Sermon Tone Analysis

INTRO - recap last week Our Father

Our underscores the social nature of our faith

Our baptism has initiated us into the common life of the body of Christ - we are acknowledged as Jesus’s brothers, sisters and mothers who have one father

Praying in community doesn’t mean there is no room for individual prayers

We must be careful to recognize that the word “father” is not a word of positive associations for many in our world today

An executive was visiting a city and hired a temporary chauffeur.

He asked the chauffeur his name and was told, "My name is Charles, sir." "Well," said the executive abruptly, "I always call my driver by his surname."

"Yes, sir," replied the driver.

"My surname is Darling, sir." "In that case, Charles," said the executive.

"Drive on."

Sermon Illustrations on Names: Free from HotSermons

What is in a name?

I think we would all agree that names are usually filled with significance.

For example - I’m named after my mom’s brother who was killed in a motorcycle crash before I was born.

We can be named after a family member, or some sort of family name that has passed down by the generations.

We can be named after famous celebrities or after people in the Bible.

Eugene Peterson writes this in his book Run with the Horses:

The meaning of a name is not discovered through scholarly etymology or through meditative introspection.

It is not validated by bureaucratic approval.

And it certainly is not worked up through the vanity of public relations.

The meaning of a name is not in the dictionary, not in the unconscious, not in the size of the lettering.

It is in relationship—with God.

It was the Jeremiah “to whom the word of the LORD came” who realized his authentic and eternal being.

Naming is a way of hoping.

We name a child after someone or some quality that we hope he or she will become—a saint, a hero, an admired ancestor.

Some parents name their children trivially after movie stars and millionaires.

Harmless?

Cute?

But we do have a way of taking on the identities that are prescribed for us.

Millions live out the superficial sham of the entertainer and the greedy exploitiveness of the millionaire because, in part, significant people in their lives cast them in a role or fantasized an illusion and failed to hope a human future for them.

When I take an infant into my arms at the baptismal font and ask the parents, “What is the Christian name of this child?”

I am not only asking, “Who is this child I am holding?” but also, “What do you want this child to become?

What are your visions for this life?”

George Herbert knew the evocative power of naming when he instructed his fellow pastors in sixteenth-century England that at baptism they “admit no vain or idle names.

Taken from Run with the Horses by Eugene H. Peterson.

©2009, 2019 by Eugene H. Peterson.5

You see, in the Bible, names are always filled with significance.

What do Abram, Sarai, Jacob and Saul have in common?

They all have a change of name by God to reflect a new direction for their lives.

Saul is probably one of the better known name changes in Scripture, as his encounter with Jesus radically changed the direction of his life - from Christian persecutor to arguably one of the greatest missionaries of the gospel that the church has ever had.

John Piper writes, “Now, in the Bible a name … reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God’s gift….

To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God.

To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it.”

John Piper, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy, Crossway, 2004, 124.

Names have significance and this cultural understanding includes the name of God.

In Old Testament, pre-Jesus times, the name of God was so significant to the Hebrew people that they did not even speak it aloud, in order to show their reverence for it.

Since God’s name is sacred and holy, the Israelites were commanded not to take God’s holy name in vain.

This commandment has much less to do with cursing and much more to do with the sin of treating God’s name, or holy character, lightly.

This phrase hallowed by your name is one of the supplications in the Lord’s Prayer.

It is a call for the name of God to be honored and recognized by all people.

God should be treated with reverence.

When we claim to represent God while doing things that are unholy or ungodly, we profane God’s name—or take the Lord’s name in vain.

Isaiah reminds us that we are all made in God’s image, we are all the handiwork of God’s own hands.

When we remember these truths, how can we not acknowledge God’s holiness and stand in awe of him?

I think sometimes we just forget to realize just how great and good of a God we serve.

To pray “hallowed be your name” is to pray that our lives will bring honor to God’s holy name.

This is the calling placed upon the people of God, first for Israel as we see in:

Ezekiel 36:16-38

And in Romans 2:17-29 we see that it is then for all of God’s people

We are all called to pray that God’s name be glorified, that God’s name be praised.

This should be a natural outpouring of our walk with Christ and it should be evident to all we come into contact with.

“Even as we boldly approach God in prayer as ‘our Father,’ we ought always keep in heart and mind that God is not our good-luck charm, not a rabbit’s foot, not under our management, and certainly not subject to our puny understanding or agenda.”

(See Praying with Jesus pp.

31–32.)

This week, I was at a large meeting that we have every couple of weeks on a large greenfield new plant.

We were on the project site in a large construction trailer.

We were having a vision alignment session to help keep the team centered and working together in certain ways we have agreed to.

As one of the partners on the project got up to review their organization’s core values, he mentioned that one of the main superintendents had a heart attack the previous evening and asked anyone in the room who was a praying person to lift this man and his family up.

I thought that was cool and made a note to remember to pray for this gentleman.

What was even more cool, however, is one of the guys from the general contractor at the end of our session got up to tell us about the boxed lunches they had for everyone to either eat quick or take with them on their way out.

But then he stopped and asked the room if it would be OK for him to pray, right then and there, for the gentleman who had been mentioned several hours earlier.

And he did.

Not only was his prayer for the person, but I saw a beautiful example of glorifying and praising God’s hallowed name in the middle of a construction trailer.

Certainly something I had not witnessed before.

But as Christ followers, we not only believe, but are also to confess that Jesus is the One who has truly, fully, and faithfully hallowed the name of God.

In turn, Jesus has taught us, his disciples, how to hallow (or sanctify) God’s name

Jesus is quoting a portion of Leviticus 19:18 in this passage, which is love your neighbor.

But he adds a twist.

He adds hate your enemy as well.

This was not specifically in the Old Testament law, but likely came from how the people of Israel had treated Gentiles, which was as less than human.

Jesus then turns things on their head as he so often does and gives a new way to live.

Loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.

It is not enough just to be friendly and live only among your own people - whether that is your family or a church congregation.

We are to follow Jesus in the way of the cross - the way he treated people and interacted with people who were considered less than by the religious rulers of the time.

It is only as we follow Jesus in his way of the cross, we will live lives that hallow God’s holy name.

How are we with hallowing God’s name in our daily lives?

Let’s take a moment between us and Jesus and ask God how we are doing?

Sing - How Great Thou Art

Pray - end in Lord’s prayer

Benediction - Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever.

Amen.’