Sermon Tone Analysis

*Worship — *homage rendered to God which it is sinful (idolatry) to render to any created being (Ex.

34:14; Isa.

2:8).

Such worship was refused by Peter (Acts 10:25,26) and by an angel (Rev.

22:8,9).

[1]

*1wor•ship* \ˈwər-shəp\ /noun/

[Middle English /worshipe/ worthiness, respect, reverence paid to a divine being, from Old English /weorthscipe/ worthiness, respect, from /weorth/ worthy, worth + /-scipe/ -ship]

(before 12th century)

*1* /chiefly British/ *: *a person of importance — used as a title for various officials (as magistrates and some mayors)

*2* *: *reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; /also/ *: *an act of expressing such reverence

*3* *: *a form of religious practice with its creed and ritual

*4* *: *extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem 〈/worship/ of the dollar〉

*2worship* /verb/

*wor•shiped* /or/ *wor•shipped**; wor•ship•ing* /or/ *wor•ship•ping*

(13th century)

/transitive verb/

*1* *: *to honor or reverence as a divine being or supernatural power

*2* *: *to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion

/intransitive verb/

*: *to perform or take part in worship or an act of worship

*/synonymy/* see revere

[2]

Hallowed Be Thy Name

Were we left to ourselves, any praying we did would both start and end with ourselves, for our natural self-centeredness knows no bounds.

Indeed, much pagan praying of this kind goes on among supposedly Christian people.

But Jesus’ pattern prayer, which is both crutch, road, and walking lesson for the spiritually lame like ourselves, tells us to start with God: for lesson one is to grasp that God matters infinitely more than we do.

So “thy” is the keyword of the opening three petitions, and the first request of all is “hallowed (holy, sanctified) be /thy name/”—which is the biggest and most basic request of the whole prayer.

Understand it and make it your own, and you have unlocked the secret of both prayer and life.

*Glory Be To God*

What does “hallowed be thy name” ask for?

God’s “name” in the Bible regularly means the /person /he has revealed himself to be.

“Hallowed” means known, acknowledged, and honored as holy.

“Holy” is the Bible word for all that makes God different from us, in particular his awesome power and purity.

This petition, then, asks that the praise and honor of the God of the Bible, and of him only, should be the issue of everything.

The idea that “glory be to God alone” is a motto distinguishing John Calvin and his admirers is no discredit to them, but it is a damning sideswipe at all other versions of Christianity.

In truth, however, every school of Christian thought insists, more or less clearheadedly, that the praise of God, as distinct from the promoting of ourselves, is the proper purpose of man’s life.

“Not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name give glory” (Psalm 115:1).

*A Sense of Direction*

Who can pray this request and mean it?

Only he who looks at the whole of life from this point of view.

Such a man will not fall into the trap of superspirituality, so concentrating on God’s redemption as to disregard his creation; people like that, however devoted and well-meaning, are unearthly in more senses than one, and injure their own humanity.

Instead, he will see everything as stemming ultimately from the Creator’s hand, and therefore as fundamentally good and fascinating, whatever man may have made of it (beauty, sex, nature, children, arts, crafts, food, games, no less than theology and church things).

Then in thankfulness and joy he will so live as to help others see life’s values, and praise God for them, as he does.

Supremely in this drab age, hallowing God’s name starts here, with an attitude of gratitude for the goodness of the creation.

But it does not stop here.

Hallowing God’s name requires praise for the goodness and greatness of his redemptive work too, with its dazzling blend of wisdom, love, justice, power, and faithfulness.

By wisdom God found a way to justify the unjust justly; in love he gave his Son to bear death’s agony for us; in justice he made the Son, as our substitute, suffer the sentence that our disobedience deserved; with power he unites us to Christ risen, renews our hearts, frees us from sin’s bondage, and moves us to repent and believe; and in faithfulness he keeps us from falling, as he promised to do (see John 10:28ff.; 1 Corinthians 1:7ff.; 1 Peter 1:3–9), till he brings us triumphantly to our final glory.

We do not save ourselves!

Neither the Father’s saving grace, nor the Son’s saving work, nor our own saving faith originate with us; all is God’s gift.

Salvation, first to last, is of the Lord, and the hallowing of God’s name requires us to acknowledge this, and to praise and adore him for the whole of it.

Nor is this all.

God’s name is only fully hallowed when he is worshiped for ordering all things for his people’s ultimate good (cf.

Romans 8:28), and also for the truth and trustworthiness of his written Word, which every believer should prize as “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

“Thou hast exalted thy word above all thy name,” says the Psalmist (138:2, margin), and so responsively must we.

God’s name—meaning, God himself—is dishonored if his children live in fear, as if their Father had lost control of his world, or in uncertainty, as if they dare not follow their Elder Brother’s example and receive the teaching and promises of the Bible as instruction from the Father himself.

There is, unhappily, widespread failure today to hallow God’s name in these ways.

The hallowing throughout is by /gratitude/; what dishonors God is non-appreciation and lack of gratitude, which Paul pinpoints as the root cause of men’s falling away from God (Romans 1:20ff.).

It is by being, not merely knowledgeable, but grateful, and by expressing gratitude in thankful obedience, that we honor and glorify our Maker.

“Hallowed be thy name” expresses the desire that we ourselves and all rational beings with us should give God glory in this way.

Scripture calls the spirit which hallows God’s name the “fear” of the Lord, hereby signifying awe and esteem for God’s majesty on the one hand and humble trust (yes, trust, not mistrust or scaredness!) on the other.

A classic text here is Psalm 111.

“Praise the Lord … Great are the works of the Lord … full of honor and majesty … faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy … he has commanded his covenant for ever.

Holy and terrible is his name!”

And then, “The fear of the Lord [the response of praise for God’s works and words, which the psalm has been voicing] is the beginning of wisdom” (discernment of the way to live).

The old term of respect, “God-fearing” (rarely used today, perhaps, because there are few to whom it would apply), normally carried the implication of good sense and mature humanity as well as that of godliness, and thus reflected our fathers’ awareness that the two go together; true reverence for God’s name leads to true wisdom, realistic and shrewd, and when Christians appear goofy and shallow one has to ask whether they have yet learned what the hallowing of God’s name means.

*Man’s Chief End*

“Man’s chief end,” says the Shorter Catechism, magnificently, “is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.”

End, note, not ends; for the two activities are one.

God’s chief end, purposed in all that he does, is his glory (and what higher end could he have?),

and he has so made us that we find our own deepest fulfillment and highest joy in hallowing his name by praise, submission, and service.

God is no sadist, and the principle of our creation is that, believe it or not (and or course many don’t, just as Satan doesn’t), our duty, interest and delight completely coincide.

Christians get so hung up with the pagan idea (very dishonoring to God, incidentally) that God’s will is always unpleasant, so that one is rather a martyr to be doing it, that they hardly at first notice how their experience verifies the truth that in Christian living duty and delight go together.

But they do!—and it will be even clearer in the life to come.

To give oneself to hallowing God’s name as one’s life-task means that living, though never a joy ride, will become increasingly a joy /road/.

Can you believe that?

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!

Try it, and you will see.

*Further Bible Study*

God’s name glorified:

•     Psalm 148

[3]

*worship,* the attitude and acts of reverence to a deity.

The term ‘worship’ in the ot translates the Hebrew word meaning ‘to bow down, prostrate oneself,’ a posture indicating reverence and homage given to a lord, whether human or divine.

The concept of worship is expressed by the term ‘serve.’

In general, the worship given to God was modeled after the service given to human sovereigns; this was especially prominent in pagan religions.

In these the deity’s image inhabited a palace (temple) and had servants (priests) who supplied food (offered sacrifices), washed and anointed and clothed it, scented the air with incenses, lit lamps at night, and guarded the doors to the house.

Worshipers brought offerings and tithes to the deity, said prayers and bowed down, as one might bring tribute and present petitions to a king.

Indeed the very purpose of human existence, in Mesopotamian thought, was to provide the gods with the necessities of life.

Although Israelite worship shared many of these external forms, even to calling sacrifices ‘the food of God’ (e.g., Lev.

21:6), its essence was quite different.

As the prophets pointed out, God could not be worshiped only externally.

To truly honor God, it was necessary to obey his laws, the moral and ethical ones as well as ritual laws.

To appear before God with sacrifices while flouting his demands for justice was to insult him (cf.

Isa.

1:11-17; Amos 5:21-22).

God certainly did not need the sacrifices for food (Ps.

50:12-13); rather sacrifice and other forms of worship were offered to honor God as king.

*Sacrifice:* Ideal Israelite worship is depicted in the Priestly instructions of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.

Its most prominent feature is sacrifice.

Sacrifices were brought as gifts to God; the Hebrew term for cereal offering also means ‘present’ (cf.

Gen. 32:19, where Jacob offers a large present to Esau to win his favor) or ‘tribute’ (e.g., 2 Sam.

8:2).

In addition, the blood of the sin and guilt offerings was used to cleanse the sanctuary.

The most important part of any animal sacrifice was the disposal of the blood at the altar.

Whether dashed against its sides, or smeared on its horns, this ritual act made the sacrifice valid; in fact, it distinguished sacrifice from mere slaughter.