The Lord’s Prayer: A Battle Cry (Part 3 of 7)

moses-parting-the-red-sea-rosencruz-sumeraHallowed be your name…

What is in a name…for God, it is everything.  It is who He IS.

In Exodus 3 we find Moses standing before the Lord at the burning bush. God just told him that He is going to send him back to Egypt to deliver the people of Israel. Moses asks:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”   God said to Moses, “I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ “

God was to be known by His Name.

After the people cross the Red Sea, Moses sings (Exodus 15)

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD :
“I will sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father’s God, and I will exalt him.
The LORD is a warrior;
the LORD is his name.
Pharaoh’s chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh’s officers
are drowned in the Red Sea.
The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone

Through out the Old Testament you the people of God giving glory to the “name of God”.

  • David vs Goliath – 1 Samuel 17:45 “I come against you in the name of the Lord”
  • Solomon’s prayer of dedication – 1 Kings 8:42 “for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm”.

We are honor and exalted the name of our God.

I love what John Piper says about this phrase of the Lord’s prayer (from Let The Nations Be Glad)

To hallow God’s name means to put it in a class by itself and to cherish and honor it above every claim to our allegiance or affection. Jesus’ primary concern – the very first petition of the prayer he teaches  – is that more and more people, and more and more peoples, come to hallow God’s name. This is the reason the universe exists. Missions exists because this hallowing doesn’t.

Continued on Monday…