Introduction

This morning we shall take up the first petition of the Lord’s family prayer, "hallowed be your name" (Mat. 6.9c), which instructs us to pray for the honor of God’s name (cf. the title). Some things we can address here are the nature of praying for the honor of God’s name, its appropriateness, and its implications.

1A. The nature of prayer for the honor of God’s name

God’s name stands for who He is in the perfection of His being and attributes; it includes all He does out of the resources of His perfect being and attributes. In a word, we pray that God will sanctify Himself as king, that God will so make Himself known to men that they may see His greatness and majesty and render to Him reverence, honor, and glory in thought, word, and deed.

On the negative side, we pray that His glory will not be obscured but clarified, magnified to shine forth in radiant beauty. Thus, consider how concerned we should be to avoid all confusion, ambiguity, and fogginess in our preaching, witnessing, and in the testimony of our lives.

On the positive side, we pray that men will come to know God, acknowledge and confess who He is in all the fullness of His being, attributes and personality. Our petition is that He will be known as an independent, immutable, infinite, wise, good, holy and righteous spirit who is three in personality and one in essence; who is creator and sustainer of all things because "from Him and through him and to him are all things, to him be the glory forever (Rom. 11.36). We pray for maximal understanding of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We pray for balance in knowing the Son as one eternal person with two natures being both God and man in such a way that we must neither divide the person nor confound the natures.

In other words, we pray for the manifestation of the Lord in the fullness of biblical truth with all the paradoxes that stretch our minds. We pray for understanding coupled with submission. We want to ascend to the heavens and lay hold of the love of God that passes understanding. We are to begin humbly "acknowledging the utter inability and indisposition that is in ourselves and all men to honor God aright" (cf. the Catechisms on how to pray and what to pray for according to the 1^st petition).

2A. The appropriateness of prayer for the honor of God’s name

It is an appropriate focus in prayer for two reasons.

1) He is worthy of the highest glory. Revelation 4.11 and 5.12 point this out clearly:

"Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created."

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!"

We are to render honor to those to whom honor is due. The fifth commandment is that we honor father and mother. If that is what we are to do for frail creatures with good reason, then how much more are to we to do the same with good reason for the Creator. This "how much more" is immeasurable. We have abundant reason to give honor to God’s name. He is so much more worthy of admiration, adoration, and praise than anything that He created (consider how many things in the world that you admire and adore from a sunset to fall colors).

2) His glory is of the highest value and supreme goal. It is more valuable than our salvation (Rom. 9.22, 23): What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory. Vessels of wrath display His glory by His patience with them and they serve to throw the riches of His glory into relief for vessels of mercy. The chief end of all things is not the saving of sinners but the glory of God. He secures that glory through the saving of sinners; salvation is a marvelous means to that great end.

Therefore, His glory is the chief end of man because it is God’s chief end. If it is the end of all things then it must be man’s chief end too. If it is God’s chief and ultimate end then is must be ours too. We should see it that way and conduct our lives accordingly. Nothing should have a higher value for us; all else is inferior to the goal that is superior. Nothing is beyond it as a further end. It is the end of all ends. All subordinate goals come to rest in the ultimate goal.

This means that we must withdraw our eyes from ourselves, even from thinking of our salvation as our chief end or ultimate concern. It is a right and proper concern but it is not to be our chief concern. Our chief concern should be to see God’s glory displayed. Thus, part of this prayer is petitioning the Lord for greater insight and stronger resolve regarding how we can make glorifying God our central aim in life. Look at the example of Daniel’s prayer recorded in Daniel 9.

Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. ⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, ⁵ we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. ⁶ We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. ⁷ To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. ⁸ To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. ⁹ To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him ¹⁰ and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.

14 Therefore the LORD has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the LORD our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.

17 Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. ¹⁸ O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. ¹⁹ O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name."

One way to make glorifying God the central aim of our live is by prayer for the hallowing of God’s name, and we can do so by following examples like that of Daniel.

3A. Implications of prayer for the honor of God’s name

1) First, this puts prayer on the highest plane

Right from the word, "go," as to how to pray, the first concern is not my needs, my present crisis, my longings and desires. Right from the "git-go", the emphasis is God-centered. We address our Father in heaven emphasizing "our, in heaven, and Father." We come as children in the same family to the same Father by the flesh of Christ. We enter into heaven; we transcend this temporal and temporary plane of existence to enter the most holy place. We go though Christ who is the gate of heaven. We climb Jacob’s ladder into the presence of God by clinging to Christ as our great high priest. Entering the holy place as a very special place of the presence of God, we have a marvelous opportunity to petition the Almighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth. He tells us to come in this way and we can be confident that He hears our prayers. Accordingly, the emphasis is that when we come boldly to the throne with all our needs, we hold back on our concerns for the moment. We hold back attention on the ebb and flow, difficulties, and "ups and downs" of our lives for something more basic that grounds all else! What the Lord is saying is that when you pray you should consider the fact that the most important thing for you, your walk, and your struggles is to focus your primary attention on the honor that is due to the Father’s name (As in Daniel’s prayer: "for your sake…for we are called by your name).

2) It sets a tone for our petitions

Therefore, you will pray something like this, "Father, so work as to bring honor to your name, Father, magnify yourself as king. Grant, O Lord, by your grace eyes to men on earth and loosen their tongues to declare your matchless glory." You may personalize the petition in this way, "Work in my life Father in a way that it will reflect well on you and image your goodness. Make me a better person more honoring to my Sabbath king. Lord, open my eyes that I may see your greatness, open my ears to hear the testimony of your glory preached in creation and in church, and open my mouth to confess your name in truth and love." Talk about setting a tone. We have a tone that hits the middle between transcendent distance and precious intimacy. What a wonderful mixture of reverence, awe, and fear with a sense of childship under the care of a loving Father, high and lifted up!

3) It cultivates our desires

We want more and more to see Him honored. We will therefore pray to that end. This way of praying expresses our desires and it cultivates our desires. Praying in this spirit puts us on a path that is God-centered to search out every means by which to hallow God’s name and promote God’s honor. We look in every direction prayerfully to find ways to honor our risen Lord. We think hard about how we live and how we relate to people with the concern that in this difficult relationship and with that challenging person there must be a way to bring honor to my Father. We have a part in this because He is our Father in heaven and we therefore represent Him in this world. There is an inseparable but subordinate looking to ourselves in this prayer for God’s honor because we are His image bearers in need of restoration in His image more and more. As we grow in His image, we glorify Him more fully.

4) It focuses our works

Per the first petition, the pursuit of good works becomes a major concern of prayer. There is an unavoidable cycle of work and prayer. We know that we are to work in a concrete way. We are to have no "pie in the sky" religion but we are to be in touch, on earth, doing good deeds, and seeking in all things to reflect the beauty of God in the world as His analogues. We also know that we are to pray with the thought in mind that good works must be seen of men for the glory of God. We pray for the magnifying of God’s name. We pray for the acknowledgment of His attributes. This kind of praying encourages working. This kind of working encourages this kind of praying.

Conclusion

Like an engine pulling a long train, the first petition grabs hold of every other dimension of our prayer life and of life itself. It pulls them all down one single track with determined resolve: Hallowed Be Your Name. Then our entire life is put on a different plane and everything that we do is cultivated in the direction that God may be exalted ("all in all" and overall). We then have a single devotion clearly set before us like a great light for our path. God’s glory is radiant like the sun that warms the entire earth but the darkness of our sins suppresses it. Therefore, we pray. Therefore, we pray for the honor of God’s name in all the beauty of His infinity, glory, unchangeableness, tri-unity, holiness, wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth. Therefore, no matter what the battles of life may be, the first petition in its true spirit leads us directly to the throne of heaven with a radical request that says, "Not unto us, not unto us, but to your name give glory." Fittingly then we have a common closing:

To Him be the glory both now and forever, amen!