The Lord’s Prayer – Part 2 (Hallowed be Your Name)

The Lord’s Prayer (Hallowed be Your Name)

Introduction

• After weeks on what prayer is, why it is important, and how we are to approach it, we now finally come to what is known as the Lord’s prayer, or the Model prayer.
  Not because the Lord prayed this prayer, but because this is the prayer that He taught His disciples.We know this from Luke 11, which is another instance where his disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. Therefore, since we see this same pattern of prayer in two instances of Jesus’ ministry, this is probably the model prayer He taught many other times.
• Now, let me remind you that last week, we began to look at this question of how to pray, and I pointed out that this passage addresses two facets of this question – the context and the content of prayer.
  We covered the context last week, and now we begin the content.
• Matthew 6:9 – Pray then like this:

Exegesis

• Before we move into the Lord’s prayer itself, I’d like to make a few observations about this prayer.
  • [empty phrases]
  • The first being, it’s size. Is it not interesting that the model prayer taught by our Lord is shorter than the majority of prayers we find anywhere else?
    • Now, I find this an important knot that we need to untangle, because is Jesus here, prescribing that our prayers ought to be this short?
      Is this the sufficient prayer at all times? Because that is what a lot of Christians do. They read the next portion in their family bible reading plan, say the Lord’s prayer and go to sleep.
    • As a young catholic boy (child), whenever I used to be too sleepy to pray, I knew exactly what to do. Pray the Lord’s prayer. It’s short, easy, and sufficient. In fact, I was told that it was the best prayer out there. It was taught by Jesus Himself.
      No! I don’t believe it is the best possible prayer. Now, some of you might take offense and disagree with me here, but I personally do not believe that the Lord’s prayer is the best possible prayer.
    • Why? It’s too short. [where do I ask my needs, cast my cares, cry my pain etc. – I would die if I merely prayed the contents of this prayer at all times]
    • I believe the reason that it is this short a prayer, is because Jesus was not teaching His disciples what to pray, but how to pray. He was not teaching them the words they are to say verbatim, but how they are to work on the content of their prayer.
    • So, pray then like this suddenly becomes an important phrase to me, because what it does not say is pray this.
      This is not Jesus saying pray this prayer, but Him teaching us how to pray.
  • Now, if you feel that the best prayers are those where we don’t keep nagging God with our requests (like the Lord’s prayer), you’ll be surprised to know that in studying the Lord’s prayer we find one acknowledgment at the beginning followed by six requests.
    Beloved, everything in that prayer is about requesting God for something.That should encourage you. For a long time, I myself used to think that as my prayers mature, my requests would decrease. This is not true. In fact, I would argue that this is not meant to be.If as we saw in these last few weeks, prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God, and we are called by God to pray in understanding it’s power and our desperate need to pray, then the inevitability of prayer is that it will be composed of our requests.That is not immaturity or sin. It is prayer.
    However, I’ll tell you what is immaturity. It is in the priority and the substance of your requests.
    • Acknowledgment – Our Father in heaven,
      Request 1 – hallowed be your name
      Request 2 – Your kingdom come,
      Request 3 – your will be done,² on earth as it is in heaven.
      Request 4 – Give us this day our daily bread,
      Request 5 – and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
      Request 6 – And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
• And that brings us to verse 9 – “Our Father in heaven,
  • I briefly ended last week on this very important acknowledgment we see here,
    Our Father in heaven
  • Now, the theme of heavenly Father is not a NT thing.
    Deuteronomy 14:1 – “You are the sons of the LORD your God.
    Deuteronomy 14:6 – …Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?
    Psalm 103:13 – As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
    Jeremiah 31:9 – With weeping they shall come, and with pleas for mercy I will lead them back, I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.However, the use of the word Father here in this context is not the same. Though God is considered to be like a Father in His compassion toward His people, when the model prayer here begins with these words ‘our Father’, the conceptual has suddenly become a reality.
    God is not like a Father, He is Father!
    • The greek word, πατήρ (pat-ayr’), for Father, in the Aramaic would have been Abba. It’s a call of endearment and trust.
      When you are in need, you run to Him.
    • The use of the word Father sums up the fact that God is not like a Father in some ways, but that He is the perfect Father in all ways.
      Matthew 7:11 – ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!If your earthly father is all that he is to you, how much more your heavenly Father. I like how in passages like this, God does not say “how much more am I than your earthly fathers”, he says “how much more am I than you”. He is speaking to earthly fathers.
      There are many in the world, then and now, where earthly fathers are absent in the life of the children. So, how do they relate with God as being Father, when their memory of their earthly fathers are sour.  Well you relate because God is talking about you as a father, and not your earthly father.
  • But, that is only half the picture. For if we are to call Him Father, then the first question that needs to be answered is if we are His children.
    John 1:12-13 – ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.Yes, brothers and sisters, not all are children of God. There is a difference between you, as a believer, and an unbeliever – the biggest difference you may say. That God is not Father to them, but He is Father to you.
    • Love, Respect and Reverence
    • Obedience
  • In heaven – Now, this Father is in heaven. His authority is not bound within the limits of human depravity, and His love is not hindered by any power or force in the universe.When we use this qualifier, it is taking all that is intrinsically good and righteous in an earthly father, and then increasing it to a magnitude of infinity. He is the Sovereign Lord God of everything that exists.
  • So, all of the substance of our prayers are meant to hang on the realisation of this grand truth – that we are praying to our Father in heaven.
    We are to call on Him, and trust that He will answer us.
• hallowed be your name.
  • Hallowed – is an archaic English word that means Holy
    The greek word here means to make holy, or to consecrate, to sanctify.The interesting thing here is that people often tend to think (like I did for many years) that statements such as this are meant to give glory to God in a way that it is me giving to God instead of me asking from Him. But that is not what is happening.
  • This statement is the first of the six requests in the model prayer. It is a request.
    O Lord, would you make your Name Holy.
    Why do I call it a request? Because who are you O man to tell God to make His name holy. Nobody tells God that.
  • We tend to approach our prayers in such a way that we use statements like this for acknowledgment of who God is, and then move on to our requests. But here when you see this as the first request, it changes everything.
    • For one, it gives you a priority of the Christian heart. That the first thing that you want to request God to do is to make His name Holy.
    • Again, we must not shy away from requesting unto God because that is what He expects us to do in our prayers.
      Matthew 6:7-8 – ⁷ “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. ⁸ Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.That in coming to pray, God expects you to ask, and He knows the need that you are going to ask for.Why then must we pray? For the glory of God.