Scripture tonight comes from 1 John 2, verses 15-17. I'm even debating now how we could read more, but I won't. Let's stand for the reading of Holy Scripture. 1 John 2, beginning at verse 15. This is God's word. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride and possessions is not from the father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. By His grace and mercy may it be preached for you. You may be seated. And as we come to consider this portion of Holy Scripture and how it helps us to understand the Lord's Prayer, let us pray for God's help. You may be seated. Father God, we come to consider that we ask your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And might you give us insight into what it means to pray this line? Why would it be that we would ask you to do your will? What effect might that, what effect should that have on us? Why is this an important premise for this model of prayer? Teach us, Lord, that we might be eager to ask you to conform us more to the life you would have us lead, and that we might be ready to accept whatever plans you unfold in history. Overcome the deficiencies of the preacher, they are many. And bless the reading and the preaching of your holy word to bring forth fruit in our hearts that we might love you more, that we might serve you better. And we ask it all in the wonderful name of Jesus Christ, our savior. Amen. Whenever I open up a box, a new box of that flat pack furniture from Ikea, I always ask myself the same question right there at the beginning. Do I really need the instruction manual for this? I mean, I'm just trying to get all these together. I've done this before. It's always basically the same. I know what the end product is supposed to look like. So why shouldn't I just give it a go? without consulting what's been written down for me, to guide me, to help me understand the way to get there. You know, one of the questions that comes up so often in the church is, how can I know God's will for my life? We want to know, really, at the end of the day, that question's about how we can have certainty about living out the right decisions in life, particularly speaking, how can I make the right decision in this moment for this situation? We want to know the best option so that we can chart the course forward with success and faithfulness. In the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, we ask that God's will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. And again, if we set aside our familiarity with this biblical language, I mean, I think it's second nature to us almost, right, to just have those words roll out. But what significance is really here? If we set aside our familiarity with it, we have, again, somewhat of a surprising line, as has been the case with a few of them already. We ask God that His will would happen on earth. And a few questions likely grow out of that request. Why do we need to ask God to do his will? Isn't God sovereign? And so why do we ask him to do it? What do we even mean by asking God that his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven? The Lord's Prayer is a profile for prayer, giving us a model for the kinds of concerns that should fill our prayer life. It gives us a paradigm for how to think about how we should shape our prayers. And we've seen so far that the first several lines are about spiritual things. We should be concerned about and moved unto prayer that God's name would be honored. That ought to be, it seems, the first of priorities in our prayer life. We should have it on our hearts that God's kingdom would be furthered. And now we see that we should care in our prayers that God's will would be done. And those first points should characterize our cares, that should characterize our cares, remind us that prayer, at the end of the day, is not all about us. It certainly helps us. It is a precious gift, absolutely. My point isn't to diminish that. God works on us as we pray. It is still the case that most often we think too readily about ourselves as we come to pray. We think about earthly matters, which are important, certainly, and should be taken to God in prayer, absolutely. but we should think about them, as the Lord's Prayer seems to model for us, in the right orders of priorities, putting them alongside, and if we can infer, second fiddle to heavenly priorities. And so the Lord's Prayer continues to teach us to emphasize spiritual concerns in how we pray. It shows us to keep a full-orbed set of spiritual concerns in our minds and hearts as we pray. In his helpful little book that I've mentioned a number of times, and we did have copies out there, Adriel Sanchez talks about how this line, this particular line in the Lord's Prayer is the hardest to pray. It's the hardest to pray because it means that we put what God wants above what we want. And we do that explicitly so and ask that he would prioritize what he wants over what we want. And so it becomes difficult when we think about what this line means. That might seem easy, right? But often we struggle to accept the fact that what God wants may differ from what we want. And at that point, we see why this line might be a challenge. to if we know what it means when we ask it. It might be a challenge for us to push it out in our prayer life. The main point, though, as we think about this line, is that we pray God's will be done because God is trustworthy in his plans. We pray that God's will be done because God is trustworthy in his plans. And our points to help us consider that are revelation, recourse, and righteousness. Revelation, recourse, and righteousness. First, let's think about revelation. What does this line, what does this petition, what does this item that we ought to pray teach us about God? And I think it helps us to recognize our thoughts ought to be organized, and that we ought to organize our thoughts to consider a distinction in Protestant thought. That's been a longstanding distinction in Protestant thought about God's will. So what do we mean when we talk about God's will? Well, to help us get our heads around that, we've talked about God's will of decree, and also His revealed will. So on the one hand, God's decreed will, the things that He has decided would come about, or those things that He has sovereignly determined would come to pass. That's one way to talk about God's will. The things that he has determined will happen. And on the other hand, his revealed will is what he has shown us, especially in Holy Scripture, about how we should live our lives. His decree is what he's decided, and at the end of the day, we actually know very little about that, at least until history unfolds and we see what he has decided would happen. But he has also made known to us what we need to know to live well. What he's decided will happen is his business, what he has given us our business in telling us how we can live with him and live with him well in the Christian life. Now that distinction may sound sort of funny at first. Are you just making things up to kind of get this to make sense for us? But it's actually right there in the Bible, as shocking as that may be, Deuteronomy 29, 29 makes this very point. The secret things, the things we can't know, right? The secret things belong to the Lord. But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. I think that really is the distinction that I've been trying to outline for you right there. God has decreed what will happen, and that's His business to know what His will is in that sense. But He has given us revelation of how He would have us live. And the Lord's Prayer teaches us to pray that God's will will happen on earth as it is in heaven. And so when we ask, when we pray that, when we ask God to do that, in what sense are we praying this? Well, our distinction both helps us and gives us more things to consider. I don't think that what we're asking here is that God's sovereign decree would work out in time. He's going to do that. God is in charge, and he will make that happen. I don't think that we have to ask God to be sovereign. And so I don't think that the Lord's Prayer is teaching us to pray that God's sovereign plan will happen, just in that superficial sense. Now there is a way that I think though that this line corresponds to that will of decree. Although this isn't where we're gonna spend most of our time. We may well need to pray this line that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because we might need help in accepting his will as it plays out on earth. In that respect, it's a prayer of concession. It's giving up ourselves. It is handing over. God, there are certain things that I would want to happen on earth, but at the end of the day, I do know that it is better that your will would happen on earth. It is an act of trust where we place ourselves in the Lord's hands, that His will would be better than ours, and that He would show us that as He unfolds it in history. And so this line may not exactly make God's sovereign plan play out, but certainly it helps us see where we fit in relation to that plan. It helps us see that we are the recipients of that plan. It helps us see that we may need God's help in accepting that plan as it plays out around us. Now, for that other sense, though, God's revealed will Throughout the scriptures, even as we've already seen it in 1 John, the will of God can be shorthand for what accords with his moral law. In other words, doing God's will refers to the, sorry, doing God's will refers to our obedience to his commands. That's how 1 John used it, those who do the will of God. And I think the Lord's Prayer is here, teaching us to pray for God's will to happen on earth as it is in heaven, in this sense. Firstly, I think that the primary reference is this sense, that we're asking God to help us keep to what He's told us to do, right? Keep His instruction. And I think that that helps explain the comparison, which we might easily overlook, on earth, as it is in heaven. Why would we pray for it that way? Well, Westminster Shorter Catechism 37 helps us. It explains what benefits believers receive from Christ when we die. And it starts that the souls of believers, right, when we die, what are the blessings we receive from Christ at that moment? The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness and do immediately pass into glory. And so even though we struggle to walk with God well on earth, the point there, right? Even though we struggle to walk well with God on earth, God makes us perfectly holy when we die and go to heaven. The angels in heaven likewise perfectly carry out God's will, even when they come to perform some sort of task on earth. And so, so in heaven, God's creatures act perfectly according to God's revealed will. They never break his law. His law is perfectly kept in heaven. And so we are praying that God would help us on earth carry out his revealed will the way that even his creatures do in heaven. We are praying that he would help us to live in accord with his moral law. That brings us back to IKEA flat pack furniture, right? And the need for instructions. We make a mistake when we think that We need God to tell us what he has decreed will occur in history to live well. God, the only way that I can do this life is if you tell me your secret will so that I know all the things that are going to happen, all the things that are supposed to happen. Well, that's not the case. God has shown us what we need. We don't need special revelation for our own particular moment to choose well the job that we should pursue, as long as it's a lawful and good job. We don't need special revelation directly to us about whom to date or marry, as long as we do so in the faith. As many of these things as we would love, divine certainty that we are making the right decision, well, that is not how God has organized the world. God has made known what we, so we don't need knowledge of His secret will, of the things He's decreed, but God has made known what we do need to live in accord with His will. He has revealed it in Scripture, and it is sufficient. And that means God does in fact want us to understand how to live with and for Him, and He's not leaving us to ourselves. And that's a kindness. He's not withholding good instruction. I think that so many times people feel burdened by the fact that they don't have special revelation. God didn't show up and tell you, yes, take that job, go move over there, date this person, marry this person. If you do this, this and this, sell your car this way, everything will work out. I think people feel burdened by not having that special revelation to them. And actually the point of this isn't to put the burden back on you, it's to take it off. It's to say that God hasn't given that to you, not because you need it to live well for Him, but because you don't need it. Don't feel burdened by a lack of it, because God has told you everything you need. It's right there in His Word. He's not asking you to discern the secret things. He's in fact told us, those belong to me. Mind your own business. And I've told you your business. It's right there in the Bible. And so he's not withholding good instruction that we need. He's told us all the things that we need to know to live well. And the way that we can do it, right? We can live, albeit as sinners imperfectly, by his revealed moral law. So, to sum all of that up, Revelation has given us the instruction manual. to live by God's will, because God is kind to give us that guidance. It is, in fact, all we need. And we can rejoice at that. That brings us to our second point, recourse. I think I'm still confused, yeah. Is it recourse or recourse? I think that's part of the, I'm still shaking British pronunciation, but anyway, that's a side point. Recourse. How does this line of the Lord's Prayer shape how we ought to pray today? Well, it tells us that we do, in fact, need to ask for God's help to live in accord with his revealed will. All right, Westminster Shorter Catechism 103 explains this line in the Lord's Prayer, unpacking it, saying, in the third petition, which is thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, we pray that God, by his grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey, and submit to his will in all things as the angels do in heaven. We can easily stress out when we think about our responsibility to live faithfully before God. I understand, I understand the fact of it. I also understand the why of it. We read instructions of this exact sort though. We have, we have information. We have, we have guidance from the Lord as we read in first John two, but it's, it's worth reading this again. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever. Now, I think there's two things here about the Lord's Prayer. First, it's telling us, I mean, the Lord's Prayer is helping us to pray for things that will last. We can pray for all sorts of things about what's going to happen on Earth. And some of them matter. I mean, I guess most of them matter in some respect. But here, John the Apostle is relativizing the things of the world. Concentrate your prayer life on the will of God, because the things of the world and its desires, they are fleeting. They're like breath in the middle of winter, right? There it is, but now it's gone. You saw it for a moment, but never again. But the things of heaven, the things of God's will, well, they will endure. And so where ought we to focus our our prayers. And then, on another note, the Lord's Prayer shows us that the other side of this situation, right, as we stress out about living faithfully before God, where we have this obligation to live well before Him, the Lord's Prayer shows us the other side of that situation is that God has not put us on the hook for living the right way before Him and then abandoned us. He stays near to us. We have obligations in the Christian life, that is true. We also are supposed to pray for God's help in carrying out those obligations. It's not as if we try our best, and then if we really can't do it, then we go to God in prayer. We reckon with all the responsibilities we have before the Lord, and probably should recognize right then that we can't do it, and so just default immediately to prayer. rather than giving it a try without prayer. You know, one of the amazing things, this isn't a paid advertisement, I promise, but one of the things that's amazing about IKEA furniture is that if you come up short on stuff that's supposed to be in the box, you can go into the store and get spare parts for free. I don't know if you knew that. It's incredible, actually. There's a whole section. You just go in and you tell them the part you need. Hey, my box was short. This screw and this bolt and that thing. And they just hand it to you. I thought there was going to be a catch the first time I tried it. And it's amazing. They give you, they make sure, even on the back end, that you have everything you need. It can be hard to put together all those pieces. And that's why we, when we're putting together this piece of furniture, we need direction in the first place for how to do it. And when we draw the parallel to the Christian life, it's good that God has revealed his moral law to us in scripture so that we know what to do. And yet, even when you know what to do, right, it's still hard to put together that furniture if we don't have everything we need. If the parts are missing, you still can't do it. And you might need something more than just the directions. And so it's great that IKEA allows us to follow up to make sure that we get what we need. And the illustration almost makes it too small, doesn't it? It does menial justice to the reality that I'm trying to show. Isn't it great that even though the holy word of God tells us all that we need so that we know what to do, well, even when we're not able, Even when we come up short, even when we don't have all that we need to do what we're told to do, when we don't have all that we need to follow the instructions, we have an open door with God to follow up and to get the help we need. When we cannot follow the instructions by our own strength. If you think it's amazing to walk into a store to get spare parts you need, How amazing is it that you can walk into the throne room of heaven and ask the Lord himself to help you put it together? We should seek his help, right? When we struggle to obey his revealed will in scripture, we're welcomed to come to get what we need. And so we shouldn't despair. We should ask for his support. Christ instructs us to pray that God would work his will in us. And so we should be running to him. Knowing, knowing that he wants to help us live how he's, he's not bothered. When we go to the Lord and say, I know what you've told me is the right way to live. And I struggle. I think we imagine God is frustrated. This line in the Lord's Prayer tells you that God wants you to come and ask for his help to live well in the Christian life. And so this line in the Lord's Prayer is simply a reminder, it's the biblical grounding, right, of St. Augustine's famous prayer. Grant us what you command and command us what you will. If you think about that, it's an amazing prayer. We should be glad for God to instruct us however our kind and good God would direct us. But we should also seek him that he would give us the strength and ability to do what he has commanded. Tell me what you would have me do, God, and give me the strength to do what you have commanded. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24 makes the same point. This is an amazing set of verses. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now everybody's thinking at that moment, gosh, how's that gonna happen? I can't do that. And Paul the ever vigilant pastor knows that's what they're thinking. And so he closes that very line. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. How am I going to be that sanctified? Well, if it were in your hands, you never would be. But God, the one who calls you to sanctity is faithful. He will surely do it. In all our obligations, we have recourse to our sovereign God who is ready to help us do what he calls us to do. And so we should pray in light of that recourse. That brings us to our final point, righteousness. Righteousness. How does this line, how does this petition point us to Christ? And this one is actually really simple. This one's straightforward. Christ has fulfilled every aspect of God's moral law that we were supposed to keep. He's done it for us. Whereas we were supposed to do the Father's will, Christ came to do the Father's will because we needed someone to do God's will as our representative. Reformed theology has traditionally called this doctrine Christ's act of obedience. And I think it's one worth holding on to. I try not to throw a ton of theological categories at you, but this is one worth grabbing. Entry to heaven. requires not just that someone is sinless, but that, I mean, that's part of it, but that they have also fulfilled the law. Not just that you've avoided doing wrong things, but also that you've done all the right thing. If you miss a credit card payment, you have to pay a penalty fee. And we know that, so we try to avoid missing the payment. But the thing is, even if you do miss the payment, you still have to pay the initial debt that you already owed. And that's where we stand before the Lord. The same is true for us and the right to everlasting life. We always had the debt. By being creatures of God, we had the debt to do righteousness, to fulfill the law, We owed him that. We owed him our obedience. And yet, on top of that, by our sin, we accrued a penalty debt that has to be paid. A death penalty. Christ died to take our place, to pay that debt. That's what we've called his passive obedience. He died in our place to procure forgiveness of our sin. His death is what procured that forgiveness. He took care of our punishment, our penalty. But His righteous life was for us, too. It was to fulfill all our debts before the Lord. By living the perfect life, Christ took care of that initial debt that we owe, namely that we do the will of God. And Christ has fulfilled all righteousness and so has acquired the righteousness that we need to enter everlasting life. Just as he forgives our sin by his sacrificial death, he has merited our everlasting blessing by his perfect life. And so the Lord's Prayer reminds us of all that we are supposed to do. It does do that. It also ought to remind us that Christ has done all that we should have done. His righteousness has guaranteed our right to enter God's kingdom. And it even undergirds, it explains why we can even pray for God's help as we continue to live on earth, looking forward to when we can do God's will in heaven. Let's pray. Father God, how glad we are that you don't leave us to our own devices. Although we do have responsibilities in this life and you have shown them to us, how kind it is that you have shown them to us. You don't leave us guessing. It's not as if we are responsible to discern your secret will and that we've sinned if we missed the right job application or something like that. You have told us what is right and wrong. and how kind you are to have done so. We could not do it without that guidance. And yet so often we can't do it even with that guidance. And so we are thankful that we can pray and ask you to help us do your will. That we might live faithfully and that we might do so because you empower us by the spirit. And how glad we are as well that even within that, Well, we don't have to fear the times that we know that we have come short because Christ has earned every aspect of righteousness that we need to be right with you. And so heaven is dependent upon Christ and his merits, not upon ours. And we are glad that that frees us up to pursue righteousness, albeit imperfectly. So remind us of truth. Remind us of what Christ has done. And would you help us? Help us to walk with you well as you send us out in whatever you would have us do this week. We ask it for the sake of the Lord Jesus. Amen. People of God, would you stand to receive your benediction? Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you his faith, he will surely do it. Amen. Good to be with you today.