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"LORD TEACH US TO PRAY" HALLOWED BE YOUR NAMEMatthew 6:9-13INTRODUCTION I made the point last week that the main thing that this prayer of Jesus, this Lord’s Prayer teaches us is that the reason we do not pray regularly, the reason we do not pray effectively is because we already have what we want without prayer. The only people who will ever pray to the true God who is our Father in heaven with passion and faith and regularity are those who want what he wants to give. Only those who want what only God himself can give will pray as Jesus instructs. I want you to notice in Matthew 6 that Jesus’ prayer is given in contrast to two other ways of praying. Humans all over the world are praying. However, as Jesus is making plain here, there is only one kind of praying that is actually doing anything. All prayer that is not formed by this prayer is nothing but wasted breath. I want you to notice in vv. 5-8 the two kinds of praying that Jesus says are a waste of time. These are prayers that go no higher than the ceiling. The two kinds of praying that Jesus condemns is prayer that is motivated by a desire to impress people and prayer that is motivated by a desire to manipulate God into giving you the pleasures of this world. In both cases it is not so much the method but the motive that is being condemned. The main point is not, “pray only in private, not in public” and “don’t use lots of words and never repeat yourself when you pray.” In vv. 5-6 the kind of praying that Jesus condemns is praying that aims to impress people. The people he is referring to here are Jewish people who have correct theology. These are people who are praying to the only true God but they are praying to him not because they love him but because they love the approval of people, not because they need him but because they need people’s respect. Nobody else knows why you are praying. Only you and God know your heart. Is the only time you pray before meals, with the family? Do you only pray at prayer meetings or in church or at family worship? If your only prayers are when you are in public then you have to consider if perhaps your motive is not to talk with God but to impress people. Do you look for ways to let people know how much time you spend in prayer? Do you tell people you are praying for them, but you don’t actually pray for them? All of us naturally crave the approval of others far more than we crave the approval of God. Therefore, all of us need to ask God to help us be honest about what motivates our prayers. Are we praying to impress men or to seek God? The second wrong motivation is in vv. 7-8. Pagans in Jesus’ context would be the Greeks and Romans who pray to many gods. They pray in such a way that shows that they think of God, not as a Father in heaven but as a man-like being who can be manipulated and placed under obligation. They approach their gods with the idea that the gods need them and so the gods can be bartered with. They believe humans have things of value to offer to the gods and so the gods can be bargained with. If they pray with the right words and in the right ways then the gods will be obligated to give them what they want. A little later in Matthew 6 Jesus tells us what the pagans want. In vv. 31-32 Jesus says, “So do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.” The reason I know the way pagans pray and the things pagans run after are connected is because in both places the antidote to wrong praying and wrong pursuing is remembering that “your heavenly Father knows what you need.” The pagan way of prayer is an attempt to put God in a corner, to perform certain religious rituals and use religious words in just the right way so that God is obligated to give you what you want. The pagan way of prayer is to use God to get the things you love rather than to love God and trust him to provide the things you need. The Lord’s Prayer is the antidote to these false ways of prayer. It begins by first recalling who it is to whom we pray. It begins by right thinking about God. It begins by making sure that I am asking the only true and living God to help me, not praying to a false god. The first request we are to make to God, every day of our lives, is that God “hallow his name”. What does it mean to pray that God “hallow” his name? The word translated “hallow” means to make or show something or someone holy. God already is holy. He says that he is holy (Lev. 19:2), “…I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The angels in heaven are continually acknowledging and praising him for his holiness, “In a loud voice they (the cherubim) sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory.” God’s prophets and his people regularly acknowledge that “he is holy” (Psalm 99:5, 9). We are not asking God to make himself holy but to show himself to be holy. To say that God is holy is to say that he is utterly different and separate from every created thing. There is nothing and no one like him. He is alone in his holiness. He is infinitely higher, better, greater than everyone and everything else in the entire universe. When we pray that God’s name be hallowed we are praying that we and every other person and every angel and all of creation honor God as the only holy being in the universe. We are praying that God would so work that we and all of creation do not despise, ignore, take for granted, mock, or treat him with contempt. We are asking that God would so work that we and all of creation prefer him, delight in him, desire him, honor him, submit to him, treat him with the respect and devotion that he alone deserves. In essence we are asking God to make the universe, beginning with us, run as he originally created it to run. We are praying that all things and all creatures worship and honor and enjoy and rejoice in him alone. We are asking God to give us minds that perceive his greatness and hearts that love his greatness and lives that show we know and love him for who he truly is. This is a prayer for God to change our hearts, to make us see and love what is blazing in front of our faces all the time, through creation and through the gospel, God is majestic in his holiness. As a nation we have just spent the past 6 months waiting to find out whose name would be hallowed in America, George Bush or John Kerry. Isn’t that what the presidential campaign was really all about? The Democratic Party worked and prayed to show forth the holiness, the uniqueness, the greatness, the awesomeness of John Kerry and his ability to save America. On the other side, the Republican Party worked and prayed to promote the greatness, the absolute uniqueness and grandeur of George Bush. Tens of thousands of Americans got up every day as campaign workers for the past nine months and the first thing they thought about was how their lives were going to be invested in making the name of John Kerry or George Bush great on that day. Why did so many work so hard and pray so hard to show how great each of these men are? It is because they were absolutely convinced that their candidate truly was a great and trustworthy man and they believed that what their candidate would do would be the best thing for them and for America. The profound sorrow and grief of John Kerry’s supporters shows how much they yearned for his name to be hallowed, just as the profound joy of the Bush supporters shows how much they desired his name to be hallowed. This is exactly what is to be true of us. We are to so yearn that God’s name be treated as holy by us, our church, the whole world that we are profoundly and sincerely saddened whenever his name is not respected and overjoyed whenever we see evidence in us or others that he is being loved and honored. We are asking God to work in us and the world in such a way that he and his reputation in the world are our greatest concerns. I might just ask a little question at this point that you can use to test yourself: What concerns you more, the reputation of John Kerry/George Bush being made great or the reputation of God being made great? Please know that the glory of God and the glory of either candidate are not connected. The most revolutionary prayer you can pray is that God’s name would be hallowed. You are praying that you will prefer God to every other person, pleasure or position in the universe. You are praying that all other loyalties and all other loves will be forsaken out of love for God by you, our church and the world. You cannot pray a more radical prayer. You cannot pray a prayer that requires more power to answer than this prayer. There is nothing more astonishing in the universe than when a human being believes that God’s name being honored is better than their own name being honored. There is no greater miracle than when a human being wants God to make his name glorious more than he wants God to heal his sick child or give him a loving wife or provide a better job. There is nothing more amazing than when a husband wants God’s name to be glorified more than he wants a wife who will apologize to him or when a wife wants God to appear more glorious to her than to have her husband listen to her. There isn’t a person sitting in this room whose first and greatest desire, by nature, is that God’s name be treated as holy. That is why we must ask God to exercise his power to make his name appear as holy to us. I want to give you three reasons as to why you and I ought to continually be asking God to cause his name to be treated as holy. Why should we want God’s name to be hallowed? 1. God does all that he does for this one purpose, to display his greatness, his holiness This last week I was reading in Ezekiel and I came across a chapter that is astonishing in its clarity for making this point. Turn with me to Ezekiel 20. You can see in v. 1 the setting of this chapter. Ezekiel is living in the land of Babylon, modern day Iraq. He is there because he is one of the priests that the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezer brought to live in Babylon after he conquered Jerusalem. He was part of a group of about 10,000 leaders from Jerusalem that the king of Babylon brought to live in Babylon after he conquered Judah. Ezekiel spent his time during this exile preaching the gospel to these Jews who had been taken captive to Babylon. In v. 1 we see that the elders, the leaders of the Jewish community living in exile come to Ezekiel to inquire of God. In other words they come to Ezekiel for the purpose of finding out what God has to say to them. This is not unlike the same purpose for which you come to church on Sunday. We are here to worship God and to find out what he would have to say to us through his word. What follows is a recounting of the history of Israel beginning with when they were slaves in Egypt. Beginning in v. 5 Ezekiel recounts how God treated the Israelites. Read vv. 5-7. He chose them to be his people. He swore to them that he was going to bring them out of their slavery in Egypt to another land, a land that was the most beautiful of lands. He commanded them to quit worshipping the idols of Egypt. Then notice in v. 8, while they were still in Egypt they refused to get rid of their idols. They continued to pray to them and offer gifts to them, seeking help from these false gods. At the end of v. 8 God says that because of their rebellion he was going to pour out his wrath on them in Egypt. While they were slaves and after he revealed himself to Moses and through Moses to the Israelites, they continue to worship idols and God was on the edge of justly destroying them in Egypt. What kept God from pouring out his wrath on these rebellious people? Look at v. 9. He was concerned for his own reputation. He didn’t want his name profaned, treated with disrespect by the Egyptians and other nations and so he didn’t destroy Israel and in v. 10, he brought them out of their slavery. The only reason God did not destroy idol worshipping Israel is because he wanted his name to be honored and treated as holy and not dissed by the nations of the world. The same thing happens in vv.13-20 and vv. 21-26. In vv. 13-20, God brings them out of Egypt, brings them to Mt. Sinai and gives them his law. In vv. 21-26, he brings them into the Promised Land. However, both times, they rebel. He determines to destroy them but then he stops from pouring out his wrath and does good to them again for the sake of his own name. He spares Israel and is kind to them because he wants the universe to know that he is a faithful, gracious, merciful God who is absolutely unique in the universe. I want you to look over to vv. 39-44. He addresses the elders who are before him at the moment. He tells them to go ahead and continue their idolatry for the time being. “But afterward, you will surely listen to me and no longer profane my holy name with your gifts and idols.” He goes on to describe a time in the future where he will so work that they will no longer worship idols but only him. He is talking about the coming of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit to make a new people with new hearts who will treat him as he really is, holy. Read vv. 41-44. He does not save his people because of who we are but because of who he is, not because we are valuable but because he is valuable. It is because God aims to glorify himself that he saves his people. He aims to show off how absolutely unique and set apart he is by saving people who deserve to go to hell. The best news you can hear is that God does all things, especially saving his people, for the glory of his own name. If God were not concerned for the glory of his own name there would be no reason to save people who have despised him their whole life long. Everything that has ever happened in the universe and everything that is happening and everything that is going to happen is for the purpose of showing off the greatness of God, the holiness of his name. God is working out everything to this end, so that his holiness will be put on display. Therefore, if you want something more than you want God’s name to be hallowed, then you want something that God does not want. If you are praying for something without regard to God’s being treated as holy, then you are praying contrary to God’s purpose in the world. Praying for God’s name to be hallowed is the sanest thing you can ever pray. It is to pray in accord with the way things are. 2. You should pray that God hallow his name because you want to be as happy as you can possibly be I have said this many times before and I will tell you this many more times in the future. Everything you do or don’t do is motivated by your desire to be happy. The reason you go to work, the reason you go to school, the reason you watch TV, the reason you came to church this morning, the reason you read the books you read, everything you do is driven by a desire to be happy and a belief that whatever it is that you are doing is the surest way to be happy. It is not a sin to want to be happy. What is sinful is pursuing our happiness in created things rather than in the Creator. We all naturally believe that created things and persons are way more satisfying than God himself. No human being, by their own effort will ever believe that God alone is what they need to be happy. All you have to do to know this is true about you is to ask yourself a few questions. What makes you angry, missing your favorite TV show or missing church? What makes you sad, your husband won’t talk with you or you haven’t had a conversation with God for the last week? What makes you happy, hearing that the cute boy in your math class likes you or that God so loved the world that he gave his only Son in the place of every believing sinner? Pay attention to your heart and you will soon discover that your heart is naturally and hopelessly in love with the world and cold towards God. This is why Jesus Christ came into the world. He came to die the death we deserve for our God despising, creation preferring lives and to give us new hearts by the work of the Holy Spirit so that the holiness of God’s being is more impressive, more attractive to us than TV or sex or computer games or being respected by others or having friends or anything. God loves you and aims to give you the best thing in the universe, himself. That’s not good news to a sinner. There are many of you who are as excited about me telling you that God wants to give you himself as you would be if I told you that I had purchased for you an all expense paid trip to Fulluja, Iraq to spend a week with the Moslem insurgents who are fighting the US Army right now. That is why it takes the omnipotent power of Almighty God to so work in our lives that we see him as better than the world. Jesus tells us that this is where we must begin praying. God wants us to be infinitely and eternally happy and so Jesus tells us to ask God to make us infinitely happy by asking God to make his name appear holy and glorious to us. Look, everyone in here knows that creation pleasures are glorious. All of us delight in eating, being with friends, watching movies, being outside on a glorious fall afternoon like yesterday, being healthy, etc. If creation is so glorious how much more glorious is the Creator? If what is made is so delightful, how much more delightful is the one who made it? Many years ago, when our family was living in Illinois, my two oldest boys were about 11 and 9. They had become Chicago Bulls fans and especially were nuts about Michael Jordan. One Sunday they were complaining to me about going to church. I told them that Michael Jordan was going to be in church that day. Both their eyes lit up and they were excited but suspicious. They said, “He’s not going to be in church.” I said, “You’re right. He won’t be there, but the One who made him will be.” If Michael Jordan is glorious, how much more glorious is the one who made him. Jonathon Edwards says it this way, “…but God is the sun.” Think with me for a moment about why God’s aim to make us happy in him ought to be such good news to us. If your happiness in life depends upon your child growing up, getting married to a Christian, having lots of babies and living in the same town with you so you can be a full time grandparent, what will you do if that doesn’t happen? If your happiness depends upon getting to go hunting whenever you want, what will happen when your wife is sick and you have to stay home and watch the children? If your happiness depends upon being respected, what will you do when someone disrespects you? If your happiness depends upon having cool friends, what will happen when the cool friend you thought you had takes you off their buddy list? The fact of the matter is this: most (perhaps even all) of the misery in our lives is due to the fact that we must have something or someone other than God himself to be happy. If your happiness depends upon God loving you and being a great and glorious being, what can ever affect your happiness? If the greatest passion and therefore the most urgent prayer you utter is for God to make himself holy to you, what can harm you? God wants you to be happy and so he commands you to ask him to make the holiness of his being appear to you as all satisfying and glorious. 3. You should pray that God make his name appear gloriously holy because you want your prayers answered In John 14:13 Jesus makes this astonishing promise: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” The only prayers that Jesus hears and answers are prayers motivated by a desire for the Father to be glorified. If you would examine all the prayers of the Bible you will discover that they all have this common theme. No matter what the basic request, they all have statements in them making clear that the ultimate ambition to the one who asks is that God himself would appear more glorious and majestic as a result of the answer. We heard this clearly described in the prayer of Daniel that was read earlier. Flip back to Daniel 9 to see this. This is Daniel’s situation. He was taken captive, in the same group of Jewish people with whom Ezekiel was taken captive by the king of Babylon. He was a young teenager when taken captive. God, through remarkable events made Daniel one of the most respected advisors to the succeeding kings of Babylon. When the Persians conquered Babylon, Daniel remained in the royal court. He has been an advisor to kings for over 60 years, the entire time he has lived as an exile in Babylon. During the early years of Daniel’s life, while he was still living in Jerusalem, Jeremiah the prophet was preaching to the people of Israel. Jeremiah continued to preach in Jerusalem for about 15 years following the time that Daniel was first taken to Babylon. During those 15 years Jeremiah wrote a letter to all the exiles in Babylon which is recorded for us in Jeremiah 29. In that letter he told the exiles in Babylon, “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place.” Daniel is an old man and it has been close to 70 years since these words were written. He has been reading the book of Jeremiah and has come across this promise from God. Therefore he prays. Most of his prayer is a confession of the sins of Israel and an acknowledgement of how righteous and just God has been to destroy Israel and send them all into exile. However, notice that at the end of the prayer he asks God to turn away from his wrath, to look with favor on his desolate sanctuary. In short he is asking God to restore his people to the land and to come and live among them once again. He is asking God to do what he has promised to do in Jeremiah. But notice the reasons he gives to God for why he should act on their behalf. Why should God listen to Daniel’s prayer? In vv. 17 & 19 he should act for the sake of his own name. In v. 17 he reminds the Lord that the temple in Jerusalem is “ your sanctuary.” In v. 18 he says that God should act because Jerusalem bears his name. In other words what happens to Jerusalem reflects on the name of the Lord, just like the health and cleanliness of children reflects on the reputation of their parents. Again, in v. 18 he says that God should not act because he, nor any other Jewish person is righteous and thus has earned God’s favor. God should not act because they are good but rather because he is merciful. Then again, at the end of v. 19 he says that God should act because “your city and your people bear your name.” What is the reason that Daniel believes that God should act on behalf of Israel? Why should God rescue the people of Israel from their captivity and take them back to Jerusalem? He should do it for the glory of his own name. He should restore Jerusalem in order to increase the glory of his reputation. While being in exile is a miserable existence, Daniel knows that the main reason God should act is not their trouble but God’s commitment to his glory. This doesn’t mean that we are to tack onto our prayers the phrase, “for the sake of your name”, though that is not wrong. It means that our greatest passion and yearning should be for God’s name to be shown to be holy. We want above all things for his reputation to increase in the world and so all of our prayers are prayed with this motive. We know what it is like to desire for the reputation of another to increase in the world. Again, every Kerry supporter or Bush supporter wanted their candidates to so work that their reputation would be increased in the US. It made Kerry supporters happy when he did so well in the debates. It made Bush supporters happy when he did so well in his convention speech. This afternoon every football fan is going to be praying that the name of their team be made great by their winning the game. Every parent understands the desire for the glory of another. What parent doesn’t want to go to the parent/teacher meeting and have their child’s teacher say, “Your son is the most polite child I’ve ever met. He is so eager to learn and asks the best questions. He is a delight to have in class. I wish every child was like your son.” You wouldn’t ask your candidate or your team to do something that would diminish the glory of their reputation would you? You wouldn’t ask your child to do things that would discredit his name. You will only want them to do things that will increase their glory and if their glory is increased then you will be happy. The big question in our relationship with God is how do we know what things will increase the glory of his name? How did Daniel know that God’s restoring Jerusalem and returning the exiles to the land of Israel would increase his glory? He knew it because God had said that is what he was going to do. God is the one who tells us what it is that will increase the glory of his name in his word. The rest of the Lord’s Prayer is an answer to that question. God’s name is made holy when his kingdom comes, his will is done, he provides our daily needs, he forgives our sins and he keeps us from the evil one. Over the next 5 weeks we will be examining each of these requests in detail so we can learn better how to pray in such a way that God’s name, his reputation in our lives, in the life of our church and in the world will become more glorious to more people. We should ask God, first of all, to make his own name to appear as holy because…
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2004 John Swanson. |