A prayer that is basically expanding upon tonight's topic, which is the petition of the Lord's Prayer, Your Will Be Done. And that's what we just sang in that prayer. Psalm 119, give me a desire, a love for your will, to desire to do your will. Let us now turn in our Bibles to Ephesians chapter six, Ephesians six. Our text for tonight is verses five through nine, and don't be distracted by the surface level meaning of this text, which is about Paul's instructions to bondservants and to masters, but look at the heart of it here, which has to do with all of us, whether we're, even if we're not a bondservant or a master, which is this call to do the will of God from the heart in verse six. Ephesians 6 verse 5, bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ. not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, that's the part I want to underscore, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him. And then let's turn in our hymnals to the back to page 895 for our catechism selection tonight, Lord's Day 49. Lord's Day 49, this is in the section of the catechism expounding the Lord's Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which we just prayed a minute ago. And the catechism is going through it line by line. And we come now to the third petition of the Lord's Prayer. So I'll ask the question, you respond in unison with the answer. Question 124, what does the third petition mean? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven means help us and all people to renounce our own wills and without any backtalk to obey your will for it alone is good. Help everyone carry out his office and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven. So tonight we're looking at the third petition of the Lord's Prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now right away, one of the things we have to address with this is what is meant by God's will in this petition? And we're praying to God, your will be done. What do we mean by God's will? The reason we need to ask that question is because God's will in scripture has two references, two aspects, two ways of defining it, two main meanings. Whenever we hear this language of God's will, we might think of it as being a reference to God's sovereign plan. We sometimes will say, like at the end of an email, we'll say, I'll see you tomorrow at six o'clock, Lord willing, right? If I don't die, if it's God's will for us to have this meeting, I'll see you there tomorrow. We don't wanna be presumptuous and assume that we know that we're gonna be able to do that, because who knows, maybe we'll get into an accident, maybe something will happen. So we say to the Lord, Lord-willing, right? We're talking about God's will in the sense of His sovereignty, His providential control of all things. In theology, the term that's used for that understanding of God's will is God's decretive will. That is, His will that has to do with His decree, His eternal decree before the foundation of the world. He decreed whatsoever comes to pass. The Heidelberg Catechism talks about that understanding of God's will earlier in the Catechism when it talks about God's providence in questions 26 and 27. And it says that there's no such thing as chance. Everything that happens to us, the good and the bad, does not happen by chance, but it happens by God's will, and it comes from His fatherly hand. That understanding of the will of God is not the will of God that we're referring to in this prayer. In this prayer, when we pray, your will be done, we're not praying that God's decree would be done. We're not praying that God's sovereign plan would be fulfilled. Rather, there's a second meaning to God's will that we refer to in theology as the preceptive will of God. There's the decretive will of God, His sovereign plan, and then there's the preceptive will of God, which is His will that He desires for us as His creatures. His moral will. Jesus himself uses this phrase, the will of my father who is in heaven, several times in the Gospel of Matthew to refer to this aspect of God's will, God's preceptive will. For example, in Matthew 7, verse 21, he says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, That is, not everyone who professes to be a Christian will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And again, in Matthew 12, verse 50, he says, whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Now clearly, in those two verses, it's not talking about the decreed will of God, because everyone does the decreed will of God, right? But he's talking about doing the will of God in the sense of what Christ desires for us, what he's calling his disciples to do. The living, the lifestyle, the obedience that he's calling us to as disciples of Christ. Actually, it also includes faith. The very first key thing that the Lord is calling the disciples to do is to trust in Him and to believe in Him, to believe in His atoning sacrifice and His salvation, and also to trust in His grace. His care for their lives. So this is the will that we're referring to when we say in the Lord's Prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We're praying not that God's decree would come to pass. That wouldn't be bad to pray that. Of course, we should always pray that, that God's decree would come to pass, which we know it will. But what we're praying for really is something more specific. We're praying that we would be more obedient to God, that we would do His will. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And that's how the Heidelberg Catechism interprets it. The Heidelberg Catechism says that when we pray this prayer, your will be done, we're saying, help us and all people to renounce our own wills and without any backtalk to obey your will, for it alone is good. I think it's easy for us to forget that that's what this third petition of the Lord's Prayer is talking about because we're so used to thinking, you know, I think even that phrase, your will be done, it sort of sounds like this resignation in the sense of resigning ourselves to God's sovereignty, right? Well, God's will be done. I don't know what's gonna happen. I would really like to get this job, but your will be done. Whatever God wants will come to pass. And so it's very easy to misunderstand what this third petition is really praying for. What are we really asking God for? And the Heidelberg Catechism correctly interprets it. That what we're really asking is we're asking God to change our will so that we would be more obedient to God. Help us and all people to renounce our own wills and without any backtalk to obey your will. for it alone is good. And this fits in perfectly with the previous two petitions of the Lord's Prayer. What were they? Hallowed be thy name and thy kingdom come. Those are the two petitions just before the third one. Hallowed be thy name. Isn't that also essentially a prayer that has to do with us? We're not just saying, you know, God may your name be sanctified, which it obviously is. God's will is sanctified by definition because he's a holy God. There's nothing we can do to change that. What we're really praying for in that first request is, Lord help me to honor you. Help me to set apart your name as holy. And then thy kingdom come. Same thing, we're not praying for God's sovereignty to be accomplished, we're praying for the kingdom to advance, the kingdom of grace and salvation, which ultimately happens through the preaching of the gospel and as sinners come to saving faith in Christ. and ultimately as the whole purpose of Christ in this present age, which is the formation of his church, is accomplished. So all of these requests then are requests that have to do with us, even though that at first they sound like they're about God. Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. your will be done. Once we see that it's really about us and asking that our hearts would be submissive to God's purposes. You know, when we pray that petition, thy kingdom come, we're asking God to align our will with God's will so that we're seeking His kingdom and seeking His kingdom purposes in this world. and not our own. As Jesus said in Matthew 6, verse 33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these earthly things will be added to you. Another clue, so not only do we have the context of the first two petitions to help us to interpret the third one, to interpret it correctly as being about us and asking God to change our hearts, but another clue that supports that is the phrase that we often leave out, which is, on earth as it is in heaven. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right? So clearly, it wouldn't make any sense to say that last part, on earth as it is in heaven, if we're just talking about God's decreed of will. Because God's decreed of will is done on earth and on heaven without any distinction, right? So when we pray, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, what we're praying for is that just as the angels in heaven are obedient to God, may we here on earth be just as obedient as the angels are in heaven. So essentially what we're praying for in this prayer is we're praying for a submissive attitude to God's will. We're asking God to help us to submit to His will. And the reason why we need to pray this is because we have to be honest with ourselves, all right? We have to be honest, and that is that we're not really that submissive to God's will. Right, now by the gift of the Spirit, God has changed our hearts and he's making us more submissive. But by nature, by the way in which we were born in this world, born as children of Adam, born under the guilt and the corruption of Adam's sinful nature, we are born with hearts and with minds that are inflexibly opposed to God's will. You might not wanna admit this about yourself, but it's really true. The remaining corruption that's in you doesn't really like God's will, doesn't really delight in it, doesn't really want to submit to it. Paul says this in Romans 8, verse 7. He says, the mindset of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. The flesh is a reference to who we are in Adam before we've been brought into union with Christ. Who we are in Adam is that we are in the flesh. And our flesh is really hostile to God and does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it can't. It simply cannot submit. It is inflexibly opposed to God's will. The only person who is truly submitted to God's will is Christ. He is the only one who fully and perfectly delighted to do the will of God. Remember in Psalm 40, verse eight, which is quoted in Hebrews chapter 10, I delight to do your will, O God. Behold, it's written about me in the book of the law. I have come to do your will. He is the only one that is truly, perfectly delighted in the will of God. The wonderful reality though is that because of our union with Christ and by the Spirit of Christ living within us, our hearts can be made to submit to God's will. And he is working on us and helping us to renounce our own wills and to submit to his will. He wants us to obey him from the heart. He doesn't want obedience that, You know how like in a family when you have little kids, You know, you can't always get the little kids to perfectly delight in the will of the parents, and you're just happy if they just go ahead and do it, right? You're just happy if they just eat the food that's on their plate, even though they don't really want it, and they're kind of grumbling and complaining about it, and you're just thankful for that. But that's not what the Lord wants from us. He doesn't want us to be like children forcing ourselves to eat the food on our plate. He wants us to delight in His will. He wants us to willingly serve Him. That's why I quoted that verse. That's why I used that passage from Ephesians 6 at the beginning there. Doing the will of God from the heart. That's what the Lord wants from us. He wants us to do the will of God from the heart. Just like the angels in heaven. The angels in heaven are perfectly obedient to God and are endlessly delighting to serve God and to do His will. It says that in Psalm 103, verse 21. Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, you ministers of His who do His pleasure. That's all the angels do, 24-7, is that they endlessly do the will of God. And then God sends them on errands into this earth to be ministers of his who are doing so in complete accordance with the will of God, without any backtalk, without any... resistance without any stubbornness, but simply perfectly delighting in God's will. And so we're praying to the Lord in this third petition, Lord, make us like the angels in heaven. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May we have the same desire to delight in your will and to serve you and to obey you. Obedience in the Christian life is a It's a hard thing, it's a very difficult thing. We struggle with that. And I think that the most important part of obedience is submission. Submission and obedience are not exactly the same thing. They're clearly very closely related ideas, but submission is more this idea of, it's that submitting your will, right? You know what I'm talking about? It's that moment when you just, Relax and you say, okay, God, I believe you. I believe your word that this is right. As the catechism says, renouncing your own will and without any backtalk, obeying God's will. Submission has to do with our pride. Isn't that the basic obstacle to submission? It's pride. We have this pride, this stubborn pride that is within us. And the hardest part of obedience in the Christian life is that moment when we agree with God that He is right, that this particular thing that we are struggling with is not pleasing to Him. just simply agreeing with God that He is right, renouncing our own will, relaxing that arched back and just saying, okay, Lord. And you may still struggle with the temptation and the struggle and so on, and the obedience part that flows from that, it's a lifelong process and you're never gonna be perfectly obedient, but the key is that submission, it's that, You know, like the wrestlers, you know, when you get somebody in that submission hold and they finally just submit and they relax and they tap out. That's what the Lord wants from us, is to submit to Him. to submit our will to His will, and to renounce the stubbornness of our pride. I think pride is the main thing that causes us to struggle with obedience. I think our pride is the biggest part of our sin struggle. Rosaria Butterfield is a well-known Reformed author and speaker. She was, before she was converted, she was a committed lesbian, and she was very much involved in that. She was a college professor, and that whole lifestyle was very important to her, and she was very much committed to that lifestyle and to the whole culture that goes along with that. fighting the patriarchy, you know, that was her whole thing. And she says in her story, if you listen to her story, you can find it online and various books she's written, she says that the root of her lesbian lifestyle was pride. That was the heart of it. Yes, I mean, after she was converted, she undoubtedly, and she even talks about the remaining struggles that she had with desires that were not right. But that was like, that was sort of the lingering aftereffects of the one key thing, which was pride. Pride was the heart of the matter. And when she was converted, the Lord humbled her pride. And she just had to admit and say, yes, Lord, you are right. Your word is right when it says that this lifestyle is not pleasing to you. And she had to mortify that pride that led her into that lifestyle, into that way of thinking. And it's the same with us. We have this sinful pride that rises up within us. It goes all the way back to the garden, doesn't it? When Adam and Eve were being tempted in the garden. It doesn't seem like they committed a massive sin. All they did was eat of the tree. Doesn't seem like some horrific evil, right? But what it was was pride. It was an expression of pride. God said, you shall not eat of this tree. And listening to the serpent who said, has God really said that? Is that really true? They, in their pride, said, we don't agree with you, God. We don't think that this is right. The tree looks like a good piece of fruit. It looks very pleasing to the eyes. And maybe, in fact, it will be good for us. And so there was that stubborn, sinful pride that was the root of the first sin. And ever since then, all of humanity struggles with this. All of humanity is characterized by this pride. And even we as believers, whose hearts have been humbled by God's grace, still have the remnants of that stubborn pride within us. And so we are praying then in this third petition, this fundamental thing, we're asking God to change our wills, to humble our pride, and to help us to submit to His will. Now there's another aspect to this request. The Heidelberg Catechism says, So let's read it again. When we pray, your will be done. That means help us and all people to renounce our own wills and without any backtalk to obey your will for it alone is good. So that was the main point that I was focusing on just a moment ago. But then there's this second element here. Help everyone carry out his office and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels in heaven. So there's another aspect to this petition. We're not only asking God to humble us and to help us to submit to his will, to acknowledge that His will alone is good, and to mortify that pride within us so that we would love His will and desire to obey it. But we're also asking the Lord to help us to carry out our calling. And this is the Reformed doctrine of vocation. Vocation is simply the Latin way of saying calling. It's the same thing. Our calling. What is our calling? God has called all of us to live a certain way. But it may not be the exact same calling for each person. Obviously, if you're a man, God has called you to live one way. If you're a woman, God has called you to live as a woman. Or if you're a servant, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 6, God has called you to do that. If God has called you to be a master, God has called you to that. The other relationships in the context there are husbands and wives, children and parents, and so on. And so we must seek to fulfill the calling that God has placed upon us. Unfortunately, it's difficult because unfortunately, it's not spelled out in scripture. There's not a verse for each one of us where we can turn to it and say, oh, okay, here's my calling. God has told me exactly what to do. Scripture only reveals the general moral will of God, but within that, there are many legitimate options for which God could be calling us. Should I get married or not? Or should I marry this person or that person? Should I pursue this career or that? And so it takes sanctified wisdom to know how to fulfill that calling. The most important advice that I would give to anybody as they're thinking about this is obviously you're not called to do anything that's morally wrong. So any particular career or marriage that might be sinful, that is obviously ruled out. But within that, within the circle of things that are morally permissible, How can we know what God's will is for us? And the main thing that I would encourage you to think about is to think about how God has made you. God has made each one of you a unique person, male or female. That's one big distinction. But even within that, unique personality, desires, aptitudes. And so that is a way in which you can hear God's calling in your life. You can discern what God's will is for you in terms of this vocational will, in terms of His calling on your life, by how God has equipped you. If God has made you a woman, then He's calling you to serve as a woman. If He's made you a If he's giving you the gifts for this particular thing, then he's calling you for that. And you can even see what those gifts are based upon the desires that he has placed within you. Again, we're talking within the will of God. If it's a desire that's outside of the will of God, if it's sinful, then it's not his calling on you. But within the realm of that which is not sinful, that which is morally permissible, then the main thing that you need to look at is to examine yourself, to examine who you are, who God has made you to be, And then that becomes a guide to help you discern what he's calling you to do. When making any big life decisions, let's say about marriage or career or school, you should ask yourself, first of all, is it morally permissible? That's the obvious point. Then you should ask yourself, does this contribute to the advancement of the kingdom of God? Then the third thing you should ask is, is it compatible with how God has made me, my unique personality, desires, and aptitudes? And then you should also ask, do I have the means to carry it out? Like you might think that God is calling you to some great financial ministry in the church, maybe to give millions of dollars to help churches be planted. Well, if he hasn't given you millions of dollars, then that's pretty much a sign right there that he's not calling you to do that, right? So that's one of the things you can ask is, do I have the means and the ability to carry out this thing that I'm thinking about doing? If you don't have the means or the ability, then that's God telling you that it's not your calling to do that. And another thing that also helps in this, when you're trying to discern what God's vocational call is for you, is does it have the blessing of the godly and wise people that God has placed in my life? Whether it's your parents, or your elders of your church, or your spouse. If it doesn't have their blessing, that could also be a sign that it is not God's will for you. And then finally, does it fit with the circumstances in which God has providentially placed you? Every one of us has our own life history, our life story, where we live, our circumstances in life that God has providentially given to us. our wealth, our abilities, and those circumstances are part of God's direction to you about what he is wanting you to do. The Apostle Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians. Remember in 1 Corinthians 7? the chapter where he talks about marriage and divorce. In that context, he has this interesting paragraph in 1 Corinthians 7 verse 17 where he says, So he's talking about this vocational issue, right? that each person lead the life that God has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Then let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Then let him not seek circumcision, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bond servant when called? Then do not be concerned about it. Although he does say, but if you have the opportunity, if you can gain your freedom, then avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. In other words, Paul is not completely denying that there can be opportunities, if God has given them to you, to advance yourself and to change your circumstances. He mentions that. If you can gain your freedom, then avail yourself of the opportunity. He's not totally rejecting that. But, generally speaking, he's saying that the providential circumstances of your life, just look at your life right now, where God has placed you. Geographically, your church, your family. The situation that you're in, that right there can be a sign that God is calling you in that place, calling you to serve him there where he has placed you. And then lastly, the most important thing to do if you're thinking about making a big life decision is to pray about it. And that's why this Lord's Prayer is here. This third petition of the Lord's Prayer, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Why is prayer about these important decisions in life so important? Because if you can talk about it with your Heavenly Father, and if you can ask His blessing upon it, then that becomes another indicator to you that it may be pleasing to the Lord. There are some things that we are contemplating doing, and as soon as we start to pray about that thing to the Lord, it just becomes immediately obvious that I can't ask the Lord's blessing upon that. That's just wrong. Your conscience immediately convicts you. And so this is a wonderful guide that God can use in prayer. As we pray about that thing, as we talk about it with our Heavenly Father, we can ask His blessing upon it. We could say, your will be done as it is on earth, as it is in heaven. And we can ask Him, ask Him to help us to discern His will. Ask Him for the wisdom that we need in making this decision. and ask Him to help us to do whatever it is that we're contemplating to His glory. And as we contemplate that in prayer, talking to Him about that in prayer, about imagining what it would be like to serve Him in this way to His glory and to His honor, then that can become a further indicator to the Lord that it is His will for you. The Lord's Prayer, which we're going through line by line, isn't just simply a prayer that we recite, which we do, we do recite it simply as a liturgical thing, as a unit, but it's also a guide for our prayer life. And so we can take each one of these petitions and we can expand upon them in our own prayer life. We can take that third petition and we can meditate upon it and we can use it to help the Lord to guide us in these important life decisions. Whatever we do, whether we eat or drink, as Paul says, we must do it all to the glory of God. And if we do it in a prayerful way, that becomes a further way in which we can see how we can do that thing that we are contemplating in a way that pleases the Lord and that becomes part of our further growth in grace and our growth in sanctification as we more and more submit our will to God's will. and root out that devilish pride that is within us as we submit to his will and seek to please him in every area of life. Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ when he taught his disciples how to pray. We thank you that he gave us a model of perfect prayer. And we thank you in particular for this third petition of the model prayer that our Savior gave to his disciples your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Help us, Lord, to renounce our own wills, and without any backtalk, to submit to your will, for it alone is good. This we ask in Jesus' name, amen.