We'll turn, if you own your Bibles, to Matthew 6, verse 9. Our sermon text this morning is Matthew 6, verse 9. We looked at verses 5 through 8 last week, and I want to look just at one verse, verse 9. For context's sake, we'll read verses 9 through 13, but we'll just preach one verse, verse 9 this morning. And we'll continue our summer sermon series on prayer. Let me remind you, church, that when the Bible speaks, God speaks. So may we approach the reading of his word with reverence and awe. Lord Jesus says this, starting in verse nine. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Well, church, this is the word of our Lord. Thanks be to God. Lord in heaven, Matthew 4, 4 reminds us that man shall not live on bread alone, but rather by every word that proceeds from your mouth. Father, we ask that you would feed us today with these truths from your word. We ask that you would grant unto us eyes to see and ears to hear. This we ask in Jesus' name and by your Holy Spirit, amen. The vast majority of Christians will not go into vocational ministry. Very few will ever step into the pulpit to preach. Many will never be elders or deacons. Only a fraction will go into overseas missions. Most Christians will not be trained and ordained for full-time professional ministry. But every Christian is called to the ministry of prayer. All can pray, and therefore all must pray. Every believer must take hold of God in their prayers. Nobody is exempt from praying. Anybody who's ever been used by God has been strong in prayer. In fact, I feel confident in saying as a minister that your spiritual maturity will never advance further prayer life. I was reading a book recently by Joel Beakey on the Puritans and prayer. Joel Beakey, I've quoted him a couple times, but he's written some helpful books on the Puritans. But he said this in a book he wrote on prayer. He said, after studying the prayer lives of the Reformers and the Puritans, I am convinced that the greatest shortcoming in today's church is the lack of what he calls prayerful prayer. We fail to use heaven's greatest weapon as we should. He asks, is anything more essential yet more neglected among us than prayer? End quote. I want to continue our sermon series that we've entitled Taking Hold of God. Just by way of reminder, that phrase, taking hold of God, is often how the old Puritans conceived of prayer. They thought that they were metaphorically taking hold of the Lord, expecting God to hear their prayers, to answer them, to take care of them, and to provide for them. We're looking at the Lord's Prayer this morning. You'll notice a little box on your outline. There are six parts to the Lord's Prayer in this box. The first three are all about God, His person, His program, and His priorities. And then the last three are all about our needs, our provision, our pardon, our protection. So today we'll look just at verse nine, what I've called God's person. And really that's where prayer truly starts. It starts by acknowledging God to be our Father and by revering and honoring and hallowing His name. And so I think the first thing that we need to know about prayer is that we have a Heavenly Father. He is to be adored and exalted and praised. As we take hold of God in our prayers, the Lord Jesus invites us today in verse 9 to confidently and to reverently call upon God as our Father. I want to set before you four very simple points this morning from verse 9 as we begin the Lord's Prayer. I want you to see first the precept and the pattern that we're to follow in verse nine. Jesus says, verse nine, pray then like this. Or some of your translations might say, pray then in this way. Now when Jesus says pray then in this way or pray like this, he's giving us a precept to heed in our lives. It's a prescript for us to practice. It's an imperative that we must implement in our lives. So what this means is that prayer is not optional for the Christian. In verse nine, Jesus commands us to pray, and so pray we must. I think we recognize that prayer is not always easy, but it's nevertheless essential if we're going to follow the Lord Jesus. Prayer can be difficult, as we said last week, but it's a duty nonetheless. In fact, Jesus told us three times last week, back up in verses five through eight, he said, not if you pray, but what? When you pray, verse five. When you pray, verse six. When you pray, verse seven. When you pray. And so the assumption is that we ought to be a praying people. Prayer is compulsory in the Christian life. So that's the precept that I see in verse nine. The Lord Jesus tells us to pray, and so we obey him, and we pray. But verse nine gives us not only the prescript, but also the pattern. Look at the phrase, like this, verse nine. Jesus says, pray then like this. Or as the King James says, after this manner, therefore, pray ye. So when Jesus says, pray then like this, he's saying, pray using this pattern. Pray using this model. Pray using this template when you go to pray. So I think what this means is that we need to pray the Lord's prayer verbatim. But we should also allow the general pattern of the Lord's Prayer to shape and to structure our own prayers. Pray it word for word, yes, but you can also use the framework, the general framework for other prayers that you might have. The Shorter Catechism, question 99 asks, what rule hath God given for our direction in prayer? It's a great answer. It says, the whole word of God is of use to direct us in prayer. But the special rule of direction is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples, commonly called the Lord's Prayer." So what it's saying, we talked about this last week, what it's saying is you can pray all of Scripture, but there's something really special and important about the pattern of the Lord's Prayer. In fact, the larger catechism, Question 187, says you can pray the Lord's Prayer verbatim, but you can also use it as a pattern for prayer in general. And again, the Lord's Prayer is broken up into six parts. You can see them there in your handout. The first three are all about God, his person, his program, and his priorities. And then the last three are all about our needs, our provision, our pardon, and our protection. If you think about it, pretty much anything and everything that we need to pray for falls into one of those six categories, doesn't it? Anything life could throw at you. It could be addressed in one of those six categories. I like what one minister says about the Lord's Prayer. He says, in fewer than 70 words, we find a masterpiece of the infinite mind of God, who alone could compress every conceivable element of true prayer into such a brief and simple form. He says, it's a form that even a young child can understand, but the most mature believer cannot fully comprehend. That's true, isn't it? A child can understand the Lord's Prayer, but even the most mature adult can't fully comprehend all of the content of the Lord's Prayer. Okay, let's jump into the prayer itself. This will be our second point. So second, we need to pray knowing who God is. Look again at verse nine. Actually, we're not moving off verse nine. Jesus says, pray then like this. He says, our Father in heaven. So for this point, I want to just hone in on those two words, our Father. I think those two words, our Father, tell us that prayer is first and foremost about God. A prayer is primarily about the Lord, and it's secondarily about us and our needs. Now it's interesting that back in this time, Jews weren't accustomed to calling God Father. In fact, the Old Testament, God is referred to as Father only a handful of times. But Jesus comes along in redemptive history and he starts calling God Father. Jesus uses the title Father about 60 times in the Gospels. Of course, if you read Paul and James and Peter, they regularly call God a Father. But I think what this tells us is that when we pray, we have a heavenly Father. You and I, when we pray, we need to pray knowing who God is. He's our Father. What this means is that the Lord is not uncaring. He's not an unloving God. He's not cold. He's not callous. Rather, as our Father, He cares for you. He loves you. He delights in hearing your prayers. He delights in answering. That God is our Father, what this means is that He's for you. He's not against you. Question 20 of the Old Heidelberg Catechism asks, Why has Christ commanded us to address God as our Father? Why say our Father? Great answer. It really gives us something to think about here. It says, To awaken in us at the very beginning of our prayer what should be basic to our prayer. That is, a childlike reverence and a trust that God is our Father. That's great, isn't it? That God is our Father, that should awaken within us a childlike reverence and a trust for the Lord. So you and I, when we pray, we need to pray knowing who God is. Now, as I thought really hard about these two little words, our Father, I came up with four truths about what this means for our prayer life. I originally had 20, but I boiled it down to four. Sometimes preachers, we get to go on and we can't stop. But I give you four truths as to what this means for our prayer life. We need to pray to our Father knowing that we are privileged, pitied, protected, and provided for. And I stole those four terms from the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 12, a great chapter on adoption. Westminster Chapter 12 says that we've been given an adopted privilege as God's children. And therefore, our Father pities us, protects us, and he provides for us. So listen, when we pray our Father, when we pray these two words, we are praying in light of our adopted privilege. What does that mean? Adopted privilege. Well, adoption is the idea that once you were outside of the family of God, but now you're inside if you know Christ. You were once a spiritual orphan before you knew Christ. But then when you trusted Christ, God made you his son or his daughter. A J.I. Packer asks, what is a Christian? And he says, the question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as his father. And because God is our father, we are his adopted children. So this ought to impact how we pray. What this means is we have intimacy with God as our Heavenly Father. Again, God delights in hearing from His people. He desires to care for His sons and daughters. Moreover, when we pray our Father, we need to pray knowing that God pities us. He pities us. Or you could say He has compassion on us. Psalm 103, verses 13 and 14 says, As a father shows compassion to his children, So the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. I like what Terry Johnson says here. Terry Johnson has a great little book on the Lord's Prayer that you might want to pick up. But he says, because God is our Father, we pray with confidence that He looks upon us and our requests with sympathy. He knows our limitations. He understands the weakness of our prayers. We often come to Him with our flawed petitions. We are permeated by weakness and corruption. We stumble, we fall, we fail. But how does God look at us? How does he look at us? And Johnson says, as a father does his children. Further, we need to pray our father knowing that he protects us. So he pities you, but he also protects you. Like what Psalm 121 says, verses six and eight, six through eight about God's protection. The Lord will keep you from all evil. He will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore. It's a dangerous world out there, isn't it? We need a heavenly father who will look after us, who will protect us. So like an earthly father protects his children, our heavenly father protects and watches over you. And we'll talk more about how he protects us when we get down to verse 13, where Jesus talks about our deliverance from evil and from the evil one. And then finally, we need to pray to our Father, knowing that we are provided for. So you and I, when we pray, we need to pray knowing that we're privileged, that we're pitied, that God protects us, but finally, that he provides for us. In other words, the Lord loves to take care of his people. That's good news, amen? He loves to take care of his people. If an earthly father desires to take care of his children, how much more does our heavenly father? I have met and have conversations with the fathers in the room many times. I know you love to take care of your children. Well, if that's true of you, how much more is that true of the Lord? In fact, verse eight told us last week that your father knows what you need before you even ask him. Your earthly father doesn't always know, but your heavenly father always knows. So church, we need to pray knowing who God is. He's our father. Third, we need to pray understanding where he's at. Verse nine. Jesus says, our Father who is in heaven. I still love the King James Old Translation. Our Father which art in heaven. So classic and timeless. Now what is heaven? How can we define heaven? Jesus says that our Father's in heaven. So what is heaven? Jonathan Edwards once said that heaven is a world of love. It's a beautiful thought, isn't it? Heaven is a world of love. Probably the simplest definition is that heaven is God's abode. It's a place of pure holiness. It's a place of God's eternal habitation. It's where God dwells with His angels. Isaiah 66 verse 1 says that heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. I think we often think of heaven as being far, far away beyond the clouds. It's in a galaxy far, far away, a past outer space. I think it's better just to think of heaven as God's eternal abode. Heaven is a place of rest. It's a place of holiness, purity, and love. I like what the Reformation Heritage Study Bible says on heaven. This is not the Ligonier Reformation Study Bible. This is the Heritage Bible, which will be a great Bible to pick up if you want to go deeper in your Bible study. But it says this on what heaven is. It's a really great definition. It says, Heaven is the dwelling place of God and the seat of His kingdom, high above all the kingdoms of this world. It's the place of God's glorious presence forever and the eternal home of believers. Heaven is a paradise, an eternal habitation, a city to come, a glorious inheritance. a place of joy, and, above all else, a world of love. That's a pretty good definition as to what heaven is, isn't it? Now, where is Tabor going with this? Why is it important that God is in heaven? What's the relevance of God being in heaven for us today? I think since God is in heaven, this reminds us that God is over us. He's above us. He's transcendent. That's the term theologians use. He's Lord over all. He's above us. He knows all things. He's omniscient. He's all-powerful. He's omnipotent. He's all-present. He's omnipresent. Moreover, because He's in heaven, He's eternal. So He's not bound by time. He's infinite. You and I, we are finite, and God's not. He's infinite. He's unchangeable. Our moods come and go with the seasons, don't they? But God doesn't change. Psalm 115 says that the idols of the nations, the false gods of this world, they are limited by time and space because they're on earth. But Psalm 115.3 says, our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Okay, so here's what this means for your prayer life. Let me connect some dots here. What this means is that we can marshal all of heaven's resources when we pray. In other words, we can tap into infinite help and God's everlasting love and care for us in heaven when we pray. A question 121 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks, why does Jesus add the words, who is in heaven? It says these words, that God is in heaven, It teaches us not to think of God's heavenly majesty in an earthly way and to expect from his almighty power everything needed for body and soul. In other words, church, don't you dare think when you pray that God is bound by earthly standards or earthly limitations. God is in heaven and he is not limited by human earthly power. I think we pray these weak and these wimpy prayers because we forget who God is and where he's at. In fact, I think that's one of the American church's greatest weaknesses. We pray these half-baked, half-hearted prayers because we misremember who we're talking to. We forget that our Father is in heaven. He's got all resources. So you and I, when we pray, we need to pray knowing that God is in heaven. We need to pray expecting his almighty and infinite power to help us. In other words, we need to pray in light of heaven's resources. It's like what Paul says over in Ephesians 3.20. Paul says that God is able to do what? Far more abundantly than you could ever ask or think. So what that means is that whatever you think God can do, He can actually do a lot more than your little pea brain thinks he can do. He can do far more than we can fathom because he's in heaven. There's a relatively new book out entitled Piercing Heaven. Anybody heard of the book or read the book by chance? Piercing Heaven. It's a collection of Puritan prayers from men like Matthew Henry and John Owen and Spurgeon and others. It's a pretty incredible title, though, isn't it? Piercing Heaven. So when we pray, you and I, we are piercing heaven. We are calling upon our heavenly Father, and we are marshaling all of heaven's resources. I like what J.I. Packer says about this, verse 9. He says, knowing that our Father God is in heaven, or to put it the other way around, knowing that God in heaven is our Father, It's meant to increase our wonder, our joy, and our sense of privilege at being His children and being given a hotline for communication with heaven. I love that. We have a hotline to heaven if we're in Christ. We can tap into heaven. We can pierce heaven whenever we need to. He says, the Lord always has time for us. His eye is on everything every moment, yet we always have His full attention whenever we call on Him. So we need to pray knowing who God is. He's our Father. We need to pray knowing where He's at. He's in heaven. Fourthly, finally, we need to pray respecting His name. Look at that last clause, verse 9. Jesus says, pray then like this, our Father in heaven, and then He says, hallowed be your name. So what this means is that we are to respect and to revere God's name when we pray. We are to adore and to appreciate who He is when we go to God in prayer. Now what's in a name? What does a name communicate? What's a name mean? I think we recognize that a name communicates purpose and meaning, doesn't it? We all give our children names that have special meaning and value to us, or we give our pets names that are important to us. My guess is that most of you are probably a little annoyed when somebody mispronounces or misspells your name. I'm Tabor, E-R, T-A-B-E-R, but my whole life it's been T-A-B-O-R, and it always annoys me a little bit. R.C. Sproul used to joke that it bothered him when people called him R.C. Sproul and not R.C. Sproul. Now listen, in the Bible, God's name is the name above all names, isn't it? It's a name to be hallowed. What does the name hallowed mean? Or what's the word hallowed mean? It means to be set apart. It means to be set apart as holy. It's to be consecrated. It's to be dedicated as perfect. upright, and pure. Now let me ask you, when you go before a judge, how are you to talk to the judge? You're to say what? Your honor. If you're in the queen's presence, how are you supposed to address the queen? Your majesty. If you're talking to the president, Republican or Democrat, you're supposed to say what? Mr. President. How do you speak to the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth? How do you talk to the God in whom you live and move and have your very being? Well, Jesus says, verse nine, you hallow his name. In other words, you respect it, you revere it. Further, you're to fear his name, not in a cowering or a crouching sense, but in a reverent sense. I mean, you and I, we're to understand that when we talk to God, we are standing on holy ground. We're talking to the God of the universe. You know, it's interesting, a lot of movies out there today, they defame God's name. A lot of TV shows and songs, they degrade, they discredit our Father's name. But the Bible is everywhere clear that God's name is to be treated with utter seriousness. Way back in the third commandment, Exodus 20, verse 7. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. Leviticus 19, 12. You shall not swear by my name falsely and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord. Leviticus 24, 16. Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. The sojourners as well as the native when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death." I mean, if you weren't reverent towards God's name in the Old Testament, they would kill you. I would also add that we should talk to God freely, yes, but never flippantly. Talk to God freely, pour out your heart, but don't talk to Him flippantly. A good boss, if you think about it, a good boss will allow you to speak openly to him or her, right? but you have to always remember that you're talking to your boss. So it is with your pastor. Talk freely to me, but you have to remember that you're talking to your pastor. So when we pray, we should never pray flippantly and say, hey, what's up, God? How's it going up there, big guy? I love what Hebrews 5.7 says. I want you to write this verse down and think about it this week, Hebrews 5.7. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death. And it says, and he was heard because of his reverence. So what that tells us is that Jesus' prayer was heard because he respected and he revered his father's name. He hallowed and he honored the name above all names. Thomas Watson, I don't know if you've heard his name, a great Puritan writer and pastor. He pointed something out to me, I've never thought about this, but he said this petition, Hallowed Be Your Name, it's the only petition that we're going to pray in heaven. We're not going to need to pray, give us our bread. We're not going to need to pray, forgive us our sins. We're not going to need to pray, don't lead us into temptation, because we're not going to have those needs in heaven. Rather, Watson says, we're to continually say holy, holy, holy in heaven. We're gonna say hallowed be your name for all eternity as we enjoy God's presence in heaven. That's an incredible thought, isn't it? We're gonna hallow God's name forever and ever. Lastly, a hallowed name needs to lead to a holy life. How so? Well, if God's name is holy, then you and I, we are to in turn be holy as he is holy. If you're a Christian, God has stamped his name on your life. And so we need to honor him in the way that we live. What this means, we need to be holy in our actions. We need to be holy in our words. We need to be holy in our thoughts. We need to be holy in our worship. 1 Peter 1, verse 15 and 16. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it's written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. Question 122 of the Heidelberg Catechism asks what hallowed be your name means for our lives, for our holiness. And it says, help us direct all of our living, what we think, what we say, and what we do, so that your name will never be blasphemed because of us, but always honored and praised. That's a great thing to think about, isn't it? We don't want to blaspheme God's name in how we act. Rather, we want His name to be honored and praised in our conduct. So that should be the top priority in our life, to treat God's name as holy and to live a holy life in light of His holy name. So, husbands and wives, God's name is to be revered in your marriages. It's to be hallowed in our families. God's name is to be hallowed in your life. It's to be honored in our jobs and all that we think and all that we say and do. May that be true in our lives. May we reverence and respect the Lord's name. I was thinking this past week about Jesus' ministry. It was remarkably short, all things considered, wasn't it? Only about three years. But his ministry was marked by prayer. He was a man, Jesus was a man who prayed fervently. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell us that Jesus habitually rose early in the morning to commune with his Father. The Gospels also tell us that in the evening, he would often go to the Mount of Olives or some other quiet spot to pray. Usually, he would do this alone. One man described Jesus' prayer life this way. He said, prayer was the spiritual air that Jesus breathed every moment of his life. That's a good thought, isn't it? Prayer was the spiritual air that he breathed. May that be true in our hearts and our lives as well. May we breathe as often as we pray, and may we pray as often as we breathe. Matthew Henry gave three simple directives in prayer. He said, first, begin every day in prayer. Second, spend every day in prayer. And third, close every day in prayer. And of course, our highest concern when we pray needs to be to hallow God's name because he's our loving father. That's what Jesus has taught us in verse nine. Well, let's pray together.