Matthew 6:9 - 13. “After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.”
We come this morning to the final point in the series; “To what kinds of prayer does God answer “yes.” We’ve mentioned humble prayers, Scriptural prayers, the prayers of the righteous, fervent prayers, and now we come to God-exalting prayers. And it is fitting that we end with this one, because exalting God is our ultimate purpose.
There are many things that Christians can say that they are to do; pray, read the Word, evangelize, obey, and love. But all of them fit under one umbrella; exalting God.
And the same goes for our prayers. They are to bring praise to God, in the words that we pray, and in the results of the prayers. I think, if you are like I am, the more you study what prayer is, and what it is supposed to be, even when the topic is “how to get more “yeses” the more you realize that prayer is about God, not about me. It is not so much about God hearing me, as me hearing God. It’s not about my getting what I want, but seeking what God desires.
Prayer is not some magic wish machine that if I put in the proper coinage, I will get the prize I desire. We have to get away from that view of prayer. Most people view prayer that way. Prayer for many has become a means to an end and that end is usually a selfish one. And prayer is like the fire extinguisher behind the glass door. We only break the barrier, “In case of emergency.” One person said, “Men usually ply their prayers like sailors do their pumps when the ship leaks.”
That kind of selfishness in prayer really comes from the self-centered theology of our age. But prayer, just like every other part of our lives, is designed for one chief purpose: to bring glory to God. Think about it. Everything, including prayer, is for the purpose of bringing glory to God. To exalt Him.
Scripture tells us that repeatedly.
Everything is to bring glory to God.
“All your works praise you, Lord; your faithful people extol you. They tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that all people may know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom” (Psalm 145:10–12).
We give You praise, Lord, for You alone do things we cannot even comprehend. We give praise to Your glorious name forever! Father, the heavens You created declare Your glory. The skies proclaim the work of Your hands. May the whole earth be filled with Your glory! (Psalm 72:18–20, 19:1, 29:2).
And Jesus said,
If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples" (John 15:1-8).
Paul wrote to the church in Philippi,
It is my prayer that you be . . . filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:9–11).
And to the church in Thessalonica,
We always pray for you, that our God may . . . fulfill every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12).
Everything in this world was created to bring glory to God. And it is the mature believer who views their life that way.
And so, even our prayers are for the glory of God. We glorify Him when He answers yes, no, or wait. The psalmist wrote.
Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name's sake! (Psalm 79:9)
So, even our prayers are for His glory. So, if we want “yes” answers, we have to exalt God in our prayers, and seek His glory in our requests.
Today we are going to look at the passage of Scripture called the disciple’s prayer, or the modal prayer. And in it we will see the kind of prayer that Jesus instructed His disciples to pray. And it is a prayer built around exalting God.
Pray the Disciple’s prayer.
We just read the Disciple’s prayer, and I told you that it’s central aim was to exalt God. So, how does it exalt God? It exalts Him by expressing correct priorities. Our priorities must first be on the exaltation of God and the desire for His Kingdom; “Our Father, which art in heaven,” “Hallowed be Thy name,” “Thy kingdom come,” “Thy will be done.” And not until we have God in His proper place do we then approach God with our requests; “Give us this day our daily bread,” “And forgive us our debts,” “And lead us not into temptation,” And then the prayer concludes by returning to an exaltation of God. “For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever. Amen,”
This prayer is the modal prayer for praying for the pre-eminence and exaltation of God. The whole of the model prayer focuses on God. It begins and ends with the exaltation of God. And even when it asks for personal needs, it emphasizes our dependence on God.
So, let’s consider the first half of the prayer centered around the exaltation of God, and the desire for His Kingdom. The first half ensures that we are putting God in His rightful exalted place. And it can be broken down into three positions that God occupies; God in heaven, God in us, God in the world.
I. Putting God in His Rightful Exalted Position
A. God in Heaven
When we pray, we need to start off on the right foot. God is “our Father in heaven.” There are really two things going on here. He is Father, and He is in heaven. You’ve got to start off with a right understanding, and an appropriate introduction.
We understand that. We know, whether we are talking to friends, or coworkers, or our boss, or a police officer, the mayor, or to king of England, there are protocols and proper ways of greeting people if you hope to stay in whoever’s good graces.
For example, if my child greeted me at the end of a day, and said, “When was the last time you took a shower, or brushed your teeth?” Now, I wouldn’t recommend that he greet his teacher like that, or if she were visiting the United Kingdom, and got the chance to meet the prime minister.
“Hello, Mr. Prime Minister, can I offer you a breath mint?” And even more so, when we come to God in prayer, we begin in the correct way. “Our Father, in heaven.” There are two aspects here. When we say, “our Father, we are saying something very important.”
1. Our Father
The first recognition is that God is our Father, pater. He is our Father. The Aramaic would have been Abba. Abba is commonly understood to be the Hebrew form of our word, daddy. God is our daddy. Now, that sounds and feels peculiar to me. Maybe because many of us may have had only one person we called “daddy.” And some of us quit calling him that once we became adults. We grew up, so we wanted to say “Dad.” “Daddy” not only conveys who he is, but it harkens back to a day when we were little children.
But that is really what it is meant to convey. It is a term of a close relationship with a male figure who embodies not only care for a child, but protection, direction, and sometimes stern direction. “Daddy’s are the men who were the rock of the family.” They were the superheroes who could do anything, and never faltered.
That’s why this is the term for God. We come to Him like children for love, protection, direction, and even correction. It is a term of great intimacy, a term of personal warmth.
2. In Heaven
But it doesn’t just say that He is our Father. It says, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” Now one thing that that tells us is that He rules all the resources of the heavens and earth, and so He can supply all our needs out of His abundance in glory.
But declaring that He is in heaven is also an acknowledgement that He is in one sense, removed from us. Saying God is our Father shows He is with us, in presence and care, but His being in heaven describes a separation. He is “holy other.” He is “King of Kings and “Lord of Lords.” He is God Almighty. As the angels said at Jesus’ birth. “Glory to God in the highest
He's way up there. We are way down here. Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that God is separate in the sense that He is physically separated from us; unfeeling and uncaring. Rather, He is separate from us by His nature compared to ours. He is perfect, holy, immutable, all-powerful, all knowing, eternal, and we are not. So, we approach Him with that knowledge. He is the highest, we are the lowest.
Psalm 68:33 To Him who rides upon the highest heavens,
So, we start our prayer mixing those two ways of viewing God; loving and near, holy, separate and far-removed. We have to have both. If we overemphasize God as loving Father, He becomes one of our good buddies. And we denigrate His glory. That happens far too much today.
https://www.preaching.com/articles/is-god-your-buddy/
“I am increasingly concerned about our casual attitude toward God. In the church, too often we seem to treat God as if He is a Big Brother rather than the Divine Creator and Lord.”
We need to remember that one of God’s chief attributes is holiness.
“Holiness means set apart or to separate. To say that God is holy means that first of all that he is God and not man. He is utterly separate from all that is human. God is not like us at all, not in any way. He’s different. Holiness is the moral character of God. He is pure; he is complete; he is whole. Holiness is the only attribute of God that is presented in Scripture with a threefold repetition. The angels did not sing, ‘Love, love, love’ or ‘Just, just, just’—they sang ‘Holy, holy, holy.’ Every time you hear the word holy, think separation. God is completely set apart and entirely different than you and me.
“Understanding God’s holiness is like entering a planetarium from a busy, noisy street. The dimmed lights and the hushed sounds create a sense of reverence. As we look up the universe opens up over our heads. Earth becomes one of the smallest planets and we become one of its smallest creatures. In that awesome moment, we realize that God is so much greater than we are.
And,
“Holiness rightly understood demands caution. When it comes to God and the things of God we are to be very careful. Let’s suppose you were asked to carry a box full of TNT or were handed a case containing a bomb that could be set off with the slightest movement, wouldn’t you handle it carefully, cautiously? In the same manner are we to treat God.”
So, we pray to God who is Father, but also in heaven, high and lifted up. But in addition to being Father in heaven…
B. God in Us
Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
It’s in the phrase in verse 9, “Hallowed be Thy name.” Now that is the first request we bring to God. “Hallowed be Thy name.” The first request is not for daily bread, or forgiveness, or spiritual strength. It is for God’s name to be made holy. And the second request is, “Thy kingdom come.” The third request is, “Thy will be done.” And then you can say, “Give us,” “forgive us,” “lead us.” And then you come back full circle, “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” Prayer always begins with God’s priority.
“Hallowed be Thy name,” puts God in the proper place in us. At first we are stating the fact that God is our Father in heaven. Now we are expressing a desire that God’s name be holy. We are not saying that God is not holy, and we want Him to be. We are acknowledging His holiness, and desiring that He be Holy in us.
This is such a phenomenal phrase, “Hallowed be Thy name.” It can be divided into two parts; Hallowed, and Thy name.
What does it mean to hallow?
MacArthur
https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/2235/the-priority-of-prayer
In the following section, I relied heavily on John MacArthur’s sermon, “The Priority of Prayer.” The italicized words below are from his sermon.
“Let me tell you what it means. It comes from a Greek verb hagiaz. That word is a very important word in the Bible and it’s used repeatedly. The noun form of the word is hagios which means holy. Holy be Your name. That’s what hallowed means. Now, basically it has two meanings that are possible. It has two basic ideas, one, hagisun or hagios can mean to make an ordinary thing extraordinary; to make a common thing uncommon by bringing it into contact with something extraordinary and uncommon.
Now, that is its use in 1 Peter 1:16 where Peter says to you and to me, “Be ye holy.” What does that mean? It means that we’re unholy to start with, but by coming in contact with One who is holy we can be made holy. So hagios then is to make something unholy holy by contact with that which is holy. That’s its first meaning. Is that its meaning in this passage? Are we making God holy when in our prayers? Are we saying, now God I know You’re unholy, I know You’re common, ordinary, but by this prayer I want You to be made holy? No. That is not its use here.
There’s a second way it’s used in the Bible, many times this way in fact more times. And that is, it is used in this reference to treat something or someone as sacred, to hold something or someone as set apart and holy, to regard someone as separated. In other words, in the case of men, it is to make something holy. In the case of God, it is to regard Him as holy. But when I say to God, “Holy be Your name,” I am saying may Your name be regarded and made manifest as holy. We don’t make God holy. We simply petition that He be revered and regarded as holy.
Well the idea of holy is different. It’s different. It means to be different. Now, not everybody who’s different is holy, but everybody who’s holy is different. You understand that? All right. A lot of different people aren’t holy, but holy people are different.
The basic idea is different. It means a different sphere, a different quality of being. That is why God is called the Holy One. He is in a different sphere. He has a different quality of being than our life. It’s used, for example, in Exodus 20, verse 8 where it says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” What does that mean? The Sabbath day ought to be different than every other day. There ought to be one day different than the others. In Leviticus 21:8, it tells us that the priests were to be holy. They were to be different than other men. They were set apart to serve God. Holy means to be set apart, to be different, to have another sphere of living, to exist in another quality of being. That’s basically what it means to be holy. God lives in another sphere. God exists at a different level. God is separated from us. God is uncommon, extraordinary, unearthly, separated from sinners, holy, undefiled, the Bible says. He is holy, apart from us.
Now, out of this comes the idea of reverence. When we pray this first petition is saying, we are to speak to God in terms of reverence. May Your person be reverenced is what we’re saying.”
Now what does it mean to hallow His name? The concept of name, you see it there, “Thy name?” is not restricted to a title. The Jews thought they were hallowing God’s name but avoiding its use. They went to great lengths to avoid saying the name Yahweh. That’s not what this is saying. Now, what our Lord is teaching us here in hallowing the name is that we respect God for who He is, not just His name, as a name.
I’ll give you an illustration of this. If you go back to Exodus chapter 34 you’ll find that it’s clearly indicated to us. Now Moses is having a little discussion with God about His glory. He wants to be sure that God is with him. He wants to be confident that God is there. And so in verse 18 of 33 he says, “Show me Your glory God.” Don’t give me a job that I can’t do without You here, and I want to know You’re here by visibly seeing Your glory. The Lord says okay. Now He shows him His glory. Then you come down to 34:5, Exodus 34:5. “The Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.” Now the Lord comes down and proclaims His name. Now what did He say? Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord over and over? What do you mean He proclaimed His name? Well, look what He says, “The Lord, Lord God.” Does He stop there? No, “Merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, who will by no means clear the guilty.” That means He is a holy just God. “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children.” He’s a God of judgment and so forth.
Now do you get the picture? God says, I will proclaim My name. Here’s My name, “merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness, truth, keeping mercy, forgiving iniquity,” et cetera, et cetera. In other words, the name of God is the composite of all of His attributes. All that God is is embodied in His name. And hallowing His name is not having some kind of a fetish about speaking the word God or Lord. It is hallowing all that God is in terms of His nature, His attributes.
Practically, what does hallowing His name mean? Let me illustrate. Isaac Newton was doing an experiment. In the experiment he stared at the reflection of the sun in a mirror. Well, the brightness of the sun, even in reflection, temporarily blinded him. Even after 3 days of hiding in darkness. He closed his shutters. He still had this bright spot that would not fade from his vision. If he had kept staring at the reflection, he would have gone completely blind. I think that’s what “Hallowed be thy name” means. You are saying to God, “Lord, I want to understand you. I want to see you for who you are. Burn that knowledge into my spiritual vision so that even in this dark world, even when I try to hide from your face, your image is imprinted on my sight.”
This is God-exalting prayer.
So, we open our prayer with an acknowledgement of who God is, our Father in heaven, then we pray that who He is will be given the honor it deserves in me.
But it doesn’t stop there. Before we ever bring a request to God, we express the desire that God have His exalted place in the world.
We’re going to close here and pick up with this God-exalting prayer next time.