The Posture of Prayer

In Matthew 6:9, before our Lord Jesus mentions the content of our prayer requests, He focuses on how we ought to approach God. First, in prayer remember that you are coming to “our Father” (Matthew 6:9). Now, God is only your Father if Jesus Christ is your personal Savior. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” We are born into this world as children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Ephesians 2). God becomes our Father when we embrace Jesus Christ by grace, through faith. For those who are joined to Christ, we have the privilege of knowing the Father of glory as our Father in heaven.

Not only is He our Father, but we also need to remember that our Father is seated “in heaven.” According to Matthew 6:9, in Jesus Christ, we have a Father who is in heaven. He is the King of the universe. As one poet put it, “Kings and nations tremble at His voice.” His throne is above all other thrones. All things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him. Oh, how amazing it is to have access to the Triune God in prayer.

John Bunyan defined prayer as “a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.” The posture of prayer, for the believer, is one of intimate communion with our Father in heaven, through Jesus Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Petition of Prayer

Now that we have briefly considered the posture of prayer, let us now consider the petition of prayer. The first petition in the Lord’s Prayer should be the heartbeat of our every prayer, “Hallowed be your name.” Or, as Piper would say, that is the “heart of every aim” in your prayer life.

When you are passionate about something, you cannot help but talk about it. We all have hobbyhorses that keep us talking. If you had a “hobbyhorse” in prayer, what would it be. What is often the first thing on your heart in prayer. Is it, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name”

What does it mean when we say the word “hallowed”. The word “hallowed” can be translated as “sanctified be your name” or “set apart be your name.” In the Old Testament, some items were of common use, and other items were set apart for special use and service in the sanctuary.

What does it mean to “hallow” our Father’s “name”. The name of God is how He has graciously revealed Himself to unworthy sinners. It speaks of who He is and what He has done. In Exodus 33:18, Moses prayed, “Please show me your glory.” The Lord responded by saying, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’” Later, in Exodus 34:5–8, we read:

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.

The Lord is set apart. When we pray that His name would be hallowed, we are not praying for something that is not already a reality for the Triune God. He is holy, holy, holy (Isaiah 6). He is infinitely set apart from all things since He is the sovereign Lord and Creator of all things. Instead, when we pray that His name would be hallowed, we are praying that His glory and majesty would be displayed in this world.

The chief end of our life as image bearers of God is to glorify Him, to hallow His name, and to enjoy Him forever. In our sin and rebellion against God, we would rather set apart self, and everything other than God in our life. That is what sin is. Sin is “falling short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). All of us have failed to glorify and hallow God’s name in our life. As a result of that, we deserve God’s judgment. But by that same name that we have failed to glorify, we find salvation.

God delights to save sinners by His name. In Isaiah 48:9–11, we read, “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned. My glory I will not give to another.” It is the name of Jesus Christ, the only name under heaven, by which men are saved (Acts 4:12). So, to pray that God’s name would be “hallowed” is also to pray a missionary prayer. We are praying that God would magnify His name in the salvation of sinners. We pray that God would turn those who blaspheme His name into those who praise His name. And in our life, as redeemed sinners, before we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” our first pulsebeat is “Hallowed be your name.”

The Heart of Every Aim

To conclude, this article has argued that the pulsebeat of your every prayer must be “Hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9). This has been supported by considering the posture of prayer and the first petition in prayer.

In Matthew 6:9, we see that prayer is more than simply an avenue to bring our petitions to God. Prayer is first and foremost a place where God’s people can fellowship with God. Prayer begins and ends in worship. We set our gaze heavenward with awe, beholding the beauty of our Father in heaven. We pray that the same name we know, and have beheld with the eye of faith, would continue to show us His glory and display His beauty to a lost and dying world.

We move from worship to the mission field on our knees in prayer. Can you be found on your knees. If there were a glimpse into your room, would we hear your constant pleas. May the sweet sound of your constant pleas be “hallowed be your name.”