Piper's Notes

November 4. 1984

Bethlehem Baptist Church

John Piper, Pastor

HALLOWED BE THY NAME -- IN ALL THE EARTH

(Matthew 6:5-15)

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand

and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by

men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go

into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and

your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

"And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think

that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father

knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this:

Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

And forgive us our debts,

As we also have forgiven our debtors;

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive

you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father

forgive your trespasses."

Seven weeks ago we began a series of messages on the names of God. It was

inspired by Psalm 9:10, "Those who know thy name put their trust in thee." The

better we know the name of God the more we will trust him. And the more we trust

him, the more risks we will take for the sake of his glory. And the more risks we are

willing to take for the sake of his glory, the more bold we will be in our witness, the

less dependent we will be on material comforts, and the more readily we will

volunteer for active duty on the frontiers.

So the series has really been an extended prelude to missions week. I'm convinced

that a great missionary movement will begin not with a new focus on the world but

with a new vision of God -- and then the world. When we spoke to David and Faith

Jaeger in Liberia last Wednesday night, David sounded this note loud and clear.

He said that more important than all other preparations for missionary work is to

have confidence in the sovereignty of God. He read John 6:37 and 44 as the great

missionary texts of hope: "All that the father gives to me will come to me; and him

who comes to me I will in no wise cast out … No one can come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him." The key to a new missionary movement at BBC, in

our Conference, and around the world is a new vision of the majesty and sovereignty

of God, and his purpose together for himself a ransomed people from every tribe and

tongue and nation.

The text for this morning is the very familiar: "Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name."

1) First we will review what this name is that we are to hallow.

2) Then we will inquire what it means to hallow that name.

3) And finally we will ask, "For whom are we praying when we say these words?"

I. What is his name?

I like to think of the Biblical revelation of God as the tip of an iceberg floating an

ocean of mystery. Nine-tenths of God's majesty lies beneath the surface of

revelation. And the tip of the iceberg revealed in Scripture is so high that it extends

out of sight into the clouds beyond anyone's ability to comprehend it fully. Only a

tenth of his character is given to us in this age for our contemplation, and even this

is so great that we will never exhaust its riches.

So please don't think that in these eight messages I presume to have scaled all the

peaks of the iceberg. There are vast ranges yet to explore. But here in brief are the

seven glimpses we have taken of the name of God over the past seven weeks.

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel, I AM has

sent me to you" (Ex. 3:14). The most fundamental thing that can be said about

God is that he is. And the most staggering thing to our imagination is that he

never had a beginning. He simply is -- from all eternity.

God said to Moses again, "I will proclaim before you my name: I will be gracious

to whom I will be gracious and I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" (Ex.

33:19). At the heart of God's name is the reality of his sovereign freedom. He

makes his choices on the basis of his own infinite wisdom. He alone in all the

universe is self-determined.

Again God said to Moses, "I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as GOD

ALMIGHTY" (Ex. 6:3). Not only does God exist in sovereign freedom, he is infinite

in power so that he cannot be thwarted in any of his free choices. Omnipotence is

the guarantee of his faithfulness.

When God came down a second time to Mount Sinai, the first thing he did

was to declare his name: "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast

love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Ex. 34:6-7). So

we learn on Mt. Sinai that the existence, the freedom, and the omnipotence of

God stand in the service of his mercy and his love.

God says to John in the book of Revelation (21:6), "It is done! I am the Alpha

and the Omega, the beginning and the end." Every human being, great or small,

had his beginning in God, but even more important, will have his end in God. God

is everybody's Omega. We will all meet him either as a fountain of life or as a lake

of fire.

To Isaiah the Lord says, "I am the high and lofty one whose name is Holy"

(57:15). He is holy. He is above and separate from all that is common and

ordinary, because he has extraordinary value. Coins and stamps and diamonds

are valuable in direct proportion to how rare they are. If they are one of a kind, we

separate them from the run of the mill coins and stamps and diamonds, and put

them in some out of the way place. So God inhabits a place infinitely above our

ordinary world. And the wonder of the Gospel is that in Christ God comes near to

dwell with crushed and humble saints.

Finally, God declares again on Mt. Sinai, "You shall worship no other god, for

the Lord whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (Ex. 34:14). God has created

us to love and enjoy him, and he feels a holy indignation when our hearts are lured

away to love and enjoy other things more.

So the little bit of the iceberg that we have seen in these seven weeks is

nevertheless a great deal. Our God exists from all eternity, he is free, he is

omnipotent, he is merciful, he is the beginning and end of every person that will ever

live, he is holy and he is jealous for our undivided affection. That is his name.

Now in the Lord's prayer, Jesus teaches that as the first priority in praying to ask

that our heavenly Father's name be hallowed. "Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name." Notice that this is a petition or a request. It is not a

declaration (as I thought it was for years). It is a request to God that he would see to

it that his own name be hallowed.

It is like another missionary text in Matthew 9:38 where Jesus tells us to pray to the

Lord of the harvest that he would send out laborers into his own harvest. It never

ceases to amaze me that we, the laborers, should be instructed to ask the owner of

the farm, who knows the harvest better than we do, to add on more farm hands. But

isn't this the same thing we have here in the Lord's prayer -- Jesus telling us to ask

God, who is infinitely jealous for the honor of his own name, to see to it that his

name be hallowed. Well it may amaze us, but there it is. And it teaches us two

things.

One is that prayer does not move God to do things he is disinclined to do. He has

every intention to cause his name to be hallowed. Nothing is higher on God's priority

list.

The other is that prayer is God's way of bringing our priorities into line with his. God

wills to make great things the consequence of our prayers when our prayers are the

consequence of his great purposes. Bring your heart into line with the jealousy of

God to hallow his name, and you will pray with great effect. Let your first and all-

determining prayer be for the hollowing of God's name, and your prayers will plug

into the power of God's jealousy.

II. What does it mean to hallow his name?

But now we must ask the question, What does the word "hallow" mean? What are

we asking God to do when we ask him to see to it that his name be hallowed?

The word "hallow" means sanctify. The same Greek word stands behind both

English words. Jesus tells us to pray, "Let your name be sanctified." Sanctify can

mean make holy or treat as holy. When God sanctifies us it means that he makes

us holy. But when we sanctify God it means that we treat him as holy.

So Jesus is teaching us to pray that God would cause his name to be treated as

holy. And our question becomes, what does it mean to treat God as holy? What are

we asking God to do when we pray that he cause his name to be treated as holy?

To answer this question I found four other places in the Scriptures where this word

"hallow" or "sanctify" or "treat as holy" is used in relation to God. Each of these

gives us an idea of what it means to hallow the name of God.

Numbers 20:12. During the wilderness wandering of the people of Israel, there was a

time when they had no water. And the people grumbled against Moses. But God

tells Moses to speak to the rock and to bring forth water for the people. But Moses'

spirit is bitter, and he speaks rashly and strikes the rock twice with his rod.

The water comes, but so does the stinging word of God to Moses: "Because you

did not believe in me, to sanctify me (or: hallow me) in the eyes of the people of

Israel therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given

them."

Notice the words: "You did not believe in me to sanctify (or: hallow) me." These

words give us our first answer to the question, what it means to sanctify or hallow

the name of God. It means to believe him. The first way to treat God as holy is to

trust what he says. Instead of a peaceful confidence in the power of God to respond

to a mere word Moses was bitter and impulsive. God is not hallowed when we do

not have a spirit of settled confidence and peace in his word.

John said, "He who does not believe God has made him a liar" (1 John 5:10). When

you make somebody a liar you profane that person's name. This is the opposite of

treating the person as holy. Not trusting God is the exact opposite of hallowing his

name. The first thing we mean then when we pray for God to cause his name to be

hallowed is that he would cause people to believe him. "Hallowed be thy name"

means, "Trusted be your word."

A second text that explains what it means to hallow the name of God is Isaiah 8:12-

13 (Cf. 1 Peter 3:14-15). God speaks to Isaiah and warns him not to be like the

people of Israel. "Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do

not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard

as holy (or: hallow); let him be your fear, let him be your dread."

How do you hallow God according to this text? You hallow him by not fearing what

men fear but fearing God. Very practically it means that when God commands you

to take your stand for him in a hostile situation, you fear displeasing God more than

you fear the hostility of man.

Don't fear losing your house or your wife or your children or your bank account or

your prestige! Instead fear the prospect of saying no to God. He will compensate

you for all your worldly losses when you obey him. But when you set yourself to

oppose his will no one can compensate for the eternal consequences of that.

So when we pray, "Hallowed be thy name," we mean, "Father, let your name be

feared." Or, more fully, "Father, cause people to have such a high view of you that it

is a much more dreadful thing to lose your approval than to lose anything the world

can offer."

The third text that sheds light on what it means to hallow God's name is Leviticus

22:31-32. "So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord. And

you shall not profane my holy name, but I will be hallowed among the people of

Israel; I am the Lord who sanctify you …"

We hallow the name of God when we keep his commandments. We profane the

name of God when we break his commandments. So when we pray, "Father, let

your name be hallowed," we mean, "Father, cause your commandments to be

obeyed." "Hallowed be thy name" means, "Obeyed be your commandments."

A final text to illustrate the meaning of hallowing God's name is Leviticus 10:3.

"Moses said to Aaron, 'This is what the Lord has said, I will show myself holy

among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.'"

This text seems to say that God's showing himself holy and his being glorified are

virtually the same thing. So when we pray, "Hallowed be thy name," we mean also,

"Glorified be thy name."

Let's sum up what we've seen so far. "Hallowed be thy name," is a request, not a

declaration. We are not saying, "Lord, your name is hallowed!" We are saying,

"Lord, cause your name to be hallowed." That is, cause your word to be believed,

cause your displeasure to be feared, cause your commandments to be obeyed, and

cause yourself to be glorified. You hallow the name of God when you trust him,

revere him, obey him, and glorify him.

III. For whom are we praying?

So the big question remaining is, For whom are we praying when we pray, "Our

Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name"? Whose heart are we asking God

to change when we pray, "Father, cause their heart to believe you and fear you and

obey you and glorify you"? If we take our clue from the next two requests in the

Lord's prayer, I think we will hear two answers.

One answer is that we are praying for ourselves. The other answer is that we are

praying for the spread of the gospel to the unreached peoples of the earth.

After teaching us to pray that God's name be hallowed, Jesus teaches us to pray,

"God's kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Each of these

requests has a personal and a worldwide dimension.

For example in Matthew 6:33 Jesus commands us to seek God's kingdom first

rather than seeking food and clothing. In other words we are to seek to let God be

the Ruler and King in our lives now. His kingdom is a present reality wherever he

rules as King. (See Matt. 12:28).

So when we pray, "Father, let your kingdom come", we should mean, "Father, rule

in my life. Be my king. Get the victory over my anxiety about life's necessities." This

is the personal dimension of the coming of the kingdom.

But just as important as the personal dimension is the worldwide dimension. Jesus

said to his disciples at the last supper (in Luke 22:18), "From now on I shall not

drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes." In other words the

coming of the kingdom is not only a present spiritual experience but also a future

historical event. It refers to the time when the King will come in glory with his angels

in flaming fire and gather his elect from the four winds and establish his kingdom on

the earth.

Jesus described it in Matthew 13:41-43, "The Son of Man will send his angels, and

they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw

them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. Then the

righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

So when we pray, "Thy kingdom come," we are asking God to draw history to a

close and establish his kingdom on the earth. And who will be a part of this

kingdom? Listen to the glimpse of it which John describes in Revelation 5:9-10,

"Worthy art thou (Lord Jesus) to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou wast

slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and

people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they

shall reign on earth."

When the kingdom comes that we are praying for in the Lord's prayer it will be

composed of ransomed people that Christ has redeemed from every tribe and

tongue and people and nation on the earth. Therefore when we pray, "Thy kingdom

come," we are praying that God would extend his mighty arm to complete the

purpose of world missions -- namely the in-gathering of the redeemed from every

tribe and tongue and people and nation.

So the answer to the question, For whom are we praying when we pray, "Hallowed

be thy name," is plain. We are praying not only for ourselves, but also for the

unreached tribes and tongues and peoples and nations of the world. God's purpose

is to be hallowed: believed and feared and obeyed and glorified by the ransomed in

all the people groups of the earth.

The same thing turns up when we focus on the third request in the Lord's prayer:

"Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

On the personal level that must mean, "Father, please cause me to obey your will

the way the angels obey it in heaven. (Psalm 103:21, "Bless the Lord, all his hosts,

his ministers that do his will!") Help me to do your will flawlessly and to do it with

the same fervency and undivided devotion that they have. Make my obedience a

heavenly obedience."

But on the worldwide level the meaning is far greater. In heaven there is nothing but

obedience to the will of God. So when we pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in

heaven," we are praying that the earth would be filled only with people who do the

will of God the way the angels do it in heaven.

In other words we are praying for the kingdom to come. We are praying that the

earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the

sea (Hab. 2:14). We are praying that the cause of world missions would so prosper

in our day that all the ransomed from every tribe and tongue and people and nation

would be reached and gathered in, and the King would come. For whom are we

praying when we pray, "Hallowed by thy name"? For the unreached peoples of the

earth and for ourselves that God would use us to reach them.

Let me close with three brief implications for us.

First, since the first three petitions of the Lord's prayer give us the priority of Christ's

heart we should learn that God's top priority is the hallowing of his name in all the

earth. If this is God's top priority it should be our top priority -- that God be believed,

feared, obeyed and glorified by a ransomed people from every tribe and tongue and

people and nation. The consummation of all our joy in God will be attained when his

name is hallowed in all the earth.

Second, we learn that prayer is the root of true mission advance. Jesus teaches us

his priorities in the form of a prayer because he intends us to pray those priorities

into reality. If the kingdom comes in our lifetime, it will be because the church of

Jesus Christ around the world has begun to take seriously the Lord's prayer. It will

be because we have recognized that the prayers, "Hallowed be thy names" and

"send forth laborers into your harvest," are the same prayer, and are the direct

command of the Lord Jesus. If ninety by ninety becomes a reality at Bethlehem it

will be because it is supported by a movement of concerted prayer, whose hallmark

is, "Hallowed be thy name in all the earth!"

The final implication emerges when we consider that the evangelization of the

world is not yet done. God's purpose to call out a ransomed bride from every tribe

and tongue and people and nation is not yet fulfilled.

Next Friday and Sunday Ralph Winter will be with us to talk about the dawning of

the final era in world evangelization. He speaks in terms of 17,000 people groups in

the world that are unreached. These are groups distinct enough in culture that they

cannot be reached by near neighbor evangelism, and have to be reached by cross

cultural missionaries.

But suppose you are a real skeptic about these numbers. Just consider the more

conservative statistics of the World Christian Encyclopedia of 1980. It says there are

432 major ethnolinguistic groups in the world. Of these 81 (19%) have populations in

which fewer than 1% claim any association with Christianity at all. These 81 groups

make up 1.7 billion people -- about a third of the world's population.

Of these 81 groups 43 are listed in the encyclopedia with 0.00% Christians. They

speak 220 languages, only 54 of which have any written Scriptures. So even if you

view the world in terms of 432 large ethnolinguistic groups instead of 20,000 people

groups, the commission of our Lord and the purpose of his prayer are not yet

finished.

From which I draw out this charge for our church. If we aim to be obedient to

the Lord we must seek to let his prayer be answered in our own lives. We must

hallow his name more deeply. We must believe and fear and obey and glorify his

name with new intensity. We must be willing ourselves to go wherever he may lead

us. We must simplify our lives to free time and money for the last decades of the

war effort. We must labor to make Bethlehem a boot camp and a base of operations

and a recruitment center. And we must be so captivated by the love and majesty of

God that no joy is more powerful in us than the joy of counting everything as loss for

the sake of Christ.

...