Now today we need to come to these important words: "Hallowed be thy name." We have already studied the richness of God's word in the meaning. We studied what does it mean, "Our Father." What does it mean when, the week before, we saw "which art in heaven." We saw that heaven is not some kind of a geographical location, but a spiritual state of being. And we saw what difference it makes to our whole spiritual outlook, what difference it makes to our prayer life, when we accurately understand the word of God. That God is not far away, that we have to reach by some kind of rocket-propelled prayer, but that God is always near. That right across the border of the material and the spiritual, the spiritual is, as it were, right beside. Just switching, you might say, the spiritual or even the material frequency, and you find that you have entered into a new and different state of existence, which is where God is. God is Spirit. And he is not near or far in some way that we can measure in terms of geographical distance.
Now, I know that many of you may not appreciate the importance of this. You virtually have to be a theologian to understand the depths of what we are talking about. But in due time, the meaning of it will gradually, I hope, percolate like coffee, right down from your mind into your heart. And then it comes and dawns upon you what it really means, that God is as near as your own breath, as near as your own spirit. He is never far from you. That is the whole scriptural teaching. If he is far away, it's because you are far from him. You are far from him because of sin. But never is he far away from you in terms of distance. He is always near.
And so how do we draw near to God? Quite simply, by drawing near to him. By repenting of our sins. And James tells us, "Draw near to God." One says, "You keep emphasizing what we have to do." That is what scripture says. That is what I say. God is always ready to do his part. The only question is whether we are ready to do ours. Therefore, scripture itself emphasizes our responsibility. And it never leaves us in doubt that God is ever ready to respond to our prayer. "Ask" — that is our responsibility. Then you shall receive. "Seek" — that is our responsibility. Then you shall find. And James says, "Draw near to God, he will draw near to you." You do your part. He will do his. The question only is we have to know what is our part. We don't have to know what is God's part. He will do his part. You needn't worry about that. And so here in scripture, the emphasis — not as my emphasis, it is a scriptural emphasis — always lays the responsibility on us. Because God has done everything there is to do. Now it's up to us. Draw near to God. He will draw near to you.
But today we come then to these words: "Hallowed be thy name." In Chinese, "Yuan ni de ming bei zun wei sheng." Whatever does this mean? It's so easy to pray the Lord's Prayer. And those who have ever been to Catholic school, as I have been, the first thing we ever learned in Catholic school was the Lord's Prayer. And we kept going over and over it without having a clue what it means. I don't know how many times in Catholic school as a little boy I must have prayed, "Hallowed be thy name." And nobody ever told me what it means. Has anybody ever told you what it means? Do you know what it means?
Many people in the church recite the Lord's Prayer. But if you recite the Lord's Prayer without knowing what it means, what is the point? These are just words on the lips. The meaning is completely unclear. So today, by the Lord's grace, we seek to understand what these words mean.
What then does this mean? We have to approach this question with a number of other questions. We have to ask: what does "hallowed" mean? What does hallowing his name mean? We have to ask: how is his name going to be hallowed? How is all this going to be accomplished? Where is this going to be accomplished? Why is it necessary that it should be accomplished? Now we have a lot of questions to ask. I hope that when you come to the Bible, you come with many questions, not with a blank mind. You ask no questions, you've got no answers. Sometimes you can ask the questions and still don't get the answers right away, but at least you've got something to work on. In English there is a saying that if you ask the right question, that is half the answer. The problem is to ask the right question. And so in coming to the word of God, you must come with a spiritual and an active mind, asking the questions. And sometimes we dare not ask questions because we are not sure we could ever get any answers. But if we are willing to search, if we are willing to seek, we shall find.
Kipling has a very useful saying, which I think most Christians should learn when it comes to working at the word of God, and it is this: "I kept six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew. Their names are What, and Why, and When, and Where, and How, and Who." Now this is a very useful saying to learn. And we need to bear this in mind. When we come to the word of God, let's not just stare at the words, or just sigh and say, well, I don't know what this is. Start asking questions. And start finding the answers. And this is the way you are going to move forward, if you are going to move forward at all, in the word of God.
What does "hallowed" mean? Well first, the translators do indeed put a lot of problems before us. "Hallowed," of course, is not a word that has been used in the English language for the last 300 years. So if you don't know what "hallowed" means, I don't greatly blame you. Whatever does "hallowed" mean? According to the English experts, this word has been out of circulation for no less than 300 years. And perhaps was almost out of circulation even by King James' time. By "out of circulation" means that it is a word not used anymore in current language. But because it has been part of English traditional language, it's always been part of the Lord's Prayer. Therefore the translators do not feel free, even in a new translation, to change the word. So that even in the New English Bible, we have the same thing: "Let your name be hallowed." And so anybody knows precisely what exactly that means. The Chinese, having no tradition to keep to, is freer here, and is able to translate: "Yuan ni de ming bei zun wei sheng." That is close to the meaning. "Let your name be regarded, be revered, be respected as holy." May your name be respected as holy.
The problem is that even when we have got the right translation, we are not so sure what that means. What does it mean to say, let his name be respected as holy? What does "holy" mean? Now, what exactly is the word "holy" supposed to mean? Now, we can think of saints who are holy because some pope canonized him. Presumably that meant that he was put in a cannon and shot out, or something like this. But it doesn't mean that. It just means that the pope decided that he was to be raised to the level of a saint, as though it was up to the pope to decide, or anyone else to decide, who is a saint. This kind of erroneous notion of what is holy still persists.
What is the biblical meaning of holy? What does holiness mean in the Bible? The basic meaning of "holy" in the Bible, in fact, as always, is very simple. It basically means to be set apart. To be different from, to be distinct from, everything and everyone else. God is holy in the sense that he is different from anything and anyone else. He is unique. The only Son, the unique Son — he is the holy Son. He is unique. There is nothing and no one like him. Therefore, he is a category of his own. That is part of the basic meaning of holy.
That's why we are holy. The word "saint" simply means "holy one." And you know that Paul addresses Christians as saints. We are all saints. We don't have to wait for any pope to canonize us. The Bible tells us that every true Christian is a saint. What does that mean? That means basically this: that he is now different from the people in the world. He has been chosen out of the world. He has been set apart for God. He is separate from the world because he belongs to God. A saint is somebody who simply belongs to God. Whatever belongs to God is set apart for God, and therefore it is holy.
It is for this reason that you see here it is called the Holy Bible. Now that is not wrong to use it in this way, because the Bible belongs to God. The word is the word of God. Therefore, when you call it the Holy Bible, it is quite correctly called the Holy Bible. It is God's word. It belongs to him. It is not like any human word. It is set apart from anything that man has to say.
In the same way, in the Old Testament, the priests were holy. They were set apart for God. They only lived for God. They only served God. They had no inheritance in the world. They were different from all the people. They were holy unto the Lord. That is, they were — you can actually use the word "holy" by spelling it with a W at the beginning. Wholly the Lord. "Holy unto the Lord" can be spelled equally well W-H-O-L-L-Y. "Holy" unto the Lord. Anything that is completely and utterly the Lord's is holy unto the Lord. And it is holy in God's eyes. It is separated unto him. Therefore, I said, if you are a true Christian, you are holy because you are wholly God's.
Now you can understand why I have constantly shown you that the teaching of scripture knows of only one kind of commitment, and that is a whole commitment, a total commitment. That is why the Bible speaks of saints, because all these people are wholly belonging to God. As Paul, time and again, wants us to understand clearly. Or as he put it in the words in 2 Corinthians: "Christ died for us, that we no more live for ourselves, but for him."
So holiness, on God's side, shows his utter difference from anything in the world. How is he different? He is different in these ways. The world is corrupt, and he is pure. The world is full of hatred, and he is full of love. The world is merciless, but he is full of mercy and loving-kindness. God, in his character, is utterly different from anything that is in the world, and from anyone that is in the world. It is this otherness, this complete difference of God, that the Bible describes as holy. That is holiness in God's aspect. His character is completely different from anything you can find in the world.
You cannot — and this is the error of philosophy — you cannot reason from the world to God, because God is completely different from people. He is completely different. You cannot say, "Well, people are like this, therefore God is like that." You cannot reason like this, because God is completely different from people. He is completely different from even the best of people. His love is of a different quality. Human love is selfish. As we have come to realize, a boy loves you because he wants to possess you. You love the boy because you want to possess him. All human love is like this. And if that love breaks down, it produces tension. It produces distress. Because it's so possessive, that when it breaks, it produces tremendous stress, like metal fatigue. When it breaks, the pressure is enormous. But God's love is nothing like human love at all. It does not seek to take. It only seeks to give. And in that kind of love, you don't find the same stresses. The direction is different. It is not making this "my own."
As so many mothers — they love children, sure. But those children are their private property. I've seen so many parents behave in this way. And God help us that when we raise our children, we don't behave in this way. That our children are "my property." They are there for me to possess, or to dispossess, as I please. In fact, I have known mothers who have dispossessed their children because they maintain that everything the children have is theirs. This kind of so-called love in the world is absolutely different from God's love. God's love is nothing like this. Therefore, you cannot reason from human love to God's love. It doesn't work like this at all. The Bible says, "A mother may even forget her nursing child, but I will never forget you," says the Lord. The love of God is completely different, even from the greatest, the finest of human love. That is what holiness means. An utter distinction. The separateness, the difference, the uniqueness of God.
Now we must bear this very clearly in mind if we want to understand what we are speaking about here, when we pray to God that he will hallow his name. What does it mean, "zun wei sheng" — to hallow his name as holy? We must understand what "sheng" (holy) means. In the Bible, "sheng" means that God is completely different from everything worldly, and from everything human — even the best that humans have to offer. What God calls holy is that he is completely different from people, not only in his power, but in his character. So even the best aspects of human nature are still different from God's character. For example, human love — however a person loves, human love is still selfish. But God's love has absolutely no selfishness in it. So the character of his love is different. We cannot reason from the human side, from human virtues or human character, to conclude what God is like, because God is completely different. No matter how you think about the best things in humanity, you still cannot reason your way to a conclusion about God. God's love is completely different from human love. So unless God reveals himself and gives us a revelation, we have no way of knowing what God is like. Unless he reveals himself to us, using our own wisdom, our own abilities, our own thinking, we have no way of knowing what God is like. So "holy" means that God is completely separated from humanity and from the world — there is a great, great distance. God is different.
And our sanctification is the same way. That is to say, when, by God's Spirit and by God's work in our hearts, we are separated from all that is worldly — this is what it means to be sanctified. Sanctification means that God works in our hearts, separating us from all the people of the world, calling us out to become his own children. When we become completely different from all the people of the world — this is sanctification. What is our responsibility in this? Our responsibility is to completely surrender ourselves to God. This is what it means to be sanctified. This sanctification cannot be partial. Either you belong to the Lord, or you do not belong to the Lord. There is no such thing as being half belonging to the Lord and half not. If you are half belonging to the Lord, then you are not belonging to the Lord. So the Lord Jesus says, either you are on my side, standing with me, or you are standing on the enemy's side. There is no neutral position in the spiritual world. As we have also seen, commitment must be total commitment, or it is not commitment at all. So sanctification is a complete separation from the world. So are you a holy Christian? Are you a true Christian? Because the Bible only recognizes one kind of Christian — a holy Christian. A holy Christian is one who has been separated from the world, sanctified and set apart. We say "separated" — this translation is correct. This meaning is right. We must be completely different from the people of the world. Not only different in name — not that I am called a Christian and he is not, therefore I am holy. This is not a matter of labels. It is a matter of reality. Have we truly been separated from the world, set apart, and made holy? Of course, this has another effect. God calls us out, separates us. This is because we respond to his calling and come out. But the second step is that our lives must change.
Now this brings us, as we see, to the next point. To be separated out means not only that we have a different name, but that our lives are different. Many, too many Christians have only one distinction from the non-Christian, and it is this: that they have the label of being a Christian. Let me tell you, in the Bible that makes no difference at all. A person simply with a Christian label is not a Christian on the biblical definition. He must be different in his whole attitude, his whole thinking, his whole way of life. This is the biblical teaching. This is the whole meaning, as I have stressed before, of being born again. Being born again means that you become different. If being born again leaves you exactly the same as before you were born again, then what's the point of being born again? The whole point of being born again seems to be utterly an academic exercise. The point of being born again is that you become different.
Let us pursue this question further. Let us notice this: that this prayer is being addressed to God, that he may hallow his name. So first, it is something that God must do. We are asking him to hallow his name. Now what does this mean? We are asking him to sanctify his name. We are asking him to make his name to be holy. Now he is already holy, is he not? So what is there for him to do? He is already holy. Now what are we asking him to do in such a prayer when we say, "Hallowed be thy name"? "Let your name — make your name to be holy." What's that prayer, seeing that God's name is already holy, seeing that God himself is already holy?
This brings us to the next point. We have to understand what "name" means. What does the name mean? Well, in scripture, the name refers to the person. Just as in everyday life, if you say, "I am speaking about somebody" — I don't know who that somebody is until you say the name. You say "so and so," and I say, "Ah, now I know who you are talking about." The name represents that person. But in English too, "name" has "reputation." Just as in the Bible, "my good name" means "my good reputation." If you destroy my name, it means you are destroying my reputation. And so in scripture, "name" means God as he chooses to reveal himself.
So now when we understand this, we are seeing what we are asking God to do. We are saying, "May you, O God, do such a work that your name, your reputation, your character is revealed in the eyes of the people as holy." It is not that there is any question whether God himself is holy. The question is only whether people know that he is holy. And of course this implies that people do not know that he is holy. And of course the world does not know God. Therefore the prayer is: let the world know, O God, who you are. That is what the prayer is. Let your mighty power be revealed, that the whole world may know that you are God, that your name be exalted.
By this we begin to see that "hallow your name" is very close to "glorifying your name." The prayer really is "glorify your name" in a particular way, that particular way being that your name may be so glorified that people may realize that you, O God, are holy — that you are utterly different from anything that is in the world.
Now the world doesn't know that. If you go out, you will find that people think of God in the most strange ways. The Greeks thought about God as simply a superman. They behaved just as human beings did. They did the most strange things. You have a god called Bacchus, the god of the feast, who makes other people drunk and gets drunk himself. He is a riotous kind of a character. You have a god of war — in Chinese we have Guan Gong, god of war. In other words, the gods, notice, are not holy. These gods of the world are simply superhuman beings. They do all the bad things that human beings do, with some few exceptions because they represent human virtues, but they only represent human virtues. Notice the gods of this world — none of them are holy. They are simply human beings who have been stepped up to a higher level.
So any of you familiar with Greek mythology will realize that the Greek gods, for example, or the Roman gods for that matter, were vindictive, were hateful, were narrow-minded, were petty, were squabbling, were fighting with each other, were getting drunk, were hurting each other — the whole bunch. The gods behave exactly like human beings. Why? Because all the gods of this world are simply human beings who have been magnified. Now that shows you the difference between God in the Bible and the gods of this world. The God in the Bible is immediately different in that he is in no way like a human being. That's why I said right at the beginning, you cannot reason from human virtue — whether it be the virtue of warriors, of fighting, from which we get the gods of war like Mars in the West or Guan Gong in China. These are simply heroes which have been stepped up. Guan Gong, of course, was a hero in Chinese history who was then raised, deified, to the level of a god. Which just proves exactly this: that the gods of this world are simply supermen.
And we still have that today. Human beings are still creating their gods. We have bionic men and bionic women today — six million dollars or something, and you got a superman. He runs a little faster than you do, and he has more strength in twisting this and that thing, and his mind doesn't seem to work a lot faster — but anyway, that part maybe can be improved later on, when they add another one or two million dollars. But in the meantime, with six million dollars down, he can do the sort of things that most bulldozers could do — a very expensive bulldozer. But anyway, you see, this is typical of gods of this world. They are simply human beings promoted to a higher level.
And so we must understand that the prayer here is: "O Lord, may the world know that you are different, that you are not like the gods." Reveal yourself, in other words. This is a prayer: reveal yourself to the world. Let the world know that you are God. Just as in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel, so many times: "Then the nations will know that I am God, when I do this and do that." And we are going to see in a moment what he does.
The meaning of this prayer, "May your name be hallowed," is primarily: may your name be glorified. But glorified in what way? Glorified in this way — that you would do your wonderful works, so that people may know that you are completely different from all the gods and spirits of this world. That you are truly God. Let the whole world know that you are God. That is the meaning of this prayer. Because you say, "May your name be hallowed" — God is already holy. "May your name be hallowed" means may the world honor your name as holy. May the world come to know that you are God. You see, none of the gods of this world are holy. Whether it is Greek mythology — the gods that the Greeks honored in those days — or the Romans, or the Egyptians, the gods they revered were all the same: they were human beings, you could say, elevated to a higher level. For example, in China we have this phenomenon too. In the time of the Three Kingdoms, there were Zhang Fei, Guan Gong, and Liu Bei. But because Guan Gong was so mighty in battle, he was elevated to the status of a god. And so he became the god of war. But all the gods of the world are like this — whether in the East or the West, the gods of this world are simply humans promoted to become gods. Someone is very good, so we say there should be a god representing kindness, or grace, or mercy, or a god of war, or a god of justice, or a god of fairness. But the gods of the world are no different from humans in their behavior. In Greek mythology — which we now call mythology, but in those days these gods were revered and worshiped by the people — their gods quarreled with each other, fought with each other, were reckless, did all sorts of things, no different from human beings at all. But the people of the world had no way to distinguish their gods, because their gods were never set apart as holy. Their gods were not holy, let alone holy in the true sense. So when we pray, "May your name be hallowed," it is to let all people know that you are God. These so-called gods are not gods at all. May your name receive glory, so that everyone may know you are God. This is what our prayer means.
Now the next step we realize is that God is going to do this thing. And how he is going to do it, as the scripture shows to us, is that he is going to do it in us. Now this is the point that we must see very clearly, and very importantly. God, when we are asking him to do this — how is God's name, or where is God's name going to be hallowed? By what means is his name going to be hallowed? Is it going to be hallowed in the houses of Montreal? Is God's name going to be seen to be holy by looking at the houses? By looking at the trees? By looking at the flowers? By looking at the cars? Of course not. It must be looking at people. God is going to reveal his name as holy. Where? In his people. Now that's the next point we must understand. God's holiness is going to be revealed in us. That's the scriptural teaching.
Let me read to you in this context a very important verse, and that is in Ezekiel, which sums up, in fact, the whole of this teaching very clearly. In Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 23. Let me read to you this verse, and you'll see how close this verse is to the verse we are studying now. And here we read these words: "And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes."
Now you can notice just how close these words are to the words in the Lord's Prayer. What is he saying here? What is Ezekiel saying? "I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations — by you." You, Israel. And the words unfortunately apply just as much to the church today. "You have profaned my name. You have dishonored my name in the world." The church has brought little or no glory to God, but a great deal of dishonor by its bickerings, its squabblings, its sectarianism, its partisanship, its church differences and disputes. "You have dishonored, disgraced my name." Profane is the exact opposite of making holy. It is to make secular. It is to dishonor, to degrade. "You have profaned my name among the nations. And the nations will know when I have revealed my holiness and vindicated my holiness. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, says the Lord your God, when through you — you, the very people through whom my name was profaned and dishonored — I am going to do a work in such a way that it's going to be through you that I will vindicate my holiness before their eyes, the eyes of the world."
Now you can see when you've read this verse carefully that this is exactly the same thing that Jesus has in his mind. God is going to hallow his name. God is going to glorify his name as holy, and he's going to cause all the nations of the world to see it. But it's going to be through you. That's the way he's going to work. The same people who dishonored his name — he is going to do a work in them that they are going to glorify his name. Now this is exactly what I'm praying for, what we must be praying for in this generation. The church has been a disgrace. We all know it. There's no use arguing about it. There's no use defending it. It's a truth that everybody knows. But I have hope that if we pray and call upon the name of the Lord, God is going to vindicate his name through the same people who profaned his name. Through us, through the church, he is going to do a great and amazing work.
How is God going to cause his name to be hallowed? How is he going to accomplish this goal? When we look at the words of scripture, we know that he will accomplish this in and through his people. These words are very, very close to what is spoken in Ezekiel 36:23, which immediately shows us that when the Lord Jesus taught his disciples to say this phrase in the Lord's Prayer, Ezekiel 36:23 was clearly in his mind. How does it read? Ezekiel 36:23 says: "I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations — which you have profaned among them. When I reveal my holiness in you before their eyes, then they will know that I am Yahweh." This is the declaration of Yahweh. See how the words here are the same as in the Lord's Prayer. Yahweh says, "I will cause my great name to be shown as holy." He is already holy, but he will show himself as holy. Show it to whom? Show it so that the nations may know. But where will he show it? He will show it as holy in you. Even though it is because of you that my name has been profaned among the nations — yet I will show myself as holy among you, the people of Israel. How wonderful! This gives me great hope. We know that our churches — all churches, whether Protestant or Catholic — have brought great shame to God in this world. God's name has been profaned in the world because of the church. I include myself in this. When I was not yet a Christian, before I came to faith, I did not want to be a Christian at all. Because I looked at these Christians and found them distasteful. They wore black robes and crosses, and they all seemed like a bunch of hypocrites. I could not see any love or beauty in their lives. I wanted nothing to do with such people. God's name was profaned because of the church. In Romans 2, you remember, Paul said exactly the same thing to Israel: "Because of you, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles." But God is going to do a work among Israel, so that his name will be shown as holy in them. God is going to show his holiness in us. So what should be done?
How then is God going to do this? How is God going to reveal his holiness in the midst of the very same people and through the very same people who caused his name to be blasphemed, as Paul says in Romans chapter 2, among the Gentiles? Well, if we read on in Ezekiel, the answer is there. We don't have to read on very far. As we read on in Ezekiel, we find that Ezekiel tells us how it's going to be done. He says it's going to be done like this: that God is going to put a new spirit and a new heart within man. He is going to change the Israelites. He is going to transform them. That's how God's power is going to work. He's going to come into the Israelites and take hold of them and change them and make new people out of them.
And so as we read on, a few verses further on, verse 24: "For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land." Verse 25: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you." Verse 26: "A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone — the dead heart — and give you a heart of flesh, a living heart."
How many times in this church we have already emphasized this, what it means to become a true Christian. And that is that God calls us out, as he says in verse 24: "I will take you from the nations." He gathers us to himself. That is the first step: separating them out from the nations where they have been mixed into. So the first step of being sanctified, of becoming holy, is that God calls us out to be separate, to be different. As Paul uses exactly that quotation in 1 Corinthians 5: "Come out from among them, be separate." We have to come out — not physically out of the world, but out from the world in the way they behave themselves, in the way they conduct themselves. And when we respond to God's call, then what does God do? God puts a new spirit within us, a new heart within us, and so he makes us to become clean, to become holy.
Verse 26 says it very clearly. Verse 24: "I will take you from the nations, gather you from the countries, and bring you into your own land." Verse 25: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols." Verse 26: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." A heart of stone is dead; a heart of flesh is alive. So we see how God describes it in two steps. First, "I will separate you from the nations." The Jews, just like Christians, are mixed into the world. You look at a Christian and a non-Christian, and you cannot tell the difference. Their behavior and conduct is exactly the same as non-Christians. You cannot tell they are Christians unless they tell you, "I am a Christian." Then you know. But without that, you wouldn't know. But God says, "I will separate you from the world." Not that you leave the world physically, but that you are separated in your behavior and conduct. When we hear God's call and respond to that call, coming to the Lord, what does he do? He puts a holy heart within us. He cleanses us with clean water. What is clean water? We know clearly — it is the Holy Spirit himself. The Bible uses water to represent the Spirit. He cleanses us and removes the uncleanness from our hearts. God puts a new spirit, a new heart within us, and we become new people. A true Christian is one who has become a new person.
But this leads us to another very important point regarding prayer. Consider this. If you are asking, and you know what you are asking for — can you see what you are praying for? When you pray, "O God, let your name be glorified in such a way that the world will know that you are holy" — we are saying, "Let your name be holy and sanctified in us and through us." We are saying, "Lord, change me." We cannot sincerely be asking God to glorify his name if we don't mean, "Glorify your name in me." Never pray the Lord's Prayer again if you don't intend that God will change you and separate you out of the world. Then don't repeat the Lord's Prayer. That prayer is not for you. This prayer is only for those people who are willing to follow Jesus all the way. It's only for people who are willing to take up the cross and follow Jesus, who are wholly committed to Jesus, who are saying, "Lord, let your name be glorified as holy throughout the world — through me."
That is a basic principle in prayer. That whatever you pray for, either you don't mean it, or if you mean it, God is going to ask you to do your part. For example: there is a brother or sister in need financially. What do I do? I say, "Lord, supply his need or her need." Good. So what's your responsibility? "Nothing. I've done my prayer. I've prayed." And so that's the end of my responsibility? Wrong. You either don't pray that prayer, or if you pray that prayer, God is going to say, "Okay, now you start with you. You do something about it." If you don't intend to do something about it, don't pray. You can see that prayer and life are inseparable. You cannot separate prayer and life. If you don't intend to do something about it, don't pray for it. Because God is going to tell you to be the first one to do something about it. Am I not a hypocrite if I pray for a brother or sister in need and say, "Lord, supply his needs," and I don't take out some money to give to them? What kind of a hypocrite am I?
# The Lord's Prayer: Hallowed Be Thy Name (cont.) — Matthew 6:9
What do I mean to pray for that person when I don't care to do anything on my part? What's the use of saying, "Pray for China"? "Lord, grant the gospel, get into China." You mean it? What's your part? What's the use of praying, "Lord, bring the gospel into China," when you have not the slightest intention to do anything on your part for it? And in every respect, if we are praying for the church, or praying for a person in need, or praying for the outreach of the gospel in China, or praying for any particular work — there is no point praying for anything if you don't intend to do something about it. That is, if you can do something about it. Of course, if I am penniless myself, I can still pray for somebody in need, even though I have nothing to give that person. That is a different situation. But where I can do something, I must do something.
Is this not hypocrisy? I say, if I truly pray "May your name be hallowed," what I mean is: may your name be glorified in my life. Is that not so? This principle applies to every aspect of prayer. For example, if a brother or sister has financial difficulties, I say I will pray for her: "Lord, provide her with food and clothing, let her have plenty." Meanwhile, you keep your own money in your pocket and don't go help her. What does it mean to pray for her? Unless I truly have no money at all — of course I can still pray for her. But if I am able to help and yet do not help, then my prayer is hypocritical and meaningless. So it is the same if we pray for anything, whether for the church or for the kingdom of God — unless we are willing to see what our own responsibility is, such prayer really has no meaning. It would be better not to pray at all. Otherwise, you expose yourself before God as a hypocrite. I pray for China. Then I should think: how can I do something for China? What contribution can I make? Or if I cannot make any contribution now, what contribution might I make in the future? What preparation can I make now for that future? These are things we must think through first. This is genuine prayer.
All this then we see the important principles that come out from what seems to be a very simple prayer. It brings out a mass of important teachings of the word of God. What mass of teachings! We see that God is holy, utterly different. That becoming a Christian means to become utterly different as well. And when people look at you, they say, "Wow, he is different." And we are not afraid to be different. No Christians are afraid to be different — we are not afraid to be different, if by being different we are truly holy. Not different in the sense that we wear out-of-date clothing, wear all kinds of odd, fearful garments, and behave in strange ways. I don't mean different by being queer, but different by being holy. That people can say, "Wow, here is a man who is righteous, is fair, is kind, is loving." All these things you can say of this man. He stands out from the crowd as different.
And if you have listened to this prayer, and if you pray this prayer, the burden is upon you through the coming week to go out to your home, to your college, to your office, and there let people say, "Wow, this man is different. There is something different about this man. He stands out from the crowd." And I don't mean different because you talk more than anybody else, and that's not a very good thing to be different with. But to be different because of the quality of your life. Not because you just wave a big Bible around — everybody can do that. But the question is whether your life stands out as different.
And so we see that here is something exceedingly important. We see that it brings in the principles of regeneration. The basic principle of prayer — that we can pray for nothing and we have not the right to pray for it unless we on our part are prepared to say, "What is my part in doing this that God wants me to do?"
It, however, leads us to one final and exceedingly important point, and it is this. What happens then if we do not live this holy, this sanctified life? Does it matter whether we are sanctified, whether we are holy? Let me tell you, the Bible's words are explicit on this point: without holiness, nobody shall see God. It is not a question that it is good for a Christian to be holy, it's rather nice to be holy, it's rather nice that he is kind and different from other people. It is essential for him, because without holiness, you are not a Christian. Without holiness, you will not see God. In this respect, our calling, our whole purpose, our whole meaning of life in this world, is to be holy.
In Leviticus, in the book of Leviticus, four times God said to the people of Israel: "Be holy, as I am holy." Not once, not twice, but four times. He ordered, he commanded the people of Israel to be holy. We must be different if we are going to fulfill our function, our purpose in the world as Christians. And this we must bear in mind. We have not become Christians just to save our own necks and save our own skins. We have been saved in order to fulfill a task, and that task is to point the world to God. You either are a true Christian and you are fulfilling that function, or you are not a Christian. Either you are always pointing people to God by the kind of life you live, or else you are not a Christian. God is not being sanctified in your life. Don't become a Christian just because you want to run away from hell, because if that's the only reason — and that's the only reason why you are still a Christian now — you won't go very far down the road. When you become a Christian, God has given you a task, and that is to sanctify his name in the world. And I beg of you clearly to remember it.
But what if you do not fulfill that responsibility? Let me tell you, there are various stages of fulfilling that responsibility. And I'm going to point you to the example of Moses. The example of Moses rather chills and frightens me, and keeps me exceedingly humble. And I understand now why Paul said, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Nothing so disastrous as a self-complacent Christian. Have you ever wondered why Paul said in Philippians, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling"? Because God is a holy God. Also in this: that if you do not honor his name as holy in your life, he's going to disown you, because you don't properly represent him.
Let me give you the example of Moses, in Numbers chapter 20, verse 12. I'll tell you the incident, which is already quite well known. Moses was a mighty man of God, of which it was said of him that God spoke to Moses face to face, as with no other man. Moses was God's chosen and holy instrument, totally set apart for God. Moses led the people out of Egypt. Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness towards the promised land. But Moses himself never entered the promised land. Do you know why? Even though he was a man of God of a stature that nobody else, no prophet, could compare with him. As God said, "I never speak with any prophet as I speak to Moses. I speak with him face to face, as friend with friends." But Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land. You know why? Because, for one instance, in one incident, he did not sanctify God's name.
Now the charge brought against Moses is exactly that which we have in the Lord's Prayer, except that it's the reverse. He did not hallow God's name in his life, in one incident. And because of that one incident, God said, "You shall not enter the promised land." If you look at these words in Numbers, you will find it there in Numbers chapter 20, verse 12, which I'll just read to you. In chapter 20, verse 12, we read these words. God says to Moses: "And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 'Because you did not believe me' — notice these words — 'to sanctify me, to hallow my name.'" It's exactly the same word in the original. "To sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them." You did not honor my name as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel. Therefore you shall not enter the land of promise.
This same thing is repeated once more in Deuteronomy, in much the same way, with the same word, referring to hallowing God's name. In Deuteronomy 32, verse 51: "And I read this to you again: 'Because you broke faith with me' — God is speaking to Moses — 'in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the wilderness of Sin, because you did not revere me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel.' You did not revere me as holy. You did not sanctify my name. You did not hallow my name in the midst of the people of Israel. Therefore you shall not enter the land of promise."
You know, the complacency with which there are those people who sit back and say, talk about their being saved and saved forever — really frightens me. When I reconsider the account of Moses, it really makes perspiration come up on my brow. Here was a man flawless in all his life. A man of utter and absolute consecration and dedication to God. A man whose meekness was said to be incomparable. There was nobody who could compare with him in all of Israel, in holiness and meekness. But in one incident, he did not hallow God's name in his life. And God said, "You shall not take the people into the promised land." The very purpose for which Moses was raised up out of Egypt, the very purpose for which Moses led the people out of Israel, out of Egypt, was to bring them to the promised land. But he could not fulfill that promise because he did not hallow God's name.
I would like you therefore to see the importance of these words: "Hallowed be thy name" — in us. "Hallowed be thy name." Because I tell you this: no matter how holy your life is, how holy my life might be, if we fail, we may fail of God's promises too. Remember, God is holy. We are dealing with a holy God. It doesn't mean that Moses was lost. It doesn't mean that Moses perished spiritually. No, no. We thank God he didn't perish. We know that at the transfiguration he appeared with Elijah. Moses and Elijah appeared at the transfiguration. He was still with Christ. It doesn't mean he was lost. But he lost the blessing. He lost the blessing and the privilege of leading his people into the promised land.
Let me warn you then. Let us take warning of this: that if we are careless in not sanctifying God's name in our lives, and fulfilling the responsibility of our high calling — what is our high calling? Our high calling is to hallow his name in this world, that the whole world may say, "Wow, God is like that, because look at him." That's a Christian. And when I look at him, I can see what God is like. That's our responsibility. Don't shirk your responsibility. God doesn't let you get away with it and say, "Well, we are all full of fault, you know," and make a few excuses for yourself. God knows we are full of fault. That's why he gave us the Holy Spirit to enable us to live the life. Notice the word — Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to be holy. Without him, we cannot do it. We cannot live it. Nobody suggested we can live the Christian life in our own strength. Only by his power can this be done. And therefore, because his power can accomplish it in us — because as Paul said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" — we are without excuse. There is no use saying, "Lord, in that day in the judgment, you see, we are all human only. We are only human." As though that is some information that God didn't discover before.
Consider then again the instance of Moses. This mighty man of God was deprived of the blessing, after all the toil of enduring the Israelites for so many years, of entering the promised land. What was his crime? What was his sin? Only this: there was no water at the time, and Moses was ordered to bring water to the muttering, complaining people of Israel. He was ordered to do two things. First: speak to the rock and command the rock to bring forth water. And second, when you have commanded it, strike the rock with your rod — the same rod that you struck the waters of the Red Sea with. Moses did only the one, not the second. He did the second thing but not the first. He did only one of those two things. He did not speak to the rock. He only smote it in his anger. And he said the wrong thing. He said, "Shall we bring forth water out of this rock for you stiff-necked, rebellious people?" "Shall we?" Who is "we"? Only God brings water, not Moses, not anybody else. Who is the "we"? And why did you not fulfill the entire commandment?
You see, God was going to do a tremendous and amazing work in front of all the people, that his name would be hallowed in the eyes of the people. What work? That people were thirsting. They were parched. They were dry. God was going to do a mighty work that would hallow his name, that would sanctify his name in the eyes of the people. What work? Moses would stand up before this great multitude upon the rock, and he would speak to this rock in God's name, and say, "Bring forth water out of this rock." Well, nobody — everybody knows no water comes out of a rock. But he was going to speak to this rock in God's name, and having said so, with that stick that parted the Red Sea, the stick of authority of God's authority, he would just smite the rock, and the water would gush out. He didn't do that. He didn't speak to the rock. In his anger and annoyance with the people, he had forgotten everything about the word of sanctifying God's name. He just took the rock and he bashed the stick upon the rock. The water came out all right. But he had not fulfilled the purpose of glorifying God in the eyes of the people.
The people would have fallen down before God if he had just spoken to that rock, just touched that rock, and the water would have come out. Wow, the people would — but no. In his fury, all the people could see was his anger, and everything else. The whole message was lost. It was all lost because of his anger.
Now you might say that it was a rather small sin, really very small, and perhaps the people would not have been very stumbled or disturbed by this. I mean, he was rightly angry, in a way. He was really heavily provoked. In the eyes of men, Moses did not commit any kind of a serious crime. But in the eyes of God, he had failed. It's not what he did — what he did. It's what he didn't do. That's what the charge brought against him. What he did not do was that he did not hallow God's name in the eyes of the people.
Here is the lesson for us, brothers and sisters. The question is not whether you have committed any grievous sin or not. Moses did not commit anything — I don't think the people of Israel would have raised any brows about the fact that he was a little bit angry. And the Bible didn't say his face turned red like Guan Gong or anything like this. It's just that he was rather angry and he struck the rock, that's all. He struck it twice. The scripture didn't say he was not allowed to strike it twice. It doesn't matter very much. That was not the point. The point is that he should have just spoken as God's representative, having died to himself and being a new man. But the point is not what he did. It's what he didn't do. This is the point you must get clearly. It is that he did not hallow God's name.
So the point we must remember is this: it is not whether you didn't do anything bad, whether you did not live a life that is radically different from the non-Christian. The point is this: that you did not hallow his name in the eyes of the people. That when people saw you, they did not say, "Wow, that is a Christian!" They didn't say, "Wow, God is wonderful! If that's a Christian, I want to be a Christian." That's our function in the world. I became a Christian when I saw the Christians in China. I looked at them and I said, "If that's a Christian, then I want to be a Christian." But those Christians before, in the missionary schools — I said, "If that's a Christian, I don't want to be a Christian." God's name was not hallowed in my eyes through them. But through the Chinese Christians, God's name was hallowed in my heart. I said, "That's a true Christian. Those are Christians." God's name was exalted. Now that's your responsibility. Don't go out here and say, "Well, I didn't commit any sins." That's not the point. Or maybe I committed some small sins. That's not the point either. It's not whether Moses committed any great or small sins. That's not the point. The point was he failed to do something. He failed to hallow God's name in the eyes of the people.
And so, brothers and sisters, that's our responsibility. On that day, when you and I stand before God, he's going to ask you the question: "Did you hallow my name in the eyes of the people? In your office? In your college? In your family? Did my name be hallowed in your life? Were the people able to say, 'Wow, these Christians — they are something! They are really different. Look at them. They stand out from the crowd. They are utterly different'?" The trouble with us is that we are not holy because we are so much like the world. We behave like non-Christians. We think like non-Christians.
Think back through even recent history. What kind of names stand out for you? It's always the same name — the people who hallowed God's name in their lives. They always stand out in your memory, doesn't it? For me, people like Watchman Nee, people like Henry Choi, people like John Sung. These people stand out from the crowd. They were different from the crowd because God's name was hallowed in their life. That is our high calling.
May God speak to each one of us, that we may really understand these words when we pray, "Hallowed be thy name." When you pray that, remember your responsibility — or don't dare to pray it. But even if you don't pray it, it only proves you're not a Christian, because every true Christian would pray this prayer.
We can see in the book of Numbers, chapter 20, verse 12, what happened. Moses was a man set apart for God in his life. But there was one thing where he did not glorify the Lord, where he did not let God's name be hallowed in his life. Therefore he could not enter the land of Canaan. I ask brothers and sisters to think carefully about this. On the one hand, God is so loving. But on the other hand, when it comes to the matter of holiness, he is so strict. Moses was God's servant. God loved him very much. God said, "Among all the people, even among the prophets, I have never spoken face to face with anyone as I have spoken with Moses." How he loved Moses. But because Moses did not hallow God's name in his life — in one incident, when there was no water in the wilderness — God did not allow him to enter Canaan. He died on a mountain across from it, looking at the land of Canaan but not permitted to enter. This does not mean that Moses perished because of this. Of course not — the scripture does not say Moses perished because of this. We know that when the Lord Jesus was transfigured on the mountain and revealed his glory, Moses and Elijah appeared together with him. So clearly Moses was still with Jesus at that time. But he lost the blessing that God wanted to give him — the blessing of entering the promised land and leading all the people of Israel into it. That was lost.
So if we do not hallow God's name in our lives, we too will lose the blessing that God wants to give us. Not only that — we can learn another lesson from this. What Moses did was not some great sin. In human eyes, the sin was very small. He didn't commit any great sin at all. But that is not the question from the Bible's perspective. The Bible's question is not what he did, but what he did not do. It is the same with our Christian life. It is not about what you do — saying "my sins are small, just the kind of sins that ordinary people commit." That is not the issue. The issue is what he did not do. In Numbers and Deuteronomy, the scripture tells us that he did not let God's name be shown as holy in his life. Therefore he could not enter the promised land.
We can see from this how important this lesson is, and we can understand what Paul meant when he said in Philippians that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We need to understand why we must do this with fear and trembling. If we do not show forth God's life among people — whether among those we know, or at school, or in the office, or in the family — if God's name is not hallowed in our lives, we will lose the blessing that God wants to give us. Not only that — if, unlike Moses who stumbled only once, we consistently fail to live a life that glorifies the Lord, day after day living in a way that does not honor God, how will we answer him on that day? How will we give an account of our responsibility?
But we may say, "We are all weak." Of course we are weak. That is why we have the Holy Spirit. Please note: the Holy Spirit. Why is he called the Holy Spirit? Because he is the one who can separate us and make us holy. The work of the Holy Spirit is to give us the ability to live a holy life. God knows we are weak. Telling God on the day of judgment, "I was very weak" — that is not news to God. God already knew we were weak, which is why he gave us the Holy Spirit, so that we can live a holy life. He has already given us all the strength we need. So we have no excuse for not living a holy life.
So today we have seen what it means to pray, "May your name be hallowed." When we offer this prayer from our hearts, we are saying: "Lord, may your name be glorified in this world, among the nations, in the eyes of all people. May your glory be shown in my life. By your strength, I make this request, I offer this prayer."
May God speak then to us out of his living word and show us the things which are so important, that we may see what kind of heavy responsibility is laid upon us.
So in conclusion, let us see what this prayer then means. "Our Father which art in heaven, may your name be glorified as holy in my life." That is the prayer. So that the multitudes of the people may be drawn to you. What is my motive for glorifying God? Because he loved me so. What is my motive for glorifying God? Because the people in the world cannot know God except through me. Are these not sufficient motives? How are the people out there going to know God if they don't know God through me? How are they going to know God if they don't know God through you? Is the Bible going to drop out of the sky into their lap? How can they hear the message of eternal life if it doesn't come through you? But remember this: that the message comes most eloquently through the life you live than through the multitude of words. We are mostly better at talking than at doing. So fall back upon the power of the Holy Spirit. Never try to live God's life in your strength. You will never make it. But if you say, "Lord, this is my prayer — and remember, this is a prayer to God that he will do it in me" — and mean it, and he will do it. Let God come into your life in the fullness of his power, and he will do it. He will change you and make you utterly different, that wherever you go, people will say, "Wow, this man is different." And they will ask you, "Why are you a Christian?" Then you can tell them, and many will be then drawn to God because you have hallowed his name. You have sanctified his name in your life.