Here’s another idea for the Jr. youth gathering:
Title: “The Dangerous Prayer”
Focus on Petition: “Hallowed be thy Name”
Question we repeatedly ask: “How do we hallow?”
Sectionals: We hallow with…
Our minds
Our words
Our actions
Our sexuality
Our finances
Our time
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Have you ever noticed that almost everything you buy these days has a warning label on it? I opened a jar of apple sauce the other day and the lid warned me not to eat it if the safety seal was popped. I opened a box from amazon.com a couple weeks ago and the plastic bubble wrap warned me to keep it out of the reach of children. One of my personal favorites is the warning on my peanut butter jars: warning: this package contains nuts.
And have you ever noticed how many warning signs you encounter on the road? Warning: construction ahead. Warning: slowed or stopped traffic ahead. Warning: school zone.
And parents and grandparents, do you ever feel like you’re a broken record that keeps saying to your kids or grandkids, “Don’t touch that. Get your hands off that. This is your last warning.”?
In our Gospel lesson for today from Luke 11, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray by giving them what we call the Lord’s Prayer. Christians have been praying this prayer for generations and you’ve probably prayed it at least a thousand times.
The Lord’s Prayer is an absolutely magnificent prayer, but I’m convinced that it should have a warning label on it. It ought to say something like, “Warning: this prayer might have side-effects. If you pray it often, it could change you.” In fact, the Lord’s Prayer is probably the most dangerous prayer you can pray. We ought to call it “The Dangerous Prayer.”
In fact, it’s so dangerous that we should seriously consider whether we want to pray it or not. I’m serious, if we’re not ready to be changed, we shouldn’t pray it just like a person who is allergic to nuts shouldn’t eat peanut butter.
We don’t have time to examine each of the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer today, but it will only take one petition to prove my point. After we pray the introduction, “Our Father who art in heaven,” we pray the first petition, “Hallowed by Thy name.” This petition is incredibly dangerous to pray.
I mean, have you ever really considered what you’re praying? What does it mean to hallow God’s Name? Martin Luther says in his Small Catechism, “God’s name is certainly holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also. And then Luther asks, “How is God’s name kept holy?” “God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!” (Small Catechism, LP: 19)
God’s Name is holy it itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also. How? When we lead Godly lives. In other words, we are saying to God, “we want to hallow your Name in our lives.”
That’s a dangerous prayer. Do you realize what that could mean? Do you realize how extensive that prayer is?
St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6, “you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:20) That word “honor” is very similar to the word “hallow.” In Greek, the word “honor” means “to praise, extol, magnify, celebrate, or honor.” And St. Paul says we are to do that with our bodies.
In Greek, the word “hallow” means “to make holy, consecrate, sanctify, or revere.” And I believe we do that with our bodies as well. You see, we’re fleshly people. It’s one thing to say, “Hallowed be thy name” and understand it in a kind of ethereal, spiritual sense – that’s easy. But we’re not spirit people, we’re fleshly people. How do we hallow God’s Name in the flesh?
Well, let’s start at the top. How do we honor God with our minds? Well, what does the Bible say about our minds? Jesus says in Matthew 22, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37) St. Paul says in Romans 8, “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace…” (Romans 8:6). Later in chapter 12 of Romans Paul says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2). Later in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says, “So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.” (1 Corinthians 14:15)
In short, we hallow God’s Name by loving Him with all our mind, by having a mind controlled by the Spirit, by relentlessly renewing our mind in His Word, and by singing and praying with our mind.
If this is how we hallow God’s name with our mind, what place do mind-altering drugs like meth, pot, and cocaine, have in a Christian’s life? None. What place does drunkenness, which also impairs the mind, have in a Christian’s life? None. What place do malicious thoughts have? None. What place do grudges have? None.
If we are to hallow God’s Name with all our mind, how should we employ it? In the continual and relentless pursuit of Him and His Truth as revealed in Jesus Christ. Is this easy? No. But I told you the Lord’s Prayer ought to come with a warning label on it. If we don’t want to hallow God’s Name with all our mind, we shouldn’t pray the prayer.
What about our mouth, our lips, and our tongue? How do we hallow God’s Name with them? King David says in Psalm 34, “I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” (Psalm 34:1) In Psalm 50, David prays, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.” (Psalm 50:15) (see also Psalm 71:8, 109:30) And the psalmist declares in Psalm 119, “May my tongue sing of your word, for all your commands are righteous.” (Psalm 119:172)
If our lips have been sanctified to praise the Lord, what place does gossip have in a Christian’s life? None. If our mouth has been consecrated to extol the Lord, what place does foul language have in a Christian’s life? None. If our tongue has been set apart to sing of God’s Name, what place does music that profanes God’s Name have on our tongue? None.
St. James talks about our tongue in James 1. He says, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless (James 1:26). A couple chapters later he says, “Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” (James 3:5-10)
In fact, the psalmist was so concerned about his tongue that he prayed, “Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (Psalm 141:3)
Again, if we want to hallow God’s Name with our mouth, lips, and tongue, how should we employ them? In the continual and relentless praise of His Name. Is this easy? No. But like we said earlier, the Lord’s Prayer should come with a warning label on it. If we don’t want to hallow God’s Name with our mouth, lips, and tongue, we shouldn’t pray the prayer.
What about our heart? How do we hallow God’s Name with our heart? David declares in Psalm 9, “I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders.” (Psalm 9:1). In Psalm 13 he confesses, “I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.” (Psalm 13:5)
In Psalm 19 he prays, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” (Psalm 19:14) That word “meditation” in Hebrew (hg"h') means to ruminate or murmur or even moan. It’s a very vocal word – it refers to the thoughts that you chew on all day long. David prays that those thoughts would be pleasing to God.
If our hearts have been set apart to praise the Lord and to rejoice in His salvation, what place do sour and contrary attitudes have in a Christian’s life? None. Now this doesn’t mean Christians have to be happy all the time. Jesus wasn’t happy all the time. It means Christians are not to be characterized by negativity and bitterness. Besides, once we have tasted the sweet salvation of the Lord, how can we be bitter or sour?
And if even the meditations of our hearts are to be pleasing to the Lord, what place do ill wishes and imagined scenarios of revenge have in a Christian’s life? None.
The Scriptures talk a lot about our heart. Jeremiah declares, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Jesus says in Mark’s Gospel, “from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.'" (Mark 7:21-23) Jesus calls these things “evils.”
David recognized this in Psalm 51 when he confessed, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) In other words, God is pleased with a heart humbled and broken by the realization of its sin and the genuine desire for His mercy. And that’s why David prays in Psalm 51, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)
If we want to hallow God’s Name with our heart, how should we employ it? In the continual and relentless pursuit of His glory. Is this easy? No. But like we said earlier, the Lord’s Prayer should come with a warning label on it. If we don’t want to hallow God’s Name with our heart, we shouldn’t pray the prayer.
Now we could talk about our hands, our eyes, our ears, our feet, and even our sexuality, but after 12 or 13 minutes I think we can see the breadth of the petition “hallowed be thy Name.” Asking God to hallow His Name means asking God to hallow it in our lives and that means asking God to change us. And that’s a dangerous prayer.
But you know what? God does change us. He changes our mind our mouth and even our heart. And He does it through the most surprising means.
He does it through His Word that renews and transforms us. I mean, have you ever considered whose Word we’re praying in the Lord’s Prayer? The Lord’s! We are praying His Word back to Him (like a child who speaks his parents’ words back to his parents) – and that involves our mind, our mouth, and our heart.
And beyond the words of the Lord’s Prayer, the entirety of God’s Word changes us. I know this from personal experience. I am not the same man I was 10 years ago. The continual and relentless ruminating on God’s Word has changed and transformed my mind – I don’t think like I used to. My mind has been renewed and is still being renewed in this Word – and so is yours.
In fact, Jesus tells us that by hearing His words we receive eternal life. He says in John’s Gospel, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” (John 5:24)
And our mouth, lips, and tongue, God sanctifies them and sets them apart at this altar to sing His praise and tell of His Name. God literally puts His Word made flesh on our tongues. God puts His holy Name in our mouths. And God assures us that wherever His Name is, there He is. That means He is in us. He indwells us.
Jesus says in John 6, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.” (John 6:53-56) God literally sanctifies our tongue with His blood.
And our hearts, well way back in the book of Ezekiel God made this promise to His people, “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. 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. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
And in Titus 3 Paul assures us that we have been cleansed and that we have received God’s Spirit at that font: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7) And in 1 Corinthians Paul declares, “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11b)
You see, God answers prayer, but He does it in some of the most surprising ways. We ask to hallow His Name in our lives, and He does it through His Word which transforms us, through His body and blood which sanctify us, and through His water which washes us.
The Lord’s Prayer is a dangerous prayer. If you don’t want to be changed, don’t pray it. But if you desire a renewed mind, sanctified lips, and a clean heart, pray it with passion and get ready to watch God work.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name…
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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