Sermon Brief
Date Written: April 01, 2014
Date Preached: April 02, 2014
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Series Title: A Study on the Lord’s Prayer
Sermon Title: Your Will Be Done…(Sermon 6)
Sermon Text: Matthew 6:9-13 [HCSB]
Essence of the Text: Jesus wanted His disciples to know how to pray…
Essence of the Sermon: Jesus wants believers today to know how to pray…
Objective of the Sermon: Prayer is vital for the believer, but prayer is not so much in the words as it is in the attitude behind those words. This model prayer lays forth a template that guides the believer in the direction of their prayer and the attitude of their heart.
Introduction:
As we move ahead in looking at this model prayer that Jesus is laying out for His disciples we get to the phrase, “Thy will be done…or YOUR will be done!”
What is God’s will? Can we KNOW the will of God for our lives… the will of God for our church? If we can come to know it, can it be DONE by our actions here in this world?
Can WE as mere mortal men and women carry out the will of God here in our world? What about God’s will vs our own will? Can we set aside our own will to do the will of God?
These are ALL direct and honest questions we can ask about ‘What is God’s Will?’ They are all what I would consider to be ‘soul searching’ questions and they demand that we sincerely seek out the answers to them…
I believe this prayer has been prayed literally MILLIONS of times by MILLIONS of people with them saying these four words, “…your will be done…” but they really have NO idea what those words truly mean!
What is MORE sad, is that MILLIONS of those people who have repeated those words… not only did they not know or understand what they were saying with those words, but they had NO intention of even trying to understand or get to know what they meant…or what it means to say ‘…your will be done…’
Sadly millions upon millions of people say this prayer with no sense of what it means or no desire to learn what it means… they simply repeat the words like a parrot, hoping that somehow the ritual incantation of these words will bring about the blessing of God in their lives…
The vain and repetative nature of ALL these people saying these words without caring or knowing what it means is not limited to those outside the church but unfortunately it is rampant within those who sit in the pews every Sunday morning… who attend SS… who give tithes… who believe they have a relationship with God…
The way in which these words are used by many all over the world is empty and hollow… but I want us to understand that these words are of TREMENDOUS importance to the believer…
Just before Jesus taught the disciples how to pray He warned them to NOT pray with vain repetition… because basically it is NOT what you say the most to God that He hears and listens to, but that what truly comes from your heart and your attitude behind that prayer!
A prayer of repetition or from rote memory is usually an empty prayer that relies on the words to move God… But God is moved by our heart…not our words!
But I want to get back to the ‘will of God’ and I want us to understand that knowing and doing the will of God is paramount for the believer! It is the most important thing we can do as a beleiver in this world.
Let me try to illustrate what I mean… If being obedient in sharing your faith represents the sun in our universe… knowing and doing the will of God represents ALL of the known universe!
It overshadows ALL of what we do and who we are as believers! There is NOTHING more important for the believer than to seek to know and do the will of God in our lives!
I believe this is why Jesus places this in such a strategic position within the prayer. It is a central theme around which all other parts of the prayer are gathered! Jesus stressed on many occasions to His disciples that He had not come on His own accord, but that He was here doing the WILL of the Father!
Look what Jesus says in John 6:38 (ESV) 38For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
We also see in the Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene when He was crushed under the burden of giving His life for the sin of the world… He prayed for relief and pardon from this cup… BUT in His prayer He submitted to the Will of the Father as He said, “…let this cup pass from me but NOT my will but yours be done…”
The Will of the Father was ALWAYS the focus of Jesus and His mission here on this world. In fact we can say that the entire CONTEXT for the life of Jesus was focused on the Will of the Father!
Jesus was ALL about doing the will of the Father…even to his own detriment/crucifixion… but this still does NOT answer the question, “What is the will of God?”
Well the simple answer to that question is that God’s Will is His intentions… His purposes… His plans… what He desires to happen/be done!
Now God has MANY wishes, intentions, plans, purposes and desires that He wants to be accomplished… going back to my illustration of the sun being one thing God desires from us then the will of God is the entire UNIVERSE…
That gives us the picture that God’s will encompasses FAR more than anything we can comprehend! So can we know the FULLNESS of His will… I don’t think so, but we CAN know the part of His will where He has called us to serve!
But when we speak about God’s will there are really 2 levels we need to address, the Big picture and the focused reality! The BIG picture is what God wants to be accomplished/desires to be accomplished in His creation.
We see this referred to throughout Scripture… we find this mentioned in 2 Peter 3:9 when Peter writes, “…not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance…”
It is GOD’s desire… or we can say God’s WILL that NONE of His creation would perish to eternal damnation but that ALL would come to repentance and know Him as Savior… the BIG picture of God’s will is that we (His rebellious creation) would return in repentance to Him!
Now when we take a look at what I would call the ‘focused reality’… that is what God is calling us to do for Him. For me God’s will was that I surrender to His calling for me to preach and teach His word! To be a pastor… to lead people in faith… this was God’s focused will for me… it has become MY focused reality in Christ!
Now MY focused reality in Christ is NOT going to be the focused reality for another… YOUR focused reality in Christ will NOT necessarily be what mine is…
God may be calling you to preach…like Josh or Bart here, but even though that may be the same, it is still not what God has called ME to… we have to look at God’s will as the FINISHED puzzle and our focused reality in Christ as being one of the many pieces in that puzzle.
Our piece may be similar in size, color or pattern to another piece, but it will only fit where God has designed it to fit… Does that make sense to you?
So we can see that there are 2 large categories to what we call God’s Will… the larger picture and the more focused or personal reality of our calling in Christ! And what we must realize here is that NEITHER of these categories will ever conflict with one another…
The larger picture will NEVER be something that conflicts with the personal and focused reality of what God is calling you to do… LIKEWISE what God has called you to in your life… is never going to conflict with the larger overall picture of God’s ultimate will. EVEN if we think they are in conflict…
God is not going to lie and mislead us… we may not understand His will and what He is doing, but we are called to rely on His faithfulness in revealing His will and purpose to us as we need it…
God’s will is what HE decides… what He purposes to be done for HIM and so we must also understand that for us to KNOW God’s will that we must first place our faith and trust in HIM who makes that will…
In other words, we cannot KNOW God’s WILL until we KNOW God… we cannot know God until we KNOW Jesus… We cannot KNOW Jesus unless we answer the drawing of the Holy Spirit on our hearts!
Salvation opens up our hearts and minds to the will of God, but it also places us in the position of TRUST in the God we profess as Savior… that we TRUST Him to guide and direct our steps and to lead us where He desires us to go…
To know and do the will of God means that you have to know and trust God and His guidance in your life! If you do not know God OR do not trust God’s guidance… you can never truly see or understand His will!
Our confidence must be in the person and character of God for us to fully comphrehend His will! There must be NO doubt in our hearts that if God is good and faithful THAT His will is also good and faithful to His plans and purposes!
It really surprises me how often I hear people who profess a faith in Christ but they FEAR the will of God in their lives! They have no problem claiming a faith and trust in God for ETERNAL salvation, but cannot bring themselves to trust in Him for the day to day instruction and guidance for living here in this world… To me it just makes NO sense!
Jesus affirmed God’s will in His life on many occasions like in John 9:4 (KJV) when He says, “…I must work the works of Him that sent Me…”
Jesus was fulfilling in human form the activity and attitude to accomplish God’s Will… from early childhood to the day He ascended back into heaven, Jesus’ life was all about doing the will of God!
We can know the will of God through His word… especially the bigger picture/overall will of God, but only thru prayer and Bible study can we know the more focused reality of His will in our lives! God’s desires for humanity to be redeemed are unchanging, but He will use us in many different ways to see that happening…
Scripture is filled with passages that lead the believer to know that knowing and DOING the will of God is what pleases God. In 1 John 5:3 we read, “…For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands...” in other words to reveal our love for God we are to be obedient to His will in our lives!
In Ps 119:47 we find David writing, “…I delight in Your commands,
which I love…” We should LOVE to fulfill His commands! We find His commands in our Bible and doing those commands goes beyond the merely spiritual, but it carries forth to ALL aspect of our lives!
We are called to serve Him by doing His commandments… serving Him thru obedience reveals submission and love for Him on our part! And for the most part ALL believers KNOW what they should do… they are simply NOT doing what they should be doing.
Here in this prayer Jesus is calling His disciples (and US) to surrender to the will of the Father in our prayer time… in our lives… The next phrase is one we will look at closer the next time we come together but it emphasizes HOW that will should be lived out… we should be as eager and faithful in surrendering and submitting to the will of the Father as the angels in heaven…
The will of God… can you know it? Yes you can… Is it always crystal clear, NO… but we know the character of God and that He does not change and we know what His overall desire is… the redemption of humanity/creation.
SO… we know we are called to seek the redemption of those around us, but as I stated earlier, there is a more focused reality for God’s will within each of our lives individually… are you seeking to know that focused reality in Christ? I pray that you are…
Let’s pray…
