Hallowed
Be Your Name
Matthew 6:9
07.24.05
5"And when you pray, do not be
like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on
the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received
their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close
the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees
what is done in secret, will reward you. 7And when you pray, do not
keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of
their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what
you need before you ask him.
9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.[a]' 14For
if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also
forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father
will not forgive your sins.
Psalm 9:10 “Those who know your name
will trust in you, or you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.”
Malachi 4:2, " 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall."
Would you join me in prayer?
Howard Be Your Name
I love the story about the family who was coming
home from church one Sunday, and the mom asked her son Sam what they did in
Sunday School. Sam answered, "Oh,
we talked about Howard."
"Howard?" asked the mother, "Who
is Howard?"
"Howard is God's name," answered the
little boy.
"Why do you think Howard is God's
name?" his mother asked, suddenly curious.
"Well, we say it every Sunday: 'Our Father, who art in heaven, Howard be your name...'" email/03
What I love about this funny little story is that it’s packed full of truth. Little Sam actually got it. The God he prays to does have a name, it’s just not Howard. Sam, just like the children in this church are learning that the Father in this prayer isn’t a nameless father who loves us, but a Father who has a name.
Who’s Your Daddy?
This morning we come to the third sermon in our series on the Lord’s Prayer. And the prayer Jesus wants us to pray is “Hallowed Be Your Name.”
I find it interesting that the first thing Jesus wants us to pray is a prayer of surrender. After the encouragement of knowing that God is our Abba, our daddy, our hearts and minds, and wills are immediately directed to praying that our lives are surrendered to that Father we just addressed.
This prayer is at the top of the list. It’s our first petition. Hallowed Be YOUR NAME! We declared our, “Our Father, who art in heaven…” and now we come to the first of several petitions. As we read down through the prayer anticipating the messages to come we find something unique about the message surrounding this prayer today. It’s going to last forever. One day, His Kingdom will come. One day His will will ultimately be done. One day, we won’t need to pray for bread. One day, we won’t have to pray for forgiveness. One day, we won’t have to pray not to be lead into temptation. One day, we won’t have to pray deliver us from evil. But we will always pray “Hallowed Be Your Name!”
We see a picture of it when John, a writer in the Bible penned these words in the fourth chapter of his book called Revelation, verse 8 “Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."”
So I invite you to walk with me to explore this prayer of surrender to God whose name isn’t Howard! And if this is a prayer that we are going to be praying forever, maybe this morning we can admit that we all haven’t taken this first petition as serious as we should. And let’s pray that God will “Open the eyes of our heart so we can see the wonderful things from His Word” (Ps.119:18) in this first petition of prayer.
As we start thinking about hallowing the name of God we must start out with what it means to hallow. Simply put, it means “to set apart as holy”, or “to honor something as holy.” In the original language the phrase literally reads, “Let it be hallowed, Your Name.” So Jesus tells His followers to hallow the name of God, to set their Father who is in heaven apart as holy and to honor their Father who is in Heaven as holy. We are to hallow the name of God.
And this idea of hallowing the name of God isn’t a new idea.
When I turn to the first page of the New Testament and hold on to the last page of the Old Testament I am holding roughly 400 years of history. 400 years of no prophets speaking and no seed of David coming forward to sit on the throne as King! The people in God’s story had to wait 400 years before what Matthew records takes place. And this week I have been thinking about this period of time and what it was that God said to His people to keep them connected to Him those 400 years!
To find out we get the privilege of reading what the great prophet Malachi wrote when God ordained his pen and he recorded for us the last book in the Old Testament. There is something fascinating that takes place in the book of Malachi. Something so fascinating, that it gave the people of God hope to wait for the King. Something so fascinating that it has everything to do with today’s message in the Lord’s Prayer. I love this about Jesus. I love that Jesus models for us to have knowledge of the Old Testament. And the message from Malachi is the same message for us today. Hallow the Name of God.
Revere MY NAME!!!!!
But before we read what Malachi wrote, we have to remember this morning that the Father that we pray to today was the Father that watched over the people of Malachi’s day, the people of Jesus’ day and He is still the same Father that watches over us today. And we must remember that the Father’s message hasn’t changed from the time of Malachi to Jesus to today, the story in all the Earth is all about GOD! And He is always inviting people into the story to “hallow His name!” Malachi said it like this.
Malachi 4:2, "But for you who
revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.
And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall."
For four hundred years the people of God were to pass on from one generation to the next this sense of revering the name of God. Have you ever caught that? That the strength needed for the people of God to walk with God and trust Him was to revere His name.
The people of God throughout all the ages have been called to hallow, revere, and honor His holy Name! So what is His name?
God Isn’t Nameless
God’s name. Have your ever thought for a minute about the powerful truth that our God is not nameless. That He invited us into His eternal story to know Him, and not just know Him from a distance, but know Him by name. Jesus wants us to pray that His name is set apart as holy. And then, this petition I believe is a prayer for His name to be set apart in our own lives, but we how do we set it apart?
We must try to get a glimpse of what’s in His name. Because when we find out what’s in His name, we will know what’s in His character. And when we knows what’s in His character, we’ll know if it’s worth surrendering our lives to set it apart. And then we can proclaim with David, Psalm 9:10 “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.” Do you know His name?
His Matchless Name!
God’s name is set apart from all others. And this has to be one of the take homes from the series Pastor Nelson has been preaching on in Exodus. We all marvel as Moses on this side of the Bible, but it really shouldn’t be of any surprise to us. Moses knew God’s name. That’s why David could say with confidence that we will trust God if we know His name. That’s why David could say that if we know the name of God we will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God will never forsake us! We see these truths lived out in almost every step Moses takes. Listen to how Moses heard about God’s name.
In Exodus 3:14 Moses learned that God’s name has always been. God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” Simply put, God has always existed. When we turn to the first chapter of the story of God and read that something was hovering over the waters of the deep, it was the I AM!
And when we continue our study in Exodus we are going to find that the very first thing Moses does when he comes off of Mt. Sinai is declare the name of the Lord Ex.34:6-7…"The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
Finally a few verses later in the
life of Moses we will find that God declared, “Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is
Jealous, is a jealous God.”
And if that’s not enough, Isaiah penned some of the most mind-blowing words to describe God.
In 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, [a] Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
A few chapters back in 6:1-4 “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." 4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”
Our Father, who is in heaven…hallowed be YOUR name! He is set apart from any other created being in the history of the universe! He is set apart from any other created being. And when we come to prayer, we are declaring how great is our God. We are declaring that you are a God of Wonders. We are declaring How Great Thou Art. We are declaring that the whole earth is filled with His glory.
And we must see this if hallowed be your name is going to be seen in our lives. We must acknowledge His holiness and then pray to be set apart as well. And this idea of surrendering to the name of God was very important to God; it was so important that he made it a point that He reinforced with their instructions for worship.
God wanted the Israelites to surrender and He wants us to surrender. He is jealous for our surrender. He is jealous because He is the I AM! He is Yahweh, the one who saves. There is to be not other God, or name of God to be worshipped that the LORD! For the Israelites, it was their mission to wipe out the name of the false gods and worship their God in the sanctuary, the very place that He chose to place His name, they were to make the name of God their first priority and then they had the responsibility of living underneath and out of that hallowed name. Deut. 12:3-5;11 “Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. 4 You must not worship the LORD your God in their way. 5 But you are to seek the place the LORD your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; 11 Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD.”
And because He is set apart in His name He has ever right to be jealous that the story be all about Him! And Jesus directs our prayer right there. To surrendering to His name, and the reason we surrender to His name is because He is who He says He IS! He is perfect. He is justice. He is mercy. He is love. He is Jesus!!!!
God’s invitation To Be Part of
the Story!
And here’s what’s amazing about this prayer. God invites you and me to play a part in the hallowing of His name while we are here on Earth. Jesus tells us to pray, “Hallowed Be Your Name” because He knows that if we are going to make much of God in our lives we need to make much of God in prayer. He knows that our lives will only be hallowing His name if our minds and hearts are in prayer. Everyday, every moment God invites us to make Him known, in all we say and do and that only happens if practice setting Him apart in our own lives. After we have set Him apart, as the name above every name, then we must pray for that name to be set apart in our own lives. First, God’s name in all my life.
God’s Name in All My Life
Do you remember the word picture Malachi used? Malachi 4:2
"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with
healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from
the stall."
This petition is about asking the father for His name to be more set apart in your own life.
Those who revere, meditate, think, fear, consider, exalt, hallow, honor, set apart as holy…you put in the adjective…those you revere his matchless name will live like a calf leaping when released from the stall.
Malachi’s journal entry, and Jesus instruction on prayer force me to consider that I must know His name, and revere it, before I can leap like a calf. Or maybe another way to say it is, “Malachi’s journal entry, and Jesus instruction on prayer force me to consider that I must know His name, and revere it, before I can live a life of worship!
Leaping like a calf…worshipping the name of God throughout life. Life on this earth is not meat to be lived in the stall. Life on this earth is not meant to be lived about me. The encouragement from Malachi is to not think about me first, but think about Him first. The instruction from Jesus is to not pray about me first, but to pray about Him first!
It’s all about Him. And after it’s all about Him, He then invites us to play a part, a small part in His story that will never end. And He gives us the privilege to bear His name to the world.
This past week 20 of our high school students served alongside an inner-city ministry that feeds over a 100 homeless people 6 days a week. David Clifton birthed a ministry 15 years ago on the night the Broncos got annihilated by the San Francisco 49’ers. It’s great to know God used that game for good!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a joy to see our students serving. But something struck me about what the name of this ministry is. It is a David C. Clifton ministry, but the name of the ministry is Jesus to the World!!!!!! It’s not David C. Clifton to the World.
It’s not Dan to the World. It’s not Pastor Nelson. It’s not Southern Gables to the world. It is Jesus TO THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s why we pray for the name of God to be hallowed!
Because Jesus told us we would be His witnesses. He gave us the great commission to go into the Nations…carrying the name of Jesus. You and I get to be Jesus to the World. And the only way we are going to get it is to first consider His name, His character and then model our lives after Him. All of our lives. So that in every conversation, every drive, every glance at a person of the opposite sex, every financial decision, every movement when we are alone, every move we make is in His name. We kneel in our prayer closet and make it all about Him, then we take God’s invitation to play a small part in hallowing His name as we live in His eternal story that will never be forgotten.
And we not only do individually, but we do it corporately. This prayer is a prayer that we must be praying for each other.
God’s Name in All Our Lives
And this is how we must pray for each other. To be sure we should pray for our immediate needs, but a body of believers who are just praying for our needs to get met are not praying for eternal impact! Therefore, Jesus lays it out! Pray for the name of God to be hallowed in the lives of each other. We pray that our lives would be an expression that reflects of the name of our father.
It is so easy for our minds to wander off of the hallowed name of our Father. I need you to pray this for me. And you need me to pray this for you. Even this week, my mind was wandering from my son’s birthdays, to being in the office after getting back from Poland, to preparing this message, to getting ready to leave on vacation tonight! My mind was wandering and I needed prayer support in all that I was doing that I would be thinking on Him and that all I was doing was pointing to Him…and on Friday, Dori Sear, just stopped in my office and told me that a group of women and myself just finished praying this prayer for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Delores Vincent sent me an email. That was powerful. They both know that it’s all about Him and that I need to make it all about Him. It’s not about this message first, it’s about Him. It’s not about my vacation first, it’s about Him! This prayer is not only just about our life with God, it’s about our lives with God!
And do your realize what this did? It gave me strength to finish this week well. It reminded me that my kid’s birthdays, this message and my vacation need to be first about Him and then He invites me into these situations to hallow His name.
Our lives get lived out of a head and heart connection. And that’s one of the reasons we meet! We need a time to be together to revere His name, to hallow His name! I love how David said it
David nailed it in Psalm 19:14 “ May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.”
Right thinking about God leads to right living. The more I am in love with God the more I can love because God is love. The more I let His name permeate my being….the more it will reflect my behavior. It’s true, what we believe will determine how we behave and affect who we become!
So lets stand together. Grab the hand of the person next to you. I know this might make some of you uncomfortable, but we need to start learning to live with each other here because we going to be together forever. Before we begin our prayer I want to read one last verse with you.
Revelation 3:12. "He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write on him the name of My God…"
Philippians
2:9-11 “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name
that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every
tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Would you join me in praying the Jesus taught us to pray?