October 13, 2024
The Name Above All Names
Matthew 6:9
Have you ever noticed that there are things in the English language that just flat out have the wrong name? For example, Hot Water Heaters do not heat hot water. Heat cold water to make it hot. The term “head over heels” should not be the way we describe someone's infatuation with someone else. Head over heels is normal in almost all parts of life. Heels overhead should be the correct saying. Buildings should only be referred to that way when they are under construction. Once construction is finished, we need to call them built. We have the letter W. I don’t even know where to start telling you what is wrong with that, but let’s just all agree a double V would be more appropriate. Putting those aside, this morning I’d like to talk about one part of Scripture that many of us don’t realize falls into the same category as these examples — the Lord’s prayer. The prayer Jesus shared in Matthew Chapter 6 that we will be looking at for the next couple of weeks. It should never have been referred to as the Lord’s prayer in the first place. However it should be called the Disciple's prayer, both here as well as in the Book of Luke. Please note that I was very careful here to use the word “shared” and not “pray”. The reason I say this is not to be funny or to try to cause an argument, but I say so for one very important reason. This prayer is impossible for Jesus to pray truthfully. As we get further into this prayer over the next couple of weeks, it will become clearer why this is more of a Disciple's Prayer than the Lord’s Prayer. Nevertheless, this prayer is packed full of tools that will help us not only make Disciples of all nations but become better Disciples ourselves as we unpack the truths in this prayer. So this morning let’s look at the first verse of this prayer recorded in Matthew.
Matthew 6:9
This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
Before Jesus starts to share the actual prayer, Jesus tells those who had gathered around and would be His followers that this is how “YOU” should pray, not that it is the way He prays. He is not dictating a prayer that should be repeated in repetition like we talked about last week. Rather He is instructing His Disciples how to pray. He is giving an example of what a Disciple's prayer should look like each time they pray to God, the elements it should contain and the importance of this prayer for all Disciples as we look at each piece of it. The wonderful preacher of yesteryear, S.M. Lockridge likened this prayer to learning how to write a personal letter in school (do they even still teach that?). He said when we learned how to write a letter we learned about the heading, the opening, the body, and the closing — all parts of a letter. Once we learned how to write a letter, we didn't just send the same letter we wrote when we first learned how to write those letters. The first letter we wrote was just a guide to how to write in the future. I think that’s a great way to explain the importance of what Jesus is saying here. He is not saying exactly WHAT you should pray, but rather HOW you should pray. As we begin to look at Jesus’ model prayer, we will see 4 principles we need to understand to be Disciples, as well as make Disciples.
Our: A Disciple’s need for community
There is a very interesting literary feature that is present throughout the entirety of this prayer and that is there are no singular pronouns used at all. The very first word that Jesus speaks that we are focusing on here is not just an outlier, but rather a truth that is found throughout this prayer, as well as all the New Testament. Believers were made for the community. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 Paul tells the church in Corinth that through Christ, Disciples make up the body of Christ. Although it’s just one body they are separate parts, and they are all important and needed for the body to work well. All of us have important roles in the Body of Christ to support and edify one another as we bring glory to God. That’s how anybody works and that is especially how the church (The Body of Christ) works. Therefore if we are not participating with a community of believers then the church will suffer, and we will suffer because of our disobedience to God’s call for all believers. This is something that the church in Acts always did. We are told in Acts 2 that the early church was committed to the teachings of the Apostles, and committed to fellowship with other believers, as well as a commitment to prayer. Hebrews 10:25 also tells us of the importance of this community as the writer says, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” It is clear this community that was demonstrated as the gathering of the church was very important and vital to early followers of Jesus. It should be just as important to all the followers of Jesus Christ in 2024 as well. When we miss out on participating in a community of believers weekly, we miss out on giving and receiving the things the church is commanded to share with each other. The church is the place where believers can love one another (1 John 4:12), encourage one another (Hebrews 10:25), spur one another to love and to do good works (Hebrews 10:24), serve one another (Galatians 5:13), instruct one another (Romans 15:14), honor one another (Romans 12:10), be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32), and it’s where we are equipped by the teaching of God’s Word to go and carry out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission (Ephesians 4:12). These are just a few of the things those individual believers, who make up the church, are called to do for one another as we live out our role as the body of Christ. So as we continue in this prayer, we need to first understand the community of believers is an essential part of the discipleship process for all followers.
Father: A Disciple has unexpected familiarity
When we see prayers recorded in the Old Testament, most of the time we see a theme of ultimate reverence when people approached God in prayer back then. When these prayers were recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, the author would use the unpronounceable covenant name of God that is represented by the tetragrammaton in prayer. When the name of God would be spoken aloud in prayer the Jewish people were so worried about speaking the Lord’s name in vain that they would pronounce the unpronounceable name of God as Jehovah to make sure that it was kept at a reverent distance in fear of desecration of His name. This is how most of the prayers in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant were written with an emphasis being placed on the greatness of God and a reverence to His name. When Jesus came all of that changed because Jesus brought a familiarity into prayer. Jesus came to bring a New Covenant, one that would be sealed not with the blood of animals but rather with the blood of the King of Kings (Matthew 26:27-28). It’s with this New Covenant that Jesus brings a familiarity to God that was unheard of in the Old Testament. He does so by telling us to address God with the familiar Greek term for father — Abba. When we see God addressed in this familiar term in Scripture, we always see it on the lips of Jesus (Yes, God was referred to as father a few times in the Old Testament, but not in the context that Jesus speaks of when He says Abba). Sometimes Jesus would say “My Father” when He was speaking of His unique sonship and authority and other times, He would refer to God as “Your Father” when He was addressing sin in the life of His followers. It’s now that Jesus is referring to God as “Our Father”. This was not only to relate and communicate the community of believers that His followers are a part of, but He is also telling His Disciples that they now can and should use the term “Abba” when addressing God as well. Why this sudden change in how we can correctly refer to God? It is because through Jesus Christ we have a new relationship with God. In Romans 8, Paul tells us that when we make Jesus the Lord of our lives, the broken relationship we had with God is once and for all restored and the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us. In verse 15, He tells us that the Holy Spirit living inside of us has now brought us into adoption so that we can call God, Abba Father! Our relationship with God changed because of faith in Jesus. We are now adopted into God’s family as sons and daughters of the King. Since we are now family, when we call God our Father it is not with a disrespectful familiarity, but rather it’s in abundant truthfulness. In this simple phrase, Jesus was taking the sometimes sterile and academic doctrine of God the Father and bringing it into a practical and powerful experience He taught His Disciples to pray with an intimacy with God that was unknown until that point. Not only does it tell us of a newfound intimacy that we have with God through Jesus Christ, but it’s now where we start to find our identity. We are no longer defined by this world and its loudmouth malcontents. Rather we are defined by our Father who adopted us. So it’s not what the world says we are that defines us, but rather it’s the One who is higher than them all who defines us. Through Christ, we are forgiven, we are free, we are loved, we are redeemed, we have a home waiting for us when Jesus decides He’s ready for us. We are defined by what God says, we are, not the world. This is a key truth in becoming and making other Disciples. Through Jesus we are adopted and defined by our Creator — the One whom we can now call Father.
In Heaven, Hallowed be your: A Disciple must maintain reverence
When we think of and embrace familiarity with God, one of the facts that we can never forget is that God is still God, and God must be honored above all. The issue we can have here is becoming too comfortable with God and losing respect and awe for who He is. That is why Jesus adds in this reminder that He is our Father in heaven. He does not want us to lose the fact that although we are adopted into His family, and we are given the privilege to call Him “Father” God is still on the throne, and He must be honored as such. The danger of losing reverence is a danger in many parts of our Christian life. One example that can happen is when we are more and more in fellowship with other believers in church. The more we hear about the Gospel, the cross of Jesus, and the empty tomb, we risk removing the wonder and power of the cross in our lives and we get flippant and comfortable with things which are Holy. For this not to happen in our relationship with God, we must remember who He is as well as what He did for us. Never become complacent in those things in our minds. This is why Jesus reminds us that God is enthroned in Heaven, so we will not forget that although He is like a friend, He is our Father, He is still seated on a high and lofty throne, and we cannot forget that mentally.
This leads us into the next part of the prayer when Jesus says, “Hallowed be Your name”. The word we interpret as “Hallowed” means to make Holy or sanctified. Jesus is not saying our actions will make God Holy or not. For God is and always has been Holy. C.S. Lewis explained it well in his book “The Problem of Pain”. He said, “A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.” This is not a call to make God Holy. This is a call to treat God as Holy in all parts of our life, not only with our thoughts but also with our actions. Therefore what does this look like in our lives? It means to give reverence to God in all matters. To worship God in all parts of our lives the way, God has called us to worship and it is to be reverent to God through obedience to His Word it is knowing He knows what is best and wants only what is best for His children, living in awe of His love and power in all aspects of our lives or as Oswald Chambers put it, “we can fear God and when we do, we will fear no one and nothing else”. A Disciple must live with a mental respect for God and live out that belief in all parts of their lives, letting people know through their words and actions, that God is Holy, Holy, Holy.
Name = A Disciple must know who God is
Jesus finishes off this first part of the prayer by speaking about the Holy name of God. The name of God is extremely important in our view of who God is. It’s through the names of God given in Scripture that we learn much about who He is. Jehovah-Rohi: The Lord my Shepherd, Jehovah-Jireh: The Lord shall Provide, Jehovah-Rapha: The Lord Who Heals, Jehovah-Shalom: The Lord Who Is Peace, Jehovah-Shammah: The Lord Who Is There, The great I AM, The Alpha and the Omega, The Creator. The list goes on and on to over 650 names. Each shining a unique light on the character of God. This is paramount in the life of every believer. We must know the God revealed in Scripture, not the god who we think is revealed in Scripture or the god that someone told us about that might be in Scripture. We must be like the Bereans and seek the scriptures to see if these things are true. Very well-meaning people have led people to an idea of false gods all throughout history. We must know God the way God revealed Himself in His Word by His name because there is no higher name that we will ever know.
So this morning we need to ask ourselves — how are we applying these principles when it comes to being a Disciple? Are we taking our call for Christian community with the same priority as we are called to in Scripture? Are we enjoying the intimacy as God being our Father that we enjoy through Jesus Christ? Are we still holding on to the holiness of God like we are called to in both thought and action? Are we studying Scripture to understand how God has revealed Himself to us and why He did so? When we start with these 4 principles in the first line of Jesus prayer, we not only start to grow in our relationship with Jesus, but we can help others do the same as well.
