“9 “... hallowed be Your name...””
If you can’t be honest in prayer, when can you be honest? If you can’t be honest with God, with whom can you be honest?
When you are honest with God, you pray about what’s pressing. When David needed mercy, the first words of his prayer were, “Have mercy on me, O God.”
When a woman’s husband is desperately sick, the first words of her prayer are, “Father, heal him…” When a new father holds his baby boy in his hands for the first time, the first words of his prayer are, “Thank You…”
In honest communication, the first words that come forth are the most pressing. They are what seems most necessary in that moment.
Jesus would agree and that’s why he prayed, “hallowed be Your name.” Jesus purposefully put, “hallowed be Your name,” first. He thinks that your greatest need is to know his Father as he knows his Father. He is training you to prayer with this prayer and he is training you to recognize that your most desperate need is to know his Father and to delight in His greatness. “Hallowed be Your Name.”
That’s your most pressing need, but it that doesn’t mean it always has to come first. You might find yourself in a situation like Hannah. She had no children and she wanted one. Her husband wasn’t all that sensitive to her sorrow. When Hannah prayed, her first words were, “Lord Almighty, if You will only look on Your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget Your servant but give her a son…”
That’s a fine way to start praying, but in the end that’s not what’s most necessary. What’s most necessary is for Hannah to glorify God. That’s why she exists. “Hallowed be Your name.”
You might find yourself in a situation like Hezekiah. You’ve found out you are terminally ill, and you go to God venting everything in your heart. ‘“Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in Your eyes,” and he wept bitterly.’ Hezekiah brought that lament to God because that was the heart of the matter in that moment.
That’s a fine way to start praying but in the end that’s not what’s most necessary. What’s most necessary is for Hezekiah to glorify God. That’s why he exists. “Hallowed be Your name.”
If you think life is about you, today’s training will make no sense to you. If you think life is about God, Jesus’ words will find a home in you.
Jesus trains us to see that the wisest, most pressing thing we can pray is, “hallowed be Your name.” That’s the claim of this sermon: Jesus trains us to see that the wisest, most pressing thing we can pray is, “hallowed be Your name.”
We will see this in two parts. First, both ‘hallowed’ and ‘name’ are somewhat technical words so we need some definitions. That’s our first point: definitions. Second: we will use these definitions to understand this request. That’s our second point: the request. First: definitions. Second: the request.
First: definitions. Jesus is training us with this prayer just as certainly as he trained his first disciples. Today’s training has some technical language: the words ‘hallowed’ and ‘name’. “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name…”
My working assumption is that many of you are ready and willing to be trained in prayer, but you are wondering about this word ‘hallowed’. You want to pray like Jesus prays, but you want to know what you are saying when you say, “hallowed be Your name.”
To hallow something is to mark it off as special, as something other than ordinary. It is often translated as ‘sanctify,’ or ‘to set apart.’ Items that were hallowed were special because they were set apart for God. God hallowed the Sabbath. It is set apart for Him. It’s special. He hallowed items in the temple, like goblets, and so when the Babylonians used them to mock God He sent a message saying, “you have been weighed and found wanting.” God hallowed the priests, He set them apart – not better, just different – and so when King Saul killed 85 of them God burned with rage. God hallowed the ark of the covenant and so when Uzzah ignored the instructions and threw it on an ox cart and then tried to catch it before it fell, he was struck dead. God takes hallowing very seriously because He takes His glory seriously.
So that’s the word ‘hallowed.’ It means set apart for the glory of God. Now what about the word ‘name’? We tend to think of the concept of name in terms of designation. My name is ‘Adam.’ That’s how I am identified. If this were Jesus’ intention, he would be teaching us to ask that God’s names would be set apart as special.
Some Christians are really into the names of God. They pray to ‘El Elyon,’ ‘God Most High’; ‘El Roi,’ ‘The God who sees’; ‘El Shaddai,’ ‘God Almighty.’ There is a tendency in certain circles to connect an almost mystical power to these names of God. They revere the names of God.
This is certainly not what Jesus had in mind when he taught us to pray, “hallowed be Your name.” He was using ‘name’ the same way Proverbs 22:1 used it, “A good name is more desirable than great riches.” Solomon wasn’t talking about the difference between the names ‘Jessica’ and ‘Grizella.’ ‘You know it would have been better to give a good name.’ He was talking about what people think about when they think about you. “A good name is more desirable than great riches.”
God cares about His good name. He wants people to see Him as He is because anything less is unworthy of Him. When He wants to display His mercy, refers to His name. “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off.” “A good name is more desirable than great riches.” ‘The Lord certainly is merciful.’
When He wants to display His power, He refers to His name. “I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name… And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name… And the nations will know that I am YHWH.” “A good name is more desirable than great riches.” ‘YHWH certainly is mighty to save.’
God cares deeply about His good name. He cares deeply about people knowing Him for who He is. That’s good for you because without that you would have no hope of salvation.
It is little wonder then that “Hallowed be Your name,” comes first in this prayer. “This petition is set in the forefront,” wrote Thomas Watson, “to show that the hallowing of God’s name is to be preferred before all things. It is to be preferred before life. We pray ‘hallowed by thy name’ before we pray, ‘give us this day our daily bread.’ It is to be preferred before salvation. God’s glory [has] more worth than the salvation of all men’s souls. As Christ said of love in Matthew 22:38, “this is the first and great commandment,” so I may say of this petition, ‘hallowed by thy name,’ this is the first and great petition; it contains the most weighty thing in religion, which is God’s glory.”
You exist to bring God glory. You exist for Him. He doesn’t exist for you. That’s Westminster Catechism Q&A 1, “What is the chief end of man?” “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” No wonder this petition comes first. This is why you, the pray-er, exist.
Now we’ve defined ‘hallowed.’ We’ve defined ‘name.’ That’s just the first step in our training. We need to pray this request. That’s our second point: the request.
This request, “hallowed be Your name,” is more important than any of us realize. I don’t understand how important this is. This is so important that we are going to break it into five parts and we still won’t do it justice. The basics of these five come from Wilhelm à Brakel, a Dutch pastor from the 17th century.
First, when you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you are asking that people would see Jesus’ Father as infinitely worthy. Jesus thinks our most important, most pressing request is to see his Father would be seen as infinitely glorious, infinitely able to satisfy, sweeter than honey, more desirable than cash. If you don’t believe that, you aren’t yet trained to pray, “hallowed be Your name.”
This nation has no idea of the glory of God. You can watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News around the clock without seeing a hint that God is majestic or powerful. You can rent the five highest grossing movies from each of the past five years and watch those twenty-five movies back to back without hearing word one that would lead you to believe that God matters and that He is glorious. If the media and entertainment provide your thought diet, you shouldn’t be surprised that “hallowed be Your name,” sounds strange to you.
“Hallowed be Your name,” is a desperately needed prayer in our day. People desperately need to see God for who He is. They find technology more glorious than God. They find athletes more glorious than God. They find themselves more glorious than God. Our culture rarely thinks about God and when it does, its thoughts are very small. Pray, “hallowed be Your name.”
When you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you express your desire for people, yourself included, to see that God is worthy. You also admit that you are unworthy to know the Father. That’s the second part of praying, “hallowed be Your name.” You admit that you are unworthy to know the Father.
If you truly know the Father, you have the sense that you have no business knowing Him. You say with Abraham, “I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes.” You fall down with Isaiah saying, “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” You fall at Jesus feet saying with Peter, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”
Praying for God’s name to be hallowed is to acknowledge that God is holy, holy, holy and I am nothing, nothing, nothing before Him. When you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you acknowledge that God’s is so holy, so set apart, that you can only know Him by invitation.
This prayer includes your invitation. ‘Pray, “our Father.’” You have been invited to know someone whom You are unworthy to know. That’s grace. That’s a reason to give glory to God. “Hallowed be Your name.”
When you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you admit that you are unworthy to know the Father but by grace you do. Third, when you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you recognize that you are unable to give Him the glory He deserves.
If you could give God the glory He deserves, you wouldn’t need to pray, “hallowed be Your name.”
Nothing you or I can offer God would be worthy of Him. Imagine you are on your friend’s boat and you see a most spectacular sunset. It fills you with an inexpressible joy. You want to capture that moment and so you try to paint it. Your best attempts fail to do anything near justice to that sunset and so you enroll in art school to learn how to recapture that moment through art. Over ten years of study your canvases get better and better, but they never come near to recapturing that moment. If you can’t do justice to one sunset, how are you going to do justice to Jesus’ Father?
What could I do with my life that would accurately display God’s worth? Would moving to the slums of India and working with the untouchables be sufficient to display God’s kindness? Would getting a PhD and writing works of apologetics be sufficient to display His wisdom? It would be utterly insufficient.
When you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you recognize that you are unable to give Him the glory He deserves. Fourth – and this is the other side of the coin – when you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you acknowledge that God accepts the insufficient glory you give.
Every sermon I have ever preached and will preach is woefully insufficient in portraying the holiness, love, and wrath and mercy of God – every single one. Every act of parenting I have done is utterly insufficient to show my children their Father in heaven. Every token of love I have shown to my wife is pitiably inadequate as a picture of God’s love for His people. In other words, everything I do falls short of the glory of God.
Yet in teaching me this prayer, Jesus tells me that the Father accepts glory from my attempts. If my children drew a picture of me, I would hang that up with pride no matter what it looked like because my kids drew that to make me look good. That’s how your Father in heaven cherishes your attempts to give Him glory.
When you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you acknowledge that God accepts the insufficient glory you give. Fifth, and finally, when you pray, “hallowed be Your name,” you ask for God to reveal Himself as He is.
Do you want to know God as He is? Listen to what He is like. “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before You! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make Your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before You! For when You did awesome things that we did not expect, You came down, and the mountains trembled before You. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides You, who acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.” ‘Reveal Yourself as You are to this cynical and skeptical age. Hallowed be Your name.’
“Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: ‘Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” ‘Reveal Yourself to this doubting age. Show Your wisdom to the ignorant. Hallowed be Your name.’
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground than He blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.” ‘Reveal Yourself to this prideful age. Show Your power to the arrogant. Hallowed be Your name.’
These words describe reality. If you weren’t thinking that way about Jesus’ Father and about life when you woke up this morning, you weren’t thinking clearly, and you need to pray, “hallowed be Your name.” I wasn’t thinking clearly when I woke up this morning. I need to pray, “hallowed be Your name.” It is my most pressing need.
It is the most pressing need of this nation. The most pressing need of this nation has nothing to do with anything you see on the news. The most pressing need of this nation is for the Father of Jesus to be set apart as worthy of everything we could offer, insufficient as it is. “Hallowed be Your name.”
That’s your most pressing need. Even in your sorrows, that is your most pressing need. Consider Job. His prayer wasn’t only, “hallowed be Your name.” He said things like, “Does it please You to oppress me,to spurn the work of Your hands”
Job said that, but that’s not where he ended. Prayer is like that because honest communication is like that. Job didn’t only pray, “hallowed be Your name,” but that is where he ended. After 42 chapters he wound up at, ‘I know that You can do all things;no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, “Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?” Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,things too wonderful for me to know.’ That’s “hallowed be Your name.”
If that isn’t your prayer this morning, keep praying. It took Job many tears to get to that point, but knowing God’s glory was his most desperate need. That’s why the prayer stops with those words.
You see this even more clearly in Jesus. His prayer from the cross is, “my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” That’s where the prayer started but it didn’t end with abandonment. It ended with resurrection and people have been singing, “hallowed be Your name,” and other praises every Sunday since. To glorify God is our deepest need. It is what we were made for. That’s why Jesus put it first. Amen.