Hallowed Be Thy Name: What Matthew 6:9 Asks of Every Prayer You Pray

In the middle of the most familiar prayer in the world there are four words most of us have said a thousand times without once stopping on them.

Hallowed be thy name.

You may have learned them as a child. You can say them with your eyes shut and your mind somewhere else entirely. And that is the danger, because the Lord Jesus Christ did not give us these words in Matthew 6:9 so we could recite them. He gave them so we could learn how to pray.

“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:9-13)

Notice how it starts: after this manner. This is a pattern, not a script. The Lord is not asking for vain repetition, the same words said over and over until they mean nothing. Each part of this model prayer is meant to shape a different part of your prayer life.

So what are you actually asking for when you say “hallowed be thy name”? The word comes from the same root as holy. To hallow something is to set it apart. When you pray it, you are asking that God’s name be treated as what it is: holy, separate, above everything else.

That is a bigger request than it sounds. It changes how you see God, what you want from Him, and what you say about Him to everybody else.

God is not altogether such an one as yourself

“These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.” (Psalms 50:21)

God is speaking there to people who had made a terrible mistake. They looked at Him and figured He was about like them. Same level. Same kind of thing.

It is so easy to fall into that. But if His name is hallowed, then He is not one of us. There is a difference between Him and us, a separation. He is perfect and He is holy.

And I don’t know about you, but I am sure thankful God is not like me.

I have to be honest with you. When my boys act up, I struggle with my temper sometimes, because I want them to obey. I struggle to give the right response. I struggle with discouragement. I struggle with impatience. I can only speak for myself, but I fight those things all the time.

I am so glad God is not like me.

He always has the perfect response. He responds in love, even when that love comes as correction. And I need correction. If you and I looked at ourselves honestly, from God’s point of view, we would both admit it: we need it. When He corrects you, He is not losing His temper. He is loving you.

He is your friend, but He is not your buddy

“A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24)

We rightly think of the Lord Jesus Christ in that verse, and He ought to be your closest friend. But be careful not to take that so far that He becomes your buddy-o-pal.

He is not so far removed that He doesn’t understand you or doesn’t care about what you are going through. You are told to bring Him every concern and lay every burden on Him. But you must also remember who He is when you come before Him. His holiness and His perfection should bring you there in humility. You should not come lifted up with pride or full of yourself.

“Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.” (Psalms 99:5)

Think about how much He has done for you. Even if you are not saved, God has done a great deal for you. He has given you this life, and with it the opportunity to come to Him in repentance and faith, to have a relationship with Him, and to spend eternity with Him when this world is over.

A holy God means there are only two destinations

Nobody enjoys talking about this. It doesn’t make anybody feel warm inside. But the Bible is plain.

“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:” (Hebrews 9:27)

Every one of us has an appointment with death. After that there are two places. One is heaven, where the relationship with our Lord and Savior goes on and we see Him and spend everlasting days with Him. What an amazing thing.

The other is hell. The Bible says it.

Which place you go depends on one question. Have you recognized His holiness, recognized who you are before a holy God, and turned to Him in repentance and placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Or have you rejected Him?

Here is the good news: God is still in the soul-saving business. Today you can still turn to Him in humility and place your faith, for your very soul, on the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. That is the first step in hallowing His name. You recognize your lost state, and you turn.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God

“Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.” (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2)

That passage is about your heart when you come before Him. So let me ask you. When you walk into church, are you keeping the right perspective of who God is? Are you coming to meet with Him? Or are you coming for the good feeling, or to check off a box?

God has something for you every time. In His holiness and His love, He wants to show you what you ought to change and what you ought to keep doing and grow stronger in.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)

If you really grasp what it means for God’s name to be hallowed, it will push you to hand Him your whole life. My pastor has pointed out that reasonable carries the idea of the mind, of reasoning something out. Service carries the idea of worship. So your reasonable service is worship that comes from thinking it through. When you understand who He is and what He has done, there is nothing left to do but live for Him.

Jesus never prayed “hallowed be my name”

Here is something I find amazing. The Lord Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, and when He gives us this prayer, He does not say “hallowed be my name.”

Scripture does lift His name above every name, and we will get to that. But here He is giving us an example. The lesson is plain: it is not about your name. You and I should not be praying, “Lord, lift up my name. Make my name mean something.”

That is hard. I know there have been many times I get partway through a prayer and the Lord pricks my heart. What have you said this whole time? Me, me, me. I, I, I. What I need. The struggles I’m facing. On and on.

It is not wrong to bring your burdens to God. He wants you to. But if bringing burdens is all your prayer life is, you are missing a huge part of it. You ought to be praying, “Lord, let Your name be lifted up. Let it be set apart and holy in my own life, so that I see it every single day.”

“Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.” (Psalms 115:1)

Wanting God to use you is a good desire. But be careful you do not want it for your own sake. When you ask Him to do a mighty work, is it so that His name gets all the honor and glory?

He must increase, but I must decrease

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

John the Baptist said that, and if I could ever really get my head around it, I would live a different life.

Look at the order. He must increase comes first. You do not get to humility by staring at yourself. You get there by lifting Him up until He is more important to you than you are.

We are funny creatures. We are self-consumed all the time. Most mornings the first thing we think about when we wake up is ourselves. We would never say it out loud, but in our minds we are telling ourselves, I am increasing. And when you are increasing, He is decreasing.

That is a scary place to be.

All means all, even when nobody is watching

“Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

It does not say some. You do not get to pick which parts of your day belong to Him. That includes the moments when you think nobody is looking, when you think nobody knows your heart or what you are battling or why you are really doing what you are doing. God knows. He knows the real reason behind all of it.

And it is so easy to put Him on the back burner. You get busy. The children, the job, the bills, the health problems, the struggles of the mind, whatever it is for you. You get so focused on those things that God slides to second place, then third, fourth, fifth. Before long you are just trying to get through the day instead of living on purpose to bring Him honor.

The world has made His name a curse word

His name ought to be known, believed, and honored throughout the world. Instead, the name of our God and the name of our Lord and Savior have been dragged so low that people use them as curse words.

“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

If you are saved, it is your job to make His holiness known. That means telling people the gospel, telling them what God has done for them, and telling them plainly that He is a holy God who does not put up with sin.

There are people who believe they are fine with God. As my pastor has put it, they think “me and God have an understanding.” What a scary thing. They want only the warm side of God: God loves me, His mercy is great, His grace is wonderful. All of that is true. But they leave out that He is holy, and that sin has to be dealt with before you can be reconciled to Him.

Going to church won’t do it. Giving won’t do it. Good works won’t do it, and neither will baptism. The Bible says you must repent. You come before God in humility and say, “There is nothing I can do. I have sinned against a perfect and holy God, and I deserve hell.” You turn away from everything else you have been holding on to, including religion, and you place your faith on what God did through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you do that, you have peace with God. You are made right in His eyes. When He looks at you, He no longer sees your sinfulness. He sees His Son. You are robed in His righteousness.

“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:” (1 Peter 3:15)

Sanctify is hallowing. Set Him apart in your heart, and you will be ready to open your mouth.

Every knee shall bow at the name of Jesus

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

A day is coming when every person will bow at the name of Jesus Christ, whether or not they turned to Him in this life. God has given each of us a period of grace, which is simply our lifetime. We share the gospel now so people can confess Him while it will still save them.

Have you gotten lax about that?

There are people in my life who use God’s name in vain. It breaks my heart every time I hear it. They do not know who He is, and maybe if they did, they would stop. And every time, it comes back on me: Okay, Dakota, what have you done to show them who God is? What have you done to make sure they understand what He has done for them?

Most of the time the honest answer is: not enough.

“And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:44-47)

That is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking, and He is talking to you. You may never be called to stand behind a pulpit. But this is not a job just for pastors, or for men training for the ministry. Proclaiming repentance and remission of sins is a personal responsibility for every one of us.

Seeking is more than bumping into somebody

“And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:8-10)

The cross was always before Him. That was His first mission: to make a way for you and me to have a relationship with God. But through His whole earthly ministry, and still today, His goal is to seek and to save the lost.

He is our example, or He ought to be. So how much seeking are you actually doing?

It’s one thing to share the gospel when it happens to cross your mind, or to hand somebody a tract at the store. Seeking is more than if I happen to run into somebody. What are you waiting for? Do you want God to put up a giant flashing neon sign that says, Witness to this one?

Seeking means actively looking and actively praying. Go to God every morning and say, “Show me somebody I can share the gospel with today.” He will answer that prayer. He will put someone in your path, and the Holy Spirit will prick your heart.

Then it is up to you. Will you obey?

Sometimes we feel that prick and ignore it. Sometimes we aren’t tuned in to the Holy Spirit enough to notice it at all, because we were never looking for the opportunity in the first place.

An invitation to church is a wonderful thing. So is a tract. But when the door is open, take it one step further. It is easy for somebody to say no to an invitation. It is a different thing when you start speaking the Word of God to them. That is what pricks the heart. That is what speaks to the inner man.

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

Will His name be hallowed through you?

Sooner or later you will pray those words again. Hallowed be thy name. Maybe tonight. Maybe out of habit.

Before you do, stop on them.

Are you seeing Him as holy, or as someone about like you? Is your prayer about His name, or about yours? And the people around you who only ever hear His name as a curse word: who is going to show them who He is?

Pray it like you mean it.

Then go seek somebody.

Today.

Adapted from a message preached from Matthew 6:9 by Dakota.