Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

10  Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

11  Give us this day our daily bread,

12  and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13  And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Last week we looked at the first few verses of this text.

I pointed out that these texts assume that we as Christians pray, that prayer is not an option for a Christian.

In fact, a Christian who does not pray is essentially an oxymoron, it’s a contradiction.

We also saw that God is not concerned with the quantity of our words but the quality of our words.

That we don’t have to approach him in order to inform and convince him of our needs but instead we are to approach him as our Father who already knows our needs.

That we’re privileged to call God our Father, a father who cares for us.

And finally, we concluded that prayer is not me-centric, that prayer is to be conducted in such a way that our thoughts and our affections are not only concerned with myself, but that prayer ought to be carried out and influenced by our context as believers belonging to the church, belonging to one another.

The Lord’s Prayer is God-centric

And it’s here at the end of verse 9 that we pickup that same train of thought, we read,

“Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

The Lord’s prayer is profoundly God-centric, “hallowed be your name.”

What we learn from this text is that the chief object and priority of all prayer is God himself.

That his name would be kept holy (or held in reverence), that his kingdom would come, that his will would be done.

One of the hallmarks of a Christian is an insatiable desire to see God’s name glorified, to see his name lifted up, for his name to be hallowed, for all people to fear him.

Why?

Because they should, because he’s the Holy One, he’s the Sovereign Lord, he’s the Lord of lords and the King of kings.

There’s no one like him and he is the only true God.

The meaning of the word hallow

We don’t use the word hallow any longer in our modern English language, except probably here in the Lord’s prayer, but the word hallow shares the same root as the word holy, and the word hallow is a verb that simply means to actively regard something or someone as holy, so when we read, “hallowed be your name” in verse 9 Jesus simply means to communicate that God’s name ought to be actively regarded as holy, that his name must be handled with deep reverence and fear because God is holy.

It’s the activity of honoring God as holy.

The balance between fear and confidence

So on one hand God is holy and he’s to be feared, yet on the other hand his children have the privilege of calling him Father.

In one sense we’re told, “with confidence, [to] draw near to the throne of grace,” yet even so, we’re never to approach God with a caviler or presumptuous attitude.

And as Christians this is the balance we must always endeavor to maintain.

3rd Commandment

It’s also helpful to see that this first portion of the Lord’s Prayer, “hallowed be your name” is, in many ways, a paraphrase of the 3rd commandment that’s recorded for us in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy.

We read in ,

7 “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.

Now what we read here in Exodus is what we call a negative form of the 3rd commandment, in other words the evil of taking the Lord’s name in vain is forbidden, while in the Lord’s Prayer we find that the 3rd commandment is in the affirmative, in other words the contrary good, which is to hallow God’s name, is commanded.

And the reason I point this out is that often when we’re seeking to understand a word or a concept it can be very helpful to compare that word or concept to it’s contrary counterpart.

For instance, if I’m seeking to describe and define love I might find it helpful to point out that the opposite of love is hatred.

So here in verse 9 we’re told to hallow God’s name, while in Exodus we’re told not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

So if you want to hallow God’s name don’t take his name in vain.

This contrast can be helpful for us to better understand what it means for God’s name to be hallowed.

Do not take the Lord’s name in vain

Now you might ask me, “What does it mean for us to take the Lord’s name in vain?”

Well, it literally means to not use or treat the Lord’s name as worthless.

And it’s more than just not using his name in conjunction with a 4 letter expletive, or swear word.

While the 3rd commandment certainly includes not using his name as a swear word, there’s more to it than that.

You see, God’s name is representative of who he is, it’s representative of his character, it carries with it his reputation.

This isn’t much different than how we understand the connection between a person and their name today.

I’m reminded of how many of us can be offended if our name is spelled or pronounced incorrectly.

I can recall several times at the workplace where someone has noticeably taken great offense to the misspelling of their name, especially if the same person repeatedly misspells their name despite the many opportunities they’ve had to spell it correctly.

And for this reason, when I’m drafting my own emails I regularly reference the signatures of other’s emails before clicking send to ensure that I’ve spelled their name properly.

And why does this bother us?

It bothers us because when someone misspells our name we feel like the other person isn’t showing even a basic level of respect toward us, they won’t even take the time to get our name right.

But there’s even more than this behind what it means to take the Lord’s name in vain.

I regularly reference the signatures of other’s emails before I address them in a new email to ensure that I’ve spelled their name correctly.

And why does this bother us?

It bothers us because when someone misspells our name we feel like the other person doesn’t have any respect for us to even take the time to get our name right.

And there’s more.

Dragging God’s name through the mud

I think we’re all familiar with the concept of dragging someone’s name through the mud, and we’re all acquainted with what slander is.

These actions are more than just misspelling someone’s name, they’re acts of publicly saying false or evil things about someone in order to bring harm to their reputation, or in order to defame them.

And within the context of Scripture this behavior is often times defined as blasphemy, so to insult or to slander God is considered a blasphemous act.

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit

In fact, you might recall, in when the Pharisees get word that Jesus has healed a demon oppressed man, their response is, “It’s only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

The Pharisees were unwilling to confess that Jesus was the Messiah, even when others had come to them after witnessing the healing of a blind and mute, demon-oppressed man saying, “Can this be the Son of David?”.

The signs and wonders performed at the hands of Jesus were simply unmistakable and irrefutable, so the Pharisees' only option was to attack the character of Christ.

Therefore they tell the people that Jesus has healed this blind and mute, demon-oppressed man by the power of Satan.

Talk about a wicked thing to say.

And it’s precisely why Jesus responded by saying,

if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out?

Therefore they will be your judges.

28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

29 Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man?

Then indeed he may plunder his house.

30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Jesus takes blasphemy seriously, and the Pharisees had attributed evil to the work of the Holy Spirit.

They had knowingly called what was good, evil.

They had profaned God’s name.

Jesus takes blasphemy seriously, and the Pharisees had attributed evil to the work of the Holy Spirit.

They sought to destroy the reputation of Jesus by lying to the people about him.

They had knowingly called what was good, evil.

They had trampled Jesus, and by extension the Holy Spirit, underfoot by their blasphemy, and in the most extreme sense they had done the complete opposite of hallowing God’s name.

You can’t hallow God’s name by trampling his Son and the Holy Spirit underfoot.

Profaning God’s name

Now, another concept that helps define for us what it looks like to take the Lord’s name in vain is the concept of profaning God’s name.