Mat 6:9; You Become What You Hallow.

Sunday August 11, 2024

Idea: Praying to hallow the Father’s name rewards us with the blessing of becoming like Him in character.

Introduction: When God takes steps to make the family of Jacob, now in the millions (begun with 70), into His nation, He gives them a name for Himself for them to use and honor and worship and also to represent Him. 

Exo 6:2-3

God spoke further to Moses and said to him, "I am the Lord; 3 and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, Lord, I did not make Myself known to them.

In Exo 3:14-15

Ehyeh asher ehyeh - I am that who I am, I will be who I will be, or I will be there howsoever I will be there; I am; and Yahweh. 

When God liberated them from Egypt, He led them to Sinai and inaugurated them as a nation, but not just any nation, His nation. In this way He became their King and sanctified them unto Himself; He made them holy as in setting them apart. He does not force them to be holy, but being His, it is required, and if they are not, the discipline comes in the form of the curse. 

        Exo 19:1-6.

Kingdom of priests - intelligent / proper worshipers.  

        Deu 7:6-11.

Why does God want us to worship Him? Most, by far, of humanity from the fall to now, have concluded that there is no benefit to it. 

Belonging to the Lord, they had to be holy. 

Lev 19:2 

Repeated by Peter in the context of election 1Pe 1:15-16.

If you are elected and the I Am is your elector, then you are on the hook for holiness. He is not going anywhere and you are His. Same for the nation of Israel as for the believer in this age.

If they call on His name and represent His name, then they are to be like Him - holy. The way of holiness is given in the Law. 

The response of many of them was to see God’s holiness requirements as cumbersome, inconvenient, and too costly, Mal 1:6. They gave God blind goats and sighed even at that. 

Heb 3:18

Heb 3:12

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.

The many names of God in the OT were not enough. 

He is Father. That does not exclude any other name or attribute, but includes them all in Him. He is who He is. Unchangeable. 

His names in the OT representing presence, dwelling place, Almighty, eternity, righteousness and justice are now all in the name that any child would understand - Father. 

Father is not an attribute but a relationship of nearness. Father is His eternal relation to us. It is the relationship that all have longed for - God as Father (Psa 89:26; Jer 3:19). 

Hallow His name - petition 1 - as Father. Mat 6:9 hagiastheo imperative.

When we hallow His name as Father, we become more like Him, as sons and daughters should be. 

God desires us to worship Him as Father. 

What we glorify God for, we always share. 

Christians who fail to do this wait for a natural flow of the attributes of God that never come. 

Why do we worship Him? Is there benefit? What you magnify in Him, you attain in your heart, unless it is just lip-service. 

Jesus’ brilliance in this first petition - the first utterances of “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed by Your name …” become the little leaven that eventually leavens the whole lump with the attributes of God; the sons and daughters are to be like their Father.

2Pe 1:19

When you pray the first petition, in the manner that Jesus states (imperative), making holy the name of the Father, you are determining that all things that you need, that are blessings to you and others, come from the Father only. 

Every time you pray, glorify the Father first, and you will see, more and more over time, that all good things come from Him alone (Jam 1:17).