August 11, 2002 - Lesson: Matthew 6.9b

Sermon Title: Handle With Care!

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INTRODUCTION:

Following a Sunday morning service, a man said to his friend, "I'll bet you can't recite the Lord's Prayer." (1)

"Yes, I can! 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep ...'"

"Wow!" said the first man, stunned. "I was sure you wouldn't know it!"

  1. Ask yourself these questions.
    1. Do we know it?
    2. What do we know about it?
    3. How do we apply what we know?

MAIN BODY:

  1. When someone asks you, And who are you? How do you respond?
    1. We offer a name and usually an occupation, profession or activity.
    2. I have a name.
      1. I have not always appreciated my name.
      2. I tried for many years to hide from the responsibilities that my name placed upon me.
      3. I am proud of my name and my ancestry.
      4. I recognize that name is more than a means of identification.
        1. Name communicates being
        2. Name defines, to one degree or another, skills and abilities that are known.
        3. Name implies reputation
  2. We repeat the Lord's Prayer, week after week, year after year.
    1. We receive a great deal of comfort from the repetition of these words.
    2. What are we saying.
  3. Think especially of the second major phrase:
    1. Hallowed by thy name.
    2. What are we saying?
  4. Two major points that are made in this phrase.
    1. Name
    2. Hallow
  5. To understand what we are praying and how it impacts on life we must understand these two terms.
    1. Otherwise we should not pray this prayer during worship or at another time.
    2. The reason being that we are, instead of honor, bring to God or creating disrespect.

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  1. What's in a name?
    1. God had revealed himself to the children of Israel under various names: (2)
      1. Elohim - his strength and his power a sense of his might, his dominion, and his power.
      2. Jehovah - the self-existent one "I am that I am."
      3. Jehovah-jireh - the Lord will provide
      4. Jehovah-rapha - the Lord who heals.
      5. Jehovah-nissi - the Lord our banner
      6. Jehovah-Shalom - the Lord our peace
      7. Jehovah-ra-ah - the Lord our shepherd
      8. Jehovah-tsidkenu - the Lord our righteousness
      9. Jehovah-shammah - the Lord is present
      10. Other OT names or metaphors for God.
        1. Rock
        2. Fortress
        3. Shade in the desert
        4. Water of life
        5. Bread of heaven
    2. God is revealed most completely in Jesus
      1. (John 17:3-8 NRSV) And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. {4} I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. {5} So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. {6} "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. {7} Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; {8} for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
      2. (John 17:25-26 NRSV) "Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. {26} I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."
    3. Name: Totality of being
      1. "Your name represents another way of referring to God's own person, since in Hebrew thought one's name and person were basically the same (cf. Exodus 20:7, which warns about profaning God's name). To know God's name is to know God (e.g., Isa 52:6). By his name he reveals himself (Exodus 3:13-14). Therefore to hallow God's name means to acknowledge God for who he is, namely, God. To acknowledge God to be God connotes by definition something about God's person as well as one's relationship to him and his will. Honor, glory, awe, obedience belong inherently to God as God. Consequently, his name as revelation of his person is 'the Holy One' (Isa 40:25; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 54:5; 55:5; 57:15; 60:9, 14; Ezek 39:7)." (3)

25To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One, Isaiah 40:25, NRSVA).

11Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Will you question me£ about my children, or command me concerning the work of my hands? (Isaiah 45:11 (NRSVA)

4Our Redeemer--the LORD of hosts is his name--is the Holy One of Israel, (Isaiah 47:4, NRSVA).

17Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go, (Isaiah 48:17, NRSVA).

5For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called, (Isaiah 54:5, NRSVA).

5See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you, (Isaiah 55:5, NRSVA).

15For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with those who are contrite and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite, (Isaiah 57:15, NRSVA).

9For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your children from far away, their silver and gold with them, for the name of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel, because he has glorified you, (Isaiah 60:9, NRSVA).

14The descendants of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel, (Isaiah 60:14, NRSVA).

7My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel, (Ezekiel 39:7, NRSVA).

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  1. What does it mean to hallow?
    1. To hallow: respect, trust and believe
    2. "Hallowed means to make holy, to sanctify. The petition requests that God's name be set apart in honor and glory to evoke respect and awe. The opposite means to profane, dishonor, bring to disrespect (e.g., Isa 48:11; 52:5; Ezek 20:9, 14, 22; 36:22-23). (4)

11For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for why should my name£ be profaned? My glory I will not give to another, (Isaiah 48:11, NRSVA).

5Now therefore what am I doing here, says the LORD, seeing that my people are taken away without cause? Their rulers howl, says the LORD, and continually, all day long, my name is despised, (Isaiah 52:5, NRSVA).

9But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt, (Ezekiel 20:9, NRSVA).

14But I acted for the sake of my name, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out, (Ezekiel 20:14, NRSVA).

22But I withheld my hand, and acted for the sake of my name, so that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out, (Ezekiel 20:22, NRSVA).

22Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes, (Ezekiel 36:22-23, NRSVA).

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    1. "Hallowed be thy name means approximately the same as 'Father, glorify thy name' (John 12:28), but here the passive form is used, as in the Kaddish, to avoid a direct imperative. God is asked to sanctify his name and to cause men to sanctify it. The sanctification of the name is a rich and many-sided concept in Jewish thought. God sanctifies his name by condemning and opposing sin, by separating Israel from the world and giving it his commandments and his love and grace. It is also Israel's task to sanctify God's name by sanctifying itself, in keeping his commandments and doing all the other things which redound to his glory. God's name will be fully sanctified in the age to come, when everything that opposes his will has been removed and punishment is no longer necessary." (5)
  1. Hallowing is Handling with Care
    1. It is a stamp we put on a package to protect it from damage.
    2. It is the way in which we approach all our relationships.
      1. We want to be positive
      2. We want the best that there is to be achieved.
  2. Not to hallow is to dis divinity (Alternate Sermon title: Don't Dis Divinity)

Dis is a word that has come into our language from the Ghetto, the inner city, from the disadvantaged.

It means to disrespect.

    1. It is to disbelieve.
    2. It is to distrust
  1. Not to hallow is to tear-down the name
    1. Malign the character
    2. Distort the personality
    3. Diminish the power of God.

CONCLUSION:

  1. We pray 'hallowed by your name.'

Paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer

by St. Francis of Assisi

OUR FATHER most holy,
our Creator and Redeemer,
our Saviour and our Comforter.

WHO ART IN HEAVEN
in the angels and the saints,
giving them light to know you,
since you, Lord, are light;
setting them afire to love you,
since you, Lord, are love;
dwelling in them
and giving them fullness of joy,
since you, Lord,
are the supreme, eternal good,
and all good comes from you.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME,
may we grow to know you better and better
and so appreciate the extent of your favors,
the scope of your promises,
the sublimity of your majesty,
and the profundity of your judgements.

  1. We proclaim the name of God.
    1. In what we say.
    2. In what we profess
    3. By what we do in its totality
    4. We proclaim the name of God.
  2. We can Dis or Handle with Care.
    1. Proclaim with honor and joy
    2. In this way God will never have to be ashamed of us.
    3. We will not have to be ashamed of ourselves.

1. Brian Mullins, via ECULAUGH on PresbyNet.

2. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies In the Sermon On the Mount (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1960) pp. 59-60.

3. Robert A. Guelich, The Sermon On the Mount: A foundation for understanding, (Waco: Word Books, 1982), p 289.

4. Nolen B. Harmon, ed., The Interpreter's Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1951), VII, 310.

5. Ibid

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