Sermons 2025

Text: First Petition of Lord’s Prayer

Outline:
1.    We have a great gift
a.    What?
b.    How do we use it?
2.    Through JC we have God’s name on us, HS helps us to indeed hallow God’s name.

Sermon

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the First petition of the Lord’s prayer found on page 323 and 324 of the hymnal. Hallowed be Thy name.
What does this mean? God’s name is certainly holy in itself, but we pray in this petition that it may be kept holy among us also.
How is God’s name kept holy? God’s name is kept holy when the Word of God is taught in its truth and purity, and we, as the children of God, also lead holy lives according to it. Help us to do this, dear Father in heaven! But anyone who teaches or lives contrary to God’s Word profanes the name of God among us. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!

Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever gotten a really wonderful gift? Maybe you got a new bike for Christmas. Maybe you got to go to Disneyworld or have a new experience with family and friends. Maybe mom and dad are expecting a new little one to join the family. We have lots of good gifts. We have a great one that we are going to talk about today. The gift that God puts His very name upon us. How should we act with God’s name on us? How does God help us to keep His name holy? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

1.    We have a great gift

As Christians, we have been given a great and wonderful gift. Through the waters of Holy Baptism, through the voice of the pastor in the Word and Water, God places His holy Name upon you. You are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. From that point on, you are a member of God’s family, washed in the precious blood of Christ with His Holy Spirit living in you. You are graciously chosen and marked. You carry a very precious gift, one that is holy in itself and one that marks you with its holiness.

It truly confounds the mind. God deigns not only to forgive and justify us poor sinners but comes and lives within us. 

As Luther writes in the Large Catechism, “God’s name was given to us when we became Christians and were baptized, and so we are called children of God and have the sacraments, through which he incorporates us into himself with the result that everything that is God’s must serve for our use.” Think on that! God has given you his name so that you will use it! It is like turning 16 and having your dad throw you the keys to his newly restored ’66 Mustang and saying, “Use it whenever you like!”

a.    How do we use it?

What do we do with this great gift that we have been given? Many times throughout life, we misuse God’s name. We use it to call down curses upon people or things that we do not like. Many times at the spur of the moment. Like when we hit our finger with the hammer, what words come out of your mouth? I am sure not ones that Hallow God’s name. We even come up with other words in place of God’s name, like Oh my Gosh and Holy Cow. 

Truly, we do not Hallow God’s name. Hallow, I am sure that you have heard that word before. You hear it in the Lord’ s Prayer. You also hear it at the end of October. That’s right, Halloween. It is a shortening of the name All Hallows Eve, or All Holy Evening. When people used to mock the Devil’s powerlessness by dressing up as demons and mocking his defeat through Christ. It means to keep holy.

Even though the devil has been defeated, he still seems to have much power in our world today, even as short as his time is. Our flesh on it’s own is allied with the Devil. When given the good gift of that ’66 Mustang, it is Satan who shows up with a plastic bottle of cheap vodka and says, “Let’s take her for a spin!” You know it’s tempting, but what a foolish and shameful waste of a gift. You’ll wreck the gift and disgrace the Giver! That is what we do every single time that we sin, we wreck God’s good gift and disgrace the Giver who gave it to us. We know that on our own, we will not keep God’s name holy. We will misuse it, we will blaspheme it. We will use it, not for God’s praise and glory, but for our own gain, to increase our own wealth and power. 

3.    Through JC, God’s name has been hallowed,  HS helps us hallow God’s name.

Thus why Luther adds a short prayer at the end of this petition. Protect us from this, heavenly Father!  We look to Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, and what He has done on our behalf. Christ perfectly hallowed God’s name in His preaching, teaching, dying, and rising. He hallowed God’s name when he took all your sin and made them his own. Took upon Himself the full wrath of God, accursed upon a tree, that He might give you all of His righteousness and credited it to you, according to God’s will. 

Thus, because of Jesus Christ, God loves to hear the prayers of his righteous, blood-bought children. He loves to hear your prayers! He who knows all things, even before you ask it, commands and invites you to come to Him in prayer. As Luther says in the Large Catechism, “If you ask such things from your heart, you can be sure that God is pleased. For there is nothing that he would rather hear than to have his glory and praise exalted above everything else and his Word taught in its purity, cherished and treasured”. 

Indeed, with Holy Spirit living in you, given to you in the waters of Holy Baptism, He empowers and enables you to not profane God’s name, but Hallow it and lead holy lives according to it. May God protect us, and enable us so to will and do all the days of our lives.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep, your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.