Sermon Central
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Our Father, Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed Be Thy Name Series
Contributed by Tim Smith on Mar 17, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: This sermon focuses on God and his will and his kingdom. So the first thing Jesus teaches us is that prayer starts with God and then moves to us.
Here’s how I’d like to challenge you this Lent. For some of you, God is a word you say when you hit your finger with a hammer or when a car cuts in front of you. And that’s inconsistent with hallowing God’s name. To hallow God’s name is to so revere it that you wouldn’t even say it unless you’re talking about God reverently or when you’re talking to God. Lent is a wonderful time to give up bad habits in your life and so if that is a bad habit, consider hallowing God’s name and no longer use God’s name in that manner.
Fourth, There’s another question for us today and that’s, Who’s name do you want to be hallowed?” The Psalmist says, “Not to us, O Lord, but to thy name give glory.” The Psalmist is saying I don’t want the praise and glory but want to give it to you O God. But here’s the struggle for many of us; we like our name to be hallowed. We want people to notice the things we have done and to have the recognition and accolades of what we have accomplished. We like our name to be hallowed. We see this in the story of Herod Agrippa I after the time of Jesus in Acts 12. Herod wanted to be worshipped. The people had to suck up to him or he would not feed them from the royal coffers and so they invited him to a royal feast to butter him up. “On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” Verses 21-23 Now that’s pretty gross!
The Scriptures tell us that God exalts the humble but humbles the proud. And when God humbles the proud, it is not a pleasant experience. So all of those things you do for God, are you waiting for someone to notice and pat you on the back or did you do it to hallow God’s name so that others might see God’s glory? “Not to us, O Lord, but to thy name give glory.” Together may we always hallow his name.
