REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
REVIEW 11.25 – 12.23, 2007
1. We must always remember that we are praying to “Our Dear Heavenly Father” when we pray.
2. Our first prayer request should be that God’s name/person be known, honored, revered and glorified for who He really is throughout the world.
3. We must pray secondly that His kingdom will come in our hearts, in our families, in our church, in our communities and throughout the whole world.
This then is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. (Matthew 6:7-13)
INTRODUCTION:
We must remember that Jesus has already given us two prayer requests of highest priority – That God be honored and revered throughout the world and that His kingdom would come throughout the world. These are prayer requests we should pray daily.
We should come to our Heavenly Father with requests worthy of heaven’s consideration. The requests in this prayer are certainly worthy of heaven’s consideration!
John Stott writes, “It is comparatively easy to repeat the words of the Lord’s Prayer like a parrot (or indeed a heathen ‘babbler’). To pray this prayer with sincerity, however, has revolutionary implications, for it expresses the priorities of a Christian.” (Stott, Pg. 147)
One commentator (N.T. Wright) feels that this prayer sums up in a nutshell the passion of Jesus. We need to keep this in mind as we study the prayer.
OUTLINE FOR TODAY:
1. INFERENCES IN THE PHRASE “THY WILL BE DONE” ABOUT GOD
2. DEFINING “WILL” OF GOD
3. GOD’S WILL AND DIVINE FLEXIBILITY
4. OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD IN THE DOING OF HIS DESIRED WILL.
5. PRAYING EFFECTIVELY FOR GOD’S WILL TO BE DONE
THY WILL BE DONE!
I. INFERENCES IN THE PHRASE “THY WILL BE DONE” ABOUT GOD
…. your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
QUESTION: What are some of the inferences/conclusions we can draw about God and His will from the phrase, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”?
GOD IS A GOOD GOD
We pray asking for God’s will to be done because we believe that God is good. We would not pray for His will to be done if we believed that He was bad and mean.
GOD’S WILL IS GOOD
In Romans 12:2 Paul refers to God’s will as good, pleasing, perfect.
Jesus said that doing the will of God was His food (John 4:34). In Heb. 10:7 it is said that He came into the world to do the Father’s will. He delighted in doing God’s will (Ps. 40:8). In the Garden, when facing great suffering He finished His prayer to His Father saying, “Thy will be done.”
Doing God’s will is important to us. By doing His will we enter His kingdom (Mt. 7:21), become members of His family (Mt. 12:50) and on-going performing of His will should be a matter of constant prayer (Col. 1:9 and Heb. 13:21).
God’s will is done in heaven. How? We can assume “It is carried out completely, consistently and constantly. It is done without complaint, without murmuring, with discussion and it is done quickly. It is done with joy and excitement. And it is done out of a heart of love for Almighty God (Ps. 103:20; Luke 1:19; Heb. 1:14).” (Taken from the Web).
GOD’S WILL IS NOT ALWAYS DONE ON EARTH
We don’t have to look hard to discover this truth.
If God’s will was always done on earth then we would not have to make this a prayer request.
It appears from this prayer request that humans can hinder / keep God’s will from being done on earth.
GOD’S WILL IS SOMETIMES DONE ONLY IF WE PRAY
That sounds weird, crazy but would God ever ask us to pray that His will be done if it was going to be done without our prayer? Jesus was convinced that our prayer would effect the performance / outcome of God’s will on earth.
QUESTION: Immanuel Kant said it is “an absurd presumptuous delusion” to think that our prayers can deflect or impact the will of God. Was he right or wrong? What do you think?
Immanuel Kant – 1724-1804, one of the most influential of the German Philosophers and one of the most influential philosophers in history, his most notable work being, The Critique of Pure Reason.
“Perhaps we do not fully realize the problem, so to call it, of enabling finite free wills to co-exist with Omnipotence. It seems to involve at every moment almost a sort of divine abdication.” (C.S. Lewis quoted in Prayer by P. Yancey, Pg. 144).
SO WHAT? God is a good God, His will is good and the fulfillment of His will is affected by our prayers.
II. DEFINING THE “WILL OF GOD”
…. your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
GOD’S DETERMINED WILL / WILL OF DECREE
Some things have been pre-determined in advance and nothing can affect the outcome of these things. Their happening is not determined by our prayers.
QUESTION: What are some of the things God has pre-determined to be done?
The LORD Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand. (Isaiah 14:24)
The land trembles and writhes, for the LORD’s purposes against Babylon stand— to lay waste the land of Babylon so that no one will live there. (Jeremiah 51:29)
And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Ephesians 1:9-10)
Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. (Psalms 115:3)
Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. (Isaiah 46:9-10)
The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. (Psalms 135:6)
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)
GOD’S DESIRED WILL
QUESTION: What does God desire to happen that has not happened?
We know that He desires that all peoples of the earth hallow His person, revere Him. We know that he wants His Kingdom extended all over the world. These two things have not yet happened but they are things that He wills, that he desires.
“The Lord …. not wanting any to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9).
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Lk. 13:34).
“Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever! (Deut. 5:29)
“If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways …” (Psalms 81:13)
“If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. (Isa. 48:18)
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality” (I Thess. 4:3).
“Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thess. 5:18).
You can see a real good comparison between God’s pre-determined will and desired will in I Tim. 2:1-7: God’s Desired Will: It pleases God when we pray for kings, when we live in peace (1-3); God wants all people to be saved (4); God’s Determined Will: Christ is the one mediator between God and men, Christ gave His life a ransom for all men.
The broad outline of God’s will, His predetermined will, will be done whether we pray or not. But not everything that God desires to happen, wants done, is done. It seems that we, through prayer, can affect the doing of God’s desired will.
SO WHAT? We must trust that God’s pre-determined will is going to be done but also realize that we play a role, through the means of prayer, in seeing His desired will come to fruition.
III. GOD’S WILL AND DIVINE FLEXIBILITY
…. your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Does prayer change the mind of a sovereign God?
John Piper quoting Charles Spurgeon: “. . . our prayers are part of predestination, and God has as much ordained His people’s prayers as anything else, and when we pray we are producing links in the chain of ordained facts. Destiny decrees that I should pray — I pray; destiny decrees that I shall be answered, and the answer comes.” (From John Piper’s sermon on John 15:1-8)
Dallas Willard writes, “For I too was raised in a theology that presents God as a great unblinking cosmic stare, who must know everything whether he wants to or not, and who never in the smallest respect changes his mind about what he is going to do.” (Divine Conspiracy, 245)
Some feel that inflexibility is a sign of greatness. “It is not inherently ‘greater’ to be inflexible. That is an unfortunate human idea of greatness, derived from behavior patterns all too common in a fallen world. It turns God into a cosmic stuffed shirt.” (Divine Conspiracy, 253)
He is sovereign so he cannot change His mind. He is love so He must change His mind. God’s willingness to change His mind is a sign of His greatness.
Is God an Aloof Monarch or a Caring Parent?
“Clark Pinnock contrasts two models of God’s sovereignty. We can picture God as an aloof monarch, removed from the details of the world. Or we can picture God as a caring parent with traits of love, generosity, and sensitivity — an infinite Being who personally interacts with and responds to creation. Accordingly, God considers prayers much as a wise parent might consider requests from a child.” (Prayer, P. Yancey, pg. 134)
We see several instances in the Bible of God changing His mind in response to prayer. The most notable one was in Sinai where the Lord says. “I have seen these people and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” (Exodus 32:9-10) ….. Moses prayed …. “Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened” (Ex. 32:14).
“If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.” (Jeremiah 18:7-8)
“The fact that God yields to man’s petitions, changing his intentions in response to man’s prayer, is not a sign of weakness. He himself, in the glory of his majesty and power, has so willed it.” (Karl Barth quoted by Phil Yancey in Prayer, page 143).
Our God is not “the Unmoved Mover” of classical history. Instead He is “the Most Moved Mover.”
The unmoved mover is a philosophical concept described by Aristotle as the first cause that set the universe into motion. As is implicit in the name, the “unmoved mover” is not moved by any prior action. In his book Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. The Unmoved Mover is also referred to as the Prime Mover.
God is both our Sovereign Lord and our Loving Father. Because of his changeless nature (love, mercy) we can through prayer affect His desired will on this earth.
SO WHAT???
- God is a good God, His will is good and the fulfillment of His will is affected by our prayers.
- We must trust that God’s pre-determined will shall be done but we must also realize that we play a role, through the means of prayer, in seeing His desired will come to fruition.
- Being flexible does not diminish God’s greatness. It adds to His greatness. (How have you seen God? As flexible or inflexible? How has this affected your relationship to Him? Your prayer life?)
- 4. God is both our Sovereign Lord and our Loving Father. Because of has changeless nature (love, mercy) we can through prayer affect His desired will on this earth. (Do you prefer relating to God as your Sovereign Lord or your Loving Father? Or both? Why?)