And so hear now the word of God from Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 through 13. Pray then like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Let's pray. Lord our God, you have commanded us to pray, you have taught us in your word how to pray. We pray this morning that you would help us to understand, to comprehend your teaching that we might not only understand it but also believe it and apply it in our prayers as we come before you day by day. Lord, help us to know what to say when we stand before you that we might be blessed We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Each of us has a will. Each of us has a will. We have desires, whether negative or positive. And we make determinations and we choose actions in order to fulfill those desires. We want things and then we do what's necessary to go out and get them. And in so doing, we exercise our wills. And this willingness to exercise our will is one aspect of our human nature which develops quite quickly. The child who has just learned to say no, for example, has just learned to express his or her will. And in some cases this can be frustrating. Some children become what we sometimes call strong-willed. Meaning that their will does not bend to ours quite as easily as we would like. But in general, this exercise of will, which happens among our children and among us as well, it's unavoidable. All of us, from greatest to least, possess a will. It's just part of the human experience, and God made us this way. However, we know that what God designs for good is often used for evil in this fallen world. This fallen world of sin. And that's certainly the case with the human will. We do not always will what is good. And so Paul says in Ephesians 2, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, we were living, quote, in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. We might paraphrase his point there by saying that the sinner who is dead in his sin goes about doing whatever he wants to. exercising a will which is set not on doing the things of God, but on the passions of the flesh, and feeding the lusts of that flesh. And the result, on a collective level, is the situation described in Romans 3, verses 10-12, where Paul, quoting the Old Testament, says that none is righteous, no, not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they have become worthless, no one does good, not even one. That statement reflects the depravity of the fallen human will on a global scale apart from the redemption offered by Jesus Christ and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. That's a universal statement which Paul makes and we would all continue to fall into that statement if it were not for the work of the Lord in our life on the basis of His grace. And yet the good news is that both of those descriptions of the sinfully deformed human will, both of those descriptions come just prior to proclamation of the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the Ephesians, who had been carried about by their sinful desires, Paul cries, but God. And then he speaks of the gracious salvation brought about through the work of Christ. To the Romans who were unrighteous, Paul announces the manifestation of God's righteousness apart from the law wherein we are justified by grace through faith in Him. And as you track with the argument of both of those books, whether Ephesians or Romans, you find that the redemption of the sinner with the wicked will entails a renewal and a renovation of that will through the process of sanctification. That which God placed in us for good, but which was broken by sin, has to be repaired. It has to be restored, and that's what God does when we come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. So, when the Lord works in us, the one who once was only able to do evil because of their sin is now able to do good, to serve Him in certain ways. And yet we know, still, that this side of heaven, even as Christians, we don't always do good. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Christian obedience on earth is real, but it's imperfect. It's incomplete. We continue to live in a world where, to use the language of Galatians 5, verse 17, the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. So your will has been renewed in Christ. It has been renovated. You are now able to do the good, but the flesh continues to push back upon the work of the spirit, trying to prevent you from doing the things that you know you ought to do. That's a complicated scenario. And it's into this complicated reality in regards to the human will that Jesus is speaking when he teaches his disciples to pray to the Father, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And though those words are quite simple, they reflect a desire which frequently chafes against our unglorified natures and wills. Apart from Christ, we've just said we cannot do God's will, and even as redeemed disciples undergoing sanctification, our willingness to submit our will to God's will is only partial. And so, as we come to the third petition in the Lord's Prayer, we come to a request which is very needful for us to make. In these words, Jesus teaches us, here's the point of this petition, in these words, Jesus teaches us to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, so that like the angels in heaven, we might learn to obey God's Word and submit to God's ways. That's what this prayer means. When you pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You're asking the Lord to make you like the angels in heaven, obedient to His Word and submissive to His ways. And so we want to reflect upon what that means and what it implies this morning by asking and answering three questions. First question is this, what will? What will are we talking about? When we say your will or thy will be done, what will are we referring to? To begin with a somewhat obvious observation, to speak of your will is to speak of the will that belongs to someone other than the one doing the praying. It's not my will be done, it's your will, meaning someone other than me. And the context of our passage, the Lord's Prayer, reminds us that the you who stands behind the your is the Father. It is the Father. This is something that we're maybe in danger of losing track of since we're taking this prayer petition at a time. But with all of the other petitions within the Lord's Prayer, remember we are addressing here Our Father in Heaven. That's to whom this request is made. And these are words which we utter with the church to our common Lord. So to speak of your will, in the context of this prayer, is to speak of the Father's will. and might say that since historic Orthodox Trinitarian theology has affirmed consistently that there is only one divine will, well to speak of the Father's will is to speak generally speaking of the will of God. However, to move on to maybe a less obvious observation, The singular will of God, which is mutually possessed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it has sometimes been considered from different perspectives. Many Reformed theologians, while granting the singularity of God's will, such that the Father, Son, and the Spirit are not trapped in an eternal battle of wills against one another, many Reformed theologians have argued that God wills different things in different ways, or different modes, different ways we could speak about it. And if that's true, then we need to know which way of willing we're talking about for the sake of this prayer. Now, I know that probably sounds complicated or perhaps obtuse, but a couple of examples I think will illuminate what I'm getting at. Theologians have sometimes spoken of that aspect of God's will, which we might refer to as God's decretive will. His secret will. His efficacious sovereign will. Various terms we could use here. R.C. Sproul succinctly describes this aspect of will as the will that brings to pass whatsoever God decrees. That will where God does what He's going to do. This is that aspect of God's will which we have in mind, which we see play in a text like Genesis 1-3. God says, let there be light, and what happens? There's light. He wills it, and it's done. There was no question when God said, let there be light, whether or not light would result. His will is a will of decree. He decrees it and it is finished. This is the same aspect of God's will which we have in mind in Ephesians 1.11 where we read God works all things according to the counsel of His will. And so this secret, decretive, meaning related to God's decrees, this secret, decretive will is unknown to us. We don't know all that God wants to do or will choose to do in the course of history. However, we know that he is going to do what he wants to do. His will in this respect will be done because he does as he decrees. And so we have on the one hand the decretive or the secret, the efficacious will of God. He does what he wants to do when he wants to do it. No question about it. In contrast to this, or maybe we just say alongside this, we have what theologians have sometimes referred to as the preceptive, or commanding, or revealed will of God. When we say preceptive, we mean related to God's precepts, His commands, His statutes. And so here we're talking about the will which is contained in God's law and commandments. which we are obligated to obey, the will for us which he has revealed to us. And so when we speak of God's preceptive or revealed will, we're talking about, well, texts like Exodus 20 verse 3, God says, you shall have no other gods before me. We're talking about texts like Exodus 20 verse 8. God says, remember the Sabbath day. Those are binding, perpetual, moral commands. And so they are, no question about it, God's will for us as His creatures. That's what God wills for you. Want to know what God's will for you is in your life? It's what He says in His Word. However, We know, because we are sinners, that God's precept of His revealed will is not always done by us. Sometimes, in our sin, we choose to do what is pleasing, not to His will, but to our own will. And this is what distinguishes God's revealed will from His secret will. God decrees and it is done. God commands and sometimes it's left undone by us. These are two aspects of God's will. And so with these distinctions before us, then we are ready to ask, which will are we talking about when we pray, your will be done? There's not total agreement on that question. Some, recognizing that God's secret, decretive will will always be done, have suggested that it makes little sense to pray for that will to be done because that will will be done regardless of whether we pray or not. And in fact, our prayers, or the lack thereof, are actually willed by that will. So why would we pray for that will to be done when it will be done? And those who adopt this logic will say, by way of consequence, that the will we want done in your will be done is God's preceptive will. They say that we are praying, in other words, for God to be obeyed. And certainly, to pray for God's will to be done is to pray for God to be obeyed. This prayer, absolutely, without a doubt, includes God's preceptive will. When you pray, your will be done, you are praying that the Lord would make you and others obedient. However, I think that when we think of this prayer, we should probably think of it actually in a holistic manner, God's will in a holistic manner. We are praying that God's preceptive will would be done, that he would be obeyed, We are also praying, are we not, that God's decreed of will would be done, that His purposes would be accomplished, and that we would be submissive and receptive to those purposes. And so I want to argue this morning, and we'll get into this more a little bit in a moment, but I want to argue that when we say your will be done, we are speaking about the will of the Lord all inclusively. We want him to be obeyed. We want him to do what he wants to do, and we want to receive what he wants to do as his disciples with open hands and willing hearts. So what will? God's will, all inclusively. Preceptive, decretive, So on and so forth. That brings us to our second question that we want to ask and answer this morning. What does it look like for that will to be done? What are we aiming at when we pray this petition in the Lord's Prayer? As we've already suggested, the answer to that question can present itself in different ways and it can take on different forms depending on which aspect of God's will you're focusing on. But one thing binds them together, and it's there in the text. Whether we are praying for God's sovereign decrees to come to pass, or whether we are praying for God's commands to be obeyed, when we pray, your will be done, we are stating our desire that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying, to put it another way, that God's will would be done and received in this sin-cursed world in the same way that it is done and received in the sinless world of heaven, where all creatures are in perfect, joyful submission to their Creator. In that realm, His will is never not done. We're praying that that situation would obtain here on earth as well. As question 103 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism explains, in the third petition, which is, I 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. Why the angels? We'll consider the description of God's angels in Psalm 103 verses 20 and 21. Bless the Lord, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do His word. Obeying the voice of His word. Bless the Lord, O His hosts, His ministers, who do His will. The angels in heaven are those who without question and without delay do what God commands and what God has willed. We want to be like them in that regard. So before we get to the point of dividing out the various ways in which God's will is done, the qualifier at the end of this petition shows us that it should be our desire that all of God's will be done completely and contentedly just as it is done in heaven. But with that observation we can return to our earlier distinction asking first that if we pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven What does that mean in regard to God's preceptive will? What does that mean in regard to his preceptive will? Well, for God's preceptive will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is for God's will to be obeyed with pure hearts, undivided minds, and active hands. And it is to pray this for ourselves and for others. And this starts, does it not, with our regeneration. It starts with our regeneration because we cannot do God's will before we are made new. As sinners, we can never be a part of the answer to this, and so we need to be made new. We need wills that can submit to God's will. Think of the teaching of Jesus in John 3, 3, where he says to Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Before entering into that kingdom where God's will is done, one first needs to be born again through the work of the Holy Spirit, receiving the word of God. And so it is necessary, if we are to do God's will on earth as it is in heaven, that we experience the new birth, which is the point at which our wills are renewed. And this is not something which comes into the New Testament brand new and unexpected. This was prophesied in the Old Testament. Listen carefully to the words of Ezekiel 36, verses 26 and 27. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Notice there, first of all, that what Ezekiel is talking about is that which is clearly fulfilled in the new birth announced by the Lord Jesus Christ. Ezekiel is talking about that regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. He specifically mentions and names the Spirit as the one who is given to the believer. But also notice there, as we read that text, the close correspondence, the close relationship between the giving of that new heart and spirit and obedience to God's statutes and rules. The two things go hand in hand. If the latter is to be done, the former must be completed. We must be born again. So to pray for God's will to be done is to pray for God to make us and others new creatures so that we might live before Him as living sacrifices rather than those who are dead and sin. Doing God's will begins with repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. In our sanctification, having been born again, the Spirit continues to work in us, and the Spirit who regenerates us teaches us more and more to obey God's statutes and commands. This is God's will for us as we live the Christian life. Consider the words of 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. Now in the context of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul is making this statement specifically in relation to sexual purity, but I think the saying holds true for all of God's requirements. God wants our sanctification, full stop. He wants our obedience. He wants our submission to all of his moral laws. And we do this, not in our own strength, but in the power of the Holy Spirit who has made us new. 2 Peter 2 verse 13 speaks of the saints as those who have been saved through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. So if God's will for us is our sanctification, and if the Spirit does the sanctifying, then to pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is to pray for God to work within us through the sanctifying Spirit by teaching us to obey. The result at which we are aiming when we pray this prayer is that we would be made obedient children who do the Father's will. 1 Peter 1 14-16 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. So both in our regeneration and in our sanctification, we are aimed at doing God's will, obeying His voice. And this is what it means for God's preceptive will to be done in our life. It means our absolute obedience rendered to God by us as it is rendered to Him by the angels in heaven. To pray this petition is to ask Him to make that happen. It is to ask Him to do that work in us, as He teaches us what He requires, we've got to know His will first, as He teaches us what He requires through His Word, and as He gives us the ability to obey, actually do what He requires, through His Spirit. So that's what it looks like for God's will to be done in regards to God's preceptive will. But then we ask, if we pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, what would that mean in regard to his decretive will, his secret will, that will whereby he does whatever he's going to do? I remember some think that this is not in view at all in the petition, your will be done, because by definition it will be done. However, I think that opinion, respectable folks have held it. I think that opinion does not properly take into account that our prayers are our act of worship to God and they also are meant to have an effect on us. They are meant to change our hearts as well. They are, if you'll recall, one of the means of grace. And so to pray for God's decree of will to be done is to submit our will to God's sovereign plans, whatever they might be, humbly and contentedly. The Puritan writer Thomas Watson agrees. That's good enough for me. He agrees and he uses this helpful distinction. He says that when we pray for God's revealed will, his preceptive will to be done, we are asking, quote, for active obedience, that we may do God's will actively in what he commands. And then he goes on to say that when we pray for God's secret, decretive will, we are asking, quote, for passive obedience, that we may submit to God's will patiently in what he inflicts, even in great trial. That's what Thomas Watson said. We can put some biblical language on this. To use biblical language to say God's will be done in this regard is to say with the priest Eli, when he heard that judgment was coming upon his household in 1 Samuel chapter 3, it is the Lord let him do what seems good to him. Eli had a wicked household. His children were wicked sinners. And it grieved his heart to hear of the judgment which was coming. But he knew that his household was wicked. He knew that his sons had done wrong. And so he prayed, in essence, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Judgment is coming. It is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him. To pray your will be done is, in this regard, also to say with Paul's traveling companions in Acts chapter 21, when they failed, if you'll remember, they failed to dissuade him from traveling to Jerusalem after the prophet Agabus had prophesied his great trial, which he would face if he went there. And after they had failed to dissuade Paul from going, what did they say? His traveling companions say together, let the will of the Lord be done. If we cannot dissuade Paul, then we have to rest in the decretive will of God that he will do what is right. And so when we pray for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are praying in part, again, to use the language of Thomas Watson, we are praying for a gracious frame of soul whereby a Christian is content to be at God's disposal and acquiesces in his wisdom, where we say, Lord, use us, do what you're going to do. We know you will do what is right. And portrayed in this way, I think, I hope, that you will agree that we very much need to pray for God's will to be done with this end in mind as well. Because it is often the case that while we show ourselves to be outwardly obedient to God's commands, that we are inwardly embittered over the lot that He has given us in life. It is possible to look very obedient, like one doing God's will, to be angry at God. to be disappointed with God, to question His wisdom. When life has not gone how we wanted it to go, and we've grown angry, we've grown impatient, we've grown distrustful of God, that is when we need to pray. Your will be done in earth as it is in heaven, submitting ourselves no matter how difficult it is to His wise and perfect decrees. We need that as much as we need his help in doing his commands. So putting all of this together then, we come to this conclusion. God's will being done, what does it look like? It looks like persistent obedience to God's commands, as we do his preceptive will, and it looks like constant contentment with God's providence. as he does his decreed of will, and both aspects must be held together in our prayers. For there is neither disobedience nor discontentment in heaven. You hear me? There is neither discontentment nor disobedience in heaven. And so if we're going to pray this prayer, we're saying that we need his help both to obey his word and to submit to his ways while we are still here dwelling upon the earth. We need your help, Lord. This is how we need it. So congregation, this is the prayer. This is the petition. This is the plea that you want to make. If you are interested in growing in grace and godliness even as you endeavor to glorify God rather than yourself. If you're struggling to obey the Ten Commandments to which we return so frequently. If you're struggling to heed the teaching of Jesus who commands you to love God and to love your neighbor. If you're struggling to apply the ethical imperatives of the apostolic writings of Paul and the other apostles, if you're struggling to trust in God's sovereign governance of the world and his providential ordering of your life, then make this petition your prayer. For if we are to hallow God's name, and if we are to live as citizens of his coming kingdom, we must learn to do his will. on earth as it is in heaven. That brings us to our third question. We've answered what will, what would it look like for that will to be done. And lastly, number three, how does God, excuse me, how does Jesus, how does Jesus set an example for disciples like us by praying this petition? How does Jesus set an example for us? Well, when we broaden our scope beyond the Lord's prayer and survey the rest of the gospel story, we find that your will be done, to pray that, is to follow in the footsteps of the one who said, not my will, but yours be done. You'll remember, if you've read it, I trust, The story of Christ in the garden on the night before He was to be crucified, in the moments leading up to His betrayal. And there in the garden He began to pray and He began to grieve. And as he prays, the scriptures tell us that he prays that very same prayer which he has commended to us. There in the garden, he prayed according to Luke 22, 42. We can look elsewhere, but at 22, 42, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Now, how Jesus could pray this, how this could be so, that takes a little bit of explanation because we've already made note of the fact that God has a singular will. Father, Son, and Spirit, they're not in an eternal power struggle with one another. They're always acting in agreement. However, Just as the church has historically confessed the singularity of God's will, it has also confessed that Jesus possesses not one, but two wills. Two wills. A divine will, corresponding to his divine nature, and a human will, corresponding to his human nature. Two natures, two wills. That's the hypostatic union. That's Jesus. And therefore, when Jesus says, not my will but yours be done, he was saying it as one who has a human will. He said it as one who did not want to undergo the judgment of God. He said it as one who did not want to experience the pain and suffering which was before him. He said it as one who did not want to experience the forsakenness of the cross. So, according to his humanity, Jesus asked for the cup of suffering to be taken away, to be removed from him. But as our mediator, the Son of God, who took on our nature, was willing to say, for our sake, not my human will, but yours be done, O Father. He prayed the petition that he had tossed to pray. He humbled himself and submitted himself to the divine decree so that our failures to obey God's will might be forgiven. And in this way, we find that actually the petition, your will be done is one which stands at the very heart of the gospel. So when we submit, Our will to the will of our Father we are following in the footsteps of our Savior. It is the path which has been blazed by the Master for His disciples. He walked the walk after He had taught the talk. But let's be clear. Our submission is not on the same level as His submission because it was His submission which made ours possible. It was his submission which made ours possible. Without his willingness to do the divine will as it pertained to the cross, we would only and always be rebels against God. If Jesus had not done that, we would be left in our sin. But in his hour of trial, he exalted that divine will, God's will of decree, above all others. And therefore it is only when we receive by faith the one who did the Father's will and drank the cup of judgment, it's only when we receive him by faith that we can pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So in the power of our Savior, let's follow in the footsteps of our Savior and submit ourselves to our great God. Let's pray.