Thy Will Be Done

Welcome to the Timeless Truth podcast, a resource of The Village Chapel in Nashville, TN. In season 5, Pastor Jim will lead us through a study of The Lord's Prayer.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Timeless Truth with Pastor Jim Thomas, a resource of the Village Chapel in Nashville, Tennessee. This week we're continuing our study of the Lord's Prayer. If you'd like access to more resources like this one, we encourage you to sign up for our Biblical Resources email at the Villagechapel.com slash email. Each quarter, our team highlights new interviews, book recommendations, videos, and music from our team at the Village Chapel to help serve you and your family with tools to navigate our current moment with faithfulness. This week, may the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you as you study his word. Now, here's Pastor Jim.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

We're walking line by line through the most well-known prayer in all of human history, the Lord's Prayer. It's found in Matthew chapter 6, and it's Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray. Each and every line is rich with meaning, and that's one of the reasons this prayer has meant so much to so many for so long. Let's begin this episode today by praying and saying the Lord's Prayer together. 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 trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen and amen. So today the line that we'd like to focus on is Thy will be done. Some of your more modern English translations will say, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. To pray, thy will be done, is to resolve to submit our will to God's will, our plans to God's plans, our desires, our agenda to God's desires and agenda. We want to see things the way God sees things. We want to value what God values. We want to want what God wants. And in the even the smallest aspects of our lives, we're expressing an eagerness to know what God thinks is true, good, and beautiful, what God thinks is wise, what God prefers would be done that would bring him the most glory and honor, so that we can join him and get busy doing the same thing. Tim Keller has a book called Prayer. I highly recommend it. It's a really, really good prayer. I mean a good book on prayer, in which he says this we are seeing the necessary balance of two purposes of petitionary prayer. To put the world right, we pray thy kingdom come. And to align our hearts with God's, we pray thy will be done. So that's very important. And I think uh Keller's spot on there, helping us understand a little bit more about petitionary prayer. What kinds of things ought we to ask for? To the Lord would put the world right, that's right, and that he would also put us right. We've all experienced times when it's difficult to discern specifically what the will of God might be in a given situation. And that's one of the reasons why we pray this one line, Thy will be done, of the Lord's Prayer. And one of the reasons we spend time in the Word of God, the Bible. We turn our attention to God first, and then as we wait on the Holy Spirit, he begins to speak to us and to reveal to us what might be God's will for us. John Stott, in his commentary on the letters of John, that's uh John, 1 John, 2nd John, 3 John at the end of your New Testament. John Stott says this prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God or for bending his will to ours. But rather, it's the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. It is by prayer that we seek God's will, embrace it, and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme, Your Will Be Done. See how important, how critically important praying that way is for us. Prayer is one of the best means to gaining God's perspective. And our prayers are informed by God's word, then they lead us to pray in accordance with God's will. So we learn most clearly about God's will when we study God's Word. There in the pages of ancient Scripture, God reveals Himself, but also His will to us, the ways that He would have us to walk in, the paths, if you will. And in so doing, we begin to discover more and more clearly an understanding of what God's will for us might be. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is, on earth. Well, that's where I live, that's where you live, and that's where I'm speaking to you from. And so the idea is we want God's will done here in this realm, just as it is in the heavenly realm. I've been asked from time to time whether the will of God sometimes takes us where we don't want to go and calls upon us to do something we don't want to do or don't believe that we can do. And the answer is quite simply yes, it does do that. Um, this is a prayer of submission indeed. Um it's really important that we get that part uh set and straight uh from the beginning. Too often we're conditioned to think of prayer as asking God for what we want. So we say things like, Dear God, give me this, give me that. Um, and this is, by the way, William Willemann and Stanley Howerwas's, this is from their book, Lord Teach Us to Pray. They say too often we're conditioned to think of prayer as asking God for what we want. Dear God, give me this, give me that. But now, in praying that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are attempting to school ourselves to what God wants. And so that's a process, isn't it? And some of us haven't even thought about that before, maybe not even considered that there's a need for us to be schooled in the ways of God. We don't just automatically know those things. And um, it indeed is a process that we need to begin. And it begins by uh at least stating that simple line from the Lord's Prayer, Thy will be done. The psalmist reminds us that God is our refuge and strength, our fortress, our shelter, our hiding place. And the New Testament promises us that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. That's from Philippians 4.13. I am always inspired to remember that the Apostle Paul wrote that ancient letter from a prison cell in Rome. He was likely shackled to a, you know, with with heavy chains to some stone wall and possibly the other arm to a kind of a smelly old Roman guard with rats nibbling at his toes and his bare feet. But the book of Acts tells us that he and his traveling partners were heard singing praises to God from their prison cell. On several occasions, we get the impression that the pagan Roman guards were actually being impacted by the testimony of Paul and Silas, etc., and the rest of the friends, singing in the middle of their suffering in prison, but smack dab in the center, right in the middle of God's will for their lives. So the idea of what is God's will for us, uh, sometimes we need to have that redefined. And we need to go to the scripture to figure that out. We see that kind of thing when we look at the life of the Apostle Paul. Alistair Begg says, the center of God's will may be for us, the very eye of the storm. And Pastor Alistair Begg is right there. As ye pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Remember, this is the only place where unassailable, irrepressible joy can be found. When we've placed our lives in God's hands, trust God with all the outcomes, both large and small, by living out, thy will be done. Doing his will in all things and delighting to do his will because we know it delights him. One more quote from uh William Willimond and Stanley Harwas, uh, and that little book on the Lord's Prayer. They say, praying, or prayer, rather, in Jesus' name, is lifelong training in taking God's will a little more seriously, and our own will a little less so. That's beautifully said. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I hope you'll be praying that each and every day. And as a matter of fact, let's close this episode of Timeless Truth Out in Prayer. Lord, pray that all of our hearts' desires will be met in Christ, and that we too will come to know the peace and assurance that comes from submitting to your wisdom and your will and your ways as we read about them in your word. Thank you for the Lord's prayer for each and every one of us, Lord. This has been such an important prayer. And uh our Father, we love you and we delight in delighting your heart. So help us this day to walk in your ways and in your will. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. God bless you. Have a great one.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Thanks for listening to today's study. Take a moment to leave a review and share this episode with friends and family. You can stay connected by signing up for our newsletter or follow us on social media. At the Village Chapel, we believe God's word is unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, and transforming in its power. For more resources or to support our ministry, visit our website, the Villagechapel.com.