Sermon
Hallowed Be Thy Name
April 24-25, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

We have now for some months been studying together the Sermon on the Mount, and we've been taking sometimes two or three verses, sometimes maybe just a verse, but when we arrived in the sermon as He teaches His disciples to pray, I felt it imperative that we take time and just go through each phrase of the prayer. Because so many of us have said it from childhood, we say it even now; Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done On earth as it is in heaven. These words have rolled of our tongue and out of our lips for years, but maybe we really didn't understand in-depth what we were really praying. And so we've decided to go back to this prayer, and it's found in your Bible in Matthew chapter 6 beginning at verse 9. "In this manner, therefore, pray. And we came to the conclusion that Luke probably has a better historical setting because Luke says, Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples." 

And it seems that there must have been a moment when Jesus was in intense prayer and his disciples came in upon the scene, and it must have been such a moving experience to them. They were so impressed that when Jesus finished praying, they said Jesus, would you teach us to pray? We've often referenced this as the Lord's Prayer. It would probably be more accurate to say it's the disciple's prayer. It's the prayer that you and I pray that Christ taught us to pray. Now we took that first phrase, Our Father. We personalized it and said, my Father. Recognizing that as one His disciples, because of the grace of Jesus Christ and His death at Calvary and the forgiveness that's possible through Him when we turn to Him as Lord and Savior, there's a dramatic and wonderful thing that takes place. The God of all the universe, the God of heaven, we now address as our Father. Our Father, to be able to say that and feel the assurance of being a part of His family, to have experienced His love, and His forgiveness, and His grace, and the joy of being adopted into His eternal family, for we all are adopted by His grace to be part of the kingdom; His kingdom. And we say, my Father, my Father.

My father, human father, was a very simple man. He never graduated. He never went on to school after his fourth grade; a very simple man. He spent all of his life stacking lumber at a lumber company readying it for delivery to whoever had called for the order. He did that all of his life. He never accomplished much. He raised five boys. They all serve Christ today, so simple, so unimportant as far as the world is concerned, but I tell you it was a joy to walk into our little home and even in daddy's days when he was dying of cancer sitting there in his little rocking chair reading his Bible. I'll never forget it. My father. And he left me with the fondest of memories, but to know God almighty and to be able to address Him as my Father, what a supreme and eternal privilege. Who art in heaven, and we took that phrase and said that makes us to recognize God in all of His majesty and all of His greatness and all of His power, we never want to make any effort or be a part of any effort that diminishes God in any way. 

We believe in the God who created the universe, the God who rules the universe, the God who has all power in heaven and earth; the majestic, eternal, sovereign, wonderful God; my Father which art in heaven. And I told you that I grieve much when I see so many people try to bring God down to their own level. The good man who lives upstairs. You know they make all kinds of references to Him. No, no, no. He's the God eternal. The God that's sovereign. The God who rules this universe. The God of heaven. 

The next phrase; hallowed be Thy name. What does it mean? Well, let's break it down word for word and then we'll understand. The word hallowed means to sanctify. That is to revere or to make and keep holy, to lift up, to magnify, to glorify, and so the purpose of this petition is that prayer expresses the desire that God Himself may be revered, may be sanctified, may be loved, may be worshiped, may be adored throughout all the world. Someone says this is a petition with passion. It's that cry from the heart. O God that my world, this world, would know You in all of Your greatness in all of Your majesty and all of Your wonder. Hallowed be Thy name. God has revealed Himself throughout the Old Testament in many different ways as the God who heals, the God who provides, the God who leads, the God of peace, the God who is the shepherd, and what we're praying is may the whole world come to know God. 

You say, Pastor, that is an exploding prayer. But that's the heartbeat, that's what the prayer of Jesus was. He said I didn't come to glorify Myself, but to glorify My Father. His divine assignment, or one of them, was that in everything that He did to lift the world's respect and adoration of His heavenly Father. Jesus prayed in His prayer, John 17, "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. Jesus at the closing of His ministry said God, I fulfilled My divine assignment. I came here to reveal You to My world. I've glorified You. I have hallowed Your name. I've lifted You up. I've exalted You in My life. Now God wanted to do that with a nation.

You know, in the ancient past He went to Abraham and He selected Abraham, and Abraham from him would birth a nation; the nation of Israel. And the purpose of that nation had one divine assignment, to reveal God, Jehovah God, to a pagan world. They were to be the great missionaries of Jehovah God through which God was going to bless them and reveal His power and His glory so that all the world would want to worship Him. In fact, in Deuteronomy 7:6 it says, "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. "The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; "but because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers. 

Here's a nation that God said I want to bless you. And it goes on to say, "Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant. He's the one that's redeemed you out of the house of the bondman from the hand of pharaoh. God's beginning dealings with this nation who now He takes out of bondage in Egypt. He wanted to reveal His glory and what is the first thing He does? Moses stands at the Red Sea and God splits that sea, and a nation of two million plus walk across. God wanted to demonstrate His glory and His power to a heathen world, to a nation He chose to reveal Himself. What a glorious assignment for a nation. And yet, they failed in their assignment. 

Old Isaiah writes in his prophecy; Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me. Alas, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, they have turned away backward. Old Isaiah looks at his nation that had that divine assignment, so live that God can manifest His glory to a heathen world. They failed. They went off into sin. They became corrupted with the pagans around them, and Isaiah weeps and says you're a sinful nation; you've missed your assignment. 

And old Paul puts the cap on it when he says in Romans 2:24, For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you." What an indictment. Paul said listen, you had the divine assignment to reveal the glory and the majesty and the greatness of Jehovah God. You failed. You failed so miserably that the pagans now speak down and they ridicule and they mock Me, the eternal God, because of the way you lived. What an indictment to a nation! 

Max Dumont in his book entitled 'God the Jew and History', a brilliant writer, in one of his paragraphs he puts in this sentence. The Jews are the spiritual outcasts of history. And what he's simply saying is that God had appointed them to a very supreme task, a wonderful assignment. They turned aside from God. They shamed Him. They disgraced Him by the way they lived and now nobody speaks well of God because of their reputation. Well you say, Pastor, that's the old nation Israel, what about us? Well let me tell you something very interesting. God in the words of Christ transferred the responsibility to the church to bring glory to Him. He took it from the nation and gave it to the church. 

Peter writes in his writings and he says; But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. What's our assignment as Christians? Very simple. He who has called us out of darkness, saved us, and we're on our way to heaven, he says He's called us to show forth. That is to live forth the praises of Him that has called us. Jesus said let your light so shine among men that they may see your good works and glorify, and the word is hallow, your Father which is in heaven. 

So now the prayer gets very personal. It moves from a nation to me, and when I pray, when I say and when you say our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. You're saying God, may it be that in the way I live in my love for You wherever I am in my world, may my being there help people to think higher of You because of me. Ah, now that puts Christianity down where it meets the road. When I say hallowed be Thy name, I'm saying God when I go about my tasks today may I so do them that people will see my love for You reflecting through my actions, and they'll think higher of You because they know You're my God. 

You know, as your pastor that has been my prayer for the 40 years that I've had the joy of serving this church. I've said, God, You put the church in the community here, our church, and I want it to be, dear God, so that we as a community of believers so live out our Christian faith in our community that the people who live in San Bruno and South San Francisco and Pacifica will look at us and say, they really believe their God and they bring honor to Him. You see, churches that suffer from division and bickering and gossiping and splitting, that does nothing to honor the name of God. It dishonors Him. And I pray dear God may it be that we so live together as a community of believers. Yes, we're different. We have different opinions. We may not all agree upon everything. That's not important, but what we want to do as a body of believers is so to reflect our love for God in our world that they'll think highly of the God we serve. And I thank God for all these years that we've been able to live together in peace. Our congregation has not had a division. We've not been splintered. We've never had factions, and I give God all the praise. And it's been because we've prayed together, God, may we as a community reflect Your love in our world and may we never bring shame because of something that takes place here at Church of the Highlands. 

I see these ministers fail and these television ministries go down the drain, I've said, God, I feel so sorry for You. And I've said that in these terms, He must hurt when the very church that He established turns around and so acts as the rest of the world that they bring no glory and honor to God through their actions. Hallowed be Thy name. It's more than a phrase; it's a heartbeat. It's a passion for the way we should live. Peter says we should so live that everything we do brings glory to God. Let me come back to the church just for a moment. You know, I came out of a world of business as a businessman and I know what businessmen think of the church because in most cases the church is not very businesslike in handling their business. And the church has done a terrible thing when you hear them get on the radio and say you know, I'm sixty days or ninety days behind at paying my bills and I need your offering. Get it here immediately. I say that is a shame. That's a disgrace to the cause of Christ even to admit that. So I said dear God, I want to in our community of businessmen here in the San Bruno and the South San Francisco area, I want to so conduct our business as a church so that every businessman will think higher of God because of the way we do business with them. 

And years ago, I selected a program that some businessmen say Pastor this is not the way you do it in the world. I don't want to do it the way the world does. You say you always wait to the end of the month to pay your bills. Oh no, well you got forty-five days grace. No! That's the way the world does it. I said we want a much higher standard, so I said to our bookkeeper, when the bills come in in the morning, take them in the afternoon, write a check, and have the check back in the mail to those folks who have offered their services and their products to us. We want them all to think highly because we've selected a higher standard of business than the world has. And folks that's the way it's been for years. When the sun goes down in this community, every bill that a supplier or people have presented to us, it's paid before sunset. You say that a little strange, Pastor, a little hard on the bookkeeping department too. But I say listen, we want them to look at us as people of integrity and we have a much higher standard than the world around us. And I've gotten two calls in the last six months, and one businessman said Pastor, I have never dealt with a more wonderful customer. Within seventy-two hours after I sent you my bill I have my check. And I said I just wanted you to know sir we do that to bring honor to God. 

You see, what I'm saying is this matter of hallowing God becomes very practical. It's so living our lives wherever we are at the office, at the shop, on the job, at the school, wherever it is that our very presence, our very demeanor, our very expressions bring God to a higher plane of appreciation because they know we believe in God and we're Christians. Sir, at the job do people think higher of God because of your presence? Do you bring a sense of honesty and commitment and loyalty into your business setting? Your work setting? Mom, your children are growing up around you, but do you so live as a mom that they hallow God's name higher because of the way you live your life? You see it's very practical isn't? So tomorrow when we start our day, think of all the times we sang it today. Hallowed be Thy name, O Lord, hallowed be Thy name. Now, Lord Jesus I'm getting in my car and I'm going to drive down the freeway, help me to act like a Christian. 

You see, I hallow His name by the way I conduct myself in every sphere of life. When things are rocky at the job and, hallowed be Thy name, O Lord. And then I think, how can I, Lord, best express You in confidence and trust? Knowing that You are my heavenly Father, how can I hallow Your name in this frustrating situation? You see why they said it's a petition of passion? You just can't say it as words. You're saying, God, with everything inside me I want everything I do to make people think better of You because of me. Simple assignment, isn't? But O when we live it out, honor and glory is brought to Him in our living. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed, lifted up, magnified, honored, and glory be brought to Your name by the way I live. Let's stand together, shall we?

We take the divine assignment today to hallow Your name every day of this week in all that we do. Give us Your strength. Give us Your courage. Empower us with Your precious Holy Spirit. May our world think higher of You, dear God, this week because of us. Hallowed be Thy name. And everybody said; amen. God bless you. God bless you.