Hallowed be your Name

Order of Service

• Announcements
• Call to Worship — Psalm 27:4
• Hymn — Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Faith — First Petition of the Lord's Prayer (Q&A)
• Scripture Reading — Luke 7:18-35
• Hymn — All Glory, Laud, and Honor
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Prayer of Preparation
• Hymn — Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
• Sermon
• Prayer of Response
• Hymn — Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14
• Doxology
• Congregational Announcement
• Closing Prayer

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Sermon Title: Hallowed Be Your Name

Scripture: Exodus 3:13-15

I. Who Is to Be Hallowed? — The Name of God

A. The petition presupposes a Jewish understanding of the divine name

1. Matthew's Jewish audience would immediately think of Yahweh (the tetragrammaton: YHWH)
2. First given to Moses in Exodus 3:13-15: "I AM WHO I AM"

B. The name Yahweh conveys God's aseity — his absolute, self-existent being

1. God is not derivative of anything outside himself; he is completely independent
2. He needs no external object to be love, righteousness, or goodness — these are holy within the Godhead

C. Yahweh is also the covenant name — conveying both transcendence and immanence

1. Acts 17:27-28: "In him we live and move and have our being" — God is near, not distant
2. Deuteronomy 4:7: What nation has a God so near as Yahweh is to us?
3. Unlike the silent, distant gods of the ancient Near East, Yahweh speaks and covenants with his people

D. God's holiness is qualitative, not quantitative — separation of nature, not of distance

1. All his attributes (love, righteousness, goodness, mercy) are holy — on an entirely different plane from creaturely attributes
2. Pantheism is refuted by the opening words of Scripture: God is distinct from his creation (Genesis 1:1)

E. In the New Testament, the divine name expands to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

1. The Great Commission (end of Matthew) commands baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
2. Yahweh, the Lord our God, is one — three persons in one Godhead

II. How Is the Name to Be Hallowed? — Definitive and Progressive Sanctification

A. The prayer itself ("hallowed be your name") reveals our posture: we are unholy and dependent on God

1. Holiness is not a bottom-up human achievement — it is first and foremost a unilateral work of God
2. To call people to holiness without the gospel is like telling a child to swim in a sand pit

B. Definitive sanctification must precede progressive sanctification

1. God first consecrates us — separating us from what is common and sinful and placing us in the arena of his holiness
2. The Pauline pattern: indicatives (who you are in Christ) precede imperatives (how you must live)
3. Like Adam in the garden: God breathed life into him, placed him in abundance, and then gave instruction

C. Progressive sanctification is a bilateral, Spirit-dependent growth — not independent effort

1. Romans 8: the Spirit causes us to cry out "Abba, Father" — a strong, guttural cry of dependence
2. Walking in the flesh is telling God, "I can do it on my own"; the Spirit teaches us to say, "Do not let me go"
3. The goal: ever-increasing dependence on the Father and his word, as the Son himself did nothing apart from the Father's will

III. Where Is the Name to Be Hallowed? — The Extent of God's Hallowing

A. Creation itself was made in concert with the holy name of God

1. Genesis 2:4 first attaches the covenant name Yahweh to the creation of heaven and earth
2. God declared creation "very good" because it reflected the holy covenant God

B. The fall made the ground common and cursed

1. "Cursed is the ground because of you" — what was holy in concert with God's name became defiled
2. Deuteronomy 21:23: a man hung on a tree defiles the land; Israel's exile was a Sabbath rest for the defiled land

C. God's hallowing presence restores holiness to the ground

1. The burning bush (Exodus 3): "Take off your sandals, for the ground you are standing on is holy ground"
2. The tabernacle: every instrument and garment consecrated with blood — when the Shekinah glory arrives, the cursed becomes holy

D. There is a "trickle-down holiness" in both old and new creation

1. Old creation pattern: holiness of God → image bearer → ground → all creation
2. New creation pattern: holiness of the Father → the holy Son made man → us by the Holy Spirit → all creation
3. Romans 8:21: "Creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God"

E. The church's mission is the hallowing of God's name to the ends of the earth

1. Baptism into the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an objective consecration unto the Lord
2. The reformers spoke of "improving on our baptism" — those declared holy are called to grow in holiness
3. As the gospel spreads and the offspring of Abraham by faith extends to all families of the earth, creation itself anticipates its coming glory at the return of Christ