"Petition 1"
[Exodus 20:7]
March 2, 2208 Second Reformed Church
Last week we looked at the address of the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father Who is in Heaven." And we saw that we are able to call God, "Father," and come before Him boldly, because He has adopted us as His children through Jesus' Salvation Work. He is "our Father" because Jesus died to save the elect, the Church, from His Father's Wrath and their sins. And He is "in heaven." Our Father is not a god created by human hands; He is the Almighty, Self-Existent God, Who created everything that is.
What a privilege this invitation to come and pray is! We come before One Who is able to do all good things, One Who loves us, Who we can trust and rely on always and forever. This is the God Jesus calls us to pray to; the God about Whom Jesus has given us this pattern of prayer.
After the address, the Lord's Prayer has six petitions and then a conclusion. The six petitions are the six areas of request we are to lift up to God in prayer. Today, we are looking at the first of these petitions; if the Lord is willing, we will look at the rest of them over the next few weeks.
It is a truth of the Scripture that if God gives us a command, there is a corresponding prohibition, and if God has forbidden something, He has also given us a command to do something. In the Lord's prayer, we find the command, "Hallowed, or holy, be Your Name." In this morning's Scripture, we hear the prohibition, "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name" (NRSV). The word that is translated "wrongful" and "misuses" is the same Hebrew word, shav, which means, "empty, worthless, vain." So, the positive command could be stated, "Make the Name of the Lord as Holy" or "Present the Name of the Lord as Holy." And the negative command could be stated, "Do not make the Name of the Lord empty, worthless, or vain" or "Do not present the Name of the Lord as worthless, empty, or vain."
So, Jesus said that the first thing we should be concerned about, the first thing that should be on our lips in prayer, the most important thing for us to be praying for, is this: that God's Name would be Holy. That sounds like Jesus and the prayer are saying that we make God and God’s Name Holy, which of course is blasphemous. God is holy, holy, holy, and He always has been. He does not need us to make Him Holy. Even though we use the expression "make His Name Holy," let us understand what we are really saying.
Thomas Watson wrote, "In this petition, we pray that God's name may shine forth gloriously, and that it may be honored and sanctified by us, in the whole course and tenor of our lives" (The Lord's Prayer, 38). In other words, the goal of our lives, the goal of our prayer, is, first, that in everything we and all of the creation does, that God is seen as glorious. The most important thing is that all of the Creation falls down and honors God. The first petition asks that the whole creation would come in line with the four living creatures in Heaven: "Day and night without ceasing they sing, 'Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come'" (Revelation 4:8, NRSV). The first thing we are to pray for is that we and the whole Creation would enter into a state of perpetual praise and recognition of God in all His Holy Attributes.
It is not merely, God's Name, Itself, that we considering in the first petition; as one looks at the use of the "Name of the Lord" in the Scripture, one finds that the expression is much bigger than the Name, Itself. It refers to the Essence of God, to everything that is God, everything that God is without which God could not be God, and everything that can be known about God. The Name of God is synonymous with the Being of God, in this case.
So, how do we "hallow" the Name of God? How do we make or present the Name of God as holy? How do we keep from making or presenting the Name of God as empty, worthless, and vain?
Thomas Watson cites at least sixteen ways, and he is comprehensive enough that I am going to use his categories (39-46):
We make God's Name Holy when we profess Him Alone as Savior and bear His Name. We are called, "Christians," "little Christs." If we are Christians, people ought to look at us and see something of the holiness of our God and Savior. I was talking to someone this week who said that he doesn't believe in religion because every religion is the same bunch of liars, hypocrites, and sinners -- and I agreed with him! Humans are the same; I had a professor at Drew who said, "sin happens." No matter the religion, people are all the same. But Jesus is different, and if we are Christians, something about us ought to point away from ourselves and point to He Who is Holy, because Christianity is not about me, is not about you, it's about Him It's about Jesus! What a difference there is if someone comes to me and asks about this church and I say, "Well, I'm fat and sick and single, and we're small, and old, and poor," and if I say, "we gather to worship the Almighty God, we come into His Presence, and hear about the Only Savior Jesus Christ!"
We make God's Name Holy when we have a high appreciation of Him and hold Him in high esteem. Do you love Jesus above everything else? Do you want Him above everything else? Can you say with Paul, as we have come back to so often in recent months, "For me to live is Christ, but to die is gain"? If you think that highly of Him, you hallow Him.
We make God's Name Holy when we trust Him. Do you turn to Him, no matter what the circumstances and raise up your voice, "Lord, I trust You. In the days of joy and in the days of tribulation, I cry out with Job, 'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the Lord!' Because You promised that all of life is working together for the good of those who love You." Trust doesn't mean we understand, it means, whether we understand or not, we know God is trustworthy.
We make God's Name Holy when we refuse to use it in a common or a profane way. This is what we usually think of -- not using God's Actual Name as a curse word or as a by-word. The ancient Hebrews held God's Actual Name in such high honor that they would not print the vowels or pronounce that Most Holy Name that was given to Moses. How far we have fallen. Come to know God in His Word and through worship that you remove His Actual Name from common and profane use. Would you mind if someone used your mother's name in a crude way? Would you say something if someone used your mother's name as a curse? How can we tolerate, and use, our God's Name in that way? I challenge all of us, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to do something very difficult, if a friend of family member uses the Lord's Name like that, politely, privately, ask them not to do that any more. Tell them it is offensive to you -- it hurts you. You may get laughed at. You may be cursed at. But we are to rejoice if we suffer for Christ.
We make God's Name Holy when we love Him. Show your love to God by consciously dedicating every part of yourself to Him and His Glory. Pray that God will show you how to love Him with all of your mind and heart and soul and body. Take care of the self God has given you and use it at every possible moment to show that God is worthy; He is glorious.
We make God's Name Holy when we worship Him, recognizing His Attributes. When we join together in worship, we make God's Name Holy, as we lift up and believe and celebrate that He is our Savior, that He is Almighty, that He is Unchanging, that He is Good, and so forth -- for everything that is True of God. We ought to lift each attribute up and celebrate God in the fulness of Who He is.
We make God's Name Holy when we hallow the Sabbath. We obey God by taking one day in seven to be different. When we set aside a day for worship, when we could be joining the world in building our portfolio or sleeping in, because "you deserve a break today." God has called us to worship one day in seven, and He says it is for our benefit. We spiritually, physically, and mentally, need a break from doing the same thing we do every day. And God is surely worthy to have us come before Him one day in seven to proclaim Him as a people.
We make God's Name Holy as we give God the honor for all that we do. When we recognize that everything we have, all that we can do and be, is from God, by God, though God, and for God, He receives the Glory and the Honor. If you come before God in worship this morning, and the Holy Spirit applies God's Word to your heart, I am grateful that God has used me as the minister, but it is God's Word, God’s Promises, it is God Who has gifted and called me to this work -- it's all about Him, and we must not neglect to thank God for everything we have and receive and are.
We make God's Name Holy when we obey Him. If we believe God is the One and True God, our Savior, then we do right to obey Him by the power we have by the Holy Spirit. If we are Christians, God the Holy Spirit lives in us, and gives us the ability to carry out all those things God has called us to do, and when we do, we show that we believe that God is Real and True and Worthy of obedience.
We make God's Name Holy when we praise Him. What more appropriate response can there be to knowing God? If we have received His Salvation and have come to know Him -- and we continue to know Him better day by day -- we are propelled by the knowledge to praise Him. If you don't desire worship more over time, you should be concerned. Let us come, desirous of knowing Him more and better, and praise Him for all that we know of Him.
We make God's Name Holy when we are sympathetic with Him -- when we rejoice when He rejoices and are grieved when He is grieved. When we learn something of God's character, we know the things that give Him joy and the things that cause Him to grieve. We ought to have joy and grieve over the same things. For example, the Scripture says there is joy in Heaven when a person repents and believes, and we ought to be filled with joy at seeing someone come to belief. And, as we have already seen, using the actual Name of God in vain is offensive to God, and it ought to offend us as well.
We make God's Name Holy when we honor the Trinity. When we read the Scriptures and appreciate the Work of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, when we have some understanding that though there is only One God, yet He exists at the same time in Three Persons, this makes His Name Holy. Let us seek to understand How God in all Three Persons is involved in the History of Redemption.
We make God's Name Holy when we stand up for His Truth. And that should follow directly from some of the others: if we trust God, if we believe Him, if we are obeying Him, we will find ourselves standing for His Truth. When others say that thus and so is true, and it contradicts the clear teaching of the Scripture, we will explain that they are wrong. We need to learn to be able to present what we believe, and to stand for His Truth.
We make God's Name Holy when we seek salvation for others. If we tell others the Truth of Salvation in Jesus Alone, if we explain to them why He Alone can save us, those who respond positively and believe bring glory to God, and we make His Name Holy together. This is yet another incentive for us to tell others about Jesus: the more we tell, the more God will be glorified as some respond.
We make God's Name Holy when we prefer His Honor above all other things. This is another one that follows from things we have already said. If God is worthy more to us than anything, we will seek to have Him be honored in all ways above and before all others.
And we make God's Name Holy in holy conversations. When we discuss the Scriptures in Bible study, in worship, in small groups, on the phone -- wherever -- these discussions hold God and His Word up and make His Name Holy among us.
"Holy be Your Name." Let us, in all these ways and others, seek to know God as fully and rightly as we can. And then let us seek to love Him with everything that we are. That is, after all, what we are asking for in the first petition.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, Holy Father, we thank You for the format of the Lord's Prayer. We thank You that You have made it known that Your Holiness, the knowledge of it and the presenting of it are a top priority for You. We ask, now as we prepare to turn to the Table, that we would seek to know and love You in the elements. Help us to remember the Work of the Trinity in our salvation. Let us rejoice in the Plan of the Father, in the life, death, and resurrection of the Son, and His really meeting us here in the elements, and may the Holy Spirit apply these things to our hearts and lead us forth in the good works You have prepared for us. And may it all be to Your Glory and the hallowing of Your Name. For it is in Jesus' Name we pray, Amen.
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