“The Lord’s Prayer, part 7”

(Matthew 6:10)

Introduction:

1. So far we have seen that Jesus teaches us to pray:

a. Our Father, who is in heaven. What does this teach us? Our nearness and distance
from God.
b. Hallowed be Your name. What does this teach us? To pray that all men
everywhere would reverence and fear God.
c. Your kingdom come. What does this teach us? To pray that His kingdom would
come in our hearts through holiness, that it would come in this world through
evangelism, and that it would come in its perfect consummate state.

2. This morning, we will want to see something that we are to pray for that must
necessarily come with God’s kingdom: Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
What does this mean?
a. It is a prayer that all men everywhere would do God’s will.
b. How many people? It is a prayer that everyone would do His will.
c. What will, His decree or His commandments? It is a prayer that all men would
obey His commands.
d. That they would obey them how well? It is a prayer that they would obey them as
perfectly on earth as they’re obeyed in heaven.
e. What’s the problem on earth that brings about the need to pray for this? All men
are in rebellion against God. No one likes to obey by nature. Certainly no one
likes to obey perfectly. We don’t like subjection, we like freedom. We like to be
the captain of our own ship.
f. But where does the Lord say is perfect freedom? It is in obedience.
g. If we do not obey, whose slave are we? The slaves of sin. Jesus tells us in John
8:34-36, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if
the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”
h. Let’s look this morning at what these things mean.

I. First, I think we will better understand what Jesus is saying here if we look at the two
ways the word “will” is used in the Bible.
A. What are those two ways? It is used of His decretive will and His preceptive will,
or His secret will and His will of command.
1. What is His decretive or secret will?
a. Our Confession explains His decree in this way, “God, from all eternity, did,
by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will freely, and unchangeably
ordain whatsoever comes to pass” (3.1).
b. This is what Paul is talking about where he writes to the Ephesians, “In Him
also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to
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His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (1:10-11).
c. The “counsel of His will” is the plan that God made before He created all
things. And this is what He is working out. Whatever has happened in this
world, is happening or will happen, it is a part of God’s decretive will.
d. Why is it secret? It is secret because God has not told us what He is going to
do. We don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next, unless
God revealed it to us through His prophets. We know what His plan is once
it comes to pass, but before it happens, we can’t possibly know what will take
place.

2. What is His preceptive will or His will of command? Is this a secret?

a. No. He doesn’t keep this a secret, because this is something He wants us to
do.
b. Where are these commands summarized? They are summarized in the Ten
Commandments. Virtually everything that is our duty is included in them.
c. Are these two wills then the same? Obviously not. There are some who deny
that there is a difference, who say that this would make God a schizophrenic.
But they are obviously wrong. These are two distinctly different things.
d. Let’s take an example. Was it God’s will that Joseph’s brothers sell him as a
slave into Egypt? Yes and no. Yes, it was God’s plan, or His secret will, that
Joseph be sold by them as a slave, for if it hadn’t been, they wouldn’t have
done it. But no, it was not His will that they should, for they should have
loved Joseph as they loved themselves. Selling him into Egypt as a slave was
sin.
e. Let me give you another example, Is it God’s will that all men everywhere
repent and believe the Gospel? Again, the answer is yes and no. God clearly
commands that all men would repent and trust in His Son. But God has not
willed, that all men would do so. The Bible clearly says that He has chosen
to give the gift of faith to some and to withhold it from others.
f. The bottom line is that the Bible speaks of two wills in God. He wills that we
should do the right thing. But He also wills that the right thing is sometimes
not what is going to be done.
g. Moses writes, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things
revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the
words of this law” (Deu. 29:29).
h. Why does God sometimes will, or even often will in a decretive sense, that
His law would be broken? Why did He will that Joseph’s brothers would sell
him into Egypt? Why does He will that not everyone would repent and obey
the Gospel? First, God permitted Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery so
that He might save His people from the famine which was coming. He
allowed that evil act to take place so that He might work good from it.
Second, God also allows some to perish eternally, so that He might reveal the
glory of His justice in their damnation and make His grace in the salvation of
the elect shine all the more. It is not that God delights in sin or in the
damnation of anyone. But He does delight in the good He works out of these
things, when everything is considered. We may not always know the exact
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reason why God ordains what He does, but we can know that it is always for
a good reason.

B. But now having said this, which of these two wills of God is Jesus here telling us
we should pray would come to pass: His secret will or His preceptive will?
1. Actually, He could be referring to both.
a. The word “will,” as I said, can refer either to his plan or his command. This
is true of the word in the original language, as well as of our word in English.
b. Jesus said to those who were telling Him that His mother and brothers were
outside looking for Him, “For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother
and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). This clearly refers to God’s commands,
otherwise, everyone would be His brother and sister, because everyone does
His decretive will.
c. And Paul wrote to the church at Rome, “For God . . . is my witness as to how
unceasingly I make mention of you, always in my prayers making request, if
perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you” (1:9-
10). This refers to His decree. Paul said, if it is in His plan, he will come.
And yet it is the same word in the Greek, the same word as in this petition of
the Lord’s Prayer.
d. As Christians, there is no doubt that we should be praying for both wills of
God to come to pass. We should praying that God would accomplish His
plan to glorify His holy Name. And we should be praying that all men
everywhere would obey His will.

2. But as we look at this verse a little more carefully, I believe that it is God’s
preceptive will that Jesus is focusing on here. Why do you think this might be
the case?
a. Jesus says that we should pray that God’s will would be done on the earth, as
it is done in heaven.
b. This is a will which is to be carried out. It is to be done on earth, as it is done
in heaven. God’s will of decree is carried out in both realms without failure,
because this is what God has purposed, and He has the power to carry it out.
But His command is not carried out on earth, as it is in heaven, for on earth
men are full of sin, while the angels and glorified saints in heaven have no
sin.
c. Therefore, Jesus is primarily saying that we should pray that God’s
commands, His laws, would be obeyed by all men on earth, even as it is
obeyed perfectly by the angels and saints in heaven.
d. Our Westminster Larger Catechism says, “What do we pray for in the third
petition? A. In the third petition (which is, Thy will be done in earth, as it is
in heaven, acknowledging, 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: we pray, that God would
by his Spirit take away from ourselves and others all blindness, weakness,
indisposedness, and perverseness of heart; and by his grace make us able and
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willing to know, do, and submit to his will in all things, with the like
humility, cheerfulness, faithfulness, diligence, zeal, sincerity, and constancy,
as the angels do in heaven” (192).

II. But now, how should this affect the way we live and the way we pray?
A. First, how should this affect us? Jesus is telling us here that we should be praying
for our own sanctification: that we would do God’s will on earth as it is done in
heaven.
1. Again, how is God’s will done in heaven? It is done perfectly, with the whole
heart, and without hesitation.
2. We should ask ourselves, Is this how we carry out His will? Is it?
a. All of us fall far short of the glory of God every day, even in our regenerate
state. All of us fail much more than we succeed. We all sin much more than
we obey.
b. Now I don’t mean by this that all we do is rebel. If that were true, we
wouldn’t even be saved.
c. But what I mean is that when we measure our lives against the perfect
standard of God’s law, we don’t come up even as far as the half-way mark.
We don’t even come up half-way to the half-way mark.
d. How do we know that we don’t? We only need to ask ourselves these
questions:
(i) Do we keep away from every sin that you know God forbids, not only in
the things we do, but also in our thoughts and words?
(ii) Do we do everything that the Lord commands us to do, with our whole
heart, for His glory alone, and perfectly according to the standard of His
Word?
(iii) To put this another way, Do we love God with our whole heart, mind,
soul and strength all the time without fail?
(iv) And are we loving our neighbors as we love ourselves? Are we taking
the same care for their physical needs, and especially for their spiritual
needs, as we take for ourselves?
(v) Do we always receive whatever the Lord brings into our lives without
complaint?
(vi) Do I have to go further? We don’t measure up. Paul recognized this
about himself, which is why he called himself the greatest of sinners (1
Tim. 1:15). If he was the greatest, what does that make us?
(vii) We all fall terribly short of the glory of God, which is why we need
Christ.

3. But this is also precisely why we need to pray that for ourselves that we would
do God’s will as the saints and angels do in heaven. If we don’t do it in reality,
it should at least be our desire.
a. We need to pray that God would change us by His grace. We need to pray
that He would make us to do His will with the same kind of zeal and fervency
as the angels in heaven. They love to do God’s will. They hate all sin. They
stand in His presence worshiping and praising Him, waiting patiently for His
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holy command, at which time they immediately spring into action. They also
think no unholy thoughts, or speak any unholy words. They are inflamed
with holy love and show this love to those around them.
b. We need to pray that the Lord would give us the strength to do these things,
to kill the sin in us that keeps us from being like this, to fill us with His Spirit,
to remove our spiritual blindness, weakness, our unwillingness to love, and
the hardness of our hearts, that He would give to us a heart to submit to His
will in all things, humbly, cheerfully, faithfully, and diligently, again, just as
the angels do in heaven.

B. But how should this affect the way we pray for others? It is the Lord’s will that all
men everywhere do this, therefore, we should pray that the Lord would do the same
thing for all men on earth.
1. In praying for this, we are praying that God’s name would be glorified and that
God’s kingdom would come, for this is what will happen if all men would do
His will as the angels do in heaven.
2. But again, in praying for this, are we praying for something which will never
happen?
a. No. I think we saw last week that there are several indication in the Bible
that it will. But it will not be fully answered until the time when He makes
all things new, when He brings in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
b. Even if Postmillennialism is right about the world-wide success of the Gospel
before Christ comes back, that there will be universal peace and prosperity as
the nations turn to the Lord and to His righteous laws through the Gospel, we
would still have to admit that this will yet fall far short of God’s will being
done here as in heaven. In this view, there would still be people who were
unconverted, and the saints would still have sin in their hearts. And wherever
there is sin, there is disobedience in some degree. But there isn’t any in
heaven.
c. But even though this won’t be fully realized until the eternal state, when all
the ungodly will be removed from the earth and cast into hell, leaving only
the righteous to inherit the earth, yet, can we as regenerate people desire
anything less in our world today? Shouldn’t we pray that all men would obey
God? Shouldn’t we pray that His will would be done by everyone in the
world? Yes. We must pray for these things. Jesus tells us we must. Even
though we will never become perfect in this life, we must still strive for
perfection. And even though the world will not become perfect until Christ
returns, we must still pray that it would.
d. But there is one other thing we should do -- that we must do --, we must take
the message of salvation to our neighbors and do all that we can to see that
the Gospel is proclaimed throughout the world, for it is only through the
Gospel that anyone will ever be empowered by God to do His will. We must
pray that He will bring people into our lives that we can invite to the
evangelistic services, that we can invite to the evangelistic Bible Studies. We
must plant the seeds of the Gospel, if we ever expect to see a harvest of souls.
Let’s pray that the Lord will give us the strength and the courage to do so.