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Jun 30, 2024

Your Will Be Done

Your Will Be Done

Passage: Matthew 6:9-10

Speaker: Andrew Kerhoulas

Series: Practice the Presence - Prayer

Keywords: prayer, temptation, if you are willing, sweat like drops of blood

The final God-ward petition, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” may be the most difficult petition for modern people to pray. When “you do you” is our basic modus operandi, doing our Father’s will may feel like forcing the proverbial square peg into a round hole. Thankfully, Jesus never asks us to do anything he didn’t first do himself. His obedience to the Father’s will unlocked the possibility of our own, so we too can know the will of our Father as better than our own.

Readings & Scripture

PRE SERVICE TEXT: Luke 22:42
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

PREPARATION: Psalm 34:1-5
LEADER: I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

ALL: My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.

LEADER: Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!

ALL: I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

LEADER: Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

PRAYER: The Lord’s Prayer

LEADER: Let’s pray in the way Jesus taught us to pray.

ALL: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: Matthew 6:9-10; Luke 22:39-46
9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven…

39 And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

BENEDICTION: Revelation 5:13
LEADER: “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

ALL: Amen

POST SERVICE: Luke 22:42
“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Isaiah 51:17, 22 
  • Jeremiah 25:15, 17, 28 
  • Jeremiah 49:12 
  • Lamentations 4:21; 
  • Ezekiel 23:31-33 
  • Habakkuk 2:16; 
  • Zechariah 12:2

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Praying “God’s will be done” is arguably the most difficult petition for modern people. Discuss some reasons why that may be the case. 
  2. A litmus test to gauge how important control is to us is to notice how much we worry when things don’t go according to our plans. What happens to your inner life when you feel out of control? Discuss honestly without shame for we all seek control to varying degrees. 
  3. What is God’s will? In scripture we see something akin to two sides of the same coin of God’s will. Read Ephesians 1:11, which is an example of what theologians call God’s will of decree.  Then read Matthew 7:21, an example of God’s will of command. Which “will” is Jesus asking us to pray to be done on earth as it is in heaven?
  4. Read and then discuss this sentence:  To the extent that we rest in his will of decree (his sovereign plan of redemption) will we submit to his will of command (obey his word). If you’re a believer, how have you found this to be more or less true in your walk with Jesus? 
  5. Read Luke 22:42 and then read Psalm 75:8 and Isaiah 51:17. Which cup did Jesus ask the Father to remove? Why is that good news for us (see Psalm 116:12)?

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

 

QUOTES: 

 

  • There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it....No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. C.S. Lewis, Great Divorce

 

  • [W]e live in a world in which it is increasingly easy to imagine that reality is something we can manipulate according to our wills and desires, and not something we need to conform ourselves to or passively accept. Carl R. Trueman
  • Praying this rules out any idea that the Kingdom of God is a purely heavenly (that is, ‘otherworldly’) reality. “Heaven” and “earth” are the two interlocking arenas of God’s good world. Heaven is God’s space, where God’s writ runs and God’s future purposes are waiting in the wings. Earth is our world, our space…Think of the vision at the end of Revelation. It isn’t about humans being snatched up from earth to heaven. The holy city, new Jerusalem, comes down from heaven to earth. God’s space and ours are finally married, integrated at last. That is what we pray for when we pray “thy Kingdom come”. N.T. Wright
  • Our addiction to control ends up controlling us. David Zahl
  • The best way to overcome the world is not with morality or self-discipline. Christians overcome the world by seeing the beauty and excellence of Christ. They overcome the world by seeing something more attractive than the world: Christ. Thomas Chalmers
  • The evil in our desire typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want it too much. John Calvin 
  • What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give. A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving “face” and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry. Tim Keller
  • “God always gives you what you would have asked for if you knew everything that He knows.” - Tim Keller

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