Sermon Tone Analysis

Text v.10b

Dear Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

If last week’s petition for Christ’s Kingdom of grace to come is probablly the hardest and most neglected one to pray, this weeks petition is probably the most abused.

Of course ritualistic midnless recitation abuses this prayer - if we are asking for God’s will in reciting this prayer, but don’t really care about HIs will as welive the rest of our day - we’ve got a big problem.

But more particular to Christians who are learning to pray - we abuse this prayer when we don’t pray backwards.

I should clarify what I mean by that.

I am not asking you to pray the Lord’s prayer backwards, I think Jesus order is very deliberate and instructive.

No it is with our normal habit of praying our will first, our shopping list… the us and ours first, and not even the needs but all our wishes - maybe good in themselves and even according to God’s revealed will and at time His secret will, but the point is we just throw our needs like a cosmic slot machine and hope we hit the jackpot by saying in Jesus name.

When we are to pray for God’s will - we are not asking for God to bend His will to do what we want!

Praying backwards, means realizing Jesus name, means in line with HIs will ont he baiss of HIs person and work , everything we ask - Jesus I want your will and when I am asking that I know God will grant perfect answers to such prayers!

- we are to begin with the prelude whic is the ground and foundation of prayer - begin with relationship we now hav in Christ - invtation of grace to stand in HIm with God as Father.

OUght to fill our hearts with adoration and also recognize that it is by the Spirit of adoption that our true prayer is being motivated!

Then in terms of asking we are to keep in mind the big goal, first that God’s name be hallowed in every way by all everywhere, starting with out lives.

And the next things we pray are the tools by which that happens, Christ kingdom of grace, pray for His reign in people hearts and minds - and the extension of that - because not fully realized in this life, is that His will gets done in our lives.

In other words to pray God’s will is to be asking and longing and working for God’s law and His gospel to be worked out in us and in everyone around us!

We are not talking about discerning HIs special particular secret will for jobs, who to marry - first of all here - we are talking about Jesus’ program, God’s revealed will - to be known and honoured and sought after!

When that happens his kingdom comes more and more as Jesus really starts to rule our lives.

We are to be in prayer about the speicfics of that.

We must discern what God’s revealed will is, but this model of prayer, as our catechism reveals also - shows the mode by which we are crying out to God for His will to be done.

And here is something very interesting.

What is the stuff in your life you pray for earnestly, I mean more than once, maybe even get on your hands na dknees, and cry out to God for?

The things you really want - you can’t stop thinking about, you do everything in your power to get - you talk to others about, you seek advice, you ie.

job, a sports game, a new oprduct!

We are to be asking for God’s will like we really want it!

That’s whta the last part means: on earth as it is right now being done in heaven.

Like the angels are doing, not dragging our feet, not grudingly doing it - but desireing it praying for it, Weare to want and to do and seek God’s will like the angels in heaven do it .

One NT scholar says, I used to pray this prayer with I used to think of this clause simply as a prayer of resignation.

‘Thy will be done’, with a shrug of the shoulders: what I want doesn’t matter too much; if God really wants to do something I suppose I can put up with it.

That might do if God were a remote, detached, God.

It won’t do for Isaiah’s God; it won’t do for Jesus; and it won’t do for those who break bread and drink wine to remember Jesus and pray for the kingdom.

No: this is the risky, crazy prayer of submission and commission, or, if you like, the prayer of subversion and conversion.

It is the way we sign on, in our turn, for the work of the kingdom

The first thing we nee to do then to pray this rightly is know what Will of God we are praying for!

Tom Wright, The Lord and His Prayer , 32.

A. THY will be done: Pray for God’s Will in Me & You

Do you see that prayer is not magic.

it is not God get in line with my will - what I ask; a communion in which our desires, wants, needs, our self is brought in line with Him and His will.

Now as J.I. Packer, says to really pray this is going to take some praying!

It is going to require not only discerning God’s will, but two even more important things which involve more than your mind - but your very will!

We will leave aside what is God’s will I should pray for a moment.

But let’s say you know it, what is keeping God’s will from being done right now in your life and in your world?

Why is that a struggle?

i.

We must Pray for Strength to Oppose Satan’s Will in this World

i.

There is a concentrated effort, whether conscious or subconcious to push God and His will out in our world.

Jesus described it like this:

A ruler has a kingdom, an authority, a rule.

Not a space when it comes to Christ and Satan in this world, but huamn hearts and lives and the relationships between us and God.

If we are going to implement God’s will in our lives, for His kigndom to come more fully, it is going to mean opposing Satan’s and this world’s way of doing things in a fallen world.

It is going to tak e praying for stength and patience and ability to endure suffering for the case of Christ.

ie.

Tanya Grenich-Allen.

Queens Park - sex ed curciulcum.

Stand up and be heard.

Want God’s created good prposeful order to be protected and honoured in our land.

Do you know anyone who is underway of Satan's influence believer or unbeliever, do you know of families or church’s in this struggle - do you pray for them to be wise, to be storng , to be patient.

Strength to stand and do and struggle for God’s will means praying we can fulfill

Looking out in our world we are to pray as Luther instructs us on this petition: Let thy will be done, O Father, not the will of the devil, or of any of those who would overthrow thy holy Word or hinder the comiong of thy kingdom.”

ii.

We must Pray for Submission & Self-Denial

If you don’t know how to pray this petition, or think you maybe praying it in a magical way of pressing God to do your will, begin this petition as a pray of confession.

Confess the ways you don’t desire what you know is God’s will or the way you are breaking it, resenting it.

Look at hte people around you, at churches around us, at our governemnt - recite the 10 Commandments to yourself - where is God’s will crossing ours. .

Where you see that gap what is your repsonse:

Recognize in yourself that unlike the angels we often do God’s will, like our children being asked to do a chore - we don’t really see the importance nor the point of it.

Maybe onlly do it greudingly or shoddily.

See where you actually cross God’s will, and HIs gospel - .. if you begin this petition like that, I twell you will see that this petiiton is not some intellectual peursuit to know the philosophy of what is right and wrong, nor magic divining of God’s secret will for your situation, what person to marry, what job, - you will see this is a cry for Help, for You to Work in Me by Your Spirit a Gospel Obedience that is Empowered for service!

LIsten to how Jesus prayed in His struggle against temptation just to the easy path his human flesh cried for in facing death and hell ad sin like one ever did before:

To pray Thy will not my will, is to acknoeldge in prayer the heart of Christian living: seek to keep our lives in selfishness - we will lose them.

But life real life from above is found in denying ourselves fr Christ and the gospel to find our renewed and true selves in Him.

Luther says we pray this way in regards to our selves: “and grant that all we may have to endure for its sake may be brone with patience and overcome, so that our poor flesh may not yield or give way from weakness or laziness.”

I am no longer my own, but Thine.

Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee, exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee; let me be full, let me be empty; let me have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure and disposal.

Luther says we pray this way in regards to our selves: “and grant that all we may have to endure for its sake may be brone with patience and overcome, so that our poor flesh may not yield or give way from weakness or laziness.”

J. I. Packer, Praying the Lord’s Prayer (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 61.

Is there any area in your life your home, our congregation, Is there a part of world, nation city - grieves your heart - pray for this power, plead for God’s will to done in you and those around you!

But now comes the question what is that will that we are praying?

B. Thy WILL be done: Pray for God’s Revealed Law and Gospel

Here understanding the connection between the first two requests is critical.

The goal remember is God’s name hallowed everywhere, the tools are through HIs kingdom of grace established inthe rule of Christ through His word and Spirit.

And now this second tool for God’s name to be hallowed is for the rules of the King to be implemented!

Of course just like God also has his universal sovereign kingdom of creation, so too He has a secret will that includes whatsoever comes to pass - eternal decrees.

But this is not so cocnerned about you knowing God’s secret will as it is knowing HIs revealed will for Christ’s kingdom of grace.

For that will to be worked out now in all our duties and activeiites of life - on earth as it is in heaven!

Do you remmber David Walters teaching from Jesus teaching in Luke about the commandments of God - practice, principle, person (character behind).

Well both in the natural law imprtinted in our conscience but obscured by tehFall and also in God’s revealed Word - we have the rule for life!

And when you are converted, not by keeping the law but teh new birth grants gift of faith and repentance; that new life embeds in our soul a new principle which we now seek to live by and that new principle is obedience!

Do you know what this means?

It means that God inscribes His image, His charcter by His law both in conscience and in His Word on your heart.

And now the Christia life is about pleasing God, shingn with His charcter.

Don’t know it perfectly - so we must study God’s word to know and apply it.

It is our desir now on earth - with all decisions and choices, and to hvae JEsus by His law directs us!

Why - God’s will contains the image of God, the glory for which we are e creatd it.

Yes, written on page of Scripture, but also written on our hearts and conscience, in anture, but in Rdemptoin HOly Spiirit writes God’s law - directs us - So that like tha ngels we more and more - don’t do it greduingly but wilingly from the heart out of love…

YOu know this struggle don’tyou?

Do you see what is at stake in positively praying for God’s will to be done in your life - for you to knwo it, pray it and seek it and do it?

You’ve got this foudnation of salvation, retoration, but God’s plan is that you build lasting stuff on it - blown away like chaff if you sow to sinful selfish proud desires, only what sown in the Psirit in accoradance with God’s good will in Christ for you - going to last.

In fact in this life and the next God punishes or disicplines what isn’t done in faith and obedience and he rewards what is done in faith and obdeince by grace!

But that doesn’t happen automatically - must pray to konw God’s will in your daily, and then to dsicern how to accopmlsih it.