Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name (Outline)

Introduction

One of earliest memories is praying Lords Prayer with Grandpa before bed

I don’t remember much from this time period before 5, but I do remember hearing grandpa say this prayer every night

I heard it so much one night I asked him to let me say it in which I recited the whole prayer

At this age, I had no idea who God was or what any of the prayer even meant, I just figured it was important because of emphasis my grandpa put on it

This is something that stuck with me my whole life

All the way up to about the age of 26, I was lost and unsaved

I still thought it my duty to say this prayer every night, thinking if I did so it would leave me in good standing with the God I was praying to

The problem in my life at the time was that it was all about me and what I wanted

Glorifying and honoring myself was all I really cared about

Had I understood the words to this prayer, I probably wouldn’t have prayed it because it was contrary to what I really wanted

Our Father

As we look at this prayer, we see that the first couple words are who the prayer is addressed to

Jesus is the one reciting this prayer and showing us how to pray and he addresses the prayer to our Father

What do you think of when you think of a father?

Some of you may get warm feelings thinking about how great and caring your dad is

Some of us who have never met our dad may have trouble understanding what a loving Father even looks like

The term father used when speaking of God can show us a couple different things

First, Jesus referred to the first person of the trinity as being His father

Those of us who are born again have been born of God and can also call out to him as our Father

Secondly, regardless of how good or bad your dad is, God the Father loves his children with the same love that he loves Jesus

Those of us who are saved have a very special privilege of being adopted into the family of God, with God caring for us a Father

The Fathers love is a perfect love, not conditional on how good we are but how good he is and he is perfectly good

The Father can also show us the close nature of the relationship we have with God as children of God

In Heaven

If you were to pray to your father, people may be confused and think you were praying to your dad

In this prayer we see Jesus address Him as Our Father in Heaven

This is a powerful statement

Consider who our Father in heaven is

Isaiah 6:1-5 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!

We see the natural response of man upon seeing the glorious Lord.

WOE IS ME!

I am sure we could imagine what it would be like to grow up as the child of a king here on this earth

We would have a close relationship with the leader of the land, arguably the most powerful person in the area where we live

We could appeal to him and he could do everything in his power to help us in times of trouble

As cool as this would seem, this king is still limited in his power and the area in which he rules over

As children of God the Father, we can approach his throne in prayer

The One who is high and lifted up above all else

The one whose voice shakes the foundations and thresholds of heaven

Unlike any earthly king, the Fathers power is unlimited

Psalm 115:3 Our God is in the heavens;

he does all that he pleases.

Luke 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Not only is his power unlimited but so is his reach

Everything is his

We can appeal to our Father in heaven whenever we want, who is more powerful than the most powerful people on this Earth

This is a great privilege we have as children of God

How often do we use it?

The answer to that question is not nearly enough

Hallowed Be Your Name

We see in our prayer here that we are addressing Our Father in Heaven

Now we see that the first thing Jesus asks in this prayer is, Hallowed Be Your Name.

I was under the impression for the longest time that this was a line of praise, something along the lines of,

Our Father in Heaven, Holy is your name

Yes, the name of the Lord is Holy, but what Jesus is praying here is more along the lines of “Make your name Holy” or “Glorify your name.”

Think about what our attitude is when we go to our Father in prayer

I bet a lot of us are thinking me, me , me; what can God do for me?

Jesus shows us a completely different model

Before he asks for the forgiveness of trespasses, our daily bread, or anything else, he says “Hallowed be your name.”

If any of you go through a catechism in your family worship, chances are one of the first few questions in it reads as..

What is the chief end of man?

With the answer being, “To glorify God and enjoy him forever

Our mindset as children of God should be first and foremost glorifying God and enjoying him forever

Jesus takes this mindset in his prayer with the very first petition being to make Gods name Holy

The Puritan Thomas Watson in his book on the Lords Prayer has many different ways that we can Hallow Gods name but this one sticks out the most.

He says, “This is hallowing Gods name, when we transfer all honor from ourselves to God.

This is why I was a hypocrite praying this prayer when I was unsaved

When I was unsaved, I wanted all honor and glory to myself while praying that Gods name would get the honor and glory

When I was saved, I realized that Gods name alone is worthy of honor and glory

I had wanted something for so long in my life that didnt belong to me

Lets look at an example from Scripture

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down and worship the image of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, because the glory of God was more important to them than all else

He threatened to throw them into a fiery furnace if they did not worship the image and they responded with,

Daniel 3:17-18 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Why did this make Nebuchadnezzar so mad?

Because they were making their God seem so much more glorious and important than he was

This is one of many ways of Hallowing Gods name

Out of all the sermons I have written over these years, this sermon for some reason was the one I dreaded on preparing for the most

I am not quite sure why that is

After I was done studying for it, I think the understanding of this may have changed me more than any other sermon

I was studying for this sermon in my free time at work and I realized the guy before me had left me a lot of work to do that he should have done before he left

My original plan was to leave it for him when he got back in so that he could do it but then I got to thinking.

In this prayer I am praying “Hallowed be your name.”

It is making Gods name Holy if I wrong him the same way he wronged me or does it make Gods name look Holy if I forgive him and the do the extra work?

He knows I am a Christian and I began to realize that this is not about me but about making God look amazing in my life

I did the extra work with a smile, not out of spite or anger, but proudly with the idea that I am doing this for the glory of God.

We should not only take this mindset at work but in everything we do.

The Scriptures tell us that whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, do it all for the glory of God

Reflection and Application

Prayer is an extremely important tool for the Christian

Out of everything the disciples could have asked Jesus to teach them, they asked him “Teach us to pray”

We should approach the Lord in the same manner by seeking to understand this model prayer that he has given us

Our Father in Heaven

The first thing he gave us in this model was our relationship to God as Him being our Father.

Is God your Father too?

He is the creator of all but only those who have been born of God can refer to him as their father

Those of us who can call God their Father are those who have put their faith in his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, as their Lord and savior

Those of us who can call God our Father also believe that this Jesus died on a cross and paid for their sins so that they will not be condemned on judgement day

We also believe that he rose again from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven

We believe he will come back again to judge the living and the dead

It is extremely important that we believe in this gospel of Jesus Christ, not only for our prayer life but for life in general

For those of us who are Gods children, we can come to the Father in confidence knowing he hears us and loves us

My challenge to you all this week is to know who your Father in heaven is

We tend to have better conversation with those we know well and I believe the same thing works in prayer to the Father

You will be receiving a handout from me and on that handout you will see it organized into 7 days

Each one of them seven days has an attribute of God along with some passages in the Bible that talk about that attribute

Our application is going to that sheet each day this week and reading the passages, and then praying to God based on what these passages have taught you about him

Hallowed Be Your Name

We discussed how Hallowing Gods name is making it Holy

This is our chief end in life and should be our chief concern in our prayer

Do your prayers concern Gods glory or your own?

Since we are praying that Gods name is glorified in our lives, it makes sense to me that we should set out to do that

My challenge to you is to think about the different areas of your life and consider whether you are glorifying God in these areas, and if not, how you can start

For Example

Many, if not all of you are going to school

Is Gods name being made Holy by the way you conduct yourself at school?

Do you participate in the daily gossip?

If so, next time people say something about somebody that could be harmful or damaging, speaking something good about that person as a response

Is there someone who usually sits by themselves at lunch who nobody wants to be friends with?

Go and sit with them and be a friend

Consider the ways you are not acting very Christlike and set out to change them

Remember God was glorified in the work of his son so setting out to imitate Christ is hallowing Gods name

Maybe you dont act much of anything, so in that case, what would make it look to others that see you that Christ is the best thing that ever happened to you?

The guy that first shared the gospel with me was always reading his Bible ever time I saw him

He didnt want to talk about silly things in pop culture, he didnt cuss, something seemed so different about him

It was his hallowing Gods name in his life that God used to lead me to believe in Jesus Christ

Maybe God will use you in the same way

Like Shadrach Meshach and Abednego, this world is going to ask us to bow down and worship their idols.

We must respond to this with Gods glory in mind as our chief concern as they did, even at the cost of being thrown into the fiery furnace or rejected by our friends

This prayer is saying Gods glory above all else, even our lives

Finally, the Scriptures tell us to pray without ceasing

Since we have access to the Father as children, let us bring our every need and care to him and most of all, let us pray that his name be hallowed above all else.

Lets Pray!