Our Father

Message #1 in the series: The Lord's Prayer

⁵"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹Give us today our daily bread.
¹²Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.'

Matthew 6:5-13

Everyone knows that we’re supposed to pray. But how? We know we need to spend time with God in prayer, but what does that look like? Jesus’ disciples had the same question. In Luke’s account, his disciples see him praying ask him to teach them how to pray. In Matthew’s account, Jesus is teaching on prayer, including how not to pray,

So Jesus gives them the model that we still use today: we call it the Lord’s Prayer. We will be spending the next six weeks looking at this model, asking Jesus to teach us to pray.

Today we start with the salutation. This is important because proper worship depends on having the right ideas about who you’re praying to. I used to wonder why we prayed “Our Father, who aren’t in heaven.” We pray to “our Father in Heaven.”

The first word in this prayer is loaded. Jesus tells us to address God in community. God is always our Father, not simply my Father.

That God is our Father points to the intimate relationship between God and his children. The very term “Father” is important and is often dismissed in these days of political correctness. The most PC Christians will often talk about God as creator, sustainer, and protector of creation, but there must be room to talk about God as Father, not just a builder or craftsman. This shouldn’t be confused with biological fatherhood; instead, God’s Fatherhood is concerned with adoption. We talk about when life starts; in bible times, a child was not considered alive until the father had decided to adopt that child. If the father didn’t want the child, it would be abandoned, but if the father wanted the baby, he would adopt him or her. Thus by calling God our Father, we are accepting His adoption of us.

In Luke 10:22, Jesus tells his disciples that No one knows the Father but the Son and the one to whom the Son revealed him. Thus in this prayer, Jesus reveals who the Father is. By doing this, Jesus invites them, and us, to regard God as Father and ourselves as God’s children.

This is important because in accepting this status, we are also accepting the notion that children are supposed to represent the nature of their father in their character. If we are truly His children, we should look like him! Our DNA should match His! Our Deeds, Nature, and Attitude. In accepting His Fatherhood, we are also announcing our own subordinance in rank and authority to God. Furthermore, we are admitting that we need Him. We can’t do it all ourselves, and, if we are using this Prayer as a model, we probably don’t even know what to pray for! So let’s let the Lord’s Prayer teach us how to pray.

The first thing we pray for is bound up in the initial phrase. I would bet that most of us don’t even know what we’re saying when we say, “Hallowed be thy name.” This phrase means “sanctify your name” or “set your holy name apart.” Jesus didn’t make this request up; it was a part of a traditional Jewish prayer, the Qaddish.

Exalted and hallowed be his great Name Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba

In the world which He created According to His will. b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei

May He establish His kingdom In your lifetime and in your days, v'yam'likh mal'khutei b'chayeikhon uv'yomeikhon

And in the lifetime of the whole household of Israel, uv'chayei d'khol beit yis'ra'eil

Speedily and at a near time. ba'agala uviz'man kariv v'im'ru:

And say, Amen. Amein.

This is an extremely important request because it assumes that God’s name hasn’t been adequately set apart. In fact, the opposite has been true: God’s name has been profaned. In Ezekiel 36:20-21, we read this:

20 And wherever [Israel] went among the nations they profaned my holy name, for it was said of them, 'These are the LORD's people, and yet they had to leave his land.' 21 I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel profaned among the nations where they had gone.

As God’s children, it is our obligation to sanctify God’s name. We do this by behaving in accord with God’s character. However, if you read the Old Testament or if you look at our human experience, we are much better at profaning His name. We say we are Christians, but we behave like the world (or even worse, in some cases). Ask anyone who has worked as a server; typically the worst customers and the worst tippers come on Sunday after church…

The reason we pray to God to set his holy name apart is not simply because we humans have profaned it. In Hebrew thought, there is a much stronger relationship between a name and a person; one’s name is indistinguishable from one’s character. So we ask God to show His character. His character can be described by such words as great, awesome, mighty and honorable, merciful, gracious, righteous, and true. He is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

We, as His children, are supposed to look like Him. Do we? Because we humans are incapable of honoring God’s name to the extent that we are responsible to. Remember that the only reason we pray is because we need help? If we could do it ourselves, we wouldn’t need to ask God to do it!

God’s response is recorded in Ezekiel 36:22-32. 22 "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. 23 I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

24 " 'For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. 30 I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. 31 Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. 32 I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign LORD. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!

For us, the word “ashamed” doesn’t carry the weight that it did in bible times, but honor and shame were a huge deal then. If you ever watched those old Kung Fu movies, you probably have a greater idea of the concept of shame than some. What Ezekiel is saying is that because of their (poor) actions and behavior, and because of God’s gracious response, the house of Israel has been shamed. Their response, the only available response to such shame, must be to change their actions, to honor God.

2 Timothy 2:19: “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.” Naming the name of God means identifying fully with God and his sovereignty and thus turning from wickedness. This is why we pray to God to sanctify His name, to cause us humans to sanctify His name. This petition is like asking God to use me. As Isaiah says, “You, O LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter.”

So as we ask God to sanctify His Name, to set apart His Holy Name, we are also asking Him to transform us into the kind of people who glorify His name everywhere we go. We don’t just passively ask, but then we go out and let our actions show that He is working through us.