Prayer & The Plan Of God - Matthew 6:10c Series

Matthew 6:5-15 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 "This, then, is how you should pray: "'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Introduction

We have been studying verse by verse through the Sermon on the Mount and we are about half-way through, which puts us right in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer is an outline for prayer, so each phrase opens to us an entire category of prayer. So we are devoting one sermon (or so) per phrase. Last week we looked at the third request – Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God’s will of desire: “The spirit of the law”

Review

We found that there are a couple different ways Scripture uses the word “will.” Sometimes it means will in the sense of desire, and other times it refers to the will of decision. And of course there is some overlap. There is a reason why the same word is used for both concepts. But last week I tried to make a case from Scripture that the distinction between will of desire and will of decision is a biblical one. “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” has to be talking about the will of desire, because the will of God’s decision – His perfect, unchangeable plan - is already done on earth as it is in heaven.

Daniel 4:35 He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth

So the prayer for God’s will to be done means to desire what God desires.

His commands = His will

And what God desires is revealed in His Word. Every command in the Bible is a window into the heart of God revealing His will of desire.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality

1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 2:15 For it is God's will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.

1 Peter 4:1 he who has suffered in his body …2 does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.

God’s will is the opposite of sin. Doing God’s will is the same as righteousness because it is exactly the same thing as obeying God’s commands.

The agnostic says, “How could puny little man ever know what is on the mind of God?” Simple – God revealed it. Man is not capable of figuring it out, but God is fully capable of revealing it, and He has done so in the Bible.

The will of the Father - The spirit of the law

And if we see God’s commands as windows into His heart it totally changes the meaning of obedience. Obedience is doing what God desires in His heart. Jesus castigated the Pharisees because they followed the letter of the law in technical ways, but they did not care at all about what God actually wanted. They got so caught up in arguing about what was allowed and what was not allowed that they forgot about what God actually wanted.

Imagine you owned a business, and you gathered your employees together one day for a big meeting and said, “I’m going to be out of the country for several months. While I’m gone, here’s what I want done…” And then you gave some detailed instructions. While you are gone your employees respond in different ways. One of them makes a list of every statement you made in the meeting. He finds all the ones where you used the same word or a similar phrase and puts them together into paragraphs. And his paragraphs are ingenious and fascinating, but they do not really reflect what you wanted done. In fact they bear a striking resemblance to that employee’s philosophy and ideas.