Before I went to China at the end of 2019, I used to teach the Lord’s Prayer a bit differently. As I expounded on Matthew 6:9, I would teach on “our Father in Heaven,” then skip over “Hallowed is Your name,” and go on to Matthew 6:10. But something happened that changed all that.
I was in China visiting my son-in-law who is a missionary there, when he asked me if I wanted a book back that I had given him a few years before. I was happy to take the book back as it is one of my favorite books: Studies in The Sermon on The Mount, authored by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.
On our way back to Niagara Falls from China, we stopped in Tucson to spend Christmas with our kids and friends. We went out to lunch one day with a couple who are friends of ours, and I was sharing with them my thoughts on the Lord’s Prayer. When I finished the husband said, “Yes, and the fear of the Lord. God has really been impressing on me the importance of the fear of the Lord.”
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to argue, but not really seeing how the fear of the Lord was brought out in the Lord’s Prayer.
When I got back to NF and began working on this book, I thought I would look in Mr. Lloyd-Jones’ book on the Sermon on the Mount and see what he had to say about the Lord’s Prayer. When he got to the point in Matthew 6:9 that reads, “Hallowed be Your name,” he explains that this refers to God’s holiness, justice, and absolute righteousness; and our need to worship, honor, and glorify Him.
He referenced these verses:
Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Hebrews 12:28 “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
29 For our God is a consuming fire.”
He makes the point, and I concur, that “we are coming into the presence of our loving Father, but we must do so realizing who He is.”
God is our loving Father, in fact God is love, and we love Him because He first loves us. But God is also holy, and we must revere His holiness, justice, and righteousness because for the sake of these He must judge sin. He did that first in the Lord Jesus Christ which is how we are justified, but if we continue living in willful sin after we have been forgiven then He will certainly judge our sin in us. Jesus, who exhorted us to address God as our Father in the Lord’s prayer also exhorted us to, “Fear Him” in Luke 12:5. He is our loving Father, but He is also the righteous Judge of the whole earth, and we must acknowledge Him as both.
So, God used my friend, Mr. Lloyd-Jones and the Bible to show me that the fear of the Lord is indeed a part of the Lord’s Prayer and that it is something He wants us to be conscious of each day. It is an important part of a healthy Christian life.
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