I enjoy history. Reading history books, learning of historical events and persons, what they were like, how they interacted with and perceived the world, all of this is fascinating to me. One thing I miss about history is name introductions. In some cultures at royal gatherings or important occasions there would be a person stationed just inside the door who had the job of announcing the arrival of all the guests. So say the King and his queen arrived and were walking in, this person would loudly and confidently announce to all the guests, as they was walked in ‘The Lord King John and Queen Lady Jane of the realm of New Port Richey.’ Everyone would turn and acknowledge or even applaud their entrance.
We laugh at this today, and don’t do things like this at all, thinking it to be silly or way to formal. Yet, this wasn’t done for bad reasons. These things were done to honor and highly esteem the names of those who held high positions.
The spirit of this is very much present in our text this morning, as we come now to the second message on the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:9, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name…”
Setting the Tone
While the first phrase of v9 “Our Father in heaven” is really the preface to the whole of the Lord’s Prayer, this last phrase of v9 “hallowed be Your name” is the first request of the Lord’s Prayer. And this first request sets the tone for all other requests, because it is all about the glory and honor of God. The order of this on its own is worth our attention.[1]
The ultimate reason this request is first in the Lord’s Prayer is because this desire is first in the Lord’s heart. Over and above all else God is after His glory. The display of His glory, the brightness of His glory, the beauty of His glory, and the sharing of His glory. This is why God made all things, that every all things would be in tune with this grand symphony resounding throughout the theater of creation.
We need to be reminded of this. As large and as weighty and pressing as our needs, our requests, our desires, and our problems seem to us, they must not be given the place of priority in our prayer. Rather, God and the glory of His name must take priority in our praying, for God’s glory is why all things exist. Now in great trouble, or great suffering, or the most urgent of needs I do think it’s appropriate and fitting for us to burst into the throne room of heaven pleading ‘Father, save me!’ but that’s the exception not the norm in prayer.[2] The norm is to set ourselves aside and to set God Himself first. Thus, to pray rightly for anything is to hold God as supreme over all else in our hearts.[3]
This request for the hallowing of God’s name flows directly from what we’ve already seen in v9. When we come to God in prayer, addressing Him as our Father we are deeply comforted in His Fatherly affection and love, and deeply assured that He has become our Father in Christ through the gospel. And more, when we come to God in prayer, addressing Him as our Father in heaven, we are sobered by God’s greatness and might, that He is God and there is no other, that He sits in the heavens on His throne, the place of all rule and authority. These two realities shape all our prayer, but that’s not all that shapes prayer.
Knowing God as “Our Father in heaven” does something else to us. These things bring forth a great desire in us for God’s name to be hallowed. What does this mean? To hallow something is to treat it as holy, to make much of it, to adore it, to praise it, and glorify it. It’s the act of reverently setting something aside from all else to treat it as sacred. So for us to ask that God’s name be hallowed is to ask that God’s name be treated as holy, made much of, adored, praised, glorified, and set aside from all else that it be treated as sacred. That’s the general and straightforward meaning of this phrase, and it flows directly from “Our Father in heaven.”
Now I know we’re taking each phrase on its own in our time together working through the Lord’s Prayer, but we ought to remember that these requests are so connected that we dare not define them on their own without reference to what’s surrounding them. We just covered how this first request in v9b flows directly after v9a, notice now that it also prepares the way for what’s to come later in v10.[4] There in v10 we find the next two requests, where we pray for God’s Kingdom to come, and for God’s will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. This is all connected because God’s Kingdom won’t come and God’s will won’t be done unless God’s name is hallowed in us and through us. This is why Jesus places the hallowing of God’s name in the place of priority in the Lord’s Prayer.
I’m convinced this ought to stun us. Many godly men and women point out at that the world around us has never been more wicked in regard to the name of God, and they’re right. In just one or two generations it seems there has been a downhill race among the world to be as blasphemous as possible. Whether on TV, our phones, billboards, and more it is quite impossible to do life and not see sin celebrated and the use of God’s name profaned. As right as Christians are to bewail such a trajectory in the world around us, many Christians are blind to this very same thing in themselves. This also ought to stun us. That this is the first thing Jesus chose to tell us to pray for truly ought to stop us in our tracks. I think very few Christians would even put the hallowing of God’s name in their list of the top three things they pray about. It almost seems foreign to us to place so much emphasis on the proper treatment of a name, doesn’t it? And yet, here it is, setting the tone for all else that follows after. May the tone of our praying follow suit.
Toward A Definition
Now that we’ve seen the importance of this request coming first, let’s move on toward defining our terms more closely so understand what Jesus is teaching us. We’ve seen the word hallowed and what it means, but after it comes the word name. This is the word, I think, that causes confusion with many. So, we should ask the question, why do we ask for the name of God to be hallowed? Shouldn’t we just ask that God Himself be hallowed, treated as holy, and glorified? Wouldn’t that be better? Well, no. The word name here in v9 is not unimportant to the point of this phrase. Many adjust this phrase, believing it to be not really a request so much as it is just a statement of truth in prayer like, ‘Our Father in heaven, your name is holy.’[5] This is true, wondrously so, God is holy, but “hallowed be Your name” is not a statement, it’s a request, asking that God’s name be treated as holy. This leads us to the next question we ought to be asking, what exactly is it that we are praying for in this request?
The answer to this question comes first in the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20:7, the words of the third commandment, we read the following, “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” In giving this commandment to His people God openly displays His great concern that His people treat His name in the right manner. God, after all, is holy. And His name should be treated holy as well.
More of the answer to the question about what “name” means comes in the Psalms. Here’s a smattering of examples. Psalm 5:11, “But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them ever sing for joy, and spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may exult in you.” Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, be we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 25:11, “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” And Psalm 138:2, “I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.”
In ancient times, this made far more sense to people than it does to us today. Think of how we use names today. We generally use someone’s name as a label to identify them and then once we get to know them closer we drop the name and use a nickname or another term of endearment. When I first met Holly in college I would use her name often in talking to her, now after 17 years of marriage of I don’t use her name very often at all, I just call her ‘babe.’ That’s an example of many do today regarding names. Back in ancient times it was different. Then someone’s name was bound up with who they were, so much so that many believed the name of a person “partakes in the quality and characteristics of the person.”[6] This was the worldview of the biblical authors as well, which sheds light onto what they meant when speaking of the name of God. It shows us that when the Bible speaks of the name of God it’s not just speaking of an identifying label for God, it’s speaking of God Himself, and all that is true of God. Think of those Psalms I just read. It spoke about loving and exulting in God’s name in Psalm 5:11. We would be wrong to believe this was merely a label we loved and exulted in. That’s not what this is! Rather, Psalm 5:11 is speaking of loving and exulting in the person of God Himself.
And this idea of one’s name being wrapped up with the person is not just found in the OT, it’s also found in the NT. The Lord’s Prayer shows us the same thing. To ask that God’s name be hallowed or glorified is to ask that God be hallowed or glorified. In fact, the word name here in Greek is the word onoma, which could be translated not as name but as reputation. If we use that translation it tells us much doesn’t it? To ask that God’s reputation be hallowed is to ask that God Himself be, not just well thought of, but praised and loved and adored. This is what it means to ask that God’s name be hallowed.
But, maybe you’re still asking a question. I was at this point in my study this week. Why are we praying for God’s name to be hallowed at all? Isn’t His name already hallowed? Isn’t God Himself already holy and sacred? This is a good question because it truly exposes the heart of this first request. To ask that God’s name be hallowed is not to ask that God’s name become holier than it already is, that’s impossible because God is the epitome of holiness of already.[7] To pray asking that God’s name be hallowed is to pray that more and more and more and more people all around the world see and savor this God who is holy, holy, holy. To pray asking that God’s name be hallowed is to desire that the whole world sees and is greatly stunned by this great God, so much so that the whole world never speaks of God without the reverence and love rightly due Him.[8]
So we seen the prominent position of this request, that it sets the tone of all our praying. And we’ve seen what these words mean, helping us understand what Jesus is teaching us. Now, let’s go further, and ask examine this prayer could truly be answered or not in our lives.
His Name Hallowed In Us
A Christian who prays this first request in the Lord’s Prayer will want to see this prayer answered. That’s the nature of the prayer itself. Of course the words themselves can be hollow and a mere empty repetition, but the soul that means these words, will yearn that they be proved true in their life, that the name of God will be hallowed in them and through them.
In Psalm 34:3 we read, “Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together!” On this verse Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said this, “What a strange idea…At first sight that appears to be quite ridiculous. God is the Eternal, the self-existent One, absolute and perfect in all His qualities. How can feeble man ever magnify such a Being? How can we ever make God great or greater? How can we exalt the name that is highly exalted over all? It seems preposterous and quite ridiculous. And yet, of course, if we but realize the way in which the Psalmist uses it, we shall see exactly what he means. He does not mean that we can actually add to the greatness of God, for that is impossible; but he does mean that he is concerned that this greatness of God may appear to be greater among men. Thus…we can magnify the name of God. We can do so by words, and by our lives, by being reflectors of the greatness and the glory of God and of His attributes.”[9]
How great is this? You and I can magnify the name of God and ought to magnify the name of God by our words and by our lives. How do we do this, magnifying or hallowing of God? How do we live for His glory? There are many ways to describe it, let me give you four. They are all getting at the same thing, perhaps one of them will stand out to you.
One way of describing how we hallow the name of God is to speak of the positive and the negative. Positively, God’s name will be hallowed in a Christian’s life if we see God’s holiness, savor the holy God, and desire and endeavor to be holy ourselves. In this way our holy living, though imperfect, will shine out and reflect the holy God Himself, and the world will notice the beauty. Negatively, God’s name will be profaned in a Christian’s life if we ignore God’s holiness, savor unholy pursuits, and endeavor after sin. In this way our sinful living will stand out in stark contrast to God Himself, and the world will notice the contradiction. Thus in all of life the Christian should live in such a manner to reflect God’s glory rather than living in such a manner to profane God’s glory.
Another way of describing how we hallow the name of God is to realize we are all of us by nature hallowers. This is to say none of us are neutral. All of us proclaim something, call attention to something, and seek to magnify something. In this way we are all OCH, obsessive compulsive hallowers. It’s in our nature to do so. God made us like this, to magnify Him. Yet our sin twists and perverts this, by convincing us that it shouldn’t be God who’s hallowed but ourselves, or some cause, or some group, or some great person should be loved and adored. When we live to make much of God we live in line with who He made us to be.
Still yet another way of describing how we hallow the name of God is to note the difference between a telescope and a microscope. We all know the difference right? A microscope makes tiny things seem bigger to us so we can see them, and a telescope makes hugely massive things actually visible to us so we can seem them. In referring to the Lord we use the word magnify a lot but we mean telescope don’t we? No one worships God by thinking God to be small and attempting to make Him bigger, no! We know God’s greatness is unsearchable, and so we aim to make His greatness observable in our lives, like a telescope.
Or perhaps we can just describe this simply, as Martin Luther did. He once asked his church, “How is it that God’s name is hallowed among us?” His answer sums this up nicely. He said, “When our life and doctrine are truly Christian.”[10]
Church, the bottom line is this. There really are two ways to live. One way is God’s way. This way of life brings honor to God as His name is hallowed in our lives. The other way is the way that seems right to us. This way of life profanes God’s name because of our sinful behavior and its punishment.[11] Which way will you live?
Conclusion:
I wonder how all of this hits you. That this is the first request in the Lord’s Prayer, does that impact your view of God? Perhaps this is bad news to you that God is so after His glory. Is God some kind of ego maniac? Or self-centered narcissist? Or so insecure that He needs to command endless compliment? Some think so, and are absolutely appalled at God for demanding glory that they refuse to bow the knee to Him.
I disagree. I think God being after His glory is good news for us. Why? The Westminster Shorter Catechism first question gets at this as it asks, “What is the chief end of man? Answer: man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” This question is so helpful because glorifying God and enjoying God are not separate pursuits, but one and the same…and glory upon glory, they merge in the gospel. For Christ came to free us from sin, which frees us to make much of God forever!
[1] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grands Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971) 2:58.
[2] R. Kent Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom - PTC (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2001) 166.
[3] A.W. Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1953) 162.
[4] R.C. Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust, 2009) 31-33.
[5] Sproul, The Prayer of the Lord, 30.
[6] Leon Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew – PNTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992) 144, footnote 37.
[7] Kevin DeYoung, The Lord’s Prayer: Learning from Jesus on What, Why, and How to Pray (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022) 34-35.
[8] John Calvin, Institutes, 3.20.41.
[9] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Grands Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971) 2:61.
[10] Hughes, The Sermon on the Mount, 168.
[11] R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew – NICNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007) 246.
