Alright, we have been dealing with the Lord's Prayer and on particularly the petition, Thy Will Be Done. The third petition of that first section that deals with petitions regarding God. Hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done. The cumulative effect of all three of those petitions is that as men learn to respect and reverence God's name, contrary to our nature, because our nature is just to ignore God. But that as we learn to respect and reverence his name, so his kingdom, at least as it is in this phase of history, expands and grows. And as a result of the kingdom coming, of people coming to know Christ, coming into the kingdom of Christ, or as Paul puts it, being translated out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of his dear son, That as that happens, so God's will is done on earth. So there is sort of a cumulative effect to these three petitions. The first is to undo our natural inclination towards selfishness. Our natural desire is not to respect God's name, it's what? To make sure everybody respects my name. Secondarily, it is not so much God's rule that we're concerned with, but what? Me getting my way. Self-rule. Self-direction. And so finally, the normal, simple response is, I want my will to be done. But now we learn as Christians to pray for God's will to be done. It is the undoing of the effects of the fall that we see in these first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer. All right, so we talked about the concept of will, and you'll forgive me for just rattling through this, but we've done it the last couple of weeks and this is review. And I just want to say, just kind of work through it real fast. There are three concepts or three ideas or way that we use the word will. We can use it about a desire or a wish. We can use it in terms of a command or a direction, or we can use it in regards to something that we intend regarding the future. When we speak then of God, and we talk about God's will or God's desires, we have to be careful not to take the idea of men and transfer it over to God. God does indeed have righteous and holy desires, but they are not Desires born out of dissatisfaction. They are not desires born out of a lack of something. God does not sit in heaven discontent, wishing things would change. Somehow unsatisfied with Himself. God did not through all eternity, Father, Son, and Spirit go, boy, we're just missing something, aren't we? So when we talk about God's will or desire, we're not talking about something that's ever unfulfilled. And these scripture verses that we looked at, whatever God does or desires, He does. And no one restrains His hand. No one can say to Him, what are you doing? So, if God desires something that doesn't happen, then that says that either God has, at that point, no longer possessed almighty power, or that God himself is conflicted in some way. Then also there's the idea of God's will in terms of his commandments. And we've looked at several scripture verses that use that use of the term. where God's will is referred to as His commands or His direction to us. And then finally we look at the idea of God's intentions, His will of intention. Theologically speaking, these are called God's decrees where He determines or decides what's going to happen. So, for example, in Acts chapter 4 when the apostles have met after being threatened and beaten by the Sanhedrin, And they are praying through Psalm chapter 2, where the kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord, against His Christ. And they say, God, this is exactly what has happened. Pontius Pilate, Herod, the Romans, they set themselves against Jesus Christ, your Messiah. They have murdered Him, crucified Him. And then they say, and all of this happened. And I'm paraphrasing. exactly the way you determined that it was going to be done. So that God's will is His determinate will. Ephesians 1.11, He does all things according to the counsel of His own will. So God doesn't have a council of angels where He seeks advice. What do you think I ought to do, Michael? Gabriel? You got any input on this? Rather, God works and everything that He does and everything that happens, happens according to the counsel of His own will. The point to make, however, is that when God makes these decrees, He does not reveal them to us in advance. It is not a Christian or biblical concept to somehow try to discern what it is that God has decreed for you in the future. So this morning, I did not say, OK, I wonder what tie God has ordained for me to wear. Take the dice. If it's higher than seven, I wear this tie. If it's lower than seven, I wear the other brown tie. Don't cast lots. You don't put out trying to discern the future. That's not for us to do. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. The things revealed belong to us, that we may obey Him. Deuteronomy 29.29 So, when we pray for God's will to be done, we're not praying for God's desires or God's decrees to be done. That's going to happen. Rather, what we're praying for are His commands to be done on earth as in heaven. So whatever it is that God has commanded us in His written Word, when we say, Your will be done, what we're praying for is for God's commands to be obeyed. We're praying for men to obey Him. But we're praying for it to happen in a particular manner. On earth, as it is in heaven. Who is it in heaven that obeys God? Well, I assume that we're talking about the angels. So, if you will, look at Psalm 103, verses 20 through 21. And the first volunteer that gets there and would like to read that out loud Just jump on it. Alright, so here are the angels who excel in strength compared to us pitiful human beings. After all, one angel can destroy a 186,000 man army in one night. Right? In the Old Testament. So here are these angels, and they do God's pleasure. They do His will. They obey His Word. Now, neither the psalmist nor I have exact knowledge as to what that entails. God needs nothing, so the angels aren't exactly bringing Him things that He needs. That's not what we're talking about. It's not like a king with his courtiers or his ministers. What do angels do? Well, we know they are ministers of us. We know that in some respect they minister here on earth. They are in a realm that we don't see. But beyond that, you can speculate all you want to. I'm not going to go there. I think there are some general ideas as to what happens, and there are certainly spiritual forces at work beyond what we can see, but I don't think we ought to get carried away with that. I don't think we ought to be engrossed in it, and it certainly should not inform our theology. Our idea simply is to carry out God's will as it is in heaven. So here's the question. If you were an angel in heaven and God issues a command, how would you perform that command? Give me a one word adverb that would describe the manner in which you would carry out God's will. Immediately. Prontoly. By the way, we are suffering from the Disappearance of the adverb in American grammar. Just thought I'd get on my soapbox for half a second. Apple of all places. Their slogan. Think different. Leave. OK. I'm sorry. Obediently. Reverently. Completely. Joyfully. Any others? Perfectly. I've got nine that I put up here because I ran out of room and I thought, that'll work. Okay. Cheerfully. Joyfully. Okay. Fully or completely. I think someone said that one. Constantly. You don't get to take a vacation. Okay. Angels don't punch time clocks, by the way. Instantly. All right. No delay. Exactly. I think someone said perfectly. That's the same idea. Energetically. OK. Glorifyingly. Yes, I did make that one up, I think. But you get the idea. Reverently, I think someone said the same idea. In a manner that glorifies God, not us. Unconditionally and lovingly. In other words, when we pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We're not just simply praying for people or for us to obey God. We are praying that we would obey God as the angels do. We're not just praying for obedience. We're praying for cheerful, instant, constant, perfect, exact, unconditional, loving obedience. The reason why we have to pray this is because what? Our obedience tends to be anything but these things. Let's take exactly or completely. So God's commands are that we are to Love Him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. That we are to worship together on the day that He has appointed. That we are, as husbands, to love our wives as Christ loved the church. That wives are to respect and follow their husbands as the church does Christ. Whatever God's command is for us in our life, that children are to obey their parents. Exactly is generally not one of the descriptors that we use of our obedience, if we're honest. Our obedience tends to be kind of like the same way we follow speed limits. Close enough. A lot of times reluctantly. A lot of times approximately. That's I guess the way I was. And, you know, the definition of approximately depends on the situation at hand. Are you in Dallas or Houston or are you in Georgetown? And is it morning rush hour or are you late? What are the circumstances? It depends. It does. My son is a police officer in, are you all from the Fort Worth area? Mansfield. Yes, I thought, Mansfield, okay. In Benbrook, keep in mind there's those portion of 820 that Benbrook patrols, so I'm not talking about loop 820 here. But I do know the municipal judge has told my son, as police officer there, that he does not want to see a speeding ticket in his court for less than 13 miles an hour over the speed limit, posted speed. He says, it's not worth my time. He says, now I'm not going to throw it out if it comes in. He says, but in all honesty, we're not making enough money off of all of the administrative procedures. He says, you're costing the city money to do that, so don't do it. So now you know. A couple of police officers in other towns in the Metroplex whose names I will not mention, but I did write-alongs with them because they were members of the church up there in Mansfield. Yeah, they don't write unless it's at least 12 or 13 over. Does God have that kind of a sliding scale? Yeah, there's no administrative clauses. There's no cost involved. There's no overhead. You know, you know how many angels I have to create in order to. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. To rephrase your question, does God have a sliding scale when it comes to our speed limit? It depends. I said that tongue-in-cheek, in case you didn't catch that. Yeah, it's being recorded, right? Unconditionally, if you'll allow me to amplify on the speed limit illustration a little bit more. Well, it depends on my circumstances. Am I late? How much traffic is on the road? Do I actually see a policeman? What are the other people doing? It might be a 60 mile an hour speed limit, but if everybody else is doing 70 or 75, then I should be able to do 70 or 75 too. If nobody else is doing their job, you know, then I can as well. OK, now let's take that and just apply it to God's commandments for a moment. Where we kind of say to ourselves, well, it kind of depends on the conditions. Am I supposed to worship Sunday mornings? Yes. Be with God's people? Yes. Forsake not the assembling of ourselves together? Yes. Is there a really good football game on this afternoon? You know, I kind of stayed up a little late last night. I feel a little tired. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. Why submit to your husband's? So, usually the conditions there are, well, I'll submit to him as long as he loves me as Christ loves the church. And, I'll love her as long as she does, submits to me and makes my life easy. So, if she does what she's supposed to do, I'll do what I'm supposed to do. Vice versa, I'll do what, you know, we kind of make it conditional. Honor your parents, your mother and your father. Well, it kind of depends what sort of parents they were, doesn't it? If I had rotten parents, then maybe I can blame them. We think of conditions, we think of exceptions, we think of rationalizations. I don't think the angels obey that way. What we're saying is, okay, God, I want to respect You. I want to bring honor and reverence to You. I want Your kingdom to advance. I want Your will to be done. But stop and think about what you're praying. Are you wanting God's will to be done in your life this way? Because that's what the petition is all about. I want my neighbor to do it this way. I want my neighbor to be obedient. I want him to glorify God and obey the rules and the laws. And I certainly don't want him stealing my stuff. And I want him to love me as he loves himself. I want all that to be done. I can always find reasons, and believe me, I'm talking about me. I can always find reasons why I don't obey God like this. Now, what does this tell us about Jesus Christ? He always did this. I always do those things that please my Father. He does His Father's will and He can say at the end of His life that He did His Father's will perfectly. That there was nothing the Father had given Him to do that He left undone. And that He did in this manner so that the evil one could come and He could say, the evil one has come and has found nothing in me. That is so foreign to us. that a human being, God in human flesh, but that a human being could every second of his life carry out God's commands in this fashion. Now, what does that say about our salvation? Being justified in Christ, God sees us as if we had obeyed in this way. We have been made the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. So by placing our faith in Him, this isn't true of us in actuality. But God deems it to be true of us in our justification. Alright. What are some prerequisites for human beings to do God's will? Sinful human beings. What is necessary for us if we are going to do God's will? Well, first of all, we've got to have a new heart. So if you will, I need three volunteers. Romans 6.17. First hand to go up. Well, you all are going to turn there first, read it, and then decide whether you want to read it. Okay, Nathan. Romans 6.17. Romans 8.7. Clyde. And then Ephesians 6.6. Boyce. When you're ready, sir. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed. and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness." So, before we are granted this new heart or this change, this conversion, before regeneration happens, we are slaves of sin. We are willing slaves of sin. From the heart, we desired sin. Even if we see sin destroying us and our family, we won't give it up. We love it. And we willingly present ourselves. Oh, it's as if sin comes along and says, I am looking for a slave. I'm looking for somebody who's going to obey me and do the most horrendous, awful, sinful, wretched things you can think of. And we shot our hands up in the air and said, oh, me, I volunteer. Paul says, God be thanked. You used to be like that. Now, you present yourself as a slave of righteousness. God comes along and says, I'm looking for people to obey Me. And you put your hand in the air and say, Here am I. It's a complete change of attitude. It isn't perfect in this life, but it's a different perspective. That kind of change is necessary to obey God. If that change has never happened, you're never going to want to obey God if you don't have a new heart. And only God can give it. You can't manufacture a new heart. Romans 8, verse 7. Who had that one? Clyde, I think. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. The carnal mind, the fleshly mind, the natural mind, that which we are born with, the way we normally just think as unsaved human beings. That mindset is at enmity, meaning at war with God. God says, here's my commands, and the natural mind says, I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to do what's fun. I'm going to do what's enjoyable. Forget your commands." So the carnal mind is at enmity or is at war with God. It is not subject to the law of God. And then the very last phrase is, indeed, it cannot be. It can't be subject to the law of God. You can't take an unsafe person and make him truly compliant to God's will. An unsafe person cannot sincerely say, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. They may say it, but they don't really mean it and they don't really want it. Ephesians 6.6. Paul is giving directions. He's just giving directions to children in v. 1. Now he's giving directions to servants. Slaves. But they've become Christians. And he doesn't tell them to stand up and revolt. And they have no civil rights in the Roman Empire. He tells them instead, that basically Christ was a servant. You be a servant. And you obey your masters cheerfully. Not just with this outward form of obedience, but from the heart. And there's only one way you can do that. And that's if you've got a new heart. We can pray, I want to do Your will, but until God grants to us the gift of the new birth and gives us a new heart, we will never do it. It's impossible. Secondly, we have to know what God's will is in order to do it. So there has to be a desire. And secondly, there has to be a knowledge of what it is that we're supposed to do. Now, this is where things get cloudy because there's so much muck of human tradition, of self-generated ideas. What is God's will for my life? Oh, I know. And then we kind of make it up. Or we listen to what someone else says. It's very common in conservative Christianity to want to help God out with his will. So God's will is, and I'm using this as a metaphor, OK? God's will is don't go swimming in this lake. Now, there's probably good reasons for it. There are crocodiles in that lake or piranhas or something. Don't go swimming in this lake. So what do we do? Well, we've got to help God out. We've got to make sure nobody goes in that lake. So what we do is we put a fence up. And now we make a rule. Don't climb the fence. Well, isn't the rule don't go swimming in the lake? Yeah, but you know what? If you stand there on the shore of the lake and look at it, you're going to be tempted. So we're going to build this fence 20 feet out. And then we're going to put up signs. God says, don't climb the fence. Well, now God doesn't say don't climb the fence. God just says, don't go swimming in the lake. But we're going to add that rule. Now, if you're really, really strict, you build a moat around the fence. Okay. Or landmines. And then you put signs up, don't cross the moat. Okay. There's all kinds of ways that that applies. Does God say don't have a rebellious heart? Yes. Did people in the late 60's and early 70's who were rebellious have beards? Yes. Don't grow a beard or it's a sin. And the longer your beard, the more sinful you are in my opinion. John Knox's beard was about here. Now Calvin, you know, he had one of those kind of pointy little fashionable French things for a good bit of his life. He was a bit shorter. Martin Luther was really spiritual because he didn't have a beard. Yeah, well, okay, yeah. Later on, you get the idea. Would somebody actually say it's sinful or wrong to grow a beard? Yeah, I've heard it. Does the Bible say it's a shame for a man to have long hair? By the way, Just throw this out. He doesn't say it's a sin for a man to have long hair. It's just a shame for him. Just throw that out. But, nonetheless, it is a guiding principle. But, do sometimes churches want to kind of help the Bible along by specifying exactly how long is long? Yeah. If you look at some of our Puritans that we admire, some of those guys had some hair. Nobody knows. We are not told. We believe he did for the simple reason that one of the prophetic Psalms mentions the beard being plucked out. So, and that probably would have been normal procedure. I mean, face it, you didn't go to Walmart and buy razors and shaving cream in those days. And even the concept of a razor was something people didn't generally possess. Fishing knife maybe, but do you really want to shave with a fishing knife? You know, I'm thinking of Peter and, I'm not Peter, yeah, Peter and Andrew James John. you know, Galilee area. If he had had a beard and it was pulled out, And not only that, but the disfigurement to the face. And I can't fathom that. We're getting off track on the beard thing here. Having strayed from our point radically, and that's my fault. My point is, is that to do God's will, we have to know God's will. We have to make sure that we're not following the traditions and commandments of men. We have to make sure we're not following our own desires. We have to know what God's will is. So, in Thomas Watson's, The Lord's Prayer, he says this, As there are statute laws in the land which bind, so the Scripture, the Bible, is God's statute law, which we must exactly observe. As the watch is set by the dial, you know what he means by that. This is 1600s. If you have a pocket watch, and not a wrist watch in those days, but if you had a pocket watch that you carried with you, how did you set it? It's not atomic. What was the standard? Well, the sundial. The watch is set by the dial, so our obedience is right when it goes by the sundial of the word. If obedience has not the word for its rule, it is not doing God's will, but our own. And it is will-worship. And that includes even those rules that we have made trying to help God out. It's still will-worship. This word refers to Colossians 2. You remember what Paul says? Why are you subject to the rules and traditions of men? Don't taste, don't eat, don't touch. All of these things what? Perish with the using. Now they have a form of will worship, but of no value whatsoever. You can make all your own rules that you want to and they can be stricter than God's rules in a sense, but if you're following them, you're not obeying God, you're obeying yourself. On the other hand, you can relax God's standard. Excuse me. And of course, you're not obeying God. You're obeying yourself. There is this tremendous liberty in saying, what is the law of God? OK, that's what I have to obey and I don't have to obey anything else. And I don't mean that you can disobey the laws of man. What I'm saying is, I don't have to obey the religious rules that somebody else has made up. I can ignore all the standards, all the whatever that somebody else has made up within reason. There are some scenarios where you might be under the earthly authority of other people. And you know, you join the military, they're going to tell you how long your hair can be. Okay. Don't join the military and say, but God says, OK, don't do that. It doesn't work. Certain jobs as well. Barring those scenarios, the freedom, the liberty of the Christian is not in not having rules. It's not, well, I'll just kind of wait and see what I feel like doing, or I'll just live my life according to the impulses of what I think are the Holy Spirit. No. What does the Bible say? What has God revealed in His Word? Those are His commands. Do that, and now you have liberty to ignore the commandments of men. So, real quick, why do we pray this prayer? First of all, doing God's will is against our rebellious nature. God has us pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, because normally, by nature, we don't want to do God's will. And it's a reminder of our rebellious nature. Secondly, doing God's will is required. What we are praying in this prayer is that God will give us the ability and desire to do what He requires. And this is Augustine's famous statement, drove Pelagius nuts. Command what you will and give what you command. God, you can command whatever you want. You're God. I'm praying you will give me a heart to do whatever it is you command. Yes, it is. It's very Augustinian. Since Augustine was, you know, old. Thousand, eleven hundred years before any reformation in a sense. Which was the reformers perspective. And again, Pelagius, who believed in human, did not believe in depravity, did not believe in the power of sin, said this is completely unnecessary. God commands what you will and whatever he commands, you just go do it. He doesn't have to give you any grace. You just go do it. Third, we are persuaded that God's will is good for us. We can only pray, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, if we're actually persuaded that doing God's will is good. There is a certain utilitarianism to saying, thy will be done. The Christian is the one whose mind has been enlightened to understand that doing God's will is also good. And last, doing God's will testifies to the gospel. The best testimony of the gospel is what? Be salt and light. Men may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." In the same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, here's how you pray. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The common use against Christianity or common objection is the scandals that Christians are involved with. Multitudinous. Church members involved with, and we're not talking small scandal. We're talking deacons' sons who sell drugs and go to prison. We're talking about adulteries. We're talking about all sorts of cheating, embezzlement. We're talking about lying to the government. We're talking about church members, you know, hounded by the IRS because they cheated on their taxes. Doing God's will testifies of the gospel of Jesus Christ better than any words. All right, we're past time. Let's let's close in a word of prayer and be prepared for worship this morning. Father in heaven, our confession to you is that we rationalize our disobedience. that we do not exactly and perfectly, joyfully and lovingly obey You. We find conditions and excuses and loopholes. Father, we ask that by Your Spirit, You would be pleased to remove from us our desire for sin. We know it will not happen perfectly in this life. We know it will happen perfectly in the next. Our prayer, Father, is that You will forgive us of our disobedience and our lack of loyalty and faithfulness. Be merciful to us in Christ. Receive us as you have received your son, that we may have a justified righteousness granted to our account. And may our hope be in him and him alone, not ourselves. We ask now your spirit will work in us through the worship and preaching of the word. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.