Lord’s Day 47 · Hallowed Be Thy Name
Hallowed be Your Name Reformed Confessions 7 min February 26, 2026
Taught by
Joel Overduin Vineland Free Reformed Church, Vineland, Ontario Read along About Transcript
Q122 What does the first petition mean?
“Hallowed be your name” means: Help us to truly know you, to honor, glorify, and praise you for all your works and for all that shines forth from them: your almighty power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. And it means, Help us to direct all our living— what we think, say, and do— so that your name will never be blasphemed because of us but always honored and praised.
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Reverend Joel Overduin pastors the congregation of the Vineland Free Reformed Church of Vineland, ON, Canada. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids MI, USA in May 2005 and was ordained into the ministry of the Word in September 2005.
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0:00 Adelberg catechism, Lord’s Day 47. 0:12 What does the first petition mean? 0:14 Hallowed be your name means, help us to truly know you, to honor, and praise you for all your works and for all that shines forth from them, your almighty 0:25 power, wisdom, kindness, justice, mercy, and truth. And it means, help us to direct all our living, what we think, say, and do, so that your name will never be blasphemed because of us, but always honored and praised." 0:45 When Jesus gave his disciples the Lord's Prayer, so called as it is, it was because he was teaching them how to pray. 0:52 And the first thing he did was teach them how to address the Lord as our Father in heaven. 0:58 And then he gave his disciples six matters about which to pray, six petitions, as they're often called. 1:04 We might think of them today as prayer requests. 1:07 And they are things that we may bring to the Lord in our prayers. 1:12 They are not the only things we may bring to him, but they are summary things and really they are primary things. 1:18 And so the first of the petitions, the first three of them, are very much God-centered petitions. 1:25 His name, His kingdom, and His will. 1:29 And already thinking about that reminds us that our lives are to be very much oriented towards God first. 1:35 We don't pray about things related to us in the first place, we pray about things related to the Lord. And so to pray the Lord's Prayer thoughtfully and sincerely 1:45 is to help focus our lives on the Lord, first of all. When it comes to the petition "Hallowed be your name," obviously it has to do with God's name. 1:54 Now the Lord has many names. He's God, he's Lord, he's Almighty and and so many more names that helped to proclaim his glory and his majesty. 2:05 One of the most famous names, if not the most famous, is the name Yahweh, which the Lord revealed, especially to Moses, when he was at the burning bush. 2:14 And by way of that name, the I am who I am, the Lord was teaching us Moses and all of Israel and his people to recognize him as the eternal God, as the faithful 2:25 God, the God who is, who was, and who is to come, and the God who will save his people according to his covenant promises. 2:34 And so this name and all of God's names are revelations of himself, and we are to respect and revere him. 2:39 and his self-revelation, his character, his holiness, all his perfections, all that God is. 2:46 And the third commandment really connects with this first petition, the third commandment reminding us that we are not to take God's name in vain, not to misuse or disrespect God's name, but to hold God's name. 2:59 hold it high and to honor him and his revelation. 3:04 When we get to the New Testament, we find God revealing himself in terms of his Trinity. 3:09 He teaches us to know his name as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 3:13 And so when we think of God's name in the petition, "Hallowed be your name," 3:17 we should think of God's covenantal, triune saving name as he has revealed it to us in the fullness of his scriptural revelation to us. 3:27 Now the petition is that this name be hallowed. Let it be hallowed. 3:31 Hallowed isn't a word that is commonly used today, but it is a word that means basically to set apart or to make holy. 3:38 And so when we pray, "Hallowed be your name." 3:41 We are praying that God's name may be set apart and made holy. 3:46 But this might raise a question because someone might say, well, isn't God's name already holy, hallowed? 3:51 How can it become more hallowed? 3:54 And it's true, God's name is hallowed. 3:57 We can think of Isaiah when he saw the Lord and lifted up and he heard the seraphim, he saw them and he heard them crying out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, God's name is hallowed." But when we 4:12 pray for it to be hallowed what we are recognizing is the fact that by nature we don't hallow it the way that it ought to be hallowed. 4:19 that we come short in terms of revering and respecting God's name in the way it is to be respected and revered. 4:27 One of the most famous examples of this in the Old Testament is when Moses was commanded by the Lord to speak to the rock that it might bring forth water for the people. And Moses was very 4:39 frustrated and he became angry and perhaps he forgot his identity as a servant of the Lord and not the Lord himself. 4:48 And he struck the rock and he said, "Here now, you rebels, must we fetch water for you from the rock?" 4:54 And the Lord, as we know, was very displeased with Moses on account of that. 4:59 He disciplined Moses severely and he said, you did not hallow my name before the children of Israel. 5:06 And so the reality is we all can and do fail and fall short in terms of hallowing God's name. 5:11 And so with this petition, we are asking for that to be different. 5:15 Also in our lives, we're asking for some particular things as the catechism so helpfully brings out. We are asking that the Lord might help us rightly to know him through 5:25 faith in his son Jesus Christ for that is the only way to know God as our father and we are asking the Lord also to help us sincerely to adore him for all 5:35 of his majesty and glory and we are asking for the Lord to help us to honor him sincerely and truly in all of our words, our thoughts, our actions. 5:48 We're asking that we might live in such a way that we never blaspheme his name and we never cause it to be blasphemed by the way that we behave. 5:58 And the other thing about this, this petition is, and this goes for all the petitions, it is a petition. So we recognize that it's not just a law that we have to meet up to, a standard that we 6:09 have to conform to, but it's a prayer that we're asking the Father to help us do. We are saying, Father, help us to hallow your name and we can be sure 6:19 that when we pray in this way, he will help us and that more and more his name may be hallowed and will be hallowed, set apart and respected as holy by us. 6:39 Thank you. Made automatically from the audio, so a word here or there may be wrong. Tap any line to play from there.
Study Lord’s Day 47 at reformedconfessions.org The full text, Scripture proofs, study questions and quizzes. 
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