Hallowed be Your Name
A small child, after going to Sunday school for the first time, was telling his parents all about a prayer
that they had all just been taught. The child proudly began to recite, “Our father in heaven, Harold
be thy name…”
There are two types of names in our lives:
1) Names of people we don’t know:
Margaret Thatcher, Rolf Harris, Kim Jong Un, Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela, Kaka,
Michael Jackson, Barak Obama, Charles Spurgeon, Mike Tyson, Lewis Hamilton.
All these names I’m sure will provoke a multitude of varying thoughts in each of your minds,
maybe some of these you haven’t heard but most of you I assume will have heard of most of
these. And when a name like one of the above names is heard, more than just sound waves
hits our ears. When we hear a name, the person who owns that name is brought into a form
of existence in our minds – They are not brought as they actually are, because we cannot
know them as they are, and so a picture of what we think we know about them is what we
focus on.
2) Names of people we do know:
Now when we DO know the name behind the person, something entirely different happens.
We are filled with interactional feelings, ie. emotions and thoughts that you can only have if
you really know someone. I’ll give you an example, when my sister answers her phone and
her fiancée says his name in response to “who is it?”, her whole body language changes, she
smiles, her voice is more playful and patient and it’s clear that his name affects her. Your
family members, your close friends, your spouse; when these people’s names are
mentioned, we don’t JUST hear a name, the name brings the meaning of your entire
relationship to mind.
The bible places a huge importance on people’s names, in fact, on several occasions God actually
tells people what name they should give to their child, think of Zechariah being told by the angel to
name his son John, or Mary being told to call her son Jesus.
(In Genesis, we see that when people had children, giving a name was very important. God even
gives stars names! Psalm 147:4)
Jesus himself shows us that names are significant when he renames some of his disciples, more
notably he renames Saul, Paul at his conversion!
In biblical times a name was more than just a word used to ‘tag’ people, a name was intended to
actually describe you, to BE who you were. The closest we can get to this kind of honour of a name is
the Masai in Tanzania.
An American tourist was staying in Tanzania and would walk about the local villages telling people
his name and asking people for theirs, he was advised, however, that the Masai regard this as very
rude. In public, strangers use titles or designations, not names. One day a Masai man said to him “Do
not throw my name about. My name is important. My name is me. My name is for my friends.
What does God call Himself?
When Moses met with God at the burning of the bush, he asked what God’s name was, in reply God said “I AM
WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). The original
Hebrew word has been forgotten since the vowels were not written down for fear of repeating them, most
theologians believe it is Jehovah or Yahweh.
God’s Name…
1) IS EXULTED
“You have exalted above all things, your name and your word.” (Psalm 138:2)
2) IS BEYOND UNDERSTANDING
When Jacob wrestles with Jesus, afterwards he asks Jesus what his name is and in response, Jesus
simply answered “why is it that you ask me my name?”. The conception and birth of Samson were
promised by the Angel of the Lord to Manoah and his wife, when Manoah asked what his name was
he replied “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding” (Judges 13:17-18).
3) IS HOLY
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who
takes his name in vain. (Exodus 20:7)
4) SAVES
“let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before
you well. 11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the
cornerstone. 12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4: 10-12)
God’s name is more important, more significant, more holy, more worthy, powerful, wonderful,
excellent, immense, and incomprehensibly magnificent than ANY name in the universe!
Question – God’s name is the highest name, is there something or someone that I have given a
higher name to?
WHAT DO WE DO WITH THIS?
So, it’s all well and good to talk about how names have significance and how names become more significant
when the people who own them are known by us, and it’s absolutely incredible to know the name of the
creator of the universe and that His name is exulted, beyond understanding, holy and saves, but what do we
DO with that?
The now and not yet:
We are living in a world where the Name of God is exulted, beyond understanding, Holy and saves BUT at the
same time, this is not known by everyone, and that is something that God has given us the immense privilege
of taking part in. Jesus, in the great commission, tells his disciples (and by default US), that we are to go and
make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God’s name is, to
many people, just like one of the names I read out at the start – lots of people don’t know God personally, they
have heard things ABOUT Him, maybe lies, maybe part truths, and we see from the Lord’s prayer that Jesus
wants us to pray for God’s name to be Hallowed, or honoured highly, so if people don’t know how incredible
God’s name is, how can they honour it?
By praying “Hallowed be Your name”, what we are not saying is “I hope Your name gets honoured Lord”, or “It
would be good if Your name gets honoured”, NO, we are praying. “Lord, I want Your name to be honoured in
this world, I want to do everything I can to help, I will do whatever it takes Lord!”
There is a real strangeness about praying “Hallowed be Your name” and then living a life that doesn’t make
any effort or that is apathetic towards the honouring of God’s name. It would be like Chris Ashton telling the
England coach, “I really want our name to be known for the great team that we are!” and then on the field just
strolling around aimlessly whenever the ball came his way. IT’S MADNESS! IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN!
What Jesus is teaching us here is that honouring God’s name is SOO important, that it’s one of the first things
that we speak to God about when we pray! Now this is the point where we all start to feel a bit guilty because,
if we’re honest with ourselves, we can all think of times that the honour of God’s name hasn’t really been very
high up on our list of priorities. We can begin to beat ourselves up and become depressed about our current
attitude, but that is NOT how God deals with us! We should be driven by our love for Jesus and who He is, and
not by guilt!
DRIVEN BY LOVE:
I dated a girl a while back that I was absolutely CRAZY about, now I mean CRAZY. I would not stop talking about
her, she was constantly on my mind and I would actually LOOK for opportunities to bring her into
conversations with my friends, colleagues and family. It got to the point where people started to ban me from
talking about this girl because they were tired of hearing about her. See the thing is when we think something
is incredible; we just can’t help but talk about it. My little brother won’t stop talking about his one year old
daughter, he has photos and videos that he’s always showing me and it’s quite obvious that no one is behind
his back making him feel guilty if he doesn’t talk about his daughter – HE ACTUALLY WANTS TO!
HOW CAN I HONOUR GODS NAME AND CAUSE OTHERS TO DO SO?
1) Connect our hearts to God’s
“These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:18)
The first thing we need to do to honour God’s name is stop paying lip service. Now lip service comes
in lots of different shapes and forms, the most common lip service is the Christian that sings of God’s
grace, forgiveness and love – and in the same day holds back grace, forgiveness and love from those
around them. We need to be consistent!
I used to be in a worship team with a guy who was an incredible lead guitarist, he would never involve
himself with God’s people, and would only turn up to a Church service when he was asked to play. To
dishonour God even further he would look to TAKE glory from God during the worship songs. This guy
was known to be sleeping with his girlfriend, he wasn’t hiding it and yet he still claimed the name of
God over his life.
How can we in one breath draw near to God in devotionals, in worship and prayer and then in the
same day, push our brothers and sisters away from us. We can see in the New Testament the clear
result of a people who had hearts that were close to God’s – they GAVE themselves! Zaccheus met
Jesus and he wasn’t TOLD to give anything away but it was a natural response! The early church were
devoted to one another sharing everything they had, people in need were cared for, widows,
orphans, the sick, hungry – Why? Because if we really understand how much God has given us, we
cannot help but do the same!
2) Protect our tongues
My eldest niece Hannah is 9 years old now and in the last few years she has realised that she has the
amazing ability to tell lies. Now surprisingly to most people she started her lying in a quite audacious
way when she started telling all her friends at school that her mummy was having another baby! She
started talking about how she was looking forward to meeting her little baby brother because she
didn’t have a brother. My sister turned up at school to pick her up and she was met by a group of
mums, all with huge grins on their faces congratulating her on her pregnancy! Obviously my sister was
really embarrassed by the whole thing and after correcting the women, headed home asap!
To honour God’s name is to show respect and reverence in the manner in which we speak about Him.
We live in a world where almost anywhere you go you will hear people using God’s name as a swear
word. You are probably aware of the story of the small boy who asked his mum at a Christmas play,
why they gave the baby a swear word for a name. If you love someone and their name is slandered, it
hurts, it really hurts. And we may think that the only way that we can dishonour God’s name is by
using it as a swear word, but that is not the case.
The bible says that “the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and
Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come
blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” (James 3:8-10).
You may have heard about a man I greatly respect called Rick Warren, who’s son recently committed
suicide. Many Christian leaders and people who call themselves Christians took vicious shots at him
and his family, hurling abuse and insults at him. These are people who the unsaved world sees
representing Jesus – what kind of honouring of God’s name do you think that inspires?
3) Reflect His work in us
Jesus was speaking to his disciples about evangelism when he said, “Let your light shine before men,
that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
We know from scripture that when we become a Christian, God comes to live in us and also BEGINS
His work of, what we call, regeneration in us. This means that God is working on us to make us reflect
His Son Jesus, BUT, this doesn’t happen on its own. We are also told to be active, to LET OUR LIGHT
SHINE! We cannot be a church that passively wants God to work in us without wanting ourselves to
work alongside the Father to bring about the transformation
[Story of little girl writing]
When I was a youth leader a few years ago, I went to visit one of the ex-group leaders I had helping
with me who had gone to university. I’ll always remember the conversation we had about evangelism
– he said, “but Dan, when I tell people that Jesus has changed me, they say they can’t see any
difference in me, that I’m the same,” he then went on to tell me that most of his ‘evangelistic’
moments happened when he was drunk, and it slowly became obvious that he had decided to put a
bowl over his light.
To contrast this, a favourite band of mine called Paramore had a split a few years back because the
guitarist and drummer stood up for their faith in Jesus. The lead singer unrepentantly started writing
lyrics which were dishonouring to Jesus like “the truth never set me free, so I did it myself”, and so
they left the band. Those two guys honoured God that day, they stepped down from an incredibly
successful band because they firmly believed that God’s name should be honoured!
Jesus wants us to pray for God’s name to be honoured. His name is the highest of the highest, but so
many people don’t know that, so many people misrepresent him and lie about his name. This
morning the Holy Spirit is speaking to each one of us again through His word, provoking us to not just
say the words ‘Hallowed be Your name’ BUT TO ACTUALLY ME A MEANS BY WHICH IT HAPPENS! And
what an honour it is to know Him, to speak with Him and to be blessed by Him, the creator of the
universe, the sustainer of all things. And what an incredible privilege it is to take part in glorifying His
name on earth!
I’m just going to pray and then we’re going to have 5 or 10 minutes to talk through with those around
you, which things the Holy Spirit has prompted you about, and to pray through them.