A, Midweek Lent 4 - Matthew 6:9-13 "The Lord's Prayer - What does God want?"
We return once again to the well known prayer that Jesus himself taught us to pray, the Lord’s Prayer.
Recapping previous weeks we first heard a different way of viewing the Lord’s Prayer as a series of brackets or layers like that of an onion.
The outer layer gives glory to God who is God alone. We pray Our Father, because Jesus gives us access to his Father, by fulfilling his Father’s will at the cross. Now as “Our Father”, we can rightly proclaim the kingdom, the power and the glory are his now and for ever.
The next layer consists of declaring his name as holy, and that we also need to be made holy by being continually delivered from all evil. Then having received his holy name we pray in the next layer that we are not led into temptation to believe that his kingdom is not coming to us. God reins in us, he is all powerful. Therefore, we can be sure when temptation does come, it’s a trick from our own sinful nature, or from evil forces outside of us. And in confidence, we can disbelieve the temptation by simply saying, “No! God is my Father and his kingdom is my home, because Jesus said so!”
Now today we move into the second last layer, the two petitions, your will be done… forgive us our sins. But notice that both of these petitions are two part petitions. Firstly we hear your will be done — on earth as in heaven. That is we pray God’s will is done on earth and as his will has been done in heaven. Then we hear forgive us our sins — as we forgive those who sin against us. This is in fact a repetition of the former petition, and the two can be mixed and matched as we will see later on.
But first we must ask, “What is the will of God?” In Hebrews chapter ten we hear, “you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:36) And from 1 John chapter two, “the world and its desires pass away, but the person who does the will of God lives forever.” (1 John 2:17) Here we learn two things; that the will of something is what it desires or wants. And secondly, those who follow what God wants live forever, but those who follow the desire of the world will perish and die.
Then we must consider Jesus in the
Now for us, even if there was a possibility that our will, our desires, could come near the will of Christ, God’s expectation is the same with us as it was with Christ. God calls us to have the same attitude as Christ, who said, “not as I will, but as you will, Heavenly Father!”
That’s hard for us to do. In fact it’s impossible. No matter how good our deeds might be, there is always something selfish in our doing condemning us before God. The bar is set so high and although Jesus could jump the bar, his will being completely just, yet in humility he put it aside as God required and did what God wanted without question.
Who on earth can do this? Who of us can do the will of God, if the will of God is even greater than the will of his own righteous Son? We see that even when we try to do what God wants, God’s will crashes headlong into our own will, and struggles with us giving us no peace.
If this was the whole story, we would be left in a sad and sorry state. We would be utterly hopeless and condemned by our own inability.
But it’s at this point, where Christ’s own will was crushed and ours with his too, that the good and gracious will of God is done without our prayer. However, we pray that it is done in us too. The will or purpose of God for Jesus at the cross grants us forgiveness of all our sin. God’s will is done in heaven, when he sacrificed his Son for the sins of humanity. We are called to acknowledge that our will, our desires, our purposes — what we want, needs to be broken so that his will is done in us and we are forgiven.
And what is God’s will for us? God’s purpose is that we recognise the power of sin in our lives, and that we believe in the one he sent to conquer the power of sin in our lives, with the forgiveness of our sinful nature won at the cross where Christ was crushed in complete obedience to the will of God.
Jesus himself says, “For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:38-40)
Having now seen that our forgiveness is in deed the will of God, we can now pray these two petitions as one and the same thing. In fact, we can mix and match the two petitions before us today, so that when we pray your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and then forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us we acknowledge to God that his will is done in heaven when he forgives us our sin.
What a marvellous thing that happens in these few short words. We see that our will is bound with all the wretchedness of death and the grave, but right here God gives us access through his Son to flee to the cross. He even sends the Holy Spirit to aid us in his will. And there at the cross we receive the benefits of his gracious will, which are; forgiveness of sins, a heavenly kingdom as our eternal home, and a holy name, before our Father whose kingdom, power, and glory are rightfully his alone!
So God brings us from the extreme of complete rebellion against him and his will, but adopts us, forgives us, and gives us what is rightfully his alone because he sent his Son to put aside his will, to suffer and die bearing all the wretchedness of death and the grave.
But if we mix and match the heavenly axis of these petitions then the earthly axis must be recognised too. When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are asking for God’s heavenly peace and righteousness which rests on us because of Christ, to carry over into our earthly life. We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as we forgive those who sin against us, just as his will is done in heaven when he forgives us.
You are a bearer of forgiveness, which is Christ himself living in you bringing peace between you and God in heaven, Jesus then continues to live the will of God in you, by empowering you to forgive those who sin against you. You show the power of your God given faith when you forgive your neighbours and your enemies their sin.
When we pray forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, we ask for God’s will to be done in us in heaven and on earth so that all people will receive forgiveness and be united with he who seeks to be our Father. Amen.
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” Amen (Revelation 4:11)
