SUNDAY SCHOOL: The Lord's Prayer Part 2 (Hallowed Be Your Name)

The Lord’s Prayer as a Framework for God-Centered Prayer

Welcome back to the Shepherd's Church podcast. Just like our Lord's Day sermon, we hope that this Sunday School message blesses you and strengthens you in your faith. Now, as we discussed last week, the Lord's Prayer is not the prayer that Jesus himself prayed to the Father.

That's the high priestly prayer that we have in John 17. Instead, the Lord's Prayer is the model of prayer that he gifted to his disciples when they asked him to teach them how to pray. This is not a rigid incantation of mindless repetition, but it's a framework for structuring our prayers in a very God-centered way.

You see, faithful prayer does not begin with our needs, but it begins with an acknowledgement of who God is. If we fail to do this, our prayers become little more than sanctified pity parties. But when we begin with a recognition of God's character, our prayer then shifts away from self-focused monologues to true communion with the living God.

We move from speaking at God to speaking with God, and that's exactly what we want in prayer. Now today, we're gonna continue our series by examining the next crucial aspect of what faithful prayer is.

And after recognizing who God is, we need not so quickly rush to our petitions, but instead, as we're gonna see today, we must align ourselves with the mission of God, the Missio Dei, because the ultimate goal of reality and the ultimate goal of history, the telos of all of creation, is that God's name would be glorified in all the earth.

This is why he made the world, and this is why he created all that exist, though he permitted sin for a moment for his glory. The final purpose of all things, the end for which the Lord created the world, is that his name would be exalted all over the earth as the waters covers the seas.

That's Habakkuk 2 .14. Therefore, prayer must be about who God is and what God is intending to do in the world. And before we pray for anything else, we are commanded to come before God, acknowledging his mission to fill the earth.

Hallowed Be Your Name in Matthew 6:9

Now with that, let us read our text and then let us examine these truths together. The text is Matthew 6. We're gonna read the second half of it. Actually, we're gonna read the whole verse nine of chapter six, but we're only gonna deal with the second half of it this morning.

This is what the text says. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It's the hallowed that we're gonna be talking about this morning. And Jesus begins this Lord's Prayer, not with a focus on us, or our needs, or our thoughts, or our conditions, or our circumstances, but on the identity of God.

Our Father, who art in heaven, is the beginning that reminds us that God is both near to us as our Father and sovereign to us as the King of heaven. And if we fail to start there, we will not pray rightly, because we will make our prayers about ourselves rather than about him.

Because the end goal of prayer is not us, it's him. It's for us to be in communion with him, in relationship with him. If you've ever communicated with someone who made their conversation with you all about themselves, it becomes a very frustrating conversation.

Well, in the same way, if we make our conversation all about us when we come to God, we are treating prayer as an exercise in narcissism. And of course, we know that that is not the way that God created us to communicate, not with others and not with him.

Hallowing God’s Name as a Global Petition

Now, immediately after this, Jesus directs us to the purposes of God. He says, after our Father, who art in heaven, he says, hallowed be your name. Now, this is not a passive acknowledgement of God's holiness, but it's a radical, world-altering petition.

It's a plea that every rival kingdom would be shattered, every false god would be silenced, every blasphemous philosophy would be choked out for the glory of Christ alone and for the advancement of his kingdom to the ends of the earth.

To pray, hallowed be your name, is to pray for the complete upheaval, the overthrow of this present world system. It is to ask that all secular governments that refuse to bow their knee to the Lord Jesus Christ will be brought low.

It's to pray for the suffocation of atheism, the choking out of secularism and paganism. It is a battle cry for Christ's dominion to advance, leaving no corner of the world unconquered. In this way, Jesus is not teaching us to focus on our personal comforts and circumstances, but for the global insurrection of God against every rebellion, against every power, against every philosophy, against every principality that stands opposed to God's reign.

Yet, I think it's very obvious to all of us how often we do not pray this way. How often do we not pray in this kind of way where our prayers reflect the character of God and the mission of God? If we examine our prayers and how much is devoted to the glory of God compared to our personal concerns, we will realize how far off we actually are in the way that we pray.

Too often we make our prayer about self-centered, weak and pitiful things, gutting prayer of its true power and glory. If our primary concern is our personal comfort, then we've lost sight of what Jesus is actually commanding us to do in prayer.

The heart of prayer is not self-preservation. It is not self-attestation, but it is the exaltation of the Almighty. True prayer does not begin with our concerns, but with God's reign. And we must long for his name to be exalted everywhere.

We must hunger for it. That's why God is telling us to pray this way because he wants us to hunger for God's kingdom to grow more than our little pitiful castles. He wants us to long for his name to be exalted everywhere on earth, to hunger for it, to obsess over that, to pray for that, to call out to God for that, that his glory would fill the world.

That is the mission that Christ has called us to in prayer. That is the battle that we do on our knees, that we would pray, that not just our tongue would confess that Jesus is Lord, but that all tongues would confess that Jesus is Lord.

The Grammar of a Third-Person Imperative

And this goes down all the way into the grammar of the phrase. The phrase, hallowed be your name in Greek, which is agiasthetou ta animasou, which means to sanctify, to treat as holy, to set apart something.

But it goes even further than that. It means more than just to treat the name of God as holy or to set apart the name of God as something special. It means more than that because in the grammar, it's a third person imperative, which may not make a lot of sense to us as English speakers, but it means something very specific in the Greek.

You see, an imperative is a simple command. You do something, you do that, you do this, you do those things. But when you have a third person command, you are not telling someone what to do. It is a petition for others to begin doing something.

Let me put it to you this way. If Jesus were to use a second person imperative here, he would say, you hallow God's name when you pray. But when he uses the third person imperative command, he is telling you to pray this.

Let us hallow the name of God. Jesus is telling us that he doesn't want us to personally hallow the name of God.

That's a given.

If you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, you should be hallowing the name of God in everything that you do, whether you eat or whether you drink. In fact, Jesus is going much further than personal hallowing of the name of God.

He is telling you and I that we would pray that our neighbors, that our family members, that our senators, that our congressmen, that people in other countries, that literally everyone on earth would hallow the name of Christ, the name of God.

Jesus is telling us here that we are commanded to pray that everyone on earth would hallow God's name. And it goes even deeper than that because when you realize that the term name, which in this passage is onoma in the Greek, signifies so much more than just a designation.

Jesus is not praying for us to simply, that we would pray that the entire world would call out the name of God. That would be great, but it goes even deeper than that because when you realize that the name in the Bible, God's name represents his character, his attributes, his reputation, his authority, his power, his salvation, all of it, then what you realize is that Jesus is telling us to pray that the entire world would come under the saving power of Yahweh's gospel.

Because if the name is what is written on our hearts, if there is no other name by which we may be saved, if there's power in the name, then what Jesus is saying is not only that we would pray that everyone on earth would declare his name, but that everyone on earth would be saved by his name.

God’s Holy Name, the Nations, and Salvation

This is why in the Old Testament, we have things like Ezekiel 36, 22 through 23, where it says, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations.

God is saying that one of the ways that he's gonna vindicate his name is that he's gonna save the nations who've been profaning his great name. That's what he promises even as far back as Ezekiel. In Leviticus, he says, among those who are near me, I will show myself holy, and before all the people, I will be glorified.

He's saying that before this old world is finished, his name will be glorified among the nations. His name will be the power that saves the nations. His name will be written on the heart of the nations.

So what you have even in this prayer is a directive from Jesus that we would pray that the entire world would be saved. These passages reveal that God's name is inseparably linked to his purposes, and we are to pray that the world would hallow his name, and they would hallow his being, and they would come under the effect of his lordship and salvation forever.

This is why Jesus himself prays, Father, glorify your name, because he wants his name to be made much of in the nations. That's why in Matthew 5, 16, he commands us to let your light so shine before men so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

He's telling us that whether you pray or whether you are living and moving and doing and acting in the world, whatever you do, may you do it to the glory of God so that the nations may see it and they may praise God for it, because the end goal, the sum total work of God is to save the world.

That is why in the next clause, which we'll deal with next week, he says that we are to pray your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is telling us to pray that the world would be so submitted to God that it would be as submitted to God as heaven is.

He's saying may all rebellion and may all enmity cease so that the nations may come in. That is what we are praying in this prayer. That is the petition that Jesus asked us to pray before we even get to our needs.

We must pray that his kingdom will come. Now, the reformed tradition has always affirmed this chief aim of prayer, the chief aim of prayer being the glory of God and the hallowing of his great name, that this is not just a private devotion where we do in our prayer closet.

We don't merely pray for our own holiness and our own effects and our own circumstances. No, we pray for the glory of God to be manifest among the nations. We pray that every knee would bow, that every tongue would confess, that every soul would hallow the name of Jesus.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, for instance, in question 101 teaches us that we are to pray for God to enable all people to glorify him. In the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 190, it expands on this by declaring that the hallowing of God's name involves removing all dishonor, whether that be atheism or idolatry or false worship or rebellion against his authority from the world.

We are to pray that God would remove all of these things from the world. This is not, as we said, about personal piety, but it's about petitioning God to topple every stronghold that refuses to give him glory.

We are missionaries when we are on our knees because we are praying that God would topple the rebellion going on in the nations. In the Heidelberg Catechism, question 122, it teaches us that this petition is a plea for true knowledge, for the true knowledge of God, a world filled with people who would glorify him and know him and have a universal reverence for him, for his attributes, for his power, for his wisdom and for his justice.

Thus, we pray not only for our personal endeavors, but we pray for the eradication of every system, every philosophy, every government that does not acknowledge Christ as Lord. John Calvin affirmed this reading of the text when he said, we ought to lose sight of ourselves and seek for the glory of God, because the glory of God is the end for which we were created.

Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, not individual men, but all mankind. To pray, hallowed be your name, is to ask God to crush every rival throne and to tear down every lie and to fill the world with his truth.

The Puritans reinforced this as well. Thomas Watson wrote, we should rather forget ourselves than forget God, amen. Thomas Manton declared, nothing is more precious than the glory of God. What we're talking about here is that literally speaking, the entire world would come under his rule.

We are praying for worldwide Christian domination. We are praying for worldwide Christian advancement to where there is no other religion. There is no more rebellion. We are praying for the Lord to conquer the entire earth and to put under his feet every rebellion.

Practical Ways to Pray for God’s Glory

And that leads us to a question. How does this actually work? How do we do this? How do we pray in this way? I mean, I've shown you some examples so far, but let us begin with a couple practical examples here as we wrap up.

When we pray, hallowed be your name, we're asking for God to fill the world with his glory, to overthrow evil so that every knee will bow. Well, do this by beginning every prayer with the character of God and the glory of God.

I want you to come into prayer and acknowledge God as father and then right immediately after you've acknowledged him as father, acknowledge him as sovereign. And then after you've acknowledged him as sovereign, then declare to him, repeat to him, even remind him of, he doesn't need to be reminded, but it's good for you, that his kingdom will reign.

That he is the holy one, the righteous one, and the one who is supreme over all. I want you to praise his attributes, his justice, his power, and his faithfulness. And I want you to remember that those attributes are gonna be the attributes that define planet earth before this earth is finished.

Acknowledge his sovereignty. You reign over all nations and no one can stand against you. Declare his attributes back to him and then remember to yourself that those attributes are going to be the attributes of this world before he is finished.

That's the first thing. Remind him of his character and his attributes. Next, pray that the world would hallow his name, for unbelievers to repent, for nations to abandon their wickedness, for secularism, false religion, idolatry to be torn down, for Christ's name to reign in public school systems again, businesses again, governments again.

Pray that every single stronghold that you can think of in your mind, whether it be close to you or far away from you, whether it be small or whether it be big, that all would be eradicated under the surpassing weight and beauty of his magnificent glory.

Number two, or sorry, number three, pray against everything that dishonors God, whether that be evil laws in your city, corrupt leaders in your county, anti-Christian idolatry that is going on in your country and in the world, for nations to be humbled until they honor Christ, for God's enemies to repent or to be removed, for Satan's influence to be destroyed on earth so that God's glory would be manifest to the ends of the earth.

Number four, pray that the church would be the very epicenter, the white hot epicenter of the glory of God, that we here who don't fear man would fear God and that we would magnify his glory louder and more beautifully and more vibrantly than anywhere else on earth, that pastors would boldly preach about Christ's dominion, that false churches and weak pulpits and compromised doctrine would be purged, that rainbow flag hanging churches would be closed down, that believers all over the world would pray ardently and they would worship vigorously and that we would live in a way that exalts the King of heaven.

The church must lead the world in hallowing the name of God and if it must start with us, let it start with us. Number five, pray for our own hearts to be consumed with this mission. Every morning you have an opportunity to pray, Lord, help me to love you more like my father.

Help me to honor you more like my king and help me to participate and to love and to appreciate and to be enthralled by and to be invigorated by and to pour out my life for your kingdom and your mission.

Let my prayers, instead of being about me, let them be about you and your glory before I ever come to you and ask for my request. Teach me, God, to long for your name to be exalted. Kill my self-centeredness and pride and make me hunger for your kingdom.

Fill me with the kind of prayer that shakes the world. And as we end, I just wanna mention to you after those five things that you can do in your prayer that this is not commanded so that you won't have an audience to share your concerns.

God has graciously given us prayer to communicate with him and he wants to hear about your hurts and your pains, but all in good time. In the same way that when you walk up to someone and you address them for the first time that you've seen them for the day, maybe it's a coworker, it's a friend, it's a family member, whatever it is, the first thing you do is you don't start vomiting your concerns and your areas of weakness and brokenness and your pleas and your petitions.

Generally speaking, in human relationships, unless there is an absolute emergency, the first thing that you do is you address the person that you're speaking to. Hello, Rachel.

Hello, Jacob.

Hello, John. And then maybe, even maybe, you recognize their position in your life. Hey, Dad. Hey, Mom. Hello, sir, when you're talking to your boss. We do the same thing in human relationships that Jesus is telling us to do when we come to meet with God.

The first thing that we do when we talk to people is we acknowledge who they are. We address them. We address them by name and we address them by title. The second thing that we do when we talk to people is we acknowledge their mission.

How was your week this week? And you're giving them now an opportunity to speak about their mission. How's your job going? How are the children? How is this and that? We generally move from addressing the person to acknowledging their mission.

That is all that Jesus is telling us to do here. He is saying, when you pray to God, pray like a person. Pray like this is actually a relationship. Don't depersonalize it and derelationalize the action of prayer.

Enter into it in the same way that you would enter into a conversation with a friend and also a conversation with a king. Do it in this way. Learn how to implement this and repent when you fall short.

This will drastically improve your communication with God, which is the point of why Jesus is teaching this prayer to his disciples in the first place. God has given us a great gift in prayer. Let us use it and steward it rightly.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you've given us this great gift of prayer. Lord, help us to use this gift wisely, rightly, and help us, Lord, to follow your teaching on the matter. Help us to use prayer as a way of communicating with our Father and not as a means of gaining our petitions.

Let us never treat the Father like a vending machine or a suggestion box, but let us treat our Father as our Father who loves us eternally in Jesus Christ and who has given us the Spirit of God because he loves us and wants to enliven us as people.

Lord, thank you for this gift. Let us, again, let us use it to the glory of God and let us pray for your glory at all times. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.