Hallowed Be Your Name
Download MP3Exodus chapter 34 verses 5 through 7. The lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for 1,000, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the inequity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the 3rd 4th generation.
Speaker 2:A reading from Ezekiel 36. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, oh house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the lord, declares the lord god, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land.
Speaker 2:I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart. And a new spirit, I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Joel Brooks:And this reading is from Luke chapter 11. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, 'Father, hallowed be your name. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we ask that you would glorify yourself in this moment. Father, we come to you as children who are eager to be in your presence, eager to hear from you, eager to be filled with your joy. We pray that that would happen in this moment by being filled with your word. So lord, I ask that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. This is our 27th. Is that right? Roman noodles are hard, numerals are hard.
Joel Brooks:Noodles are hard too. It's our 27th week now studying, the gospel of Luke. And for the last couple of weeks, we've been looking at what Luke has to say about prayer. 2 weeks ago, we saw this through the story of Mary and Martha. And then last week, we began to look at the lord's prayer and what it means to call god father.
Joel Brooks:So, call god father and really it's it's the disciples prayer. It's not the Lord's prayer. This is the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples to pray. And I realized this when we're going through this last week that we probably should just pause for a little bit and ask a question, what exactly is this prayer, this disciples prayer here? Most of you have probably, if you've been involved in a church, have grown up, and you have said this prayer at some point.
Joel Brooks:Even if you haven't grown up in church, you at least recognize it, maybe you do know it. I mean, I played high school basketball, and I can remember, before a game would start and our coach would gather us all together and he would just unleash, you know, a bunch of 4 word tirades, 4 letter word tirades, and then he would gather us all together and he'd say, alright, hands in the middle. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You know, and then we would pray that before we would go out there and we'd start our basketball game. If you go to churches on Christmas Eves or Easters or, perhaps if you go to a funeral, a lot of times this is read.
Joel Brooks:And even those who never come to church, except for those times, they'll say, our father, which art in heaven, and the only confusion is whether you say transgressions or sins, you know, half the people say 1, half the other. And people always have to say hallowed instead of hallowed for some reason, just like we have to say blessed instead of blessed. But people, they get the point. They they know it. They've heard this, but they really don't know what it means.
Joel Brooks:And surprisingly, in going through commentaries on the lord's prayer, there is a lack of commentaries on it. Actually, not much that much has been written concerning this because I think people are somewhat confused. I mean, is this an actual prayer? Is this just a prayer outline? You know, or is this the model prayer?
Joel Brooks:Is this something we're just supposed to recite, or does it mean something else? What exactly is this? Let's look at it in context. Jesus, he taught his disciples to pray this prayer after he had just praised Mary for what she had done in sitting in his presence, after he had just gone off to be alone with his father And the disciples saw Mary, and the disciples saw what Jesus did alone with his father when he would get away for hours at a time, probably daily, come came back and said, Father or Jesus, teach us to pray like that. And so Jesus gives them a couple of sentences.
Joel Brooks:He's gone for hours, he comes back, and the disciples say, teach us to pray like that. And he says, okay. And he gives them about a 32nd prayer. Which makes you think this probably, you know, you could probably pray a little bit longer. This is probably isn't all that you're supposed to pray.
Joel Brooks:What Jesus is presenting here is a theology of prayer. He's telling us how we can orient our hearts when we do pray. What is prayer about? Who are we praying to? And all of that is packed in just these couple of sentences.
Joel Brooks:Every word that Jesus says here is extremely important. And we looked at last week, the very first word of the prayer, Father, father, and how we are to remind ourselves when we pray that we do not come to god as a master and a servant. We don't approach god like a boss and we're just his employee. We approach god like a child approaches his father or her father. There is a security in that relationship.
Joel Brooks:We don't have to do anything to win affection, and we can boldly and shamelessly ask him of things just like my children could do that to me. We can bother God. We're supposed to bother him. He is our father. And now we come to the second part of this prayer.
Joel Brooks:After reminding ourselves of who God is and our relationship with Him and how we're supposed to rest in that, and that's how we orient our hearts in prayer, The very first request is hallowed be your name. That should be our our greatest concern. That should be the request that we make more than any other that god's name would be hallowed. Now real real quick, Jesus is not saying that we pray this because God is somehow lacking in an area, and we need to pray that he becomes more hallowed. We're not saying, God, you're not holy enough, so we are praying that you become more holy.
Joel Brooks:You're not precious enough, so we're praying that you become more of a precious person. We're not praying anything about God to change. The prayer is about us. When we say, hallowed be your name, Martin Luther, he used to add the phrase or the two words in us, hallowed be your name in us. We're asking God to change our hearts to where we hallow God.
Joel Brooks:Now what exactly does this word hallow mean? Likely you're only going to find it twice in your Bible, both times in the Lord's Prayer. It's rarely used anymore. The word somewhat lost its meaning. You, you could define hallowed, hallowed as sanctified, holy, to set apart as holy, to consecrate.
Joel Brooks:And some of your translations, some of the more modern ones might do that to to to set aside as holy or something like that. But it means to to hold something or someone as sacred, to realize that this person or this object is different than everybody else. I think perhaps the best way to understand what hallowed means, hallowed means in this context is to understand it as adored. Adored. It's in the context of adoration.
Joel Brooks:When you adore something, that means as a very special place in your heart. It has been set aside in your heart. It is different from everything else. Something you adore is treasured, sanctified. It is hallowed.
Joel Brooks:So when Jesus here tells us that we are to pray, Father, hallowed be your name. He is saying that the primary concern, the primary cry of our hearts, the the very first and the most important thing that we can pray for is, God, may our hearts treasure you. God, may our hearts adore you. When we think of you, may we may we think of you as absolutely supreme. Absolutely of of total value as the ultimate.
Joel Brooks:When we think of you, may that be where our joy rests. You are cherished. You are adored. Hallowed be your name. We've got to see God as says, we hallow his name.
Joel Brooks:Says, we hallow His name. And, and the name of God is representative of the entire character of God. It's not just a person, it's, it's everything He is. All of His attributes, all of His characteristics, we are to find joy in those. We are to treasure them.
Joel Brooks:So that means when we reflect on his attributes, things like his love, his power, his omniscience, his kindness, his beauty, his omnipresence, or the fact that he is everlasting. When we think of those things, we savor them. We treasure them. I don't know if you've ever done that to, just pick one attribute of God and meditate on it. Not not God, all of it, but just just pick one attribute, and, you know, maybe next time you're driving to to work, you know, turn off NPR or whatever it is you listen to, and pick one attribute.
Joel Brooks:Everlasting. Just say, just say, okay, God, you are eternal. Gosh, what does that mean? That means that you were here yesterday. That means that a 1000 years ago you were here.
Joel Brooks:That means when the pyramids were being built, you were there. That means when the earth was being formed, you were there. That means even before the earth was formed, before the galaxies were formed, you were there unchanging. Totally the same and you will be there tomorrow. You'll be there a 1000 years from now.
Joel Brooks:You will be there until time has no more meaning. All into eternity. You are there the same. And you just think about that. You know, leading you to praise and all of a sudden it gives you a perspective on the day somebody comes and, you know, throws an obstacle your way, somebody challenges you in your faith and be like, Hey, you're just a little drop in the bucket.
Joel Brooks:God's going to be here forever, forever, never ending. And you savor this. You relish it. That's how we can hallow His name. And hallowing God's name is not a duty.
Joel Brooks:Don't walk away from here and think, okay, I'm gonna hallow His name. This is a joy. Adoration is not a duty. It is a joy. And this is where I'm looking through the commentaries on Luke.
Joel Brooks:I feel like most of them really missed it. A lot of times when I read commentaries, I realize I have somewhat of a commentary addiction, and I can just I can read them and I read them, and all the commentaries on this put me to sleep. And usually I really get excited, but these were just they were just boring and dull, and they would say things like, okay, to hallow God's name means you need to obey God. It means you need to not take His name in vain. It means you need to approach Him with reverence and all of those things were, they're good, but I felt like they missed the heart of what it means to hallow God, To adore Him, to treasure Him, and to see God as beautiful.
Joel Brooks:You know, no one who sees something of incredible beauty has to ever be told to praise it. You know, if you go to the ocean and you see the sunset on the ocean and it lights up the clouds pink and purple, you know, and just gorgeous, you say, Wow. Nobody has to tell you to say, wow. You just say it. You know, the original explorers, when they're crossing the, crossing North America and they come across the Grand Canyon, they don't say, wow, you know, just look at this.
Joel Brooks:We'll call it Grand. You know, it it's like, woah. Wow. It's adoration and it's expressed and is their joy to see something of such grandeur and beauty. They don't have to be told.
Joel Brooks:And you get a picture of that, which we looked at probably about a year ago. A picture of that when you see the angels crying out to one another, holy, holy, holy is the lord god almighty, who was and is and is to come. And the other angels, they respond, holy, holy, holy is the lord god almighty, who was and is and is to come. And what they're doing is they're worshiping God in the splendor or the beauty of His holiness. And so when they see something so beautiful, they just have to say it.
Joel Brooks:Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And the angels go, I know. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And they go, I know. And they respond back and forth, back and forth for all eternity because they are captured with beauty.
Joel Brooks:And when God says, hallow be His name, He said, be captured by that beauty. This is for your joy. A prayer to hallow the name of God is a prayer for your joy to be found in God. It's not just to obey him or to revere him or those things. Those things will happen if your joy is in God, if he is your treasure.
Joel Brooks:Last night, a lot of you were there, Matt and Aaron, now Francisco's wedding, which taught me a couple of things about our church real quick. One that y'all can be on time because, because y'all were on time there. You can be better dressed, you know, and some of you can dance. But, but, but at the wedding and Matt and Aaron, they were there, they were giggling. I don't know if you for those of you there could see that they were giggling as they're doing the vowels, and I kept thinking I'm messing up.
Joel Brooks:Somehow I'm saying something wrong because they just kept giggling. But but what was happening is they were adoring one another. As they were looking at one another, they were cherishing one another and, and, and Aaron and Matt, who I'm sure are podcast, will podcast this tonight on their honeymoon. They were saying, it's you. It's just you that has this place in my heart.
Joel Brooks:That's hallow. That's to hallow someone's name. And it's important that we understand this as the first request. I would say the framing request of all the other requests in the Lord's prayer. If you hallow God, you are going to pray for all of the other things that are below it in this prayer.
Joel Brooks:You will if you hallow the name of God. Let's just kind of walk through these. Your kingdom come. Yeah. The last 5 years have seen an explosion of books about what the coming kingdom means, and wherever you are on that spectrum of what it means to have the kingdom of God comes, you we all at least agree on this.
Joel Brooks:That means that Jesus will come in bodily form, and He will reign as King. Now if you treasure God, if you treasure Jesus, if you adore him, you cannot wait for him to physically return and to be honored as king. This Advent season's too long. It's hard to be patient when thinking of that. If He is who you adore.
Joel Brooks:Give us each day our daily bread. And the adoration of God is behind this request as well. I want you to notice what it does not pray. It does, it does not say here, give us this day our daily chocolate, you know, or give us this day our new clothes or our new car. Give us this day a better job.
Joel Brooks:Says, give us this day bread. Bread. And that's it. This is not a prayer for luxuries. This is not a prayer for comforts.
Joel Brooks:It's a prayer for only what is needed to live. That's it. And the reason that we pray for only what is necessary to to live and nothing else is because those other things don't matter if God is who we treasure. If if He is what we long for, then we don't long for those other things. We need our daily sustenance.
Joel Brooks:We need daily bread, but we don't need those other things to sustain us. We don't need those luxuries to keep us happy. We have the lord. His name is hallowed in us. Those things are not going to be hallowed.
Joel Brooks:So that fuels even this request here. If you go to God in prayer, and you're always asking him for these other things, those are likely the things that you hallow. A matter of fact, it's the things that we hallow, the things that we hallow are what drives us to prayer. The things that we hallow are what drives us to prayer. And let me unpack that.
Joel Brooks:If you hallow your health, when your health comes into crisis, you cry out and you pray. If you hallow your family is when your family's threatened that you're gonna, that's going to be the only time that you pray. If you hallow success, then it's only when you're not being successful that you're going to pray. And so it's the things that you hallow that drive you to prayer. And so if you go to God in prayer and you're praying with all your heart, God, give me this new job because I need this new job to be happy.
Joel Brooks:I know you want my happiness, therefore give me this new job, and God doesn't give it to you. The reason He doesn't give it to you is because you're hallowing a new job. You're not hallowing Him. That's an idol. We don't put our hearts in anything other than God.
Joel Brooks:What Jesus is saying here is if you hallow God's name above all else, then the reason you pray that the thing that brings you over and over to just sit in his presence is because you treasure him. That's what should drive our prayers. What has driven you to pray this week? I'm not saying you don't pray for those things, but what has driven you to prayer? It's the things you hallow.
Joel Brooks:Is it God or what other idol you were holding onto? Let's look at, forgive us of our sins. As we forgive ourselves, forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Now, hallowing the name of God or adoration is what fuels this because it hurts us that we have sinned against the person that we adore. It hurts us.
Joel Brooks:And so we ask for forgiveness. Our sin, it doesn't hallow His name, it profanes His name and that's intolerable to us. And so we confess and we repent. And also the ability to forgive is rooted in the adoration of God. Your ability to forgive for instance, and I hope this makes sense.
Joel Brooks:It will. Sometimes the people often people have come to my office, with some problem that they've had that they're trying to overcome some sin, and maybe they've wronged somebody. And they say, You know, I know God forgives me, and this person has forgiven me, but I can't forgive myself. I just can't do it. I know they forgive me, God forgives me, I just can't forgive myself, and I've I've heard that a number of times.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps some of you in this room feel that way about something in your life that you just can't forgive yourself for that. The reason you can't forgive yourself is because you are not hallowing God in your life. You're not hallowing him. You're hallowing something else more important than God, and that's what won't forgive you. If you hallow family more than God and you have wronged your family, well then, you can't forgive yourself.
Joel Brooks:If you hallow success more than you hallow God and, and you have failed big time, well then you can't forgive yourself. Because that is what you're looking towards, for your identity, for your satisfaction, and you have failed it. But if you hallow God, you esteem his words and he says, you are forgiven. You are forgiven. Let's look at lead us not into temptation.
Joel Brooks:Matthew adds the phrase, but deliver us from evil. It's really the same thing. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And what Luke is doing here, or Jesus is doing here is recognizing that there are things that pull our hearts away from God. We want to hallow other things.
Joel Brooks:God delivers from that. Now, I just threw a chunk out at you, but how do we go about actually fostering more adoration in our lives? We we heard it when we read from Exodus 34 earlier. And let me just read, from Exodus 34, and the context is this. Moses asks to see the face of god.
Joel Brooks:God says, well, no, you can't see my my face but how about this? I'll pass by and you can, you can see me as I'm passing by. And this is what happens in Exodus 34 verse 5. It says, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of Yahweh. So he's declaring his name and Yahweh passed before him and proclaimed Yahweh, Yahweh.
Joel Brooks:A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for 1,000, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the inequity of the fathers on their children. And so when God passes before Moses, He declares His name. He declares it twice, Yahweh, Yahweh, which is emphasizing, listen to this. This is my name and this is what my name means. And then what he says is an absolute mystery.
Joel Brooks:Moses had to leave scratching his head. Because on the one hand it says, He's merciful, He's gracious, He's slow to anger. He forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. And then it says, but who will by no means clear the guilty, Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the 3rd and the 4th generation. And so you have, I am Yahweh Yahweh.
Joel Brooks:I forgive iniquity and you know what, I will you will pay for your iniquity to the 3rd and to the 4th generation. You're like, what? I forgive it and you will pay for it. So the name of the lord means you wanna adore the lord. You've got to understand this, and it points us straight to Jesus, straight to Him.
Joel Brooks:If you're struggling with adoration, you think of the cross in which you have mercy. You have love. You have steadfast faithfulness. You have compassion. You see God forgiving us through Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And then you're also saying, see guy going, but your sins will be dealt with and paid for. And Jesus takes that on on the cross. You have both the love and the wrath meeting at the cross. And that means for us that when we think of who we are, we understand that we are far worse than we ever thought possible. We have far more sin than you could possibly imagine.
Joel Brooks:But because of Jesus, at the same time, we are far more loved than we could have ever hoped. And those things meet at the cross and that leads us to adoration this week. Slow down, think of the cross and adore Jesus. We can have no greater request than that his name be hallowed in our lives. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Our father, we quiet ourselves before you. It seems unfair that you could command us to delight in you. How can you just command somebody to have an emotion? But Lord, with Your command, You bring with it the power to change our hearts. Lord, when we ask for your name to be hallowed, we're not asking you of something that you don't want to do, but something that you want to do at infinite cost.
Joel Brooks:You want to hallow your name more than anything. As we just read from Ezekiel 36, we have profaned your name, but you said for your glory, for your glory, you will give us a new heart. You will put your spirit inside of us so that we will not profane your name, but so that we might delight in your name. So God, give us that heart. 1 that delights in you, treasures you, sees you as supreme and everything.
Joel Brooks:And no matter what the world throws our way, you are our anchor. You are our joy. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
