Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Introduction
Last week, we were introduced to some of Jesus Christ’s teachings on the subject of prayer. And it’s important to clarify from the beginning here – prayer isn’t something we do in order to make ourselves deserving of salvation. Prayer doesn’t wash away our wrongdoings from the past, and make us right with our Father. The only way to be forgiven and accepted by God is through faith in Christ – trusting in His work to die for our sins, and to credit his righteousness to our account. That’s how we’re saved – that’s how we’re established as citizens in the kingdom of God – by faith in Jesus’s work. Not by our work.
But what is the kingdom of God like? How are the citizens of the kingdom supposed to look? What does real righteousness look like when it’s lived out, and put into practice? In the Bible, in the book of Matthew, Chapter 6, that’s what Jesus is teaching about. He explains what it should look like for the people of God to pray.
So if you have your Bibles, please turn with me to Matthew, Chapter 6. I’ll be reading the whole prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, but this afternoon we’ll just be giving our attention to the first section of the Lord’s Prayer, there in verse 9. Matthew Chapter 6, starting in verse 9.
But before I read our text, please pray with me.
[PRAY AND READ TEXT]
What Is Prayer About?
Usually when we pray, we start by addressing God somehow. We might say, “Dear heavenly Father,” or “Lord Almighty,” or simply, “God.” For many of us, the way we start our prayers has become something of a habit. We don’t give much thought to it. In fact, our minds can sometimes be so filled up with the priorities and concerns we want to pray about, we give very little thought to the one we’re praying to.
But prayer isn’t intended to be a way that we pursue our own selfish ambitions and interests. So here in verse 9, Jesus teaches his disciples to pray in a way that rightly takes the focus off of you and I, as individuals. And he indicates those of us who are trusting in Christ, who are Christians – we should pray, not just individually, but together. And we should pray to God as our Father. And we should pray to glorify and honor God’s name, rather than our own. Jesus affirms these three principles, and these will be my three points as we work through verse 9: First, Pray together. Second, Pray to God as Father. And Third, Pray to Glorify His Name.
Pray Together
So first, the Lord Jesus urges his followers, that they should be mindful to pray together. In verse 9, Jesus says, “Pray then like this” – and what you can’t see in the English text here is that this command to pray is not addressed to one individual – you singular, but it’s addressed to you all – you plural. And at the start of this prayer, Jesus encourages them to pray, “Our Father.” It’s clear here that Jesus envisions that God’s people would pray together.
Now in light of what we read last week, Jesus’s point here may be something we wouldn’t expect. After all, in verse 6, Jesus said, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret.” In that verse, it makes it seem like Jesus is encouraging us to pray privately, alone, individually – that the practice of my Christianity should be just between me and God.
But that’s not at all Jesus’s point in verse 6. He isn’t forbidding us from praying with other people, or praying in public places. He’s speaking against praying as a performance, simply to be noticed by other people. And Jesus is urging those people who crave the attention from other people to go pray in their closets – to be seeking the Lord in their prayers, instead of seeking the laud and approval of a human audience.
But here in verse 9, Jesus makes it clear that citizens of God’s kingdom aren’t lone rangers. The practice of their spirituality isn’t solitary or self-sufficient. No, Jesus commands you all – us all – he commands us Pray like this. And the prayer he teaches us to pray is a group prayer. A congregational prayer. A prayer for Christians gathered together. And it’s good for our souls to be praying with other people. It sharpens us when we hear how others pray. It encourages us when we can’t form words and we’re struggling to pray on our own. It reminds us that our personal plans and passions aren’t as ultimate and important as we tend to think they are. Jesus wants us to be committed to gathering together, and engaging in prayer as an assembled people – as a church family – because it’s good for us.
Now I want to be clear here – you and I should be praying individually in secret, too. You should be making time to talk to your Father, even when you don’t have friends pulling or prodding you along into it. It should be a personal priority. But we should be careful that we don’t devalue the importance of worshipping God alongside other Christians. When the apostles went out making disciples, there’s a reason why they swiftly gathered these families and individuals into the church. It’s because God is calling us to worship together, to live life together, to pray together.
Pray to God as Our Father in Heaven
Yet you may notice, Jesus doesn’t just teach his followers to start their prayers by saying, “Our God” or “Our Creator.” He urges them to pray Our Father in Heaven. (This is my second point: Pray to God as Our Father in Heaven.)
Both of these parts are significant – both acknowledging God as Our Father, and acknowledging that He is in Heaven. He teaches us to call out to God as Our Father, because it reminds us why we can have confidence in our prayers. Because of this relationship that God has with you and I. He isn’t distant from you, or reluctant to help you. But those who trust in Jesus have an actual, intimate bond with God. We are his children. He is our Father, just as we saw last week in verses 7 and 8.
But when we call out to God as Our Father, it reminds us that we’re praying alongside brothers and sisters. God isn’t just your Father. He’s not just my Father. He’s our Father. He’s the Father of Christians from every region of the world, from every era of human history, from every ethnic and economic background. Our prayers shouldn’t revolve around me, me, me. We have other people to be thinking about and praying for. God’s purposes reach much further than me or you.
The trial you’re facing today, that God isn’t snapping his fingers and bringing you out of – it could be that God is using that to serve your brother in Christ. Maybe he’s learning from your example what it means to endure hardship with patience and hope. Or He may be answering the prayers of your sister in Christ, in some mysterious way that you and I aren’t smart enough to figure out. We’re once again reminded here that prayer isn’t just an individual endeavor. Because the Father we’re praying to is concerned for all his children.
Now I recognize that some of us have had earthly fathers who have failed us. Praying to God as our Father may not be all that comforting if we have a distorted idea of what fatherhood means. But remember, Jesus tells us to pray to Our Father in HEAVEN. God isn’t like earthly Fathers. This Father cares for his children perfectly, securely, righteously. He’s attentive to us, not neglectful. He loves us – he’s not abusive. And though he doesn’t always give us what we want, he’s careful to give us what He knows we need. God isn’t someone we should try to play games with him, to try to manipulate him with our words giving us what we want – that’s not how healthy relationships work. But we can trust God, and be convinced of his goodness.
Yet as we pray to Our Father in heaven, it doesn’t just remind us of his perfection. It also reminds us of his power.
Our Father in heaven isn’t just perfectly committed to us, but he is also powerfully capable of accomplishing the things we ask, from his heavenly throne.
Our Father in Heaven isn’t constrained by physical limitations. He isn’t subjected under the dominion of earthly kings. He isn’t bound by time, or limited by space. Instead, as Psalm 115, verse 3 says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.”
The Word of God here compels us to embrace the reality of his supernatural power. As the God of highest heaven, He really did create the universe out of nothing. He truly destroyed the inhabited earth with a flood in the days of Noah. In his divine strength, he rained down fire on Sodom and Gomorrah for their sexual immorality, and he enabled 90-year-old Sarah to give birth to Isaac in her old age. We can embrace the inerrancy of the Bible, and the virgin birth of Christ, and the certainty of a real, bodily resurrection from the dead because Our Father is in heaven. He’s transcendent in power. He does all that he pleases. And Jesus urges us to have this confidence when we pray.
Pray to Glorify God’s Name
But what should we ask for? What is the first petition that God’s people are urged to keep in mind when they go to prayer? Notice what Jesus puts first, there in the second half of verse 9: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
Jesus wants us, first and foremost in our prayers, to aim for the Glory of God. This is my third and final point. “Pray to Glorify God’s name.” This word “Hallowed” here isn’t one that we often use in American English, but to hallow something means to set it apart as holy or sacred. Hallowed things are things that we treat with a heightened level of carefulness and reverence.
And Jesus wants you and I, and the whole church all of human history, to pray for the Hallowedness of the name of God. And this isn’t just a fanciful comment that Jesus is making here. This petition is actually of the utmost importance if there’s going to be any enduring presence of true religion in the generations after us. Because it must be clear that the God of Christianity isn’t just a flubby old man in the clouds, or a hobby for the weekend. He isn’t just a good luck charm, or a feel-good friend who helps you feel better when life is hard. God’s name is to be Hallowed. God is Holy. He’s set apart from everything else in perfection and authority. And if we rebrand God as a commercialized God for mass-marketing, or a cutesy God for entertaining kids, or a counseling God to give us therapeutic relief, we will be worshiping something false and superficial, and we’ll be teaching others to do the same. This petition, “hallowed be your name,” is a request that God would be rightly honored as Holy. God is to be revered, and loved, and worshiped, above all other things.
And I want to be clear here – when Jesus tells us to be praying, “Hallowed be your name,” he’s not suggesting that we need to say something or do something in order to make God’s name into something it’s not. We aren’t praying that God would become more holy, as though he isn’t already. But Jesus wants us to esteem God’s name in a way that fits with the true nature of who God is, in His sacred, supernatural, other-worldly glory.
Notice, though, this prayer, “Hallowed be your name” – it’s not just for those people out there, that they would regard God as holy. This prayer is for us! We, ourselves, need to remember that our prayers aren’t being directed to some sort abstract spiritual blob – we aren’t just speaking to empty space, to vent our emotions. But we’re speaking to an infinite personal being who is unchangeably High and Holy, and worthy of our worship.
Somehow we forget. We lose sight of Him. Our passion to know him is too easily extinguished. We too often allow other passions and priorities to capture our hearts. But Jesus presses us to call out to God, “Hallowed be your name!” Help me to not to be absorbed with my own name, or to seek my own fame, but teach me to set apart your name alone as worthy! Grant to me a genuine longing to behold your Face, and to live for your honor. Give me an appetite to hunger for a richer acquaintance with your goodness.
But it’s possible that some of you have little or no spiritual appetite. You live as though the trivial, temporary amusements of this world are worth everything. And somehow you have remained blind to the majesty of and worthiness of the Immortal God. My prayer tonight is that this petition – Hallowed be your name – would help you to understand that God is far more precious, and pristine, and pleasurable then anything else. Do you know this God? Do you understand his hallowedness?
Knowing Our Father
In prayer, we’re raised up into conversation with Him – with the invisible, eternal inventor of galaxies and subatomic particles. We, together, are welcomed into prayer, comforted with the knowledge that God cares for us as a Father, and called into a greater understanding of His Sacred greatness. And I hope that all this leaves you with a greater desire to be with your Father in prayer. Let’s pray: