Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 35 – Sep 1986

 

Prayer – The First Request

 

Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Matthew 06:9c

Reading: Psalm 8; Acts 5:12-42
                        Heidelberg Catechism – L.D.47

Singing:        My hope is built on nothing less (BoW.465)

                        Not to us be glory given (BoW.115)

 

Theme: The first petition – a request for the glory of God.

 

Introd: The first request of the Lord’s Prayer reads: Hallowed be Your name…!

That comes across as a little archaic, somewhat old fashioned.

After all, who still uses the word HALLOWED today in ordinary conversation?
Only Christians!  And even then only in the church and in prayer.
The word ‘hallowed’ is another one of those ‘God-words’.

Maybe it’s time we changed the words to say what we really mean in today’s English.

The word ‘hallowed’ simply means that something is holy.

But that only shifts the problem along a bit. 

Because the word ‘HOLY’ is another bit of church language.
On top of that it is usually misunderstood as just another word for sinlessness.
So we go another step and ask what does it mean that something is holy?
To say something is holy is to say that it is different.
            It is something set apart… set apart from other things… set apart for God.

For example: when God finished His work of creation He HALLOWED the seventh day.

He made it holy… different from all the other days.
He set it apart as something sacred that we have to honour and respect.
It is the same with the name of God.  It is holy… set apart.

So what we are praying in this first request
  is that we might do exactly what God asks of us in the third commandment:
            Not to take His name in vain but to keep it holy.
It is a request for the honour and glory of God’s name.

A)        THE PRIORITY OF THIS PETITION.

i)          We should first of all notice the PRIORITY OF THIS REQUEST.

In this model prayer Jesus gave us there are six requests.
Three especially concern us, the other three especially concern God.

But then Jesus teaches us this order:
The 3 requests about God come FIRST.  They have priority.
            Before we ask for daily bread…
                        and forgiveness… and deliverance from evil
                                    we ask first of all concerning the things of the Lord.

And of those 3 requests for the things of the Lord
            the request for the honour of God’s name comes first of all.
Even before we pray for God’s Kingdom to come and for His will to be done
            we ask FIRST: – May Your name be honoured and glorified.

That calls for some soul searching doesn’t it?

I wonder what you put first in your prayers this past week?

What did you begin with at the meal times when you said grace?

I must admit that for me this is often a bit of an afterthought.
A kind of a PS at the end of my prayer.
            “And Lord may all that I’ve prayed for be to Your glory!”

The question then is: how heavily does the honour of God’s name really weigh on your mind?

Suppose for a moment the Lord came and did the Solomon bit with you.

Say He offered you 3 things you could have immediately… right now.

Three wishes… granted instantaneously.

What would you ask for?    Success?
            High marks in the exams you did a few weeks back.
                        Good health to get you over that illness.
                                    A little more money would be very handy too.

Maybe less selfishly:           An end to unemployment… or to world hunger?
                                    A cure for AIDS maybe.?
            Or an end to the problems and conflict in the Middle East.

We could sure think of lots of things to wish for.

But to spend one of those wishes for God’s name to be honoured…?
            What a waste of a wish.
                        Of course we wouldn’t admit we thought of it like that.
            But seriously… would you have made that one of your wishes?

In the same way we have many things to ask of God in prayer.
But where does the holiness of God’s name come in our praying?

Jesus teaches us that Prayer is not just coming to God with a shopping list.

It is FIRST telling Him that the holiness of His great name is our deepest concern.

The trouble is – this does not come naturally to us.

We need to cultivate this longing for God’s name to be “hallowed”.

My granddad often began his prayers with the words of Ps.115:
            Not unto us but unto Your name..!

But our longing to keep God’s name holy will only happen as we grow in knowledge and appreciation…
            knowledge of the immense love of God…
                        that sent Jesus to be born of Mary
            appreciation for the wonder of our salvation…
                        bought at the cost of His blood.

ii)         Actually, Jesus means far more than that we should begin our prayers this way.

As though we can make a quick request for God’s glory and honour…
            and then get on with the important things that really weigh on our minds.

Jesus puts this first for another reason.

He implies we have to let all our praying be guided by this first request.
  Whether you and I are praying personal or family prayers…
  Whether we are praying the Lord’s Prayer or in our own words…
This should be at the centre of all our praying:
    The honour and glory of God’s holy name.

IOW don’t just pay lip service to this request.

Don’t just get it over and done with before you rush on to other things.

Instead, let this be the underlying attitude in all that you talk about to God.

Prayer consists of many parts.
  Adoring God and worshipping Him is part of it.
  Thanking Him is another part of it… and so is confessing sin.
  But prayer is also making REQUESTS of God.

In those requests we may ask not only for spiritual things.
Such as a closer relationship with God… and the forgiveness of sins.

We may also ask for material and physical things for ourselves:
For our daily bread and for good marks in exams.
For sound health and even for an increase in salary.

But if we have truly understood what Jesus is teaching us in this first request
             – that God’s name is to be honoured in ALL our praying…
            then the WAY IN WHICH we pray for all those other things
               will take that first request into account every time again.

For example: It means we don’t only ask for health in our sicknesses.
            Sure we do that too… but we also pray:
            Lord, if Your name is to be honoured more thru my sickness
                        then just give me the courage to bear it.

The glory of God’s name –
            that helps keep all our praying in proper perspective.

We human beings can be so terribly self-centred.

And too often our prayers simply reflect our lusts and desires.

The first request reminds us to ask only for that which is God-honouring.

Here then is a brake on all our selfish prayer requests.
To make sure we keep them God-centred and not self-centred.

B)        THE NEED UNDERLYING THIS REQUEST.

i)          The second thing to note is that these words do form a REQUEST.

We are not TELLING God something… we are ASKING God for something.

We are not making a statement…. we are coming with a petition, a request.

And those requests of the Lord’s Prayer are there because there are needs.

We live in a world that has many needs.  Our requests arise from our needs.

So this is a request.
            We are not saying: “Father… Your name IS holy…!”
            We are asking… “Father may Your name be treated AS holy…!”
            But that request arises out of a need.
                        This need – that in our world God’s name is not treated as holy.

First there is the problem that the world ignores the name of God.
  There is neglect of His name.

Think of public life.
All recognition of God’s name and God’s ways
            is being removed from the public sphere.
We’ve taken references to God out of the national anthem.
            Legislation often dishonours God’s name (eg repeal Tasmania’s ‘gay’ laws?).

Or consider Science.
            Most scientists prefer not to talk about God when they speak about creation.
            So they talk about Mother Nature; with a capital “M” and a capital “N”.
            Science wants to play God: Make life in a test-tube; end it with euthanasia.

Or we could think of industrial relations
            where greed rather than God-honouring principles of justice often dominate.

Or there is education
            where teachers in government schools are not even allowed to mention God.

Secondly, and even worse than neglect, there is misuse.

Television actors often throw God’s name around to add weight to their words.
  The fellows in the factory are even worse.
    And the girls in the office are pretty good at blasphemy too.

We live in a world where God’s name is abused and dishonoured.

When people around us use the name of Jesus as a curse… then that offends us.

People have often said to me:
            When people do that it really hurts me.  That’s true.
            Misuse of the Lord’s name hurts us.  But it grieves the Lord even more.

So there is this need – neglect of God’s name and the misuse of it.

So what do we do about it?

Jesus teaches us here in the Model Prayer to pray about it!

Here is a requests that deals with a real need in our world.

So in this request you ask that God’s name may be honoured in your office.
            That it may be glorified in the classroom and on the football field.
            “Lord may Your name be kept holy in an unholy world.”

ii)         However we also make this request because of our own needs.

It’s all very well to criticise others for neglect and misuse of God’s name.

But we Christians have to live in this God-dishonouring world.

We have to work in places where the Lord’s name is neglected and abused.

And we so easily fall in with that behaviour ourselves.

I don’t mean that we abuse God’s name.
            That’s not a problem for you or for me.
            Blasphemy is not something a Christian readily participates in.
            But what about the neglect of God’s name?
                        Times when we are silent and we should be speaking.
                        Times when we do things for our own glory and not for God’s glory.
                        Worse – when we do things that dishonour our God.

In fact let’s take all this a step further.

First we said: this request ought to be priority number 1 in prayer.
Jesus teaches us this is the first thing we should learn to pray for.

Then we said: it goes further and ought to guide all of our praying.
So that all we ask for is tied in with the honour of God’s name.

But now let’s take it another step further:
            It’s not only all our praying that ought to honour God’s name.
            All our living ought to strive for the holiness, the honour of God’s name.
            Scripture says that we are to do everything to God’s glory.

And the problem is that we don’t.

So we have needs too… the need to live all of life to God’s glory.

And it is out of that need that we pray this first request.
            Help us, Lord, to direct ALL OUR LIVING…
                        what we say and think and do…
                        so that Your name will not be dishonoured because of us.

So we’re praying that we might worship God in the right way (eg.Psalm 8).
            That we might adore and thank Him for His wonderful works and ways.
            But also that we might serve Him as we ought.
            And to do that in whatever our calling in life may be.

Of course that applies also especially to our words.

We are also asking:
            Help us not to deny you tomorrow when we mix it with our workmates.
            But make us courageous to stand up for Your holy name.

So we are praying also for our testimony to Jesus… the Immanuel, God with us.

For boldness to tell others the good news… the meaning of His coming in Bethlehem.

In fact that is the real solution to the neglect and misuse of God’s name.

People need to come to know our great God in the Person of Jesus Christ.

And as men and women and young people respond to the claims of Jesus
            as they believe in Him…
            only then is God’s name fully honoured and glorified.

C)        THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS REQUEST.

i)          We see then that the issue here is not just our praying.

We’re talking about our daily work and our study.

We’re dealing with our leisure time, our sports and our holidays.

In fact let me put it a little more strongly:
            Prayer is never a cop out for inactivity.
            When we pray we don’t just sit down and do nothing about it.
            God often uses us human beings to begin to answer our own prayers.

The problem is that in prayer we can be at our most hypocritical.

That we say the right words to the Lord.

But our actions leave a lot to be desired.

So on Sunday we can think about this request and we can pray it together.

But maybe tomorrow the holiness of God’s name is the furthest thing from our mind.

Today we, no doubt, all agree with the importance of this request.

Of course on Sundays, as Christians we should think about such things.

But what about tomorrow?
            What about in the office while you’re climbing the corporate ladder?
            What will this prayer mean when you’re talking to the neighbours?
            What about the things you’ll do while you’re on holidays?
            How will this prayer affect you when you go to the movies?

So we need to remember that our prayers face us with a responsibility.

Praying always confronts us with a responsibility.
  A responsibility to live out our prayers in our daily life.
  It isn’t good enough that we put God FIRST in our prayers…
  But then put Him second or third in other areas of life.

This is a request we pray… but it is also a request we live.
            He must come FIRST not only in prayer but in all of life.
The Christian way is that all of life is a doxology of praise to God Almighty.
            Out of thanksgiving for what he did for us in Jesus Christ.

ii)         However, let’s not forget now the other side of this.

This request confronts us not only with a RESPONSIBILITY.

It is also, above all else, a GIFT… something the Lord GIVES to us.

Remember… this is a prayer.
We are asking God to grant something… something we can’t do ourselves.

It is a request in which we ask God in the certainty that He will do it too.

We pray this believing that the Lord WILL answer our request.

So whenever we DO put God’s name first then it isn’t just we who do it.

When I see evidence that the Lord is put first in my life
            then that is not an occasion for me to pat myself on the back.

That is not MY work… that is HIS work.  He does it in me and thru me.

So whenever I see ways in which God’s name is honoured thru me
            then it is because the Lord is answering this prayer.

Let me say in closing that that makes this also a very dangerous request.

Because sometime God answers this prayer in strange ways… in difficult ways.

Mary honoured this request when she said:  “May it be to me as you have said.”

But honouring God’s name brought Mary much hardship, rejection and pain.

In Acts 5 there is another example.
            An amazing story of the Apostles praising the name of the Lord.
            They are doing so in a time of persecution.

But they were praising God not because they were spared persecution.
Rather precisely BECAUSE they were beaten for the honour of God’s name.

A beating that happened because of their witness to the gospel of Jesus.

Because the Lord was honoured and glorified thru that.

God answers this first request but He may do that in ways that are hard for us.

This prayer may bring us opposition… sometimes mockery…
it may even mean losing friends… if God’s name is honoured thereby.

All this should make us realise that when we pray
   for the glory and honour of the name of God our Saviour
then at times our own names may have to become very small, even dishonoured
            so that ultimately He receives all the glory and honour.

May God the Holy Spirit give us the courage to pray this petition.
But also the ability to live it out in our daily life.                         Amen!