Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Matthew 6:9-13
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”
Day 1
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Start your day of study by praying the Lord’s Prayer, expressing your awe and worship.
Please read the Sermon on the Mount in one sitting, using the Bible text included before this lesson. Please read it from the beginning to the end. Read it at a comfortable pace, as if you were sitting in the crowd and hearing Jesus present it to you. (For this reason, the chapter and verse numbers are taken out, but the text is not altered.)
Once you are done reading, think about how Jesus’ words impressed or impacted you. Write down what you have observed and how it spoke to you personally.
If you feel prompted to, read it again.
Day 2
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Start your day of study by praying the Lord’s Prayer, expressing your awe and worship.
Open your Bible and read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. Please pay attention to the details. Write down what you learn and what the text speaks specifically to you. Study the text in a way that helps you understand it, and let Jesus’ words penetrate your heart.
Write down any questions you have.
Day 3
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Start your day of study by praying “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Continue to pray in your own words, “hallowing His name.” Express your awe and worship. An example prayer is shown below. Feel free to use the prayer as a starting point, or pray your own prayer. The dots signify an opportunity for you to continue the prayer in your own words.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name! You are the Sovereign Lord, the Creator of the Universe, and yet You allow me to know You and call You “Father.” This is such amazing grace! I worship You and thank You, Father….
Beginning of the Journey
A block away from the house where I grew up was a tall cross. As little children, we were not allowed to go past that cross. If we wanted to ride our bikes or scooters, we would call to our mom to let her know that we were going “to the cross and back.” We named that intersection “At the Cross.” For us, that cross was the endpoint of our safety; we assumed that there were all kinds of dangers beyond that cross. We believed an old witch lived in one of the alleys right after that intersection. We did not dare to venture beyond the cross, but the world before that cross was good.
I was about five years old when I had a dream about that cross. In my dream, I scootered along the sidewalk. When I arrived, I saw Jesus hanging in agony on that cross. I looked up to His bloody face and His eyes met mine. As horrifying a sight as it was, His eyes were filled with LOVE for me. Jesus’ deep gaze of love was cutting into my heart and my soul and my body. This was the first time I understood my sinfulness and my need for Christ’s grace to save me. I stood shaking and crying under that cross in sorrow over my sin and in gratitude for His sacrifice.
This was just a dream, but it was a clear reflection of my soul’s need. I will never forget this encounter with Jesus. Terrified as I was standing in front of the holy God, I knew deep down that I must answer. I came to a crossroads in my life where I knew I needed the forgiveness of Jesus. I came to the cross and needed to venture into the life Christ offered me and into His kingdom. I had to leave my sin behind. There began my conscious journey of getting to know Jesus and seeking His kingdom.
God is Holy
When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, the first thing we need to be aware of is that God is holy. He is perfect, without sin. He is set apart from that which is sinful and unclean. God inspires awe and is worthy of our eternal worship.
Read Isaiah 6:1-8.
Isaiah 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
What does this text tell you about God?
What does Isaiah recognize about himself in this encounter with God?
Can you relate to Isaiah’s experience? Have you had an experience where you recognized God’s holiness and your sinfulness?
Isaiah sees God exalted and high on His throne. The train of His robe fills the temple. In other words, there is no space left with the absence of His glory and power. There is no space for any other king or ruler to take and fill it. Isaiah sees the most majestic and powerful King. He, the only God, is the King that rules always and forever. He is the King to whom all other kings have to bow, without whom they cannot stand or even exist.
Seraphim worshiped the Lord by calling: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” They rightly proclaimed God’s greatness that was, and is now, and is to be forever. They testified that He is the Lord and there is no other. There is no one like Him in nature, in power, or in character. He, the only eternal One, is the Creator of everything that has ever existed. He is the only self-sufficient, self-existing One.
Isaiah 45:18-25
18 For this is what the Lord says—
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited—
he says:
“I am the Lord,
and there is no other.
19 I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob’s descendants,
‘Seek me in vain.’
I, the Lord, speak the truth;
I declare what is right.
20 “Gather together and come;
assemble, you fugitives from the nations.
Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood,
who pray to gods that cannot save.
21 Declare what is to be, present it—
let them take counsel together.
Who foretold this long ago,
who declared it from the distant past?
Was it not I, the Lord?
And there is no God apart from me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is none but me.
22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.
24 They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone
are deliverance and strength.’”
All who have raged against him
will come to him and be put to shame.
25 But all the descendants of Israel
will find deliverance in the Lord
and will make their boast in him.
What does God say about Himself in the text above?
God is the Creator of the universe and everything that has ever come into being. Everything that exists proceeds from Him and is held and sustained by His power. We have life only because He created us and is sustaining us.
In the Old Testament, God reveals Himself to our fallen humanity. He enters into the covenant with His chosen people, the Jews, to show them their need for a holy God. He calls them to be set apart for Him, unlike the other nations, and requires them to follow His commands and worship Him only. People learned that their sins kept them away from God and they were commanded to offer sacrifices for cleansing and forgiveness of their sins. They learned that they were entirely sustained by God in every aspect of their life.
God is the only one who can sustain humans created in His image, but people chose to be led by their own sinful desires and worship other gods, gods they invented for themselves. Even though people went astray and became separated from Him, God still calls us and wants to offer His grace to us.
As the prophet Isaiah encounters God and His holiness, he recognizes his own sinfulness and he cries in dread: “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips….” Isaiah immediately understood that he was unclean and utterly dependent on God’s grace.
Unless we grasp God’s holiness, we will not understand our need for His amazing grace. We will not see our need for being cleansed from our sins.
When Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, He succinctly reminded them (and us!) of who we are praying to: our Heavenly Father, whose name is HOLY (hallowed). May God open our eyes, as He opened Isaiah’s eyes, to understand the truth. We must see our need to be cleansed by God and worship and follow Him only so that we don’t remain in our state of condemnation and become ruined.
What can you find in the Bible about the meaning of “holy” or “hallowed”?
What other attributes of God can you name?
Read Psalm 130. Pray it aloud as a personal prayer to God.
Reflecting on today’s lesson, read Revelation 4:1 through 5:4. What parallels to Isaiah’s passage do you see concerning the Holy God?
Day 4
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Start your day of study by praying “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Continue to pray in your own words, “hallowing His name.” Express your awe and worship. Worship Him by calling: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!”
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty! Your name is the name above every other name. Your Word says that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. I thank You and praise You, Father, that I know Jesus Christ as Lord. I worship You, Father….
If there is any sin revealed to you in His presence, confess it now and ask for His forgiveness. God is merciful and always ready to forgive!
Our Father
To come into the presence of a holy God can be a very scary thing. As sinful as we are, dread and fear are the first natural reactions we should have in His presence.
This fear is for our own good. First, it leads us to acknowledge our need for a savior.
Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Second, it causes us to seek God and leads us to repentance and to the understanding that we depend on Him for everything.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
At the very beginning of the Bible, we see the world that God created. It says in Genesis that “God saw that it was good.” It was in harmony with His goodness and His holiness. Man and woman were created in His image. They were meant to live a holy life in close union and in a loving relationship with God and one another.
Tragically, the people created in God’s image were deceived and rebelled against God by not trusting His goodness and His lordship. Instead, they wanted to be like God and sin entered into the world. Sin contaminated all humanity, and the kingdom of darkness, ruled by Satan, put down roots.**
Over and over again through the rest of the history of the Old Testament, we see people dancing back and forth between loving God and loving sin and rebelling against God and His law. We see God, with discipline, patience, and love, wooing them back to life under His lordship and in His goodness.
But the original order of life was lost. Sin rapidly increased and people became slaves to it, heading to their own destruction. No human effort or response toward God was sufficient to free them from this bondage and make them holy again. They were as good as dead in their sins. They were in desperate need of someone to set them free.
Ephesians 2:1-3
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.
Therefore, God in His love promised His people that He would send a redeemer–His own Son, the only one sufficient to pay the penalty of sin. The only way we can stand without fear of punishment in the presence of the holy God is through this act of love.
Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Christ, the One who is holy and without any sin and blame, the One who is fully God and fully man, died on the cross on our behalf and paid the penalty for our sins. Now we have forgiveness of our sins, and by Jesus’ resurrection, we are offered new life as well. Now we can be free from the fear of God’s wrath and eternal punishment and have holy, eternal life in His Kingdom. God secures our new life by sealing us with His Holy Spirit into Jesus’ life.
By obtaining new life from Christ, we find our right standing in the presence of a holy God. In this new life, as Jesus Himself is a Son, we also become children of God. The Heavenly Father becomes our Father in heaven. Now we are united back into the love relationship with a holy God.
Jesus Christ came to this earth by His own will, sent by His Father for a crucial purpose. He came to lead us out of rebellion. He came to save what was lost by sin and destined for eternal death. Jesus came to bring us back to eternal life with God.
John 10:10
The thief (Satan) comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
When Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, He wanted us to understand that in this new life in Him, this holy God becomes our Heavenly Father. Christ delivered us from the curse of sin and death so that we can become the children of God. And now, if we have received the forgiveness of our sins and have entered this new life, we can come to that holy God and call Him “OUR FATHER!” What unspeakable, tender love that implores us, undeserved and unworthy, to come to the supreme life of God!
Whenever you pray to that all-powerful, almighty, holy God, you are praying to your Father who is in heaven!
1 John 3:1
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Take a moment and think about God’s love for you. Is this holy God your Father?
Reflecting on today’s lesson, read Revelation 5:5-14. What new insights have you learned about Christ (called the Lion of the tribe of Judah and also called the Lamb)?
What is your response to Christ as He demonstrates His sacrificial love for you and offers you His grace of forgiveness and new life with Him?
Would you allow Him to cleanse you and bring you into relationship with His Holy Father? Your journey of new life in His kingdom can begin today!
If you have new life in Christ, pray to be fully surrendered to Him and to love and obey Him. Ask Him to forgive you for anything that you have allowed to come between you and Him, causing you to go your own way. Pray for obedience and the ability to love Him with your whole heart, mind, and soul.
Worship the Lord and give Him thanks for the life you have in close relationship with Jesus Christ, our Father, and the Holy Spirit.
***
In this Bible study lesson, we learned how to pray “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name”. There is much more to learn about this line of the Lord’s Prayer through continued study of Jesus’ sermon and complete teachings of Jesus in the gospels. We will never exhaust the layers of meaning of this prayer.
My hope and prayer for you is that you would continue to learn how to pray “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name” by obeying Christ and living in fellowship with Him and our Father in heaven. Only in our true fellowship with God can we learn How to pray.
** Satan and his kingdom of darkness should not be confused to be opposite or equal in power to the Kingdom of God as some religions may believe. Before mankind rebelled against God, Satan rebelled (Isaiah 14:12-15, Revelation 12:9). Satan deceived some angels and later men into his rebellion. As with any other earthly kingdom, Satan’s kingdom is bound to bow down to God. Satan cannot stand in the presence of God unless God allows him to (Job 1:6, 2:1). With Jesus’ second coming, Satan and his rule will be banished once and for all.
BIBLE STUDY
INTRODUCTION
Your Kingdom Come
Sermon on the Mount
Bible Text, Matthew 5-7
Lesson 1
Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed Be Your Name
Lesson 2
Your Kingdom Come
Lesson 3
Your Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven
Lesson 4
Give Us Today Our Daily Bread
Lesson 5
And Forgive Us Our Debts, As We Also Have Forgiven Our Debtors
Lesson 6
And Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From The Evil One
Lesson 7
I Am Invited.
What Is My Response?
ALL LESSONS
Your Kingdom Come
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®
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Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.