When We Pray... Part 3 "His WIll Be Done" Mathew 6:9-10

 Nov. 26^th, 2023

Series: When We Pray…

Today’s Message: His will be done…

Matthew 6:9-10

Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church

We are continuing our series entitled “When We Pray…” I hope you are enjoying this series.

I just might take a minute to recap what we have covered so far.

Two posts, we had a bit of an introduction to this section of Matthew chapter six which is part of the great teaching from Jesus collectively known as the Sermon on the Mount. In week one we discovered three main points:

1.      Do not pray hypocritically. Like so many other areas of our Christian lives, Jesus is concerned with our heart attitude when it comes to our prayers and our prayer life. A quote that I came across this week that might help expand on this point a little further is,

“The difference between a disciple and a hypocrite lies more in intentions than in practices. Hypocrites want to ‘be seen.’ But disciples live for an audience of One, their Father who sees everything.”

Let me repeat that, “The difference between a disciple and a hypocrite lies more in intentions than in practices. Hypocrites want to ‘be seen.’ But disciples live for an audience of One, their Father who sees everything.” Does that help? We should desire to be disciples of Jesus rather than hypocrites who are concerned with the thoughts and actions of those in the world. God knows our intentions, the world sees our actions. Be more concerned with pleasing God than pleasing those in the World.

2.      The next lesson that we extracted from the text was that you are not limited to a “sacred space” such as a prayer closet but, rather… we should think that we are entering a sacred space when we pray because we are entering into the Father’s presence. A biblical example of this is when Moses stood before the burning bush and was told to remove his sandals for, he was “standing on Holy ground”.

This concept of holy, set-apart, or sanctified is something we will explore a little more this morning.

3. Finally, we saw that Father knows best. We must trust that when the Lord grants, delays, or denies our prayer requests, He is doing so because it is best for us and will bring the most Glory to God.

Last post we examined these points found in Matthew 6, verse 9:

1.      We are to pray to the Father. The prayer found here in Matthew 6 and a similar prayer found in Luke 11 are examples of how we are to pray, and not specifically the words that we are to pray every time. Of course, it is permissible to pray these precise words but when we do, we must avoid the mindless repetition that we were warned against in Matthew 6:7-8.

2.      We also learned that we should think of prayer as a form of worship. With should be deliberate about a mindset of reverence and humility when coming into the presence of the Holy and Just God to pray. Our prayers should contain elements of praise and thanksgiving, both of which are forms of worship.

3.      The final point that we examined last week was, that since prayer is a form of worship, and worship is reserved for God alone, we are not to pray to anyone else except to God, preferably to the Father. We can pray to Jesus, for He intercedes on our behalf, but the example that Jesus sets for us is to pray to the Father. It is unbiblical to offer prayer to angels, saints, dead relatives, or the Virgin Mary. If prayer is worship, and it is, and if worship is reserved for God alone, then we should offer our prayers only to God.

 

Some Bible verses that make this clear is the warning found in Colossians 2:18 warning against those who teach this practice of worshipping others besides God, then compare the actions of the Apostle John when he comes face-to-face with Jesus in Revelation 1 verses 10 to 18 and the chastisement that John receives when he does the same thing again only to an angel in Revelation 22:8-9. Check the bulletin for those verses and I encourage you to read them for yourself and meditate on what they say to you.

 

OK, that’s enough of the recap. Let us open our Bibles or turn to our devices and let’s look together at today’s passage. Please turn to Mathew chapter six starting at verse 9.

If you don’t have your Bible with you today, there should be a Bible underneath one of the seats in the row in front of you. If you are following along in the Pew Bible, we will be on page 787 of that Bible.

 

I am going to read the entire prayer so that we can have some context to what we are studying this morning, verses 9-15, then I will pray, and then we will come back and zero in on the two verses that we will be looking more deeply at today.

 

So, please follow along as I read Matthew 6:9-15.

 

READ MATTHEW 6:9-15

 

Just keep your Bibles open to Matthew and we will look at verses 9 and 10 a bit more deeply.

 

READ MATTHEW 6:9

 

Well, last post we looked at verse nine and we only got as far as Father. It was important to examine very thoroughly the concept of God as the Father and what that means for us as Christians. This morning we will start by looking at the second half of verse nine.

 

We see kind of an unusual word, “hallowed”. That really isn’t a common word in wide use among modern people. Those of you who have grown up around church, Evangelical Christians, or Catholics are probably a bit more familiar with the word. If you were ever required to memorize prayers, hallowed would have been a word that would have stuck out to you. Maybe you grew up with the King James Version and hallowed would have been part of your vocabulary.

 

But, for most of us, hallowed is an odd-sounding word, and if asked, we might not even be able to define the word. It certainly is a pious-sounding word, isn’t it? Hallowed, sounds kind of Holy, doesn’t it?

Well, it actually is a word that means holy, or sanctified.

 

In the original Greek, the word would have been hagiazo (hag-ee-ad-zo)- verb – (1) to sanctify, make holy, set apart. This can mean active dedication and service to God, or (2) the act of regarding or honoring as holy. What hagiazo means to treat God and His name with reverence and honor. For that is one part of what we are called to do here, we are proclaiming “hallowed be your name”. Treating the name of God with reverence and respect.

 

I know in 2022 Pastor Davies did a series on the names of God, as a way of teaching the attributes of God. Each different name that God is called in the Bible usually represents a different attribute of His nature.

 

These are Holy names and should be spoken in reverence and awe. I’m sure that you are aware that for the ancient Israelites, the name of God, the name Yahweh was so sacred that it could be neither spoken nor written in public. That was how “hallowed” the name was. The ancient people came up with a shorthand for the name Yahweh, the four letters YHWH so that the name would not be spoken aloud by mistake.

 

I wonder if that is a mistake that we have made in our modern society. The fact that we have lost all sense of reverence when it comes to using God’s name. I mean it is the exact opposite for secular society today, isn’t it? The holy name of Jesus is slung around as a curse word. Culture uses the name of Jesus in astonishment, to express anger, surprise, or to show disgust towards a thing or person. The Holy name of Jesus Christ is spit out of the mouths of the vilest of sinners as a means to show their disgust with something or someone.

 

Do you understand the irony of that situation? The very person who needs the mercy and regeneration of the only perfect human to have ever lived, the very name they should be crying out to so that they can receive the deliverance from the path to hell, instead they cast about His Holy name as an insult as they, the sinner passes judgment on the world.

 

I have to admit, this is the only type of cursing that gets to me. When we are around unsaved family, or when I am at my construction job and one of my coworkers starts using God’s name in vain, I flinch and ask a silent prayer of forgiveness to Jesus on their behalf.

 

Let me ask you, why is the name of Jesus the only name of a deity that is used as a curse word? People don’t yell out the name Muhammad when they hit their hand with a hammer. You don’t hear people yelling Buddha at each other when they are angry with each other. Vishna is never used when someone does something to disgust another. Why is the name of Jesus Christ the only name desecrated in this way? Now, I have to confess something to you. I was guilty of this very thing before I was saved by Jesus.

 

I am pretty sure this is why this gets to me so deeply. Whenever I hear the name of Jesus being used as a curse word, I am reminded of how I did the very same thing before I was saved. This guilt is probably why I rarely have the courage to say something to the person who does it.

 

But that is wrong of me. I should be saying something because they are bringing judgment on themselves for misusing God’s Holy name in such a manner. My guilt should not be stopping me from sharing the Good News that I received in my life; my guilt should not stop me from sharing the Gospel with them. Do any of you ever feel that way?

 

Do you ever think that… I can’t say anything because I made the same mistakes, or committed the same sins, so who am I to judge them? Who am I to tell them how they should be living? I have heard many times how people love to quote Matthew 7:1 here in these situations.

 

You know Matthew 7:1 and 2 which says, “¹Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” People misapply this passage. What Jesus is saying is that we are not to pass God’s judgment on another person. We are not to preclude that any person is beyond the reach of God’s mercy. Only God knows who can be or will not be saved.

 

Jesus warns us in Matthew 7 not to judge someone else in a hypocritical manner. There’s that heart condition again… that God is so concerned about in us. Jesus is saying, you were once lost, and now you are saved. Why do you condemn the lost people in your life? Jesus is warning us not to ignore those who are struggling in sin around us. When we pass judgment on someone and withhold from them the amazing gift of redemption that God gave to us, the gift called Grace, when we withhold that from the lost in our lives, we are placing ourselves in the judgment seat of God. That is what Matthew 7:1 and 2 warn us against doing.

 

Grace, that amazing gift of Grace is not in limited supply. We do not have the right to decide who is deserving of hearing the Gospel and who is beyond redemption. That is putting ourselves in the place of God. So please don’t limit or prevent yourselves from sharing the Gospel with someone just because you think that you are unworthy, that you were no better than they were once, so who are you to judge them?

 

We have to stop thinking like that and let me tell you, I am preaching as much to myself here as I am to you. We must stop thinking like that because those thoughts play right into the Adversary’s plans. The more that we remain silent, the more it plays into Satan’s plans. God has devised a plan to use broken people to reach broken people. I don’t know why He has laid it out this way.

 

The plan that was conceived among the Trinity before the creation of time, was that the Son would come to Earth at a specific point in history and take on human form, walk among us, and remain perfect and sinless, be sacrificed on a Roman Cross and pay our sin-debt to the Father so that we may stand before a Holy and Righteous God because we are covered in the righteousness of Jesus.

 

Turn with me to the Book of Hebrews near the back of your bible. Let’s look together at Hebrews 4 verses 14 to 16. Hebrews 4:14-16.

 

I know that Hebrews 4:14 to 16 helps me understand God’s plan in this when it tells me, “¹⁴ Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

 

I mean I really can’t say it any better than that. Jesus is our High Priest, the one who now takes our prayers to the Father and intercedes on our behalf. Jesus is the one perfect sacrifice, meaning we no longer have to shed the blood of animals in order to come into the presence of God. Through Jesus, through the blood of Jesus, we can now approach the throne of Grace, with confidence, not confidence in anything that we have done, or based on our merit, but with confidence that Jesus completed His work and fully paid our debt with the Father on our behalf. It is the robe of Jesus’ Righteousness that will protect us from God’s wrath on judgment day.

 

That is the gift that we need to share with our lost friends, family, and coworkers. When we are hesitant or fearful to share this message, we are operating in the realm of Satan. Fear is where Satan lives. Through Jesus, we can save people from hell and the clutches of Satan by simply spreading the Good News of what Jesus has done. That is all that Jesus requires of us, to share the Gospel. The results are between God, the Holy Spirit, and the person who hears the message.

 

I have to be completely honest; I am not sure exactly how that works. I know there are ways to interpret passages in the Bible that can show either side of that equation. If you would like to have a coffee sometime and discuss it, I would love to do that with you, but we are not going to get through that in a Sunday morning sermon.

 

I do know for sure, that we are called to share the Gospel, once we have received it from others, and that is the method that God chooses to use to reach the lost.

 

Ok, let’s get back to today’s passage in Matthew chapter 6. We were looking at God’s hallowed name. The Gospel is exactly why we are to revere God’s Holy name. I want us to think about something here in a very serious manner. Given all that I just explained to you, the sacrifice that Jesus made for you, while you were lost in your sins, while some of you were hating God, or perhaps you were like me and running away from God and reveling in my sin like a pig in slop, knowing all that Jesus rescued you from, doesn’t that deserve a certain level of awe and respect from us?

 

Shouldn’t those of us who know,… treat the name of God in a hallowed manner? If he is in reality “Our Father in Heaven” as the prayer states and we repeat, if… He is the personal God of love and powerfully revealed in the God-Man Jesus Christ, who is the Creator and Sustainer of all, who cares about the creatures that He has made and the children he has redeemed, then does it not make sense that we make His concerns a priority and to become preoccupied with His name, His kingdom, and His will?

 

That is exactly why this prayer is structured like this. As a matter of fact, one of the primary purposes of prayer is to bring our will more into alignment with God’s will. That is the purpose of prayer. The purpose is not to bring a grocery list of demands so that God can prove how good a Father He is by giving you all your desires.

 

Martin Luther explained prayer and the action of praying like this, “By our praying… we are instructing ourselves more than we are Him.” Let that sink in. We are instructing ourselves more than we are instructing God the Father. As fallen creatures, it is imperative that we pray. We must pray and pray properly. When we follow the pattern as instructed to us by Jesus in this passage, we are bringing our will into alignment with the Father’s will.

 

God’s name is not the letters G-O-D. His personal name is Yahweh or Jehovah. The name stands for the person who bears it, for His character, and His activities. So, God’s name is God himself. His name is more than a label. His name helps us to identify His character and the way in which He interacts with His Creation. When we use the name Father to refer to God, we are recognizing how God chooses to interact with us. God chooses to treat us like His children by providing for us, by protecting us, by chastising and correcting us, and by loving us.

 

It is because of this love, that we can best show our hagiazo, our honor for God by obeying His commands. As Christians, as maturing Christians, we are to move past the first step of the new convert. The new convert is happy to accept Jesus as Saviour. To accept the redeeming gift of Grace that comes at no cost to the receiver. But, as we grow in our walk with Christ, we should be growing closer to Him. He should be coming more than a friend. As we grow in our sanctification, I become even more aware of my sinfulness. As I get closer to the light of His love, Jesus reveals the sins buried deep within the recesses of my black heart. It is at this point that I am driven to my knees again and I accept Jesus as my Lord.

 

Have you done that in your walk with Him? Is Jesus your Lord? We throw that word around and sometimes I think we don’t stop to really consider what that means. Ask yourself, “Is Jesus my Lord? Or am I keeping Him at arms-length by only accepting Him as Saviour?”

 

Let me clarify. When Jesus is simply our Savior, we have a tendency to not fully commit. We have a tendency to pick and choose exactly what teachings we will accept, and we will decide what parts of the Bible apply to us and our life, and we think about what areas of my life I will allow culture, or family, or tradition, or peer pressure to dictate. We tend to try and walk with one foot in each world; Jesus, and culture. We tend to give equal weight to both influences in our lives.

 

Church attendance is not a requirement. Serving the body is something that is optional, or for someone else to do. Home-church in our pajamas is acceptable because we don’t feel like getting dressed. I’m not referring to absences because of illness. We refuse to get involved with someone who is struggling because they are simply too messy, even though the Bible instructs us to come alongside each other and share each other’s burdens.

 

But, when we make Jesus Lord of our lives, we go all-in for Jesus. We don’t care what culture says about things. We throw out all the traditions that kept us away from Jesus and apart from a holy life. We no longer pay attention to peer pressure or what man thinks. Instead, we ask questions like, “What would Jesus do?” As hokey as that movement was, the concept behind the whole WWJD bracelets was to help us focus on the mind of Jesus rather than what the world was teaching.

 

When Jesus is Lord, we become cheerful givers, we help our fellow man, we do things like make quilts to give away, pack shoeboxes to give others hope, or hold concerts to feed others. Those are signs that we are in the camp of the Lordship of Jesus.

 

1 Peter 3:15 puts it this way, “¹⁵ But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.” Golly, there’s that heart condition again. We just can’t seem to get away from that theme. I think the Bible keeps repeating that over and over because Jesus wants us to fully commit to Him. Not just on an intellectual level, and not just on an emotional level. Jesus wants all of us, our minds, our hearts, and our bodies. Jesus requires a full and honest commitment to Him.

 

Have you ever questioned your Salvation? Do you ever wonder if you are truly saved? Maybe, you have this doubt because you are not yet fully committed to Jesus. Maybe, you are holding back from Him? If you are holding back, may I suggest that you take the plunge today? Fully commit to following Jesus. I don’t mean you have to sell your house and go to Africa and become a missionary, not unless that is what God has been calling you to do. What I am saying is, commit your heart, mind, and body to Jesus today and see what amazing things He will unleash in your life.

 

Ok, let's finally move on to verse 10 in Matthew 6. Matthew 6:10 reads, “¹⁰ your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

We see this entire verse reinforces the Lordship of Christ. If you have a Kingdom, you must be a King. We see that His kingdom is not limited to heaven. God’s kingdom is “on earth as it is in heaven.” Our rulers ignore this fact at their peril. That is why the Bible instructs us to pray for our leaders. We must pray that they remain humble and obedient to Christ and resist the impulses from their fallen human hearts. A peaceful rule is their primary objective from Jesus.

There are some different “kingdom theologies” floating around. There is a common two-kingdom theology which states that there is a sacred kingdom which is defined as heaven and the church here on earth, and the second kingdom in the secular kingdom which is everything else. This two-kingdom theology tries to keep them separate. It teaches that the sacred has no right to invade the space of the secular. I tell you; I think that that way of thinking is a mistake.

There is a danger that Christians will become so heavenly-minded that they will be of no earthly good. Those who are truly heavenly-minded will be good for both heaven and earth.

I struggle with reconciling the attitude that Jesus is Lord in my life, just not in my work life, or school life, or public life. My motto is “All of Christ, for all of life”. Let me give you a real-world example.

A few weeks back, on National Truth and Reconciliation Day at my construction job, we had a First Nations guest come and give a talk. Attending the talk was not mandatory, so I was permitted to stay in the shop and continue to work. The primary reason that I did not attend, was in the past when I had attended events where there was a First Nations speaker, the speaker would often perform a ritual from their North American Indian Religion. A smudge ceremony, or the burning of sweet grass would be done to offer up a pleasing aroma to their God and to clean the air of evil spirits.

Well, as a Christian pastor, and the guys that I work with on my crew all know that I am a pastor, I felt that it would harm my witness as a Christian to be seen participating in a ritual such as that. I lived among the Natives for ten years in Cardston, next to the largest Reserve in Canada, the Blood Reserve, and I attended church every week with Natives that had come to Christ. A fellow who was and is an elder from that church is First Nations and we talk frequently on the phone. It was my understanding from them, that there is no such thing as a passive observance of these ceremonies. If you are present, you are considered to be participating in the ceremony. I did not attend the talk because I am a racist. First Nations people are created in the likeness of God, if I love Jesus how can I hate someone who was created in His likeness? I did not attend, because I did not want to risk attending a pagan ceremony.

This is why I have a difficult time seeing Christ as my Lord only in my sacred duties. Like I said, “All of Christ, for all of life”. Now, does that mean I have to preach the gospel all day long while I am at work.? No, of course not, but I am called to live an exemplary life and one that is obviously different from those who live in the world.

Included in this style of living is bending my will to His. As King, it is obvious from Scripture that God rules in Heaven.

We read these words last week from Psalm 103 verses 19-22,  “¹⁹ The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. ²⁰ Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. ²¹ Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. ²² Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul.”

Did you see that? His kingdom rules over all. Heaven and earth. When we offer up this prayer, we are not asking for God to take dominion over the Earth, He already has it. What we are praying for is that we will come to that realization and bend our thoughts and actions to His will. We are asking for is that our rebellious nature to brought into alignment with God’s will.

I will be honest with you though, some mornings when I am reading the headlines and I see the depths of depravity that our culture is sinking to, I pray, “Come, Lord, come”. Make your return sooner rather than later. Rescue me from this mess, because it is getting harder and harder to watch.

CONCLUSION

In this message, we are concluding by looking at the first three petitions of this prayer. Petitions that are designed to properly orientate ourselves towards God and bring to the forefront of our mind and our prayer, the manner of God that he really is. Our God, whom we gather each week to worship and to learn from, is a personal, loving, powerful Father.

 

When we understand this in the very depths of our hearts, then the content of our prayers will be radically affected in two ways.

 

First, God’s concerns will be given priority over your concerns. This is the express goal demonstrated through the order of the petitions in this prayer. God’s role and name, the importance of His Kingdom, and the fulfillment of His will are given preference over our self-centered requests.

 

Second, our own needs, though demoted to second place, will yet be completely committed to Him. We will be looking at this truth in the coming weeks. The three requests which start with: “give us”, “forgive us”, and “deliver us” still give major consideration to the Father.

 

I want to warn you that we need balance in this area of our prayer life. Selfish, or even self-based prayer is a danger that we need to guard against. Promoting our wants and desires over God’s will in our prayers is disrespectful.

 

I will confess that I suffer from the flipside of this danger, and that is failing or neglecting to bring our needs to the Father. I am guilty of this because I take such delight in praying for others, I often avoid making any requests for myself.

 

This is wrong, for the Scripture tells us in Matthew 7:9-11, “⁹ “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? ¹¹ If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” We bring glory to God when we ask Him and He gives us the good gifts that we need.

 

I’ll close out with this quote from John Stott, “Jesus forbids His people to offer any kind of prayer with the mouth when the mind and heart are not engaged.”

 

Check your heart attitude with your prayers and be sure to submit your requests to God’s will.