All right, let's go ahead and pray as we begin our lesson on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for giving us direction, what we should believe, what we should do, what we should pray for, our faith and love and hope directed by your word. We ask that you would indeed teach us and direct us to move our minds and hearts to what is good and true. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Today we come to the third petition of the Lord's Prayer. Again, the prayer that Jesus used to teach his disciples how they ought to pray. We've looked at the beginning, how it starts, our Father in Heaven, and then also the first two petitions. All three of these first petitions are especially directed to the honor and glory of God, that His name be hallowed, that His kingdom come, and in this case, that His will be done. We certainly are also going to pray for things for ourselves. And even these things, of course, are good for us. We are interested in them, if you will, right? We glorify and enjoy God. It is good that He reigns. It is good that His will is done. But we also have an eye not only to our own good, but also to that of our Heavenly Father. So does anyone want to recite from memory? the answer here to question 103, what do we pray for in the third petition? Yes. That's correct. Let's say it all together. I'll ask the question, what do we pray for in the third petition? 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. All right, so we are talking about God's will, that it be done. What is this will of God? How would you describe it? What are we praying for? That it be done. Yes. Right, we talk about his revealed will and his secret will, and his revealed will is what he has told us to do, right? He has told us that, and we pray that it be done. And I think that is primarily in view here, since it is his revealed will that is currently not being done on earth as it is in heaven, right? What do we call it when people don't do the will of God? sin or disobedience, right? People disobey God and don't do what He has told them to do. And do the angels obey God? Yes. Right, well, the ones that did not fall. Yes, in heaven, God, His will is obeyed. His will is done. So I think that is primarily what is in view here. We ought to do the will of our Father in heaven. And so we pray that His will be done, that it be carried out and obeyed. So we pray that his will be done, that carried out and obeyed. God also has his secret will or his plan. Of course, it is made known in time, but his will in that whatever he wills, he does, right? If you will, his decree, his plan, his purpose. And we thus also express our desire for us to submit to his his fatherly chastisement, his treatment of us, his rewards, his dispensations towards us in all things, as he works all things for our good. And so, as the saints could not convince Paul to keep away from Jerusalem, they said, let the will of the Lord be done. That they saw that what the Lord does is good and right and submits to His will in such a prayer. But of course, is God's will done on earth already? His secret will, yes, he carries out. Everything that happens is according to his will in that sense. But of course, we also then submit to his will as we endure, as we give thanks to God in all circumstances, as we know that his will toward us is good, that he intends good for his children. So we pray that his will be done. Now how has God revealed his will to us? Speaking of his revealed will, how has he revealed his will? In his word. Is that what you're going to say? Right, right. We actually talked about this earlier in the catechism, right? What did he first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience? The moral law. And also he revealed in making salvation known to us and providing it for us, he requires of us certain things to respond well to that gospel, to be saved. repentance and faith with a diligent use of the means of grace, right? These things are the will of God. He has told us to do these things. He, of course, has also revealed his moral law in nature, in his creation, as well as in Scripture, especially clearly in Scripture. And he's also shown us in Scripture his will concerning our response to the gospel, that we are to repent believe in Christ and use his ordinances, like prayer, which of course is what we are discussing. Now, why should we desire that his will be done? Right, right. We love him and so we want his will to be done. Anyone else can think of any good reason why we should want this? Because again, what is prayer? Offering up of our desires unto God. So if this is what we should pray for, this should be what we also desire. But why should we desire it? Yes, because we love our Heavenly Father. His will is good and results in better options. Because His will is good, like inherently it is good. So we should desire it, right? We should desire what is good. That should be like a basic idea. We should not desire what is destructive and evil. So we desire His will to be done because God Himself and His will is holy and excellent. So we should desire, indeed, what is holy and excellent. Also, because his will ought to be done. He is the maker of heaven and earth, the sovereign over all, right? This ought to be. We all have that desire that things should be the way they ought to be, right? Well, this is the way they ought to be. We should desire that. And thirdly, it would be unto His glory and our good for it to be done. We want His name to be hallowed, right? We want His kingdom to come. Well, this would be part of that. It would be unto His glory for these things to be done. And it grieves us when we see His will not done because we want Him to be honored, right? And it's also for our good that his will be done. So we desire it to be done because we are zealous for our father and his honor and authority. We love his character. It is lovely to us. It is holy. It is perfect. It is right. It doesn't have all that corruption that disappoints us when we look to ourselves. And we perceive the goodness of his will, the goodness of his law that he has set before us. And we see the sinfulness and destructiveness of disobedience when we see that both that it is wrong and that it is destructive. Of course, scripture extols the goodness of God's will. Think of Psalm 19, for example. where it speaks of the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them, as your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward. So if these things be good, of course, that means we should do them, but it also means that we should desire that they be done. And so we should offer that desire to God that we pray that he would work this obedience in us and in all mankind, that he would see to it that his will be done. Now, what need do we acknowledge by praying this petition? What need do we acknowledge, kind of implicitly, by asking that this will be done? Do you understand what I'm asking there? Like, if we pray that this thing be done, what do we assume is not happening that needs to be corrected? Are you raising your hand? Yeah? No? OK. Yes, Adam? We need help to do His will, right? We are unable of ourselves to bring these things to pass, not by virtue of us being human. Of course, as humans, we're designed to do this very thing, but because of our corruption. As the larger catechism puts it, we acknowledge that by nature, we and all men are not only utterly unable and unwilling to know and do the will of God, but prone to rebel against his word, to repine and murmur against his providence, and wholly inclined to do the will of the flesh and of the devil. So we need God to act. Of ourselves, we like to do the opposite. The natural man does not submit to the will of God. Indeed, he cannot because of that depravity. Romans 8, 7. There's also a blindness even to the will of God. God has sufficiently revealed it, right? Man knows that he falls short of that standard. But even his knowledge of God's will is often twisted and distorted. And so we need God to teach us the way that is good and to move us to do it. Otherwise, we are prone to rebel. And even as Christians, the flesh and the spirit is at war and the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit in conflict. So it is only through God's grace that you can do his will. His grace gives people the ability to understand his revealed will. His grace renews their will so that they want to obey and submit to his will. More and more, God brings our thoughts and actions into conformity with his goodwill. And we look forward to the day in which this work will be complete in glory. After all, these are prayers. We shouldn't lose sight of that fact. We've talked about how we ought to obey God's will. Here we're talking about prayer. And we're talking about hope. We know that God's kingdom will come, right? That it's more and more coming now and His kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory will arrive with Christ. Well, likewise, will God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Yes, it will. More and more now as God sanctifies His people and calls them And then, as Christ comes and establishes righteousness, as He renews creation, and that new heavens and new earth is established where what dwells? Where righteousness dwells, right? And so we can look forward to, indeed, perfectly obeying God, enjoying the goodness of His will with our whole being in conformity to it by God's grace as our hope. And even now, we more and more are purified, more and more sanctified, coming into conformity to His will. As Philippians 2.13 says, For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. This is a work of God in us, even as The consequence there is that we work, we do His good pleasure. It's God who does this work in us, producing it by His grace. So what do we ask God to make us and others able and willing to do? Thinking of the terms of the catechism, you can use that language. Precisely, what is it that we pray God would make us and others able and willing to do. Right, correct. So again, by nature or corrupt nature, both our knowledge and our obedience and submission are hindered, are distorted, are corrupted. And so we pray that God would enable us and others to know His will to teach us, and also to obey it, and then also to submit to it. I think that's especially referring to not murmuring against his providence, but submitting to his will and trusting in his fatherly care. So in Psalm 119, for example, verses 33 to 36, God's Word says this, teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will keep it to the end. Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to selfish gain. So this should be our prayer, that we desire this, But we know that we need God at work to direct us to it, to teach us, to give us understanding so that we might keep it, to lead us in the path and incline our heart so that we follow it. Now, the other side of the coin is the negative aspect. All of these questions, at least in the larger catechism's version, imply a negative thing, right? With regard to God's kingdom, what is it that we want destroyed? Satan's kingdom, right? With regard to, hallowed be his name, what do we want prevented and removed? Profaneness, atheism, false religion, hypocrisy. Well, with regard to this petition, the larger catechism adds that we pray that God would, by His Spirit, take away from ourselves and others all blindness, weakness, indisposedness, and perverseness of heart, so that we would be indeed ready to do His will, that He would take away these things from us. So in what manner should we do God's will and pray that we would do God's will? Yes. In a submissive way? So there's probably a lot of adverbs that we could use here. Submissively, happily, cheerfully, right? Not begrudgingly. Okay, I got to do God's will, right? But with a cheerful heart. In everything, right? Thomas Watson uses a musical metaphor. It's not just... God's will is like a 10-string lute, he says. You have to use all the strings. You don't just play your favorite one. To make the music, use the whole instrument, right? In our doing of God's will, we should embrace His will, all of it, as a whole. Verses 4 through 5 of Psalm 119 say, You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently. Oh, that my ways may be steadfast in keeping your statutes. So keeping them diligently. where we pay attention and continue to keep them, and steadfast, steadfast in keeping your statutes. Not just here and there, but a general course of action that we are not easily moved from. We should be upset when we find ourselves fickle and easily moved by temptation. Pray that God would remove that from us. There's an interesting verse in Deuteronomy 28, 47. So in the midst of the curses there, it has this verse in verse 47. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. So we should rejoice in God's goodness and grace toward us and serve him with gladness and cheerfulness that this is good. He is a good God, a good God to serve. But he's saying, since you didn't do that, in that case that he would correct them. So a larger catechism puts it this way, that we might do the will of God, quote, with the like humility, cheerfulness, faithfulness, diligence, zeal, sincerity, and constancy as the angels do in heaven. The angels are a model here as we think of how God is served in heaven by the angels and how he is served on earth. Of course, not only angels, we can also think of the souls of the righteous men made perfect, those who have gone on and passed on to glory. But we should do the will of God with humility before Him, remembering that He is great and deserving of honor with cheerfulness. remembering the goodness of his will, and that we desire this with faithfulness, again, that steadfastness in his way, and diligence, day after day, to pay attention to it. With zeal, Paul says, be fervent in zeal, serve the Lord, and sincerity. Does anyone know what sincerity means? Not you? Sincerity, or what would be opposite of sincerity? Yes. Insincere. There we go. Genuinely, not as a hypocrite, not just playing along and acting it out without intending, but to do it truthfully. Sincerely from the heart. as God not only wants your lips to profess Him, right, but He wants your heart to love and to serve Him, and constancy, as the angels do in heaven. Now, how well do the angels do God's will in heaven? Perfectly, yes, perfectly. They do his will. In fact, that's kind of what characterizes them. That's what they are known for. They have not fallen by a single sin. Again, those who have not fallen. With the angels, there's no covenant of grace to redeem them, right? They do God's will, or they have fallen into rebellion. Psalm 103 verse 20 says, Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers who do his will. So speaking there of the angels, they are those who do his word, who do his will, who obey his voice. And this is what we desire to see on earth as well. So the comparison of heaven and earth applies really to all the three petitions we've looked at thus far, as it comes at the end of these three petitions. In heaven, God's name is hallowed, right? The angels worship God. He is honored. That's especially where his glory is displayed. In heaven, his kingdom is come. His kingdom is there. In fact, it's called the kingdom of heaven. In heaven his will is done. We pray that these things be done on earth as they are in heaven. Notice I've said on earth and in heaven, even though the King James Version and the Catechism says in earth and in heaven. Of course, you can use either one. But the Greek does use two different prepositions, in heaven and on or upon the earth. But that just is because that's how we think of earth and heaven. In both realms, we want these things to take place. May heaven manifest itself on earth. John Chrysostom, the early church father from around 400 AD, commented on the Lord's Prayer and his preaching through Matthew. And he said this, he, that is Christ, he hath enjoined each one of us who pray to take upon himself the care of the whole world. For he did not say, Thy will be done in me, or in us, but everywhere on the earth, so that error may be destroyed, and truth implanted, and all wickedness cast out, and virtue remain. And no difference in this respect be henceforth between heaven and earth. Of course, we want his will to be done in us and in others, but it's not just that, right? He says, on earth as it is in heaven, we are praying for a universal triumph of these things, that God's name be hallowed everywhere, that his kingdom come everywhere, that his will be done everywhere. So may heaven manifest its ways on earth. Any other questions or comments before we finish this lesson? All right, well, next lesson will be on the fourth petition where we turn to our daily bread. But let's go ahead and close in prayer and remember to keep these things in our minds and hearts and to desire them. and pray for them. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for revealing to us your goodness and righteousness in your word that you have shown us the way of salvation that we might call upon you as our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. We ask indeed that in us and in our hearts and in your church we might honor your name, that we might see your kingdom established among us and that your will might be done by us. We also pray, though, that you would do this everywhere and throughout the world and in every person and in every people. We pray that your name would be hallowed, that you would be praised by people all around the earth, that air and false religion and profaneness would be scattered and that your name would be honored. We pray also that your kingdom would come, indeed that it would continue to advance and continue to grow, and that your church would be established, that the means of grace would be maintained in purity and made effectual unto the building up of your people and the gathering of the saints, that you might rule in all our ways, and indeed that your will would be done, that wickedness would be banished, that righteousness would fill the earth, that the nations might prove, indeed, the glories of your grace and love working within us. We ask that you would do these things more and more now, and that you would bring the glory to come with Jesus Christ, in which these hopes will be completely fulfilled. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.