpful in this case. The roots have to do with glory

and word. A word of glory or a word of

praise. A doxology.

Holy Scripture is punctuated through the whole Bible, Old and

New Testament, with songs of praise, brief words of praise.

Often in poetry, the definition of a doxology is usually a brief

word of praise. Perhaps you're used to singing a

hymn called the doxology. You notice there's just one

verse. It's not a a.

Long thing and it's. Oriented to praise.

The Lord. One of my favorite passages in

what I've read, and I've read a lot of one of my heroes, CS

Lewis, one of my favorite passages has to do with him

talking about what praise is. And what it isn't?

And he shares his journey, discovering more and more about

what praise is. And I want to introduce this

sermon by sharing some of his words with you, some of his

journey with you. It can be easy to think of

praise as mere compliment. I like your shoes.

I like your hair. It can also be a way to kind of

think, you know, what kind of God is this?

Is he insecure? Is he someone who just needs

compliments all the time? Is he a narcissist?

Oh, God, you're so great. You're so lovely, You're so

wise. So it's a a journey to for Louis

to talk about growing in his idea of praise beyond mere

compliment of someone to a deep and welling appreciation for

someone or something. As he goes through this section

that I will share some of with with you this morning, he he

goes through several different stages.

First, he notices that our enjoyment of things tends to

almost always overflow into praise.

What? Does that mean?

Let me illustrate. Let's just imagine for a second.

You're going to hate me for this, but let's just imagine for

a. 2nd that you have in your possession an award-winning

chocolate chip cookie. It's perfect in every way.

Perfect temperature, perfect size.

Perfect texture. It's perfect in every way.

And when you enjoy this, you don't just nonchalantly,

hopefully just cram that thing in your mouth and gulp down some

milk and just be like, OK, what's?

Next I'm leaving no most. People, they actually slow down,

they chew more slowly, They want to feel the textures in their

mouth. They want to experience what it

feels like to go down their throat.

And you know what? They make noises like this

yummy. The enjoyment of this good, this

goody, overflows into praise. We may start talking.

About who made it. And how they got the secret

recipe from your dead aunt or wherever it came down to you

from this award. Wedding cookie needs to be

praised in order for us to complete our enjoyment.

It just it just. Happens.

Enjoyment overflows into. Praise, Lewis says.

The world rings with praise lovers praising one another,

readers praising their favorite poets, walkers praising.

The countryside players. Praise praising their favorite

game. You hear praise of the weather,

praise of wines, praise of dishes, actors, cars, horses,

colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers,

mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles.

Even sometimes, and this is my favorite part, even sometimes,

politicians or scholars. No offense to the scholars in

the room. CS Lewis himself was a scholar.

He's taken a stab of his own self.

Right there the. World rings with praise of

these. Things enjoyment overflows into

praise. His second observation are two

sides of the same coin. He's noticed throughout his life

that it's the humble people that praise the most.

Humble people tend to well up with appreciation and want to

share it with others. The flip side is the snobs find

fault with everything, even things that are good.

They detect deficiency and they want to point it out.

They want to share that with others.

They want others to know that their tastes are so refined that

they're not going to be duped as something by something as simple

as the world's perfect chocolate chip cookie.

They find fault with everything. I had not noticed how the

humblest and at the same. Time most balanced minds.

Praise most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praise

least. He goes down a little further

and says. Praise seems to be inner health

made audible. Inner health made audible.

You also notice that we can't help but share our praise as a

factor of our enjoyment with other people.

We invite others to praise what we like.

Have you noticed this? Just as men spontaneously praise

whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join

them in praising it. They say things like isn't she

lovely? Wasn't it glorious?

Don't you think that was magnificent last move?

Our enjoyment is actually incomplete unless we do this.

We. Feel a little bit.

Frustrated, a little pent up if we can't express ourselves and

share it with others. One of the most beautiful places

I've ever. Been in my entire life is

Yosemite Valley. I've been a lot of beautiful

places. If I want to think about

something beautiful besides Deidre, I think about Yosemite

Valley. I love it.

So much. You can imagine the rock

formations and the. Waterfalls and the Meadow and

the river and you're just like, how is this place here on earth?

How could Eden have been any better?

You want to stop by the side of the road, you want to see, you

want to praise, you want to take pictures, you want to share it

with others. And if you can't, then you

actually feel frustrated, Lewis writes.

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise

not merely expresses, but completes.

Our enjoyment. Praise is it's appointed

consummation. It's not out of compliments that

lovers keep telling one another. How beautiful they are.

Their delight is actually incomplete until it is

expressed. It's frustrating to have

discovered a new author and not be.

Able to tell anyone how good he is.

Or to come suddenly at the turn of a road upon some mountain

valley of unexpected grandeur, and then to have to keep silent

because the people. With you in the.

Car care no more for it. Than for a tin can in a ditch.

It's. Frustrating to hear a good joke

and find no one to share it with.

Our enjoyment. Of something is incomplete

without praise. And so he goes on to talk about

how. Important it is for us to

understand. That the praise of God is not

because you have a a needy, insecure God who needs

compliments our praise of God. Is an invitation.

To the bliss of enjoying that who is most.

Beautiful, true, holy and good. And in our finest moments of

most transcendent bliss in this life, they're just mere glimpses

of what is possible for a fully sanctified person in the

presence of God to experience the bliss.

Of God himself, and so the Church.

When coming to the end of the Lord's Prayer and our Lord.

Sort of abruptly. Ends it with a prayer of

protection from the devil. The Church isn't seeking to

improve Holy Scripture with this doxology, but rather they want

to use the. Prayer in public worship.

And they want to express an exuberant moment, a note of

praise at the end of the prayer. So very early, very early in the

manuscript tradition, we see this doxology.

In the text. So that may be used for public

worship for the church and its corporate prayers to end on a

note. Of praise to thine.

For thine is the. Glory and the Kingdom and the

power forever and ever and ever. So we're going to dig in there a

little bit, ask some some questions of the text.

Try to learn more. About what this actually means

for us. We'll do this today and next

Sunday and the Sunday after and I got.

To divide it in. Certain places, but these three

make a set A. Set devoted to understanding

this. Doxology.

So first question in your bulletin outline is why?

Why do we praise? Why do we praise?

I have several reasons for you. For why we.

Praise one of them first, and perhaps the most obvious reason

we praise God is that we owe it to him.

Don't we don't Don't we owe a debt of gratitude to our Maker?

Don't we owe a debt of gratitude to the author of the.

Creation that we enjoy. Don't we owe a debt of

gratitude, words of honor and praise to the one we claim?

If we're Christians has redeemed our soul, don't we owe a debt of

gratitude to someone who will give us the hope of glory to

live with ever? With him, someday we owe praise

to God, don't we now? That's true.

That's good. We got a hearty Amen and I he'll

say hearty Amen. As well.

To that we owe. God glory Jesus.

After healing a group of lepers, they all go.

Only one comes back to say thank you and Jesus said hey, weren't

there, weren't there? Like nine others.

Where are the rest of you guys? We owe a debt of gratitude to

our Lord, our Healer. Our Savior.

Our Maker. However, there's more.

To it than this isn't there. And we experienced this in our

relationships. Too.

You know, it's it's Mother's Day.

And I technically owe my mother a debt.

Of gratitude I should. Send her a card, but my mom

would probably rather not receive.

My. Card if I just knew that I was.

Doing it out of. Some sense of duty or some sense

of obligation. Similarly, my wife I owe a debt

of honor and gratitude and and she would probably not like.

On our. Anniversary to feel like I was

just doing my duty for her to give her a card or to take.

Her out to dinner. So though our first reason is

that we owe our Maker this debt of honor and gratitude.

There's there's more. To it, And this is back to that

introduction from CS Lewis, that if we truly delight in a

relationship, in a mother or in a spouse or a husband, whatever

have you, then we can't help but praise and adore.

And give expression to our adoration.

It is the consummation. Of our enjoyment of that person.

So why do we praise? It's because we can't help it.

It's the consummation of our joy.

But the third reason, and I get this from Ji Packer in his book

On the Lord's Prayer, he talks about a feedback loop, a

positive feedback loop between petition, which is the hard work

of prayer, and the praise which lifts us up and gives us fuel to

pray. So if you think about that in

any relationship that makes sense.

If I have to ask you for something, I'm a.

Little bit nervous? What if you say no?

Well, I don't. Really like rejection.

I'm going to go ahead and ask. You it's going.

To be a little bit uphill, but then you say yes, or you answer

my prayer or my petition in an even better way.

And I'm like, thank you, that was awesome.

I love you. And I feel this boost of energy,

this fuel. That comes from the praise.

Next time. When I need to.

Ask you again, I have a memory of how it went before and so I'm

less scared. Perhaps I can ask again, you

answer my. Prayer in a way that I.

Was even better. Than I can imagine.

And I have even more reasons to praise.

And so Packer talks about this. Being a a loop.

A cycle that builds and builds upon itself.

The hard work of Petition is buoyed and powered by.

Praise. I think he's right.

So why do we praise? Did you catch?

These Why do we? Praise first, we owe it better.

We can't help it. It's the completion of our joy.

And 3rd because. Praise powers A.

Healthy spiritual life. In our second section.

This morning I'd like to talk about the what?

For thine is the Kingdom in the power and the glory forever.

Amen. I mean, you need to divide it

somewhere. Let's take Kingdom in.

Power this morning. Kingdom and power, they kind of

go together. You can't really have a Kingdom

without power. A Kingdom is a type of dominion,

a type of rule. And interestingly, one of the

most exciting things I learned this week is that it's likely

that the early church brought this doxology, nestled it under

the Lord's Prayer, got this doxology from another place in

Holy Scripture, the Scripture that Connor read.

This morning from us. From Chronicles 1st.

Chronicles, chapter 29. Notice the echoes of the Lord's

Prayer. Notice how this text reminds you

of the Lord's Prayer. And notice again you could

circle or underline how many times he's talking about Kingdom

and might and. Power, therefore David, King

David, bless the Lord in the presence of all the assembly.

And David said, Blessed are you, O Lord the God of Israel, our

Father. Forever and ever.

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness. And the power, and the glory.

And the victory? And the majesty for all that is

in the heavens and in the earth is yours.

Yours is the Kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as Head

above all. Both riches and honors come from

you, and you rule over all in your hand or power.

And might and in your hand. It is to make great and to give

strength to all. And now we thank you, our God,

and praise your glorious name. King David is welling up with

appreciation for the King of Kings.

You know being king is a stressful job, you think?

You want that job. But as Coldplay sings, who would

ever want to be king? It's not that great.

Of a job. So you have King David, this

guy, he, you know, he has this stressful job and he takes great

comfort in his faith from the sovereignty of a king.

Who is sovereign over all? We're going to talk about how.

The sovereignty of God, though, that can make our knees shake

and we wonder what He's doing at times.

It's actually the source of our greatest comfort and our

greatest joy. Friends trust me.

You do not want. To live in a world with a God

that isn't sovereign, you don't want to live in that world.

And even though. It seems like our suffering is

harder if we believe in the sovereignty of God.

It's actually the only way through.

You must cling to His dominion, His.

Sovereignty. His might if you're going to

have any hope. For the adversity.

That you're going through, it's interesting to think about God's

sovereignty, to think about his power over it all.

It's interesting to think. About how?

The Lord Jesus himself fulfills. These things as the King of

Kings and I want to just read to you.

From Ephesians. Chapter 1, verses 16 through 22.

Ephesians 1:16–22

That the first chapter of Ephesians.

Is amazing. Big long thing of praise.

He's just just just welling up and spouting all of his praises.

For God, For his. Glory.

In the gospel, all the things that he's done.

For us are spiritual blessings in Christ.

He's just, he's just pop. The Apostle Paul's just just.

Welling up and expressing these things.

Verse 16 says this. I, Paul, do not cease to give

thanks for you. Remembering you in my.

Prayers. That the God of our Lord Jesus

Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of.

Wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him having the.

Eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the

hope to which. He has called you Paul saying.

I think about y'all. All the time.

I have a major prayer request for y'all.

All the time. It's that the Spirit of God will

make very real to you what the hope.

To which he's called you. You need hope.

I'm praying for you to have hope.

That hope is coming from the gospel, that you may know the

hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his

glorious inheritance in the Saints?

And he's going to start talking about.

Power and might. You ready?

Verse 19. And what is the immeasurable

greatness of His power toward us to believe according to the

workings of His great? Might.

Now here's the clincher, verse 20, that he worked in Christ

when he raised him from the dead.

And seated him. At his right hand, in the

heavenly places, far above all. Rule and authority every name

that is named, not only in this. Age, but also in the one to come

and he put. All things under his.

Feet and gave him as head. Over all things to the Church,

which is His body, the fullness of him who.

Fills All in all, wow, wow. King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

There's a power working in us. We were singing about it earlier

this morning. We were singing about that power

working in us. That is the same power that

raised Christ from the dead, sat him on the throne, the King of

kings, the Lord of Lords. Thine is the Kingdom and the

power. This gives us tremendous hope.

And this is the hope. That we desperately need.

That informs our reality whether things are going really, really

well or things are going really, really, really bad.

I love this song. More modern song where the the

writer is talking about our need to praise God in the good times.

And in the bad times? This songwriter will actually

Nestle the stanzas like this. Good.

Bad. Then does it again.

Good. Bad bottom line.

I'm going to praise him. I'm going to praise him.

Maybe you know this song. If you don't, you can look it

up. Blessed be your.

Name in the land. That is plentiful where your

streams of abundance flow in Yosemite Valley.

I added that. That's not there.

Blessed be your name in. Yosemite next stanza.

Blessed be your name. When I'm found in the desert

place. When I walk through the

wilderness. Blessed be your name.

Poet toggles back to. The good things now.

He's on the beach, apparently. Blessed be your name when the

sun. Is shining down on me.

When the world's all as it should be, kids are building

sand. Castles, I've got a refreshing

drink. I can feel the.

Sun on my face, in the sand between my toes.

Blessed be your name. And then he's going to go right

back to the hard thing. Blessed be your name.

On the road marked with suffering, though there's pain

in the offering. Blessed be your name, my

friends. That's what the worshipping

community is doing, whether all is as it should.

Be or whether we're. There's pain in the offering.

We are together, rejoicing with those rejoice, rejoicing and

mourning with those who are. Mourning, praising.

God, who is working out a grand story of redemption far greater

than anything that we can see or understand.

So glad the book of Job is in our Bible.

What would your Bible be without the book of Job?

It'd be missing something, and after Job and his wife have lost

everything. His wife is in despair, isn't

she? In.

Despair, she cries out. Are you still holding on to your

integrity? Curse God and die, Joe replied.

Job replied and asked her shall we accept good from God and not

and not trouble in? All of this job.

Did not sin in what he said though.

He slay me. I will hope in him and present

my case before him. He clings in faith to a God He

assures greater than his circumstances.

And that's what we have to do too, no matter what we're going

through, good or bad. Some applications for us.

Before we conclude, let's have one main application for us

today, thinking about how the Bible sort of punctuated with

praise, how it's. A kind of musical.

I don't know if you guys like musicals or not.

Some of you love them. Some of you are like, oh boy, I

can just hear a song coming. The Bible's punctuated with

these these songs of praise, whether.

It's in a a story. You can think about the songs of

the Advent narratives. Were there those songs of praise

in the Psalm book in the middle of your Bible?

Lots of examples. So as I was.

Thinking about this, I was like, well, that should be how our

lives are. Our lives should just be kind of

punctuated with these brief songs of praise.

In your daily life, there should be just these moments of.

Praise where our appreciation. Wells up and maybe those are

native to your own heart and you can kind of just say them

extemporaneously or maybe you need help from from your

favorite praise. Songs deploy doxology.

Deploy doxology. My kids at this point might be

getting a little annoyed with me when we're out.

On our bicycle rides. We love to ride bikes together.

We particularly love the. Cardinal Greenway.

Amazing. I don't.

Know if they're annoyed or not. But they're we're out there and

it's a pretty day at some point. Their dad's probably going to

make a big. Deal about it.

I love it out here. This is amazing.

Look at that bird. Look at these trees.

How y'all doing? We're fine, Dad.

I want them to. Experience their dad as.

Somebody who wells up with appreciation, whether we're out

on the Greenway, on our bike somewhere.

Or whether it's the. Food at table, something that

happens. Parents, teach your children not

the grumbling life, but the life of gratitude.

This welling up, deploy your doxologies, express your

Thanksgiving for who God is and what He has done in creation and

in salvation. You need to go places and

experience creation in its beauty.

Give thanks to God for His amazing artistic beauty

expressed in creation. I was out.

I was out riding my bike. Early one morning, I think this

was last week, might have been the week before and.

Suddenly there were goldfinches all around me.

It's like this has never happened to me.

Is this OK? Are these OK?

There's there's. Goldfinches all around me.

It was amazing. I don't know if they were taking

a trip or what, but I was in a little flock of goldfinches.

I usually only see them one at a time.

And here I. Am I'm just surrounded?

I'm like, thank you God, that was beautiful.

I can't wait to tell my family what just happened.

And how they? Should ride with me.

Because if they don't, they miss out.

Deploy Doxology. Play the songs in your home.

You want to hear the creation songs.

You want to hear the Salvation songs?

Because this this God. Who makes the flowers and the

birds? He's also redeemed us and we

have a story to tell and the song of praise can can well up

to tell to tell the next generation to tell the listening

congregation how I was lost but now I'm found.

Let me tell you about it. I was in despair.

I had no hope in Jesus changed everything.

Glory be, glory be, praise Him. For who he is, for what he has.

Done in creation and salvation, we can also praise Him for what

He's going to do, even when we can't see or make sense of

what's happening to us. You're marked out on a road of

suffering. There's pain in the offering,

but you don't know. How this is?

All going to turn out. Whether you'll have a testimony

of healing in this life or whether your.

Testimony will be 1. Of giving him glory through.

A suffering that ends in death, but it's totally restored in

resurrection. Your Christian hope says you win

in the end. And you'll be.

Full in the end, come what may, though he slay me yet I will

praise him. Deploy Doxology.

If you are an evaluator, what's that mean if you're somebody who

grades papers or works in administration or somebody

who's. Constantly trying to improve.

Things you have to remember to balance evaluation and grading

and criticism with a buoyant life of praise.

And Thanksgiving. If you only criticize and fault

find, you will harm. People they need.

Words of encouragement. They need life.

Giving encouragement. I know we need to make things

better, but we also. Need to be thankful for what is

so so good. Talk to our staff about this.

We would like to continue to improve UCC, but maybe we can.

We can. Start our time with

Thanksgivings for what's going well.

Does anybody have a story to share?

And our our staff is great about remembering precious moments of

things that they can that we can be grateful for.

And we must in order to be spiritually healthy.

You may need additional helps. I got one more like quick

little. Tip on my list before I'll.

Conclude and I don't. Know this is maybe this is not

just for parents, but since I'm in the thick of it right now,

it's kind of what I'm thinking about.

It could be for anybody. We at our house like to have

sort of a a prayer, a written prayer that.

Maybe is a? Historic prayer or?

Something that we can. Repeat once a week.

For a period of time. What does that mean?

So. Right now, I've told you we're

in 50 days of Easter, so the Saturday night prayer at our

special meal going into Sunday Deidre upgrades the food, and

there's always dessert for our prayer for that meal during this

Easter time before Pentecost, we've picked the tedium.

It's not in Latin, just the the title is in Latin because I want

them my kids to have a. An opportunity to learn.

An ancient. Text a song of praise from the

church. That has been said for over 1500

years and it's been really interesting.

This is our second year during Easter tide to go through this

once a week prayer as a family. They don't quite yet have it

memorized yet, but they. They know when the.

Cadence is. Supposed to go faster or?

Slow they're they know. They're starting to sense when

we're supposed to lift our. Voices goes like this, we praise

thee, O God, we acknowledge. Thee to be the Lord, all the

earth doth worship thee the Father everlasting.

To thee all angels cry aloud the heavens and all the powers

therein. To thee cherubim and Seraphim

continually do cry. Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of

Saba, oath, Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy

glory. The glorious company of the

Apostles praise Thee. The goodly fellowship of the

prophets praise Thee. The noble army of martyrs praise

Thee. The Holy Church throughout all

the world, hoth Acknowledgie, the Father of an infinite

majesty, Thy known Adorable. True and only son.

Also the Holy Spirit, the Comforter.

Thou art the King of glory. O Christ, thou art the

everlasting Son of the Father. We now took us upon thee to

deliver man. Thou just humble thyself to be

born of a virgin when thou hast overcome the sharpness of death,

that is to open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the

Father. We believe that thou shalt come

to be our judge, and therefore pray thee help thy servants whom

thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Thy Saints and glory

everlasting. O Lord, save thy people.

And bless thy heritage, govern them and lift them up forever.

Day by day, we. Magnify thee and we.

Worship Thy name ever world without end.

Vouchsafe O Lord, to keep us to stay.

Without sin. O Lord, have mercy upon us, have

mercy upon us. O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon

us, as our trust is in thee. O Lord, in thee have I trusted.

Let me never be confounded. Deploy your doxologies.

Learn your doxologies because it's the only thing that is

going to be your ballast and your stay no matter what happens

to you. So I don't know what you're

going through. Some of you, I know many.

Of you I don't. And I don't know what you need

to hear today, except that the. Sovereign God knows and is in

control. So I pray that you'll be able to

take. Comfort in that.

So to conclude our praise of God's.

Sovereignty completes our joy and gives us hope that we so

desperately need.